Bloodhouse are the steps of the government maw. They're a mud-crusted portal. They warn in unknown tongues, fervently, rabidly, stricken. [Free]

Stay Calm - "Let Me Clear My Throat"

Stay Calm light candles, held in place by sugar. The heat from the flames spins a tiny windmill. The scoops of the windmill scoop up the sugar. In ten minutes there is nothing left. [Free]

The Young - "Livin' Free". Rockchompers loungin', stretched out basalt on their monumental chaises longues. One rockchomper tosses a boulder into his mouth, chews. Another rockchomper sucks ferrous sluice through a straw. "Is there a better life than the life of a rockchomper?" A yellow butterfly circles the pool. Little granite children are doing something with a stick and a flowerpot. On a plastic patio table sits a platter of feldspar and talc. A radio is playing Tom Petty. The news is full of stories about the Greek debt crisis, Stanley Cup finals, but no one cares. By the back door, a teenaged rockchomper is getting, yes, stoned. [buy/tumblr/North American tour (Montreal on July 3)]

G.Rag Y Los Hermanos Patchekos - "Phoenix". Meanwhile, in Texas, a rockchomper is driving home from work. The grey highway glints. The rockchomper's stomach growls. There are cacti, along the side of the road; there are oryxes; there is lots of sand. The radio is singing "Free Fallin". The rockchomper is trying to feel excited about going home, joining his wife and two kids, chips off the ole block. But he is simply tired. He is tired of pouring his life into his work, like sludge from a concrete mixer. He is tired of his boss, who wears a BlueTooth headset at all times, who keeps a bowl of individually-wrapped garnets on her desk. He is tired of closing windows on his Windows PC. Sometimes the rockchomper clicks on different spots on his computer and clicks on Start and clicks on Shut Down and then lets his mouse hover over the spot that says Restart. He changes lanes. He squints. He watches a lone vulture dip in the sky, surging a warm air current, adjusting. [buy/Soundcloud/ G.Rag Y Los Hermanos Patchekos are from Munich, Germany]

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Wonderful German-language cover of the Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation's all-time-classic "Watch n Chain" at Hunt & Gather.

Frank's first attempt at running away. His "things" packed in a bindle, similar to the ones he saw used by boxcar-hopping hobos in old cartoons, the illustrations of true, unshaven freedom. The contents of his tiny luggage: a copy of Casper's Summer Vacation, a pair of clean socks (most practical item), a tiny half-empty jar of peanut butter (no crackers or utensils), and a video game controller (more symbolic than anything, since it was without any of its counterparts, most notably electricity). He got all the way to the Becker's where some construction workers were ripping up the sidewalk in front. One of them, sunglass-ed and sweating, merely acknowledged Frank with a sunny nod, and he retreated in a grand u-turn that took him back behind the stinky dumpsters where he saw a dead crow and felt like praying. [Buy for 1€]

I Self Devine - "Hold On"

Evelyn is, obviously, valedictorian. She speaks with her chin raised slightly in the air, an arrogance that goes mostly unnoticed, or at least forgiven. She speaks about watching teachers turn into people, the way saying goodbye to military-style authority leaves us confused for the challenge of constant disorder in the outside world. She used the phrase "très facile" to describe some academic universal or other, a secreted and chiding pun on her ex, Trey, who sat listening and smiling, unaware. Edmund, having listened to her rehearsal, and cautioned her against many of the stranger elements of her speech, winced when it came by. An actual quote from her speech: "When I came to this school in 2007, I had one black person in my math class. In my last class, I had 6 people from visible minorities. I feel this is an improvement." [Buy]

Here We Go Magic - "How Do I Know". Here We Go Magic's Luke Temple sings "How do I know", the lyrics not the song, like they are one long word, one onomatoepia, a pennant tied with silver wire. HowdoIknow, like the pinging sound of an aluminium baseball bat, hitting a single; HowdoIknow, like the blurry buzzing of a spring doorstopper; HowdoIknow, like a plucked heartstring. The whole song rests on that sound, that hook, that howdoIknow, and Temple acts as if the question is central to his existence, his worldview. He's wrong. The more important question is plainer. Not How-do-I-know? but simply Do I? Does he? Does he love you? And will the story's ending justify the lovely singing splendid run of its sound? [buy]

White Label - "Roberta". White Label are ruthless and sentimental plunderers. Here, the vocal from Roberta Flack's "Trade Winds" is stolen and reattributed, given to a new song. It's an uncanny result: "Trade Winds" was little-known to begin with, and White Label's arrangement feels like it could have been written in 1972. So "Roberta" ends up like a new old song, a kind of imaginary anachronism. In this age of remixes, re-dos and collages, "Roberta" still feels special and strange, rare. White Label have made something modest and beautiful, something whole - despite its origin in parts. [soundcloud]

