That "Biblically Accurate Angel" meme from a few years back was funny, wasn't it? Macros of arcane-looking figures, or some MC Escher-looking hemorrhoid, or a face with too many eyeballs dropping into your timeline unannounced to create a contrast with the soft, approachable portrayals of angels your grandmother preferred. The joke required you to view spirituality, especially the Abrahamic variety, as fundamentally alien. Thereby causing any alarming depiction of a Biblical character to appear more real to you than whatever comfort the graying matriarch of your family may have drawn from images of holy messengers that fall far short of nourishing your nightmares. But what line are those angels famous for dropping when they barge in on your life with a DM from the big man? Something like, "Be Not Afraid?" Sounds like they want you to have a normal one and not get all hung up on their looks. There is a lesson in there somewhere. Maybe more than one. Such as it's not how someone looks but what they have to say that is important. Even if that someone is a transcendent being, who is unperturbed by the way their body defies the laws of physics. Another important takeaway is that it's ok to take comfort from unusual sources. For instance, I did not expect to enjoy Generifus's album Rearrangel as much as I did, and I think one of the things that made it so enjoyable is how much I felt like I could relax while it was spinning. The Olympia artist has a truly enduring ability to embody the familiar in his original music in a way that makes it feel like it has always kind of been around- watching you, guarding you, making sure you didn't get into the wrong types of mischief, but most of all making you feel at ease. He has a swaying kind of lilt to his vocal delivery that leans heavily into a reedy drawl wetted with a honeyed dew. The whimsy of folk harmonies that are layered throughout Rearrangel balances the scales with pop-psych permutations and indie rock optimism like a feather weighed against a blameless soul. It stirs up vessels of Kurt Vile with a base of refreshing and lightly carbonated K Records drafts to keep you in a flow of evanescence, like you are always breathing in fresh mountain air, even in the depth of a muggy city night. It's uncanny how this record snuck up on me. I wasn't looking for it, and yet it found me. But more importantly, it has reached me like a tiding of joy from a benevolent and kindly source, one located in the warm cockle of another human heart. It's a record written from a perch of positivity that permits one to see the farthest extent of creation and know that it is good. I don't need to be afraid. I just need to move some things around so that I can fit more of Rearrangel into my life.
Grab it from Anything Bagel or Bud Tapes (I don't have a preference).
