by Sean
today's post will be up late - another 4 hours or so.
Archives : all posts by Sean
|
by Sean
Lucky Luke - "Remember Me". A few weeks ago I saw Glasgow's Lucky Luke perform at the Caledonian Backpackers (of all places), in Edinburgh. I reviewed the show for Noise, but I don't think the write-up ever made it to print. The gist of it was that three of the four bands were tedious, but one - Lucky Luke - sent me reeling. I mean that almost literally. As the band stamped and pushed, drums crackling unpredictably in the back, harmonium pulsing, I wanted to stamp and push along with them, I wanted to crackle and pulse. My feet started marching, my heart started panging, and with Lucy's vocals so strident and alive, I felt like throwing my arms open, inviting in a gale. Lucky Luke live somewhere between Fairport Convention, Nico and White Magic. They're also a sort of much wispier Okkervil River, all that fury put into a fisherwoman's silken barbs. They're a band that heave. (Oh, look at 'em.) "Remember Me" is taken from Patrick the Survivor, which will be released in May. It may be the album's throngingest song, those surges of saxophone, the clapsnapping percussion. I think of the sun rising, light raking the ground, setting trees aflame, ravaging the land, making you remember. [order Patrick the Survivor] Brian Michael Roff and the Deer - "This Yellowed Yield". Gramophone friend BMR will soon be releasing his fourth LP, Inventory. It's his first with the Deer, a top-notch and understated backing band that includes David Michael Curry (Willard Grant Conspiracy, Thalia Zedek's band) on viola, Gregg Porter (Tigersaw, Hotel Alexis) on drums, Jim Reynolds on guitar/bass/banjo, and Casey Dienel on piano. Okay, so that's the background - now download this song. It's a simple alt.country tune, words wrapped into a dusty circle, but the more I listened to it, the more I was compelled to listen to it some more - the more I need to hear the guitar and the drums, Brian singing with sudden insistence. "And you try to get on." The viola sneaks up on you, faltering. The drums show you the way. And Brian sings better than I've ever heard him before, voicing his resigned truths as if they're things that he's just realized, words that sprang from heart to mind to lips. It grows on you, so let it (Please do listen!) MA residents, take note - he'll be on the radio at the end of May, and there's a CD launch in June. update: Catbirdseat has got another new BMR track (and a new look! ooh-er!) --- Elsewhere: A new mp3blog discovery (and sidebar addition) is popsheep, with writers from Toronto and Vancouver, who are indie-rocking from coast to coast. Big big big ups to Jay for previewing the new P:ano stuff. Yet another is Daily Reckless, who have been pointing to some excellent, particularly scottish, tunes. I will have to meet the author! Relaunch and new writers at Moistworks, as well as a post about sean-fave Washington Phillips. Finally, Neale's blog-post on the poetic potential for Google Maps is absolutely beautiful, totally brilliant, and makes me so excited. I love the way this brings together a City and its spirit, the way the cultural consciousness gets spread out onto a map. I am desperate to see some other cool work on this. --- Here: I am STILL waiting for broadband internet to get hooked up at home, and it will be a while yet.. Apologies if my email/blogging behaviour is consequently erratic. I've decided to set aside my "musical tour of europe" posts and space them out a little. I was getting really frustrated with it, and I think it'll be better if I just post about my european musical adventures when I'm feeling motivated (instead of out of obligation). I wasn't very happy about the quality on several of the entries, and there wasn't much feedback, so I'll put it on the back-burner. Great songs still to come, though - from Bosnian hip-hop to Italian prog-folk. Very busy this week, as Triptych's come to town. Tonight - The Earlies, Micah P Hinson, Archer Prewitt and Sam Prekop. Tomorrow - Arab Strap and Mugison. Saturday - the, um, Beltane Fire Festival. And Sunday - Cat Power. Speaking of shows - how were those darn Arcade Fire/Wolf Parade/Final Fantasy gigs!? There was an extraordinary lack of updates from the people I know. What rocked, what didn't? "Dinner Bells" with strings!? Win's mom on harp?! Dish! update: i see there's been some talk about the first two Toronto shows, but neale's minireview is the only thing i've seen (other than boring forum posts) about Montreal... Oh, and - what do you think of these songs? by Sean
