dreaming wide awake

R.I.P. Dreaming Wide Awake (the ecotone)

2007-06-28T13:53:00.000-04:00

It's been a good run for the kids here at the ecotone - and whilst every now and then you may get an update or two from myself or daniel - we are for the most part posting at our respective places these days. it was an amicable split by all accounts - and every now and then you'll see us sharing a dinner or a tender moment. in the meantime, engage in the cold reality of choosing sides. haha. find us at our respective areas:

Fone Culture

The Little Engine

much love.

LE June 07

2007-06-28T02:39:00.001-04:00

New Mix For November....

2006-12-11T03:19:00.000-05:00

For those parties interested. Check out a a new mix over at the little engine blog.

It was meant for november. another mix will be going up shortly.

<3

dr thunder

Fall 2006

2006-11-04T19:41:00.000-05:00

So it's here. I took a time out. I finished the Fall Mix for you all. I hope that you enjoy it. The process is simple - I try to focus on new music - but more importantly music that I love. I decided to do a cross-blog post as well - introduce some readers to different blogs.
So this is going up on the blog that I write on with my co-consipirator, Daniel, at Dreaming Wide Awake. Daniel plays in Judah Johnson - if you don't know them - head over to their myspace and listen to some music. While you are there - catch up on the band's blog - it's really quite good, Noah, Rodrigo, Charlie and Daniel all hold it down.
It's also going up on Tape Club - a blog of many friends - Twitchy, Grumblemouse, Nix, F-14, all the kids, from all over. Shout outs.
Lastly, but not leastly, it's going up on the Little Engine blog. All are invited. All are welcome. Stop by, but please remove your shoes at the door. And please, wear a thoughtful hat.

I hope you all are well - enjoy the mix - up for right now as a yousendit link - if you miss out - drop me a line at maxwellgosling@gmail.com // / / // / /

Fall///06////

King Straggler // Drunk Again Waltz
DJ Shadow // This Time (I'm Gonna Try It My Way)
Rodrigo Y Gabriela // Tamacun
Citizen Cope // Awe
Devotchka // The Last Beat of My Heart
John Cale // Paris 1919
Junip // Black Refuge
Ray LaMontagne // Barfly
Marit Bergman // My Love
The Whitest Boy Alive // Don't Give Up
The Roots // Long Time (Ft Peedi Peedi & Bunny Sigler)
Murs // L.A.
The Presets // Girl and the Sea
Home Video // Sleep Sweet
The Rapture // Get Myself Into It
James Figurine // Apologies
The Blow // Pile of Gold
Van She // Kelly (Cut Copy Mix)

Happy Fall!

I bring gifts

2006-10-02T15:56:00.000-04:00

Music. There's a lot to love lately. These have won my heart's prize:

Midlake – Rosco: Civil war vets reincarnated as indie rock band from Dallas. It's totally creepy, their displacement, but not a put-on.

The Roots – Baby: The roots have now blown my mind too many times. It's time I admitted that they are the best game in town - the new band I want to be. I thought that 'Crazy' by Gnarls Barkley was the best song of the year, until I heard this. I love how lazy the lead vocal is, not bothering to enunciate the last syllable of his sentences.

The Knife – Marble House: This song unfolds at a languid clip, but there is no excess. It takes exactly that long to sound immaculate. The singing skirts the limits of how much yodel overtones I can accept in a singer. She reminds me of the Cranberries' singer. Which is an uncool comparison and why Rod tried to redeem her by comparing her instead to Siouxie Sioux. Sorry Rod, she doesn't really sound like Siouxie Sioux, but there was no need to fret. This song is full of goodness.

Justin Timberlake – I Think She Knows: This record has several really long tracks, which are comprised of a proper song and an interlude. This is just one of the interludes, which I chopped off in protools, but it's actually the highlight of the album for me. Justin T is just cool. He's got it. I like his singing. His beatboxing. His haircut. I have a crush.

Madonna - Get Together: I love the production on this. It sounds so much like Royksopp. I wish she made more tracks this good.

Husky Rescue – Hurricane (Don't Come Knocking): I know a secret. I have the new Husky Rescue album and it's amazing. It will break hearts next year. This should be the single. It's not going to be. But it should.

Sparklehorse – Ghost in the Sky: He's kind of treading water at this point. Just repeating himself, but it's one of those things like Boards of Canada or Clinic where he was so original right off the bat that he's just regurgitating genius.

The Cardigans – Feathers and Down: I am really surprised to say that I'm getting into the Cardigans. I never liked them when they were famous in the 90s. I guess they kept making records, kept getting better, and a few years ago put out this beautiful alt-country album called 'Long Gone Before Daylight.' It's not a total winner - there is some cheese - but the songs that work are real heartbreakers. This track is flawless. I think Nathan Larsen from Shudder to Think has his mitts in this stuff. Which might explain the amazing bridge. Don't give me any shit.

The Cardigans – Low: So, after our band surprisingly bonded over the previously mentioned album while on tour, I came home, swallowed my pride, and looked into the Cardigans. They have a NEW, new record, called Super Extra Gravity. Some times it's some real Avril Lavign shit, but then will be all of a sudden brilliant. This track depresses me. That's saying a lot, since I've always listened to sad music. This song is sadder than I can be. "There'll be rain on our wedding day... in a Chapel we wouldn't play."

You and I/Analyse

2006-06-21T12:37:00.000-04:00

I've never posted my own music on here, but since this isn't really mine per se, I'm making an exception today. As you might have gathered from my last post, I'm really into the new Thom Yorke album The Eraser. One of the tracks that I like the most is Analyse. But whenever I listen to it, I always hear melodies from Jeff Buckley's "You and I" – from Sketches for My Sweetheart, the Drunk – as vocal embellishments, even though the songs aren't really that similar. Or maybe they are... So the other night I decided to sit down and see if they would fit together the way I was hearing them in my head. And they did.

I'm working with a really low quality mp3 of Analyse, so the whole thing is a little lo-fi. Email me if you would like it in a higher-quality format.

Daniel Johnson – You and I/Analyse (Jeff Buckley and Thom Yorke)

It's Summertime

2006-06-15T17:33:00.000-04:00

And the living is easy.

Music sounds good again.
In between early morning searches for fresh dandelions with my daughter and the endless joy that seeps out from heated pavement into summer dusks, there is the day. For me, the day is usually bogged down with brightness and and its own dry realities. And so a rhythm emerges of the hot hours, abrasive and stifled, sandwiched between a cool dream. This is the high-contrast trade off of the summertime extreme. A whole change of seasons in a 24-hour span. I accept this, but am always looking for ways to stitch those higher summer sentiments into the boring fabric of facts I call a job. And this summer, I have the music to do it.

Thom Yorke – This is a masterpiece of focus and restraint. A multi-instrumentalist, peerless composer, and leader of this generation's The Beatles, Radiohead's Yorke could have indulged his most avante garde whims for his first solo project and it would have been, no doubt, arresting. (When it comes to bold leaps of style, Yorke has never not nailed the landing.) Instead, he's chosen to work within a refined pallette – the slippery, crunchy drum programming he perfected records ago, a little slinky bass playing, and various shades of pianos bouncing around the stereo spectrum - all in service of his crookedly delivered croon and a smattering of songs in various shades of black. The result is crisp and current.

Carelessly described, it's just glitch beats under sad songs. But there's more nuance in here than normal for this micro-genre. This is electronic-based music that finds a way to be twisted, soulish, funky, and yearning, with lots of asymmetry written in. Yorke first mastered, and has now subverted, the grid, discovering how to make machine-based music with enough loose ends to still be an analog to the human condition. He has a strange sense of harmonic rhythm, flipping or dropping a beat without telegraphing it; changing chords in the wrong part of the measure... But that sounds academic. This isn't just geek-good. Its tunefulness and energy are accessible in the way that records felt when I was a teenager.

I have this theory that Yorke sings best when it's not Radiohead (duets with Bjork and PJ Harvey come to mind) - his delivery is more open, less constricted without the burden of warding off evil that his band has imposed on itself. Here he sounds like more of a human, and more of a man.

The Eraser finds him working again with Nigel Godrich, Radiohead's in-house producer on their last four releases. Not to slight a brilliant sonic innovator like Godrich, who has become a star in his own regard – this generation's Phil Spector, a leading name-brand producer – but I've never been a big fan of the way he records rock bands like electronic groups, putting the instruments in neat sonic drawers, everything in its right place. However, this compartmentalization couldn't be more appropriate for a collection of recordings which is essentially the sound of Yorke and his toys.

The record, titled The Eraser, comes out July 11.

Thom Yorke - Harrowdown Hill
Thom Yorke - Analyse

Augie March - You probably haven't heard of Augie March. That's not a dig on your with-it-ness, just the sad reality. The reason for this is something as stupid as distribution. They are a magical five-piece of Australians making literate, inventive rock on par with all the records you reach for in moments of weakness. But nobody's done much to put their records out in the states or for sale digitally, and paying import prices to discover new music is not something the kids are willing to do lately. So they toil in genius an ocean away while entire continents miss out on their glory sound. The thought of this should scare the shit out of people who are serious about music. Imagine if Jeff Buckley had been German but never signed a stateside distribution deal and we never heard of him here. Remember the bleak alternate reality of George Bailey's dream lesson in It's a Wonderful Life, where he sees what the world would be like if he hadn't lived? We are living in such a dark version as American music fans. An Augie-free reality.

That was a bit dramatic. But I've made my point. Don't feel bad for Augie March. They're kind of a big deal where they're from. Feel bad for us.

Augie March and I go way back. Through an Aussie friend, I became obsessed with an EP they released in '98 called Waltz and followed them as they made the antiquey, smoky masterpiece Sunset Studies in '01 and its refined but overly wordy, grown-up successor Strange Bird three years later. The staggering breadth of this triple feat established enough of a track record to expect excellence from anything they might do. But the beauty of this new album is beyond even that promise. There's a point where the artist looks back and recognizes that all of his periods, most now neglected, are his children, and embraces them again as part of himself. Augie was definitely on a path from fumbling brilliance to cool headed craft, which was a less interesting trajectory for me. But their singer Glen Richards seems to have summoned his dead strengths from the tomb, finding a sturdy resonance in his throat that didn't exist before. It's commanding and above all true. Richards has always aspired to understated honesty in the tradition of Gillian Welch, only working the sentiments he truly owns. And the meticulous arrangements (featuring the best use of piano in a rock band I can think of) have such chiseled simplicity that you are forced to look at Richards' new creations for what they are: his best writing yet.

