the oh so quiet show

Because you come here looking for the best music in the entire universe (haha…god, I hope not), you have to check out this video of a girl playing the xylophone. Some issues I have with this girl is that she doesn’t seem human and she doesn’t even have to look at her hands while she plays. Also, the sun in the top left corner is weirding me out. And then there’s the freaky kid-orchestra accompanying her (I drawn to the girl playing the melodica for some reason). AND THEY’RE ALL SMILING, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP IT! JUST. OH …GOD. I think this can be categorized as one of those “WTF?” moments. Strangely enough, I was wondering today what goes on in North Korea (this doesn’t happen all the time, really) and now I know. WOW.

I can count on CJ to expose me to great bands that I would never hear of otherwise. He asked me, “How do you buy music that you can’t find on Amazon?” My first though was gemm or musicstack, but they have somewhat failed in the search for Carpark North cds. There are websites you can buy their cds at, but the websites are in anti-English. So. Danish people, feel free to aid us.

CJ told me that I had to watch Carpark North’s video for “Best Day”. It is an awesome video, but I actually liked the one for “Human” more (the one screencapped in this entry, which you can download in .mov format at duckling.dk). My first reaction was “hm…cool…” but I like the videos much more after watching them a couple of times. Or more than a couple by this point. See more videos directed by Martin de Thurah at antville.org.

Actually, I can kind of describe why I like the videos (beware of forthcoming ineloquence…ness!). Frenetic and peaceful; that’s the impression I get. Floating or lying down while spazzing out at the same time. Kind of like that scene in Garden State when Zach Braff is sitting in the couch staring at nothing while everything goes around him at 1000 mph (uh oh, I just referenced Garden State…is that a bad thing?). Diana mentioned surrealism, which is an apt description.

Oh, and the music is good! Hopefully I’ll figure out a way to buy it online without accidentally adding 400 of them to my Danish shopping cart.

Not keeping up with Bjork news = bad. She’s in Matthew Barney’s new film, Drawing Restraint 9, for which she also composed the soundtrack of (release date: July 25th). There are sound clips at the bottom of this page. Bjork.com’s description of the soundtrack’s music:

Björk has written a suite of haunting music for the sho, one of the oldest instruments in Japanese culture with seventeen reeds and fifteen distinct pipes. It is performed by Mayumi Miyata, one of the world’s foremost sho players. Björk also worked with scholars of the Noh theatre to produce new musical settings, incorporating the low, growling vocal techniques of traditional Japanese court entertainment.

And of the film:

She also features in the film, together with Matthew, where they together tell a tale of tea ceremonies, vaseline, a shinto marriage and of course the old classic whale-shapeshifting ending. I mean, who can forget back in the days when Greta Garbo swam off into the sunset as a humpback whale? It still brings a sentimental tear to my eye.

Humpback whales? YES!

Firstly, there’s a Free Feist performance tomorrow at Borders at Columbus Circle. Free = cheap! I’m probably not going, mainly because I suck. Other free non-music related things tomorrow that you might want to check out in NYC are the Renegade Craft Fair and grand opening of Giant Robot’s new store (Giant Robot is an awesome magazine, in case you didn’t know), GRNY.

As for the Norwegian part of this post, I came across this article about the Isle of MTV festival and it seems like the weather in Bergen is craptastic right now. I can’t read the article but that’s what I gather. Not really a big news thing but I thought the photo on the article’s page looked really sad. AW. CLOUDS. Another weather related thinger: Sondre Lerche wrote that “…it’s funny that in the month of June I’ve played for melting people in Brooklyn and freezing people in Bergen.” Sondre Lerche’s online diary is funny and if you don’t read it then…um. You should. Another Norwegian thing is this article that might be about how to be rock-star-ish. A joke, I’m sure. Is it funny? I dunno. HAR HAARRRR! Hiiihiiii!

Last link for now is G8 REBOOT. Sadly, I haven’t given a great deal of thought to Live 8 and what its purpose is even though I’ve read so much about it in the past week. So why do I care? …well, I should care more than I do. Of course I’d like to make poverty history; who wouldn’t? And. I don’t have much else to say (not eloquently, at least) so I just thought I’d mention it.

I haven’t listened to Barbara Morgenstern in a while but she has a newish album out with Robert Lippok (of To Rococo Rot) called Tesri. You can listen to sound clips at Barbara’s slick flash homepage (flash I like = yay!). Labeling their music as “electronic” is extremely vague as there’s loads of crappy electronic music out there, of which this is not, but you either have an idea of what they sound like or…you don’t. The kind of electronic music I like is “bleepy, bloopy, clicky, doesn’t suck,” and if this helps, here’s one of Barbara’s songs that I really like from her album Fjorden:

Barbara Morgenstern – Mjisnjedschaz [removed]

I’m sure I’ll never remember how to spell that.

Watch the new Beck video for “Girl” at beck.com. A lot of stuff gets folded like the back covers of MAD magazine. Why? ….why not? After watching this, I’m starting to think that Beck only has one t-shirt and jacket.

My favorite Beck video is still The New Pollution.

If you like Lali Puna and Japan, then you will like Lali Puna’s Japan 2005 slideshow thinger!

It seems that Mew really wanna get the new stuff out to the masses. They have plans to release to the “Apocalypso” single in 7″ and CD format, the former will be limited to 2000 copies, so if you want to feel special, I suggest you pre-order. Along with that news, they have a stream of the another song on the album, “Why Are You Looking Grave?”, featuring guest vocals from a dude named J.Mascis. I really adore this song. It really reminds me of the old dream-like music that Mew has made. The piano accompanied with Jonas’ voice is really quite magical. Ok I sound like a turd. To get a listen to the new song, go to www.mewsite.com and click journal. (I haven’t learned to be cool and just have a lil’ thing you could click like Robyn does.)

Just so I/you don’t forget (not that I would): Sigur Ros 2005 tour dates, in particular, 9/12 and 9/13 at the Beacon Theater. Figuring that the tickets don’t cost a crapload, I’ll probably go, although I wish it were at a general admissions place. I have nothing against the Beacon Theater but like any seated venue, I NEVER EVER EVER GET GOOD SEATS. Not that that’s very crucial to seeing Sigur Ros live, but it doesn’t hurt.

Norwegian music keeps gaining in popularity it seems:

musicfromnorway.com: The Main Site For Norwegian Music [from it’s a trap!]