The National - Anyone's Ghost
You said I came close
as anyone's come
to live underwater
for more than a month
you said it was not inside my heart, it was
you said it should tear a kid apart, it does
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Six Month Stickies # 6
March '10 - August '10
As usual the tracks of music that got stuck in my head in the last six months, in order.
And only seven months overdue wohoo!
* Click image to download a ZIP of the compilation:
Low - If You Were Born Today
My respect for Low increases every year. One of the many facets of their appeal for me is a certain biblical insistence in the lyrics, especially on the Christmas album. There is something so painfully beautiful in this languid refrain about baby Jesus, and the shamed admittance that the inclusive love of the Christian message is all but lost on our modern age. The shambling quality of the jingles near the end play beautifully with the deep humming and plotting snare.
Low - Because You Stood Still
Your red ragged wings
and cold tiny hands
will never be able
to count all that sand
They said you were sick
yeah you're mighty ill
they said you did nothing
because you stood still
because you stood still
Low - Little Drummer Boy
Something about the low-fi droning of the sustained notes throughout and far away drums and simplistic lyrics create this dense yet loose fuzzy space that makes me feel adrift in a bittersweet sonic twilight.
Sinéad O'Connor - Troy, The Last Day of Our Acquaintance
I think Sinéad O'Connor is one of the most gifted singers ever. The same is far from true about her lyricism. I think if i didn't understand English I would be able to enjoy her music much more. That being said there are a handful of her songs that show off her best qualities and minimize her worst. This is one of them.
The National - Mistaken For Strangers
Not sure why this song took so long to get stuck in my head. What more can I say. I think this was the best album of the last ten years.
Joana Newsom - Only Skin
It took many hours of listening to this album before I could really make enough headway through the denseness of the instrumentation, and exhausting thoroughness of the compositions and lyrics. Once I had however, I was able to fully absorb and appreciate the great skill and care taken with this album. There is something especially illustrative with the section about carrying the dead bird to an elevated grave.
last week our picture window produced a half-word
heavy and hollow, hit by a brown bird
we stood and watched her gape like a rattlesnake
and pant and labor over every intake
I said a sort of prayer for some sort of rare grace
then thought I ought to take her to a higher place
said: "dog nor vulture nor cat shall toy with you
and though you die, bird, you will have a fine view"
then in my hot hand
she slumped her sick weight
we tramped through the poison oak
heart broke and inchoate
the dogs were snapping
so you cuffed their collars
while I climbed the tree-house
then how I hollered!
cause she'd lain, as still as a stone, in my palm, for a lifetime or two
then, saw the treetops, cocked her head and up and flew
(while, back in the world that moves, often
according to the hoarding of these clues
dogs still run roughly around
little tufts of finch-down)
Joanna Newsom - Cosmia
I really like the irregular rise in fall of her voice and modulation of spoken and sung words.
Camera Obscura - Keep It Clean
Just some slightly bittersweet cotton candy.
Studio - Out There
For some reason this track really hit the spot for me. I've had this album in my music library for years. But just finally unlocked its appeal.
Animal Collective - For Reverend Green
More additively explosive exuberance from Animal Collective.
Purple Rhinestone Eagle - Sleep, Golden Sleep
I randomly saw this band play at a ratty Oakland house party that I was at for reasons I've long since forgot. Anyway, I was surprised how into this band I was. All women line up, and a very unique sound.
The Beatles - Rocky Raccoon
I always begrudgingly admit defeat when a Mcartney penned song gets stuck in my head. Frivolous narration aside, I couldn't help but like this song. Plus I like to imagine rocky as a raccoon. An adorable little raccoon in spurs and a ten gallon hat.
Bach - Lute Suite No. 2
Not often do I get classical stuck in my head. But this lute suite is just catchy enough to do the job.
Sigur Rós - Gong
I insisted on waking up to this song turned super loud during the days it was stuck in my head. For me the sticky point is 3:41 in the yearning way he smothers out those repetitive indecipherable vocals.
Paul Simon - Graceland
Paul is so awesome. Graceland is the ultimate.
She comes back to tell me she's gone
as if I didn't know that
as if I didn't know my own bed
as if I'd never noticed
the way she brushed her hair from her forehead
And she said losing love
is like a window in your heart
everybody sees you're blown apart
everybody sees the wind blow
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Into My Arms
Nick cave putting his offbeat humor and sardonic sensibilities aside for a moment of unapologetic earnestness.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Black Hair
I love the straight shooting low-fi repetitiveness of this song. The darkness and languid pacing of his voice and wheezing music creates a unsettling intense feeling. I get shivers every time he gets to the part about taking a train to the west.
