Archives : all posts by Sean

Regina Spektor - "Samson". So I went to see Ms Spektor last week, urged by a friend, and I knew next to nothing going in - a smidge, a smidgen; a peck, a kiss. I'll say it simple: I was dazzled. She was an artist of astonishing confidence, of deserving confidence, who despite her cold sang high and low, joked and cursed and lullabyed. I can't remember the last time I saw a performer who held such a fine conversation with the audience; a conversation made up of choruses and cadences, applause and laughter, eye contact and wide-mouthed grins. Who would swagger ballsy into a song, a mouthful of nonsense, knowing exactly how to lead it into tenderness and hush. I was hanging on every word - like an infatuated fool, a hooked fish.

I've spent the past week trying to find the same sparkle in her recorded material. I must admit that I've not had remarkable success. While her songs are sound, the strut and whimsy intact, something's missing in many of these recordings. The CD manufacturers were unable to catch the flash of her brown eyes. So it goes.

But there are exceptions, friends. "Samson" is one of these.

A piano ballad, yes, but one that's too oblique to just melt on your tongue. Instead it sits there like a pebble. Careful if you swallow it. Careful.

For a short time as a kid I was haunted by the story of Samson, I think mostly because of a depiction of Delilah that I saw in some bible-story comic book. She was very pretty, yes, but there was an evil in her dark eyes and plucked eyebrows. Forget the Ice Queen, forget Cruella Deville - it was this, the traitorous girlfriend, the lover who isn't - that terrified me.

Now, however, how willingly I give myself to her. In Regina's hands, the story is inverted. Delilah's lilting, dangerous name is never spoken. Samson goes to her willingly, tenderly. "You are my sweetest downfall," he says, looking into her brown eyes, at her red, red hair. He goes to her willingly, presents his head, and as she snips there's a new future unfurling. No collapsing columns, no fable to terrify poor little Sean; just lovers in a bed, limbs entwined, and a dawn that can stretch on forever.

[buy Songs]

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The Isles - "Eve of the Battle". When the boys from Interpol (the band, not the agency) wake up and go into their walk-in wardrobes, trying to choose a suit to wear, a song comes on the radio. It's a little distant, a little faraway, on the other side of the wardrobe door. But the boys from Interpol sing along, coming up with some fun and lazy lyrics to this fun and lazy guitar-pop beat. They're really getting into it as they try on neckties and dress-shirts. One of them tries a bit of handclaps. They grin into their mirrors. They remember the chorus and sing that. "Yeah," they think, tying the double Windsor.

Each one of them arrives to the studio with every intention of sharing the song they've come up with, but as they see the others arrive, everyone in suit and tie; as they remember the moody muddle that Interpol records are supposed to be; they let that pop song flutter away. This is no time for something like that.

But on the bright side someone else is walking down the NYC streets, scarf wrapped around his neck, and in comes that song, jerking-and-jangling, and it gets caught in this fellow's hair. His pal notices it there: "What's this?" And they start a band.

[buy stuff by The Isles]

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Last night? Clap Your Hands Say Mediocre. Could you at least have tried, fellows?

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Elsewhere:

After hearing Lajko Felix's "Etno Camp" at this blog, Ajit Anthony Prem went and cut a trailer for his short film, Dear Stranger, using guess-what as its score. The trailer looks every bit as sensuous as it ought to. Go see.

After a month's absence, Moebius Rex has returned with two terrific posts. Unmissable is the song that goes by the mouthful
James Murphy & Munk "Kick Out The Chairs (WhoMadeWho replay)". A sweeter pop-song than anything on the LCD Soundsystem LP (or singles!), Murphy struttin' like Charles Wright, organic funk with a chorus like fruit salad on a greygloomy Monday.

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Cat Power contest

A little over a week ago, I announced a contest for a copy of the new Cat Power album, The Greatest. The terms of the contest were that you had to submit two lines of lyrics for an imaginary song called "Bluebird Liquor and Black Crow Wine".

The response was amazing. We received well over a hundred entries, a remarkably high proportion of which I would love to hear in song. Sadly, for the moment, I must but imagine.

I enquired with the generous folks at Matador Records, and they have agreed to send out Cat Power posters to three runners' up.

Unfortunately, tonight there also comes the news that Chan Marshall has cancelled her US tour due to "health reasons". Matador is tight-lipped on the details, but Chan being Chan, I worry. Said the Gramophone hopes you get better soon, soon, soon. Be well.

