Because my Holiday season has been filled only with long books and decent movies ('An Education' is not bad) I've noticed, in between, that Sound of Arrows and Bachelorette each have songs in automobile commercials.

Post-Christmas Prettiness!

Danny Norbury Light in August. Another record that perhaps should have ended up on Make Mine Music or made in Iceland. Either way. Pianos, scraping violins, lovely things abound. It's pastoral and fey and escapist and romantic and beautiful. All of my favorite things. I have this hole in the middle of me from worry and sickness from worry and fear that I am about to lose something. I don't have anything of value though. If I woke up tomorrow having lost everything that I have today I would have lost little of value. Not even my fabulous new sofa, well pair of sofas. It was like Spring today, thank goodness for global warming, the tides have been turned back by the bureaucrats in Copenhagen. Hallelujah. What is it about men with their messiah complexes? Now Al Gore is being feted as a poet. More piano, more violins, such loveliness should be treasured. When it is warm all of the time will this sound as pristine and wonderful? Will the sweat perpetually perched above my brow cause me consternation and worry the same as I feel now except as a source of existential ennui will I not be able to abide and find myself reaching for a copy of Vulgar Display of Power instead and later find myself starting a war in the middle east over my frustration at not being able to marvel at a Danny Norbury record. Who is Danny Norbury? Who is Rudi Arapahoe? Are these skilled classically trained musicians? This is probably just practice, finger exercises for the knowledgable and talented but for me, it is a revelation. A radiant glimpse into the heart of all of the stars in the sky. Third song. No vocals. More violins. It seems as if bands should hear this record and decide that they want to merge with Danny Norbury and co opt his talents and save on overhead and corner a market in terrifically pretty instrumental music. A Deaf Center/Norbury record might be landmark. I was about to write about Svete Gairner which is one half of Deaf Center and which is a really fabulous record as well but I am writing about Danny Norbury because someone named Danny Norbury should not be making music this lovely. Lovely is lovely. I write lovely and yet I rarely say it. It is an Anglophile's tick and it is easier to display irritants such as this in print rather than in person. If I met you, my one dear reader, I would come off more Canadian than Anglo. Anglo-Canadian. My father had his left eye removed. He has a hole in the side of his face where his eye used to be. He does not have cancer in the brain. I spent a few days earlier this autumn contemplating my life without my father. I couldn't listen to music like this then because it would turn my pensiveness to distress. I don't handle shocking news well. I was told I had a cataract and nearly fainted. I was told that there might be cancer in my father's optic nerve and I nearly fainted. He's always there. He's not ever tried to be anyone he wasn't. He's got this inborn integrity that screams silently but only by example. I should be more like my father. I possess gifts he never dreamt of, or perhaps he did. I've never asked my father about his dreams. I was always closer to my mother. The daughter she never had. All of my friends are girls. My father never had a best friend. I don't have a best friend. I don't have any friends. Danny Norbury is my lonely virtual friend, the tenderness with which he caresses the notes here, the basic repeating patterns, the elegiac violin, the words that would come to fill in the desperate moments of melancholy but don't ever arrive. Only one person that I have ever loved has died. In absentia. My father is on the golf course. I send words across a 2000 mile void, over digital lines, and I try to personify them into all of the emotions and actions I should grant the people I love so freely. But I can't. Next song, more aching violin, the music is leading me into this path of macabre reflection. it is now a few weeks later. I didn't see the hole in my father's skull. I was in Seattle. I was at a funeral. Aspen Trees. I listened to this record after the funeral. Now two people I have loved have died. I am getting older. I am old. The dead no longer age. It is a startling feeling when one reads one's own name in a suicide note pasted to a refrigerator with duct tape and grief ladled smears. When you spend Christmas in a state of guilt orchestrated partly from the great beyond and partly from a morbid sense of inferiority it is difficult to stay awake. Sleep is much preferred. Lying in bed with the window blinds cast open the moonlight casting luminous shadows across the platform bedroom furniture and your eyes closed to view movies projected involuntarily, subtitles in a language you never spoke, from a heart you never knew you had access to. Someone I loved and someone who hurt me more than I've ever allowed anyone to hurt me before then turned that echo of sadness, that reservoir of sorrow into an end undeserved. I sat in the rain, looking at the airplanes on their glide path. I looked and wondered at the happiness of airports. I cursed the glowing embers of contentment in the faces of those who knew they would return. I told my boss. I haven't told anyone else. Well, I told my ride. I haven't told anyone else. I could play I Turn Off the Last Light and Close the Door and not tell anyone else ever. Sad songs when you are sad are dangerous instruments. A distant reflective piano, an inspiration possibly born of the collective shroud of melancholy that threatens everyone who has never felt anything anyone would envy feeling. Never. Not ever. I didn't go to see my parents because I was ashamed of the fact that I wasn't feeling enough grief, I was stricken, I was not destroyed. Later, when I spent two days reading a journal I was never meant to read I learned that I had invoked or provoked all of the feelings I always longed to incite in a heart. But hearts can't talk. Light in August. This would have felt romantic one month ago. Well two. I would have swooned at the agile grace of sweep. Danny Norbury would have met only praise and hysteric joy from a naive soul. Now I watch other people revel in their grief, in public, and I hold mine secret. Two people I loved and two people who left, have now departed as strangers. Their shadows unrecognizable in the dimmed lightness of being. But the violin sighs. It is two months later. I still only feel capable of vague reflections on a tragedy. Suicide. When suicide's mother sends you a package that redeems your entire lifetime's worth of hope it is a remarkable thing. And today, strangely, I felt warmth pervade my stoicism. I feel suspicious when people are nice to me. I don't understand why anyone would want to share anything with me be it friendship or kindness or joy. And when they fear that I find them nothing at all like I find them I want to reassure them of their greatness, the brilliance of their everything that wears me out because I prefer to slouch poorly in the shadows surviving on notes from strangers scraping a violin desolately in some dusty English attic in the middle of June. Far from the sun. But you can't tell someone you care for how much you care for them. I try. I could create a simulacrum of emotion in a loosely woven string of sentences that would not breathe humanly at all. But there is the telephone line to animate, the modem to breath essence into, the ether to charge with emotion and I am not up to the task. Someone today effortlessly made everyone around her feel better. I was included in that group. It was an amazing thing to witness. Some people are truly blessed. The music in their soul plays on, endlessly beautiful.