The new record, unfortunately titled Moo, You Bloody Choir, is out now. (Warning, their songs are "growers" and this record also makes more sense turned up loud.)

Augie March - Victoria's Secrets
Augie March – Stranger Strange

The French Kicks – I don't really understand why this band isn't a bigger deal than it is, even among the indie. My guess is that there's a backstory. Like, the lead singer broke the heart of a sexy witch and they were cursed by some kind of rock hex. I've always had a thing for bands with rock hexes though, so this is right up my alley. The French Kicks are kicking it exactly the way a band should kick it in '06. A modern approach to a live rhythm section informed by electronic production, understanding the value of space in arrangements (another five-piece on par with Radiohead and Augie March in terms of knowing when not to play), insisting on yin for yang – prettiness for every crudeness - and employing their secret weapon: falsetto harmony. Harmonizing in a falsetto voice is a difficult thing to pull off and keep the in tune, but they don't seem to have any problems with it. In fact, they make everything they do seem easy, like the groomed, privileged prep schooled pretty boys of their press photos. I smell rich kid all over this band, and yet I hate them not. Maybe it's the hex. I mean, these guys are better looking than the cast of most TV shows. So if the masses won't join me in valuing their artistic merits, I can't figure out why the superficialities haven't made the broader case.

A friend (who doesn't exactly love them) described them as Motown by way of Morrissey. Totally. The new record, with its out-of-date title Two Thousand, comes out July 18.

French Kicks – Cloche
French Kicks – Also Ran

It's raining in LA.

2006-05-21T20:22:00.000-04:00

Enjoy this mix - it will get you thru the grey weather.

Love you.

Miss you.

Man High

2006-04-19T20:27:00.000-04:00

Boards of Canada just released their first music video. The track is Dayvan Cowboy from The Campfire Headphase. Most of the video is based around footage of Joseph Kittinger (crazy-ass old guy smiling above) skydiving from a hot air balloon. What you will begin to notice is that he's in outer space doing this. The footage kind of makes me sick to my stomach. That first drop, being at such high altitude, there's just no wind resistance. He motors. He actually broke all these records, going the speed of sound like that. Check out wikipedia.

I've posted one or two other tracks from The Campfire Headphase here before. It's an inconsistent album, but the half of it that is good is REALLY good. Dayvan Cowboy is one of my favorites. They say that there are no new chord progressions. That it's all been done, but then someone like Boards of Canada will come along and put together a couple of chords in a new way. Really beautiful, with fresh mountainous drum programming breaks that fall in weird places.

Boards of Canada – Dayvan Cowboy

Hot Ass Hot Chip

2006-04-17T14:18:00.000-04:00

Yo -

So, I've been getting really into Hot Chip. Coming on Strong was my initial listen a while back - and was not super into the album. I could tell what they were trying to do - but they were missing the mark somehow. I then stopped into Vertigo in Grand Rapids shortly before leaving the state and said hi to Herm. I checked into his vinyl stash and found a Hot Chip single, remixed by DFA. It was great. My interest was renewed. So I eventually found the Hot Chip album called the Warning - and it's great. Some hot slow jams, some more uptempo classic sound Hot Chip stuff that I think they were going for on their earlier stuff - but really hit their stride this round. In a classic case of two worlds colliding - Four Tet picked up a Hot Chip track and remixed it. I love it. Its a little crazy, but he's been skewing that way since the release of his newest disc. Check it out - let me know what you think.

<3

m

Hot Chip - The Ass Attack (Four Tet Remix)

Broken Boy Mix

2006-04-15T01:30:00.000-04:00

It's been a crazy six weeks out here in LA. I've seen some great shows: Jamie Lidell, The National to name a few - and I've been listening to a bunch of music. Some good, some bad. I was really disappointed in the Jackie Greene album. I have to be honest - for the hype surrounding this guy - it wasn't great. He's been lauded as the next suedo - Bob Dylan. To be honest though, this guy couldn't cut it.

Anyway, I miss all you back in Detroit and I wanted to put up a few songs that I hope you will all like. I know Dan misses my shit in the manor. Club Gos. The cave that was my room from time to time. We were actually talking the other day and it occured to us that he posts now, on the blog that I started as my own, than I do. Thats just not right. Needs to be corrected.

BTW: Sam - congrats on the alligator.

So I'm sure a ton of people have already heard of Gnarls Barkley, yes? Well, anyway, I had heard some about the collab when I was invited to the release party at the "Nike House" out here. This is actually pretty cool - Nike owns a house on the ocean in Venice - its a cottage that they renovate and re-do the interior of every 6 mos or so. Totally cool - and they throw events there. I don't think they actually sponsored the event - but its a venue thing. Anyway, so as I get to the party - Cee-Lo and Dangermouse (Gnarls Barkley) walk in - and its crazy. Flash bulbs - the whole nine. Pretty fucking cool. I love the shit that Dangermouse has done - everything in fact. He can do almost no wrong in my mind. And Cee-Lo? Where the fuck has he been? I mean, really. Where has he been? I haven't heard his name is June 4, 1988. I was talking with my friend Dan out here - and he made an interesting remark - he said something to the effect of: I'm happy that Cee-Lo did something good and that he landed somewhere. I thought about it and agreed. Good job, Cee-Lo. And now that I listen to this track I realize how good Dangermouse and Cee-Lo can be together - and how unexpected that is. Check it.

Gnarl's Barkley - Crazy

Onto another topic - remember when Jude Law was literally everywhere? He was in like 6 movies at the same time, had a top 40 album, a book deal, a cooking show and was also directing and producing at the same time. Yeah. Well, the new Jude Law is Jose Gonzalez. This guy is everywhere! And the new Zero 7 is proof - in fact I think that he might be a new member of Zero 7. Anybody know? I'm totally lost. But I dig the new album. Zero 7 actually does a new version of Crosses (Gonzalez Song) in their own way. Pretty cool. This song is pretty vintage - sounds like it came out of the When It Falls sessions almost. Its a really grea track and SANS Jose Gonzalez. This one goes out to that special someone.

Zero 7 - You're My Flame

Another great new release in 06 - TV on the Radio. These guys rock my shit - and I can't wait to see them at Coachella - who's going by the way? Love to meet up with a few people down there! This is a new track and my favorite so far off the new album from these guys. I hope you like it as much as I do - this is the track that I freak out too in my room when I'm alone. There I said it.

TV on the Radio - Playhouses

Bold prediction -but look for these guys to have a big 2006. They are called La Rocca and they are from down under. I dig this track - its super pop - super happy - great driving song. Saw these guys play not to long ago here - and the lead singer was TOTALLY ripping off Nillsson in his look. Dan didn't agree. But god damnit - he was. I let it slide - only because of his great pop sensibilities. Enjoy. You'll thank me later.

La Rocca - Sing Song Sung

Signs of Spring

2006-03-29T17:47:00.000-05:00

No overall theme. Today I'd just like to post some tracks that I've been in love with lately with quick notes.

The past year my new joy has been discovering old Jamaican R'n'B and reggae. The sounds are foreign and soulful at the same time which is a way of saying: all I want out of music. Now I've have the double fortune of stumbling onto the Ethiopiques reissue series of Egyptian jazz from the '70s, which moves me in the same way. This track sounds like motown sold at the third-world duty free shop and stapled onto Van Morrison's astral weeks. It's pastoral yet dusty. It sounds impoverished and humid. I can't get enough of it. When I really listen close, it's worse. I imagine if you lived through Haile Selassie, as Ahmed has, you've earned the sadness you might sing with.

Mahmoud Ahmed – Tezeta

Speaking of Jamaica, I was actually very slow to come around to Bob Marley. Half of my aversion to accepting reggae was the college hippie stigma, and nothing epitomizes trustafarians more than a Bob Marley t-shirt. But, it turns out the early Wailers stuff is as good as anything I've found on this journey into the soul of Jamaica. But thank Jah for miraculous bad judgement, like this live Bob Marley and the Wailers album (Live at the Apollo) I just found. It's completely inappropriate to release something that sounds this bad/wonderful. Half the mix is bass, which is distorting the entire recording. It sounds like a concert in a bunker at the end of the world. When the end comes, may it come to the sound of dub bass. This is really the pinacle of what a person can and should do with a bass.

Bob Marley and the Wailers – Concrete Jungle

Swervedriver will always make me think of spring. Their singer, Adam Franklin, now records as Toshack Highway and there's no difference in that regard. Spring feelings. Here are three tracks. The first is a b-side, acoustic version of the single of his forthcoming record. I actually don't like the single, which is a rock arrangement, at all. Thank god they released the b-side, which is relaxed and regrettful folk. The other two songs are the best one-two punch moment in album sequencing I've ever heard. And the reason is that the second of the two is based on the first track backwards. Amazing. Valentine is Adam Franklin getting in touch with the shoegazer sound that his band was labeled with but never really lived up to. Board the Bullet train is the sound of the universe accidentally snapping back into place and working.

Toshack Highway – Birdsong (Moonshiner version)
Toshack Highway – Valentine Number One
Toshack Highway – Board the Bullet Train

I just discovered this Milosh guy. He's a sad dude from Toronto that makes some of that emasulated indie laptop pop like Postal Service. Difference is, he's actually got soul. This stuff works on a few levels, it's easy on the ears at first but after a few listens started to matter to me. I dig the fact that he's just saying "My life," in this song. The music is emotional enough to make the understatement tolerable instead of a posture.

Milosh – My Life

All the reviews of Fennesz that I've read use the word noise alot and that put me off from checking it out. I'm not interested in obnoxious sounds. What they should have said was that he uses the sound of electricity – purring, crackling, hissing and humming electricity. I'm not into squeals and feedback and harsh textures. But I do like the sound of current. Especially wedded to minimal composition of the most subliminal variety. Endless Summer is supposed to be the shit. But I say the new one, Venice, is the shit.

Fennesz – Rivers of Sand

Bubble

2006-03-16T18:43:00.000-05:00

I watched Bubble last night. If you’re not familiar with the backstory, quick recap:

Steven Soderbergh directed it. Soderbergh is credited with starting the successful independent film movement that continues today with his movie Sex, Lies and Videotape. After that hit, he took the path of more experimentation with a series of increasingly esoteric films that he admits were of little use to anybody but himself. He got back into the mainstream game with some hip (Out of Sight), corny (Erin Brockovich), masterful (Traffic) and annoying (Ocean’s 11 a and b, which were kind of like GQ fashion spreads with stories) blockbusters.

