New Still Corners single--

Aye, there is a new Nick Nicely album out.

Update: Buh, cassette only?

Jobriath Creatures of the Street. I will admit to only listening to this because Morrissey listed it as one of his most favorite records. He has also curated a reissue. Morrissey's influence in my life is still supreme. This may need remedying. I do not think for myself. I should. I don't need a mad monk making my life more of a mockery than it is, next he will be pushing beets and criticize my stomach and not my thinking. First track is Heartbeat, a bit of an introduction, on the piano He was a piano prodigy. In line with Graeme Humphreys. In King of Prussia, Pennsylvania piano prodigies may not proliferate. But in King of Prussia there is the canvas to create a persona to last. Interesting people are not born in interesting places. Ah but what of Maria Callas, Whitey Ford, Gouverneur Morris? The exceptions. They were born in New York. I think. New York is more interesting than Denver. Slightly. But they have the rule as well, see Anne Hathaway. She's not interesting. if you are surrounded by fascinating things and exciting moments bloom each and every day then you don't feel compelled to create yourself in antagonism to your environment. I often long for a persona of my own. I needn't wear fairy wings and glittered platform shoes but I need a gay personality. I have a persona. My existence in pixels and lines of resolution is far more riveting than my existence among the bees and the beavers. Ohh La La, now, fueled by people on authentic cocaine, a singer proud to be hairless, guitars made from trees imported from Nepal. What were Jobriath's inhibitions? Did he leave behind a catalog? I would like to know. He seems fearlessly unconcerned about the existence of everyone else on this planet and I marvel at it. i think very little of my fellow earthlings but it isn't because I celebrate myself but rather because I do not celebrate them and their omnipresent mediocrity. This is genius. In fact, the songs are tagged in Itunes with "genius". Brilliant. I bet Thom Yorke would like a persona. He's just a guy with a superfluous consonant. He's dull. Truly. he wasn't born in King of Prussia. I would imagine he was born middle class, how else to explain all of that guilt that strangles? Next track Scumbag. Stuff about formerly famous actors behaving rudely. It's a lark, it's a bit of vaudevillia juvenilia and we love it. The pianos are delicately tricked into subservience. His hairless arms shaken from the cold of indifference. I don't much like anyone on I Love music, I am being very negative, sorry, but one of the oddest things in the world is to display for all of the world your visceral dislike of an unknown glam singer from King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. But the following misguided sentiments were posted in search of personal vanity--

"Is he Bowie like ?
If your definition of Bowie is: very gay man who made albums that were supposed to be glamorous and arty rock but which were stubbornly tuneless and did everything but rock."
"This thread is subtitled: Respect not the dead, let's bag on Jobriath."
"His music sort of sucks and is inadvertantly hysterical
I also have to admit I haven't been able to listen to the entire album.

Perfect. An ideal reissue of Jobriath would have included recommendations like these. They would potentially bring in an entirely different audience, like people who always slow down and form a traffic jam on the highway because they want to see the remnants of a multiple car crash."

I used to be almost capable of that sort of vitriol. But it is more brilliant to love. I was listening to the radio yesterday and there was a man who was 31 and had already been the recipient of two heart transplants and now he was ready to join the PGA tour and conquer the world one putt at a time. It was inspiring. I am not much for golf. But he was only slightly more interesting than Thom Yorke. This is Ecubyan and it is marvelous. His pianos out of phase, his voice from a distant galaxy, yes yes he wishes he was a spider from mars. Strings and delicacy, it's very short, most of the songs are very short. I've recently discovered that i should have loved Suede from the beginning. There is a bit of Jobriath in Suede. Good Time. Very good. It's a bit of a glam stomp rocker. Which are the great Glam bands that deservedly received the attention they received while Jobriath ended up on the streets hawking his hairlessness to sustain various illicit habits? Slade? No, they were horrible! Alvin Stardust? No. Heavy Metal Kids? No. Jobriath was the greatest of them all. Or not. probably not, but this album is wonderful. His first is rather good as well. But this has the indulgence he hadn't yet earned but which he expelled furiously in the face of public apathy. Everything on here seems committed and dramatic and intense. Natalie Merchant should listen. You can't turn everythign in life into a glam stomp rocker but it would be more fun if you tried. Walk into a payless shoestore with an elephant trunk hanging from your left nipple and a saxophone slung across your back and ask for a pair of shoes three sizes too small for your feet and then go home and sit at the piano and write a bouncy little ditty about it and sing it as if it is the most important thing in the world ever. Do it, now! And really is New York that interesting? People make places and Denver is uninteresting because the people here are unsure of what it means to be a person in Denver whereas in New York I think the atmosphere of zeitgeist overwhelms most and it is this patina that New Yorkers wear that is only visible to those outside of their little bubble covered metropolis and like the remnants of the brown clouds that hover ovr Denver it causes asthma and cooties to non-natives. What a Pretty just finished, a glamourous fairy tale, a pean to style of substance. It was a very short pean. Liten Up, the ode to Thom Yorke. When he played Glastonbury did he feel the collective exhortation to action? while half of his audience was texting their friends, or twittering strangers, or uploading photos to facebook to advertise the fact that they are being condescended to by Mr Thom Yorke. collectivists trust crowds. They haven't read Wilfred Trotter. In Boulder the collectivists are banning sugary snacks from city owned vending machines. This is done to save you from yourself. The difficulty in collectivism is of course aligning the interests of the group with the majority of individuals. It is why collectivism so often turns into totalitarianism. You need to force consensus at the end of a barrel. But anyhow, Jobriath was surely a collectivist. He hasn't read Lysander Spooner. But his music is individualist. His music is odd and expansive and I love it and I forgive and Thom Yorke for wanting to save me. Next track, Gone Tomorrow. I saw the other piano prodigy of my record collection Graeme Humphreys once play a set of torch songs while inebriated to people who were lucky enough to have avoided the Dead C in Dunedin. It was pianos and laughs and people whispering in my ears all of the secrets to Richard Feynman's hearts desires. And invites to skipping pebbles on a beach and it was dreamy and romantic. And with military attache bags filled with those same pebbles that disappeared along with shoreside remnants from two other continents and there was a leak from my being, a discharge to rudimentary existence and now that I've listened to the golfer with three hearts and Jobriath and Bachelorette and thrilling electrical storms outside my window I am changed. I am singing along to Jobriath, with his well coiffured backup singers and the tingling guitars and 2001:A Space Odyssey effects and the world is at our feet. Last track, a reprise, a summation of all of the highlights, by rights it is about 28 minutes too short at 2:53 but when we move to King of Prussia because ethanol subsidies have led to global armageddon and Des Moines is the most powerful enclave in a desolate post apocalyptic wasteland we'll search for the foot prints in history and see if our soles can endure.