Hi team. Jordan should be posting something later today. In the meantime, Stefan's posted a fantastic translation of the Siekiera song I posted, in the comments for that entry. (Highlights include: "Is there a horse riding here?" and "Did they eat a Negro here?") Elsewhere, um, I've not really been on top of things lately, as I wander around looking for a job and trying to get our freakin' internet hooked up, but you could do a lot worse than downloading Fluxblog's track from the new Herman Dune. It's fantastic and you better believe that if I had heard it first, it woulda been here. (Sadly, the Herman Dune's on the long list of records that I want to hear but haven't yet, alongside Akron/Family, Oneida, Greg Macpherson, Estelle... argh.) If any of you talk to the band at one of the Arcade Fire gigs in Montreal/Toronto this weekend, please say hello from me (for real)! And now, a rant on Coldplay: Dear god, band! Why do you do this to me? For years I have stood by my assertion that "Parachutes" was one of the finest albums of that year, standing tall alongside "Kid A" or "Agaetis Byrjun", or whatever else came out that year and I've forgotten. I fought for you in arguments, even in those early days when people weren't so skeptical. I yelled that "Parachutes" was brilliant, joycore, an album that is like a hit of pure heat, feeling, light. The songs may grate individually, sure, but give me the whole thing, loud and in my ears, and it's like a sunburst of bold song. The critics said you guys were pap, boring, MOR nonsense. No! I yelled. No! Listen to "Parachutes" with your skepticism off. Let yourself love it! It's simple - guitars, piano, voice. No nonsense, just heart. But then you released "A Rush of Blood to the Head", which wasn't entirely crap, but close. I liked "In My Place" and maybe "The Scientist" (or at least the Aimee Mann cover). But the rest - blurgh. Exactly as the critics had claimed. Beige and boring. Yet the fanbase went wild, the sales soared - it's as if the world was proving all those skeptics right. Oh well, I said, and I kept yelling that "Parachutes" was great, in spite of it all. But now! Now! Jesus! Listen to that single thing, "Speed of Sound". Even the piano has an adult contemporary gloss, a pukey shine, and the chords are pretty, sure, but they don't go anywhere, the song stays like dull, happy-shiny music, nothing of power, nothing of substance. This new album is going to suck so hard, clearly so, and I'm going to be left even more desperate as I defend "Parachutes". Why do you do this to me? Oh Chris Martin, why do you do this to me!? Is it Gwyneth that makes you do it? Apple? Why do you smear your own reputation by transforming into the very caricature your enemies drew? Why do you make your great first album so difficult to listen to, without bias? Why!? Please stop! ok, i'm done. by Sean
Okkervil River - "The Latest Toughs". Recently I wrote about "For Real", the lead-off single from Black Sheep Boy, Okkervil River's fourth LP. I hadn't yet heard the record, but my hair had been blown back, my heart turned hard and black, from that song. Now, however, the album's in my hands, and I'm even more affected. Black Sheep Boy is a marvel, wider in scope, deeper in sentiment, than anything the band's done before. Whereas I got annoyed at Down the River of Golden Dreams, wishing the non-Sheff parts of the band hadn't been shunted to the side, here they're cooperating like the finest pirate crew off the American east coast. It's a song cycle about a freakshow kid, or maybe the devil, about fear and violence and boldness and inevitability and rebirth. It's folk music and rock 'n roll, it's the fiercest record I've heard this year, and probably the one most intensely felt. Some of it shimmers and shuffles, but a surprising amount of it bursts, explodes, roars. Lots of critics have commented on Sheff's over-abundant voice, but I don't hear any of Bright Eyes' spitting insanity. No - he's quiet in the right places, he sighs and goes numb, he fades to grey, and then when the words crackle, when they flame, he's there putting voice to them. "The Latest Toughs" is fantastic just because of how pop it is. When the band climbs their hilltop and crunches into the chorus, when the guitars are sunstabbing and the spirits are singing backup in those ridiculous high-pitched voices, when the tambourine shakes and the rhymes are rhyming, it's crazy catchy, it's glad, it's wonderful, it'll shove you over and then pick you right up. It'll punch you in the face and then stitch up the wounds. (And I didn't even mention the album's artwork! William Schaff has outdone himself. It's a beautiful object - go buy it.) Cranebuilders - "Public Space". Gloomy indie rock from Liverpool - not gloomy like rain, like Radiohead or Coldplay, but gloomy like Glencoe when the clouds are hanging but not doing anthing, gloomy like Nick Cave or Smog when he's down. Since I don't make things easy for myself, "Public Space" isn't really gloomy, actually - it's one of the lightest things on Sometimes You Hear Through Someone Else. Tommy Roberts has a bit of a growl to his voice, just enough rasp to ground the ethereal harmonies. Chugging to the chorus, things break into a glittering place, a numb-and-dreamy dancefloor narrative, the hook like a hook. I imagine a tired, cathartic dance at the two minute mark, one man alone on the silver floor, drink in hand, trying to let his feelings out. [buy] by Sean
