Listening to Plastic Mastery in preparation for the Gold-Bears record that is allegedly out soon. Something good on Slumberland? Sacre Bleu! Plastic Mastery are, of course, underappreciated musical gods who make my pedal feel featherlight while I listen and drive at the same time. It's Plastic Mastery weather.

New Alessi's Ark seems to have lost a lot of the girlish charm of the first record. Simon Raymonde's fault?

Update: It isn't as girlish but it is still utterly charming. More later.

If translations of lyrics on youtube are to be trusted then I have greatly misjudged Arnaud. It seems he's delightfully odd!

Maria Minerva Talinn at Dawn. How to be Estonian? I don't know. More homemade seeming electronic made in a bedroom made for eleven dollars but super cool electronic pop. See Bachelorette. I expect she'll land in a Hyundai commercial soon. I will be thrilled. Better her than Belle and Sebastian. I was watching Belle and Sebastian youtubes today and realized instantly, months have passed, that the new record is dreadful. But I also remembered a bit of advice from Stuart Murdoch when they were playing some festival and he was critiquing the other bands based on their dress and he came to the sensible conclusion that the more fashionable that a band's dress appeared the less likely it was that they had anything interesting to say in their music. He cited as examples in the pro-arctic monkeys who look terrible but seemed interesting and in the con- kaiser chiefs who represented the opposite end of the spectrum. Second track is on. I don't know how Maria Minerva dresses. She could be extremely fashion conscious, on the cutting edge, hanging out the same anti-semitic clubs as John Galliano but her music doesn't suffer terribly from the company. The vocals are almost vacant, barely there, the music is primitive and rudimentary but it's lovely all the same. California Scheming. Does it mean anything at all? I may have had a great deal of contact with former Estonians in my youth as Livonia, Mi was settled by Estonians. Allegedly. Colorado doesn't have such enclaves. In the Detroit area there is Hamtramck(where you can buy great Paczkis, the real ones, the ones that weigh 11 pounds each), there is Dearborn where you can get some great hummus, there is Sterling Heights(my hood) where nothing happens and then there is Livonia. Livonia of course is Wrn Defever's hometown. It is an interesting place, there are neighbourhoods where every house looks identical, the same red builder's grade brick, single story ranches, where there must be a small that differentiates each home for the owner because I can't make them out on my own with my eyes. Second track, a bit like the first, drum program preset, disembodied voices, it's for hipsters. We love it. We aren't hipsters. Ask our Thursday friend. Has Maria been to Livonia? Possibly the original Livonia. In Estonia. Or is it Latvia? I forget. It is probably filled with Stalin's footprints still puddled with the blood of the innocents. Kwame Nkumrah has probably been to Livonia. In Estonia. This song could be a travelogue of her travels in Livonia. I'd rather that His Name is Alive's Livonia evinced the real Livonia. Third track, floaty sampled voice, her voice more substantial, a bit Demarnia Lloyd. I posted a Cloudboy video recently. I am still in love with Demarnia Lloyd. It is all down to the name right? This is my girlfriend "Demarnia". Very cool. She wouldn't need to say a word. There isn't a whole lot happening on these songs. Bachelorette has clear ambition but I am wondering if my earlier suspicions about Maria are correct, of if she is a Nightingale the same as Walter Reuther, "she closes her eyes when she sings, and listens to nobody but herself". It's ok, I rather like it. Soon the days will begin to shorten. Where we live is on the eastern edge of the time zone. It is daylight here by 5am. This is not natural. In Livonian, in Winter, it isn't daylight until after 8am. Next track, Tallinn at Dawn, the title track. Sounds a lot like the last few tracks. She's not incredibly eclectic in her musical stylings. Should we admonish her for this? yes, but sometimes it is about the sound. We don't mind that the Acid House Kings sound the same on every record because they've hit on a sound and the fact that they sing in an affectless, emotion free register is of little concern. I will stop using the We. It is annoying, we find. This is an instrumental, she must have spent minutes on it. Next track, a bit more urgent, spacey synths, disembodied stereoscopic voice, tinny drum machine. Is tinny drum machine an option on Garage Band? Was this recorded on Garage Band. There are rumors that there will be another record this year. Will it be more developed? These are the black and white negatives, the tubes of cookie dough, the germinates. I could make this record. I will spend a few minutes tonight making this record. You will then review it and tell me how amazing and awesome I am. But I am not from Estonia. I could claim that I am from Livonia. I could bring Paczkis! Have you had a real Paczki? Not the fake jelly donuts at the grocery store. They will shorten your life by 11 minutes and 13 seconds, on each bite. Another track, a lot like the 5 or 6 previous. I will send her a book on how to write music, written by Martin Carr, it will be in the shape of a cd and instead of reading it she will play it in her discman in her trabant. Diversity is our strength. Isn't that the empty platitude that rules above the rest of the empty platitudes? I don't understand the whole concept of ethnic states. Are Estonians naturally drawn to defending other Estonians and is this only because people tend to be discriminated against because of their ethnicities and at this lies the root of coalescence? It isn't our similarities but our shared misery. Perhaps. Stalin ate Estonians with tacos. New Life. If she had someone who knew how to write music she might be super cool. She's got the ethereal chick goodness happening. She could write the lyrics in Estonian, emanate a true international ardor, write lyrics romancing the flat tax, poo poo'ing Olav Reju! I would be enchanted. I do rather like this. It's empty, vacuous, undemanding, but pleasant and dreamy. If it was from Lakewood, Colorado I might have a different opinion. But it is from Estonia. Jack Keoruac lived in Lakewood for a short period. I've driven by his home. It doesn't draw a lot of attention. I don't think. I haven't been on weekends. George Gamow's grave does not draw much attention either. People in Colorado are too concerned with their next rep of squat thrusts and mountain climbing to be concerned with the history that surrounds them. Even the dinosaur tracks seem lonely. Woe be to the Igaunadon! Stairs to Nowhere. Hmmm...if she made a real disco album it might be cool. All of this speculation on how great she'd be if she wasn't not great. Maria isn't as interesting a name as Demarnia but you could introduce her as my girlfriend Maria Minerva, always the pair, she could wear a name plate across her forehead. Oh, the last song is more interesting, multiple voices, cacophony, messiness, charming. She could come to Denver and the cultural monotony would force her to live inside her head the same as I do and create colours and space in her music. right now, it's greys and greis and grays.