Joanna Newsom - Baby Birch
I scare myself at times at how obsessed I've become with Joanna Newsom's music. I feel like this track is to the last ten years, what Paranoid Android was to the nineties. In that besides being perhaps the best track of the decade, is off perhaps the best album, and sets a new pace for contemporary song writers, in what is possible in range, depth, poetry, musicality and innovation. It reminds me of Sigur Ró's (Popplagið) in the way the song teaches you the vocabulary of its sound and development in the first half, so that you can understand and follow the thorough build up to climax. The climax point for me is when the drums come in at 6:21. I almost have a seizure the way the music effects me at that moment. This song is so beautiful, it makes me feel powerless in attempting to explain it.
Joanna Newsom - Does Not Suffice
Another gorgeous song from Joanna Newsom. Simple, heartfelt and deeply honest. Suspiciously enough I was embroiled in a female based poignant separation of sorts, while this song figuratively and literally served as the soundtrack. Listening to the track together, especially the parts about boundless bed, scrubbing yourself red, an unloved sweet farewell allowed to seep in with unrushed poignancy.
The National - Anyone's Ghost
High Violet is certainly no Boxer. But still infected me with a couple songs for a week or so.
You said I came close
as anyone's come
to live underwater
for more than a month
you said it was not inside my heart, it was
you said it should tear a kid apart, it does
The National - Runaway
I like the thumping drums throughout.
ABBA - The Visitors
I dug through a crate of LPs at an estate sale down the street from my place and found a handful of records of artists I've been meaning to check out for a while. Abba was one of them. Little did I know then, that this album, and this song in particular would set off an Abba obsession that would eventually lead to a un-abandoned indulgence in disco music. I've listened to thousands of disco tracks since then, and even went as far as taking my overly tight white corduroy pants out of retirement for a night of dancing. I'm only now starting to equalize. It's been a crazy ride.
Ava Luna - Past the Barbary
I saw this band play in a loft party/battle of the bands thing in Brooklyn. I was spending the weekend with a couple friends I lived with in Greece the previous year and I was struck by the kinetic freshness of the music, their exuberant performances, especially on the part of the female singers, who were arranged and choreographed like an act from the forties. I picked up their EP at the show and am very glad I did.
Sticky point = 1:55 Suddenly tumble-crash to a brief stop.
Ava Luna - Clips
I love the clacky drum pattern in the beginning. I love the nerdy white boy funk of the whole song.
ABBA - Dancing Queen
I would argue one of the hardest songs in recorded music history not to get stuck in your head. If you want to be a jerk play this track at a party, then listen as half the people leaving that night are humming bars of dancing queen. The undeniable exultation of this song is overwhelming.
ABBA - Crazy World
I'm fully aware of the high levels of cheese in this song. It's corny, affected, contrived, and maudlin, all that notwithstanding, the narrative cut through me. Probably because I can relate to the story, except without the happy twist ending which made it all the more cutting for me.
Red House Painters - Cruiser
I have no idea what happened, but suddenly I became alarmingly obsessed with Mark Kozelek's music over the summer. And listened almost exclusively to Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon for about a month.
It started with this relaxed laid back meditation on memories and L.A. I really like the unhurried sweeping stucco speckled vistas of sand and low lying mountains, and curving highways this song conjures up for me.
Sun Kil Moon - Salvador Sanchez, Pancho Villa
Essentially the same song, ones a bit more rock, the other a bit more acoustic. Just catchy and satisfying both of them
Sun Kil Moon - Neverending Math Equation
This has been one of my favorite covers to listen to for years.
Red House Painters - Japanese To English
More Kzelek indulging in his mopeyness, but I'm into it.
"... translate Japanese to English, or English to Japan-eeez" That's so great.
Live - I Alone, Lighting Crashes, All Over You
I'm not sure what happened. I suddenly became into Live in a way I haven't been since middle school. I remember at the time seeing footage of him singing while shedding a single tear from the sheer passion of his lyrics and thinking "Wow..." The music seems a bit more cheesy now than it did at the time, but still a good listen even divorced from its emphatic mid nineties alt rock context.
