Frida Hyvonen Silence is Wild. Again, I am late. This is much beloved. Rightly so. There are all sorts of things that are beloved, incorrectly. Why do you love the Vivian Girls?(just dreadful really) Je Suis Animal?(too meek to be drontetastic, too dronephony to be much fun), The Smittens?(pah, pure evil), the last Magnetic Fields (eh, actually no one likes that one, it seems as if his entire existence is ironic these days). Anyhow. Many now love Frida. They should all love Frida. Frida is amazing. There is a conversation on a new website from the nice people from indiemp3.com over "twee bollocks". We needn't censor bollocks on a US domain need we? It sounds cute or err...twee. The entire discussion seems stupid and pointless. Throwing punches at the air that surrounds them. Here's facts but "twee" music is indiepop, almost without exception. Not all indiepop is twee, of course, but the two categories are inextricably linked. You might have Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Crystal Stilts sharing a stage at an 'indiepop' festival but the crowd will be full of the hopelessly "twee" and to what end do we disparage this? I might reasonably fret over the balkanization of music as how many of these indiepop websites cover anything outside of things that could be rightly or wrongly categorized as "twee" pop? Not many. I vascillate but the "electronic" things I write about tend to be denigrated with the same epithet. I lament over the death of indiepop not so much in revelations in the dearth of quality music but in the crushing of the socially anarchic spirit that compelled its existence in the first place. I was not a fan of indiepop in the 80s. I was still istening to the Smiths and Echo and the Bunnymen almost to eh exclusion of everything else. I know I know, everything starts with Orange Juice. But even as a pop archivist moving through history four or five years post the climax I could understand the driving force behind the music was political and reactionary. Sarah's heavy handedness aside. The unprecedented material wealth of the current generation has dampened that. Class warfare is ridiculous an serves no purpose but it fires the soul, it gives bite to every vowel and chord. Writing a lament over some contrived social malady such as gitmo, global warming or reduced arts funding is just not the same. There isn't a struggle for existence out of nothing. Indiepop has carved out a niche broad enough to be appropriately labelled as a ghetto, rich enough to support itself and to allow atrophy of thought enough to permit the eating of one's own. Anyhow, I should cheer, it's so difficult to raise the ire of an indiepop fan and real opinions are being expressed thoughtfully and without reservation. Bravo. Frida. I am on song three already. I've read other people's opinions on Frida and mostly I concur. Discussion ranges from allusions to the Cardigans to the Concretes to Motown. Accepted. But there is a real Dagwood and Blondie sense of kitsch surrealism to this. The real life stories of some mentalist construction trapped in a set of dusty journals hidden among the bleach and borax beneath the kitchen sink. Even then I do find many of the lyrics silly and humorous. Is it meant to be undiminished pain and grief? There are even parts that are not unlike Jens Lekman minus the unfunny jokes. But the performance is mighty and extraordinary. There is ripping drama and a fierceness of purpose in her singing. The playing is occasionally slight and impecunious but the overall effect when combined with the ferocity of mind is mesmerising. It isn't unprecedented. Surely not. I don't think it much resembles the exceedingly dull Concretes really, boo to you who would believe such fables. It is more reminiscent of the lineage of original thought that ran through glorious eccentrics, the Kate Bush, the Throwing Muses(though nothing about this rocks), the Jay Clarkson. Most of it is piano based. The much lauded London has begun just now. I mislaid the exclamation point. As a world traveller myself, ha, I am well qualified to comment on travelogue as pop song. Not really. I am in South Carolina. My parents allege that this is the second poorest state in the union. I haven't any numbers to confirm that assertion but as background it does add a cosmically imbalanced feeling while listening to luxuriant exhortations while walking at night with an LED flashlight searching to see if the eyes of alligators will glow the same as caymans. I've seen only one alligator and it was in the daytime. It was a baby, 3 feet or so. I wanted to take him home. My own elvis. I've been to London!. I've not yet written a song about it. I've been three times. The first was by myself, the second was with someone else and we stayed in a jail cell/hostel, and the last was by myself and I stayed in even more spartan accomodations. But I was granted sleep. This is a magnificent song, it has a huge chorus, all of these backing vocals, ambience of heartbreak, tenderness and fury. It doesn't resemble the city at all. I didn't feel the energy of London. Does it radiate for everyone? We were there on New Year's Eve, it was muted, it might have been the sight of male pattern Boon-ness experience on stage. I remember the DJ that played Blondie's version Oh Denis and midnight felt anti-climactic. Next song. Slow. Piano. Sketchbook about fictional domestic bliss, serialized. From her photo on the album cover she seems a bit esoteric and delicate with animal prints and equine accompaniment, the Freudian misinterpretations seem abundant. On the beach this week was a trotter horse towing a man in a chariot. I thought of Meissonier and the studies he made of horses and their mode of running and then I walked over and marveled at the pattern of footprints on the beach. Must one train a horse to become a trotter or are their born trotters? These things one must know before one can write a brilliant novel or even a stark heart revealing record such as this. Next song. More piano, her untreated voice, so forceful and intense. Alistair Fitchett claims this as his favorite record of the year. I've already claimed mine as Cocoanut Groove but I could have been mistaken. This is splendid. Is it an innate tendency towards the kooky female aesthetic? I feel so cliche at having posted a fanboy video of Zooey Deschanel on the website. I like that song, loads, but she's so so beautiful. So so. Alistair Fitchett, i do seem to mention him all of the time, has posted a beautiful photo of Rose Pipette on his website and it doesn't do it for me. She's stunning but she seems so pedestrian in comparison, with the accompanying baggage. All she needs is a horse and a lemur. I have listened to her new songs, blah. Next song. This is a bit bouncy, a bit Linda Ronstadt, Excellent. Scandinavian Blonde. Big band melodramatics and boogie woogie good time rock and roll. I am leaving for home tomorrow. I miss home. I have enjoyed this time in my parents new home more than on any previous visit. I don't have demons of regret and inaction here. i come here and I spend all of my days at the beach where I walk up and down and fly kites, and I reel in kites, and later I attach squid to kites and I fly squid laden kites near to rats with wings attempting to entice them to organize and attack. Failure. I could have attempted to seduce the turkey buzzards near the golf course instead. Later there were small Asian boys with RC cars and thoughts arose of affixing the squid to RC cars while harassing the shore bound seabirds. Or later of surreptitiously disguising the children as bait themselves, squid in the right sock, a dollop in the breast pocket, one behind the ear. But then came flashes of the real world, squirrely chest hair, obesity and a line of ocean tankers in the near offshore waiting to unload some precious oriental cargo. In the beach were carvings of love, Reed loves Missy, I Love Amanda. I tried my hand. I love Turkish Filbert, I love Veronica Lake and I love Saag Paneer. My false cleverness could not surmount the beach worn apathy of passersby. My sandmanship was not impressive. Another quiet song at the moment, very Hips and Makers. Perhaps if Tanya Donnelly had made Hips and Makers it would have sounded a bit like this. Who knows, it could have sounded like Love Songs for Underdogs. Fuzzy warpings on cellos? Warbling over birds. I just had my bit on birds, poor timing. In the Christmas issue of the Economist (oh how I love the Christmas issue of the Economist) there is a lament for the avian plight in China. It's a tragic end for certain. Frida could be writing an affidavit in the indictment against the communist oppressors. Not likely. It's poetic and marvelous and lovely. I need a new thesaurus. Twinkles. Such majesty. Kate Bush might have written of this when she was still barren and bereft. Now this would have turned on axes of babies and baby's toenails. Next song. Soundtrack for my checking the weather forecast all along my route of travel. I am forced to fly first to Charlotte, to Pittsburgh and then to Denver. It is meant to be filled with robust breezes and unseasonably warm daytime highs on my early evening arrival. Will there be parades? Nice. i could dream of days when the earth's motion stills and leap seconds shed from moon rays and the horses that escape from story boarded lucid dreams. Does Frida write during sol de medianoche? What an odd shift of being it must be, unless attuned to it from birth's diurnal course. Perhaps dramatic moments are presaged byLovers of the Arctic Circle on continuous loop during the dream journal recordings. There are distracted persuasions in the background on this startling song. Stately violins as soundtrack, dancing keys and the undergirded main melody to caress her voice. It's lush. Do scratch the earlier bits about impecunity of style, there is grace and joy and passion imbued in all of the colors at the surface and deeper within. A march, this delightful coda, a tender farewell. Beautiful. I've found the first record. Is it as wonderful? I listened to the first RockettotheSky record and it didn't captivate as much as Medea. This rests snugly alongside Medea. Is it Kate Bush's renewed activity that has drawn these lovely young women towards her legacy. Kate Bush had an otherworldly grasp of the literary when it was protagonist grappling with her internal conflagrations whereas this is purely livejournal posturing made elegant by sheen of sophistication of presentation and of polish. It's awe filled and it is harrowing in practice. Impressionable young things will mine the lyrics for touchstones to compensate for their own shortcomings but you needn't. The words are heartfelt and staggeringly abundant but they serve texture as well as narrative. It's all seemingly a missive against passive existence. Inspiring is understating it by way of insult. Big finish, chorus of voices, yodel-y vocals and splashes of percussion and the twinkles to transcend consciousness of the ether surrounding the perineum. Not even the formica can dull the feral sense. Last song. Why Do You Love Me So Much? A question for the insecure. A question I have asked myself and then come the lists, the let me count the ways, tiresome and 'my love is nothing like the sun'. Album of the year?

I may be listening to the new Animal Collective. It may be very Panda Pitch.

