Palms It's Midnight in Honolulu is interesting.

Mogil Ro, there are fancy punctuation bits that I am deciding to leave out. I was out walking in the dark last night, late last night and up a hill I climbed, towards a whitewashed wall alongside the motorway when there was a group of three coming towards me. Laotians? Hmong? I thought of them as wild unbridled beings who were roaming the cityscape at this piqued hour on a Sunday evening looking for flesh to boil off of bones and pavement to crack in order to send souls spiraling madly into the abyss. But they were wearing Toronto Blue Jay ball caps and thus were disarmed by their wee patronage. Mogil is Icelandic. We could have gathered in a circle in the center of the freeway, my mythical assailants and myself, chanting hopelandish but there is a train that runs down the center of the freeway although honestly were it to stop in honor of our prayer circle devoted to the gods of mutual funds and money markets we would not have impeded anyone's progress. Trains here run empty all evening long, ghost trains on spectral subsidized rails in the arteries of a concrete paradise. In Iceland there is an actual depression. I am not sure anyone there exactly understands why. Apparently much was due to the fact that people in Iceland executed mortgages in countries other than their own and when all confidence was lost in their financial system and banks went under and the currency plunged to unseen depths their mortgages doubled overnight. Amazing. I don't know if this is a treatise on such activity or not. It is in Icelandic. It is beautiful. It's an organic hodgepodge of strange whistles, blowie things , accordions and sadness. It seems a terminal condition, melancholia in Iceland. Iceland has thier genetic profile to fall back on. The isolation of their population makes them a gold mine for geneticists. Perhaps their residents will become free to sell their genotypes to the highest bidder. Imagine and Icelander with webbed toes! Precious. Her voice here is almost hymnal, a sunday service with the golem in tow. An Icelandic Golem would be fearsome. Polar bears arriving every thirty years to dig the clay from the riverside to be molded into a protector saving Iceland from evil Capitlaists such as Damon Albarn and John Reilly. Second song, some jazzy fog and scrapes and tenderness. Third song, this one's marvelous, thrilling violins and a operatic voice charging in out of the blue to captivate. Gorgeous. Daunting. Is mogil a new phenomenon? Or have they been tantalizing ears the world over for a decade? I found the first Rocketothesky Lp and it is not nearly as marvelous as the second. This is much more exciting than that pompous Efterklang record. Flutes and scraping violins, bass low, it's jazzy but I am not irritated by its jazziness. it's strange how my irrational meltdown has releived the pressure that I had concealed inside of my head. It is as if there was a stuck valve inside my brain and when I overloaded the circuitry I had a reset and I feel fine. For now. I can sleep at night. I wake up and do push ups and sit ups while listening to Mogil and have goose pimples while eating my hot cereal and watching Becky Quick in the morning. Becky Quick vs. Maria Bartiromo? It's a difficult choice isn't it. Fifth song, random sounds, distant echoing voices, incidental jazz meanderings. This is a beautiful record. I've just visited the Pipas website and god knows we all love Pipas but politically astute is a charge never to be levelled against him. He's making the play that a vote not for Obama is racist. Not directly but he is claiming that McCain is using the race card to divide voters. I am not sure from what context he is teasing this out from but if anything McCain is not highlighting the truly frightening aspect of Joebama's policy goals. It is collectivism. Granted, Pipas are surely proud collectivists. In most sane minds collectivism is a frightening thing. The elevation of the state above the individual always leads to calamity. if you are going to engender an entirely new social contract than you need to be honest. Speak about hos Income inequality will be reduced but with the accompanying truth that overall income will decrease reducing the standard of living for everyone. Socialized medicine will increase coverage for all but will diminish innovation, will force the acceptance of the ideas of social justice(not in itself indefensible really) such as premature births below a certain weight will be abandoned, if you are over 60-no dialysis, if you are over 65 and you develop cancer, well sorry, resources could be better spent on someone who can contribute to the state's coffers. Private property-unheard of. Private wealth-ha! Look at Argentina, the government is nationalizing private pension plans because its mismanagement of finances has prevented it from being able to raise money by traditional means other than through the extortionate terms of Hugo Chavez. Bob Stanley's hero! next song playing now, Salar Minnar. The most distressing aspect of political life in this country is how much attention is paid to an event with so little bearing on everyday life. Joebama is entirely unqualified for the position, yes we know but then to be fair everyone is, but we have the inertia of the bureaucracy to balance out even his colossal incompetence. He'll want to implement loads of disastrous ideas but the glacial pace of the gears of government will thwart him at most points in the road. Thank goodness for that! More John Cale-esque violin scraping, a Wreck Small Speakers on Expensive Stereos bit of radio primitivism, human whistles and caterwauling loveliness. Have you read reports on the new Animal Collective record? it sounds splendid! A mix of AC and Person Pitch, I listened to Person Pitch for hours last night, it's amazing and miraculous. The dopes on I Love Music don't want an AC album that sounds like Person Pitch but they're going to vote for Joebama so...whatever. I am going to vote for McCain. Yes, I am a racist. Next song, Heimbleikur, more of the unprocessed dissonance and unfocused static and her statuesque voice, this one with a more rousing build-up into the denouement. Perhaps one of Animal Collective will marry the singer for Mogil and steal her away to New York or Baltimore. Song over, it's religious. I don't think McCain would be a good president. The marvelous result of his being elected would be legislative gridlock. Will the NEA have its nose to the trough under President Joebama? Was this record funded by an arts council? What are the landmark achievements of musical history that have been funded by arts endowments? Loads of Flying Nun bands received public funding but that always seemed a bit ridiculous. How was the public interest served by funding of a third Able Tasmans lp? I am not sure. Will Mogil qualify for more founding because they sing in the mother tongue? Gorgeous voice, thumps on pvc pipes, minimalism and strength. She seems sirenesque amid the shortwave radio hum. Could I buy Iceland? I am solvent. I have only my vehicle as a debt but my assets exceed my liabilities. I could probably purchase half of the countries on the planet at the moment. General Motors could be mine. Next song, distorted passages and underlying guitar pluckings, disorienting and serene, very Dorinne Muraille. Beautiful. The last song, an epic of confusion, no voice, not as of yet, clarinet, scrapes, static and skittering percussion. Perhaps they need a remix? A FatCat recording budget? A backwards tape loop masquerading as pretension? All of these things, but none could entice even a ounce more of grace than is already present in abundance, hurrah. Splendid splendid.