But, yes, the contest winners. Without further ado -

"Blubird Liquor and Black Crow Wine"

First Prize (Cat Power - The Greatest [deluxe edition])
and we spun and we cried 'neath the oak and old pine
till the bluebirds bled brandy, and the black crows, sweet wine
by Yoshi

First Runner-up (Cat Power poster)
you can't farm sorrow, as dry as a bone
it gets stuck in your boots on the long walk home
by Merchant Marine

Second Runner-up (Cat Power poster)
we'll murder that bottle of blood-bellied drop,
and passion will steel us til pause turns to stop.
by Tim Byron

Third Runner-up (Cat Power poster)
We spent all summer in a run-down mine
Making bluebird liquor and a black crow wine
by Red Ruin

Fourth Runner-up (my applause!)
Lilac and moss shrouded our faces
Drunken and slurred, I undid her laces.
by Jeff

Fifth Runner-up (a dozen dozen tipping-of-hats)
Drunk on the poison that floats in the air
Her feathered robe's torn, there's smoke in her hair
by jane

Congratulations to the winners and thank you for all of the marvellous submissions. If anyone decides they want to draw upon this bounty to record a song, do let me know.

You can buy The Greatest at the Matador Store.

(To view all of the submissions, click through below the fold on this entry.)

Bülent Ortaçgil - "Suna Abla". In 1973 and early 1974, Nick Drake was alive. In Turkey, Bülent Ortaçgil was alive too. Drake visited France, he visited Milan. Ortaçgil recorded Benimle Oynar Mýsýn. They didn't meet, I don't think. But I like to imagine that Nick changes his plans, that he and Françoise Hardy altered course en route from Bologna. That they made a quiet, secret trip. It looks so difficult, there on the map - by boat from Italy to Greece to Turkey, or by road through the Iron Curtain, through a mess of Eastern European countries. But Nick coulda done it. He could have rented a baby blue car, driven with the windows down, long hours of happiness, his friend Françoise sitting next to him, she singing "Northern Sky" and he smiling at the silliness of it, smiling and driving.

And imagine they make it. They arrive in Istanbul. Françoise has heard about this folk club, down near the university. So they drop in and meet the owner. He's pretty hip, with a long moustache and thick-frame glasses. He serves them a strong tea in small cups. He speaks english pretty good. They ask about music and he says: "Oh-yes, oh-yes. There is music here. Tomorrow night. There is open mic." And they grin at this, Nick and Françoise, at the idea of an open mic in Istanbul. They walk through the streets that evening, smelling smells, seeing mangy cats on old stone walls. In the morning they are woken, in separate rooms, by the muezzin's call to prayer. They walk around, to the market. Nick Drake buys a handful of cardamom pods, just to hold in his hand and smell, till he finally lets them fall off and into the breeze.

When night falls they go back to the club. They are excited, buzzing in their bones, giddy with the feeling of a new city - with the room full of strangers singing songs.

Nick decides to play. He's one of the first and he shuffles bashfully to the stage, taking the offered guitar. Françoise claps heartily. He clears his throat and he plays "Which Will". And he's no more than a few lines in when already there are some murmurs in the room. There are exclamations of surprise, whispers. Nick is not used to having his songs recognised and for a moment he misunderstands, thinking he's offended them in some way. But then he sees the nodding faces; the handful of them that are singing along, under their breath. Some of them know him. Nick's always wanted to be famous, always wanted to have people sing along, but no not here on this day of strangers, on this night in Istanbul. He finishes the song but his face is downturned, hair over his eyes, and he is quiet when he goes back down to sit with his friend and sip his tea. Someone offers them a hookah and he says "No, no," turning away into the shade.

Bülent is next. They all know him there. The Turks clap for their friend. He nods to them. "Thank-you," he says, in turkish. Then he turns to Nick and Françoise. "Welcome," he says to them. Françoise smiles, "Teßekkür ederim," she says, clumsily. Nick says nothing. Then Bülent Ortaçgil plays.

He plays "Suna Abla". He plays it tenderly, carefully, but also gladly: he takes pleasure in the chorus and especially the short syllables at its end. His girlfriend's there on stage, hands held behind her back, relaxed as she sings. "La da-da," they go. Bülent's thinking of Five Leaves Left, which he loves so much, and there's Nick Drake in front of him, Nick Drake hunched over, staring at his fingers. Bülent Ortaçgil sings in turkish but he sings for anyone who will listen; anyone who knows dawns, dusks, entre chien et loup.

