LET THE BLOODY MOON RISE / WEDNESDAY NIGHT, ‘ROUND NINE
Hanif Abdurraqib wrote a brief essay to accompany the first official release of Let the Bloody Moon Rise and its live companion, Wednesday Night, ‘Round Nine. Read the full essay below:
For me, the greatest challenge in writing or creating anything hasn’t necessarily been in the work itself, not in the actual labor of creation, and not even in the anxiety that comes with the world’s reception of a finished product. It has been, more often, the understanding that one’s work enters the world in a time that is fixed. They cannot take the work with them, even as they evolve as people, even as the world changes around them and their old work is left to stand up on its own. An album, a book, a film, all of this output serves as a document of a time, and a person in that time. And for this, all of our work is imperfect and incomplete.
What any reissue does is offer an opportunity not to correct history, but to be generous to one’s past self with their present desires in mind. This hits for some artists differently than others, of course, depending on personal evolution. Turmoils and Triumphs that have complicated the already complicated nature of music being frozen in time.
Let The Bloody Moon Rise was recorded in the early 2010s. Musically, Kasey Anderson and his band The Honkies are sharp on the record – weaving seamlessly between blues, Americana, and all-out heavy rock. But as tight as the album sounds, Anderson himself moved through the record in a haze of anxiety, of holding up a life that was rapidly falling apart.
Another challenge in creating anything is that you, creator, are inextricably linked to the creation. And so, if you, creator, have become better or become an entirely new person. And so, for Kasey Anderson, reissuing Let The Bloody Moon Rise is a reclamation of the gifts the album has to offer. An album that was unlistenable for years, an album that, at the time, felt like the artist was revisiting a past that couldn’t have possibly produced something as stunning as this album is. A reissue is, also, a tool of correction. Especially in this case. The album is remastered, yes. But it is also sequenced anew, put in the order it was intended to be in when it was made. When thought about this way, this reissue is an offering from an artist who has a renewed relationship with themselves, and their work. Eager to have the world hear that work as it should have been heard in a time before this one.
Anderson claims to have no recollection of Wednesday Night, ‘Round Nine, which doesn’t dull how sharp the band sounds, especially when tumbling through “Who Do You Love?” with an enthusiasm rarely seen when that song is confronted, stretching the rendition out to the point of near exhaustion. But in Anderson’s lack of memory of the show, I think of something else: that we must have mercy for ourselves, even in the moments where we might not want to. The parts of us that have not been our best were also capable of some magic, and that magic deserves a life, if we can swing it. If we can, through pride or through growth or through sheer will, figure out a way to work past whatever shame or aversion might exist and mine for the good that lived among the chaos. This can only be achieved, of course, when the bad has been reckoned with, and continues to be wrestled with. And so, may these reissues serve as a reentry into a different world, pushed forth by a newer, better person. A different timeline for them to rest upon. One that doesn’t erase the first timeline, but uses it to braid together a brighter path for whatever might come next.