Dustin O'Halloran Lumiere. Dustin O'Halloran is only slightly older than I am. He lives in Berlin. Sarah Kirkland Snider won the best classical record of the year with her tribute to Spoonfed Hybrid. Will this be so honored? It is classically minded or it is merely classical. It is at these moments when my complete lack of qualification for discussing music becomes most apparent. A Great Divide, starts as if emerging from the vacuum. Twinkles and the harmony of the spheres, randomly assorted searching for a symmetry to be displayed in all directions. Slowly it comes into form, rumbles on a piano, a gamma ray burst amplifies the moment, and then strings sigh and we melt. Would it be easier to construct a drawing or diagram of the music A map to the human heart alighted from the designer? I am not sure. I am able, usually, to fake my way through it. I make mention of some bright young thing or a Mitford and distract you from the fact that I am unable to describe such startling beauty. The opening track is revelatory, it is gorgeous. A classical fiend would find it difficult to stifle a yawn but we mere plebeians are taken aback, the breath is stolen from our lungs so that we remain speechless and our hearts beat in sympathy to the disturbances in the air that surround us and comfort us from the desolation of modern isolation. Music is insulation. Music allows you to head out into the frigid world of human relationships. A prophylactic against misery. Perhaps this is an uncommon view, perhaps people wear headphones on trains and become only slightly aware of the world around them because of habit or anti-social behaviour. But for us, for us it is an innoculant. It is a thesaurus worth of defense. Second track, shorter, an interlude, for piano. He is in Devics as well. Devics singer makes solo records. It is not the same. She's forced to words to describe her emotional state. This is candid, unswerving, less prone to interpretation. There is a universality to the emotion of music that cannot be captured by the written word. It is when I lament over reading Baudelaire in English. It is what Heloise and Abelard avoided and what has allowed them to reach across the void for nearly 1000 years by writing of the art of amoris. It is Emmy Noether working under the withering effects of inequlity to prove the power of symmetry. And these works allow images to be conjured quickly in even the weakest minds such as my own. Emmy Noether toiling under candlelight, undernourished, undeservingly banished, while a young student surprised to discovr a very different David Hillbert and under a spell by the catholic nature of mathematics and its twin--Music. It's almost resembling a compulsory event in figure skating, the required elements, the routine that is somehow made more effortless by the truly gifted, injected with passion and soul and brought to flower when mediocrity would only lead to the mundane. Emmy Noether does not exist anymore. Except in pages where she flits between her proofs and your briefly glimpsed remembrances. Where some might fall for Heloise others might find in Emmy or Hypatia even the stuff of enduring happiness. There are violins and cellos and pianos and it's so incredibly beautiful. It leads to thoughts of beautiful things and these thoughts lead to pleasure. I was speaking to someone about mathematics and how it should be taught. This record is mathematics and that is not meant as a denigration. Most beautiful things in nature and most lovely things created by human hands are symmetrical and mathematics is about discovering that underlying symmetry. A sort of edifice to construct everything upon, a double helix, a spiral galaxy, it doesn't lose in wonder by understanding the rules that govern its design. I think it is with a sense of loss that too often the leap is made from understanding to speculating on the cause or the motivation. Philosophy discovers things that are unknowable and offers conjecture without proof. Abstract mathematics discovers things that are previously unknowable and previously impossible and offers proof of sui generis. But this record is a basic document. It is mostly filled with empty spaces, nearly a vacuum but bursting forth from the empty spaces is radiance and live giving warmth and the design may have seemed by providential accident but it only seemingly. It has fallen away, now to a less precise rendering on a piano, the human divide, the divorce of human behaviour and probability. The strings reappear and together two halves with but a tenuous tether between them drifting in concentric orbits around a center of gravity. Opus 43. Devics were never this magnificent. I am absolutely fond of Devics. I saw them live. They played the Gothic Theater here, they opened for the Czars. Sara Lov had a flower pinned in her shocking blonde hair and it was torch songs and it was symmetry and it was touching and I was head over heels. I thought of telling my parents that I had seen the woman I was meant to be with for the rest of my life. With her megaphone on Heaven Please and her well pressed skirt and fashionable footwear I was mute and she was not winnable and we have met but once ever since that moment. Quintette N.1, discrete packets of music all in a row, a pulsed beam of elegance until near the midpoint when all o the elements combine to create a colloid, a compound of endearing sympathy. It takes bravery to fill a record mainly with space, to place the emphasis on one element at a time. In records where the effect is a collage it is easy to miss the moments that are off, the mistakes that are not excised, when you have the music stripped to the barest elements there is more clarity in the examination. If I knew anything at all about playing the piano or a violin's vibrato I could make a superior assessment of each because of the easy witness granted. But I am unknowing. I am not proud. Next track, a double tracked piano, by clever effects geographically removed from each other, a string section enhances the scene. It is music in search of a visual to anchor it, spinning in time with an affinity for direction. But at the same time the imagery that is engendered is resplendent. Twinkles and bells and distant tones, it is magnificent. He is making another record for release soon. He has other solo records. I am sadly lacking. It builds upon itself, a cascade, a cataract...hmm...cataract is not quite right. The inefficiency of language. I sometimes make light of the fact that official French has but 50,000 words where English is up over 988,000. is this why Gide compared the French language to pedals on a piano, the precise tone available by having a limited number of options as analog to the musical scale. Is this record an analog then to the French language and something more bombastic and ludicrous is English. possibly. I would not be diminished in stature if I were to roam the streets of some charming french country village with a boombox on my shoulder rudely blaring Dustin O'Halloran to the residents. The local agrarian collective/committee for public safety would require that children be let free from their bourgeois classes where they might learn the basic of Cantor's theorem, if third graders had ambition, and they would adopt rustic behaviours and commune with the land and give thanks to Lev Bronstein for all that is good. Last track has been playing for a few minutes, rain song, the gentlest piano and pain as portrayed in a string flourish held high above the clouds. This is theoretical music. It takes a gifted mind to understand group theory beyond the duels for love and inherent madness and while it does not require the same for loving Dustin O'Halloran it sets this record apart from the Giorgio Tuma because while this is a monument to nature as described by humans Giorgio is a monument to humans as inscribed in nature.

