Archives : all posts by Dan

Gotye - "I Feel Better"

VHS Workout. Fresh bird. Washed money. New shoes. High heeled. Crisp pear. Kneed carpet. Crocheted sofa. Pink walls. Photo frames. Snow signal. Fiat start. Busted garage. Good enough job. Gap-toothed boss. Retail detail. Grimy grin. Leather welcome. Down payment. Paid down. Drug ring. Call waiting. Meeting lot. TV joke. Separate ways. Driveway divot. Streetlight purr. Half glass. Smoke drapes. Top view. Shingle dwindle. Satellite hook-up. [Site]

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - "Tune Grief"

Mirror Traffic, the new Jicks album is, unlike the progression of the last few albums, a step towards me and not away. Like the Pavement reunion tour. I was so skeptical of that tour, fearing Malkmus' cynicism, his arrogance, his limp rebellion would drone louder than the amps. But he proved me wrong wrong wrong on that tour, it was magical. It felt tipping over stacked with giddiness, he ran out and said "it's 1996!" And here I'm similarly excited, I feel like there's motion in the heart of this song, there's wake-eyed looking at the listener, there's work, craft, volume. I say this with great care: it's noodle-less. And though it probably speaks more about me as a Malkmus fan than it does of Mirror Traffic, it's deeply confusing and almost troubling to me that my faaaaavourite song on this album, "Tune Grief", sounds the most like a Spiral Stairs song he's ever written. [Buy]

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You Won't - "Three Car Garage"

Blackie spit on the sidewalk and it looked like a pack-a-day corn flake. The night was pink and fresh and the garbage air was wafted warmly away by eastbound breeze. Blackie pudged a ripple between the place where her shirt stopped and her skirt started, her fuzzy cheetah-print spikes tensed her strong calves taut. At 33, this life was no longer a life for Blackie, she wanted a change. She wanted a ring.

Up walked Zbigniew, Zbiggie as he was often called, and she looked him up and down with mild consideration. He was tall, out of shape, he hid his figure with a dirty black trench coat, even in the summer. White socks with sandals shone beneath. Plus he dealt with mail-order brides, which seemed like a negative. Though, at this point, it could be a positive. "You dancing tonight?" he asked, in that hopeful happy puppy way. "Wouldn't be here otherwise," said Blackie, and fed her smoke into the breeze. Zbiggie went upstairs and nodded at the doorman.

Next was Malcolm, in his ratty same-coloured suit. Malcolm was definitely not a contender. People like Malcolm were the reason Blackie wanted out. Everything about him was sad. Even his glasses were sad. He had these old plastic frames that were yellowed in places, held together by scotch tape. His glasses were taped, his suit seemed like it was taped, even his hair seemed taped, shiny and pressed to his head. His whole life seemed held together by scotch tape, like it would all give way if he sweat too much. And he sweat all the time. He seemed to sag through life, unresponsive, like a moving piece of furniture, or a ghost.

Last up was Faruq, the Egyptian. Faruq had curls, big loose curls, gleaming with gel. He had a tight white shirt, with a flower pattern on it, and big white sneakers with silver details on the sides. He had a car that talked to him, Blackie had taken a ride home from him once. He would say, "Play music," and it would say, "Playing music," in a computer voice. A lady computer voice, which he called Maria. Blackie had turned Faruq down before, but she was tired and hadn't eaten and was angry with her boss. Today they chatted about her shift and the dances she planned to do, and all the ways in which the city was falling apart. She lit another cigarette just to stay outside, and looked through lashes at Faruq, "What are you doing on Saturday? Do you think you could help me move?"

[Buy Skeptic Goodbye]

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Angel Olsen - "If It's Alive, It Will"

A raffle to see who becomes the new center of gravity. The earth is done with it, the moon doesn't want it, and the satellite river can't decide who's gonna get it, so it gets put out to the people of the world. Put your name in the hat, it costs two bucks, and get a chance to become the next center of gravity. The thing to which all other things are drawn. "I'm gonna have moons," says one contestant. "I'm gonna have orbiting bodies, if you know what I mean," says another, a funny uncle. "I'll probably turn into lava," says Michelle, not knowing she's the winner. When the clock struck midnight, over Ontario anyway, on the last day of the raffle, all the world couldn't help but turn their eyes to Michelle. Their feet dragged along the pavement, or they fell out of their beds. Bookshelves were suddenly spilled, water sloshed out from sewers, buffet sneeze guards became food-catchers and everything turned weird-side up. Michelle did indeed become lava, but it took about a hundred years.

[Buy the heavy-hitting Stranger Cacti or a lovely song off the new Chicago Cassette Compilation]

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Jason Ajemian & The HighLife - "Feels A Ton"

"Scarp the shimmer! Trunch it, bresh it, don't kerry to the truncheon all the bresh in the gimmle." Kevin's eyes widened as he looked at Fine Jimmy Stein, the host of Cook It! with Fine Jimmy Stein, speaking nonsense. Kevin was left alone for the first time by his boss, today he was floor director for the whole show, in charge of switching cameras and keeping the shoot on schedule. "Um..." he half-interrupted Jimmy's string of insanity, but Jimmy didn't notice. "Fetch it, don't etch it, hillen the moneydaise, nobody gets the bomb on tinny, not a tay." The camera operators looked at Kevin, Kevin looked at the camera operators, then back at Jimmy. "Um, Jimmy?" he spoke louder, trying to cut through. Jimmy stopped, breaking his rhythm. "S'manner?" Kevin was not used to this level of authority, "Um, is everything okay?" "Okay bitty? No bitty." Kevin looked at the camera operators for help, but they were not helping him, he was on his own. "Uh, you're not making any sense." "Who tense?"

..."What?"