Listening to new Panda Bear on NPR's site. It starts off very nice. Very reminiscent of the last record.

Update: Second track is buzzier with the same angelic vocals as on the first track. This is more Sonic Boom-ish? How much did he shape the record?

Update: New mix of Slow Motion is not so new. Hmmm...the repetitiveness is not as hypnotic as on the first album. I guess having Sonic Boom mix a repetitive record is the right choice. See Playing with Fire.

Update:Surfer's Hymn is seemingly pretty great!

Update: So far it is love. Off to sleep.

The Thoughts I Won't Keep You Here. A very sad record. A bit like Beirut, this is. His voice and delivery reminds very much of Tears Like X-Ray Eyes. It's folky, it's tender, gentle and desperately romantic. It's Sunday evening and on some occasions a Sunday evening could resemble any of those modifiers. On some Sundays in some hearts there is melancholia and dreamings and muted heartbeats weighed down by dread of the week that has past and the week to come. I really really like this album. I've just decided this and it is only playing for the second time. I am not certain when I acquired this record. This afternoon was the first time I played it. The first ever. After someone had departed. After I decided not to attend a house warming party because it was cold and snowy and I really wanted to get an appropriate fertilizer down on my grass. I gave my visiting friend a copy of Mr Tompkins in Paperback, she will despise this book, but that is alright. People should give other people books as gifts more often. I love to give books to people and see them unopened on the shelf, there is magic inside and one day when they are compelled by forces outside of our control, without our cognition, they will crack the seal and be taken in and forever changed and improved. Or not. George Gamow is a favorite. He would enjoy the thoughts. I imagine he would take his wife to see a thoughts concert even in his advanced age and slowly they'd dance, arms entwined, hands clasped and swoons in full effect. I went to his grave again today. I am obsessed. I was thinking of the Thoughts. A Pun. An untruth actually, I was thinking of lunch. I had a tuna melt. Second track, opens with an a capella moment of weakness, very nice, his voice isn't musical, it's emotional. Is that better? Only you can answer that question. There were days when i would sit at home in my childhood bedroom and listen to music such as this in the dark at 3AM and feel safest, safer than I have ever felt in the world. Not because of some lament over lost love but of a requiem for a lost life. A participant forever. And then there was a moment. some years ago. And then there were more. A girl with a familiar name, a name that carried weight in other's hearts but which was meaningless when we were together. And then there was a stranger. The end. My parents feared for my life. Was it the silence, was it the wave function of my momentum, was it the psychic connection forged at birth. Unknown. Third track. Another beautiful and very sad track. All of the tracks and beautiful and quite sad. There are three of them. I don't know a single thing about any of them but if one of them happened to be from Boulder, Colorado I would not need to pretend to be unsurprised. It wasn't windy this afternoon but I was not on my bicycle. I was concerned about my grass. Earlier I had my toes in the snow, frozen in place, praying for capillary action. I keep mentioning this, all week, to strangers who did not ruin my life, to strangers who will likely never grace my presence with their kindness, it must be tiresome. It may sound like a pose. It may sound like compulsion. Third song has finished, it was lovely. Another one has begun, nice. They have the presence to convince the listener that they mean it. Perhaps they do. I wrote a vague entry on the suicide of someone I used to love. Someone I thought I might marry. Someone who told me they were going to marry someone else because I never asked her. Someone who emailed me after a year to tell me of the birth of her daughter and someone whose mother called me on Friday before Christmas to tell me her daughter was dead. And then someone whose mother sent me a diary where I filled most of the pages, where a life not led was illustrated and annotated and documented with such care and precision that the grief I did not feel for her passing because of shock was felt for her passing from longing. I am a terrible person. I am a really terrible person. it is why I keep myself apart. I make people care for me and then I disappear. Fifth song is about disappearing, it's beautiful too. First my edges fade, they become indistinct and then I fade from your thoughts and when a hand is reached