Wintercoats has uploaded a couple more beautiful songs--

Wintercoats

His first EP is still available for free download. It's a bit Spoonfed Hybrid, a trifle Durutti Column, something like Cody, etc...Really very lovely.

I am to be yelled at disapprovingly at work tomorrow. I always am when I return from vacation. I should not take any vacations. I will keep Lightning Seeds songs in my head all day long.

Cats on Fire Dealing in Antiques. Cats on Fire are the greatest indiepop band in the world. I know, that is something akin to saying I am the greatest American futboler on the planet. But even the might Cats on Fire can not make Your Woman interesting. Why was this a world conquering hit? Did Jyoti make a mint and spend it on thrift store furniture and gym memberships? I would hope so. It's not got a hook, it isn't particularly catchy, I forget it a mere moment after it ends. I don't understand. Teach me. I didn't mind Hair Like Alain Delon, how thrilling if that had been the hit. But it was not. Song over, goodness. Goodness comes next, Poor Students Dream of Marx, just genius! Really. I could be even less articulate and say just awesome! Really. It's folky, it's sophisticated and smart and perhaps its the image of them that I have in my head of very dapper and composed sorts who seem rather keen on the occupation of pop star. They are the world's tiniest pop stars. They are tall, slender, well dressed, outspoken and the music is perfectly composed. There is this brilliant blend of insecurity and confidence. They have probably never played before more than 100 people. Maybe once or twice, but not three times. They certainly do not make any money. But it's youth and youth is meant for poverty and adventure. The drummer has left. Next track, Never Land Here. Another beautiful pop song. The chorus makes hearts tingle. The drummer has left. I mentioned that a few moments ago. He has another band. Burning Hearts. Everyone else loves them. Why would you leave Cats on Fire then? He does sound like Morrissey. Others will make claim otherwise. English as a second language is no impediment. He's particularly clever. Why then are they not to be disparaged by us as part of the professional clique of European indiepop bands? I don't know. I don't have any hard and fast rules for love, we make them up as we go along. I love many things about this song, the words, the chorus, the 60s garage rock riff. It's wonderful. Will the new drummer ruin them? Doesn't the guitar player play drums in Le Futur Pompiste anyhow? I don't know if anyone loves the last Le Futur Pompiste record. Fourth track, Marr-ied to the jangle, monotonic vocals but it's all in character. Some near virtuosity on the guitar. Were I a teenage girl I might find it worthwhile to follow Cats on Fire around the planet while they toured. Keep a diary, list every song they ever play, follow them to diners and barber shops collect things not ruminated upon, locks of hair, discarded match books. Keep a collage, become a doyenne of the Anorak bulletin board. It will be marvelous, sing like Morrissey as the song ends. Next track, folky, spare, lovely. They aren't cute for cute's sake, they have more depth than that. I may be giving them too much credit. The last record was a disappointment until I listened to it and now I love it. I keep mentioning love. I have all of this love in my heart, it is hidden beneath layers of titanium and peat moss. I can express it to the fates, to pop songs, to the stars above but not to anyone in particular. This is a collection of oddities or rarities or some such. It is as good as their last 2 records. You should buy this album and then buy the other two as well. But do not buy them from Matinee. Buy them from someone else. Next track, dizzy acoustic guitar, his languid vocals, his class, his politeness. When teenaged girls do follow them and they do come to Denver in June they would notice the snowfall on June 20th! It did not snow in the city, no, but the mountains are deluged. The bicycle track was closed due to high water. I rode in my car. It was snowing, no, but it was raining. I haven't any fenders. Fenders seem uncool. I am not normally concerned with my appearance but my bike has a peculiar unattractiveness and fenders might simply interrupt the equilibrium in my head and heart. I love my bicycle. I've never had such a lovely bicycle. I say bicycle always, never "bike". I love Andrew Brough. Do not get misunderstand. This is much better than Bike ever were. Delicate acoustics, mandolin?, piano, his voice, so nice. It's circular. Emmy the Great should attend a Cats on Fire gig. There is something about a band willing to perform. Isn't there? There is. The songs are rather terrific and he could get by by phoning it in, but he does not. This one starts off a bit Twisterella. Always with the "a bit". No more! This site is turning dreadfully mediocre. Is it my recent prolificness? Have I turned into Robert Pollard? Just the way he, Matthias, sings 'I don't know why I keep trying' is wonderful. He's excited about his beautiful songs, I'd be thrilled by them, he wants to inhabit them to make you care about them and when each night after he has sung them to a half empty room to continue sending out signals to the ether hoping for a less desperate response. I don't know where theses songs have came from apart from the ether, I think some of them were the demos that were forever available from their website back when I was still on dial-up and had pseudo-integrity. I was very anti downloading when I was incapable. Now that my neighbours have shared their good fortune I am less principled. This song is My Friend In Comfortable Chair, that may not be the title. It is very Smiths, it is very 1985. Wouldn't it be brilliant were it very 1885? Time machines and steam fairs and blocks of ice stored in hay bales. There is a rush to the words, they make sense, they belong in the places they are placed in. That was a sentence that didn't mean anything at all but I am prone to those. Next track. You Will Find Me Where You Left Me. Slower. Did they not have a drummer then? Female voice. She's no competition. No Soulangeana. i do not have these sophisticated blooms. I am possessor of mere Violas and Peonies and Snapdragons. The Star Lillies from bulbs have poked their heads above the horizon but they are not in bloom, late bloomers, the same as me. And now the drums, epic drums, Morrissey croons, female accompaniment, delightful. Does