Okkervil River - "Unless It's Kicks". It's not just one of the greatest songs of the year - it's one of the wisest. Sheff sings with an urgency that is like an underlining of key phrases, like two hands tugging to make sure all the seams hold. And whereas wisdom's so often dull, here it's knotted up in the work of a band who love the Shangri-Las, and Sam Cooke, and the craft of a pop song. I'd not be sad if every Okkervil River song sounded like this: shaker, tambourine, a revelation at the moment you go leaping off the stage and onto the raised hands of the crowd. It's the gladness of art & kicks & true-feeling lies, the way a good song is a hand grabbing desperately for your arm. It's the hardest-hitting kind of hit. Glorious. [buy The Stage Names, with bonus disc and free downloads and stuff]

The Octagon - "The Narrow Road to Oku". It's a little disoriented, this sandy rock-song. It went wandering into the desert with a bottle of red wine, a Pavement album, and a few hours later is like: what the fuck? Whoever it was supposed to meet with didn't show up; whichever stars it was expecting to see didn't make an appearance. And now its shoes are tied in unfamiliar knots, its hair is filled with grains of unfamiliar minerals, and it's got a catchy song in its head - something it found in a dune, burnished and hopeful and even a little buddhist. Whereever the hell it came from, The Octagon's gonna carry it around for a while. (Tip o' the hat to former Montreal drummer, Will Glass.) [pre-order]

St Vincent - "Marry Me". This was better at Montreal's Sala Rossa, just Miss Saint Vincent and a baby grand, but we make do, we make do. Each of the opening lines is like a little glass of water, and we drink each one in turn. At its best this is a song of strange but unstumbling love - the sort of thing that makes me heartsick with envy for "John", the dude Vincent's batting her big eyes at. All the vocal effects, strings and muted horns are nice enough, but we're listening for the simple lilt of the chorus, the way the words balance on St Vincent's tongue, and that coy climax line: "Let's do what Mary and Joseph did / without the kid". [buy]

Fanfarlo - "Devil Town". I can't figure out if this lovely 1:55 ditty, piano & bass & horns & strings & glockenspiel & thunder-sheet & choir, is forlorn or resigned; if it's the first thing you sing at dawn or the last thing you sing at dusk, stumbling your way home. I'd like to sew it into a card and send it to all my wronged friends, the ones with stolen bikes or broken hearts. Fanfarlo have recorded such a pretty, pretty blues. (ps: shhh, it's a Bright Eyes Daniel Johnston cover.) [buy the "Fire Escape" single]

---

Happy Birthday, Dan Beirne. I'd say more but for the first time in a three years I was here, Sunday, to give you my well-wishes in person. I'm happy for that.

---

The full suite of videos from the Blogotheque's Soiree a Emporter is now online, in English, with amazing footage of David Herman Dune, Zach Condon, Kocani Orkestar, and many more. I even wrote a little blurb for them about a Sidi Ali clip.

Andrew Rose's story of seeing Leonard Cohen on the street seems to me either a) a true thing about Montreal; or b) a true thing about living in a world where artists dwell. Either way: good.

"After all that, how does live octopus tentacle taste? A little like fury fused with fear."