Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Speck Mountain “Girl Out West” – This song is nearly nine minutes long, but it feels as though it’s nothing more than a few steps on a pilgrimage by foot from New York to the edge of California. The progress is maddeningly slow, but with every moment, you’re closer to the destination, or at least closer than if you never made the crazy decision to start walking in the first place. (Click here to buy it via Speck Mountain’s MySpace page.)

Sissy Wish “Yayaya” – Sissy Wish’s best songs also feel like stops along the path of some incredible journey, but close enough to the end point that there’s a sense of excitement and imminent fulfillment. It’s the feeling of almost having everything you need, and at least half of the things you want, but still needing to work out so much before it’s all set. It’s also the half-conscious awareness of the reality that once you get there, you need to continue to work twice as hard to stay there. “Yayaya” keeps rising to new plateaus, but each shift to the next level has the feeling of a brand new all-time high. (Click here to buy it from Sissy Wish.)

Old Time Relijun “In The Crown Of Lost Light” – The singer sounds like he’s about to shake apart so hard that his body will crack open and let loose a burst of light so intense that it’ll burn out your eyes so quickly that your mind will never actually “see” it. The song is on the edge of ecstasy; but holds back if just because we’re not ready for that white hot radiance. (Click here to buy it from K Records.)

Thrushes “Loyalty” – The song barely needs lyrics, and so the singer keeps her words to a minimum. She sketches in her doubts and insecurities, and fills in the gaps with washes of sound, soft moans, and subtle shifts in inflection that hint at the tiniest, most subtle shifts in mood and intent. She wants an answer to a question. She wants parameters for her love. She wants to know what she is to the person she’s singing about, but she’s singing the words to herself. (Click here to buy it from Thrushes.)

The Slits “Newtown” – Last weekend I moved in to a new apartment. If I’ve seemed distracted or disengaged any time in the past month or so, that’s more or less the reason — first it was the stress of finding the place, then getting everything in order for the actual move, and now that I’m here, I’m overwhelmed by all the things I need to buy to make this place feel like a home, and all the additional work I need to do in order to afford my new, more expensive lifestyle. Also, I’m living alone, which is definitely something I’ve wanted for a while now, but I’m discovering very quickly that I need to schedule waaaaaay more social time for myself or I’ll probably go crazy. I’m very optimistic about the change in status quo, but the adjustment stage has been more awkward than I’d anticipated. Hopefully things will be better next week after the cable/internet is finally set up (there was an obnoxious complication — thank God for whoever has the password-free wireless set-up around here, they totally saved my ass this week) and I’ll have, y’know, a living room. But the internet thing has been a real pain — I haven’t been able to download much of anything, and all the upheaval in my life has made me focus on old, familiar music, and so doing this site has been a bit tricky lately. Also, sorry if the posts have been a bit self-absorbed and emo recently.

Anyway, this Slits number — well, to be honest, aside from loving this song for years now, it was selected almost entirely because my new cross-street is Newtown Road, and every time I see the sign, I think of all the different ways Ari Up sings the name in this song, sometimes shifting from cool and collected to wild and aggressive in the span of one syllable. It seems right. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Elsewhere: My review of Ratatouille is up on The Movie Binge.

The New Pornographers @ Battery Park, 7/4/07
All The Things That Go To Make Heaven And Earth / Use It / The Laws Have Changed / All The Old Showstoppers / Jackie Dressed In Cobras / Challengers / The Spirit Of Giving / Mass Romantic / From Blown Speakers / My Rights Versus Yours / The Jessica Numbers / Go Places / Mutiny, I Promise You / Twin Cinema / Sing Me Spanish Techno / The Bleeding Heart Show // These Are The Fables / Testament To Youth In Verse / The Slow Descent Into Alcoholism

Quick show review: The weather was bad but not horrible (dark, intermittent rain); the audience seemed slightly removed and disengaged (and I count myself in with that); it barely felt like the 4th of July. Neko Case was with the band, and so were some other people playing strings and horns, and both of those things made the show a bit better, especially on “Go Places,” which very beautiful and moving. Also, Carl Newman has a beard now.