he mind my comparing him to Morrissey? Morrissey is the archetype, no? It is like a poet being compared to Shelley. It is like a ballplayer being compared to Roberto Clemente. It is like a summer's day being compared to you. Martial drums, lagging vocals, winded things, more female accompaniment. Even when he seems undressed, haggard, undone it still sounds so magnificently effortlessly pop. Do they write a great number of songs or are all of the songs this fantastic. Are drummers important? I listened to Ride on the ride home today and Loz Colbert is important. He is god king of the shoegazing universe. Have you heard Kaleidoscope? Funny because the rest of the are somewhat ordinary. We are all mostly ordinary. This is why we celebrate the extraordinary. Vicariously. I've heard this song before. The original version? Higher Grounds. I was once convinced that this was the superior version but no longer, the album version is much improved. It isn't much changed. None of this "the demo was the bomb" nonsense for us, no. We are men/man of the people. Interesting that this has much more going on as far as the music goes but the performance is not as thrilling as on the more rudimentary tracks. I could be misinterpreting everything. He might be, curse of all things, ironic. I don't think it is possible. Next track. I'd to be compared to Morrissey, except to when it comes to animal rights. He's oddly anti-human. Humans are awful, certainly, but I wouldn't want to live among the baboons even after a night's amarula debauchery. This track is They Produced a Girl, sounds like an early one? Sounds like he was recorded in the broom closet down the hall with a sock puppet over the microphone. He does really sound like Morrissey. No? I keep asking you questions, when will you answer me? The words are not soporific or selfish or insular, it;s effervescent and trilling. I visualize the facial expressions he has made all of the times he has sung this song, they change regularly, he isn't pained or expressive but quirky, effusive, athletic. He's got very nice hair. At the moment my own hair is very long, I am resisting the efforts from work mates to give it a trim, I am having romantic getaways in my locks, dreams of mud flaps gone by. Next track, another I have heard before. i think this was on the first official EP. It was not on the first official LP. Was it? Another louder and more spirited number. Surely he writes these for the boys in the band, for cardio, for the girls in the balcony, for the floorboards underneath. It's physical because it has a treacly garage organ. There isn't anything sinister at all about them but they seem subversive. Their pleasing hygiene, the chiming guitar chords, the handsomeness, it's all very underhanded. Pipas love Cats on Fire. We've already told you how smart Pipas are. It's racing now, the organ, the end. Next track is chiming, very much so, I've called other things chiming but none this much. I hadn't been aware of this one before this record. It's maybe not my favorite track on the album and yet it is still almost marvelous. Who would be their ideal drummer? I am not certain. It will need to be a dapper sort, a swell, a haircut in well tailored jeans. He'll possibly need to play the drums but we've already established that the guitar player plays drums in another band. I could be drummer but I don't have any nice clothes actually. I could write the website and describe the new drummer as Anthony Perkins in Friendly Persuasion. Is that not suave? It is. This is a bit of a lament, dirge-y, it's a b-side too marvelous to be forgotten and placed under the short leg. He's fond of the lyrical dash, we're fond of him. Am I a teenage girl? Possibly. If I would let the world in on my secrets I might have teenage girls telling their middle aged mothers to stop convulsing over me. But I am hidden in the undergrowth, I have the tall poppy syndrome. This song is wonderful. I keep saying that as well but then there are very many songs and not so many adjectives available on an empty head. I hope the water on bicycle trails recedes enough for Ride your Bicycle to Work day. The worst day in the world for we "serious" bicyclists. I ride early enough that I will not be adversely affected but I feel sad for the spandex militia bobbing and weaving and risking their lives with the raging Platte on their right and 364 days a year sedentary joiner on their left. I am not a joiner. This song is Draw in the Reins, it was not on the first album, perhaps it should have been, it's amazing. Oh wait, it was, ha. This version is better. Crooner mode has been activated, female admirer has been discovered, Happiness is Chemistry. Is this a cover? This title seems familiar. i googled, it appears to be an original. It is very nice and original. They seem an anachronism, they seem thoroughly unmodern. Conservative. Brendan O'Neill lamented over the Smiths conservatism. He is mad. They were classical. They were nostalgic. But Johnny Marr is hardly conservative, Morrissey as protagonist is humorous and not a musical conservative. Yes yes, we know they are also the dreaded oh so serious collectivists but we can overlook that in the Smiths as well as in Cats on Fire. Why is it that so many musicians are collectivists? I don't think it is the existence inside of a band that conditions them to such thinking, a band is a gang and a gang feels isolated from the larger world. when Cats on Fire is on stage and being mocked for their fey manners and delicate features and tender pop tunes they are not feeling part of the greater human consciousness. They are reacting against it. always turned towards the wind, breaking through the resistance because to ride with the tide would mean death or mediocrity. This track is different. Is it a different singer? It is a bit more nasal. Mike Joyce? Andy Rourke? Innes Phillips? Last track, too short, really. There are 20 tracks but there needs to be 25, at least. This is the free single. The toss away. The Hague. I will listen to the lyrics because that is a portentous title. A lament for the travails of a war criminal denied his conjugal rights? A story of war criminal tourism? 'The moral of my parents they weren't hollow after all and nowadays I live just a little bit above my friends'. I may have transcribed that last line incorrectly. This is gentle and lovely. Always. Will the world collapse in on them and give rise to cynicism or will their hearts remain pure?