Six months later, Nick Drake is dead.

(And Bülent is still performing.)

(Thank you Dylan.)

[buy Benimle Oynar Misin]

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The Knife - "Heartbeats (OneMusic Session)". The Knife, twice in one week?! Why yes. A year ago, The Knife played on BBC's One Music, and on the show they performed "Heartbeats". It's a strange version, so much heavier than the pinball fizzing of the original, like all of the song's joy has been sunk deep deep in the ocean, where only anchors can trawl. While the synth-lines still run up and down, a voice twisted up in itself, it reminds me more of José González's acoustic cover than of The Knife's original take - they're both tugging the same threads from the song, pulling till there's nothing left in their hands. It's a song for a love dead and buried; yeah, for something drowned.

[pre-order Silent Shout (where this does not appear) / buy Deep Cuts, where "Heartbeats" originally appears / buy José González's Veneer]

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Dave at Popsheep has posted some lovely tracks by Colin Blunstone, which he says reminds him of Final Fantasy, but there's a ton of Joao Gilberto there, too.

My friend Steph is selling a bunch of funky valentines she designed. I choo-choo-choose you.

Winner of the Cat Power contest to be announced next week. Wonderful submissions (and lots more by email, too). Go a-browsing.

We find here Part Two of the collaboration between artist Kit Malo and musician Alden Penner, formerly of The Unicorns. For Part One - and an introduction to the material, - click here.

Thank you Alden. Thank you Kit. -- Sean

[Alden Penner lives in Montreal. He will be releasing the music from The Hamster Cage later this year. He will be playing some shows soon with a violinist called Adam. The first show is in Philadelphia on March 13th, at the First Unitarian Church. More dates to be announced. If you would like to write to Alden, please do: c.p. 61025, 4401 Notre-Dame Ouest, Montreal, Quebec, H4C 3N9.]

(Previous guest-blogs, in and out of the Said the Guests series: artist Rachell Sumpter, artist Katy Horan, 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.)

This week Said the Gramophone hosts a two-part guestblog that has long been simmering, carrots and potatoes and swede. Kit Malo is a Montreal artist. Alden Penner is a Montreal musician, who was one of The Unicorns (RIP). Today, and on Thursday, Kit and Alden are sharing things with you.

The music comes from Alden's as-yet-unreleased score for The Hamster Cage, an upcoming film by Larry Kent.

Alden's instrumentals are modest and kindly. There's some mischief but mostly it's a breezy, guitar-and-harmonica tra-la-la, something for Wind in the Willows river-rides and spring day picnics.

Two more songs and two more images on Thursday. Please make Kit and Alden as welcome as they deserve. -- Sean

[Alden Penner lives in Montreal. He will be releasing the music from The Hamster Cage later this year. He will be playing some shows soon with a violinist called Adam. The first show is in Philadelphia on March 13th, at the First Unitarian Church. More dates to be announced. If you would like to write to Alden, please do: c.p. 61025, 4401 Notre-Dame Ouest, Montreal, Quebec, H4C 3N9.]

(Previous guest-blogs, in and out of the Said the Guests series: artist Rachell Sumpter, artist Katy Horan, 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.)

Some further blog notes:

We are still nominated for the silly 2006 Bloggies. If you are so inclined, please consider voting for us for Best Writing. This despite the fact that today's post is relatively free of it.

Secondly, several Said the Gramophone readers (and me) are going to All Tomorrow's Parties weekend 2, in May. I will probably be booking two 6-berth chalets. There are a couple of berths left. If you are interested in joining us, have ~£132, and meet all the requirements here, do consider joining us. In the past two weeks, acts like Destroyer, Dungen, Herman Dune and Mt Eerie have joined the already-amazing bill. Update: 6 February 2006: All spaces in the Said the Gramophone chalets have now been filled. See you there!

Thirdly, go listen to the gorgeous new Sunset Rubdown song at Popsheep. I ordered my copy of the EP a few days ago, already - damn you, atlantic ocean!

We have another contest today. See below.

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Manfred Hübler & Siegfried Schwab - "The Lions and the Cucumber". So originally I was going to do a long post, adjectives and adverbs ad nauseam, all typically overzealous imagery. It was going to be about how these horns and jangles, sitar and electric guitar, grunts and gurgles and moans, are the soundtrack for some sleazoid leopardprint party, shag carpets and big lamps, retro girls swooning as they drop acid, become lesbians, suck their partners' blood. But then I paid better attention and remembered that this track actually is the soundtrack to a film about lesbian vampires, released in 1971, so I wasn't doing music criticism so much as reading the subtitles.

