The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
Every Tuesday, the Sounding Board is a space for a short-ish review of a recent-ish release and conversations about new-to-you music. We’ll get things started with a write-up about a newer, likely under-heard album, and invite you to share your music musings in the comments.
Last Leg of the Human Table is a good hang.1
The fourth album from Cloakroom, a shoegazing quartet from Northwest Indiana, doesn’t boast many show-stopping tunes, but it is an unremittingly pleasant presence when absorbed as a continuous collection of songs.
Last Leg of the Human Table‘s combination of melodious guitar squall and sing-song, sometimes lightly autotuned, vocals are too interesting to be mere background noise. Still, the warm drone of its Weezer-meets-Galaxie 500 sound has a comfortable, nearly narcotic feeling that can make it the equivalent of an auditory weighted blanket.2 It’s cozy, and the world is better for its existence, but it takes a smidge of mindfulness to remain fully aware and appreciative of its heaviness. And there is plenty of heavy guitar sound to go around.
Depending on the song, guitars roar, swirl and crunch with a pleasing impact that recalls the grittier albums produced by Flood.3 “Unbelonging” is a prime example of a few of these sounds and spotlights how Cloakroom counterbalance sweet-sad sentiment with sludgy sounds. The song begins with a chiming lick that could’ve come from Robert Smith or Johnny Marr before descending into a layer of murk. The muddy jangle blends seamlessly with Doyle Marin’s singing about inevitable-but-blameless calamities.4 Just past the halfway point, a thick, electric surge rises like a quicksand bubble containing the dying moan of Jay Mascis’ guitar. It stays contained to the background, but it adds low end and friction that helps “Unbelonging” finish with a little extra urgency.
Other songs opt to strike the balance by molding landslide rumbles into faster-paced riffs, and that’s generally when the Last Leg of the Human Table is at its best. Tracks like “Ester Wind” and “Cloverlooper” build power-pop hooks out of the kind of sounds that you can feel in your fillings with the right speakers or headphones. While other songs, like “The Pilot” and “The Lights Are On,” work with the same sonic palette, they simply don’t aspire to a level of catchiness or face-melting riffage that would push them into less ambient territory.
A couple of short Midwest Emo-influenced interstitials provide some lulls in the din. While they don’t do much to ratchet up the sometimes-missing immediacy, “On Joy and Unbelieving” and “On Joy and Undeserving,” are fun twangy detours that enrich the album as a whole.
That’s appropriate framing for all of Last Leg of the Human Table. While some tracks stand out more than others, none necessarily demand immediate inclusion on a playlist. Still, they’re all at least solid, and as an album, they work like an ancient Greek phalanx, achieving reach, coverage and effectiveness that’s greater than the sum of their parts.5
About the writer
Ben Hohenstatt
Ben Hohenstatt is an Alaska-based dog owner who moonlights as a music writer and photographer.
For more information, consult your local library or with parental permission visit his website.
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The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
The Kids In The Hall, Season Two, Episode Fourteen
– “Good work, Joe!” / “Gee, I didn’t think he had the report!”
– “Tony Henderson, you are now asleep.” / “Sure.”
– “I did give suicide a chance. But that’s because I was threatened with jazz.”
– “Excuse me, hon, I’ve gotta go freshen my hors d’oeuvre.”
– “Go on, Sandra, Rory doesn’t bite!”
– The chick who plays Sandra in “The Affair” is incredibly funny. I enjoy these occasional guest stars that show up this season.
– “She’s always addressed me by my full name. Butterig.”
– The Queen’s picture of Buddy on her bedside table made me laugh.
I thought we determined it was “Budderick.”
The Shield, “Extraction”
– I love that the Barn has apparently had enough “who’s the father?” pools that Ronnie has a standard go-to for it: “Oh, I always bet on Shane in these things.” Also, welcome to the actual credits, David Rees Snell! Some good Ronnie content this episode, with him coordinating the mystery dad betting, getting bonked on the head with a crucifix and playfully manhandled by Lem and Shane, and then—in a dramatic tone shift—doling out a prolonged, cold-blooded, methodical beatdown to the guy who hit him.
– Introducing Tina! A+ exit outfit, and I like that she knows what buttons to push with Danny as well as with Dutch—she fumbles a lot in her rookie year, but she has a core of self-possession and strategy. Manipulative strategy, sure, but hey, it works. She could eventually be a natural on the Decoy Squad.
