First off, stg reader forksclovetofu aka John has electrified his blog by adding a daily clutch of mp3s. It's glorious, off-kilter, unlikely stuff, mostly drawn from ancient vinyl. All over the map, but totally rewarding: and bolstered with tons of background info and links. The definite, must-grab track is the one by the Jabula Home Defenders. Wonderful! (He's also got a mix-cd contest going on - get in while you can!)
Next, I've reworked by "elsewhere" sidebar, for those of you keeping track. If there's a link that I've neglected and that you think I'd enjoy, I'm all ears.
My newest obssession is Mieskuoro Huutajat. It's a difficult obssession because I only have access to two low quality samples, but the gobsmacking sublimity (sublimeness? sublimitude? uh, really-cool-ness?) of their Star Spangled Banner" rendition is enough to crystallize my fixation. Mieskuoro Huutajat is a Finnish mens' choir who yell national anthems. With full force, enormous vigour, and appropriately peculiar arrangements. Words simply don't do it justice.; this is bellowed fury-love with an absurdist and patriotic bent. And it's Finnish (like moomins). I must get my hands on a copy of one of their records, but the label's online store is being extremely belligerent. If anyone can help, please get in touch!
Oh yes - I'll be going on a Toronto/Ottawa vacation this week, so updates will be sporadic or not-at-all. Apologies.
And then, without further ado, songs.
Värttinä - "Ruskie Neitsyt". I planned to write about this song ages ago. On the bright side, unlike then, now I can link to it so you can hear for yourself. If Tove Jansson and Mieskuoro Huutajat are two of the three best things about Finland, then Värttinä may just be the third. This is their first song from their first album: it's a bruisingly loud, gay, lively folk tune. A children's choir with a message to deliver. Of course, that message is incomprehensible to me because it's in finnish. All I know is that it's got somethng to do with a 'brown-haired maiden.' Infer what you will.
Destroyer - "From Oakland to Warsaw". A track from the soon-to-be-released Destroyer album, Your Blues. There are three more available from Merge, here. I hate to say it, but the whole record (including this song) is afflicted with most-woeful MIDI. It's a departure from Dan Bejar's earlier work - much less guitar, more lush and orchestral (almost Lambchop, really) - but unfortunately instead of hiring musicians, Mr Bejar bought a synthesizer. But the title! New World meets Old! Wow!
Modest Mouse - "Bukowski" [radio rip]. From the much-circulated radio rip of MM's upcoming Good News For People Who Like Bad News. One of my favourite tracks on the record, though a far cry from the brilliant sparkle-flecked cyclops-eye pop of "Float On." (In other words, this is more 'typical' Modest Mouse.) Still - the cello and accordeon pump along like an organic printing-press, muscle and blood and heart pressing sheafs of heretical pamphlets: "...if God gives life then he's an Indian-giver..." Plus: banjo.
Dan gave me a mix CD of Modest Mouse songs, to try to fully convert me. Although I think the new album's truly swell, and ditto for The Moon and Antarctica, this music's not yet convinced me of the group's long-view greatness. All of the songs are interesting, and many are terrific ("Here It Comes," "Trailer Trash," "Talking Shit About a Pretty Sunset"), but a lot of them are frustratingly flawed. Maybe that's the point - broken melodies and blemished songs of crooked lives (and that's the reason I'll definitely keep listening to this), - but I can't get away from the feeling that much of Modest Mouse's older stuff sounds like a smart, bold-visioned band that is still growing up. (Cf, Radiohead's Pablo Honey.) The instrumental smash at the end of "Talking Shit..." is beautiful-ugly, but why does it need to open with such a shabby Bright Eyes impression?
Are there any Modest Mouse fans out there who want to give some tips for how to listen?
G-Unit - "My Buddy". G-Unit's Beg 4 Mercy is terrific. Steely and casual, with variety (but not too much), and cool grey confidence. I like it better than Get Rich Or Die Tryin' - but the reasons are murky. All I can put my finger on is that I, uh, like the songs better. Whereas the melody of "P.I.M.P." or "Many Men" kind of grated, Beg 4 Mercy clicks for me on almost every track. On "My Buddy," we hear about 50's best friend, his gun. But beyond the slurred trundle of the rap, the silly-sinister synthsichord, what's most exhilerating is the way that the ammunition pops blister the sighing choral lull, the story that tears and rips and fires right through G-Unit's chrome swagger.
