Archives : all posts by Dan

Telefauna - "Under the Underground Water"

I see Telefauna performing this in the desert, with tons of unnecessary zoom-ins and candles (in the daytime!). Saharan nobility, they're oddly dressed for winter. Toques and wool coats and mitts. I also see them becoming completely and unbelievably famous in a foreign land for this song, and they just go to live there and perform, and we never see them in Montreal again. If only there were any "foreign lands" left to allow this; facebook has taught us that no one really disappears anymore, so we can rest assured we'll hear from Telefauna again. [MySpace (listen to "Some Of Your Love"!!)]

M.I.A. - "Hit That"

It's like meeting the parents of the last song. Not as young, but with a steadier hand and a sure aim. A lot of songs shoot at the spectral target of "making a room dance", often taking as many shots as possible in order to increase their chances of hitting something. But here, it feels like M.I.A. knows her target so well, she's shooting once, and with her eyes closed. And the refrain becomes a challenge: "boys, let me see you hit that". [MySpace (listen to "Bird Flu"!!)]

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Elsewhere: my co-review with Matthew Perpetua about Crazy Love is up at The Movie Binge.

Instructions: start the song. start the flash thingy. every time you hear the musical cue indicated by the text, press the button, and the next part of the interactive visual accompaniment will play. it's supposed to be fun!

Architecture in Helsinki - "Debbie"

[Buy old stuff]

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Elsewhere: I'm writing for The Movie Binge this summer. Last week, I helped review Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, this week, I'll be doing Crazy Love in tandem with Matthew Perpetua.

Maurice Ravel - "Bolero" [Buy]

Dear Son,

- Da

Lightning Dust - "Listened On"

You can reach into the middle of this song, to its core, and hold on to it for the support you need. No matter what goes on around it, that voice, it walks like a pre-teen in high heels, wobbly ankles, it's so true and sad, and it doesn't kid around. If you've ever cut down a Christmas tree, you know what I'm talking about. You can reach right in, past the needles and branches, the ne'er-do-much strumming and the merely periphery organ, and hold on to that voice to keep your balance, to grab hold when the bottom falls out, to carry it home with you. She sings like she'd never look you in the eye. [release in July]

Mirah & Spectratone International - "Community"

A bassy and treblesome science project of a song. It's about human interaction, but largely about attraction via pheromones. "It's an expressive art, instinctually smart." And as the odd timing and two-stepping voice floats along the air, I think about the relationship between instinct and art. Is there something ingrained in this song, something inherent and innate (if this song were born of Mirah's mouth-womb and Spectratone's sound box) that makes me love it? Does her voice sound like she is especially fertile? Do the guitars sound like a warning siren to my predators, indicating kinship? Is my evolutionary need for productivity drawn to the end refrain of "We get things done"? I assume all these answers are yes, and that my love of any art is not because of any ability to appreciate craft, but rather a drooling, glaring attraction to growth, survival, and progress. [Buy old stuff]

Sgt. Dunbar & The Hobo Banned - "The Weight"

This song kind of looks around the bus or the crowded elevator and gets sad about all the sad faces. And I want to speak to this song, the kind of way you talk to yourself in the mirror without moving your lips: it's not your job to shoulder the grief, guilt, and pain of other people, especially strangers. Yes, it's heavy, but that's not something to cry about. Cars are heavy too. And all the food you eat in a year is heavy, and so is all the carpet you've ever walked on, rolled up. You need to get out of the mindset that every trampled flower is worth a tear and a hug, because you're going to waste all the time you could be spending planting a new garden, or sleeping. [Sgt. Dunbar site] [The Hobo Banned site]

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Sean Moeller asked me how Frog Eyes was the other night, and I've prepared a video response for you, Sean. to orient you, the reader, it's the ending of 2007's best song yet: "Bushels". [buy]

T.D. Reisert - "For How They Forget"

Set in Palm Beach (not the city in Florida, but the beach in the palm of your hand). Wet only with the moisture that gathered when your fist was clenched in silence. The ridges of your skin sink and crest, and the wind is rather incessant. The structure, the landscape, seems to be oddly constructed, glued together last-minute, but the longer you stay, if you stay right til the last minute, you'll feel it all glide into place. [Buy]

The Low Lows - "Lane Fire"

The same is true here. Like a drunk silent comedian, stumbling all around the room, almost falling into a hundred different things, almost losing his balance a hundred different times, the act is about holding the fall until the last possible second. And in the song, with its corduroy colour and smoke-rising pace, the beauty of that wait becomes central, like when a camera pans completely around a room, waiting for that first thing to re-appear. And here the camera pans past dirty dancefloor tiles with shuffling old cowboy boots lit in hazy blue light. Up to a man waiting for his wife to finish slow-dancing so he can take her home. Over to an old lady protecting her whisky glass like it was in danger of evaporating. On past a young man with his head down, inexplicably. And then back to the boots, and the tiles, and the light. [Site]

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Frog Eyes tonight.

MGMT - "We Care"

It is with a heavy heart and a tail between my legs that I return to post about MGMT. Last time, I wasn't very favourable, though I liked the song; I never post anything I don't have some affinity for, be it perverse or not. However, a certain MGMT champion, named Jeff, emailed me 15 months after that post, with a last-ditch letter trying to get me to listen to "the real MGMT", the one that the band could have been, had they followed earlier directions. And, rigidly biased as I was (the comments on the original post made me like the band even less) this song eventually broke me. Just tonight, right about the time you were falling asleep, I sloughed off a kind of tension in a similar way, I was lulled into the world of this song, and I liked it. There's a purple sky with stars in it, like outer space but purple. There's ships that fly on old green screens (like the opening credits to Bizarre) and most likable of all, the citizens don't seem like they're trying really hard to get laid. The chorus glides off a precipice like an underwater cliff, and off into that purple beyond. It's nice. [you can't buy this, but buy other stuff]

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Simon Larson - "Justine"

It sounds like the band is following Justine down the street, or maybe this song just follows Justine around, getting mysteriously into the heads of the people she passes like a cloud of perfume. It gets all confused, and kind of trips on itself clumsily as it looks around for an ending by process of elimination, but its dressed-up charm is unfazed and it stoops and steps backward out the door, bowing the whole time.

I can't find any further information about him online.