Soap & Skin is the most wonderfully wintry record. I should re-read my entry on her. I think it was filled with endless praise, as well it should have been. Her next record might be really astonishing. When she turns 20.

New Klima album in January!:)

Granted, I have not heard the album, but, this is just silly.

Update: I have now heard the album and find that write-up even more ridiculous! More later.

New Brunettes song Red Rollerskates. Not emo. Hmmm...It's ok, I'll never love them again I am afraid. 2005 seems so far away now.

Puh! The Primitives have reformed? Will they only play 'Dizzy Heights' and the whole of 'Lovely'?

Lia Ices Necima. A hand cranked gadget for effects and a resonant piano, now strings and her voice. A whispering coo, kooky girl croon. A bit Emmy the Great only more desperate to appear odd, alternative, progressive. Medicine Wheel., Having someone declare you "odd" is the most magnificent thing ever. Everyone is brilliant or charming or "great" but so few are truly odd. I made someone a mix cd at work and she proclaimed to the rest of my coworkers that I was odd. So I am the "odd" one out so to speak, it is an enviable position to be in. When everyone else declares their devotion to John Mayer they can look at me and know I do not share similar sentiments. It is a load off of my mind, to be honest. Laboured breathing, this is not the pathway to odd. Studied composition and string arrangements and confident vodcalising isn't either. Lia Ices is actually only a few steps away from Norah Jones. Is it me or is Norah Jones not beautiful? I am not much for the music but she looks like a swell young lady. These strings sound smmoth. This song is a bit dull. Pitchfork has already reviewed this record. Some time ago. If it was a book this would be a Julian Barnes book. It is was a short story it wouldn't be a Stephen Millhauser short story. I miss Stephen Millhauser, I cried the day he died. Note: I don't think he died. This song is too long. This song is too dull. When you are dull and are not completely aware of it you should practice brevity as a rule until someoen can clearly state the reasons in some sort of manifesto as to why you are indeed dreadfully dull and boring. I don't subscribe to this rule here but in "real" life I am mute, mainly. I walk around with headphones in my ears looking for furniture that has the appearance of hand craftmanship from New England Amish tweakers but is actually made in Chinese Prison camps located near to a railroad. This album is similar. Second song. Thump thump on the drums, thrum thrum on the guitar, snooze. Will I make it through this album? Probably not. I am thinking of deleting it just now. I am going to search out a photo of Lia Icers. Is this her given name? It is sunny this morning. It is normally sunny most mornings. I like the keyboard squeezy electronic effects here, she should eliminate the rest of it, her voice, the guitar, the drums, etc...Half Life, in a poll of all of the songs named Half Lie in my Itunes library this would qualify second out of two. Tears in X-Ray Eyes has a much superior version. This is not a Tears in Xray Eyes cover. I have found a photo. The next song is playing. She is attractive, I suppose. Her being attractive makes sense. The attractive need not be interesting. See Nicole Kidman. Now it's bluesy and dreary. Not dreary in the bleak 'in the car at the side of the road' kind of beautiful end of the world is nye bleakness but grey, monotone, blah blah blah. I have so very few words contained in my head, I am spending precious many on this terrible record. Why is this? I could rewrite my review of Plastic Mastery and explain how it is the most exciting record ever made, which it is, but insterad I am made annoying by describing the myriad ways in which I do not enjoy this record. Her parents named her Lia Ices because it is the name of a breath mint in Sweden. Not really. It doesn't seem unthinkably obscure, however, Alessi's Ark is named after a fascist blender. But Alessi