Oh January! No sun, weekly snowfall, endless football. Oh miserable month! I spent my Sunday pouting over the iniquity of January and napping on the sofa, rereading Joan Didion's White Album and listening to the new (in March) Low record , trying to understand why, in the middle of this somber, serious LP, the band drops one rather silly track ("Hatchet"). This is exactly why I prefer songs to albums. Like the bunch I downloaded this last week from Seekers Who Are Lovers and got around to listening to more intensely yesterday. Side project to [...]
Haze - Essie Jain "Haze" starts like a secret prayer, a soliloquy, a slow grace of piano and voice. If that's all there was, it would be a very pretty song. Essie Jain's (full name, Essie Jain Wilkinson) hand is steady and her voice is keen and deliberate. She's restrained the way a singer who has operatic training is -- knowing it's all in the potential to push limits, but not necessary to constantly do so. And confident how women who daily [...]
Image: Joe Moorman Thanks to a long, strenuous web crawl session last weekend, including hours logged on Myspace (the things I do for you ), I have an accordion file folder full of songs in need of distribution to willing ears. So this is probably the beginning of a series of single-track posts. Please don't get used to such frequent missives. Feel Good Factor [...]
Wuthering Heights - The Sweptaways A cover by (brace yourself) a 30 member a capella choir named after the regrettable Madonna movie, "Wuthering Heights" is a silly, saucy, slightly gaudy performance that does Kate Bush -- who can be silly-saucy-gaudy herself -- proud. With arrangements and singing talents no more spectacular than your average high school choir's, the song's a gleeful fan note writ in large looping, girlish script. On their new record, Ooh Ah , these [...]
Miyaabele - Baaba Maal I can cobble together songs sung in French, but most Afrobeat music offers me the luxury of listening and not understanding a word. Comprehension is overrated. I'd just as soon invent my own meaning, even if I risk cross-cultural accidents. "Miyaabele" from Senegalese popstar Baaba Maal is as gentle as a love song, but so deep and plush and abundant -- harp scales drape acoustic rhythm guitars, a backing chorus swells with successive lines, the [...]
Chicago took a turn for winter again this week, then, abruptly, about-faced (it was 52 degrees F this morning!). Tomorrow, if the forecast's to be believed, we plunge again. Bye-bye 50s, hello 30s, 20s, below and beyond. No matter. I have my own handwarmer, my own hot jelly jar of Russian tea (what my mom used to hand me when I came in from the cold or was sick in bed). Lazy Are the Skeletons ( Three Ring Records , eMusic ) is [...]
Night Highway, Orvar Atli Thorgeirsson Soft Soft War - The Hotel Alexis This song has circled me (or I have circled it) for weeks since I heard it on Paper Thin Walls . Like a smiling wolf, like a charming serial killer (have I ironically watched too many Lifetime movies , or is there any other kind?) asking if I'd like a ride in its convertible. It's still an enigma, [...]
Tent revival Memphis Flu - Elder Curry and His Congregation I always sort of pity people who grew up without any kind of religious service-attending. Not just because they missed the benefits of fellowship and communal identity, but also because some of the music could be great. That's what I liked, anyway -- belting those hymns to a booming pipe organ. Granted, Charles Wesley's Easter standard "Christ the [...]
Shellac on a hand, Jim Dine Say What You Like - Jar "Say What You Like" enters unassuming: a muted, circular round of keys, a demure voice, measured, recitative. The song shares an aesthetic kinship with Cat Power, and most pointedly with "Maybe Not." But its spiritual ancestor is Liz Phair's "Divorce Song" -- in the cruel, slow [...]
Morning, Sally Hazelet Drummond In The Morning - Leafcutter John An earthworm, divining moisture, twists and burrows black soil, slow rupturing to the surface. Above, dew-drenched leaves click and clack and birds hop on spiny spindle legs. The soft thwack of early-shift driver's tires beat periodic on the distant road. A broad-breasted robin spots movement in the grass and, abrupt flurry and
Image: Saved on the ocean, Rikard Land The Ocean Always Wins - She's Spanish, I'm American If you can get past the name, you're in. Unlike jolly band of Swedes, We're From Barcelona, "She" actually is Spanish and "I" really is American. (Try harder next time guys, please!) I is also Josh Rouse, duo-projecting with girlfriend Paz Suay, a singer of somewhat limited vocal range but considerable saucy charm. Pop [...]
This isn't what I expected at the beginning of 2006 either. But isn't it wonderful when music surprises you? And I think it says something (and I don't want to draw any hasty conclusions) that my top two are five-track song cycles. Other than that, no trends to speak of. Just good music, I hope. I rearranged the furniture til the last minute, which unfortunately required some additional writing. So if everything isn't perfectly feng shuied, rest assured that I'll sweep through later and straighten the furniture. [...]
Image: Joe Carey Things will probably be sleepy around here for the rest of the week. I still need to put together my 2006 lists (songs and albums) and write 10,000 word essays for each. (That last bit is a joke.) But expect something come Monday. In the meantime, kindly wander over and download the latest holiday-themed Contrast Podcast . I contributed for the first time in eons. My intro sounds [...]
To some degree I'm repeating myself here, but plod on dear reader... there are extenuating circumstances. Amy mentioned that I've been sick. It's true. Not run-of-the-mill cold, flu or whooping cough ill, but one of those things where you're having nurses swap out new IV bags, one in each arm, for almost a week. I'm better now thank goodness (the stew was perfect, Am, merci). About halfway through my medical vacation they switched my drugs to something that can affect your hearing if you're not careful. Being mildly paranoid (which isn't a bad thing in the [...]
Here's where I try to say something about the songs I really liked in 2006. I could talk about skill and technical virtuosity, artistic ambition, ideological good intentions, recording quality, even originality (that obsolete concept). But basically, the list below is made up of songs that meant something to me -- for lots of reasons, often personal ones. Most aren't there simply because they're beautiful or thrilling (though they often are), but because they seized a mood the first (or third or tenth) time I heard them, tied red ribbons around my fingers for the people and places and events [...]
Catacombs - Ghost Stories The Upper Ten/The Lower Five - Ghost Stories Five years ago, the twisty, eccentric pop of The Shins' Oh, Inverted World dug warrens in my brain, built bunks and took up residence. But the band lost me with Chutes Too Narrow and, based on what I've heard of the forthcoming effort, I'm not finding my way [...]
I was going to follow Sunday's post with more true tales of death, but I couldn't unleash that double downer. Not when it's the season to deck the halls and fa la la la la. So instead, allow me to introduce a song of molten silver arpeggio and sugar-dusted murmur, a cover by SYF friend Robin Allender. "Walking In The Air" is the theme from The Snowman , the animated film based on the book that I lived in ignorance of until just a few days ago. (Apparently, this is odd even for an American.) [...]
Image: Adam Fuss Anthem For the Already Defeated - Rock Plaza Central Add It Up - Violent Femmes Down By The Riverside - Mahalia Jackson I was listening for maybe [...]
Image: Adam Fuss Anthem For the Already Defeated - Rock Plaza Central Add It Up - Violent Femmes Down By The Riverside - Mahalia Jackson I was listening for maybe [...]
Image: 7 Arts Studio Down From Dover - Jon Langford and Sally Timms If you were to give birth to a stillborn baby, alone, having been abandoned by the child's father and shunned by your family, you might just have cause to scream and cry, to be frightened and sad and angry. But Sally Timms narrates the Dolly Parton [...]
Shake Your Fist
Avicii – Two Million
Beck – I Just Started Hating Some People Today
H&M Lookbook Mujer y Hombre Otoño 2012.
