Archives : all posts by Sean

A few weeks ago, our friends at Mushpot - a Brooklyn-based label and PR firm - asked if Said the Gramophone might be interested in premiering a compilation of new Mushpot music. We said: "Let's hear it!" They sent it over, we listened, and we liked it so much that we said yes.

The compilation includes unreleased songs by Gramophone favourites like Capybara, Emperor X and Jumbling Towers, as well as Arc in Round, WAMPIRE, Candy Claws, Baby Birds Don't Drink Milk, Magic Magic, Family Portrait, Please Quiet Ourselves and Yawn.

For this week only, you can download the entirety of Future Magic Volume 1 by clicking here (60mb). After that, it will still be available through the Mushpot website.

The download includes info, album art, and hi-fi mp3s.

But today and tomorrow, also, some tastes:

WAMPIRE - "Magic Light". The Brill Building's still going. It's eleven storeys tall, compartmentalized. The senior songwriters get offices: potted plants, doors that close, desk-drawers on oiled guides. The junior songwriters are relegated to cubicles. The cubicle-walls are blue, pilled. Their screensavers show distorting beach-balls. WAMPIRE was one such songwriter. He had been at the Brill Building just three months when the seas began to rise. He would lean against the break-room's door-jamb, sipping water from a paper cone, watching the man who wrote "Single Ladies" and the woman who wrote "Complicated" microwave their lunches. He would crumple his cone into a ball and swish it into the garbage bin. WAMPIRE would be the next Carole King, the next Bernie Taupin, the next Terius Nash. His ridiculous name, the name he was born with, would no longer be an obstacle. Everyone would snap their fingers to his number one hits. WAMPIRE began working long nights in his cubicle, lingering long after the others had gone home, writing middle eights as the sun came up. He stopped meeting friends, stopped reading the newspaper, stopped browsing the net. He didn't hear that the ice-caps had melted, that the glacier-water was flooding in. He didn't hear about the evacuation. He thawed muffins, stirred creamer into instant coffee. He wondered where everyone had gone. As the water passed the 9th-floor windows, WAMPIRE's feet were on his desk. "Magic Light" was playing out of his Pentium's tinny speakers. The sheet-music scrolled by on his screen. He said: "Got it." ["Magic Light" is exclusive to Future Magic vol. 1 (downloadable above). See also their MySpace.]

Damien Jurado - "Arkansas". Barclay sat staring at his computer screen. He held a bottle of water. The window said: GarageBand. There was the little picture of an electric guitar. Barclay said this:

"Okay GarageBand. Okay. Here we go. Open... New file. Yes. Okay. Barclay, okay. This time, Barclay, this time. Record. A. Song. Let's go. [handclap] I'll make a song like... a song like... like 'Bridge Over Troubled Water'. Yes. No. No, that's too sappy. Like 'America'. But without a kettle drum. I'll make a song like 'Cecilia'. Yes, like 'Cecilia'. Just like 'Cecilia'. A beautiful song like 'Cecilia'. Barclay, you will make a beautiful song like Cecilia. Begin recording... now. [silence for 13s] [Sung] Oh oh oh, What goes on! [silence for 8s] Right. Right, well that's something. And now you're talking and getting recorded. Way to go, Barclay. Stop. I need a drummer. Barclay, you need a drummer. The thing is, I can't make 'Cecilia' because I don't feel like 'Cecilia'. I'm a bozo. I'm a nobody. I'm not sure of anything. How the hell do I make a song like 'Cecilia'?"

At this time, Jeanie called up from downstairs.

"How's it going?" she asked.

"Good," yelled Barclay.

"I love you!" Jeanie yelled.

Barclay took a sip of water. "Love you too!"

[Damien Jurado's new album, Saint Bartlett, will be released May 25.]

