#and they're almost unsearchable because of how long ago it was | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lookninjas · 4 months

Text

Love Theme from House of Leaves

So.

POE.

Like I said, I don't usually explain the Bad Descriptions from my Bad Description Song Polls. Some of them I work hard on, some of them are just bad puns on the song lyrics or titles or whatever, but ultimately, the bad descriptions aren't really the point. The point is to get a couple people curious about artists they might not have heard before by erasing any preconceptions they might have about the artist, the genre, whatever. It's a goofy little game about my very serious love of music and my genuine desire to get people to experience the joys of just trying something new.

But then there's POE. Right? Specifically, there is Haunted by POE, an album that just straight up every time turns me into a four-hour video by an obsessed YouTuber down a really deep rabbit hole. Which is absolutely fitting, because as it turns out, Haunted comes from the same place as Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves.

You see, POE's real name is Anne Danielewski. Mark is her brother. And, regardless of the protests of the dudes on the MZD forums back in 2004, HoL and Haunted come from the same place -- the death of their father, Tad Danielewski, and their subsequent attempts to reconcile their complicated emotions about their perfectionist father, their estranged mother, and their shared and separate childhoods. The works contrast and complement -- House of Leaves is a labyrinth for the reader to wander; Haunted is a cache of tapes from a lost loved one that both sheds light on the past and casts preconceived notions into doubt. They reference each other (the "Poe T" in HoL, the "growling voice" in "Hey Pretty"), but don't require each other.

Even their creation is tangled. She read his book as he was writing it; he listened to her songs as she recorded them. He read a passage of his book over top of the album's first single when she was told radio was "just not playing women;" she took him on tour with her when she was opening for Depeche Mode. It was from the start a kind of double act.

And then it just wasn't anymore.

If there's a villain in this story, it is -- in a weird twist of foreshadowing -- WarnerMedia. Specifically, it is the disastrous AOL -- Time Warner merger, which saw POE unceremoniously dropped from Time Warner subsidiary Atlantic Records just six weeks after she'd signed a contract with them for three more albums. Copies of second single "Wild" were never sent to radio. Support for the album dried up. The ensuing legal wrangling saw POE's masters sold and resold from one label to another, while POE wound up unable to tour or record under her own pseudonym for years. So while House of Leaves went on to (deserved) classic status, Haunted disappeared.

I am not alone in finding this terrifically unjust. Mark Z. Danielewski himself calls the album "woefully underappreciated." Granted, he's biased, but so am I. I was a POE fan before House of Leaves was published. I discovered HoL through Haunted, although both came in close succession. For me, part of the mystery of the book is how it tangles with the album, how two people can go through the same maze and come out of it in such different locations, the same story told in different languages. But also...

I mean, it's just a hell of an album. Her voice is extraordinary. Her lyrics blend the metaphoric and the extremely literal in terrific ways. The mix of electronica, hip-hop, pop, and experimental is absolutely wired to my tastebuds (there's a reason she wound up invited on tour with the Depeche Mode, after all), and the overall work is plaintive, empowering, heartbreaking, and occasionally terrifying. It's so good. It's so, so good. I would almost be okay if this were her last ever album, it's that good.

I just wish more people were listening to it, you know?

So consider this my call to arms. If you are a House of Leaves fan, or even if you're not, even if the footnotes left you cold, give Haunted a listen. Just a couple songs. Just a taste.

Someone who loves you left a stack of tapes sitting by a boom box for you. Put one in. Press play.

#poe #mark z. danielewski #poe (musician)#haunted #house of leaves #sidenote: you don't appreciate how long ago some things happened until you're trying to find all the primary sources you remember #and they're almost unsearchable because of how long ago it was #twenty-something years wow

18 notes · View notes