Archives : all posts by Sean

Charles Spearin - "Mrs Morris (Reprise)". Maybe it doesn't do as much if you haven't heard the first one, the -prise this is re-ing. But maybe it does more. Maybe this is a more perfect dream. Sometimes you want a perfect song, a perfect solo - something you can slip into a pocket and take with you, and never be scared that it will crack. There are no flaws in this - it is beautiful, shiny, you could set it on a ring. [buy the Happiness Project]

Luxury Pond - "I Don't Believe You". A submerged song, a song without the Owen Pallett-arranged strings that mark most of Luxury Pond, but a song that sinks into the afternoon like salt into water. These are glimpses of loss, doubt, deception and eerie peace. A song for when you are sitting alone in a room, and you get up, and you close a window. [buy]

Megapuss - "A Gun on his Hip and a Rose on his Chest". "Beautiful, Devendra, beautiful! You're a doll, a jaguar, a wild-man. Yes! More of that! Show me the beast in you, the animal. Show me the spirit of natur-- no please put down the microwave. No, that belongs to catering. Please put it down. It isn't part of the shoot, no. No you can't balance it on your head. Devendra, please! Come back to the bonfire. Please stop using the microwave as a hat. No-- Harvey, could you? Before he-- Devendra, we have champagne for you if you want - the Mike's Hard Lemonade is for the interns. Okay. Okay great. So into the camera - you're a freak! a beautiful folky freak! yes! ye-- I don't know what season of 30 Rock it is. You can watch it when the shoot is over. No, I won't-- Devendra, darling, please! Please take off the Chicago Blackhawks jersey." [buy]

Silent Years - "Vampires Bite The Hands Feed Them". "What a serene and peaceful place. What a fine place for a holiday. I will just sit here, rest my feet and gaze at that mountain. Oh, that mountain would be a fine one to climb. And so would the smaller one beside it, dusted in snow. And look at that range on the right - those look like fine adventures too. And the forest leading up to them - are they redwoods? firs? There's nothing better than ten days in the woods. That lake! The trout must be big as whales. Or maybe there are even whales, at the mouth of the bay! Fishing, swimming, surfing, harpooning. Let me put on my shoes! Look at that sky! I could ride those clouds! Don't tear the calendar until I've returned!" [MySpace/buy]

(photo by Miranda July)

Hi! Sorry I missed posting on Monday - I am traveling in Nova Scotia and haven't been close to the internet. This past weekend I was at the tiny & wonderful New Brunswick festival called Sappyfest. I was writing a daily newspaper for them.

Though I have to run again now, if you would like a taste of Sappyfest - I've put online both issues of the Sappy Times. Some middle-week vicarious reading for you:

See you soon!

Sgt Dunbar & the Hobo Banned - "Everything Is, Pt. III". Messy. The kind of guy whose bracelets always break, whose watches slip off his wrist and shatter on the asphalt. Very good at climbing walls. Favourite movie is The Great Escape. One day he was buying milk and interrupted a robbery. He got beat up good, but saved the owner $400. He gets milk for free, now. He brags about this to his friends. "Not everyone gets free milk," he says. Sometimes he stops mid-way through: "Not everyone gets fr-" he says, reaching to catch his watch before it hits the pavement. [buy/myspace]

Acoustic Ladyland - "Sport Mode". Marty doesn't regret jumping off the cliff until about 15 seconds in. The first seconds are just oh, wow, hey, but then, well, shit! The cliff was high as hell but the water is hurtling toward him at the speed of fall. The sun is shining, the sky is azure, but the water's not going anywhere except closer. He bucks in the air, he twists, he tries to reorient his body so the wind will push him away, away, or up and into a puffy cloud. No, no. No, Marty is falling and he can't do fuck about it. He lowers his head, he closes his eyes. He's a plunging rocket and it's going to be good. [MySpace/buy]

(astronaut image by Ove Kvavik)

Wild Beasts - "All the King's Men". They're in like a pack of rats, handsome and gray. They weave between the glitter-balls, stalk up and down the bar. They slip a gift into every girl's pocket; flower-petals, pills, heavy gold coins. They never whisper; they murmur just loud enough for the girls to lean in close. They have perfect teeth and eyes like little stones. Did you see that bloke? says to Mary to Ella, tongue & teeth. He reminds me of stepping into a cold lake. [such a wonderful, wonderful song - pre-order / MySpace]

Lightning Dust - "I Knew". Like Otis Redding's "Try a Little Tenderness", Lightning Dust's best song ends one round before it should, one round before the knock-out. This may be the point. It's a song about knowing love, after all - and too often that knowledge is up in a puff of smoke (or in a stop of organ) just after it's discovered. But all of us want love, lasting love - and all of us want will want this song to persist and persist; fierce and catchy; grim and warbled; baby-blue, silver and black. When we saw Lightning Dust open for Bonnie Prince Billy in May, they played this tune and Toby turned to me and we said together: "Great song." Somebody slip it to Robyn. [pre-order]