With Bubble, the recently prolific Soderbergh is trying an experiment again. It’s the first time a movie will be released simultaneously in three formats: theatre, DVD and cable TV. When I heard this, I was really curious to see how it would work out. When people experiment with traditional forms, especially if it’s effective enough to change the way the industry works going forward, I think it’s extremely interesting. I wanted to see how this would go over and wanted to be part of it. Unfortunately for me, my chance to participate in the experiment was thwarted because, though Bubble was released in January, it has been marked “Very Long Wait” in my Netflix cue until this week.

Anyway, I’ve finally seen it. What was great about Bubble, the film itself, is that as a movie it’s also an experiment in form. At first I was shocked to read that for his great test flight Soderberg was going to use what sounded like a throwaway project: digital cameras, non actors, extreme minimalism. But the results are pretty incredible. For a while now we’ve got a taste of how reality, either in documentary or ‘reality TV’ form, can be often be more engrossing than traditional narrative forms when edited right. Some of the best movies I’ve seen in the past few years (Capturing the Friedmans, Spellbound, Winged Migration) have been documentaries, and the boom of reality TV dominated prime time TV for years and is still a huge ratings draw. But nobody’s ever combined reality with narrative before in this way,that I know of. Soderberg picked ordinary people from the town he was filming in, gave them a loose idea of the story and what needed to happen in each scene, but asked them to elements from their real lives to fill out the characters. I'm sure something like this has been tried by real actors before, and that it has some kind of method name, but surely this is some kind of first. The DVD bonus features include the extensive casting interviews where you realize just how much the real versions of these people were simply coopted into the film. It’s pretty odd, even creepy when you consider how one of the characters turns out to be a latent psychopath. (In real life that person seems sweet as pie.)

Besides this innovative method, even the story arc feels new. Though it’s a murder film with an investigation, the truth of what will happen and who will do it is telegraphed fairly on. That settled, our minds are allowed to meditate on the very mundane awfulness of how the wrong combinations of human interactions could end in mindless violence. A lot of the credit for the fact that this movie works at all has got to go to the casting department. You can’t take your eyes off these actors. Two of the three principals are as beautiful as they are believable. The third, Debbie Doebereiner as Martha, should get some kind of award. The mask of meek rage that slips across her face in certain scenes made me nervous to watch. I can’t even put my finger on what it is. It’s just the coldest face you’ve ever scene, while looking hot with blood. You know something’s not right. The last third of the movie is really tense. An uncomfortable thing to watch.

Smartly, they kept the running time short. If you're like me and you enjoy watching movies that approximate what it's actually like to be a person and think that humanity is engrossing enough without embellishment, you should watch Bubble.

Chris Whitley

2006-02-16T17:13:00.000-05:00

Chris Whitley (b. 1960, Houston. d. 2005, Houston)

A friend emailed me last Friday. "Did you hear that Chris Whitley died? They announced it during the Grammys." I hadn't heard. I got on the Internet. I discovered that, not only had he died as long ago as November (of lung cancer) he had released 4 records in the past few years that I wasn't even aware of. I felt sad and guilty that I had stopped paying attention. I can't even really say why. I only know that there are some artists who stand outside of music fashion and consistently produce work of their highest quality that, for whatever reason, I take for granted. I had gone to see Whitley whenever he played in town and bought all of his records up to 2001's Rocket House. But I guess at some point he slipped under my radar....

Sometime before 1998, Chris Whitley found himself without a contract after his label, the Work division of Columbia, folded. His response was to make a sparse recording in a barn of solo performances featuring just his hoarse voice, rusty sounding steel guitar and boot stomping called Dirt Floor (If that description sounds terrible to you, it does to me too. I don't like my music "rootsy", "folky" or "bluesy". Instead picture a huskier Jeff Buckley mumbling minimal, swampy "scrapyard lullabies" with atonal, fractured alternate tunings). There is a frequent thread on the Internet "Name 10 perfect albums. Albums where you don't have to skip a song." I can't even think of 5, but Dirt Floor is one of them. It's short, 9 songs in fewer than 30 minutes. But it's as complete a listening experience as any album I own. The aesthetic choice of this kind of simplicity was a statement of independence itself: that if you take away all the sophisticated production and flushed out band arrangements, Whitley could still deliver something perfect, with just his feet, hands and voice. The title song itself took the metaphor further: "There's a dirt floor underneath here/ To receive us when changes fail/ May this shovel loose your troubles/ Let them fall away." This is one of the most comforting psalms I've ever taken to heart. The worst that could happen to us is death – which is just rest, in the earth.

Dave Matthews, who said in memoriam that Whitley's music was more important to him than his own, created a label called ATO and had the good sense to sign Whitley, giving his career a second chance. After this, he experimented with electronics a bit on Rocket House. I felt at the time it was both a cliché to marry electronics to older music forms hoping to cheaply modernize them, and that it also worked. I guess at this point I might have assumed he was safe in the hands of his new benefactor and lost concern.

During my reinvestigation last Friday, when I bought most of the records I missed off emusic, I discovered something sublime: the album he released in his last year of life called Soft Dangerous Shores. I don't know what lung cancer did to his throat, if anything, but there was more whisper and rasp now. The dissonant alternate tunings and wire brush timbres of his playing were still intact, but the whole thing was submerged in a sonic ambience that won't show its face to my discerning ear. It's difficult to pinpoint where the sense of ethereal distance is coming from, or what the textural ghosts are that pop in and out of the mix. Is it reverb, synthesizer? What is being played? It is the musical equivalent of disembodiment. A truly disorienting listening experience, more suited to emotional provocation than most. I thought of how Jeff Buckley's guitarist Michael Tighe said after Buckley's death, about Buckley's erratic behavior in his later days, that the parameters of experience are wide open for someone in the transformative period which will result in death. He compared it to a cocoon and butterfly. Not two separate things, life and death, but all one big thing with stages. Whitley sounds both physically shredded by illness and like he has begun to glow out his fingers and mouth.

I saw Whitley once at St. Andrews. He was touring Dirt Floor and had rigged a "Boot Box" which was a wooden plank with a microphone underneath to amplify his one footed-blues stomp. But they EQ'd it like an 808 drum machine – an odd juxtaposition of sound and style. But fucking rad. His set was flawless and huge. One man making a mighty sound. I caught him at the bar after and he was tiny, greasy, shy. –almost shifty – and his teeth were stained gray from tobacco. I had read his bio about a childhood of wandering vagrancy and that he had busked for money on the streets of NY to try and start a career, but you usually assume hyperbole in those things. In person, he really looked the part of a hustler. He was very kind to me. I asked him all the questions I could think of.

A few years later, he was touring with the rhythm section from Madeski, Martin and Wood. They were playing the Shelter. The turnout was moderate. He must have been having technical difficulties – I had no idea – but suddenly he stormed off stage. The band followed in shock after a minute. I thought, at the time, it was a pretty diva thing to do. But then, after a bit, he swallowed his pride and took the stage again. You could see he felt embarrassed for overreacting. I always admired that move and the way he handled it and finished out the set strong.

I'm sad he's dead. I don't know why. Death still seems very abstract to me. I don't romanticize it and I don't indulge fantasies of a connection with the musicians I listen to. Yet, it bothered me when Elliott Smith died and it bothers me that Chris Whitley died, and that I did not even know it. I think maybe it's because I listen to people whose musical choices and the human spirit they put in song exhibit a type of courage and conviction. Those qualities seem more real to me than other things like jobs and cars and politics. And so does the death and absence.

Chris Whitley – Fireroad, For Two (From "Soft Dangerous Shores")
Chris Whitley – City of Women (From "Soft Dangerous Shores")
Chris Whitley – Dirt Floor (From "Dirt Floor")
Chris Whitley – Loco Girl (From "Dirt Floor")

Un-covering Elliott Smith

2006-02-09T19:05:00.000-05:00

Expunged Records just released an Elliott Smith tribute album called To: Elliott, From: Portland. Pitchfork wrote an uncharacteristically interesting and clear-headed review praising it, amazed because – and I agree – it should not have worked. Then, after sampling it, I bought most of it on emusic. [I’m down with plugging this site. It’s a good site. It's an indie online music store. Kind of like *tunes, except that when you buy music from it, you actually own it and can play it on anything you want, not just macintosh products]

Elliott Smith’s music is very important to me. It occupies an emotional space that no other music owns for me. It’s mostly melancholy and I listen to it when I’m melancholy, but rather than making a bad mood worse, for some reason it always makes me feel better. I have no ability to describe this in words, though it’s clear to me. While I think excessive mopiness in music is a fair criticism in general, I don’t think it applies to Smith. Too much craft, intelligence and agression comes through for it to seem wimpy. I guess that’s why I can accept it. Besides that issue, I’ve known a few people who’ve dismissed Smith’s music as being derivative – of the Beatles, Nick Drake, etc. I simply don’t agree. In the broadest terms, there are similarities; the Beatles’ command of melody, chords, and, later, the sophisticated production techniques; Drake’s quietness. But other than that, Smith very much has a VOICE. The easiest way to see this is to hear other people perform his music, and to see if Smith comes through. For instance, I think a lot of Dylan songs make great covers, but I never hear a Dylan in them. Likewise, Radiohead’s music is so well crafted in every sense that it sounds fantastic in instrumental form, detached from the aesthetic qualities that band brings to their recordings – like on the Brad Meldau and Christopher O’Riley releases. However, while the strength of the writing stays in tact, no real personality does.

To: Elliott, From: Portland is not the first instance of published Smith covers. Christopher O’Riley, after releasing two records on Sony Classical of Radiohead “transcriptions” for the piano, has said he has plans to give Smith’s songs the same treatment soon. He's already released home demos of these on his website. O’Riley has an interesting approach in that, while an improv master like Meldau naturally twists and alters the material to the point where it can be called an interpretation, O’Riley, who is a successful classical concert pianist, tries to stay out of the way of the composition. Similar to the way that a Debussy piece for orchestra, for instance, would be transcribed for piano, or vice versa. A transparent approach like O’Riley's is a great vehicle for what I’m talking about with the uniqueness and personality of the writer coming through in ways that are more than musical.

Christopher O'Riley – Waltz #1

There is a jazz singer named Madeleine Peyroux who does a great Billie Holiday impersonation. She sounds fantastic, but she brings nothing distinct to the table at all. She just apes Holiday for all the commercial value it's worth. However, she had the good sense to cover Smith’s Between the Bars (probably my personal favorite of his) on her album Careless Love. Once again, Smith’s material, especially when handled by such a chameleon, has his voice stamped all over it.