Eternal Summers - "Able To". Imagine a waterslide up-side down. You begin in the splash-pool, beating at flat water. Then you coast up and round, skidding, twist-bending, that slick scary backwards pour. Under your thighs, you feel the joinings of the waterslide's plastic. You feel the bumps. You see fir trees over the side of the tube. Your heart is bounding in your chest as you swing and skid, hauled backward by your shoulder-blades, the park growing smaller and smaller. And then, hop, you are at the beginning, and hop, you are on your feet, tipping on your heels; and hop you are walking backward down the boardwalk, to the ticket office, to the parking lot, to the beat-up Volkswagen. You're driving backwards with Katy and Lou. You're entering the city in reverse. You're going home, you're eating lunch, then breakfast. You're going to sleep, going to work, falling out of love, falling into love, graduating, studying, skipping classes before you've even started school. (This song, previously on StG.) [MySpace/buy new EP]

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Almost no one left comments on yesterday's White Hinterland guest-post. :(

(photo source unknown - clearly of Ron Mueck's Baby)

White Hinterland are now two. The group that began as Casey Dienel's reinvention has become a full-moon magnolia arising of something new. Dienel began making music in the most familiar songwriting mold - she played piano, sang stories. We were smitten with her then, inviting her to play Said the Gramophone's first (and, to date, only) concert series. In 2008, she released Phylactery Factory, her first album under the name White Hinterland. I wrote the press release. We wrote about her here. With the change in moniker, Casey's music changed too. The best way to describe it is to ask you to imagine yourself in a warm cottage at night, filled with friends; and then imagine the lights go out; and imagine the boats on the lake, invisible.

On Kairos, released soon, available now - everything has coalesced. No, wait. The verb tense feels wrong. This takes the present tense: it is open, shearing, a coalescence. Casey spent the last year learning how to self-record, literally relearning how to sing. She is joined now by Shawn Creeden, a painter and musician who lends tape-loops and bonemarrow bass to White Hinterland; who has helped turn the group's texture to black and silver. Kairos is a gorgeous, minimal, awakening album. Listen to "Amsterdam" (written about here), listen to "Icarus". Buy the album.

Casey and Shawn have been so kind as to do what we do, for a day, and to write about some songs they love. Please make them welcome (and leave a few words behind!) -- Sean

Hakurotwi Mude, Cosmas Magaya, Ephraim Mutemasango - "Nhema Musasa" [buy]

Recorded by ethnomusicologist Paul Berliner in 1972, this is a "standard" among the Shona people of Zimbabwe. Its title means "temporary shelter", and I am always amazed and moved when I listen to it. Structurally built over intertwining polyrhythmic patterns, repeating as long as they need to, and accompanied by simple gourd percussion, the music is ceremonial and makes me want to dance or go for a long walk in the sun. From the get-go there is a slightly woeful color to the tune, then when Hakurotwi Mude comes in with the vocals it takes on a wholly more sweeping, deeply sorrowful, and plaintive weight. Yet the song is still not without moments of redemption and celebration. I once heard a story about how American country musicians are wildly popular in Africa, and play to huge crowds of thousands of people in places like Nairobi, Kenya. The attraction is to both the universal stories of heartache but also to the long, lonesome yodeling style of singing, and it's easy to draw parallels between Hank Williams and songs like this one. -- Shawn

Guillaume de Mauchaut- "Messa de Notre Dame : Gloria" [buy

A singer without confidence is like a body without its spine: nothing stands up. I spent much of last winter immersed in 13th and 14th century choral music because there is nothing to hide behind in these works. A friend once loaned me her copy of the Bulgarian Girl's Choir singing on tape and I had to give it back to her because I couldn't drive and listen to it at the same time. It was too much. Too powerful. Voices are powerful things.

It's not only the voices themselves but the balletic manner they can move together that stirs me. When it works, it's like choreography. For this reason, I think my favorite piece of music from this time is Guillaume de Mauchaut's Messe De Notre Dame. I return to it every so often since I first encountered it in college (same as I do with Debussy's String Quartet in G major, or many pieces by Charles Ives). Every visit unveils something new.

