25 posts tagged “music”
Is this thing on? Test....test.
So it's been a while. I used to keep up with this whole daily MP3 thing on this here little Vox blog, but it's been *checks archives* just over a year since I actually did anything here. In fact, I was 27 when I stopped this. Now I'm 29.
A lot has happened and I'm not going to tell you about any of it. This is not the place for me to do that, and no one is here to read it anyways (if anyone is here to read this at all).
But I'm going to try it again. As a refresher: this is a pseudo-daily excercise in sharing music. One song a day, plus one to two paragraphs of commentary. New music, old music, long time favorites and fresh discoveries. Novelties, gems, guilty pleasures. Whatever. No promises, I may skip days or disappear completely (again). So we'll see where this goes.
To start off, here is a song by my favorite band from Bellingham. I only know one band from Bellingham (other than Death Cab For Cutie, who got their start there), but still. I can't imagine liking another one better than I Love You Avalanche. It's a solo-ish project that I saw opening for a Northen California band called the Americas last year. Everything I've heard from her/them is super lo-fi, covered in tape hiss and room noise, but the sweetness of the songs shines through, and the layers of vocals are perfectly wispy and tender. This song in particular kills me. It gets stuck in my head from time to time, and I find myself needing to listen to it regularly. The lyrics, the wavery vocal melody in the bridge, the Major lift into the chorus, the overlapping counterpoints towards the end....it's like this song came forth as a fully formed ideal of the solo female folk song. It's also a perfect song for my life at the moment, all about friendship and loss, exciting and bittersweet, painful and exhilirating all at once. I hope you love it as much as I do.
His primary musical outlet is Dntel, a project that has been running since the early 90s and has released a string of compilations and one proper full-length album, Life is Full of Possibilities. It was on this album that he first collaborated with Gibbard, on the track "(This is the Dream of) Evan & Chan."
"Lonliness is Having No One To Miss" is the introductory track to Early Works For Me If It Works For You, collecting material from the early Dntel years. Featuring a darker tone and looser structure than the pop-oriented work with Ben Gibbard, this track is a breakbeat workout that hews closer to the style of the mid-90s Warp or Rephlex rosters.
The second Dntel full-length, Dumb Luck will be out on Sub Pop on April 24th, with guest appearances by members of Lali Puna, Bright Eyes, Grizzly Bear, Fog, and others.
The other day, I had a hankering to listen to Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which I hadn't heard for a while. It wasn't loaded on my iPod at the moment, so I grabbed the CD from my shelf and hopped in the car, only to discover a CD-R sharing the case with the Wilco disc. It was marked, in my handwriting, "Mess up the mix, mix up the mess, 11/14/04."
I'm not sure if this was a mix I made with a purpose, or if it was just something to listen to in the car at the time, but finding it was like digging up a time capsule. A short note from a past self, waiting to be rediscovered. Here's what it contained:
1. Dead Dogs Two, by cLOUDDEAD: Still one of my favorite songs, period. There's a great remix by Boards of Canada, but the original is pretty hard to top. The lyrics are creepy and evocative, and the chorus is catchy despite being dark as hell.
2. Velouria, by the Bad Plus: About as dynamic as modern music gets. This jazz trio's cover of the classic Pixies tune takes that legendary rock groups reputation for exploiting loud/quiet shifts and makes them look like rank amateurs.
3. Pink Moon, by Nick Drake: Sweet and sad, an all-time classic.
4. Worrywort, by Radiohead: Their B-sides are some of their most interesting tracks, and this one is no exception. Sounds like a dream set in Super Mario Land. This track would later wind up on a birthday mix given to me by a girl I had, at this point, just met, and now live with and love.
5. Saint Mary, by Sparklehorse: About as mournful as you can get. This song has stuck with me since the first time I heard it.
6. Dark of the Matinee, by Franz Ferdinand: Like cotton candy, Franz Ferdinand's music is tasty and fun, and disappears without a trace, leaving you hungry for something of actual substance. But it's yummy while it lasts.
7. Lipstick, by Imperial Teen: Why you gotta be sou proud? I'm the one with lipstick on....I don't know what it means, but it sure is fun. Took me forever to find this track on SLSK after a friend introduced me to it. But it was stuck in my head, and wouldn't get out until I found it.
8. Suzanne, by Weezer: Harmonious power-pop in the vein of their first album. Apparently written about their lawyer, or label rep or something.
