Third Eye Foundation The Dark. There was mention by someone earlier of witches and I meant to make this entry an exposition about darkness. I enjoy the dark. I like how the evening world condemns the sun and the horizon crushed into a few feet outside of your being. I like when I hear voices in the night from around corners, on other stoops, in distress over unimportant matters. The day has so much less mystery. But then Trish Keenan died. I had posted a pointless bit of fluffy remembrance. I deleted it. I just read Bob Stanley's lovely bits about her. I didn't know her. Obviously. And perhaps I believed I was lucky because the only contact I had with Trish Keenan was through her beautiful creations. What success to live such a short life and to leave behind so many beautiful things to caress, to spread grace, to enthrall. And while the quest to make and disseminate beauty is not the most important calling it is a noble one. I've never created anything beautiful. If I had ambition and if I was the sort of person to make goals my goal would be beauty. To live it, to search it out, to create it, whatever. It has proved elusive. Why write of Trish Keenan in a Third Eye Foundation entry? Because the very first song has the feel of a lament. Actually all of the record has a feel of a lament, a requiem--for no one in particular but an evocation of the macabre and the remoteness of human existence at the end. She died without anyone being prepared for her death. It seems a shock to me and I am but a lonely fan thousands of mile from anywhere she has ever been. And so the distant moans, the icy keys and repetitive percussion seem farther away from moroseness and seem almost comforting in the unseasonable warmth of one January evening. It is the only evening of january 17th I will ever experience but then we take steps farther into the future than those that have departed. There have been faceless tributes on websites and they feel empty and cold, speak more of the music, speak more of the grace, speak more of the music, again. Unless you are Bob Stanley and she was your friend, then speak of her as you always had intended before she departed. I don't know if Third Eye Foundation can count Trish Keenan as an intimate. Perhaps the wordless tribute of music would be best, how really to describe the emotions that wash over and away when listening to Broadcast. They were smart, they were cool, effortlessly, they were avant-garde but they didn't allow that to make them insufferable. I am certain, probably, that Trish Keenan had loads of unlistenable self-important artists in her record collection but somehow Broadcast was always beautiful. Even when they made difficult it was beautiful. And that is the unending tribute. Third Eye Foundation make beautiful music. It is a different sort. Where one can imagine the possibilities of a world smitten by the music of Broadcast if only the next Ipod commercial was soundtracked by Where Youth and Laughter Go you can't quite imagine a planet hopelessly besotted by Anhedonia. Their is a majestic sort of towering doom, intense melancholy, bleakness, as graceful as a gazelle but as fierce as a back mamba. Black is key. The album title is The Dark and it is not a misnomer for describing what is contained within. A chorus of moans and howls, a lonely spare piano part and dread laden drum and bass. It's marvelous really. And as an elegy to Trish Keenan it works splendidly because when you are a distant star in a distant universe as a reference point of someone famous it is best to not display false emotion and celebrate a wonderful existence with the same wide-eared loe she bestowed upon so many of the unduly under appreciated. That difficult and esoteric need not be unlistenable is a lesson lost on many. Third Eye Foundation is difficult, but it is also dreamy and intensely pretty. Is than an objective opinion? Of course not. The first song has seamlessly segued into the second. More wondrousness. usually the path from difficult to indulgent leads through jazz. I was reading an article or a review of something, I think it was for True Grit or perhaps a television show I've forgotten the intention but the attitude throughout was one of the smug jazz fan. My workmate listens to jazz all day long at his desk, loud enough to torture my ears though really my tolerance is very low, and it is turgid nonsense. Why do jazz fans persist in believing somehow they have reached the apex of human evolution? Even John Lennon, who was decidedly silly on most subjects, disagrees something about old man in bars smoking and not listening. I forget the particulars. I did once see an op-ed on someone who cheered when he learned of the death of John