Frog Eyes - "Caravan Breakers (Daytrotter session)"

Okay, this blog is becoming a Daytrotter fanblog. I can't help it, when they're posting stuff like this.

The new Frog Eyes album is going to be a beast, a lurching swaying creature with eyes that look so human. It'll be a great flag, raised up to fly in the wind, as a signal to lost peasants and low-flying planes. I want to hear it.

This song is a painting of scenery and characters in three acts:

ACT I - "the teenagers smoke up on the trails.."
What feels like a portrait of suburbia to me. The main character seems to be a kind of drug dealer, and I see those night suburban streets, with orange lights that light the house and the bike path beside it that goes past its backyard. He is walking along the path, hating the people in their homes, telling himself that he knows what he's doing.

ACT II - "I prey on the weak and the old, caravan breakers, they pray for the weak and the old.."
The business in action. The constant pull that he feels between his conscience and the strong rationalization he's set up for himself. Even just getting paid makes him feel at once incredible and terrible.

ACT III - "..."
The aftermath. Perhaps he's sampling his own merchandise, or he's spending his money on something he hates.

[buy a new ep]

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David Bazan - "Backwoods Nation"

I feel like a lot of David Bazan's songs could be performed a cappella without much loss of emotion, his voice seems to seethe and bleed on the other instruments, and that's where they get their strength. And his protest-song-literality here makes me think that getting this stuff out of his head was more important than the form it took. He has no time for dressing up a message, it's too important.

[buy a new ep / see him on tour]

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tomorrow: Carl Wilson's first day!