RECORD STORE TALES #1250: Change of a Season
And so Summer 2026 rolls to its end. This is our final weekend at the lake this year. Closing time is upon us, and now it is time to reflect.
Like all summers, we must expect the unexpected. Harrison has been out of commission since June and without my cohost and partner, I did a lot less Grab A Stack of Rock than previous years. This time we tried something new: guests hosts. It gave me a break from having to run the show every Friday (and I did want it to continue running every Friday because of the momentum we built up). I also did a few pre-recorded episodes on my phone that were unlike anything we’d done before: Tours of both Grab A Stack HQs, and a voyage through my old Atari 2600 collection.
Food-wise, we broke new ground with our amazing French Lemonade, and the discovery of local quail eggs for sale. This allowed us to continue our food experiments that we try to do every year.
Mostly though…I have been quiet.
I haven’t been writing much, aside from fiction. I realize now that Jen had a two week stay in Toronto in the epilepsy ward that I haven’t written about. It went well. She was there for 15 days of observations, and we hope that they can learn where her seizures are coming from so they can be better targeted by drugs. She’s done this before, so hopes are actually minimal, but it had to be done. No sacrifice, no victory. During those two weeks, I went to the cottage alone. It was my first weekend alone there in over two decades.
It’s amazing I haven’t written about these things. I haven’t written a journal in almost two months.
And so Summer 2026 was not really documented by stories and videos like I usually do. I suppose that’s not so bad. We lost track of all the music we played to and from the lake, and all the albums that made their debut on the porch. However, one band made an indelible impact on Summer 2026: Angine de Poitrine.
It was our first or second weekend back at the cottage in 2026. It was Sunday morning, and I was bored waiting for Jen to wake up so we could pack up and go home. I had seen this band around online, but was not interested. “Another duo,” I said. “Pass!” Still, I was hearing a lot of praise, and I already liked microtones. In my boredom, I put Live at KEXP on the TV and watched.
20 minutes later, a blown-away me watched it again. And then one more time.
There is a mixture here between music and sport. It’s athleticism, watching Klek and particularly Khn de Poitrine play. Khn engages the loops while playing on two necks, and twiddling knobs with his toes. Athleticism with melody!
I got home and started hunting for CDs. I had to own this band’s music! It had nothing to do with the image. The image (black and white polka dot alien costumes with huge noses) was just visual icing. The music itself hit me in a place I didn’t know I needed to be hit! It was like scratching an itch I didn’t know I had. And the songs were bizarrely catchy. This band…they had something. They dominated the front porch for the entire summer. I don’t know how many times I played both albums, plus Live at KEXP from the porch. Hopefully the neighbors thought it was the weirdest music they ever heard.
I made animations on the porch while listening to Angine. I wrote fiction. I just sat back and observed.
Summer 2026 is gone now, and I didn’t keep a record of it. And I guess that is OK.
Fall and winter await, and many creative projects are ready to get us through. I await not with dread, but with anticipation.
Allons-y.
