Anniversary of Surrealism 

A hundred years ago, in a world brewing with change, an idea emerged from the literary and artistic movement of the 1920s. The publication of André Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto in 1924 introduced groundbreaking ideas that challenged conventional notions of reality.

TEST SPIN: Xiu Xiu — Plays the Music of Twin Peaks

To all the trendy kids out there who still appreciate the darker side of things — all the goths who brightened their wardrobes after high-school but could never quite part with the misanthropy or thick eyeliner — it’s here, the fetish object which perfectly encapsulates your particular blend of angst and hipness. Released April 16 as a record-store day exclusive Xiu Xiu Plays the Music of Twin Peaks is a collector’s item for fans of Xiu Xiu, and fans of Twin Peaks, but most especially for that undoubtedly large intersection between the two sets. Adding, in my mind, to the album’s mystical quality is the fact that I can’t for the life of me track it down. My hunt started with a trip down to Angry Mom, which ended in disappointment when I learned that the album had sold out. After this, I assumed that I would simply end up listening to it through Spotify, as I would any other album these days, but as of yet, it is not available on Spotify, iTunes or any other digital outlet.

Surreal Slaps of Reality: Night Vale at the State

The stage at the State Theatre had a simple set-up — four microphones set up across the stage, a portion partitioned off by an arrangement table for music, a simple curtain as backdrop and speakers strategically placed to reverberate in the eardrums of the audience. Simple, neat and sensible for the live show “Ghost Stories” of the popular podcast Welcome to Night Vale. Welcome to Night Vale is a bi-monthly podcast — usually airing the 1st and 15th of every month — which follows the happenings of the fictional desert town of Night Vale through a community radio show hosted by a man named Cecil Gershwin Palmer (voiced by Cecil Baldwin). Started in 2012 by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor, the podcast is extremely charming and has a dark, deadpan sort of humor. It constantly plays with the subjects of the surreal, as Night Vale is filled with the unreal and the very, very weird, from the Sheriff’s (not so) secret police to a recently discovered civilization underground, accessible via the town’s bowling alley.