mental toxicity and dance susceptibility

good morning ~

(click the link / walking guy to listen)

My Big Breakmental toxicity and dance susceptibility

today’s track is similar to the set I played at that house show in December

writing to you today from the Square festival in Braga, Portugal - feels like there’s a decent chance that one of you is here, too, and if you are you should def say hello :)

Perhaps it was the long layover making me stir crazy or my lack of sleep on the plane, but when I finally sat down to a café longo and a pastel de nata in the Lisboa airport I had a moment of actual culinary joy, like truly moved to tear-wet eyes because the pastry was so fucking good. What was I feeling in this moment, gratitude? Something like: in this fucked up world with all these fucked up people doing fucked up things, sometimes you get to have a wonderful little treat and watch the other travelers wander by. Was it hope?

I've been brought over to Portugal to attend and participate in an ambitious music festival called Square that's seeking to simultaneously "map the Atlantic" - everything being presented has some kind of connection to the coastlines and cultural exchanges of that particular ocean - and revitalize the tourism efforts of the city of Braga, a mid-size town in the north about an hour by train from Porto. Originally I was invited here in my capacity as one of the programmers at Basilica but the organizers remained cool and generous when they got the word I had been laid off and the opportunity to attend remained. So I'm here with a badge repping my now former employers, but it's not like everyone here just wants to shake hands and network - mostly they want to listen to music and smoke cigarettes and then when there is talking its either about the music or the weather.

Caught in a torrential hailstorm on a side street in Braga, ice the size of gravel slanting through the heavens and into the cuffs of my pants, hoping that I'm heading toward the bus I'm supposed to take to to Guimãres. I knew no one, I was jet lagged and disoriented, and though everyone I spoke to was kind and helpful I wasn't necessarily being shown around or introduced so I simply tried my best to not appear 100% like a babe in the woods. Bus with remaining seats located I squeezed aboard in my completely soaked and already not all that warm United States Postal Service windbreaker and saw with a pinch of horror that seats were limited and I'd have to settle in next to somebody and hope that they didn't mind the occasional drip. But a guy in a green windbreaker met my gaze with kindness and - mercifully - he said I could sit down in English, then we had a nice conversation where I had opportunity to mention one of my best anecdotes (the brief period I took care of Meredith Monk's turtle).

When we arrived we filed off the bus and into a stunningly beautiful contemporary and historical art museum that I gathered was on the sight of a former castle belonging to the first king of Portugal, Alfonso I. Now it's a sharply angled building. In the lobby I was delighted to see something about which I am very enthusiastic - an espresso vending machine.

The first performance took place in a black box theater on the lower floor - a beautifully appointed space with a band of musicians doing a kind of north African Khruangbin type thing but had the goofier elements of surf rock and kind of a later period the Clash thing going on. Projected behind them was a collection of archival footage and what Americans would definitely call "problematic" cartoons and I pondered with my limited knowledge how African culture is valued and interpreted here, a country so close to the northern tip of the African continent. But before I could really draw any conclusions we were urged toward the next venue, another walk in the rain. Downstairs through another beautiful cultural center and into a bar with a stage where a lady with an incredibly voluminous hair situation was singing the shit out of some RnB type jams on electric guitar while a guy tooted on a muted trumpet. I waited at the bar for another cafe longo - I was shivering.

An hour later and we were at yet another beautiful space watching a folk music duo fill a theater with wooden walls and ornate balconies. I felt cozy and sunk-in, deep in my plush theater seating, and as her voice wailed higher and higher the urge to fall asleep nearly overtook me. Their set ended with a curious thing I had never seen before - tuned hollows of wood, kind of resembling bamboo, clicking and clacking in a complicated interlocking polyrhythm as the basis for their final song, really beautiful.

During the set a friend of a friend sent me a DM on Twitter saying that he heard I was attending the festival. We made plans to meet up after the set and stood chatting in the aisles until one of the staff told us we had to leave - oh, isn't there more music here? No, you need to go down the outside stairs, he said. Because it turned out that this fucking excellent Scottish punk duo was playing their kinda the Fall meets Death Grips but Queer music in this giant stone arch with harsh LED lighting and a fog machine. I was freezing my ass off but they ripped, I bobbed my head.

The final performance of my night took place at yet another venue and, looking for warmth, I had yet another espresso from the bar. I was blessed with an excellent and surprisingly high energy DJ set that was more of a 2am thing and less of an 8pm thing, but people were dancing a little bit anyway. Behind the DJ were these really excellent visuals that did kind of a surreal riff on street view but also took these mundane elements - like a cooler labeled "mineral water" - and rendered them as 3D objects which then tessellated and rotated. The artist also displayed a text overlay that ostensibly measured the "MENTAL TOXICITY" and "DANCE SUSCEPTIBILITY" of the set - the numbers kept rising.

But what about you? Seen any good music lately? What have you been caught out in lately? What tiny thing has given you any squeeze of hope?