Columns I wrote this year:
Music and Dreams
Linda Perhacs, Death, Bobb Trimble, Robert Lester Folsom, and the enduring allure of the seldom-heard cult record. Here I tried to get at why we’re so drawn to obscure artists and how their backstory can affect the way we hear them.
Nine Short Pieces on the Smiths
This year a fantastic bootleg of unreleased Smiths material circulated, and I took that as an opportunity to write about one of my favorite bands.
Some Kind of Trip
Explored one of my favorite subjects: the emotional appeal of sound as sound. More generally, discussed sound quality, David Mancuso, Bill Callahan, Klipsch speakers.
Watch the Sound
Along with another column, below, my favorite thing I wrote in 2011. I talked about rap, fear, agression, and why I can be drawn to music that expresses feelings very different from who I imagine myself to be.
Marked
My “10th Anniversary Column,” more or less. I talked about what got me interested in writing Resonant Frequency in the first place, and tied that in w/ a word about EMA’s “Marked”.
Disintegration Loops and Simplesongs
I wrote this about music and 9/11 and the difficulty of making art about something horrifying.
Taking Pictures of Taking Pictures
Along with “Watch the Sound”, my favorite piece from 2011. I wrote about Lana Del Rey, David Lynch, Dirty Beaches, and the idea of music-making as re-blog. By some margin the most popular column I’ve ever written in 10 years of doing this. That’s what a piece about Lana Del Rey gets you!
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