Culture

Last week I had my toenail removed. What started out as an ordinary ingrown nail became infected and pus-filled until my entire toe turned a disturbing shade of mauve and swelled to a rather inconvenient size. This condition made wearing shoes difficult and, since Dunedin is pretty cold this time of year, I decided to risk emasculation and ventured into the nefarious corridors of Student Health to get it checked out. After an initial consultation the nurse deemed my toe “concerning” and booked me in to see a doctor. I love medical euphemisms. Doc took one look at my poor hallux and deemed it “incurable”. No euphemisms there.

I got called into a treatment room and met my surgeon for the day: a sixth-year med student who tells me she has never done this kind of procedure before, but spent a long time watching “how to remove toenail” videos on YouTube …

In all fairness, she was efficient and gentle, but watching my nail being slowly pulled away from my toe was a fairly vertiginous experience (which is a euphemism for fucking nausea). I was offered to keep the bloody nail as a souvenir. I declined.

Every cloud has a silver lining however, and I found myself in possession of a potent dosage of codeine. But every silver lining has its cloud: Namely, codeine can’t be mixed with alcohol. Thus, I spent my weekend numbly sober, with nothing but a stack of new CDs and a rapidly decreasing codeine supply for company.

Lights flicker in a sterile changing room, a topless jock pumps iron as an oddly dressed pixie girl sways to a tuneless beat. Scene change. A dirt-biker flies through the air as the crowds cheers, no, it’s a football game, and the odd girl now has pink hair and a boombox …

I must have been asleep. No, I would never dream of a topless dude, this fantasy sequence is actually the video for Claire Boucher’s (better known by her performance moniker Grimes) latest single “Oblivion.” If I were to describe Grimes’s fourth LP, Visions, I would use phrases like nihilistic, self-indulgent, phosphorescent ecstasy, or Kafkaesque escapism. But then I would just sound like some pompous jackass with a thesaurus.

One would need to splatter oil on a canvas or dance to the sound of orcas mating in order to describe Grimes’s masterpiece. It is bizarre art that can only be described by other bizarre art; art that revels in its eccentricity and refuses to submit to contemporary taxonomy. Grimes’ hyper-reality is unlike anything you’ve ever heard, but for a vague idea, imagine Crystal Castles doused in oil, fused with the sounds of orcas mating. Get the picture?

Grimes’ psychedelic mindfuck almost pushed me over the edge. I briefly contemplated downing the half-full bottle of vodka sitting beside my desk. Luckily Visions is a relatively short record, and my next port of call was cut from an entirely different cloth.

The opening chords of The Black Seeds’ latest, Dust and Dirt, are anything but suicidal, and frontman Barnaby Weir’s salty dub filled me with visions of sun-drenched beaches, exotic cocktails and hammocks. This is the most experimental Black Seeds release to date, melding their classic reggae-roots sound with a 70s funk aesthetic. Flawlessly produced and infectiously chill, Dust and Dirt is the perfect soundtrack for a day at the beach, mellow party, buddy road trip, or, 2am codeine come-down.

Suddenly I’m all too aware of the fact that I now only have nine toenails and am probably addicted to these pain-pills I keep on popping; a future of snide comments, “hey look at that freak with a missing toenail”, and codeine-dependency lies ahead of me. There’s only one thing that can get me out of this rut: A guitar-heavy blend of Southern rock and Memphis soul. Oh, what a fantastic coincidence that my next album to review is Alabama Shakes’s gritty throwback Boys & Girls. In an age where true authenticity is something few musicians can claim, Alabama Shakes are as “real” as it gets.

Let’s start with influences. Lead singer Brittany Howard is Janis Joplin incarnate, if Joplin was making music in the 30s and was … black. Throw in a bit of Otis Redding, the guitar prowess of Keith Richards, and the lyrical stylings of Aretha Franklin, and we begin to see the beautiful form of Alabama Shakes take shape.

This is rock music at its most pure and noble. Respecting their roots yet progressing beyond them, Alabama Shakes have produced one of the tightest and most listenable recordings of the year. Boys & Girls is an album of raw power, packed with songs that affirm the human spirit and shed light on the darkest of times – just what the doctor ordered.

– Lukas Clark-Memler