A famed b-movie, a famed soundtrack, and easily the least german german music I've ever heard.

[buy the soundtrack to Vampyros Lesbos]

The Knife - "Still Light". Strange that The Knife are now most known for writing "Heartbeats" - not for themselves, but for José González. Still Light is such a different beast than Deep Cuts: the firework machines have been dismantled, broken into scrap, buried. The synthesisers have been put into dark rooms, windowblinds drawn. It's not at all depressing; just black and silver instead of pink and gold, more Liars than Robyn. And "Still Light" is the album's most cowardly song, that shies right away from the beats elsewhere on the record, that doesn't know how to dance. But there's something I love in that: the way it's a musky nothing that disappears once it's gestured to you in the dim. (The other thing I hear: the same spirit that possessed Imogen Heap in "Hide and Seek". But this time it's dying.)

[out soon / preorder]

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A marvellous clockwork folk track by Shugo Tokumaru at No Frontin': he hears Sufjan Stevens and The Faces' "Ooh La La"; I hear friends runnin' in a flower garden.

Something Less Than Intended has droney, pinprick jazz by the Norwegian duo Opsvik & Jennings. And it's fantastic.

Grandaddy RIP :(

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Cat Power - The Greatest (limited edition) Contest

The new Cat Power record, The Greatest, was released on Tuesday. Jordan wrote about the title track (mp3), and I think I've mentioned my thoughts here and there as well. I'm an enormous fan of Chan Marshall, and this is an album of great dusky sweetness, all lush violins and horns.

Thanks to the kind Cat Power PR, we (like YANP) have one copy of The Greatest to give away. It's the "super limited edition digipak". I will quote the PR fellow: "they're super slick -- gold foil embossing and a special bonus track (the only track that hasn't leaked yet)."

How to win the CD?

This is the title of a song I just made up: "Bluebird Liquor and Black Crow Wine".

To enter the contest, you must write a rhyming couplet for that song I just made up. In other words: two lines of rhyming lyrics. Whoever writes my favourite couplet wins.

There are only two rules for the lyrics:
1. The two lines must rhyme.
2. They must be for the song called "Bluebird Liquor and Black Crow Wine".

There is only one rule for entries:
1. Please don't steal lyrics from existing songs.

Entries must be left in the comments to this post or emailed to sean@saidthegramophone.com with the subject line: CAT POWER CONTEST.

Entries can be in any language, but I am most likely to like ones in English. Lines can be as long as you like, but I am most likely to like lines that aren't absurdly long. Don't bother sending me an entire song or verse or anythin'; I am judging individual couplets for the song "Blurbird Liquor and Black Crow Wine".

Contest ends at 11:59 pm EST on Wednesday, February 2nd. Good luck! Contest is now over. Results soon.

David Tattersall and André Herman-Düne - "Our Perfect Lovers". Argh; I got CDs everywhere. In binders, stacked on the stereo, piled on the couch, all over my desk. CDs I've owned for years, CDs I've just bought, CDs that arrived in the mail, CDs I need to review for people, CDs I already reviewed... Things get lost and forgotten them remembered and celebrated. I pick up the phone and then notice an album underneath. I open the blinds and find CDs on the windowsill. I'm not complaining - having CDs everywhere is hardly a bad thing. But I am bemoaning. I'm a bemoaner. Because things get misplaced and then I spend two weeks not enjoying something I could have been.

Case in point: "Our Perfect Lovers". I went to see Herman Düne play in Glasgow at the beginning of the month and it was a fantastic gig. Like I say in an upcoming issue of ze Skinny:

French-residing Swedes in a crowded Glasgow bar, and they’re making a gangly folk-sound that’s part birthday party and part broken-down car. It’s four men with bags under their eyes: David-Ivar is chicken-legs and unfeathered elbows, playing guitar and hooting. André is bedraggled, long-armed; he smokes a wilting cigarette. There’s a drummer and a percussionist too, who sometimes swaps in on trumpet. And they play their songs: twisty songs with mispronunciation and pop-culture references, so tender and so human, songs about birds and winter ice and long-distance love. Sometimes a tune goes on a moment too long, but then a few beats later there’s a stamp of snare and a guitar solo outta nowhere, golden and thrilling. So we dance, we nod, we think of our silly lives, our chicken-legged and bedraggled lives, and we hear them sung: right there, in front of us.

