This Awful Sizzling Sound

The Mountain Goats featuring Erik Friedlander “Lovecraft In Brooklyn” (Live on Fair Game) – On the album Heretic Pride, “Lovecraft In Brooklyn” is a moody, dynamic rocker, but in this live studio recording, John Darnielle and cellist Erik Friedlander dial down the volume but increase the tension so that each chord change feels a bit like giant invisible hands drawing tighter around the neck of the song’s deeply xenophobic protagonist. Friedlander’s parts dart along the outside of Darnielle’s acoustic chords, alternating between low melancholy, and high pitched paranoia. The song hits its peak as the character plunges to the depths of his fevered delusion and panic — “I woke up afraid of my own shadow — like, genuinely afraid.” He goes on to describe a vision of interstellar Cthulu-ish horror, but that one small moment in which he seems to acknowledge his irrationality is riveting, heartbreaking, and brilliant. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)