Cibelle - "Green Grass". Cibelle's hidden things in this song. Amid the voice and acoustic guitar there are knocks, bells, ghost voices, horse whinny, harp. (And when I looked in the liner notes, after, I saw that the voice is even credited as a "ghost's voice"!) She sings like the breeziest breeze, pensive and then so, so, so happy. When she sings "birds from the blossoms!" her smile is like the flap of a wing, the kiss of a snapdragon.

Tom Waits - "Green Grass". The most important thing in this (the original) rendition of "Green Grass" is the recording of Tom Waits' voice. I don't mean just the plain fact of his voice - that scratchy ruined thing. No, the exact way it sounds here. It reminds me of candle wicks about to be lit; whistles about to be blown; a thistle carried in a man's hand as he walks down the street. No breezes here. Here it's about how feeling can fill a still space. (Yes like a ghost.) It's about a spirit who knows precisely what he wants to say, and how. As composed, certain and tender as the place where he now resides.

[buy Tom Waits' Real Gone]
[buy Cibelle's The Shine of Dried Electric Leaves]

Wrapping Paper - "Hold Up The Neon Sign". Wrapping Paper play a furious pop music and it's impossible to imagine them doing anything but tramping through a field, poppies and straw up to their knees, making their way to the neon song that reads: "YES". I adore this sort of overdriven recording - drums that sound like thunderstorms, guitars that sound like drums, glockenspiel that sound like meteorites shooting through roofs. It clears my arteries. (Other artery cleaners: The Exploding Hearts, McLusky, Guided By Voices, Konono no. 1, Devin Davis.) It exfoliates. (That is, shakes leaves from trees.) It, um well to put it plainly, rocks.

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