The New Pornographers “Myriad Harbour” – Given that Dan Bejar was not present, I was actually a bit relieved that the band opted not to perform “Myriad Harbour,” my favorite song from Challengers. More than any other song Bejar has written for the New Pornographers, “Myriad Harbour” greatly depends upon his charisma and persona. Kurt Dahle and Carl Newman can approximate his peculiar affectations on the other songs, but this one seems way too particular to his character, to the point that it basically just sounds like a slightly more magnificent version of Destroyer.

“Myriad Harbour” stands in stark contrast with the rest of Challengers — whereas Newman pushes towards lushness and grandiosity with your standard strings, horns, and assorted “respectable” instrumentation, this song evokes widescreen panoramic beauty without much fuss. I’m not sure if “understated” is exactly the right adjective given its level of production value, but it feels very airy and effortless when heard in the same sitting as Newman’s comparatively overwrought numbers, especially when you focus on the song’s elegant lead guitar refrain. All through Challengers, Newman seems like a guy desperately trying to articulate an overwhelming feeling that makes him feel a bit self-conscious, and Bejar just slides along, casually tossing off pithy one-liners, thoughtful asides, and quick non-sequitors that somehow carry the weight of an entire album’s worth of tunes. (“All I ever wanted help with was YOU.” For me, right now, that line is like getting shot in the heart with an arrow of EMOTIONAL TRUTH.)

In the song, Dan Bejar plays himself as a hipster flaneur visiting Manhattan and casting about in search of entertainment, culture, and beauty. It’s a song about observation, really — look at the sunset, the pretty girls, PS1, the local art kids, the “Myriad Harbour.” There’s the pleasure of appreciating these moments, these places, people, and things, but there’s also a distinct sense of emotional detachment. He’s just passing through, it’s all a distraction from someone he can’t get out of his head.

PS: I’ll talk about Carl’s songs on the album another time, okay? I have a lot to say about them, but I’m still figuring it all out. I was very disappointed at first, but now I’m not. I like Challengers a lot, but it’s a tricky thing because on one hand, the new direction seems neurotic, like he has to prove that he and the band can do something other than their specialty, and on the other, the more “classic” style songs on the record are the least inspired and emotionally involving. (Click here to buy it via Matador’s Buy Early Get Now site.)

Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site with mp3s from Matthew Dear, Misha, and Chromeo.

Imperial Teen “Everyone Wants To Know” – They’ve been out of the game for five years, but Imperial Teen remain one of the most clever and underrated pop bands in the world. I mean, who else is going to write this freakishly calm rock song that combines the tragic conclusion of Titanic with the inane chatter of “Undone (The Sweater Song)”? Somehow it all fits together — the verses are full of vague concern, the chorus mixes its helplessness with gorgeousness, and the girls on the bridge are abstract and bored. Their neurotic declarations — “I never know what he’s thinking,” “I don’t really like this party” — have roughly the same emotional weight as when Will Schwartz wonders “when will help arrive?” and sings about “holding on for life” as his character slowly freezes to death. For the girls, it’s just a melodramatic metaphor, and somehow all the pain in the world is conflated and equalized, for better or worse. (Click here for the Imperial Teen MySpace page.)

Elsewhere: David Hasslehoff’s Game of Sexual Jungle Cat.

Holger Czukay “Blessed Easter” – I’ve wanted to post this song at least six times in the past five years, but I can never find the right words to describe it. It’s a collage; it’s a mirage. It’s dawn, it’s dusk, it’s the wee hours of the night. It’s the world standing still. It’s a cathedral; it’s a prayer; it’s got Pope John Paul II on lead vocals. Czukay finds beauty in the rituals of religion, but keeps himself at a distance. I used to put this on tapes next to Spiritualized’s “No God, Only Religion” because sometimes subtlety is boring. I’ve put this song on so many tapes and cds since 1998, it’s actually sort of amazing that it took me so long to put this here. It’s one of most magical and peaceful pieces of music that I’ve ever heard. (Click here to buy it from iTunes.)

Beck “Think I’m In Love” – Did everyone just forget about this last Beck album? It wasn’t even a year ago. Did no one care about it? Did everyone just move on to downloading the next new thing? Is it all just an endless loop of anticipation, gratification, and disposal now? The Information was not built for the new online music culture — it’s long, dense, subtle, and in terms of its musical content, it has no gimmick.

