the oh so quiet show

bizarrerecords.com

Well. I understand all the kids, what with the wife being so hot, but what’s he gonna do with the hatchet and bag o’ rocks?

I wish I knew.

I mean, it was over some years ago when I crossed the double decade age.  But I only realized today that if I don’t get his latest album, Modern Guilt (which I only realized a week before its release even existed), then it’ll be his only album that I don’t have. I have the other 11 in some form. Should it bother me that I was once a frighteningly dedicated fan but have quickly fallen from fanaticism to…whatever I am now, which is probably a healthier mental state?

I dunno. I feel like I do have to get it, just to keep the collection complete, and should continue doing this until I die (or rather, until Beck dies, because he’ll probably go first…or will he). Been listening to some new songs and they’re…catchy enough (although my favorite album is still Mutations). It’s the only new music I’ve listened to in a long time. I’m afraid to read Brooklyn Vegan because I probably won’t know 90% of the bands it mentions and I’ve given up on trying to catch up. I have to channel the obsessive music-loving middle schooler I once was.  [squints]…[clenches fists]…

…Okay, that just gives me a headache.

I only just found out that The Notwist had a new album coming out, The Devil, You + Me, by reading an ad for it on Facebook.

That can’t be a good sign.

After reloading the page, the ad now says, “Black Hair and Beauty NYC.”

DONUT?

Is it sad that the only reason I feel compelled is less so when I find a song I really l like, but when I find an album that references donuts and how you must take heed of their presence?

More info about this album, “Don’t Forget the Donuts” by Wayne Potash, from The Blognut, my favorite donut blog. (Granted, the only one I read, but still.) The Blognut says, “Other than the fact that it involves Donuts, I’ll really never be able to put into words why this album is so awesome.” It’s awesome beyond the English language.

…It’s a children’s album, if that makes any more sense.

FIVE SONGS! FOR YOU! OKAY?

Okay.

Aarktica - Seventy Jane

This song by Aarktica (a band that I admittedly haven’t really listened to aside from this song) gives me the impression of…a turning point in an ’80s teenage movie, where everything starts going slow and fuzzy. Worst description ever. Yet that’s all I imagine. Like time has stopped. And things are warm and fuzzy. Or something. Whatever it does to my brain, it’s caused me to listen to it upwards of 25 times in the past few days, so…yeah.

Might just be me.

Shinichi Osawa - Star Guitar (Chemical Brothers cover)

I ran across Shinichi Osawa quite randomly while…randomly searching for Chemical Brothers mp3s on The Hype Machine. If the song didn’t say “Featuring Au Revoir Simone” I probably wouldn’t have thought to listen to it. Which would’ve sucked, since this has been my “WUUUHAAHAH HAPPY?!” song for the week. Like “run around the room crazy happy” kind of happy. And isn’t that what we all want? To run around our rooms with flailing happy arms? …No?The original song is great too (awesome video and all), but Shinichi’s version is a tad faster and benefits from the vocals of Au Revoir Simone. IT IS FULL OF WIN.

Daft Punk - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (Alive 2007)

Listening to live Daft Punk songs through your headphones is probably 50000 times less exciting than hearing them live in concert, but it’s still shizzloads more exciting than listening to…a lot of other stuff. This was my main “WUUUHAAHAH HAPPY?!” song before Shinichi’s came along. Of course, it still fills me with happies and triggers arm flailings. Flailings!

Fionn Regan - Be Good Or Be Gone

Like many things, I’m slow on the Fionn Regan uptake. But better late than never.His songs are full of prettiness. GO LISTEN. OKAY, COOL.

Oh, and watch this song’s music video.

Yelle - Mon Meilleur Ami

A large reason that I like Yelle probably has to do with not understanding what the hell she’s saying. And that the whole mishmash of stuff I don’t understand sounds French, which is nice. She could be talking about killing baby dolphins for sport or something equally repulsive and I’d still like her because I DUNNO WHAT THE HELL SHE’S SAYING, FALALA. (That also has a lot to do with why I bow at the altar of Hakan Hellstrom, switching French for Swedish.)

