Shiny new super-group of my heart Mister Heavenly includes my beloved Unicorn Nick Diamonds as well as Joe Plummer, lately of Modest Mouse, and Honus Honus of Man Man. I am actively choosing not to hold against them that apparently sometimes Micheal Cera plays bass. They will be at the Scoot Inn on Monday Dec 13, and so will I. They have 0 songs out, but here is scratchy live video that convinces me they know how to make things fun.
Active Child is the bedroom project of one Pat Grossi, from L.A. He released a really good EP called Curtis Lane in June. Layered voices, synths, keyboards, harp, he makes really pretty and haunting electronic pop. This year he toured with School of Seven Bells and The Islands.
His dad was an executive for Priority Records, the Rap label, so when he was a kid he got to meet Dre, Snoop, Eminem and all these West Coast rappers. I'm cool with all those guys but I'm glad that his music has nothing to do with it.
He released an amaaazing video for his song "I'm in your church at night." It's beautiful, the song is beautiful, life is beautiful. Enjoy...
Buraka Som Sistema's label, Enchufada, puts out a compilation tape every yearish highlighting Kuduro rhythms. Vol. 4 is downloadable now from JUNO (http://www.juno.co.uk) and from itunes etc next week. An Austin dude, Double Dutch, is featured in this volume. The video reminded me of a certain Zombie movie that's all rage in Hyde Park these days.
Sox: How's it feel... death? Lillith: It feels like snow and stars. Gaia: Aw, that's pretty! Lillith: I remember once lying in the snow under a clear blanket of stars, there were so many stars... You couldn't comprehend what it was like. That vast un-knowable void. But now I understand it. I feel I'm a part of it, that infinite nothingness... I wanna strip. Who's on? Fuck it, I'm gonna dance.
Also, is it too soon to start talking about Southby? Klaxons will be here... I'm going to go ahead and tag this SXSW, that way when it comes closer to spring we'll have a nice selection of Southby bands just a click away.
Parkour's Die Antwoord post re-kindled my love affair with, for lack of a better term, hip hop fusion. I've been going back to old favorites and finding their new albums not unappealing. Audio Bullys fall into this category (Ralph may disagree that they're hip hop, but that's the great thing about hip hop fusion it's unfalsifiable). They released Higher Than Eiffel this past winter and the below video for the single off the album in August. Hopefully this is new stuff for some of you.
I guess I'm a bit nostalgic today so here goes a Jorge Drexler song that feels more like a poem. Some of you might remember him as the guy that won the Oscar for making the music for The Motorcycle Diaries a few years ago.
Here's "Mi Guitarra y Vos" (My Guitar and You) and a translation of the lyrics for those of you that don't speak Spanish yet (get on that by the way, we're taking over this bitch soon, one state at a time).
Long live science. Long live poetry. How alive my tongue feels when your tongue is on my tongue The water is in the clay, the clay is in the brick, the brick is in the wall, and on the wall your photograph. It’s true that there’s no art without emotion And that there’s no precision without craftsmanship Like there’s no guitar without technology Nylon technology for the strings Metal technology for the pegbox, the press, the gouge and the varnish The tools of the carpenter
The singer-songwriter and his computer The shepherd and his shaver The alarm clock that is announcing the dawn And through the telescope, the last star is still there
Man makes the machine and [the machine] is what the man makes with it.
The plow, the wheel, the windmill, the table in which I put the glass of wine, the curves of the rollercoaster, the semiquaver and even the hemidemisemiquaver. Tea, computers and mirrors, the eye-glasses for seeing near and far, the place the dog sleeps, butter, the herb, mate and the mate straw.
You are with me, we are singing under the shadow of our grapevine. A song that says that we only keep what we don’t tie down. And without having you, I have you… and I have my guitar.
Chorus: There are so many things, I only need two: my guitar and you, my guitar and you.
There are cinemas there are trains, there are pots and pans, there are formulas to describe even the shells of snails. There’s more. There’s traffic, there are credits, there are clauses, VIP rooms, there are hypnotic capsules and computerized tomographies. There are conditions to the constitution of limited societies, there are baby bottles, there are buses, there are taboos, there are kisses, there is hunger, there is obesity, there are cures for sleep and tisanes. There are designer drugs and dogs addicted to drugs at customs. There are hands capable of creating tools, which make machines to build computers that themselves design machines that make tools that the hand can use.
There are written infinite words: zen, gol, bang, rap, god, fin.
I haven't posted in a while because I've been mostly rehashing old music. I figured I shouldn't post a new Guided By Voices song everyday--might get kicked out of the club.
But Icelandic sweetheart Ólöf Arnalds has really caught my ear. She's a member of Múm but recently went off on her own to do some more stripped-down folky recordings. Her sophmore release Innundir Skinni, which means Under the Skin, was recently released.
She's opening for Blonde Redhead tonight at La Zona Rosa. Here's her latest video.
and your ears aren't deceiving you...that is Björk singing backup.
I'm coming in hard after the turkey break so get ready... here's Die Antwoord with their single Enter the Ninja.
My friend Greg got me hooked on this South African band. He swears the live shows are pretty amazing, it looks like they would be so let's keep our eyes peeled for when they come to town.