Mogil is delightfully odd!

RockettotheSky Medea. It starts off menacing. A tortured whisper in the darkness. Field recordings, woodwinds, the sound of an orchestra of vagabonds and thieves warming up with mission to back up a fairy dancing in the meadow cleared among the fir trees and the snocapped peaks in the distance echo back this dreaminess. It is tingles and sighs more than it is song, it's primal and a relief. She isn't a marvelously technical singer, she's in some sort of Bjork meets PJ Harvey school of singing/cooing. Passion as stand in for technique. It's marvelous. Here arrives the big climax just now with heavenly tones and twinkles and absurd ambition taking hold. It's a hybrid of mythical records that could have once been released on Too Pure and 4ad. It's marvelous, really. LIttle lost girl twirling her fingers in her hair whispering into a stranger's microphone underneath a bridge in darkest Helsinki or Bergen or wherever. Second song, stronger, louder, multi-tracked vocals, beautiful all over. I've since found her first album and it is more conventionally singer-songwriter. Not as thrilling as this record, this has star making material, in a world that cared more of substance than style. Spoken word, Jean Smith as pixie-ness. Second time that I have used pixie today. I have been taking days of recently, I have recaptured some of my imaginative brain matter. I don't dread the night of sleep of night before tedium nights of sleep any longer. I have been discovering these beautiful records on these idle days. This is near top of the roost. Third song. Just now Devotchka is playing on my television, I can't see the screen, it is How It Ends, the beautiful bits of How it Ends in glorious technicoloured sound and glory. I've never seen Little Miss Sunshine, this is a novel experience. Third song, vague and artful, coo coo and now high pitched squealie wordless moments of glee. A background of simple keyboards plonked and winds through the willows. Very Piana. Next song. More of a new wave feel to this, almost dancey, technologically savvy for a start and thrusting until it falls away and her tender spoken word bits take to the center. Multi-tracked tenderness. I've ben listening to the Au Revoir Borealis album all evening long, it's the most beautiful thing really. This has suddenly turned all Debbie Gibson, you won't mind, will you? There is a strong streak of Kate Bush in this. Somewhere between Hounds of Love and Never Forever, less of the brilliant literary allusions and more of the eschatology from the north, a passionate crawling out of the darkness into the sunrays glimpse. Very Bjork at the moment. what is it about Scandinavia that engenders this sort of epic and heroic tales in pop music feel of the music. It's in Efterklang and Mum and Mogil but strangely not in most Swedish music. Is it because Sweden is not as austere in their traditions and attitudes and seem more apt to borrow from other cultures whereas things that escape their compatriots lands seem more diy and darker by nature. I recall reading that although Norway is rather prosperous streets resemble those in Havana with run down autos and there a raucous furor over gauche types installing electricity in their holiday retreats in the wood. Next song, a hum and a signal beacon from a commodore 64 and her eerie vocals wavering and quashed by technology and time. It's dramatic and silly but we don't mind, she's going for the enchanted chanteuse angle is she not as successful in the same realm as Joanna Newsom and Coco Rosie certainly but she has an adventurous streak that is now leading to some sort of rush of electronic harpischordishness and hollowed out wails to heaven. Gorgeous. I've just seen the photos of the new look Pipettes, a bit jarring to see the new girls in their polka dots and dreadful bangs. This song has just turned very Cocteau Twins. Who knows what the new Pipettes sound like. I do not and I don't really have any desire to hear them even if the one that remains is the only one who could actually sing. They seem so professional minded, in league with accountants and preteens. Next song. A folkie number, now with twinkles of piano and her stunning voice over the top of everything. Fairy tale music has never ben this beautiful surely. There is a circular majesty to this, no beginning or end just a revolving melody and hr dreaminess laid bare for voracious appetites. There is a sophistication in the arrangements, again very Kate Bush, Kate Bush meets early His Name is Alive. When Joebama wins what will become of my impulse towards escapism, will it be stoked even more furiously as he leads us down into the abyss? Who is Joebama? That is the real dilemma, even for his supporters, he's running as a symbol rather than as a candidate. How long before he's cast out as a false prophet? 11 months? Next song. Elephant Van Sant, looping piano and counting and vocals stepping out from the ether, again with the circular structure it's song poems there are words but I can't seem to understand what they impart but I am sure it is much to do with the contents of her dream diaries and the night sky and comets and heaven and fields of gold and clouds in the shape of forgotten friends. It's delirium and beauty and grace. Too Pure would never have released this, I lied. 4ad would have. Rough Trade would have. Now anthemic qualities of hushed backing vocals, low end and hymnal chants and exquisiteness. I am being vague and ethereal at the moment. The end of daylight savings, I had another hour to cavort and commit sins of revelry and I was asleep and dreaming I could have joined the Pipettes. In my dreams. But I did not. Instead I dreamt of the new Chemical lasers which will apparently incinerate the foes of a US military. Really, read the new issue of the Economist, Ronny Raygun's Raygun will be a reality rather soon it appears. How brilliant when Joebama invades Iran to have a giant chemical laser there to cast everyone into the fires of hell, literally. Don't think Joebama won't take us to war with Ira, he'll get a pass from the media and will thusly be permitted absolute ruthlessness in his pursuit of nothing in particular. Next song. Very Kate Bush backing vocals. Kate Bush must be her hero. All young girls should hold Kate Bush as their heroine for life. Kate Bush is my hero. I keep meaning to write about The Dreaming but what words could do it justice? None that could originate from these scarred fingers torn from the domain of creativity and put in employ of mindless pursuits of binary emptiness. I had a date this weekend. I met a really lovely young woman who lives in a different world than I do. Who knew there were in existence multiple universe under the different noses of different passersby, they see the sky is full of leopards and jesus and you see it filled with amethysts and bowls of rice. It was a strange evening. And sex. Second to last song, longest track on the album, Chorus. I can make out the words here. What is the kernel of genius? Is it labour or inspiration? I have been reading books on brilliant people and it appears to be labour. Obviously they are endowed with gifts prodigious and uncommon but they also have a singlemindedness of purpose that I clearly lack. The ability to sit down and think on a problem for days at a time, to hold a flame of passion alight protected from the buffeting winds of failure long greet kindly greatness. i don't own any of these particular characteristics. I can dream them into existence but when I awake the moment has faded and mundanity returns. What of these people who chase immortality, it seems it turns them only narcissistic with rage. I don't want to fall in love with a fool. Somewhat epic is this, second movement is whispers and amniotic overflow. Will the new Pipettes be odd and delicate and flowery and esoteric? Unlikely. I am pretty certain the other two' output will be parody proof. When the election ends there will not be any more election advertisements. Those whom in advertisements are alleged to be murderers and rapists and baby eaters shall be elected to office and the world will keep turning and nothing will change and in two years it will all begin again. What a vile system. Elect RockettotheSky, she's more in tune with reality than Joebama surely. Interesting, I've just googled her image and she looks like she escaped from a box of swiss miss and she has a fantastic bowl haircut. Chants to belial. Woo. Last song, antiqued, recorded from under the floor boards, tell tale heart and Tippie Hedron style, silent movie soundtrack music and an even more delicate whisper. The range of whispers is impressive. This is a gorgeous farewell from a magnificent record. I will walk out into the darkness this evening armed with Au Revoir Borealis and RockettotheSky as prized companions and will barely feel the envy welled in my footprints as they echo back the richer memories of travelers past.

