I’m a fan of neologisms. In fact, I’m such a fan, that I love to make my own neologisms. In fact, I create new words and expressions on a daily basis. I usually fashion one up by combining two short words together in order to come up with a dual-syllable, evocative, unusual word. And sometimes, such experimentation can be infectuous.

For instance, the other day, my friend Tim and I were chatting about that 2001-Nude mashup, and I told him I thought it was “hotworth.” He seemed befuddled, and I expected as much, so I did not hesitate to explain to him that it was a combination of “hot” (as in “desire”) and “worthy” to express that what you are seeing is entitled to being coveted by people.

Appreciative, he told me that my proposition was anything but “boxdump.” As I raised an eyebrow, he informed me that “boxdump” signifies something which you immediately and singularly disregard without a second thought. Like something you’d hide in a box because you don’t even want to give it the significance of seeing it as you throw it awa. signifies something that you dislike so that you hide it in a box before actually dumping it to rubbish, being so repulsed you cannot just simply discard it by fear of people realising it was once yours.

We therefore established that boxdump was the opposite of hotworth, and swore to utilise the two in everyday parlance whenever possible. In that respect, Decemberists drummer John Moen’s solo project Perhapst is hotworth, especially when you give a listen to the shrewd and hooky “Quote” (which includes the, um, quotes, yes).

Handclaps guide the opening, somewhat sharp guitar twangs into an acoustic surface of glimmering folk craving, bitter and petulant, as Moren’s vocals convey a downtrodden, exhausted resentment, which wafts aggrievedly throughout the song. Psychedelic arrangements provide the substance of the song’s ringing melody with supporting female vocals, shimmering disquietly amidst the low roll of a vibrating hammond and the sagaciously contemptuous “la-la-la” chorus. As the bridge shifts into an eager dolefulness, Moren’s supple control and savvy instrumentation has created a captivating, layered, moody hymn which irradiates among the strongest psych-folk moments to have emerged this year.

Definitely not boxdump.

MP3: Perhapst - "Quote"

myspace.com/perhapst

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 at 2:08 pm and is filed under download, free, MP3, Music, perhapst. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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