You & whose "Army"?

Often, live tracks on youtube have a very distorted, incoherent quality to them.

Not this one.

Yes, on one level it's just a remake of "Army of Me" in a lounge/bossa nova style. What sets it apart from, say, the majority of Nouvelle Vague tracks is that the singer actually seems to believe what she's singing. That is, this is what happens when the singer connects with the lyrics and pulls them inside before letting them out.

With most excellent results.

Grisbi
"Army of Me"

Like some cat from Japan

I said to myself, "These guys are from Japan" after five seconds the first time. I was wrong - it turns out they're from Tulsa - but they've got that same washed-out, high-pitched, odd-to-gaijin-ears take on music and high-intensity, vibrantly colored, oddly cute dancing images in the video.

Plus the track is called "I Am a Pony."

Not from Japan. But still pretty awesome.

The Lava Children
"I Am a Pony"

Background music. In a good way.

Sometimes you just want to listen to something quiet and nonabrasive, warm & cozy for a lazy afternoon.

Y'know?

Bill Evans
"Waltz for Debby"

Again & again & again & again

A most revealing quote about Oneida is the one that goes, "...the use of repetition that easily outstrips the patience of most casual listeners." It's true, but I likes me a good beat.

A slight amount of noise, but a beautifully simple organ line provides the support for a lovely, lovely track to grow.

The video is fascinating but always makes me a bit tense. Now, this may be intentional but I never watch the damn thing because I've got enough tension in my life.

Don't you?

Oneida
"The Adversary"

Mexico City, maybe

There's a hospital called ABC (American British Cowdray) in Mexico City. You can also see the volcanoes on a clear day.

Good enough for me.

A nice dance-oriented indiepop sound as well, though I'm less fond of the vocals. Somewhat reminiscent of that classic LCD Soundsystem track "Losing My Edge."

Good enough for me.

Supersystem
"Born Into This World"

Booty-shakin' beats

From Africa, no less. (It's the Angolan flag at the end, but they speak Portuguese in Angola, not French, so I don't know).

The cerebral side of me is fascinated by the different elements and influences in this song - reggaeton, of course, but also elements of Brazilian popular music and West Indies steel bands.

The less intellectual side of me is bouncing around singing, "Kuduro, kuduro, kuduro..."

Lady S. & Kuduro Sound System
"Danse avec moi, kuduro!"

It ain't what it used to be

Returning to a classic 70's sound, imagine a good 'ole boy moving to California from Alabama and slowly becoming more and more aware that he doesn't quite belong there, and that he won't quite be at home back home anymore.

And then writing a song about it.

Or maybe I'm just projecting - I tend to feel displaced in Texas.

Good song at any rate, emotional lyrics, fuzz, swirling organs and all.

Crystal Antlers
"Andrew"

Details, details

Some mashups rely on the juxtaposition of their component parts (ie, The Beatles vs. NIN; Nelly vs. Lynyrd Skynyrd) for their effect.

Sometimes, however, mashups focus on demonstrating how the certain songs echo each other, intentionally or not.

Which is the case here.

The Beatles vs. LCD Soundsystem vs. The Kinks (FAROFF mashup)
"The Brits are Playing at My House"

Piano man

He's right, it sounds a little classical at the beginning and at the end.

Though the heart & soul is the playing and playing around that comes between.

Oscar Peterson Trio
"You Look Good to Me"

Honeymoons

Romantic disillusion is not exclusive to straight people, and in this track Stephen Merritt manages to to be emotionally true to the feeling without falling into melodrama.

I don't post about politics much because, hey, this isn't the space for it. But this was just too delicious to pass up.

The Magnetic Fields
"I Thought You Were My Boyfriend"

Knowledge is power

Leonard Cohen & The Man From UNCLE.

One word: classic.

Leonard Cohen
"Everybody Knows"

Hail Haile

The enthusiasm of Tiwony on this track is remarkable even by dancehall standards. This rhythm-based track manages to be quite catchy despite my inability to understand anything other than "Selassie."

The images of Selassie are actually quite interesting; the images of Tiwony are (sadly) more run-of-the-mill.

In the end, though, it averages out to an excellent track.

Tiwony
"Sélassié"

Old vs new

Some fairly solid lounge featuring a lovely young lady in a most becoming, classically-inspired outfit. And a creepy robotic arm.

I was a big fan of robot sci-fi as a young lad but have since become more likely to party like it's 1909, so it's a combination that works quite well for me.

Production techniques have progressed since this track was made, so the autotune-like element to the voice is a bit done, but the rest of the music has held up quite well.

FC/Kahuna
"Hayling"

If it ain't broke....

Sometimes I put up a video in spite of the actual video.

This track by i am jen is warm and smooth, bubbly yet cool, with intimate yet disengaged vocals. This track I like.

The video is a Christian message about how your life is incomplete without Jesus, and manages to be a bit too earnest and clumsy for my tastes.

But the track I like.

i am jen
"Broken In All The Right Places"

Motor city reverb

This song has been bouncing around in my head for a few days, and I've increasingly wondered why nobody's ever heard of Slumber Party. (Note the lack of the definite article).

