Archives : all posts by Sean

Here We Go Magic - "How Do I Know". Here We Go Magic's Luke Temple sings "How do I know", the lyrics not the song, like they are one long word, one onomatoepia, a pennant tied with silver wire. HowdoIknow, like the pinging sound of an aluminium baseball bat, hitting a single; HowdoIknow, like the blurry buzzing of a spring doorstopper; HowdoIknow, like a plucked heartstring. The whole song rests on that sound, that hook, that howdoIknow, and Temple acts as if the question is central to his existence, his worldview. He's wrong. The more important question is plainer. Not How-do-I-know? but simply Do I? Does he? Does he love you? And will the story's ending justify the lovely singing splendid run of its sound? [buy]

White Label - "Roberta". White Label are ruthless and sentimental plunderers. Here, the vocal from Roberta Flack's "Trade Winds" is stolen and reattributed, given to a new song. It's an uncanny result: "Trade Winds" was little-known to begin with, and White Label's arrangement feels like it could have been written in 1972. So "Roberta" ends up like a new old song, a kind of imaginary anachronism. In this age of remixes, re-dos and collages, "Roberta" still feels special and strange, rare. White Label have made something modest and beautiful, something whole - despite its origin in parts. [soundcloud]

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Jessie Ware - "110%". Strobelight effect on a blooming dogwood, blooms in quick motion; or else dogwood effect on a dancefloor scene, slip and turn. "Who's that girl?" murmurs a lilac sapling; "who's that flower?" rustles a poet. [buy]

Adam & the Amethysts - "Drinking in LA" (Bran Van 3000 cover)
Freelove Fenner - "Mint" (Chevalier Avant Garde cover)

CJLO's You're Related: Montreal Artists Covering Montreal Artists compilation has three highlights: Snailhouse's doing Land of Talk's "It's Okay", Freelove Fenner doing "Mint", and Adam & the Amethysts' rendition of Bran Van 3000's cancon classic, "Drinking in LA". Each of these covers is its own song, beautiful and stand alone.

First let's talk about "Drinking in LA". Bran Van 3000's 1996 single (a hit in Canada, Italy, Ireland, Britain and Scandinavia - bot not the USA) has always been a strange creature, part booze-up party song, part hangover. Now a two-piece, StG favourites Adam & the Amethysts mine the song's melancholy, honing in on that central lyric: What the hell am I / doing drinking in LA / at 26? It's a question of fade, growup, entropy, disillusionment. Wisely, it is not reduced to a droopy acoustic cover: the original's strange happy-sad is still present, just in different proportions. There is joy in Rebecca Lessard's backing whoops, in the canter of snare. And the band have imbued this childhood favourite with their own markers of nostalgia - swimming reverb, drifting synths, harmony. Inadvertently, it recalls the Red House Painters, early Cat Power. And for my money, it is every bit as good as the original.

Conversely, Freelove Fenner are covering a song I've never listened to, by a band I've scarcely heard of. But their "Mint" is neat like spearmint, golden like taffy, one minute and fifty-nine seconds of righteous skimming softshoe. This song would sing in an empty ballroom, reflecting on open surfaces; and it would sing in a full one, while the dancers try their moves. There is a guitar solo like a sunlight doing parkour, like a small dog chasing a larger dog, and I want to listen to it until I die.

[Download these and the rest of You're Related, with proceeds to benefit the wonderful people at CJLO 1690AM.]

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Remember James Irwin? His luminous debut album is streaming now at Soundcloud.

We are giving away tickets to see Eleanor Friedberger and Hospitality in Montreal. Concert is on Saturday! Click here for contest details. And if that weren't enough, we are also giving away two tickets to see Khaira Arby and Pat Jordache at Sala on Monday. Khaira totally rejuvenated us in 2010, and the Jordache are one of the city's best indie rock bands. To enter, email sean@saidthegramophone.com with the name of your favourite thing in Timbuktu (Arby's home town). See you there.

Finally, I said it before & I'll say it again: I'm coming to Russia! Next month! If you live in Moscow or St Petersburg I would love to meet you, because I will be a lonely and stupefied Canadian.

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PS I Love You - "Saskatoon". Canada's deepest band - deep in the manner of mines and peaks, canyons. PS I Love You don't just rip up turf, they tear blazing from the secret places and into daylight. What is the word for the thing these riffs do? When you are rising too fast, thrown upward, shot like a rocket from the seabed or that molten pit. When you are thrust by your furious heart. Terrifying, violent, soaring. Earnest without any of the sticky sap of earnestness. "Saskatoon"'s sound is bigger, braver than anything else I listen to, these days. How can it be the music of just two men? YOU FELL DOWN / from the SKY / FLASHING like Saskatoon, sings Paul Saulnier. He sounds like he has been marching through a forest fire. Like he is blinking through smoke tears. PS I Love You are always desperate and wanting, overwrought, fraught, but their music is also certain, confident, joyous, strong. The noise of human champions, coming through. (And fun as hell to listen to.)

