Archives : all posts by Sean

While we wait for today's post proper, do dig the long-thought-mythical DFA-produced Britney Spears demo.

James "LCD Sounsystem" Murphy and Tim "just awesome" Goldsworthy spent an afternoon in studio with the lady, but the result was quickly cut from In the Zone. It was, quoth the label, "too hip".

"That was weird," says Goldsworthy. "Won't do that again. No offense to her—she's lovely. Got a foul mouth, though!" The brief session came to nothing, through lack of common musical ground. "When we work with people, we hang out, listen to records, share stuff," says Murphy. "But with Britney we had absolutely no way of communicating. She didn't know anything that we knew." (Village Voice)

Britney Spears - "DFA (Demo)" [Removed at the request of parties involved.]

Oh, and how does it sound? "Too hip", really. Cool-as-Snoop beats over a cowbell ring-a-ding-ding, Britney cooing like a lady lost in a mirrorwall maze who thinks she can coo her way out. Which is probably true.

Katy Horan lives in New York City and makes art. I've never met her, though I'd like to, but one day I stumbled head-over-feet onto her art. And I swooned, as one does, because there were animals and clouds, ships and zeppelins, people singing heart-songs and hedehogs murmuring secrets. It's a collage full of play and winks, a whimsy that's more hopeful than nostalgic, a liveliness that belongs in forest-bed or whirligig farm, in book or canvas.

Thank you so much, Katy. -- Sean

[More of Katy Horan's art can be found on her website, or you can keep track of Katy-developments on her blog. A little bit of her work is still on sale here. It's great. And you can write to Katy at katy@katyart.com.]

(Previous guest-blogs, in and out of the Said the Guests series: Hello Saferide, Edward Droste (Grizzly Bear), Will Sheff (Okkervil River), Devin Davis, Michael Nau (Page France), artist Tim Moore, Carl Wilson, artist Drew Heffron, David Barclay (The Diskettes), Brian Michael Roff, Howard Bilerman (producer: Silver Mt. Zion, Arcade Fire, etc.), Damon Krukowski (Damon & Naomi). There are many more to come.)

Just one because there is another (better) post coming later today --

März - "Everybody's Had a Hard Year". Monica sent me this about a year ago. Scott sent it about a week ago. I woke up a couple of days ago and it was 2006, and all around me peoples' relationships were coming to pieces, debris everywhere, and yet there's a clapclapclap in order because rosy clouds were in the sky, birds winging it all over, friends only a phonecall or an emailtap away. I went to Oslo and saw snow, slipped on ice, clinked glasses with a reader of this-here-place, and then back in Edinburgh I new-yeared with fireworks zip-popping all around, all around, a panorama of colour and spark and us in an empty golf-course, running through it, and i wonder wonder wonder what will come next.

März (or Maerz) cops from John Lennon's bit of "I Got a Feeling", but instead of strain this is all ease, stretching limbs out into the morning, the spring, the new year. put down that ship-in-a-bottle, that baggage, that oof. everybody's had a hard year: snap your fingers to the push of voice, the kind glimmer of organ and guitar, and light popsong lyrics that will teach you a thing or two about life.

[maerz's baffling site]

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A hilarious Eugene Mirman comedy clip at No Frontin' - we caught Mirman at this year's Edinburgh Fringe and his surreal (non)sense gags had me feeling glad to be alive. And I too am full of hate.

New mp3blog Red Ruin has a fantastic piece of "ethereal daydreamcore" by Japanese singer Ua. Waterbucket tictoc, says I; fancydress clockwork bjork. Red Ruin's author is the guy who sent through that great Downy track, some months ago.

Seripop has a most-wow poster for sale from the album launch for their band (AIDS Wolf).

Matt at You Ain't No Picasso has his best-of-the-year up, and the new-to-me thing that is most wonderful is the soft-fingered Shins-pop of Sambassadeur's "Between the Lines", which you can download there.

RIP NYLPM, which changed the way I listen to music. Thank you so much, Tom.

Also RIP Splendid, which was the boldest and most lunatic music ezine in the universe.

happy new year.

If you are an artist who objects to any music posted here, please please please get in touch with us directly. We are very happy to comply with your wishes - our intent is really not to piss you off. But it makes it much easier for us if you just let us know!

