You Are A Golden Gal

Sometimes, Animal Collective's music sounds jarringly melodic, like a cold, fresh psychedelic shower. Other times, their music sounds exactly like what their name suggests: as if a bunch of wild animals were put in a room and allowed to bang on instruments. This song is of the former variety:

1 Check-In = 1 Confusion

On Monday, a phenomena happened on facebook in which droves of users "checked in" to the Standing Rock Reservation as a means to help those protesting the Dakota Pipeline, which would run through that reservation.

An original post claimed that, "The Morton County Sheriff's Department has been using Facebook check-ins to find out who is at Standing Rock in order to target them in attempts to disrupt the prayer camps. SO Water Protectors are calling on EVERYONE to check-in at Standing Rock, ND to overwhelm and confuse them. This is concrete action that can protect people putting their bodies and well-beings on the line that we can do without leaving our homes." The only thing is, this entire claim was proved here to be essentially false; the police never used facebook as a means to thwart protesters.

Here's the unsettling part: we now have seen how quick people are to make public their position on social media versus how slow they are to physically support that position. We're given the false sense that we can achieve equal parts change from the comfort of our homes than out in the real world. Obviously it'd be tough to drive out to North Dakota and be there to protest, but an online donation certainly achieves more than an online check-in. It almost causes one to wonder: is this issue really something the people of facebook care about, or is it just another post being shared to establish a political identity? In other words, are some real world issues treated as just another way to achieve popularity on social media?

Here's the admirable part: This is the classic 1 like = 1 prayer hoax, only instead of promoting a meaningless facebook page, the curators of this hoax actually help raise awareness about a noble cause. Many people who didn't already know about the Dakota pipeline issue now do. This creates the opportunity for more to join the cause, and actually inhibit concrete change. Many people don't have the time or resources to adequately help a cause they believe in. But anyone can advertise to those who do, and this proves critical in creating more tangible efforts. Ultimately then, it is a commendable gesture to check-in at standing rock to show support. Regardless of how genuine that support is, added awareness can and will help.

But if you think you're fooling a sheriff's department, you're really just fooling yourself.

The 15 Best M83 Interlude Tracks

15. At The Party - M83

 At The Party is the only interlude track from M83's self-titled debut album featured on this list. Not only is it the list's most archaic interlude in chronology (M83 came out in 2001), but its sonic texture bodes a particular aged quality as well. At The Party doesn't sound like a party; it sounds like the background music of a computer game abandoned in the late 90's. The faded, psychedelic wooze in the track's final twenty seconds is the game's slow, painful realization that it will never be relevant again.

14. Let Men Burn Stars - Before The Dawn Heals Us

You are four years old. It is the 4th of July, and everyone is having fun outside watching fireworks. You would be too, except you can't find your parents. Tears stream down your cheeks as you run about the park, frantically searching through the crowd of strangers for the only two faces you know. Finally, you stop to sit at tree and look up. For a moment, the exploding lights in the sky cause you to forget about finding anyone. They make you forget all about sleeping, about eating, even breathing. You're no longer crying, only the angels weep for you now. It wasn't supposed to happen this way.

13. Ludivine - Junk
Ludivine, along with album closer Sunday Night 1987 combine to provide the thesis that M83's most recent album is laden with melancholy. Ludivine is the sigh of wistfulness one experiences when remembering lost times. It is the inevitable, uninvited side effect of nostalgia: regret.

12. Birds - Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts
"Sun is shining. Birds are singing. Flowers are growing. Clouds are looming. And I am flying."
     
 By far the most jarring track on this list, Birds begins with exactly that: the sounds of songbirds chirping in the morning. That only lasts a few seconds before getting drowned out by a distorted robot, who repeats the above lyrics (seven times!). Most listeners probably won't appreciate this track at first, but it absolutely is one of the most fascinating works in M83's varied catalog. They just had to title it "Birds" because "defective robot waking up on acid" didn't fit into the theme of the album.
    

11. Klaus I Love You - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming

At first glance this seems to be the first electronic instrumental ever dedicated to Santa Claus, spelling notwithstanding. But whoever it's dedicated to is clearly loved by M83's Anthony Gonzalez. Rather than saying it with lyrics, Gonzalez opts to take Klaus out for this dazzling 2-minute space dance.

