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Kate McGarrigle - "Proserpina (live at Carnegie Hall)".

This is a very sad song. There are a few reasons it's here.

First, because Kate McGarrigle is alive again, every time I listen. "Proserpina" was recorded in London less than two months ago; she is joined by family, surrounded by friends. Her son, Rufus Wainwright, called the Royal Albert Hall show "the greatest performance of her life". There she is, right there, singing as she's always sung, or perhaps even better, a voice of wildflower and thorn. She sings with her sister, Anna, and her children, and her niece; her new grandson, scarce weeks old, squirms in a hospital not far away. Even from there, I am certain, he can hear the harmonies.

I also share this song because it was a new one, written by Kate at the end of her life, toward the end of a long illness. Yet this is not a song of the expiring, of the slowing heart: it's a work of strong beauty, of brave melody and deft singing, with (dare I say it) a magnificent hook. "Proserpina" is not about falling away, but about coming home.

And she sings it triumphantly. She is already very, very sick and yet still she is Kate, wry and caring, unflinching. Earlier in the concert, she describes the story of Proserpina, of Persephone - a grim legend. Someone in the crowd calls out, (warmly but) sarcastically: "Merry Christmas!" For Kate there is no flutter of hesitation or embarrassment: there is only laughter. She and the whole great room laugh. As the McGarrigle sisters have always known, these things (sorrow, joy) go together.

Now, with streets swept of snow, with too much sadness in this city's new young year, I listen to both the sad songs and to the happier ones. We all strain to hear the harmonies.

[goodbye, Kate McGarrigle / buy / website / video of "Proserpina"]

(We're very glad to still have you here, Anna.)

Cats on Fire - "Letters from a Voyage to Sweden". A song of afternoon adultery, quickly snatched; melancholy in a blue afternoon. // My guesses: Cats on Fire keep their guitar-picks in jean-pockets when they're not using them. Matthias Bjorkas wears an embroidered Morrissey patch. They keep their accordion in a box, only take it out for a few moments in a breathless bridge. They imagine playing a concert on a ferry. They are from Finland. This is gold-flecked, jangled, finger-flicked, and good. [buy/from Skatterbrain's Best Songs of 2009]

The Octagon - "Cross Tops".
The Octagon - "Easton".
I'm fully subscribing to the new record by the Octagon, an LP with sixteen crunchy numbers like these, brambled, messy and sincere. I can say words like 'nirvana' and 'constantines'; I can say names like 'Lou Barlow' and 'Eric's Trip'. But I doubt any of these words & names were uttered as Zachary Mexico, Will Glass and a bassist called the Bunny recorded this lacquered disc of furious heart. They were too busy clutching & pitching & caring, caring keenly, sloppily; and playing hooks. When Glass lived in Montreal he was this little treasure, hoarded. Now he's one third of an eight-sided band, a group that's chipped and twinkling, all of them furiously sharing the dusty stuff of their days. [buyWarm Love and Cool Dreams Forever/previously on StG]

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At the Observer, Arcade Fire's Régine Chassagne has written stridently (and vividly) about Haiti, where her parents were born. It's worth reading - and then please donate.

(image excerpted from Thelonious Monk's Advice to Musicians)

Clara Clara - "One On One". It's Said the Gramophone's beloved François Virot here, yowling over "One On One"'s bristling bassline. Clara Clara are all push & pull, warp & weft, tension with little resolve. There are small human touches (drumsticks, handclaps, the playground lyrics), but the organ and cymbals rise like symptoms - there's doom in the water, blackness in our ventricles. Even the coda, darkly fun, is the sound of stamping a garden into dust. [MySpace/coming soon!/more Clapping Music preview]

The Hidden Cameras - "In the NA". I don't know if "the NA" is a place-holder, a macguffin, or whether there's a secret acronym I've not decoded. It doesn't seem to matter. Joel Gibb sings it over and over: he raises curtains, and there the NA is; he casts a line, draws back, there's that bucking NA; he lifts it from top-hats, extracts it from gums, fires it like buckshot from a rusty Ontario rifle. The important bit is the song's silly gleam. The synths wiggle & wiggle, the men yell hey!, and they all play it straight - it's Monty Python over here, po-faced in the eels. [shop / from You Ain't No Picasso's Best songs of 2009]

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The band Antarctica Takes It, who I have long celebrated, are raising money to release their second album. Go invest at Kickstarter. (Thanks, m.)

I mentioned the Torture Garden on Monday, but they've now also posted their top 50+ songs of 2009. I'm still wading through, but go listen.

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Haiti has been devastated by this week's earthquake. If you're hesitating to donate, see photographs. Read. Please give.

RIP Jay Reatard.

