Archives : all posts by Sean

Hidden Words - "Temple". Hidden Words is a project by Alden Penner and Jamie Thompson, reunited for the first time since the Unicorns, and four more friends. "Temple" is chanté en français, but the words are taken from page 74 of Selections from the Writings of the Báb, a holy text of the Bahá'í faith. As far as I know, all of Hidden Words' songs use verses from the Writings. In a certain way, this makes them a Báb cover-band. So let's imagine the Báb as a silent member, yes Siyyid 'Alí Muḥammad Shírází himself; let's imagine him floating behind Penner and Thompson, behind the guitar and the percussion, floating and standing and listening, serene. Perhaps he nods. Perhaps he snaps his fingers. I am not sure if this vision is blasphemy - I am not Bahá'í, have no strong feelings. But I know that even messianic figures, even those people who are lamps lit with the finger of God, shining with deathless splendour - well those people need favourite bands too, need music for dinner parties and weddings and walking on the mountain. I hope that the Báb heard songs that shook him, which made him certain of things and which made him doubt; I hope he rocked out and moshed and lay on his back with an iPod, thinking of the rain that hides in clouds. "Temple" has not shaken me - I am not sure it could. But it has carried me a few steps, brought me a few soft instants of peace. [The Hidden Words on Facebook, including this song's lyrics and its English translation / Hidden Words blog]

Los Rakas ft Faviola - "Abrazame (Uproot Andy remix)". Revisiting Gyptian's "Hold Yuh" (lately of my Best of 2010), Los Rakas and Uproot Andy make something that is less sly, more doting. It's not just the vocals - Andy is generous with the riddim, filling it out with golds, pinks and royal blues. According to Google Translate, the lyrics mention dreams, lies and ice-cream, but the important bit is in the chorus, y besa me, y besa me, y besa me or kiss me, kiss me, kiss me. I say "the important part" because isn't it what a song like this comes down to? Isn't it everything we're getting at? Isn't all this a prelude to that rosy moment? Where do the golds, pinks and royal blues come from, anyway? Oh c'mere. [Uproot Andy's MySpace/Los Rakas Bandcamp]

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Elsewhere:

Did you enjoy Monday's post on the Red River? You should pick up their newish album, but the band are also giving away A Brief Introduction to the Red River, a sampler of songs from 2005-2010. It's great. Download it here.

One of my favourites from 2009, Cains & Abels, are offering a brand new EP, The Price Is Right, for as much or as little as you want to pay. (Yes, even free.) This is sincere, ragged folk. It's really terrific, and I'll probably write one of its songs soon, but go get the jump on me.

Finally, A Story Told Well has been busy shooting videos of several Montreal treasures (Carl Spidla, Goose, Shaun Weadick, &c), and the best is this film of James Irwin's "Halfway to Mexico". James is a strange, singular voice in this city, quietly singing (and I wrote about him recently), but "Halfway to Mexico" is possibly the best song he's ever written, and it's not yet been released, and this film, shot in the country outside Montreal, not only features James & Carlo & Shaun & Neil Holyoke, but you might even spot la Blogothéque's departed eminence, my friend, Alex Lenot. The song was recorded just a few days after he, James and I sat listening to Cass McCombs.

(photo source)

The Red River - "Apple Valley".
The Red River show us the neighbourhood. It is stupid and fraught. All of our adolescences were stupid and fraught.

• "Here is the corner where my dad had his accident."
• "This is the Del Taco where my brother cut his finger."
• "This is where my friends and I hung after school."

The Red River - "Tomahawk".
The Red River play a slow song about long ago, about singing Boys II Men songs on the swing-set. It is immature, but longing always is. And then Bill Roberts sings about throwing my heart out, like a spinning / sharp / tomahawk. I think this: Maybe Bill had to learn not to throw his heart out. But others of us had to learn the opposite, had to learn to throw, how to leave it in the earth.