9. The Light 2000, by Schneider TM: A glitchy, electro-poppy Smiths cover, with vocoders and clicky little minimal drums. Lush, cool, clean and inhuman.
10. Ride on Shooting Star, by the Pillows: Japanese power pop with Engrish lyrics and Zeppelinesque riffs. I dare you to refrain from humming this for days after hearing it.
11. Ms. Jackson, by Outkast: Hmm, not sure why this is on here, especially right after the Pillows. That's quite the transition there.
12. Against All Odds, by the Postal Service: I'm not sure where they originally released this, but it sounds very unmastered. It's an interesting take on a song that I usually can't stand though. I was burned out on Phil Collins by a manager at the video store I worked at, who insisted on playing one of three Phil Collins or Genesis concert videos on the in-store monitors during each of his shifts.
13. Test Yo Strengths by Machine Drum: A beat workout from hip-hop influenced IDM producer Travis Stewart. Plenty of buffer manipulation effects and sub-bass to get your speakers working.
14. Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division: Do I really need to say anything about this track?
15. Cars by Gary Numan: I heard a cover of this at the bowling alley the other night, not sure who it was by. It was atrocious. The singer was trying to sound as close to Numan as possible, and the band was playing it straight-forward but amped up, with crunchier guitars and more crash cymbal. Very modern rock, in the worst possible way.
16. Me And America (or) The United Colors of the Gap by Joan of Arc: A weird, pretty song that could almost be called pop, if it wasn't so deliberately obtuse. One of my all-time favorites by these weirdos, with a gorgeous string coda and jazzy drumming that pulls against your expectations.
17. Reach For The Sun by the Polyphonic Spree: Yeah, it's a cheesy band that looks and acts like a cult, but they have that whole uplifting progression down absolutely cold. It doesn't hurt that the production is spot on.
18. White Plains by John Vanderslice: Speaking of spot-on production. This track is a high point from the excellent Cellar Door album, a character piece about a travelling salesman who can't escape himself, backed by distorted strings and crisp drumming.
19. Aside by The Weakerthans: Power-pop at it's finest, with a focus on melody and energy that other bands could learn from. I love singing a harmony part along with this song.
I was surprised at the turnout. I mean, there was obviously some serious hype behind her epic new album, and there were feature articles about her in both of the Seattle altweeklies, but I wasn't expecting a sold-out, completely rapt crowd for a harp-wielding songstress with a voice like Olive Oyl. It's a voice you either love or hate, and usually you start out hating it before you love it. Last night's show demonstrated a new restraint though, and found her tempering her vocal quirks, using them to her advantage, rather than just letting them shine through unpolished.
Smog opened the show alone, with an acoustic guitar and that deep, haunting voice he's known for. It seemed like there was an extra depth to it that you don't always hear on record, and his long, drawn-out songs were mesmerizing in person.
But we didn't even know the meaning of drawn-out until Ms. Newsom took the stage, alone for the first few songs, then backed by a 5-piece band given the unenviable task of recreating dense orchestral arrangements with simple folk instruments. But they passed that test with flying colors. After her solo performance of a couple of highlights from her debut album, The Milk Eyed Mender, they proceeded to play through all 5 songs from Ys, in order, at their full lengths. It was surprisingly dynamic, with the accordionist perfectly filling the role of a string section, and guitars, banjos, drums, glockenspiel, and other instruments fleshing out the arrangements. Even the multi-voiced harmony that opens "Monkey & Bear" was flawless. "Cosmia" finished out the set, trailing off into a dramatic, blissed-out duet between harp and singing saw, peaking and then falling into silence as the last metallic scrapes rang out.
The audience response was incredible, between songs and after the main set. I've never heard a crowd resort so quickly to floor-stomping demands for an encore as I did last night. And thankfully, it was a short wait before she reappeared to play "Sadie," "Clam Crab Cockle Cowrie," and of course, "Peach Plum Pear," all unaccompanied.
I was on the wrong side of the stage, and only able to see her during the solo sections of the set, but I did manage to get half-decent footage of "Peach Plum Pear," which you should take a look at, if you're so inclined. If she hasn't already stopped in your city, make it a point to catch this tour.
