Ivan Ives - "Victory (ft. Vast Aire)".
Arcade Fire - "Surf City Eastern Bloc".

There's an effervescence to that old Russian sound - a shine & sparkle to the burnished brass swordhilts. It's the glitter on pocket-watches, tea-sets, tram-tracks, soviet medals. It's not just a music of triumph, or of potential triumph -- it's the holy-shit yes of a people's pride. When a good song comes on at a club, when the whole crowd dances to it right, you'd hear the same sound if you knocked on everyones' heads.

Russian-born Ivan Ives enlists the Hermitage's brassest trumpets to boost his bragadocchio. He's up on a stage throwing wedding-cakes at his detractors, crackin' Fabergé eggs between his molars, lighting a cigar with the czar's old chandelier. His rhymes aren't actually that clever, but when he breaks into Russian it sounds an awful lot like I'd sound, as an MC - spouting spirited gibberish, nonsense that'll knock ya flat.

And on the Arcade Fire b-side "Surf City Easter Bloc", an old song at last recorded, Win Butler is unable to express any kind of hooray until he brings a Hungarian men's choir on board. Most of the song is trudging, weary; it's hard work. He's caught in Neon Bible's fog, that cold war freeze, even as he sings about escape, escape, escape! So thank goodness there are some good, stern men, some men with moustaches, to lift their fists to the air and present an Eastern European HUZZAH, mouths open wide to celebrate the flight that Win's so reluctant to exalt.

[Ivan Ives MySpace / buy the No Cars Go 7"]

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Dan and I are now writing for a website called Ajisignal, updating them with reports of up-and-coming happening in Montreal. We join Justin from Aquarium Drunkard, representing L.A., Liz in Minneapolis, and Ben & Christian in SF. Our first post is a piece on the marvo popsters Miracle Fortress.

OneByOne is a new mp3blog where there is writing & drawing about every single song. The picture for Of Montreal's "Oslo in the Summertime" is so right-on it hurts.

WEB 2.0-ers: A guy called greatslack has created a Said the Gramophone group on Last.fm .

And finally: Pornography, Said the Gramophone-style.