The Long Lost is wonderful!

Update: The Long Lost The Long Lost. This could have been Siesta. Who do they need to pay off to make it onto Siesta? There is a beautiful spring day peering in through the window, through the newly leafed out Aspens. My father is old school, he calls them poplars. He's technically correct but we're oh so snobbish about our Aspens. At this elevation they die prematurely, they reach their ultimate demise when they reach 15 inch dbh, cytospora, leaf spot, blah blah blah. Ephemeral trees are best in that they live fast and furious. Not like those stodgy breeds that live forever, a bristlecone pine, casting aspersions at the winds in the wisps that frolic in their shadowed playground. Bristlecone pines are important to dendrology. Of course if you were to study the dendrology record for this year you might miss the fact that we were frightfully dry up until recently, months and months of the dry and then all of the precipitation in one burst. You might mistake this year for normal. But scientists make mistakes, it is what they do, it is why they need welfare. Is Daedelus a scientist? Unknown. He looks pretty nerdy on his Wiki page. Does he mean to have misspelled Daedelus? Unknown. His given name is Alfred. I think he should have kept the name Alfred instead of adopting Daedelus. Daedalus of course is Icarus' father, the attempted murderer of the inventor of the saw, honeys and ants and wax and fodder for Verlaines songs. First song is meandering folk, unfocused voices, a path to an end. What are Alfred's favorite trees? Is he an arborist in his spare time? The Emperor of the Air as Ethan Canin might posit? Probably not, he looks frail and unsturdy, he might be Patridge-like in real life. I don't know. His wife is in the band. She's the singer. He sings, but not often. Here is a song that sounds a bit like a song off of Sol Y Sombra. High praise! If only you knew how much I love those Siesta human compilations. Goodness those things are brilliant. So sad that they have told Ramon Leal to go home and die or something. Today is Sunday. I spent it eating Indian Food and then later I went downtown and sat and watched people play chess and wrote descriptions of people who walked past. I do this about once a month. I keep a bound notebook, gold embossed, it is filled with writings that do not go anywhere in particular, it is an exercise log, a journal of effluvia, a bit like these songs. Are they meant to be deep and revelatory? I can't imagine so. Even with the pretense of misspelling Greek mytholoical heroes it seems like this is just a throwaway record of delightful pop nuggets. Third song now Sibilance, its' a bit clever this, with all of the sibilant tones, silver, slippery, skipping, seven, etc...English majors make decent pop stars. A tempo change into an electronic flourish now with digital strings, his vacant voice, and whirrs and drums, nice. All the while her voice remains aboe it all dizzyingly obscure. What was his wife's major? Would she disagree with the city of Denver's outright ban on the planting of Autumn Blaze Maples on city boulevards? She might. But then Autumn Blaze Maples are just prettied up Silver Maples which fall done and murder lonely people on walks with ipods as companions with but only the slightest breath of wind. Next song. One about girls who wear glasses, are their lives as repressed as we all imagine they must be? I like a girl in glasses. But then I don't make passes at the bespectacled nor to the non-bespectacled. I am equally non-opportunistic. I feel as if I have finished my book. I have written a beginning and an end and some things in between but I am not sure it is a book. What is a book? I have been reading loads of them recently and they all seem to get a bit lost in the middle. Anything over 300 pages probably should not be over 300 pages. This is my thought. My book is not over 300 pages. I could have sewn in some short stories as well. I wrote a story about someone I went golfing with. It was inspired by a golf partner. I don't think she would recognize the inspiration. But then life is interpretive. Next song. Past Perfect. More about grammar? When you write a book is it always semi-autobiographical? I wrote about my life experience from when i was 21-23. It was not an exciting time for me in real life, I was on a path to greatness and then I was derailed. I suppose it is the last time I had any sort of emotional turbulence. Since then I've been a bit of a tree, a Linden, a noble Linden, boring and green, spade shaped, stronger than I would appear. But the hunan parade downtown was strange, there were some people who clearly were part of some existential pageant and others who blended in and others who just looked comfortable being generic and sterile. I am too harsh. I wrote it all down. I also enjoy going to the cemetery and taking my gold embossed notebook, I bought it for myself, and making a list of names lifted from the cemetery plots. Is that morose? I could write a chapter on pogonotrophy! Politicians with beards are not to be trusted. How much is Mark Sanford reveling in Michael Jackson death? Expect him to commission a commemorative stamp sometime next week in relief at the misdirection of the media glare away from his romp in Argentina to the king of pop. Next song, airy vocals, chirpiness, chaotic folk music, I rather like this record. I received a nice email from someone from that Antler collective that I can't ever name correctly. The one with difficult sorts who make sometimes lovely records like say the people in the Knit Separates. it was specifically to thank me for mentioning the Knit Separates. I love the Knit Separates. They were not usually difficult. There was the one 7 minute bit of tunelessness on the album but I found the album for 99 cents, I could bear it. Now