The fifteen tracks on The Information pass by in a muted haze that can be easily confused for a lack of feeling. However, it’s not an album of small emotions, but instead visceral sensations that are diluted, buried, obscured, confused, and distorted by a never-ending stream of facts and fictions. The character in “Think I’m In Love” is so removed from himself that he can’t even be sure whether he’s in love, or if he’s just playing at it. His neuroses dull down his heart, and the thrill is replaced by the perverse comfort of paranoia. He makes his life a narrative, and he follows the plot. “I think I’m in love.” Well, yeah, guess so. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Pavement “Old To Begin” (Live in Amsterdam, 4/4/1997)

1. In my senior year of high school, I took weekend classes at Pratt. Though Pratt’s campus is located in Brooklyn, the class met at the Puck Building. (People outside of NYC might recognize it as the building that was used for exterior shots of Grace’s office on Will & Grace.) Anyway, I had to commute into Manhattan on MetroNorth, and then take a brief subway ride down to Bleeker Street, and for some reason, I got into the habit of always listening to this particular song while on the subway. (I think it’s because I’d start the album as soon as the train pulled into Grand Central, and I would catch the 6 train right around the time “Date With IKEA” was over.) The first few times it was probably an accident, but it became a ritual, and ten years later I can’t hear the song without thinking about that period when I was so happy and optimistic and the weather was always weirdly perfect.

To provide a bit of context, only six months later, I’d be stuck in a depression that wouldn’t fully lift for two years, but everything in the spring of 1997 was just about right. I can never relate to people who had a hard time in high school — I only have happy memories from that period. I was happy mainly because I felt like my future was bright and wide open, and that certainty made me confident and enthusiastic. When I was in college, I felt disappointed by virtually everyone and everything, my confidence mutated into arrogance, and circumstances made me feel trapped and isolated. The sunny, easygoing music that defined my spring of ’97 — Pavement’s Brighten The Corners, Blur’s self-titled album — gave way to the epic misanthropic angst of the two records I heard the most in the second half of that year — Radiohead’s OK Computer, and Blur’s The Great Escape. (Sleater-Kinney’s Dig Me Out and The Fall’s 458489 A Sides kinda fall halfway between those two extremes, I guess, but I associate them more with the earlier period.)

2. Even after all this time, it still makes me laugh when I think about how easy it can be to mis-hear the title phrase as “Ode To Bacon.” It’s not even very funny! Similarly, I am overly amused by how you can substitute the “we need secrets, we need se-crets-crets-crets” line in “Gold Soundz” for “Ryan Seacrest, Ryan Sea-crest-crest-crest.”

3. I can think of very few lyrics about breaking up with someone that are more mature, kind-hearted, and thoughtful than “time came that we drifted apart to find an unidentical twin.”

4. I’ll always associate Brighten The Corners with being 17, but I think that I’m only just now growing into the “holy cow, dude, I’m a grown-up and so are all of my friends” sentiment of the record. Spiral Stairs throws himself into the trappings of suburban stability, and Stephen Malkmus does his best to search for alternatives, but with his mind set on responsibility. They are both a little bit cynical about their choices and options, but they’re both earnestly trying to figure out who they want to be for the rest of their lives.

(Click here to buy the original studio recording on the Brighten The Corners album from Matador.)

Elsewhere: My review of 1408 is up on The Movie Binge but, ah, it’s not exactly my best work. However, I strongly recommend checking out some other recent posts on the site, most especially Erik Bryan’s hilarious take on Evan Almighty, Meghan Deans’ witty assessment of Lady Chatterley, and Bryan Charles’ very personal account of watching You Kill Me alone on a lovely Sunday afternoon.

Also: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site with mp3s from the Sea and Cake, Arthur & Yu, and My Teenage Stride.

Kelly Clarkson “One Minute” – I can safely say that when I watched the first season of American Idol, I never considered the possibility that the girl who kept singing Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” would eventually embrace stadium rock, much less entertain the notion that she would ditch her penchant for melisma in favor of a sleek, intense style of emoting that is increasingly similar to that of Sleater-Kinney’s Corin Tucker. I can totally understand why a music industry person with taste as horribly bland as that of Clive Davis would be worried about Kelly Clarkson’s new album My December — she’s taking cues from all sorts of bands who exist on the periphery of the mainstream, and backing away from anything that might go over well on an adult contemporary radio station. That said, it’s a terrifically accessible mainstream rock record, and the best songs transform indie/alt-rock sounds into full-on pop juggernauts. A lot of this type of bombastic pop music is carefully crafted to express or trigger some kind of massive emotion, and the singer doesn’t really have to do much other than go with the flow of the song, but Clarkson consistently invests her material with a potent humanity that can be exceptionally gutting. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Elsewhere: PRI’s Fair Game has a never nice studio session with A Sunny Day In Glasgow available for download as individual mp3s. The live version of the new song “Hugs and Kisses” is especially pretty.

