Archives : all posts by Dan

Nana Grizol - "Cynicism" (removed at band's request)

"My daughter will lead us in grace," he said it nervously, the way you warn someone before they go into an occupied bathroom.

The room went silent and everyone joined hands, some reluctantly and some calm. Some looked down at the slope of the buttons on their shirt, others at the napkins. One woman cast her hair back like she was putting her face under the shower spray. Someone cleared their throat into their hand and gave it back to their neighbour. One person sighed in the momentary pause. Another looked at the person who sighed, who realised they were being watched and held their gaze into the candle, not sad just constant, as if this were a totally normal thing.
Little Jennie stood up in her pink fleece and flower-print jeans and fish hair clips. She wiped her hands on her butt and joined hands in the circle. She looked around at the table like they were stuffed toys, with the face she thought a mother would have.

"Dear God, may you never ever lose your faith. Thank you. Amen. Goodbye." [Released today]

The Fall - "Mountain Energy"

Life must be easy when you're a fucking idiot. Fucking idiots at the bank, fucking idiots on the street, fucking idiot doctors at the hospital. Fucking idiots can't tell me I can't get better, can't get help. Fucking idiots don't even know what I got in store. Next time I'm stuck behind some fucking slow-ass carriage-pushing idiot on the street, I'm gonna act like a big fucking car, I'm gonna do some pushing and I'm not gonna say sorry. Next time some stupid idiot is mean to me at the bank 'cause all I wanna do is keep people from taking my fucking money, I'm gonna do some taking and I don't mean a breath. Next time some fat-ass lard-ass fucking idiot doctor says it's over I'm gonna throw all 120 daily pills in their goddamn stupid face and I'm gonna take a shit on that wax paper. I need to eat. I need to eat now, rice or honey or bread or chocolate or pepsi and I'll feel better. I need to sleep too. Every single fucking idiot better stay outta my way until then.

Suddenly bumped, in the cold of the slushy sidewalk.

"Oops, sorry." [Buy]

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Sam Cooke - "Medley: It's All Right / For Sentimental Reasons"

It never snows out here. It stays warm and brown the whole holiday season, in East Riley. A lot of people are stuck out in East Riley for the holidays, stuck in the grassy brown ghost town of sleepy closed businesses and spray-on christmas lights. For all the people who don't want to be here, there's a few people who do. His name is Henry and he has a holiday party unparalleled in all the warm parts. He has an all-night gathering in a park on the edge of town, so he "can catch anyone before they leave, and everyone before they miss it" as it says on the invite, which is a banner that hangs across the main street in East Riley. Everyone dresses up as presents, they gather and talk and sing songs. But one song, near the end of the night, Henry knows just how to sing it, just right and sweet and loud and clear, and he sings it and the town sings along, beneath the warmth of the stars and the sleeping vultures.

[Buy]

Parenthetical Girls - "Thank God it's Not Christmas"
Parenthetical Girls - "Flowers For Albion"
Sparks - "Thank God it's Not Christmas"

In 1992 there was a bill that came inches from beign passed in the Senate. Put forth by Rev. Conrad Merkis, known by his parish as 'Connie Christmas', the bill described a way for rock music, especially the growing popularity of grunge rock, to 'pay back' to the spiritual community the debt it owed for stealing the hearts and minds of its youth. The method was simple: every single song, especially hit songs, were required to have a 'Christmas Counterpart', which could be swung at spiritual holiday gatherings. The song simply needed to reference Christmas in some way - be it the words 'Christmas', 'Christmas time', or an 'infusion of a few bars from a famous Christmas carol.
'It's easy,' Rev. Connie used to say at rousing rallies, 'just add on to the end of your chorus a few bars from Joy to the World and I won't bother you anymore.' He would often finish these rallies by playing a medley of 'Christmas Counterparts' that he was suggesting to famous artists. He offered to write counterparts for the back catalogues of artists who were either retired or dead, and even went so far as to send demo tapes to Chris Cornell and other artists, with notes on them saying things like, 'for the Japanese release!' The bill was actually passed and still persists in a few municipalities, where local musicians enjoy a health living based on producing Christmas Counterparts for all the songs that become popular in the area.

