The Morning Benders with the Echo Chamber Orchestra – "Excuses" Here's a gorgeous version of "Excuses" from the Morning Benders' forthcoming album Big Echo . The band employed "all their friends" from the Bay Area, referred to them as the "Echo Chamber Orchestra" and gave it the Spector-inspired wall of sound treatment. Enlisted talents include John Vanderslice, Christopher Owens (Girls) and a ton of others. A success by any definition. Silky voiced Morning Benders front man Chris Chu [...]
tUnE-yArDs - "Real Live Flesh" I found this studio recorded clip posted on Pitchfork. It's the best evidence answering the above headline. With the help from a sexy bass line, Merrill Garbus builds vocal loops and rhythms before your very eyes in the wonderfully shot video (care of 4AD Sessions). The track is called "Real Live Flesh" from the recently re-released BiRd BrAiNs . The Dirty Projectors cue is an easy one to point out, same with Garbus's R&B via indie stylings, but the [...]
[Photos by Merry Swankster - 10.23.09 @ Bluebird, opening for Sunset Rubdown] tUnE-YaRdS return to Denver on Sunday as warm up act for Dirty Projectors at the Bluebird. Upon entering the Bluebird Theater for Sunset Rubdown's show I was immediately drawn to tUnE-YaRdS noisy racket taking place on the state. Merrill Garbus is tUnE-YaRdS and she was not only the most exciting performer I've seen rock the shit out of an ukelele, but the most exciting performer this year. She draws you in and hypnotizes. A performance [...]
After many years of musical obsession completely removed from a record player, my pile of vinyl now grows incrementally, aided by the quality LP sellers of New York City. Baubles from the treasure chest will be posted here whenever it seems appropriate... The Minimal Wave vinyl reissue label continues to do the lord's work by exhuming all manner of European synth pop that's been forgotten by all but the most dedicated and marginally obsessed. One of their most beautiful releases of late (and wow, just look at the above painted cover by Lorenzo [...]
Neon Indian - "Should Have Taken Acid With You" I don't know about my other children of the 90s out there, but my patience with songs exalting dumb adolescence is unravelling a bit. It says nothing to me about my life , you know? But, since what feels like 70% of all pop songs dwells on the young and dunderheaded, a few have to slip through the gate occasionally. At least this one, by Austin/Brooklyn hookup Neon Indian, throws in a few universal phrases that haven't been consistently mined for lyrics. How [...]
[Photo Cred ] We last heard from Arthur & Yu while deep in the 'Best of' tallying during 2007's blog commencement ceremonies. The group and their veritable melting pot of sweetness comes from a delicate romance of boy/girl harmonies dipping one foot each into Neil Young's folk and Belle & Sebastian's twee-pop. Last month by way of Subpop's 7" single of the month club , the Seattle duo reappeared with this typically unassuming gem that ends with an unsolicited response to the one of the most classic of all Bob Dylan [...]
Magik Markers - "7/23" I touched on this briefly in my L review of the intriguing Balf Quarry . It's one of a few standouts of that pretty baffling LP. It starts a deconstructed clockwork noise stitch job, and then just improbably gets sweeter and sweeter as it goes, ending just shy of sappy, at least until the flailing, dying animal guitars start squealing. Twin Sister - "Ginger" Twin Sister is a fairly new, [...]
So, the most fun thing I did this weekend was catch The Beets play at Red Star Bar in Greenpoint on Friday night, on a show put together jointly by the Music Slut and Brooklyn Ski Club in celebration of both the utility of free malt liquor in times of recession, and the birthday of Beets member Jose. I've been charmed enough by The Beets to book them for shows twice in 2008 and continually post their high-larious show fliers, but I've never seen them without fewer hiccups as they were on May day. Without the [...]
After many years of musical obsession completely removed from a record player, my pile of vinyl now grows incrementally, aided by the quality LP sellers of New York City. Baubles from the treasure chest will be posted here whenever it seems appropriate... Before we get into this, let me first explicitly state my disapproval for "aural" = "oral" puns. When someone describes a song or a sound as "aural sex" they deserve a sock in the jaw, no exceptions. The freewheeling NYC disco scene of the early 80s is no excuse. So, "Aural Exciters," that's [...]
Atlas Sound - "Time Warp" I'm hard-pressed to pin down a specific time Bradford Cox is is porting to in his latest digital single. There's something of a loose, beatnik vibe to the whole thing though, right down to its disdain for the bourgeois 'burbs. "Suburban streets, you've been cruel to me. I hate your light. I hate your time." Alienation is not new to the Cox oeuvre. Notably though, I think this is about as clear and un-fuzzed as I've ever heard his singing voice, which is typically sad and lovely. Remember, [...]