Cocoanut Groove. Some Single plus bonus tracks! Close your eyes, conjure a vision of Rodney Allen had he grown up and joined the Clientele. He would have released this record. We are still waiting for the debut release of the Rodney Allen Experience are we not? I believe, yes, we are. Cocoanut Groove is someone from Sweden, obviously, in the romanticist realm of Montt Mardie and Moto Boy. Solo crooners with passion and disgust for the mundane sterility of indiepop. Or so I imagine it. Idealistically. There are genuine performances here, depserate and romantic and intrigued. Whereas the Clientele fancy themself far too erudite to really let it cut loose there exists a smooth little groove here, not only in the name, but in the music. This first song, The End of Summer on Bookbinder Road even sounds a bit like Bookshop Casanova but whereas Alasdair can't quite shake free from his academician roots here Cocoanut Groove/Olov sounds delightfully effervescent and charming. Second song, has a bit of Morissey in it, circa Yes I am Blind without the murderous Christians and kegs of powder between his legs and it is also a bit Mccartney and slightly Billy Bragg. It's marvelous. The album must come soon. When does the album come to save us all? Here is beauty on display, effortless and graceful. It seems filled with fallen tears. Was there anything concerning truth or beauty or truth as beauty about the Pas/Cal album? No. There were not even tiny moments of wonder. Pas/Cal was all a mess, florida noise and cleverness and wit and surely chock full of musical puns and inside jokes that I don't understand but which sophisticates will chortle over endlessly but the music still won;tt cause them to move a bone in their spine or a muscle in their heart and it won't save us from the coming Depression either. Delicate violin, now, Swedish English pop songs, he uses the word 'firmament', that seems a very Clientele word. I have the new Clientele ep, I've not listened to it. I could append an entry about it onto the back of this. Next song. Walking to Madeleine Street. is this the title track from the album that is months too late for our salvation from capitalism. Have you heard that new Moto Boy song about his bed having a memory, it's devastating. The indiepop slayers. There are photos of the Pocketbooks on the indie-mp3 site. I've not heard the Pocketbooks but they look odious. All indiepop bands have dreadful band photos these days. The pseudoserious glances, the faux beards, the thrift shop clothes and the 300 dollar shoes as they prepare to unleash another song about Audrey Hepburn's haircut. I long to download the Smittens album and do rude things to its contents but I am terrified that I might then teeter over the edge. I had a bit of a meltdown at work last weekend. I quit my job. I was coaxed into returning but I am not doing so happily or with my heart in tact, I do not love my job these days. Next song, very sophisticated, there is some Edwin Collins here as well. But his voice has that Rodney Allen hopeful fire of earnestness. Is he young? Rodney is only a few years older than I am. Does he still make Blue Aeroplanes records? There was Careful Boy always along as companion on my ride to university. The mornings when I would sit on the quiet street in my auto with the engine running with the Blue Aeroplanes on the stereo and my notebook in my hands searching for a future among the notes taken with the relativistic effects of the age, the increasingly foreshortened distance between my silly conundrums of indecision and my future. My future arrived unwrapped flickering and uneventful. I can't see any further into the future than the end of this pop song now. Perhaps I can reach back to the past and rewrite it. I don't know. Cocoanut Groove have made this a partially marvelous week though, even as we head into Depression. I walk in the evenings, long walks into the darkness. On the Cherry Creek trail when I stare into the west I search the horizon with my cataract imparied visions and see visions of leopards and canines and large rodents bearing towards me from the mountain side in a pant inducing race for the center of my existence. I close my eyes there are visions of fairy lights and actors with impeccable hairdos not feeling disappointed by their own mediocrity. Every decade has a poster boy for mediocrity George Segal, Tom Berenger, Edward Burns, Mark Ruffalo. At least Geaorge Segal had opportnity to kiss Senta Berger. I would die for a kiss from Senta Berger. Midsummer Dreaming nearly over. There is some Riachrd Davies in this as well. But its the youth that serves Cocoanut Groove so terrifically. It's youth that revives the clever boys from their cocoon of erudition and inhumanity. Richard Davies, attorney at law, silenced. We miss your black heart. Lovely trumpets, these guitars were lifted from the last Clientele album. Right? Will they call Richard Davies, attorney at law, to begin litigation? His voice, softer, more naturally acclimated to the pop surroundings. Has he a desirable young violinist in the ranks as well? Unknown. I search for the album as I pine for the winter to chill the movements of the day, grind the machinery to a halt with the viscosity of bleakness. Swedish pop stars sem so accustomed to expressing themselves in English, is it because they can intuit moments in English rather than in their native tongue? I know no such ability. But has an American or Brit ever successfully translated their heart's contents into Swish? Unlikely. We're such bastards, native english speakers, that is. The economist, shortly before endorsing Joebama, is lamenting the death of languages that no one speaks and lamenting the placement of the environment aside while we attemt to avert global financial calamity. A neighbour has purchased a smart car, it looks preposterous. Gasoline prices are in the midst of a severe plummeting, all she would be left with then is a definitive smugness about reducing her emissions in an attempt to save her more gluttonous counterparts in this heartless society if only the earth had warmed since 1998 and if only there hadn't been as much cooling in the past 12 months as there was warming for the previous 2 decades. Thank goodness for Lehman Brothers then. There is a Russell Yates insouciance to his manner, the tender words, the gentle hum of his tones, it's a delightful afternoon drama in technicolour. I have updated to Leopard. I was forced to since my old OS X decided to stop working. Planned Obsolescence? Best Buy was out of Leopard. I was forced into an Apple store. I loathe the Apple store. I know someone whose boyfriend works at the Apple store but it is so pretentious it makes my skin crawl, just imagine my horror of life mimicking the ambience of an Apple store. Joebama!