– Per Grant’s review, everyone having to work around inept Captain Billings is great, especially with Vic stepping in to deliver a better, more crowd-bolstering pep talk and Dutch and Claudette and Vic and Shane smoothly coordinating their own workloads when they need to make a swap (“Why confuse him?”).
– Lingering on Aceveda looking at Terry’s file is a nice, subtle reminder that Aceveda and Terry were actually friends, or at least friendly—there’s a special weight to this unfinished business.
– Boy, Forest Whitaker can really be magnificently off-putting, and one of the best details about his Kavanaugh performance is how he always hits the gas a little too fast in any conversation: he’s too obviously intense, too obviously interested, too obviously informed. And we get to see three different initial reactions to that, from Aceveda (clued-in but wary, able to disregard the approach and listen for the content: “What’s my end?”) to Corrine (uncomfortable but with too much ingrained politeness to do much about it) to Lem (fully on-alert, under the circumstances, and therefore silent, sticking with what he knows).
– Lem in a towel. (My wife: “All these officers are now at least a little bicurious.”)
– Some very nice Vic-Shane partnership stuff after Vic gets not-so-gently nudged to file his retirement papers when he hits his fifteen-year mark. A couple of seasons ago, Vic would’ve kept this to himself, but here he tells Shane almost at once, and Shane in return immediately assumes that whatever’s going to happen, they’re in it together: “What are we gonna do?” (He also knows exactly when Vic hits fifteen years, so I feel like there was party planning involved here. Use that brainspace to learn Lem’s birthday!)
– I always love whenever Dutch and Claudette are protective of each other, and Dutch absolutely snapping when their suspect almost pushes her over the balcony rail is fantastic. It takes Vic and Shane to back him down, and I suspect they both note that and are kind of impressed about it. And we now have Claudette’s pain and her bottles of her prescription medicine, and I am not okay. On the bright side, I’m apparently mean enough to laugh at Billings getting puked on from above. Sorry, Billings! I do love you.
– “Eatin’ ain’t cheatin'” receives a sequel: “No sticking, just licking.” Shane, you don’t need two rhymes for this. The first one is catchier!
– Danny and Julien have had a rocky partnership, so it’s really sweet to see them on such good terms with each other now that they’re officially split up. (Julien cracking up despite himself at Tina’s “So your dick fits better?” jab at Shane is also endearing.) I love the two of them joking around with each other, especially the last bit about always making the rookie officer do the paperwork.
– Some amazing large-scale brawls in this episode, with the opening funeral fight and then the school riot (which is as terrifying as it is impressive). Great action coordination.
I’ve said it before, but the thing I love about Whittaker is he always plays the character and also that’s character’s performance for the people around him. This can look showier than a lot of performances (I love, for example, how he takes his Star Wars assignment as “I can’t possibly do too much in this context”) but it’s true to the way people behave. And then the moments when he gets flustered and the top layer gets dropped are always amazing.
He’s such a great presence in Rogue One: feels like an icon who knows he’s an icon (appropriately) and uses it. And completely agreed on how well he uses those moments of being flustered, too.
Now I’m picturing a scenario where we get a different catchy rhyme from Shane about this every episode.
“You can chow without breaking your vow!”
“Oral ain’t immoral!”
“No penetration, just oral fixation!”
This deserves more upvotes than I can give it.
I’m hoping people try to riff on this. Here’s another: “Lingus, not dingus!”
No rail, no betrayal?
“Going down ain’t pound town!”
“Don’t give back the ring jus’ ’cause I performed cunnilingus!”
Love how the director/cameraman have Whitaker get a damn movie star entrance (last time it reminded me of how Bogart gets introduced in Casablanca), all back of the head, voice, and arms signing shit. Appropriate for that intensity and how important he is to the entire show.
Oh, yeah, it’s such an amazing intro. The episode really quickly makes the most of his size, too, letting him tower and lean: he feels out-of-scale sometimes in a way that plays up the almost mythical force of him.
Justified, S4 “Kin” – hell yeah hill people. Feels like a little while since Raylan and Boyd have gotten to interact at length so this episode was fun. Not really sure what to make of Colton Rhodes so far but he’s getting in over his head which always has good narrative possibilities. Patton Oswalt is a fun recurring character, loving that this world has room for people like him and Stephen Tobolowsky (who, erm, probably won’t turn up again after this episode).
Boyd’s “Hello, Raylan” out of the dark barn feels like it should be accompanied by a “filmed in front of a live studio audience!” chorus of exuberant glee. They’re always fun when they’re bouncing off each other.
Haha, yes – great moment! At first I thought Boyd was setting Raylan up but the fact that they’d both gotten captured while following the same lead was much funnier.