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Konono No. 1 - "Ditshe Tshiekutala". What's Konono numéro 1? I didn't really know. I saw it on a few year end best-ofs last year, and then it populated even more this time around. So I investigated. And good golly, would you listen to this.

Konono No. 1 is a Congolese band led by a man named Mingiendi. Mingiendi plays the likembé, aka the thumb piano. Recently, Toronto's indie scene has been mildly buzzing about the thumb piano - Laura Barrett's been plinking around town with her kalimba. Unlike Barrett, Mingiendi plugs his likembé through a distortion box, making his instrument sound more like a blurry staccatto electric guitar, a fast-flashing sound that dances around in the body of the listener. The rest of his band is made up of other likembé players, percussionists, megaphone-yellers and whistlers, and according to this page, three dancers and a "president".

While Congotronics is their most-talked-about CD, this recording is taken from Lubuaku, a live recording from a gig in Holland with unlikely tourmates The Ex. It's very important that it be listened to loud - the band usually play before a wall of speakers, plzzzonking into wooden microphones, the tumbling beats and darting likembé-notes rolling through the air like flurries of dust, sand, heat, spirit. To my ears it's not unlike the rhythmic racket of the DC go-go scene - its roots are after all similar, - but there's this brilliant hazy psych aspect, too; the ceaseless circling elicits an almost trance-like response, a falling into the music, solos driving up the elbows and feet, tossing heads back, scattering smiles, gasps and beads of sweat. It's the opposite of most "Christmas" music, and therefore all the more appealing as this writer goes diving toward Norway, spending a few days near the fjords.

[buy for $18.95 shipped]

Heron - "Yellow Roses". The mighty Goldkixx beat me to Heron earlier this month, but it's too worthy a thing to go unheard. Formed in Maidenhead in the late 60s, Heron were one of the country's hundreds of fresh-faced folk bands - peers of Fairport Convention, the Incredible String Band, Pentangle, etc. Their first, self-titled record was recorded "only in fields", in 1967. It's an appropriately pastoral record, warm as sun and sweet as lakewater, that feels as reminiscent of The Zombies as it does the Incredibles.

"Yellow Roses" is built on a flowerbed, piano and acoustic guitar, voices crisscrossing in a lazy dusk. Each part of the song - chorus, verse, bridge, - is a perfect little delight, and the band approaches each of these sections with a slow, sure pace. It takes its time: relishing the warm voice-on-voice, string-on-string, hand-on-hand, breeze-on-breeze. My favourite folk singer of this period is Nick Drake, I guess predictably, and so I hear "Yellow Roses" and I think of "Northern Sky" or one of Drake's happier songs - the evening's just opening right up, a life opening right up, a song sending you whirling through the million possibilities that lie ahead.

Heron - "Sally Goodin". A twenty second trifle, a clap-clap sing-song that I include because it makes me glad, because she must be quite the gal if you put aside strawberry pie and gooseberry pudding. She's there, in the window of that cottage over the ridge; squint and you'll see her, fair hair glinting.

Remarkably, Heron reformed in the Nineties and is releasing new music. There are lots of mp3 samples, new and old, here.

[buy Heron]

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You Ain't No Picasso has a great mp3 mix from another member of Bishop Allen, Justin Rice.

Kathryn Yu's favourite albums of 2005, and the descriptions thereof, are very worthy of your perusal.

And with that, I'm off to Oslo for four nights. See some of you there! I leave you in Dan and Jordan's steady hands.

Our file-hosting is back up, for the time being, and the last little while's mp3s should once again be available - this includes my Best Songs of 2005 feature, and lots more. Scroll down, browse the archives, etc.

To all those shortly celebrating Christmas: may it be merry, merry, merry.

To everyone else: have a happy weekend.

Said the Gramophone is still having some cause-unknown technical issues. I am waiting for Apple to reply to my three support queries. A couple people have come forward to very generously offer us temporary hosting (thank-you), and if things don't work out in the coming couple days we will act on that. In the meantime, Dan has set up a very-temporary hosting solution and so I offer you (again) these songs. The links work and you can download them. Unfortunately, all our older tracks remain unavailable for the time being. But please enjoy these and let us know what you think!

In the morning we will have a guest-post (yes, with mp3s) from one of Said the Gramophone's favourite musicians. (Hooray!)