Moto Boy Oh Martha. It seems somewhat ********* to cover, with but your guitar and a tender voice, an Andrew Lloyd Weber song. Free of ostentation and production values what is left is the stark emotion of the song. Its similar to when ballboy covered Born in the USA on their album from a few years back. I never appreciated the heartbreak and despair in the lyrics because of the bombast of Brooce's performance but later, 20 years on, when Gordon ballboy stripped it down to a guitar and withheld the chorus until the end it turned incredibly unfamiliar, it was transformed into something poignant and filled with melancholia. Of course then I was duly excoriated by a Brooce fan for not having noticed this previously but whatever. Pie Jesu has always been desperately sad and beautiful but it's inherent qualities are diminished not at all by the presentation here. Moto Boy with his flying v guitar, a touch of ambient tinkering and a double tracked vocal succeeds splendidly in capturing the delicate essence of a magnificent song without attenuation. "Merciful Jesus". It's a spartan mix, all throughout the EP but it is astonishingly gorgeous. Second song. Another cover. Another classical piece. This time Dvorak. Gypsies. When I arrived at Denver International Airport there were Roma there playing Christmas songs on an accordion. Each and all were dressed in white with primary sash's and collectively homely expressions and a definitive failure to evoke sympathy from anyone waiting to board their plane. If they had played in the manner of this instead it might have elicited a different perspective from everyone present. This is wordless. Mainly a lone keyboard and a violin. Again, it is magnificent. Which other pop performers would attempt something such as this? I posted before over its loveliness and truly it is art, a piece of magical construction to hold and savour for all of your days. Third song, an original. You might think it a risk but it's as beautiful as the two remarkable versions that had preceded it. What test of economic theory this provides, as art, unquestionably and it's fair value has been designated 2 dollars from Klicktrack. 2 dollars per download. Preposterous. We might need to evaluate all of the rules for assigning worth to goods and services if in their strangely flawed world this isn't immediately characterized as essentially priceless. "I'm in a room with you, I miss everything we had". In his most fragile tones. A mix of his minimal guitar style and echo enshrouded keyboards and the dream of romance. It sounds loads more confident than the album, which I love, everyone should. There seems a mastered new competence in arranging, in playing, in singing that must be derivative of the 100s of shows he's played this year. He's a star, somewhere. Next he does the impossible, he attempts Ave Maria. Once more into the breech. It is no Maria Callas but this is still inspired in its miniaturized take on Schubert. I've heard worse. Step forward Delores O'Riordan. It seems to be sense and tone more than a faithful cover unless perhaps he's performing it in Swedish. I am familiar with most of the lyrics and they don't appear to have made it to the final recording. Instead what has been presented is a touching performance of the essential spirit of the song with his guitar, violins and hope. It is fitting for this record, this tiny little marvel of experiment and emotion. It seems wonderfully sad that he should have recorded this and approached his label with trepidation over their acceptance. Who could witness such elusive majesty and not come away moved by the experience. Last song. Suo Gan. I am not familiar with this. It's astonishing all the same. These songs are unmistakably Moto Boy, already he has a trademark way with a minimal balld bathed in moonlight and melancholia. Apparently this is Welsh, though here performed in english, flawlessly, with tear drop keyboards and a warm resonating vocal to bring about the embers of the good tidings of the holiday season within every heart in audience. It's truly improper to label these tiny or miniaturized, it's an epic sound he's achieved by exploding the power of his heart outside his chest as if some beacon illuminating the cold distant fierce isolation of a world that has forsaken grace for pragmatism.

10000 Maniacs The Wishing Chair. There is a new Postal Blue cd out soon, hmm... It was announced on indiepop news although they have strict admonitions against things that are "twee'" or so I had imagined from their earlier diatribes. The Bumblebees are decidedly untwee sir and I resent any accusations to the contrary! Natalie Merchant seems far too ruthless to have ever been mistaken for twee. Would she wear a Chocolate, Love Sex twee shirt? Unlikely. Not unless it was a fair trade, locally grown hemp hewn anti-Batista twee shirt. On this album she sounds rather girlish. How old was she when they recorded this album? Using my keen memory I remember origin stories about her storming into a college radio station in New York demanding they play her likely unlistenable records from Janis Ian and Patty Smith. Those bands have ben pulled from my arse. She kept meticulous journals. She was a whirling dervish. She was alleged to be dating Morrissey once. But he's son gay. Although that seems about right. "Through adventure we are not adventuresome", I love the way she excitedly draws that out. There is passion here, there is heart bursting through flesh soul and desire, precociousness. Twee is not passion. The problem with Postal Blue is that as a band or concept it is really sorta dreadful and completely unaware to that fact. I reveal all of my prejudices on this site. One is the belief that Brazilians have more blood than anyone else on the planet but Postal Blue is merely the exception to prove the rule. Anemic rock! Second song, the rocker, Scorpio Rising. It's terrific. i have listened to this album constantly since the end of December. No idea on the motivation for this behaviour. There was that one Rolling Stone Cover, she looked alluring actually, she claimed it was not her that was on the magazine cover, because she was alluring. Of course she was still in the band then but truly they are all rather ugly and so mere fodder for page 57. After Jann Wenner's endorsement of Paul Tsongas that never was in 1992. 10000 Maniacs played the inauguration in 1993. That was the last time the world changed. Of course nothing changed. It won't change this time, but will 10000 Maniacs be invited? I bet Lil Wayne takes their slot. Third song, the first folk one. This is their second album. The first is perhaps its superior? It is out folk, Planned Obsolescence and Death of Manolette are brilliantly odd things, I marvel at their uniqueness. Later they learned to play instruments and had faded 60s non-icons beat them senseless about professionalism and nuns were slaughtered in El Salvador and George Bush had Ann Richards as antagonist and life was simpler. When democrats hold power who do we demonise? I love this song. The way her voice pitches sharply at the start of verses cheers me greatly. Next song. Lilydale. More folk. When she was meant to be dating Morrissey I was desperately, nay madly in love with Natalie Merchant. How was this? I don't know. She turned matronly when she went single. Judge me not on my appearance, I can be as unappealing as Germaine Greer, judge me by my wisdom imparted from boring 4 minute dirges. No, no, let me dream, let me describe you fatefully entwined in romantic literature and floral print dresses and knee length postal socks and a teasing curl draped keenly over your left eye. I did enjoy even the last 10000 maniacs album with Ms. Merchant and there is a beautiful video on YouTub of her performing Verdi Cries on English television some time some age ago. I would not be lying if I revealed that they formed a great part of my sensibility when I was young. I didn't sympathise with the politics, it was asinine, but I understood the individualism and fierce determination to do their own thing. It was light years better than Camper Van Beethoven. Back O'the Moon, another brilliant brilliant song, it's all driven by her electric performance. I've been listening to this album less this past week. It is some time since I started this entry. Apologies. i am still stuck in this loop where I leave for work long before the sun rises and arrive home long after it has departed. She sings "giddy' giddily. I received another email requesting that I "review" a release from some label. I don't think people realize that no one actually reads this website. I don't track it but I receive about one email every 6 months. Perhaps I am only in deficit among the polemics that would engender more bountiful feedback. I've opened the door for the legions of two or three Postal Blue fans to write me their dissatisfaction concerning my appraisal of their 39th favorite band ever. Oh well. Mandolin. Lyrics are surely drawn from journals and apple orchard expeditions with a copy of 'The Blue Notebooks' under crooked arm and elbow. Maddox Kitchen Table. Again, magnificent. This is a near perfect record. Really. There is talk of a new Shellyann Orphan record soon. Would that they'd make a record as endearingly shambolic as Humroot rather than being professional about their duties as professional musicians. Blah. She's turned Norma Rae at the moment, mentions an ox. I witnessed a longhorn parade in the middle of Denver yesterday. Reaffirmed my determination that this is still a cowtown. Truly, eternally. I've never been to the stock show. i am not sure what happens at the stock show, I gather from a distance that children raise prize steers and hogs and show them off before sending them cooly off to the abattoir. One longhorn was singlemindedly trying to plough his own furrow through the adoring masses and make a run for it, before some kid could grind his hoofs into vegemite but he was quickly rounded back into shape by cowboys in authentic cowboy hats. I don't actually care what anyone thinks about what I write here and certainly not what I think of music. This is exercise. I am writing about this record because it was a signpost moment for youth, I listen and feel, again that shamefully unfulfilled invincibility of naivety. As I lay alone in my bed and feel the emptiness of existence unmarked by experience I long to rekindle the romances of my youth vicariously through false nostalgia and admissions of devotion to Natalie Merchant even while she's singing the mostly crummy The Colonial Wing. Oh but then comes Grey Victory, sigh, these are the girls who should be girlfriends of sensitive intelligent men who do not have boyfriends. The imaginary constructions born from their lingering escapes in between these dreamy notes. Natalie Merchant is not Natalie Merchant to me, that would be some tireless droning bore intent on telling you how miserable life is. No no Natalie Merchant is the singer for 10000 Maniacs and in these songs she's the dreamer, a poet, an artist, a metaphorical spark for the entire world to gather round and open hearts to. "Come on, come in it's open, so come on". Ok, yes, Ok. I was such a sap. This chimes with hope. I can't decide from which of the first two records I derive the most pleasure. They share songs. The Hope Chest thing has Death of Manolete. Death fo Manolete is an amazing song. Why did Peter Asher want to circumscribe their youthful exuberance? Why did he want to limit the unbridled fecundity of fierce determination, why did he want them to become dreaded professionals. Of course, they may have been more than willing accomplices in the death of soul. Among the Americans starts quietly, more chiming chords and her delicate flower of passion, then a rush into the second movement, a brief glimpse of fire, then again pensive and moody. It's feverish and subtle all at once. Are bands this wise this early any more? The admiration for her now is different from when I was young. Then it was a thumb in the eye for everyone trying to decide if they were in the Skid Row or Guns'n'Roses camp while on the school bus en route to Physics day at Cedar Point. Now it's a fondness for having the wherewithal and wit to say something powerfully and with charm, efflorescence and grace. It's fierce, I've said that before. It is in line with Amelia Fletcher records. The music is the polar opposite but the overall effect is dizzyingly similar, tiny speeches carried to hidden crevices. Everyone a Puzzle Lover, the lyrics are not as meaningful as I once imagined in my youth but even so, if they had come enclosed in a booklet bound and embossed and ready for scones and tea it would have seemed entirely appropriate. Mandolin, long before Peter Buck discovered the mandolin, it forms a rigid spine in a song, much different to a guitar, sturdy planks flower on each side her soaring voice and accordions in sympathy. It's all too marvelous. There, I've maintained my 'marvelous' quota, 2. "As a trail of caramel ashes fell on the floor". Best ending line ever? Tonight. Like the Weather vs Death of Manolette? To be decided at some future date. I do like In My Tribe. i recall doing homework in my car sitting in a bowling alley parking lot while listening to The Painted Desert and later the trailing memory of My Sister Rose while a young girl serving drinks inside, face caked with white make-up, brilliant red lips, she would sit next to me for no apparent reason and I would ignore her and later cry "If only". "Could never take a hint". It is all happening again, the same as it has ever been. I'd apologize if I knew how to contact the stranger that in plain view derails all of the happiness I long for. Cotton Alley just finished. Beautiful. Daktari, experimental folk music. Hope Chest has some of songs on it, this is one of the ones shared among the first two records. It's eastern sounding, her voice a chanted dervish ball of desire and prayer. This sounds like a mismatch between her youth and the wisdom of her band mates. I always conjured this vision of the Maniacs being father figures possessed with a sprite filled with energy enough to allow them to recapture their storybook yearnings of days past. This has a groove. They have a propensity for groovy things on the first two albums. Peter Asher put a halt to that. But then he did write the bridge to A World Without Love didn't he, bravo. I wonder how Thomas Dolby would have made In My Tribe sound. I don't know why I wonder that. At the time he was recording Paddy McAloon's ramblings of genius. He could have introduced 10000 Maniacs to the sheen without the accompanying deadening seriousness of purpose. Who recorded this? I think it was Joe Boyd. Of course, it Was Joe Boyd. He was Nick Drake's producer. How is Peter Asher considered an upgrade from the man who recorded Five Leaves Left? That's a serious position, ha. My Mother the War. I like this version better than the Hope Chest version, it sounds meatier(pun) than the previous version, it fulfills the spirit of the performance ever more grandly. The drums could have been heartbeat rhythm menacing as in say Animal Collective's Summertime Clothes but we can't have everything. This should be featured in a Guillermo Del Toro soundtrack someday. Really. He's in charge of the Hobbit! Brilliant news this, I've only just read of it. I haven't seen a movie in the theaters since forever. Oh wait, I lied, I saw Valkyrie at Broadway Commons in Myrtle Beach. It was decent to pretty good. Look at me! Man of the people. I only had a brief period of duress caused by the malady of thinking that the music I listened to was important. I was more of a proselytizer attempting through good faith to enlighten those benighted souls unaccustomed to such goodness as Tension Makes a Tangle. I doubt very much whether I ever attempted to convert anyone to the cause of 10000 Maniacs, I may never have had the opportunity, perhaps when I was told that I looked like a Smiths fan in my Freshman year at university I had an opening, but instead a missed opportunity to pock mark on my wearying trail to nowhere. This sounds very tongue tying but it's as giddy and bright as every other song here. Why isn't this in the top ten of Rolling Stones' greatest albums ever? Surely it should beat out anything on the list by the Who. A 10000 Maniacs tee shirt would have just been the oddest thing ever. Last song, a waltz, Arbor Day, accordion and sing song and a tender sensibility that seemed to fade with experience. Which was it that killed Natalie Merchant's innocence? Aging or the age? Untold memories of Samosa.

