Tag: Juliana Hatfield

The source material is brilliant, but the interpretations are so uneven that it’s more like “Juliana Hatfield’s Wax Museum of Songs by The Police”.

The pilot felt the glider’s control surfaces bite into the updraft. The craft smoothly pitched up and right as the surreal Eastern Washington terrain unfolded beneath them. The plucky strains of a Bolivian polka filled the small cockpit, the whistling of the wind no true competition. Facing backward, the specialist peered at the techmapper. Somewhere below, there was something messing with the surveillance satellite and downing any powered aircraft that dared approach. Up ahead, the clouds were bunched up in a way any seasoned traveler of the skies could tell was just. not. right.

The mechanical harvestman towered over the fig grove, its spindly arms tucked underneath as it towered over the fruit trees. The cryptobotanist aimed the infrared reader at the edge of the cultivated land, where the real Bhutan took over, hoping for even a quick glimpse. The landscape gave nothing in return. The operator’s headphones leaked the sound of some Turkish reggae, bounced from a satellite to overcome the foreboding mountains that ringed the valley. They both had patience to spare. The beast they were seeking had only one food source, located right here, and everyone’s gotta eat.

The first mate adjusted the sails, letting out some wind to keep both skids on the sand. The sun shone down like a hole punched in a blast furnace someone painted blue, the radio broadcasting its gypsy salsa above the hiss of the sandmaran's travel. Leaning on the tiller, the captain let out a yell of warning as they crested a dune, gaining air for a brief moment. They still didn’t have a plan for replacing the statue, but they had a thousand miles of desert to work something out.

The mechanic reached deep into the tool bag, knowing the required spanner would be at the very bottom. The clanking briefly drowned out the strains from the radio, its signal relayed every 500 meters by the commpods they had dropped on the way. Carefully fitting the business end of the tool between the rear set of treads on the boring machine, they found themselves exclaiming out loud “actually, I think it’s pretty interesting.” The surveyor, measuring the long tunnel behind them with an x-ray transit, looked back briefly, by now used to such outbursts. The cavern should be another two miles down.

Such grand disaffection from this US/AUS pairing … my new favorite Kurt and Courtney, providing the weirdest yet most natural male/female vocal duets.

A great collection of intense flavors, from easy rockers to bedroom recordings to full-on blasts

A bold performance from Katie Crutchfield, who bares her heart and rips her chords out in a cathartic explosion that eventually winds down into a somber mood.