Sons and Daughters - "Medicine". Boy oh boy! Tongues were wagging, sure, when Sons and Daughters released Love the Cup, a mini-album, last year. But would you listen to this! The lead off-track from their upcoming LP, "Medicine" is just over two minutes of stomp-kicking joy - well, joy in the musical sense. The bass drum is one neverending thump, a dancefloor heartbeat, the voice in your head that makes you want to throw yourself off that cliff. (And if you wait for the throaty bolt of guitar in the left channel, you'll get a glimpse of what happens if you do go head-over-heels off the edge.) Adele and Scott sing, they yell, and it's gloriously glaswegian - at last a band that sounds like the streets they trudge through. I could reach and make a reference to Johnny Cash, to old-fashioned country, but despite the mandolin I won't. I'll only say that there's danger here, the mild danger that leaves you breathless, that I want to get through that scary night and break into a hall full of people, this music in the speakers, all of us stamping and dancing and clapping and shouting, with all our hearts. I don't just want to be hearing this raucous melodious noise - I want to be making it. [pre-order The Repulsion Box (due in June) / buy other stuff]
So I didn't listen to the Woman King EP till this past weekend, away in Glencoe, prompted by John's post at ILM. But it's marvelous! Certainly the best thing that Beam has ever released. In beside his hushed vocals is a jittering array of percussion, the thrum and strain of piano, violin, electric (!) guitar, and other voices. More than any of this, however, what excites me is the feeling of menace on the recording. For the first time there's the tang of evil in Iron & Wine's songs. "Evening on the Ground (Lilith's Song)" is brilliantly brief, a story compressed into a icy flashing question-mark. Beam says "fucking" within the first few lines, and then it's all about spider-bites, dying, a waterside... Something's approaching, or fleeing, or promising to return. The fiddle juts in before you're comfortable, then the bound thrash of the guitar. Beam's croon is suddenly scary, a fearful or fearsome whisper. It's rich, dark and full. It's a thicket. It's fine. [buy] --- Elsewhere: Stylus gets it exactly freakin' right on the new Magnolia Electric Co. It's a fantastic review. --- Welcome to visitors from the Ottawa Citizen (especially anybody I know!). Please consider saying hello in the comments - and please do stick around. You'll hear from Jordan (and maybe Dan) later this week. by Sean
[this is the sixth in a continuing series, exploring the music i discovered when travelling in europe last fall] It seems kind of stupid to say that Nase Vec's Horky Menu is one of the best hip-hop albums I've heard this century. I mean, I don't understand any of the raps. They're in czech. I haven't even been able to find translations. So maybe I won't say that; maybe I'll hold out for the day that I understand every word, that I can nod in time with the wit and wordplay. In the meantime, I'll say simply that Horky Menu is fucking fantastic. It's almost seventy minutes of cool and scuffling beats, the insistent force of the raps by Drone, 2Jay, Scissal, Tafrob, Apoka, Janek, Kolpa and Dup. The scratching is great, wild and whirling, with chunks of sound that arrive like pianos to pavement. The rhymes tumble over each-other, standing in line like dominoes. Maybe it's like Talib Kweli, maybe the Cunning Linguists, maybe Tribe. Since I can't understand them, everything sounds like a gesture toward something else, a nod, but so too could it all be brilliantly original, a hoarse eastern-european birth. Horky Menu is almost seventy minutes long. It was released in 2003. Here are three tracks. Nase Vec - "Intro". These are the overlapping shades that open the record, folds of sound and the fading echo of a saxophone. There's a crew here, too, first one voice and then a gang, a group to nod and ruminate while DJ Opia scratches. A group to wait as things stutter to a stop - this is just an intro. Nase Vec - "Bez Nadsazky". Dup's production is a lacework of czech folk guitar, short tumbles, then the sneering of saxophone, that friend whose sarcasm you admire. Dup and Drone synchronize their flow, a strut down a hill. They mention Fubu, that I can read in the liner-notes, but the