Emmy the Great Virtue. Dinosaur Sex. It is meant to rain this evening. I am very excited for the rain. Emmy the Great is possibly music to be best listened to during inclement weather. It's delicate but tense, fragile but filling, and really the closest comparison I can make on the first track is Moose. Yes, Moose! The music, at least, it has that same polish, that same elegance and perfection that was present on those records where Moose was derided for being too too pretty. I often complain about things being far too pretty. Actually, I don't. "and dinosaur sex led to nothing", hmmm...Pram once sang about transparent dinosaurs. Emmy wrote this under the influence of heartache, apparently, I don't receive the press releases but I have seen a few reviews of the record already and her fiance departed for the lord. Which? I am not certain if it was Jesus or Allah or Gaia. Is there not room in one's life for religion and love and marriage and happiness? I was recently reading that Annie from Elastica is exceedingly religious now as well. Perhaps Annie was engaged to Emmy? That would have made for interesting pop music, surely. I would not leave my love for Jesus or Allah or Gaia. I haven't been in love for a very long time. I haven't walked in the rain with someone I love for a very long time. I saw a y-jack for headphones yesterday while I was perusing the aisles at Best Buy and I thought of words I had exchanged where discussions turned to sharing a y-jack and listening to music on headphones together. It seemed romantic, it was silly. Second track, not very Moose-like. She's a folkie. Somewhat traditional. She is being handsomely praised for this album in some quarters. Hmm...I think maybe I enjoyed the first one more. Glamourous backing vocals, professional, the words could be clever. I should listen. But real music reviewers will cover the lyrics. Why is it that they focus so much on the lyrics? I suppose it is easier to dissect their meaning to interject subtext and inferences where none exist than to misinterpret so freely a guitar strum or drum fill. "And when the drum fill comes in now he's making a statement on the NLRB's decision to not allow Boeing to flee the union utopia for the backwater of South Carolina". My parents live in South Carolina, they were meant to be first on the lot to purchase a dreamliner from Boeing when they actually finished one. Now where will they buy their jumbo jet? China, exactly! Third track, oh this has started off very nice. There is a bit of 10000 Maniacs in her. I love 10000 Maniacs, or at least their first two records. The songs may be too long here. Because the pleasing introduction hung about for a bit too long and now the chorus is a bit understated and dull. Yes, the first record was more charming. She's older now, she's been told she's charming and clever and wonderful and beautiful and intelligent. Surely she is. But it isn't good to hear such things. I tend to avoid people when they are going to compliment me. I tend to delete my blog when I am aware that people are reading it. I tend to disappear. The chorus isn't unlovely, it's just a bit mundane and the Moose-y echoey guitar strum has returned and is she a fan of Moose? Have they granted her permission? I hope so, but given the choice of course we'd rather have a Moose album. Next track, more spartan seeming folk, words coming frantically, it's kinda ok, oh, now it is very nice, triangles, mentions of the rapture, pretty. She mentioned religion a fair amount on the first record. I had a discussion with my parents about religion and accused my father of only toting his bible when he became ill. He admitted to it. But I think my father has a hidden complexity and depth that he will not reveal to anyone. I often believe that I am not at all similar to him because he is outgoing and friendly to strangers and I shrink in comparisons and he has blonde hair and blue eyes and I am darkly complected and my oldest brother looks now exactly as my father did 30 years ago and I look exactly like my mother did 30 years ago. I have wicked right handed slapshot from the slot and my father has a surgical left-handed wrist shot from the top of the circle. This one is circularly rhythmic and complex. It may not be complex. This record may be better than the first one. it has been ages since i have listened to the first one. Let's be honest. I'd rather listen to the 10000 Maniacs. It's her voice, it's uninteresting. It's not excessively petty, it isn't gut wrenching, it isn't ethereal. She's meaty. But she's pork steak. This is rudimentary folk music at the moment, Cassandra. She's got more depth in her being, surely. These could be profound statements but honestly the words don't intrigue me, I hear a lot of