is a dream. I will defend Alessi to the death amongst all of the people who inexplicably name Talking Heads' Remains in Light as the greatest record of the 1980s. I am pretty certain that I have heard but one track from that album. Is it good? I don't like David Byrne, seems like he should be fathering children with Natalie Merchant or Jane Child actually. He wore big shoulder pads, he's a genius. All of these songs seem excruciatingly long. We are on to song 4, Healed, it is less thump thump blah blah, it is softer, more tender, just as insignificant and pointless. She probably has a buffet in her parent's house with all of the blue ribbons awarded for her creative spirit and good citizenship at eco school. Does the Pearlfishers' song Eco Schools ring throughout the halls of academia? It's an insidious plot that one, it is a gorgeous song and yet the lyrics are so banal and condescending and brought to bear from the man I love more than most. David, please stick to fish mongers and food. Please. Duglas Stewart wrote a comment on my previous website. I deleted the website soon after. I prefer anonymity. Someone, earlier this year, commented on nearly all of my posts, I felt uncomfortable, I ran away. Next song. This is the song for her parents on the joyous occasion of their first trip to the new Ikea store that just opeened in town. Thrilling. This is rather accomplished in some fashion, I am sure her parents' friends are all very impressed. Of course, she may be an orphan, raised by repeated viewings of Curly Sue and James Taylor records. If this is the real narrative arc then I do apologize. But Montauk. This is going on and on and on, please do shorten your breaths. Nice interlude of strings, she has s Kate Bush record then, no donkeys no BBC miniseries'. Boring piano. Compare this to Frida Hyvonen who might actually have reason to be difficult but it does not compare. It does not compare. There are only three songs left. Whew. It has been unreasonably cold these past few days. I've been outside in the cold. I've been writing budgets as well. Tell me future Milton Friedman's of the world, what does the future hold? Will I receive a raise? I've not had a raise in three years. Will there be a Sound of Arrows record? Am I dooming it to failure by starting to gestate the same sort of hopes and aspiorations for it that I had for the PAs/Cal record? Are Pas/Cal over? The side projects have started to dribble out. Lia Ices, even, would turn up her nose to a Zoos of Berlin record. Some other song playing. Boring. That is the key descriptor. "I need advice"-"Use fewer adjectives". Is Anthony Hopkins not boring? To be British you needn't be interesting or attractive. I've decided he's dull. I won't, however, add him to my continuum of the "Edward Burns" of their generation-- Gregory Peck, George Segal, Tom Berenger, Mark Ruffalo. Mark Ruffalo is perhaps a Lia Ices fan. When he's sleeping with super models wearing a goatee he's probably playing Unchosen One to outwardly display his conflict over being fabulously wealthy and dater of supermodels and yet edgy enough to be in a movie with Kathleen Robertson. I think this song is nearly over. It is 8AM on the first Saturday of December. I must work today, but not in the office rsther I shall be in the open air, the 40 degree air. It feels much warmer. This album feels much longer than the coming winter. God this is terrible. Why couldn't she be unattractive and thus not entitled to a record contract? I don't know. I repainted my kitfchen. It is Tuscan Gold now. Is that too trendy? I won't have any visitors in my kitchen to let me know such things. Now, hey this is almost interesting, she's building to a crescendo, but here's betting she doesn't deliver on it, oh yeah some skatting over pedestrain drums and thudding piano, snooze. Lia lia lia, living in New York is a curse. Move to Nebraksa, follow Alessi around for a bit, learn to live inside of your head for a time. People often spend too much time living rather than dreaming.

