The Ideal Husband No Bye No Aloha. Is that a Breeders reference? If you are going to reference the Breeders it should be from the Pod days, not the silliness of the last record daze. Actually, it wasn't the last record was it, they did another. I've not heard it. I was learning hospital corners when the Breeders were "it". That period's Animal Collective. Oh how we've progressed. This is hawaiian indiepop music. Who knew such a thing existed. I am used to longstanding rules when stealing pop music on the internet 1)Never download anything from anyone with a beard and 2)Never download anything from Belgium. This record is the proof of my wisdom when it comes to the second steadfast standard. The exception if you will. One of the girls is Belgian! There are two girls, who knows where the other is from. The other one sings, she does a magnificent job singing. It is a magnificent record. It sounds as if it should have been released on the Brunettes label and honestly had the Brunettes the sense to release this instead of their emo-riffic last record I might still be in love with the Brunettes this day. This is Saturday morning music, it's delicate, wispy and fragile but there is enough delightful romantic ambience to move it to the physical category. It isn't for mental lounging on a Sunday morning filled with ennui over whether they really are going to ban plastic bags at the local Safeway and whether this will be the last sacrifice, will it be enough to save the planet from impending doom. It is almost 2012. I presume that plastic bags figure prominently in the apocalyptic imagery on the temple at Tikal or why else the hysteria? I need to rent Alien vs Predator 2 in order to bone up on my Mayan astrology. This is Hawaiian music merely because steel guitar is prominent? Do the girls intend to make Hawaiian pop music and if so then what is the inspiration? Daniel Inouye? Don Ho? I hope it isn't because of the fact that our new fearlessly incompetent President is from Hawaii? It's possible. But this record is from last year anyhow. It was cruelly kept a secret from me by those in the know. Second song, I'll Stop to Play With You, similar to the first, only less steel guitar and more steel drums or xylophones and some ukulele hey hey and some regular old guitar too. It's all rather good. It's involved and intricate, this masks a gliding ambition and thus is it disqualified from an association with the epithet indiepop. I read the line-up for this year's indiepop "Woodstock" at Indietracks and I managed only a sigh of indifference. I need to move to new scenery, I despise the Manhattan Love Sucides and the Indelicates, really I do. I was never really a subscriber to the indiepop scene. The closest I had come was when I was threatened with bodily harm by a "luminary" of the indiepop intelligentsia. I don't think he knew who he was about to tangle with. I once had someone exclaim at the sight of my muscles, once, but when you are among Field Mice fans even the world's tiniest gun show will impress and in this case negatively. Muscles are not a part of the twee revolution! Next thing you'll say that you play sports and eat your children. Third song. More hawaiian. So nice. Is Hawaiian music fabulously popular in Belgium? This song is already over. Most songs are brief. i've not ever been to Hawaii. My brother had his honeymoon in Hawaii. It is for honeymooners. He did not take me along. I am not married to his wife. My brother's wife is not fond of me. I am a dreadful brother in law. Hawaii is Polynesian and so is New Zealand. I can name only a few polynesian outlets Tuvalu, Samoa, Phoenix, Cook, Rapa Nui, argh...I've been to new Zealand. The Polynesian culture is a bit masculine, I don't think it lends itself to "twee" interpretations if taken literally, but these songs are not much about polynesia, mostly about love and friends and good times and it's wonderfully successful in its efforts but what about a treatise on Frankie B as his merry gang of coupsters in Fiji. A political record in the sing-song measure of Hawaiian music such as this would be incredibly subversive. It could arrive on planes in the bellies of brown tree snakes, a million usb drives surgically implanted under the skin of Norway Rats let loose in the wild to be consumed by the ubiquitous reptiles. And when the sakes climb into the landing gear compartments of commercial airliners and hitch a ride to Fiji the snakes will die from the ravages of overpopulation and they would decay quickly in topical clime and the lonesome villager with a political ambition for good governance would find the USB drive and plug it into his Sony Vaio computer and hear the music and start a revolution! Bravo. Next song. Another marvelous song. it is called Lullaby for a Betrayer. What is the history of Hawaiian music? Is it their equivalent of the blues? Their Bluegrass? Are these semi-laments on the nature of misery in paradise. It seems that it would be difficult to moan about the plight of average coffee farmer in paradise. Hawaii is a socialist basketcase now but what bout when Don Ho was just starting out? Was it songs about Karl Malden and lost travellers checks and the days when the sand is too warm for the soles of your feet so and you've forgotten your sandals in the cabana? Oh so full of woe is Don Ho. Perhaps it is that Hawaii Five O was extremely popular in belgium? Jack Lord was a god. How old is this girl that wrote and recorded the music? I don't have any idea. But I will now go look during the instrumental interlude that is playing now. It's gorgeous, mind. Ah, she's 32 or 33, depending on her date of birth. I found that the year was 1976. The year I put up my first Kiss poster on my bedroom wall. My oldest brother would discard them and I would fish them out of the trash basket and place them on my wall. I was less than five for most of 1976. I may have had the same illusions about Jimmy Carter back then as full grown adults now have about Joebama. But I was a mere toddler. Joebama's legions are busy saving the planet, they are busy collecting their shower water to water their organically grown eggplant. When 2012 comes will these people reopen their Y2K shelters? Possibly. I spent the last couple of minutes not listening to this record but first watching Sandirne Collard, she of the Belgian exceptionalism, and her video for 'le coup sensass', it was decidedly dreadful, the sort of thing that the fools on I Love Music would drool over when taking breaks from self-love over the Junior Boys. And then the video for The Ritornello from The Ideal Husband! It is a beautiful video. It's main character is a vespa carousel. I will link at the bottom of this entry. And hey back to the record and The Ritornello is currently playing and having watched the video filled with beautiful hipsters and vespas I've been reminded of the chansons. It is a bit Ema Derton this, or Jane Birkin if you will. Will the Ema Derton record ever see the light of day? Will Joebama deliver us Ema Derton? I am still attempting to understand how implementing a 'cap and trade' program that will increase the cost of energy produced by fossil fuels in the name of making renewable energy economically feasible because it cannot compete without lavish government subsidy, but then at the same time we shall be subsidising the most inefficient users of energy at the lower end of the income scale to continue to use energy at no reduced volume because the pain will be borne only by those at the top of the income scale will do anything? Can someone explain that to me? When you subsidise a behaviour you increase it. Of course we won't mention the whole idea