The wee small hours of this morning saw the digital dispersal of the first heard track from the next Sonic Youth record, the Kim Gordon-centric "Sacred Trickster." Given the levels of anticipation for that LP around MS HQ, this has inflamed an already raging itch to hear the thing. Sonic Youth have had an improbably stellar late-career renaissance in the 00s, and with perpetually grinning Pavement bassist Mark Ibold now installed as a full-fledged recording member, there's very little reason to believe the Golden Age of their golden years won't continue, unabated. So, as a salve for our [...]
The post's titular match-up would go one way in my own personal esteem, and likely another way entirely in a popularly decided vote. We're here to discuss a cover version, and not a full-frontal assault, though in the hands of TNV the two are often indistinguishable. Times New Viking - "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" Arcade Fire's "Neighborhood #1" was a readymade anthem, and enough of an earworm as an album opener that tens of hundreds of thousands of listeners curious from gushing accolades, stayed put at [...]
The post's titular match-up would go one way in my own personal esteem, and likely another way entirely in a popularly decided vote. We're here to discuss a cover version, and not a full-frontal assault, though in the hands of TNV the two are often indistinguishable. Times New Viking - "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" Arcade Fire's "Neighborhood #1" was a readymade anthem, and enough of an earworm as an album opener that tens of hundreds of thousands of listeners curious from gushing accolades, stayed put at [...]
I've been poring over Q1-'09 tracks for which to be included in this year's first podcast (coming this week, he says, knocking wood...). As always in this far-flung moment of ours, there are many great songs willed in to life, and with dedicated curation, quality is fairly assured. I have to confess to a slight disconnect towards the music of the here and now, though, a slight glitch that's barring me from intense preoccupation with any few 09 records. The hows and whys of it are probably best saved for a more thought out post. But, since no one [...]
After many years of musical obsession completely removed from a record player, my pile of vinyl now grows incrementally, aided by the quality LP sellers of New York City. Baubles from the treasure chest will be posted here whenever it seems appropriate... It seems I can't go more than a few weeks without circling back to Roxy Music. To everyone's benefit, I'm sure you'll agree. (Or get the fuck out!) One of the things that puzzles me most when I listen to their records, is how hugely popular they were. Music this cerebral has always [...]
British rock music in this decade has been inexcusably bad. I honestly cannot think of a single rock band from Great Britain that I'm dying for an impending record from (Prinzhorn Dance School probably only need the one LP. Long Blondes, Electrelane, R.I.P. Scotland gets a perpetual exemption, a riddle MS anthropologists are hard at work unravelling). Their pop music scene has been been considerably brighter, especially if you don't attempt some fuzzy ethnicity accounting with M.I.A. That Sophie Ellis-Bextor > anything Libertines-related is a duh of the highest magnitude (Grand Royal Duh? Duh-glepexity?). So it comes as no [...]
Sunset Rubdown - "Jackie" (aka "Paper Lace") (live @ the Middle East Downstairs, Boston, 09.15.2008) Though I question whether or not you can really call a songwriter reinterpreting his own songs a "cover" per se (I never really bought it when Cat Power reworked her own songs on a covers record either), that doesn't mean that this Sunset Rubdown reworking of Swan Lake's "Paper Lace" isn't intriguing. Funny, that in listening to SL's Enemy Mine it occurred to me that Dan Bejar was often playing the Camilla Wynn Ingr's role in [...]
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Hysteric" A couple years ago, I was a YYY-fretter , bemoaning a sophmore LP that didn't play to the bands strengths as I saw them. Mainly, I was bemoaning the shelving of the band's best Nick Zinner-dominated, legend of a guitar slayer moments, some of which would eventually pop up on the Is Is EP. Now, faced with a third LP mostly devoid of any shredding, whatsoever, it's sort of funny that I should be so enthusiastic. But the album succeeds primarily on the increased development [...]
James McNew, photo by Fiona Diffley After many years of musical obsession completely removed from a record player, my pile of vinyl now grows incrementally, aided by the quality LP sellers of New York City. Baubles from the treasure chest will be posted here whenever it seems appropriate... None of the members of Yo La Tengo are white hot celebrity personalities exactly, but Ira and Georgia's marriage has always provided a frame of reference for the band's music that leaves bassist James McNew as a third [...]
Junior Boys - "Parallel Lines" Evidence of Chris Stein and Debbie Harry is thin on the ground, so rails stretching into infinity seems the more likely inspiration. After their increased "In the Morning" profile, the obvious move for Junior Boys would have been beaucoup block rocking beats. Which is why the icy restraint of this first released track from Begone Dull Care is a pleasant surprise. Jeremy Greenspan even keeps his silken croon in reserve, softly breathing over the slow motion Moroder synth percolation. Despite the instrumental palette, it's got a [...]
Merry Swankster
James Blake – Live Album
Childish Gambino - "Heartbeat" (Official Music Video)
Gang Colours – Fancy Restaurant