(image source)

Edmund asked May to marry, and she agreed in a smiling kind of sigh. She agreed in the way a pillow sinks under your head, the way a leaf slowly seeks the sun, slow but without hesitation. From the perspective of the sun, all it can see are leaves, and the things that it can't see start slowly to die. [Buy]

Evelyn, 17, buys cocaine. From a subway snake who calls himself The Halfling. High, she gets a sleepy-eyed violence about her. At the bar she drops a guy's phone in a glass of beer. She passes cops and talks in gibberish. She jumps a parking meter, and wakes up in the sun, thinking how did she get this cut and that bruise. [Free]

Frank, 9, dances alone in his room. The house afternoon-empty, Alison out in the garden, this is Frank's time to be truly happy. He's doing a kind of swirly-hip thing, pumping his fist straight up in the air, like Funky Mario. His lungs are bursting, his butt stuck out like a sore thumb, his tucked-in jeans and squinted sullen eyes, he is in the midst of a truly shameless boogie. First communion certificate newly on the wall, bookshelf with too-young kids' books, blanket with puppies on it. Stucco ceiling no match for the lid-blowing he's doing.

[Buy]

--

ELEANOR FRIEDBERGER CONTEST:

Thank you all for your contributions, the winner is: "FREE: one larger bride", for its elegance and whimsy, by Jason. I've emailed you, Jason.

Adam & the Amethysts - "Drinking in LA" (Bran Van 3000 cover)
Freelove Fenner - "Mint" (Chevalier Avant Garde cover)

CJLO's You're Related: Montreal Artists Covering Montreal Artists compilation has three highlights: Snailhouse's doing Land of Talk's "It's Okay", Freelove Fenner doing "Mint", and Adam & the Amethysts' rendition of Bran Van 3000's cancon classic, "Drinking in LA". Each of these covers is its own song, beautiful and stand alone.

First let's talk about "Drinking in LA". Bran Van 3000's 1996 single (a hit in Canada, Italy, Ireland, Britain and Scandinavia - bot not the USA) has always been a strange creature, part booze-up party song, part hangover. Now a two-piece, StG favourites Adam & the Amethysts mine the song's melancholy, honing in on that central lyric: What the hell am I / doing drinking in LA / at 26? It's a question of fade, growup, entropy, disillusionment. Wisely, it is not reduced to a droopy acoustic cover: the original's strange happy-sad is still present, just in different proportions. There is joy in Rebecca Lessard's backing whoops, in the canter of snare. And the band have imbued this childhood favourite with their own markers of nostalgia - swimming reverb, drifting synths, harmony. Inadvertently, it recalls the Red House Painters, early Cat Power. And for my money, it is every bit as good as the original.

Conversely, Freelove Fenner are covering a song I've never listened to, by a band I've scarcely heard of. But their "Mint" is neat like spearmint, golden like taffy, one minute and fifty-nine seconds of righteous skimming softshoe. This song would sing in an empty ballroom, reflecting on open surfaces; and it would sing in a full one, while the dancers try their moves. There is a guitar solo like a sunlight doing parkour, like a small dog chasing a larger dog, and I want to listen to it until I die.

[Download these and the rest of You're Related, with proceeds to benefit the wonderful people at CJLO 1690AM.]

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Remember James Irwin? His luminous debut album is streaming now at Soundcloud.

We are giving away tickets to see Eleanor Friedberger and Hospitality in Montreal. Concert is on Saturday! Click here for contest details. And if that weren't enough, we are also giving away two tickets to see Khaira Arby and Pat Jordache at Sala on Monday. Khaira totally rejuvenated us in 2010, and the Jordache are one of the city's best indie rock bands. To enter, email sean@saidthegramophone.com with the name of your favourite thing in Timbuktu (Arby's home town). See you there.

Finally, I said it before & I'll say it again: I'm coming to Russia! Next month! If you live in Moscow or St Petersburg I would love to meet you, because I will be a lonely and stupefied Canadian.