mundane expressions all strung in a row. "what use is love if it always passes?". I'm uncertain. "what use is life to those who are not living?" that's sub-Chris Martin. why is this being so deeply praised then? Unknown. I do enjoy this record. next track, high hat, they're giving me the high hat. She isn't very old. She's older than Alessi's Ark. She's less interesting. Is it because Alessi writes her material more naturally, expelling whatever it is that comes into her art while Emmy means to be interesting? Are pop lyrics meant to be interesting? I read an interview with Robert Scott and he had a brilliant attitude that he writes lyrics about anything he wants and so his absurdity is organic and charming. Emmy had an agenda, seemingly, we hark back to Jesus and perhaps she is railing against the void? it is a timid wail, if thus, but it could be that she's trying to answer her own questions. it doesn't appear to be all that interesting actually. It is like when bands attempt to build bombast and it falls flat see A Northern Soul when really they should just let things come out and present themselves as whatever they are see A Storm in Heaven. This is a dirge, it's dull. The music is dull, her voice is dull. I am being too unkind. It may be my state of mind, I've just watched some dreadful adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray with Colin Firth and it has made me deeply unhappy. it's an amazing novel, we all agree, but there is a psychological torment to accompany the hedonism but in the movie it is overwhelmed, the senses indulge in the flesh and the soul of the movie disappears. There isn't any hedonism on display here. it's a suburban existence. She may live in the big city but it is thrift stares on tree lined avenues and beach access and green belts. I don't feel it is her life lived. i shouldn't have discovered the back story, this is semi-jaunty but it's dull. That is the operative word. It is lovely but isn't near lovely enough to be not compelling. Now is the fall away, the climax, I am not intrigued. There are still 3 more tracks. The songs are far too long. This is brilliantly constructed. I am far too unkind. I hope it isn't about Sylvia Plath. Is it? "there is a country made of telegrams and tail coats and no one to grieve for it", huh? Aren't folk songs meant to be informative? She is an imitation, her music a six-time photocopied facsimile. She'll be on the Brits performing this year, surely. Do I lament her professionalism? No. Perhaps. No. Yes? It's just so mannered and held within this narrow range of emotion and intensity. Does she get angry? I would like to hear her anger on tape. This is all so dear and harmless, her diary pages with silhouettes of care bears and ten speed bicycles. I want mutations and pandemics. Or actually more of how it is now, it's pop music, she isn't so concerned with exposition and just singing rather nicely at the top of her range and there are chiming guitar chords and now pianos and percussion and it is genius. Which song is this? Exit Night/Julia's Theme. I haven't idea who is meant to be Julia and the beginning was k-rub but it finished very nicely. Well done Emmy! My opinion means so very little. next, a quiet one, hey she does have some range. Why has she not allowed it to escape more freely until now? Oh, this is the same song, this must be Julia's bit. Excellent! It had a bit of Monica Queen in it. She is rather a good songwriter I think, she isn't much of a performer. Next track, country-ish, travelogue, cliche cliche cliche, blah blah blah, I am being lazy. If Cortney Tidwell was singing this it might be rather good. But Cortney is buffing wood floors with Kurt Wagner somewhere else. I keep wishing that other people sang other people's songs. There are possibly more good songwriters than performers especially in indie. These are wonderful songs, but she can't deliver on their promise. This has a bit of Paula Frazer in it as well. It has ben many years since I saw Paula play live. I can still recall it vividly because it has a visceral impact because of the depth of her performance. It wasn't the turn of phrase. It is the fact that I am convinced by Paula Frazer or Cortney Tidwell or even Alessi's Ark because they have a unique means of expressing themselves. Emmy does not, she oculd be mistaken for anyone on the Indietracks stage. Her songs shine. She's a lilac or a peony when all we long for is a Dendrobium. Last track, Trellick Tower, piano and voice, it's the same as most of what has already come to pass. The lyrics seem to address her situation quite literally. Kristin Hersh it is not. Hmmm...I think I need to listen to the first record once again. Do I love the first record? I thought I did. I am having doubts.

