« November 2004 | Main | January 2005 »
December 17, 2004
Quick and Dirty Hiatus (tiny mix)
1) Orange Juice - Wan Light
2) Panda Bear - Mich Mit Einer Mond
3) Bark Psychosis - Shapeshifting
4) Arcade Fire - Woodland National Anthem
Well. For the next few (3) weeks, I won't be posting here, since the computer I'll be working from is a circa 1987 laptop. It weighs about as much as a bear cub. Needless to say, I won't have any access to any of my mp3 collection (much to my chagrin), but I figured I'd put these four up here now, as a sort of present/consolation. There's no unifying concept to these tracks, outside of their excellence, but I do think they all have a vague, wintry feel to them (esp. the Panda Bear and Bark Psychosis songs).
One note: the Arcade Fire track is from their self-released mini-LP, which I first heard about in this post at Said the Gramophone. I'm kicking myself for not buying that mini-LP when I was considering it in July, because it's now sold out beyond measure, and the band is only selling a few re-pressed copies on their upcoming tour. People are going Ebay-insane over it. Oh well. At least there's other ways of getting it.
I'll be back to writing this in mid-January (around the 13th or so). Happy holidays to everyone- thanks for reading.
Kevin
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM
December 16, 2004
Grab your Silk Stockings
Mount Eerie - 2 Blonde Braids
Phil Elvrum sings his words in what sounds like discrete bunches, like they've been broken off of some longer, meandering soliloquy. It has the effect of packing his lyrics with both elegance and impact. In '2 Blonde Braids', which is from the 'Seven New Songs' EP released this past summer, Elvrum has a dialogue (in a sense) with the aforementioned hairstyle- he describes them in intricate detail at first, and then attributes the braids with the quotes, 'can you imagine me in your bed at dawn?', to which Elvrum replies, 'kids with my face/can you see them/tiny and blonde?'.
One of the most remarkable things about this track are the drums- they're aggressive, and remind me a lot of the rhythm track from the Microphones song 'Lanterns', which was brooding and tense, even though the lyrics in 'Lanterns' were much more hopeful than the story told in '2 Blonde Braids'. The end of this is gorgeous though- awash with static, Phil's double-tracked vocals come floating through cymbal crashes and weird bass storms and then it just collapses into hiss and feedback. It all bodes well for the full-length, which is still apparently in the 'very early stages' of recording.
Oh, and yeah, there's no way you can find this record anywhere (there were only like a dozen copies available or something ridiculous), unless you search it out on Slsk.
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM | Comments (3)
December 15, 2004
Little Birds
Jeff Mangum - Live at Jittery Joe's - I Love How You Love Me
This is a cover of the Paris Sisters' Phil Spector-produced hit single, and it's a good showcase for Jeff Mangum's singing. 'Live at Jittery Joe's', which is a record of Mangum playing Neutral Milk Hotel songs at an Athens bookstore/coffeeshop, was the first NMH material I had ever heard, and was unlike anything I had ever heard before. Songs like 'Two-headed Boy', 'Engine', and 'Baby for Pree' were almost frightening in their intensity- Mangum's lyrics, coupled with his wrenching delivery, made 'Jittery Joe's' one of the most emotional and oddly voyeuristic records of 2001.
Which is why this song is so compelling- Mangum isn't singing his own words here, and the arrangement is so sparse and wholesome. Despite the facts that 1)this song was originally sung by a woman, and 2) released 40 years prior to Mangum's performance, he puts so much passion into it, singing with an unreserved enthusiasm. It's almost perverse to hear a man who's written songs about ovaries and freezing Siamese twins sit down and earnestly belt out such a slinky (but chaste) girl group ballad. Fantastic.