New Ally Kerr is disappointingly dull. New Murcof record in December, a live recording of unreleased material.

Loads of groovy things coming to the surface RockettotheSky, Rio En Medio(so Cloudboy), Cocoanut Groove, etc...More later.

Rio En Medio is terrific. Frontier. First song, coffee shop guitar, radioshop electronics and a multi-tracked whisper. Loveliness. Very Cloudboy. I've mentioned that somewhere else. These seem less apt as dream narrations than as a random recounting of space and time. It's random and disassociated, both very good things to be. I went to lunch today, always Indian on Sundays, I should alter my pattern of behaviour. Perhaps Somali or Vietnamese? Do you consume anything of a culture when you consume the food of a culture? I suppose there are the memories and experiences of everyone who has preserved this cuisine over the millenia. But then they serve goat in India rather than Lamb. I am not consuming anything of actual Indian content. Surely all of he ingredients are local. Perhaps a few special spices are smuggled back in the underpants of entrepreneurial Indians to escape the food nazis from Center for Science in the Public Interest. Has India been a target of their scorn? I am not sure. My experience is entirely metaphorical. The creams and delightfulness portend ill omens from the nannies who wish to forbid indulgence on any level. The sky this evening was like a Tandoori Chicken, fiery and orange and turbulent, aflame with colour and vigour. The colours of an indian dish delight the eyes with brilliant oranges, deep greens, creamed browns and earthy beiges all mixed together to make a palette of goodness to paint the soul's insides with warmth and heartiness. Rio En Medio is not Indian. She matriculated at birth into the red somewhere in California, how unfortunate, but she has turned her parent's mistreatment into a benefit as the music is escapist and fragile and always in fear of being discovered. Cracks and peelings left untouched and a gentleness pervades. Cloudboy is the definitive touchpoint in my ears but who would know what that means? Would Rio En Medio? Demarnia Lloyd would be a likely candidate to tour communes and kibbutzes given the opportunity I am sure. Third song. Industrial samples and violins and the metronomic guitar lines. I picture her very short with long fingers. I have no idea. Spaced out event horizon effects here, her voice heavy with reverb, nice. When you see a sky like this evenings you are stopped suddenly in tracks even though you've seen hundreds of night skies as lovely. It is the grandeur, the cathedral roof of the world painted afresh every evening that beguiles. The fresh snows on mountain tops one hundred miles away that accompany as supporting actors. It's a wondrous country. Big sky country. This music was made for turbulent skies aflame. Horns, very Red Rubicon, nice. Of Montreal is playing this evening, but for 20 dollars, pah, full frontal should not be more than 13 dollars. Next song for Rio En Medio, lp static, sampled strings and then a whisper. Same as always. Random lists of accumulated images, not as profound as she would imagine it is. The segments seem pasted together inelegantly, hardly seamlessly, it isn't in the realm of a Mum or a Lara Lockton collage is it now. But it is nice. I really enjoy this album. I would listen in the library while reading of the Borgias but my experience of listening to music in a library is tainted by a young woman at Oakland University in the early 90s who had me thrown out of the library because I refused to stop listening to an album she couldn't hear because I was tapping my foot unconsciously along to the beat. I can't recall which record was my demise. Possibly Northside or something equally dire but she was really very rude. Oakland University had an insane imbalance among their female/male quota. Far too many young women and too few young men but then that is the case in most universities these days as boys are a dying breed among the educated. Pity. Spoken word samples in some made up language of yore. This is filler. Sorry. Let's talk about the brilliant sky paintings instead. Over. Next song, a long one, Venus of Willendorf, could be some sort of statement on the theoretical matriarchal pre-history of humanity. I don't know. Mainly spaced out Murcof-ish effects and some twinkles and beeps. Filler, but lovely filler all the same. When they play this live surely there is some scruffy looking humanities major with soul poured over a box load of electronic gear trying to conjure and coax mysiticism from his radio shack gadgetry. I picture him pulling his hair behind his ear incessantly and wearing a tam even though he grew up in Boulder. Now whispers have returned, eveyrthing else has been turned down, nice effect this. It is all a bit like Set Upon a Curve. Cloudboy's site is never updated except for news of new releases by Demarnia's rapping brother. I don't care about Jody Lloyd actually. This is meant to be serious music. I am not always certain we need serious music. When was the change from fatuous, mindless fun to fatuous, pompous rock? Was it Somebody to Love? I heard it on the radio and it is absolutely joyless and dour and ridiculously awful. Did Grace Slick kill rock music? Possibly, though I bet Jefferson had loads more po-faced anthems that no one cared about before that song. What is the point of the rock and roll statesman anyhow? Poetry doesn't move anyone these days. Will Maya Angelou be at the coronation? Surely. Or Toni Morrison? How about Jewell? Next song, after the long song, a more conventional folk song, with guitars, melodica and small splashes of electronic percussion in the background. Very nice. I have to go to work early again tomorrow morning. Always. Work dominates my life. I think about it all weekend this time of year. I need a new job. It is not a good time to change jobs though. Now Last Child's Tear, another long one, starts off with squiggles and pointlessness, then a guitar, reminiscent of the second song's melody, is it a larger suite we're dealing with with revolving employment of melodic ideas I am too simple to comprehend? Now singing. Lions. All very spiritual. I quite like this. Her voice is very nice, are most whispers enjoyable then. I've never recorded my own whispers. I could be lovely at low decibels. Unkown. This is very quiet and spare. A donation to the fabric of space time in peace, now to the next segment of recorded vocal snippets and gibberish then drum machines