Oh boy, the new Moto Boy EP is stunning, truly one of the loveliest things you will ever hear in all of your lifetimes. If his skill as arranger, producer and singer have advanced this greatly in but one year then what have we to look forward to in the future? It seems hope has been graciously returned to hearts all over the world. Romance is alive.

Update: I've tacked on the Titiyo version of If Only Your Bed Could Cry to the end of this EP.

Sin Fang Bous Clangour. This is Seabear person. It's a bit, more than a little, like Seabear. This is owing mainly to his pleasant voice. There are some squiggles, a bit more pep, fewer strings, etc...but it is as Gorky ZYgotic Mynci amniotic as anything on the approved Seabear record. We all love Seabear. We must, this was my admonition from earlier this year. First song. It's chugging. Digital typewriters and Atari 2600 sound effects, multi-tracked himness. It's vague. Everything about him is vague. There was a video of Seabear, or some incarnation approximating that, playing in a living room. It seemed appropriate. Mum was playing seven strong in a shower stall on the same program, being willful is Mum. Seabear looked well bathed but there is a tender warmth to his stylings, a brilliant symbiosis with the heart and mind, an invitation to sit in your favorite ray of light awaits. I compared the Seabear record on one of my hundred ex-blogs that were all exactly the same as this one to Euros and Richard and John while if you put the two musics side-by-side they would bear little resemblance to each other it is clear they drink from the same rare distilled nectar pouring forth from secret springs accessible only to those who dream dreams of Kevin Ayers and Marmosets in Tea Cozies. Second song. Smaller. Multi-tracked voices, piano, everything all at once distant, echoes, shadows of songs instead of the meat and bones of music placed on a commemorative plate for consumption. This is to be lightly experienced, to have your soul grazed gently enough to leave only angelic imprints. His voice is busy. Seabear was once a solo bear. Now it is a "collective" or sleuth. He's solo once more. It's a lot like Seabear minus the "collective" or sleuth. I admitted to someone that i am in throes again. It is pointless. I am mute. .Look Back in Anger is on the television at the moment. Was this before the cliche bad boy in zinc cinema became cliche? Which heart throb in black and white created the dizzyingly absurd cliche that Richard Burton is hamming it up to? Frederic March? Adolphe Menjou? I just throw out names. Cath them. I know little. I am not Robert Osbourne. When will he tell Rose McGowan that 'you don't really know what that word means do you?'. I can pray. Next song. Chugging, again. Trains rolling in pace, sounds like movement on a train through an eastern European province of no consequence. Multi-tracked voices, always with the multi-tracked voices. I am off from work today. My first day off in a very very long time. I haven't any plans today. I may go to lunch. Will anyone dine with me? No. I am mute. Sunken Ship. But, recently, I have transformed to a better dressed mute, better than I once was. I dress so shabbily at work, always I am made to dig deep into the pits, drive some boars, ride the rapids, run through the gauntlet. It is difficult on the wardrobe. I wear the same trousers every day until they wear out. I am not sure that this is a feasible economic model. A pair of trousers can have an extended lifetime through darning. If only I knew my darning. Are the multi-tracked voices evidence of loneliness, he misses his fellow bears of the sea? This is a marvelous song at the moment. Sunken Ship, Beach Boys-esque arrangements, megaphone sensitivity, Mojave 3 classicism without the sun-in. Seabear was marvelous too, this might be most marvelous. Is a new Seabear project imminent? The old Seabear record was somewhat older than it appeared. I have my ear to the glacier for news. Claire Bloom is tremendous and desirable in Look Back in Anger, but how old is Richard Burton? And why with the rage of eyebrows? Dunno. Next song is darker. Almost a turn sinister. I can't suppress the giggles. He couldn't possibly turn sinister. It's as sinister as Dog on Wheels. It's not then. Richard Burton has a bit of Gary Cooper's cold stare in him. Too bad then that he's a diva. I could be a diva. I am pedantic. I eavesdropped on conversations in the burrito establishment, a treatise on liberal economic policies that was so wrong headed and folly bound that I could barely keep my nose in my copy of Gentlemen of the Road. Next song. More chug chug chug turn the wheels on the narrow gauge. Words about nature, rustic scenes, the sea, the typical islander fare. Should not then Iceland and England share more in common. Perhaps Iceland and Ireland. England is not the whole world but they sometimes mistakes are made. Electronic flourishes. Very nice. Could be sleigh bells in the background or tambourines played by wood gnomes. Is there an Icelandic equivalent to Belle Watley. Are devastated Icelanders destitute turning to love for a kroner and on the verge of social anarchism with their civilization near to collapse and doom because of bankers and brokers. Surely Joebama will save Iceland. Snow in Las Vegas today on the news report. Bubbles bubbling. Next song. We Belong. The banjo song. Multi-tracked voice. Twinkles. Loveliness. Rickety spools and tricks and now we're transported to the Russian Steppe, the vistas glorious and bloodstained and tear filled skies witness to historical transgressions and there is drama enough in this song to comport itself nicely among the diminished apparatus and apparitions of torment but it's all too delightful. We dance on the bones of the aggrieved, we raise the corners of mouths, dream dreamily in the leafy spurge, without conscience. Banjo! Very nice. It's a thinking person's record. I flatter my own enjoyment. Some wheezing to the end. Next we turn to the odor of pine. Electronic fog, romantic interludes on the guitar, all very minimal, distant, hushed, his voice an amplified whisper. Reverb. Alasdair Maclean would be proud. Drama. Again. It's got a cinematic feel that is not at all reminiscent of Burton's cliche. On the other channel is Frederic March! How conveniently coincidental. In Hugo! One of the most entertaining bits of the Flaubert biography are the notes of Flaubert's initial dinner time conversation with Victor Hugo. It pierces the ideal that these giants are anything other than nominal failures at nearly every other endeavour of human invention. It warms the soul. Endearment. What this record dearly lacks is one of those atrocious coloured pencil pixellated wizard drawings that once adorned Gorky's Zygotic Mynci records. Honestly. Who was in charge of their art direction? For a brilliant band they had the most dedicated adherence to hideous artwork ever. That's a poor sentence. Their albums were atrociously clothed. Peel them and beauty lay within, without fail, but oh dear, without there was the orange soda can of pop songs. Next song. Tiny acoustic guitars. Lyrics do not appear to concern magic or dungeons or alchemists in bedraggled garb. How old is he? His is an old soul. He's thin. He's fragile. He's the embodiment of his music. I would leap to such conclusions based only on the viewing of one live video from Icelandic TV. Much goodness now, his voices all in unison and tinkles and paper creche sentiments all floating delicately in the summer breezes. Charms have arms. Soft fingers and crinkled cut eyelids. It feels like "a family singing in the deeper woods record", it is expansive and multi-colored, thus the glories of home recording in the digital age. Next one. Fafafa, sadly, not an Able Tasmans cover, well we are not all that sad. He's part of the collective pop consciousness of oddballs that counts Humphreys and Keen among its membership. His acoustic guitar now with voices, pianos, low end, whistles, boundless cornucopia. I don't think it really reminds of Animal Collective. Some do. They are wrong. By extension it would then remind of Ruby Suns and it does not. It's not as marvelous as Ruby Suns but it is one of the best records of the year. I have resisted temptations towards making a list of favorite records of the year. A victory over autistic tendencies. Owing to the fact that there are zero or fewer readers of this website so it is at best vainglory at its paramount and because lists in and of themselves are pointless especially when every list is exactly the same. Why are Fleet Foxes so beloved? Oh but you put FLeet Foxes 3rd when he put them second! I know! Why are all of the ears on the planet unable to recognize the symptoms of Tv on the Radio's lethal wretchedness? Why? Admit it, you do not love The Bug, you do not. I don't. I do like Vampire Weekend though. I am a trender, all the same. Next song. Harps and some back road folk music, John Denver in a Daihatsu before the sun's glow has caressed the rear view mirror. How long would it take to drive across Iceland. Is wanderlust the national malaise? In the new Ice Age they will be able to walk to Denmark and sing in choirs with Efterklang and the really pretty girl who fronts that other Danish band that people have heard of that isn't Mew. Last song now arrives after the quietest number, space, piano figures, a trinket. Drums. Intensity. It is a existential flowering of the spirit, this is semi-Animal Collective actually, prove me a liar with a song titled Lies, how ironic. Isn't it. It's very Panda Bear actually. A featurette on how to write a Panda Bear song comes with every copy of the album along with a Nashi Pear.