(photo source)

Alison's ideal home. Remote, off a rural road, with a gate and a small porch (planter and a swing chair). A bedhead lawn, sad-eye windows, and space enough on the back lot for a horse. It would have matted, padded winters and clear-sky summers, the earth would heal yearly, it would reset and somehow tell the future by keeping such open books. And in the house she would live with Frank, 9, and there would be one rule: no unmade decisions. Decisions must be made immediately, and the state of 'undecided' or 'i don't know' would simply not exist, and the parsing out of all things known would simply be a matter of time. [Buy]

Eleanor Friedberger - "Early Earthquake"

Eleanor Friedberger at the Vancouver airport. Her sunshine bangs take the edge off the morning, she sits sipping on a donut, tired of getting lilty every night. She takes out her notebook and sees the 6am scratches that don't seem to make much sense: "McDonald's in the duck pond, unwanted bastard managers trying to close the drop-in center." She smiles earphone to earphone and shuffles off to the gate, to SF and Charlotte and Westing and Claire. She passes Edmund, who has no idea who she is. [Buy]

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ATTN MONTREALERS: The Eleanor Friedberger Anagramous Tribute

Eleanor will be playing Montreal this Saturday, May 5, and Merge has offered us a couple tickets to give away. Leave your best anagrams of ELEANOR FRIEDBERGER in the comments, I'll choose a winner by THURS MAY 3 at 11:59PM EST.

I'll get it started: "Reindeer, or Elf-barge?"

PS I Love You - "Saskatoon". Canada's deepest band - deep in the manner of mines and peaks, canyons. PS I Love You don't just rip up turf, they tear blazing from the secret places and into daylight. What is the word for the thing these riffs do? When you are rising too fast, thrown upward, shot like a rocket from the seabed or that molten pit. When you are thrust by your furious heart. Terrifying, violent, soaring. Earnest without any of the sticky sap of earnestness. "Saskatoon"'s sound is bigger, braver than anything else I listen to, these days. How can it be the music of just two men? YOU FELL DOWN / from the SKY / FLASHING like Saskatoon, sings Paul Saulnier. He sounds like he has been marching through a forest fire. Like he is blinking through smoke tears. PS I Love You are always desperate and wanting, overwrought, fraught, but their music is also certain, confident, joyous, strong. The noise of human champions, coming through. (And fun as hell to listen to.)

[Death Dreams is released on May 8 / buy it now / it's extraordinary]

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Edmund and Helen at the airport Days Inn. A rough and tumble little tryst. His erection requires a series of justifying mantras, ones that are said half-squinted, under the breath. He wonders smiling if it was his tears that attracted her, or the way he nodded good-bye, knowingly, as he left the plane. Or the way he instinctually checked her skirt as they both waited for the shuttle. He thought about her skin, the way it had been affected by all that recycled air. He had no idea how old she was.

His phone beeped during. Afterwards, when he checked it, it was May: "Land okay?" Cheating in the age of texting is a gruesome procedure. Her ghost knocks upon the door and it's fine to just ignore it. And yet, simultaneously, he became more excited about May. About his decision. "Yep, made it!"

[Buy from Get Hip]

Rebecca Taylor - "Sole Command of the Day (Viking Moses)"

May jogs in cold spring. As she crosses streets, she often tries not to stop, not to break pace. She nears Elm, and a car is approaching. It's not really a close call, but she paces up a little to make it look like she's making an effort. And at the grass, her breath somehow still visible in late April, she turns to glance at the car that she sped up for. A black two-thousand-and-who-cares ToHondia Something. The way it passes, so perfectly at the same speed, as if she had never been there, it seems that the world closes up behind you. If you don't move, you won't survive, and as soon as you're gone it just closes right up behind you. When you jog there's only room for one thought at a time.

[Buy]

[Sonny plays in Sonny & the Sunsets / buy / This is my favourite song but One Act Plays also features guest appearances by Neko Case, Jolie Holland, Mark Eitzel and John Dwyer.]

Mirrors - "Hide and Seek (demo)". Starshine getting weaker by the minute; squint squint fire up the spotlights, turn them off, anything to change the fade. Venus rising, mercury twinkle, flashlights off snow. Sunglasses, let your eyes adjust. Close your eyes and extend your hand to the heavens and hope the stars'll flare up, brighter bright, then come and take your hand, to dance. Or else go inside: screw it, what does the calendar know anyway. Also: disco ball.

[buy Mirrors' completed Lights and Offerings / thanks Ami, from long ago]

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Elsewhere:

• I support the student protests in Quebec. Did you know that this was what Montreal looked like last night?
  
• Montreal's excellent, striving, searching Young Galaxy are seeking help to make their new album. They want to make it with producer Dan Lissvik in Sweden. Lend them your support on RocketHub, the Canadian Kickstarter - flip the tables and buy your copy of whatever-they'll-make now, in advance.
• Finally, this:

Edmund is flying. West in blind pursuit of the sun. To a conference for his 4th career. On the back of the headrest in front of him, he can see that he's somewhere over the prairies. Out the window, it looks like a cloud carpet, lumpy in spots, shifted perhaps from the gods making love on their floor. Next to him, a chubby fellow in a tight t-shirt, camera dolloped on his stomach. Edmund crushes the rest of the ice in his teeth, and fills his cup with the napkin, a perfect unit of refuse. Now the tray is up and he'll have to focus on keeping his leg from bouncing until the attendant picks up his trash. Flying makes him so emotional.

