the oh so quiet show

Editors

I’m not a big fan of “Editors”:http://www.editorsofficial.com/ (I like them, just not intensely so), but since my friend Patricia invited me to see them and it’s not like I have anything else to do on a Thursday night besides eat and procrastinate (homework?…no), I joined her at Webster Hall last night. We got there rather late compared to when I go to more concerts (I’m paranoid about tonight’s Flaming Lips show; I NEED A GOOD VIEW, NEEEED…first time I saw them I started waiting at 4 PM or something, seriously), but there weren’t a crapload of people there at 8:30. I still ended up standing right behind a tall person though–I think that’s Murphy’s Law.

I heard their live show was good, so that was another reason to go. And…it was good. I mean, they played really well, the crowd loved it, and the band looked happy. But Patricia and I had the same thought about the lead singer, Tom: “forced spazziness”. Did anyone else get this idea? At first, I thought, “Oh, he likes to wave his hands around and stuff,” but it looked…forced. I didn’t mind the “running around the stage” bit and overall excitedness, but after a while all the spastic hand movements got distracting. Hohum.

It’s kinda weird for me to go to a concert where I’m not a huge fan (I don’t go to random concerts unless other people ask me to); I more likely to observe other people’s reactions than just pay attention to the concert. To my left was a group of guys who’d go jumping-crazy every now and then and in front of me were some girls who’d also go jumping-crazy while pumping their arms in the air. All around me fans sang along to the most popular songs. The stage had some nice lighting going on…all the better for me to take photos on my dinky Canon powershot while others whipped out their digital SLRs. Ahh. Someday, someday.

You’ll probably hate me for this, but I’m one of those docile concert-goers. I was more of the screamy time in high school, probably because 1) I was younger and 2) I hadn’t discovered the importance of earplugs yet. Most of the music I listen to is pretty docile anyway though, so it works out.

Near the end of the show, Tom whipped his beer at the audience. My first thought was that it was water…until I realized it smelled like beer. Ohhh. Hm. Well, I can’t say I got showered with it, so it wasn’t the worst thing in the world, but some of it got into Patricia’s eye. Yeeeah…that’s not fun. Afterwards she asked why we didn’t dodge the airborne liquid as we saw it splatter towards us; we had noo ideeaaaa. Maybe brains work more slowly when they’re bombarded with the stimuli of bright lights and loud music, which is fine and dandy, until someone overexcitedly throws stuff at you.

So…overall, Editors know how to put on a tight show. As usual, I was freaked out by the drumming. Is that weird? As in, I love drums. Like..”Hey you other guys…are playing guitar…but that dude in the back that I can hardly see is pounding out 16th notes like a machine and watching him makes my arms feel tired.” I’d write something better, but I’m not qualified to write any kind of in-depth review.

But tonight? FLAMING LIPS? BUUH? YES.

Read a bunch of other reviews:

* “Music Slut”:http://musicslut.blogspot.com/2006/03/editors-webster-hall.html
* “Chris’ Music Snobbery”:http://musicsnob.blogs.friendster.com/chris_music_snobbery/2006/03/editors_webster.html
* “Stereogum”:http://www.stereogum.com/archives/002447.html
* “Village Indian”:http://www.villageindian.com/village_indian/2006/03/editors_webster.html
* “The Modern Age”:http://www.themodernage.org/2006/03/30/the-editors-overtake-webster-hall/
* “Yeti Don’t Dance”:http://noyetidance.blogspot.com/2006/03/editors-massive-attack.html
* “The Underrated Blog”:http://theunderrated.blogspot.com/2006/03/editors-webster-hall.html

After scouring the Internet more than any sane person should, I found some nice words about Magnet’s performance at the Living Room last week (all on MySpace, for some reason):

* South Park Dan
* Crystal
* Craig Smith

I love reading good things about Magnet. They justify my…um…fandom. Right. But reading these just made me sad because I could’ve actually seen the show. Maybe. Maybe not. I wouldn’t care if it had been a show in Norway, but NYC? While I wasn’t mad at the Living Room before because it’s not their fault that I’m not old enough…more than a week later I decided that maybe I am allowed to be a little angry. A little pissed. Just a smidgen. Am I allowed that little bit? Can I leave my shell of inhibition for a split second and leave a message for The Living Room that goes, “WHAT THE FUCK?”

