Archives : all posts by Dan

Teenage Symphony - "Lucky"

"The bounce in the cuffs of your slacks as you promenade cartoonishly all over town is a telling sign of the well-being of the general public." This sentence came out like a child born with shoes on, ready to go, as I listened to this song. It doesn't do justice (it is based but on a detail) to the vast nature of the song; the details aren't paramount here, like how the clicks of the roller-coaster gear before it crests its iron hill aren't meant to be counted. But I listen to this song again and again, and I'm drawn in by new parts: after the jaunty beginning, elegant and jangly, I was wooed by the bright orange ba-ba-ba's, then the skipping piano line that crashes into cymbals like a pair of airplanes pillowfighting with the clouds (too much?). My mind wanders amidst the wandering, and I think about Radiohead's "Lucky". And how that is like "Lucky (Phew)" and this is like "Lucky (Here I Go!)". A brilliant sunrise of a song. [MySpace]

Munch Munch - "Wedding"

Similarly, "Wedding" is an examination, a holding-up as if to light, of a melody, of a song's many facets. Starting with bursts like solar flares and running into organ lines like moving sidewalks, the vocals are crowded together almost shoving each other into falsetto and falling back into upturned yelling. The seed of my endearment for this song lies in the slight fall that the melody has, and the way the cymbals scuttle underneath as the dancey beat kicks back in. The seed, however, has bloomed as you can see. [MySpace]

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I know you heard it, and I know you loved it, because CKUT has asked me and Etan back for another week! Tonight from 1am - 4am, I'll be on the air. More gramophone songs! More fun chat! And this time we're taking callers for real, because lovely commenter effff will be tech-ing. (514.448.4013)

2 years ago, apparently, a band called Phosphorescent released an album called Aw Come Aw Wry. I never heard peep about it, but I don't get around much. I swirl around the windy streets of my neighbourhood and the neighbouring neighbourhoods, but I really don't go much farther than that. Anyway, excuses aside, I missed this album when it was new, so I'll appreciate it now. (thank you, Michael S.)

Phosphorescent - "Not A Heel"

A hot stumbly waltz. Like a flower, a drunk daisy, ambles dazedly down the street, to home, alone. The neon buzzes and bounces off her upturned collar, too short to reach her chilly petal ears. A bad night for one daisy, from this perspective. A few quiet rejections, a lot of sips to fill a silence, or to look around the room, and a lot of "fresh" smiles, the way an actor delivers a line "fresh" every night. Because, as everyone knows, daisies can't speak English, or any human language, so life in the city is hard.

Phosphorescent - "Dead Heart"

The album is mired, sunken, drenched, in the chords of the "Aw Come Aw Wry" refrain, which starts this song. Something I haven't seen so clear and used so well since On Avery Island, and it's not the only similarity. Shades of many other artists are here, but I'm not interested in getting caught on that. Instead, I want you to be hypnotized, intoxicated by the drone beneath the falling, tapered melody. I want you to be pulled in and down, like the kind of pull an undertow must feel like, until all of a sudden it all lifts, or falls further, who cares, into a pink and foggy yell.

[buy Aw Come Aw Wry]

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Happy Birthday, Sarah.

Peel - "Moxy Blues"

This song spends 3:30 crumbling in your hands; boiling dry. But the core is so strong that it can sustain this overflowing style. I just don't want to find out that Peel is, like, all 35-year-olds or something. [Buy]

Ray's Vast Basement - "Not Just Mine"

There is a circle of expectation that comes with a song like this. Railroad tracks, lanterns, boxcars, dust-blown farms, lost ones, bends in the road, hitching rides, green apples, valleys, rivers, "the country", harvest time, horses, autumn, flats. These things fall inside the circle. As do whispery back-up singers, dry breeze guitars, non-specific weary man vocalists, and my feeling that there is a whole lot of nature that I miss. [site]

The Comedian Harmonists - "Ali Baba"

"...And in the ensuing years, of course, the world government, in an attempt to rid humanity of prejudice, did away with much early music. Among which was most of the repertoire of The Comedian Harmonists, whose delightful clucks and warbles were never to be heard again by anyone, vanishing into the waxy red mist from whence they materialized..." [Buy]

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I'm going to be on the radio tonight (May 3rd-4th), I'll be hosting a show with my friend Etan from 1:00am - 4:00am EST on CKUT. I know, it's like right now. It's an all-request 3 hours, so gramophone readers get priority (514.448.4013).

