I Am Oak - "Don't I Know Enough" In the most unhopeless way, there is nothing you can do. Here I am, old, and saddled with regret and pain, and you are asking me for advice. I must look similar to how I feel, and you want to hear what I would do differently if I were young like you. You want to hear the warnings of the old so you can see the future, sidestep the cracks and perils and walk the edges of disaster so you can be just like you are now [...]
Steve Mason - "Come to Me" . At 11:07pm, it is pouring on rue Raspail. The pavement looks black and the few tall trees shake down a heavy, cold spray. A man runs down the sidewalk in silver sneakers. A woman hustles with her head down, clutching a gold bag. There is a thin wind. At the top of the boulevard, a battering ram begins to move. The ram is made of teak, oak and steel, reinforced with ten thousand bolts. Whoever built this spent years building it, assembling and honing, to finally arrive at this horizontal beam, a ram [...]
Rokia Traoré - "N'Téri" . I'm visiting Paris for a couple of weeks. I have visited here before. When I was 12, when I was 22, when I was 25, when I was 28. Four visits. It is easy to be cocky. Sure, the 14ième. Oh yeah, L'As du Falafel. Why je t'en prie. I pretend I am not a tourist. I am a saucy know-it-all. I am a boss. I drink pastis and Sancerre, hop on vélib . I am tempted, for one precarious moment, to spit upon the street. But no I do [...]
Peals - "Tiptoes in the Parlor" Careful not to scratch the glass. Careful of the ice, it's thin like rice paper, and the edges can be sharp. Careful of people who always look perfect, careful of the wind. Careful not to promise anything to anyone, that will never land the way you think. Careful, watch, there's a candle on. [ Pre-Order ]
Jim Guthrie - "Taking My Time" . Stray dime rolls in on its edge, stops at the end of your shoe. Take it thin between thumb and forefinger. You hold it up to the light. The thought registers: I approve of this dime. Before you have time to pocket it you see the jewelled flash of an illuminated sign. It is as if God is sending you a gaudy message. SLOT MACHINES , the sign reads. DIMES DIMES DIMES. This is a dumb coincidence, it hardly makes you smile, but the phrase "dimes dimes dimes" [...]
Thee Oh Sees - "Maze Fancier" There are many stories from Tennis Ct, and I wish they could all be told today. This is not, however, the story of the one-eyed dog that everyone called Ray Charles because of the way he wagged his head around. Nor is it the story of the Philippine nanny who mysteriously took care of a different kid every week, never repeating one ever in her career. And this is not the story of the actress who lived in 18, the [...]
Beck - "Loser" No, I work here, you can ask anyone. I've worked here for years. Years . I've come in every day, and I've put in my blood sweat and tears, haha. Years . How long have you been here? Maybe you don't work here. I work here, dude, ask anyone. Well, when they come in in the morning you can ask them then. Don't touch me. I work here, don't I look like I work here? These just happen to be the hours that I work! That's [...]
Colin Stetson - "Among the Sef (Righteous II)" . Colin Stetson's third album is not the same terror or treasure that his last one was . New History Warfare Vol 2 felt mortal. It felt desperately mortal. The saxophonist's voice and breath, this unfurling force; dying as it unfurled, and striving as it died, striving & loving & hoping, clawing back the end. Stetson - a virtuoso and an athlete - made music that was suffused with vulnerability. Its weakness broke my heart into pieces. There is little weakness to [...]
Weaves - "Hulahoop" Please go away. Please go away and never come back. Please fuck right off, and keep fucking right off for the rest of your fucking life. Take your perfect leather boots, and your haphazard hair, and the tiny ankle fold in your jeans and vanish from Earth. Please let your oddly-clumped freckles and your skewed glasses and your gap-toothed grin have never existed. Please let your love notes and your open toothpaste and your breakfast leftovers be long-awaited proof of a parallel universe, inapplicable to this one. Take everything that happened, every [...]
Junip - "Your Life Your Call" . José Gonzalez as a steely-eyed aerobics instructor. Step, lift, back, step. I say "steely-eyed"; really the things you make out of steel. Tankers, skyscrapers, indestructible ball bearings. Gonzalez is level on a swaying ship. There are no tremors in his instructions. It's over now , he sings. You have taken your time. / But you can't stay here. / Go dry up your tears. Gonzalez's band, Junip, is one of the most underrated groups in indie rock. Their songs sound like kaleidoscopes: splendid, prismatic, controlled. You can use [...]
Born Ruffians - "Permanent Hesitation" If there is one thing that this song, its jeans-on-the-floor and text-messages-from-someone-onl y-named-J , seems to evoke, beyond its let-go-of-the-hand-hold and necklace-casts-a-shadow-on-the -neck , it's a phrase, written on faces, weather, and every tea store sandwich board: Time is running out. -- Born Ruffians still speak to me. Their new album Birthmarks is really great, I think. You can buy it here .
