When they were done with dinner, when they'd all eaten what they could, nobody moved to get up. Nobody had to be anywhere, or if they did, they didn't say. They were full, yes, but also satisfied. There was a spell on the table, a blessing. How else to account for their joy? They all could sense it, even the father. They were full. They were satisfied. They wanted to remain there forever if they could.

The older brother made promises he knew he probably wouldn't keep, vows so crazy they could only be thought. We'll eat every meal together, as a family. As a unit. We could grow old. We could all become fat and frail and tell ourselves, This is life. This is love. These are our bodies. This is our love. The older brother filled so with happiness that he felt his chest might split open. His eyes teared up and then he laughed, just to let the pressure off. Nobody asked what in the world he was laughing at, and nobody looked confused. Everyone knew.

From the story "Prayer for the Long Life of Certain Inanimate Objects", by Paul Maliszewski, published by the excellent journal One Story, and available here. Possibly one of the single best stories I've read in the past three years. If you like this, Maliszewski also has a story in the current issue of Fence, called "Prayer for an Answer When an Answer Eludes", and it is part (as you can guess) of his ongoing 'prayer' series, which should (I hope) be collected someday soon.

Mount Eerie/Phil Elverum has been quite active lately, with the reissue of "The Glow pt. 2" out this month, and a new EP out soon, "Black Wooden Ceiling Opening". 'Woolly Mammoth's Absence', perhaps the most heartbreaking song Phil has recorded, was released on the "Seven New Songs" tour EP, which you can download for free here.

Every afternoon, I walked the girl to the center of town. There were eight streets that led to it, and for each approach to the two blocks of shops and vaguely public-looking buildings, I assigned the town a different name: Townville, Cityton, Burgborough, Townburgh, Boroville, Cityboro, Burghton, and Town City.

"Not even close," I would have to tell her.

From the story "Education", by Gary Lutz, in his short story collection "Stories in the Worst Way" [a book which features some of the best sentences I've ever read]. Buy it here, before it goes out of print again.

***Parenthetical Girls have finished "Entanglements", their follow-up to the gorgeous and (lyrically) haunting "Safe as Houses". Can't wait.

PAS/CAL - I Wanna Take You Out In Your Holiday Sweater

Instead, I saw something suave, delicate, raffinee, blonde sure enough but not a girl who reminded me of stone fireplaces and tobogganing, rather a clutch of names I knew but had never experienced, such as Biedermeyer, Chateau La Tour Blanche, and Proust. She was dancing. I watched her. She was not talking to her partner. She was not wearing an evening dress, which suggests a garment with ruffles run up over a Bertha at home, but an evening gown bought for the occasion. Her shape was not striking but insidious. I kept watching it. McGinty was right, she wasn't so pretty for nice but she was hell for stuff.

I had come to the dance bursting with condescension but, watching her, it leaked away. She had a longish lock of blonde hair hanging beside her cheek and occasionally she threw her head back a little to move it. (Later I touched a match to that lock as she bent forward to light a cigarette. Later that year.) However, I was paralyzed.

From the story "Dear Old Shrine", by Allan Seager, in his 'memoirs as fiction' book, "A Frieze of Girls". Seager was another impressive sentence writer, and besides that, he was astoundingly funny and self-deprecating. "A Frieze of Girls" was semi-recently reprinted, and you can find it here.

***PAS/CAL have (finally!!) finished their debut album, "I Was Raised on Matthew, Mark, Luke & Laura" (great title). The long-awaited LP will be released on April 29th. But you can pre-order it from Darla right now. This spring is going to be full of good records.

DFA 1979: much-loved, very much broken-up. A lot of people made noise about MSTRKRFT (Keeler's first-strike, pre-Justice blog house act?) when they came out with their record, but I think perhaps that it's Sebastien Grainger that everyone should be paying their hectic attention to- not only did he release a blistering little split 7" last year under his given name (the song, "When You Go Out", was one of the things I listened to incessantly while writing, and it's beat-beam architecture, coupled with Sebastien's vigorously pretty falsetto, make it an almost perfect song to listen to when you want to get into a nice nostalgic/pensive funk), but he's now recording and releasing songs with his new backing band (the Mountains) and under his 'party alias', The Rhythm Method. Grainger can seemingly do pretty much whatever he wants to, and well (check out the range of some of the tracks he's got up on his website, c.f. specifically 'I'm All Rage' and 'Young Mothers').

