Red Pony Clock - "Don't Forget Who Your Friends Are"

Red Pony Clock have returned after a couple years away (when they released one of 2005's best albums), and they've grown up a little bit. David Barclay is in the band now, which is proof that they're very aware of what's good for them. They've shed their lo-fi fuzziness for undersea xylophones and warm brass bursts. The self-loathing is still rampant, even moreso, on this album. Sometimes lyricist Gabe Saucedo gets me a little worried about him. Seriously, Gabe, if you're reading, I hope you're okay, you can email me if you need to talk. And listening to the rest of the pink and charming God Made Dirt you come to this song with a different perspective. The implication of the lesson in this song isn't so much "don't forget who your friends are when you get famous" but rather "don't forget who your friends are for when you're not famous anymore". Like, literally don't forget which ones they are, to cling to, as in to pant legs. [Buy God Made Dirt]

The Monks - "Cuckoo"

If you were reading in 2004, you may remember Sean talking about this album back then. Or if you were living in Germany in 1966, you may remember its release, but I'm just discovering Black Monk Time right now, and I'm shocked, amazed, and running scared. The Monks seem to have written songs that they couldn't find a way to sing about. Much of their lyrics are sound-holders, just excuses to shout and wail and speak-sing over these strutting and pounding melodies. Like in "Cuckoo", the lyrics are almost nonsense, like a Devo song with even less attention to meaning, but they're perfect somehow. That hoo-ing man doo-ing the chorus has the exact right idea for what the surf/war drums need, what the guitar's jank-jank is hoping for. This music comes comes howling at me from so long ago, I feel connected to it, like I'm there, in a sweater vest nervous with a cigarette, out on a Friday in Munich, looking at grown men with weird shaved patterns in their heads, wondering at how far this stuff can go. [Buy directly from The Monks]

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Elsewhere: Powerful supporter of all things worthwhile and now longtime "ami du Gramo" Patricia Boushel produced the new Socalled video directed by Benjamin Steiger Levine, which is gorgeous in its restraint, with flares of subtle, unassuming, yet extraordinary beauty.