of existing atmospheric opacity with regards to CO2 and the fact that the earth has not warmed for 10 years even though CO2 levels are increasing. And why really the panic over the current recession if Global Warming is the greatest threat ever facing mankind, I think Justinian might object to that, but anyhow if the end is nigh then we should be encouraging widespread misery and joylessness and economic destitution for all so that we can save the planet for the bushbabies and slugs. Let's scrape the visage of teddy Roosevelt off of Mount Rushmore and replace it with John Thain. I don't know. Religion is kooky. Eponymous track now playing, another instrumental, elegant and charming. Marvelous. I am offering my apologies to Sandrine Collard for going off on a rant that had nothing to do with this record but you know when the earth warms 4 degrees celsius over the next one hundred years this sort of music might be in vogue all over the planet as England turns tropical, as Siberia becomes the tony retreat of monied sorts from the Northeast, ah Antarctica! Next song playing, beautiful. It is a slow record, no hurry in any of the notes but I feel it moving my electrical capacitors that are stored up in forearms and tendons and in my teeth inside and outside my own head. This is the third best record from 2008. Retroactive assignation! Fight me if you disagree, i will dispatch you as easily as my previous tormentor Seo Hui. Two hits, me hitting you and us dancing to The Ritornello in the middle of the island formerly isthmus of Florida. Belgium will be under water in 100 years. Antwerp will be a coastal capital by the year 3000. Aloha to 1/10th of Belgium! Aloha! Belgium is a bit of a basket case as well. It is a permanent coalition of the unwilling, power equally divided up by ethnic divisions, the rich Flemish vs the grubby Wallonians! Sounds like an HG Wells contrivance. Dutch speakers vs French speakers, the francophones vs the flemish, Kim Clijsters fans vs Olivier Rochus fans or whatever. What is this association with ethnic identity? It seems so foreign to my American, slightly Canadian ears. Here divisions are based on obvious markers of race and religion and we pretend others do not exist. But by geography? Should I despise everyone from Maryland? Anyhow this record is still playing, moving along gingerly on an effervescent spring tide. The second to last song now, Where Ae Kisses, gorgeous. Apparently Sandrine was influenced by Ry Cooder. I don't know Ry Cooder. Is he a genius? This might be song of the album, place a sash across your ipod. The chorus with the echoey Clientele-ish reverb and now with the theremin and ukulele singing in harmony. What is the breakdown of The Ideal Husband? No Wallonians allowed? I hope not. For humanity's future hangs in the balance. Ukuleles are hip these days. Was it Stephin Merritt that made it so? He's fond of a ukulele. And now arrives Beirut and The Ideal Husband as modern champions. It is difficult to look suave while playing a ukulele, you look as if you suffer from gigantism, hands strangling necks and strings too tender for human fingers. Perhaps there is a race of Wallonians with delicately structured phalanges made to strum the ukulele and their recessive gene permeates the genome. It seems as if Polynesisans would have fingers too fat for ukuleles but then the ukulele could have evolved in leaner times. There's the racist in me. Sorry. It is the introduction of a western diet to Polynesia since WWII that has resulted in an epidemic of big bonedness. I could be Polynesian. The "man" is standing on the throat of American Samoa. Last song now, a beautiful twinkly construction called Water Lillies, vocals eeked out and the music at turns serene, icy and crystalline. Marvelous ice cubes in a tropical drink.

Already missed my goal!

Update: Oh dear, I really do not like the Indelicates.

Midori Hirano Lushrush. When economic ruin has had its way and desiccated souls all over the world it is important to have records that lead to escape and visions of beauty. The first track is like clockwork precision beauty, the spun silver of a web, the rhythmic tone of a crisis softening rain lashing on the west side of a home, the sun's rays illuminating the air in front of your eyes. It's delicate and articulate and wordless and stirring. She's Japanese. It is beginning to be a possibility that I will never write about male made music again. So many girls in a row. I am writing this in the past. it is actually later than the date that will show up n this post. Visits to the past allow me to reconcile my thoughts, allow me to peel slowly the visions of the days past and evaluate the values I held on that particular day. The violin is slyly placed. it is in my left ear, underneath the paiano, the drum machine, the basketball video game effects and and some high squealed synthesizer, but it carries the emotion of the track. Strings are so cliche ridden but does anything other than perhaps a naked piano affect the human psyche as much. I dont know anything about music theory, there might be an objective explanation having to do with minor chords and timbre and tone and whatever but I don't know anything about music. This track is delicate, the violin coming to the fore now, in fire, a resonant touch to bring the track to climax if you will. Another joins the fray, it's marvelous. It's over. Japan has had much more time to digest this economic malaise being as they have been in the midst of a malaise for some time. A brief respite was offered by Japanese Elvis but he went away and now the old men have returned and 'rock'n'roll' has got to go. Midori has left japan. She could not make ends meet in a deflationary environment most probably so she has decamped to Germany. She has not acquired any of the teutonic joi de vivre. This is organic, delicately folded, piano-based electronic music. More violins to disperse widely her ache and her voice now joining the experience. A whisper mightier than a voice. A gentle breeze until the climax with drums and bombast. The nice thing about girls, although there are many, is rarely do they want to rawk. I am sexist as well as racist. But what is the point of drums really? Do I really miss the drums when they are not present? No. I don't think I like drums at all. I like Long Fin Killie Drums and Pram Drums. And I like drum machines but drums are so luddite, so troglodytic, lets bash these skins instead of bashing skulls. Lets play drums and horns at Gaugamela and share cup of tea made from Darius' eyeballs. Bah. These drums are superfluous, I would have preferred a drum machine myself, a Grant Macnamara production for the I Love Music kids to mock as insufficient. Now the drums have disappeared. Perhaps her new German boyfriend plays drums and he beats the skins instead of beating the odds. Pianos and worldly wordless vocals and violins and over. Now to Calling, the shortest song on the album. I just finished writing about The Ideal Husband. That record was from 2008. This is from 2006. I am a time traveller. I write in the past about the past. Very existential. This track is a bit of fluff. I beat the piano instead of the muffin batter. I could play this. I could play anything really, I am a gifted musician. Not really. I have to take care not to offend strangers in my reviews, they may leave comments. But honestly is mentioning someone as being silly an insult? Silly hearts are lovely people. Much better that you were silly than cynical. Next track. Violins. This sounds like a school assignment. She's failing professor John Mcentire's class and he is telling her that she will never amount to anything