Ah, nearly all of the tracks from the new Sprout record are on YouTube:).

Update: The songs are all magnificent! Each and every one. And these are demos, unbelievable! The death of cynicism.

Nearly all of the snow has melted or sublimated or disappeared. Autumn has returned. I've decided I really can type on my netbook from work and so I will start posting regularly again. First to arrive shall be a pointless bit of prattling about Steve Mcqueen. My lawn is very green in fact, it just may be the greenest lawn in the entire neighbourhood. Pride. I live among renters. I like my new blue collar existence. I will feel closer to the working man as I write about the collapse of human existence as soundtracked by beautiful pop music.

Prefab Sprout Steve Mcqueen. Never have I been able to convince anyone, anywhere of the greatness that is Prefab Sprout. They are difficult ones to proselytize for what with the glossy 80s production, the all too clever for the plebs-ness, the shoulder pads, the genius, the floppy fringeness, etc. They really do tend to send the kids sccurrying for shelter. First song-Faron- genius. I once read an interview with Thomas Dolby and in it he stated that he met Paddy sometime in the 70s. Paddy had miles of poems written on dog biscuits and paper plates and mylar kites and was waiting only for someone who could contain his inspiration in a vision of pop and pop songs. He found it with Thomas Dolby. I've only ever heard one Thomas Dolby song. It is the same one that everyone else has "only" heard. Thomas has probably heard many more Prefab Sprout songs than I ever will. I don't think he produced the new album. Paddy has graduated to the Dave Callahan level of producer indifference although his disaparagement of his on production skills is immense in interviews. Just writing a song about Faron Young is delightfully obscure for most but then you think of Faron's end, like Margaret Sullavan's end, Jean Seberg and the melancholic tinge arises. I'll have to defer to Alec Baldwin on the last one. Have I heard a Faron Young song? Unknown. This may have been written in 1973. They have just released a new record. I am desperate for it. I may be the only Prefab Sprout fan in all of Westminster. How lonely I feel living in Westminster buried beneath 27 inches of snow, alone in my McAloon worship, like a Christian in the snow. Very nearly. There are so many vehicles parked on the street for a snowstorm. Depressing. When I was a young boy there were so few autos parked on the streets. Non sequitur. I should have started a diary of my time spent on Weber drive. I didn't. I wasn't like Edward Robb Ellis. I've finished the abridged version of his diary. The unabridged copy is something like 22 million words. A world record for diarists apparently, I am certain I could eclipse that mark and I am also certain that I am a superior writer to Edward Robb Ellis. He's rather mediocre really, middling would be a compliment. Is the attention due to his being in the guiness book of records for diarists? I think that perhaps he has little other claim on reknown besides. And still it is a compelling read...walking through a century with a consistent voice is an interesting escape. His viewpoints held pretty steady throughout and it is remarkable how the soul does age so very slowly. My diary would be about all of the regrets I can't seem to lose my nostalgia over. I could write a page on tonight's activities. Dear diary, today I shoveled snow for the third time in 12 hours and then I built my new kitchen table on my kitchen floor. Dear Diary, I thought of painting my kitchen cabinets. Dear Diary, I think I shall paint my kitchen cabinets. Edward Robb Ellis was a mediocre reporter as well. Really I can't recommend his diary except for the experience of an average Joe in America. His strange reaction to Kruschev at the Waldorf was the most puzzling bit for me. It seems his proudest accomplishment is the fact that he seems to have slept with many attractive women. I have forgotten to write about the songs. Eddie's apparent reluctance to examine the demise of his first marriage is also a mystery. There is where your Lifetime movie of the week coul dbe drawn from. He's in Okinawa and suddenly he is divorced. I needed more information. Number four, I forgot to mention my favorite line oh wait it is coming up. Appetite is playing now. Oh no, here it comes "wishing she could call him heartache but it's not a boy's name". Is that not genius? It is. Does it always come down to sleeping with women? Am I abnormal because it doesn't come down to that with me? Or is that I haven't