Heard two songs off of the upcoming Sambassadeur album Days and I'll Try. Wonderful! Their own version of teenage symphonies in digital.

Update:Piano. Nice. I can't remember what I wrote the last time that I wrote about a Sambassadeur record. It is possible that I never have written about a Sambassadeur record. I was quoted once on the Labrador website when they released the Subtle Changes single. That was a laff, "really, really terrific"--Trumpet Army Opposite. There is some gravitas to be found in that endorsement. I think I always meant to state that Sambassadeur have more of a sound than a body of songs. All of the songs are vaguely similar although perhaps they do add a bit of soul on this one. But then here on first track Stranded you realize this could have come off of any Sambassadeur record. Especially the last one. They sound better and better with each succeeding record but then that merely reinforces the bias that they somehow worked late one evening in the Labrador laboratory and came up with this infectious sound revolving around "Digital??" strings and cheerfulness and a deadpan "pop" voice. It is true, however, that on Days she has a turn at the soulful diva bit. Really. It, Days, is playing now and the music is the same as always, perfect, but the voice is oddly human. The man does not sing at all on this record. Wise decision. Nobody will pull out pens from inches deep in exposed arteries and write a deep, devotional letter to the kind og Labrador on the greatness of him and the crime of excluding him from this record. Not really. Are these real strings in the middle break? Is it difficult to make them seem synthetic when they are real? I imagine they are poor and unable to afford real strings especially not now that Sound of Arrows have exited the Labrador ghetto. The Sound of Arrows record will disappoint me so grievously, I am starting to fret, I haven't any reason to express such concerns but you know Pas/Cal have left jagged, unhealing scars on my heart. Third song. More of the same "greatness". This is an amazingly amazing record. Just realise that you've heard it all before. This is the last of the upbeat chipper ones before the more somber middle section of the record. Perhaps there was an osmium shortage and so they lacked the catalyst for pep, there is a atmosphere of vibes and joy and warmth and the sound is rather perfect if you have indiepop ears like the ones that are still attached to my skull though now they are mostly vestigial. Are they maths students? I picture them, or possibly just one of them, as a maths student. I picture one of them, possibly the unmissed male singer who is probably doing something else on this record, lamenting his course in matrices and thinking to himself "I am not Werner Heisenberg, whaty use have I for matrices?" I don't know. I finished Linear Algebra myself and haven't encountered a matrix in all of my vast travels since. I haven't looked behind the refrigerator here though. Werner is often painted in a bad light because of his work on the Nazi bomb though of course he famously claims to have sabotaged the effort from within but who can be sure. My impression of him is the anti-Pauli but with a bit more substance than Einstein. Pacifists are great in that they are willing to let everyone else die for them you know. If there was a limited edition set of Solvay trading cards I'd plump for a Dirac, a Pauli and two copies of an Ernest Rutherford. The song playing now has more of the digital seeming strings and is somber and lovely. Her voice is wan and desolate, you could try to wrap your arms around it but only spectral trails and dust. How many records does Labrador move? Are they big in Japan? Are they bigger then Matinee? Let's hope they are bigger than Matinee since Labrador has good bands and Matinee has Northern Portrait. I still mean to demean that record sometime in the near future. I won't say it's bad just that it is the most soul destroying record I've heard in a long time. Is that awful? Probably, but then I am an awful person. Ask anyone. Next track, another somber track, more minimal, drums that sound like drum machines and a whispered acoustic guitar and then washes of strings. Very nice. Much better than the Dennis Wilson cover they blah blah blah'd their way through on the last record. Not sure why, on a nine song record, you would include a cover. Maybe it was a label suggestion. You know the kids today, they are all mad for Dennis Wilson!!! At least it wasn't Neil Young. Monica Queen is mad for Neil Young. There is the His Name is Alive cover of Blue Moon which has the nice side story of being the only song on the Mouth by Mouth album that Warren Defever's mother liked because she knew it wasn't by him. Ha. People in Livonia are havin'it! Sorry, I just watched a Stone Roses documentary. Manchester in the area! Old rock stars are lame. Next track, more minimal still, no strings, a couple of guitars and her voice. Her pitch is perfect but it is here when you sense she's not really into it. It sounds lovely and all but it also sounds vacant. Is that the goal? A Velvet Underground and Anna for the kids. The kids are mad for Lou Reed! He's old. See earlier bit about old people. I still like it, in spite of her emoitonal unavailability. Next track, pensive instrumental. Guitars, guitars, played or plucked slowly, slightly out of phase, nice. Over, I was, just now, reading Pitchfork's review of this record, they mailed it in. Seems like all Sambassadeur records are granted 7.0, C-. Unfair. Sandy Dunes now, their Phil Spector moment. It's marvelous. Pitchfork dude says they don't match their peaks from the past, he's crazy, this is as good as they have ever been. It's Camera Obscura without the feigned miserabilia. They're Swedish, they invented nihilistic existentialism, it is to do with the midnight sun and lack of pigment. I love this song. The entire record is a dream. How old are they? They don't seem young. Are they old? What is old? I consider myself old. I have not yet reached 40. Have Sambassadeur? There isn't a youthful verve on any of these records that they've made, just a polished sense of pop craftsmanship that is more admirable than daring. These are the sorts of records the people from Red Sleeping Beauty should be making rather than those dreary things they make with that guy in the Charade. Her voice is just a piece of furniture in a splendidly decorated apartment. We don't mind. Last song. Oh wait, there is a cover, Tobin Sprout, bah! Tobin Sprout has never written anything as good as a Sambassadeur song, bah. Abolish your false idols. Maybe they are old, only old people listen to Guided by Voices records. Last track, starts off slow and then moves into a mid tempo'd sci-folk bit of philosphizing. Aerials up, raise your hands to the heavens, a coded sort of emptiness broadcast across the frozen expanse to the north up into the ether, to the stars, say hello, we're glad you're here, stay warm.