Seriously though. Um. Catchy. Oh, and i know I can stick her lyrics in a translator, but that would ruin some of the fun. I know some French and can identify things every now and then, but not to the point where I can understand a significant part of a song, which is fine with me.

huge mp3 collection|buy mp3|download mp3 online

I meant to post this two weeks ago, but I fell behind.

So here are some songs I was listening to two weeks ago. In the paaaast.

Update: Zach recovered my post! Holy crap! Thanks, dude.

Taken by Trees - Lost and Found

Victoria Bergsman’s solo material under the name Taken By Trees appeals to the sleepy head-lolling part of me. Which is pretty much when I’m on the train on the way to work and on the way back home. Amazingly, I’ve never missed my stop.So, this song is lovely. Lilt-y. Soft and sweet. Like cotton candy. Mm, candy.

The Future of the Ghost - Freak Out

This song by The Future of the Ghost appeals to the part of my brain that would dance if it knew how to. Instead, I just bop my head around. In private. [bop bop]

Delete - Sunk

This song by French duo Delete sounds really crunchy. Like, “Ah, that’s what it sounds like to eat your own teeth,” crunchy. Why that appeals to me, I have no idea.

Caribou - Sundialing

I’ve listened to Caribou/Manitoba before, but for some reason Andorra is his first album that I felt compelled to listen to over and over again and maybe swaddle my head in if it were a pillow. It’s comforting with little happy bits in it. Like a brownie with nuts. Unless you don’t like nuts in your brownie. You can come up with your own analogy.

Girl Talk - Hold Up

I only just started listening to Girl Talk a few weeks ago. Yes, my timing is a bit off. Anyhoo. His 500-songs-smashed-into-one method immediately appealed to me. Somehow he takes a bunch of songs I probably wouldn’t like on their own and turns them into something awesome. Like combining flour, eggs, butter and sugar to make a delicious cake. I wouldn’t want to just eat plain flour, you know?

So basically, Girl Talk is baking delicious cakes.

Joe Dassin - Les Champs-Elysées

One of my friends gave me this song by Joe Dassin but I didn’t listen to it much until after I saw The Darjeeling Limited (which I enjoyed aside from the wave of motion-induced nausea that set in about 2/3rds through the movie). It’s in French. It’s kind of happy.

“Il y a tout ce que vous voulez aux Champs-Elysées / There is everything you want on the Champs-Elysées”

I don’t really agree with that (what if I want a…a PONY?), but it fits the bill as “a very nice street to walk down.”…On second though, maybe it does have everything.

Although it’s unnecessary to say something is a note to myself, this is a note to myself: Taken by Trees (Victoria Bergsman’s solo project)

While bleeping around:

I’m quite surprised I like the above album. It’s…dancey. And I recently had a conversation with friends about my undance-itude. There is visual evidence of me dancing, but it’s more like me being dragged around by other people in a dance-like fashion.

I actually have that Phonem album…on vinyl. Which is completely pointless when you don’t have a good record player. Which I don’t.

I’m tired. Thus ends this insubstantial entry.

Too lazy to write a real entry.

More albums I want but don’t have yet:

• Band of Horses - Cease to Begin
• Caribou - Andorra
• Radiohead - In Rainbows
• Copy - Hair Guitar (This album came out months ago—I suck. Actually part of the reason I held off was because the AD shop was closed and I like to buy all my AD things FROM THE SOURCE, except the source is currently closed, so…there’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.)

I still remember when I was in high school and went to a local record store with a friend on the day that Amnesiac was released. Like giggling schoolgirls (because that’s what we were), we bought…4 copies? We were buying some for other friends as well. It was an event, you see.

Oh, youth. So far away. Now I don’t know when stuff comes out and I’m slow to buy things.

I’m at work. Damn. I should do work.

Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy by Mum

In Our Bedroom After the War by Stars

The Simple Life by Magnet

I kind of have the last one, but only in MP3 form as donated to me by a nice friend.

Bolognan arcades

I was in Bologna from September 11th to the 27th, hence my lack of music buying…or something. That’s my excuse. I was eating gelato. If you are bored enough, you can read about my trip on my food blog. Didn’t do much music-related stuff in Italy besides watch MTV since it was the only channel with shows in English, and even then some of the shows were dubbed. SO MUCH DUBBING. AHH. And then I found myself disliking America even more due to the way it’s portrayed (the young folk, at least) on MTV, which isn’t exactly a representation of the entire country (since my life has never resembled anything on MTV, or anything that would be on TV)…but anyway.

Italy is lovely. Sigh.

Feist - The Reminder

I should’ve gotten Feist’s “The Reminder” earlier. Like when it first came out in May.

But I’m slow. So I have it now. And I really like it. I listened to it while passing through the swampy marshy crap in the Meadowlands under a murky sky that looked as though it were about to barf rain, yet it all looked pretty while listening to Feist. SHE IS DRUGGING ME, THAT’S WHAT, OMG.

Nah, not drugs. Just prettiness. Here are two examples of the prettiness:

Feist - So Sorry

Feist - How My Heart Behaves

I suppose I could post some lyrics that I really like, but …lyrics don’t usually mean a great deal to me unless I can relate to them. And I suppose they wouldn’t mean a great deal to you either unless you had some connection to them. And these lyrics are kind of depressing, so nevermind.

Actually, I like this bit from “So Sorry”:

We’re so helpless
We’re slaves to our impulses
We’re afraid of our emotions
And no one knows where the shore is
We’re divided by the ocean
And the only thing I know is
That the answer isn’t for us
No the answer isn’t for us

Mild depression may be abated by watching Charlie the Unicorn. Enjoy:

If you didn’t watch it in its entirety (and you know who you are, NO HIDING)…you should. There’s a really catchy song at around the 2:30 mark. Why deny yourself of such joy? Whyyy?

Becky Stark and David Byrne

Thanks to my awesome friend Janet, on Friday night I saw Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond perform a few songs at the NYPL as part of a Miranda July fun fest. The night ended with David Byrne (who interviewed Miranda during the second half of the night) playing guitar with Becky during the song, “Garden Rose” from the latest Lavender Diamond album, Imagine Our Love. It’s perty.

Lavender Diamond - Garden Rose

Although I knew that I already liked Lavender Diamond, I wasn’t set on seeing them in concert at Maxwell’s this Saturday until seeing Becky perform solo. She is…she is…quite unique. In an awkward way. To the point that I couldn’t tell whether she was really that awkward or if she was being funny for the audience. But does it matter either way? Not really. Because she sings like an angel stuffed with the love of 10000 teddy bears. She spoke softly and lightly with a wide grin on her face most of the time, every so often breaking into a strained giggle, besides the one time she cursed herself for repeating something she had just said. I really wonder what’s going on in her head. Is it just filled with looove and joooy?

“She’s goofy!” remarked a woman sitting behind me. That wasn’t the first adjective to pop into my head—awkwardly hilarious was more like it—but I guess she fits under the category of “goofy”. You forget it all when she starts singing. Her voice rings so clear. Not mature, not immature. Just…I dunno. It’s nice. You know when you have a stuffy nose and it suddenly clears up? Like the mucus has all been whisked away by a magic nose…angel? That moment of clarity is like Becky’s voice. Kinda. I think the audience was hesitant at first, possibly wondering, “What in the…” when she started playing, but I think a little more love was spread after getting us to participate in a sing-a-long (well, I stayed silent for the benefit of everyone’s ears around me).

BECKY STARK, YOU ARE THE QUEEN OF AWESOMETOWN!!!

my leaves…let me show you them

Pelle Carlberg has a bunch of albums, none of which I have listened to. Yet. But I have listened to his band Edson thanks to a friend who gave me their poppy album For Strength some years back and they’re quite peachy. So I assume Pelle in solo form is also peachy. Bursting with juicy…happiness inducing…Swedish…flavors…of some sort…thatIhaven’tidentified…um.

