Said the Gramophone

crinkle crinkle crack

Emilie Simon - "To the Dancers on the Ice". The first time I listened to this, it was a nothing - a ring of synths, a mouse's precious voice. And the second time, too. But the third time I listened I realised that I was listening for a third time. And a fourth. And soon Emilie Simon's simple little song - a kinder Múm or Stina Nordenstam, a lovelier Cocorosie, a less peculiar Hanne Hukkelberg - was so dear to my ears that I couldn't ever turn it off. I just had to hear it through one more time; hear one more time that "my lover is gone", see the pirouetting ice-skaters, dream of cracks and the collapse of the pond.

Thanks, Audrey.

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Curtis Mayfield & The Impressions - "Only You Babe". only YOU, babe. .... only YOU bABe... How to transcribe this? I need a notational system that has room for sexy croon, for glad-silly swoons, for back-up singers who sound both like schoolyard chums and former lovers. I need to be able to indicate, with dots and lines, that a trace of 80s cheese is sometimes a lining of gold: i need to explain how a jazzy bump-and-swing has all the pleasures of a brisk afternoon in the mellowyellow sun.

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You Ain't No Picasso's 12 Days of Mixmas continues with an mp3 mix from Bishop Allen's Christian Owens. Bishop Allen is one of the best bands in the world, but I am much less impressed with her song picks. It's cool that there are so many bands in the neighbourhood, but scene boosterism good music does not make... Anyway, that's just me: you will likely disagree!

The Kimmel Center in Philadelphia is having a Haiku Contest. Write a Haiku about a gig you saw this year and you could win a ticket to their Gary Burton/Brad Mehldau gig at the end of January.