______________________________________________
Six Month Stickies # 5
Six Month Stickies # 4
Six Month Stickies # 3
Six Month Stickies # 2
Six Month Stickies # 1
March '10 - August '10
As usual the tracks of music that got stuck in my head in the last six months, in order.
And only seven months overdue wohoo!
* Click image to download a ZIP of the compilation:
Low - If You Were Born Today
My respect for Low increases every year. One of the many facets of their appeal for me is a certain biblical insistence in the lyrics, especially on the Christmas album. There is something so painfully beautiful in this languid refrain about baby Jesus, and the shamed admittance that the inclusive love of the Christian message is all but lost on our modern age. The shambling quality of the jingles near the end play beautifully with the deep humming and plotting snare.
Low - Because You Stood Still
Your red ragged wings
and cold tiny hands
will never be able
to count all that sand
They said you were sick
yeah you're mighty ill
they said you did nothing
because you stood still
because you stood still
Low - Little Drummer Boy
Something about the low-fi droning of the sustained notes throughout and far away drums and simplistic lyrics create this dense yet loose fuzzy space that makes me feel adrift in a bittersweet sonic twilight.
Sinéad O'Connor - Troy, The Last Day of Our Acquaintance
I think Sinéad O'Connor is one of the most gifted singers ever. The same is far from true about her lyricism. I think if i didn't understand English I would be able to enjoy her music much more. That being said there are a handful of her songs that show off her best qualities and minimize her worst. This is one of them.
The National - Mistaken For Strangers
Not sure why this song took so long to get stuck in my head. What more can I say. I think this was the best album of the last ten years.
Joana Newsom - Only Skin
It took many hours of listening to this album before I could really make enough headway through the denseness of the instrumentation, and exhausting thoroughness of the compositions and lyrics. Once I had however, I was able to fully absorb and appreciate the great skill and care taken with this album. There is something especially illustrative with the section about carrying the dead bird to an elevated grave.
last week our picture window produced a half-word
heavy and hollow, hit by a brown bird
we stood and watched her gape like a rattlesnake
and pant and labor over every intake
I said a sort of prayer for some sort of rare grace
then thought I ought to take her to a higher place
said: "dog nor vulture nor cat shall toy with you
and though you die, bird, you will have a fine view"
then in my hot hand
she slumped her sick weight
we tramped through the poison oak
heart broke and inchoate
the dogs were snapping
so you cuffed their collars
while I climbed the tree-house
then how I hollered!
cause she'd lain, as still as a stone, in my palm, for a lifetime or two
then, saw the treetops, cocked her head and up and flew
(while, back in the world that moves, often
according to the hoarding of these clues
dogs still run roughly around
little tufts of finch-down)
Joanna Newsom - Cosmia
I really like the irregular rise in fall of her voice and modulation of spoken and sung words.
Camera Obscura - Keep It Clean
Just some slightly bittersweet cotton candy.
Studio - Out There
For some reason this track really hit the spot for me. I've had this album in my music library for years. But just finally unlocked its appeal.
Animal Collective - For Reverend Green
More additively explosive exuberance from Animal Collective.
Purple Rhinestone Eagle - Sleep, Golden Sleep
I randomly saw this band play at a ratty Oakland house party that I was at for reasons I've long since forgot. Anyway, I was surprised how into this band I was. All women line up, and a very unique sound.
The Beatles - Rocky Raccoon
I always begrudgingly admit defeat when a Mcartney penned song gets stuck in my head. Frivolous narration aside, I couldn't help but like this song. Plus I like to imagine rocky as a raccoon. An adorable little raccoon in spurs and a ten gallon hat.
Bach - Lute Suite No. 2
Not often do I get classical stuck in my head. But this lute suite is just catchy enough to do the job.
Sigur Rós - Gong
I insisted on waking up to this song turned super loud during the days it was stuck in my head. For me the sticky point is 3:41 in the yearning way he smothers out those repetitive indecipherable vocals.
Paul Simon - Graceland
Paul is so awesome. Graceland is the ultimate.
She comes back to tell me she's gone
as if I didn't know that
as if I didn't know my own bed
as if I'd never noticed
the way she brushed her hair from her forehead
And she said losing love
is like a window in your heart
everybody sees you're blown apart
everybody sees the wind blow
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Into My Arms
Nick cave putting his offbeat humor and sardonic sensibilities aside for a moment of unapologetic earnestness.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Black Hair
I love the straight shooting low-fi repetitiveness of this song. The darkness and languid pacing of his voice and wheezing music creates a unsettling intense feeling. I get shivers every time he gets to the part about taking a train to the west.
