Sleeping States - "Don't Make Me Over". I'm in Paris at this moment, stumbling past brasseries and gold foiled horsemen. I have my agenda: my chocolate to-dos and pastry obligations, friends to meet and greet, kindnesses to find, secrets to uncover. I have a map of the arrondissements, euros in my pocket. My shoes are tied. I listen to the snarl of cars and the snicker of vespas. I walk and walk and to be honest I am trying to be made over. The opposite of Markland Starkie's strange, sweet, wheezing love-song. "Don't make me over / now that I can't make it without you," he sings, but me I want to be touched, changed. I want a shadow to pass over my face and leave a mark. I want evidence of love to be writ in the rings under my eyes. Like I'm a bandit, they'll say: "That's a marked man." Nothing like Sleeping States, who asks his lover to accept him for "who I am". In all his gentleness an organ appears, a harmonium or something older, sounding beautiful & tired, mysterious and punch-drunk, the sound that I hear in my ears but no one can see on my skin.

[info]

Do Make Say Thing - "In Mind". Do Make Say Think's new album is an utter joy. I've been complaining about how tired instrumental post-rock is, everything a rehash of Godspeed or Mono or Tortoise or Mogwai, but to my pleasure it's like Do Make Say Think have utterly ignored this, not even considered it, built on their first two four (very good) albums and unselfconsciously released something that dazzles. There are some vocals on "In Mind", fuzzed beyond recognition, and so in some ways it recalls Broken Social Scene (with whom DMST share some members) and Akron/Family (who also appear on this record). But there's something more direct in Do Make's strategy, the forward press of guitars, whirrs, drums, bells, mandolin (?), tambourines, horns - like a barn coming into sunlight. You, You're a History in Rust is a wonderful, wonderful work.

[do buy]

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Having finally met Chryde earlier this week, I do simply want to say (and say again) that you should go and explore he & his friends' exemplary work at La Blogotheque and the video Take-Away Shows (now in English!).