SO HERE IS AN EDSON SONG, FOR YOU:

Edson - I Am the Ostrich

This song is actually kind of depressing. I can bend the lyrics to fit my life’s problems at this very moment, and….JESUS, I’M DOOMED, AWESOME, ok. [sobs in a corner for a while]

Oh, so Pelle is doing a little tour in the US, two dates in NYC, for his latest album In A Nutshell coming out in the US on July 3rd.

May 27 - Luna Lounge, Brooklyn, New York
May 29 - The Supermarket, Toronto, Ontario
May 30 - Small’s, Detroit, Michigan
May 31 - Beachland Ballroom, Cleveland, Ohio
Jun 2 - The Delancey, New York, New York

Last week I became semi-obsessed with the music video for The Magic Position by Patrick Wolf:

Happy colors! Dancing! Smiles! Craziness! Basically the opposite of my world, which is full of earth tones, sitting, frowning, and normality! Or something! I love the continual movement of the camera in all the non-dancing scenes and every little step and pause taken by Patrick and all the twirls and claps in between. Is that weird? Choreographed walking? Strolling? I don’t know. I really like the pause at the 1:15 mark, but I have no idea why.

I thought that I wouldn’t like any of his other songs—I’ve listened to bits of his older albums before and never got into them—but then a friend kindly donated the album to “Robyn’s iTunes” and it turns out that I like it. A lot. At least until I get sick of it. It’s a weird mix of…stuff. Hell, I’m not writing an album review; there are no standards here. WEIRD MIX OF STUFF, THAT’S WHAT IT IS. Stuff that expands in your brain and fills in every squishy crevice with beeps and thumps and pianos and horns and maybe the screechings of soaring fireworks.

He’s playing at Bowery Ballroom on May 9th. Which I only just realized is the day before my (second) graduation ceremony. Crap. Stupid graduation. I’ll just be very tired that day.

We Walked in Song

I got two new CDs in the mail today: Air’s “Pocket Symphony” and The Innocence Mission’s “We Walked in Song”. Since I put TIM’s album on first, I haven’t listened to Air’s yet. Because I really like the Innocence Mission.

I only just found out that they released a new album, at which point I screamed in agony for my role as a bad fan. Who doesn’t know when one of their favorite artists is coming out with a new album, right? Right. Well, I acted quickly, so it’s here now. And it’s as beautiful as all their other ones. You can listen to some clips at their myspace page, but some nice people have put up full mp3s, which is what I lived off of for a while until I got the album in the mail (and by “a while” I mean a few days). I like Love That Boy in particular because I relate to it in a pathetically funny way…or pathetically pathetic way…haven’t figured it out yet. For the time being it makes me laugh, but it’ll probably make me cry if I give it too much though.

Moving on.

Is there anything especially innovative or new about TIM? Not really. But is there innovative or fresh about a vanilla macaron from Pierre Hermé? …Actually, that’s a bad comparison, but I think I have a point. The vanilla macaron is my favorite thing from Pierre Hermé—it’s no foie gras and chocolate, nor olive oil and vanilla, but its pure flavor shines through its simplicity and one bite is like feeling a light rush of fresh morning air, if the air were in the form of vanilla cream sandwiched between two egg white and almond flour-based cookies.

Karen Peris is my vanilla macaron. For my ears. Her voice is sweet, pure and simple like her band’s music. And it makes me really happy. TIM sometimes almost brings me to tears, like a really good macaron. Karen Peris makes writing heart-aching songs and singing all wispy and honest ook effortless, kind of like how Pierre Hermé constantly churns out delicious macarons like it’s noooo problem even though one else in the world can seem to make them as good as he can.

I know this comparison makes no sense if you don’t like macarons, especially if you don’t like TIM, but if you like both then YOU SHOULD TOTALLY UNDERSTAND WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT.

