Kneeling, in a somber, silent prayer, and staring at the mutilated corpse of a magpie — or what I think looks like a magpie, but the body is so mangled it’s hard to tell — contemplates the temporary nature of existence in a slow and crawling sound collage on Survival.
Birds chirp, ignorant of the puddle of death draped across the black asphalt grave; cars drone past, presumably the cause of the dead bird — somewhere down the highway a windshield is cracked; and the dirge-hum of a crying synthesizer, like the hug of a long gone grandmother.
I was deep in the interior of Belair forest, where it dips down on its east side, where its huge hands press themselves into the wet soil; and I saw a bird — again, I have no clue what kind; I’m no birdologist — it was in the tree I was passing under. I stepped back to observe it; it was smaller than a crow but larger than a robin, and it puffed itself into a ball, perhaps aggressively; it fluffed out its wings to its sides, tossed its head from side to side; and then I saw, below, at the base of the tree, was a dead bird, of a similar kind to the one above it. Like the magpie in Survival, it was barely recognizable as a bird.
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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.