because she can not grow a beard and by evidence can not write boring post rock songs and she is bravely rebelling by writing delicate compositions based around violins and the sounds of nature, a metaphorical knife fight in a bamboo forest on the Malay archipelago John the bamboo. These could be the songs of her wild and misspent youth in the yakuza. Poor child. She was taken in by Brian Keith and Robert Mitchum and rescued from a life of crime and drifting sub compact Toyotas. All of my knowledge of foreign cultures is acquired through American action movies. Her voice is never beyond a whisper, this feels more singer songwriter, a lone piano and sounds of the street below the window. It could be compiled with devastatingly poignant poetry but someone needs to shut the window in order for me to hear. Is it in english? Who knows. it is really very pretty. The Secret Aria. Now to Night Wish. I am making an editorial decision to write about music as little as possible and rather to use this as an exercise to see what the music conjures while listening. It is tiresome to continue to write that something is twinkly or marvelous or lovely. I will write about myself indulgently and simply use different adjectives with the same ubiquity these new modifiers will dazzle, such as miserable, portly, grey haired, etc... It will be thrilling. Trust me. Because, look this one is piano-y again, with some programming and some delightfully off kilter pacing and arrangements and I rather love it, I rather like this entire record but I suppose I can appreciate why real record reviewers focus so much on lyrics better to engage in fraudulent Freudian analysis of some kid with an IQ that has plunged 80 points since he started huffing paint than to try to describe the sound of a guitar in a manner that no one has ever managed before, managed better and done so more prolifically. I hate music reviews as a rule. it is why I celebrate my decision to write about myself and partake in fatalistic narcissism instead. Midori is undoubtedly more interesting than I am and could spend the greater part of a day writing auf Deutsch about how intuitive and brilliant her records are but I must then take her word for it, for me they are merely lovely as the spring. This is a bit like a 4AD record, in the 4AD of my dreams, where His Name is Alive didn't go in that Timbaland forest and where the Pixies did not disintegrate so that Frank Black could write comic books and where Clan of Xymoxx stayed unresurrected but Dif Juz reunited instead. In the new world filled with dryness and heat we will have loads of bands like Calexico and Tarnation. Dusty, dry, dust bowl troubadours, playing very quietly because the windmills only blow part of the time so they need to conserve electricity and to play loud is to make one culpable in the plot against humanity. Midori will be an anachronism. The good thing about a drier climate is that potato chips will take a frightfully long time to go stale. I don't have any idea what she is whispering about so even if I had wanted to dissect her prosody I would be at a loss. I could simply fabricate a lyric sheet. A Japanese in Germany? I would think she would be a bit like me who wouldn't, and marvel at the fury in the architecture. There is not any softness to be found in all of Germany except in the bellies of beer hall wenches. Everything else, I found, I've ben in one city, was sharp, rough, efficient. But that's my yankee jingoistic eye working. I haven't any German blood in me but I do have the French Canadian strain. I did refrain from calling anyone Boche while I was there. I am not sure why calling someone the stubborn head of a cabbage is so offensive though. Next song, now just field recordings, violins, voices recorded off of the television and static. It's really nice, really. See I veered back into the music and boom that's the sound of your head hitting the table, knocked out by the impact of excruciating boredom. It is difficult to continue to write about an album without picking one's fingers off of the keyboard for the duration, especially on electronic albums as they tend to be overlong and filled with a minimal number of ideas and so you are left in some rut of the mind desperately searching out how to inject a clever line about how Germans used the term 'florenzers' as an epithet but you can't quite manage it because you are not Gore Vidal and should these be a thesis on racial epithets even. You are not even Gertrude Stein. Next song. Piano has returned, darkly ambient and pretty, field recordings recorded inside an alpine tunnel on the autobahn in the middle of winter in Bavaria or wherever it is that the autobahn tracks to. I was never on the Autobahn, I am not a racist, only racists drive on the autobahn. Dim, beautiful, a haunting reference to the death of the sun in the hollow of dusk, the festival of rebirth in the early morning, the rush to appreciate the light before it is consumed by the night. Or something such as that. Something devilishly poetic and filled with glorious tributes to the gods of the noonday sky. It does sound very precise and academic. The Germans and the Japanese are suffering equally hard during this recession because of their passion for thrift. Unrepentant, profligate, flamboyant types such as the Italians will spend gaily through the recession. Germans will eat the recession and it will taste bitter, they will eat the concrete, they won't buy that big screen television that they cannot afford. It is all very admirable. I could be German, I've mentioned this before, I missed but one question on the German citizenship test. How did you do? I bet not as well as I did. Last song. Banging on a old can of shellac, made from Beetles, allegedly, my source is an internet music bulletin board. Now a piano, I could play this. It is a shellac can and one note on the piano. It is no small accomplishment that my years of training have prepared me to play something such as this. I do always make that claim but honestly I can't play anything and I doubt I could play this. i could play the Burning Hearts record as that was just someone pressing the pre-set button on the Casio. I could do that. In the library here there are librarians young and old and they all wear isotoner gloves while reshelving the books. I am made nervous by this. Has there been an outbreak o the plague among library patrons? We do have a great population of prairie dogs in the city but that strain does not normally infect we humans. Is it a conspiracy? Has it been relayed to librarians on a secret message board meant for librarians only? Or perhaps the blind librarians who reshelve their books by memorising the floor plan and shelf schematics of the entire library have decoded the secret message from the braille footpads that are being added to every intersection here and they then passed it on to their sighted colleagues. Mysteries. This song is boring, there then is my considered analysis. This record is beautiful.

I have a new goal, a post a day. Look, I've already made today's quota! You know, the Shop Assistants were actually kinda crap. Alessi's Ark reminds of Shellyan Orphan, slightly.

Alessi's Ark recorded her record with Bright Eyes in Nebraska. Strangely, in spite of this, the album is marvelous. Another preposterously talented teenager.

I really am turning into one of those creepy guys who does all of their CD shopping at the "Borders recommends" counter except that I don't shop at Borders. What should I listen to instead?

The world needs a new Too Pure more than ever. I know there is a Too Pure still but have you actually heard Future of the Left?