Orwell Continental. Orwell gone pop. I won't reiterate my previous laments about Phoenix. I should. But I will not. All of this is in English. It will not be allowed into Quebec then. I can see the apparatchiks in Bell Canada, I believe that it is still called Bell Canada, working feverishly to sever all lines of communication to protect the gentle ears of the population of Quebec from the endemic spread of anglo-pop even if it does originate in France. My mother is French-Canadian. I am not certain that she is a huge fan of Orwell. Probably not. I mention my mother's ethnicity often. it means that I am to at least some degree a frog. I am a dissident. My parents left for their long journey home early this morning. Colorado is on the far eastern edge of the mountain time zone and so sunrise is around 5AM. Very early. It aids me in my bicycling endeavours across the platte each morning. My parents visit for one week and I revert to the son they know. I am amorphous. I can adopt different personas based on the situation. I played in a softball game on Friday and I was Jock me. I hit a home run and made a diving stop but we still lost but only just. Second track, acoustic guitar and soft voice, I love Orwell. This is a lovely pop record, perhaps he was inspired by the breakout success of Fugu when he recorded his bubblegum pop record. That record was genius, absolutely, you ignored it, Fugu is probably washing dishes in an Applebys. After softball I came home and was Fox news watching son. All during the week I was golf playing son. I could be a serviceable golfer. It is a curse. I am athletic. As I am also now very old I have to prepare to prevent pulls of quadriceps and tendons and egos. When my parents left I turned back into recluse son. I don't say anything all day long. I make an effort at silence. I am saving my words. There is a limit that is granted each soul as it departs the guf on sparrow's wings. I learned this from Demi Moore. This track is lovely, it's bouncy, mid-tempo, harpsichord-ish, jaunty, delightful, in english, it is all in English and so I will not repeat the folly of my Arnaud Fleurent-Didier interpretation when I ascribed to him all sorts of nefarious motives when really he's just very odd. I love him even more. Now an electric piano-ish sort of thing, slinking, sliding, warm and nice. Now are these digital strings? I reviewed the last Orwell record and I was contacted by their manager afterwards. He was a one man concern back then but I am led to believe that he has recast the outfit as an actual band. They wear matching red stars over their hearts, vote in concert for Olivier Besancenot and smoke near the entrance of the Grand Palais. Are these digital strings? An echo. It's very much in line with this sort of thing, the Orwell thing, the Fugu thing, the Chut thing, a crystalline, delicate, filamentous pop that endears itself to me so easily. Now to cheap drum machines. More english. Was he poetic in French? He is not in English. I am unable to read in French. I own several books by French poets but have only ever experienced these poems in English. It isn't the same,t eh words seem dressed up, inhibition poured upon, nuance discarded. Antonin Artaud must be more brilliant in French. I could send these books to Andrew Sullivan and he could pause from his journey up Sarah Palin's uterus and read them to me in the original French. It would make all of the difference. I wonder if my parents know who Andrew Sullivan is? They receive nearly all of their news from Fox news. We had a philosophical argument where they were attempting to convince me that somehow their needed to be a national consensus on morality or else this country was doomed. I argued that it is the compulsion against personal conscience that has led to most totalitarian excesses and murder and they didn't seem to agree with me. Orwell has not yet addressed this on this record. I am being patient. I am certain that he will. But state compulsion of personal conscience be it for religion or any other sort of ideology is the nose under the tent. And then I said truly it is all down to private property rights. Bertolt Brecht was brought up. They agreed. Slightly. But when the government makes claim on the air we are all heading in to the basement. This is a slower track, it reminds me, to be fair, of the Allen Clapp solo record. Obviously he is not so nerdy and his voice is more appealing but it has that cosmic piano bar feel going on so far. There is the piano, in the foreground, his voice multi-tracked, and vintage Todd Rundgren sound effects to round out the track. Nice. Now to the track Eastern, more of the tinny drum machine. It is a recession, we may not have been able to qualify for a loan for the more spectacular beat package He could have gone to the showroom and asked for the Will.I.AM package and was told he only qualified for the government subsidised MC 900 Ft Jesus package. I don't mind. Drum machines should sound rustic in my world. They should have cobwebs floating in the dappled sunlight. Is this an instrumental? Pianos, fake harpsichords, drum machines, loveliness, some harmony vocals at a distance. Very nice, a bit reminiscent of a Giorgio Tuma track perhaps. I am also waiting patiently for the Giorgio Tuma revolution to begin. Musicians will be exposed to his new record and be drawn into a vortex of pop majesty and wonderment. There have been many lovely records released