Tune in later this week for Said the Gramophone's 15th annual Best Songs list.
by Sean
Tune in later this week for Said the Gramophone's 15th annual Best Songs list. by Sean
![]()
[buy]
[buy] by Mitz
Maria Takeuchi - "Plastic Love" [Buy] It's been a while! wow time flies! Thank you for kind comments/emails! I just got really busy with my work. Nothing really changed for me since last time I wrote here. I watched a lot of World Cup. When France won, here in Montreal, people drove around with french flag and honking really loudly. I was annoyed. But then, when I was at the light, I saw one lonely guy, who looked like American Pie actor, driving around with a flag. He was alone in his car, with flag, just driving around by himself and honking. I felt bad for him. So I gave a little thumbs up. Then he started honking really hard and loud!!!!!! What have I done!? Oh well. Anyways, how do you not rip pita bread? I don't think I ever successfully opened pita without ripping in my life. Here is nice summer track by Maria Takeuchi, from 1984. Sorry I could only find CD at Amazon US store:( take care and see you around. Mitz by Emma
Tierra Whack - "Hungry Hippo" I wanted to write about Drake. I keep trying to listen to Drake, I keep trying to think about Drake. But honestly? It's like 800 degrees outside. Even here in the air-conditioned indoors, the whole enterprise just feels smothering. 25 tracks! Are you kidding me? Like a wall of angry text messages that keeps coming and coming - even after you put your phone down, even after you tell him you're at work, even after you say please and fuck you and okay, okay, okay, I'm sorry, fine, can we please just talk about this later? And still there's 15 more to work through. This, I guess, is the not the dark but the exhausting side of the gorgeous, goofy, Ginuwine-tinged thirst that Aubrey's persona throws off in its best single moments. The sheer volume of content on Scorpion - all this A-side/B-side shit, all this empty title talk of feelings-plural - is just this dude trying literally every trick he knows to get a grip on your attention so he can twist it back around towards him. Like a little kid mashing all the buttons in an elevator. Hey. Hi. Hey sexy. Hello? Why are you mad at me? What about all the bad stuff you did to me? This is stupid. Why don't you just come over? What are you doing right now? What are you wearing? Are you ignoring me? Can we please just talk? Hello? Hello? HELLO????? Maybe that's just how I feel about this album right now, or maybe it's how I feel about Drake in 2018, or maybe it's how I feel about Drake in a heatwave: that the only good reason to enter into a relationship with someone like the person at the centre of his stories is that it's fun, and the second it starts to feel like work you have got to cut your losses and duck back out into the sunshine. Leave him to his darkened studio, his blue-black beats, his endlessly deepening mythology of him; let him tell all those same stories to someone who hasn't had time to get tired of them yet. Probably, though, I'll feel different about it in a few weeks - when I've cooled down a little, when my patience rebounds. In the meantime, Tierra Whack provides an antidote so perfect it almost seems too perfect. It's not fair to compare her complex, freaky, singular project to some dude's eight-hour double-sided Song Of Himself, but if you happen to listen to Whack World for the first time the same way I did - right after you listen to Scorpion for the third or fourth - it's hard not to notice everything this album has that that one lacks. Each of its fifteen tracks is exactly one minute long, and like a good poem, each one is a completely self-contained galaxy of mood and style and voice and subject; a tiny space that feels infinitely vast both in spite and because of what constrains it. Whack's voice doesn't sound the same on any song as any other, and yet this whole thing sounds like her. She never repeats herself, and she's certainly not trying to prove anything to you except that whatever she has to say deserves your attention. This is not just an album - it's a collection, the kind that gives off a double glow: first each object on its own, and then the thing they do when you string them together. A handful of crystals, cartoon-coloured, charged and ready to change you. Something really and truly unreal. by Mitz
![]() Dura - "Grace Church Road" [Buy] Finally getting warmer here, it is above 0 degrees Celsius. We had a really harsh winter. like -20 degrees for a whole week or something during winter break. It felt like working for exposure for a whole week or unpaid intern. anyways, it was icy on the sidewalks. I did slip once late at night coming home from my studio. I managed to save myself from landing on my back like a triple axel of a figure skater in my head but probably i looked like a teenager in a mosh-pit, swinging arms frantically and wishing for people understand me better. I walked home in a night listening to this song after that. by Sean
![]()