and volume. Return of the rock and echoes and reverb and her voice in a more determined whisper. Perhaps she is merely soft spoken. It is still pointless, lyrically, tone poetry that owes more to inanity than anything else but that's the beauty of lyrics in music they really do not have to be about anything at all and if they are about anything lest they be interesting on their own then the fact that they are poignant or relevant in any current social setting it all means very little to me. These words sound nice, they might make Rio En Medio cathartically cry all night long while she's recording her dreams in a dream journal but they move me only physically. My head becomes heavy and permeable. Now the title track, some more intricate guitar picking and distant thrum of percussion and kitchen pots and pans tinkering and others, chants. Can you make a living by playing all of the communes in the world? Can one be the Nana Mouskouri of the Kibbutz set? There are certainly commune sympathies in the new administration. Of course the glorious thing about communes is that they are voluntary. Communism only fails when it is compulsory. Israeli Kibbutzes are always heralded as bulwark examples of the triumph of collectivism but these are people with the same motivations of making themselves feel superior to everyone else. Nothing wrong with that. It is actually a rare flowering of market philosophy when like minded groups assemble and attempt to find a niche. They're poor, malnourished and short, they play spin the draidle and they read books written in ink made from black bile on hemp hewn pages. Again, nothing wrong with that, my own upbringing was unromantic and dull. But when Rio En Medio shows up at a commune in New Mexico do they play acoustic or guerilla style by tapping into the 440 on the poles that lead to the way out of the neolithic age. I don't know. I've never been to a commune. Perhaps Rio En Medio thought it paradise. Demarnia Lloyd would. This is very Cloudboy/Demarnia. I've said that already. It is a few weeks after I began this entry. I have this job that is decidedly odd when described to people and it has dreadful hours. I was up at 4am this morning, Sunday, to work for a few hours before the rest of the world woke from its slumber and made its way to Starbucks in their hybrid Outback wagons. Where I did work is called the Highlands, it is an incubation region for future Joebama yuppie types. Next song has started. Whispery folk, lovely thing. Highlands is not nearly posh, conservative or generic enough to qualify as authentically yuppie. Home prices have not reached the stratosphere as of yet, even before the property crash. This is the issue with these yuppie Joebama types they are like the kibbutzers and communers in that they want access forbidden to their little enclaves where they are hermetically sealed with their pre-approved national chains that cater to Joebama types, their Borders books and Whole Foods grocery stores. They walk the streets and in passing see loads of people with $1200 baby strollers and their outfits tailor made for walking slow or walking fast or whatever. I run, ha, but I do sometimes and I wear ratty bermuda shorts and a tee shirt. I've never thought to acquire running "gear". Is there not joy in running because of the primitive brain sense that it is the most low tech of exercises. I will admit to buying a good pair of shoes but that is merely for podiatry's sake. Who wants bad feet when you are old? But I pass people with LED lamps on their heads, their fanny packs with six different power bar compartments and drink holders, the velcro arm strap for the ipod with the heart rate monitor and the spandex leggings and nike ball cap. What an ordeal. Ridiculous. Even more so when couples match. I am so judgemental. Judgment will be key in the near future. Because instead of finding solutions to anything the immediate rush will be to pronounce judgement on the preceding 8 years in some attempt to solidify the movement at hand. Not a bad thing actually as solutions offered by Henry Waxman and his crew would be dire. No coal fired plants. There isn't a viable alternative and government grants will not lead to one. Perhaps the death ray could heat my house, if placed on a lower setting. But we must save the polar bears even as they are thriving. Sharon Lawrence has tears on command ready for the skinny polar bears, emaciated from competition. And the Europeans arresting Rwandan officials. There is judgement there. In Spain they have bravely indicted the dead. Ah. But when all of your energy is spared for the aftermath you tend to overlook a great amount of injustice and atrocity as it is actually happening like say in Darfur and Myanmar. But we can't muster the spirit to combat evil but we can muster it when we need to condemn it after everyone has died. Never Get You. Klezmer doodlings. I have begun The Yiddish Policeman's Union and I rather love it. Is The Wonder Boys good? It was a failure as a movie. I should try it next. I recommended At Swim Two Birds to someone and they love me now. Ah. I only read it long ago because Peter Jefferies had named a record after it. Well played Peter. Later when he wrote me a letter denouncing Stereolab in means of praising Snapper I forgot to mention I loved the book. But I do. Read it. Next song, nice, whispers and percussion and guitar squeaks. It seems decidedly low tech but I bet it took some effort to make it appear so. Ah well. Do they sell Kibbutz material at Whole Foods? I was there the other day and they have fireplace logs made of coffee. it was 50$ a box, it sat near to a regular bundle of "wood" which was 3 for 10$. The coffee logs did not appear to be big hits. Are they fair trade coffee logs? Was the wood cut from rainforests? These are important questions for a Whole Foods patron, the majority of which early in the morning appear to be in their 50s with long hair that should have been shorn 2 decades earlier and a twinge of grey highlighting their decidedly asexual appearance. But their mind is glorious, it is enhanced by the kibbutz tea. Next song. Last song. Humms and beeps at the moment, rain storm checking in, this is another long one. I forget whether or not this is the best song on the album. It probably isn't.

What's a Ford Charger? New Lucksmiths is making me think it is lovely so far, but I do feel guilty admitting it. I was worried because there was talk of pop democracy breaking out all over but they seem to have survived that malady.