Preview the Unicorns' track "2014," which is to be released on a Suicide Squeeze 7" [via lhb]. Left-handed sci-fi disco. Not sure if this is the same version that will appear on the record - it may have been rerecorded. It's complicated because the version of "I Was Born (A Unicorn)" that's available at Zebox is from before Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone, but I don't remember "2014" being there when I last visited the site, over a year ago... Oh, hey, there's a ton of old Unicorns tracks still available on the mcgill site: here.
Thanks to a very generous patron, said the gramophone has itself a new bandwidth-hosting partner. In honour of this, a sampling from Greatest Palace Music, the upcoming Bonnie Prince Billy album where he has rerecorded the "best" of BPB/Palace Brothers.
Bonnie Prince Billy - "New Partner". The catch to these rerecordings is that they've all been done with the help of a full Nashville band. Ie, they've been reimagined as all-out country songs. Which is, if nothing else, fascinating. The skip and earnest swing of the original "New Partner" has here been replaced with a lulling, honest, almost regretful waltz. A lower key, too, or so A asserts. I don't like it more than the old version, but I do like it different. Certainly not for those who can't stand a whole wallop of country twang, however.
Eric's been doing some excellent stuff to try to work on an aggregate RSS feed for a bunch of the mp3 blogs. (Read his comments attached to this post.) If anyone else has some insights and wants to help, please do. I'm at the mercy of Movable Type, but if you tell me what to do, I will. Any other mp3 blogs that want to throw in their hats, please let us know!
It's been quiet here because a bunch of my 1and1 accounts have died, and so I don't have the bandwidth to post mp3s every day. I've been talking with Keith, however, about pursuing a .mac account, for us to host our songs.
What I'm interested in is whether there are any other (would-be?) mp3 bloggers out there who would be interested in entering into the joint purchase of a dot mac account. We could all share the webspace/bandwidth, and even syndicate our sites for easily-spotted mp3/commentary goodness.
Dot mac accounts don't have explicit/concrete bandwidth limitations, and basically the worse that can happen (in the case of excessive traffic) is that your bandwidth will be turned off for 24hrs. Matthew and fluxblog has used his .mac account for a very long time, and as we can see it's worked out very well.
Right, so - do you own an mp3 blog? Would you like to buy into a joint hosting plan? Get in touch.
the entirety of Modest Mouse's upcoming Good News for People Who Like Bad News, radio-ripped, but sounding pretty ok.
update: oop. goodbye!
Today was New Records In The Mail Day, it seems: in my mailbox were the new Devendra Banhart, John Vanderslice and Stereolab. And the Banhart is very, very good. So here, samples:
Devendra Banhart - "There Was Sun". I liked Devendra's debut, Oh Me Oh My, a lot. Rejoicing in the Hands, however, is even better. Some of the outright weirdness has been stripped away (although a lot is left: see track titles such as "Tit Smoking in the Temple of Artesan Mimicry" and "The Beard is for Siobhan"), but that uncanny witchiness has been made up for with focus, restraint and, dare I say it, patches of beauty. I read Ryan Schreiber's 4.5-star review of Jack White's "Never Far Away" and got annoyed: not only is the writing stale ("gentle layers of acoustic guitar plucking backed by a warm cello line" - and don't get me started on his vacant "Float On" review), but he also committed that most heinous of crimes, disagreeing with me. This is relevant to "There Was Sun" because listen: this trifle, this silly but earnest ditty is already so much more meaningful than White's "fleshed-out song," his derivative balladeering. Banhart's fascinating because of the importance he gives to his bizarre little narratives, the implicit force that his fingerpicking carries. He's not trying to be cute, or even "honest," he's trying to be true, true to a strange and wild world in his eye.