The battle for Finland. Burning Hearts vs. Regina. First song by Regina. I absolutely loved their last record. I am not sure this one is as good. Part of the appeal of the first one was the fact that the vocal arrangements were somewhat ambitious and there were voices that arrived from odd angles and oddly dressed and inflected and with the intricately arranged music it made it a miracle of discovery for me. First song, minimal-ish, her voice exceedingly helium-y, as if she had moved to Japan to absorb the adolescent obsessed culture and came home with a souvenir, a new voice. The music is still clever, it's minimal-ish. I've said that. Now the male voices arrive. It's a bit insubstantial. I am only slightly disappointed because i wanted them to turn more artfully complex on this record. I had no idea that this record was about to exist until I happened upon it somewhere on the interwebs. Thanks be to indie pirates then. I have written a short story about Finland, well it factors tangentially, it is about a parking space line painter with an art degree who is frustrated because the lead in the paint is causing her to go mad which she is cheered about for the hallucinogenic El Greco-ish content of her art but which is also affecting the dexterity of her fingers and only in Finland is there a cure, but she must paint more lines to make more money in order to get to Finland and it is a race between death that stalks and her arrival in Finland. It is not so great really. There was meant to be a side line in how all of the lines in the parking lots all over the world contain messages to other planets in some sign of subservience to our galactic overlords but it seemed silly. Now to Burning Hearts first song. It is more basic, the preset button pressed on the Casio and the vacant vocalizing, I am too cruel, the singing is nice. But the music sounds like a side project, my own thoughts are contaminated by the knowledge that this is a side project, I am a cheater. I did something deceitful and dishonest, out of the goodness of my heart, and yet yesterday I found a 20 dollar bill lying on the floor of the local grocery store where Harriet Wheeler's doppelganger works at the pharmacy and I turned in the 20 dollar bill to the store authorities. On reflection it seems a bit odd though to have done that, will they make an announcement over the public address system asking someone to come forward and describe the 20 dollar bill that they foolishly left on the floor in the bar soap aisle. I should have kept it but then I would have had another debit in the karmic column and surely I would have been destined for eternal damnation a a result. Lyrics about rainbows, ugh, not so great. First song goes to Regina. This might not be close. Seocnd Regina song now. It is in Finnish. All of the songs are in Finnish. Is that working as a detriment in this competition? No, because were these songs about rainbows and unicorns I would be blissfully unaware as it would be in Finnish and I do not speak Finnish. This is a bit less spartan than the first song, elegant and charming, a bit Bacharachian, a bit of thinking you know Shirley Bassey could have sung this, rather better than singer here, but I still enjoy it. I like how the parts don't seem to have a concrete outline, her voice striking out of the emptiness into the void. A tender clarion whisper to Fins in outer space. Has Finland sent a Fin to space? How many countries have sent Fins to space then? I am not sure, may we count those with Fins in their genealogy scorecard. Have Fins hitched a ride with the Japanese? Possibly, in exchange for opening the lucrative rice cooker marker to Matsushita. Lovely piano break now, this is why I love Regina, the music is not entirely conventional but it isn't difficult, the voices are coming in from different angles of descent, a vortices of voices swirling around a delicious pop center. It's pop music but it isn't to be dismissed because of that. Her voice still has a piercing quality that might need to be overcome by the weakly squeamish. Over. Now to Burning Hearts and whether they can even things up. Oh, a nice start, very Le Futur Pompiste. She is the singer for Le Futur Pompiste. They share more in common with Le Futur Pompiste than they do Cats on Fire. Cats on Fire have a new record out soon. I've heard two gentle, delicate songs from it and I am extremely excited about the future. I have listened to the new Camera Obscura track as well, the music is gorgeous but is she having any fun? Does she need love in her heart? Perhaps then someone from Regina could marry the singer from Camera Obscura. Ok now, Burning Hearts have won this on on the strength of the vocals alone. There is a smoky resonance in her voice, it conveys maturity and grace and poise, the Regina singer conveys the antithesis of all of these things. Sometimes unease is preferable. The world is soon to end and I feel fine, we're listening to pop music from Finland. Fin. Soon there will be protectionist amendments added to trade bills to bar the importation of Finnish pop music into Amerikkka. Ameircan tunes for american ears, to paraphrase Gordon Brown. It might be called the Fin-Less Garrity Bill. It will plunge the world into depression. We'll all be inconsolable. Next track from Regina, Totuus Minustra, so many vowels, it can't help but be clever and it is. It's her voice pitched down a notch to twang rather than a squeal. Music is all about building to a crescendo, it is understated and somewhat German aping, very very lovely. i am sure it will soon evolve into a bloom of great beauty. I've only listened to each of these records but once and so I am somewhat unfamiliar. They are only paired together because of their common origin. One day there will be a bicentenary celebration for the great Glenn Mcdonald tome(sarcasm) on the origins of twee pop where he takes a boat to all of the indiepop capitals of the world and absconds with specimens pin and mounted and writes about how Orange Juice evolved into Midway Still. There is a blog called Because Midway Still Still Aren't Coming Back, it is mostly filled with dreadful music from the 80s but I do love the title. Hey! Next song by Burning Hearts and hey I thought I wasn't much for this record but I am really enjoying this. Here again my initial prediction was for a Regina sweep but this is rather nice. Perhaps I need to do this with both songs playing simultaneously? There is a softness and romance in this that is merely inscrutable in the Regina record because of the language barrier. i could take a course and reassess then. Or not. Perhaps Regina represent the rustic to the bourgeois Burning Hearts. Better for Regina then when the re-education camps form and the rustics take the helm. Burning Hearts shall be sent for assignment, for rehabilitation, in their Mao suits and owl haircuts learning to make emotionally unavailable dance pop for public consumption, all beats are equal. This is very nice. I've said that. It has the crescendo that never quite arrived in the Regina track, another win for Burning Hearts. They still seem overly fond of the presets on the Casio but this is tremendously pretty. Does the drummer for Cats on Fire have much say in Cats on Fire songs? He might need some space for input, in the future, he could at least recommend they use the singer from Le Futur Pompiste on the next record. Next regina song, spaced out, her voice prepubescent and I like it. I am a foul old thing. Everything about them is synthetically produced, inorganic popular music, this is reminiscent of something dreamy and romantic until it turns to a brand of digital baroque a few minutes in and she begins whispering, enjoying this. They were once on the same label as Moto Boy. They released a single only. This is better than Gentle Touch. They, the powers that be, should have ditched Gentle Touch who are dreadfully depressing and grey and kept Regina instead. The baroque digitalism is the highlight of this song. They are architecturally sound, the music is well configured and sturdy but still somewhat surprising in where it ends up. This might be the closest pop battle ever waged on this blog! How exciting to be a