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.