the weekend's here, and what we really need is some noise. mbv 's been making headlines for their reunion tours after a long 16 years hiatus, while primal scream has a new album out and will be touring this year as well. i won't be able to catch either, but this live track - taken off their concert in tokyo in 2002 - serves as a solid second best. of all the different transformations primal scream has gone through (indiepop, dance, rock & roll and dub, to name a few), my favorite has always been their [...]
there's something special about music rooted in a particular history and geography, especially when intertwined with one's own biography. that mammoth task is the humble project of the rural alberta advantage , a three piece band that play songs "about hometowns and heartbreak, born out of images from growing up in central and northern alberta". it's a wonder they are yet unsigned, considering the gleaming potential in their debut self-released album hometowns . in "don't haunt this place", the raa engages a comfortable yet unlikely melding of twee folk (is there such a thing?) with a [...]
i don't usually talk about the photos i use for each entry, but this one is a personal favorite of a freewheelin' bob dylan taken by rock & roll photographer jim marshall , from the proof collection my friends got me for my birthday this year. dylan had spotted a discarded tire while walking down seventh avenue in greenwich village, and marshall was quick enough to catch this single shot with a morning haze acting to filter the light. anyway, i finally caught murray lerner 's the other side of the mirror [...]
i've taken a bit longer than others to get my copy of bon iver 's for emma, forever ago , but i think the wait - while largely unjustified - has been well worth it. the album, released earlier this year on jagjaguwar , is a debut masterpiece never to be rushed into, but slowly savored and appreciated. recorded over a period of three months in a hunting cabin in northwestern wisconsin, it has an uncanny ability of absorbing its surroundings with its gentle presence and enduring companionship which grows with the familiarity of each listen. while [...]
years after the 60s garage band count five split, the ghost of their hit "psychotic reactions" got revived in imaginary terms by lester bangs . decades later, their legacy gets invoked again, this time by up-and-coming french indiepop collective de la jolie musique (literally, "of the pretty music") in "bender", the a-side of their recently self-released safari 73. but it's not only the count five who get woken from their slumber - so too are the scattered remnants of the living and the dead, from the tropicalia-rock of os mutantes to [...]
![#33 [eine kleine morgenmusik] leeson - some girls](http://cdn.elbo.ws/posts/1188494_lg.jpg)
i woke up this morning to the irresistibly catchy hooks of "some girls", the latest single released by my pals leeson . i've known these guys for quite a while, photographing them whenever i make it (in time) for their gigs, and it's been great just watching the band grow through the years in ultimately feeling comfortable having fun and being themselves. that's something evident in this song, a wry laddish rumination on the unexplainable idiosyncrasies of girls we've all met and probably dated before, complete with swirling melodies and choppy rhythms that take a life of [...]
when we really should be writing our theses, sheela and i have spent much time instead listening to of montreal , amusing ourselves with george bataille 's cameo on the epic "the past is a grotesque animal" and marveling at the vaudevillian absurdity of the "heimdalsgate like a promethean curse" video, both from last year's emotionally draining indie-disco-pop breakthrough hissing fauna, are you the destroyer? . the band has come a long way from its early lo-fi pop to becoming one of the last-standing elephant six bands still alive and kicking in the scene. their [...]
memory is a funny thing, and from last night's supper i realized it can be a fun thing too. one thing i distinctly remember about animal collective is the first song i ever heard from them a couple of years back. circadian had insisted i give them a listen, and so i did to the first track i could get my hands on, which turned out to be "slippi" from here comes the indian . it was like nothing i had ever heard before, a primal campfire screamfest whose indecipherable yelps expressed such an exuberant [...]
my afternoon at starbucks had a welcome interruption yesterday with the opening guitar strums of "california stars", one of the woody guthrie songs that billy bragg worked with wilco in bringing to life in the mermaid avenue series. i had almost forgotten how much i loved this song when i first started listening to wilco, starting with the perfection of yankee hotel foxtrot and working my way back to their older country days. "california stars" has been a live favorite of theirs for years, and this version (live at the ryman, nashville in '02, [...]
