Archives : all posts by Sean

in the midst of a whirlwind trip to montreal; will have to make this quick.

Gareth Auden-Hole - "Angelina". A beautiful song from this Ottawa-Toronto songwriter, who has yet to release his first record. He sings like a lugubrious Danny Michel; his jaunty guitar plays wonderfully against the slow sighing pulse of the song. Guitars crack and stream, like too many sunbeams through a window. I love the happysad of the song, the way two futures coexist - 'It's over this time.' and 'Does it have to be?"

The Avett Brothers - "At the Beach". A melody too catchy for its own good, an energy to carefree-frantic for a holiday. Loose and jumbly guitars, whistle solos, a punk-pop enthusiasm mixed into a barrel of bluegrass. Like that White Hassle song, only more dirt roads in place of pavement. "We're dancin' / dancin' / dancin' with no music." Clem Snide having fun, Okkervil River after a handful of funnypills. [Thank-you, Brad!]

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The Arcade Fire's Funeral scores a 9.7 from Pitchfork. This is good news. Unfortunately, Dan and Monica's internet seems unable to resolve the pitchforkmedia.com URL, and I have yet to see the review.

A Whisper in the Noise - "Silence". This is a dark one. Not sure why I picked it... Perhaps it's all the rain. Or maybe Napoleon Dynamite turned me goth. Regardless, let's look at the components: 1) radio static; 2) hauntedhouse pizzicatto strings; 3) affable horns; 4) a ghostly latin choir; 5) parched alt-rock vocals. Oh yes, and then heavy piano footsteps, branch-cracking drums. This wouldn't be out of place on Clint Mansell's Requiem for a Dream soundtrack, nor would I have been surprised to hear a Trent Reznor connection. But there isn't one. A Whisper in the Noise is from Minneapolis and Steve Albini is manning the boards. It's a song that dredges things up from the well and then holds them into the light. Dogs barking in a rainsoaked park, glowing eyes in the ruins of churches. Fear without claustrophobia. (From 2002's Through the Ides of March.) [buy]

Thalia Zedek - "Evil Hand". With October will come the release of Thalia Zedek's new record, Trust Not Those In Whom Without Some Touch of Madness. It was recorded in Montreal (on entirely analog equipment), and I can't help but feel it carries some of that city with it. There's a thickness to "Evil Hand," a depth to the smoke. Perhaps it's the way the drums smash - loud - over the weave of violin. Or the way Zedek never really stops singing. But I remember cool, wet nights in Montreal, walking down St-Laurent at 3am, streetlight glare and the rattlespray of an occasional car. Abandoned, and yet with all that wide city on either side: east and west and north, houses for as far as you could walk. Homes. Zedek's been recording for twenty years - with Live Skull, Come, and on her own. Her delivery carries the weight of years and pushes past it. She glances at the night and then strides boldly into it. She snuffs out candles and lights whole torches. It's the widowed Courtney Love, singing at a gypsy dive. [buy later]

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As part of a project asking various (mostly Italian) people about their "5 easy pieces," 5 pezzi facili has my "five most relevant songs." Although the bands are all acts I've written about before, - The Beatles, Julie Doiron, Wilco, The Arcade Fire, Gillian Welch, - I'm more happy with the comments I made there than with most of my recent writing. So please do read, and let me know what you think. (Also, there is a beardless photo of me, which was supposed to be in Saturday Night, but wasn't.)

Preview my interview for Tofu-Hut-John's betterpropaganda mp3blog series.

Add another one to the list of alternate URLs for Said the Gramophone: joining elvithprethley.com, shakeitlikeapolaroidpicture.com and, um, tangmonkey.com/blogs/music, is saidthegramophone.info. If you're bookmarking a URL, I prefer you use the unwieldly tangmonkey one (it's better for tracking web-referrers), but for catchy-easy-to-remember, the alternatives are probably superior.

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Andrea pointed me to the work of Mindy Smith. You can stream/download a song, there, called "Come to Jesus," which is a wonderful cup of country pop. In the earnest harmonizing chorus, I get all goosebumpy and full. I'm not so sure about the guitar solo, but the rest is great; sweet and grim at the same time.

The Swish is a new english mp3blog with its ear to the ground on a bunch of dance and indie stuff. club-flavoured and very peppery. (also, it doesn't work on Camino/Mac.)

Erdmöbel - "In Den Schuhen Von Aubrey Hepburn (Klavier)". Richard's the man in Germany, and he sent on this beautiful song by Cologne's Erdmöbel. The title translates to "In the shoes of Audrey Hepburn," and I really haven't a clue what it's about. But I'm kind of glad. The piano streams by as Markus Berges (?) sings; drums press with that fine, steady pressure; horns and guitar join in; and the bass says nothing, but you know he's your friend. It's so effortless and wonderful, such a gentle pleasure. Springtime by a fountain, blossomtrees leaving spots of shadow on the courtyard. "If you are feeling fancy-free," he says in English, and that's enough for me - I'd not want this marred by poor lyrics, nor complicated by good ones. Just let those low notes play on against the high ones, let a doe-eyed brunette spin in my mind's eye, let the clouds break, rejoin, and break again. (NB: This is the piano ("klavier") version of the song, from the eponymous EP, and I see that there's a different rendition on his other LPs.) [buy]

