in the cold up north

February 6th, 2025

it’s early in the morning and i am crossing a body of water on a ferry. i’ve been visiting a friend on an island that they reside on. i’m listening to a demo tape of seek the holy by lady queen paradise* that a friend a gifted me in the recent months. i’ve seen them play a few times in the city i live in and every performance is so different but also they all feel tied together in a way that feels timeless and linear but not linear at all. i love the sound quality of this tape, i assume they dubbed it themselves because it sounds similar to the tapes i dub myself. the second half of beautiful house hits as i see some seals on the rocks absorbing the morning sun. i suppose i’m doing that in my own way. the sun keeps coming through the window in time with the bobbing of the vessel, because of this it feels like the sun is being pulled up and down my face like a warm wash cloth. we hit the main land as mule in the stable comes on. i pause the tape.  


i press play again and begin to think of how memories with either become stronger or more romanticized or distorted. #1 with a bullet starts to play and i begin to cry will sitting on a bench and someone i knew in a different life approaches me 
[THE SECOND HALF OF THIS PARAGRAPH WAS REDACTED AT THE REQUEST OF ABE] 


it’s now late afternoon and the sky is becoming a soft tone of yellow. i’m walking through a snow covered field in a very rural town. i’m listening to a kenduskeg* tape i got at a show in 2018. it’s a 32 minutes instrumental guitar improvisational song titled pine tree. the first 7 minutes are a very very loud drone of slamming guitar and a simple high pitched melody over everything. the brutal cold is hitting my face cutting and stinging but in a way that gives me a sensation of being alive. i’m walking back to the house i’m staying at, passing a small cemetery in the corner of a cow pasture. the back half of the tape is more ambient and synth based i really like how some of the loops are a little off but jes fills gaps with something to make an off rhythm trance. i arrive back and make a cup of instant coffee and put on a miles davis tape.  


until next time  


abe
♒
its/it  


index* 


lady queen paradise: 
the details are in the songs / 
ladyqueenparadise.net 


kenduskeg is the first project from jes grn based out of either maine or somewhere in pnw right now, it’s hard to keep track of them sometimes. you can still hear call backs to kenduskeg deep cuts in the music their putting out now you should check out autumn//2017 by kenduskeg on bandcamp