Hood - "They Removed All the Trace That Anything Ever Happened Here". Taken from Hood's quite-good 2001 record, Cold House. It's a strange, lingering, late winter song. Narcoleptic indie rock that intercuts melancholy murmuring with electronic flickers, a wary electric guitar, and an erratic rap by Doseone (?). Better than it sounds, I think; like late Talk Talk crossed with Clouddead. Hood's earlier work (six albums, countless eps, comp tracks, etc.) is excellent, too. They're dark water music. (i was gonna post the song myself, but then i realized hood offers it for free on their site, so there you go.)
The Magnetic Fields - "I Don't Really Love You Any More". Gay and liberated chamber pop, cantering along at a speedy pace. Stephen and Claudia's vocals blend into a single, arch-but-genuine voice. "I am a gentleman / think of me as just your fan." There's also ukelele, cello and drum taps, as well as something wheezy and sincere deep in the background. It's a trifle that in the right circumstances could be absolutely joyous, absolutely euphoric... that is, unless you turn it on one day and wonder if maybe Merritt's being ironic, whether perhaps there's a possibility here for devastating, glassy-eyed resignation, false cheeriness. And then you can't listen to it properly again. (oh and yes, taken from the Fields' I, due in may.)
elsewhere: be absolutely sure to explore the haunting bulgarian vocal music at tofuhut, and the light dance delight that is the Katerine track at fluxblog.
see you on monday, although i may do a non-mp3 post over the weekend!
Posted by Sean at March 19, 2004 1:54 AMwow! new fields is cause for celebubration! by golly! Yumpin' yiminy! now i understand the joy of the wilco fan!
thanks for the plug. I imagine you'll get a kick out of today's tuvaganza.
Posted by forksclovetofu at March 19, 2004 3:29 AMHeh. I had a great little DJ gig a couple years back where I was encouraged to play wildly eclectic mixes of music. It was at a bizarre space--a sort of combination art-gallery, cybercafe, and pizza parlor that was located on the same block as several big nightclubs here in San Francisco. I remember one of my favorite mixes there opened with a recording of Jack Kerouac reading "October in the Railroad Earth" (a poem about my fair city, natch) that gradually gave way to that Hood song. It's definitely one of the highlights of that album. I wrote about the gig (but not that particular night) here.
Posted by MoeRex at March 19, 2004 2:34 PMooh, i totally forgot about that hood record. i was going to pick that up at some point.
Posted by peter at March 20, 2004 1:34 AM
and it will begin playing. All songs are also available to download: just right-click the link and choose 'Save as...'