So yeah, this new band Statehood, featuring most of the former members of the late, great Dismemberment Plan, is sounding pretty good, if you're into that whole crazy, punky dance-rock thing that the D Plan was all about. No Travis Morrison in this one (supposedly he's writing javascript somewhere in corporate America now?), but the rhythm section is there in all their start-stoppy, go-go influenced DC Hardcore glory. The new singer reminds me a little of J. Robbins (Jawbox, Burning Airlines, Channels) in the demos, but maybe a little less precise in his intonation. No word on an official release from what I can tell. Keep an eye out.
Books, movies, music; what's in your top 5 right now?
WQell, not necessarily top 5, but here goes:
Music on High Rotation:
Make Believe: Of Course (they're playing at the Comet on Sunday!)
Grandaddy: Just Like the Fambly Cat
Squarepusher: Hello Everything
Mouse on Mars: Varcharz
Brothomstates: Qtio
Battle Royale
Spanglish
Fantastic Four
Shaun of the Dead
Fever Pitch (I sort fo half-watched this one)
5 Recent Books:
Mason & Dixon, by Thomas Pynchon (currently reading)
The Tape Op Book (Edited by Larry Crane)
Lady Sings The Blues by Billie Holliday
Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo
Vineland by Thomas Pynchon
We showed up pretty early, since we were afraid it might sell out, but it was a surprisingly thin crowd. Shame on you Seattle! You missed out, that's all I can say.
Truckasaurus opened the night with a set of Gameboy-powered electro backed with video footage of professional wrestling looped into a homoerotic montage. It's a gimmicky concept, white trash electronic music, equal parts IDM and PBR. But the tunes are strong enough to back it up, staying melodic and accessible without delving into parody.
Thavius took over, and the visuals were switched out for a DVD of the Beatles' Yellow Submarine. His music was breakneck hip-hop, 808 beats pounded out in a doubletime flurry. It was good stuff, but the transitions were rough at best.
Caural continued things with some live MPC-pounding action, grinning ear-to-ear the whole time, layering crunchy hip-hop beats over mangled samples from sources familiar and obscure (the nod to the Zelda theme was particularly nice). He closed with a work-in-progress remix of "Only Shallow" by My Bloody Valentine.
I thought he would be a hard act to follow, but Daedelus was more than capable of taking the reins of this crowd. If you haven't heard him before, hismusic is a whirlwind pastiche of found sounds, splintered jazz breaks, pop music and film scores from the 60s and earlier, and hip hop from today. He plays with an experimental, custom built MIDI controller, a non-descript box with a 16x16 grid of light-up toggle buttons set up define loop points and rearrange structures on the fly. He gave a long, loud set that rarely dipped in intensity, using his controller box to get a physicality not usually associated with live electronic music.
This was only the 5th stop on their tour, so check your local listings to see if they'll bein your town soon. You shouldn't miss this one.
What are your plans for the weekend?
Well, first we're off to the "soft opening" of the Fantagraphics Books retail store, where hopefully we'll be able to pick up some out-of-print and or discounted comics from one of our favorite art comics publishers. Probably do some other shopping while we're out.
Then tomorrow, Matmos is playing a free instore performance at the Queen Anne Easy Street Records. Show's at 3, but we'll show up early to shop, of course. I hear the show is amazing on this tour.
So, I was fortunate enough to see TV On The Radio for the second time this year, last night at their sold-out show at the Showbox. It could have been the third time, but I (wisely, in hindsight) decided to skip out on the Sasquatch music festival this year.
They're fantastic live. I don't know if much is made of this fact. Most of the hype surrounding them is based on the quality of their relatively new second album, Return to Cookie Mountain, but their live show lives up to any praise it may receive. For a band that relies so much on density, texture, and sonic detail, they manage to translate well on stage, without relying on the crutch of pre-recorded material; in fact, the only time their sampler was in use was on "I Was A Lover," as far as I could tell. If anything, I'd say the energy is kicked up a notch when they're on stage, Tunde's arms flailing while Kyp and David are furiously tremolo picking.
I think they were better this time around than they were a short 5 months ago. It felt tighter, more streamlined. It helps that I was actually familiar with the Cookie Mountain material, unlike at their previous show, but that seems like a minor difference. There was a tangible ferocity and focus to this show that their previous show almost had. Both shows were great, but if you had to choose, there'd be a clear winner.
Left the camera at home, silly us, so there are no photos to share this time. I'm sure there are some floating around on Flickr by now if you care about that sort of thing. It's a shame though, because we had a pretty clear view even though we were far off to the right side of the stage. I guess we'll have to remember next time...
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