witness to history then, how exciting for you, I mean. Not really. I am doing this combined entry to save the vapid exclamations that will have otherwise acumulated by explaining my incoherent reactions to these records separately. i offended someone I don't know in the post on Soap & Skin, apologies, it was a general insult more than one aimed specifically at any one person. But honestly Projekt was filled with silly people. Really. Next Burning Hearts track, starts off unpromisingly, a sample of some sort, these samples should be short, this is much too long. Repetitive noises on guitar and sampler, this is very first record OMD, primitive and not as clever as they imagine it to be. Her voice now, wordless, mirroring the keyboard melody. Dreary dreary dreary. Now back to the sample. This is filler, bah, it's only nine songs that are on this record and they have filler? Madness. Where is the work ethic? What is the work ethic of the average Fin, where do their rates of productivity rank on the scale when measured against other developed economies? Is Finland truly of the west? They were fancy with the Soviets for a long time, sweets for the crocodiles so that their teeth would fall out of their heads. Usually now I would turn to my limited knowledge of the brave Fins in the Winter War but I will not actually. That song was entirely pointless and offensive, easy win to Regina. Now Regina's next song and they are beginning to show off now, excellent doings, racing piano now rushes listener into something sinister seeming and falvoured exotically, fulminated richly by the oddly acented vocals, back with the trilling piano lines. Beautiful. Saanko jaada yoksi. It's warm and inviting and then a stark interjection of her voice unrecognizable and sharpened. This is a beautiful thing, it is almost acid house, almost reminiscent of KLF. Possibly. And now a flute break on top of a conventional piano melody, it's been antiqued for a brief interlude, now then back to technological innovation. Her voice in attempting a tempting come on, but it's as synthetic as the music, this is physical music though. Can we compare Regina with their physicality that makes me want to move my body in time with the guttural clenches at the end of verse and Burning Hearts who dwell in weepy, doe-eyed primitivism? Who cares. We shall. If only we were we. False ending, a breakdown, bongos, bass thump, drum machines, it is very early 1990s. people on I Love Music could possibly love this, what is becoming of me then? They are counting down the best 50 albums of the year and I have only actually heard one of the records on the list, the Fleet Foxes and I've only heard one song. I am so unaware. I am so un-hipster. I need more ironic izod shits next to my shabby trousers. After the bongo break back to dance music, do the electric slide, wooo. Acoustic guitar now, stolen from the wimps in Burning hearts surely. Excellent! Now to Burning Hearts, oooo!, they are getting a bit more daring on this one, almost Regina-esque, but it sounds tinny and unure of itself, these might be virtues though for their target demographic, oh but her voice is wonderful. it really is a battle between Regina's cleverness and her singing. Isn't it? it is. I am redundant for appearances of substance. Look at how long this entry is! I must have really considered each of these records. But I haven't. This song wins, it's marvelous. Well, when she is singing. Ths music is a bit silly. Imagine her singing for Regina? A dream. When is the Le Futur pompiste record coming then. It has been a while. They are having babies instead of pop songs. They are not considering their carbon footprint then, heretics. I am off to see a movie in 3d tonight. The last 3D movie I saw in the theater was Jaws 3. A young Dennis Quaid in a fight to save two dolphins from the menu, a tear jerker. This song still reminds of early OMD. I love early OMD, unfair. Next Regina song. Some When in Rome tinkling on the piano, atmospheric effects, 80s drum machine, sweet, her coyly harmonizing with herself, hmm...this is not nearly as good as the first album. Keyboards that mimic steel drums, her voice swirly and uninspired, but then comes the break, they have these amazing breaks, double vocal tracks, icy piano motifs, but then back to the verses that are sedate an unadventurous in comparison. Make all of the songs about the choruses and breaks and it would be epic. Her voice is average but when it's shooting or spitting or cutting and dancing it is more intriguing. Some electric guitar to color things and again we come to a seque into the wilderness, the more feral nature of their being, away from the sway on the dancefloor. Do they adhere to the taxonomy of their existence as a dance band? I couldn't really dance to this, I could awkwardly jerk various extremities and make uncomfortable grimaces in the wake but then really I can't dance to dance music. Next now to Burning Hearts' Sea Birds. I was reading a book of 300 curious facts and it claimed that Donald Duck was once banned in Finland because he did not wear pants. Random facts to accompany the random disassociated introduction that weaves it's way in and out of the mix, standard 1950s forbidden planet sound effects. She's not a gifted singer either, but there is an inherent warmth in her voice, no pipsqueak effects. The squeaks work when Regina get odd but when they are conventionally conventional they grow overly tiresome. Burning Hearts have embraced brevity. They have used Le Futur Pompiste as a template more than Cats on Fire. It's circular as Cats on Fire were originally billed as a side project for the drummer from Le Futur Pompiste and now the drummer from Cats of Fire whom is not the drummer for Le Futur Pompiste has a side project from Cats of Fire with someone from Le Futur Pompiste. All that is left to ponder is who will work with the Harry Hunks then. Nice movement into something a bit sci-fi classy, elegant futurist lounge tones and the boring music underneath. Presets and two note guitar. But somehow this is winning the day. My apologies to those interested in complexity. I am normally in your camp but the current facts on the ground support the absurd notion that Burning Hearts are the superior to Regina. Strange. The problem with these comparison entries is that i spend too much time talking about the music I am not nearly witty enough to make music interesting. Next Regina song, Tango merella, piano introduction, neatly treated, now her voice, oh I quite like this so far. It has the alien feel that haunted most of the first record. There are bird sounds, sea birds, the circle of erm...pop. "The universe is my home, my room is my pants, why are you in my pants?". Just the piano, her voice whispered, thus far, and birdsong, now bass throb and bongos. So many bongos. Her voice abundantly ethereal and lovely. This may be the best song on the album. I am not sure, I can't remenber what is still left to come. Accordion. Nice. Folktronica? No. They are clearly more talented than Burning Hearts, this is decideldy intricate and inventive. Do they record their own records? What might they do with a producer to encourage them to work a bit harder on the voices. The accordion is a sort of contrail on this, it has an almost jazzy samba feel, latin nordica, ski jumping with a sombrero. It snowed last evening, I woke up unaware, i thought it was meant to be unseasonably warm this weekend. But even now the sun shines, the music turns celestial with sea birds to the fore and romance and intrigue and all of that sappy stuff. Very nice. Will Burning Hearts be able to overcome this? What is the score anyhow? I will look back, Hmmm...I can't seem to figure it out. Ha. This song is a bit like all of the rest of their songs, presets, boring organ and nice voice, no points for lack of ambition. She is carrying all of the water, clever vocal arrangements, prettiness but not enough, chalk up one more for Regina. Next Regina track, another Finnish title with a tittle. I've only just finished Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, I allege that most read it when they are 8, I did not, but honestly someone should have told me how much I