My name is Kate, I live in New Orleans and am interested in all sorts of things, mostly music.

My email is kate.reissig@gmail.com

It’s been a Cameron Winter winter for me. It took me nearly an entire year to come around to Heavy Metal after dismissing it as gimmicky the first time I heard it. Now I can’t get enough.

My favorite track is one of the more gentle on the album, Cancer of the Skull. Produced and arranged by Mr. Winter himself, its instrumentation is easily the best on the record. Each instrument kind of meanders its way into the song, culminating into a sweet, rambling symphony. It has a jazzy, improvisational quality not unlike Astral Weeks. However unlike Astral Weeks, it retains a kind of sparseness easily reminiscent of Leonard Cohen’s early work.

One detail I LOVE is the use of the the mouth harp, commonly known as the Jew’s harp- a 4,000 year old instrument that has been used in cultures across the world for shamanistic/ ritualistic purposes. For me, it’s used most notably Leonard Cohen’s second album, Songs from a Room. You can listen to A Bunch of Lonesome Heroes to hear it most clearly. Leonard also mentions it in Last Year’s Man, “that’s a Jew’s harp on the table.” I recognized it immediately, not knowing what exactly was. It adds a beautiful, inspired depth to the song that I just looooove.

Lyrically, Cancer of the Skull is also one of the strongest on the record. “I am wired to the man/ I take the train at dawn for him/ I threw the horrible secret out.” Taking the train at dawn for the man has a Lou Reed flavor to it, I think. “I came up to sleep in your infamous kitchen/ you’re holding out your baby’s shoes, I can’t take em/ I pray to a pirate’s maniac religion.” It reminds me loosely again of Astral Weeks, “taking good care of your boy/ seeing that he’s got clean clothes putting on his little red shoes/ pointing a finger at me.”

Another beautiful moment is after the second refrain, about four and a half minutes into the song, when the instrumentation breaks down and the clarinet shines through one final time and and each instrument meander’s its way out, lingering for just a few moments longer.