Archives : all posts by Sean

The Hidden Words - "Dis". These many months later, Hidden Words are preparing to release Free Thyself from the Fetters of the World, their debut. This is still a Bahá'í folk enterprise; still a band that includes two-thirds of the Unicorns. I remain perplexed by the goals of the project, or at least by its choice of methodology. I remain disappointed that these songs - sung in English, French and Spanish - communicate so little. Verses from the Báb, set to guitars, viola, Jamie Thompson's suitcase percussion. Alden Penner is one of the country's most gifted songwriters, yet these songs are scarcely written. Perhaps to Penner, scripture sings. But to me, these lyrics are just lofty phrases, hollow wisdom. The best lyrics communicate an experience - they articulate feeling in a way that pierces the listener, stirs them. Sometimes it is a very tender thing, but it is a provocation, a disruption, an upsetting. And Hidden Words' lyrics upset me far less than anything Penner ever wrote for Clues. Perhaps this band aspires to grace, but its music is just shambling, pretty.

All the same, it is often very pretty. Penner's gifts for melody & harmony have not gone away. He picks his chords like a man who knows the exit to a maze; or like a man who tying intricate knots, each with its own solution. There is something witchy to the music's arc and crest, inherited from the best. And it's catchy, like a burr or the measles, like a flipped nickel, sailing through the air.

[Facebook/Montreal release party on Saturday]

Nina Simone - "Suzanne". Nina steals Leonard Cohen's magic, dips his Torah in orange juice, brushes that dirt off her shoulder. She knows the sorcery of glassy puddles, of clean sheets, of buses that are right on time. Her mysticism is slangy, liberated, knows just where to go for brunch - but it's just as subtle, learnéd, it'll jackknife in the street.

[buy]

(photo is of the Moses Bridge)

Jim Guthrie, Sarah Harmer & Bry Webb - "Long Time Before This (Gwaii Haanas)". This song scarcely exists, the shortest 2:30 in recent memory. But it needn't be any longer, needn't have more flesh. It's an unveiling, an arrival, a series of wakings-up. I am reminded of the opening of Fred Penner's Place, a Canadian children's show from the 80s - mostly because of the feeling, I hope, though it's probably also because of the context. "Long Time Before This" is taken from National Parks Project, a collection of songs inspired by Canada's national parks. In this case, three musicians were thrown together at Gwaii Haanas, in British Columbia. They must have seen dew, dawn, raindrops on spiderweb. Maybe waterstriders, or the sea as it swallowed stones. But the thing that lingers with me, that leaves me wondering, is not the morning of this song; it's the night before, the preceding moments, the secret conversations, the green glass & shared meal, in their cabin in the woods.

Kate Bush - "Snowflake". So this is love.

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Haven't decided how I feel about it yet, but "Serpents" is the first taste from Tramp the upcoming second LP by Sharon Van Etten, who made my favourite song of 2009.

(photo source)

Silver Dapple - "M'Sorry". Crushing apples to make cider, grapes to make wine; the juice sparkles and shards, pools cold. Barrels of noise, in a warehouse like stacked barns. Feedback in banded oak casks. Two ghosts, one good and one also good, but resentful. You cannot make out their voices. This is what we hear, when the needle drops. It will let us live forever. [buy the delicious English Girlfriend]

Arlt - "Le Pistolet". At the Melting Nightclub, the dancefloor is a bog. The doorknobs are soft, the lights are fading, the seats are covered in moss. A lounge singer stands by the microphone, ivying over. Only the guitarists are truly alive, free of swamp and vine, jerking and chugging by the floodlights. But then the power flickers, and the guitarists flicker too, and you see they are projections; old thin things, saved onto 3/8" magnetic tape. TRY THE GIN! [buy this fuming 7"]

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As advised earlier, I'm beginning to assemble my best songs of 2011 list. (I know, it's only November.) As always, I rely on your help. There's no way for one person to hear everything that's wonderful. So - What's your favourite song of this year? From mumbly folk to mainstream pop, bassy hip-hop to Icelandic blubstep, please send me the best MP3s, as email attachments: sean@saidthegramophone.com. I'm grateful for everything, but particularly if you avoid sending me videos, MySpace links or lists of tunes - please, just the mp3s! If you introduce me to anything that appears on the final list, I'll include a link to your website/twitter if appropriate. (Common sense: please don't send songs from records I've written about on Gramophone, or multiple tracks from the same album - just the very best!)