Anyhow, "Our Perfect Lovers" is a Tattersall tune, with backup vocals by madam Clemence Freschard. And it's a song about using a salt-shaker to christen a tomato. The tomato's name? Chewbacca. The singers adore Chewbacca. They adore Chewbacca in a quiet, slightly trembly way, like a clothes-line looking longingly at the knickers and collared shirts that just blew away on the wind, twistywhirling down the streets.

It looks like you can buy The Streets of Philadelphia by following the instructions on this page. And look at what else is available! André Herman-Düne sings the songs of Dido! Et cetera! Holy. Moly.

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The Guillemots - "Trains to Brazil". The UK's going crazy for the Arctic Monkeys but man it makes me so glad that they're going at least a little crazy, buzzy and chattery, about The Guillemots. Forget snickery working-class wit and songs about your mate's girlfriend: The Guillemots sparkle with bombast and gaiety and whimsy. Whimsy is such a fine tradition in british rock'n'roll - see The Beatles, see (yes) The Cure, - but it's so rare on the rock charts these days, where we're overrun by greyfaced sincerity and nudge-nudge-wink-winking tracksuit chaps. The Guillemots sound so much like they're having fun, exulting in the chorus and the horn toodle-oos, the piano trills and phone-rings. They're yelling along at the back of the room, hammering along on the drums, bobbing their heads back and forth and then stampstampstamping when the bass-drum comes back. The Mystery Jets had the right idea but The Guillemots truly cheer. They take the song wherever it wants to go, so playfully: to the train-station, to the parade float, to the swan lake, to the surprise party.

James sent me this and when he was writing about "Trains to Brazil", a month ago, he pointed to "Come on Eileen", the Arcade Fire, and ELO's "My Blue Sky". Me, I point to that time when you ran, ran straight down those wet streets, straight as an arrow, and as you ran from where you were coming from to where you were going you realised there was a true and real smile on your face, just there, true and real, like I said. And you were running straght as an arrow and you jumped, for no other reason but because.

(I see Dodge talked about The Guillemots too, just a couple weeks ago. Blogosphere on the case!)

[buy]
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We are humbled and so, so warmed to learn that we are a finalist at the 2006 Bloggies, in the category of Best Writing. This is thanks to you. So thank-you. (Truly.) I'm a little surprised at how happy this made me. (Us? Who knows.)

The competition includes the formidable Dooce, who is also nominated for Lifetime Achievement, and another blog that posts photographs of celebrities and then talks digustedly of their "Incredible Sinking Breasts". Needless to say, our mixed metaphors stand little chance of victory. If you are kind, however - if you are a friend of this blog, or a lover, - please do vote for us.

Very few of my nominees made it to the final list. Which is baffling and makes me feel embarrassed. Nevertheless, if you are looking for some more people to vote for, might I recommend the foodblog Chocolate & Zuchini (best european weblog), indie-rock news-and-reviewblog Chromewaves (best canadian weblog), Indie Interviews (best podcast), You Ain't No Picasso (best teen weblog - oh matt, you are so cu-ute!), and Boing Boing (motley things).

Aaron Wherry wrote by far the most extensive and compelling essay on the Canadian election, Ashlee Simpson and Barack Obama that I have read this week. It is definitely advanced and quite possibly a Marvel.

The Lipstick of Noise is a poetry mp3blog!!!!!!

Come Pick Me Up is a new mp3blog with an emphasis on unsigned acts. Please therefore ignore the front-and-centre post on Ryan Adams. There are so many mp3blogs these days, of such diverse quality. Some have bold and beautiful writing; others have an amazing perspective, casting light onto genres I would never otherwise hear; others simply have great taste. And the rest are awful. Don't tell me about another MySpace band that sounds sorta like a given indie rock band. Share only treasures with me. Come Pick Me Up has taste, and is worth reading. Go.

Owen-Final-Fantasy says he's a couple of days away from finishing his new album, He Poos Clouds. "It sounds funny, glorious and much like career suicide. Every time we work on it me and Leon get feelings of jumping off cliffs. ... Pitchfork will hate it, the UK will ignore it and France will call it the Album Of The Year." I have been privately advised that a proposed alternative title was Alan Rickman: The Album. Grab some fresh FF live stuff here.

Beautiful China.