A Heart So Slippery Love Slides Away

Spektrum “Horny Pony (Ed Laliq Dressage Mix)” – This starts off sounding almost like some bizarre, misguided Trojan radio ad featuring a stoned Macy Gray flirting with a horse, but it just keeps going and mutates into a perfect, disorienting groove with all kinds of hooks orbitting the beat like a solar system of funk. This is yet another perfect single from Spektrum, who totally killed it last year with “May Day,” and the year before with “Kinda New.” (Click here to buy it from Bleep.)

The Starlight Mints “Seventeen Devils” – Why is it that, with only a few exceptions, I almost always prefer songs that sound sort of like David Bowie to the ones actually written and performed by the man himself? It’s similar to how a lot of my favorite acts owe some stylistic debt to Bob Dylan, but I’d be hard pressed to fill out a cdr with Dylan songs that I kinda like, much less love. In the case of this song, it sort of falls into my Bowie sweet spot between The Man Who Sold The World and Hunky Dory, so it’s certainly playing to my bias against Ziggy Stardust, which I would never say is a bad album so much as it is one that I’d really rather not listen to again. (You know, kind of like Appetite For Destruction.)

If you’re a member of the Starlight Mints, I feel like I should apologize to you for spending all of my time in this review talking about David Bowie. But please keep in mind that I’m basically saying that you wrote a better David Bowie song than 95% of the ones that he actually composed himself, and on top of it, you pulled off a better string arrangement than any I’ve ever heard on one of his albums. In other words, you have pwned a rock icon. (Click here to pre-order it from Barsuk.)

Contest Winner!

Simon H’s fake Decemberists song is the winner! I’ve sent him an email, but if he doesn’t get that, I suppose that he’ll see it here. Get in touch, Simon!