After the show got a message from someone that made me laugh and hurt at the same time. “Did you go to Magnet at the Living Room? I heard it was great.” Nope. But I heard the same thing.

I need to think of something else. Really. Need to. Not just the 500000 calorie cake I ate last night. Not the documentary about staving, skeletal Sudanese people I watched in class yesterday morning. Actually, there are a million other things I could think about–Flaming Lips concert, eating pizza this Saturday, impending doom–but every day I come back to the same thought:

“Why did he give me his guitar?”

I’m not kidding. I still can’t grasp the generosity or why he gave it to me. I mean…yes, I can think of reasons, but I still don’t fully get it. There’s probably nothing else to it–I was sad, I’m a nice person, end of story. However, I still don’t feel like I deserved it (not that I don’t play it; my germs are all over that baby now), and I continue to ask myself a million Even-related questions that start with “Why?”

He tried to give me cab fare. [buries head in hands]

Every time I see Even, I feel more embarrased because the list of stupid things I do during each encounter just keep piling up. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

I just want to note this artist, Adam Stidham, on MySpace because:

# He doesn’t have an effed up customized profile that makes my eyes bleed more than they already do while looking at MySpace. You know what I’m talking about. Like neon green shit with fixed backgrounds and things that are semi-transparent.
# His music is very sweet and pleasant. Boring description, yeah. Um. Admittedly, I first thought of John Mayer, but I’m not a John Mayer fan. Well. I suck at comparing artists to other artists.
# He hasn’t released anything, but sounds like he should.
# He’s 21. Damn young’uns.

this room is freakin’ huge

Watch the new Mew video for “The Zookeeper’s Boy” [via no snow]:

WindowsMedia: Broadband | 56k
Realplayer: Broadband | 56k

I don’t know what the point of the video is, but that’s okay. Because. It’s Mew. See those screenshots? They pretty much cover the whole video. Not that they’re the same, but the ginormous painting in the background reminds me ofThe Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover, which is a weird correlation. If you’ve never seen that movie before, it’s probably for the best.

peennguiinnnss

It has penguins. That’s the only reason I’m pointing out this video for The Brakes’ “All Night Disco Party”. Penguins. Animated penguins. I think this song would annoy the hell out of me if I listened to it too many times…

…but it does have penguins.

YouTube…what have you done to me?…

I’m not really into tea, but I do love scones. Plain scones. No tea.

[via the very tasty Becks & Posh]

A sweet Japanese Magnet fan, Mami, recorded a bunch of Magnet shows and sent them to me. I don’t think she’d mind me sharing them. Not like there’s a lot of live stuff out there. …And most of you probably aren’t interested anyway (I originally uploaded these just for one friend). Since these are on YouSendIt, only download if you’re really interested. First ones:

Live at Club Quattro, Osaka (November 9, 2005)
Live at Club Quattro, Toyko (November 10, 2005) (concert review at fusion musique)

I didn’t label all the songs correctly; some tracks are composed of two or three songs. The sound is a bit distorted, but if you’re me you’ll still love the recordings. He opens both shows with Quiet & Still, which I’m still dying to hear live (although solo, not necessarily with the band). Even though I don’t really like “All You Ask”, it sounds cool live. Actually, everything sounds cool live. Dammit.

Oh. Man. …This is ridiculous, but I’m still bummed that I only got to see him once when he was in the US. Once! That’s more than most Americans will get to see him. Why can’t I just be thankful for what I get? I constantly think about how undeservedly lucky I am, but then I think about how…oh, I saw him perform once this year, not in a small venue, boohoo…I guess I need to be smacked. I want to snuggle in with the Japanese crowd. They sound so polite, quiet and captivated. My god. There are so many times that I really feel like that I was born in the wrong country, with the wrong ethnicity, knowing the wrong languages, wrong wrong wrong…(yeah, I’m really not on topic anymore)…

Anyway, here’s another zip file:

Live at Docks, Toronto (March 1, 2006), Comfort Zone Toronto (March 2, 2006), and SXSW (March 16, 2006)

The shows in Canada were recorded by Mami–the quality’s pretty good. I added the SXSW show from Lullabyes because I figured I may as well get close to the 100 MB upload limit.