Tegan and Sara “Back In Your Head” – This song is an enormous pile-up of neuroses, but its issues are stacked neat and deliberately, just like the “wall of books” mentioned in the very first line. It’s an internal tug of war: You want intimacy, but it’s terrifying. You love someone, but you push them away, in part because you never let yourself believe that they love you. You want the comfort of familiarity, but things get boring if they never change. You get frozen by indecision even when you know exactly what you want. The song feels light and casual; it fits into the smallest, stillest moments while quietly (almost silently) freaking out. (Click here to pre-order it from Amazon.)

Of Montreal “Vegan In Furs” – For some reason, the songs that speak to me the most usually make the least amount of literal sense. “For some reason.” I mean, yeah, I kinda know the reasons — I’m responding to a feeling and a sound, and the words fall into place around my experiences. I don’t need every line to be applicable to my life as long as a few have some kind of resonance, even if it’s something inscrutable like “their brains are like porcupines and mine’s a paper ball.” I tried to figure that line out a few months ago and my friend Grant offered this interpretation — “the brain that is spiked by things rather than spiky and/or written on rather than accumulating via impalement” — and though that makes some sense, I’m still not 100% certain why I feel like I’m definitely on Team Paper Ball.

I listen to “Vegan In Furs” all the time, usually at least once per day for the past four months. (It’s the first song on an Of Montreal playlist that I play quite often, and so I always expect “My British Tour Diary” to come on immediately afterwards.) It seems like it might be the theme song for my year thus far. At first, it may have been something from Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?, but I guess things have been a lot more cheerful and optimistic for me lately than anxious and freaky. And that’s where the song gets very literal — “I’m peaking in so many ways / the gloom is in retreat / the dark epoch is over.” There’s also something very conspiratorial about the lyrics — “we both despise all the academic swine…,” “I know they don’t understand, they don’t get us at all” — and I suppose I need that too, the excitement of feeling like I’m in on something, part of something, with someone, connected, connecting. It feels new to me, and sometimes I forget how much I like new things. (Click here to buy it from Polyvinyl.)

Siobhan Donaghy “Ghosts” – I wonder if Siobhan Donaghy wrote lyrics for this song. All of the vocals are backmasked so that her voice is pure, wordless melody, but she’s definitely singing something, and I wonder if it was just some random phonetical thing concocted to keep the shape of the tune, or if she’s singing secret words for herself. The song certainly sounds like a secret, anyway. Going on the title, they may have been aiming for something sort of ethereal and spiritual, but to me it feels more like drifting around in a stranger’s head, and being able to pick up on the emotions without being able to read their mind. (Click here to buy it from Amazon UK.)

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? “That’s A Good Question” – Nervous thumping, brass bumping, synth buzzing, circus thudding. They Shoot Horses, Don’t They make paranoia sound like a such a good time. Hey everybody, let’s go out tonight and get worried! (Click here to buy it from Kill Rock Stars.)

Elsewhere: Matthew Harris is 100% correct about the National and ASAP has a fun interactive feature with Dan Deacon giving a “tour” of his customized soundboard instrument thing.

The Brunettes “Her Hairagami Set” – The Brunettes were once a fairly standard indie pop band, but this new single finds them experimenting with a more baroque version of their usual twee sensibility. The lyrics are rather heavy on irony, but the tune sounds deadly serious and the vocals are entirely straight-faced, even when the guy starts crooning on the chorus. As befitting a song about hairagami, the piece is highly stylized, casual yet elaborate, and slightly tacky. (Click here to buy it from Lil Chief Records, but keep in mind a domestic version is being released by Sub Pop in August.)

Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site with mp3s from Jandek, Life Without Buildings, and Black Lips.

