Reflection Pond #3

Santogold - Santogold (2008)

This album is so diverse that after a few listens you feel like it's absolutely perfect. Electropop, Hip-Hop, Groovilicious, StutterJam and utter bliss. Every song hooks you and dangles on the end of the line until you gasp for breath. Santogold is unique in that dance-pop-electro-groove-punk-clash-cultural kind of way. In our modern world we are able to cross so many barriers and have so many different influences incorporated into our work and that is simply a dream landscape for an artist. Those who strive to learn new dialects from all over this planet are continuously growing and there has never been an artist who continues to have creative success after becoming stale. Stagnation is the root of dissolving into nothingness and how many times have we stared into the waning light of a creative career and the epicenter of wonder in their work was far gone into the past. What does this have to do with Santogold? It's her first album after all and she has many years of striving and learning and growing and creating dynamic music. If she has the ability to hold onto the essence of this album and if her life embodies the expanding and diverse principals so apparent here, then she has nothing to worry about because this music is golden.


Inland Empire - David Lynch (2006)

David Lynch is psychotically wonderful. I don't know how that is even possible? It's so difficult to be both psychotic and wonderful...but somehow he continues to master the effect. You know, I wasn't always a big fan of his; Blue Velvet always seemed weirdly perverse, Dune was garbage, Wild At Heart demented violence and even Lost Highway, which is considered by most the point when he devolved into sheer maniacal genius, was way over my head...maybe it's just that I don't enjoy the presence of Patricia Arquette when she's on the screen; but there is one undeniable truth that continues to grow beyond cult status; David Lynch is considered one of the greatest amerikan film-makers ever. Everything I read, the way I feel inside when I witness the effect all points to the blossoming madness of his influence and ability. He is unconventional and weird and crazy, but he makes amazing art and all the reverence that is bestowed upon him is well deserved. For me it all began with Mulholland Drive, an incredible dream-like movie flowing through the heart of hollywood and delving into the destructive nature of a business that chews people up and spits them out. Sometimes you watch a movie and, for whatever reason, everything about it just clicks with you even if it seems like a complete mess. That's exactly what happened to me when I watched Mulholland Drive and now it appears that I have a mind-meld with Lynchian art because I felt the same way about Inland Empire. The person that I am today wants to make art in just the same manner. I don't mean that I want to copy David Lynch but I want to create with the same spirit; searching and weaving and juxtaposing and blending and submerging the material all with a supremely strange and subtle vision. I want people to look at what I have to offer and even if they don't understand a second of it, as long as it sticks with them and eats at their insides then my mission will be complete.