Published April 16, 2008
in Pop.
Listen to “Destination Vertical” on MySpace.
I love percussion that comes out of ordinary things. On Masha Qrella’s “Destination Vertical” (from Unsolved Remained), the percussion is partially coming from the needle of a record’s staticy stumble over wax (or at least, that’s what it sounds like to me). To me this is doubly interesting because of the title of the song–a record spins horizontally, and probably either the record or the needle would love some vertical movement now and then. I mean, I guess the needle gets a little vertical action but not all that much, and here it is, stuck to the horizontal static-filled record. For a long, long time. If not eternally. Jump, needle! You can do it!
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Listen to “Dragonfly Across an Ancient Sky” on MySpace.
If you can’t picture a dragonfly flying across an ancient sky when listening to this Helios song (from Eingya), there’s nothing wrong with you. The problem may well be that the word “dragonfly” is meant to be a verb. To dragonfly is to fly like a dragon, which is very much more like what this song maybe could possibly be about in your head on a misty day. Maybe not. I like it, either way. “Dragonfly” as a verb makes it all about you, though, and let’s face it–it’s always about you.
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Published April 14, 2008
in Pop.
Listen to “Jackie” on MySpace.
Tarwater understands that you can’t just play some kind of electronic sound over and over and expect it to carry the song. Oh no–you need hooks. “Jackie” (from The Needle Was Traveling) isn’t even their best song, but it has hooks galore. Soon as that harmonica-sounding thing comes in…hoo! What fun! And then there are more hooks after that! And more after that! Who cares who Jackie is? Pfft! Give me the hooks!
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Published April 11, 2008
in Pop.
Listen to “Race Car” on MySpace.
In an age where Speed Racer is about to make a high-tech live action return to the big screen–In an age where Nascar culture is both worshipped and ridiculed–In an age where an important and enlightening statement about United States culture comes from an Eleanor Roosevelt quote slipped into Talladega Nights, it’s important to remember what race cars are really for: fun. Yamamoto captures this in the mood and tone of “Race Car”.
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Listen to “Coloring the Void EDIT” on MySpace.
M83’s “Coloring the Void” is just the kind of song that makes you want to calculate how much resources it would take for someone to compose and produce the soundtrack to your life as you live it - there might have to be a time machine involved. And on top of these calculations would be the consideration of how much charisma and money and incentives it would take to convince M83 to do it.
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Listen to “Composure” on MySpace.
B. Fleischmann’s “Composure” is a list of things to do, written on the back of a piece of paper in Paris, then dropped in the laundry, which, incidentally, was number 7 on the list. You may wonder whose list it was, or what did or didn’t get done before it was lost, but that would be stupid. Just listen to the song!
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Published April 8, 2008
in Folk.
Listen to “Rising Sun Take 2 Demo” on MySpace.
You haven’t heard of Samantha Crain yet, and I’m not going to pretend that you’re going to for sure because I’m no more in charge of things like “justice” than I am in charge of your musical reportoire or the breakfast cereal you eat (or don’t eat). On “Rising Sun Take 2″, Samantha Crain sings about breaks. These are not clean breaks, though. These are the breaks that come on like lakes being filled over centuries. These are the breaks that sift through eons of starlight and remind you of snowflakes on your ten-year-old tongue. These are the breaks that pat you on your back for thirty years as you toil your way to retirement. You’ll make it. Really.
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Published April 7, 2008
in Country.
Listen to “Everything is Okay” on MySpace.
The Everybodyfields‘ “Everything is Okay” mixes two parts dialogue, one-two-three cups of driving distance, and a secret ingredient that somehow releases muscle tension. And while this song is not a relaxative, it does aptly summarize the steps between being twisted up inside and letting all that go. In the middle, there is pain.
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Listen to “Untitled 13″ on MySpace.
“Untitled 13″ might be an homage to a family member’s desert. Supposing, hypothetically, that you had a sibling that maintained a perfectly groomed desert that only they could see, hear, breathe, or taste, this is the song that the desert would choose to be stranded on an island with, above all songs on the planet. This hypothetical situation breaks down once you start including songs from other planets, but for our purposes we’ll exclude this disadvantage, much as relativity can be excluded from Newtonian physics whenever the matter is small and practical. Arovane may or may not agree, though it’s hard to say, as not much has been said. Sometimes there is a limit to what text can do to illustrate sound. Arovane forces this limit with “Untitled 13″.
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Listen to “Still Life” on MySpace.
Most artists start with a still life of sorts, then improve upon it until they are creating something original. American Chamber Music, in “Still Life”, chose instead to introduce distortion and fuzzy reality to the still life, to interrupt the social order by pointing out the abstraction in specificity. Or, maybe they were just liking what was coming out of them and happened to record it. Either way, it’s well worth a listen.
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