I probably shouldn’t be amazed by this, but…well, I am kind of amazed by how old some of these songs are, yet haven’t become tired from repeated listenings. Like. A gazillion repeated listenings. How many versions of “I’ll Come Along” can I take? A GAJILLION, apparently. The first time I heard it in 2001, I didn’t even know what it was called until his webmaster told me the title. And I’ve come to the conclusion that I could listen to “Nothing Hurts Not” a gajillion + a zillion times without getting tired of it. It almost makes me cry…

…but a different kind of crying than this anthropology homework makes me wanna do right now. Please shoot me.

Please don’t hurt me for bringing this to your attention.

It was funny at first, and then became kinda disturbing, and then kind of funny again…and then disturbing. What scared me most was that there’s an extended version of the theme song. Very extended. LIke 200% longer than it ought to be. Whyyyy?

For a split second at the end, there’s a frame of the main dude clad in Spongebob Squarepants boxer shorts. I don’t know why. …God, why does this video even exist? [via Kinki Style]

I was looking through old crap on my computer and had no idea that I took this video of “Magnet”:http://www.homeofmagnet at “Summer Sundae”:http://www.summersundae.com/ in 2004:

(I couldn’t take hi-res videos, but the sound’s pretty good.)

Besides that most of us probably won’t see him with a full band, there’s also that outdoor stage …thing. Hm. For some reason I don’t remember much about the performance. I’m sure it was good. Yeah. It started raining by the end, which was a nice touch. THANKS, NATURE.

I like his solo shows the most, but it’d be cool to see another show like this again.

For whatever reason I’ve had to listen to “Copy”:http://www.mobiusbeard.com/ over and over again. WHYYY?

…Oh, I like his songs. Okay. Good reason. “Audio Dregs”:http://audiodregs.com describes his music like so: “Copy busts out the gate with an essential sound somewhere between Ratatat’s upbeat triumphant numbers, Dabrye’s deceptively simple melodics, and YMO’s orchestral 8-bit.” I have to admit, that only 50% made sense to me. But maybe that helps you. (I never got into Ratatat for some reason. Or I got into them 50%.)

My description: Blippy, bleepy, spastic,and twitchy. Hey, that almost rhymed. But not. If I weren’t so uncoordinated, I might even dance to this stuff. Here is the song “A Slight but Delicious Warble” from his latest album, “Mobius Beard”:http://audiodregs.com/releases/adr061/index.html.

And another one called “Afro Oven”:

(And more at that “myspace thing”:http://www.myspace.com/copy.)

And…that’s all I’ve heard from this album, but I’d think the rest is good too. Buy from “Audio Dregs”:http://www.audiodregs.com/order/, who also has a special Dim Dim discounted cd-pack thinger!…which probably doesn’t interest you, but I wanted Bounce anyway so I may as well buy that.

Is it sad that I don’t remember the last time I bought a CD in an actual store?

Last night was “Magnet’s”:http://www.homeofmagnet.com last show in the US before heading back to Norway. I’m sure the show was great. However, I didn’t see it. (Abbe, please fill me in? Pretty please.)

I’m not 21; I’m the incredibly stupid age of 20. I was told that this wouldn’t be a problem. Except it was, because “The Living Room”:http://www.livingroomny.com/ won’t let you in if you’re under 21…unless you’re accompanied by an parent, according to the website. I suppose if I dragged my mum out from New Jersey then things would’ve been A-OK? I didn’t really get that idea from the way the guy at the dorm with the card reader-majiggy (which I’ve never seen before in my life) refused to let me in. There was no way. No back entrance. No window I could climb through in a sneaky fashion. I hadn’t mastered walking through walls, or how to use The Force, and my four friends and I certainly couldn’t take this guy down, although we thought about it.

I don’t know what would’ve happened to the venue if they let me and my 19 and 20 year old friends in. Police raid? Visit by Satan? The whales would be un-saved? We don’t drink or do anything very offensive, unless you’re me, in which case you just exist. Oh. Well. Is it just the alcohol thing? Restaurants would serve me wine, if I wanted it.

