Icarus Himself - "MCO"

Arnold and Tommy were brothers and their babysitter was a floating head. Arnold was 6 and Tommy was 4, they had talked about getting married, they only talked of that in whispers, and their babysitter was a floating head. They shared reused gum, they had a shared collection of homemade kiln-fired figurines that looked like beige blobs with arms, and their babysitter was a floating head. They slept in bunks one above the other, and it was the creaks of the strained cheap wood that would keep them up at night, not the constant murmurs and mutterings of the babysitter, the floating head. She had long blond hair that draped down around her ears like two blond banners, barrettes like insignias, her face a great dictator, her mouth the speaking podium and her eyes two eternal flames. She murmured and floated listlessly around the house, in the dim glow of the night-lights. She would sometimes move the furniture with her chin or slam the fridge with her nose. When the phone would ring, even if it were mum n dad, she would just stare at the phone, either unable or unwilling to answer, and the boys would count the rings in their room. [Buy from SOS Records]

Doom Trumpet - "Oregon and Again"

The dawn is not a quiet thing. When a city comes to life it is a raging thunder in the air and in the ground. The cars and engines blow like children deliberately into the city's microphone, making that whooshing, rapping, cracking breaking sound all through the whole air, the cold earth shakes and it feels like it will never stop. But this guitar, this true and solid guitar, threaded through everything to make it feel sane, quiets it all, like seeing a face in the lines of a foreign map. [Site]

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The Nâ Hawa Doumbia album that I posted about a while ago, is available today from Awesome Tapes From Africa. It is wonderful, and only 5$ for a digital version.

(image source unknown)