'American Names', which is one of the first tracks I heard from his new project with the Mountains, has a special gravity to it (is it the organ-y/feedback prelude, the slick tattoo of the drums, or the cavilling guitars?), leavened both by Sebastien's full-hearted vocals (gorgeously doubled at points) and a sweetly semi-paternalistic chorus ("If you're always on/your way out the door/you'll never have/a place to call home"). Some of the lyrics in this song are difficult to discern, but the bits and pieces that are clear align with my own recent thoughts about absence, escape, wanderlust, etc.- not so much a grass-is-always-greener situation, but more of a general need for a change of scenery (if that makes sense). Although I don't own a car anymore, I know that this is exactly the kind of song that begs for a late night, windows-down, highway-driven listen; I suspect that that's the right space for it (much in the same way that certain paintings demand to be hung precisely on the wall in a gallery for maximum effect, some songs seem to deserve the same level of curation). To be more clear-cut about it: the song is just really goddamn good.

Sebastien Grainger and the Mountains will release their first single ('American Names/'Ways to Come Home') soon, on Rectangle Records (buy it when it comes out!), with a full-length (on an undetermined label) some time in the near-ish future. Also, the Rhythm Method will have a 7" release of 'Renegade Silence/'When You Go Out' on Alakazm records soon- not many details about that one, although the cover art looks ridiculously cool (scroll to the bottom).

Obviously, since I feel compelled to write a post about it, you should take my word for it when I say that this is the most excited I've been about a new band in a long time.

Geronimo contains two of the main members of one of my favorite (extinct) bands of the last, uh, decade: Despistado (whom I have duly mourned at least three times in the traditional black-on-pink). Dagan and Leif (the singer and lead guitarist from Despistado) have reunited, and they're still in Saskatchewan, making the same thrilling, delicate, spun-electricity music that they were making 3-4 years ago. For those of you who listened to Despistado, that should be reason enough to listen to this track.

Otherwise: Geronimo's music is slimmer, a little less viscous, maybe, than Despistado's was. 'Just Like Water' has those swatches of bright-light neon guitar that I loved, and Dagan's voice sounds even better now than it did a few years ago. Clearer. Clear as a strong peal. And the lyrics still shift from aphorism to narrative to tossed-off invective (I like this line: "my abstract thought/needs a Catholic marriage/to a practical object/pushing a baby carriage"). You could say: this song is the climb up and breezy pause at the top of a ladder leant up against the ivy-stubbled wall of a small house on a gray sky morning. You could say: this song is the quick grin from the stranger you held the door for. Both, I think, are equally valid.

Geronimo have an EP out, "Enlightenment in A Small Town", which is available for purchase or download over at CD Baby. You can listen to two other tracks at the band's myspace, the unbelievably good 'Hope and Fear' (which I wanted to post, but couldn't), and the believably good title track from the EP.

This is technically a rerun, but now I have an actual copy of the song, plus hey, who remembers last January anyway? I know I don't:

Like most of Ungdomskulen's songs, "Witches Mate..." is a tightly controlled, guitar-scrawled track, and as with the amazing "Ordinary Son", the band stretches it out well past the six minute mark. Ungdomskulen do an exceptional job of taking elements that, extracontextually, would be considered harsh and abrasive, and putting them (these sandpapery noises) into songs that are bustling with hooks and intensely catchy phrases. Along the lines of what I said before- they're a melody-minded, Norwegian, sharp, brittle rock band. I think they must be about done recording their new album, so let's cross our fingers that it comes out (stateside) sometime in the near future. It's recommended that you listen to this song while engaging in the following activities: building a deck, getting pumped up for ghostbusting ( a la Venkman, Stanz, Spengler, and Zedmore), crossing a river on a high rope bridge, and chasing down someone you love. This song was made to play through the air over the heads of tiny, fragile human figures. All very good.

Ungdomskulen just released their freakishly excellent debut LP, "Cry-Baby", a little while ago. {BUY}

P.S. Grad school is making me delirious. I am looking forward to winter break.

There could be a two-part suite where Black Dice's 'Miles of Smiles' follows (almost) seamlessly upon AC's 'Sponge Luke'; both songs possess a fire-eyed nocturnal gleam and menace. 'Miles of Smiles': humidity slick cicadas whirr and grumble, while 'Sponge Luke' has the bubbly kvetching of innumerable lily-bound frogs.

While the Black Dice portion of this imaginary split reminds me oh so strongly of the showers/flowers overlap of April and May (the MoS EP was released right around Easter, I think), and the cool wayward breezes of spring, 'Sponge Luke' feels, always, like it has been stitched together roughly in front of me, and it's a thick-threaded, expansive cloth: a sheet for the summer, a thunderstorm comforter.

Avey Tare's vocals on this have the same sort of kid-party feel heard on certain "Sung Tongs" tracks (I think 'Sponge Luke' actually dates back to that era), which I enjoy. Animal Collective (post-"Feels") seem more interested now in exploring sunny, tractionless, good-time grooves, and I'm hoping at some point that they turn their attention back to the darkly sweet and noisy tactics last used on "Here Comes the Indian" (probably won't happen, I know).