The Pains of Being Pure At Heart S/T. On I Love Music someone described this as My Bloody Valentine making records on K records. Not really. It's a bit like My Bloody Valentine circa Ecstasy and Wine sure but even that bit of k-rub was miles better than anything that ever came out on K that wasn't written by Amelia Fletcher. But it is I Love Music after all. Nick S******* walks about like some sort of colossus. First song is actually a slice of TeenBeat/Ropers-esque pop. They remind a great deal of Revolver except that they aren't horrible. Ropers had that one magical moment with Revolver but everything else they did was a disaster. They lucked into one immortal song. It's leagues more than I'll ever accomplish. Can Pains of BEing Pure at Heart singer sing? Indeterminate at this point. The voices are genderless, mixed so low as to not matter. Well, on first song, there is some random noise about being a "contender" but it doesn't reach much deeper than that. Second song, very Swirlies, translation-ace. Damon from the Swirlies did not sing either. But his lyrics are polemical. Zapata! Zapata! Pains of Being Pure at HEart are still looking for the undersized tee shirt for inspiration. Why are there so few wordless backing vocals in song arrangements these days. Is it lack of music theory education among the pop bands of today. Was it Reagan's draconian cuts in the 80s that "gutted" music education? Reagan killed the oooby-dooby sha-la-la. Damn Ronny Raygun. I remember my elementary music classes. We sang 'Who's Behind the False Face". The entire class would be silent in the group session except for me and this one girl who was able to sing. I could not sing, I was tone deaf from birth, but even then I didn't care what people thought of me. or I assumed I was invisible. "Who's behind the false face, nobody knows but me, I won't tell you, you will have to guess". Where are the ironic indie rawk covers of that then? Third song. More casual. They are often compared to Sarah Records, not certain why. It's definitely not anglophilia that is in the permanent gallery. It's a fuzzy blend of indie rock. More Seam than Tramway, more Small Factory than Gentle Despite. Actually, it is a bit Gentle Despite. Torment to Me, only better, much better, we've been approved for Gentle Despite denigration recently. I wasn't sure why anyone was making a fuss over Pains of Being Pure at Heart until the album was released. Has it been released? I have secret connections inside their camp, natch. They provide the thrift store bailouts to members. They look as if they come from privilege. Look at my class bias intact. It has been alive since my matriculation at Cranbrook academy. Halcyon days. Blaines, Morgans, Travis', topsiders, golf team, rolled up pant cuffs, all ahead of their time. But there was an ice arena and there was Alexei Lalas. Dream. But my haircut was self-inflicted. Third song is one of the best songs on the album. He might let female genderless singer sing lead once in a while, but I know...he probably writes the poetry because he's the one who bears the burden of eternal torment. He's so gentle, despite. Nasally outro, probably could have skipped this, or had her sing it. It turns a bit emo here. They do have a fondness for sweaters in their photographs. I've mentioned my bit against band photographs earlier, they need to be re-evaluated. Here are some rule to start with - No leaning against street lamps, no gazes cast downward, no big hats! Ok. Actually I like big hats. More big hats! Fourth song. Expletives, very modern. It's an answer to Bob Wratten. Essentially the entire album is the band trying to rewrite Sensitive by the Field Mice. Really. They don't succeed in trumping that. Guitar riff. I can't tell if they have ambition. They look content, that might mean that they don't actually need the band to be a success because they have nepotism to fall back on. So perhaps the next record will be a country record. That would be a delight. Next song. Fifth song, The Tenure Itch. Very Vampire Weekend title. His life of academic freedom indeed. I like this one too. It is a lot like those that have come before. Here is the formula, echoey drums, not many fills, fuzz, a variation of the Emma's House riff and his mumbling underneath. I am a sucker for it. Weren't the Field Mice on Sarah. Indeed, I am not consistent. I've never made that claim. I've decided I am no longer pro-chinese food or chinese buffets. I feel miserable always after eating Chinese. It is not gluttony's receipt. I must have a genetic trigger tied to the taste buds in the vascularized valleys of my tongue programmed to rail against the imperial glories of MSG. I convulse as a result of its activation. Next song, slight deviation from formula, a bit Brighter, hurrah. So my friends it is Sarah records-ish. I am a liar. But the fuzz, it's My Bloody Valentine amateur night. i don't receive Christmas cards because I am evil. I've been thinking about my days of gossip recently. I am so tired, I should not work when I am tired, my mouth loses all sense of restraint when I am exhausted and in self-defense mode. I will be certain to rest peacefully this evening so that my mouth and my keyboard are more responsible in the morning. It's early evening, in the dark I feel guilt that I've stored up all through the day drawn from my irascible rancor. Next song. I went to the mailbox just then. Nothing packaged with love and emotion, just heartless reads from the government and direct mail campaigners. The first single off of the album. It sounds a lot like the first couple of numbers. It's very good, very generic, teen disco hearts will be set aflutter when little Adolf Hitler Campbell asks Moxie Crimefighter to dance the slow dance under the stucco'd cathedral ceiling. Middle section, distortion, drum roll, guitar solo, whoa, the guitar lessons for precocious 11 year olds have paid off. There is a side project from Pains of Being Pure at Heart that belongs to the drummer, Cuba calling. Backing vocals are a tad Verna Brock. Well done. I suppose there is a trifle of Rocketship in this, I've misled you. If they added some farfisa they might be unstoppable at some point in the future. But then when the depression hits will anyone but the extravagantly well privileged be able to pick up a farfisa? Good thing Gid has granted them the grace of breeding from the right side of the tracks. Next song. A pop song. Some synthesizer on this one. Less fuzz, it's their 'Chris R'. They borrow a title from Dion. It's the best song on the album. It could have been the single. But would have Pitchfork approved of that decision? Who knows? I can hear him almost singing. It's pleasant. Is this how all of their songs begin before they turn up the hotcake pedals and go all David Saunders on an unsuspecting public? Possibly. An entire album of this would be just lovely. it's about christians, very risque! What will they do when Ted Haggard's legions are unleashed upon them with bloodlust and fury in their bible toting paws? It won't be pretty. Next song, a turn back to the original recipe. Fuzz, Field Mice, vagueness. I miss the last song more than I love this song. They are certain to make a big scene with the pitchfork kids with this record, they could be this years Summer Hymns. Lucky boys and lucky girl. I remember when Select had a spreadsheet grading bands on their indie quotient and one of the columns was OFM "Obligatory Female Member". Pains of Being Pure At Heart would have scored swimmingly. Last song. Big drums, slow burn, his voice almost imperceptible. It's all too deep, immolation is not allowed, he's loathe to reveal his scarred inner being in song, it is all too traumatic, impressionable young things would cast themselves from overpass to pavement underneath were they subjected to his morbid humility. It's rather good all the same. I am fond of the phrase 'rather good'. I withhold my anglophilia in real life. I use it only in my online existence where I have even fewer admirers than in reality. I am getting the itch to once again delete my website. Start over, make everything the same as it ever was. I may re-review the five songs on the Cocoanut Groove record that I already reviewed once because they were on that seven inch. But those were vinyl versions. I lack vinyl pretension. I could newly reveal the glories of Madeleine Street in digital form. Woo. This is early contender for second best album from 2009. Easy listening.

Cocoanut Groove is album of the year. Would that be this year or next?

Update: Sin Fang Bous is also lovely. He is a good egg.

Update: Oh dear, the Vivian Girls are something of a disaster. No?

Update: Silence is Wild is marvelous.

