Archives : all posts by Dan

Spottiswoode & McMahon - "Ukranian Girl"

A song that co-opts some of "Brazil", is structured like Brazil, but has nothing to with Brazil. More to do with Beck, with a waltzing Quentin Crisp, with schoolyard jumprope songs at a school for spies. [Buy]

Casey Dienel - "Better In Manhattan"

This is such a lovely admission. It's a letter that realises halfway through what it's about. "Right that's why we're talking, that's why we always talk. Because I love you, I almost forgot. But all this other stuff is just saying I love you in a different way." And then signed by her and her dog (paw print). [Buy / Also, a pavement cover which is blogged here]

Soulwax - "Ny Excuse (Justice Remix)"

Is it that I'm just getting old enough to appreciate this? Is it possible Justice is for the mature palette? Oh, gross, I started a review of a techno song with a line about my fucking mature palette. I really disgust myself. I want to slide, through beer and scum, on a slippery black floor, into a set of spikes coming out of a set of speakers. I want this to hurt. I want to lose my hearing to this song. I'm getting loud with you. [Buy new one]

Klee - "Für Alle, Die"

Das ist für alle, die. Das ist für only me. I am illiterate in German. But I see pink clouds, a costume of fabric wings, a sky that moves like a twenty-dollar room fan. I feel like my bed is sinking to one side, and my sleep is going to fall out my ear, into the headphone splashing out the sides. [Buy]

Prototypes - "Who's Gonna Sing"

The much-lauded, and much-blogged Prototypes. So normally, I would just let them have that and talk about something else. But I can't let it pass by. Without agreeing, without clapping my hands over my head and woo-hoo-ing. Also, this is their best song and I haven't seen anyone talk about it yet. It's a turntably, piano-bashy strut, lead by the Prototypes girl, and a giant Kodiak with a mystery accent. It's like rooting through an old chest of instruments, calling them out as you throw them over your shoulder. The labas, les congas, the rods. And it's easy to decide who plays what instrument, but their indecision about the vocalist, while seemingly unsolvable, is solved in the very asking. And then there's some scat at the end, which, on thirteenth listen, might be your favourite part. [Buy *also, Montreal had them for three days, but you still have time to catch them in Toronto on Thursday*]

The Press - "Red Comes Ringin"

There is no confusion here about who will do the singing, but it seems there is confusion about which style of singing to stick to. Glorious confusion. At once giving shades of Joel Plaskett, Isaac Brock, Hawksley Workman, and every singer in a hard metal band, this song becomes a cavernous hallway of giant portraits, all of which can't do anything to keep you safe. You're alone in this song, save a presence that pulls you side to side, first screaming, then crooning, then pressing your face on the floor. Then we hit power chords, and we can feel safe again. But that lasts like eight seconds, more a tease than anything. Yeah, that's it, this song is a big tease, from a band that doesn't quite understand that teasing is at some point supposed to be revealed as false. [Buy]

Puffy AmiYumi - "Call Me What You Like"

Puffy AmiYumi are back, and they're bringing a flood. Avril's producer, John Spencer, the guy from Polysics, and I think I hear a theremin. Here's what I see: Ami and Yumi dancing in their living room to this song, and their performance of it somehow allows them to bend all backwards and twisty so they become all contorted in an inhuman way. Then someone (a ninja?) steals their record, and plays it for the whole town, and everyone starts contorting and dancing in this way, and our two heros are scared at first, and then annoyed, everyone trying to congratulate them for making great music, but just looking like bendy aliens. Ends with a chase scene.

I really hope beyond reasonable hope that they play their own instruments. [info]

Hidden Cameras - "Lollipop"

It's not okay to eat junk food until you die. You shouldn't run until you faint, even if you're in a rush. You can't knock on every door you see just to find out if there's a party going on inside. Not if you plan on getting anything done. This song tries to do all of these, and yet succeeds. Like finding a quarter in the return slot of a phone every time you look. [Buy old stuff]

I don't know if it's the mood I'm in, or the actual state of the world, but just every song I listen to today doesn't inspire me at all. So, I decided to embrace instead the other stuff I've been doing: consuming new comedy. There is so much great comedy happening right now, it's like some kind of wave that will seriously be historically important soon enough. prepare to be bored by my writing (serious about comedy, ugh) and wowed by the content.

Scharpling & Wurster - "Timmy von Trimble"

The Best Show on WFMU (tonight at 8!) has long since found its niche and now is able to fully realise its world, there's a huge wealth of this stuff, and they're still finding new elements to it. If I could commit the time, I would chart the mythology of these interviews, because they overlap and reference themselves and now the show is a universe in and of itself. And where most of the hilarity (for me, at least) comes from is this attention to detail. It's the constant play of Wurster making a general statement with a subtle error in it, and Scharpling picking up on it, asking about, and finding another layer. Marvelous. [Buy Hippy Justice] [subscribe to the Best Show podcast]

The Distractions - "Banana"

So simple, clear, elegant. This could be in a sketch comedy textbook, which I'm sure, heavens, is being written, because it plays by the rules and yet excels. The Distractions are constantly doing this; taking something so standard and just writing it so perfectly, that it becomes so far from standard, and so much closer to great. The most important prop is the dvd case. [more]

Adam and Dave - "Toronto Vacation"

A totally different, yet equally engaging aesthetic. It's like different comedy tastebuds. Eventually, these two will make a feature, and it will be powerful, excessive, hard to watch but impossible to stop. [more]

Roadside Graves - "Reverend Blue Jeans"

A song about cynicism. Roadside Graves are cynics about their characters. Their characters are cynics about marriage. I was a cynic about Roadside Graves before I couldn't turn off this song. Couldn't do it. And now I'm a believer. A believer in tambourines, in a certain chord progression, in vocals delivered like letters pushed through the slot in bunches. [site]

Pants Yell! - "Kids Are The Same"

I've had this album for like two months now, and I consistently put it on when I'm trying to find the most non-threatening thing for company to listen to, that I can still enjoy completely. At first, I thought this was a condescending opinion to hold of poor Pants Yell!, but now I see this is quite a valuable asset. Just sit back. [Buy Recent Drama, play it for your parents]

Thom Yorke - "Atoms For Peace" (go huntin')

I feel so lucky. I feel like yesterday I was sick, and today I have the greatest father in the world. I feel 8-years-old, terrible at acting. Not funny, not moving, just generally uninteresting. Going home, crying about it, a hand on my back. "You should be the statistician for the play, you like numbers." I loved numbers. Ten different ways to make the change in my pocket. "You could do surveys of what the audience liked and didn't like, change the play." I did, by the last night, the baker's wife survived and the play was a lot shorter. They were right, it was better.

A lot of people have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, and this is the most encouraging song I've heard in a long time. [info]

**

The OhSees - "The Dumb Drums"

I found the OhSees on the sidewalk, they were in a little package wrapped in brown paper, marked only with the word "country", and an air mail sticker. I picked it up to open it and the brown paper dripped off like pudding, and a laminated picture of cartoon ants playing instruments (with incorrect fingering) was all that was left. This song walks with a limp. [pre-order]