I had secured five tickets to the sold out show of which only two were used by Abbe and Janet. I felt horrible for dragging Sarah and Jen out, as they certainly had better things to do. Hell, I had “better” things to do (you know, school work), although nothing worth missing Magnet over. As of now (about 7 AM), I’ve been up for 24 hours straight and if it’s worth mentioning, I’m always uncaffeinated. Tuesday was long. Wednesday morning was long (although I had the good fortune of watching the sun rise over the Brooklyn Bridge, so maybe it wasn’t that bad). But Tuesday was longer because for the entire day I was thinking about the Magnet show. Actually, I’ve been thinking about it for a few months.

Oh well; what can you do? Nothing. I mean, nothing legal, as hit-the-carder-and-run idea did come up in conversation. After efforts to get in proved futile, I stopped thinking I was even going to see the show and just roamed around with Jen after giving my camera to Janet in the case that she may be able to use it.

I love Jen; she’s the only friend I’ve known since before popping out of the womb. I wanted her to distract me, and she did by filling me in on the past 6 months of her life in England and Thailand and showing me the rooftop of her apartment from where I could look down on Ludlow Street and give a short, angry glance at The Living Room. I couldn’t help but think of the minutes passing by with every moment I was …well, not there.

Janet called me about five to 11PM when the show was over so she could give me my camera with a bit of digitally-rendered Magnet. I was fairly alright up until then. I mean, I can deal. Yeah. I’m sad, but there are worse things in life, like death, torture and unsaved whales. But as much as I hate crying (I don’t remember the last time I did it), I _had_ to do it. For about 5 seconds. I guess sometimes it feels alright, but I still hate it.

Janet was waiting outside. I asked how the show was and she said crowded (because it’s a small place)…and with fans. Whoa, fans! Yes, that makes sense, but as someone who has seen him perform six times, not one of those shows was _both_ crowded and full of fans. Granted, the outdoor concert had a lot of space to fill (a field) and it was kind of raining, but…anyway. I bet I would’ve enjoyed that environment. Someday.

And then…fuck, more crying? What is this? Stop! Make it stop. Come _on_. Oh. Damn. Crying is messy and embarassing, besides increasing the snot production of my nasal passages. I guess it would’ve been more embarassing by myself and not with the insanely gentle and nice Janet by my side, who handed me a tissue. I didn’t want to leave. I missed the show, but…but. To be honest, I had something to give to Even and David (David being “the other guy” that tours with Even and handles the electronic-y stuff), so I really couldn’t just leave.

This could be a very long story; I’m wondering how to cut it short. How many details to include? Or leave out? Well. Even saw me with my head buried in my hands, which I wasn’t really planning for (I think he saw me through the clear door of the …door thing outside…you know what I mean), although I certainly wasn’t going to approach him in that manner. Hello, I MISSED YOUR SHOW. I WAS DEEMED TOO YOUNG TO ENTER “THE ROOM OF LIVING”. I guess that means I’m not worthy of living.

Anyway, I obviously didn’t look too happy. I mean, I was happy of course to see Even, but I was probably more depressed than I realized at the time since my brain works at “goldfish” level (ie, it’s really slow). Sometimes you don’t know how sad you are until your body tells you by unleashing torrents of salty water out of your eye sockets. It’s odd. I don’t know why every time I see a Magnet show, I just anticipate the next one more than the last. The first time I saw Even perform, I went to Brownies thinking that I wouldn’t get in (age limit problems once more, although that was me being 16 at an “18+” show). When I did get in, I was beyond happy. I guess it’s natural that if the opposite were to happen, I’d be beyond depressed. Just never had to experience it before.

“Wait here, I’m gonna get you a present.”

…Huh? No you’re not. What are you doing? No! I don’t remember what I actually said, but it was probably something like, “Wuuuh?” I’m an eloquent creature.

“Just wait here, I’ll be back in a bit.”

Well, I certainly wouldn’t run at that point. I was still confused. I mean. Huh? He never has presents. _I_ have presents, which I give after witnessing awesome performances. Or almost witnessing awesome performances.

He came back and plopped down his guitar case. My first thought was, “This isn’t a very good joke.”

