Archives : all posts by Dan

O.V. Wright - "Ace of Spades"

I forget when I lost perspective on the situation. I mean, you never really remember that, right? If you did, you would have known it was happening. It's like a magic trick, the trick of it is usually at the beginning and you spend the whole time waiting for the trick to happen, and then when all of a sudden it's happened you're surprised. That's the way I felt, I woke up and it was like I was living with a stranger. It was like a stranger was in my kitchen, making strange toast and drinking strange orange juice, making strange sleepy noises, sighing over the radio. It was like he had disappeared long ago, and only now was I realizing the switcheroo. I still recognize the clothes, the framed pictures, the towels, even the smell, but the face, the face is completely different. I can't shake that, even in the cool fall breeze, a fresh new cigarette, there's no shaking that. There's a leaf stuck to my boots, it's wet and stuck there. I tried picking it off with my fingers but it broke apart and stayed in pieces on the heel. [Buy]
(thanks, Mike Long!)

Floating Action - "Marie Claire"

Am I on the right bus? These people don't look like 168 people. Too upscale. Too many clean coats and nice umbrellas. Too many iPods, too much make-up, too many stoic down-turned faces buried in books, clean shaven and smelling like fresh de-odorizers. Too many fur-lined high-leathered sons-of-bitches. Too much unspoken guff. Not enough window-staring, broken soggy shoe stretching, jean jacket patching. Not enough scared eyes, sad eyes, eyes fixed in one emotion for life. Not enough pure visual confessionalism, untried disheveled physical loveliness. Not enough unexpressed smile. Not enough bus. Oh right. That's a wrong turn. ding. [coming soon]

Cryptacize - "The Cage"

Cross-section: Thin outer scraping of strings on strings. Thick and doughy cloud layer of hoop-shaped vocals and busy guitty-cars. Creamy layer of patience and holding steady. At the bottom, a settled sediment of amazing hooks.

I feel as if this song were left for me. Like Deerhoof (my roommate now?) was leaving the house, hair up in a huge beehive, dressed in venetian blinds and collectible quarters, headed out to a pre-choreographed dance party, well-rehearsed for weeks, and she thought, with one shoe on, eyes already on her coat, "Oh, Dan would like this."
[pre-order at Asthmatic Kitty]
[Cryptacize on Muxtape]

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Experimental Dental School - "Argentine Pears"

And this song feels like an orphan! Not parentless, but more bereft of protection. The example used in my dictionary widget is more poetic than anything I could think up: "orphan garbage barges aimlessly wandering the oceans." Exactly right, computer! Where did that come from, computer? Are you writing poetry while you "sleep"? If I look in all those lonely forgotten documents I'll never read again, like old tax returns and documents like "new idea.rtf", and scroll down, way way down, will I find all your hidden stories and thoughts? Will it say "in dewy fields I'm found, my love herself dewy, my love somehow dry and yet I'm happy, happier than I've ever been, happier I think than anyone might ever be"? Will there be whole novels about The Great War and what Paris was like seen through the eyes of early black immigrants? Will I find soft and thoughtful buttery writing that will surprise and delight? I hope so, computer. Do not disappoint me, now.
[This record is FREE, with the option to donate]

The Dream Scene - "Alien vs. Predator"

Purring necking jingling living nesting rising dusting striking spiking thirsting rending unenthusiastically taking, truthful, thoughtful, tearful blue, heartfelt ghostly gamey, ninefold, free gold. Bent sideways, chasing, gracing, red, car parked, felt art, hurt tin crush fold lying flattened, flattened out. Vented wind wound windows, surround by windows to let the air come through and shake, shikka, shake shake.

Quiet Hooves - "Hott R Nott"

In a small town just out of reach of any of the best maps sits a little country house, off off off the main road, behind a clump of tall pines. It's a fine white, strong flat paneling outside the porch and up the side to the little room at the very top. The room whose roof is the one thing the sun hits its nose on while going up the hillside. In this room there's one soft small bed, a light faded row of books, a painting of a river, dust on the desk, and two things on the windowsill: a plant, mouth open and ready to catch the dripping blood of the sun as it floats and races by, and a crystal. A crystal that looks, when held up to light, or held in the tightest dark, like a whole mountain of glass. With base camps and tree lines and snow caps and sweeping rock faces with little foot trails and caves and drifts and clouds. And it's cursed. Don't touch it.

[MySpace]

Ros Sereysothea & Sinn Sisamouth - "Marrison (Classic)"

I can't find any information about Marrison. I can find some Marrisons, but they're all old boring men. An anglican bishop, the inventor of the quartz clock, a developer of methods of keeping your food away from bears. Yawn. Marrison is a definitely a lady spy. Marrison has certainly been known to order a drink with the turn of her head. Marrison carries a gun in her belt buckle. She walks like cold leather air, she moves like night, like thoughts. She rides the light rail, changes cabs, hair, and coat. She's at four hotels when she's at home. She anticipates, she's cool, and the only time you see her smile is when she's already got you beat. The title states that this is a "classic" version of Marrison. I agree. Her best days, when misogyny was her best camouflage, when cold war idiots were too busy to notice every time she got away with it. This is the Marrison we want to remember. [rare]

Jen Kirkman - "Don't Murder Your Friends"

Jen Kirkman recorded an album called Self Help in 2007, and it's completely marvelous. It's a wonderful, and full, portrait of a character she's created, which is probably, disturbingly, based largely on herself. It's a perfect example of how to explore and iron out your darkest thoughts. She follows one thread to the next, in a concise and deliberate way, and eventually you're standing in her head, shivering, with the lights out. She believes in zombies, in God, in urban myths, in the goodness of people, and their potential to be awful. It's gorgeous, check it out. [go to "store" and scroll down to buy]

