It's the weekend and it's summer so let's listen to music from names we know. I wish I had a barbecue to go to (it's early evening here and the sky is blue).

Spoon - "Sister Jack". Don't bother listening to this song. Not until you burn it onto a CD or throw it onto your iPod and step into the street with somewhere to go. It's not simply a song for walking, it's a song for walking somewhere, because if you are, and you do, and this song is in your ears, it kills. It leaves dead suits like me in its wake. It makes you wince, it kills so much. Spoon have always been a band of songmakers, of melodymakers, but here's the sort of song that lives in a Platonic universe somewhere, where it kills people.

First of all, there's that guitar, drang drang drang, sounding like straight can-rock guitar, no joke, the Gandharvas or Treblecharger or, yeah, Sloan. It kills. And then there's the cracking drums, the tambourine, the stall, and Britt's gruff-lax nonsense-deep lyrics. He's like John Lennon here, John Lennon making a racket in his loft above a kebab shop in Austin.

And we mustn't forget the tape loop weirdness, the backward guitar squawks and whizzing and hiss that's the sound of the song's loose seams, the places where light bursts through and blinds you. These squiggles of sound like someone spun round and pointed at the Transformer who has a cassette-player in his body, ordering him to "Do a solo!". And the Transformer's caught off guard but he still does it, there he goes, manipulating his buttons and doing something amazing because unbeknownst to the pointer, Transformer's been practicing these solos for months, in his mirror at home, before going out in the pitch-black to learn to skate-board in the parking-lot near his house.

Phew!

Gimme Fiction's due on May 9. Pre-order and win cool stuff!

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Sufjan Stevens - "Casimir Pulaski Day". Gosh. "Casimir Pulaski Day" is a coalescing, for me, of everything Sufjan Stevens does well. It's got all the trademarks: homorhythm, oboe, mandolin, wispiness, layers of harmony, repetition. But on this song these things rise out of their bodies into something so much greater than "pretty". Listen up, haters! Even if you've dismissed Sufjan in the past, even if you think he's a samey Iron & Wine prat, if you have any love for Smog or Mountain Goats, Leonard Cohen or Neil Young, I defy you to dislike this song (at least until the instrumental at the end) - it's a masterpiece. There's brilliance in the lyrics, in the way the words weave around and reappear, the way these domestic scenes flutter into view and then fade into memory, a cascade of sights/sounds/touches that accumulate... It's all repetition, the same chords over and over, but this too accumulates, until you notice the slightest change, until the playful everyday sound is for a moment erotic, sad, transcendent, or Sufjan's casual real-life images turn full-bodied with a sense of Love, God, or Death. It's a marvel, and I wonder at the fact that something so deep, so insightful, so rich, so human, can also sound so pretty, so light, the kind of trifle that you might ignore, forget, pass by. (This too, I suppose, is a metaphor.)

(Unfortunately, Sufjan's not really outdone himself with Illinois. Like Michigan it's pretty, it's proof of a mighty talented artist. But it's much the same, really - pretty, sometimes dazzling, too long and too repetitive. The shock and awe of Seven Swans (which isn't much different anyway) is absent. Some of you might have heard the single at TTIKTDA [keith, please update your StG bookmark!]. The album sounds like that. But "Casimir Pulaski Day" and a few other tracks... oh my.)

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Went to a gig last night. Archer Prewitt and then Sam Prekop & Archer Prewitt literally put me to sleep, but they were very pretty lullabies. The Earlies were swirlies, the first English jam band I've seen (more Beta Band than Grateful Dead, mind, and half the band play synths/electronics, but-). Stealing the show, though, in amazing ways, was Micah P. Hinson, whom I'd hardly heard of but who seems pretty well know. (He must have hit while I was gallavanting in Hungary or something.) Apparently the album's all cello and singer-songwriterness, but on stage last night with drums and bass he was a small beast, a creature with an electric guitar that snarled and hissed, that roared (cf. Greg Macpherson), singing songs like a far fiercer Dallas Good, shout-singing three lines, over and over, till I thought my heart might burst. I will look into his stuff and share.

CONTEST! Apparently we can give away some Rilo Kiley and Idiot Jed CDs. Five of each. I have no idea who Idiot Jed are and I think Rilo Kiley totally suck, but some people like 'em. One CD goes to whoever suggests the best contest idea - post your suggestions in the comments.

Have a lovely weekend! (Especially the folks like me for whom it's a long one!)