rest is a push of words. Listening, I feel propelled despite myself, like theirs are sounds I once knew but forgot. It means something - I know it means, I'm sure of it, - but I'm left grasping at what that might be. Noumenal. Nase Vec ft. Illuzionists - "Tisicdvestedeset". Here's DJ Opia showing off, a DJ instrumental, with DJ Nneser and DJ Chocolatic as "Scratchpart" (scratch partners?). It's all surges and diversions, a rocketburst down the road then a sudden jerking stop, people crossing the intersection, men on bikes and women in heels, bureaucrats and double-dutching kids. Entering the city-center, there's more people lingering on street-corners, cowboy hats and gangstas, all lounging under Prague's absurd architectural majesty. Conversations in back-rooms, then the traffic bursting behind them, the green-light red-light flow, everywhere, dialogue governed by it. A journey, a trip, a life. Visit Nase Vec's website. [buy] --- if anyone knows anyone at Web Nymph, Kinja, mp3blogs.org, or any of the other mp3blog amalgamators, could you please ask them to update the saidthegramophone feed to our new domain? thanks. by Sean
[this is the fifth in a continuing series, exploring the music i discovered when travelling in europe last fall] To Poland! We arrived in Warsaw before dawn. We walked to our hostel through the worst snowstorm that Krakow, meanwhile, was one of the most joyous experiences on my trip. Wawel Palace and the older districts are individually characteristic, elegant, but then there's the sense that as the city extends, so too does a vivid cultural life, arts and individuality. We ate cheap pierogies for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We saw posters for the Cool Kids of Death. I bought music. Siekiera's fantastic 1986 album, Nowa Aleksandria, was entirely unknown to me, and it comes to my hands because of Paulo's comment on this blog. Thank-you, Paulo, wherever you are. "Ludzie wschodu" is icy and hot, it quickens the blood. It's cold wave from communist Poland, both awkward-hip and disorientingly alien. They sing in Polish, but amid post-punk keyboard stabs or the growl of the guitar, it's easy to understand the simple human noise of "hey!", "da da da" or "hey-ha". Joy Division is certainly a major touchstone (especially in the drums), but there's a greater fury here - unlike the Manchester boys, these Poles are expressing some of their pent-up feeling. A train-car rattles and then we're off, soles on a pavement, the arc and flare of street-lights, the long lure of an alley. 'Siekiera' means 'The Axes'. There's violence in the music, but also the ache of violence unexpressed. It's a chill that you shake off, a rage you vent spastically, in a basement. (And, like the whole of the album, it's awsesome.) [buy] On the other side of the spectrum - ROBOTOBIBOK. ROBOTOBIBOK - "Skipping C". This is a contemporary Polish alt.jazz combo, and "Skipping C" comes from 2004's Nawyki Przyrody. It's a wheeling mix of horns, drums, and a boiling vibraphone, energy and flowing feeling, then the skittering human fade-out of vocal sounds and song. Instead of being bored by the track's circular energy, I love it - there are brave stabs amid the repetition, streaming impulses that make each repeat a renewal, a reincarnation. It's a city's flow, the silver threads of streets, dawn's burst of population, swirling lanes, then the fade-out of sun, the emptying-out of those valleys. It's no surprise to me that the band's played next to both Fennesz and the Chicago Underground trio. Visit their website to buy the album, and to grab some more mp3s. --- Elsewhere: John at the Tofu Hut is looking to try something new. He is one of the hardest working mp3bloggers, spending countless hours on research and composition, far beyond the average amount of writing and scavenging. He is soliciting donations - regular donations - to see if he can't make a micropayment go at Tofu Hut full-time. I applaud his decision to resist advertising, and so too do I suspect he's the mp3blogger most deserving of financial support. Please head on over there and consider helping to support the work he does. (While you still can, you must also download Xn.'s glittering, stunning live cover of Sufjan Stevens' "Vito's Ordination Song".) Also loving this track at Stereogum, by (sixeyes faves) the Akron/Family. --- After yesterday's total silence, could someone comment today so that I know that the new comment system is working? (Thank-you!) see some older posts | see some newer posts |
This is a daily sampler of really good songs. All tracks are posted out of love. Please go out and buy the records.
To hear a song in your browser, click the  and it will begin playing. All songs are also available to download: just right-click the link and choose 'Save as...'