Jai Paul - "Str8 from Mumbai (demo)" . Jai Paul's best cuts feel damaged - not drunk, not high, but still wobbly and redoubled, splendidly wavering. It's like someone is playing with the dials on the mixer, spraying samples, bringing volumes up and down, frequencies in and out; these microscopic fades, neurons firing and disappearing. A lurid part of me wants to call it Parkinson's pop. "Str8 from Mumbai" is a necklace of vanishing jewels, gems in and out of phase. A nightclub you can only see in a mirror. The treatment for a short film: mysterious billionaire, private jet [...]
Electrelane - "To The East" . I need a mission, somebody give me a mission. An envelope with a folded, typed instruction. A clear cloud. A banner, a crackling radio instruction. Just a sign. Just give me a sign. Let it be plain or filigreed, simple or adorned. Let it be easy or difficult, let it be impossible. I will make love or wage war, I will run or howl, I will shove coke, spade by spade, into the belly of a train. All I ask is that you inscribe my future, so that I need not invent it myself. [...]
Eleanor Friedberger - "Stare at the Sun" The first drive on the day when the last polluting car has been retrofitted. [ Pre-Order ] Jay-Z - "Big Pimpin'" If I give my whole body to one song, it would be worth it, because what else is there to do but spend yourself on something. Pick the one that will shake you like a rag doll, spread you open, dance like lights, and drip you dry. Crack your hands from shadow boxing, spend your knees from [...]
Atakora Manu's Band - "Palm Wine Seller" . Frequently, when I am listening to palm wine guitar music, I think to myself: This is the best sound in the world. It is beautiful and hapless. It is dizzy. It reminds me of my greatest joys and my most witless blues. Imperfect, expert, lo-fi, hi-fi, distorted and clear, oh how many reversing right yeses. I have never drunk palm wine but I have been drunk on it. I have lolled and then shot like an arrow into the heart of the waning day. [out of print]
Mincer Ray - "OMM @ 12.3; Fouled Acme" This song makes me forget how small I am. And I'm like, extremely small. Like, put your fingers together as close as you can without touching them. That space, that little space, that's like the ceiling in the mall for me, when you look up and you're like oh that's all windows up there, that's how much space that is for me. Now press your fingers together, hard hard hard, cram em together, I still fit between there. Like, cut a hair a hundred times, length-wise, I [...]
Shotgun Jimmie - "Big Sur" . Shotgun Jimmie - "Growing Like a Garden" . Two songs that add up to 2 minutes 45 seconds. Certain songs are like telegrams; no room for pussyfooting. THEY SAY IT RIGHT STRAIGHT STOP. Jimmie's best songs are like hunks of amethyst lobbed at your head. The lyrics are handsome straight-shooters - yeah, telegrams, I already said that. He is less muddled than me. He is of purer vision, more suited to: sunsets, riding into. Better at knock-knock jokes and ping-pong. While the lyrics come across the [...]
Marnie Stern - "East Side Glory" Bowl of them so Telusa Hahahahaha Hahahahaha Hahahahaha Tigeorgess addition just thinking is so old man I love for you to learn how all mom Hahahahaha because it means anything since Atlanta gentleman and man and send to deliberately deliberately and a little bit of time and then send me man don't bump bump bump bump bump bump bump I'll I'll Marnie Stern - "Hell Yes" Little bit of a little bit of phone phones I seem to say [...]
The Knife - "Wrap Your Arms Around Me" . I was wearing a gold link bracelet as I whipped around the corner. It caught. And I didn't feel it. I was two steps in when I felt the tug at my wrist; looked down; there this long fine sag. One gold link, caught on a nail, and the whole bracelet stretched out behind me, distended, pulled long like taffy. I gathered the bracelet in my other hand. I felt like I was carrying some mythic material - finest spidersilk, elvish mithril. Later I wondered how far I could have gone. [...]
Hani Zahra - "Some Day Parade" Ammunition for a laser gun. Sparks. A stack of love leathers, pink on pink on pink stretched around pink. A torn page from a joke book for smokers: "Doctor, how do i quit smoking?" "Stop, drop, and roll." If my phone were really smart it wouldn't get lost, even cats can keep from getting lost, and they don't have Wikipedia on them. A discarded wireless microphone, for someone, somewhere, what i'm saying is really loud. Another page: "Did you say ziggurat?" "No, cigarette." "Oh, i dont [...]
Said the Gramophone
Badlands – ‘Sleeping Beauty’
Joe Goddard feat. Mara Carlyle - 'She Burns' [Listen]
Wolf Alice | Bros (Official Video)
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Highmountain – “I Will & Above You”