Julie Doiron - "The Songwriter". A week ago, I mentioned the new Julie Doiron record, Goodnight Nobody. There were a couple of mp3s on the Jagjaguwar page, both suggesting good things for the album. Well, it's now out - and yes indeedy, there's something special here. A fine return after the slight dip of Heart & Crime, Goodnight Nobody shows more diversity than any Julie Doiron record I can remember. "Tonight Is No Night" is simple and lovely as anything on Desormais (my favourite Doiron album) - guitar and voice and violin. "Good Night" is a twisting, bare-branched instrumental unlike anything she's done before. Herman Düne provide backing on much of the album, and "Snow Falls in November" shows the perfection of the pairing: the little sounds of banjo, the knock-kneed drum, the bloom of Doiron's voice.

But it's "The Songwriter" I wanted to share with you. This is a song that appeared in different form on Doiron's 2003 split with Okkervil River. But where the first version was soft, barren, the Goodnight Nobody recording is noisy, ablaze. It's the juddering return of the Julie Doiron who played with Eric's Trip, who didn't have to worry about waking her kids. Songwriting with spikes of anger, sudden corners and black patches. Most reminiscent of Songs:Ohia's live record, Mi Sei Apparso Come Un Fantasm, "The Songwriter" is a hard, bright, heavy thing, bursting out of a train-tunnel. It could knock me down. [buy] (Oh my; she's going on a US tour with Mt. Eerie. Go go go!)

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Thanks to Kenny, I was able to obtain a clean CD rip of the Kelis/Bjork "Oceania" remix, and I updated the blog mp3 yesterday afternoon. If you missed it, make up for lost time. :)

An interview at The Morning News pointed me on to The Rest Is Noise, a superb musicblog by Alex Ross, classical music critic to The New Yorker.

Readers of Canada's oldest national daily, The Globe and Mail, pick their favourite for the American presidental election.

Bjork w/ Kelis - "Oceania". It's a mix that's head and shoulders above the original, straight hot feeling taking over for ambiguity. It's lovely to hear Kelis's thick alto beside Bjork's sharp pixie theatrics: Bjork sounds less like the crazy lone-wolf aunt, more like the cherished, mysterious friend. I love the burbling remnants of the old production, the Milkshaking new backing. Medulla bored me, and I was frustrated with how barren the original "Oceania" was -- for all the production flourishes, the chanting and bubbles, the song grew tired long before it trudged to its coda. But this - it's full of longing, full of push and not just pull. I swoon at the thought that Bjork's doing something with Beyonce. [from the limited release "Oceania" single]

The Love Letter Band - "I'll Fall in Love". Twinkling bedroom pop from Even the Pretty Girls Take Medicine. It's remarkable how the techniques of bands like The Robot Ate Me, Mt Eerie, Love as Laughter and - yes, this one, - can be used to make such beautiful things. While The Unicorns turn to big red electric guitars, construction paper cut-outs, the Love Letter Band tries to share its truth by singing simple words. Theremin mingles with acoustic guitar, xylophone and marimba. It's a drone of soft melody, waves smoothing to shore. "I'll move to Mexico / I'll let the ocean wash my pain away / I'll let the desert do its job ... With big brown eyes I'll fall in love." [buy]

today i bought silk longjohns.

[3:46pm update: thanks to kenny, have replaced the Kelis radio-rip with a full-quality version.]

K-Os - "Emcee Murdah". With Joyful Rebellion, Canada's foremost "conscious" hip-hop head is back. The album's getting props all over, and to my great surprise, he's even charting - JR had the highest debut ever for a Canadian "urban" artist. (Argh. I hate the quotation marks. By "conscious," I mean that K-Os willfully positions himself in oppposition to the rap mainstream, framing them as poser-thugs, him as honest-poet (this of course is bullshit); by "urban," I guess Billboard means "black".) His success is certainly being propelled by "B-Boy Stance," a fine first single that's even making inroads on MTV2. Like Kanye before him, K-Is is mixing party with thinky, to some considerable success. Joyful Rebellion isn't groundbreaking, but it's heads and tails above the last time I heard him. "Emcee Murdah" opens the album. K-Os is more Wyclef Jean than The Streets, but the song reminds me somehow of "Turn the Page." Perhaps it's the strings, perhaps it's the seriousness, the stony gaze. Guitar loops like the opening theme for a California private-eye, violins lay out the stakes, and Spanish guitar strums out the chorus, blossoming in the final minute. K-Os swings from desperation to determination, pleading and berating. His rhymes aren't exactly Ghostface or MF Doom, but - again like Kanye - there's an eloquence in his simple honesty. "We love hip-hop / stop / please stop / please." [buy]

Capstan Shafts - "Posters for Cats Disappeared". Brad sent me an email, telling me about this strange one man band.

An immaculately packaged mp3 by this band appeared at my college radio station office with no explanation or documentation but I threw it on the cd player and man it COOKS. When I wrote him some fan mail he responded by just sending more cd-rs. Apparently he has released a full length and three 6-7 song eps this year which is completely fucking crazy considering the quality of this lo-fi pop music. Anyways we here in little ol' Geneseo NY are completely enamoured by this guy (and his magnificently packaged full length is only 4 dollars!!)...

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Stypod is the fantastic new mp3blog by the makers of Stylus Magazine. Catch the fine Skitz (ft. Wildflower, Tempa, Estelle) track.

And Orbis Quintus is excellent and new, from badgerminor + pal. The Borges reference makes me glad, and the politics make me cheer. Also: Les Georges Leningrad!

Goddam Guest - "Pass the Word [Beastie Boys/Beatles mash-up]". A big-eyed, bright-faced mash-up that takes rap and breaks from "Pass the Mic," crooning vocals and organ from "The Word". It's so energized, so bright orange. The Beatles step out hand-in-hand, moptopped sidekicks to the spastic Beasties. The percussion is a machine of gum and string - I love the way the piano drops in, the interrupted "Heyyy-". It's a track that's better than either original, and by the time the MCA is yelling over the organ, back-and-forthing with the chorus, I've forgotten that it was ever any other way.

Nancy Sinatra - "Baby's Coming Back to Me". A new track from Nancy's upcoming record, written by Pulp's Jarvis Cocker. While the song is full of steel guitar sighs, it's the sound of someone lying back in her chair, full of weary relief. The lyrics are definitely Cocker, all wry romanticism, but the Pulpish pomo strutting's been stripped away: "He was just sleeping somewhere / and now he has come to hold my hand." Nancy lets the song speak for itself; she's liquid and happy at her baby's homecoming. "I feel like I am surely dreaming." There are only hints of her underlying resolve, the strength in the emotion. At the close of the song, it's unsaid but clear: if her baby reneges on his word, does not "come back," Nancy won't be sadhearted - she'll be mad. Nancy Sinatra is out September 28th, on Sanctuary Records/BMG. Amid tracks by Morrissey, Jon Spencer, Steve Van Zandt, and another by Mr Cocker, the other clear stand-out is "Burnin' Down the Spark," with Calexico.

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Here is a picture of a jellyfish:

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I've been writing Said the Gramophone since the spring of 2003, but on September 23rd, I set off for a three-or-four month tour around Europe. During that time, the blog will be left in the capable hands of Jordan Himelfarb - musician, critic, compadre. He will bring an entirely new outlook to the table - different tastes, different knowledge, different words. I'm excited, and you should be too.

We begin a two-week countdown, then, before I pass the reins to Jordan. Hopefully I'll be able to pop my head in the door during my holiday, but after the 23rd, it's unlikely you'll see much of me until 2005. Consider this a head's up.

Furthermore, while Julian and I backpack around, I'm hoping for the opportunity to meet some of Gramophone's international readers. I've heard from many of you, but if you live in one of the following cities and might be willing to show us round, put us up, or even just grab a drink, I'd be delighted to hear from you. The cities where we have not yet found friends: Glasgow, London, Belfast, Tallinn, Riga, Krakow, Prague, Bratislava, Zagreb, Sarajevo. (People in Dublin, Cork, Ljubjlana or Budapest could drop me a note as well.) I truly appreciate everyone's hospitality.

More good music this week - stay tuned!

I now understand where the Bush girls get their deadening sense of 'humour': their father.

Sons and Daughters - "Awkward Duet". Dave introduced me to this duo after seeing them on a double-bill with the Fiery Furnaces. Guitarist Adele Bethel and drummer Dave Gow are pals of Franz Ferdinand, and toured with Arab Strap: in short, they're Scottish. They're not twee, though. While the guitar sounds like it could sit on a lap, it's got a sharp edge. Elsewhere on Love the Cup, Sons and Daughters play a song called "Johnny Cash." And he would enjoy this - quietly, with serious eyes and the smallest of smiles. The guitarplay reminds me a little of The Cay, and I like the way the drums rush forward, predicting the press of vocals at the chorus. For all the song's motion, however - the rattle of brushed drums, the weave of electric guitar, the late appearance of a humming horn, - "Awkward Duet" feels essentially immobile. Someone standing by a parking lot, swaying, wanting but unable to move. Originally released on Ba-Da-Bing, the album has been reissued/remastered through Domino. [buy]

Miles Davis & Modern Jazz Giants - "Bags' Groove [take 2]". Recorded on Christmas Eve, 1954, this is to me pure summer. It's Miles Davis (trumpet), Milt Jackson (vibraphone), Percy Heath (bass), Kenny Clarke (drums), and the inimitable Thelonious Monk on piano. Jackson's vibes are cool as raspberry ice, a soft bed for Monk's solo - it's easygoing, then forceful, then a jarring birdcall and the windmill tilting of any love-affair. And then easygoing again. Miles notes the hidden hesitation, acknowledges it, drifts slowly out into the theme. Effortless, brilliant, full of feeling - even if Davis told Monk to shut up for his solos. [buy]

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A Million Stories is a beautiful new site for true stories, big and small. I will absolutely be adding one of my own, and so should you. Like Bittersweets but less bittersweet; like Fray without the self-importance. Wonder at it!