“You can have my guitar.”

“…No, I can’t.”

“It’s yours! Take it.”

“…huuuh? But…I can’t!…it’s yours…uhhhh…” (Channeling eloquence here.)

“I’m not going to bring it back anyway.” I took the guitar and leaned it against the brick wall.

EVEN, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? Why are you nice beyond human comprehension? Why did you give me your guitar? Even if you weren’t going to bring it back, there’s no way you intended on giving it to me when you bought it. It wasn’t like, “Ohhh I’m gonna get this guitar and temporarily use it and give it to Robyn when I’m done with it.” I know that wasn’t what you were thinking. What were you thinking? I mean. WHA…

…I mean, thank you. Dammit. This guitar is going to bother me. I got this guitar because I _cried_? That’s wrong! That’s just wrong. I got this guitar because _my mum didn’t procreate a few months earlier?_ Or was Even going to give it to someone at the end of the show anyway? Like he’d just toss it in the audience–”Whoever catches it gets to keep it!”–and crush a few skulls in the process because the guitar + case is damn heavy?

Anyway, since I’ve had the past 8 or so odd hours to think about it, I…don’t really know what to think. Awkward. I’m just going to wonder what he would’ve done with the guitar otherwise. Of course, another part of me is just like “uhhiwuduiew3e90udsm keyboardsmash#213143$%NFMoo.” Even…words cannot express.

I could’ve written this in a much more endearing manner, but then it would get too personal. Just remember that Even is …I can’t even think of the words. Well. That’s my story. Unless you want a Part II.

…so I have almost no idea what this Magnet interview at ba.no says. MAYBE YOU KNOW NORWEGIAN.

If I could learn any other language, it’d be Norwegian.

…Actually, it’d be Japanese, but those Asian languages stump me.

Random: Even sings on “Christine Sandtorv’s”:http://www.christinesandtorv.com/ (of female pop trio, “Ephemera”:http://www.ephemera.no) new album, “First Last Dance”:http://www.dagsavisen.no/nyetakter/anmeldelser/article2007675.ece, on the first track, “Ten Out Of Ten”. Yes, that sentence was too long. Anyhoo, you can listen to a clip at “music from norway”:http://www.musicfromnorway.com/default.aspx?norwegian=album&music=30780. I’m not sure how much I like this particular song, but I love both of their voices in general.

If you’re wondering (but you probably aren’t)…my laundy has completed the cleaning cycle.

Avoiding work at 3:50 AM means going on YouTube in hopes of finding something “Magnet”:http://www.homeofmagnet.com related. HOT DAMN, I FOUND SOMETHING:

Videos! Sound! The same person also recorded “Believe”:http://youtube.com/watch?v=L8XQAsP3lLY and “Where Happiness Lives”:http://youtube.com/watch?v=q704NAYL5J4. I like the banjo-fied version of Believe much more than the regular electric guitar one he did at Webster Hall. Not really into this version of Where Happiness Lives for some reason (there’s at least three version, my favorite of which is this insanely morose one that sounds like death). (By the way, you can download YouTube videos and others through “keepvid.com”:http://keepvid.com/.)

“Nothing Hurts Now”:http://homeofmagnet.com/lyrics/nothinghurtsnow.html is one of my favorite songs. He usually ends his sets with it, perhaps to leave us feeling extremely sad because the song is pretty damn depressing. Yup. It’s even better when people aren’t chatting over his performance like that time at Pianos. The Hotel Cafe crowd seems very nice. Rewritable Content has a review.

Seeing Even perform live is very different from listening to his albums. It’s. Just. Really good. Yes. I was going to write something about how seeing “Nothing Hurts Me” live makes me feel, but it would just come out like [mumble mmdsffds keyboard smash] and [gugughgffd another keyboard smash]. In other words, I can’t really describe it. The pain sets in after I leave the venue and want to cry or drown my sorrows in a bag of granola (true story…which I won’t recount here).

He’s playing his last show for this tour at “The Living Room”:http://www.livingroomny.com this Tuesday night at 10PM. Then he will go right back to his barn/recording studio in Norway and record his new album…or something…and then god knows when he’ll come back. I think the tickets sold out, but if anyone reading this really wants to go I could probably get you a ticket (just leave a comment or something before Monday). As CJ said, I “push Magnet like crack”. So here I am, crack-pushing.