this year actually. This one. Others. This track started off as a gentle pastoral ode and has been layered into a more robust type of cumulus cloud chamber pop. A hypnotic keyboard motif. A repetitive vocal, very Stereolab, it is all very hypnotic. Non French speakers of the world will feel superior to the masses in several Arrondisements that will lie ignorant of such beauty. I am inspired to travel to France and describe the loveliness of the sentiments on this record, even if perhaps they do not exist, to the greater population of France. I am just dreadful. I could travel to Laval instead. I love the French. Truly. i visited a beautiful French restaurant with a very kind person recently and had mussels and cheese. It was a delightful evening. This could have been the eclectic soundtrack to my having mistaken bowls of mussels for very large bowls of soup. Gazpacho! But that is Spain. We are spending this evening in France. Durutti has just been talked out of his raid on the national Bank. Whew. This is the only reason that I read, so that I may make incoherent references to whatever it is that I am reading at the time of my varied musical infatuations. This track is a bit modern seeming, almost club-ish. Wailing guitars or electronics now, a drum machine preset, vanilla vocals but it is still very good. His voice is not distinctive. It is pleasant. The words are not distinctive, they are diverting. Whereas Fugu seemingly bleeds his heart across all of these tracks this is more professional. I don't mind professionalism. If this were American I might mind. If this was Liam Hayes I might mind. Why doesn't he release records? I saw him play live once. He is exceedingly talented. I think he is aware of this. This may be his problem. He might be best served by a move to the continent. A bit more interesting drum machine/sampler patter to open Them. It starts off a bit singer-songwriter-ish. I keep describing everything as something-ish, my apoliges, I get into ruts. It is difficult to type whatever comes out of your head and not have it rotate in circles and be reminiscent of what you wrote from the same head only a few days before. I haven't written anything at all this week. My parents do not inspire me. My father could be a muse. He's had a remarkable run of bad luck and doesn't seem to have let it bring him down. He is without his left eye now. He had a very large portion of skin from his back removed and affixed to his face by surgery. It resembled a foreskin. Truly. But he has had several surgeries since and they have reduced the genital nature of his face. Soon he will wear an eye patch. I was hoping he would have a tattoo applied either of an eye or of an eye patch. Tattoos are so passe though, he declined my proposal, he is much too hip. My parents may be more hip than I am, in spite of their rejection of Glen Beck. I am unhip and unaware. I am buried in the early 20th century with Jean Marais and Nijinsky and Tristan Tzara and I don't mind. Every time I turn on the radio I hear David Mamet and he is never discussing Orwell. He mentions Wilfred Trotter though and Gustave Le Bon. I would like to be able to inject those two names in my everyday correspondence and conversation but I find the opportunities to are somewhat difficult to come by. A Long Way to the Start, strings, these seem real, are they real, I think they are real. Now the drum machine. Drum machines and strings are the future of music. Ask Bjork. She may be on NPR at the moment debating David Mamet about nationalising geothermal resources beneath Iceland. La Pasionaria as an elf. This is a charming pop song. I like it. Where my father's missing eye went he is unsure. I would have kept it as a souvenir. I have photos of my brain. When I had a seizure once they took several photos of my brain. It is unremarkable, as you can ascertain by perusal of this website, but I find it beautiful especially when juxtaposed against the titanium screws and plates in my jaw. It feels as if I have created a Maginot Line, a defense against intruders, a reinforcement of the blood-brain barrier to keep encephalitis out, to keep dementia at bay, to stop CJD cold. Short track now, this may be the third instrumental track, again it reminds of Allen Clapp. I am going to assume this was unintentional and I may be the only one to make that leap. Allen is not sophisticated or European or cool but he is charming and earnest and stripped of the barrier of language these tracks fall gently in line with those descriptors. Last track, gentle, rolling, last track pastoral travelogue, beautiful. he recently played live with Amor De Dias. it must have been a wonderful evening. Orwell in tee shirts and flip flops and Amor De Dias in the rain. Echoey chorus. How is this effect achieved? Dreaded compression? I am going to revert to writing an entry nearly every day, be forewarned. It will be mainly concerning the Spanish Civil War for the next couple of weeks, I am halfway through more than 1000 pages. I can't read when my parents are here, I feel pretentious. Better to be obnoxiously pseudo-literate in private. I have found this to be a universal truth. But when friends ask me about Orwell, if I had any, I will tell them he should be shared in great helpings and his loveliness is but another universal truth.

Have been playing host to visitors. More soon.

Update: Playing Giorgio Tuma for my mother. I think it is love. Of course it is.