A man who had been in motion since eight o’clock in the morning, and might now have been still — who had been long talking, and might have been silent — who had been in more than one crowd, and might have been alone! Such a man to quit the tranquility and independence of his own fireside, and on the evening of a cold sleety April day rush out again into the world!
Kepler – “Elemental: Blood or Water”
Missionless Days
This slow-build masterstroke has been in regular rotation on my playlist for 12 years now, but I still manage to feel it’s a song for “special occasions,” not to be spoiled by repeated listening. Not that Kepler needed to prove they could do loud, but coming at the end of this incredibly restrained album, this song feels thunderous.
Andy Warhol’s 1985 “Amiga Experiments,” discovered this year
Original poster for Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” by Boris Bilinsky (more)
Manual – “Midnight Is Where The Day Begins”
Ascend
Confluence was an airy ambient album, very like Stars of the Lid in its ethereal swells. Ascend sounds like it’s sampling Confluence, but for a very different purpose (there are beats, for one thing). Its gentle glitches and washes of filtered instruments remind me of label mate Styrofoam, but it exudes the calmness and confidence of the band’s simpler, softer, and surprisingly, later albums. (insound)
Nailed to the beloved body like a slave to a cross, I have learned some secrets of life which are now dimmed in my memory by the operation of that same law which ordains that the convalescent, once cured, ceases to understand the mysterious truths laid bare by illness, and that the prisoner, set free, forgets his torture, or the conqueror, his triumph passed, forgets his glory.
Tulsa Drone – “Risk Guitar”
Songs From A Mean Season
On their follow-up to the eerie No Wake, Tulsa Drone have greatly reinforced their sound, producing a heavier post-rock feel akin to This Will Destroy You or Saxon Shore, though it rolls more than it grows. There are also vocals, a mixed bag but not problematic. The hammered dulcimer is ever-present, but is no longer the lead instrument — a loss, if you ask me, since that truly set apart the sound, though the richer tone does have its merits. (insound)