[Jordan first discovered the Red River in 2006. We have written about them two times since. / buy Tomahawk / Red River on tour]

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Said the Gramophone is looking for a coder to help us write an HTML5 audio-player script. Can you help us? Do you know someone who can? We can't pay, but we'd be so grateful. Get in touch.

(image source)

Lab Coast - "Really Realize". Two blurs meet on a beach. They take photographs of each-other. They go to the hotel bar, order gins and tonic. One blur looks at the other blur's hand, resting on the bar. The blur wonders what its hand would look like, blurred over the other. It hesitates, then goes for it. A blur straightens. A blur takes its hand away. A blur says, What? Later, they walk down a carpeted hallway. The blurs have been talking too much. One of them kicks off their shoes. The other blur hits the lights. In the darkness, there is the sound of the surf. The blurs kiss. Kisses blur. [website/buy]

Bambi's "Rain Song". A song stricken from the original soundtrack to Bambi. I am not kidding: this song was part of Bambi and then it was not, banished into archives and bonus-features. I do not know why it was excised. Perhaps Walt Disney was unnerved by the raindrops' tiny high voices, something hysterical in them, singing shrilly into the storm. Perhaps he was unsure of their message: I like falling / Have to keep falling / Have to keep falling. What is this about, anyway? What is the lesson? Is it about obligations, missions, destines? Is it about dharma? Is it about cheeriness in the midst of doom? Is this a ditty or a curse? [thanks so much, raphaelle a]

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To help us through the end of January, I've made a new mix. Download it here (109mb). Track-list here. Features Clinic, James Blake, Freur, Arvo Pärt, Mary Margaret O'Hara, Les Mouches, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Julie Doiron & many more.

(photo source unknown)

Otouto - "Plum". Crack an aspirin like an egg; make an omelette. Maybe a forest will be a salve, maybe a coffee with friends, maybe some strangers' call and answer. It has been a rough year; it's over now. It has been a long weekend; don't worry. Forget the migraine, hangover, fatigue and pneumatic drills. Lay your head on my shoulder, listen to the strum of this beat-up old guitar, the one I found in the cardboard box for an organ. Where is the organ? The organ is covered in mussels. [buy / thank-you andrew c]

Joe Goddard - "Apple Bobbing (Four Tet remix ft Cassie)". I like to tell people I grew up in a small town, but really it was a town that was sometimes small and sometimes very large. I liked it best when it was large. In June the bay filled with a hundred colours of boats, big & little & nimble & slow, and the boats had African masts and American sails and prows adorned with Italian lemons. It was the Malin Herring-Gutting Festival. Our town was called Malin. Visitors traveled miles and leagues to stay in town and watch the finest herring-gutters in the country. These competitors lined up on the pier and from dusk until dawn they gutted fish. Bent over the herring they made quick, precise gestures, careful as clockmakers, grasping and gutting and slipping the filleted fish into their allotted barrels. The boards were littered with silver fish-scale.

The audiences of Malin marveled at the herring-gutters. They hooted and hollered. They bought them pints of beer and drams of whiskey and new red apples. Vendors sold cotton-candy, sold peanuts. They strung paper lanterns across the streets and children scampered between the adults' legs and all of Malin smelled like mermaids' breath.

Every year, my mother transformed our home into an inn. Its rooms became other rooms. Instead of managing the books for Mr Lowry, she spent June making suppers and sweeping the floors. I slept with my mother in her bed. I helped her butter the toast and fold the sheets. She wore her hair in a bun and she was happier then than at any other time; for five weeks every summer the house seemed full. We fell asleep to snores and in the morning there were fishermen laughing, eating strips of bacon in two bites; in the evening there were barristers from Newcastle who passed their fingers through candle-flames; in the wee hours there were Norwegians who played card-games in their bedrooms, games with rules I did not know. I knew one June I would have my first kiss. I knew one June I would fall in love, one June I would run away, one June I would gut a herring and give my mother the trophy. I knew all these things would come one June. And so every January I lay in the cold, still house, in my lonely bed, and I remembered the taste of new apples.

[buy / song via the Guardian]

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Just noticed that my old friend Richard Parks is raising money to fund a documentary about Music Man Murray and his half a million records. Support the project & get a DVD.