Live music — went out for my birthday to the bar and caught up with local hero Dennis Brennan and the White Owls, who has a residency I’ve been meaning to get around to. Always great to hear a band playing themselves into a groove, the first song warmed up and they were in full stride by the end — they play old blues/rock tunes and a few originals and it’s the how of the material more than the what, guitarists Tim Gearan and Steve Sadler (on slide) letting loose while Brennan added harmonica with his vocals. Great shit, at some point I need to take a Tuesday off and make a lost Monday night of this.
The Simpsons, “Itchy And Scratchy Land” — syndication cuts an additional time Bart stomps on a dope in a costume! Worse than Hitler, etc.
Happy Birthday!
Hell yeah birthday live music! Many happy returns.
Wooo, live birthdays!
Wooooo happy music!!
Here’s to a great year.
Woo, happy birthday AND live music!
Deep Water – Unconscionably attractive couple Melinda (Ana de Armas) and Vic (Ben Affleck) lounge their way around their social group. Melinda is clearly having a series of affairs and Vic don’t like it. Her last side piece has gone missing and rumors start to percolate that Vic murdered him. The origin of these rumors is Vic telling Melinda’s latest beau that he murdered the last one.
Is it true, and is Melinda deliberately playing with fire? We sleepwalk among the questions until a definitive answer, whose timing make it land with a shrug. There’s no tension in this movie because there’s no recognizable behavior in it. What do these people do all day while they wait for awkward social gatherings? Why does anyone – including and especially those who accused Vic of murder the last time they hung out – continue to accept invitations to do so again?
Some feinting at bigger meanings in the margins: Talk of Affleck making his fortune designing the microchips for drone warfare. A small debate around pulling their daughter from public school for a more competitive private option. These are doodles about the compulsion to cause harm to others while defending your economic perch maybe, but they’re too faint to read. Doesn’t help that there’s no indication Vic knows how to turn a computer on and I don’t believe for a second that either of these characters are parents, even bad ones. They have no existence offscreen and spend most of their time onscreen foggily trying to remember what their deal is.
Would have thought a de Armas/Affleck erotic thriller would be a can’t-miss proposition. Turns out sometimes you do need a roadmap.
Nationtime – A documentary of the 1972 Black Political Convention restored about fifty years later with the help of the Hollywood Foreign Press and Jane Fonda. A strong, well-made time capsule, though it accidentally reveals more than anything how American politics don’t really change, just the people do, like twenty-one-year-old, movie star charisma levels Jesse Jackson scorning both parties and giving black-on-black crime talking points. Looks like someone doesn’t have a time machine!
Showed a cult-interested friend Let’s Start A Cult during the Oscars. So much fun had here with Chip’s Kenny Powers-like weird, dramatic vocabulary and grand delusions, though Wes Haney is giving the best performance here, lots of underreactions and irritated glances. (My friend observed that cult leaders usually want a good second in command, hence why Chip is so fucking annoying to William.)
Grimsburg, “Training Wheels Day”
The mayor does a favor to his biggest donors and insists Grimsburg PD hire their son as a detective… turns out he’s a literal child, Otis the Kid Detective. But his own “detective agency” has a strong track record, and Marvin is determined to expose him as a fraud (and no one really wants him on the force)… but then the story takes a more unusual twist than that.
Meanwhile, Harmony sends Stan to, I dunno, some kind of weekend camp or something? by himself to make real friends, and since she’s sick, a dose of Marvin’s “barrel aged special cough syrup” is all it takes for her to meet Mr. Flesh, and ultimately realize Marvin could do a lot worse.
Pretty fun episode, I rather enjoyed it. (Also, another “Not Like Us” reference– I wonder if Grimsburg is going to have a weekly “Drake is a pedophile” joke.) I don’t know if anyone else is watching this.
The Great North, “Bots on the Side Adventure”
You may remember that the Tobins sold their old boat, the Mighty Kathleen, and replaced it with the Canal Breeze. Unfortunately, the “C” has long worn off, and the rest of the family is sick of the “Anal Breeze.” So they lobby Beef to rename the boat, mostly with Shark Tank-style pitches that are all really terrible. (Although I was somewhat fond of the “Madam Sandler.”)
And meanwhile, Ham fills in for the local not-Chuck E. Cheese animatronic band while the singer is on the fritz, and, uh, develops a crush on the animatronic guitarist, “Yeti Van Halen,” which makes him start to wonder if he’s settled down with Crispin too soon and is missing out on the dating world.
