Archives : all posts by Sean

Bertrand Belin - "Peggy". I stayed, once, at a motel in northern Portugal. There were palm trees. There was a bright blue neon sign, in cursive writing. Wait, wait; maybe this wasn't that hotel in Portugal. Maybe it was in Louisiana, a Comfort Inn. Maybe it was in the bayou. Maybe the sky was southerly and warm. Maybe stars pinpricked through the dark. Maybe country music was playing. Maybe Portuguese pop. Maybe I was with my family, maybe I was alone, maybe I was longing for a friend, maybe there were friends everywhere. Was there a kitty-cat, lounging on the sill? Were their songbirds? Black flies? Maybe I was about to do something extraordinary, inimitable, incredible. Maybe it was just another Sunday. One thing is certain: you can ride the highways forever, in circles. One thing is certain: digital letters glow red in the night. One thing is certain: standing in an empty dining hall, when the staff has gone to bed, you feel like a conjurer who can make anything appear. [buy]

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SappyFest's this weekend; best fest in the world; can't wait.

(photo by Thomas Prior)

Ought - "Habit"

      "So I explained to him, that's why an arrow has those things on its sides, at the end. Fletches. You need them to go straight, to keep from wobbling. So it can, like, hit."
      "Okay."
      "And he said, 'Fletches?' I said, 'Yeah,' and he said, 'How do you spell that?'"
      "F-L-E-T-C-H-E-S."
      "Right. Like it's a spelling bee. And then Robb interrupts us for a sec, to grab a beer, and we talk a little about the Edward Snowden thing, but then when Robb leaves, this guy, he says: 'Fletcher is my last name.'"
      "Cute."
      "Yeah, cute... But something about it really caught me off balance. Like, I was floored."
      "Really?"
      "I'd just been thinking about it a lot these days - how my life feels like it's going right, it's headed in the right direction, but..."
      "But it's 'wobbling'?"
      "Don't laugh! Don't-- but, yeah. Yeah, I guess. Just like it needed-- like it needs..."
(beat)
      "So did you go home with 'Fletcher'?"
      "No, I left with Lulu and Geoff, after the cake. But we traded numbers. I think I'm going to text him."
      "What are you going to say?"
      "I don't know. Something funny, I guess. Something like... I don't know-- but something funny."

[Ought are from Montreal / bandcamp]

(photo source)

AroarA - "#14". Even dull birds, diving, become splendid. Even the black and brown ones, white and gray, that camouflage into bark and sky. The unbrilliant woods may still be singing. They do not need to be trilling rainforest, hot jungle; here, damp and dry, mossed, twigs & twigs, the space between trees crowded with cry.

Make a yelling piece of art. Hang it on a wall; let it yell. Let it gleam in sideways ways, demand attention. Let it glower and slink.

[In March, I told you about AroarA. "#14" comes from their debut LP, out on August 27. Its lyrics are from the poems of Alice Notley. It was mixed by Sandro Perri. Hear more here.]

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Laura Mvula - "She (Robin Hannibal rework)". I was slow to love this track. Like Solange Knowles' "Losing You," it only feels like half a song, especially in remix form. It's all surface, skim, unplunging. But listen: it's been so hot in Montreal. A canicule. I slip from darkened room to darkened room, trying not to do anything. And in this heat I find myself seeking just such a surface song. A little circlet, a ring, something that will rest lightly on my heart. Play it again, in a loop, as the fan turns and turns. [soundcloud]

(photo by Kawika Singson/a>)

The heat wave has hit Montreal like a bag of hot bricks. You sit in your home, soaking in darkness, half-alive, sweating. Then you go outside and get walloped by the sun. It's a sunlight that feels injurious - leaves cuts, bruised rib, maybe a black eye.

Light Rail Coyote - "Settling Out".

Heat is not always so violent. I've written before about slow-motion swelter (and yesterday I re-posted Spacemen 3 and Eric Chenaux from an old tribute). Some of that languor is captured in Light Rail Coyote's "Settling Out" - a drowsy folk-song that's more drift than destination, recalling Baptist Generals and some early Smog. You can imagine this tune on tilting turntable, skipping in the heat. You can imagine those backing sighs up fluttering against screened windows.

This is a song of slow spiral but to be fair, it's not a song of summertime. "When it's springtime in the city / every morning's a / parting / parting / parting," sings Montreal's Shaun Weadick. A reminder that sometimes life itself is sweltering, un-liveable. Sometimes it's your heart that wallops you, when you step out of the shade. It isn't just in July that you can wish to slip your skin.

[bandcamp]

Loosestrife - "My Money". The other side of Mr Weadick is this band, Loosestrife, his jumbling duo with Claire. It's picnic punk-rock, with frills of African guitar - reminds me a bit of Mecca Normal or the Evens. "My Money" is their poppiest song, their catchiest song; I want to say "catchy as a salary," but of course salaries aren't catchy - that's kinda what this tune is about. This would sound best coming ruffling outta an old school boombox, like the Mountain Goats used to, messing its smushed ferocity into the hiss of tape. [bandcamp]

(photo of Hubert Alyea/source)

Leif Vollebekk - "Read My Mind (The Killers cover)". Leif, drummer Phil Melanson, and saxophonist Adam Kinner take this worn dollar-bill of a song and trade it for a vault of gold and silver. I'm struck by the way the right interpreter can take a dying tune and make it new. That doesn't happen in other places: a gust of wind can't change me, can't turn me back into a kid. But: yesterday, "Read My Mind" was no more than this; today, it's a river. [download Leif's free Borrowed Time EP, all covers, at his website]

Lonnie Holley - "Looking For All (All Rendered Truth)". When a pool is still enough, it is indistinguishable from a mirror. When a mirror is clear enough, it is indistinguishable from a pool. All around us, these pools and mirrors, these tomorrows and dreams, indistinguishable. [buy]

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4Minute (포미닛) - "Is It Poppin?". My phone is broken. It rings, and no one's there. It rings and rings, and no one's there. Every time I close my eyes and begin to drift off - it rings. Every time I'm about to tell V something serious, something sincere - it rings. Every time I'm sitting down to dinner, every time I'm taking a photograph, every time I'm nearing the punchline of a joke - it rings, it rings, it rings. OK phone -- you've got my attention. Like a cheery, cherry, chimey klaxon -- I'm listening. This better be worth it. [website]

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