+ a work day's musical thoughts

"here we come dropkick, half nelson, full nelson, willie nelson, willie nelson..."
i decided to chronicle my thoughts about the entire day's music listening. vingnettes and all.

11am david grubbs - the thicket
this makes me feel like i should be in a car (preferably a jalopy of some sort) roadtripping across middle america, through the cornfields and blue skies of iowa, like a modern day horatio nelson jackson, straight out of a ken burns' one hour pbs special if you know what i mean.

11.45am cryptacize - dig that treasure
they sing like late 80s/early 90s pop artists, she in that pam berry, kerrie bolton (cat's miaow) vein and he like a young dustin reske (rocketship). it's positively vintage and rather delightful (nostalgic much?). i am listening to this record because i'm putting a couple tracks onto a mixtape for a friend of a friend who likes deerhoof and also wants to know what i am listening to. that's the worse kind of question to answer at a bangin' club on a saturday night, so i choose to say it with a mixtape instead. also i realise i keep typing the band's name as "crypaticize". LOLZ. i make myself giggle much sometimes.

12pm p:ano - brigadoon
actually i'm only really listening to the opening song 'covered wagons' coz it fuckin kills. group singalong, trumpet and harp flourishes, banjo, all harkening back to a sloop john b-framework.

12.04pm disco inferno - d.i. go pop
i somehow only managed to get 4 tracks of the album on the itunes. the other tracks decided to stay home and snuggle in bed instead. i can understand that. this is pretty all over the place but it's good to hear stuff old stuff to get a better historical context for the music that i do like. i'd read that Hood got a lot of their sound from DI and i can hear bits of the electronic bits but there's also a dark post-rock thread through the sound, a bit even like shellac.

12.17pm eyvind kang myspace
just checking this guy out to see if i want to hear a whole album. i'm not sure, it's kind of medieval experimental drone, sounds alright but i'm not sure i'd be able to differentiate between the nuances of this and all the other improvised drone i already have. perhaps a touch too much classical for me. but it does prompt me to have a listen to...

12.20pm efterklang - parades
it's a good bridge between eyvind kang (it even rhymes) and what i'm waiting to check out next, our broken garden. she's a member of efterklang but also has her own ep out. as for efterklang, i can only ever take them in small doses. the cacophany, the intricacies can all be a bit much for me sometimes, especially when i need simpler structures for me to concentrate on work. so only after a couple tracks in, i head over to...

1pm our broken garden - lost sailor ep
this is really gorgeous stuff. i like the organ sounds, somewhere between the wooziness of beach house, with vocals like rubies/concretes/laura gibson et al.

1.22pm bowerbirds - our dark horse
i've switched over from the headphones to the computer speakers, so i'm continuing with the mellow sounds so as to not frighten the workmates. bowerbirds it is. i'm really coming around on this. i think his laconic style suits this more than the indierockness of ticonderoga (the former band). i missed out on seeing them in austin, i should've because lee raved on about them but i couldn't get up early enough. at the same time, i'm looking at "dream beds" in an m+n thread, and combined with this, i wouldn't mind curling up for an afternoon nap. zzzz....(in a good way)

2.20pm tussle - telescope mind, kling-klang
i've switched back to the headphones to drown out my colleagues, not in a bad way but we've just an impromptu birthday celebration with gelato cake (yum!) and there is quite the jovial atmosphere, but i actually need to do some urgent work and it's way loud right now. in my ear, is tussle's whose album i am getting into proper-like after really sticking onto the "hits" for a long time.

i prefer the first album kling-klang to telescope mind actually, even though most reviews out there do not share my view. i find tm a little clinical and cold even, although warning and second guessing are killer tracks and up there as their best.' kk is more dubbier and i think more playful and warmer sounding. that said i tend to listen to both albums at once when it comes to tussle for some reason.

3.17pm fujiya & miyagi - transparent things
i just went for a walk down the block to see if i could my haircut today but i forgot they aren't open on mondays. blast. when i came back, tussle was still banging the drums and shaking those egg shakers but it just wasn't cutting it. i need something to allay my disappointment. so i've opted for the tongue-in-cheek motorik goodness of f & m. except i like them best when they actually veer away from the krautrock most and go soul instead. like on collarbones. new favourite party song. it's going straight to the next dj set (which'll be the powwow 10, in july with touch typist. excited!) i like it when these english gents sing their french in classic non-french pronunciation. just like how i would. also i think it's cute how they like to throw in "sock it to me!" in multiple songs.

