Archives : all posts by Sean

Glancing below, and listening to the songs in today's post, I've got to tell you. There is some fine, fine music to be found here. So please, dig in.

White Hassle - "Life is Still Sweet". Clatter, chummy oohs, the honk of a big-grin harmonica. Dan sent me this bursting berry song, this stomp with friends through a field. You close your eyes as you dance, wag your hands a bit, let your suittails fall across the face of your 7-year-old cousin, Poppy. She laughs. Life is sweet! No - no. Wait. It's not just that the world rules, that it's "totally amazing". No, life is still sweet. Still. Regardless of that other shit. White Hassle play the happiness that comes after you've recovered from a tumble, after your lover comes up behind you in the rain. "Just forget what I said last week." It's like Bishop Allen with a humble peacock singer, a glad conductor who's stolen bits of Clem Snide. It's a single and it's fun and it sets toes a-tapping, cattails a-wagging, life a-sprinkling. I'll take some more, thankyouverymuch, even with the "toaster"/"wonder" rhyme. [buy]

Wolf Parade - "Killing Armies". The band's signed to Sub Pop, but the new EP's not, and so I do a thing I rarely do - make two posts about one record. This is Wolf Parade's second untitled EP. They're from Victoria and Montreal. They're Frog Eyes with Franz Ferdinand, a brawl between weirdos. "Killing Armies" tumbles over itself as it leaves the gates. Spencer rants like a stoned Oscar Wilde. He lets his hair down; he "heard she's very startling." We clop and sway and sprint and smash, we stall, then - Wait. "I heard you're killing armies now-" And there it is, a guitar that claws at the sky, that runs through houses. Fire and motion and- military back-and-forth, organ climb, Dracula disco, and lassitude sedative trilling noxious driftoff to slee-

(yes, a mess of things. which is fine.) [for you, scott!]

Read a fine review of the EP at My Life As a Reptile. And you can mail-order it from Montreal's Cheap Thrills. Do.

an advance sneakpeek of the new Microsoft Music Store, courtesy of a pal. $0.99 WMA files (i believe), meant to compete with the iTunes Music Store. To use, must have a PC and be American. Since I don't, and ain't, I'm not sure what kind of limits are on the tracks you download.

On first glance, while the design is surprisingly clean, I'm not sure what this is offering that the iTMS's not. Support for chummy (WMA-wired) devices, I suppose, instead of Apple's AAC files. But the price is the same, the selection is smaller (and weak when it comes to indie, classical and jazz), and, well, Microsoft is evil.

Will this just be a repeat of the Buy.com music flop? Or does MS have big enough guns to take Apple on - without a better product?

Yes and no, say I. And thee?

Yesterday, we argued about James Joyce. Today, we talk about the Arcade Fire.

Win has given his blessing to the following transmission, and you can look forward to another amazing track to be posted two amazing tracks have been posted over at Keith's. At last, I can make a proper post about Funeral, my favourite album of 2004-so-far.

Regular readers of Said the Gramophone will be familiar with the Arcade Fire, and my hysteria about them. I've been attending their shows since late 2000 (i think) - I've heard the band learn, grow, flame up and burn out. Two years ago, I wrote a mediocre piece for tangmonkey called "Three Albums To Watch". Forget what I said about Radiohead and Sigur Ros, but the third album on the list of hotly anticipated records was the debut by the Arcade Fire. I spelled Régine Chassagne's name wrong, and I wrote this:

As I listen to The Arcade Fire, their music touches on the sublime: that approach of terror, of true awe, when the music seems enough to overtake you.

But Funeral, which is due this month on Merge, is no disappointment. It reaches the "hallelujah" of the live show, it shakes and shines and roars. The band no longer sounds anything like Neutral Milk Hotel. Now - as Win always spoke of - it's the Talking Heads with pop-song garlands, Neil Young with New Order, rock music that slips through night streets, singing to the stars with long curls of strings. It's rock'n'roll with a bit of Debussy and even some disco stomp. While electric guitars snarl, harps glimmer; while drums thunder, accordions grin. It's music that's brave, earnest, and that yearns desperately to be heard. You can read the biographical info in this excellent Exclaim cover-story, but as Howard says, "The Arcade Fire are not five kids who listened to the same ten indie rock records."

Also, the album itself - the packaging, the liner notes, - is beautiful. Full of craft and spirit and the sort of whimsical flourishes that turn things into treasures.

So. Here are some samples. And I hope that you'll listen to these tracks, buy the record, see them on tour (with the Hidden Cameras or without), and maybe understand what I'm so worked up about. What I meant when I said something as ebullient as this:

this new thing - this awesome, driven, clear-eyed music - is as fine as anything else in the whole world ... It's liver and wholer and smarter. It feels, and it fills, and it's got choruses that you can sing along to.

It's the beauty of a thunderclap, an avalanche, of the earth breaking under your feet. No more do they cajole you: they shake, they threaten, they yell, they plead. "WAKE UP." Parents, children, siblings, lovers, lonelies, human fucking beings - WAKE.

The Arcade Fire - "Tunnels (Neigborhood #1)". My sister says it's the best song she's heard this year. And my sister doesn't say things like that. This is what opens Funeral, the tune that saunters out of the wood, slips into the starting blocks, and then lightnings into your heart. When the high-hats break out between those guitars, that fierce realisation of a destination, there's suddenly magic loose. And when the steel drums ring like synths or The Edge or Joy Division or aurora borealis or something, the chorus becomes a necessity, a truth I need Win Butler to sing. I'm caught up in it, struggling through those snow-tunnels, lying in other peoples' beds and dreaming fearing screaming. He sings of parents - "What ever happened to them?!" - but when he yells it, I hear something different: "WHAT THE HELL WE GONNA DO!?" It's a song to dance to, to sing to ("ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh"), for cresting love or overwhelming faith. And when at 3:20 we hear that bit of the chorus that's never been sung before, that glorious new rise, I feel like a door's opening up in the sky, a bright goldredgreenblue window: "the song I've been trying to say." [pre-order Sept 3]

The Arcade Fire - "7 Kettles (Neighborhood #4)". Funeral is an album of extraordinary breadth - "Power Out" has Modest Mouse's fury, ""Haiti" has the Sugacubes's smoulder, "Une année sans lumière" keeps some U2 gleam. And "7 Kettles" is acoustic guitars and whispering violin, a ballad whose foundation reaches deep into hills, over and across horizons. It could be a song of loneliness, of faith. But it's probably not. "Woo," Win says quietly, like he's calling to his horses. Kettles whistle. "It's not a lover I want no more. And it's not heaven I'm pining for. But there's some spirit I used to know, that's been drowned out by the radio." Some might snark that "7 Kettles" is about the need for indie rock's ascendancy, for Britney's tumble. But that's stupid. No, this is a dream of kindness and soul, a hopesong for art and community and love. Tenderly they play. They hope so deeply, so strongly. They ache so gold. Let's go home, let's find home. Please. [pre-order Sept 3]

At Teaching the Indie Kids to Dance Again, you can listen to the crunch and sparkle of "Laika" - accordion, dissonant-smooth strings, the churn of guitars. (Dig the spooky vox at 1:50.) You must also grab "Crown of Love," one of the album's highest points. It's a half-cracked waltz, a desperate one-two-three into the evening. As the love and heartbreak soar, the strings are suddenly pushing, the drums are kicking up dust, and we're dancing into that imagined future. Hold on to your hat, clutch your chest.

Keith's right about the way that Win's vocals have matured, but it's also worth saying that on two songs, Régine leads the way - heartfelt, insistent, a little otherworldly.

10:17am update: stream some more tracks courtesy of Merge. (via catbirdseat.)
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Word has it that Howard Bilerman, the Arcade Fire's drummer, has left the band. He also helped record Funeral - exceptionally. And he guest-blogged here last week. I'd simply like to thank him again for his kindness, his grace, his work, and his art. Best of luck in everything to come.

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Here is Elsewhere has some snippets of what sounds like a really beautiful remix project -- a Manitoba-like revisitation of the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind soundtrack. RealAudio samples are available.

Finally, as Sean the sell-out, I invite you all to check out Hip-O Select, an mail-order site with all sorts of rarities, imports and classic records. From Abba to James Brown to Fela Kuti. Click on the banner to hear some streamed tunes, and to help my chances for a 20G iPod reward.

I'm back.

Thank you so very much to the guestbloggers who filled in when I was away, and to all those who shared your comments. Thanks to Adrian for making it possible. Thanks to Monica (whose mystery was solved), to Howard (read the comments for a crackin' Loveless argument), Liz (I wish her well as she tramps across the Continent), Sasha (amazing eloquence, and UB40 with bite [!]), Julian (the Jim Giuffre 3 track is like a sad, strong, hot, long drink), Dan (yes, he would be pink), Brian (buy his new EP), Benjamen (read the comments for a discussion on the ethics of murderers' music, and, well, politics), and Tuwa (succulent, blue sounds). I hope it was as much fun for you as it was for me to read your pieces, listen to your selections, and then to see what others had to say. You must all start a group-blog called Music for Awesome People Who Rule.

Thankyou also to those places, like Fluxblog, who pointed people our way. Matthew kindly called my vacation "well-earned." It probably wasn't. :) But you must not miss his MTV VMA play-by-play, if only for this cogent observation: "The guy from Yellowcard looks like Alan Cumming playing Eminem in a tv movie." Let me tell you, the "guy from Yellowcard" was a stain upon my MuchMusic-watching hospital stay.

There's music below, once we make it through the long grasses of the opening monologue --

So it was a very pleasant holiday, all staring at a lake and listening to music (Glenn Gould! Kanye West!), and reading thrown in for fun. Started on Saturday with a drive to Shawinigan, patronage capital of Quebec. Kosmogonia is a swanky outdoor rotating-stage circus thing, where acrobats fight creaky flamethrowing "oiseaux-tonnerre". It was extremely earnest, quite capably performed, and burdened with a most convoluted, synchronistic plot. ("The Alphas choose their Omega babes this time! But the thunder-bird is angry! So they fight! And he turns into the Sun! And steals some girl to be the Moon! And then Time comes and he has giant fingernails! So they lift-off on an ancient greek rocket-ship!") What I found most interesting about it was the idea of Kosmogonia as Canadian tourist attraction. Contrary to your expectation for such things, it wasn't the content that felt Canadian (it was a weird Xena-fantasy pastiche, albeit with aboriginal design flourishes) - but the form. This is the sort of theatrical, high-concept circus that Cirque du Soleil brought to worldwide prominence, and I'm sure that most of the performers were trained in places like Montreal.

The next morning, visited Noah's Ark, which brought us to Shawinigan in the first place. It was really an outstanding collection of sculpture - thoughtful, entertaining, and immediately compelling. An extraordinary variety - from Picasso to Nick Park, - but it never felt pretentious; always whimsical, clever and inspiring.

And then to an auberge on Lac à la Loutre. En route, the roof-rack blew off, we blew a tire, found the spare was flat, and I closed my dad's hand in the car door, but all emerged (mostly) unscathed and spent the next seven days in deep relaxation. Since the shower relied on lake water (and I still nurse a lake-infected wound), I didn't wash. But smelly people can still enjoy a holiday, and since coming home I've rectified the situation.

I read some books:

Mordecai Richler - The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. Sean's attempt to catch up on the classics continues (see also this summer's forays into Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Nathaniel West and Flann O'Brien). Richler is (was) the grande old father of contemporary canadian fiction, and it was a pleasure to dip a toe into his early 20th c Montreal. Very peculiar to be reading a book where much of the action takes place steps away from my old house. I was taken by the characters, by the scruffy energy of the book, but ultimately... I don't know. The ending sort of slipped into a grey lake and I didn't quite care. Richler's prose was surprisingly dull; like a masculine Atwood, utilitarian and without panache.

Peter Carey - Oscar and Lucinda. Carey writes wonderfully. His books are dense with charm and detail, like bits of seaglass pressed into a wall. I enjoyed Illywhacker very much, up until the dreary end, and Oscar and Lucinda suffers from the same flaw. Carey takes such care to build up his structures, to erect them for a shining moment in the middle - but then he knocks them right down, always just a little too soon, before we will quite have a sense of what we lost. Still, it's an excellent and surprising love story: gambling, god and Australia.

Tove Jansson - Moominland in November, The Exploits of Moominpappa and Moominpappa at Sea. As memory-jog for the upcoming trip to Finland, I grabbed three of the melancholiest moomin books (couldn't find Moominland in Midwinter). And it's reaffirmed: Jansson was a treasure. These books are so filled with whimsy, sadness and love - like the wisest stories that a child might ever imagine, or the best things an adult might ever dream. For those of you who don't know them, you must. Go find Finn Family Moomintroll immediately. Thank-you.

Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Haddon's "murder mystery" has scaled the bestseller charts, and it's easy to see why. The writing is light, intelligent, and full of humour - better still, the autistic protagonist is totally arresting. We never sit too long on a particular topic - prime numbers, red-car-counting or outer-space - and instead skip about, catching only snatches of what's 'truly' going on, the blunt reality of Christophers mum and dad. Unfortunately (sense a trend, here?), the ending is awful. Everything is wrapped up in a neat few pages; the resonances are silenced; and the lasting impression one of mere fondness, not depth.

James Joyce - Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man. I like Dubliners very much, and hated most of Ulysses. I hoped Portrait would be a middle ground, but - sigh. My frustration with Joyce is in his indulgence. He is an astonishingly gifted writer; he plays with language in ways I can only envy-

He was alone. He was unheeded, happy and near to the wild heart of life. he was alone and young and wilful and wildhearted, alone amid a waste of wild air and brackish waters and the seaharvest of shells and tangle and velied grey sunlight and gayclad lightclad figures, of children and girls and voices childish and girlish in the air.

John Le Carré - Absolute Friends. This is the best novel LeCarré's written in years. And - woosh! - the man's found some new fount of energy. The whole book is electric, its characters positively brimming with life. Munby is a delight - kind, whole-hog, smart and certainly as naive as his beret-wearing pal, Sasha. We travel from post-raj Pakistan to Berlin's radical 1960s, then through the fog of the Cold War and into today's harsh, clear air. It's a dazzling, exciting, likable book, and one that punches you in the gut just as it's wrapping up. It's a cruel world, this post-911 place. If only the ending weren't quite so clumsy, politically. LeCarré commits - for the Left - the very same sin that his characters criticize in the Right: he portrays all of the baddies as a single, colluding group. That's blind, partisan foolishness.

and I'm mid-way through Jose Saramago's Stone Raft, which is very good. But has too many commas. (Like me!)

Why aren't there bookblogs, like mp3blogs, with thumbnail reviews and two-page chunks so we can sample a bit? Someone start one.

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okay!

The new Tom Waits has leaked, and it's something very interesting, but you won't hear anything here because no songs on Real Gone are truly "Singapore"-level fantastic, and you're all gonna listen to them anyway. I'm tempted to post something more from that fresh Wolf Parade EP, though, because it is rad.

irregardless, you should listen to these:

Dinah Washington and Brook Benton - "Baby (You've Got What It Takes)". Tuwa wanted to include this in yesterday's post, but it just didn't fit. Since we don't want to let grand things go to waste, however, here we are. Oh my - listen to (feel) the guitarline, the highglossy nudges of strings. And oh oh oh of course there's Washington and Benton, playing and smiling. Cherries and milk chocolate, a first date that's full of nonsense. It rains umbrellas, there's chain-gang on the board-walk, the philharmonic is wearing victorian swimming duds. Through it all they dance dance dance, their shoes squeak, and (fade out) the night won't ever end. no. (This was recored in 1963. Dinah died three years later. Sleeping pills.) [buy]

Antony - "The Lake [live]". A - the - lake. Antony's voice trembles like water ripples. The piano starts bare as ice, then thaws into a deep, full blue. He got his start in NYC's afterhours cabarets and you can hear it here - Vincent Gallo's sipping a chilled drink, Devendra Banhart's sober and blackeyed. The song is so wobbly and yet so strong - one moment erect, then suddenly tipping leaning swooning over that darkbright still-lapping lake. It's peculiar that such a thing can be so powerful; that the artifice fades in the flow of the song, that its affectations fade under the dilute light.

Antony does interesting, arty things - he's in Buscemi's Animal Factory (anyone seen it?), and sings on Lou Reed's The Raven. I heard this on Banhart's psychfolk Golden Apples of the Sun comp, which is basically impossible to find... But you can buy "The Lake" on the Live at Saint Olave's split. Antony "and the Johnsons" also have an EP due coming out in November, and an LP due next year, both on Secretly Canadian.

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Music is a Virus is a fine, fresh mp3blog (yes, another!), that runs the gamut from Herbie Hancock to My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult. And, reminiscent of Mewsic, it's got a nice Democratic sheen.

Pregnant Without Intercourse is Ottawa-based (!) and points to fine local acts such as the Hi Lo Trons (heard here last week), and Jim Bryson.

It seems Julie Doiron has a new album coming out in September called Goodnight Nobody. I haven't heard it yet, but there are two mp3 samples here, and both are wonderful. Herman Dune is the backing band. I am very excited.

Finally (hoo boy this post is long), the sidebar now was a little addition to show me just how much lifetimes have been spent, writing here. Said the Gramophone is currently words long.

So! As I said on Friday, I'm going away for a week to read books in the Laurentian mountains. If all goes well, we'll also be swinging through Shawinigan to check out Mr Chretien's new gallery. The reading list includes Richler, Joyce, Saramago, Jansson, Carey, Burgess and Haddon. Wish me luck.

Said the Gramophone will be left in very capable hands. That is, I've arranged things so that posts should automatically be made August 23-27, and again on Monday the 30th, so I can have a day to get back in the saddle. It's remotely possible that something will go wrong with the pre-posting script. In that case, never fear, all of these guestposts will appear the week after.

On Monday, Thursday and Friday, there will be two posts.

The guest-posters for Said the Gramophome are, in random order: Dan Beirne, Monica F, Howard Bilerman, Julian Smith, Brian Michael Roff, Sasha Frere-Jones, Liz W, Tuwa Baap and Benjamen Walker. I extend to all of them my most heartfelt thanks for answering the call and doing me a big favour. Please make them feel welcome by leaving comments on their posts. :)

Thank-you again to the guests, to Adrian for helping set up the techie end, and thanks to all you readers. I'll see you all on the 24th.

Oof - Friday already. It's funny how weeks will sometimes slip right by you, tigers in the grass.

I wrote a couple of days ago that the new Idaho record, Vieux Carré, was doing very good things to my ears. And you know, it really is. But I was a-thinking about how much I was enjoying it, and how familiar some of the songs seemed to be. And then I checked the track-list again. Oh my. Well aren't I the fool. Vieux Carré is a German compilation. I don't know if it's a "best of" or simply a retrospective, but these songs have all been previously released.

All the more reason to buy it when it's released in September.

Idaho's not a household name, even in indie circles. And yet for twelve years Jeff Martin and his shifting band has been recording thoughtful, breathing rock music - like a river that snakes through the deep woods, dark grey and rarely visited. Idaho's not an act with sparkle, with confetti bursts. But in their best work, the slowdrifting songs seem to come alive with feeling. The overcast sky bursts suddenly, terrifically, into a downpour. Whereas Low's beauty seems heavily considered, worked towards, Idaho makes these overcast songs that occasionally and unexpectedly blossom. When the band fails, the songs simply drudge and drudge and end (see also the Red House Painters). But when they succeed, the music is glorious, magic, and maybe even timeless.

If inconsistency is the plague, however, a well-selected compilation is the cure. And Vieux Carré is wonderful. Some selections:

Idaho - "Bass Crawl". Rudderless noise and then that slow bass crawl, a human pulse. This is a song about breaking out of love, gulping up for air, of leaving it so that you can return. The love is whitecharged, beautiful. It's the arcs of an electric guitar, the rosy shadow of Malone Koenig's backup vocals. When Martin begins to sing, she's there - the guitar's smile, that quiet "underloaded" voice. Later the guitar circles back, still calling him, but when we return to Jeff Martin's singing - Koenig's gone. He's left her behind. Now Martin's alone with the guitar's beautiful pleading sound, that visceral memory. He steels himself, he tries to explain, he listens to his bloodflow and tries to feel the grounding bassline. He lets the noise flame on its own. Originally released on 1997's Forbidden EP.

Idaho - "To Be the One". 2000's Hearts of Palm featured the same basic lineup as the Forbidden EP - Martin with guitarist Dan Seta. "To Be the One," however, showcases none of "Bass Crawl"'s guitar solos. Instead, it's a flush, whirring love-song. An organ winds around Martin's voice, drums appearing like perfect coincidences. It's at once gloomy and aglow, a warm piano and cool atmospherics. Martin lets the song slow to a plod, everything stretching out for just a moment... and then drums, chord change, the stirring lift of the chorus. "What you're talking 'bout is pure." Perhaps they're words for doe-eyed indieboys, but as the song warms it's so very hard to stay cynical. [buy Hearts of Palm]

And, because I wouldn't want to finish the week's mp3s on such a dreary note...

Donkey Boy - "Midnight With Simon". Yes, it's a song that's centered around masturbation, but man, the beats here are awesome. The crunch of the downbeat, the seething feedback, and then the coda's astonishing slip into acoustic guitar. This is part of a new album by Donkey Boy, to be released in 2005. Dave DeCastris is writing song-stories about the absurd sheen of Midwest normalcy, the "freak" neighbours who stare through the window as you eat your cereal. The song's protagonist has his hand in his pants, yes. He watches TV and then he falls asleep. But around it all, the buzz of guitar, the tumble of percussion, and that peculiar shift into glimmery guitar.

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A big cauldron of summery folkpop is available from The Twin Atlas, a Philadelphia-NYC duo. My favourite is "Rooftop Sounds," with its jangly acoustic guitar and tree-swinging bassline. Elliott Smith jamming with Saturday Looks Good To Me.

Here's a wonderful photo-essay on a Japanese arcade. Madness lives there. [via whimsy incorporated]

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Next week I'm on holiday at a cabin in the Laurentians (so long as the doctor lets me go!). There will be no break in programming, however - I have a wonderful list of guest-bloggers lined up. More info to come.

Elizabeth Anka Vajagic - "Iceland". Whiskey fumes and an overwarm room, this is an extraordinary tune from Vajagic's gothic folk debut, Stand With the Stillness of this Day. Elizabeth has a thick, bluesy voice, with just a little curl of madness in the chorus. "I'd like to go through Iceland / now," she sings, either confident, desperate, seductive or drunk. A piano plinks hauntingly in both speakers, with occasional passes by a beautifully recorded cello. The song's smeared in shadow, but there are also little flames of blue light. She's always one step away from a cabaret stage, completely lost in the song. Singing like Thalia Zedek or maybe Carla Brozulvich, she wanders in and out of the wings when it suits her, the other players taking their cues from tilts of the head, the way her hair falls over her face. [buy]

Splashdown - "Mayan Pilot". And, for those of you not so given to latenight Drambuie sipping, here's a lovely melon slice of pop - funky bass and spanish guitar. Melissa Kaplan sounds like a more restrained Nelly Furtado, nimble-voiced as she dances from lyric to lyric. The drums are just as light, a scattered dancepulse of snare and highhat. Perfect at less than three minutes, this is one of those pop hits that never was, a self-contained little world with rearing brightblue waves, an ever-assembling beach fair. Splashdown broke up after releasing the 5-song Redshift EP, so Capitol shelved their debut LP, Blueshift. Never fear! The internet being what it is, some enterprising and enthusiastic fan managed to nab a bootleg promo, and mp3s of the record are available here. Kaplan's solo project, Universal Hall Pass, has an album coming out in the fall, and you can hear her on, um, the Chronicles of Riddick soundtrack. The drummer, Kasson Crooker, plays with Freezepop. (thanks, kyree!)

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Mark has posted a great, rare Dntel track over at Music for Robots, and beat me to the punch with a fun cut from the new Presidents of the United States of America album.

At Rodes's fine suggestion, I'm going to try to remember to put "gramophone" in the ID3 comments of any StG mp3s; those who are so-inclined will be able to keep track of 'em.

Cat left a comment on my Can post from last week, asking for more information on the band. I could fudge it, but are there any authorities out there who feel like dropping her/him an email? Fresh meat!