Devendra Banhart - "Autumn's Child". Shades of You Are Free here: the repeated piano chords and a soft, kind voice. "Sing, child, sing. / Sing your song." Much more direct than anything Devendra's done before, more lovely, much easier for us to feel. It closes Rejoicing In The Hands, and it's the album's little wooden crown.
Modest Mouse on Carson Daly (thanks, Elliott). Given that pre-"Float On" I'd never have defined myself as a big Modest Mouse fan (although I really enjoy Moon and Antarctica), the jury's still out on this one. Passionate and punchy, but seems a bit po-faced. On record, might be v. good, might be a bore: April 6 can't come soon enough.
Sufjan Stevens - "Seven Swans". By far the best track on Sufjan's upcoming album of the same name. So much of Seven Swans is merely pretty - the instrumentation is much simpler than on Michigan, the lyrics even more abstract. The stakes feel low, the ambition reined. But this! I don't really care what this song is about (God, presumably), but what gets me is the danger in it, the beauty-fear, the premonition of the sublime, the awesome, that cues in with the bare guitar at 3:32 (and then is followed through with the tremble-excitement-terror in Sufjan's voice). It doesn't hurt, of course, that "Seven Swans" finishes up with an epic, straining, march of the valkyries finale. "Seven swans, seven swans," he calls, a small, resigned voice amid the stormwash of piano, choir, drums. I admire that he takes his time to get there: Stevens sets the stage, and then blows through it, a torrential (beautiful) transformation.
On second thought, this big thing won't be ready today, so some songs for fun:
Jimmy Soul - "If You Wanna Be Happy". I'm a great fan of this 1963 classic: it's slim, carefree, and the greatest celebration of ugly women that I've ever heard. I dance to it, I sing along, and I enjoy very much when the falsetto kid comes in at the end, like a googly-eyed squid in a Little Mermaid musical number. (q: Is the conversation that starts "I saw your wife the other day" the '63 equivalent of The Streets' "are you paranoid? / yes I'm paranoooid"?)
Four Tet - "She Moves She". My favourite single of 2003 that didn't make Pazz & Jop's top 100. (In fact, only one voting critic - dear, sweet, mysterious Stacy Osbaum - picked it.) I said in my Fave Songs piece:
The gilded tickle of a mandolin, the ringing of bells, a drumbeat for slow-motion dancing. There's a pop melody there, too: the crunch of electric guitar, the frustrated alt.rock noise. And yet that pop song has been cut apart, split up, strung out across beautiful organic sounds, like lanterns on Four Tet's silver clothesline.What I say now? This song is like a really good kiss, like a broken jukebox kiss, like a kiss that sends you hurtling back past all the bittersweet moments of life, past frozenmemory snapshots of your life, each of them sparking into dust.
other points:
Just spotted Keith's fine mp3 blog, Teaching the Indie Kids to Dance Again, where I heard TV on the Radio for the first time, and verily, I was much intrigued.
Janet Jackson's not-quite-released "Love Me For A Little While" is fabulous. Sort of "Hey Ya!" but without the indie irony (or the all-out epic dance-party genius). I found it on a blog-that-wishes-to-not-be-named (since all of his February bandwidth was swallowed by Ms Jackson alone), and will not be putting it online for similar reasons, but you should all seek it out on P2P tout suite. I like it when Janet says "you-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo," and you probably will too, even if Andrea doesn't.
Oh yes - like matthew at fluxblog says, clapclap's post on a "Pop" dichotomy is terrific analysis, and I think it will even prove useful. kudos.
talk to you later!
So yes - the results for Pazz and Jop 2003 are in. Critics have responded in droves and democratically declared the best of the year to be...
ALBUMSThis is cool if only because it's, uh, not by white rockers. (This is relevant only because most critics I've met do happen to be white rockers. And, tokenism or not, this result suggests OutKast=Wilco (2002's #1 album), in the eyes of the critical commons. That is, prog hip-hop is as well-received as prog country-pop. And that's interesting.) It's also cool because I think it's a very, very good (double-)album. (Andrew will not be pleased.)
