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what a nice piece of mind
by Sean
Please note: MP3s are only kept online for a short time, and if this entry is from more than a couple of weeks ago, the music probably won't be available to download any more.
Elizabeth Anka Vajagic - "Iceland". Whiskey fumes and an overwarm room, this is an extraordinary tune from Vajagic's gothic folk debut, Stand With the Stillness of this Day. Elizabeth has a thick, bluesy voice, with just a little curl of madness in the chorus. "I'd like to go through Iceland / now," she sings, either confident, desperate, seductive or drunk. A piano plinks hauntingly in both speakers, with occasional passes by a beautifully recorded cello. The song's smeared in shadow, but there are also little flames of blue light. She's always one step away from a cabaret stage, completely lost in the song. Singing like Thalia Zedek or maybe Carla Brozulvich, she wanders in and out of the wings when it suits her, the other players taking their cues from tilts of the head, the way her hair falls over her face. [buy] Splashdown - "Mayan Pilot". And, for those of you not so given to latenight Drambuie sipping, here's a lovely melon slice of pop - funky bass and spanish guitar. Melissa Kaplan sounds like a more restrained Nelly Furtado, nimble-voiced as she dances from lyric to lyric. The drums are just as light, a scattered dancepulse of snare and highhat. Perfect at less than three minutes, this is one of those pop hits that never was, a self-contained little world with rearing brightblue waves, an ever-assembling beach fair. Splashdown broke up after releasing the 5-song Redshift EP, so Capitol shelved their debut LP, Blueshift. Never fear! The internet being what it is, some enterprising and enthusiastic fan managed to nab a bootleg promo, and mp3s of the record are available here. Kaplan's solo project, Universal Hall Pass, has an album coming out in the fall, and you can hear her on, um, the Chronicles of Riddick soundtrack. The drummer, Kasson Crooker, plays with Freezepop. (thanks, kyree!) --- Mark has posted a great, rare Dntel track over at Music for Robots, and beat me to the punch with a fun cut from the new Presidents of the United States of America album. At Rodes's fine suggestion, I'm going to try to remember to put "gramophone" in the ID3 comments of any StG mp3s; those who are so-inclined will be able to keep track of 'em. Cat left a comment on my Can post from last week, asking for more information on the band. I could fudge it, but are there any authorities out there who feel like dropping her/him an email? Fresh meat! Posted by Sean at August 19, 2004 1:36 AMComments
That Elizabeth Anka Vajagic track is a bleary-eyed, woozy wonder. I just picked up "Stand With the Stillness of this Day" and have it on deck to be part of next weeks P77 mix. Nice gothic packaging on the digi-pack as well. Posted by chris at August 19, 2004 2:32 AMthe duke of candied apples is my name lyrical genius, those freezepoppers. Posted by optimus at August 19, 2004 3:17 AMWho knew insane old ladies could do such nice music. It's like a Nick Cave cover done by Pj Harvey. Can went through a number of phases, so it's hard to recommend one album. Probably the best way to get an overview is to buy or download their Cannibalism compilation CDs. My personal favorite song of theirs is "Yoo Doo Right" but it's pretty long...maybe not the best place to start. Also not much like the track you posted. Someone looking for more like Mighty Girl should skip the albums covered by Cannibalism 1. Hope that helps at least a little. Posted by Mystical Beast at August 19, 2004 12:30 PMI can say a few things about Can. They're a long-time obsession of mine. I'm finding it hard to say anything that really makes the music more accessible though. Be warned, the track Sean posted is not that typical of their classic years. The core membership of Can was Irmin Schmidt (keyboards), Jaki Leibezeit (drums), guitarist Michael Karoli (guitar, violin), and Holger Czukay (bass). Czukay in particular was a sound experimentalist--I think he worked with Karlheinz Stockhausen before Can, and is more or less the guy who brought sampling into the rock universe--and in general the group had more in common with the sixties avant-garde than with rock. As part of that, they recruited Their first few albums were uncompromisingly weird, with sidelong noise jams and minimalist, metronomic one-chord vamps, under yelpy vocals. Lots of in-studio free improv and sound collage. A wider range of styles gradually emerged, with pop, dub, funk and ambient finishes on the basic Can soup. I really recommend Ege Bamyasi and Tago Mago, the two albums that are really their. After 1973, Suzuki left and they became a mostly instrumental unit and their songs became a lot more through-composed and less jammy. "Mighty Girl", the song Sean posted, is from that period. They did a lot of film music and played around with polyrhythms and "world" rhythms. (Leibzeit, by the way, is one of the great drummers, up there with the Meters' Ziggy Modeliste for being able to sustain a complex, polyrhythmic groove forever.) They broke up in 1978 but have gotten together for various projects since then. Czukay in particular has done a lot of interesting work. That doesn't tell you much about what they sound like. It's hard to describe. Nobody listened to them at the time, but if you heard Ege Bamyasi now you'd be surprised at how contemporary it sounds, almost 35 years on. Posted by rodii at August 19, 2004 1:17 PMWhoo, long, sorry. Fave track: "I'm So Green" or maybe "Dizzy Dizzy." For "the two albums that are really their" above: add "pinnacle". Sheesh. Posted by rodii at August 19, 2004 1:23 PMuh... you CAN't leave out Delay 1968 from Butterfly to Little Star of Bethlehem.. what an amazing album Posted by bw at August 20, 2004 12:16 PMI've never heard Delay 1968, cept for a song or two. But I should have included Future Days in the pinnacle group. Maybe AS the pinnacle, if it's the "ambient" Can you want. Listening to "Spray" is like having your head slowly fill with feathers. Posted by rodii at August 20, 2004 12:52 PMJust a minor timeline correction: first Java/Capitol shelved Blueshift, then the band members spent at least a year wrangling over it, and only then finally gave up and disbanded. Posted by enterprising fan at August 20, 2004 9:00 PMCan were on Top of the Pops! Post a comment |
 about said the gramophone
this is a daily sampler of really good songs. all tracks are posted out of love. please go out and buy the records!
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all songs are removed within a week or two of posting. said the gramophone launched in march 2003, and added songs in november of that year. it was one of the world's very first mp3blogs. if you would like to say hello, find out our mailing addresses or invite us to shows, please get in touch: montreal, canada: sean toronto, canada: jordan montreal, canada: dan please don't send us emails with tons of huge attachments; if emailing a bunch of mp3s etc, use a service like MailBigFile. if you are the copyright holder of any song posted here, please contact us if you would like the song taken down early. please do not direct link to any of these tracks. please love and wonder. "and i shall watch the ferry-boats / and they'll get high on a bluer ocean / against tomorrow's sky / and i will never grow so old again." we are a member of MBV.
about the authors
Sean Michaels lives in Montreal, where he is writing a novel. His work also occasionally appears at McSweeney's. Follow him on Twitter or reach him here.
Dan Beirne is an actor and writer living in Montreal. He writes fiction fiction fiction on here. It may feel true, but it is never True. He is most proud of his most recent project The Bitter End. Email him here Jordan Himelfarb lives in Toronto, where he is editor in chief of The Mark. Jordan's posts appear at Said the Gramophone only on the last Wednesday of every month. Email him here. Site design and header typography by Neale McDavitt-Van Fleet. The header graphic is randomized: this one is by . 
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