"WHO TENSE? KENNEL FUNNEL. CASH, BUD!" Kevin was getting frantic, he was sweating, "Do..do you want some water?" "NIP!!" He was getting yelled at, Kevin's mouth started to turn down, his chest was hurting, his eyes were tearing up. Kevin was now in a stand-off with Fine Jimmy Stein, with his beautiful coifed slick and his casual rolled plaid, on terms he couldn't even grasp. Kevin thought, if he takes one step towards me, I'll chuck this clipboard at his face. And just as Jimmy was about to come to Kevin, to really talk this out, Kevin lifted the clipboard but was stopped by a hand on his shoulder. It was Howard, the old switcher who sits in the control room. He had left his high perch to come down to see what was going on. "Kevin," he said, with kind eyes and a flannel that smelled like buttered popcorn, "Don't worry. Sometimes people just go this way. Just shoot the show and let the audience be the judge. Sometimes this just happens, people lose their sense."

[Buy]

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A friend of mine, and very talented young man, Kyle Gatehouse, has made a 90s-mood video for 90s-mood band Reversing Falls' song "Doom Beach". here.

Celebration - "Shelter"

CCTV is quiet. "Bitch." Diamonds fly out of a second-storey window and into the street. A shower is taken, while drinking a beer. I bet some fell in the sewer. SKY blares bastards, cigarette smoke like terror alert. Amber, in the lamp, the stains on the wall left by the smoke between the pictures look like nuclear shadows. DVDs are half in boxes, the desk is partly emptied, cans stacked in a shaky pile. The way it looks when a border is planning to move but has not quite begun the process of packing. But no one here is going to move. "I'll be back later," track pants track jacket white shoes, gone. CCTV is mute, so a flaming car is just as loud as a new pair of bright white shoes. A close-up expression has no sound, or words, or closed-captioned text. It is simply bored, exhausted, or fed up. It has no faculty, no interest, to explain that it is bored, exhausted, or fed up.

[PWYC]

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(via Robert Popper)

(image by Jack van Wijk)

Don Cavalli - "New Hollywood Babylon"

I picked him up on an on-ramp with no sign. Just a crown with the number 50 inside, and a buttload of trees in all directions except for straight ahead. We travelled for 4 hours without stopping and I'm not sure he even took a breath. He kept talking about "God Geometry", it was some kind of theory he was working on. His teeth had little yellow spots in the middle of each one, and sometimes he'd look out the window and I'd wonder if he even knew I was there. He had a little pack with him and it was as dirty as he was. Dusty. Like a drawing of a dirty kid, covered in a brown cloud. He would grind up his pills, medication for a heart condition, on the dashboard while I drove. We listened to the CB or a drumming tape, and he talked. The God Geometry, he said, was a system of connecting the world all together. He said it needed to be seen, it was like uncovering dinosaur bones, it had always been there. And he said if you could see all your connections, you could see right back to the first thing that ever happened in the world. He talked about time like it was a distraction from the fact that you can't make anything or throw anything away, you can only rearrange things. He said this while he ate a cold burrito out of an old foil he had brought in his bag. "The shortest path," I remember him saying, "Between right and wrong is realizing that nobody gives a good goddamn about anybody else."

(thanks Mark!)

[A*Rag Records]
[Buy digital]

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Tortoise - "Ten-Day Interval"

Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman (of Catfish) have made a new short documentary about Chris Burden's Metropolis II. It's lovely and makes me want to see more.

(sidenote: Joost & Schulman are currently directing Paranormal Activity 3, which combines, very unexpectedly, the phrases "excited for" and "Paranormal Activity 3" into one sentence that I will now speak proudly and with confidence. That trailer is terrifying.)

Hillow Hammet - "Slip Away"
Flaming Lips / Lightning Bolt - "NASA's Final Acid Bath"

We're adding a day to the year! And this isn't some pansy leap-year nonsense, some rotation-of-the-earth, only-when-we-feel-like-it bullshit. This is a FULL-LENGTH, perennial, guaranteed extra day. It's called THE NEBUTILLION. The Nebutillion can't even technically be called a "day", but it's the closest word we have. The Nebutillion is more similar to injury time in a soccer match. It's collected run-off, it's accumulated potential energy, left over by the other days of the year, it can last a standard "day" or it can last something similar to a week, depending. The Nebutillion will be a time when you can do whatever you choose, it's a personal experience. It's a gift from the universe and a tribute to humankind's ability to exploit its energies. Pray that The Nebutillion doesn't get commercialized, a day to sell Vanilla Bud Light Lime and Dodge Mercury Lifts. The Nebutillion will experience almost every kind of weather, it will be almost impossible to travel during it, since the weather will change like channels on a television. People will feel great euphoria and great strangeness, it will be a challenge to maintain focus and composure during The Nebutillion. The name comes from a mixture of the roots of "universe" and "apology" which, although we've yet to experience one, sounds both like a descriptor and a command. The universe may be saying "I'm sorry" but it's possible that it also requires to hear from us under penalty of harsh punishment, "I'm sorry too."

[Buy Hammer]
[FL/LB 12" unavailable?]

(images by Jonas Lindström)

Matthew Friedberger - "The Comforts of the Coffin"

If you eat in front of a mirror your stomach won't be able to read your food properly, your body will digest it backwards. Standing on your head makes you unrecognizable to caller ID. All Prince songs are palindromes, they sound exactly the same forwards as backwards. Driving in reverse actually changes your car's model. For instance, if you were to drive in reverse for a year, a 2006 Tercel would become a 2005. If you get sick, it is very important to re-trace your dietary steps. If you need to, eat some items in front of a mirror. [Site]

Crystal Antlers - "Jules' Story"

Lady Invisible still agonizes over what to wear.

[Buy]