Celestial Crystal Heights. I have forsaken my existence as an individual. I am an automaton. Part of John Conway's "Life" only. I paid for this record. It was inexpensive. I am searching Monster.com at the moment for new employment. I still have a job. Perhaps not for much longer, I made a major error. One that is certain to cost me my means of supporting myself. Perhaps I will move to Myrtle Beach and become a Wal-Mart door greeter. There is one impossibly warm person at work I will miss but none other. I will welcome my opportunity at having a day off. Wish me luck. Celestial is a nice companion within my submersion towards the terror of the unknown. I have a little partner, my Celestial album. A personification of which sits on my shoulder while my boss dresses me down for something I did not really do but is my fault anyhow. There is a charge of relief in knowing your head lies beneath a glistening blade and you are going to deny all the Charlotte Corday's their purpose in life. I am so tired. I am rambling. This is not as fuzzy as the first album, my thoughts are fuzzier. Nearly all of the songs are female led. I don't mind. It is all stirring and elegant and dignified. It has a romance about it. I miss romance. THe romance of everyday things, the tendernes of a dream spent in someone's arms, the slow drawn movement into a heart's caress. You long for someoen to stare at you the way you wish you could stare at them. I was sitting with someone this evening, in a passionate embrace and thought only of someone else. Madness. Always. It's slow motion elegance, unhurried, pristine in the tradition of Blueboy or Brighter. It's truly marvelous. Second song, stately organ underpinning her gracile vocals. There are two singers. More bands should have multiple singers. His Name is Alive used to employ five or six per record. It was a magical time in my life. Chelle Marie, Denise James, Karin Oliver, blah blah blah? Who was it to fall in love with this day in springtime. This is simple, the melodies remind me of the Bats. A jangly entry worked out from with soft vocals, a drifty organ and warmth. Last time I compared it to the Maryonettes because they had a similar artistic aesthetic. No such comparisons now, most have rightfully conculded that the Maryonettes are frauds and repulsive and grey and ridiculous and horrid and that Celestial are dreamy ambient dreamers. He has a nice voice. it is very much like Bart's from Cat's Miaow. The girls are not nearly as cloying as Kerrie from Cat's Miaow. I have spent a good portion of the weekend in the library. I was fascinated by the outburst of one of the patrons. An almost feral being who went on a rampage throughout the facility. A wordless rant of nature, it could not be controlled, a more sensitive soul than me, my soul having been destroyed by endless work, would have called it a tragedy on display. All that was needed was a velvet rope and a glass case and one of those speak and spell toys that you hold to your ear when you move into different exhibits in the museum of the American Experience. I was reading about Murray Gell-Man. His love for the upper mayans, his daughter's love for Albania!?! and John Schwartz. And the imaginary hyphenation. Theoretical Physicists seems a lanky group of loaf abouts. Really. Third song. Divas are the same no matter what field you explore for them in I suppose. Celestial would represent the working stiffs, the Physicists that actually teach that mentor and Richard Feynman would represent the Radiohead's of the Physics universe. I am being too cruel. I grew up watching his lectures in the library at lunch. I lunched in the library because I was hopeless. It's true. Was. Is. Loads of jangle, pristine jangle, multi-layered jangle but there is a beautiful sense of melody and dynamics. The Reid brothers have been jettisoned. Even now, on the one song "he" sings it comes off a bit more Close Lobsters than Psychocandy. Pretty Organ, it's very Keris Howard this. "Forever whispers secrets to me" is a charming sentiment. Charm will carry you a long way in this society, even I, am not immune to its influence. Joebama drew 100,000 people today to civic center park in Denver. I wasn't invited. What do these people expect from him? Will his election cure all of our societal ills? No. Will there be affordable health care because he is elected? No. Will schools improve? No. Will global warming end? N...well it apparently already has. Must be because my neighbour has that smart looking smart car. Sharon Lawrence is still doing her polar bear commercials without mentioning that 80% of the world's major polar bear populations are currently increasing. But she's not so smart. What is the allure of being a statesman versus being a pop star or an actor? Why must Ben Affleck tell me his position of Doha? Fourth song, Celestial man singing. I say it is slightly Close Lobsters, it could be off of any of those Leamington Spa comps we've wearied of. It's basic. We love them for it, the same love as we hold for Irene or Corduroy Utd. He's Swedish too, right?
In my job interviews I long to be asked questions about which Swedish bands are marvelous and which are dreadful? Legends? Dreadful. Club 8? Marvelous. Moto Boy? Marvelous! Love is All? No longer marvelous quite possibly dreadful. More on them later. Fifth song is again one for the ladies. They have very pleasant and high mannered voices. Which are the raucous Swedes? The Love is All girl sometimes caterwauls but it is never menacing. Does Sweden have Black Metal the same as Norway? Are there lead singers firing shotguns into their brains for the sake of a really cool album cover shot? I don't know. I'e compared this to the Blueboys and Brighters of the world, it is a deserving comparison. They should have been on the Keith Girdler tribute record, they were certainly more deserving than Adorable lead singer. Adorable Lead singer is something like a little person on a totem pole sitting outside a coffee shop in a bogus display of indigenous authenticity. Denver hasn't been deeply infected with indigenous pandering. Aside from Ward Churchill. Will Ward be secretary of education under Joebama? I hope so. He could sell totem poles on a stick, breaded and with a cup of hot mustard to dip your white guilt into. Chew chomp slurp and digest. This song reminds me of Ally Kerr before he saddened me with that second record. Did not David Scott produce his record? It's not good. David's first mis-step since Za Za's garden? Possibly though we've never heard the Secret Goldfish's The Petal Split, sadly. Will it ever be released? Cross fingers. If my interviewer was a female and wore glitter lipstick I might be distracted. Someone I work with wears glitter lipstick and I spend my time speaking with her starig at her lips. I have no intentions. I do revel in her lips' glitter. I could play her Bows Girls, Lips, Glitter, couldn't I? But it would not prove my point. Ringing chords resonate. I've conducted job interviews but I am always made to ask the routine questions listed on our SOP for interview questions. I would like to ask Do you like Paul Verlaine?, Is it gonna rain today? It hasn't snowed yet. It seems slightly overdue. My job is made easier by the fact that it has not snowed yet. Next song. I don't imagine that they spend a great deal of time on these songs. Apparently genius is labour more than it is inspiration or so I am gleaning from my biography of Flaubert. He spends half of his time fornicating, half of it having epileptic seizures and the other half reading and the last half writing. What is the impulse behind writing to say something profound or insightful? Is the art of storytelling in the story more than in the intellectual cache of the intentions? I am not a huge fan of Madame Bovary but I enjoy A Sentimental Education although I am not certain which version I have read since I was completely unaware that he wrote two. Perhaps he is attempting to justify his good fortune of being born into a life of leisure so that he may read for 8 hours a day and not have to worry about financial matters while he lives with his mother and teaches his niece Herodotus? Perhaps there is the pressure of justifying his leisure that he fels compelled to impute some sort of meaningfulness into his "art". I am still fascinated by his existence, he seems to have slept with half of the women in the Levant even while turning into a grotesque character physically. I could pass for attractive and I barely sleep with anyone. it's not a writer's life I lead. last song. Lovely record. Houdini deserves a Frederick Brown biography.
interview questions, do you like paul verlaine is it gonna rain today. glitter lipstick. little people on totem poles, on a stick, breaded and

For the rest of my life I shall listen to Otis Redding only, well...perhaps Prolapse too.