[Death Dreams is released on May 8 / buy it now / it's extraordinary]

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Sonny Smith - "The Stick-Up". Sonny sings a song about a bad race. This town's not big enough for both of us. A petty crime set in the browns and faded mauves of Peanuts. An alcoholic behind the counter, a kid with a ski mask, guns. Acoustic guitar and dusty recorders, playing in a line. A story like this cannot be photographed, only taped, captured accidentally. There are no paparazzi at a stick-up; the only flashes are muzzle fire. So the song is a recollection, a fiction, or a lie. It is deliberate, no matter what. The song of a stick-up is never impulsive, accidental - it's a tale being told, in one particular way.

[Sonny plays in Sonny & the Sunsets / buy / This is my favourite song but One Act Plays also features guest appearances by Neko Case, Jolie Holland, Mark Eitzel and John Dwyer.]

Mirrors - "Hide and Seek (demo)". Starshine getting weaker by the minute; squint squint fire up the spotlights, turn them off, anything to change the fade. Venus rising, mercury twinkle, flashlights off snow. Sunglasses, let your eyes adjust. Close your eyes and extend your hand to the heavens and hope the stars'll flare up, brighter bright, then come and take your hand, to dance. Or else go inside: screw it, what does the calendar know anyway. Also: disco ball.

[buy Mirrors' completed Lights and Offerings / thanks Ami, from long ago]

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Elsewhere:

• I support the student protests in Quebec. Did you know that this was what Montreal looked like last night?
  
• Montreal's excellent, striving, searching Young Galaxy are seeking help to make their new album. They want to make it with producer Dan Lissvik in Sweden. Lend them your support on RocketHub, the Canadian Kickstarter - flip the tables and buy your copy of whatever-they'll-make now, in advance.
• Finally, this:

Novel - "Forever Yours (ft Teedra Moses)".

Katniss Everdeen first hears the song on Octavia's comm. It is a bright morning: it's as if District 13's fluorescent generators are working at double capacity, sending extra sunlight down in slats. Katniss's hair is being pinned up in curls, her nails filed and polished. Octavia is at her ear, mouthing the words to the song. She wears a glossy lipstick, dusty blue, and Katniss guesses that it must have been bartered from another refugee. Octavia looks happy for once, as if the music has carried her away to another place, away from District 13's grey walls and hissing ventilation. As if they are not underground but back at the Capitol, at a party for young stylists, drinking champagne from slender cups.

Still, Katniss hates the song. The voices sound synthetic, the instruments unreal. It's like gazing at a pretty microchip. Katniss is used to real music, played by fiddlers and banjo players in the Seam. Kitchen parties with murder ballads, where everyone has tears in their eyes. By contrast, Octavia's song seems like a confection - frosted, sugar sweet. The only thing that catches Katniss's ear is this one crying guitar riff, once every minute or so. It reminds her of Buttercup's whine. Something wanting.

Yet in the days that follow, Katniss finds her humming the song. She will be walking down a hall between propo shoots, zipping in an elevator to Special Defense, and as her mind wanders, the melody finds her. What felt so sugary at the time seems darker in retrospect - earnest, earned. I'll always be forever your girl, she murmurs. Boggs flashes her a quick glance. Katniss blushes and looks at her feet. The lyrics make her think of Peeta, trapped far away, calling to her through his interview with Caesar Flickerman. They make her think of Gale, gray-eyed Gale, kneeling in the woods with a snare. Katniss swallows. She doesn't like to think of such things, Gale versus Peeta. It's different. She smooths her hands on her uniform. Only after the war is over will she have the luxury of songs like this, kind and warm, consummated, like a long embrace.

[download Red Wine & Ambien]

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With some of your help, my friend Richard Parks made a short film called Music Man Murray, concerning 88-year-old Murray Gershenz and his hundreds of thousands of records. It's a lovely portrait, tender and funny, with music by Van Dyke Parks. And the whole thing is streaming now at NPR's All Songs Considered. As Richard puts it, "This is ostensibly a movie about a huge record collection, but that is just the setting. It is about 1) death 2) leaving a legacy 3) faith 4) fathers and sons..." Can't wait for Richard's (and Murray's) next thing.

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James Irwin - "Needleye". This is a new song by James Irwin, whose album Western Transport is the best LP of any unsigned act in Montreal. "Needleye" is woozy and deliberate, patient, all ghostwater and sinking, will o'wisp & folded cloud & gentle saxophone. Rivers rise, shaker shakes, electronics sing. "I don't know why I went alone," James speak-sings. "Somehow staying here felt wrong." His lyrics are always chosen and wrong, accords he finds in dream. His voice is flat as paper. Sometimes he writes his songs quickly and sometimes very slowly. Imagine if you could do the same thing with a tree - cut it down quickly or cut it down slowly, depending on the tree. Imagine if a sinking ship could choose how long it would take, as it eases into the iceberg. The wood would say, This long. No this long. When a needle slips into an eye it does not hurt: it is like a light that enters another light, a shadow that crosses another shadow, a time that becomes another time. You realize only later what has happened, the ruin that was wrought, what the needle has done. Blood pools. Night falls, slowly.

For a short time, listen to the rest of Western Transport at James's website. If you are a record company man, with a tie around your neck, or a shiny blouse, you can write to James here. He will play a concert in Montreal on May 5th, at L'Onestar, a clubhouse he founded in 2011.

(photograph by Frédéric Lebain)