Daedelus is singing, it seems like an audition for Scarlet's Well. Nice. I love Scarlet's Well, Scarlet's Well are on Siesta. It's all relevant to someone. It's not as whimsically grotesque as a Scarlet's well song, the strings are serious and the performance flat and decorous but it is very good. Sirens and somberness. Oh ho, it is called Siren Song. What is Daedelus' own material like? He's on Ninja Tune so I imagine he takes himself far too seriously for my liking but you never know. Is it a million miles removed from this? This is all too lovely. Next song, another song about spelling, I like to use the alternate spelling for color myself. Is this album about me? Have they been reading this website and laughing at my Canadian parapraxes? My Nolton Nash wannabe status is undeniable. Mostly it is understated. Mostly it was down to having a copy of Bump Wills Texas Ranger card from Canada that for strange reason was worth a lot of money (American Money not funny Canadian looneys) and I lost all of my copies of Bump Wills Canadian Baseball card. In Canada the backs of the cards were light tan. Why was this? But not en francais. Why Not? This song is a bit of fluff. But I don't mind, it touches my heart, my "could be pretentious but am far to simple" heart. The music here has a Wee Willy Hymn feel, nice, I imagine Daedelus is a fan of Alastair G. All right thinking people are. Nolton Nash had class. No wonder Peter Jennings fled to the USA, he never stood a chance. When Peter Jennings died there were not tributes on most radio stations. When Jeff Lynne dies there won't be tributes on most radio stations. Next song, harmonica, I have a friend, one that I treat so shabbily, that has an uncommon fear of harmonicas. I don't mind the harmonica but mostly they seem pointless. Which songs are they essential to? None. Really. Melt them down, build F-22 fighter planes with the metal. We need the F-22 Raptor because it's super cool. Who cares if it costs 100 million a plane it's crazy one plane can allegedly shoot down 13 planes without even being detected. I'd like a Raptor for myself. I could have an inner city Harmonica trade-in program, instead of the kids trading in their Glocks and Tech Nines they can hand in their Harmonicas and I would give them a mix cd as compensation. A mix Cd with Montt Mardie and Hood songs on it. They would be set on the right path. Have you seen the show Life After People or whatever it is called, it is on the History channel, well last week they went to Detroit and the funny thing is they didn't need to recreate digitally the effects of Life Without People since something like 25% of Detroit city limits have been abandoned since the riots. It was hilarious. Detroit was once a beautiful city, Palmer Park, The fashion District in Livonia, Belle Isle, etc...Now it really does need to be blown up. If only to grant werewolves free range. I could get behind Obama's plan to bulldoze it and plant soy beans for Chinese biofuels. Will it happen? No. We must preserve our urban demise, it's part of our heritage. Dave Bing is mayor. He played shooting guard for the Pistons in the 60s and 70s. He founded Bing Steel. I haven't any idea if he made good steel or not but why he wanted to be mayor of Detroit is a puzzle. Bill Laimbeer has a better job and he coaches the ladies basketball team. Last song was about a cat, not all that great. Maybe this album is not fantastic? Cats are a prickly subject. They don't inspire cinematic greatness the same as dogs do. One of the most devastatingly sad motion pictures ever is My Dog Skip when that kid from Malcolm in the Middle reaches down and smacks Skip my heart died! And then there have been myriad other classics like C.H.O.M.P, Old Yeller, Lassie. Can you name a good movie about a cat? No, you can't. There shouldn't be cat songs either. Actually I can't seem to recall any quality songs about dogs, oh wait, Neil Diamond's Shiloh is pretty ace, so dogs win again. This one is Woebegone, a Garrison Keillor tribute? I don't know, I was just now lost in my Dog theory, too far gone to pay attention to the lyrics but it really was a very nice song. Now a more striking arrangement on the next song, martial drumbeats, glockenspiels?, pretty voices, I love this and now cello, oooo!!! Finders Keepers. I am not much into the words on the last few. This one seems pretty dumb. Is the whole point of the record to write songs about mundane subjects? I think it may be. Pretty vacancy. This is very pretty and mostly banal. They are not always contradictory. Ask Keira Knightley! I need to clean my keyboard, I really should have gotten a black computer. I am messy. I've always been a mess. It's strange because my parent's are neatniks and so are my brothers. I may be adopted. But they adopted me from someone who looks just like my mother. That song was very nice, it deserved more commentary. I apologize. Next one is a call and response Brunettes-esque number. More banality, the existential angst of suburbia, not as penetrating as they probably imagine it to be. Can you qualify someone else's happiness? There are joys in the tiniest of tasks, mowing the lawn, cleaning the water spots off of stemware, Billy Mays filling the air while cheetos crawl down the front of your shirt. His voice is less generic than hers and I can dig it, I might have demanded more songs of this sort if I had been the executive producer. I might have suggested a song to be written about Magic Shell. Last song. Circular melody, cello, samples, Tim Burton audition. He's singing again, I am pleased again. Her voice is too typical ethereal girl affairs. He's got an awkward tunefulness. I don't think I'd enjoy an entire record of his pitiable croon but I like it in small measures. This is a basic love song. It's the appropriate sendoff for the ordinaries.