slept with enough women attractive or otherwise to convince me that everything I do including writing these inane twitterings is about women? As Graeme Downes said much more eloquently than Eddie Robb, 'all that I do, more or less, is for some woman's sake'. Is this song a remnant of Paddy's time on the prowl? He's now got a silly Brian Wilson beard. Does he have a sandbox? A Dr Landy of his own? He's still got a marvelous voice. Going merely by the sound of the first single from the new album. Now When Love Breaks Down, the first line just breaks your heart. He has loads of 80s cheese spread throughout the tracks but it's all so elegant and romantic. I am now returned from seeing Mary and Max at the theater. I feel saddened because all I see on the screen is my own reflection. I am alone all of the time. Mainly by choice, but it seems more of an automatic response and condition than a desire. I feel agitated when surrounded by people these days but that is due to their lack of decorum and intense self-interest. People will stop just short of murder to their own advantage and I don't think it would be a great leap to capital offences if the risk of being punished for their indiscretions was deemed low. People are dreadful. There are glorious sorts, Paddy, my friend Kate, but that is nearly the expanse of goodness of this planet. Oh and the director of Mary and Max. What a tremendously melancholic movie, it is a joy to watch, it is so lovely and beautiful, but the content was somewhat harrowing. The saddest animated movie of all time? Possibly. Goodbye Lucille #1. One of the mysteries of Prefab Sprout is the limited amount of space given to Wendy's backing vocals. Paddy is a marvelous singer but he had Wendy, with gorgeous graceful notes to spare and they are only sprinkled sparsely throughout the catalog. Was she working full time to support her family? Did Paddy not share the King of Rock and Roll millions? Paddy was Johnny Marr's drinking buddy. I think. Or was it Billy Bragg? Perhaps they were triumvirate, perhaps Johnny and Paddy needed to slum a bit by hanging out with an unrepentant bolshevik. Was Paddy consumed by jealousy, worried that if Wendy was singing his beautiful songs he might be moved to the background just as Matt Love was with Even As We Speak. How exactly did Mary Wyer end up featured? I mean clearly it was the right decision as she has one of the greatest indiepop voices ever but was it a collective decision or is Matt Love able to step back and be objective about the beautiful songs he toiled upon. I don't know. Even As We Speak have little to do with Prefab Sprout anyhow. Hallelujah. The standard thinking is that this album is front loaded. This line of thinking is incorrect. Desire As is still a few songs away. Hallelujah suffers alongside the singles only by its virtue being mainly obscurity rather than sunshine, hidden on side two, under dust motes and soda can rings. Thomas Dolby agrees with me. I've been reading old interviews with Paddy and he's always been smarter than everyone else. He's strange. He claims to have written hundreds of songs that we'll never hear. I want so to believe him. He lacks on the energy and resources to bring these projects to fruition and so my exasperation turns towards an indifferent world that can't recognize genius in its midst. Pink could probably bring the concept of Earth: The Story so Far to her record label and they would fall over themselves to bring it to birth. But Paddy has to live only his his head, in his heart and then wrestle with all of his feelings of insecurity that wrap themselves around the shadows of his imagination. Moving the River. Maybe not my favorite but it is still marvelous. The production is what dates these things. On Jordan the twinkles seem more timeless, more out of step with fashion. This record is very much of its time. Was that intentional? The songs are bizarre exercies of eccentricity. "Turkey hungry, chicken free". He doesn't much like his own singing voice. It is down to his physical limitations. I think he sings wonderfully and the passion in his uninhibited glee at being deliriously out of step with the rest of the pop world is sustenance enough for gentle hearts to rejoice over. It takes someone secure to play Moving the River in mixed company. When I am moved to play music at work I have lately been playing Sam Cooke gospel music. You can't go wrong with Sam Cooke. Paddy would agree. Turns out Wendy was his girlfriend. At least when the band started. He married. He had children. He had a bout of "seeing the woprld through a teardrop" and was almost nearly blind