Pretty good on the whole, some goofy gags I enjoyed.
Credits gags: Kindergarten Cod, Mario Fart. (Also, the board game was “DMV: The Party Game” this time, when it’s been “Notary Public: The Game” for so long. Also also, the credits are updated this season with the Tobins’ new boat.)
Common Side Effects, “Hildy”
I dunno. I mean, I’m kinda interested and invested, as Marshall keeps trying to go further off grid to avoid the people after him, while Frances gets dragged away from all this by Rick to go on a work trip. But at the same time, while I’m invested, it’s still not as funny as I hoped. The raves I saw for it made me think it’d be a lot funnier. Not bad, though.
LURED: It’s fascinating how Hitchcockian motifs became integrated into the “gaslight” period crime films of the 1940s, although the time frame here is a bit more contemporary. The mix of humor and suspense, the uncanny framing of ordinary domestic objects and spaces, recurring visual and verbal motifs, and a voyeuristic gaze involving opera classes, mirrors and windows are in full swing, this time under the direction of Douglas Sirk. Even more intriguing is Lucille Ball as a plucky, fish out-of-water American heroine in London who assumes multiple identities, from showgirl to taxi dancer to undercover police officer to fashion mael and house servant, in pursuit of a serial killer . The concepts are more interesting than the execution, however, and while there are some rather bizarrely entertaining moments (particularly one with Boris Karloff as a paranoid, delusional clothing designer) the film is too episodic and tonally jarring. The cast, consisting of George Sanders and Charles Coburn, provides a reliable amiability and charm throughout.
A REAL PAIN—Maybe we are entering a phase where Linklater inspired walk-and-talks through touristy sanitized urban spaces will be a thing, and if so, that’s a positive sign. This may not be the most profound exploration of personal histories juxtaposed against the backdrop of larger events, but the relationships and formal organization of the film feels very organic even when the actor’s need for big, show stopping speeches emerges. This was more my thing than I realized.
What did we listen to?
Infinity, Smif-N-Wessun
Decent rap. I honestly enjoy listening to new rap and hip-hop even if I find it pretty disposable – it’s still fundamentally about self-mythologising, it sounds really pretty lately.
Growing Up In Public, Lou Reed
Probably my favourite Reed since Transformer. Everything he’s been doing the last few albums – the synths, the ironic voice – has come together with his songwriting.
Wrong Way Up, Brian Eno & John Cale
Nath brought this up on his Discord. I liked it a lot – Eno has a knack for making electronics sound like nothing else I’ve ever heard, but the duo together also manage to channel all sorts of other music – “The River” specifically sounds like they’re going for an Elvis thing.
This is interesting as there aren’t a ton of fans of Reed’s 80s synth period, where his Quine albums have a solid cult.
If you’re looking for more recent rap, might I suggest Australia’s own Genesis Owusu?
In more recently-released singles (late 2024 / early 2025), I like clipping.’s “Keep Pushing” and DARKSIDE’s “S.N.C.”
As someone did a “Kinks’ greatest songs” listicle which a friend linked to, I decided I was overdue listening to some Kinks. Their discography is quite large and as such not something I have properly explored. More work to come.
Also did the score from The Conversation, one of those film scores that is perfect within the confines of the movie but a bit hard to listen to as an album. But as the movie is not streaming where I can find it, this will have to do. (Somehow this was not nominated for an Oscar. (David Shire has an Oscar for Best Song, but no noms at all for Best Score.)
The Conversation is on Criterion through the end of the month. I may re-watch it this week.
“David Watts” “A Well-Respected Man,” and “Waterloo Sunset” are favorites of mine. Davies has a real specific, English bite to his writing that’s distinct from Lennon/McCartney, Jagger/Richards, etc. (Probably closest to Townsend in spirit but Davies is more materialist.)
1001 Albums, etc. – slowly getting back into this now that songwriting month is over. I also listened to some Lou Reed, don’t think I’ve heard “Berlin” in full before although I was aware of its reputation. Some pretty fantastic songs on there, especially the closing track – feels like it’ll be a grower but tough to live up to “Transformer” which I bought on CD in my teens and have loved for 25+ years.
Was surprised how much I enjoyed the first appearance of Genesis with “Selling England by the Pound”. A lot of prog doesn’t really work for me but I thought this was mostly great without crossing that line where it just sounds like virtuoso musicians amusing themselves. The big decisions here serve the songs and I had a lot of fun.