Parenthetical Girls have released a Christmas 7" called Christmas Creep. It's got a New Order-ly cover of Sparks, it's a got a song built for this post (written independently, while listening to french news in a waiting room) and like all things ((GRLS)), it's got fascinating details, unignorable sexiness, and surprises at every turn. It's a double-A-side release, and it can be ordered here. With 150 in existence, get this already rare snowflake gem for someone you love, even if that's yourself. [Order]

also: [Buy Sparks' seminal incredible Kimono My House]

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Railcars - "Dreams (Cranberries Cover)"

Sometimes my memories expand to fit the size of the room. A car came an inch from my face, a dog was as snarling and foaming as any nightmare monster, a kiss was as long and as perfectly placed as can be. Either everything was just so or nothing worked at all. My reactions to events are huge in my memory, jaws on floors, eyes popping out of heads, faces slapped, knees entirely buckled. They don't look in my mind how I'm sure they actually looked: minimal facial movement, slight turn away, maybe a raised eyebrow. My memories on tape sound like this mix, blaring, blown paper-thin against the speakers, near-unintelligible, nearly dead were it not for the aftertaste of a melody, the ghost of a beat beneath. [Keep up with the tour]

Lil Wayne - "Drop the World (feat. Eminem)"

In the final slow-motion moments of an epic adventure musical, a rain of credit cards glitters down on the streets of an apocalo-future city. Slow crane down from emptying heavens to the lowly clean-up droid back on the job. Lived its whole life in the gutter, held the only piece of knowledge needed to keep the forces of takeover at bay, used all its gumption and prime-directives to save every measly squirming human on this stupid hellish rock, and now back in the gutter, no one to thank it, no one to sing to it, no one to care. It raises its droid hands to the sky and lets the credit cards, slide on past its grasp to the ground. It passes by a reflective window, an abandoned insurance firm, and stops to watch the vista of the plastic rain. It goes closer to the window and looks calmly at its face. It flickers through different make-up combinations that could change its face. A light foundation with electric blue eyeliner. A deep starting layer with heavy lipstick and a cigarette holder. A dark foundation with silver teeth and Egyptian eyes. Beat. Black. Credits. [site]

Jumbling Towers - "Put Your War Paint On"

In this world of gray smiles and clammy hands and incessant, relentless power outages, candles are very important. There are many who believe that candle flames can be inhaled, that they can speak, that they have transformative powers. There is a legend of a young filthy ratter who burned a book he'd written in a candle flame, page by page, to make the words exist in the world. The effects of his efforts are now known as the Night of Hawks and Chains, the most heinous tradition in an already barbarous existence. It is said that only one child in a family of ten will survive this night. The limits of the body's acids and muscles are tested, the mind's tipping point, the spirit's very bottom. There is no grass wetter, colder, than the grass of that horrible dawn.

Jumbling Towers have reached a near-crippling level of darkness with their new album, The Kanetown City Rips. They've generally been a creepy band, but in a Vincent Price kind of way, where it's a smirking kind of ghoul, a deep maniacal tongue-in-cheek kind of cackle. But that was the old Jumbling Towers, or perhaps just not the Jumbling Towers of this record. A band that used to squeeze blood out of their guitars, that would crash a cymbal wide enough to change the tides, is suddenly holding back. The drums have been muted, they're thudding instead of ringing, the guitars are lying dried on the beach. Kanetown is suddenly their Your Blues. But, as in Your Blues, it all feels like it has a purpose. One that may take getting used to, but will find you soon. The album tells a story, or rather gives impressions, of a turbulent and unwelcoming world. From the constant perspective of the "rips", which are kids, themes of adults deceiving children, fearmongering, and revolution abound. There's a throughline to this album that leaves you at once triumphant and unsettled. It's mysterious, unfriendly, and gorgeous.

|this track is exclusive to Said the Gramophone, made available to us in advance by the band, so thanks to them for that. If you like them, see my past writings on them here, and here, and here|

[MySpace]
[Site]
[Buy their old records]
[buy the Kanetown single from Half Machine]

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Elsewhere: would that this were real. via the Fiery Furnaces' twitter feed, you can feel those FF details between your fingers.