The Gloria of the Mass begins as a call and response. A lone tenor intones before the choir makes an aggressive entrance that sounds not unlike the muezzin calls at an Islamic Mosque. The piece is punctuated by sporadic isorhythmic passages, some of which (as in the Amen) ricochet with hocket (when the top two voices sing independent melodies that lock together rhythmically - a solid modern example would be the staggering way Amber, Angel, & Haley sing at the end of Dirty Projectors' "Remade Horizon"). There are moments of heavenly improvisation, and yet there is a haunting, earthly quality to it that rattles me to the core. It is all flesh and bones, full of longing. -- Casey

Sam Buck Rosen - "Cooking With Gas" [buy]

To get the full effect of Sam Buck Rosen's gift for rhythm, you must listen to this song on headphones. His rich voice gutters out over the hot mix in a game of tag with the undulating beat, panning out in amber-hued ribbons against staggering handclaps, distorted guitar and gorgeous cooing. Have you ever had a full-grown man coo? Because it is something to behold. I can't listen to this without feeling I'm trapped inside a wind tunnel. A wind tunnel that I want to dance in. It's dense and thick, hot and sweaty. The song ends before he gives you a moment to compose yourself and grasp onto a ledge. His record just came out this January on St. Ives and it's a gem: hooky, sexy, and confident. The soundtrack to a raucous party you wish would never end. This song is just dying to be remixed. -- Casey

Ghostface Killah ft. Raekwon, Slick Rick, & Rza - "The Sun" [buy]

In '05/'06 while I was on Glacial Ghost Tour with my other band we had a little CD playing alarm clock radio containing a burned CD with 10 or so tracks of this song. Every night as we bedded down on some cat-piss stained floor we slept on we'd set up this alarm clock and every morning when it was time to get the tofu scramble and home fries started we'd wake up to this. Always an uplifting jam, I love this song front to back. GHOSTFACE IS RAPPING THE SUN'S PRAISES. How sick is that? Rae is on point as always and Slick Rick is flawless over this breezy RZA beat. -- Shawn

Nat Baldwin - "One Two Three" [buy]

"One Two Three" comes off of 2007's MVP, one of my favorite albums by Nat, really one of my favorite albums by anyone. His songs settle in slowly like creeping vines, hooking me in when I least expect it. A few days after I first heard this song, its melody returned to me a few days later as I was gardening and it hasn't really left me since. That was about two years ago now. Listen to how deftly it unfolds with touches of Chris Taylor's production, leading off with a simple contrabass tune played with a sawed-off bow, his voice perched hawk-like in its high register before twisting down into a darker, menacing tone. Harmonies and a waltzing beat flank him during the refrain, retreating into the ether just as your ears begin to adjust. Though they drop out of the mix, it is easy to imagine them poised in the wings, ready to strike at the first hint of a threat. It's a gentle warning from a prize-fighter, a sweet song lined by rows and rows of sharp teeth. -- Casey

Erykah Badu - "Hip Hop/The Healer" [buy]
Erykah Badu - "Telephone" [buy]

I'm just gonna come right out and say it: Erykah Badu is one of my favorite singers alive. She is a fearless and ambitious chameleon and her voice is her weapon. On New Amerykah: Part One (4th World War), she paints her world in spheres. On "Hip Hop/The Healer", she sings of rebirth over a patient beat that ripples out behind her like rings on the surface of a lake. She comes across as sexy, tender, cool, enraged, strong, and even a bit silly but "Telephone" strikes me as the most revealing. Here she says everything by saying very little at all. Written the day after J Dilla's funeral, it's a dusk-bitten elegy containing one simple wish for the one she loves to "fly away to heaven" and make a place for her there. When her voice collapses into a raw, low moan towards the very end, it seems like all might be lost. Yet it's her most emphatic hope that stays with me long after the song has ended, the joy crackling in the top of her voice as she sings: "Celebrate your life, OH! Say 'I love you!'" -- Casey

[White Hinterland are Casey Dienel and Shawn Creeden. They live in Portland, Oregon. Visit their website and buy their new album, Kairos. You also owe it to yourself to see them on tour, visiting North America, Britain and Europe this spring. They play Montreal's Casa Del Popolo on April 20. ]