You can buy 'Live at Jittery Joe's' right here, it's definitely worth it. (quick note: the song only lasts about to the 2:20 mark of the file, then there's about a minute of Mangum discussing the song 'Engine')
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM
December 14, 2004
Move Along
Radiohead - Gagging Order
This song follows in the tradition of Radiohead B-sides that are almost uniformly better than most other bands' album output. 'Gagging Order' is like 'Polyethelene pt. 1', 'True Love Waits', and 'Motion Picture Soundtrack' (before Kid A, when it turned into an organ dirge), in that it's just Thom Yorke and a well-picked acoustic guitar. This track was actually written around the same time as the Kid A/Amnesiac sessions (when it was known as 'Move Along'), but never recorded/released until the 'Go to Sleep' single. Radiohead has always been an interesting band for the songs that they keep unreleased, most of which are floating around SLSK in different live/demo incarnations: Big Boots/Man O'War (which the band tried to record as the theme song for 'The Avengers'- probably best that they weren't successful), Big Ideas/Nude, Follow Me Around, Reckoner, etc., and all of which are well worth your time (esp. Man O'War and Big Ideas, which are probably two of the best songs that Yorke has ever written).
Radiohead were a 'gateway' band for me- when I bought OK Computer as a little 17 year old, it was a risk, aesthetically. Listening to that album and going through their back catalogue made me want to read about the band and their influences- to find more music like what they made. A quick list of bands that I sought out as a direct consequence of liking Radiohead: Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Elliott Smith, Belle & Sebastian, Can, Neu!, the Fall, Blur, Autechre, Aphex Twin. It's staggering to think about just how much my tastes (in music and in literature (the band often used to namecheck authors like John Cheever, Jonathan Coe, Delmore Schwartz, Naomi Klein, and Joe Orton)) have developed due to the influence of a band. I think there are certain types of bands that encourage this sort of musical curiosity, and it always surprises me when I hear about how other people come to the realization that the music that's played on the radio isn't the totality of music available.
Anyway, that was sufficiently inarticulate. Comment away, my friends! Litigate away, Parlophone/EMI!
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM
December 13, 2004
Attack of the Hellidoctors
Slowreader - Politics, Music, and Drugs
This song lightly addresses the issue of social anxiety disorder. Slowreader, which is/was the two main songwriters from the Impossibles (Gabe Hascall and Rory Phillips), has created an inviting atmosphere out of acoustic guitars, hand claps, tight harmonies, and soaring choral vocals. 'Politics, Music, and Drugs' captures that post-party letdown particularly well- or more accurately, the unraveling and splintering of participants (both with respect to location and emotions) following the climax of a party.
Gabe sings, 'I don't have many ways/to tame the boring but/if you'd like to stay/I'll tell you all I know/about politics, music, and drugs/and then it's time to go', as a last-ditch effort to push his companion away from thinking about her warm, comfy bed and into thinking about where this party (which is down to just the two of them) is heading next.
This is from one of my favorite albums of last year (which I was introduced to by my brother), and despite that fact, or maybe because of it, I have a hard time writing about it- or at least writing about the reasons why I like it so much. I will say that it's good 'disappointed music', in that it justifies and nurtures any sort of malaise. Basically, you put this music on when you're in a bad mood and you want something that's sympathetic and pretty. It's very good for that. Purchase it for your next down-swing.
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM | Comments (4)
December 10, 2004
Intuition Told Me (Part 1)
Orange Juice - Tender Object
So, yes, I can admit it: the Smiths were good. Despite the fact that Morrissey's singing makes me feel like I'm struggling through the chills phase of the flu, I can at least admit to myself and others that the Smiths' music is, in some sense, 'good'. (I also have an irrational dislike for Dylan's music too- might as well throw that out there for hatemailers' convenience).
But this isn't about me, or the Smiths. Orange Juice is a lot like the Smiths, but about 100 times more interesting (in my opinion). They formed in 1976 in Glasgow, and issued the album that this song comes from, 'You Can't Hide Your Love Forever', in 1982, on the legendary Postcard Records label. '...Can't Hide Your Love...' is a debut of the same order as Belle & Sebastian's 'Tigermilk'- it's so fully realized and pop-dominant as to be almost unbelievable.
