Highland City Cemetery

As part of a new recurring series I'd like to do on paranormal and supernatural investigations, here's a very brief report of our trip to the Highland City Cemetery.

We'd heard vague reports (watch out for that link; it likes to try to redirect you) of whispering souls in the graveyard. Apparently there's a rock chair in the cemetery, and if you sit there you can listen to the trees and the souls of the dead. Well, that sounded pretty cool, so as part of our Valentine's Day date, Sarah and I explored the snowy cemetery for about half an hour.

Problem: everything was dark and covered in like two feet of snow. There were plenty of stone benches, and it was plenty creepy enough, especially with the sound of tinkling snow made every time we took a step—but we couldn't find any rock chair. It was super cold, even though we were bundled up, so it's not like we had the luxury of really exploring the whole place. We wandered around, jumped at shadows (okay, that was just me), read sonnets in the gazebo (which was kind of sweet, somehow), and then packed up and headed home.

We'll have to go back sometime in the day and see if we can find the rock chair, because if it's anything like what I've read about The Devil's Chair, then I really want to sit in it at night.

Cocteau Twins discography

I recently finished listening to the complete discography of Cocteau Twins thanks to a music forum recommendation. Man, they're good: a Scottish rock/dreampop/ambient band from the early 90s with a vocalist who so often veers into glossolalia that looking up lyrics is quite the adventure. Overall, I really enjoyed all their stuff, and down the line I'd love to have their discography on vinyl (years down the line, probably).

Their first album, Garlands, was my least favorite. It's the most "rock" of their albums, kind of a glitzy punk feel to it, but it didn't seem like they had everything together yet. Head over Heels quickly fixed that; apparently it's considered "an archetype of early ethereal wave," which seems fitting. The next two, Treasure and Victorialand, might be the best of the bunch. Introspective, haunting, dreamy, ambient, evocative. Great stuff.

The Moon and the Melodies is a collaboration that adds saxophone and more prominent piano. Blue Bell Knoll continues on the tradition of their sound. Heaven or Las Vegas is probably my third favorite, followed closely by Four-Calendar Café. Milk and Kisses, their ninth and final album, is a fitting closing chapter to their sound.

I also listened to Lullabies to Violaine, a collection of EPs and singles (starting with the Lullabies EP and ending with the Violaine EP; 59 songs total). These songs were a really nice addition to the LPs, including some fun Christmas songs and remixes.

Overall, a new favorite band, and highly recommended if anything I've written sounds appealing.

new music

In 2015 I listened to about 180 albums that I hadn't ever heard before. About 30 of those were released in 2015, but the rest spanned nearly 80 years of music history (though, to be fair, most were pop-punk or symphonic metal from the last two decades).

For 2016 I decided to listen to 366 new albums. I thought it'd stretch me but be a fun goal to work toward. We're 40 days into the year and I'm currently listening to album #80, so I think I'm going to be just fine.

It really surprises me how much I can listen to in 8 hours of work. I usually listen to a couple new albums (some over an hour), a couple old favorites, a podcast episode or two, and half an hour of an audiobook if I'm not actively reading something for work. That's a lot of listening. It's been fun.

I'm going to start posting quick reviews of what I'm listening to. I'll do it in batches so that it's not three or four blog posts a day.