would have loved it. Please keep me in the loop. In the book of useless facts there was also a claim that female ferrets that go into heat will die if they do not find a mate. Is this true? Why then are there not more ferret metaphors for a heart's longing? This song is piano based, beats, nice vocals, cleverness incarnate, soaring bits now with squirrely sound effects and voices as sirens very nice, this could be a hit on top 40 radio somewhere other than Finland. Apologies for the capitalization. Perhaps another win for regina, going with my gut as to the overall picture as I can't interpret my feelings one week later. I would say it is neck and neck at the moment. Next Burning HEarts number, again it is not fair that she is essentially on her own going against the powerful troika in Regina. Smoky Birdie-esque composure and loveliness and dull music lying beneath these heavenly heights. Again the highlights arrive when her voice is multi-tracked and loveliness is increased exponentially but there doesn't seem to have been much thought put into the rest of the track. Who can reward jumping someone else's train? Not I! If i were to chose a record to play to the person that I can't stop thinking about then it would be Burning Hearts because clever people are often lonely people. Nice bit now with her voice and twinkles, so nice, but Regina is still holding on to the victory, they must, I want to appear as hip as the people who post all of the wonderfully obscure 7 inchers from the 1980s. You know, sometimes things are obscure because they are not very good. This is a distinct possibility, circumstance does not always triumph over good sense. But i was pleased that a 10 year old Sussex Spaniel(who knew such a breed even existed) named stump won best in Show. He's a much better representative of his kingdom than the chimp that stole that poor womans face. Regina track, excellent!!! So cool, her cooing voice, she is far better suited to the coo than the coy, and minimal electronics and now fake sitars in the break, and now fake scratches that might have been lifted from a Beastie Boys record. Look at all of the brainless references I am forced to fabricate for Regina when in comparison I am allowed to maintain the steady and singular use of 'preset' for every song on the Burning Hearts record. Now cool detached backing vocals getting with the subcontinent flavor. Tourists. Paul Simon's illegitimate offspring from his dalliances in pseudo soviet satellites. Nice nice nice. Next BH. Piano. Regina's piano sounds like it is played with fingers and yet BH's has surely been hammered senseless with rolling pins, thud thud thud and strum strum strum. Clunky, even the voice, this is the title track, perhaps this is the intro bit? The entire record sounds like a set of demos, piano softened slightly by the arrival of canned synths, still da da da blah blah blah. Hmmm...big win for Regina and seeing as how this is the last track on the BH record I believe that does tip the scale in Regina's direction, now it has turned to just BH gal's voice and washes and tambourines, all of the songs could have been constructed as such yet soon the music will resurface. Where is my hard hat? Aieee!!! Why is this the title track? This should have been the Japanese b-side. Ah well. Last Regina song, winner by default. Jungle! As in Chimpanzees not Roni SIze. Interesting. The lyrics seem like tongue twisters to a non-native's ears, English is so much slower than most other languages. Oh twinkly tenderness arrives witht he first segue, ah this is marvelous, this is the almost title track and it is understandable how they would imagine this best represents the album. I recant my earlier negative vibes, I quite enjoy this record, I quite enjoy saying quite enjoy. Stamp the anglophilia out on the concrete my friends. Regina Regina.

Belleisle Longstanding. I visited Montreal when I was 14 or perhaps I was younger. My family was visiting my uncle, to witness his impending nuptials. Before he committed suicide. He was still enamoured of his full length wolf coat. It still shed unmercifully in my father's back seat. We marveled at the old building facades that disguised modern amenities in the building innards. We went to fabulous restaurants and even though my own mother is French Canadian, a daughter of Quebec! We were not served in the fabulous restaurants because her French was deemed not up to it. She has a habit of sprinkling in English due to lack of use. The scandal here is that Belleisle sing in English! Satan's tongue. Is there not a law in Quebec that all records must have a match in the mother tongue? If not then surely there should be. First song is beautiful indiepop. Acoustic, dreamy, beautifully voiced. Second song is the same. Second is where they display of hint of that Birdie charm and elegance. Where have Birdie disappeared to? We need them more than ever. Do we not? What with every Saint Etienne album being more dreadful than the last. Softly patted drums, a slow strum and here drifting gorgeous voice and now an electric guitar solo, so gauche, ah but still so lovely. Quebec is an interesting place. For a long stretch in order to be Prime Minister of Canada you need have been from Quebec. Only Kim Campbell had broken the string and she was Prime Minister for about eleven seconds, long enough to be comfortably labeled as evil by the measure of Liberals all across the land. Third song now, beautiful again, a bit more upbeat, the electric guitar cosies up right from the start. In most reviews of this record the loveliness of affairs is easily picked up on and appreciated at a distance and then at fear of acknowledging the worth of something that might be considered "twee" it is dismissed as insubstantial, lightweight and filled with fluff. The girls are much too skinny so there really isn't any fluff here. It's lean and efficiently pop. I could play drums for them and I am the world's worst drummer. My parents bought me a drum set and then took it away from me, it may have disappeared into the same deep dark void as Birdie. I miss my drums. Next song, already, everything is brevity. What are these things that are not fluff embedded? I am not sure but it appears that people like MGMT are chiefly important, the world would fall off of its axis without their last record, apparently, much the same as the laws of Newton might somehow fail without you having heard that last Fleet Foxes record. Pah, that record is more twee than this, Pitchfork is so twee. At least these Belleisle songs have subjects that are transferrable to anywhere other the stone forest. But I don't feel as if any of the music I listen to is imoportant. This isn't important music in any lager scale outside of my heart. But it is interesting, as I noted in a previous entry, to notice how the arc of every single Belleisle review mirrors one another. Its almost as if they read each other's reviews before sticking their neck out and having an opinion that separates them from the herd, behavioural economists have studied this phenomenon when it comes to financial transactions perhaps a new branch will deal with would be egghead record appraisers. No one reads this so my own herd is but tiny. Me, myself and the other person that lives inside my heart but doesn't know. There was a string that began with Trudeau, then Turner(thogh strictly he wasn't from Quebec), Mulroney, Chretien, Paul Martin. Imagine if every presidential candidate came from California, actually it would be Texas as Ontario has the largest population in Canada. Texas seems most at risk of threatening secession but Texas might actually mean it rather than holding it over the head of other parts of Canada as a damp sword to extract concessions. Of course there was Joe Clark but he's a footnote. I was formerly Canadian, I spent most of the summers of my youth in Canada. Just a note. There have been a few songs while I trawled the past of towering figures of Prime Ministers past. The Pm's are an ineffectual lot in fitting with their country's primary ethos of "first do nothing". Trudeau shaped modern Canada to its detriment of course but then he was something of an anti-semite fascist sympathiser, a