Madeleine Peyroux – Between the Bars

I think what makes the Smith tribute album work is that most of the artists have pleasant but nondistinct singing voices. I don’t care for the Decemberists, and I was a big fan of the two albums Eric Matthews put out on Sub Pop in the 90s. But the rest of groups on the album were new to me. After hearing this, I'm convinced that any band, no matter how vanilla the singer or style, could probably make a big mark if they had writing on par with Smith. And I think it's the mostly the material here making these performances seem so strong. Even so, there are some really good production ideas going on all over it. Too many to write about. There are a few unfortunate instances (even Matthews’ sadly, an amazing arranger and performer in his own right) where the songs are just flushed out with big fuzzy rock arrangements – exactly the thing that Smith’s early quiet lo-fi recordings stood in contrast to in the grunge era, giving them extra value. But on the whole, I’m impressed with the amount of energy and creativity given to these arrangements.

My point is that a lot of these artists haven’t found their voice completely, and it’s a better vehicle to let Smith’s show through. Because he definitely had found his voice. And it’s a voice I really like hearing, even filtered.

The Helio Sequence – Satellite
Crosstide – Angeles

The 7's Theory

2006-01-31T18:33:00.000-05:00

I have this theory (well, actually the rainbow and I do) that pretty much everything pitchfork gives a 7 range review to is greatness. It's not flawless, but more times than not, they hit the nail on the head. Go for it, see what you think. Anyway, backing up that statement I have yet another iteration of one of my fav peoples - The Weilheims. German. Evil. Dark - but poppy. Can you resist? This release under the name, Lali Puna, out on Morr records (great great label) is pretty kickass. I have yet to get the full length - but will be soon. The album is called Faking the Books and this is the title track....oh...and if you want to check out other work - pick up the Notwist or Ms. John Soda. I'll hook you up with a few of those later.

until then....at ease.

Lali Puna - Faking the Books (pitchfork gave it a 7.5, way to go assholes.)

It's Getting Personal

2006-01-26T12:31:00.000-05:00

So todays post is a little heavy. Sometimes you are going through personal turmoil and things that make you re-think songs you have heard or revisit something and you hear it differently than ever before. Certainly, I've had a month or so to contemplate changes in my life (which seem to be happening more and more, some for the better and others that just happen) and I feel like these songs jumped out at me....so I thought I would share.

The first one is a little known group from LA called Jed and Lucia. I had never heard of them and stumbled across their music somewhere out there. (I'm sorry if it was a blog, but I don't remember) After listening to it, this song was the one that nearly made me cry out of happiness and sadness. Either way, the music meshed with my own experiences and feelings really struck something inside me and I would highly recommend this track. Great production and really good writing.

Jed & Lucia - Can't Cage a Bird

Jeff Buckley came back into my life randomly the other day. This song popped up and I had completely forgotten about it. Nothing new here, but certainly something like this cannot be just ignored. If you have not heard of Jeff Buckley, welcome out from underneath that rock.

Jeff Buckly - Forget Her

Lastly, I can't leave you without something to get your dancing shoes on with. Prescription goes like this - cry a bit, then just before you realize it - this track will come on - you will wipe away your tears and you will see the sunshine come out and you will start dancin in the street.
These guys, MSTRKRFT are a side project of a member of DFA 1979 - whom I absolutely love. They are doing remixes and such, but this is all theirs - so enjoy it - and look for a full length sometime in the near future.

Oh, and by the way, Futurism Ain't Shit.

MSTRKRFT - Easy Love

A Shot at a New Top 10

2006-01-24T17:47:00.000-05:00

I'm sorry that the blog has sucked apparently the past few days. I have no idea what the hell is going on - and I even deleted all the images from my post thinking that was locking up peoples browsers - but here we go - the Top 10 - REPOSTED for your viewing and listening pleasure...

Honorable Mention 5: Spoon - I Turn My Camera On

Honorable Mention 4: Paul Duncan - Be Careful What You Call Home

You Look Like An Animal

Honorable Mention 3: M83 - Before the Dawn Heals Us

Teen Angst

Honorable Mention 2: Rogue Wave - Descended Like Vultures

Bird on a Wire

Honorable Mention 1: Antony and the Johnsons - I am a Bird Now

Poorest Ear

Who Cracked the Top 10? (Hold back the excitement)

10. The Clientele - Strange Geometry

Since K Got Over Me

9a. Stars - Set Yourself on Fire

One More Night

9b. The Guggenheim Grotto - A Lifetime in Heat EP

A Lifetime in Heat

8. Brazilion Girls - S/T

Sierenes de la Fete

7. Iron and Wine // Calexico - In the Reins EP

He Lay in the Reins

6. Goldfrapp - Supernature

Let It Take You

5. Jose Gonzalez - Veneer

Heartbeats

4. Editors - Backroom

All Sparks

3. Tom Vek - We Have Sound

If You Want

2. Arcade Fire - Funeral

Wake Up (Live Feat. David Bowie)

1a. Four tet - Everything Estactic

Smile Round the Face

1b. The National - Alligator

Lit Up

Resolutions are for suckers

2006-01-17T07:28:00.000-05:00

2006 is in full swing. My resolution was to not make anymore resolutions - but if I did - you wouldn't know about it. Thats the plan, really, make change, but keep it to yourself for the most part. How's your year going so far? I haven't had a lot of new music hit me in the face yet this year....big news though. I adopted a new cat yesterday. She's pretty amazing, wants to crawl on everything. Shes into that type of thing. So I guess I have been into simpler tunes lately, something that makes me feel like a little kid again in a way. I remember growing up and listening to Cat Stevens, Stevie Wonder and The Beatles - this guy brings them to mind...

Kelly Stoltz is someone that was oddly enough first introduced to me when I was touring by my friend Lisa. She played me a tune she thought was funny - it was 4 am - we were drunk and it was. This tune, however, is pretty cool in a lot of ways. Anyway, his newest EP is on Sub Pop and he has a 7" coming out soon on Cass Records out of Detroit - wow. Neato! So anyway, check it out.

Kelly Stoltz ://: Sun Comes Through

Top 15 Singles of 2005

2006-01-14T13:50:00.000-05:00

15. Brendan Benson - Cold Hands (Warm Heart) The Alternative to Love

Detroit love, kids. I've been a fan of Brendan for awhile now - and his music keeps getting better. Following him through the different incarnations of his music (see: Mood Elevator, which was really less him - but nonetheless he was still involved) and now his production collab's with Jack White have really been cool to watch. He's on V2 and they really got behind this album from what I could tell. If you haven't given it a chance - or even if you have - give it another listen - it's really well done on the whole. This song was also licensed for a Ford commercial recently.....that's too bad, but hey, gotta make that bank.

14. Lewis Taylor - Stoned Stoned

Soul and lots of it. Lewis Taylor is from the UK and this song blew my mind the first time that I heard it. I think this is one of the better albums of the year - it may crack my my top 10 - not sure yet. I recently heard him doing a set on KCRW and that made me like him even more. The odd part is that he sounds so English (Brit) in his interview and then he busts out some serious chops live. Well worth the purchase. Enjoy.

13. Sigur Ros - Hoppipolla Takk

I was flying back from LA last week, listening to the IPOD and it was late, after midnight. As we got closer to the ground this track clicked in - and made me remember how amazing these Icelandic wonders really are. I got into them late, around the ( ) album, but immersed myself into them right away and everything they have done is great. They did put out a tour EP that I wasn't too fond of, but other than that - all their major releases have been the shit. Not to mention the production work they have done with Jimmy T of the Album Leaf. (Of O.C. fame, now, sadly) Anyway, this song is perfect soundtrack to life stuff - walking around in a city or late at night listening to this will sink it in.

12. ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead - Let It Dive Worlds Apart

Never a huge fan of these guys - but I do own 2 of their discs. I like some it from a production aspect alot - and some songs are really rocking. This song reminds me alot of Oasis - but good Oasis. I got into it in the fall of this year, sitting at the WAB with Ward and this came on.... it's one of my bigger darkhorses on this list. Hope you like it.

11. Jackson and His Computer Band - Hard Tits Smash

Crazy album. Pretty fucking cool. Kinda creepy. Slightly goth. Electro. Bits and pieces. Worth listening to the whole thing - but enjoy this one first. It's great. Very easy listen.

10. Busta Rhymes Feat ODB - Where's Your Money?

Am I kidding? Absolutely not. First off, my relationship with the Bus goes deep. The first time I saw him live was in the hometown - Grand Rapids, MI. He did a set with a bunch of other hip hop heavyweights and ended up mooning the crowd. I'll never forget it. This guy just doesn't seem to miss though, great flow, great lyrics and he picks some awesome shit to work with. I remember when he remixed the Knight Rider theme (see: D. Hasselhoff). I loved that show growing up. So when I heard him and Big Baby Jesus were doing this - I was happy. And the track turned out great - so great in fact that I ended up rapping this very track....in White Castle....at 3 am.....in downtown Detroit.....with 2 strangers. I was sober.

9. Death Cab For Cutie - Brothers on a Hotel Bed Plans

I thought they would fall off. I really did. I doubted the Gibbard. I thought that the idea of a major label CD might get in these guys heads and cause them to lose their Death-Cab-ness. (Along with their "indie-cred according to some, but fuck that, make money, sorry Emm.) This CD actually led to a heated debate between a dear old friend, Emm and myself over stiff drinks one night in Dearborn, MI. Random? Yes. True? Certainly. But ultimately, I think they delivered a great product....could they have done it on their own - yes. But they didn't. Enjoy the track anyway - it's amazing. And never doubt the Gibbard - ever.

8. Breakstra - Hit the Flo'! Hit The Floor

One of my favorite, if not my favorite new label that I got into this year. Ubiquity Records puts out some great shit. (Not to mention kick ass T's.) These guys are out of Cali (I believe) and this record is a top to bottom throw down of funk. I love this track but really it could be any track on this album almost. Check it out and if you dig it - head over to Ubiquity and pick up some more.

7. TV on the Radio - Staring at the Sun (Diplo Rmx)

I saw Dip in a small tent in Chicago - and man - this guy is my hero. Not only was he amazing on the decks but let's just take a look over what he has been doing:

a) Producing much of M.I.A.'s album Arular, which has been a smash and is on many peoples top 10 of the year.
b) Also, dating Maya (M.I.A.). Nicely done.
c) Touring with her as DJ - cashing in a headlining tour while making a name for himself.
d) Remixing with pleasure. Some tunes he has done this year - including this one has blown me away.
e) Oh, and he just started a new record label.

Official hero status.