out I have mine plugging my ears and whisperings of inadequacy fill my mouth. But this record. Now an acoustic guitar and twinkles, very very softly now, it is very reminiscent of the first Tears in X-Ray Eyes record but it's nicer than that. Why isn't this where Mumford and Sons are now? This track might actually concern turf, Winterkill but there is mention of beasts and him being the winterkill. A metaphor? Pink Snow Mold and Kikuyu? Next track, a bit more rocking, for them, a bit more like a normal folk rock band. His voice is pitched higher and more urgent. Where before it was whispers and sighs now it is plaintive please and poetic determination. I've been to George Gamow's grave now 7 times. I've only read three of his books. Well four. I've only given one of them as a gift. On the airplane ride home I advised my departing friend to check the rivets and welds before she jumped across the jetway. I am flying southwest soon. I hope I have some of the same excitement on my flight. Next track, back to the sweetness, very pretty sweetness on display. I imagine him writing a song for all of his girlfriends, the evening after his first date, when the passion is at its zenith and it is emotion without reason filling in the gaps and causing the edifice to fall to pieces. This one would be for the one who wears long sleeves to the beach, in the middle of July. And he would understand and he would compare her to Syliva Plath, its a cliche, he knows, but she would find his insights dramatic and heart rendered and pledge her undying commitment to love. Or something like that. I can't write songs. I could write lyrics. I would probably compare long sleeves wearers to Flannery O'Connor instead and end up spent and alone watching a Katherine Heigl movie on cable television wondering over this hell on earth. The Thoughts would not be soundtracking that scene, probably Mumford and Sons. Next track, starts off with some raucous macabre doings and then falls back to a gentle appreciation. His voice is trembly and slight. It's headphone music for certain. Today I received a message as a test. I failed the test. On purpose. I am going to become the person I am when I write about myself. I am going to be witty, charming and affable. I am going to go out into the moonshine and call out to the world all of my heart's longings and desires and hope that an answer returns from deep in the ether where there are all of the answers to imponderables written in runic figures on tablets made of comets and ghosts. It will be a religious experience. I could sell tickets. I could send a book to the fates as a gift in return, perhaps The Doctor is Sick. Title track now. I played ice hockey on Saturday night, two weekends in a row I have played ice hockey. Last night before I played I had a furious row with my legs. Since I've been riding my bicycle my legs feel like rubber and of bare practical use when I am not on a bicycle. When I ride I am compelled to ride as fast as I can. I can't ride very fast. not yet, old ladies on their huffy cruisers blow past me on occasion, but i stepped on the ice and felt as if I had angel wings attached to my ice skates and the stream that forms quickly beneath each blade must have been slackened with glycerin or stuff from the ether itself. The same sort of material which allows heavenly seeming records such as this to be made. It's earnest now. I'm earnest now. I don't tell anyone that I am earnest because it is gauche. If I were to join the thoughts it would not be to be part of the musical ensemble but to brood in the background and to understand the maudlin nature of existence in sympathy with each note on display. Just two tracks left now. This one has a strong announcing movement, I rather like it. he has a poetic seeming voice the same as Beirut and so the words that bellow forth have a more poetic sheen than say what comes from the mouth of the Arcade Fire. Blood and Bones, it's a bit Irish, are they Irish? The Irish are typically sincere. While I've been reading a great deal of the English Civil War recently the Irish have not been made out well. Savages. Cromwell took it to them rather ruthlessly after he took care of Charles I. But I don't think the Thoughts are Irish. It is a silly name for a band. Last track. A bit Harvest Ministers violin, speaking of the Irish and sincerity and goodness. People often mistake me for being Irish. My name looks irish but it is Scottish. I tell everyone I am Canadian. I used to be. It is surprisingly intriguing to certain types who wish to think better of me than they should. If I could dream dreams with the songs of the Thoughts playing softly in the background commingled with laughter and joy and tears of delight then i could learn to love.