Marilyn Carino

Sometimes, when you're sitting at the edge of your bathtub, with a fresh pack of razorblades. You think to yourself, what would be the best soundtrack to listen to while I bleed out into my own warm, pink-watered oblivion? Oh wait, that's just me? Well, fuck you AND your happiness! For the other six billion people in the world, beside you (twat), we have Marilyn Carino and her new album Leaves, Sadness, Science.

I know what you're thinking. The album title sounds like its going to be the illest party record of all time since "Whoop, There it is" by Tag Team. Well, you're in luck, it's not.

The whole album is like a triumphantly depressing Dan Lish drawing. Also, if you dont know who Dan Lish is we can't be friends. Leaves, Sadness, Science is an electronically driven, synthed-out, drum machine bliss of an album. Carino's voice has power to sustain a song, even if there's nothing but a droning bassline vibrating thru the speakers.

When "Tell Me" starts, I just imagine I ran up to the top of a giagantic mechnical mushroom made of people's souls. Once at the peak, wielding my fresh razorblade, the thump of the beat has turned into my actual pumping heart rhythm. At that height, you can feel the wind on your face and the warmth of Hell waiting for you at the bottom.

You look down, "Fissure" starts and you let yourself drop, basically allowing yourself to enjoy the air rushing by your ears. "In Case of the Punks" lets teardrop parachutes come out of your eyes, as you watch the sea of dead bodies from the people before, violently speed towards your face. The only thing that saves you, is the fact that "When the Innocents Go to War" comes on, all those teardrop parachutes actually deploy and yank you back into the air for a brief moment.

Whipping and floating around, you feel like you made it and maybe you didn't actually want to die. "Paen a la Nina" lingers in the air and you realize that if you keep looking down, you can see that your soul is still falling because you died. You watch in horror as it tumbles into the pit of tortured spirits eagerly reaching and snapping for it. "Eden" is just the peace you feel when you've accepted what you are seeing, and the beauty in the nightmare. Your feet touch the ground. Reality comes rushing back. "Science" is pulsating in your veins, saying "C'mon", maybe it's not so bad.

Dropping the razorblade into the tub, you turn the water off. You stand up. You get dressed. You adjust the volume a little bit more for "Veda". You take control. You call your best friend and ask them to go have lunch. They answer and accept. Life has many pitfalls that try and trap you. BUT... It also has many things to look forward to. As you get into your car, "War and Peace" plays out for the ride. It's dusk out and has that red hue in the sky. You drive into it like an old 80's movie where everything works out. Except, life doesn't always work out. Your car turns into a Semi-truck, you are Jack Burton, and one of Lo Pan's monsters is lurking beneath.

Marilyn Carino crafted this whole world by herself. It reminds me of the first time i listened to Thom Yorke's Eraser. The music is hers and her voice is uniquely hers. The only help she got was from Mike Mills ( R.E.M. bassist ) on "War and Peace". All of Leaves, Sadness, Science sounds like if you were sad when you died, your even more sad ghost, who was also a Moog whiz, made an album in your honor to only be played in the pitch black of night.