Las Escarlatinas Al Galope. At a gallop? Horses seem to be key. The cover is lovely. As always. Where is Ramon Leal? He has departed Siesta. Few details have been detailed. Has he gone back to playing Beatles records with his siter? Will he take Ana Laan with him? Please, no. So who has taken the reins for Las Escarlatinas? Guille Milkway. King of La Casa Azul. Mythic svengali figurehead behind many alleged spanish pop hits. I didn't love the latest La Casa Azul record. But this is splendid and marvelous. As good as the first Las Escarlatinas record? Certainly. But much different. It has lost that gilt of sophistication, the arrangements that seemed to have fallen prepossessed from heaven are diminished, heaven's turned downward like nickels falling into a jukebox underneath old photographs of Chevrolets and Bettie Page. Long foreign title on the first song. I never took Spanish. Sorry. Let's examine the content anyhow. I imagine, by the music, and the tone that it is about cloud photography. A young girl with her kodachrome snapping shots of different cloud formations that remind her of her childhood and the different guises of Orson Welles and her favorite curry dishes. It's a summery stroll. Single voice, very Sarah Cracknell solo album, much different then than Ramon Leal who was steeped in nothing so smothered in disco lux. Quite nice. Second song. Sounds as if they changed singers. I am not yet able to identify the girls by voice. Two of the girls have released solo records. I am not sure if either of the first two songs is by Bel or Cristina. Who are the other two then? They work at a carnival apparently as monkeys for an organ grinder, this is a circus romp of a pop song, it might have more appeal to the kids with Sir Milkyway's name affixed. It is somewhat recognizable for that. There isn't a sugar rush, perhaps a more complex rush, a galactose rush. Will Lua's solo record be out this year? It seemed as if Ramon Leal could produce a record every couple of weeks. Who will supplant his prolific fingers? I hope the answer is not Jez Butler. I'd hope for Bid and a return of the Fantastic Everlasting Gobstopper in time to perform as opening act for the next Las Escarlatinas tour. But I dream. Third song, peppier, is this Bel Divioletta then. Perhaps. She seemed to have more spunk than the others, at least juding by her solo record. Where is the Maria solo record? Fourth song now. A bit bossa nova mixed in with the El Records feverishfetishness. Nice. A male voice, Milkyway? Beautiful backing vocals on parade. Just wonderful! I love this album. As always. I love everything. The guitar solo is not very Ramon Leal. He would have not have imposed it, unnecessary to feature it as prominently, he would have made the guitar notes turn red from blush, romantically entwined instead. In a recent entry I decried the new confidence in indiepop. This is a confident record but then these are professionals. Allegedly one is an architect and an exceptional flautist, fiction. A nice combination that. Mateo from Siesta lamented over the lack of professionalism in a number of bands around Madrid. He's rather used to having his stable of godlike geniuses create these effortlessly romantic records without much guidance from the whims of popular consciousness. This is not popular anywhere. Well, in Japan this will surely sell loads. This current song is Mi Buhardilla Six and it's delicate, amazing and touching. Which singer? No idea. It is loads better than anything Saint Etienne has produced in the past 18 years. Even as it sounds like the best Saint Etienne record of the past 18 years. But when you are confident it helps to be around people who are not blessed equally because they will marvel at your pluck for standing up and accomplishing all of the things they can only dream of. I react jealously to Michael Chabon because he's out and he's writing brilliant novels and being praised for it and I am here writing nonsensical stream of consciousness entries about Spanish pop bands singing romantic songs in a language I could not seduce a tree in. It's all so very depressing. When I am on an airplane in less than a week I will be impelled to make a list of the goals I want to accomplish next year and finishing my book will be at top of the list. Perhaps acquiring a firm grasp on the rules of grammar and the proper use of a semi-colon should rank above that but you know I need this list to be glamourous and sparkling. I won't have my permanent new tooth until March 2009. It takes a long time to make a tooth from scratch, they take black pitch, snowballs from the Matterhorn and the spun silk hair of pretty little orphans raised in Australia to make my teeth. It is a delicate science. Another lovely song is playing now. Dormir o Morir, I would say this isn't Almudena or Bellen. I could be wrong. They don't sing together that often, not on record. Do they play live? Do Siesta bands play live ever? Real Siesta bands, the imaginary bands, do they have fantastical concerts on lilypads and under toad stools? I wish. This came out the same day as Scarlet's Well. That was a delightful day experience. It has summer in a bottle. Open this album up and inhale deeply to conjure the spirits of the season of love and everlasting youth. I can still outrun a Diesel from the 1970s. A Bonneville with an Albanian driver was never a match for me and my hot legs. Oh dear Humanzee is on the Science channel. Creepy. I had to change the channel. I'd rather watch a show on the exploits of Alexander instead, wait for the dreams of Sirocco's and steel plates rising from the floor of the sea. Next song has started, glorious. Is this better than the last Las Escarlatinas record? Yes. Sorry Ramon Leal. Who will make the new Rita Calypso record then? All of these unanswered questions. I should be asleep. I need to awake tomorrow morning and step out into the morning air with naked toes and assess whether the conditions are fit for human vocation nay avocation. And then enter a maze of voicemails and keep from laughing at Tom Cruise's eyepatch in Valkyrie and not picture him talking as a pirate would when attempting a German accent to leave a professional message before my day off on Tuesday. I have most of my vacation days to take off in the next two weeks or I lose them. I could give them to charity or to the vagrants that solicit for money for drugs and alcohol while standing at busy intersection with unimaginative signs. Next song. I swear this is Bellen. Or it could be another. It's chugging. It's about Japan. A plea to the home market? A sop? Perhaps David Scott should helm the next Las Escarlatinas record? How has he eluded the golden fleeces at Siesta for this long? He's seemingly fond of working with Germans and Marina's covers have as much or more class than Siesta's. Don't they? Stefan at Marina has exquisite taste the same as Mateo. They should marry. They should step in and replace Pinnacle with a company commited to not releasing records by the Charlatans or Kaiser Chiefs. I love this song now, love too. This is an airplane record, when the women next to me reveal their girth and lack of refinement and I sit crouched in between reading another Chabon convinced that I could be this clever. Next song. And yet another Saint Etienne-like moment of pop excelsior. Is this Lua? Maria? Who knows. This is better than La Casa Azul. For certain. There are delicate moments mimicking the tenderness of a Ramon Leal arrangement. Is Ramon on street corners in Madrid with a sign 'will arrange brilliant pop records for food? Is he re-enacting the ritual death of Hiram Abiff deep in the bowels of a Masonic temple in Pittsburgh, PA? Were he here he'd be frozen now. It is above zero, only just, oh wait I lied, it is -7 degrees fahrenheit. I should open the windows and play this album to the elements and bless our barren wasteland with the gift of warmth and fertility. Next to last song, folky, chirpy, very Siesta. It is on Siesta. I booked my flight to Myrtle Beach, I am assuming the weather forecast will not include negative numbers. I look forward ot the afternoons on the beach reading in solitude, listening to the sea lap the shore gently, in the arms of a winter respite. I look forward to vicarious kites flying and children chasing sand borne seagulls across the leading edge. It will echo the heart beat within this lovely musics. I am making a stop in New Orleans, in transit. I was a visitor once, in New Orleans, during Mardi Gras, such human depravity should not be as celebrated. Las Vegas can't compare. It's the genetic deficiency of those that measure the revelers that frightens the stolid hearts of northerners who think themselves sophisticates. This music would go over like the plague in New Orleans. If only the mail had strange powers as it once possessed. If only the air would be charged with melody as it is in Madrid. If only the grey skies were not leeched from the colourless earth.

Take the Pills, who seems to be the tweeters public enemy number one for having the audacity to post Magic Marker releases on his blog, is doing the world a great service by posting all of these ancient indiepop mix cassettes on his site. There is a world of difference between these records and say the Smittens or Pains of Being Pure At Heart. The difference is soul. They had it in spades, and yet today all traces of that collective and rebellious soul have withered and died. Sad. Perhaps the Smittens could write an irritating lament in commiseration.

Update: I retract my Pains of Being Pure At Heart criticism, the album is rather good.

Scarlet's Well Gatekeeper. Delirium. Do the forest creatures all about the outskirts of Mousseron gather and exchange correspondence hping they will soon feature in a Scarlet's Well song? Trees in sunglasses and mice in flairs and tiny little salamanders reading salamander poetry while wearing the afternoon sun casually, for a few fitful moments. First song, The Story of my Life. Are we still in Mousseron after all? This sonds rather conventional. What of steam fairs and underground passages and psychedelic plumes. The forest dwellers may have formed their own Move On.org councils in our latest adventure and their aim is pressed for change fom the oppressive regime of Bid. Did they vote for Joebama? Have you seen this video? It is comedy gold!. Imagine instead of wealthy upper class New Yorkers in shabby outifts it is the rodents and marsupials and genetic miscreants of the Mousseron outgrowth having this meeting discussing how a reptile might use a digital camera to change the world. These video stars could be ancillary characters in a series of comic book adventures where the creatures of the forest write erudite letters to each other, each correspondence given a panel in a thrill a millenium series of adventures. Mousseron mushrooms are fairy ring mushrooms. There are all sorts of theories about fairy rings and their being places where fairies have danced in the forest to the music of the spheres or to places where lightning has struck and caused the ground to give forth these hallucinogenic mushrooms. Bid must be a fan. Third song, Bid sings, since album four they have been a "band". Dickon Edwards is included. He wrote the lyrics to a song on the last record, I rather liked it, it is loads better than the intolerable business he releases as Fosca. Sorry. But there was Orlando, they were marvelous, not really due to the Dickon pen for lyrics but down to the other's star making qualities. There is a lost Orlando record, apparently. We wonder-will it ever see the light of day? Is it not filled with pathos and narcissism and is this why it is sheltered from an adoring public? It would be seemingly silly, as if this weblog could flourish without my own blend of self-centered satisfaction creeping into every entry. The year end lists are being released to the outside world, will this record make a splash on any of the lists? Unlikely. Alice seems to sing more on this record, good deal, she has a marvelous voice, an angel, innocently entwined among a web of dastards. Or so the comic books would be inscribed. Scarlet's Well records are not varied, much like Lucksmiths records are not varied, but they occupy their own little resident genre in the indiepop universe; one filled with accordions, bouzukis, theatricality, creepy overly hairy svengali types, virgins in corsets and their matrons in waiting or so I imagine. Next song is filled with carnival organ and fiddle and Bidness. it could be a redneck jamboree jam from any random state fair from 1983. But it is not. it's refined, it's joyful, it is a tender respite. Peter Momtchiloff plays in Scarlet's Well. And Would Be Goods. Has he abandoned the Sportique? Was he ever in Sportique, perhaps I am remembering incorrectly. He's smart, he looks old, he adds a sheen of pseudo wisdom to the public image when Scarlet's Well is out playing live. Bid evolved from princes in India, he must be lamenting the past week's events in Mumbai and wondering about the rift among the inhabitants of the subcontinent. Or not. Songs of puppies playing at the moment, and fatefully an explosion closes things, how very insensitive. Next song, a piano ballad, acoustic guitar, the Captain character on parade even as Alice sings her little heart out. Why did Bid chose Alice among all of the fateful young ladies that have travelled among the Scarlet's Well coterie of cohorts of known or unknown pleasures? She must have entranced the Captain by means real or surreal. We are all searching for our Alice, Alice to carry our heart's contents as earnestly as we would but lifting a small burden with every sigh and leaf shed from aged trunks. She's young, nubile, fruitful, Bid is wisdom, plucked from the temples of Peter Momtchiloff. Does Peter Momtchiloff hold an especially important position in government? All of Heavenly are meant to hold PHD's. Are they not? I enjoy this record more than the last Scarlet's Well record, it is smaller, less of a band, more of a traveling minstrel show variation. Steam fair souvenirs in view. Next one is more of the same, jug band feel, we're visiting scarborough fair. Bid singing. Imagery is abundant in the lines he's caressing the air with, such splendid poetry. I've mentioned before how delightful the air is on the Scarlet's Well website, they recommend to the world all of the dreamy romantic novels that exist in secret and recommend tea and dress in anachronistic fashions and seem proud for their anonymity. Fairy wings would not be inappropriate and would seem necessary and not at all a sign of weakness. By comparison a pair of fairy wings and the Sinister list would lead only to dissension and tears. Arms of sex are not meant for accordions and shawms. Are story arcs on Scarlet's Well records difficult to pin down. The Monkey's Hand is very Prancing Pony. Does he feel kinship with Tolkienn or Carroll or Lewis. There is "Alice". She's singing again, once more dreamily into the breach. Is Alice her actual name is it a useful literary device to have an "Alice" in the band. And a Dickon? Which children's novel has Dickon as main character? I don't know, he's fictional all the same, we know this by his white linen, I doubt he wears linen but he should, suits and peroxidized head. Next song, a bit of droopy psychedelia, a Fantastic Evelasting Gobstopper outtake? What ever happened to the Fantastic Everlasting Gobstopper girls anyhow? There was to be a Fantastic Everlasting Gobstopper album once upon a time, was there not? I believe there was. There was two sentences of filler. This song is not fantastic, the first to be less than marvelous on the album, really. It's a bit of a journey towards the avant garde desert with piano motifs and the armful of psychedelic merriments. This could be the key to the entire enterprise, where all of the key points to the epic tales are revealed to careful listeners. I am no such being, I listen inattentively while watching That Hamilton Woman which Robert Osbourne has just informed us was Winston Churchill's most favorite movie ever. Vivian Leigh seems such a tragic figure, destined for a future life in eternity as a Mousseronian footnote someday. Alice again on the second to last number. It is a pattern, Alice and then Bid and then Alice and then Bid and well...loads of slithering consonants here must be a means to allude to the darkest recesses of the ship of dream merchants. A quick end. Earnest last Bid number for the last song, his voice and some sort of tender accompaniment, lovely, romantic, a plea for Alice to drift away towards the icebergs of Pylinthia with him. It's a bit Stephin Merrit really. A bit of hopefulness on the end. Beautiful.