6. My Morning Jacket - Wordless Chorus Z

Token, I know. But I do like this album. I like the first half much better than the first. That's why it's not in my top 10 scenesters.....that's right. But this track is very leck-e-ish. Yay.

5. Death From Above 1979 - Black History Month (remix) Romance Bloody Romance

These guys are ridiculous. I love their videos. I love their sound. I love their energy. They bring the fucking action and don't apologize. And they are Canadian. Fucking great. I was lucky enough to check out this 2 piece playing in Chicago at Intonation Fest (above) and they carry themselves well live. This year, in follow up to their first release, they put out a remix album. (how cliche! you may say) Well, some hits, some misses, but this track is on point from start to finish. Enjoy.

4. Jamie Lidell - Multiply (Herbert's Hoedown Bump)

File under: freak. File under: wow. File under: this remix makes me want to climb walls, shoot sunlight out my nose and fart flowers. Unreal.

3. Paul Duncan - Oil on the Fields Be Careful What You Call Home

This guy really came out of nothing. I recently read an interview with him and he doesn't consider himself a professional musician. Similar story to Iron and Wine - recording at friends encouragement and practically handed a record deal. In the end though, the album was produced as an entire album to be listened to from beginning to end. It has some more atomospheric stuff in it, but this song certainly stands out. Enjoy. Highly rec'd.

2. Bell Orchestre - Throw It On a Fire Recording a Tape the Colour of the Light

Members of the Arcade Fire and others from the Montreal scene put together this group. Really an amazing disc from start to finish - but this track stands out as my favorite. I can't stop listening to it. Ever. And I won't. Come over in 10 years....you may hear it.

1. Nada Surf - Do It Again The Weight is a Gift

This album is great - but the first single, Do It Again is fucking awesome. It rips. So enjoy it as one of the catchiest songs of the year.

A Fond Farewell to 2005

2006-01-14T13:17:00.000-05:00

Hi. It's been along time since I've posted - apologies. But I'm not going to dwell on the past, well, maybe a bit. Today, I've finally gathered my thoughts and put together to the best of my ability - the best songs and albums of 2005. I hope that everyone likes the selections and I'd love feedback. (I'm talking to you Sam...haha) Alright without further delay - here they come.....

MY 20 FAVORITE SINGLES OF 2005

2005-12-23T16:24:00.000-05:00

[Image by Martin Smith, used with absolutely no permission whatsoever.]

I’ve had this theory for a while that the essence of being a nerd, the thing that ties all the different kinds of nerd species together, is the urge to make lists. I’m not really a compulsive cataloguer (I don’t think). When I hear or watch something that affects me, I don’t instantly need to rate it to show my love for it. But I sometimes get the urge to make lists at the end of the year and I feel some nerd guilt over this. So I’ve never done it before. But I’ve been co-“publishing” this music blog this year which makes me moderately official and I feel like I owe it to Daddy to treat myself to temptation. Don't hate.

So, word. These are the 20 best tracks I heard this year [that were officially released in ‘05]. The order’s not important, but every single one in the top 10 was a song I would say “moved me.”

1. Only This Moment – Royksopp. This was our song. And by our I mean me. My secondary self looks down on my primary self and mocks him for liking this song. There is something Euro-cheesy about the new Royksopp record. But I’ve come to love it for its subtle subversion and I’m done apologizing for it. I think you’re supposed to dance to this but there’s no real beat – just the sound of some idiot estatically tapping a microphone to the groove and that’s the coolest thing I heard all year.

2. Friend of Mine – The National. Really slinky track by a great new band that is dealing with its frat past, trying to be less like Pete Yorn and more like nothing else… I never get sick of this song.

3. And Then So Clear – Brian Eno. I played this song on loop for about two weeks while I came to terms with love. Some people never go out of style.

4. Utopia – Jackson and His Computer Band. Whirling shards of a blown up diva vocal over a thumping glitch of overcompressed mice claps. Tastes like rotted birthday cake.

5. Mary Jane (demo) – Toshack Highway. Adam Franklin’s new disc of four-track demos. My hero. Here, he wastes no time. He can put all the emotional places a song will go to in the first line with a simple self contradiction. “Mary Jane, you never broke my heart. Mary Jane, you never found a way to mend it.”

6. Now That I Know – Devendra Banhart. A serious song from a silly man. Sounds like a child worrying adult worries.

7. You Are My Sister – Antony and the Johnsons (feat. Boy George). I would immediately buy a record by Boy George singing in this hoarse soul voice. That's him on the chorus and bringing down the house at the end. Mmmm! Makes me feel ugly.

8. The Broads – Minotaur Shock. This is a Fall weather song, but with optimism. As if everything weren’t really dying. Or as if everything dying were a good thing because death meant being dipped in a big vat of frosting and being reincarnated as sugar cereal.

9. Someone Like Me – Royksopp. When you’re numb from hours of Midwestern highway and the Chicago skyline finally looms before you like a giant Fischer Price battery-powered monolith, or when you’re at your school locker the first morning after holiday break, feel a tap on your shoulder, turn around and don’t have time to stop yourself from smiling so much… these synths have that kind of love in them.

10. I'm Ready – Billy Corgan. Like the rush of someone who has dug to China with his hands and come peaking out the other side covered in maggots, mud, and magma. Clearly ready.

11. Merchants of Soul – Spoon. I don’t know why this isn’t the single. Spoon take tambourine playing and clapping to new levels of hot shit. And here, ask, “Why NOT distort a cello?”

12. Great Day – Madvillain (Four Tet remix). I think of a big lumbering soulsinging hobo covered in sequins, hot pink paper clips and strung with pop cans rustling down the street in slo mo, rapping about a dream he has of molting out of all that heavy skin.

13. Almost Forgot Myself – Doves. Like MoTown at half the tempo, claymated by Tim Burton, but shimmering and English.

14. A Little Bit More – Jamie Lidell. I wish Lidell would cut the retro shit and admit he’s a freak from my future. But this song will do – a polite version of his self-sampling one-man live show where he creates split personalities on the spot and they all sound like Al Green’s head in a blender.

15. Stop Bothering Michael Jackson – Mu. Word. Mu are the aural equivalent of violent anime. She still sounds like the Korean grocer’s angry wife, only this time her mouth is dirtier. “SUCK MY DICK”. Word. “LEAVE MICHAEL JACKSON ALONE YOU STUPID BITCH." Sure. This is the hulking, mecha-symphony equivalent of their 2004 masterpiece My Name is Tommi – amazing programmed brushwork, hard-swinging, picked bass under angry bladerunner punk that devolves before reevolving into the 8-bit version of Miles Davis’ In a Silent Way. I never remember how he gets there. It’s like being taken to a secret place blindfolded.

16. St. Petersberg – Supergrass. He sings of leaving Russia in three days as if he’s Jesus in the tomb. After The Beatles’ Back in the U.S.S.R., and now this sad sack song, I’m never, ever going to Russia.

17. Juicebox – The Strokes. I know what cheese looks like. I know what it smells like. And now, thanks to The Strokes, I know what it sounds like. Juicebox begins with an unforgivabley stinky homage to The Offspring, then wastes some more time aping the Talking Heads, or something equally geeky, before the shame is too much to bear and they make a desperate gesture to get their cool back. I think they pulled it off. It’s up for debate.

18. Off the Record – My Morning Jacket. I’ve never really heard the Clash, but I always imagine them sounding kind of like this. I have a soft spot for white rock bands working anything close to a reggae beat. This guy John Leckie produced this. He also produced the Verve’s Storm in Heaven and Radiohead’s The Bends – my point being that pop and art are not mutually exclusive to him. He stands outside of fashion in a place he just calls “Good”.

19. Sci-Flyer9 (Demo) – Toshack Highway. Swevedriver won my 19-year old girly heart with their first, fast record of songs about deserts, drugs and Fear and Loathing in the American southwest. They were English, and only using their imaginations, so it came out overly idealized and more reservedly poetic. Their singer has been revisiting some of those old songs for his new “band” with an acoustic guitar and come-down tempos on his cassette four-track. It’s part of the same story, at a much later hour.

20. Slow This Bird Down – Boards of Canada. When I’m drunk and spinning, all music seems too fast. Except this track, which was cut at a super-secret, scientifically devised BPM that makes it always sound like it’s always slowing down.

SYRIANA

2005-12-15T01:36:00.000-05:00

I have mixed, but mostly good, feelings about this brutally powerful film by first-time director Stephen Gaghan. Like he did in Traffic (for which Gaghan won the Oscar for best screenplay) Syriana weaves what are initially unconnected narrative strands into a dense web of geopolitical polemic. Whereas Traffic was a pessimistic lecture on the futility of the drug war, Syriana's main character is oil itself, depicted near-mythically as a demonic, corrupting force seizing the will of the great powers of this earth. Picture the greedy, panicked eyes of the characters in The Lord of the Rings as they fall under the ring's spell. Syriana sees everyone as a potential Gollum, susceptible to a morally warping desire. There are other themes, such as the global ripple effect of even seemingly insignificant choices, and a more subtle insinuation that those who profit from oil, whether governments or businesses, actually prefer, and will in some cases even encourage, global instability – the conflict drives oil prices up.

I sensed that the creators were attempting to redresss an imbalance, rather than be taken as a measured picture of the way things are. Accordingly, I had the uncomfortable sense of being preached to that comes from anything mixing so much agenda in with its artistry. But it attacks the self-centered limits of the western worldview with gentle empathy, rather than bile, and I found the light touch affecting. What it does best is give someone like me, weaned in the comparatively prosperous west, only the slightest glimpse into the humiliation and frustration that an average person, suffering in one of the backwards places on the other side of the world, feels when a foreign power imposes itself in the name of commerce. The greatest achievement here, the thing that stayed with me long after, was its tender depiction of Pakistani teenage boys who are simply not like us. The differences were subtle – their jokes and pastimes had a sense of filtered westernization – but there was a humble otherness to it that rang true. Usually, when foreigners or minorities are portrayed for sympathetic reasons, it’s done in a way to make them seem more, not less, white. But these kids were believable in their simple, adolescent awkwardness. And that made their radicalization both convincing and heartbreaking to watch.