10. Can't Stop - Before The Dawn Heals Us

The wonderful part about this track is that even if you don't like it, you still have to empathize with its composer. Because quite literally, he can't stop it. In a similar vein as Birds, Can't Stop is a repetitive interlude that builds ambiance upon its center structure.

9. Tension - Junk

While the first part of this track is essentially a perfect imitation of a Super Mario water level, M83 is back in classic fashion once the vocals kick in.

8. Strong and Wasted - Digital Shades

Strong and Wasted is the only track from M83's 4th album, Digital Shades, to be featured on this list. Judging by its name, Anthony Gonzalez must have written this melodic interlude while feeling good and drunk one night. That's fine, because there's something to be said about the best interlude track from an ambient album that is essentially just one long interlude.

7. Moon Crystal - Junk

In just over two minutes of instrumental, Moon Crystal effectively epitomizes the most unappreciated aspects of Junk. Almost immediately, the listener knows exactly where and when this track comes from: a 1980's television show introduction. Or perhaps it's from a game show track. Or the background music when "please stand by" comes on during technical difficulties. Regardless, we all seem to know this track from somewhere. And that's the genius behind much of Junk. Not only is Gonzalez able to perfectly replicate sounds and styles of his choosing, but he does so with such unapologetic fervor that one can't help but go along with it.

6. Where the Boats Go - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming

Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

5. I Guess I'm Floating - Before The Dawn Heals Us

Perhaps the most aptly named M83 track, I guess I'm floating describes exactly what it feels like to listen to it.

4. This Bright Flash - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming

The easiest way to describe This Bright Flash is not through words, but indeed, imagery. Out of all 22 tracks from Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, this one fits the album artwork best.

3. The Wizard - Junk

 In a perfect world, this would be track #1 on Junk; I can think of no better way to begin an album. While the world isn't perfect, neither is Junk.

But this interlude just about is.

2. Fountains - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming

"The song Fountains sounds like an acid fueled hippie quest through an enchanted forest."

1. Another Wave from You - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming

M83's opus Hurry Up, We're Dreaming received critical claim upon release, primarily due to songs such as "Midnight City", "Wait", "Steve McQueen" and "Outro". And while full-length tracks like these certainly make Hurry Up a good album, it's the album's phenomenal interlude tracks that will have listeners coming back years later, reminding them why M83's 2011 album is a virtually flawless classic.

Personally, I'm not actually certain that this is my favorite M83 interlude; the top six on this list may as well all be tied for first. But there are a few reasons why this is objectively number one, mainly due to its unmistakable M83 feel. In just two minutes, Another Wave From You successfully summarizes everything M83 stands for musically. Synth arpeggios rising from the ashes over ambient bliss. Slow waves of sound increasing in both volume and urgency. Orchestral emotions. Whispered lyrics returning from the Messier Galaxy, wondering if they saw you there too.

Of all the range of emotions pitted in the realm of Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, perhaps the strongest is the feeling of being reunited with the things that you love. The album doesn't ask you to hurry up and dream, it's telling you that life is the dream, and that you need to hurry up and realize how magnificent of a dream it can be.

The first half of Hurry Up indeed looks into the past, wondering when the good times of old may one day repeat themselves. After wondering, "When Will You Come Home?", the second half serves as its homecoming; a reminder that, given enough time, real life can become better than our dreams. That's why on Another Wave From You, the musing, "I think I saw you there" is now nothing more than a funny afterthought. Because you're here now, and that's all that matters.

Why Winnipeg?

Winnipeg is a decaying, dirty, freezing, crime-ridden, fascinatingly beautiful city. It's home to 700,000 people, roughly the same size as the inner city populations of Saint Paul and Minneapolis together. Combined with wind, Winnipeg's winters are characterized by the coldest temperatures of any major North American city. And depending on your definition of a city, it's the coldest one in the world. As Winnipeg's 6 month long winter concludes, its icy roads thaw, revealing the city's decrepit infrastructure while adding an exclamation point behind its numerous enclaves of poverty. If you ever talk to a Canadian from, say, Calgary or Toronto, they'll probably talk about Winnipeg in terms of it being the armpit of Canada. And while most will say this without actually having been there, whether or not they're right is besides the point. I don't care how many people hate Winnipeg, or love it, or never even think about it—it's still one of my favorite cities in the world.