Lucksmiths First Frost. I do enjoy the Lucksmiths. I share their lack of ambition. They are pleasant. I could be pleasant. They make lovely records. This is a fine set of pop songs. But...ah no. I do not want to write a mean spirited review on a snow covered morning in the dying days of November. It was Thanksgiving. I did not have to work on this most empty home of holidays this year. I need a vacation. Desperately. Not just the sort of aural sensational visit to my inner self provided by pleasing pop songs. The Lucksmiths cannot grant me serenity. I need the ocean. I need solitude. I need warmth and grudgingly I will admit to needing family and food cooked in a home rather than under a commercial range hood. Are these demands excessive? I have been writing so much lately. Really. I have this richly cultivated inner landscape that I inhabit almost exclusively these days. I am a recluse, officially. It is worst on Holidays. The world has closed its doors, turned inward, here I stand with faced pressed against window panes that belong to strangers and me staring at their connubial inanities with a mad sense of envy. I don't miss my family. That's cruelty towards my collective heart. I don't ever talk to my brothers, I don't talk to my parents any more. i feel this alienation from people who only wish me happiness and joy. Why is that Why can't the Lucksmiths cure my mental disorder? Because. Frankly, they are a bit boring. Truly. All indiepop could, almost without exception, be classified as boring. It isn't daring, nor inventive or the slightest bit impassioned. It is deeply conservative. Indiepop kids find themselves reverent for those things that have already whirred past and yes, it is deeply middle class. I was almost middle class. When I was older. Is this why I gravitated towards the likes of Brighter and Courtney Love? There are differing levels of ambition I suppose. There are tiny levers to be tripped in a mind that seeks only perfection in the tiny exercises of a daily life. That is ambition. I lack even this. My personality profile claims I am a perfectionist but honestly in a normal day I have so much to do that I am happy just to try to finish something completely without being interrupted. Do you know the joy in being a crutch? For 80 people? I hope you do not. I can picture the inside of Lucksmiths minds and there are tiny quarry men with miniature hammers whiling away the day in some rich seam of pop goodness. It is well trod, deep, miles and miles deep, look there is Tom Petty, and while there are less travelled veins off to each side we aver that those are dangerous, dark and scary. We keep our LED headlamp pointed in the direction of tender moments, Bee Gees moments, Go Betweens moments. Belle and Sebastian meets Ladybug Transistor is as near to being Jacobins as our diminutive quarry men get. Second song now. I believe the first was written by the new Lucksmith. It wasn't bad. Not everyone is Michelangelo or Morrissey. Good Light, one of the peppy numbers. Different from the peppy numbers of the past, it's a bit over the hill, an aging athlete coming around the final turn with a confident stride only to fail to se the young up and comer in his rear ready to overtake him to make complete his obsolescence. Not that the Lucksmiths are obsolete. But they must be aware of their comfortable place in the indiepop pantheon. The kids might stay home the next time they visit because they've already heard Southernmost a dozen plus one times live. What happens when you see the emotion of the evening turn tepid and you are 10,000 miles away from everything you shoud be loving. I don't know, I've never travelled 10,000 miles except to escape from anything at all. Third song. I mentioned this one in the Oysters review. It's a Lucksmiths song, but it sounds like the title was agreed upon first and then a song was created to fit someone's stubborn adherence. it's pretty good. I like it. But the chorus gives me pause. It seems a song that didn't need a chorus really, perhaps a horn solo, a marimba shake, a laugh in the back of a Subaru, not the forced bit of conclusion arrival. I don't know. I am picky. Is this a failure? Hardly. Ask my friend K, she rather despises the Lucksmiths currently. I exclaimed, overstating, the goodness of this record to her and she described a painting session soundtracked by Naturaliste leaving her less than inspired. I paint only in Latex and earth tones, I don't know the inspiring quotient of these words and chords but the truth is that it isn't physical music and to me a soulful painting would represent the physicalisty of emotion, the subject leaping from the page reflecting the virility of the brush strokes or something similarly offputtingly pretentious. Last evening was spent in Parker, Colorado. A Christmas tree lighting ceremony. I was a VIP. I've attended four of these as a VIP in the past week. There was a large crowd. Hard to juge how many Lucksmiths fans were among the masses. I was listening to the Clientele, discreetly, in my little corner of the park away from the Parker Dance troupe and hot chocolate machines and two kids and a dog. I was jealous. I have simple desires. A face to look up at me with approving eyes. Next song. Do Lucksmiths have children? New Lucksmiths looks as though he might have children. Likable. The rest seem too thin for family men. This is the best song on the album. California in Popular Song. This is not among the pop pyrite cast offs, a glistening gem. His voice is softer than soft on this record. he has also just released a Guild League record. I heard a Guild League record once and it was not so good. I am imagining this as a Marty Donald song. So then why are they boring? gentle sorts often are. I am exceedingly dull. Take the song that is currently playing Southeast Coastal Rendezvous, it is, to use to epithet of the day, pleasant. There isn't a riff, there isn't a vocal hook, it is a bit of poop thickness turned over enough to make something smooth and appetizing. Hardly a recipe for adventures in esoterica. There is a classicism in Marty Donald I suspect. i just read th diary for the making of the album and he's a marvelous young man. He writes kindly of nature and his friends and the music and the minor scrapes and toils of pop alchemy. Next is a slowie. These used to be their forte. Not so, not anymore, it's leaden and the same as all of the other slowies since their first singles compilation. The horns and bus stop choir can't overcome the fact that it is a very minor effort dressed up to mediocrity at best. IF I was making a painting while listening to this it would surely turn to something drab and uninspired. Filler. Should have been left off. The title is a bit of an abomination as well. Was this recorded with thoughts of this being the close to side one? Possibly. It would make me hit fast forward on the tape deck by any means. Next song. Were they big Kevin Rudd fans? He's been a bit of a disaster no? Interesting that he's intent on reviving a version of the industrial relations board. With added goodies, if there is but one member of a union in a shop then industrial relations board dictates hold sway. Ah, communism! Why is everything to do with collectivism a matter of of compulsion? If these are such brilliant ideas then why don't people accept these facts on the ground and embrace them? Who knows. This is a marvelous song. Day Three of Five. I once had this theory that when bands reached the level where most of the songs on their albums were lovely mid-tempo pop songs then they had achieved greatness This is the second album filled with mid-tempo cheerfulness and here I contradict by relegating them to the league of mundane. Apologies. Next song is also charming. It is all effervescent and warm hearted. A bit of ambition might be seen in the almost post-punk guitar line that opens the song. They don't have much grasp of vocal harmonies do they. A few ba-ba-ba's and not much else. The Bats are boring. I love the Bats. Ballboy is boring, I love Ballboy. Though, Gordon's boredom has a deeper more heroic tone. It must be the difference between mundanity in a Scottish accent and mundanity in Australia. And my blood borne proclivities coming to the surface. It could be worse, they could be Carl Newman. Strings tacked on at end, must have had a few nickels left over. I went to answer the door. Album has passed in a blur. There as a country something or other with a bit of Lazy Line Panter Jane similarities, more Lucksmiths songs, more niceness, blah blah blah. This was recorded in snow and winter and isolation. The spirit was not dampened by circumstances. I'll listen to this one hundred times before next August but it is likely that I won't remember a single moment among those notes. Not everyone is David Scott.