In fact, most of Syriana's major Arab and Middle Eastern characters – from Hezbollah leaders to Saudi royalty – are portrayed neutrally to positively. That is, above all, what makes the film unique, if overly romanticized. (Its other rhetorical storylines – a CIA agent sold out by his own, oil companies manipulating politicians, etc. – though engaging, lack newness.) It's also what makes it fishy as a thesis. Yes, it's bitterly cynical but to me it's not cynical enough. It's hard to accept this level of indignation at the covert sins of a country like the U.S. without a comparable or harsher reaction to the overt brutality, misogyny or chronic opression of the world's Iraqs and Saudi Arabias. In this sense, Syriana is a little too reactionary for me: events in a terrorist training camp are lit warmly, like an idyllic Eden; Hezbollah is portrayed as benevolent and gracious; while any western players, from lawyers, to financial advisors, to politicians, are varieties of thieving devils. It's as if the filmmakers had an over abundance of empathy; just not for anybody on this side of power divide.

Sadly, the confusing format of the movie –– not its politics –– is probably going to be the most divisive thing about Syriana, and will likely dampen the effect of its ideas. The film's unique construction –– watching it is like having your mind force fed a gushing stream of information faster than it could possibly swallow –– is both frustrating and admirable. Though told linearly, it's edited at a super-quick pace; scenes are usually truncated. The scope of this movie is humungous –– a perspective ranging from the highest seats of influence to the poorest and most powerless – yet the effect is of a statement needing a context. Yet it doesn’t come off as an arbitrary choice and it seems deliberate that it is impossible to completely comprehend on first viewing. The result is an overwhelming and, at times, maddening style that is awfully impressionistic for a work that is essentially NPR-turned-feature-film. And therein lies the conflict for me the viewer. On the one hand, it gives the sense of someone bluffing; alluding to more knowledge then they really have. On the other, it forced me to watch the film not as a series of expositions, but as a sequence of emotions. That's something fresh. The acting, direction and score are so exquisite that the tonal thrust of everything you see is always articulated. Just not in a cerebral way. I saw it as a parable about not getting so caught up in the enormous details of current events that we forget to see the human picture.

From the original score by Alexandre Desplat:

Driving in Geneva
Something Really Cool

Slow This Bird Down

2005-11-15T11:00:00.000-05:00

Sometimes a day’s experience can prepare your mind for a moment, the way a cook prepares a dish to taste its best. In my case, I spent Saturday loafing around downtown Ann Arbor with a friend. It was unseasonably perfect – light jacket weather in mid November and we were there to look for photo locations, considering every building and tree for its loveliness and color scheme - our eyes becoming acclimated to looking for accidental beauty.

I drove home during an inky dusk, my mind swept clean from so much fresh air, listening to the new Boards of Canada. As I steered my vehicle East, from 275 to onto 696, I passed one of those giant oscillating spot lights, spinning giant beams of white up at the clouds. The track Slow this Bird Down was playing and at that moment I had the distinct sense of my own transience – that the earth was a place among places, rather than the totality of locations for existence, as it often seems. I felt temporary, that I could dissolve into the oily horizon for a ride to the next station. The marquee spotlights spun powerfully.

Boards of Canada make triggers for the sonic subconscious. Each release is a mixed bag, half of it magic. Here are three of the finer tracks from their most recent release, The Campfire Headphase.

Boards of Canada – Slow This Bird Down
Boards of Canada – A Moment of Clarity
Boards of Canada – Tears From the Compound Eye

Autumn Soul Music

2005-11-02T13:44:00.000-05:00

Here are three beautiful, soulful tracks to listen to while the earth around you dies, freezes, goes rigid and petrifies.

Sam Cooke. I go back and forth on this, but sometimes Sam Cooke is my favorite singer ever. (Delroy Wilson and Otis Redding are his competition.) I was listening yesterday to an interview with his biographer. Powerful story. Sad too, him getting shot like that after getting set up and robbed by a hooker. This track is just his voice, cymbal and acoustic bass and that's all that could ever be necessary. I don't think of the living Cooke singing this, but the dead.

Sam Cooke – Lost and Lookin'

Chocolate Genius. I was really into this guy's last record, Godmusic, which came out in 2001. Sometimes the records that take more chances, and make mistakes, stick with me more than the ones that exhibit more taste and dignity. Marc Anthony Thompson is Chocolate Genius. I don't know much about him except that he gets the greatest of the great musicians (like Van Dyke Parks or Marc Ribot) to play on his records, put out two records on major V2, and is the only "famous" person I saw when I was in New York. This song has a similar quiet to most of it as Cooke's Lost and Lookin'. I could do without the baroque rocking section with distorted guitar octaves on Down So Low; that's so mid 90s. But there is so much feeling and texture in this track that it's all OK. And you should really listen to it on headphones.
It's Going Wrong purrs with low end sizzle and is typical of the delicate soul I love from Thompson. Both of these new tracks are from his brand new record, Black Yankee Rock. (This title alone helps me deal with the pain that is the overhyped Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.) Enjoy.

Chocolate Genius – Down So Low
Chocolate Genius – It's Going Wrong

A Case For Röyksopp

2005-10-28T19:38:00.000-04:00

I currently can't stop listening to Röyksopp. But I took the long way getting here. Here are some key milestones:

1. Late '04 – one of my friends who gives me more music to listen to than I could possibly ever digest, gives me a stack. In that stack is Melody A.M., Norwegian electronic duo Röyksopp's 2001 debut release. The artwork was throwaway, used bin electronica blandness. After a quick listen to the stack, however, this was the only disc left standing. (But it was still only pleasant at best.)

2. At work, Melody A.M. happens to be playing when I get stuck doing a long job. Makes the job go by fast, like listening to Bach or Plaid. I think more highly of it.

3. I go back to it later hoping to get in the same zone. I do. This is good shit. I'm going to buy it for myself.

4. Spring '05: Eventually, I grow to like the album a lot. It still has twinges of Judy Adams-ness (local public radio DJ who has a world/beat/electronica show that makes you feel like all music is a little cheesy). It seems to still have that global, used bin electronic blandness at the edges, but solid writing. Reminds me more of my favorite electronic group, Plaid.

5. Summer '05: New album out. The Understanding. Artwork is much better. Brilliant even. But, what are these awful R'n'B pop vanilla soulless vocals smothered all over everything? Their vocals are fine, but the guests... I don't know... Still, that single, though it's all club med 90s frat trash, is just beautiful. The guitar hook alone sells me. But the rest of the album I have a hard time with.

6. Max (the other guy on this site), who's a music supervisor at an ad agency, gets an instrumental, no-vocals version for ad placement. I try that and start to realize how good the tracks themselves are, without the eurotrash vocals.

7. Then, I go back to the vocals version and my goodness gracious, if I don't get it all now. This is hip shit posing as pop trash. I go back to Melody A.M. and see the same thing. Everything sounds slurpier, more jagged, crunchier, more subversive and better composed.

8. Present day: I can't stop listening to Röyksopp. Somebody help me. Dear god. It's seeping into my dreams and I want to get with a girl just so we can break up and I can listen to this.

Röyksopp – Someone Like Me (Them singing, from The Understanding)
Röyksopp – A Higher Place (From Melody A.M.)

I missed you too....

2005-10-15T11:11:00.000-04:00

Well, all is right. I'm back. Sorry for the short time off - I know you missed me. Anyway, it's been great to be living life again - really living. Things are just starting to come together in a lot of ways outside of the norm - that has got me all excited. Something about fall gets me in the mood for Elliott Smith. I'm sure that most if not all of the MANY readers on this blog are already into. If not, well then, let me know, and Dan and I will put something together for you. "Educational". Who I really wanted to write about this fine autumn saturday is Jose Gonzalez. I wouldn't put him in the same category as Smith, although some of his songs remind me very much of him. I was unaware that he was on myspace - but he is. Who isn't these days? I mean, really. Pretty great stuff though. If you like this track - check out the other 2 that are on his myspace page - or just go to his website and buy the album!! It's well worth it.

Nice to see you, too.

Jose Gonzalez - Crosses (follow link)

Quickie

2005-10-06T20:05:00.000-04:00

Not much time to write. Doing this at work. Could be caught any minute... Here are some great tracks I've been listening to lately.

1. The Strokes - Juicebox. Bad sign: my friend Rod says over the phone, "Have you heard the new Strokes? I heard it on the radio. It started with this green day riff (makes a buzzy guitar riff sound like the Peter Gunn theme). I turned it off before he even started singing." He was wrong. It starts off with more of an Offspring (90s radio band who are currently being tried in the Hague for musical atrocities) riff. But then... oh, but then.

The song is a visceral, hungry jackal of angular rock. If you ask yourself, as I do from time to time, "Is there any place in my life for rock? Does 'being rocked' have any meaning anymore for me?" this may resolve the issue for you, as it did for me, speeding down I-696 last night. For starters, we get to hear singer Julian Casablancas with less of that damn filtered effect he's been using as a crutch; it's like taking the airbrush off a truly beautiful person who didn't need it in the first place. This song has several sections, as if the band had too many good ideas to chose from (always a good sign) each of which is better than the last. I hated the second Strokes album. I didn't want more of the same. I wanted them to do this, which is to change and broaden their sound, if only moderately. I think this is a major step forward. I hear new things every time I listen to this track. [As much as I love it, though, nothing can redeem the opening riff, or the Offspring for that matter.]

The Strokes - Juicebox

2. Devendra Banhart - Now That I Know. There's something about Banhart that is greater than the sum of his parts. His voice is trembly to the point of silliness, his lyrics are whimsical and absurd in good and bad ways and... he's a hippy. I made war on anything hippy many years ago. That is, I made war, not love. But it's like the initial experience I had with Rufus Wainwright. I was repelled and drawn in at the same time. That's a rare thing for me and I guess I kind of like it. Because eventually you're just drawn in. I grew to love Rufus and I'm growing to love Banhart. My war with the hippies may be coming to an end at last. The first two Banhart records (Rejoicing in the Hands and Nino Rojo) were recorded in the same sessions and were lo-fi, but in a perfect way. He experienced a lot of quick success from those and the resulting touring has strengthened his performance skills and filled out his voice. His new record, Cripple Crow, is a full production based around solo Banhart performances, with great sounds and great choices of overdubs. Now That I Know opens the record and is sad in that long, wide way that train tracks, dusk and migrating birds are.

Devendra Banhart - Now That I Know

3. The Elanors - The Song About the Sea (demo). The Elanors are a Champaign, Ill. duo I've been producing and recording. Their names are Noah and Adriel. They might be famous one day, but to me they're already world-class. We were about a week into tracking, at my home, and had stopped for a dinner break and so that I could show them how I've taken the playing of Tetris to an art form. As King Saul commanded to David in the Bible, I said to Noah, "Play me a song. Let it be a new song, one that I've never heard." Noah turned the electric piano on and sang me a quiet song about the sea – by the time he finished, he had chased all of the demons out of the room and we sat in stillness. During this performance, I know my hands were making unprecedented, impossibly deft moves on the joystick, but my mind had left the room and a romanticized version of my adolescence flashed before my eyes - Hemingway, Baltimore harbor, my first crush, a picnic for two who were still kids, and all that dumb brilliance.
I tried to convince Noah to put the song on the record. He said, no, it was part of a new world of songs he was stepping into, and he didn't want to mix it up with the past, so the best I could do was set a mic up and get him to sing it in my living room. We used a cheap mic for a rich voice. You can hear the crickets. It was so hot that week.

