Loch & key

A Portland-based band named after a Scottish folk song with a nasal lead singer, lots of strings and vaguely 1909 affections can't help but be compared to The Decemberists. Especially if said band toured with The Decemberists last year.

The key to Loch Lomond is that they take a looser, more experimental take on the old-school style - like a 60's film auteur more concerned with feeling than historical accuracy cleverness.

Loch Lomond
"Blue Lead Fences"



PS - I no longer have high speed internet on my computer so this will be my last daily post until I have reliable internet access. Which might not be until June.

The extra click is SO worth it

Embedding is disabled by request, but Rock Central Plaza upending and redeeming "Sexyback" is worth one more click at least.

And just 'cause you can never get too much joy in your life, here's an uplifting song set to (Canadian! Educational!) puppets.

Rock Central Plaza
"My Children, Be Joyful"
Are We Not Horses?



PS - (Eat your veggies, kids...)

1909

I've mentioned Sodastream before but I couldn't help continuing the old-old-old-school theme with this study in light and darkness and the things in between.

Sodastream
"Heaven on the Ground"

Pura vida, mai!

Evolucion is from Costa Rica, where a "pura vida" ("life, pure and simple") is a catchphrase. Costa Rica is like a little mini not-quite-as-developed Australia (good surf, tropical forests, environmental awareness) plopped in the middle of Central America.

The vocals have a certain Spanish-language-rock feel to them, but they're actually a lot better than I imagined they would be when a Costa Rican surfer-dude pothead attorney introduced them to me in Buenos Aires.

Plus I can never pass up an opportunity to party like it's 1909.

Evolucion
"San Valentontin"

Nerd pride

The Whitest Boy Alive is based in Berlin and features Erlend Oye from Kings of Convenience. There's that European, almost-but-not-quite-native, slightly offset English and a poignancy you can only get when it's extremely cold and dark outside for much of the year. And what could be more practical and Northern European than fun with science? (Fun with science accompanied by a liter of vodka, but that's another story...)

Incidentally, you know you're a nerd when "the whitest boy alive" makes you wonder if there are degrees to albino-ness (I mean, doesn't the absence of any pigment mean that albinos are by definition all equally white?)

The Whitest Boy Alive
"Golden Cage"

Space and hypnosis

A little early 90's shoegaze/thick-and-drone-y music for Monday.

The self-described approach of the Spacemen 3 was initially "taking drugs to make music to take drugs to." Then the band broke up, but we got Spiritualized out of it, so I figure it all works out.

Spacemen 3
"Hypnotized"
Recurring

Happy Mother's Day!

I figure you can't argue with anything off Magical Mystery Tour. Except maybe "Flying."

(Maybe).

Back in the day, the San Francisco Public Library had a pleasantly extensive selection of recordings released before my own mother was born; as I had the time and inclination to explore, I did. Quality was variable, but there was good stuff to be had if you had patience...

The Beatles
"Your Mother Should Know"
Magical Mystery Tour

Loving the Hayter

There's a debt to Robert Palmer videos and Sade on the track and some quite nice cinematography for the video, but what caught my attention was the lovely Lou Hayter herself. There's just enough awkwardness in the way she handles herself to convince me she finds this whole performance business rather tiresome.

Which is why the next time somebody asks me what actress/singer/pop-culture figure is "my type", I'm going to say "Why, Lou Hayter, from New Young Pony Club and New Sins."

The New Sins
"It Doesn't Work Like That"

Friday is being-tired day

(Yawn)

Y'know that feeling of exhaustion, dazed and slowed down with dissonant-fuzzy edges, where it doesn't occur to you to look beyond the moment and everything seems simultaneously far away and too close?

It's kinda like this, only this somehow turns it into something uplifting and warm. (It's also got fun skeleton costumes.)

Scout Niblett ft. Bonnie "Prince" Billy
"Kiss"

Plastiline

Get past the Strokes-meets-Franz Ferdinand presentation, and this is a very cute, sweet song with a cute, sweet video to accompany it.

I like songs that are driven by the bass instead of the guitar. There somehow seems to be less ego involved.

The Cribs
"Another Number"

Workin' hard for the money

Do to a series of happenings too long and complicated to go into, and despite no training in this area, I've been working as a carpenter/carpenter's helpy-guy for a little over a week. Reminded me of this Merle Haggard tune, what with my being in Texas and all.

Merle Haggard
"Working Man Blues"

An animated 5 de Mayo

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Although you couldn't get away with the characterizations these days and they changed the words, the song is among the most classic Mexican rancheros.

The Three Caballeros was released in 1945.

Speakers bigger than you are

A fluttering, hypnotic and somehow innocent-sounding flute/synth line combines with warbling, squirming bass to form the kind of music that sounds best late at night, coming out of speakers bigger than you are.

Baby Kites & Nokea
"Reef"
DJ Rupture mix CD Uproot

Death-defying deeds to amaze and astonish!

Stephin Meritt (yes, the one from The Magnetic Fields, Gothic Archies, 6ths, etc) sings on this but the music (according to wikipedia) comes from another guy, one Christopher Ewen. Description of same: rainyday fuzzysmooth synthpop, wide-eyed songs of distorted views of what might be.

However, the important thing is that this song is about Houdini (no...really...). I once heard tell how Houdini died, that part of his act was inviting members from the audience to slug him in his stomach, that doing so felt like punching a brick wall, but that one day a college kid didn't give him the chance to set his abs and ruptured his appendix.

And so it goes.

I find this song works best if you keep that story in mind.

Future Bible Heroes
"Lonely Days"

More Detroit love

Illa J is best (and, quite frankly, most appropriately) known for being J Dilla's brother - which means that, like Dilla, his last name is Yancey and he's from Detroit.

As with so much that features production by Dilla, though, the lyrics get lost in the swirling, smooth and luscious radiance of the beats - afraid to say, it kinda makes sense they released an instrumental version of this album.

Illa J
"We Here" & "R U Listening"
Yancey Boys

Form & function

The apostrophe in "4 Bonjour's Parties" makes more sense when one considers that Japanese uses the possessive for a lot of description.

What's striking for me is how the sound is freewheeling and expansive in a very restrained and minimalistic way. The music also manages to be polite, which I figure only a Japanese band could truly pull of this well.

Add on some wistful innocent melodies and you've got a perfect soundtrack to an indie flick about a little boy in a small town that manages to [insert offbeat, yet endearing aim] despite equally offbeat and endearing complications.

But all of it with much, much love.

4 Bonjour's Parties
"Satellite"