Listened to the Those Dancing Days album. They are rather young. Hitten was groovy. The new record is horrible. Is that rude?

The new Love is All doesn't appear to be all that marvelous either. This is the real crisis my friends; the dearth of quality pop music is threatening to lead us all down a path to the mundane! Egad! Will Joebama have a plan to revive us all from our collective disappointment? Please Joebama!

The new Love is All does rip off Tally Ho!, well done.

New Manual record soon, woo. I received a nice request to review someone's record. But that would be wrong. I don't really write reviews. There should me more entries now that I can see the bottom of my desk. I had an MRI last week. I walk about and it feels as if I am stumbling in and out of the halo of streetlights only the streetlights are trapped behind my rods and cones and there is the amplified noise of the binary code of everyday things all throughout my head but...apparently I am fine. I wrote an entry on Library Tapes but it isn't really about Library Tapes because I am tired of everyone saying how awful the times are. What if I did that to the nice person asking me to write about his band?

Gregory and the Hawk Moenie and Kitchi. More of the kooky chick folk. See Cocorosie, Rio en Medio, Joanna Newsom, etc...this is at turns more organic then the first references and less space is the place than the latter. i shall dub it forest twee. What is the dichotomy represented by forest twee versus regular twee? No idea, perhaps her heart is excised from her chest planted deep in the forest soil, surrounded by symbiotic mychorrizae it sprouts fine root hairs, wings, norishes the trees in a folk minded communal spirit of arbor minded souls. Trees have soul. The inner lives of trees are rich. The chemical essences transferred among the xylem and phloem to symbiotes deep within the earth where deepest tap roots migrate to escape the din of forest serenity. Or so we would imagine. Song two. More acoustic guitar. Forest twee does not permit electronic guitars. Forest twee allows only acoustic guitars, mandolins, bouzoukis, banjos, hammer dulcimers, harpschords and semi-scurrilous attempts at childhood regression therapy masquerading as vocals. I quite like this. It's throughly mediocre but there is an atmosphere of forgetfulness, a drifting into the ether filled anxiety to casually wash away the sanity of the everyday world. Doolally! Third song. In moments there is Joy and Rollick. Nice. This is one person. A female. She chose the name because she didn't want to be confused with Greg Kihn or Greg Louganis or Gregor Mendel. Oh, someone turned on the biodiesel generator, electricity rings throughout the forest. Shake the poplars, loose no strange fruit, we are overcome and assuaged of our guilt. Peel the grey leaves and bark and bark, blasphemer. Fourth song. Softer, suffer, it is Lisa Loeb. What happened to Lisa's reality dating show? I rather enjoyed it. It was preposterously contrived but she was smart and real and not glamourous or cut-out. Lisa Loeb wrote songs on her show and they were dreadfully mediocre and it wa endearing but If you are considering a document for your songwriting escapade it should be to capture a marvelous song. I don't know Gregory and the Hawk's real name. I imagine it is not Lisa Loeb. Or Leopold and Loeb. More electricity, oh the alacrity! I should be in bed. I promised myself earlier today to treat myself to an early evening beneath the sheets but I have been reading and now I am writing. This song is chirpy. Duly twee. Lacewings dancing in fairy rings without fairy wings. I just read a clever parody on the addiction to bailouts. Santa Claus is on Capitol Hill requesting a bailout. It makes perfect sense. Some sanity is in mind for the auto companies, an orderly bankruptcy rather than Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi running the auto companies into the ground. The problem as I see it is that there are not paying customers in auto showrooms Nancy wants them to build electric cars. There were something like 156 electric cars sold last year. Unless the government was planning to use its coercive power by force of monopoly to force Americans to buy electrics(not entirely unreasonable under current leadership) then I am not sure how Nancy was going to save the UAW. We could put everyone in the job bank. Next song here, Wild Wet, splashes of cymbals, piano, squealie girl vocals. So Linda whomever. Nice coda. Very "world class rock". That is the name one local station has adopted for itself. World class rock encompasses Matchbox 20, John Prine and Big Head Todd but not .38 Special. Madness. In the forest all records sound like this. The wind through the trees is channeled through reeds and knobs and tangles and boughs and it ends up sounding like this concoction of helium, sports bras and herbal shampoo. This is on Fat Cat. I think. They discovered them by accident. Not in a forest. In a jungle. The urban jungle. Not in a blackboard jungle. Where was Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth. Gilda! Harry Cohn is not forest twee. Rita Hayworth is forest twee but only in You Were Never Lovelier. Glenn Ford is not forest twee. This song has elements of Pram in it if they were tethered and earthbound and sedate. Pram is forest twee. All of the aardvarks and antelopes are fans. Ironing boards are for ironing. Some menace introduced with some distorto electric guitars and repetition. Listen for th Faith Healers groove cut thinly. Sorta. Fat Cat is one of the heirs to Too Pure. But they release records from kids from Clinton Township. Mistake. Next song. Acoustic strums in a forest clearing blanketed with stars, traditional rock band set-up, very long extension cords into the forest. A bit of country twang, a bit Juliana Hatfield, a bit silly. Why is this on Fat Cat. Are they not meant to be cutting edge? This isn't. Horns. It's Lisa Loeb backed by Our Brother the Native. It's not great. It's Ghost. I was listening to the radio and they have an excerpt of Joebama on the radio saying he would put his Ipod up against anybody's. He knows his music. He boasts. The guy is full of himself. Apparently he thinks of his self in the third person as some person out of literature. Hubris is not an admirable quality in a leader. Will he listen to his "dream team" or not. Kenneth Chu should be tuned out for a start. And Ken Salazar's cowboy hat. Bill Ritter must be overjoyed. Senate seats can buy a lot of electric cars for momma. Caroline Kennedy can move to Colorado. Next song. Superlegend, a very Kanye song title. Not very Kanye. I'd imagine that Kanye West is on Joebame's Ipod, right alongside Walter Reuther reading Thaddeus Kosciusko's unauthorised biography. He's a cad. There was the invented fad on New York subways of Ipod battles where allegedly you were meant to approach strangers with earbuds and challenge them to an Ipod war to se who wa listening to more happening tunes. I am listening to the new Moto Boy EP at the moment, ha, I lie, I wish, it's lovely, gorgeous, but I am stuck in a forest eeling desperately untwee. That song featured distorted voice, singing from outside a phone booth voice. Blah. Next one. More of a Sandra bell meets Thrill Jockey feel to current events. Blah. Being forest twee does not make for an interesting album. This record should have been 7 songs shorter. An EP would have been a treat. An album is a bit of a chore. The chorus here is nice, get rid of the movements that surround it. Pruning is key to good forest management. And Mountain Pine Bark beetles and the ents woudl help as well, if you can get some of these and add them to your record it is a blessing. And good hair. My hair is very long for my hair. It is getting more difficult to justify the unkempt appearance that I am sporting. My Hair is as tired as the rest of me. Next year my new resolution is to have untired hair and to listen to Gregory and the Hawk as little as possible. Hurrah. There is still one song to go. If I want a forest pixie I will stick to Joanna Newsom. Last song. It's like the last few chapters of Kavalier and Clay, tired suburban ennui, some clever moments but still glasses of tepid distilled water with dancing protozoa searching for a home deep in the wooded expanse.