Joanna Newsom - Baby Birch
I scare myself at times at how obsessed I've become with Joanna Newsom's music. I feel like this track is to the last ten years, what Paranoid Android was to the nineties. In that besides being perhaps the best track of the decade, is off perhaps the best album, and sets a new pace for contemporary song writers, in what is possible in range, depth, poetry, musicality and innovation. It reminds me of Sigur Ró's (Popplagið) in the way the song teaches you the vocabulary of its sound and development in the first half, so that you can understand and follow the thorough build up to climax. The climax point for me is when the drums come in at 6:21. I almost have a seizure the way the music effects me at that moment. This song is so beautiful, it makes me feel powerless in attempting to explain it.
Joanna Newsom - Does Not Suffice
Another gorgeous song from Joanna Newsom. Simple, heartfelt and deeply honest. Suspiciously enough I was embroiled in a female based poignant separation of sorts, while this song figuratively and literally served as the soundtrack. Listening to the track together, especially the parts about boundless bed, scrubbing yourself red, an unloved sweet farewell allowed to seep in with unrushed poignancy.
The National - Anyone's Ghost
High Violet is certainly no Boxer. But still infected me with a couple songs for a week or so.
You said I came close
as anyone's come
to live underwater
for more than a month
you said it was not inside my heart, it was
you said it should tear a kid apart, it does
The National - Runaway
I like the thumping drums throughout.
ABBA - The Visitors
I dug through a crate of LPs at an estate sale down the street from my place and found a handful of records of artists I've been meaning to check out for a while. Abba was one of them. Little did I know then, that this album, and this song in particular would set off an Abba obsession that would eventually lead to a un-abandoned indulgence in disco music. I've listened to thousands of disco tracks since then, and even went as far as taking my overly tight white corduroy pants out of retirement for a night of dancing. I'm only now starting to equalize. It's been a crazy ride.
Ava Luna - Past the Barbary
I saw this band play in a loft party/battle of the bands thing in Brooklyn. I was spending the weekend with a couple friends I lived with in Greece the previous year and I was struck by the kinetic freshness of the music, their exuberant performances, especially on the part of the female singers, who were arranged and choreographed like an act from the forties. I picked up their EP at the show and am very glad I did.
Sticky point = 1:55 Suddenly tumble-crash to a brief stop.
Ava Luna - Clips
I love the clacky drum pattern in the beginning. I love the nerdy white boy funk of the whole song.
ABBA - Dancing Queen
I would argue one of the hardest songs in recorded music history not to get stuck in your head. If you want to be a jerk play this track at a party, then listen as half the people leaving that night are humming bars of dancing queen. The undeniable exultation of this song is overwhelming.
ABBA - Crazy World
I'm fully aware of the high levels of cheese in this song. It's corny, affected, contrived, and maudlin, all that notwithstanding, the narrative cut through me. Probably because I can relate to the story, except without the happy twist ending which made it all the more cutting for me.
Red House Painters - Cruiser
I have no idea what happened, but suddenly I became alarmingly obsessed with Mark Kozelek's music over the summer. And listened almost exclusively to Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon for about a month.
It started with this relaxed laid back meditation on memories and L.A. I really like the unhurried sweeping stucco speckled vistas of sand and low lying mountains, and curving highways this song conjures up for me.
Sun Kil Moon - Salvador Sanchez, Pancho Villa
Essentially the same song, ones a bit more rock, the other a bit more acoustic. Just catchy and satisfying both of them
Sun Kil Moon - Neverending Math Equation
This has been one of my favorite covers to listen to for years.
Red House Painters - Japanese To English
More Kzelek indulging in his mopeyness, but I'm into it.
"... translate Japanese to English, or English to Japan-eeez" That's so great.
Live - I Alone, Lighting Crashes, All Over You
I'm not sure what happened. I suddenly became into Live in a way I haven't been since middle school. I remember at the time seeing footage of him singing while shedding a single tear from the sheer passion of his lyrics and thinking "Wow..." The music seems a bit more cheesy now than it did at the time, but still a good listen even divorced from its emphatic mid nineties alt rock context.
