Archives : all posts by Sean

The Mountain Goats - "Whole Wide World". John Darnielle from the old days, when his music was something simpler, more familiar to those of us who don't get to hang around in studios or with electric bassists. I too could learn the acoustic guitar, scrawl some lines, then hit 'play' on a tape-deck and by the open window sing the smells, the feels, the sounds and the thump-thump-thump of my heart. But maybe I wouldn't be able to record something that stays rich so long, so far: a warm evening pressed into magnetic tape and humming even as it plays, softly, years after that June night.

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The 1990s - "You're Supposed To Be My Friend". The (modest) success of this Glasgow band has little to do with their songs - mostly so-so, sometimes lame, better packed onto a CD than played live to a big room, - and a lot to do with its members' origins in Yummy Fur. Be that as it may, this song is a brilliant mix of coos and burrs, passive-aggressive and aggressive-aggressive, puppydog Glasgow smiles and slick skinny-jeans moves. It's more pre- than post-Franz Ferdinand, but as scientists have long known: there's magic in disco-beat, overdriven guitars, and untrained voices united in sneer.

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Aereogramme - "Nightmares". Full disclosure: I once had drinks with Aereogramme. I was reviewing Broken Social Scene's gig in Glasgow, the one where the lights blew out at the climax of "It's All Going to Break". I had spoken to Kevin Drew, awkwardly, because I am an after-show bumbler. With me was Charles, a photographer. Charles is from New York, likes hip-hop and Sunset Rubdown, and is somehow, strangely, the world's biggest Aereogramme fan.

Charles struck up a conversation with the concert's promoter, who was waiting to give a bottle of booze to BSS. Charles asked him if he was going out partying with "us and Broken Social Scene". The promoter said no, it was his friend's birthday, so he was going to a pub. Somehow Charles discovered that he was friends with the members of Aereogramme, who would also be there. Charles freaked out, the promoter invited us, and then Charles pleaded with me using the incomparable puppydog pathos of a Brooklyn charmer. And so we went to a pub in the Glasgow west end (i think), thereby blowing off Broken Social Scene, awkwardly, because I am an after-show bumbler.

Long, name-dropping story short: I once had drinks with Aereogramme. Nice guys. The lead singer was recovering from a "fungal infection" that had ruined his throat. The recovery was successful.

There's no reason I can see why Aereogramme are not massively huge. Overblown melodic romance - the stuff of Coldplay and Snow Patrol, strings and crescendos, Meatloaf-y longing, - mixed with a wee bit of metal, just enough to make boyfriends interested too.

"Nightmares" is as dark as the title would suggest, grim pizzicato violins till the drums start to thunder and Craig B intones: "Only... love... can... save me now." (It begs for a Jay-Z remix. "Haha, I'm here! To save you! Now listen here as I show you the way; when Hova comes he comes to stay!") The track forsakes an emotional arc, preferring to be a statement of where-the-singer's-at (a bad place) and what-he-really-wants (love). Now before we scoff, consider how true this banality is for many of us. Where are we at? Places that are occasionally bad. What do we really want? Love. Aereogramme deliver "Nightmares" with all the drama the situation calls for: they throw themselves into this bad dream, play it like it matters. And it doesn't feel anything less than honest.

[buy]

Coming Soon - "I'm Just a Child". Full disclosure: Some members of this band are not old enough to legally buy drinks. Coming Soon is the new project of Bear Creek et al, French teenagers who have played with Herman Dune, Kimya Dawson and the like. Here the band's more age-diverse and they've got a worse attitude. They swear, slouch, probably give the finger to after-show bumblers like me. And yet for all this: "Do you see that I'm just a child / I just want to play / and go on my way. / Do you see that I'm not wild / I'm a sweetie guy even if I don't smile." After listening to Aereogramme's dramas, it's appealingly relaxed; sung over a plain rock beat, with a high guitar solo like that first time you wrestled, flush, with a girl.

