Tag: His Name Is Alive

Warren Defever of His Name Is Alive

Return to Never: Revisiting Early His Name Is Alive

During the past year that took so many things away from us, including the catharsis of live music, I’ve increasingly relied on listening to LPs in their entirety, rather than my iPod on shuffle. 

All the Mirrors in the House: Early Recordings 1986-1990 (Disciples), the first of 3 volumes revisiting His Name Is Alive’s earliest cassette experiments, hit a perfect chord for me during this bizarre stasis-time we’re all trapped in; songs like “Piano Rev” feel unstuck in time and fathomless (a very now feeling). But it’s hopeful, too — it reminds me of standing at the edge of Lake Michigan at night for the first time. I just remember this vast, inky black inland sea with no edges, extending as far as the eye could see. It was awesome and transfixing, like staring into deep space. 

Vaughan Oliver (4AD/v23)

Vaughan Oliver: A Bit of Urgh, a Bit of Ooh

Vaughan Oliver/v23 Exhibit

Vaughan Oliver retrospective exhibit at Lesley University, Sept-Oct, 2017

If I had to sum up the work of maverick graphic designer Vaughan Oliver in a single phrase, it would have to be “jolie laide” — drolly defined by literary critic Daphne Merkin as “a triumph of personality over physiognomy, the imposition of substance over surface.” (It can also be translated, roughly, into “beautiful ugly” — apropos, in this case.)

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