Downtown Winnipeg, viewed from the Canadian Museum for Human rights

Geography is everything. Every culture in the world is fundamentally challenged and shaped by the geography for which it originated. If you have a spouse, you alter your geography every day just to be near each other. You live together, you vacation together. Geography is what we use to measure how vast the earth is, yet it's also what brings us together.

The geography of a city is what fundamentally separates it from the rest of the world—a unique haven of human existence with its own set of customs, weather, people. Geography and history often intersect, but this becomes especially true when it comes to the formation of a metropolis. For thousands of years, indigenous people lived and died in the place that is now called Winnipeg. At the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers, humans long ago determined Winnipeg as a worthy place to settle. But other than these two rivers, what geographically makes Winnipeg an attractive place? Why settle there? As someone who experiences and analyzes cities through a spatial lense, it may seem odd that I would ever consider a place like Winnipeg. Because to me, the fascinating thing about Winnipeg's geography is that there's nothing particularly fascinating about it.

Winnipeg is one of the flattest urban area's in the world. This view is found at the top of the city's highest "natural" point, garbage hill—a hill literally formed out of historical trash.

You see, Winnipeg doesn't just seem to sit in the middle of nowhere. It actually does. But in the realm of geography, nowhere is still somewhere, and that somewhere happens to be a frigid, yet fertile river valley in the center of North America. One Winnipeger writes that his city is a paradox, "an unspectacular shack amidst the prairie’s desolation and a subtle beacon of Canada’s cultural fringe. It’s a disappointment and a pleasant surprise; an unexpected collision of the peculiar and the blasé. It’s both the middle of nowhere and the heart of the continent, and there’s no reason to pretend it’s anything else."

For most people, the simple fact that a city like Winnipeg exists in the midst of Earth's coldest prairie is its most compelling quality. Its ability to be forgotten is what's remembered most; its primary relevance lies in its irrelevance. Fine, whatever. Leave it at that if you want. But if you've never actually been in the streets of Winnipeg, if you haven't observed its lonely wanderer in -40° wind chill, if you've yet to see alcoholism in the form of an entire neighborhood, then you don't really know how ridiculous, if not tragic, Winnipeg can be. Winnipeg isn't interesting because it's a grungy city. And it certainly isn't interesting because it's situated on a prairie in the middle of Canada. Winnipeg is interesting because it's audacious enough to be both at the same time.

The emptiest, saddest Chinatown of all time

Most North American cities follow the same crude outline: downtown economic core in the center, surrounded by low-income neighborhoods, surrounded by middle-income neighborhoods, surrounded by high-income neighborhoods, surrounded by farmland. But what's intriguing about Winnipeg is its ability to skip steps along the way. Say for example, you were riding a bike down Portage avenue in downtown Winnipeg. Now take a left on Main Street, and proceed 10 kilometers northbound. You are now completely surrounded by farmland. And yet, the juxtaposition of skyscrapers to prairie isn't even the most disconcerting part of the trip! Because as you leave Winnipeg's downtown economic core and travel through its infamously low-income North Side, you begin to realize that that's all you've traveled through before reaching, well, not Winnipeg. 

So what happened to the winding rows of houses with expansive, perfectly green yards you should have traveled through? And why didn't you have to get on a 5-lane expressway to reach the countryside? Where OH WHERE are the swaths of suburbs necessary to transition from the urban to rural environment? For a solid 10 minutes, I stood next to my bike at the edge of the prairie on Winnipeg's North side and wondered those questions. For a solid 10 minutes, I looked out at the farmland and almost tricked myself into thinking I was in small-town North Dakota. For a moment, it seemed as if I'd just left someone's unfinished imagination of a city, and woke up to what had been there all along.

By now you're probably wondering, if Winnipeg is mostly just a few tall buildings surrounded by poor to mixed income neighborhoods in the middle of nowhere, what's the draw? Why Winnipeg? Why even bother visiting a city like that, let alone live in it? I still can't answer that question in confidence, but in less than a week, I can say that I discovered one of Winnipeg's most unique charms: it skips out on suburbia. In the Twin Cities, the pedestrian is completely contained. Without a car or bus, the inner-city citizen may travel in any direction and never lose sight of the built environment. But with Winnipeg, I can head Northbound for a few minutes and suddenly leave humanity behind. With Winnipeg, I can get on my bike, exit the shadowy boulevards of downtown, and travel back to a time before any of us existed.

