For The Love of Dark Wax

Sometimes, I like to think that objects get sad if they don’t serve their intended purpose. A guitar becomes zoo tiger levels of mopey if it gets left in its case. A hammer must hammer nails lest it find itself needing a Lexapro prescription and a round of cognitive behavioral therapy. A record stops feeling groovy if it does not get played.

I own a lot of vinyl. And a lot of guitars. A couple of hammers, too, if we're being honest. The guitars are not being played. And nor are the records. It’s a house of sad objects, and I can’t help but feel like that energy radiates out and infects other objects around it, myself included. I’m already an object not fulfilling its purpose. I am a writer who is not writing.

Cera Obscura is an attempt to remedy some of these deplorable conditions. There are over 1000 records on my shelves, and I am only intimately familiar with a relative handful whose grooves are just a little more worn from repeat play. So, I’m going to play from the obscure parts of the collection, picking bands I do not know, albums that are not familiar, and get acquainted with some new friends, uncomfortable neighbors, and utter weirdos that are occupying one wall of my living room.

And, you guessed it, I’m going to write about them, and there’s a method to my madness. I’m going to go in alphabetical order, one record from A, one from B, C, and so on until I hit Z, and then start back at A. I’ll give the record a blind listen with my full attention, then do some research on the band, the album, the players, and then give it subsequent listens to ensure I got it right, and to digest what I learned in the research phase. The goal is not to score a record—what does 3, 4, or 5 stars even mean? how can anyone be consistent or fair?—but to understand it and to share that understanding. I’m not going to tear anything down. Making art is the closest thing to magic that humans do, and it’s not my place to shit on magic. If I really hate an album, it won’t make it to the essay stage, and you’ll never hear about it. Or maybe you will, but I’ll still work on understanding even if it’s not my bag. These essays will be published twice a week on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Fridays are for new releases. There’s a lot of musicians out there making music on Bandcamp that are laboring in relative obscurity. I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but no one buys music anymore. I killed my premium streaming services a couple of months ago in favor of the radio, albums on my shelf, and the ambient music in the world. Why? Aside from the smug satisfaction of sticking it to the man, streaming has changed how I consume music, and I don’t like it. With the entire world’s catalog at my fingertips, I listen to the same things over and over again. I come back to familiar favorites when I can’t think of anything. I listen passively. New albums bounce off me, and I go back to listening to classics.

So, a new deal with myself. I only listen to music I own. And for Fridays, I’ll be buying a new release from an independent artist I discover on Bandcamp, spending the week with it, and then writing about it and sharing it. Again, the goal is to understand, and share that understanding.

What do I get out of it? I’m at least temporarily retired from the world of 9-5, and need to develop the habit of writing even when I don’t feel like it, sharing that writing, and writing to a deadline. I have also admittedly fallen out of love with music. I’ve stopped writing and performing. I’ve stopped discovering new music. I am a defrocked priest, a faithless parishioner. And I don’t want to be. I want the spark. I want it to be too hot to touch. I want to have favorite records and artists that I didn’t discover in my teens or twenties.

And, ultimately, I want the sad zoo tigers that are my musical instruments to be released into the wild, rehabilitated, ready to savage unsuspecting antelope.