Miracle Fortress - "Little Trees"

An unexpected honey sandwich from the brains (as opposed to brawn) behind Think About Life. The Miracle Fortress album is (literally) covered in bedsheets and kittens, which act perhaps as an asterisk to the style, but they need not. Graham Van Pelt's approach is straightforward, and simple, and unafraid. I like it. The songs may not all be to my taste, but neither are Think About Life's, I didn't expect anything different. But here. Here, the song seems to ask "hey, little buddy, can I get into bed and snuggle with you?" at the beginning, which is kind of annoying, but please let it in. If you let it lie there, next to you, the next thing you know, when you're turning over and out of a dream, it'll be this little electric treasure, this tapered and tapping surf tune. The vocals, timid on their own, come together and lift right up and over their own heads, something similar to the way a time-lapse sapling flips itself inside-out and, quivering, grows up.
[available at Secret City soon, or on iTunes now]

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John Cale - "Paris 1919"
Final Fantasy - "Paris 1919 (with Cadence Weapon)"

I didn't get into this (StG) because I know a lot about music. I know less than probably most of you. So forgive me when I say I had to find out this evening that Paris 1919 was actually a John Cale cover, and not an unreleased FF song off his new album. But couldn't it be? When I heard the vast majesty of the original just hours ago, the regal seamless velvet wonder that it is, I was amazed at how easily Owen Pallett has been bringing this style into realms new and exciting, and yet so faithfully, spirit intact, for like two albums now. Of course he has his own thing, and he's great and all, but the sheer similarity of these artists has drastically increased my respect for both. It's like, and this is an incredibly esoteric simile, 'cause it's late, but I swear it's exactly what I mean, watching John Cassevetes' Faces after Andrew Bujalski's Mutual Appreciation. Yeesh. I told you music wasn't my thing.

[Buy John Cale] [buy Final Fantasy] [Buy John Cassavetes] [Buy Andrew Bujalski]

The White Stripes - "Icky Thump" (elsewhere)

The cadence rattles around like a last tylenol, the beat lurches forward like a constantly popping clutch, and the guitar chews through like a pair of sweaty jaws. There is an organ there too, the short smiling friend, who doesn't say much, but his weasel eyes are dangerous.

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Born Ruffians - "Knife (Grizzly Bear cover)"

This is like the Dick Clark version. Where the original is haunted, oneric, this is completely sober, and wearing matching outfits. Which is not to say it is without soul, because that squeaky whine is just what my sunny day has prescribed, and of course it's real. And those delicious choral oh-woah-woah's are obviously the bedrock to this song's greatness, as evidenced by their complete distillation in the Blogotheque version, so their presence and depth is much appreciated. If you're bored at this point, note that a button-down rendition merits a button-down discussion; would anyone like some perrier with their unsalted crackers and tempra paint?
[buy Grizzly Bear's Yellow House from WARP]
[buy Born Ruffians' ep from Rough Trade]

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Lloyd Price - "Tell Me Pretty Baby"

It is a high number of songs that have been written with the general mood of: "cheer up, sad girl, you're pretty". Which is a pretty insensitive attitude to hold, as if attractive people ought not to have problems since they have a leg up on the rest of us ugly folk. If I were a pretty girl (which I kind of am) I would be much more cheered up by the rumbly-drums, the hippy and two-stepping piano. I might not even mind the hilarious and seemingly unrehearsed "s'matta with you, woman?" at the end.
[buy]

My friend Nora recently went to a Final Fantasy show in Ottawa, and picked up the opener's cd for me. I'm very glad she did.

The Ballet - "In My Head"

Sean accidentally ordered a 7-scoop ice cream yesterday, and this feels related to that. Like cold running down your fingers on a hot day, and you can't keep up with all the drips, so you just let it cry, in bright droplets on the sidewalk. It's and orange-coloured song, with a corny-fine accordion, and little claps like minnows under water. It's about having the relationship you want, no matter what the relationship is actually like. Which makes me sigh and put off getting dressed.

The Ballet - "When You Go Dancing"

I've never met Amy Linton. But I think about her sometimes. I worry about her, wonder if she's okay. So hearing her here is really nice and comforting for me. It's like seeing your favourite stranger at a party; oh good, you're still alive. And what a great outfit, as always. I hear that banging guitar come in, striding and calm, and I just know she did that. The song as a whole actually doesn't move me that much, but that feeling of seeing someone after so long, even without knowing them, moved me to write about it. It made me want another Aislers Set album in a new way; for her sake instead of mine.

[Site]

Eurythmics - "Sex Crime (1984)"

This is just what happened when I stepped outside. This is just what I said when I opened my mouth. It's just what we did when were alone. It's just what I wrote when I saw the paper, the lines, the tip of the pencil. I hit the key, and couldn't stop. I turned the key and couldn't go back. I went blind before, while it was happening. I knew what I was doing, but even if I didn't, it would have happened. We just got up there and this is what came out. We just got close and this is what happened. I'm so proud. I'm so sorry. [Buy]