Also: My review of Eagle Vs. Shark is up on the The Movie Binge. Please please please please please DON’T see that movie. You deserve better in life, no matter who you are.

The Dirty Projectors “No More” – I sometimes wonder if you read these posts before hearing the songs and get really disappointed if they aren’t as good as I make them out to be, especially when the writing gets a bit more impressionistic. I’ve bought enough disappointing books and records in my time based on persuasive criticism to know that many times someone’s description of their experience with art is more evocative and interesting than the work itself.

This is also the case for the Dirty Projector’s forthcoming album, which is a virtuoso art-pop record that essentially sounds like nothing else I’ve ever heard, but is an attempt on their part to interpret the feeling of Black Flag’s 1981 album Damaged, a record that I respect but do not particularly enjoy. If you’ve never heard that Black Flag record, I can assure you — their song “No More” doesn’t sound much like this one. Or really, anything like it at all. The Dirty Projectors run with the basic theme, but follow their own tangents to create a peculiar blend of rhythm and harmony.

Perhaps this should be something more artists should try. Why mimic your influences when you can express your impression of their art in ways that don’t necessarily have much to do with their methods and process? Surely getting to the core of why the work affected you is more exciting than just crafting a miniature replica of something that feels very profound. (Click here for Dead Oceans’ Dirty Projectors page.)

Ween “Friends” – Why is that whenever dudes are blessed with impressive technical skill and versatility, they usually end up throwing themselves into pastiche or parody? When you’re forced to view all of music as a set of formulas and modular chord changes, does it all just seem easy and silly? “Friends” is Ween’s version of gay disco (specifically Erasure and the Pet Shop Boys), and though it’s amusing the first time through, by the fifth or sixth listen it becomes clear that it’s not only a fantastic song, but that these guys could probably make an entire album of this stuff without really trying too hard. There’s a fondness for the genre that comes through in the song, but also a bit of condescension in its inane lyrics (“a friend’s a friend who knows what being a friend is”) and its relentless cheeriness. (Click here to buy it from Chocodog.)

Elsewhere: I teamed up with Meg Deans and Erik Bryan to review Nancy Drew over at The Movie Binge. I forgot to get into the randomness of that movie’s soundtrack, but Erik commented on it. The weirdest bit is when Spoon’s “The Delicate Place” plays nearly in full for no apparent reason around the halfway point.

The White Stripes “You Don’t Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You’re Told)” – Jack White has a lot of big ideas, but I’m starting to get the sense that he’s mainly just concerned with writing songs that are ideally suited for bar jukeboxes. I suppose that lead singles from White Stripes albums must always be heavy thudding riff machines in order to curry favor with what remains of rock radio in the United States, but this number is the obvious smash, the one that will probably do okay if it gets pushed within a few months, but would’ve been HUGE if it came out thirty years ago. The song hits an ideal balance — it’s big and crashing, but tightly composed and full of instantly ingratiating hooks. It feels a bit old and lived-in, but it’s just different enough from previous Stripes songs to seem relatively fresh. The lyrics aren’t all that special, but they are simultaneously gallant and dickish, which is the perfect distillation of White’s public persona. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Chungking “Love Is Here To Stay” – I’m enjoying this song now as much as I can because it seems inevitable that it will be used in some horrible advertisement within the next year. How could it not when it’s got this glossy, glammy hypersexuality and the sort of insistent catchiness that borders on jingle-dom. The most obvious comparison is Goldfrapp, but Chungking are far more eager to be flamboyant than austere and elegant. (Click here to buy it from Amazon UK.)

Elsewhere: Anthony Miccio has some ideas for VH1 reality series.

A Sunny Day In Glasgow @ The Carriage House 6/15/2007
Laughter (Victims) / Our Change Into Rain Is No Change At All (Talkin’ ‘Bout Us) / The Best Summer Ever / Lists, Plans / A Mundane Phone Call To Jack Parsons / Things Only I Can See / C’mon

The Carriage House isn’t a “real” venue. It’s an annex to an industrial building that has been transformed into a makeshift loft apartment despite not being zoned for residential usage. The living room is also a practice space, and the bands on the bill played on the opposite side of the room from a slightly David Fincher-esque kitchen area. If it were not for a large courtyard area just outside, hosting a show like this may have been a bit unworkable, but as it was, people could just hang out outside between sets. The show was $5, you could get a beer for $2, and the audience was uniformly cool and friendly and I wish I’d had the time or opportunity to talk to everyone there. I wish more shows were like this.

