Stephen Mejias

Not how. I mean to say: I should tell you something about the circumstances surrounding my personal act of listening.

Throughout college, Michelle and I—along with our very good friend, Todd—played in a performance art/noise rock band called Genie Boom. We took the name from the sky-blue steel beast that you sometimes see at construction sites, or on highways, or—here in New York City—even on Madison Avenue; the same sky-blue steel beast that I once used to propel myself a hundred feet into the air to install all sorts of I-don’t-know-what along the tanks and pumps and whatever else that make up Firmenich, the chemical plant where I worked at the time. They make flavors and fragrances; much of what you taste and smell everyday comes from Firmenich. I spent four summers there, painting curbs and railings “emergency yellow,” watching flaming bits of iron fall from the welders’ gloved hands, finding beauty in how smooth a beveled pipe could be.

Carla Bozulich’s new album, Boy, will be released by the great Constellation Records on March 4th. Though Bozulich may be best known for her work with The Geraldine Fibbers, or the darker, more experimental material of her Evangelista moniker, Boy will be the third full-length album released under her own name. As such, one might expect to hear a more personal, honest, and bare representation of the artist’s sound and vision; interestingly, Boy is being promoted as Bozulich’s “pop record.”