(photo source unknown)

Earl-Jean - "I'm Into Somethin' Good". Earl-Jean's voice, so much higher than Herman's Hermits', makes this (earlier) version of "I'm Into Somethin' Good" sound as if it were recorded at a mountaintop studio - somewhere everyone is oxygen-deprived. The singing's lightheaded, a little tipsy; the saxophone sounds as if it's being blown through a straw. But even if it's missing some of the Hermits' kineticism, or if it thrills a little less, it's got a sharp silver sparkle in all this thin air. Earl-Jean's singing a different phase of infatuation, an earlier instant of head-over-heels. You know the one: where your thinking's lightheaded, a little tipsy; and every breath feels as if it's being pulled through a straw. [buy]

Charlotte Gainsbourg - "Me and Jane Doe". Like all the best things on Charlotte Gainsbourg's IRM, this is a plain song, artfully recorded (with help from Beck). The drums (as always on IRM) are wonderful. The drums turn it from a pleasant soft-rock ditty to a pleasant soft-rock ditty with something else. It's matte and real and dusty and concreted. I can't put my finger on it. It's the difference between a film set and a city street, a look in her eye and a look in her eye. One is fake and one is real. [buy]

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To my great amusement and enjoyment, the Torture Garden have posted their favourite 51 songs of the year 2008. With breathtaking and elegant original artwork. Shane also recently posted the Luyas' new Radiohead cover, which I considered sharing but, er, didn't. Go see.

(image above by Julien Pacaud)

Basia Bulat - "The Shore". For "The Shore", from Basia Bulat's upcoming second album, Basia brings only her autoharp. She carries it alone. & this song, too, feels like something to carry alone, cradled. You do not sing "The Shore" in chorus with your friends, arms on shoulders. You bring it with you when you pace in boots through the sand, pass through the poplars, walk the cracked sidewalk slabs of chez toi, snowdrifts rising. She sings of love, and storms, and of safe harbour; and you can hear the lighthouses skimming, somewhere out there, sending glances across the bay; and looking for you.

[for Heart Of My Own, recorded again with Howard Bilerman, Basia wrote new songs and still sung her heart out / it is released January 25 / pre-order / Listen to "Gold Rush" / see her on tour]

White Hinterand - "Amsterdam". White Hinterland's new album, Kairos, is indeed a rediscovery. She told me how she decided to learn to sing better. She showed me her gold rings and Shawn Creeden's dark beats. Now Casey Dienel stands here in all her new skin, holding the microphone like a black lotus. She left the jazz and folksong in New England. She threw her sheet-music into the Atlantic Ocean. Now she lulls her songs from loops of lifted voice, the floors of scuttled Pacific ships; she sings fewer words, more clearly. "Amsterdam" is veiled in rain, darted through with white birds, haunted with life. It's handwritten and unsent. It waits for its recipient.

[Kairos is the doe-eyed sister of The xx, Untrue, BiRd-BrAiNs, Drums and Guns, Rise Above / It is out March 9 on Dead Oceans / Listen to the album's other highlight, "Icarus", at Gorilla vs Bear / homepage]

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(photo by Francisco Infante-Arana & Nonna Gorunova / source)

Lhasa - "Fool's Gold". The singer Lhasa de Sela died on New Year's Day, after a long illness. She was 37. I saw Lhasa perform only once, at a concert that was being shot by the filmmaker Vincent Moon. I did not know her music very well. We sat in a circle around she and the band. She moved among us like a moon, with grace and purpose. She was very serious and yet always smiling. She was wise, I think, even though I only heard her sing. She sang songs like this one, and songs much more sad, her voice always curling, always taking heart, always kind. "Fool's Gold" is about a loss, a betrayal, but even here she is without rancour. It is as if she left bitterness behind, years ago. Nothing can touch her: not words, not lies, not rain. She is free. [buy]

Clare and the Reasons - "You Got Time". A new year yawning, gaping with twelve-paged jaw. We clutch ourselves, like we're about to step into a chill. We step into twenty-ten with eyes closed, breath braced, counting down. If we end the year on a frozen lake, we begin it on that same lake. It is one dawn closer to spring. And though we don't hear the cracks yet, though Clare and the Reasons lull so reassuringly, though they sing You got time to turn around: you don't. We don't. It's slipping away. It's slipping away. It's slipping away. The second is already gone. The minute is past. Quick: GO. [buy / thanks Brian]

Exuma - "The Vision". I don't believe Exuma's story for one second. He had a vision of judgment day? Like heck he did. Listen to this song. This ain't a song about Apocalypse. This ain't a song about rising seas and lifting lava. This is a song about New Year's day. January 1. Tomorrow. Everything beautiful new, clean cherished, loose ready. Nothing certain except the hot human tremble in your voice. [buy]

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Wishing you all a very happy new year.

(painting by Vilhelm Hammershoi)