(image by Jason Holley - source)

Ancient Kids - "Crystal Family". A song with thick black curls, small strong eyes, emerging yawning from a cave. Ancient Kids evoke Grandaddy, Fountains of Wayne, Blur; "Crystal Family" meanders, glimmering, til it smells blood or love or just a dream, rippling, and then it begins to run - lumbering, powerful, splintering conifers with the plow of its shoulder, sending guitar solos spraying. And the coda's like a small lake. [Ancient Kids, featuring current & former members of Sunset Rubdown, the Unicorns, Adam & the Amethysts, Anemones, release their debut album on January 21. Their debut show will take place March 3 at Montreal's Divan Orange.]

Sleeping Bag - "Slime". A song which uses a familiar guitar sound, doubled vocals, 90s nostalgia, to beat some affection out of you. It's like a blunt instrument, a cotton-gloved fist, pounding the sleepy smile into your face. [website]

Hi! Happy new year! Did you know Said the Gramophone's Best Songs of 2010 are still online? All 100 of them? Indeed! Read, listen, leave a note, tell yr friends. They won't stay there forever.

Frederick Squire - "Old Times Past New Times". Let's pretend it's New Year's Day; let's sit with a piece of driftwood on our laps; let's see if we can draw a calendar from memory. Sackville's Fred Squire, the Fred Squire who sang on the best album of 2008, has made a song of recollections, resolutions, "decisions that I've made". Not all of the recollections are true, but our recollections rarely are. It's the resolutions that are truest, that ring cold & solid like horseshoes. Fred makes few of these. He is staying warm, with coat and whiskey, navigating memory, lowering sails, grateful for everything.

[Hero Hill wrote a great, thoughtful review of March 12/buy]

James Leroy - "Wasting Our Time". Set up a frozen puddle in my hall. I invite people over, call to them from the kitchen, Come on in! They hang up their coats and fall on their asses. I slide a fruit-bowl down the floor. This lets them know that I meant well; that this is not a cruel joke. We all sit on the hardwood, beside the frozen puddle, eating clementines. We peel them and put the peels in our pockets. I dream that one day someone will arrive at my door wearing skates.

[buy/via Weird Canada]

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Elsewhere:

Wrapping up the end-of-year: Destination:Out our favourite jazz music-blog, have listed their favourite albums of 2010.

Musicophilia, a blog posting only meticulous full-length mixes, are back after seven months with a new one, Her Heart Had Six Strings vol II, representing singer-songwriters 1965-1977. Their earlier mix, Still, was one of the best full-length recordings of 2009.

(image source)

Charlotte Dada - "Don't Let Me Down". Charlotte's dusky serenade, plus racket. Or a one-man band, the village percussion section, crawling on hands & knees through the dust, Charlotte in tow, playing the essence of an anniversary. Dada's "Don't Let Me Down", recorded in Ghana in the early 1970s, paints a love-affair that's coloured by punchlines, hijinks, poorly fastened rafts. A love-song sung at 11am, during an accidental eclipse.

[from the out of print Money Be No Sand / Aquarium Drunkard coincidentally posted about this (plus photo!) last week.]

Wye Oak - "Civilian". Terrific bristling number, like a hand searching the back of a dusty drawer and finding a bearclaw. (The animal hand, not the donut.) Imagine two lovers in bed, fist-fighting; an untouched glass of water; a card that is never signed. Wye Oak have brought a bag that contains everything.

[website/Civilian is due March 8 - pre-order]

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Don't miss issue two of the Incongruous Quarterly, announced earlier this week - Dan curated the music section, including unreleased "unpublishable" material by Little Scream, Grand Trine, Holy Fuck, Mean Wind, Amy Klein of Titus Andronicus, and many more.

Also, I hope you downloaded the Ernest Djedje song Dan posted - by some incongruous synchronicity, I had been rocking the very same tune for the past two weeks.

(photo above, Autoportraits, by Vladimir Nikolic)