1 OutKast Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (Arista)
2 The White Stripes Elephant (V2)Three okay albums that just make the list feel depressing. I guess it's how lots of other people felt about Wilco's win last year - these are picks without energy, vim, sparkle. Yes, the White Stripes do the white stripes thing well: but can you still get excited about Elephant? Yes, the Fountains of Wayne are catchy (I do like "Stacy's Mom"), but aren't they also really plain? Yes, Radiohead did record some fine songs. But songs; an ILMer put it best: what would Radiohead have to do to not crack the P&J Top Ten? Should these albums really consist of #2, #3, and #4?
3 Fountains of Wayne Welcome Interstate Managers (S-Curve)
4 Radiohead Hail to the Thief (Capitol)
5 Yeah Yeah Yeahs Fever to Tell (Interscope)Argh. The Shins!? What a boring, dumb-witted, donut-hole of a record. And it didn't even have "New Slang" to redeem it!
6 The Shins Chutes Too Narrow (Sub Pop)
7 New Pornographers Electric Version (Matador)I'm surprised (why did so many indie kids - YYY, FoW, Shins, New Pornos - rank so high?), but I can live with these...
8 Basement Jaxx Kish Kash (Astralwerks)
9 Drive-By Truckers Decoration Day (New West)Who?
10 Dizzee Rascal Boy in Da Corner (XL import)! Wow Dizzee! I don't think this album had even been released in the States in 2003...
SINGLESBut this list I like very much. The only one that wasn't among my favourite songs of 2003 was the Kelis track. I seem to be the only human being in the planet who isn't thrilled-to-pieces with "Milkshake" (well, apart from those cymbal things in the chorus).
1 OutKast "Hey Ya!" (Arista)
2 Beyoncé featuring Jay-Z "Crazy in Love" (Columbia)
3 The White Stripes "Seven Nation Army" (Third Man/V2)
4 Kelis "Milkshake" (Star Trak/Arista)
5 50 Cent "In Da Club" (G-Unit/Shady/Aftermath/Interscope)
6 Johnny Cash "Hurt" (Universal)
7 Fountains of Wayne "Stacy's Mom" (S-Curve/Virgin)
8 R. Kelly "Ignition-Remix" (Jive)
9 Junior Senior "Move Your Feet" (Atlantic)
10 Panjabi MC featuring Jay-Z "Beware of the Boys (Mundian To Bach Ke)"
(Sequence)
Sorry for the lack of updates - I had a friend in from out-of-town, and I'm working on a v. large post about my pop and hip-hop trajectory. (MP3s will accompany it.)
Sorry about the dirth of updates - between Modest Mouse and (I think) Christopher O'Riley, two of my six 1&1 mp3 hosting accounts have kicked the bucket from bandwidth over-use. Reluctantly, then, I gotta ask again: if anyone's got a server, high-bandwidth account, .mac account, etc., that they'd be interested in sharing with Said the gramophone, our gratitude would know no bounds. (email me at iwillforeverbeyourslave@shakeitlikeapolaroidpicture.com.)
Oh, by the way, elvithprethley.com now points here, if the full URL is tiring your fingers and you have bookmarkaphobia.
All my whingeing about hosting aside, I will continue posting mp3s until I can't - and there's still four more accounts to burn through.
[post snip because i feel displeased with it]
The Wrens? Good god do they want to be where they are right now. After fourteen years, they've finally arrived, and they're relishing every second. Their set sounded like Meadowlands, basically, only with twice as much energy and roar, and half the sound-quality. They're not really my thing - I left early - but damn if "Happy" isn't a great song.
The Divine Comedy - "Our Mutual Friend". My favourite thing off their new one, Absent Friends. It's the stabs of strings that make it work, the orchestral drum-tambourine thump, the loose and smilingly unhappy vocals. It's sort of like an Evelyn Waugh "Norwegian Wood." The band's perhaps a little too grandiose for their own good - North America doesn't usually embrace such pompadour affectations - but if someone were to make a Rough Guide to the Divine Comedy, I'd buy it tout suite.
Oh - Dan Beirne, the fine tangmonkey writer will be appearing with his dry-and-true-witted sketch comedy troupe, Better Than Shakespeare, at Montreal's Comedyworks on Sunday. Furthermore, they will be accompanied by Montreal's finest blizzard bossanova group, The Diskettes. It will be a very, very good time.