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Emilie Simon - "To the Dancers on the Ice". The first time I listened to this, it was a nothing - a ring of synths, a mouse's precious voice. And the second time, too. But the third time I listened I realised that I was listening for a third time. And a fourth. And soon Emilie Simon's simple little song - a kinder Múm or Stina Nordenstam, a lovelier Cocorosie, a less peculiar Hanne Hukkelberg - was so dear to my ears that I couldn't ever turn it off. I just had to hear it through one more time; hear one more time that "my lover is gone", see the pirouetting ice-skaters, dream of cracks and the collapse of the pond.

Thanks, Audrey.

[buy]

Curtis Mayfield & The Impressions - "Only You Babe". only YOU, babe. .... only YOU bABe... How to transcribe this? I need a notational system that has room for sexy croon, for glad-silly swoons, for back-up singers who sound both like schoolyard chums and former lovers. I need to be able to indicate, with dots and lines, that a trace of 80s cheese is sometimes a lining of gold: i need to explain how a jazzy bump-and-swing has all the pleasures of a brisk afternoon in the mellowyellow sun.

[buy]
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You Ain't No Picasso's 12 Days of Mixmas continues with an mp3 mix from Bishop Allen's Christian Owens. Bishop Allen is one of the best bands in the world, but I am much less impressed with her song picks. It's cool that there are so many bands in the neighbourhood, but scene boosterism good music does not make... Anyway, that's just me: you will likely disagree!

The Kimmel Center in Philadelphia is having a Haiku Contest. Write a Haiku about a gig you saw this year and you could win a ticket to their Gary Burton/Brad Mehldau gig at the end of January.

Fluxblog's posted by favourite track from the upcoming Islands record (by Jaime and Nick & friends, formerly of The Unicorns). It cops a riff from my favourite Unicorns song ("Thunder and Lightening"), and I love the way the return of that thunder-crack chest-shaking sound splits the end of the song in two. Pop with thunderous guts.

Molars has put up pt. 1 of his favourite (50 or so, i guess) songs of the year. it's a mix, track-listed and all, with describing words (yes!) and downloads full. and a wide variety of good things, much of which i do not know.

Also elsewhere... many of you will remember Drew Heffron's guestblog here, where he illustrated songs by ELO and The B52s. The latter piece - The B52's "Trism", rendered in noisy-bumping colours and symmetry that isn't, - is now for sale at The Drama store, printed on vintage velvet cover stock! I do suggest you take advantage.

As of this writing, there also still remain prints from Tiny Showcase's last print of the year, a raucous doodlework by Ron Regé, Jr. (Oh, and somehow Drew's BBQ print is still available as well.) Great art for the price of a new CD...

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Like I said, we'll have more in the morning!

Emilie Simon - "To the Dancers on the Ice". The first time I listened to this, it was a nothing - a ring of synths, a mouse's precious voice. And the second time, too. But the third time I listened I realised that I was listening for a third time. And a fourth. And soon Emilie Simon's simple little song - a kinder Múm or Stina Nordenstam, a lovelier Cocorosie, a less peculiar Hanne Hukkelberg - was so dear to my ears that I couldn't ever turn it off. I just had to hear it through one more time; hear one more time that "my lover is gone", see the pirouetting ice-skaters, dream of cracks and the collapse of the pond.

Thanks, Audrey.

[buy]

Curtis Mayfield & The Impressions - "Only You Babe". only YOU, babe. .... only YOU bABe... How to transcribe this? I need a notational system that has room for sexy croon, for glad-silly swoons, for back-up singers who sound both like schoolyard chums and former lovers. I need to be able to indicate, with dots and lines, that a trace of 80s cheese is sometimes a lining of gold: i need to explain how a jazzy bump-and-swing has all the pleasures of a brisk afternoon in the mellowyellow sun.

[buy]
---

You Ain't No Picasso's 12 Days of Mixmas continues with an mp3 mix from Bishop Allen's Christian Owens. Bishop Allen is one of the best bands in the world, but I am much less impressed with her song picks. It's cool that there are so many bands in the neighbourhood, but scene boosterism good music does not make... Anyway, that's just me: you will likely disagree!

The Kimmel Center in Philadelphia is having a Haiku Contest. Write a Haiku about a gig you saw this year and you could win a ticket to their Gary Burton/Brad Mehldau gig at the end of January.