Archives : all posts by Sean

Woodpigeon - "Children Should Be Seen and Not Heard". An unglad song, but I don't know that it's sad, or angry. It's like a room filled up with smoke. It's an emergency. All this furious acrid noise, hit the floor, fumble; until finally an opening appears. And this opening is an escape: the kindness of an electric guitar, an organ. The joy of joined voices. Climbing chords. The smoke never clears, but Mark Hamilton stands up in it - he rises, fortified, his heart like a turret.

[buy the gentle noisy feeling furor of Thumbtacks and Glue / or stream it]

Leif Vollebekk - "Photographer Friend".

Leif Vollebekk - "Southern United States".

Today I want to suggest that you buy Leif Vollebekk's second album, North Americana, released this week.

There are a lot of young men who love Bob Dylan and Ryan Adams, who write lyrics in notebooks, who sit in creaking apartments, making songs. Leif is one of these young men, and he is one of the best. He lives in Montreal and lives a life like mine, has lived a life like mine, and he has turned this life into magnificent, uncovering music. I say "uncovering" - I mean that he examines his memories, his heart, and finds the lines that begin to say what he has found. He is interested in that "...begin to say" part: not the ends of lines, lasting pronouncements, pat wisdom, bad poetry. He sings what he uncovers, before it has settled. Before it's in amber. Even a song like "Photographer Friend", over slow piano chords - there is a perfect incompleteness: uncovering, searching. A feeling not yet named. The chair makes shifty sounds. The upright bass is an unsentimental companion. Something true has been found, and they're recording it before it's too late.

"Southern United States", North Americana's opening track, is more adorned. Phil Melanson's drums, Joe Grass' pedal steel, Sarah Neufeld's violin. And later, Leif's blazing harmonica - an orange sun that explodes over the windshield. Leif's rhymes remind me a little of the Streets' Mike Skinner: these lines that he lets be, imperfect or too-perfect, no more than what they are. Words are names for things; string them together, scatter a chorus, show.

[buy/iTunes/concerts in Chicago, SXSW, Toronto, Quebec, Mtl]

[photo from Google Maps, found by Brendan Birkett]

Cody ChesnuTT - "What Kind of Cool (Will We Think Of Next)". ChesnuTT poses an interesting question. I don't think he attempts to answer it. What kind of cool (will we think of next)? There are many possibilities. Some of them resemble the sounds of mating insects. Others recall Thai nightclubs ca 1981. There is the untapped cool of retro kitchenware; the cool of Chelyabinsk Fridays; the cool of swimming in sunglasses. ChesnuTT poses the cool-question but doesn't try to answer it. He doesn't try to invent some fresh sound, writhing newly under the lights. Instead he is precise and nostalgic. He points backward. He is saying, By "cool" I mean like - this. Brass, strings, electric guitar, an ending on a dime. Lush and deliberate, orchestrated. Easy. They will think of new cools, those sweaty throngs. ChesnuTT, regal in his cape, shan't get worked up. [buy]

John Prine with Iris Dement - "In Spite of Ourselves". A dirty valentine. Earnest, rosy, stained as an old pillow. If you like country songs, sweethearts, lewd embroidery, The Muppet Show, and voices like peat or bourbon - well, you'll like this. Put it on repeat and grab your pal, hop up on the end of a rainbow. Start counting anniversaries. Smoke. [buy]

Richard and Linda Thompson - "Withered and Died". And as an antidote to all of today's cozy and darling, one of the saddest songs i know. "Withered and Died" is just heartbreak after heartbreak, doom after doom, floods and widowings, all of them sung in Linda Thompson's lovely voice. Shambling drums, lazy bass, an acoustic guitar - if you send this floating out on the breeze, keep watch - wait for the lovers to begin to sway. Watch them sway, those stupid romantics, to the saddest song you've got. Richard's guitar solo is pure perseverance - going on, going on, still making rhymes after so much catastrophe. [buy]

(image by Sea Hyun Lee)

Campfires - "Fortune Teller". Use this racket like it's a tennis racket; use it to send tennis balls over fences. Use it to spike your rivals. When the winter feels long and the summer feels far away, use this racket like a tennis racket, use this noise like a barbecue, use Campfires' broken guitar solo like your creaking old bike, gunning down the streets. [buy/bandcamp]

(photo source)

Big Brave - "Threes". Train your heartbeat, make it sufficiently slow, and you can go anywhere. Guards will cease to see you. Walls will let you pass. Former lovers will not recognize you, even face to face, close as hands. Train your heartbeat, slow it down, and nothing is impossible any more. You can turn into salt.

[Big Brave are from Montreal. They are like precious stones. They play again here on Feb 16.]

(photo by Emre Kasap; thanks Mike & Zeynep)