[tumbleweed rolls by]

TIM is playing at Southpaw on April 21st. Although I haven’t bought tickets yet, I AM GOING, or else you will find me curled into a sad little ball on April 21st. If anyone wants to join in, let me know. (In other words, COME WITH.) Unfortunately I have no macarons to offer you.

I’m pleasantly surprised that I got this “switching servers” thing to work without too much swearing or hair pulling. One lil’ problem I had was that while I used an anti-spam plugin before, all the spam comments that I thought had been deleted were actually still roaming around in my mysql database. All 9000+ of em. I didn’t have enough phpmyadmin prowess to figure out a painless way to delete the bulk of them at once while keeping the legitimate comments, so that process was kind of a huge ass pain in the bum. I think a lot of them are still there, actually.

Oops.

Armchair Apocrypha

The only thing that made me happy yesterday was receiving Andrew Bird’s new album in the mail, Armchair Apocrypha. (Also, I think the redesign of his website is byootiful. Thank you, Mr. Web Dude.) This album is awesome. Because. BECAUSE. ARGH! AWESOMNESS. Listen to some new tracks; isn’t it awesome? Yes.

I had no more adjectives to give you.

Mew!

I saw Mew last Thursday for my first concert-going experience in a while. And they were great. But I was really tired. And thirsty. A sip of my friend’s noxious rum and Sprite did nothing for me except make me hate alcohol even more than I already do. Mew is a magical band, but I think they’re better experienced with enough hydration and not while standing next to a girl screeching, “I LOVE YOU JONAS!” after every song and singing along during Mew’s biggest hits, or the songs I’d rather hear come out of Jonas’s mouth more so than the girl next to me. Not that I don’t understand her enthusiam…because I do. Just. God. I dunno.

Ever since I turned 21 I’ve felt like an old bearded dude trying to get young whippersnappers off his lawn. Damn kidz.

But I have to see Andrew Bird at Webster Hall on May 17th and pray I don’t stand next to a screaming Andrew Bird-obsessed fan.

Darn, I forgot my bathing suit

Panda Bear

Actually, I’m lying; he was my latest obsession more than a week ago. I don’t know why I can’t blog as much as I used to. (Watching a gazillion episodes of Nip/Tuck doesn’t help. Kidz, don’t get addicted to fucked up TV shows. NOT COOL I caught up on three seasons in just a few weeks.)

You can find lots of new Panda Bear tracks online from his upcoming album Person Pitch, so I don’t see the point of uploading any for you. At the very least, listen to “Bros”. And “Comfy in Nautica”. And every song you can find. I could probably download the whole album now, but I’ve found that downloading entire albums before they come out destroys the satisfying effect of buying a shiny flat plastic disc that I will ultimately rip MP3s from anyway. I still like my plastic discs.

So what’s up with this music that makes me love it so much? If I had any idea what taking valium felt like, I imagine it would be something like Panda Bear’s music. …But I’m just guessing. There’s something oddly soothing about his music. Like wrapping my head in a warm towel. Or wrapping my brain in a warm towel, if I didn’t think the invasive surgery would hurt or possibly leave me braindead. Even though I don’t really know what the hell Panda Bear is singing half the time, it still puts a smile in my face. Not literally, but somewhere inside I feel it. Even though the weather has been so cold lately that I feel like the wind is ripping off my face, this music gives me the sense that there’s warmth somewhere, temperature-wise and in an emotional sense.

HA HA HA HA.

I am sleepy. Back to my auditory valium, I go.

rejected title: “random people in the woods”

I really like Midlake’s new-ish album, The Trials of Van Occupanther. That doesn’t mean you’ll like it. But you might. Aren’t you curious now? Huh? [poke poke]

…

Yup, I lost any ability to actually describe music, but that’s what myspace is for. It lets you listen to stuff! Wow! I’ve uploaded a lovely mp3 too, if that helps:

Midlake - Branches [removed]

“Branches” is the song where I think Tim Smith sounds very freakishly like Thom Yorke. It’s not good or bad, unless Thom Yorke’s voice triggers a self-destruct command in your brain and you nonchalantly listen to Midlake thinking, “Oh, this won’t make me explode,” but then it does, and you can’t do anything about it because you’re dead.

