Okay - "Sing-Along". The man who calls himself Okay both is and isn't. Marvelously musical, with a voice like tin cans, but a rare illness makes it difficult for Marty Anderson to travel let alone tour. Is this why a song called "Sing-Along" is without any singing-along? Or is it a matter of choice? Is it ironic? Is he asking who would sing along with a chorus like this?

"I don't believe anything
that you say!"

[Get the combo of Okay's High Road and Low Road from Absolutely Kosher for a mere $20.]

Yo La Tengo - "Black Flowers". If you forget everything you know about Yo La Tengo and their albums, you're left just with the songs. Some are intimate, some are swirling, some stammer and others skree. But while Yo La Tengo does have a couple of signature sounds one of the most remarkable things about them is the breadth of their talent. Their annual covers fundraisers are the second-best evidence of this chameleonic side, but the proofest proof is simply the tunes. The effortless new pop of "Cherry Chapstick", the white-boy soul of "Mr Tough", or this, a song called "Black Flowers", which is (like "Mr Tough") off their inconsistent new record I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass. (For my money, the murmursoft And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out is the best of their albums.)

"Black Flowers" is one of my favourite songs of 2006 - this beautiful twist of melody and instrumentation, delivery and the undelivered. Ira's got a tawny melody, light as sparrow, but he puts it in a room with sounds of deep blues, reds, blacks. Piano, french horn, violin, and these brilliant clipped synth-strings, like sprouts. The song's sumptuous, a ballad worthy of the radio - it has all the gentle prettiness that attracts people to Sufjan Stevens, the cresting feeling that draws listeners, even, to Snow Patrol or Coldplay (listen to the Chris Martin-like "Oh-oh" at 3:09). This is in no way an insult. Yo La Tengo throw onto their album a single song like this, this one straight ode to loveliness and melancholy, with drums and Georgia oohs at just the right time; they throw it in like an afterthought. "Oh, by the way, we've also mastered this form." It's plain and unconflicted songcraft: it rubs my heart til it glows. No fucking around: just glassy, sweet song; dark petals blooming.

[buy]

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Elsewhere..

Carl has composed a beautiful post on the Mountain Goats, over at Zoilus.

Winners of the NYC Grizzly Bear contest are Ryan S and Nico R. (I'll be in touch.) Thanks for all the terrific entries. The most popular answer for what Grizzly Bear would eat in a forest seems to have been... smores.