Finally I listened to Marvin Gaye‘s second appearance on the list, “Let’s Get It On”. Obviously I knew the title track, the rest of the album feels like iterations on that same theme which are never less than enjoyable but also possibly don’t quite have the same punch listened to by a single man sitting on a tram.
Blank Check, ET – really fun episode, good bits, good analysis. Catching up on the Jaws episode now too which is also pretty great, it’s a film I’ve seen plenty of times but after “The Shark is Broken” (which gets brought up and dismissed here by people who haven’t seen it) and this episode I might have to give it another viewing. I’ve never been quite as hot on the boat stuff just because I love the bustle of the town, but I feel like I now have a lot more context about the production and relationships which might add a little more depth.
It’s interesting how more people favor Gabriel Genesis over the Collins era with Selling England or Lamb Lies Down usually voted as their best overall. But it’s the Collins era that is played much more on classic rock radio. I think I’ve only ever heard Firth of Fifth and The Lamb Lies Down on the radio. Maybe it has something to do with song length, the lyrics or Gabriel’s voice (I know, but it’s an issue for some.) Interested to see if there is any PC Genesis on the list.
Just those two Genesis albums on the list! I only really know some of the singles from Collins-era Genesis, I’ve always thought “Invisible Touch” was a great pop song that avoids the unpleasant quality that a lot of solo Collins slips into (no solo Collins on the list but three Gabriel solo albums make it). I’ve always thought their voices were quite similar.
No solo Collins? Well, whoever made this list didn’t have two ears and a heart.
I really like the prog Collin’s Genesis. The Gabriel Genesis (which I would term art rock rather than prog) I can’t get behind. I disagree with vomas that the experiments serve the song. They just seem like some dudes fucking around to me. Haven’t listened to any of that stuff in a decade, though.
I can see that. It is very arty and proggy. So that probably has a lot to do with it not on the radio. Prog doesn’t even play well in classic rock circles.
“Mr. Sunshine” by Dogfeet — wait, did the English invent Krautrock? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwhM857NgCA
And of course, lots of Eleventh Dream Day: https://www.mediamagpies.com/it-works-for-tomorrow-a-bakers-dozen-from-eleventh-dream-day/
A 2005 audio production of Oedipus The King with Michael Sheen that brought me to tears, especially Sheen’s sheer, terrifying broken wreckage of a voice by the end. Truly pity and awe – I already want to listen again. The translation especially carries forward how much Oedipus is the first detective. His “flaw”* is not just his hubris but that he has to know, he must keep asking questions, millennia before cosmic horror echoed one crucial idea – knowing the truth won’t always give you peace. Not optional for Drunk Napoleon.
Brian Eno & John Cale, Wrong Way Up
I love this album, periodically just get in the mood for it. Actually found that happening twice last week, once during the week and once Friday night after our movie session. I have trouble describing it– the kind of sounds that don’t sound like anyone else you’d expect from Eno and Cale, but with a much more structured and even poppy heart than you might. I feel like this one always gets overlooked as a great album, probably due to it being overshadowed by the more prominent works of each respective artist.
You start to walk towards the station.
I walk toward the bus.
A group called Mike Gunther and his Restless Souls just came up on my station and the album is called “Burn It Down for the Nails.” This amuses me greatly.
Heh, “inevitable-but-blameless calamities” is a good summary of shoegaze in general. Noisy resignation. Listening to the previews, you’re dead on that the more rifftacular stuff is much more interesting, I like shoegaze well enough but there needs to be some direction. Forget blameless, who is this versus?
Year of the Month update!
March is going to be Silent Era Month, where you can join these writers in examining your favorite silent movies and anything else from the 1910s and ’20s!
Mar. 4th: Lauren James: The Most Dangerous Game
Mar. 11th: Bridgett Taylor: Something Fresh
Mar. 15th: Sam Scott: One Week/The High Sign/The Electric House
Mar. 20th: Cori Domschot: Steamboat Bill, Jr.
Mar. 24th: Tristan J. Nankervis – Birth of a Nation
Mar. 26th: Sam Scott: Peter and Wendy by J.M. Barrie
Mar. 27th: Lauren James: The Well of Loneliness
Mar. 31st: John Anderson: The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog
And in April, we’ll be movin’ on up to 1999, so you can write about any of these movies, albums, books, et al!
Apr. 7th: J. “Rodders” Rodriguez: The Scooby Doo Project
Apr. 16th: Sam Scott: Spongebob Season 1, Wakko’s Wish, Elmo in Grouchland, and/or Bartok the Magnificent
Apr. 28th: Tristan J. Nankervis: The Sixth Sense