[MySpace / buy]

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One of the most interesting projects I've recently read about is Ballads of the Book, a compilation of Scottish bands (Sons &Amp; Daughters, Aereogramme, Vashti Bunyan, Alasdair Roberts, members of Arab Strap, Idlewild, Delgados, Incredible String Band, etc) performing songs with lyrics by Scottish authors (Ian Rankin, Ali Smith, Louise Welsh, A L Kennedy, etc). There's a sort of launch-gig in Edinburgh on January 30 and tickets are only £12.50.

Sleeping States - "Don't Make Me Over". I'm in Paris at this moment, stumbling past brasseries and gold foiled horsemen. I have my agenda: my chocolate to-dos and pastry obligations, friends to meet and greet, kindnesses to find, secrets to uncover. I have a map of the arrondissements, euros in my pocket. My shoes are tied. I listen to the snarl of cars and the snicker of vespas. I walk and walk and to be honest I am trying to be made over. The opposite of Markland Starkie's strange, sweet, wheezing love-song. "Don't make me over / now that I can't make it without you," he sings, but me I want to be touched, changed. I want a shadow to pass over my face and leave a mark. I want evidence of love to be writ in the rings under my eyes. Like I'm a bandit, they'll say: "That's a marked man." Nothing like Sleeping States, who asks his lover to accept him for "who I am". In all his gentleness an organ appears, a harmonium or something older, sounding beautiful & tired, mysterious and punch-drunk, the sound that I hear in my ears but no one can see on my skin.

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Do Make Say Thing - "In Mind". Do Make Say Think's new album is an utter joy. I've been complaining about how tired instrumental post-rock is, everything a rehash of Godspeed or Mono or Tortoise or Mogwai, but to my pleasure it's like Do Make Say Think have utterly ignored this, not even considered it, built on their first two four (very good) albums and unselfconsciously released something that dazzles. There are some vocals on "In Mind", fuzzed beyond recognition, and so in some ways it recalls Broken Social Scene (with whom DMST share some members) and Akron/Family (who also appear on this record). But there's something more direct in Do Make's strategy, the forward press of guitars, whirrs, drums, bells, mandolin (?), tambourines, horns - like a barn coming into sunlight. You, You're a History in Rust is a wonderful, wonderful work.

[do buy]

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Having finally met Chryde earlier this week, I do simply want to say (and say again) that you should go and explore he & his friends' exemplary work at La Blogotheque and the video Take-Away Shows (now in English!).

The Microphones - "Don't Smoke". I admit I mostly like this song because I like the idea of Phil Elverum throwing up the devil's horns in support of a public health statement. Also: lookit that, he's back to calling himself The Microphones. Mt Eerie, we hardly knew ya. So, yes: a racket about not-smoking. "Improve yourseEeeEellFf!" as guitars scream, drums smash, the earth roaring out because it likes you, dude, and doesn't want to see you perish of lung cancer. The bombast is turned up so high that you know that it's half-joke; the sound of throwing yourself against a concrete wall, over and over, happily. BECAUSE THAT'S BASICALLY WHAT SMOKING IS. BUTT OUT, TOBACCONISTAS.

[buy the 7". side two is: "Get Off the Internet". seriously.]

Y'All Is Fantasy Island - "A Sight In Sailsbury Falls". Continuing the long tradition of sad Scottish bands, Y'All Is Fantasy Island reject their name's frivolity and seem always drenched in rain. It's the same old story: a girl "did me wrong / so I drowned myself in verse and song". Shaker and guitar, a voice that's past caring, a sound that smells of wet soil. "Lay with me," he sings. If he wants us to join him in the grave I'll refuse. If he wants us to join him in his sorrow, in his house painted red... that, I'll consider. At least for tonight.

[Buy]

Keith Warren Greiman is an artist and illustrator from Philadelphia. I've never been to Pennsylvania but when I imagine the place I picture old grey buildings, plain beards, basketball, puritans. I definitely do not picture the stuff of Greiman's work, all pop-culture cave-drawings and technicolour caricature. It's a viciously live look and it's fascinating to see it in the service of three very different songs, illustrating each. As reggae plays, leopards kill each other and ride bicycles; Shuggie Otis drifts easy toward his psyche-de-tra-la-la-lic home; and the Make-Up look blissful in their chemical reverie.