Winnipeg photos

The city and I

My two favorite methods of transportation

Nighttime at the forks

Sunday Night 1987

The tragic nature of time lies not in the days that are gone, but in the memories lost forever.

Let Them Have Hockey

The Minnesota State High School Boys Hockey Tournament is a week-long enterprise in St. Paul, Minnesota, in which metro suburban high schools collectively bus their homogeneity into this great great city of ours. Sometimes the teams come from Lakeville, or Eden Prairie, or Prior Lake; even the occasional Stillwater produces enough talent to surpass Hill-Murray and earn their ticket to the Xcel Energy Center.

The sheer volume and variety of high school hockey in Minnesota creates for an interesting and unpredictable tournament each year. In this age, however, there are a few aspects of the tournament that are very much guaranteed year after year. One guarantee is that the final tournament will be played in downtown St. Paul's Xcel Energy Center. And despite it being held here annually, the second guarantee is that none of the schools participating in Minnesota's beloved contest will actually hail from the City of St. Paul. Even Minneapolis' single team faces a slim-to-none chance of reaching the state tournament, and that achievement is only getting unlikelier as the years go by. The last time a city school (St. Paul or Minneapolis) made it to the Minnesota High School Boys Hockey Tournament was in 1995 (when I was a 0 year old). And as sad as it is, that year might also be the last.

Now, I am quite aware of St. Paul Academy's presence in this year's tournament. And no, I don't consider them, or any other private school of that nature a city school. When the majority of enrollment at schools like S.P.A. and C.D.H. are suburban children, they cannot be considered city schools by any means. These are suburban schools without boundaries. Actually, there is one boundary, and it's income-based. No matter the geography of your home, if you don't have enough money for tuition, then you live outside their boundaries. It's as simple as that.

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I played hockey for a city school in St. Paul from 2010 - 2013, and we never even made it close to the state tournament. But even if I was good enough to play for a championship-bound team like Hill-Murray, I would have played for my St. Paul school a thousand times before anyone else. I have too much pride in my neighborhood to outsource myself. As a hockey player for a city school, you become part of a small group of people that experience two very different sides of Minnesotan culture at once. And as odd as it sounds, no day more perfectly illustrates this nuance than the day I went on a field trip to McDonald's in 2012.

It was late November, and I was along to help chaperon and document a field trip for the English-Language-Learners at my high school, St. Paul Como Park. The first stop was McDonald's, and the next was our State Capitol building. Around 10 a.m., I was helping my classmates order fast food in English. Several hours later, I was skating off the ice after beating one the burbs' cherished hockey teams. I'm still amazed by the spectrum of culture I encountered that day. Here we have the polar opposites of character: foreign teenagers from across the world leaving everything behind just to live in a safe society, and suburban hockey teenagers so comfortable with their carpeted basements, cul-de-sacs, and 4 car garages, it's disheartening—disheartening to watch what that does to one's personality, to one's ego.

And here I am, caught in the middle of it all. Meandering my way between the two extremes of our state. Watching as Minnesota simultaneously fosters refugees from around the world while promoting urban sprawl, a.k.a. "white flight". I can't help but think that the reason the suburbs are so overwhelmingly white (and consequently, so good at ice hockey) is because they've been historically fleeing from immigrants like those I went to high school with. Who knows, maybe that day wouldn't have been so memorable if we didn't beat Le Sueur that night. But we didn't win that hockey game for ourselves so much as we won it for city culture. We won that hockey game in the name of world acceptance, not in the name of 74-inch flat screen TV's or a place called "maple-something". Most of the kids I went to McDonald's with that day probably don't know much about ice hockey, but what they also don't know is that when I scored a goal later that night, I scored it for them.

Tonight, the holy grail of Minnesota high school sports will be awarded in my city, the City of Saint Paul. And it will be awarded to a suburban school. Either Wayzata or Eden Prairie. But no matter who wins, in a way, these schools end up the true losers of our state. They may know what it's like to be crowned champions in a real city, but they'll never know what it's like to live and love in that real city. They'll never know what it's like to bike from one set of skyscrapers to the next. They'll never know what it's like to go to school with classmates that are still learning to speak English. They'll never even know what it's like to live in a classic Minnesota town, like Winona or Duluth. As far as I'm concerned, twin cities suburban culture will never truly know anything except hockey.