Lennon because he was an enemy of jazz. Pah. Anyhow, it is alright for me to interject my own prejudices and biases while discussing a Third Eye Foundation record because do you realize how long their songs are and for me to try to describe the maudlin excess of a track like standard deviation would require a dexterity with the human language and understanding of the human psyche that I do not possess. Third Eye Foundation is Matt Elliott and he does seem to have a corner on this monstrous moroseness. It isn't heavy handed or dreary, it's atmospheric and soaring but at the center there is the hollowness of human existence. Some may find that depressing but for me it is gorgeous. But unlike a jazz fan who needs to crow about the superiority of their unloved genre in everything from television reviews to tourtiere recipes I have a more wide ranging sort of single mindedness. And while I think Third Eye Foundation is the near apotheosis of drum and bass i don't begrudge anyone who might rather want to listen to Katy Perry instead. Another seamless segue into the third track. Truly this is two pieces. Four epic parts of one construction and then the last track which is the pop hit. On the first bit we had tortured voices, on the second a crushed bit of distorted cacophony in the background and now a more minimal siren tone all accompanied by a steady heart beat meter measured witheringly with drum and bass programming of other more sylphlike figures on the sampler. Who knew that a Third Eye Foundation record was even a possibility? Now things are becoming more pulse quickening, it feels uneasy, distracting, physically uncomfortable. Beautiful. The mastery of this record is the sense or aura that envelops the listener and pulls him or her along involuntarily through the recesses of deepest, darkest human emotion. It is as emo as any music you will hear and it is wordless, it supplants the cliche of human suffering with the purer instinct of emotion. Your reaction to the music is entirely instinctual whether that reaction be found in revulsion or in bliss. I bet Matt Elliott has loads of jazz records and surely there are some jazz obscurities compressed and mutilated beyond recognition except by autopsy hidden within these epic tracks but I can love jazz influences even as I despise jazz and jazz fans. It is all so circular and claustrophobic now. He doesn't make records to be consumed lightly, when listening there is a commitment required or it becomes static. i suppose a jazz fan would say the same thing. ugh. Am I as insufferable as a jazz fan? No. Because I don't think this music is important in any historical context and in any context really, it pleases my heart and that is all I ask of music. I don't believe I have taste that is superior or inferior to anyone but it is as singular as anyone else and so I write with the selfish sense that my impressions are unique even if my descriptions of those impressions are less so. Fourth track now, the programming is brought to the fore and the glowing cinematic soundscape drifts deeper into the mix. It feels more disoriented especially after the concerted melancholic droning of the first three tracks. Again, they are part of a whole. It isn't something entirely removed from what he has done in the past, I hear bits of the first album, bits of Little Lost Soul, etc...in everything but he has become master class architect of human disagreeableness and so the dread momentum seems almost effortless as if he sat down at his computer and it poured forth from his fingertips in a single exhalation of desolation of woe. Now to the final scene featuring soul maddening disorientation and jarring climaxes and a very jazz like feeling of discombobulation, five songs all being played at once barely contained within the framework so carefully constructed over the preceding thirty-five minutes. Astonishing. A brilliant surprise. He stepped out of his dull, frankly, singer-songwriter clothes and back into his star collapsing alter ego and created a masterpiece. Last track now. The pop hit. The one that everyone is complaining about because it doesn't fit the overarching theme of the previous tracks but its genius. It reminds of the Semtex 12", small, a miniature electronic symphony of all the things you wish were included in Boymerang records. Will Graeme Sutton return to Boymerang as successfully after his own disastrous rebirth as Bark Psychosis? It is something to hope for. Perhaps a tribute to Trish Keenan and a signal to the world that beautiful things are sometimes hidden for reasons no one will ever understand. Third Eye Foundation is beautiful, the sort which thrills you with terror, the most exciting sort really.