(image via à la garconnière)

Tangerine Dream - "The Dream is Always the Same"

I'm getting ready for a fight. I'm taping up my hands, and chalking up my hands. I'm splashing cold water on my face and I'm in a basement locker room. Where the paint on the concrete is so thick it's all smooth and soft looking. I'm looking in the mirror and I'm telling myself not to be scared. For some reason I know it's a two-way mirror, or is it a one-way mirror, there's someone behind it watching me, and I know that I'm putting on the act for them. I tape up my hands and punch the air and practice flinging the sweat away. I hide my bag under the bench, I don't want to have to worry about someone stealing my keys when I'm fighting. I can hear the commentator talking about me, for some reason they've wired the commentators down into the basement, and he's talking about me. And he's saying I'm going to get pummeled, he's reading my obituary already. "He was a nice man, he won forty dollars in the lottery, not much of a fighter. That ol' dog's gonna tear him up." It was true, I wasn't much of a fighter. Not at all, really. I saw my TA from Comparative History walk by and I knew it was time to fight. He, his name was Gavin I think and there was a rumour he jerked off on a girl in the tutorial, he led me slowly up to ring, and I got in, and everything was about to begin. Only there was just a cloth-covered figure in the other corner. Like the way they cover statues in comic books, with like a purple silk cloak, and he was just waiting there, stock still underneath. They announced me, they got my weight wrong they said 140 and I'm actually 148, and then they announced the other fighter. They pulled the silk sheet away, and underneath was an old dog. Like an actual old dog, they wanted me to fight an old dog. The bell rang and we advanced on each other and he was baring his fangs. As we get closer and closer, I just keep thinking, "This isn't fair, I shouldn't be fighting this old dog, it's mean. I'll kill it." I was so worried about killing this old dog, as if I were anywhere near as strong as a dog, that I totally let my guard down. And he jumps up and bites my neck and even as he's putting his teeth in I'm thinking, "See, he should get a chance to kill me, he's just an old dog." And then it all wells up so quick that I wake up.

[Buy]

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Paul F. Tompkins - "The Sink and The Mirror"

Paul F. Tompkins has a new album out called Freak Wharf. It's full of his casual, endearing, approachable style, and like all top-form comedians, makes it look easy. He's completely comfortable, and that only makes him stronger. Almost impossibly, he has followed up Impersonal with an album of equal calibre.

[Buy from A Special Thing Records]

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Also: The season finale of The Bitter End went up yesterday. And two of the creators were interviewed yesterday on Canada's most popular entertainment radio magazine, Q. <--(listen to the podcast of the show)

Sweet readers, due to conditions beyond my control, I can't go into detail on my favourite records this year. Fortunately, I've gone into detail in the past so please check out the posts associated with each record, and if you like the song, buy the album, because they are worth it. All mp3s have been re-upped.

These are my 12 favourite albums of 2009, you may have heard of them, you may have them, but if you're unfamiliar, I hope you discover something you love because these are treasures.

Tune-Yards - Bird Brains (post) [Buy]
Blackout Beach - Skin of Evil (post) [Buy]
Clues - Clues (post) [Buy]
Fiery Furnaces - I'm Going Away (post) [Buy]
Swan Lake - Enemy Mine (post) [Buy]
Julie Doiron - I Can Wonder What You Did With Your Day (Bitter End ep. 2) [Buy]
Capybara - Try Brother (post) [Buy]
Wild Beasts - Two Dancers (post) [Buy]
Digital Leather - Warm Brother (post) [Buy]
Floating Action - Floating Action (post) [Buy]
Jeff the Brotherhood - Heavy Days (post) [Buy]
Smith Westerns - Smith Westerns (post) [Buy]

Also, Sean's best-of tomorrow. buckle up.

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