From “41 Years In India”
Yellow Swans – “Our Oases”
At All Ends
Only noise fans need apply. At All Ends is a surprisingly approachable album, like a very noisy hybrid between Growing and Tim Hecker. It’s still abrasive and loud as hell, but in songs like “Mass Mirage” you have periods of unexpected calm and a current of melody running beneath the whole thing. Definitely a must-listen for fans of drone and noise. (insound)
I am growing great in Latin verses, and neglect the laces of my boots.
Dickens, David Copperfield
Try to preserve an author’s style as if he is an author and has a style.
Wolcott Gibbs, “Theory and Practice of Editing New Yorker Articles”
Very like a whale.
The Clientele – “K”
Strange Geometry
The singer for the Clientele obviously had it bad for a girl known only as “K,” who has (we are informed in the first track) gotten over him, resulting in the strange geometry of the album title. The music doesn’t depart much from the hazy, gossamer, reverb-drenched style they nailed in The Violet Hour, but it’s so pleasant that you can never really have too much. This track is a bit different from the rest, being shorter than the rest yet sporting an extended intro. (insound)
Similar (though less iconic) style to propaganda posters at the time… which I suppose these comics were, in a way.
Nest – “The Twelve”
Retold
Nest’s self-titled album was the last thing I wrote about on my old music blog. At the time, the label (Serein) was all-free and all-digital, which has since changed, though I’d like to think the experiment was a success. At any rate, this new album from Nest is a rerecording of the old EP, plus several new tracks, and is well worth a purchase. The calm, cinematic beauty of almost every track is refreshing, and “The Twelve” is a perfect representation of the way Nest allows the arrangements to breathe. The closest comparator I can come up with is Chopin crossed with Labradford.
Lazerclouds. Looks like sci-fi.
Spoon – “I Summon You (Cool)”
Get Nice!
This alternate version of the Gimme Fiction track has a fun one-off feel, as if it were a remix by the Notwist or something. I think the little electronic warbling is a nice counter to Britt Daniel’s rough vocals. It’s only a minute and a half long, rather short of the four minutes of the album version, but I like it that way.
Just utterly insane. View the whole map here.
So – “Track 2”
So
The So project, a collaboration between Japanese songstress Eri and the enigmatic noise/electronic pioneer Markus Popp (Oval), is a strange, beautiful, and unpredictable affair. Eri’s warblings are layered and distorted so as to be nearly unrecognizable, but Popp still crafts them into coherent songs… when he feels like it. Track 2 is the strongest, I think, but 1 and 4 are also nice, and although the overall texture remains steady, there is a lot of variety on the record and it’s well worth exploring for any fan of electronic music. (insound)
What happiness (I thought) if we were married, and were going away anywhere to live among the trees and in the fields, never growing older, never growing wiser, children over, rambling hand in hand through sunshine and among flowery meadows, laying down our heads on moss at night, in a sweet sleep of purity and peace, and buried by the birds when we were dead!
Dickens, David Copperfield
Poor Traddles! In a tight sky-blue suit that made his arms and legs like German sausages, or roly-poly puddings, he was the merriest and most miserable of all the boys. He was always being caned—I think he was caned every day that half-year, except one holiday Monday when he was only ruler’d on both hands—and was always going to write to his uncle about it, and never did. After laying his head on the desk for a little while, he would cheer up, somehow, begin to laugh again, and draw skeletons all over his slate, before his eyes were dry. I used at first to wonder what comfort Traddles found in drawing skeletons; and for some time looked upon him as a sort of hermit, who reminded himself by those symbols of mortality that caning couldn’t last for ever. But I believe he only did it because they were easy, and didn’t want any features.
Dickens, David Copperfield
Charalambides – “Tea”
Our Bed Is Green
Charalambides is one of the more mysterious artists out there, and Our Bed Is Green is only one of several mystically dumbfounding albums. The irregularity and variety on display give no indication of their later, more minimal Internal Eternal or the monolithic, droning INCREASE. More than perhaps any other artist I know of, it is infernally difficult to represent them with a single track. So I’ve just picked a good one.
I don’t know.
Wow, I wonder why Fortune rejected it.
She brought with her two uncompromising hard black boxes, with her initials on the lids in hard brass nails. When she paid the coachman she took her money out of a hard steel purse, and she kept the purse in a very jail of a bag which hung upon her arm by a heavy chain, and shut up like a bite. I had never, at that time, seen such a metallic lady altogether as Miss Murdstone was.
Dickens, David Copperfield