Weird, unexpected thing: The first band, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, are an indie pop trio that includes two of my friends, but I didn’t know that either of them were in a band, or that they knew one another. The third band, My Teenage Stride were fun and really got people going, but I’ll come back to them some other time.

A Sunny Day In Glasgow “Lists, Plans” – A Sunny Day In Glasgow are a different band every time that I see them. This time they were missing one of the singing sisters, and had an entirely different rhythm section. They were a little bit sloppy, but the set had a somewhat off-kilter sound to it that echoed the effect of their studio recordings while sounding slightly different. The songs, most especially “Lists, Plans” and “C’mon,” seemed more like dream versions in which the song is there, but the memory of it is incomplete and the elements are exaggerated, conflated, or confused. I remember the bass being very prominent, and Lauren Daniels hitting keyboard samples of her sister’s voice that sounded more like otherworldly noises than harmonies, and that Ben Daniels was playing guitar, but it only occasionally sounded like one. (Click here to buy it from Notenuf.)

Arthur & Yu “There Are Too Many Birds” – I’ll admit that I liked this song right away in part because it’s central guitar parts echo two songs that I love very much — Electrelane’s “Enter Laughing” and …Trail of Dead’s “Source Tags and Codes” — but even if it weren’t for the familiar feeling, it’s hard to imagine this feeling anything other than relaxed and cozy. The song has a laid back pastoral quality, but the band don’t push that angle too hard. It sounds kinda like a mellow Yo La Tengo tune, but without the noise and neuroses. (Click here to buy it from Hardly Art.)

Elsewhere: Drink deep of the Lava juice, my friend. You now have within you the fiery blood and aged spirit of Italian volcanoes, and they will fortify you for the task at hand.

Charlotte Hatherley “Love’s Young Dream” – There’s another version of this song on the b-side of “I Want You To Know,” and it’s called “Suspiria.” It has the same verses and melody, but the arrangement is far more mellow, and the chorus is completely different, enough to justify the alternative title. The subject matter is identical in each song — Charlotte is interrogating the female half of an estranged couple (her mom?), trying to suss out details of the time when they were young and in love since she only has a familiarity with the bitter aftermath — but whereas the music of “Suspiria” captures the wistfulness of the outsider looking in, “Love’s Young Dream” evokes the feeling of being trapped between two people who refuse to see eye to eye. The verses are grey and turbulent, and the chorus splits into a strange, sideways harmony that nearly trips over a low, mumbling male vocal on its way to a gorgeous, melancholy climax. There’s a palpable sense of disappointment and frustration in “Love’s Young Dream,” and a sense that the singer is very afraid that she will eventually find herself in the same scenario. (Click here to buy it from Charlotte Hatherley’s official site.)

Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site with mp3s from Nick Drake, Elliott Smith, and the Exploding Hearts.

Sonic Youth “Eric’s Trip (Demo Version)” – It’s actually hard to imagine that this acoustic demo of “Eric’s Trip” predates the version that we’ve known for years now. I’d always assumed that the noise came first, and the song came second, but no — it started as a quasi-folk ballad, and the crazed urgency came later on. This take sounds loose and unfinished, but it’s quite appealing, especially if you’re like me and you’ve heard the completed studio version enough times so that you’ve unintentionally memorized every twist and turn of the lyrics. The words are a bit off, but the miniature arrangement and intimate performance underlines the clueless narcissism that defines its narrator. The finished song emphasizes a sense of impending doom or hints at an imminent psychotic break, but this version just seems to drift through its epiphanies in a starry-eyed haze. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

The Honeymoon Killers “Decollage (Prins Thomas Multitrack Edit)” – I’ve been nervous, I’ve been anxious, I’ve been paranoid, and I’ve been listening to this on repeat, which is extremely counter-intuitive because it just exacerbates those feelings. Then again, it’s so stylized and slick that it somehow twists the dread into a strange sort of comfort. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Citizen Helene “‘Til Tomorrow” – It’s only one guitar and one voice overdubbed into a gorgeous harmony, but it’s enough to build this perfect image in my mind. It’s a small apartment, a walk up in some old building with a gray stone facade. There are books in piles, too many to fit on the shelves. There’s empty tea cups on a coffee table, and a newspaper from three days ago folded out of shape. The decor is a bit scattered, but there’s a lot of browns and oranges — curtains, rug, pillows. The window is open, and rain drizzles in fits and starts. It’s a bit too humid, but there’s no fan, no air conditioner. There’s a couch and chairs, but you’re sitting on the floor by the window, and when a bit of breeze drifts in on the 1:13 mark, it might just be the best thing you feel all day. (Click here for the Citizen Helene MySpace page.)