It happens.

My favorite song from the album so far is “Young Bride”. The music video adds to its beauty:

I listened to it two days ago while driving/hydroplaning down Route 4 in the “likely to cause deathly collisions” downpour. Fun times!

I don’t know what it is either

Midlake’s first album Bamnan and Silvercork is playful and sunshine-happy compared to the mellowed-out TTVO. It’s kinda like freshman year versus senior year of college: “Yaay, I’m in college, all carefree and stuff! / Oh crap, I have to find a real job and make money and be all serious and worry about making my life less doomful.” It’s just like that….but in music form. Maybe.

my god, they glow!

It’s probably more like “cute song of the week/month”considering how much I update this thing. Today I became attached to Midlake’s happy lazy feeling twinkly song, Balloon Maker from their album Bamnan and Slivercork. You can listen to/download it on their myspace page. It will fill you with warm fuzzies. And bleeps. It might also make you feel like drawing ginormous bouncing bright-eyed wide-mouthed grinning faces…or maybe that’s just me. (Probably just me.)

Get the faces out of my head, good lord…so smiley…

I have no idea what’s going on

Midlake’s latest album, The Trials Of Van Occupanther, just came out yesterday. You can listen to it at AOL Music.

no rainbows, just grayscale

Upon first listen, I would’ve never guessed that The Hourly Radio hailed from Dallas, Texas. Then again, I’m not sure what bands from Dallas sound like. At least one of them sounds like this:

[video courtesy of Torr]

I could toss out a bunch of words to describe what they sound like, but you can more easily listen to the album in this handy ecard for their debut album, History Will Never Hold Me. And that is easier because I don’t know what to say. The things that stood out to me were 1) I do not love any one song, but I like all of them enough to listen to the album repeatedly and not feel compelled to skip anything and 2) the lead singer Aaron’s voice is…crisp…y.

Crispy? No, not like fried chicken. I went through my meager vocabular and somehow came up with “crispy”. “Warbly” is another. But it’s not always warbly and it’s not always crispy. A press release describes it as a “yearning high tenor”…yearny! It’s yearny. After a few listens, I grew to like it.

I should’ve stopped writing two paragraphs ago.

Related links:

The Hourly Radio on You Tube
…and on Myspace!
…and they have a blog!

[On a very unrelated note, my primary exposure to Dallas is through dallasfood.org, which gives me the impression that 99% of the food comes in the form of marginally edible chicken-fried steak.]

If I weren’t so lazy, I would see Ian Love perform at Knitting Factory tonight. Or rather, if I lived in my old dorm, I would just pony up the $8 and walk over, as opposed to driving, taking the train, taking the path, taking the subway, and then walking.

Ah well, there are worse things. Like lung congestion.

Like I said before, I did buy Ian Love’s album after sample a few songs on his myspage page–it’s easily become one of my favorite albums of the year. Beautiful, sweet songs, somehow energetic and relaxing at the same time. I feel like I could lie around and do nothing all day whlie listening to this album. …Although I guess even without the music I’d feel like doing that. (I’m doing laundry and editing websites right now, mmkay? Multi-tasking!)

I like every song on the album. But I do have a favorite.

Ian Love - Black Diamonds [removed]

The last minute makes me happiest. Nothing like, “And you’ve lost control and have got no hope / You’ve got no hope” to raise your spirits. I’m not joking. He sounds so exuberant that it makes me feel optimistic about my impending doom. Life is just slow death, so you may as well be happy about it. I am prancing around…on the inside.

He’s playing a free show at Punkslope/Bar 4 on Thursday, July 20th. DOESN’T GET MUCH BETTER THAN FREE!