Library Tapes Fragments. Delicate. Tender. The pedal on the left with the petals to be plucked from the air, hammered softly, bent into shape, malleable notes, repetitive notes. Unsophisticated arrangements. It is all decidedly lovely. Even as I am watching the Military chanel's top 10 countdown of the all time greatest tanks. I love the bald, portly man who has the booming rasp more than I love the weasly girly Brit with the permanent. Second song, buzzes and pianos. I could play this. Really. I make claim to that effect all of the time but it's three notes, the hum of an electric fan and an alarm clock. I have taken to enjoying several hour long walks in the evening. I have stopped running, for now. I feel like I need to refresh my mind more than I need to charge my lungs. I have been reading voraciously even as I work 14 hour days. I never get home before daylight, but I don't mind the night's dominion over the day. I used to bid farewell to the sun only after October was half departed and yet now I am without its companionship from late September. It is the least active solar cycle since 1954. This is not good news. Global cooling is a much more serious threat than global warming, someone should tell President Joebama. In the new bailout package there is a tax write off for companies to reimburse employees who ride their bicycle to work. It is up to $300 a year. I paid $129 for my bicycle. I could buy 2 bicycles a year and have enough left to get a fancy pair of spandex shorts. I listen to my Ipod when I ride my bicycle, I am sure Joebama would frown on such behaviour and will soon ban it to protect me from myself. It is a wonder that Democrats ever lose elections because when Joebama is elected there will be free health care, new tuition credits, credits to buy wind power, soy power, and new bicycles. Everything will be free. It is looking a bit like Jimmy Carter, Bush in his manipulation of markets is starting to resemble Nixon and his price fixing scheme. There used to be meetings where very unimportant people would decide the price of butter. Madness. And over and over these people are begged of for solutions to all that ails our planet. Absurdity. This is a beautiful record. Very very short. I put it on after feeling great disappointment in the world 'the world disappoints me, I see the world in me'. That's so marvelous. I had to give a talk for nearly an hour today. I am too tired to be nervous, someone asked me if I was nervous. I didn't answer. I am too tired to answer. Almost 92 hours, I subtract half an hour each day for lunch but I don't actually take lunch so why bother. I am doing laundry now, while listening to Library Tapes. it is a serene moment, I can feel the oscillations of the machine as they traverse the waves of ether between myself and the inanimate companion that has replaced the sun as my source of warmth and happiness. I went on a date on Saturday evening. Someone asked me about it at work today, I didn't say much. I never talk about anything current in my life. On and on will I prattle about the tedious past that I've embellished through overactive nostalgia glands but ask me what I did last night and I feel embarrassed about my social ineptitude. Fragment IV, untreated piano and an echo. I could count the echo as my closest confident. When I take walks in the evening I will interview myself, or my self that I was meant to be. I've been for the last few hours lost in spreadsheets. I am trying to write a novel but I marvel at my cleverness when I figure out an interesting way to make things much more complicated than they need be and document my inefficiency thusly on Microsoft Excel. It's a gift. Fifth fragment. Is that violin? Scrapes and field recordings in a joyful embrace, so wondrously lovely is this. It would have been most perfect had it snowed at the moment that the violins soared to these emblazoned heights but it was not to be. We were too far east. Our chief of staff was not going to navigate the northwest passage to the winter wonderland. The Woolworth's L shaped counter is not in Utah but I was in Utah a few weeks ago. It is difficult to feel unkempt in Utah. I would think it would be not difficult but it resembles the aseptic landscape of oral surgeon's offices and all is surface driven as if one might excavate beneath city streets of Salt Lake City and all one would discover was a bag of pop rocks from 1973 and some roly polys killed by Raid. Sixth fragment, space age glitchery, music school homework on top. Is he an accomplished pianist? Has he attended a prominent conservatory and this is his rebellion against the status quo? I don't know if this is treated piano. Were he to dress these songs up in the fragrances of dissonance and vague cosmopolitanism it would be all the more lovely. Even so, as it is, it's marvelous. I would love to play this in the evening when trying to delay all of the tortured scenes that will invade my psyche in the evening. The pedals of my mind singing in harmony with the notes taped out patiently and without style or aspirations towards acclaim. His friends told him he should release that man. So he did. Just like Man Machine or Mog Stunt Team or Four Fabulous Scientists. The last fragment strands of goodness wrapped in a Murcof dreamt landscape of classicism and terror. Beautiful. When sleep eludes you must take solace in the beauty of silences, dream of sleep rather than a quest through sleep to dream.

algae in diesel tanks, flaubert and me, onanism, hair color, autumn, gregory and the hawk, baseball, joanna newsom.