n my CD player is My Father My King by a band they call Mogwai, with whose work I am somewhat unfamiliar; my interest, however, was piqued when I heard that the band would release this, a 21-minute single based on an ancient Jewish hymn, recorded, also, by Steve Albini—sometimes I’m very particular about the way a record is produced, or about certain details of the way a record is produced, i.e. I to this day tend to feel Loveless is ruined for me by its strangely tinny drum sound, but when I heard Albini was twiddling the knobs (as they say) on this release I felt confident that its production would be to my liking, really, which is why I decided to spend $5.99 (no sales tax) on it despite my initial reservations that this record, which consists of one song, after all, one song that I may not even be that thrilled with, would not be something I would want to listen to over and over again (see also the intensity of this record, which wouldn’t you know it gets very loud—indeed, it’s beginning to do so as I write these words, as I write this sentence, which it is taking me some time to do, even though I have not put a great deal of care into the composition of, or rather the compositional ambition of, this particular sentence; anyhow I thought that the intensity of it could swamp everything else about it—that all I’d remember when it was over was a blur, that I’d forget that it was based on an ancient Jewish hymn, a prayer for forgiveness, a component of ritual, and that this would merely be some pretext to create white noise, which although it is sometimes enjoyable to listen to noise, although it is something I have enjoyed not only listening to but creating, down in the basement of my parents’ house in high school and early college, a basement that is furnished something like a pirates’ tavern, a Disney pirates’ tavern [there was always some strange thrill about the Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland, as though those at Walt Disney Inc. decided, in this geographical space, to abandon all pretense at wholesomeness and to let loose with the bloodthirsty amoral vibes that seemed to lurk under it all], but listening to this CD, which I am doing now, it is not attenuated summer nights in my parents’ basement with my friend that I think of but instead a woman who I have seen in my current environment, a woman who has a certain desperate quality, who stops passersby (including myself) to babble about communists, who I will now try to describe: she wrapped herself, sari-like, in white plastic bags, like the ones she carried; and in Newark we all had seen her, sometimes making her way along a highway’s divider with tiny footsteps, or else very long strides—it was usually these tiny footsteps, though, that she made when crinkling across library carpet to insistently copy paragraphs from the Wall Street Journal—and she seemed a medieval figure garbed against plague, lost in pious duty, lost in ritual, lost in illuminated Saxon manuscript—she liked to whisper to herself—and you should know, I guess, that it was one chill morning in February that, in the course of her travels on foot, she managed to find an unlocked rowhouse, and when its bedheaded tenant woke up to piss, then came downstairs to make coffee, he found her poking about in his refrigerator and musing in hushed tones on biological warfare; she was not unfriendly; she even presented a housewarming gift; an offering as they stood at the end of the world—the gift was a casserole which she made according to this set of instructions: preheat oven to 450°; drop 2 cups Noodles into 3 quarts boiling, salted water—½ teaspoon salt to the quart—or chicken stock, consommé, etc.; boil for about 8 to 10 minutes, depending on size and your taste preference; drain in a colander; drain 1 cup canned tuna fish [removing the tuna from the cans, in mealy, squat gray cylinders, each with a certain heft to them, was what she thought was the best part] [boy, is it ever difficult to transcribe a tuna casserole recipe from an index card you transcribed it onto from an old cookbook you found in the basement of your college library, earlier, doing your research for this record review, while some of the most fearsome metallic guitar death-knell in your recent memory is assaulting your ears, but, understand, in the best possible way, in the Public Enemy way, the Phil Spector way] [the drums, as you could expect from Albini’s production technique, are very fierce too]; separate it with a fork into large flakes—do not mince it—grease an ovenproof dish; arrange a layer of noodles, then sprinkle it with fish and so on; have noodles on top; and it was this, this order of things, that kept her safe from harm—and it’s this that makes me think we all have our rituals, for just as she made casseroles I buy CDs and Mogwai enjoy blowing our ears clean off our heads at unexpected times, which I think they are very good at, you know, on this particular release.