Klima Serenades & Serinettes. I am not much for Piano Magic. Everyone everywhere makes allegations over their loveliness, tendency toward beguilement, etc...I found it all a bit dull. Klima is in Piano Magic. She sings, probably not enough. The first song here is a Piano Magic cover by someone in Piano Magic. I don't know whether it was she who sang it in Piano Magic. It's a lovely song. Is it as lovely when dressed in Piano Magic? Unknown. Even here it is metered and stutter stepped but not to any detriment. It's a terrific opening number. Intrigue and 'Peter the Painter' drama played out as if in a cinema. I listened to the radio today and on the air was a university professor or philosophy and he moving recounted the greatest moments and missteps of many of the great thinkers and statesmen of the west and he seemed most pleased with Winston Churchill. Not FE Smith. They did not mention the siege at Sydney Street. Second track, By Your SIde, another dark, spare track. Piano Magic write historical lyrics don't they? The one about rifles is meant to be about WWI. I've just recently finished Storm of Steel and it is amazing. How do you tell a wound is not so bad? His brains are not streaming down his face. It is an odd thing though, apparently rewritten 8 times?! Has Ernst Junger written anything else worth reading? ANd really divorced from the realism it is essentially a diary of his time in Hell although he seems quite jolly all the way through. I doubt Piano Magic took as their inspiration Storm of Steel as that book is vivid and exciting and well they are, as mentioned previously, dull. Klima doesn't write historical lyrics though as an english as a second language person the lyrics are something clever. Naughty bits about cutting people up, storing them in jars and keeping them beside you. Charming, really. Maybe if Piano Magic had simply adapted a Barbara Tuchmann novel to music they would capture lightning in a bottle. Much of this record, Klima's second, is dark and minimalist seeming. On By My Side it is multi-tracked synth pipes? Perhaps they are real. Call me William Prynne, my ears are shabby. A sever impediment for certain when writing about "music". I could take part in the fashion of the day and spread spurious rumours, speculate wildly, play my role as Matthew Hopkins and proclaim Klima as a witch and be immortalized as a villain for time eternal even as I might die before my 30th birthday. I've been writing a great deal of popular history, my new friends are Diana Manners and Rainsborough and the phossy jaw girls and the aforementioned Peter the Painter. Klima's lyrics are not bad but it's the same old vague wannabe enchanting mediocrity saved only by her inherent loveliness. Whispers and gentle plucks and trills and prettiness. Third song has passed, similar to the first two. Now a wordless bit of comeliness. She takes brilliant photographs and as such I could love her, I am certain, I could marry her and follow her around the world and play the musical box and haunt her diminutive shadows and protect her from the would be Matthew Hopkins and prevent her from having her skull removed and placed ina freezer as the tragic fates could not forfend as witnessed by the tragic tales of today's Arizona. This is not of the southwest, it is wintry though, and outside the winter has taken hold, seven inches of snow being transformed as I type, the ephemeral air the freighted cold compressing the snow into a magnificent lattice which will crunch with the sound of warmth forlorn. This song is a bit nice, very nice, a bit more urgent than the first four tracks. Now to song 6. It is time for the ILX poll for best albums of the year. I nominated this album, I predict ero votes. I really don't like that place. In some corners there are people who are begging for someone to convince them that they really should enjoy something that they do not enjoy. Is this possible ? I could be convinced that there is a loose objective standard on what delineates good music from poor music but there is no adjoining standard when it comes to emotional attachment to music. Why would I propose marriage to Klima and not to Esben the Witch? I don't know. This song, this winter drawn clear, I find delightful when earlier I was cringing while listening to Esben the Witch's new album. FE Smith would not be an Esben the Witch fan. I bet they will be huge and will win the album of the year on ILX some year soon. Things Get Better With Time now and I prefer it when the man is not singing but this is the weakest track on the album. The track where she decided or someone mentioned that it was all a bit mopey right? So she's "rocking" out, and some dude was walking past the studio and was roped in for some on call dreariness. Oh dear. The first album didn't have a boring dude on it. He's probably got a PHD in dreary, a member of the over credentialed class without any skills for anything other than writing record reviews for websites and government work. He could train Mossad's secret agent