So let them have hockey; but let them have their identical homes in their no-name neighborhoods. Let them have hockey; but let them have their morning rush hour crawl to work. Let them have hockey; but let them have their prejudices; let them run further and further away from my increasingly diverse city. Let them have hockey; but let them have their shopping malls, their gated communities, their expansive lawns, their sidewalk-less streets. Let them have hockey; because at the end of the day, hockey is all they've got.

My 16 Favorite Albums, From 2000 - 2016

16. Kings of Leon - Only by the Night (2008)

Highlights

Track 1 - Closer

Track 4 - Use Somebody

Track 6 - Revelry

15. Daft Punk - Discovery (2001)

Highlights

Track 1 - One More Time

Track 3 - Digital Love

Track 7 - Superheroes

14. Phoenix - Bankrupt! (2013) 

Highlights

Track 1 - Entertainment

Track 3 - S.O.S. in Bel Air

Track 9 - Bourgeois 

13. Coldplay - Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends (2008)

Highlights

Track 3 - Lost!

Track 5 - Lovers in Japan

Track 10 - Death and All His Friends

12. M83 - Before the Dawn Heals Us (2005)

Highlights

Track 2 - Don't Save Us From the Flames

Track 8 - Teen Angst

Track 15 - Lower Your Eyelids to Die with the Sun

11. Kings of Leon - Because of the Times (2007)

Highlights

Track 1 - Knocked Up

Track 4 - McFearless

Track 9 - Fans

10. Foster the People - Torches (2011)

Highlights

Track 1 - Helena Beat

Track 3 - Call It What You Want

Track 10 - Warrant

9. Foster the People - Supermodel (2014)

Highlights

Track 5 - Pseudologia Fantastica

Track 7 - Best Friend

Track 8 - A Beginner's Guide to Destroying the Moon

8. Tame Impala - Currents (2015)

Highlights

Track 1 - Let it Happen

Track 2 - Nangs

Track 13 - New Person, Same Old Mistakes

7. Vampire Weekend - Contra (2010)

Highlights

Track 1 - Horchata

Track 6 - Run

Track 9 - Diplomat's Son

Best track name - #10, I Think Ur A Contra

6. Coldplay - X&Y (2005)

Highlights

Track 6 - X & Y

Track 7 - Speed of Sound

Track 9 - Low

Alright, so these next 5 albums are all tied for 1st, and therefore presented in no particular order. Not only is each record a timeless masterpiece, but they are a testament to the brilliant nature of modern art. If you were to listen to the soundtrack of everything I've ever loved, it would sound like this: 

T-1. M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming (2011)

Highlights - the whole damn thing.

T-1. MGMT - Congratulations (2010)

Highlights - the whole damn thing.

T-1. Tame Impala - Lonerism (2012)

Highlights - the whole damn thing.

T-1. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular (2008)

Highlights - the whole damn thing.

T-1. Kings of Leon - Come Around Sundown (2010)

Highlights - the whole damn thing.

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HONORABLE MENTIONS

Kendrick Lamar - good kid, mA.A.d. City and To Pimp A Butterfly (2012, 2015)

Daft Punk - Random Access Memories (2013)

Tame Impala - InnerSpeaker (2010)

Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend (2008)

Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head (2002)

Pond - Man, It Feels Like Space Again (2015)
M83 - Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts (2003)

DISHONORABLE MENTIONS

- Every Country-Pop album by any Country singer ever

• Blake Shelton, Toby Keith, Eric Church, Keith Urban. You know what it is. As much as I like wearing my dirt road on a blue jean while driving over a Friday night... screw that. Now, I'm not saying I can make better music, but what I am saying is that I can make no music. And admittedly, no music is astronomically better than this kind of music.

- MGMT and Vampire Weekend's 3rd records

• While these albums are not intrinsically bad, compared to their first two works, they definitely disappoint.

- Most of Coldplay's recent stuff

 • You know why

Every Band of Horses Album after Cease to Begin

• A couple years ago, I asked my Mom to buy me an album from Barnes and Nobles, and I picked Mirage Rock. To this day, I can't believe I wasted her money like that. I'm sorry, Mother.