Right now I should either be doing homework or washing my laundry. But since I’d rather do anything else than write a craptastic paper or churn my dirty clothes in a vat of water, I’ll update this blog.

Lineland is one dude named Malcolm Felder who makes pseudo-video-gamey soft blippy music. Yeah, that’s my favorite genre too! His album Pavillion came out back in 2003 on the “I really heart them” Audio Dregs label, which means I’ve been listening to it since then…and it’s still good. Don’t you tired of some music after a while? A week, perhaps? (The latest Coldplay album did that to me–oh well.) For some reason, I never get tired of this kind of music. Take a listen:

Lineland - Rock I, Rock II

He’s also got some mp3s up on his website:

If you like those songs, the whole album is pretty much like that. Bloopify your life! And do your laundry!

I was flipping through iTunes (or…clicking…I dunno, BROWSING, perhaps) and thinking about lap steel guitars (because that is what I always think about, besides ukeleles) and remembered that I love Beachwood Sparks like no other. Seriously. Doesn’t anyone else like this band? Their music is all summery and sweet and happy and twinkly and full of harmony and if it could be any color it’d be a frickin’ RAINBOW and …wow, horrible description, grammatically and otherwise. Here’s an awesome cover they did of Sade’s “By Your Side”:

Beachwood Sparks - On Your Side

And another song…because it’s awesome:

Beachwood Sparks - Confusion Is Nothing New

I should listen to them more. And you too, maybe. Download everything on TheCalmingSeas.com, an awesome fansite with a gajillion live mp3s among other things. I wanted to see them live some time ago, but they played at the Mercury Lounge. Someday I will go inside, and not just to buy tickets.

Wayne Throwing Confetti
Originally uploaded by ldandersen.

Looking at this photo just makes me happy.

This is random, but I thought I’d share this very sweet review of “Kings of Convenience”:http://www.kingsofconvenience.com/ in Singapore (with photos):

Kellynn’s review of kings of convenience - mosaic music festival ‘06, singapore

They’re one of the best live bands ever. From my concert experience, they’re the cutest, funniest, most endearing…dammit, they’re awesome. I regret not going to both of their shows when they were in NYC last year. …I went to one. ONE IS NOT ENOUGH.

Sondre!

You know you’ve waited too long to write about something (or you take too many photos on a regular basis) when the photo you’re trying to find is on the 12th page of your photostream. BUT THERE HE IS. Sondre Lerche, I mean. I’m not uber-obsessed with Sondre, but I do like him enough that I’ve seem him two times before. Both times were free shows, but still! Friday night’s show was for charity. I will see a proper “with a band” show later.

So…I don’t remember a great deal about the show besides that it was great. How could Sondre do wrong? Well…he can’t. What he can do is bop around with hair in his face and babble endearingly about random stuff (NYC is hot, Norway is cold and has polar bears, we find celsius foreign, someone said his songs are feminine, he really loves the Duper Sessions album) while testing out his new electric guitar and being overly humble. I recorded one song since it was the shortest (even though the original file works fine for me, it’s not in sync in youtube):

He mainly played new songs (I only recognized “Minor Detail”), but threw in a few old ones as well. Music Slut wrote a more detailed review so you may as well just read that.

Not too long ago, I decided to visit Elastic Heart because…I hadn’t been there in ages. (If you like pretty websites, you should check it out.) On the left side of the page under “My Band” was a new Marianas release, “Summering EP”. And by “new” I mean that it was released on June 22, 2005.

…I’m slow.

Anyway, you can download all four songs from the EP on Elastic Heart. So. Do it. I was going to recommend one song, but I like all of them and there’s only four, so there’s no reason not to.

…Okay, I’ll describe their music first if that’s what you want. Post-rock electronic ambient dreamy acoustic dinkly warm organic, mixed until just combined (like making muffins; you don’t want too much gluten formation) and then…pop in the oven and get delicious muffins. I mean, music. Get some tasty, delicious music. I could compare Marianas to other bands, but I’ll be annoying and just present them on their own terms (refer to the confusing string of words in the beginning of the paragraph).