![#29 [eine kleine morgenmusik] the pains of being pure at heart - everything with you](http://cdn.elbo.ws/posts/1188503_lg.jpg)
one of mozart's most famous works is "seranade no. 13 for strings in g minor", or more commonly known as "eine kleine nachtmusik" (literally, "a little night music" in german). i'm sure you've heard it before. well, some of you have mentioned to me that a lot of the music featured here isn't exactly music you'd wake up to. that's true in a way, since i've used the blog title a lot more loosely to encompass anything i've been listening to lately. it's also of course a tribute to one of my favorite bands belle and sebastian , who've [...]
while sufjan stevens has been on a rather long hiatus, his asthmatic kitty label has been keeping itself busy with new signings, the latest of which is grampall jookabox - songwriter david adamson's self-proclaimed "jungle folk" project. a new album ropechain is due this november, the fruit of a spontaneously intense week of composing and arranging, featuring among other songs the stomping "the girl ain't preggers". a direct pounding tribal structure forms the backbone for the narrator's ironic tale of the woes of finding his girl pregnant, and the loss he subsequently [...]
my portishead third album has been lying around for months, a victim of owner neglect save for a couple of background listens. but what's a couple of months of dormancy if this has been a record more than ten years in the making? tonight seemed like the right evening to give it a real spin, and i'm convinced if a decade is what it takes for this band to compose itself for an album that doesn't merely reproduce the genre it arguably kickstarted, then so be it. while third should really be listened to [...]
i owe sue a long overdue "music to drive to" mix. i know it would probably begin with jonathan richman 's "roadrunner" and end off with r.e.m. 's "drive", although everything in between's just a haze. after listening to wire 's "one of us", taken off their newly released object 47 album available at pink flag , i think this song will definitely sit well in the mix, maybe as a fitting companion to kraftwerk's "autobahn", but perhaps more appropriately as simply a breath of fresh air. mp3: wire - one [...]
another band with an upcoming release this september is mercury rev with their new album snowflake midnight. although i started listening to them at the surprisingly sweet deserter's songs , what i really like is their earlier work which was full-on noise and melody in unequal parts (in which way i cannot say - they were delightfully unpredictable that way). sadly, i haven't enjoyed their later releases as much, especially the frustratingly new-agey secret migration . that's why my only lament for their otherwise perfect concert at the esplanade last year was probably the [...]
last year, okkervil river released the stage names , which was one of my favorite albums of 2007. this september, the follow-up to that album the stand-ins will be out, and after the first couple of preview listens, i still feel it pales in comparison to its predecessor. i'll definitely give it a chance to grow on me, but for the time being, here's the awesome album closer from the stage names . i still remember the first time i heard it when i nearly choked on my lunch hearing the beach boys' [...]
i've never been to reservoir park, but i sure know what it's like not knowing what i'm gonna do, just as the world keeps turning and the clouds keep rolling on. this song, taken off the newly released debut album by the dutchess and the duke , seems to read what's weighing on my mind right now with every surrounding handclap and knowingly produced harmony. comparisons to dylan often crop up probably because of some resemblance in song structure and delivery right down to jesse lortz's tail-end drawl, but maybe it's a weight a little too heavy to bear [...]
i love whistling songs (high on the list: andrew bird 's "a nervous tick motion to the head". nobody whistles better than him.) and i can't explain why. whatever it is, when i heard the first whistles on man man 's appearance in the latest issue of la blogothèque 's the take-away shows , i got really interested. i happen to love the take-away shows a lot too (also high on the list: the elevator sequence for the arcade fire , the staircase orchestra for beirut , and [...]
i've always had a love-hate affair with prog rock. it's generally not quite my cup of tea, but i can't explain why i like bands like dungen so much, and yet just can't quite appreciate the mars volta . anyhow, it's with this questionable track record that i picked up crystal antlers ' new self-released ep from my mailbox bearing much apprehension, which of course was mixed with much curiosity as well considering the rave reviews it's been receiving all round. i've also got to admit my first spin was a rough one, something to the [...]
mention the rune grammofone label, and you'll think right away of the bustling experimental music scene in norway. sometimes, that can be an intimidating impression, since experimental must mean serious and difficult right? wrong, especially if it's elephant9 you're listening to, the newly formed psych-prog-jazz-rock (feel free to add more labels) band comprising ståle storløkken (supersilent) on keyboards, nikolai eilertsen (the national bank) on bass, and torstein lofthus (shining) on drums. established musicians in their respective bands, the trio sound perfectly comfortable playing with each other, their impeccably tight performance and lively improvisation evident in their [...]
this smokey robinson classic has been covered many times, but this year two great indie folk acts have gotten in with their own versions. the first song that got me hooked on thao nguyen was the heartfelt "feet asleep", an acoustic song that got itself an updated production for its appearance in this year's we brave bee stings and all . that album, performed by thao and her band the get down stay down , was released earlier this year on cd, and later this august on lp, which is the version that features this cover. [...]
i'm waking up to...
Princesse - Tell Me | MP3
Beck - 'I Just Started Hating Some People Today' [Listen]
[LISTEN] Gotye (Passion Pit Remix)
New Remix: Jonquil - Run (RxGibbs Remix)