He can look out at the sky, have the sun break through from around the front of the plane, and it will bring him to tears. Vast majesty, etc. Below are all the things he's done and seen and wanted and lost, and for now he will never return. From up high the world seems like a pretty fuckin silly place, and this is delightful to him, and depressing. Kevin is down there, trying to lose weight. Frank is probably running, against his will, home. Jen is down there, texting, or laughing with Tate. Alison is probably, as always, on the brink, with a drink. Carolyn is nuzzling something, undoubtedly, be it Melon or Garry. And he is here, the parent and lover and husband and son, that doesn't ever seem to quite fit. As if, collectively, they had ejected him out of their lives with such force that he popped like a cork 30,000 ft into the sky.

He makes a decision. Suddenly, like when the tail of the plane ducks under choppy air, he makes a decision: I want to marry May. I'm going to ask May to marry me.

"Can I take your cup?" her nametag reads Helen, and she leans over the sleeping chubby. "Oh, yes, sure." He squints when he feels there are tears on his cheeks. "Thanks, Helen."

[still on myspace]

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Josephine Foster & The Victor Herrero Band have done it again. A lush, brilliant, sun-dappled treasure, called Perlas will be released May 15, and with it it will bring all of summer, all at once.

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Also: Tomorrow night, Wednesday April 25th, at Comedy Bar (945 Bloor West) in Toronto, the second installment of For My Own Benefit will take place. A very special and extremely high-quality comedy show for the benefit of pancreatic cancer research. Presented as always by The New Humourists, they will perform one of their written works in its entirety, and will be joined by stand-up comic Tim Gilbert, and sketch troupes Bronx Cheer and Tony Ho. Capping off the night will be the touching improvisational, Craigslist-inspired show Personals. Come see, it will be grand. [Facebook event]

Novel - "Forever Yours (ft Teedra Moses)".

Katniss Everdeen first hears the song on Octavia's comm. It is a bright morning: it's as if District 13's fluorescent generators are working at double capacity, sending extra sunlight down in slats. Katniss's hair is being pinned up in curls, her nails filed and polished. Octavia is at her ear, mouthing the words to the song. She wears a glossy lipstick, dusty blue, and Katniss guesses that it must have been bartered from another refugee. Octavia looks happy for once, as if the music has carried her away to another place, away from District 13's grey walls and hissing ventilation. As if they are not underground but back at the Capitol, at a party for young stylists, drinking champagne from slender cups.

Still, Katniss hates the song. The voices sound synthetic, the instruments unreal. It's like gazing at a pretty microchip. Katniss is used to real music, played by fiddlers and banjo players in the Seam. Kitchen parties with murder ballads, where everyone has tears in their eyes. By contrast, Octavia's song seems like a confection - frosted, sugar sweet. The only thing that catches Katniss's ear is this one crying guitar riff, once every minute or so. It reminds her of Buttercup's whine. Something wanting.

Yet in the days that follow, Katniss finds her humming the song. She will be walking down a hall between propo shoots, zipping in an elevator to Special Defense, and as her mind wanders, the melody finds her. What felt so sugary at the time seems darker in retrospect - earnest, earned. I'll always be forever your girl, she murmurs. Boggs flashes her a quick glance. Katniss blushes and looks at her feet. The lyrics make her think of Peeta, trapped far away, calling to her through his interview with Caesar Flickerman. They make her think of Gale, gray-eyed Gale, kneeling in the woods with a snare. Katniss swallows. She doesn't like to think of such things, Gale versus Peeta. It's different. She smooths her hands on her uniform. Only after the war is over will she have the luxury of songs like this, kind and warm, consummated, like a long embrace.

[download Red Wine & Ambien]

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With some of your help, my friend Richard Parks made a short film called Music Man Murray, concerning 88-year-old Murray Gershenz and his hundreds of thousands of records. It's a lovely portrait, tender and funny, with music by Van Dyke Parks. And the whole thing is streaming now at NPR's All Songs Considered. As Richard puts it, "This is ostensibly a movie about a huge record collection, but that is just the setting. It is about 1) death 2) leaving a legacy 3) faith 4) fathers and sons..." Can't wait for Richard's (and Murray's) next thing.

(drawing source)