3.50pm pause/record myspace
on the basis of a clever, slightly self-aware blurb posted today on m+n, i decided to check them out. i really REALLY like their work. i'm a surprised really how good it is. sydney and melbourne are not short on drone/improvised noise bands but this duo stand out to my ears, i like the strong brushstokes as it were. 'tidal loop' is the best out of the lot, sort of eerie psychedelic, and coromandel's not far behind with it's pulsating metallics. i'll be keeping an ear for them. here's the myspace.

4.28pm hot chip - made in the dark
as the end of the day nears, i start to seek more famiiar sounds. my brain is less equipped to deal with new sounds, whilst my body needs a good shaking. i've come to this record very late because i wasn't sure i was going to like it (i really only loved about half of the warning and bad reviews etc) but now i'm making up for lost time because this album is fucking great! i can't be the only one who likes this more than the last one am i? i think it's more consistent for sure, the warning had some killer songs but i would skip past every 2nd track, where as this one is good all the way through. i actually really like the r&b elements, and the lyrics also seem more playful, bit cheeky (hello songs about wrestlers!) it really is what a third album should sound like, a combination of 2 previous, patchier efforts. 'ready for the floor' is electro pop brilliance.

5pm tape relay playlist
this hasn't happened yet but in 12 minutes time i will put my pen down (figuratively speaking, since i only ever pick up a pen to sign my name on correspondence) to give the next show's playlist a run through and put yet more words to electronic paper to document my thoughts of the music i will be showcasing. it would be highly post-modern of me to then include my mini-chronicles to this already lengthy detailing of the day's listening, but i'm not that advanced. anyway it's probably nothing i haven't already said here before. for the record though, i'll be listening to collections of colonies of bees, helios, montag, thank you, bowerbirds, jonquil, the first 4 p's in the life at 45rpm series, borko, rational academy, okay, butcher the bar, cloudland canyon and dirty projectors. in that order. yes, i am THAT prepared.

this has been an interesting exercise. my day has passed remarkably quickly, and yet i was still productive workwise. might be worthwhile to do it again sometime. it certainly helped me tackle some albums i've wanted to make words about for a while. okay bye now. thanks for reading this far.

+ i can figure out the difference between

mobius band - heaven
came out last year, did not get hype but that's a shame because they make good no-nonsense synth-twinged guitar pop (as much as synth pop can get no-nonsense) which is not particularly new or sexy but sure is satisfying (forget your coke zeros, i'll take an old fashioned sarsparilla any day).

some of his singing and the solid weightiness of the songs remind of the Dodos in that regard and look at how well they've been received. at other times, the sparkly guitars reminds me of the best parts of French Kicks (more solid structures though). Last year's album came out as a joint release between Ghostly International (an excellent label from Ann Arbor that i'm just coming into this year) and Misra Records (home to always high quality indie music).

myspace / website (where you can download a valentines day covers ep right now)

+ signed, i wish you well

Helios - Ayres
Heavens above! I've not had a reaction to music like this in such a long time, I can barely contain myself. I'm not sure why entirely, since it's hardly a stretch from the other laptop folk I like, such as your Hoods, Brackens, Múm, Son Lux even.

But the impact is so visceral. the music has such a light, deft touch but at the same time feels quite dense, almost oppressive but in a good way... I feel quite ridiculous saying all that but I'm so giddy with excitement right now.

It's the first time in a long time where i've actually thought 'holy crap!' and can hardly contain my enthusiasm (but doing a good job nonetheless since it is monday morning after all, and i'm sitting at my desk all sedate-like, listening to this on the headphones but an instant ago, I had to yank them off and relay all the above information to my workmate Ben who is looking at me a little weirdly now)

helios/keith kenniff myspace

+ a day at the beach is no walk in the park

from failcake to spazchow, thanks to frankieteardrop. loves it!

i've been listening to lots to the lymbyc systym in the last week or so because they're on tour at the moment and i'm thinking of them driving around all over the states in their shaggin wagon (is it weird when someone you know feels extra further away because they are on tour or busy with work/study, even though they live on other side of the world anyway, and you only see them once a year as it is? yeh it feels like that, i miss them even more)

in other news, i made some videos of my recent holiday. i put them up on youtube, and talked about it here (at great length) but then i didn't like the ytube compression on my mac much, so i've just made em available for download anyways.