The Elanors - The Song About the Sea (demo)

4. Supergrass - Roxy. The reason I know I'm a nerd is because there's a test for this. The essence of nerdishness is the desire to make lists. One of the few lists I've made in my head is greatest working songwriters. I don't really include some of the old guys who can still bring it like Elvis Costello and Tom Waits. It's more the songwriters of my generation, still killing it. That list is short. Ellliott Smith was on it, at the top. The others are Gillian Welch, Rufus Wainwright, Thom Yorke (though he's more of a composer of exquisite music with infantile lyrics), and Gaz Coombes. Coombes is my dark horse because, while some of my peers are familiar with Supergrass, even fewer know their lead singer by name. Supergrass broke during the mid-90s Britpop movement. There were a lot of tight bands then and a returned emphasis on songwriting. Oasis, Pulp, Blur, etc. Out of the groups I was listening to then, Supergrass is the only one I still follow. Here's the thing about Gaz Coombes. The guy simply CAN'T write a bad tune. Even if you're not feeling the aesthetic of one of their songs, you can't argue with the tune. And I don't mean simply that they're catchy, or "well-crafted". What I'm talking about is beyond memorability or technique. He's the real thing. Coombes has a weird, pretty voice that has a bit of a helium sparkle to it on top of the throaty power. To me, as a singer he's on par with Yorke or Chris Martin.
There. I needed to finally talk about Supergrass. They do alright, especially overseas, but to me they will always be underrated because I hold them in such high esteem. After talking them up like that, maybe the new record Road to Rouen, isn't the place to start because people are saying it's the "mature" record. But what the hell.

Supergrass - Roxy

Warren is Burning

2005-09-23T14:59:00.000-04:00

Is it really so bad? Is it?

M.I.A. - Fire, Fire (follow link)

Something to chew on til Monday.

2005-09-23T11:31:00.000-04:00

The weight is a gift guys. That is why the weight gets lifted today, that's right, it's Friday. So, Friday is as Friday does. I'm feeling good today. Although sometimes it feels like Groundhog day in this town, today has been better in some respects. The one thing that I can't seem to shake is the fact that there is a gap, yes a gap, between the bottom of my door to my bedroom and the floor. My roomates cat utilizes this nearly every morning between his awful meowing to stick his paw under the door and pull on it, rattling it and waking me, and sometimes, my roomate up. Clearly, this has to stop. Plans are being made and action will be taken. Keith, if you are reading this, you will no longer be able to do these things. Sense will be made of it and you will be put away for your evil acts of waking us up on weekends. What else can I say before getting to the music? Ah, yes. Hotel Rwanda. What a film. I watched it last night and was struck by it. It really made me realize how utterly selfish as a country the United States can be in some cases, but what really struck a chord was how over 500,000 people were slaughtered and yet very little was made of it. Anyway, enough of all that.

This first guy is a total mystery to me. His website offers very little info on him and isn't very useful at all. Some cool remixes are posted for your download - but word is release on his new album called Pale Glitter has been delayed. Miwon is this guys moniker - who doesn't have one these days? It's the latest thing! Anyway, totally reminiscent of Loscil - which is one of my fav background electro/glitch type groups Miwon spans from very minimal to more in your face but keeps a good beat going throughout the album. Look for it early 1st quarter 2006. Until then though, enjoy this track.

Miwon - Semafora (follow link)

Another guy that I have been really into over the past year is MF Doom. Another great blogger put together an awesome feature discussing his history and his motivations. Basically, back in the early 90's he was part of KMD, a rap group - not awesome, but signed to a major. In the end though, the brother of who now has become MF Doom was killed and Doom was wronged by the label (dropped). He always wears a mask, which is ultra fucking cool and has collaborated with many of todays coolest artists Four Tet, Koushik, Madlib and now Dangermouse of Grey Album steez. Don't fuck with MF Doom - don't do it. Enjoy this track off of the new album, this track features Talib as an added bonus.

DangerDoom - Old School (follow link)

Last and not least is the awesomeness that is Explosions in the Sky. I think that they may have been featured in the football movie with Billy Bob as the coach, Friday Night Lights. Pretty alright movie, if you are into that kind of thing. Calls into question what the hell Billy Bob is doing with his career. Anyway, these guys are that kind of instrumental group that really moves you. Take Sigur Ros and take out the crazy made up language - add touches of The Album Leaf and you may start to sound like Explosions in the Sky. I have never seen them live, but would love to. Enjoy this track - high recommend, now go buy it.

Explosions in the Sky - First Breath After Coma (follow link)

French Jackson

2005-09-22T18:47:00.000-04:00

Warp is the mother of all electronic labels, and Jackson Fourgeaud is their lastest signee, which makes Jackson and His Computer Band’s debut, Smash, a point of interest in certain circles. The mark of a significant first album (think Rufus Wainwright, The Strokes, or Interpol) is when an artist emerges with a distinct identity and a sense of self already in tact. That’s definitely the case with Smash which, about halfway through its 46 minutes of tweaked chaos, you realize has a “sound” – a hard, slurpy compression that is like flabby mice claps amped to the point of distortion and the hard funk effect of gated soul divas crashing in bright, indeterminate gusts. It's what Jamie Lidell's first solo record might have sounded like if he had followed through on any of the hundreds of fragmented ideas he was throwing down. Even though electronic music has lost a lot of the novelty it held for me 4 or 5 years ago, the two most exciting albums this year for me so far (this and Four Tet’s Everything Estatic) were electronic-based.

Jackson and His Computer Band – Utopia

Jackson and His Computer Band – Fast Life

Friday Fridge

2005-09-16T11:25:00.000-04:00

This is the fridge:

This is my Fridge (and now yours as well):

Fridge is the side project of that special someone Kiran Hebden also known as Four Tet. Sam Jeffers and Adem Ilhan join him apparently they have grown up together and are friends. The release which I suggest you pickup at the Domino Site is a heady, beat-infused lovely soundtrack to living type disc. A few of the tracks hit that familiar Four Tet groove of acoustic beat and jangley tones that his fans love, but it borders on the jazz influence that was on some of his pre-Rounds stuff.

It's rainy and fall has finally staked it's claim here in Michigan in mid-September - making it feel more and more like mid-October. A lot of change is taking place this year after a relatively calm time in my life - but all for the better. So I think that this song fits both of those things very well - something to listen to as you sip a coffee and watch the rain fall.

Fridge - Long Singing (follow link)

Windex

2005-09-09T13:24:00.000-04:00

The emotional scope of the song "And Then So Clear" by Brian Eno was like spiritual calibration for me. I listened to it on loop one morning at work and almost quit my job – that’s how much it made me crave change and filled me with confidence in life. It was given to me by the most eccentric person I know; It played this summer while I made a new friend and was still playing when I lost that friend; It’s about change, and fear of change, and razor mountains, and rain smearing across the sky like a massive windshield like you’ve got a god’s eye perspective and the earth is your SUV.

This was year I got an mp3 player and rediscovered my forgotten love of public solitude – the intimacy of daydreaming with headphones on and watching the world go by. I had forgotten how important all those little details are that get blurred by road-sounds when you listen to music on car speakers. This was also the same time I was first discovering Eno, having much of his back catalog donated to me by a friend. It was a perfect way to get into Eno’s music. Quietly, privately, attentively. I came to see him as the true father of modernity in music.

I immediately preferred the ambient stuff, particularly with Robert Fripp, to his glammy song-based material. So I was surprised this spring at how much I loved his new, song-based release Another Day On Earth (it cracks me up how all his album titles manage to sound the same. It’s kind of like Zombie films: Day of the Dead, Night of the Dead, Day of the Night of the Dead of the Living Dead, and on and on) from which this song is taken. I’m not sure why, after all these years, he decided to start writing songs again, but I’m glad he did.

Windex your windshield:

And Then So Clear

The Secret Handshake!

2005-09-07T12:23:00.000-04:00

The Secret Handshake is Luis Dubuc. I dig his stuff. At least, the single that he has put out from the forthcoming EP. (The Secret Handshake's 6-track EPThis is Bigger Than You and I will be released in September) It's kinda guilty pleasure type music, but nonetheless worth listening to. (and driving to for that matter) The label - Dollhouse Recordings says: "His music is centered around his honest lyrics and creative ability to incorporate piano melodies and electronic backbeats." It's almost cliche now to have the piano or guitar meets electro backbeat.

The Secret Handshake released his debut full length Antarctica with a first limited pressing of 1000. I haven't heard that - but hopefully soon....anyone out there heard it? Anyway, get to know The Secret Handshake - yes - you are in the club.

The Secret Handshake - Coastal Cities (Demo) (follow link)
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Fogger

2005-09-06T17:00:00.000-04:00

I came across this great track on my iTunes today from the self-titled Fog debut record, on Ninja Tune. It showcases how technology can serve music best when it’s approached in an almost amateur way. In this case, Andrew Broder is not really a pro turnatbalist, but he uses them in really interesting, childlike ways.
Later Fog releases kind of turned me off because Broder, like a lot of bedroom electronic guys these days, insists on singing. His singing style is not for me, but Fog was a brilliant debut.

Fog "Truth and Laughing Gas" (Follow Link)

I'll take a large plate of akwardness please.

2005-09-06T00:20:00.000-04:00

Wow. For those of you who haven't heard of my boy Kanye going off on national tv, well, you should really check it out. Literally it was one of the most akward moments I have ever seen on TV. EVER. Way worse than Ashlee Simpsons "vocal track" on SNL, this video just makes you squirm. Kanye and Mike Myers were on a show on NBC raising money for hurricane relief and Kanye decided to deviate, and by deviate I mean completely ignore the script. He went off and said that they were giving the national guard the right to kill black people. The issue of the media describing blacks as looters and whites as "food finders" I can certainly agree with - Yahoo issued an apology - check it out. But, the last bit of the video - oh man - George Bush does not care about black people. Statement. Cut to Chris Tucker looking scurrrrrred.

Kanye West - George Does Not Care About Black People.