This song feels like a box. Two hands wide, two hands tall. Dark, fine-grained wood. Few knots. Reach inside it once and you can feel cold, hard snow falling. The second time: wind-lapped leaves brushing up softly against your fingers. This is a box you can walk around town with, keep in the trunk of your car in case of emergency, and use as a nifty means of surprising strangers or loved ones. It is elegant and useful. You can forget about it for some time (careless), for a decade maybe, and the shape of it is still the same- as boxy and woodheaded as ever- but inside it will feel very different indeed (thorny, dusty, sandy, wet).

'Haneros Haluli', the klezmer song, is almost one hundred years old, from what I can tell. Hala Strana's version has only been around for six years. Listening to 'Haneros Haluli' makes me want to find the sort of place that would have this song playing in its streets. You can listen to it on the album "Fielding", which is available here.

A suit of armor- one of the old, old ones, with just a narrow slit for the eyes and one of those bird-beaky helmets- comes alive in the red-carpeted hallway of a neglected wing of an extensive mansion. His new life is a surprise. He works his legs and arms, moves around the house awkwardly, and holds in his glove-hands whatever he finds: a ball of lint, a potted plant, the pull-string of a curtain. He thinks about the knight: what happened to him? He sees a garden through a bay window, full of bright red tassel flowers and snapdragons. He can feel it in his hands: he will pick them all.

Adam and Alden - Blade Run Out

Last fall, I wrote a short story while listening to nothing but Adam and Alden's 'Live at Blue Monday' recording and a few songs from Smog's 'A River Ain't Too Much to Love'. There was something about Adam and Alden's music that just fit the tone and setting of the story so well- their songs are so pretty and elegant, and so rousing as well (not that my story fit that bill, but the music definitely helped me along). Listening to Adam and Alden gives me the same sort of wild buzz in my chest that I get when walking in the woods on a cool day, or when swimming out into the ocean- there's a natural aspect to their songs, something strong and beautiful. 'Blade Run Out' might be my favorite of the bunch, and not just for the fact that the last 20 seconds or so of the song seem to quote the theme from MacGyver.

Football has started once again, and I feel good about that.

Music coming back soon. I have more free time than ever, so hopefully I can get back to the way things were in '05 (the pinnacle of this blog, in my opinion). Who's listened to that James Blackshaw album, "Cloud of Unknowing"? Blew my goddamn mind.

Listen to the whole album right here.

Also this may be one of the most atrocious ideas for a music video ever, plus the song is super fucking gross. I wish I could phrase all this in a more articulate way, but I've seen this video three separate times at the gym, and every time I get hit with it, it makes me want to vomit, burn down my house, and find any surviving members of this band (REAL LIFE), and punish them by repeatedly and forcefully questioning them in a wet basement (while a loop of the above runs continuously) regarding their motivations for writing this song, and why they chose to make not one but TWO music videos for this total abomination. This video is one of those things that makes me somehow feel very, very ashamed to be alive. That's a strong claim, but hey, it's true.

A: Yes, it sounds like it, in parts. I thought it sounded a lot like Steely Dan at first, but now less so. The extensive use of polished guitar lines to do a lot of the expressive work of each song, the singlemindedly claustrophobic production, and just the overall complicated melancholy that pervades the album all remind me of Steely Dan a whole lot though, esp. songs like 'Impossible Germany' and 'Walken'.

Q: Is Wilco's new album, "Sky Blue Sky", a break-up record?

A: It seems like it might be, although that interpretation is merely based on the number of times that Tweedy sings phrases like, 'I'm here without you', or 'if you need to go', etc., which just from a cursory listen, is quite a lot. It sure sounds like pretty much every other song is a break-up/divorce song, although maybe that doesn't capture all of it. Tweedy said that he wanted to eliminate (for whatever reason) some of those more abstract, indirect turns of phrase that he used on the last two albums, but some of his sharp language-figetry still shows up on songs like 'You Are My Face', and the title track (I especially love "houses hemmed into homes"- maybe one of the best lines on the whole album). 'On and On and On' is wrenching, pretty, such a nice valentine between a son, a father, and a mother. It's such a different album for them, and I feel like a lot people might not like it after the lapidary, torqued beauty of "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" and "A Ghost Is Born", but it is satisfying in another way, in a lighter way, in a more functional way. Tweedy said something like "Sky Blue Sky" was the album he wanted to hear, "I want to hear somebody just sing me some songs.", and it is that, but it's a whole lot more too.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Sorry for the extended absence. No excuses, just busy with working, doing, listening. Thanks to XXJFG's constant endorsements, I finally got hooked on Tim Sweeney's ridiculously well-done radio show, Beats In Space. Tim plays the absolute best mixes, somehow creating perfect, seamless, stretches of totally mysterious music, and on top of that he invites great people by the show to spin records for the first hour and a half, and the results are, without fail, pretty jaw-dropping. Last night's show (it's on from 10:30 to 1:00 a.m. EST) with Juan Maclean and the guys from Holy Ghost was a highlight (new LCD Soundsystem track, 'Freak Out/Starry Eyes' is the first thing Juan plays)- the intra-set interview that Tim does with Juan is 1) hilarious, and 2) pretty informative (new album from J.M. in the near future, feat. the lovely Nancy Whang in a major role). Tim has all the shows archived, so you can go back and check out anything that piques your interest (the XXXchange and Chris Rockwell show was also mindblowing).

