Cursive frontman Tim Kasher continues his graphic storytelling on sixth album Mama, I’m Swollen, out this week on Saddle Creek. He keeps it blunt and lyrically entertaining on the Omaha group’s moodiest LP yet, with song themes ranging from masturbation to tales starring Pinocchio. Kasher is guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with him.
Wanted to make a pitch for Martin McDonagh, an Irish playwright a friend turned me on to a few years back. Man, he’s pretty great; I borrowed The Beauty Queen Of Leenane And Other Plays, a small-ish 1996 book of three short plays, and have been hooked ever since. Another sweet friend got us tickets for his play The Pillowman a few years back when it was running in New York. Now, that was really amazing: chilling and strange and funny, with some great short tales, my favorite being a man locked in a small cell on the side of the road, facing two other cells with the signs “Rapist” and “Murderer” above either prisoner. Passersby would spit and curse at the rapist and murderer, but when they read the sign over our third prisoner, they would howl in disgust and terror, leaving the man wracked with guilt and fear: “What have I done, so much more terrible than rape and murder?” McDonagh’s most recognized work is his film, In Bruges. Pretty good—Netflix that shit.