A Little Bit Mo'

2005-09-02T15:50:00.000-04:00

Introduction:

My name is Daniel and I’ll be tag-teaming on Max’s blog as the Rainbo Wasp from time to time. But who are we kidding? Max only finds out about crisp new music from me anyway, so you could say I’ll be here full-time in spirit.
I kid…
I guess there’s no other way to do this than to just start posting the music that has been fishhooking my ears this year.

Jamie Lidell
A little backstory. I went through a big Warp Records phase about five years ago where I was buying anything they’d put out. I bought the first Jamie Lidell album, Muddlin Gear blindly during this time.

It’s unlistenable in the best way. It is the single-most twisted piece of modern music I own, which makes it a jewel of my collection. It’s a slice of pervert pie. Robotic, cut to shreds, disembodied glitch funk that, though completely electronic based, refuses to even quench the ear's thirst with the occasional full-fledged beat. It's like free jazz by R2-D2 freebasing cleaning products... Then, suddenly, there's the 9th track, “Daddy’s Car”, which is brilliant, oily r'n'b, like Motown if Motown had happened in the 2060s. I just assumed they’d brought in a black soul singer for the song, since there was no way it was a white Englishman I was hearing. I was wrong, it was Lidell. I was confused. If you could sing like this, if you could make pop tracks this shit hot and state of the art, why would you only put one of them on your solo debut, and bury the thing at the end of the record?
I have these moments occasionally where I realize I’m hearing a piece of music that is both uncompromisingly grounbreaking and completely accessible enough to be a huge hit single if someone would just market it – and I lament the squandered power of the radio today. This was one of those moments.
Years later I would go through a painful stretch in my life where the doors of great, useless knowledge and spiritual adversity were opened to me for a short while – the only thing approaching a religious experience I’ve ever had. During this time I suddenly perceived the taint of artifice in all but a few of the CDs and books I owned. The only music that I could bring myself to listen to at this time were a handful of classical pieces, Miles Davis’ “Bitches Brew”, and Jamie Lidell’s collaborative project Super_Collider.

Daddy's Car (Follow Link)

This spring, Lidell's second solo album Multiply, again for Warp, was released.

I was alittle ataken aback – to say the least. It’s retro! A little Otis Redding, a Little Stevie Wonder, but not really much of the sci-fi soul he's been dishing out. I mean, his solo act is like Tom Waits Japanimated: completely frentic and apocalyptic, wearing garbage bag suits, camera helmets and surrounded by a giant spider’s nest of wires, samplers, bots and outboard gear.
Look at this guy!:

There is almost no connection between the fruitcake Lidell of this picture and the sunny, pristine soul music he just released. Anyway, I don't know how I feel about Multiply yet. I love Lidell because he works in present and future tense. I’m not interested in what he has to say in past tense though. But I’ve been told by my friend Rod, who's mind is as perverted as they come, that you have to keep listening to appreciate this one. Even so, there's one track that grabbed me immediately. “A Little Bit More” is another one of those moments where I think, THIS would be a radio hit in an ideal world. In an interview, Lidell said this is the closest thing on the record to his live show. It's just him riffing in the studio over quickly sampled mouth beats. He said it took him like a half hour to record. It's genius.

A Little Bit More (Follow Link)

I Love You, But....

2005-09-01T13:33:00.000-04:00

In what could maybe one of my favorite band names ever - I give you: I love you, but I've chosen darkness. Hard to describe the sound that they bring to the table - this song is kinda mellow - with a twinge to it -something that doesn't sit quite right. pleasing to listen to, check out their website - they have one of the coolest t-shirts ever and sadly it's all sold out in anything but an XL. Who even orders XLs anymore? I dunno. maybe they will re-issue it threadless steez. other cool tidbits - this came off an EP that was produced by fellow austin-ite britt daniels from spoon, they have been signed to secretley canadian and have a new disc due out in early '06 and lastly the evil empire gave them a 7.3 which means that it has to be great. anything given a 7-ish rating usually means amazing-ness is brewing.

I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness - Your Worst Is My Best (follow link)

how much does the dude of the left look like Peter Krause (krow-za) my boy from Six Feet Under?? Seriously.

In other news, i resurrected the french press today after a small hiatus. it wasn't her, it was me, it was what i was going thru. it felt good.

Why not Emm Gryner?

2005-08-31T17:16:00.000-04:00

Exactly. Emm Gryner is a extremely talented singer and songwriter hailing from lovely Canada. I can't say enough good things about her really, as is the case with most people who know her. We met in Chicago on tour and kept in touch for the past few years. After not seeing her in quite sometime we picked up right where we left off and had a great time. She's constantly writing and playing and doing things like Living Room Tours which really demand your respect. What is the living room tour you may ask? It's something that is really basic - a concert in your living room. You provide the venue and some people to listen - they will play and sell their wares. Pretty cool idea. So, recently I caught up with Emm at one of these living room tours and had a great time. My myspace buddy Trish who also is fond of Emm opened the night. Cass and I took it all in - but I have to admit this - if nothing else - it was a bit akward at first. Being in a house of a person you don't know, with people you don't know is a great, weird, strange feeling all wrapped up with a bowtie. There was a keg, some snacks, actually really good snacks - and of course good music.
Anyway, check out Trish on her myspace page (and Emm too!) - she is very talented - and definitely pick up Emm's and Trish's cds. In the end though, I think that the song I ended up digging the most that I had not previously heard from Emm was this haunting track below. The production values on the version that is on the cd is a little different than live - but still awesome. Live, Emm played just the bass and actually looped it. The minimalism of it was awesome and that is what initially struck as being cool - but the melody to go with it is very cool as well.

Big ups to Jordie as well - that kid knows how to kick - old school. And he's canadian! haha. just kidding big J. Oh, if someone reads this - happens to know his email addy - that would be fantastic. check out what Jordie has happening. dope? yes.

Emm Gryner - Dearg Doom (follow link)

Then I Saw The Light.

2005-08-31T12:19:00.000-04:00

Coldplay - Pine Knob - 8.30.2005

I had no idea what to expect heading into this show. Had Coldplay become the next Dave Matthews Band? Had they lost all creativity in their music and stage show? Were they really as good as I had heard? All were questions that needed be answered as Tara and I strolled into the venue in a light rain and purchased a frostly cold Miller Lite. (yes, miller lite.)

Rilo Kiley was the opener - first night on tour for them - and we missed them. Traffic was really bad getting to the show. You ever notice how when any type of weather change occurs there is a rash of accidents? First snow: lots of accidents - rain sometimes has the same effect. People maybe just forget to take it easy? Not sure. What I do know is that 75 - the potholled pavement that they call "expressway" here, was serving as a parking lot. So after some guidence from the sage known only as Singer, we hopped on a side rode to salvation. Usually getting to a venue is a venture through urban blight in the D, but to get to the Knob - you get to go down dirt road and other loveliness. Awwww. Anyway, back to the show.

Coldplay came out and the amazing back lit screen that is in their video speed of sound had decided to tour with them. nice. the whole thing lit up with a bright white that i believe could really only be produced by something hd or lcd. it looked amazing. the energy was good for the band and it was balls our from that point on. they played the hits - yellow - clocks - the scientist - sadly they did not play my fav - we never change. white shadows was probably my fav off the new album live. very very cool visual imagery.

enjoy the pix from the new razr - i think it maybe does an alright job after all. the yellow balls picture were dropped on yellow. for the encore christopher actually ran out into the crowd just MERE rows from us! in the end, go to see this band - props to the people that made it to what will probably be the best show at PINE KNOB (not that awful monopoly) to see the show. to those that didn't (bones, gomez, trix (you get the hall pass)) you get the jaquin phoenix steez thumbs down.

Di-Di-Di-Di-Pllllloooooo

2005-08-30T11:55:00.000-04:00

Ok ok. So most everyone knows who the hell Diplo is by now - but I don't really care - and if you happen not to know - let me adjust the rock you are living under just a bit and introduce you. Diplo came up from Florida I do believe - although I could be wrong. He's been a leader in the new baile funk type movement or whatever - which leads me to something else. he also produced quite a large portion of M.I.A.'s disc: Arular. (and he's dating her.) Not bad? Not bad.

So he did a tour with Maya (M.I.A.) which my good friend Dan and I attended. He was dropping beats, she was doing her thing and then LCD Soundsystem came by, we were subjected to a few people "over dancing" and we left. Over dancing is a technical term, defined only by vision - but some know what it really means. So we left impressed with Maya, but not Diplo, and definitely not LCD. Diplo's intro thing for Maya was just weird. However, he totally redeemed himself with a totally amazing set in Chicago at Intonation fest. He played a great dj set and the place was completely freaking out - especially when he cracked in with a remixed version of TV on the Radio's Staring at the Sun. It was great and led me to revisit the CD Florida which I had picked up quite a long time before all this MIA, Intonation, Baile-funk crazy talk mumbo jumbo. So with that - enjoy one of my favs off the disc (which you should buy) that is a bit more down tempo then the rest of the album - but still great. It's called Into the Sun. Sticking to the sun in the title - damnit.

I sure hope that Josh is checking this out. Maybe not. But I hope you all dig the stuff. Pretty sure my friend Dan will be contributing from time to time with his own twisted sick mind. God bless him. Until the morrow my friends, be well.

Diplo - Into the Sun (follow the link)

I'm Mr. November....

2005-08-29T14:06:00.000-04:00

Reggie Jackson eat your heart out. The National are a band hailing from the city of Brooooklyn, but originally they are from Cincy. What's even better trivia fodder? The band is 2 sets of brothers. They blend elements of The Walkmen and Nick Cave and this album was engineered by Paul Mahajan who has worked with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and TV on the Radio - both favs.

My friend Herm back in the hometown of GR - said the production values are totally different on this album, Aligator (buy it here, today) then on their first one - Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers. (buy that one as well)

The National - Mr. November (follow link)

Inspiration strikes...

2005-08-29T13:29:00.000-04:00

It's funny, I've been meaning to do this for awhile. Start something for people to read - and maybe enjoy. It was this past Friday, I met a new friend Josh who totally inspired me to start this blog. Josh is leaving for Iraq this week and I want to make sure that he has something to look for from over here for whatever it's worth. So it's time to "give back" a little and see if people are picking up what I'm putting down. While I can't promise daily - I hope it can be something close to that - I can promise I'll try to keep it fresh both from a content prospective and from an updating perspective. I may have guest bloggers - I have a few in mind - so - let's all take a collective breath and make it happen.

The title Ecotone was taken from an episode of six feet under - it means a blending of a certain type or a convergence. Now I need to figure out how to post the first track - anyone know?