“Sunlight”

I generally think trip-hop should go back to the late 90s from whence it came, but filtered through a late 00s lo-fi, DIY sensibility, and given a distinctly Oakland case of the weirds, it certainly sounds fresh again. There’s even something about tUnE-yArDs that inspired me at one point to describe it as Caribbean-flavored, though I’m not sure if I stand by that.

I like the album more with each listen. It starts strong, and finishes strong enough, though an insufferable three-song streak in the middle does it no favors. Wikipedia says they have a song in a Blackberry commercial. We all just support that sort of thing now, right? More money for small artists, etc. Anyway, this isn’t that song.

“You Are A Runner And I Am My Father’s Son”

When the first thing in a series of things blows my mind, it gets blown extra hard: the possibilities are now endless. Issue #1 of a comic book monthly, TV pilots, first chapters, first album track. A great song is all the more exciting when it speaks to the promise of more great songs, maybe even greater songs. It can work against you, though: Wolf Parade set the bar so high with the first track of Apologies to the Queen Mary, for weeks I couldn’t listen to the rest of the album. By comparison, it seemed flat.

Perhaps it’s a good thing that the band were never quite as great as their opening statement. A few years later, with their third album release nearing, they are still very, very good and showing no signs of slowing. Besides, if they’d continued at this level we’d likely be living in a Wolf Parade oligarchy, the populous subjugated by sheer power of song.

This hearkens back to a track I posted some time ago which seems to lyrically reference this song blatantly yet opaquely. I’ve had a cursory butcher’s round the net and found no literary connection to father’s get and runners.

For those keeping score at home:

Management Mixtape #1 Side 1

1. “Black Rainbow” St. Vincent
2. “The Devil Is In The Details” Marnie Stern
3. “Electric Campfire (In A Neo-Ackerman Style)” The Bionaut
4. “Son the Father” Fucked Up
5. “Canada” WHY? / Themselves
6. “Give Blood” Rain Machine
7. “Outro” Califone

Management Mixtape #1 Side 2

1. “Lovecraft in Brooklyn” The Mountain Goats
2. “When We Were Alive” The Thermals
3. “Martin Luther King Day” Times New Viking
4. “Yuri-G” PJ Harvey
5. “Dancing the Manta Ray” (Live) Pixies
6. “Spacious Thoughts” Kool Keith feat. Tom Waits
7. “The Wayward Granddaughter” The Fiery Furnaces
8. “Pink” Boris
9. “Anywhere I Lay My Head” Tom Waits

Management Mixtape #2 Side 1

1. “Lemonade” CocoRosie
2. “You Are A Runner And I Am My Father’s Son” Wolf Parade
3. …

“Lemonade”

“Anywhere I Lay My Head”

Hey, this is something that exists.

“Pink”

Feeling irritable and aimless today. Is there a more suitable mood for Boris? I think not.

“The Wayward Granddaughter”

For Steve, who gave me a good hard laugh by suggesting this was the best album of the decade. In seriousness, though, his assertion of “at least the most interesting” deserves some consideration, and though I personally don’t like the Furnaces, they are creative, ambitious and fearless, which is more than can be said for much of the music released this decade and decades past.

There is furthermore some topical relevance, as Matthew Friedberger has recently embroiled himself in a weird sorta-not-really-feud with Beck and Radiohead, which you can get the gist of from this recent Pitchfork news item, if you like. It is unclear exactly what combination of total lunatic and/or pretentious asshole we should infer Friedberger to be based on this, but it resulted in a Beck song in tribute to Harry Partch, if nothing else, so.

Happy Thanksgiving.

“Dancing the Manta Ray”

Back from unplanned hiatus to warn you that you are missing out on a free four-song live sampler from the Doolittle 20th Anniversary tour (cash-in). Doink. It’s worth the space on your hard drive. This is the only non-album track, and thus the only track where you can’t hear the dull roar of the audience singing along in the background.

Despite the rumors of lifeless performance I’d heard about the various (there have been various, now, right?) Pixies reunion tours, these songs sound pretty full of energy. I mean, noncommittal vaguely tuneful moaning was always part of the shtick, but where 1989 Black Francis primally screamed, 2009 Frank Black still does a passable job. By the end of Gouge Away it sounds like something I wish I could stand to be there for.

“Yuri-G”

I had a dream about Polly Jean Harvey the other night. I was in college (college is always very sunny and grassy in my dreams), and PJ was playing a show, rocking out hard. She played the older songs, and all my favorites! How did she know?! After the show we hung out, and I think she was hitting on me.

The third new disc I bought two weeks ago was the new WHY?, Eskimo Snow. I’ve abstained from posting a track because I’m not yet sure how I feel about it, among other things that I’m not quite sure it’s any good. More new music some time next week, but in the meantime, some old Harvey. I enjoy her new stuff; White Chalk and the John Parish album are good, and she still bares her teeth a little, but I do sometimes miss the old Harvey, who used those teeth for ripping flesh. That was the one I dreamed about.

“Martin Luther King Day”

Symptoms, experienced sequentially in 1.5 to 3 min cycles: nausea, headache, disorientation, blurred vision, excess salivation, cold sweat, twitching, restlessness, metallic taste in back of throat, tingling/numbess in extremities, sensitive finger- and toenails, itchy spleen, existential dread, inexplicable euphoria
Diagnosis: Times New Viking
Prescription: Times New Viking