'Tender Object' lurches to a slowly strummed jangle-guitar start, and then shifts gears when Edwyn Collins and James Kirk quickly and percussively embrace their instruments (guitars), and David McClymont's bass runs around like a baby with no pants on (unreservedly). The drums are alternatingly high school marching band (in a good way) and then disco-hot. The real story here though is with Collins' voice and the strangling, leaping guitar lines that he and Kirk play. You can hear Collins' vocal tone in the phlegm-coated, tan whsiper of Morrissey and in the light, playful fey-outs of Stuart Murdoch (who, incidentally, counts Orange Juice as one of his favorite bands). To force-analogize the sound of the guitars, let's say they're like two competing plants, heliotropic and twisted, fighting each other for the best chunk of sunlight.
This song is just gorgeous. I like all the music that I post on this site, but I really like this song, no kidding this time. You might have some trouble finding the album though, in its CD form, since it's been out of print for a bit. Look here and here, and you can see what I mean. Someone needs to re-issue OJ's albums, post-haste. Anyway, if you're jonesing for more of their stuff, keep in mind that Edwyn Collins went on to release the song, 'A Girl Like You', which was sort of a big hit in '95 (as featured on an episode of the ultra-realistic 'Party of Five'), and which you can probably easily get from L'Amazon. Lets see if we can start up an Orange Juice revival- maybe they'll reunite and tour. Seems to be the thing to do these days.
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM | Comments (3)
December 09, 2004
Bait your hooks with paper worms
Fog - Pneumonia
This song is made of: lemon-scented Pledge, television static, used bath towels, and slate-gray clapboard shutters. Fog is Andrew Broder, from Minneapolis, and this is one of his best songs, by far. It's from his first album (self-titled) on Ninja Tune, which was filled to the brim with mostly turntable manipulations- with 'Pneumonia' being one of the only tracks that he actually lent his own vocals to. Broder's singing gets compared to Neil Young a lot, but he's also in the same range and nasal-style as, say, Doug Martsch from Built to Spill.
I first heard 'Pneumonia' in January, and it fits that month perfectly- the post-Christmas letdown and subsequent return to the working life, with the long, vacationless stretch of February and March looming ahead always makes January an excruciating time of the year, to say the least. 'Pneumonia', with Broder's (autobiographical) lyrics detailing his lengthy bout with the titular disease, has a cold and wet feel to it- the bass stays on the fringe, the beats are provided by Broder's unparalleled turntable-riding, and the acoustic guitar seems like it's being strummed with incredible effort, as if Broder was undergoing a particularly febrile period when he recorded the song.
One of the moments that make this song so punishingly gloomy and amazing comes at the very end, when Broder busts out a turntable solo- soulful as hell- that comes from a record he had of Korean folk instruments. In the same way that a sunbeam from a window will illuminate the swirling clouds of motes and dust, the jigsaw-whirring solo gives the listener the complete picture of how desperate and dirty the song really is.
You can buy 'Fog', his first LP, from Ninja Tune (at the aforeposted link), and the rest of Fog's stuff is available at his band site.
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM
December 08, 2004
Sun and Screen
Beulah - Emma Blowgun's Last Stand
When you need a 20-second bongo intro and you just can't wait. Do you desire full, uncompromising strings? How about a trumpet riff that'll nourish you for days on end? This song is layers and layers of sweetness (how about baklava of melody? maybe not), and you should devour it.
The first time I heard this song (which was the first of Beulah's I had ever heard as well), I was floored by how perfect it was- I stood there, with brow furrowed, clutching the CD player in my hands, trying to comprehend how someone could write a song that was just so effortlessly and ridiculously good. I must have listened to it about 20 times consecutively, and I could pick out new and different things about the song each time- the fuzzed-out guitar, the restless bass, the gorgeous background vocals- it's just endlessly involuted and flawlessly wrought.
Mile Kurosky was the main songwriter behind Beulah, and at least some of the creative output of the band was fueled by his love/hate relationship with bandmate Bill Swan (guitars/trumpet)- which conflict may or may not have finally become too much for Miles, Bill, and the rest of the band, since they played their last show on August 5th of this year, in New York. I was lucky enough to see them in 2002, my senior year of college, when they were still touring for 'The Coast is Never Clear', and they just absolutely owned it- such high energy and tight playing, it was hard not to be impressed.