Sexual Harassment - "If I Gave You A Party". Antique, ridiculous, tongue-and-cheek eighties electro: a squelching synth and the giddy interruption of a jet engine. My favourite bit is the high-pitched flutey synth introduced a minute and a half in. It's carefree and dumb, like a deer on amphetamines, but it frolics gayly as Sexual Harassment's house party gets underway, as they invite, seduce, nudge, dance, booze.
Rachel's - "Last Things Last". The only really great thing on 2003's Rachel's release, Systems/Layers, and, ironically, the track that diverges most from Rachel's house style. Gone is the indie classical composition, replaced with a fairly conventional, sad piano-bass-voice ballad. That it's conventional doesn't mean that it's anything less that wonderful, however - there's something really magical in the way that the regretful piano chords leap into whitebright hope, the way that Shannon Wright's bluesy alto leaves all this room for joy. Whenever I'm listening carefully, I get goosebumps at 1:40 - just as the tambourine stutters to life.
oh, and yes, it is very difficult to represent the complexity of intelligent political discourse in song. but that it's difficult doesn't mean that we should accept the alternative (ie, simplistic, idiotic political discourse).
I'm not at home, so some mp3s will be posted later tonight.
On Sunday, I went to see A Silver Mt. Zion at La Salla Rosa, for one of their two Montreal dates. I like seeing bands like ASMZ and Godspeed! here; it feels like I'm hearing them perform in their preferred environments, in the proper context. The room was filled with enthusiastic and approving spectators, with nary a wisp of cynicism to be felt. Even the openers - De La Caucase - who were abrasive and droning, with shouted eastern european vocals on top, were v. well received.
I say "no cynicism," but really there was some skepticism in the crowd - that is, from me. I enjoy ASMZ's music very much - I like the way that their orchestral rock is thoughtful, varied, profound. Much deeper than the shallow peaks and valleys of GY!BE. I like the way they'll move from flickers of mandolin and guitar through to terrifying cello/bass/violin strokes, and then up into the smash of drums and the squall of an electric guitar. Or not. I like the way they've started to explore appalachian choral techniques - medleys and rounds that weave in and out of the staccato strings or the organ pulse. And yet, as anyone will know who has read my review of the last Mt. Zion record, the band is suffering from one particularly woeful flaw. Efrim's vocals, once nearly irrelevant, are central to the bulk of the band's new material. And his vocals suck. He whines, he huffs, he whimpers like a witch whose larynx has withered. He's only very rarely on key, but more importantly, his voice sounds ugly, immature, cloying. Atop this beautiful and horrifying music, he'll whinge away, his whimpers repeated over and over, the skeleton of the song, and sometimes I can hardly stand it. Live, it was even worse: with his vocals in the fore, the inanity of his politics were foregrounded for me. He conjures some great images, yes, but Efrim's priority seems to be to erect a political dichotomy of the simplest, most naive kind. He sings constantly of revolution - a revolution of what is wholly and totally GOOD ("us," "earth," "human souls,") and what is wholly and totally BAD (cops ["pigs"], cities, machines, enterprise). Even as a leftist, this simple binary infuriates me - the problems of the world exist because we tend to represent our conflicts with such naive and ignorant oppositions. Police officers are not evil. Shop-owners (heck, corporations) are not evil. There's some evil behaviour, sure, but ditto among the paladins of social justice. Not only does Efrim's singing ruin whole songs, the message he transmits does more harm than good, applauding radical reductionism over compassion and responsible thought.
Sorry: I got carried away.
ASMZ's music is fine, the concert was even good, but the feelings/imaginings that the strange, dark music was evoking - the messianic push, idealism, self-determination, life, nature, hope - kept being undermined by the conceit of Efrim's vocal priority, the foolishness and immaturity of the political position that the band was privileging.
Friday -- The Arcade Fire w. The Wrens.