So I've been listening to this EP from Land of Talk for the past few weeks, and I finally, finally pinned down the sound of Elizabeth's voice. She sings with a sweet, sore throat sultriness (does anyone else enjoy this phenomenon of how sick voices sound kind of sexier? or is it just me?), and it's enchanting, in a (admittedly) strange way. 'Speak to Me Bones' is a good example of this, but an even better example is the precious 'Summer Special', which is an irresistible lyrical tangle of non-sequiturs and odd imagery ("isn't summer special/easy hair/relax it wasn't walked right"...or "look at those girls/so young, so young/still piss their pants"), and in which Elizabeth's voice sounds like a dead ringer for Kim Deal's (circa the Breeders' 'Drivin' on 9'). The EP ("Applause Cheer Boo Hiss") is solid and cathcy and everything, but for their full-length, I'd like to hear more sore throat, maybe a little less guitar.

[BUY]
___________________________________________

Contest Results

Congratulations to Afton Woodward (Au Revoir Simone, '(A Violent Yet) Flammable World'), who won the Sunny Day in Glasgow contest, and a copy of the band's album, "Scribble Mural Comic Journal". There were a lot of really great entries, and I'd like to single out a few (actually a lot) of them and the springtime songs they chose (you could make a nice, surprising little mix from these entries):

Jennifer- Patty Griffin, 'Sweet Lorraine'
Sal - Jackson 5, 'I Want you Back', and Sunset Rubdown, 'Day in the Graveyard'
Jade - Belle and Sebastian, 'I Don't Love Anyone'
Gary- T. Rex, 'Hot Love'
Brad- Legends, 'Call it Ours'
Mark - Four Tet, 'Hilarious Movie of the 90s'
Jacqui- Susanna McCorkle, 'Waters of March'
Eric- Sondre Lerche, 'Don't Be Shallow'
Thom- A Silver Mt. Zion, 'Sisters! Brothers! Small Boats of Fire are Falling from the Sky'
John- Jonathan Coulton, 'First of May'
Jamie- Belle and Sebastian, 'I'm A Cuckoo'
Ian- John Fahey, 'Sunflower River Blues'

[B&S seems to be a natural fit for Spring] Thanks to everyone who entered, I really enjoyed reading what you wrote about your seasonal favorites.

P.S. my personal choice for a springtime song currently is Do Make Say Think's 'In Mind'. The guitars in that burn and flutter, and the voices sort of hatch out from within the song- I can't get enough of it.

So nothing against Vashti Bunyan (who sang this on the "Prospect Hummer" EP) or anything, but this particular version of 'I Remember...', sung by Noah (Panda) and Dave (Avey) at an Other Music in-store a few years ago, is my absolute favorite, and (I think) one of the best songs Noah has ever written. It's too bad this didn't make it onto "Sung Tongs", because it would have rivaled the sun-bright cool-breeze beauty of 'Leaf House', 'Who Could Win A Rabbit', and 'Winter's Love'. 'I Remember...' is perpetually unbalanced, which makes sense, considering the subject matter- listen to the way Noah and Dave weave the lyrics through the cascade of chords, and the sweet, synchronized stomping, clapping, and guitar-tapping, and their perfectly matched vocals (the joy-capped "Wheeee" they both sing, or the way Dave's wild-child voice gives Noah's clear, gentle vocals a lift and a push at all the right times).

All but the extremely acrophobic probably have some sweet memories of climbing the slick, metal rungs of the ladder, stepping slowly onto the porous, coarse surface of the board, toeing the edges gingerly and looking down onto the light blue surface of the swimming pool, disregarding the internal impulses for self-preservation, and jump-jump-jumping out, straight out, into the air, into the water. This song is a song for everyday use; don't just listen to it on special occasions.

P.S. Thanks to everyone who's entered the contest so far- there have been some amazing entries.