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We Are The Friction, an anthology of fiction and illustration edited by Jez Burrows and Lizzy Stewart, is now officially out and taking orders. This is the way it worked: 12 artists (including Nigel Peake, Charlie Duck & Ray Fenwick) each gave an illustration to 12 different writers (including Tao Lin, Wolf Parade's Spencer Krug & me). The writers wrote stories to match those illustrations. Then the 12 writers each gave a (different) story to the 12 artists, and the artists made pictures to match those stories. And then all of it is in a beautiful book designed by Sing Statistics. I am matched with the bewilderingly great Lizzy Stewart, and contributed stories called "Thaw" (about snow & a wolf) and "Jetsam" (about sea-people and "The Saints Go Marching In"). It's a numbered edition of 1000 - buy quick!

(photo source)

Azeda Booth - "Big Fists". In June, he had pointed out to her how descriptions of dreams are always fascinating to the teller but boring to the person listening. So now they sat side by side on the balcony with a breeze in the leaves and she thought about the fireflies in her dream, spelling out words in the garden. [buy/free EP]

Bob Dylan - "Buckets of Rain". I am this bassline, dear. I agree with every word that Bob said; yes, everything he said is true. But I am the bassline, dear - that's the story of my love. (& if I am the bassline, then you are the girl whose fingers are on the strings.) [buy]

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Anyone have a line on a beautiful, cheap holiday cottage (or something?) in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick or PEI? (Please do email me.)

[photo by Francisco Infante-Arana & Nonna Gorunova, via just three things]

Girls - "Hellhole Ratrace". Terry and Biz go down to the water. I'm still up on the deck and all I can see is Terry's blue bathing-suit passing through the trees. I am resting a white styrofoam cup on the railing.

When they step out of the woods and onto the planks they are caught in the full brunt of the dock's lights. They squint like it's noon. Terry tosses her hair and laughs and from up on the deck it looks like such a noony gesture. They start talking and they must be talking about how suddenly it feels like daytime, like the sun is out, like it is the hottest height of the day. But around them the lake lays flat and black, and the breeze is cold. Biz pulls off his shirt. He squeezes Terry's butt. She doesn't even jump; she just rolls her eyes at him. She slips into the water without saying a word. Her face is half in shadow and half in bright light.

Biz picks up a tiny stone from beside the dock. He flicks it at her. It lands in the water with a plip. I see half of her face smile.

For a while I go away from the railing and make my way through the party. I talk with Gil, Paul, Julie and a couple of dancers who come from Mexico. I look at the Tom Thomson print that Halley's mom has put up above the couch. I get a refill of whisky. When I go back out onto the deck, Terry is still in the water and Biz is still on the dock but they are both yelling and laughing. Terry keeps spraying water up at him, skimming the surface with the soft pad of her hand. Biz is getting bigger and bigger rocks, sending them plunging into the lake. "Fish hail!" I yell at them. They don't see to hear. They are laughing so hard. They are shaking they're laughing so hard. I imagine Terry swimming to the bottom of the lake and coming back as a whale.

[more, courtesy of True Panther Sounds / album out in August / 10" available in the UK]

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Elsewhere:

Amazing analysis of the 90s TV show Boy Meets World.

Other mass-distributed free official-label-promo-songs I have been enjoying:

• Free Energy - "Free Energy"
• The Clientele - "I Wonder Who We Are"
• Datarock - "True Stories" (using 100% recycled Talking Head lyrics)
• Wheat - "HOTT"

Finally, a contest! In 10 days I am headed to the small town of Sackville, New Brunswick for what I have heard is one of North America's finest music & art festivals. Forget Pitchfork, forget SXSW, forget (for now) Pop Montreal - from July 31 to August 2, it's Sappyfest. Remarkable musicians playing in small spaces, to small crowds, after which we can all visit a gallery or grab ice-cream together. The line-up sings (Eric's Trip, Destroyer, Mount Eerie, Clues, Calvin Johnson, Julie Doiron, Eric Chenaux, Feuermusik, Ladyhawk, the Luyas, Ohbijou, Timber Timbre, Shapes & Sizes, Snailhouse), but it's also (i think - i've never been!) a place for discovery. For a small town to teach you a thing or two about treasures.

Anyway, it's worth the drive. And we have two Sappyfest passes to give away. All you need to do is email me your favourite picture of a tree. The one I like best wins. Entries due by Wednesday, 11:59 PM EST. Good luck! [Update: Chad is our winner! If for some reason he cannot make it, I will be in touch with a runner-up. Thank you so much for the lovely trees, all of them.]