once upon a time before silicon injections in retinas saved him in time to prevent his descent into darkness. Horsin' Around. Sublime. It's this breezy little number that sounds smarter and more clever than you'll ever realise. Surely there are references I'll never connect, witticisms that will pass me by, heart stirrings will make me merely a mute witness to greatness. Now the middle section, the glamourous crooner bit, hairspray, trumpets and patent leather loafers. There could be an alternate universe where we relive the 80s through the eyes of Prefab Sprout protagonists. They look sharp, smell distinct, glide softly on clouds and the shoulders of angels. I love this song. It could have been one of the ubiquitous ones. It still would have not mattered as to Paddy's stature among the public at large. He'll be the forgotten man. Amity Shlaes could write a novel about him. Graeme Downes could commisserate with him. Ah, Desire As, so deceivingly simple. Double tracked vocals. A devastating opening line. More voices. Ah...The new album is not actually a new album but was meant as the follow-up to Jordan:The COmeback, I am now even more desperate for it. His very own Smile. An essay on Brian Wislon in the liner notes even. Whew. When will Matinee be releasing it then? Oh you've got to get that 19th Bubblegum Splash EP out instead. Oh...I see. I went to lunch today, so many people had invaded my favorite Indian restaurant that I was forced into a change of plans. See above notes on my loathing of the species. I went to a place where I was the only customer. I had gone a few weeks ago during the blizzard and counted ont he weather being the reason for the sparse attendance but today it was reminiscent of tragedy. The two owners proudly served me and offered pleasant conversation while American football played on the television screen. The kitchen seemed a bustle, perhaps the lunch crowd is late arriving in Glendale? Perhaps. I hope so. They could play Prefab Sprout because there isn't anyone in their restaurant to be perplexed over such delicate beauty. Their food is marvelous actually. And Vegetable Samosas on a buffet! Thrilling! "I've got six things on my mind...you're no longer one of them" or "desire is a sylph figured creature who changes her mind' Could someone define Sylph for the lead singer of All American Rejects. Last evening I spent part of the evening with High School students dressed to the nines at a shopping mall. Their new forum. IN tow werre parents, there to worship their dreadful children. Like owners trailing behind pooches with their waste bags in tow. At least a dog returns your love. I am d as dreadful as those I call dreadful. I am aware of this. Blueberry Pies was not playing over the intercom system at the shopping mall. This could pass for smooth jazz. The smartly dressed teens could have lost thier virginity to this, imagine the swell of emotions as they return to the moment in the back seat of a 2003 Toyota Camry when they lost their viriginity to some boy named Hickory. I am finding my heart warmed even as a vicarious dreamer. Next track up already, WHen the Angels. Beautiful. Wendy barely registers in the background, hardly seems fitting for a song about Angels. Paddy the former seminary student seems something of an expert on the topic. He's part of two triumvirates really. In this one we don't include Billy Bragg but Kate Bush and Morrissey. The smartest pop stars in the world ever. After I finished my uneasy crawl through the hordes of 6self indulgent teens I got into my car and listened to the SMiths. It seemed absolutely appropriate. God, it is the most rebellious music ever. The Smiths, yes! Beautiful pop music with lyrics filled with the alienation of being normal when the definition of normal has been perverted to suit the insecurities of those who can't bring themselves towards a distance from the herd. Last evening was the purest distillation of pack mentality. These good people are not guided by their own desires but by the expectations they perceive as being part of some larger whole. And still their children are monsters. I am always alone. I am more observer than participant in the larger scale of existence. I live through books and music and express passions in secret because I can't bring myself to love the world as it is.

Chapterhouse reunion tour! Well a few shows. People in New York are horrid. Why does every band decide to reward them for their horridness? 8 or 9 inches of snow:(.

Update: 27 Inches of snow.

One day soon My Autumn Empire will release songs.

Giorgio Tuma-sigh. It is the most beautiful thing.