(image is John Martin's "Satan Presiding at the Infernal Council", an engraving that was owned by Herman Melville)

John Southworth - "Human Cry". I believe in the primacy of cups. Every liquid has its proper cup: wine has its goblet, soup has its bowl, saltwater has its sea. If one cup is not sufficient, we make another. We do not just pour wine onto the table. At home, I keep a cabinet full of cups, one for every substance, and I host many visitors. We toast and clink and sip, drinking from the proper cups, never spilling. But I do not have enough cups for my sadness. My sadness is too vast, or my cups are too small. Some mornings I find that tears cover the tabletop. [buy]

Brandy - "Silent Night". Before the winter came, Randy Baxter was the best of the wranglers. He threw his lasso like the rapids throw foam. He wrangled steer, buffalo, wolves. He sat on his horse and the rope whistled in the air. Then the sky clouded over. The sun set. The tumbleweed settled. It has been winter since January and the river is frozen. When Randy throws his brittle lasso, it is feeble. I think the herds have gone east. [website / she's coming back]

(photo source)

Jah Youssouf & Bintou Coulibaly - "Faco".
Jah Youssouf & Bintou Coulibaly - "Sabou".

This music is just claps, voices, snaps of fingers, a dry calabash guitar. Youssouf and Coulibaly are husband and wife. Their love is shown in the most plainest way: They sing together; Their voices trade like glances. But in a way, the recording is the thing that makes us believe them. We hear the sounds of their house, the wide silences and domestic clatter. We hear quiet and loud. It is impossible to imagine artifice in the place where these songs were recorded. it is impossible to imagine dishonesty, lie. There would not be enough space between the roof and the floor.

[buy the exceptional Sababou from Tall Corn Music: digital/cassette/vinyl]

Liz Cronin - "Quack".

"Quack" is a team-up by Cronin and Idlewild's Rod Jones, part of a project by the Fruit Tree Foundation, a Scottish mental health charity. With blur, crush & chorus it invokes many different colours of 90s college rock - the headbanged churn, the murmured inspirational, the goofy chirrup. It's not rocket-science, the structure of a song like this; but the little choices are what make it outstanding - the guitar-pedals, the chords, the Buddy Holly hiccup, the particular instinct of quiet into loud. I cheer at the thought of this as a lip-dub, at a battle of the bands, as part of a coordinated demolition. Also, it's a song about battling depression called "Quack"; Rivers Cuomo should buy himself a time-machine and bring these kids on tour. Great tune.

[download the rest of the New Branch EP, which also got help from James Yorkston and Withered Hand's Dan Wilson / more of Liz @ Facebook]

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Other things:

Really enjoyed This Camera's simple, effective (and disquieting) video for Jennifer Castle's "Misguided":

And finally, I'm beginning to assemble my best songs of 2011 list. (I know, it's only mid-November.) As always, I rely on your help. There's no way for one person to hear everything that's wonderful. So - What's your favourite song of this year? From mumbly folk to mainstream pop, bassy hip-hop to Icelandic blubstep, please send me the best MP3s, as email attachments: sean@saidthegramophone.com. I'm grateful for everything, but particularly if you avoid sending me videos, MySpace links or lists of tunes - please, just the mp3s!

(Common sense: please don't send songs from records I've written about on Gramophone, or multiple tracks from the same album - just the very best!)

Thank you!

(photo by Axel Poignant