Snow Patrol - "Run". Apparently, astonishingly, this piece of melancholy pop is #5 on the UK Charts (William Bloody Swygart has written a hundred interesting words on the subject). The first thing I hear whenever I listen to Snow Patrol is Gary Lightbody's voice - that is, I hear the Reindeer Section. Scotland's superband has released two albums I liked very, very much, and although Lightbody sang most of the songs on those rainyglad records, he and his Snow Patrol pals always seemed the tag-alongs. "The Reindeer Section, featuring members of Belle & Sebastian, Mogwai, Idlewild, Teenage Fanclub, as well as Snow Patrol" -- which is the odd one out? It wasn't helped by the sheer mediocrity of the Snow Patrol albums I had heard. Still, here's "Run," and it's a fantastic, stalwart, mopey little number, perfect for staggering down the street in the rain. That ever-repeating guitarline, capped with strings and ringing Coldplay riffs. Plus: reassuring, romantic lyrics. This kind of thing inevitably, predictably, pushes all of my buttons. Hooray!
Christopher O'Riley - "Fake Plastic Trees". This is taken from O'Riley's True Love Waits. There's nothing remarkable about the idea of a classical pianist (or string section, or orchestra) covering the works of Radiohead - I mean, such things are cliches at this point. And yet O'Riley surprises because of the sheer investment he's put into this. These aren't just covers - they're rearrangements, interpretations... that is, covers in the best sense. Case in point is his version of "Fake Plastic Trees," which is in fact better than Radiohead's original. Granted, that's not saying much - "Fake Plastic Trees" was pretty, sincere, but that's about it. Still, O'Riley's managed to transform it into something truly moving, sad and deep and violent, like the sudden onset of tears. He takes his time, the melody twinkles and scatters, but whenever it reappears - especially loud, at around 3:00, - it's like the flash of light on eyes, of a sun going nova. Or something. I don't know.
Some leftovers from Moody Week - for dustin who wanted to hear the Dears, and for the masses who don't know the Hip. [updated 5:58pm]
The Tragically Hip - "Nautical Disaster". Canada's biggest rock band, and, believe it or not, pretty darn great. This song rises from "rockin'" to wholly majestic when you pay attention to the lyrics. The Hip don't just crown the Canadian rock canon - in terms of 1990ish to 2000, they are the canon. They play rock music that ranges from the heavy and guitar-strewn ("100th Meridian," "Grace, Too," etc.) to the woodsy and acoustic ("Ahead by a Century," "Bobcaygeon"). The lyric play is pretty wonderful - like a more down-to-earth (or, er, Canadian) R.E.M. - and although their recent releases have felt a bit tired, the band continues to innovate like crazy. Day for Night, Road Apples, Trouble at the Henhouse and Phantom Power are all amazing, vital rock'n'roll records. The Hip's inability to break into the States or the UK remains frequent fodder for late-night bar conversations, and Globe-and-Mail columnists. (NB: The Tragically Hip's typical fans are notorious for being clod-brains.)
The Dears - "Hollywood". Taken from the Dears' debut, End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story, it is best described by turning to the title of the band's 2001 EP, Orchestral Pop Noir Romantique. It's pretty much Blur crossed with Serge Gainsbourg, glorious in the way it crests a cabaret beat and swirls towards a martini-laced, organ-fuelled, hazy psych climax. In the last couple of years, the Dears have gotten noticeably more aggressive - live, they are deafening - and 2003's very good No Cities Left has drifted away from the music hall and towards the avant-rock of OK Computer. (Track down "We Can Have It" for a worthy sample.)
Also worthy of attention:
Those of you who haven't yet heard Toronto's The Blankket do his schizoid neaderthal version of "Hey Ya!" should download the mp3 here. Unfortunately, the EP is already sold out (I checked); While Dave of The Diskettes managed to nab a copy, I was left empty-handed. Still, tantalized by the sample on that page, I'm going to order the record by Les Mouches.
One of Matthew's tracks for today at Fluxblog is absolutely worthy of attention: the DFA Remix of "Sun Plus," by J.O.Y. It's silly and complicated-simple, it's festive but vicious, it makes me want to dance in a wiggly Winnie the Pooh way. It's fine.
nb: i've changed the Hip lyrics link to something less nefarious (sorry, andrew!).