Memphis rap is my only truly seasonal musical interest. There are the obvious Halloween tie-ins, but it’s more than that - the music is bleak, cold, and nihilistic, balancing the difficulty of a dire situation with the certainty that it will only get worse. It’s music for when you first notice the days getting shorter, for when winter is imminent and suddenly it’s a little hard to remember summer.

Oh baby. This thing starts up and every positive thought you've ever had about LCD Soundsystem is at attention - at some point, the plodding, saturated bass synth transcended mere recognizability and became a full-on sonic signature. It's a refreshing, exciting moment, recalling the universally good feelings that accompany everyone's bank of Dance Yrself Clean memories.

I haven’t been to an old folks’ show in a minute, but it turns out they’re the best ones. The rush for seating aside (this was at the Denver Botanic Gardens, where you’re apparently allowed to line up as early as you please; for the average attendee, approximate age one hundred and seven, this was apparently 2pm, right after Ellen), they’re the ideal audience; shriveled enough to minimize their footprint and passed out off half a glass of that strong chablis, twenty minutes into the show you and the grandchildren might well be the only living audience members.

Despite being slated for release tomorrow, this thing somehow still hasn't leaked, which puts me in a tough spot. Contrary to the ugly, oddly specific rumors that today's issue is late because I decided to finish The Leftovers instead of transcribing the Octo Octa interview last night, it's actually due to having spent the day puzzling over what to do here. I was close to trying to spin some bullshit music writing verbiage sound unheard, using phrases like sparkling percussion and leaden synthesizer pulses, but in the meantime ended up executing an ill-fated wait-and-see that still hasn't paid dividends.

This interview almost didn't happen, by which I mean that I almost didn't strike up a conversation with Octo Octa after seeing her in a pizza shop and ask if we could do an interview later on. A neat thing about festivals, which actually happens almost as much as marketing materials would have you believe, is the unplanned discovery of new acts in the downtime between the ones you're there for. The young lord Mitch Hatch had just sold me on catching Octo Octa's set a little later on when she walked into Pie Pushers and sat down right beside us.

You have an idea of what this sounds like, and you're mostly correct. A little less baroque, maybe, but the grizzly boys are doing that same thing they did 5-8 years ago to, somehow, not at all reduced effect. Really, this sounds like the very zeitgeist of 2011, inexplicably aged well as hell.

Hoo boy, y’all should see the sentimental garbage that I wrote during my first attempt at this (you shouldn’t actually, and you never will).