I am more than pleased to announce that the one and only Steve Schmolaris has graciously agreed to let me run some excerpts of his always-magnificent album reviews. Here’s what I sincerely hope will be the first of many:
“A dead poet writes no more. Thus the importance of staying alive.”
— Michel Houellebecq
DHID (pronounced “died”) has died. They’ve fallen through the cracks of existence and into the Nethers below, a place of liminal space, a place of purgatory; a place between worlds. They’re caught between a rock — life, with its suffering spread out, on display — and a hard place — endless death and endless — albeit painless — nonexistence. And yet, as if by a miracle, DHID somehow remains; although feeling like an inversion of themselves.
It was not always like this; there were times when DHID felt truly alive, once their minds hovered like drones above the big city lights, once they traced the sky with their dreams; but now, DHID has curled themselves inside the cold shell of a dumpster, among the garbage of human detritus, eyes bagged and confused. It is in these first few songs of I Fell Thru that DHID’s dreams have turned into dead and dreadful screams.
And so DHID falls.
But in the Nethers, it’s hard to tell whether or not one’s still falling or has already hit the ground; and so, perversely, DHID thinks that the ground is the much better fate, for at least it “holds [them] up,” at least it stops them from falling. DHID gives themselves over to death — that immovable object — for in its continuity it at least does what it’s promised to do. With death there is certainty, for in death there is reliability.
But for DHID, with every turn of the final page, with every bright white light, with every fall, comes a life that flashes before one’s eyes — and so the infinite regress carries on. More falling. More ground. More flashes. Memories that lead to memories; like Zeno’s dichotomy paradox: to move from A to B — to die — one must first die halfway. In this way, DHID figures he can stay alive forever.
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To read the rest of this review — and more by Steve Schmolaris — visit his website Bad Gardening Advice.
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Steve Schmolaris is the founder of the Schmolaris Prize, “the most prestigious prize in all of Manitoba,” which he first awarded in 1977. Each year, he awards the prize to the best album of the year. He does not have a profession but, having come from money (his father, “the Millionaire of East Schmelkirk,” left him his fortune when he died in 1977), Steve is a patron of the arts. Inspired by the exquisite detail of a holotype, the collective intelligence of slime mold, the natural world and the suffering inherent within it — and also music (fuck, he loves music!) — Steve has long been writing reviews of Winnipeg artists’ songs and albums at his website Bad Gardening Advice, leading to the publication of a book of the same name.