Atlanta's Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel are a duet, a duo. Their principal instruments are theremin and lap steel. They are evidently well-named. But at the same time that name, for me, suggests an emphasis on virtuosity, musicianship, the unacommpanied gifts of its individual players. In fact, the music of Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel feels more to me about dissolving the individual, forgetting the maker. Scott Burland and Frank Schultz make weather. Both of their instruments are suited to this approach. Anybody who has seen a lap steel being played has probably experienced that sense of mystification: where is the sound coming from? where is it going? It's as if the lap steel player is using his instrument to conjure music from the room, out of bare air. A theremin can give a similar impression. The machine seems secondary to the sound, just accompanying paraphernalia. The term "ambient music" is most often deployed to describe music that's restful, drifting, slowly unfolding. Most of Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel's improvisations are this - but they're also ambient in a more literal sense. These recordings seem intimately linked to the spaces they were made in (or from) and, if the listener plays them at home - loud, on speakers - they get tied up in those spaces too, knitting into the paint on the walls. Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel is also a cheat of a name because Burland and Schultz use other instruments, or use their instruments in ways that conceal their identities. "Serpentariae" is suffused with gongs, bells, reverberations. "Absinthium" is filled with the clarinet and saxophone of collaborator Jeff Crompton. Around him, Duet for Theremin and Lap Steel dream up clouds, aurora, sunspots, storm-fronts. They make weather overhead. Listening to compositions like these - music these musicians made up, in studio, somewhere far away - I am struck by what a gift they have. Not just that they can make weather, summon it from nothing, but that they can bottle it - like springwater, or earth. Sending spring or summer up from Georgia, to where we shiver in the cold. [buy / Duet appear next month at Knoxville, TN's spectacular Big Ears Festival] --- Max Cilla - "La Flûte des Mornes". Meanwhile, there are other weathers. Purple ones, warm sun on frozen days, melting snow on mountaintops. [buy] by Emma
Tyler, The Creator - "911/Mr. Lonely" Spend enough time alone, this is how your inner landscape starts to sound. Lush, technicolour, cartoon-rounded at the edges, larger than life and then larger again. All this space for you to echo, double back and sing together, in a chorus, in a round. Spend enough time alone and you won't ever sound like anyone else - which a curse, or a blessing, or something else entirely. That's why the best way to listen to these songs is by yourself: in headphones, loud, walking solo through the city, cutting through crowds. Half-buoyed by something bright and imaginary, half weighed down by a mountain of tiny details, the kind that add up. Spend enough time alone, you get to know what romance really means. |
This is a daily sampler of really good songs. All tracks are posted out of love. Please go out and buy the records.
To hear a song in your browser, click the ![]() All songs are removed within a few weeks of posting. Said the Gramophone launched in March 2003, and added songs in November of that year. It was one of the world's first mp3blogs. If you would like to say hello, find out our mailing addresses or invite us to shows, please get in touch: Montreal, Canada: Sean Toronto, Canada: Emma Montreal, Canada: Jeff Montreal, Canada: Mitz Please don't send us emails with tons of huge attachments; if emailing a bunch of mp3s etc, send us a link to download them. We are not interested in streaming widgets like soundcloud: Said the Gramophone posts are always accompanied by MP3s. If you are the copyright holder of any song posted here, please contact us if you would like the song taken down early. Please do not direct link to any of these tracks. Please love and wonder. "And I shall watch the ferry-boats / and they'll get high on a bluer ocean / against tomorrow's sky / and I will never grow so old again."
about the authors
Sean Michaels is the founder of Said the Gramophone. He is a writer, critic and author of the theremin novel Us Conductors. Follow him on Twitter or reach him by email here. Click here to browse his posts.
Emma Healey writes poems and essays in Toronto. She joined Said the Gramophone in 2015. This is her website and email her here. Jeff Miller is a Montreal-based writer and zinemaker. He is the author of Ghost Pine: All Stories True and a bunch of other stories. He joined Said the Gramophone in 2015. Say hello on Twitter or email. Mitz Takahashi is originally from Osaka, Japan who now lives and works as a furniture designer/maker in Montreal. English is not his first language so please forgive his glamour grammar mistakes. He is trying. He joined Said the Gramophone in 2015. Reach him by email here. Site design and header typography by Neale McDavitt-Van Fleet. The header graphic is randomized: this one is by Danny Zabbal.
PAST AUTHORS
Dan Beirne wrote regularly for Said the Gramophone from August 2004 to December 2014. He is an actor and writer living in Toronto. Any claim he makes about his life on here is probably untrue. Click here to browse his posts. Email him here.