vultures and sharks with just another year or two in university with David Gilmour's son. When I was in Myrtle Beach I marveled at the beautiful Turkey Vultures that migrated from the gulf course to the warmth of buildings and houses when the snow fell. We don't have turkey vultures here. I don't believe. I should look up the range of Turkey Vultures but their ugliness reminds me of my car and I think I love my car. Sylvia now and back to the gentle balladry with the stuttered percussion. We do miss Guy Fixsen, slightly. Possibly we miss Alan Moulder as well. Wouldn't he be brilliant with Klima? Yes. Now to the "jam". A bit of Math rock verbalizing. I am currently reading Euclid and his Modern Rivals and have decided that should I fail in my endeavour to write a best selling novel(already accomplished) then I want to be Lewis Carrol or at the least Charles Dodgson and write a witty defense of someone important and uninspiring to the youth of today. Euclid used to mean something to gentlemen who craved dignity and respect. What is Eculid's standing today? Much diminished, certainly. I could write an allegorical defense of Lysander Spooner. The ghost of a social anarchist returned to defend himself against usurpation by the likes of Glenn Beck. It would be brilliant, I could insert a superfluous bit of erotica between Lysander and Joan of Arc in greek to appear learned and wise. I am neither. This track is a bit meandering but I don't mind. It is the twinkles, combined with the compressed snow under foot and sun it turns to fairy dust. Hopefully she doesn't marry John McEntire instead and then deliver a third album filled only with noodly math rock instrumentals. last track, more softness, more slowness, more quietness, words concerning the sea, blackness, the depths of human emotion in seven not profound clauses. It's lovely, really, it's a plaid dress and a bob haircut and a tender strum of the guitar that caresses my inner existence.

It turns out that I don't much like The Beets. Their fans should listen to My Darling You!. Is Sweden cooler than Brooklyn? Yeah, probably. Why is Captured Tracks so hip?

The Love Language Libraries

I love this album. There's my objectivity then, shot through and diminished. This was my travel record. I didn't actually require a travel record this year. Last year, I needed, desperately, a travel record. The year before it was a Frida Hyvonen record. The weather outside my window has turned to Frida weather. The walk through the half empty terminal this year upon returning home felt different, instead of the willfully obscure it was tender exuberance. The Love Language is endowed with this marvelous spirt, an enthusiasm that is a really remarkable force acting upon my psyche. It impels motion. I listened while I sat next to mute airplane rowmates who misspelled react on their Ipod scrabble and when running in the South Carolina snowfall and along the beach that was truly deserted save for a few people taking photographs beneath the pier and a man running in shoes where his toes fit individually into each toe hole, and I listened alone but then music is always a lonely endeavour for me. 'Pedals" sounds like Stephen Cogle singing indiepop, it's a tremor of human consciousness. He's a crooner. He possesses a powerful croon, with power enough to knock over buildings in some rampage of emotion, it is a voice to crash brash cathedrals and to make the stars feel strangely close at home. I have never heard the first Love Language album. It is meant to be intimate and forlorn. I am not sure that was his calling and I would certainly not want to diminish his mien by calling him a sad sack troubadour without ambition. Maybe it is the producer but...this voice was meant for cataclysms and monuments. Stephen Cogle is honestly the closest approximation I can offer. But the Terminals? No, it does not sound like the Terminals. Not even when the Terminals wrote their gothic renditions of garage pop such as Frozen Car. The organ is prominent and soaring, the drums are thunderous, everything is to the red actually, it plays very loudly in my ears near to the point of distortion and dissonance but it wouldn't be as thrilling if it didn't seem on the verge of collapse. It is indiepop, I suppose but not in the epithetical sense of the word, the song just now, Brittany's Back has a country-ish twang to it but still his voice is as insistent as a steaming train. Incredible. This year the new year brings different emotions. Death shrouded my heart last year, from Seattle to home, sitting in an airplane waiting to see the end of an imaginary existence. There are diaries that provide the backing story and it is interesting to read about your imaginary existence in someone else's marvelous penmanship. This year my mouth has opened and words have come out. A rare feat. Track now is This Blood is Our Own, still incredible, the organ crescendo bit now is spine tingling, so many cliches, it seems as if when I really am impressed I lose my ability to express