Luckily for everyone who never saw Beulah on tour, the band is releasing a DVD of footage shot during their last jaunt (for the album 'Yoko'), entitled 'A Good Band is Easy to Kill'. No news yet on when this is coming out, but it should be done soon. By the way, this song comes from (in my opinion) their strongest album, 'When Your Heartstrings Break', and you can buy that and most of their other stuff directly from the band.
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM
December 07, 2004
Don't doubt your painful birth
Jim Guthrie - World of Jimmy 3-Guts
This a nice little song: warm, intimate, breezy. It sounds like what it's like to sit on a screened-in porch and watch a summer thunderstorm. I'm pretty sure I got this from Three Gut Records' website last year around Valentine's Day, and I'm also 90% certain that this is a re-recorded version of 'The Fabulous World of Jimmy 3-Guts', from Guthrie's first LP, 'A Thousand Songs'. This new version is shorter (true), and has a lot more strings (speculative), and features Jim Guthrie's great-aunt on electric guitar (false).
Guthrie's voice is so surprising- I don't know what it is about it, but the way he sings is extremely delicate (at least in this song), and he sounds like a child that's been scolded, apologized to, and now sits simmering with indignation on the couch, coloring as neatly as he can in his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Color Adventure book. 'World of Jimmy 3-Guts' is definitely a prime candidate for an early-in-the-relationship mix tape. Not for the lyrics, mind you, because that would be viciously weird, but the music is perfect for that overjoyed and semi-reckless initial stage, just prior to when you use nicknames like 'babycakes', and way prior to the use of nicknames like 'wet noodle'.
Anyway, if you like this, check out Jim Guthrie's other records, and listen to them. hard.
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM
December 06, 2004
We have a Jaguar Farm!
Unclassics (Morgan Geist) - Purple Flash Orchestra - Freedom Now
A good Monday morning song, because it starts with an orgy of quaking cowbell. Then there's some dialogue between two or three slinky keyboards, an ambivalent guitar line, and sweeping, huge, majestic, rainbowtronic strings. But that cowbell, how it strives for your love! Enter stage right a galumphing bass line. Two minutes and fifty-one seconds of solid, sweaty hugs from strangers in a danceclub. This would be the song to put on at a party when you're about to do something amazing (or terrible).
Unclassics is a collection of obscure disco tunes from 1978-1985 put together by the unquestionably great Morgan Geist (who, with Darshan Jesrani, performs as the amazing Metro Area- whose songs I'll post here soon enough). It's a mix in the DJ sense, so everything flows together seamlessly, courtesy of Geist's tweaking and pruning and distension skills. In the liner notes, there's an interesting section where the discussion turns to the way in which some bad (cheesy, overproduced, etc.) songs, or bad portions of songs, make everything else that much sweeter by comparison, when dropped into a DJ's set, for example. And it makes good aesthetic sense, in a way, that a set would be better off for being a little 'dirty' or 'sloppy', and not adhering to the expectations of the audience (or accepted 'good musical taste').
You can buy 'Unclassics' directly from Environ Records, which is itself run by Morgan Geist. If you're interested, here's an interview with the man himself, about why he did the mix.
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM
December 03, 2004
Jane Bears
Panda Bear - O Please Bring Her Back
Since I mentioned Animal Collective yesterday, I figured today was as good as any to post something from Panda Bear's first (self-titled, out-of-print) solo album. Most of 'Panda Bear' is a mixture of acoustic guitar-accompanied, dark-beat inflected pop songs, and ruminative electro instrumentals. If you know any of the Animal Collective records well, Panda Bear's first solo has elements of 'Spirit They've Gone, Spirit They've Vanished', and 'Sung Tongs'. The staggering fact about this album is that it was recorded when Noah Lennox was around, say, 18 years old. If I memory serves me right, 18 was around the age I was listening heavily to Dave Matthews Band Can and writing bad poetry in French being an absolute badass.