All songs are removed within a few weeks of posting. Said the Gramophone launched in March 2003, and added songs in November of that year. It was one of the world's first mp3blogs. If you would like to say hello, find out our mailing addresses or invite us to shows, please get in touch: Montreal, Canada: Sean Toronto, Canada: Emma Montreal, Canada: Jeff Montreal, Canada: Mitz Please don't send us emails with tons of huge attachments; if emailing a bunch of mp3s etc, send us a link to download them. We are not interested in streaming widgets like soundcloud: Said the Gramophone posts are always accompanied by MP3s. If you are the copyright holder of any song posted here, please contact us if you would like the song taken down early. Please do not direct link to any of these tracks. Please love and wonder. "And I shall watch the ferry-boats / and they'll get high on a bluer ocean / against tomorrow's sky / and I will never grow so old again."
about the authors
Sean Michaels is the founder of Said the Gramophone. He is a writer, critic and author of the theremin novel Us Conductors. Follow him on Twitter or reach him by email here. Click here to browse his posts.
Emma Healey writes poems and essays in Toronto. She joined Said the Gramophone in 2015. This is her website and email her here. Jeff Miller is a Montreal-based writer and zinemaker. He is the author of Ghost Pine: All Stories True and a bunch of other stories. He joined Said the Gramophone in 2015. Say hello on Twitter or email. Mitz Takahashi is originally from Osaka, Japan who now lives and works as a furniture designer/maker in Montreal. English is not his first language so please forgive his glamour grammar mistakes. He is trying. He joined Said the Gramophone in 2015. Reach him by email here. Site design and header typography by Neale McDavitt-Van Fleet. The header graphic is randomized: this one is by Matthew Feyld.
PAST AUTHORS
Dan Beirne wrote regularly for Said the Gramophone from August 2004 to December 2014. He is an actor and writer living in Toronto. Any claim he makes about his life on here is probably untrue. Click here to browse his posts. Email him here.
Jordan Himelfarb wrote for Said the Gramophone from November 2004 to March 2012. He lives in Toronto. He is an opinion editor at the Toronto Star. Click here to browse his posts. Email him here.
our patrons
Said the Gramophone does not take advertising. We are supported by the incredible generosity of our readers. These were our donors in 2013.
search
Archives
elsewhere
our favourite blogs
(◊ means they write about music) Back to the World La Blogothèque ◊ Weird Canada ◊ Destination: Out ◊ Endless Banquet A Grammar (Nitsuh Abebe) ◊ Ill Doctrine ◊ A London Salmagundi Dau.pe ◊ Words and Music ◊ Petites planètes ◊ Gorilla vs Bear ◊ Herohill ◊ Silent Shout ◊ Clouds of Evil ◊ The Dolby Apposition ◊ Awesome Tapes from Africa ◊ Molars ◊ Daytrotter ◊ Matana Roberts ◊ Pitchfork Reviews Reviews ◊ i like you [podcast] Musicophilia ◊ Anagramatron Nicola Meighan ◊ Fluxblog ◊ radiolab [podcast] CKUT Music ◊ plethoric pundrigrions Wattled Smoky Honeyeater ◊ The Clear-Minded Creative Torture Garden ◊ LPWTF? ◊ Passion of the Weiss ◊ Juan and Only ◊ Horses Think White Hotel Then Play Long (Marcello Carlin) ◊ Uno Moralez Coming Up For Air (Matt Forsythe) ftrain my love for you is a stampede of horses It's Nice That Marathonpacks ◊ Song, by Toad ◊ In Focus AMASS BLOG Inventory Waxy WTF [podcast] Masalacism ◊ The Rest is Noise (Alex Ross) ◊ Goldkicks ◊ My Daguerreotype Boyfriend The Hood Internet ◊ things we like in Montreal eat: st-viateur bagel café olimpico Euro-Deli Batory le pick up lawrence kem coba le couteau au pied de cochon mamie clafoutis tourtière australienne chez boris ripples alati caserta vices & versa + paltoquet, cocoa locale, idée fixe, patati patata, the sparrow, pho tay ho, qin hua dumplings, café italia, hung phat banh mi, caffé san simeon, meu-meu, pho lien, romodos, patisserie guillaume, patisserie rhubarbe, kazu, lallouz, maison du nord, cuisine szechuan &c shop: phonopolis drawn + quarterly + bottines &c shows: casa + sala + the hotel blue skies turn black montreal improv theatre passovah productions le cagibi cinema du parc pop pmontreal yoga teacher Thea Metcalfe (maga)zines Cult Montreal The Believer The Morning News McSweeney's State The Skinny community ILX |
Poland's seen in decades. But that was okay. Warsaw is a heavy city, almost oppressively post-communist in feeling, everything squatting concrete or, like the Palace of Culture, top-heavy and looming. The old city is handsome, but even there I couldn't escape the knowledge of the sprawl all around us, the people packed into coats, the endless stretches of sidewalk.