myself. There was once 'celestial braising', oh dear, and now it is 'marvelous' or 'incredible' or whatever. I forget who it was that said you should never use a cliche in writing ever, if you recognize any phrase as one that has existed in any prose or poetry anywhere then you must jettison this. But no one reads this, not especially since I have lost my heart when it comes to music and only occasionally have the flame stoked tepidly by majestic records such as this. I could look up the quotation I mean to impress you with but I was watching a show on Joe Strummer today and a cavalcade of unimpressive figures rolled out their own quotations and I was bored by them all even as I find Joe Strummer fascinating because the man was a genius in the sense that I think he knew exactly who he was and how he was meant to interact with the world. That is power. I am still unaware of what I mean to anyone or anything other than the first breath each morning. Summer Dust is on now, well actually it has just finished, more brilliance, a slowie, a country croon. Beautiful. Each track is a wonder. Blue Angel has started now and it sounds like some relic from a distant age. Again, perhaps these are all manipulations by a clever producer but the voice is no feat of science and labour. The words? Hmm...I suppose they are serviceable. Aside from the 'powdered cannons' bit in the first song nothing can move past the bombast of the performance. This is no slight. Perhaps it will take Gordon from ballboy to come along later with a stripped down acoustic recording with cello in tow to help me realize the brilliance of his pen apart from the magnificence of his voice. I am maybe overstating things. It's the heft of his voice, the musculature that impresses me so, it is actually a bit nasal but in this world of muffled mumblings it is a joy to hear a voice so distinct and prominent. Winter arrived only yesterday. Now to a jaunty, jangly number with rockabilly lyrics and back alley rubbish bin lid percussion and joy, armloads of joy. The first record was a lament. His girlfriend let him. His heart died. I may have been more open to that last year. My heart didn't die, it was paralyzed. New Year's eve is the saddest night of the year. A retelling, nay an audit of 12 months of regret and wasted opportunities can make for a weary evening spent alone in the dark writing about sunny pop music. Anthophobia now, marvelous. I can't tell you if the songs are great, perhaps not, I've sen other reviews and they are occasionally tepid but his performance is inspiring. When I recount the highlights of this year I think only of one night when I discovered I might mean something to someone sometime. When someone proposes to you there is that brief glimpse into a possible future and it doesn't seem horrible. But when you say no, there isn't a possibility of recovery. I could play The Love Language the next time, if ever there is a next time. But fear of being alone isn't enough. Next track, Horophones, loud and dissonant and still sooooo good. I find that when there are long absences I tend to describe my past recollections only vaguely too timid to reveal anything other than my visceral reactions instead of a logical examination of all that lead to my demise because it is a loop that I have grown tiresome of. I could make a resolution to change editors but at this point it may be genetics. And a bad haircut, I have the world's second worst haircut, second only to some person from the Joe Strummer documentary. Wilmont, starts off as a tender distantly recorded lament and now has bloomed into a glamourous ballad. Is this the album of the year? Possibly. I tend to discover albums of the year always in December. The most played record of my year is perhaps a toss-up between the Lucky Soul album which dominated the early part of the year, the Club 8 record which I thin is completely genius however unlikely that sounds and Sally Seltmann. I think record of the year comes down to this and Sally Seltmann. Sally Seltmann touches my hart with her joy, my heart is steamrolled by the truckloads of joy here.

Add My Autumn Empire to my list of favorites oh and the Memoryhouse record too, beautiful, both. Reading 'The Zimmerman Telegram' now, oh Barbara Tuchmann.

Hi. I've been busy. Someone proposed to me. Even before she had read my book. Afterwards, after we parted, she said she didn't like it. I intend to mend my foolish truancy. Intentions are grand. My favorite records this year, the year of indiepop-Lucky Soul, Third Eye Foundation, Club 8(really grea), Allo Darlin', Electric Pop Group, Amiina, Beach House, Klima, Brave Timbers, Candy Claws, Cats on Fire, The Drums, Kortney, Gigi, Hello Seahorse(no longer really boring indiepop), hildur G, His Name is Alive, jj, jonquil, Legendary Creatures, the ocean tango, pascal pinon, procedure club, sally seltmann(so wonderful), sambassadeur, seabear, she & him, the sonnets, stars, suede(best of, oh how foolish I was in diminishing them in the past), vampire weekend.