Thanks so much to Keith for sharing his work. Please leave a comment telling him what you think! -- Sean

(Previous guest-blogs: artist Matthew Feyld, The Weakerthans, Parenthetical Girls, artist Daria Tessler, Clem Snide, Marcello Carlin, Beirut, Jonathan Lethem, Will Butler (Arcade Fire), Al Kratina, Eugene Mirman, artist Dave Bailey, Agent Simple, artist Keith Andrew Shore, Owen Ashworth (Casiotone for the Painfully Alone), artist Kit Malo with Alden Penner (The Unicorns) 1 2, artist Rachell Sumpter, artist Katy Horan 1 2, David Barclay (The Diskettes), artist Drew Heffron, Carl Wilson, artist Tim Moore, Michael Nau (Page France), Devin Davis, Will Sheff (Okkervil River), Edward Droste (Grizzly Bear), Hello Saferide, Damon Krukowski (Damon & Naomi), Brian Michael Roff, Howard Bilerman (producer: Silver Mt. Zion, Arcade Fire, etc.). There are many more to come.)

Belle & Sebastian - "Women's Realm". A train is bearing me south, to London. It's the day I leave Scotland, "leave" in a real sense, for the second time in my life. I like these times, times when your life jostles free and everything's as easy as some jangled Charlie Brown piano chords. Still, the least Scotland could have done is to send me off in style. But the heavens are indomitably clear, the sky frustratingly blue. It's not dreich in any way or form: it's beautiful and green and I'm almost in England.

Since the weather refuses to cooperate, I turn to Belle & Sebastian. Not for a rainy-day music but for something closer to sunshower. An ambivalent meterology that's better suited to the bittersweet taste in my life. And Scottish. It's a song in the rising major key of If. The question: "Are you coming or are you not?" Hands clap, snare snaps, and Stuart Murdoch duets with Isobel Campbell. Are they together? They don't sing together. All we know is that they're both wondering: If, if, if. And the sun strafes my screen so I can't see what I type. It could be anything. If, if, if. A train is bearing me south.

One day I'll be allowed to DJ somewhere and I'll put this song on and I'll jump the fence to be there on the floor, there with all of you, even Jordan & Julian, Darek and Hamza there too, Milo and Mel and certainly Ania, and I wonder if amid our softshoe sneak they'll be able to make out the pattern of our moves, the words our soles press into the dust.

If they do, I hope they send me the answers. On a postcard.

[buy]

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Dan Rossen (of Grizzly Bear) - "Graceland". The music of my childhood car-trips: Bach, Scarlatti, Mozart, Capercaille, The Roches, Dick Gaughan, that one Loreena McKennitt tape - and yes Simon & Garfunkel. But no Simon solo. No Grizzly Bear either. So it makes sense to me that this rendition of "Graceland" feels a little like eavesdropping on someone else's memory. There are angelic voices and the sounds of buried guitars. There's a man so happy to be longing.

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This weekend I made these cookies, these cookies and these cookies. All are recommended.

Sunday night in Glasgow I saw Joanna Newsom perform with a small orchestra. They did all of Ys, very elegantly, and then with her two buds she played "Bridges & Balloons", "Sadie", "Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie", "Peach, Plum, Pear", one Scottish original and one new one - replete with "Yip!"s. She wore white and her harp looked like something from a Marion Zimmer Bradley book-jacket. Her voice was lovely, practised, less burred than any of the three times I've seen her previous. And the concert was on the whole very pretty. But unfortunately for me, I'm realising "pretty" is never what I search for in Joanna Newsom's work. I seek sudden beauty. I seek the breaking more than the tasteful. And I wait for her to catch hailstones from the air.

Today's post will be delayed because internet on the train is too slow for me to upload songs. I'll have something for you as soon as I can.