Lavender Diamond “Like An Arrow” – “Ah, like an arrow, closer,” over and over and over. It doesn’t sound anything like an arrow — it’s more like a spiral, or concentric circles. Becky Stark’s mantra sounds less like actual words as the song progresses. By the middle, it’s just pure melody offset by the thumping beat, the faint echo of a male singer, and snippets of piano and guitar that suddenly enter the foreground of the composition before seeming to vanish entirely. (Click here to buy it from Matador.)

The Long Blondes @ Bowery Ballroom 6/9/2007
Five Ways To End It / Lust In The Movies / Guilt / Weekend Without Make-Up / Only Lovers Left Alive / Heaven Help The New Girl / A Knife For The Girls / You Could Have Both / Giddy Stratospheres / Once And Never Again // Swallow Tattoo / Separated By Motorways

The Long Blondes “Giddy Stratospheres” – The Long Blondes’ Kate Jackson sounds like a cross between Jarvis Cocker and Justine Frischmann on record, but in live performance, she’s a lot more like Gwen Stefani from back when she was in No Doubt. The snarky, erudite persona is still there, but it gets a bit overwhelmed by her girly glamor and star power. Let’s put it this way: I’m not sure whether it’s a good or bad thing that the most memorable thing about the gig was that Jackson looked a like a dead ringer for a ’50s pin-up in her lovely red dress. There wasn’t anything obviously wrong with the Long Blondes’ show — they played all of the songs I wanted to hear, they had some good energy, the audience was fairly into it — but aside from being very excited to hear “You Could Have Both” and “Giddy Stratospheres,” they didn’t leave much of an impression on me. Maybe I was in the wrong mood, maybe I was a bit distracted. I don’t know. (Click here to buy it from Insound.)

Amerie “Gotta Work” – About ten years ago someone asked me what I’d want to be my intro music if I were to ever have a talk show, and I answered that it would have to be “Hold On, I’m Comin’,” specifically the Reuben Wilson version. It’s still my top choice. I mean, how can you not get psyched up when hearing that hook? All at once, it sounds classy, rakish, confident, sexy, and just a bit anxious. Amerie’s “Gotta Work” is built upon a tweaked sample of that hook, and she uses that odd mix of emotions to her advantage by having it prop up an otherwise banal set of inspirational lyrics. The sentiment might be trite in another context, but between the sample, the busy beat, and her insistent vocal performance, the track feels urgent and down to earth. It helps that the song puts an emphasis on effort and commitment rather than bratty entitlement. (Click here to buy it from Amazon UK.)

Elsewhere: Dan Beirne and I did a Siskel & Ebert-style review of Crazy Love for the Movie Binge.

Marianne Rosenberg “Wieder Zusammen” – This is a symphonic Philly-style disco song, but created by Germans in the mid-70s. It’s an immaculate and sparkling production featuring delicate, perfectly arranged layers of strings, piano, horns, and miscellaneous twinkling chimes. It sounds luxurious, expensive, and only slightly kitschy. It’s a gorgeous piece of music, but the vocals are the key element. I can’t understand a word that she’s singing, but Marianne Rosenberg’s voice conveys an intense joy and unapologetic pleasure that elevates the song to the realm of the sublime. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Candie Payne “By Tomorrow” – The beat of this song is so steady and focused that every other element in the arrangement seems like a wandering thought in an otherwise one-track mind. Candie Payne’s voice is sweet and gentle, but she sounds distracted and confused, as though she’s suddenly being forced to think about a dozen things that she’s totally unprepared to deal with because she’s completely consumed by a single aspect of her life. (Click here to buy it from Amazon UK.)

Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site with mp3s from YACHT, Pistol Pete, and MESH.

Also: Mike Barthel on Rihanna and Amerie.