Dead Meat - "The King" (stream is having problems, please download)

Dead Meat have slouched out of the mire, covered in old gravy and sort of look out beyond the horizon, eyes unfocused. They have "released" a couple of demos, Demo #1 and Demo #2, and they show a lot of promise. They play dark-haired dark-priest 90s rock with the same thunder drums and buzzing guitars every song. I get lulled in the smell of it, the colour, I stand swaying and drugged until "I'm glad I never made no damn decision", and I fall into it, the mire, the gravy, the girth. [MySpace]

Still Flyin' - "The Hottchord is Struck"

Despite the feeling that I'm at a mandatory activity at a tropical resort, doing line-dancing or pass-the-orange or something, when this song starts, I have a soft spot in my heart for Still Flyin'. Why? Their pink pants tucked into socks, their dumb flipped-up brim hats, their longboards. It's a nice place to visit. And besides, the last minute of this track is pure, it's honey, it's nice. [Buy]

Alemayehu Eshete - "Tchero Adari Negn"

Say the code word. Say the code word and get in. Once you're in, enjoy yourself. Have a drink, make it clear light brown. Put ice on everything, bring down all the swelling in the room. Relax, really relax and don't just use that word. Smile at someone, smile at the people you like. Look up at the ceiling and laugh. Feel good. Feel good when you say the code word. Say the word and feel good. [Buy]

Woods - "The Hold"

Duck Choir. Man, I got Duck Choir again. Why did I even sign up for this thing? You know, trying to meet people in this damn barren landscape, it's cold, maybe they have food, a bit of shelter. Plus, maybe meet a lady Duck or something. Never know. But now it's cloudy, it's drizzles, it's all just-stay-in-a-hollow-log out, and here I am, truckin' like some putz to Duck Choir. Late again, no time for a bite, always rushing, my damn coat half on, half draggin' in the muck. And I would quit, I really would, I would quit in an instant, old gray Ducks in their plumage and tuneage. If it didn't sound so damn harmonious. If those Guitar Ducks weren't always bringing heart and heat and sound to their playing, if Singer Falsetto Ducks weren't completely on point the whole damn time, oooing like cool sunshine and peaking their beaks out at the loud parts. Drummer Ducks, yeah, us Drummer Ducks do really kick it when we get going. I guess that's why I go. Bangin' that little shared drum really feels good when all you want to do is boom boom pat-pat-pat. [Buy the vinyl]

Ancient Crux - "In Teen Dreams"

Haunted locker room. The kind of teenage fear appropriate to the circumstances. But I never won anything, I never proved anyone wrong, I never had sex. Spirits so tall they're more like moving walls than ghostly faces. The innocent melancholy backup singer, looking down in ratty clothes and snapping fingers, with gray sinister skin. [Less than 20 left!]

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FUNDRAISER:
And let me be the first to say thank you so much for helping us reach our ROBOT goal yesterday. It took a mere 2 hours (that's a new record, down from 6 hours) and we are completely appreciative yet again. The PEOPLE campaign will stay open all week, and it's coming along swimmingly. Please, if you like the site, this is the week you can let us know. (see below)

Josephine Foster - "Nähe des Geliebten"

My goodness, I must say you have very fine manners! You have such fine manners, the way you curtsied just under waistline and smiled upwards towards the lights, I've never seen such pleasant behaviour! You removed your shoes and left them hanging to dry, you crept snake-like across the floor to the chair and sat knees at a square right angle, how kind. You've kept your singing voice practiced and moist, what care! You eat nothing outside the proper colour spectrum, and drink nothing less viscous than peanut butter, you certainly have done your homework. You've even taken the care to carve the names of all the members of the visited household on the fleshy part of your belly. And such penmanship with that pen knife! Cared enough even to learn the dimensions of the house in advance so you could navigate to and from the bathroom and bedroom eyes closed and without hands rudely outstretched. Your appearance is even tempered to be that of a single degree below your host, but worlds beyond any of my many pets. How ugly my birds look when you are here, yet I feel so perfectly jolie. May all the blessings of your politesse come to you instantly, quicker than this instant dinner will be ready for you to enjoy. May God text message you from heaven with thoughtful wishes of success and achievement. May your health treatments be totally functional and errorless, may nothing go wrong with the lasers or weights. The vision of the future that generations had before did not quite turn out so excitingly, did it? How odd. [Buy from Insound]

Beach Boys - "Kokomo"

I was taking Montreal's famous metro the other night. It was the last train of the night before it stopped. I got into my car, getting ready for the 5-stop wait to get off again, when I found myself in a new and strange situation: I had the car all to myself. And it dawned on me immediately that I had never experienced this before. I looked around, up and down, checking to make sure I wasn't missing any slumped over drunk or sleeping hooded figure. No, I was really alone in this train car. So I thought, in a weird knee-jerk i'm-never-going-to-get-this-chance-again kind of way; I have to take advantage of this situation.

Now, rides between metro stops are usually under a minute, so these thoughts were coming very quickly, and I knew I was running out of time even as I considered my options. Kick something, break something, write on something, wait, why are my first instincts to Destroy and Deface? So I just started singing. And before I knew it, I was singing, of all things, "Kokomo". I sang it loud, as loud as I could, really belting out all the notes that were in my range. And then the doors opened at the next stop and I stopped. And no one got on. So when the doors closed and the train started moving, I sang it again. [Buy]

(photo from the amazing Hyunkoo Lee, thanks ddp)