Jordan Himelfarb wrote for Said the Gramophone from November 2004 to March 2012. He lives in Toronto. He is an opinion editor at the Toronto Star. Click here to browse his posts. Email him here.
our patrons
Said the Gramophone does not take advertising. We are supported by the incredible generosity of our readers. These were our donors in 2013.
search
Archives
elsewhere
our favourite blogs
(◊ means they write about music) Back to the World La Blogothèque ◊ Weird Canada ◊ Destination: Out ◊ Endless Banquet A Grammar (Nitsuh Abebe) ◊ Ill Doctrine ◊ A London Salmagundi Dau.pe ◊ Words and Music ◊ Petites planètes ◊ Gorilla vs Bear ◊ Herohill ◊ Silent Shout ◊ Clouds of Evil ◊ The Dolby Apposition ◊ Awesome Tapes from Africa ◊ Molars ◊ Daytrotter ◊ Matana Roberts ◊ Pitchfork Reviews Reviews ◊ i like you [podcast] Musicophilia ◊ Anagramatron Nicola Meighan ◊ Fluxblog ◊ radiolab [podcast] CKUT Music ◊ plethoric pundrigrions Wattled Smoky Honeyeater ◊ The Clear-Minded Creative Torture Garden ◊ LPWTF? ◊ Passion of the Weiss ◊ Juan and Only ◊ Horses Think White Hotel Then Play Long (Marcello Carlin) ◊ Uno Moralez Coming Up For Air (Matt Forsythe) ftrain my love for you is a stampede of horses It's Nice That Marathonpacks ◊ Song, by Toad ◊ In Focus AMASS BLOG Inventory Waxy WTF [podcast] Masalacism ◊ The Rest is Noise (Alex Ross) ◊ Goldkicks ◊ My Daguerreotype Boyfriend The Hood Internet ◊ things we like in Montreal eat: st-viateur bagel café olimpico Euro-Deli Batory le pick up lawrence kem coba le couteau au pied de cochon mamie clafoutis tourtière australienne chez boris ripples alati caserta vices & versa + paltoquet, cocoa locale, idée fixe, patati patata, the sparrow, pho tay ho, qin hua dumplings, café italia, hung phat banh mi, caffé san simeon, meu-meu, pho lien, romodos, patisserie guillaume, patisserie rhubarbe, kazu, lallouz, maison du nord, cuisine szechuan &c shop: phonopolis drawn + quarterly + bottines &c shows: casa + sala + the hotel blue skies turn black montreal improv theatre passovah productions le cagibi cinema du parc pop pmontreal yoga teacher Thea Metcalfe (maga)zines Cult Montreal The Believer The Morning News McSweeney's State The Skinny community ILX |
Hooray! Glad y'all are still doing this. One of my favorite ways to discover some new things.
Yes! Thank you!
I've been refreshing the page, hoping for this... Looking forward to this year's list!
Yes! Can't wait!
Yes! Been checking every day of December to see. Loving your blog since 2005! Looking forward to your 2018 list.
hurrah! Im excited
Yay!! As always, been excited for this.
A light in the dark, truly. Looking forward to reading and listening!
Thank you! This is a favorite end-of-year music list. So pleased you continue to share it.
Really appreciate the time and effort you invest in curating the Best Songs.
Yeehah, can't wait!
Praise be!
Always a highlight not just of the festive period but of the whole year. Thank you, glad I kept the faith.
yes! Always love this list! Any way you could create a Spotify playlist with all the songs on there? It's nice to be able to listen offline
Hooray! I've been following your lists for years and they have always been my favourite. Full of little gems for me to discover. Thank you.
I get the fear every year that maybe this will be the last! So glad it isn't and fingers crossed it never is!
Yay, I've been checking in regularly for this! The only year-end list I care about. :)
got worried for a minute there! It's hard to convey how much I love this list every year. I'm as big a fan of the Grand Celestial Jukebox of Streaming as anyone, but this direct connection is special. I still don't know how else to say "here is a song I love, and I have made sure you can hear it, whoever you are". Thanks very much for keeping it going.
Yes! This is one of two compilations I look forward to every year, and I'm excited to listen to the latest volume. Like Michelle, I've been refreshing the blog for this. :) Thank you for all you do!
Very exciting! I've also been refreshing the page waiting for this:)
this warms my heart. Like many others, I've been checking every few weeks hoping you'd come back in time for the year end madness.
hooray!
Yours is my favorite list every year. I always find something new and unexpected. Thank you for the time you put into this.
👍 one of your many refreshers it seems!
Thank you! I know this is a lot of work and you don't have to do it, so I really appreciate the effort you put into the list. I always find a new favorite.
Thank you! As many others have said, I've been hoping/refreshing for this. Always a joy. Looking forward to the new format.
Thanks again, Sean, and all who have worked so hard and well at STG. I see I have much listening ahead of me in the next several days. I look forward to the changes to come; please preserve the links backwards as well.
Happy New Year!
So grateful :)
So glad you are still doing this! I always discover some great new stuff.