______________________________________________
Six Month Stickies # 5
Six Month Stickies # 4
Six Month Stickies # 3
Six Month Stickies # 2
Six Month Stickies # 1
Thursday, February 03, 2011
5 A Month Club: January
I've spent much of my adulthood meticulously planning large scale art projects, that require the perfect setting, material, design, set up etc. with the result that I never actually get them started, much less finish them. In an attempt to route this unhealthy all or nothing (which has proven to be more nothing than all) work-flow, I've decided to force myself to output five art projects every month. The categories are:
1. Painting
2. Film Making
3. Writing
4. Music Writing
5. Sculpture
All mediums which I'm notoriously slow and obsessively perfectionist at.
So the deal is that by the end of each month I have to finish something in each of the five categories NO MATTER WHAT. The deadline is the most important aspect of the projects. Even if the film is five seconds long, or the writing is a three line poem or the music is a catchy 20 second jingle, it's of no matter, all that matters is that 5 projects get done every month.
Of course I'll still be obsessing and noddling my large scale projects, but at least this way I'll have stuff coming off the presses regularly in the mean time.
The inspiration came from two sources. The first was a book a read a while ago about art and creativity wherein a sculpture teacher conducted an experiment with his class, and split them into two groups, the first group he said he would grade entirely on one sculpture, and didn't care what else they made. The second group he said he would grade purely based on the weight of the clay they used up throughout the semester, the more clay the better the grade. Interestingly enough he found that the best sculptures always came from the second group. Because they weren't worried about perfection, and instead got lots of practice throwing pot after pot, until they inevitably improved, faster than the group that obsessed about a single pot the whole time.
The second source of inspiration is from my own experience where I find that once I get started on a project, no matter how dumb, or small, or irrelevant, I always find opportunity to exercise creative new impulses and ideas, and end up getting really into the project and tend to be happy with the outcome. Usually an external source is required to get the ball rolling, like helping someone else do something, but in this case I want to be my own catalyst for project creation.
So below are the results of the January installment of the 5 A Month Club:
Film:
Song:
Painting:
Sculpture:
Writing:
I've spent much of my adulthood meticulously planning large scale art projects, that require the perfect setting, material, design, set up etc. with the result that I never actually get them started, much less finish them. In an attempt to route this unhealthy all or nothing (which has proven to be more nothing than all) work-flow, I've decided to force myself to output five art projects every month. The categories are:
1. Painting
2. Film Making
3. Writing
4. Music Writing
5. Sculpture
All mediums which I'm notoriously slow and obsessively perfectionist at.
So the deal is that by the end of each month I have to finish something in each of the five categories NO MATTER WHAT. The deadline is the most important aspect of the projects. Even if the film is five seconds long, or the writing is a three line poem or the music is a catchy 20 second jingle, it's of no matter, all that matters is that 5 projects get done every month.
Of course I'll still be obsessing and noddling my large scale projects, but at least this way I'll have stuff coming off the presses regularly in the mean time.
The inspiration came from two sources. The first was a book a read a while ago about art and creativity wherein a sculpture teacher conducted an experiment with his class, and split them into two groups, the first group he said he would grade entirely on one sculpture, and didn't care what else they made. The second group he said he would grade purely based on the weight of the clay they used up throughout the semester, the more clay the better the grade. Interestingly enough he found that the best sculptures always came from the second group. Because they weren't worried about perfection, and instead got lots of practice throwing pot after pot, until they inevitably improved, faster than the group that obsessed about a single pot the whole time.
The second source of inspiration is from my own experience where I find that once I get started on a project, no matter how dumb, or small, or irrelevant, I always find opportunity to exercise creative new impulses and ideas, and end up getting really into the project and tend to be happy with the outcome. Usually an external source is required to get the ball rolling, like helping someone else do something, but in this case I want to be my own catalyst for project creation.
So below are the results of the January installment of the 5 A Month Club:
Film:
Song:
Painting:
Sculpture:
Writing:
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
Haiku... Sort of?
My friends at Paravian Press are throwing a Haiku contest to promote thier latest release, and I thought I would try my hand at one. Doesn't really follow the proper format, but then again, neither does the English language.
Shambling through earth and ore
the past cascading
to your bleak resounding shore.
My friends at Paravian Press are throwing a Haiku contest to promote thier latest release, and I thought I would try my hand at one. Doesn't really follow the proper format, but then again, neither does the English language.
Shambling through earth and ore
the past cascading
to your bleak resounding shore.
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
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