'Please Bring Her Back', as you might've guessed by the title, is about a girl lost, and the swirling despair that accompanies such an event. It's Panda Bear, sitting calmly in his bedroom 5 years ago, wishing for a 'reset' button on this relationship, more than anything. It's the kind of blind, irrational and overpowering sentiment that I'm sure everyone experiences at least once. The searing brand of heartbreak that keeps you up all night, playing and re-playing scenarios in your head about how, just how you might be able to win back your love. What you would say. What you would do differently this time.
This track starts off with heavily-strummed acoustic guitar, and Panda's soft voice enters with the lyrics 'Go to sleep, sweet child/push aside your cares/calm your beating heart/ease your furrowed brow', while a quick swarm of lightning-bug plucked acoustic notes flies through. Towards the end of the song, Panda sings 'She's as much of me as I am', trying to prove that, without her, he's a mere figurant- an empty, speechless prop, robbed of something integral.
This album was, apparently, the first and last release on Panda Bear and Deakin's label, Soccer Star Records. I don't think you could possibly find it anywhere, but as consolation, Insound has two other mp3s from the album, if you're interested.
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM
December 01, 2004
You'll Never Guess Which Rolling Pin I Hit Myself With
Black Eyes - Someone Has His Fingers Broken
Aaaaaaaaaaah. Listening to Black Eyes = eating a sea urchin with an extremely high S.P.I. (spines per square inch) density, that has been coated in carmelized sugar. Their music is caustic and pretty at the same time- it's almost as if they concentrate on building a sweet percussive groove and then try to figure out how to tear it down a little with their erosional-guitars and tortured voices. 'Fingers Broken' is the first song I ever heard from this band, and I loved it immediately: for the double drums, for the lyrics ('in the city screaming whoaoah/someone has his fingers broken/eyes bleeding/face down on the concrete/bleeding/I heard his mother screaming woooooo'), and for the primal feeling of the melody. I like to think that Black Eyes are (were, I guess I should say) a lot like what Animal Collective would be like (both bands posses the same kind of manic energy and seemingly limitless creativity) if they focused less on the sylvan-drone/pastoral, and more on the guttural-growl/alleyway type of nature; instead of the panda bears, kittens, deer, and dolphins of Animal Collective, Black Eyes has the sounds of molting pidgeons, burrowing black rats, and wan, desperate stray dogs.
Anyway, all that stopped this past spring when Black Eyes broke up after the release of their sophomore LP, 'Cough'. Subsequently, Daniel and Jacob (from the band), formed White Flight, which was, by all reports, a pretty kick-ass improvisational/free-jazz duo. They broke up this summer. Okay. Three other guys from the band, Hugh, Dan, and Mike, went on to form Horses with Fiona (from the Dischord band Et at It), and have been touring for the past month and a half or so (I think they played with Arcade Fire in Philly, if anyone caught that show). Next step: Daniel (ex-White Flight) has formed a new band, with a woman named Maya Maaloyf, called Flowers, and according to Dischord, "their music is both improvised and composed and consists mainly of violin and guitar", and they should be playing some shows in the near/immediate future. So basically you need a flow-chart to show what has happened to the constituent members, post-dissolution of Black Eyes.
If you like this song (which you should, I swear to god), you can go buy the album this is from (self-titled), at Dischord's shop (they always only charge $10 for a CD), and mourn your eyes red over the passing of a freakishly innovative band.
Posted by matt at 09:41 PM | Comments (2)
Hot Love
Young People - Collection
In a weird world, this song would be the national anthem for a small, canyon-rift country full of purple sunsets and arid breezes. Katie Eastburn's delivery is passionate, but at the same time her voice sounds almost detached from the music- as if she were singing from the stage and the band was playing on the floor below. But there's no way you can ignore the sounds on this track- it's so urgent and relentless, with tremolo-picked and slightly distorted guitar, sympathetic bass, and a rhythm pattern that jumps ahead of itself at every turn. 'Collection' is a short, simple song (one and a half minutes running time), but it's a great example of a small and perfect piece of music. You can buy the album that 'Collection' is from right here.
As I mentioned earlier on the papa-blog, Young People are now a duo (Katie and Jarrett Silberman), and are working on finishing up their third full-length. Gird your loins in preparation.
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM