Said the Gramophone - image by Keith Shore

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14 years, right down the drain
by Sean

I'm happily returned from an equally happy holiday to Toronto and Ottawa. No new musical insights, except that Stars of the Lid are really cool. Oh - thanks to those with the Mieskuoro Huutajat follow-ups. (nick, I'll be looking for you online.) Check out the CBC interview (via cyn and my mother). Their label actually answered my email, so it looks like I'll be able to nab me a copy, just as soon as I fax them my cc number.

Elvis Presley - "Are You Lonesome Tonight" [live]. "Do you gaze at your bald head," he asks, "and wish you had hair?" This is an infamous recording of Elvis cracking up in the middle of "Lonesome," snickering away as the back-up singer warbles on and on. (I imagine Elvis's manager before she signed her contract: "fuck up once, honey, and you're out. i don't care if the four horsemen of the apocalypse come marching through the theater - you don't stop singing, hear?") Perhaps not quite as cathartic as the Anthology version of the Beatles cracking up to "And Your Bird Can Sing," but good for a smile all the same.

Now two tracks from Madredeus, Portugal's vital, famed post-fado group. My dad's crazy about this stuff, but Madredeus doesn't follow the strict fado formula. Instead, they blend all sorts of European folk traditions, eking out songs that vary from oceanside loveliness to near-sinister gypsy blues.

Madredeus - "O Pastor". There's something dark and forceful to the accordion-pulse of this track, further underlined by the accusatory passion in the vocals. This feels like it should be the opening song to some brave, human film - a little boy bicycling frantically up a hill, the moon full and yellow above him. In fact, this is like the mature older-sister to the Oscar-losing Triplettes de Belleville track. You should download it.

Madredeus - "Oxalá". Madredeus at their most casually beautiful - it's a lazy, summery guitar melody over the light skip of an organ, and then Teresa Salgueiro's cream-and-lemon (but not-curdling) voice.

6:38 PM on Mar 1, 2004.
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inky helsinki
by Sean

First off, stg reader forksclovetofu aka John has electrified his blog by adding a daily clutch of mp3s. It's glorious, off-kilter, unlikely stuff, mostly drawn from ancient vinyl. All over the map, but totally rewarding: and bolstered with tons of background info and links. The definite, must-grab track is the one by the Jabula Home Defenders. Wonderful! (He's also got a mix-cd contest going on - get in while you can!)

Next, I've reworked by "elsewhere" sidebar, for those of you keeping track. If there's a link that I've neglected and that you think I'd enjoy, I'm all ears.

My newest obssession is Mieskuoro Huutajat. It's a difficult obssession because I only have access to two low quality samples, but the gobsmacking sublimity (sublimeness? sublimitude? uh, really-cool-ness?) of their Star Spangled Banner" rendition is enough to crystallize my fixation. Mieskuoro Huutajat is a Finnish mens' choir who yell national anthems. With full force, enormous vigour, and appropriately peculiar arrangements. Words simply don't do it justice.; this is bellowed fury-love with an absurdist and patriotic bent. And it's Finnish (like moomins). I must get my hands on a copy of one of their records, but the label's online store is being extremely belligerent. If anyone can help, please get in touch!

Oh yes - I'll be going on a Toronto/Ottawa vacation this week, so updates will be sporadic or not-at-all. Apologies.

And then, without further ado, songs.

Värttinä - "Ruskie Neitsyt". I planned to write about this song ages ago. On the bright side, unlike then, now I can link to it so you can hear for yourself. If Tove Jansson and Mieskuoro Huutajat are two of the three best things about Finland, then Värttinä may just be the third. This is their first song from their first album: it's a bruisingly loud, gay, lively folk tune. A children's choir with a message to deliver. Of course, that message is incomprehensible to me because it's in finnish. All I know is that it's got somethng to do with a 'brown-haired maiden.' Infer what you will.

Destroyer - "From Oakland to Warsaw". A track from the soon-to-be-released Destroyer album, Your Blues. There are three more available from Merge, here. I hate to say it, but the whole record (including this song) is afflicted with most-woeful MIDI. It's a departure from Dan Bejar's earlier work - much less guitar, more lush and orchestral (almost Lambchop, really) - but unfortunately instead of hiring musicians, Mr Bejar bought a synthesizer. But the title! New World meets Old! Wow!

9:39 PM on Feb 22, 2004.
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what good songs do you know?
by Sean

Modest Mouse - "Bukowski" [radio rip]. From the much-circulated radio rip of MM's upcoming Good News For People Who Like Bad News. One of my favourite tracks on the record, though a far cry from the brilliant sparkle-flecked cyclops-eye pop of "Float On." (In other words, this is more 'typical' Modest Mouse.) Still - the cello and accordeon pump along like an organic printing-press, muscle and blood and heart pressing sheafs of heretical pamphlets: "...if God gives life then he's an Indian-giver..." Plus: banjo.

Dan gave me a mix CD of Modest Mouse songs, to try to fully convert me. Although I think the new album's truly swell, and ditto for The Moon and Antarctica, this music's not yet convinced me of the group's long-view greatness. All of the songs are interesting, and many are terrific ("Here It Comes," "Trailer Trash," "Talking Shit About a Pretty Sunset"), but a lot of them are frustratingly flawed. Maybe that's the point - broken melodies and blemished songs of crooked lives (and that's the reason I'll definitely keep listening to this), - but I can't get away from the feeling that much of Modest Mouse's older stuff sounds like a smart, bold-visioned band that is still growing up. (Cf, Radiohead's Pablo Honey.) The instrumental smash at the end of "Talking Shit..." is beautiful-ugly, but why does it need to open with such a shabby Bright Eyes impression?

Are there any Modest Mouse fans out there who want to give some tips for how to listen?

G-Unit - "My Buddy". G-Unit's Beg 4 Mercy is terrific. Steely and casual, with variety (but not too much), and cool grey confidence. I like it better than Get Rich Or Die Tryin' - but the reasons are murky. All I can put my finger on is that I, uh, like the songs better. Whereas the melody of "P.I.M.P." or "Many Men" kind of grated, Beg 4 Mercy clicks for me on almost every track. On "My Buddy," we hear about 50's best friend, his gun. But beyond the slurred trundle of the rap, the silly-sinister synthsichord, what's most exhilerating is the way that the ammunition pops blister the sighing choral lull, the story that tears and rips and fires right through G-Unit's chrome swagger.

Preview the Unicorns' track "2014," which is to be released on a Suicide Squeeze 7" [via lhb]. Left-handed sci-fi disco. Not sure if this is the same version that will appear on the record - it may have been rerecorded. It's complicated because the version of "I Was Born (A Unicorn)" that's available at Zebox is from before Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone, but I don't remember "2014" being there when I last visited the site, over a year ago... Oh, hey, there's a ton of old Unicorns tracks still available on the mcgill site: here.

12:46 AM on Feb 21, 2004.
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a new partner!
by Sean

Thanks to a very generous patron, said the gramophone has itself a new bandwidth-hosting partner. In honour of this, a sampling from Greatest Palace Music, the upcoming Bonnie Prince Billy album where he has rerecorded the "best" of BPB/Palace Brothers.

Bonnie Prince Billy - "New Partner". The catch to these rerecordings is that they've all been done with the help of a full Nashville band. Ie, they've been reimagined as all-out country songs. Which is, if nothing else, fascinating. The skip and earnest swing of the original "New Partner" has here been replaced with a lulling, honest, almost regretful waltz. A lower key, too, or so A asserts. I don't like it more than the old version, but I do like it different. Certainly not for those who can't stand a whole wallop of country twang, however.

Eric's been doing some excellent stuff to try to work on an aggregate RSS feed for a bunch of the mp3 blogs. (Read his comments attached to this post.) If anyone else has some insights and wants to help, please do. I'm at the mercy of Movable Type, but if you tell me what to do, I will. Any other mp3 blogs that want to throw in their hats, please let us know!

1:04 AM on Feb 20, 2004.
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It's been quiet here because
by Sean

It's been quiet here because a bunch of my 1and1 accounts have died, and so I don't have the bandwidth to post mp3s every day. I've been talking with Keith, however, about pursuing a .mac account, for us to host our songs.

What I'm interested in is whether there are any other (would-be?) mp3 bloggers out there who would be interested in entering into the joint purchase of a dot mac account. We could all share the webspace/bandwidth, and even syndicate our sites for easily-spotted mp3/commentary goodness.

Dot mac accounts don't have explicit/concrete bandwidth limitations, and basically the worse that can happen (in the case of excessive traffic) is that your bandwidth will be turned off for 24hrs. Matthew and fluxblog has used his .mac account for a very long time, and as we can see it's worked out very well.

Right, so - do you own an mp3 blog? Would you like to buy into a joint hosting plan? Get in touch.

4:43 PM on Feb 17, 2004.
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because it's new and you're looking
by Sean

the entirety of Modest Mouse's upcoming Good News for People Who Like Bad News, radio-ripped, but sounding pretty ok.

update: oop. goodbye!

4:19 PM on Feb 16, 2004.
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rejoicing in the hands
by Sean

Today was New Records In The Mail Day, it seems: in my mailbox were the new Devendra Banhart, John Vanderslice and Stereolab. And the Banhart is very, very good. So here, samples:

Devendra Banhart - "There Was Sun". I liked Devendra's debut, Oh Me Oh My, a lot. Rejoicing in the Hands, however, is even better. Some of the outright weirdness has been stripped away (although a lot is left: see track titles such as "Tit Smoking in the Temple of Artesan Mimicry" and "The Beard is for Siobhan"), but that uncanny witchiness has been made up for with focus, restraint and, dare I say it, patches of beauty. I read Ryan Schreiber's 4.5-star review of Jack White's "Never Far Away" and got annoyed: not only is the writing stale ("gentle layers of acoustic guitar plucking backed by a warm cello line" - and don't get me started on his vacant "Float On" review), but he also committed that most heinous of crimes, disagreeing with me. This is relevant to "There Was Sun" because listen: this trifle, this silly but earnest ditty is already so much more meaningful than White's "fleshed-out song," his derivative balladeering. Banhart's fascinating because of the importance he gives to his bizarre little narratives, the implicit force that his fingerpicking carries. He's not trying to be cute, or even "honest," he's trying to be true, true to a strange and wild world in his eye.

Devendra Banhart - "Autumn's Child". Shades of You Are Free here: the repeated piano chords and a soft, kind voice. "Sing, child, sing. / Sing your song." Much more direct than anything Devendra's done before, more lovely, much easier for us to feel. It closes Rejoicing In The Hands, and it's the album's little wooden crown.

7:17 PM on Feb 12, 2004.
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