poor judge of character, really and well we'll not go into that, he is on the post. These qualifications of course likely make him something of a sentimental figurehead in Europe as anti-semitism is all the rage these days. Notice how an incident of Muslim terrorism elicits calls to not retaliate against muslim civilians, rightly so, but no such call is made when Israel engages in "controversial" activity to not retaliate against jewish civilians. Interesting, not really since all Jews are secretly in the employ of Mossad. Sarcasm. This is not a political record, I apologize for my own drift. Old Noise now, just before it was the rather remarkable, Waking up Slowly and Good for You. But Montreal is a beautiful city. They do maintain the old facades and renovate the interiors of buildings and its a marvelous thing because of course modern architecture is a bore. The architecture here in Denver is offensive and rank, for anything later than the turn of the 20th century. And I hope you love Shademaster Locusts for it is only they which adorn the cityscapes, shrouded in shade and vehicle contaminants holding some pale vigil over the city's lack of identity. A monoculture to blend nicely with the mononucleosis afflicting the culture of Denver's intellectual life. Diana Degette has a stranglehold on politics here in spite of being rather more dim than the sunlight filtered though seventeen feet of steel and tinted glass. More Birdie-ish tenderness, the pace is laconic and the playing is restrained the voice as well, but it is not a whisper, it's a gentle inflection that holds sway and now the echoey electric guitar adds a slight heft. It does remain slight and somewhat disassociated but it charms most magnificently. Next song, a twee anthem, Winter Under Covers. Are these girls from Montreal? I make that blanket assumption with the insinuation that I believe all of the rest of the citizens of Quebec to be provincials, semi-marxist and rustic. As if they stepped straight from a Zola novel. This is, again, beautiful. Belle Isle is located in Detroit, Michigan. Did you know that? Are they referring to that Belle Isle? Perhaps not. Belle Isle was where the suburban hooligan contingent of the Detroit metropolitan area would gather to ogle each other in their Mustang GT's, IROC's and Chevy Novas. I believe it was also a nature preserve, before they decided to run the Detroit Grand Prix across it. There are sharks in the Belle Isle zoo, more than at the Detroit Zoo. It is in he center of the Detroit River. Detroit started as a French outpost, Antoine De Cadillac. I met someone who was something of a Francophile and attempted to use my knowledge of the French underpinnings of my hometown as an enticement into her heart but it failed. I am always looking to steer conversations into areas which might be labeled as 'pedantic' on a map of human condescension. Unfortunate me. Coasting, this is more of the same, moments pressed gingerly into the ether and now a slow elegant organ to gird happenings to keep them tethered to the ground, ethereal and ephemeral bonded in a moment of geometric frustration at turns blurred is if insubstantial and fissiparous or sturdy and elemental. It is both. I spent the afternoon at a lecture on Ice, it wasn't that fascinating. The lecturer was rather young, rather more than me, and he struggled to incorporate witty anecdotes into his talk but his lack of wisdom meant there were only superficial links between his topic of expertise and the larger world outside of his large head. Kurt Vonnegut received a mention. I wonder if Kurt was fond of Trudeau. It would have been contrary to his primary nature, no? Fascists = Bad = Truman was a Fascist, etc...The title track is playing now, more of the cathedral organ and voices joined in unison, slow, everything deliberate and dreamy, more of the electric accentuation. They do look like girls from Monreal. Olive skinned, dark complected, a smokiness to their gaze, usually dark hair but the features do spread evenly across the spectrum of melanin hues. Is that racist to classify french canadian girls thusly? I share these traits, my mother and I are twins, I look very much like a French Canadian woman, rather the most unattractive French Canadian woman ever. But truly these girls are marvelous creatures, they create marvelous delicacies of indiepop and in the absence of Debsey Wykes reign supreme in the sophisto-jazz-indiepop sweepstakes that is ongoing forever. Last song, folk dreams of greater visions of the future than are currently allowed by circumstance.

The Klaus & Kinski album, wow. Thank you Pop'n'Cherries.

Soap&Skin Lovetune for Vacuum. This person is young, very young and as such is still at some points quite ridiculous as is the wont of the adolescent and so the story surrounding the selection of her recording alias is best left untouched. Surely she believes her reasoning is profound and meaningful and undoubtedly she believes the reason for the existence of this music is pure catharsis. The story isn't, not really, and if the music is therapy who cares because it sounds grand. But let not a future of young girls and boys carving soap and skin into their forearms with a pen knife deter you or prevent this from being treasured as most marvelous. There doesn't seem to be much arable property between the vague and the vulgarly personal these days. There is either a random free association of references that do not add up to coherence(see this entry) or 'my wounded existenstialism laid bare' sensibility to modern "art". Apparently this person is hotly tipped by people like the Guardian so my own transformation into cultural skimmer as filtered by the staff recommendations at Borders books is ongoing. First track is thumping piano and ambience and a stern, hollowed out vocal, very very nice. Second track now, more piano, softer, more reminiscent of say Nocturne? Ha, I have no idea. The feel compels and her voice detached, Piana-esque, pitched higher, more "alien"/Japanese and a solitary whistle and rustic music box effects. It's very similar to the last RockettotheSky album which was also splendid if you remember back a few months ago. There seems to be an abundance of these sorts of records these days. The kooky art chick is in vogue. Whereas before this tag meant unlistenable and yet highly literate and impulsively angry feminist schtick, see Jean Smith, and later see Peter Jefferies after he became Mr. Smith. Angry feminists stalking their audience in contempt for their cosmetic vegetarianism and patriarchal submissiveness. Oh dear Jean Smith was a comic genius. I don't know what these words signify. I can't make them out. It is not Sunday morning music except that it is at this moment grey and a stark comedown from the springlike weather of the previous week so there is a palpable sense of disappointment in the tense northerly wind and the expected snowfall hanging beyond the horizon. Her aesthetic is bleakness, it is a spare accounting of the heart's domain over the mind. Filled with the monuments of the age, narcissism, isolation of the heart, the futile assertion of uniqueness against the homogenizing effect of global culture. It sounds foreign. She is from Austria which means she is Austrian and she is thus transformed into a foreigner when it comes to pop music. The biggest thing from Austria since Falco? Third song now, I can comprehend the words, unfortunately, but the music is dramatic and haunting and elegant and her singing compels, it is at turns rather powerful even among the silly platitudes. It's a bit of Sinead O'Connor whispering in an ancient library. Austria is a strange country what with their comfort among neo-nazis and former nazis. Do they not share the angst and deprecating guilt of Germany and so feel more self assured in their aryan rightful heir-ness? Possibly. Kurt Waldheim was possibly an odious sort along the lines of say Pope Benedict and then there was Jorg Haider, bred from Nazi's, elected, isn't it funny how it is enlightened Europeans that flirt so openly with fascists like Haider or Le Pen and yet we troglodyte Americans have to make due with paper tyrants like Dubya. Haider is dead, a