You can buy the EP on their website for $6 if you live in the US. I immediately fell in love with the forest cover (photo by Debbie Carlos), but it sold out. Apparently I am not the only one who loves creepy looking forest scenes. I want to wrap my room in that forest and play this music until I go insane.

Also check out Marianas’ first album, Onward + Upward (while I like their website despite the flash interface, I’m still annoyed by the non-linky-ness of websites that are entirely in flash, which many music sites fall into). I think I got it shortly after it came out, but I haven’t listened to it that often in the past…three years. I’ll listen to it now.

I know I talked about Electric President before, but that was before I got their album. Now I have their album; all is good with the world. Blissful electronic soft poppy goodness straight outta Florida, courtesy of Ben Cooper and Alex Kane.

I haven’t heard much about this duo, but I figured I’d get something if I technorati-ed them. The results included a high proportion of…livejournals? Not that there’s anything wrong with LJ (I have one; I call it my “brain dump”). Then I came across electricpresident.com (not the official site, but made by a prudent fan who “thought someone should register this site before some domain squatter put a thousand popups on here” and found that their song was on the OC. I don’t know if that explains the LJ posts considering that the episode was on weeks ago, but…I DUNNO! (I still have yet to watch The OC. If it’s addictive, it’s better that I never watch it.)

Anyhoo, the song featured on the show, Insomnia, is awesome. Take a listen:

Electric President - Insomnia

This is definitely one of the album’s stand-out tracks. Also, the lyrics are awesome. I don’t usually pay attention to lyrics unless I think they’re especially good or craptastic; this is a good one. Download some more songs from m3 online or Electric President’s official site (also download the tracks from their EP, “You Have the Right to Remain Awesome”). Pitchfork gave the album a 6.7, but Tuning Fork provides a second opinion.

Sometimes a number rating, in this case a so-so 6.7 just doesn’t seem human enough. A 6.7 doesn’t tell the reader that this is the kind of record that can rescue a bad day and I am willing to give that kind of life preserver an 8. It isn’t easy to make electronic music sound like real live thinking feeling humans made it but with the addition of wailing and wild guitars powered by what I can only imagine is an ebow, live drums, acoustic guitars, a piano, and a human voice that stylistically bridges Why? to Postal Service yet Electric President have done it.

Yup. I don’t like numbers. I mean, they’re definitely useful, but it’s better for things like…measuring earthquakes. It’s hard to put a number on how something will make you feel. Electric President > 6.7. Another blockquote, because I can’t describe things:

If you listen carefully enough there are hundreds of hidden treasures on this record, black cloud lyrics I imagine slow dancing with Notwist, giggles, whispers, drop outs, mysterious buried sounds that hover gently over the entire record like ghosts…all things which celebrate just how personalized a home recording can be.

Yep. [nod nod]

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The aspect of a personal recording does make a big difference to me. Have you heard Beck’s super old stuff? Before his voice changed? The quality sucks, but it’s still awesome for some reason. I’d rather listen to some of that stuff than Guero.

The more I listen to Even Johansen’s (mm, this is your daily Magnet reference) Quiet & Still, the more apparent it becomes that it is my favorite album. Ever. Not just today, but over the few decades that I’ve been alive. It kinda bothers me that I’m unable to explain it; maybe you just have a gut feeling about a certain album you inexplicably love. Even may not have recorded it in his bedroom, but since he recorded and produced it by himself I think it feels more personal than On Your Side or The Tourniquet. I still don’t understand how “Quiet & Still” came to be so overlooked. It probably doesn’t help that since it’s under his real name, many people don’t know it exists. Rawr.

Anyhoo, Pitchfork gave The Tourniquet a 4.1. I’m not really surprised; I figured they wouldn’t like it. I’m surprised they mispelled his name though. And I’m surprised by all the references to other artists that I don’t particularly fancy, but are in the same realm as Magnet, according to the gazillion reviews I’ve read. NO MORE COLDPLAY REFERENCES, PLEASE? THANKS.

Musicbeet gives a neural review. I kind of like it, except I wonder if not being a fan of David Gray, John Mayer, Josh Kelley or Howie Day is a problem.