Sleeps in Oysters We Kept The Memories Locked Away Like The Beetles Of Our Childhood, Or How To Appreciate Someone Who’s Always Around. When Mum meets Pram beautiful things blossom from urban soils by the Thames. First, a recording of someone, possibly an an ent-omologist or someone who plays one on tv, then a flowering into a glitch symphony with choral vocals, a shy whisper in the valleys and the highs kept humble enough to keep them from turning silly. Twinkles, high pitched squeals, loveliness on every petal tip. It is so splendid and marvelous. I tried to steal this, I could not find it, I paid for it, I don't mind. I made a list of things that I've heard new this year, I have been a bad boy. But then my pay has been frozen for about 18 months, who can afford to take a chance on the likes of The Deer Tracks and Color Cassette? Turns out they were worth the risk. Who knew. First song, fairy tale industrialism, so very Victorian, filled with drams of progressivism. The industrial revolution as whispered by a tender shoot to a libra. Next track. We move to flies. He sings this. Are they a duo. Fractured electronics, overexposed, disorienting, but an anchor in the voice, nice. So very nice. Walk into the forest and overturn rocks and find ancient synthesizers made by the mysterious nay telepathic inhabitants of the forest before they were subjugated by the evil Titans of yore. Kronos, Ouranos, Hyperion, Johnny Greenwood and the mother of all despots recently resurrected Gaia. How much will Joebama USA spend to appease Gaia lest she unleash her formidable powers on a superstitious public, he must look within the grooves of this record to find salvation. Now washes of synths and quiet, and dreams of water. I can recognize several variants of flies from the fairy kingdom power point presentations, for my unimportant work. I am not an entomologist nor do I wish to play one on tv. I am filled with Christmas. Flies seem inchoate, to plagues and murder and all things un-twee. But I need a license for flies to be able to contaminate our patch of earthwith the miracle of holiday joy. When I arrive to work on Monday there will be miles of revelry crushed by disappointment. It's an ugly day to be sure. People are not nice. I was sent a bill to clean my ears at the doctor. It was for an outrageous fee. I would have run hot water in my ear on my own had I known the cost. But doctors are not businessmen. Allegedly. They always dress in fashionable wares and have expensive eyeglasses. I shop at Wal-Mart for both. But I don't like Wal-Mart. I aspire to be able to afford to shop at Kohl's soon. Third song. More glitch atmospherics, run these songs on an oscilloscope or NMR spectrometer and try to elucidate what makes them so magical by the peaks and troughs that appear as if predestined by a queen of melody and goodness. Now some plucked bits of melody underneath the brutal nature of the track's foundation. Sounds like a typewriter, so anachronistic, a typewriter in love. A marching band in a Autechre video. Repetition is key to hypnosis. I find this incredibly lovely even as the walls are shaking from dissonance, like a mite beneath a butterfly's wing. I mean to write several entries today. On the Deer Tracks. They do sound like mum. They resemble recent model Mum, which is odd, since that last Mum album seemed to whiz by unnoticed even as it was beautiful and amazing. This is not snow music. This music sounds forged in a cauldron of Arachnid passion and intensity rather than precipitated out of the ether by some endergonic process. The atmosphere does not warm by its existence, but the mind ruts deeper into a tranche of introspection, insulation from the winter of your discontent. Pretentious. A spoken word bit with twinkles and recordings of previous entomologists trapped under glass, enticed only to lecture for their freedom, with poesy and whimsy. Inside we place large replicas of insects made of pvc and given human names like Floyd and Darryl and Therese. This feels like a suite, a whole, the bits are shed from the splendid organism that is this record. "Beetle Fat". Is this what Cristina Rosetti had in mind? I had a semi-classical education but it did not cover fairy tales with the new 'understanding". Have fairy tales always indoctrinated children? I suppose they have. But normally with seemingly benign concepts of morality and golden rules and hygiene among the victims of the black death. Now rhymes armed with matters of disputed science and esoteric dietary habits hold sway. Next to the last song. Marvelous things with multiple voices, As if Pram made pop songs. Voice is exasperation. It's a novel bit of electronica, ho, puns, look at me I am a Lucksmith. Have you ever wondered if the Lucksmiths assemble a song title and then write a song to accompany it? A Sober Thought Just When One was Needed seems to fit that description. The Lucksmiths are boring. Pleasantly boring, but this, unfortunately, precludes them from ever being interesting. Ask them a question. Will you receive a sense of defiance from the answer? Unlikely. Ask Sleeps Like Oysters a question and they will try to be as clever as a personal ad in the Onion, not very, but you will find their annoying habit of thinking they are more clever than they are endearing, unlike Onions, and then you will listen to this album and be bowled over by the imagination bursting from the seams. Last song. Crickets. I love this record. I love every record it seems. I apologize for that. Teletype machines. Glitch cliches. Hums and madness and nursery rhymes and lovely voices. All very twee. Read the Gregory and the Hawk entry for my treatise on "forest twee" versus "regular twee". It has very little to mention about fairy wings and garden gnomes. This is just marvelous. One of the releases of the year. Warms the soul, I lied, earlier, endergonic for certain.

"A frisky lamb, and a frisky child, playing their pranks, in a cowslip meadow, the sky all blue, the air all mild, and the fields all sun, and the lanes half shadow."

The greatest song in the history of the world ever, I mean it this time.



Real posts to follow. First real snow of the season fell whilst I was unaware.

Judging only by the song recently posted on Pitchfork the new Crayon Fields album will be wonderful. Less Cardinal, more Jens Lekman.

Sounds a bit Cocoanut Groove as well.

The Deer Tracks Aurora. Yes This Is My Broken Shield. The title is not really Mum. But the music is. Twinkles. A bit Efterklang too, but then Efterklang have always been more than a bit Mum, well, before they went over entirely to being silly. They are Swedish. Now to a big middle section, two voices, synths meant to sound like fake strings, blurgh washes, earnestness. This is earnest electronic muisc. Does such a thing exist? There normally exists this impassable chasm between listener and creator in electronic muisc. See, we're meant to imagine that the music has escaped captivity rather than been birthed. Her voice is squealie in a semi-Japanese way, but humanely, more Piana than 800 Cherries. Did you read about the essay contest where some risible outfit, a chain of hotels, improbably, was attempting to rewrite the history of Japan's activities in WWII and something like 30 of Japan's top military officers offered their bit of revisionist history for prizes and acclaim in the eyes of genocidal apologists everywhere? Big big crescendo now, driving rhythm track and guitars and swoons and really squealie vocals. Rather awesome. This is an explosive way to start an album. Can the rest of the album compare? Let's listen. The winner of the Japanese contest was a high ranking air force general. Well done. You are fired. Sweden and Japan seem like natural allies. Bloodless. There are always moments in reviews when music is described as containining tiny packets of sunshine. This will not be one of them. Instead, we will discuss tiny freezer drawerfuls of frigid bursts. This album has it in spades. Even as we listen to the monumental crescendo on the first track we feel a sharp lowering of the temperature. It's gorgeous and beautiful and enticing but in the better sense of ghostly pallors and cold hands and pearlescent sclera. He sings, occasionally, he should not. Second song now, twinkles, very very Mum, which is alright by me. I've been watching live videos of Mum on the Youtube and they don't do much of the electronic twinkles live, rather it is an amalgam of organic elements made to sound diffident and alien and glacial. She's singing, very Japanese-like. Is she Japanese? A Japanese ex-pat in the heart of Stockholm, atoning for the sins of the Showa era, an emmissary on behalf of the decent hotel chains in Japan. Who knows. He is singing again, he has generic fella voice, but it fills in the gaps behind her helium laced thought bubbles. I have downloaded a pile of this sort of music this year. It is all very Sneaker Pimps, should I be honest and if I examined it closely. It is all very trip hop, with twinkles and glitch static and the occasional foray into the keys. It's lovely all the same. Don't judge me. I am not going to move into a downtown loft, spread back issues of Watchtime magazine across my coffee table and eat takeout over the sink in fine china. I'll just sit here alone and watch football games without any passing interest and feel guilt over the chicken I've just consumed. I've finished the Yiddish Policeman's Union and while I thought it was great it seems that when you are a fancy best selling novelist then you are granted some licence. I don't know about his choice of adjectives, every bit of scenery was described strangely in the book and without any of it conjuring vivid imaginings in my head. I could write like that. I can describe her voice as that of a dying giraffe but then John Darnelle would arrive in no time to castigate my improper use of simile as Giraffe's do not sing. Exept when they are under water. Third song. He sings. He's sounding pained. A lament for Anna Lindh? No. Should justice have prevailed it would have been a protest against those who just watched her die. A protest against her green plate glass memorial. A protest against the prevent defense in football. Horns, synthetic???, trumpet out all over this track. It is rather cold here today. Earlier this week it was 60 degres fahrenheit and when I awoke this morning it was -3 degrees fahrenheit. How can anything alive survive here? It is always windy. It never rains. The soil is grey, hypoxic, lifeless and yet we try to maintain our dignity is such a sterile envronment. It could be why the people of Denver are recognizable mainly by their dull torpor. Perhaps the city is too young to have a personlaity. The Subaru Outback is the official symbol of Denver but it is built in Lafayette, Indiana or Gunma, Japan. How can you be sure? I bet Pains of Being Pure at Heart drive regularly in a Subaru Outback. Somewhere. Even though they are not actually from Denver they seem like a Denver band at heart. Why? I don't know. I rather like their new album. It is pleasingly genderless. It is brimming with confidence even though they seemingly have near to nothing to say about anything. It is the personification of nu-indiepop. Self esteem trumps everything and so the confident stride long unaware of their facile natures. This is the definisiton of confidence "being unaware that you are not interesting". Julia Allison's photograph is next to the definition in the dictionary. And her friends. But she's vaguely attractive, thoroughly sexless, brainless and inventing conversations out of the ether that have never existed anywhere on this planet. Ever. Fifth song, Before the Storm. Quiet bits at the start, glitch photographs on the mantelpiece, gentle meaningless poetry, a slow rise to crushing sadness, it's all in debt o tthe Cocteau Twins. Liz Fraser's shadow hangs large. Robin Guthrie was an oaf but he had sense enough to let the cosmic radiance of Lz speak for the band instead of his menacing yap. And Simon Raymonde was mute witness. More trumpeting horns. Synthetic? It is the weather that is appropriate for this music. I would type out in the elements but I fear a step out into the breeze today might endanger survival with a clever thought in tact. I am so tired. I woke up yesterday to go to work and I wanted to die instead. I have no idea why but Kevin Barnes says it is easy to sleep when you are dead. I steal all of my music now so I needn't the cash for an expenditures on future Deer Tracks releases. I will find them sometime. I just found the Cocoanut Groove album. It might be the album of the year. Even as I have heard five of the tracks on it already. It's bloody marvelous. Sixth song now. More wordless Japanese. She's blonde. He looks as if he may have been blonde once upon a time. Now he's goth. Is indie electro where all goth kids go to die now? I suppose emo is the more assuring resting place for would be goths from the suburbs but there is a mop here soaking up the lost smoking youth of Scandinavia as well. It's cleverer than emo and its pathos is more reasonable than the sweater loving set. She's lovely, really, he has bad hair, not blonde. Fake strings and washed out synths and double tracked vocals and iciness and tenderness and humanity. Earnest. I intend to write three more entries this evening about sunshine and light and joyful records. Do I approeciate the Las Escarlatinas record more than this? I don't know. The Cocoanut Groove record more than this? Probably, sure! Pains of Being Pure At Heart? Undecided. That record makes a good first impression but the emptyheadedness of it all means it could slide through the cracks into oblivion rather quickly. Nice synths on this album. They describe it as an epic battle. Militaristic imagery from modern Swedes seems out of place. But why is the soil grey in Colorado? Because it is lifeless. There is very little microbial activiity in the clay soils here, we were not blessed with forethought enough to abscond with the fertile loamy top soils of Canada as they had in the midwest. Instead it is all blank. As blank as the stares on the Outback wagon drivers as they listen to NPR tell us that Obama really isn't out of his depth over everything. Do you feel confident that this guy has a clue? Granted Bush hasn't either but Obama was elected as saviour, as the most intellectual president ever, as Black Morrissey. But he isn't. He's proposing building roads and bridges. In Japan they built hundreds of Opera Houses and roads and bridges and still they teeter near to a deflationary death spiral. Christmas Fire now. More elevating twinkles and heartfelt arpeggios. He really does look like a post-emo reject. They were in other bands before this. Were these emo bands? There are photos on the myspace of their live performances and they have melodica, very Mum, they have loads of people on stage, very Mum, they show shoulder and toe however, not very Mum. Showing shoulder is inexcusable in these pious times. Oprah Winfrey apologized to everyone for gaining 40 pounds. Will we accept her apology? Again, we are undecided. Perhaps if she has Deer Tracks on her show soon we will grant her absolution and accept her contrived acts of contrition but until then it will be an unsettled issue in our hearts. How dare she! Really! This is not as grand as the last Mum record but it is as nice as a Piana record and I really do love Piana so that could be high praise. Set fire to Christmas. If only they were as mad. It is to dip below zero again this evening, blast this global warming. The planet hasn't warmed since 1998, the year of a significant El Nino event. What say you Bluebird with your umlauts and global awareness in Portland, San Diego, Curacao. Eighth song. Are eighth songs traditionally glamourous and special? Unknown. There is only one song after this. This is similar to all of the other songs on the album. Diversity is not key. It is wintry. If global warming's scourge be upon us then why have not all bands not turned into Jan and Dean and started singing about the gnarly waves at the shore? All of this frozen wonderland of pop cool. He is singing again. Is he the "genius" of the band? Nice crescendo now, her voice is piercing, not in a seductive sensual way, but they look rather young, when they speak from the heart it's a consumerist message, an aural text, an instant message, a pop culture reference from an imported television show referencing a pop culture touchstone from 30 years before. Freddie Prinze in Chico and the Man, Lou Grant in Minnesota, Joe Namath in panty hose. Last song. A slow threat, backwards, sun scald, horns, unsure, it could be tension if they weren't so middle class. Fake strings, wordless Japanese, tenderness, semi-Spiritualizedness. Nice fall out to her voice, an overexposed drum'n'bass program, horns, the polar landscape miniaturized into a diorama of notes and oscillations. Dream lives played out in Sweden. Never mind the Charade.