M.A.D.D. statistic. Fourth track, back to minimal piano accompaniment. It is reminiscent of the last PJ Harvey record without the burden of expectations. This is a wonderful record, really, enjoy it in spite my incessant dismissals of her motivations and tender aspirations. It is very serious and it is not suffering one jot because of that. Now arrives a crescendo of strings and wind and her piercing voice, struggling in the vague undercurrent of malady and melancholy. Life is hard. It does have a bit of Thom Yorke overwroughtness in it. I bet if he wasn't so wrapped up in Alice Coltrane and his magnetic refrigerator then he'd be a big fan. Me and Thom share many things in common my friends. Superfluous H's are not among our shared traits. I am, actually, rather atached to my H. Next track, skeletal piano thumping, as dramatic as the last track. It is rather good and things improve even more greatly when a desperate violin joins the fray and introduces a sublime melody into the darkness. It's winter and the age is filled with heartache and tumult, the world is sh*t don't you know. Is this all the work of one person? It sounds clever beyond the years/means. But then Austria does have a pedigree that extends beyond Falco and the soil infuses the tubers and legumes with a proud heritage in the arts. That sounds like an aryan postcard! Well done! I am racist. It is true. I did not vote for Joebama. But honestly have you watched the man's recent performance? Tell me that this foolish little man has the temperament to be leader of the free world. He is perfect for the age a narcissist who views himself as a character out of literature but then i suppose he must imagine himself as Sam Fong introducing America to his global brand with Fong's roles reversed as we the public are berated for not appreciating his genius and his wife receives the fawning treatment at home. This is an elegant instrumental called Turbine Womb, reserve comment on the title, it means little outside of the context of her angst but the music is sublime. All of the songs are brief, compact interludes of darkness that induce a fragile melancholia and then depart before having fully consumed the collective soul of the room. The chair, the lamp, the window remain sentient. Next track. Cynthia. This record could be compared to the first Frida Hyvonnen record but not convincingly even as each record is mainly a fierce and agile female at the piano. This is less conventional than Frida, it is teen anthems for the harrowing and filled with a semi-brutal composition of the scarred landscape of the age(hyperbole) rather than the conversational colloquial pouring forth of the heart. I don't know the technical terms for describing the music currently on display but a lower register melody line carries the rhythm of the track and above a tinkling higher pitched line pierces the rough exterior. It is at once glamourous and romantic when combined with her diseased, smoky, unkempt appearance. Next track, more of the same, spare, Fall Foliage. The song titles are mainly silly. This is perhaps alienated rather than alien. In the era of golden weather this might have been released on Too Pure or at the least 4ad. It's off, an outsider with an agenda or a fine record collection or perhaps a hip elder sibling to tutor them in the ways of the world outside of the mainstream. I am an inhabitant of the mainstream. Or so I think when I read the internets but then I interact with real people who all have shared popular culture reference points and I don't understand and there won't be any Soap&Skin jokes at work on Monday morning. I can keep up with references from the Office and how many terrorists Jack Bauer has killed and that is about it. Song over, more electronics in the future, please. It was very nice. Next song, more of the same, pretty, ethereal, seemingly full of substance but really rather twee. She's like 13. Are Austrians capable of twee. I don't recall many Austrian indiepop records. Not even on Apricot or Marsh Marigold. It's getting faux-dramatic, an anatomy lesson lyrically. When she is older she will be more subtle, she will turn the dynamics of pop colour wheels on the thrills of splendid arrangements and not on the constrained terseness of emo bleatings about the hollow pits of stomachs. She could be a child of the generation that Anton Webern claimed would revel in humming atonal melodies while delivering the mail. Or some such. I didn't actually read that article that was linked to on ALDaily so I am being vague but then I am aware of some pillars of the Second Viennese school and St Rupert's and Kurt Godel and the Austrian School of Economics. Ludwig V would be appalled at this monstrosity about to be delivered still born by the gynecongressmans. Another lovely song now, vague, impressively so, piano, whispers, some strings, pretty. Next is a bit of teutonic goodness. Some non-english title. A repeating loop of strings and electronics at the entry, her multi-tracked voice, it's a bit Cloudboy this. Perhaps when Cloudboy did their European theater tour 5 or 6 years ago they influenced an entire generation of young girls to lean passively against walls and murmur the contents of their dream journals out into space accompanied by people classically trained. This is gorgeous and epic seeming. It once required some fair share of money and effort to sound epic but no longer as surely this was recorded in her bedroom under the stars in a haze of cigarettes and tea. Her bedroom could be a possibly frightening place for outsiders where dream poets and oneironauts plunge headfirst into battles for Soap&Skin's soul. A dream staged death to equal a hit pop song, St George, Ivan the terrible, Lemony Snicket. Over. Now back to the sedate playing, all very Cloudboy. Demarnia was clearly not the first of a line. There was all of the silliness promulgated by the likes of Projekt records and perhaps that is the more accurate classification, this belongs to that ethereal genus that binds like minded toilers such as Black Tape for a Blue Girl, Love Spirals Downwards, etc...there was something Fortunate hazel mentioned about Norwegian Cold Meat Industry or... A lovely middle section now with squiggly effects, tempered melodrama and a rollicking Noel Coward pop tune on the piano so out of place as to be absolutely delightful. There may also be bits of Danny Elfman. Yes. The Sun is the title, the most mundane title camouflages the most uncommon track on the album. Next, now to something more modern, glitch, overexposed electronics, very Hood circa 2001. This would fall nicely among the pastoral singlemindedness of Make Mine Music. Did she send them a copy? I don't know which label this is about to be released on. Perhaps the web sheriff could clue me in. This appears to be an instrumental, it works alright in context within the album as a whole but if she were to have released an entire album of this it might have been unfortunately overlooked. Still it's isn't as dull as the term dabbling might indict it as. Repetition is key. Uneasiness. This is not well known or is it. I am currently pining over Vivien Leigh. I've watched Waterloo Bridge three times and can't shake loose of its intense melancholy. It was Vivien's favorite of her films, apparently, it's got a ridiculously affecting ending. Last track, Brother of Sleep, gorgeous, once again, this is early contender for one of the albums of the year. It's better than the Polly Scattergood record, that much is certain. Loads more repetition and strings and beautiful things all mixed together to form a tinsel'd heart of darkness.

The Belleisle record from last year is really very good. I have been reading reviews. It has been interesting. They all say the same thing. What is the point of everyone being a real "record reviewer" if they are not anything other than mimics? Wean yourself. The Ibex always lets me down. Belleisle girls look so much the part of young girls from Montreal. Young girls from Montreal don't look like young girls from Montreal but they are instantly identifiable as "young" girls from Montreal. It must be all the milk, all that calcium late in the evening. I am drinking so much milk these days.