(Previous guest-blogs: Bear in Heaven, artist Michael Krueger, artist Amber Albrecht, The Whiskers, Silver Jews, artist Ariel Kitch, artist Aaron Sewards, artist Corinne Chaufour, "Jean Baudrillard", artist Danny Zabbal, artist Irina Troitskaya, artist Eleanor Meredith, artist Keith Greiman, artist Matthew Feyld, The Weakerthans, Parenthetical Girls, artist Daria Tessler, Clem Snide, Marcello Carlin, artist Johnnie Cluney, Beirut, Jonathan Lethem, Arcade Fire, Al Kratina, Eugene Mirman, artist Dave Bailey, Agent Simple, artist Keith Andrew Shore, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, artist Kit Malo with Alden Penner (The Unicorns) 1 2, artist Rachell Sumpter, artist Katy Horan 1 2, David Barclay (The Diskettes), artist Drew Heffron, Carl Wilson, artist Tim Moore, Page France, Devin Davis, Okkervil River, Grizzly Bear, Hello Saferide, Damon & Naomi, Brian Michael Roff, producer Howard Bilerman. There are many more to come.)

Joanna Newsom - "Baby Birch".

A song of slow movements, of small gestures; moving one thing into place and then another. Arrange this, rearrange. Waiting for the constellation & configuration that will allow Joanna to say what she needs to say: to say, truly, It's been a long, long time / since I last saw you (4:33) and It's been a long, long time / how are you? (4:55). There is the challenge of singing these things, of draping them in melody, in a way that seems true. Later, toward the end of the seventh minute, all caution is ripped aside. The percussion breaks the lock. Joanna flicks open her knife and moves toward the drapes, toward the animal in the corner. There are tears in her eyes but it must be done. The song must be sung. I had thought it'd be harder to do but I caught her / and skinned her quick / held her there / kicking and mewling, upended and unspooling / unsung and blue."

Of course the roughest thing isn't the butchery. It's what the singer intones later, to the man she once dreamed with, as his shadow passes through the trees. Be at peace, baby, she sings, and begone.

[buy Joanna Newsom's exceptional new album / more from Have One On Me tomorrow]

(photo source)

Los Zafiros - "La Luna En Tu Mirada". It had been raining for 38 days. Louie was getting nervous. Everyone was getting nervous. He stood in his shop, tossing pizza dough into the air, catching it with one hand. He scattered pink discs of pepperoni, shavings of mozzarella cheese. With one leery eye he watched the showers outside the window. Louie's mother had called him in hysterics, the night before. "Honey, it's like a PLAGUE!" she shrieked. "It's just the weather," he told her, "global warming or El Nino or the moon or something. Don't worry." She said: "God is PUNISHING US," and then hung up. Now he slipped the pizza into the oven. He wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist. The sky was the colour of the bottom of the sea. Louie glanced up at Jesus and he crossed himself.

Los Zafiros - "La Caminadora". Miguelito didn't understand the point of singing in a fucking harmony group if all the songs were about soupy love and fuzzy memories. Why not sing a song about a jungle, a truck, a train, a fuckin' orchestra? Then they could really show their chops. They could sing the hell out of it. Ignacio could be the piccolo and Eddy could do that weird violin thing with his voice. Miguelito climbed the stairs to his apartment. As a truck barreled past, the walls shook. He imagined the jamming pistons of a turbo-diesel engine. He murmured to himself: "Ba ba deedadeeda wap wap."

[buy - thanks so much, Tom]

Owen Pallett - "Lewis Takes Off His Shirt". A song revolts against its own writer: "No I won't!" shouts Lewis. And of course he says it amid this manifold and beautiful sound - overlapping horns, climbing strings, lifted hooves, streaming aurora. Lewis stares steely at a point in the sky, at the god he wishes to kill. He advances at a gallop. And the world shines gorgeous, ambivalent to blasphemy, accustomed to fury, every molecule unchanged as the creation disbelieves. [buy / go see Owen on his long and ancient tour]

Morning Benders - "Excuses".