New Las Escarlatinas and Scarlet's Well in 9 days! And a new Make Mine Music compilation as well!

New Les Tres Bien Ensemble records is out. Is it wonderful and exciting?

The Starlets Out Into the Days From Here. First track is the title track, this may be the first time that they have lived up to their early admissions of being influenced by Judy Garland. A lovely little tune that could have come from a lovely little Judy Garland movie. Strings and soft vocals and cinematic harp! Second song already. First was a mere introduction. Most of the songs are very short. Second is classic Starlets. Biff- gentle voiced and ever so soft, tremulous, squeally, girlish. Nice. It's beautiful. I only want to listen to beautiful things. I rarely get to experience it in every day life. I don't search it out. I could wear a tee shirt asking "Are you beautful!? Inquire within" and I could assess a person's beauty not on thier outward appearance but how many times each day they sigh, how many times they say thank you and mean it, whether they own a pair of crocs, and whether they listen to the Cocteau Twins. These are my subjective criteria. Starlets are from Scotland, surely they love the Cocteau Twins, he sighs more than he sings, that's two, I can't possibly picture Biff in a pair of crocs, not even ironically, and when he's served at a pub he must mean it when he says thank you. Third song. A rocker. This record follows the same pattern as the first two records, really quiet and terrifically lovely ballads and then the less "successful" rockers where it appears they are compensating out of fear of being mischaracterized as silly, wet whiners so they crank up the amplifiers a few times each record and sound befuddled as ever. This isn't bad, it is in line with the post-punkish numbers from the last album more than the dance groove rockers on the first album. Surely they could crib a few more pointers from Franz Ferdinand. It has been so long since that first album. I remember playing Rocking in a Shy Way on College radio and then being asked not to return by the host. They still seem to fly under the radar even though they are on the same label as ballboy and are as top quality as they are. Why doesn't anyone love Starlets? Biff must love Otis Redding. I listen to Otis Redding at work, everyone loves Otis Redding. otis is jesus, Joebama is not Otis. Is it because the world hates beauty and seeks to destroy it wherever it can scare it out from its hiding place deep within the hidden well of people's souls? Possibly. Repeated listenings to their rockers always improves them, I am only on my third listen and already this song is seemingly hugely improved. The next one may take more work. This is a outstanding record. But the next song. It's a bit Noel. Isn't it? Swaggering riff, distorted Jack White vocals, maybe it is more White Stripes than Oasis, Oasis were too wuss to ever really rock. Has there evr been a wimpier "greatest rock band on the planet" ever? At least Coldplay don't make claim to being a rock and roll band. Do they? How hard is it for chris Martin to maintain that aura of absolute vanilla inoffensiveness? It must truly be difficult to be so generic and bland in every public pronouncement and event. He has a really boring wife too and his band members look really dull as well. He's so method. But he's probably happy and I don't mind Coldplay it is only that if he wants to be Bono he should blow himself up into something other than a cardboard sailor. Speaking for myself well I loved U2 when Bono was Jesus, before I decided Otis was Jesus, and not so much when they seemed to disinherit the entire pompous legacy that they had worked so assiduously to cultivate. Coldplay is about economics. Next song, not a rocker. You're So Changing Your Mind. Gorgeous. Will Camera Obscura fans fall in love with Starlets sing Biff was featured on the cover of one of their singles? Will they notice? Will this be on a commercial selling footwear to the impoverished? Buy Payless stock. They are destined for fat times. This is really lovely. A repeating ringing riff is chiming and it soothes more than it drills. Strings. His voice recorded outside in a marble hallway with really masterful acoustics. There are football games on this day. Watching football and listening to Starlets seems incompatible. I rarely watch football any more. The only sports I like are playoff hockey and baseball. But I only love baseball when seen in person. I am becoming less of what I love and more of a mystery to my own heart. What an amazing song. A Starlets greatest ballads comilation would bring tears to even Albert Haynesworth's gigantic eyes. Do large people have exceedingly large eyes and if so do they see more of the world than we average types. I am 6 foot and my eyes are large for my size, perhaps my vision, were it not clouded by cataracts would reveal a deeper understanding of the world if only I could stop staring at the ground. I am not sure it reveals anything in these writings. I am still writing a book. It is why I don't write on here very much. Here it is about speed, I can type as fast as I can and then look back at the nonsense of it all and feel a sense of satisfaction with my non-linear analysis. Next song, gorgeous, again, In Excelsus Grace. Surely these records are made from red buckets of love and for the benefit of the Japanese only. It will be released to no great acclaim and they will then only tour Japan and then write brief, witty rejoinders on their Myspace about how young schoolgirls in Japan are rated among the top 100 most influential people in Japan or a quick note on how the Duma has introduced a bill in session to regulate emo, emo haircuts and emo style. Brilliant. Will we see a repeat of the PMRC hearings where that idiot from My Chemical Romance steps over the snowdrops and stands in front of the deputies in Moscow and proclaims how it is parents responsibility to make sure their kids don't get dreadful haircuts and don't dress in silly fashions and display clearly misogynistic tendencies. Dee Snider has romanticized his testimony so absurdly that it bears very little relation to reality but then his band broke up a long time ago and the last thing we remember about them is their effete shangri-las cover so what else has he to hang his afro on. Like Novocaine, a rushng bit of melancholy, seems faster in the little hurts and his words mesh together with the texture of the song, so classic Starlets. Scotland breeds a different sort of passion than the rest of the UK. In men, there is a hot blooded sense. I steal from Harry Hotspur. In Ireland it seems a warmth has been injected into the female only. Why is this? And in England they are all as dead as Chris Martin. Strange prejudices. Now a rocker, the Oasis rocker, not great, more distorto effects on the voice. White Noise, would have been more interesting if the drums had not come in. I will make a Starlets playlist and I shall not include any of the rockers, I don't feel as if there will be a major part of the overall story arc missing as a result. This is an odd thing at the moment, it's a ballad made into a rocker. This was not meant to rock, clearly, Biff was not meant to rock but hey you know this is not so bad. It does remind me of Oasis minus the inanity, studidity, limpness and the clodding or dopey or asinine. Anyhow. It's a shortie. Now back to slowies. Crashing Down the Hurry Slope. Their string arrangements are sublime. Are these created by the band themselves? I know very little about the band. I suspect they play every other Friday night at their mother's bingo night at the local church that has been disabused of its rights of sanctuary and now serves as a fine place for fifteen years old girls to lose their virginity to 21 year old refugees from Albania or Estonia. This is a gorgeous one, really really gorgeous. It is a few days later and I have made my Starlets playlist and this is on it and mostly the ballads and it is so beautiful. I still want to only listen to beautiful things, send me beautiful things. Perhaps a speech by Robert Oppenheimer, a Lorentzian contraction, a ice cream sundae from dairy queen. I will listen as the ice cream melts in the Sunday morning atmosphere of my life. I have this sublime sense of contentment at the moment. No reason to. But I feel fine. This time of year I am normally unable to sleep or to dream, but I am doing both recently and it is a marvelous new thrill. Beautiful horns and plucks and strings. When they are recording do they lament if something is merely lovely and not utterly and spectacularly gorgeous? Did they vote for the Scottish nationalist? Does Scotland really want independence? What's the point? They would miss the government largesse. Scotland seems to be a bit like Britain's Quebec. The threat of secession is always more powerful than actually seceding. Next song, Maggie Loves Hopey, stunning. He has this tiny little fragile voice that pips and squeaks more than it caresses, but it's tender, it transcends lullabies and words and lilting sentiment. Does he ring up Traceyanne from Camera Obscura and play these songs down the line? Does Biff write the songs? Maybe it is the drummer who writes the shy, poetic lyrics? And perhaps when Biff is elected to the Scottish Parliament it will be revealed that the drummer was really his Peter Garret puppet master after all. Who is the drummer? I only know Biff is Biff. Big crescendo of bashed drums, strings and softness, then a fall back to guitar and handbells or something dreamier. Last song, pseudo rocker, it's more in line with the pseudo rockers or the first record. I quite like it. A record that surely does not defy anyone's expectations but which wins another one thousand hearts in the ongoing submission to some plague whispered l-o-v-e. When does the School album come?