Arthur Alexander - "Anna (Go to Him)"

It has been said that I have a tendency to exaggerate about the weirdness of some music. This past summer, I made a post about Gorky's Zygotic Mynci in which I complained about how scared I was by one of their songs and how completely deranged the band seemed. Everyone who spoke to me regarding the post claimed that the song had sounded entirely natural to them and that it was I who came across as frightening and worrisome. Not entirely impervious to self-doubt, I listened to the song several times subsequently and still heard something sinister hidden in the Welsh cowboy music - the organ whispered conspiracies, there were daggers in the tumbleweed. I was forced to conclude that Gorky's had indeed gone insane, and that, in fact, all of my friends and acquaintances had come similarly undone. Thus began my Great Hermitage, still currently underway.

Tell me there's nothing abnormal about this song and I'll tell you there's nothing abnormal about you. But I'll be lying. For your position will not only be false, but incoherent, and I will not dignify it with a counter-argument.

Though, I could. And if I did, it would go a little something like this: Yeah, "Anna" sounds like a mid-tempo Sam Cooke soul-pop ballad with a more confined vocal line. Natural enough, I suppose. But allow me to direct your attention to Arthur Alexander ("Double A") himself, whose Sam Cooke is augmented by just a touch of Vincent Price. Or to Alexander's drums ("Double A's Batterie"), of which the high-hat sounds like a whisk slapping against a sheet of foil. Most of all, one should consider that the piano line sounds as if it's emanating from an ancient player piano with a dying motor - a sound more appropriate for a horror movie than a love song. Say what you will; I'll stick to the truth: this song is fu-ucked.

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Inlets - "Pictures of Trees"

Some guesses as to what might be causing this sound called "Pictures of Trees:"

1. The Wooden Stars and Cerberus Shoal share an Elizabethan priest hole for a practice space.
2. Post-castration Abelard has access to a tape deck and an arsenal of strings and woodwinds and Heloise's musical preferences include but are not limited to indie folk, Steve Reich, and choral music.
3. Sufjan Stevens is becoming uncertain, more questioning, begins to explore something more deeply fragile in his music.
4. Inlets the geographical entities or Inlets the band or both.

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