They're from Detroit and shot this video in its downtown district. While I vaguely recognize some of the locations, the family I have in the area is scared to go downtown much. Except my aunt, who's an house call nurse and travels with an armed guard to some neighborhoods.

Who knew echo-drenched resignation could be so downright warm and fuzzy?

Addictive, too.

Slumber Party
"Electric Boots"

Definitions

Epistrophe: n. /ɪˈpɪstrəfi/ Repetition of a word or words at the end of two or more successive verses, clauses, or sentences.

One of the greatest songs by Thelonious Monk, by any jazz musician, by any American musical performer...

Thelonious Monk
"Epistrophy"

Sunday in Texas

Screw diamonds, in Texas a girl's best friend is a shotgun!

It's interesting, however, that this (admittedly quite striking) young lady seems timid and languid juxtaposed with such a fiery, defiant song. Just goes to show you really can't tell anything from hair color.

A pretty good song, as country songs go.

Miranda Lambert
"Gunpowder & Lead"

Pretty things

Equal parts smooth, menacing and regretful, it kind of sounds like Placebo about to pass out from sheer exhaustion.

But in a good way.

Never seen the film Layer Cake. Maybe I should.

VAST
"Pretty When You Cry"

Interlocking pieces

If Godspeed You! Black Emperor are pop/indie/post-rock/whatever leaning towards the orchestral, then this particular track by hard-to-classify Arvo Part seems to be reaching back from the other side of the line. Though it also brings to mind Debussy, all loose & diffuse.

There's no change to the image but it's so intricate you can spend a lot of time looking at the details and how they fit together.

Arvo Part
"Festina Lente"

Nod your head

If you don't at least nod your head while listening to this, you officially have no soul.

Excellent beat-centric music from Cape Verde.

Ize
"Soku na rosto"



(BTW, among the least intrusive uses of an accordion that I've heard - maybe I just spent to much time in Mexico...?)

Speed

The video is much less interesting unless (and this seems really unlikely) you know this Gabi Pescada individual personally. (IMHO the problem isn't the top so much as the back pocket on her jeans....)

The track, however, is some solid electro, splitting the difference between Le Tigre and Ladytron with less dissonant glitchiness than you'd expect from Chicks on Speed.

Though there's still plenty of glitchy dissonance to go around.

Chicks on Speed
"For All the Boys"

Fight!

If I had a better computer I would make a video for this song using old 1970's kung fu footage. (Though, admittedly, it would have been hard to improve on the images at 3:30-3:33.)

Keytar or not, they sound like a band that would be amazing live.

Woodhands
"I Wasn't Made For Fighting"
Heart Attack

Workin' hard for the money

Yes, it's Labor Day in the USA, and this is a song about work.

Cannonball Adderley was also part of the Kind of Blue sessions and a classic jazz heavyweight in his own right.

(Seriously, some good jazz in this here track.)

Cannonball Adderley Sextet
"Work Song"

Castles in the sky

Through the distortion, the voice is saying "la cocaina no es bueno por tu salud." Both this health warning about cocaine and this video are on the the line between over-earnestness and self-parody. Which is only appropriate for a band with a She-Ra derived name. That is, a bit of thinking is required to discern whether it's parody, nostalgia, or both.

So it's good that excellent programming and production work on the voice are self-evidently quite nicely done.

Crystal Castles
"Untrust Us"

A morality tale

The song is proof that bleepy, synth-happy video game music can be vibrant and joyful; the video is 30's animation meets The Sims meets Where's Waldo with a most disturbing twist at the end. Which might involve social commentary. Or maybe not.

Anyway, not bad for two-and-a-half minutes.

Sportsday Megaphone
"Meet Me in the Middle"

Visual learners of the world, unite!

Such is the immense awesomeness of The Pixies and Sleater Kinney that something sounding like a cross between them, on an OK day, after they'd been hanging out with The Strokes for a while, is still damn good stuff.

Extra points for being Australian, too.

Love of Diagrams
"The Pyramid"

A fruit, a name, and a song

Second video from WeBuyYourKids.

What with the band's name being Washington and the references to coming 'round the mountain when she comes, and "my darling Clementine" it may or may not be surprising that this band is not from the US (they're from Norway).

I must confess the first time I saw this video and the round guy showed up, I thought the song was going to be about the orange-like fruit.

Washington
"Clementine"

C'est Belles

First of two videos by the Australian art force-of-nature that is WeBuyYourKids.

Belles Will Ring is also Australian, and I have no information other than the sound itself (which is like the bastard child of The American Analog Set and The Clientele).

But with a better video than either band ever managed to produce.

Belles Will Ring
"The Coldest Heart"

The Kid's all right

I stumbled upon this track and I said to myself, "Hey, it's been a while since I've listened to some Kid Koala."

It helps to have heard a take on the original before listening to this version (conveniently posted yesterday as part of Classic Jazz Mondays...amazing how that worked out, no? ^_-).

The track is just a tad disorganized, I'll admit, but the eerie, tripped-out video more than makes up for it.

Kid Koala
"Basin Street Blues"