"Dime a go, sir," said the man with the black moustache.

"A dime?!" Charlie said. He looked back across the boardwalk. All the other Tunnels of Love were just a nickel. "That's double what the others charge."

"Dime a go, sir," said the man with the black moustache.

Charlie narrowed his eyes. "This better be worth it."

[buy]

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If you live in Montreal but also under a rock, take note: Blue Skies Turn Black, the ragtag promoters who are city treasures, at least one-third responsible for Montreal's mini indie-rock ecosystem, celebrate their 10th anniversary this week. And so three concerts, all Pay What You Can, all at Il Motore. Thursday's is the gentlest: Snailhouse, Adam & the Amethysts, Little Scream, Shapes & Sizes, the Besnard Lakes. Friday things get heavier: Black Fleetings, Grand Trine, Tonstartssbandht and more. And Friday marks the grand reunions: Rockets Red Glare, North of America, Thundrah and Spengler, playing in that little room. Congratulations to Meyer and Brian, to all that grand gang. Go to these shows, and go early.

Abner Jay - "St James Infirmiry Blues". Ezra arrived at 11:04pm for his appointment with Rabbi Abner. He got out of his car to the soundings of ten million crickets. The air was damp. He crossed the dirt road to the house.. It was a broad white manor, almost an hour outside of town, at the end of a line of telephone poles. At the porch he rang the bell. A little girl came to the door, dark, with large eyes.

"Yes?" she asked.

"I'm here to see Rabbi Abner," Ezra said.

"He's in the back." She motioned for Ezra to follow the veranda to the right. She closed the screen door.

"Thank you," said Ezra, but she was gone.

He walked to the rear of the house. He crossed drooping tomato plants and a dead potted lilac. He squinted and looked out over the fields, to the faded stars. He turned the house's corner and suddenly music rose up from under the crickets' calls. A man sat in a rocker, his feet up on the handrail, playing banjo and harmonica at the same time. He had chapped lips and huge bags under his eyes. Without raising his hands from the instrument, he gestured for Ezra to sit. Ezra sat. Rabbi Abner closed his eyes. The cornstalks leaned. The old man stopped playing.

"Well hello there," he said.

"Hi," said Ezra. "Thanks for seeing me."

Rabbi Abner nodded. He reached and grasped a bottle of bourbon, half-full. The liquid swung and bucked in the bottle. "What's the trouble, son?" he asked.

"It's my wife."

"Your wife?"

Ezra unconsciously twisted at his wedding ring. "Things aren't ... good."

"Aren't good how?" asked Abner, swallowing bourbon.

"I don't know," said Ezra. "Every way."

"Divorce?" asked Abner.

Ezra shrugged. "Yes, I guess."

Abner nodded again. He nodded for a long while. "All right," he said. He took another swallow of bourbon. He put down the bottle and resumed playing the banjo. "Let me tell you a story," he said.

Rabbi Abner began to sing. He sang and played his harmonica. He didn't look at Ezra - he sang out to the night, to the bugs and the dust and the creaking gold crops. Ezra sat leaning forward, arms resting on his knees. His lips were pulled back in a concentrating smile. He watched Rabbi Abner and listened as hard as he could. The rabbi was singing about his wife. It was a sad song. And then he was singing about the day he got the wedding license. He was singing about their wedding day. He was singing about the night and weeks to follow. Ezra was listening as hard as he could. He couldn't help but feel there were jokes in this song. It soon became clear there were definitely jokes in this song. Rabbi Abner was singing the blues but his blues were also stand-up comedy. Ezra rubbed his face. He wanted to interrupt. Rabbi Abner sang, Lord, give me strength. It was a reference to erections. "But-" Ezra said. Rabbi Abner didn't stop. Then, trouble started, he sang. Ezra bounced his knee. He didn't know what this could teach him. He didn't understand the lesson. Moths were battering themselves against the lantern.

[previously/buy]