disappointment-The School.

The heart worn tenderness of the new Milky Wimpshake record makes me smile warmly.

Whoa! Suddenly Hello Seahorse are interesting. Especially the singer who seems to have gone post-menopausal with her sudden archness. Very excellent!

Update: Have you read Lapham's Quarterly. Yes yes, of course you have, you are sophisticated, posh and wise. It is a thrill to read an article by Gustave Flaubert about then contemporary French theatre. Is it not? Possibly not. I've been listening to the Kort record every morning when I drive to work. It's "authenticness" soothes me. When I arrive at work I have forgotten it's balm and in the evening after a day's worth of frenetic haranguings from clients and employees I am in need of something more difficult to deal with those who would be difficile. To me! I listen to Moonshake in the evenings. How great would it be if everyone of the country thicks that listen to the Kort record then turned around and found themselves a copy of Boys. Cortney would blow up their heads. It would be a terrible mess. Someone would need to clean up later. It is nearly election week. It is very exciting, we are soon to be ruled by racists and bigots. Tom Tancredo may even win the Colorado Governor's race and soon after he will construct a 17 foot electrified fence to not only prevent people from getting into Colorado and stealing all of the jobs but also to get out. You may never hear from me again, he could have someone in line to monitor all communications exiting the state. Hello Seahorse! will certainly be verbotten in Colorado after his election. They are...whisper...from Mexico. They used to be chirpy and annoying twee but now well it seems as if they've started listening to the Cocteau Twins and quite possibly, be still my heart, Pram. Her voice has gone from familiar and kindly to something altogether more interesting and shrill. I keep saying interesting because well most indiepop bands are not. Listen to Northern Portrait, they are as dull as dishwater. First song is almost over, I haven't said anything about it, Tancredo's shadowy fingers lingering over my keyboard, and it's dancey electro pop. Loads of fancy keyboards, less guitar, more of a production footprint than in the past. Everything is in Spanish. They could be as annoyingly chirpy and twee and I would be none the wiser but switiching exclusively to their native tongue has done wonders. It is months later. The election is over. We are free from the oppressive fear of a Tancredo administration. First song has finally finished, whew, it is a long one. Second song has started, Casa Vacia, very Pram-esque beginning, keyboards on ironing boards keyboards and a nostalgic childish voice, very excellent. In Spanish still. I did not receive a Rosetta Stone language kit so I will not be able to translate for my two readers. They were once so cloying. They were once so dull. What happened? This is truly terrific. And now of course they have been abandoned by the kids. I have ben catching up with some twee websites recently and Tangents guy was skeptical of Allo Darlin', sheesh! Unfairly I have neglected them in mentions of best record of the year. I also made mention of her Englishness in my previous mention, in fact she is Australian, and this may have ben a case of xenophobia. But she hangs with Hefner. And she writes amazingly charming pop songs that don't sound amateurish, uninspired or derivative. A rarity. This is mainly why I don't read twee websites. They have the same totems and have progressed at the same pace along an evolutionary path that leads to rubbish such as Northern Portrait and Standard Fare, it is the same process that has afflicted indie rawk websites. Evolution seems to spread at an even rate all along the spectrum of websites from the world changing to the narcissistic exercises similar to mine. Why is this? I have people who attempt to send me free records. Why? No one reads this site and I don't take what I write about music seriously. I enjoy music, I love it actually, given a choice I would rather be listening than not, but if you are given a free cd are you inclined to treat its donors more kindly? I don't know. Maybe if Kanye sent me a cd I'd feel more appreciated. Fourth song now, still Pram-ish, it has a spooky undercurrent among the electronic explorations. They didn't use to be nearly all electronic. I don't think. I recall having had the first album. I listened a few times. There wasn't the goth, semi-industrial Depeche Mode element that this song has and it wasn't nearly as good as this. I've been having an email conversation with someone that I don't know and the idea of not liking anything in the mainstream has arisen, she has come off snide and cranky and frankly a bit conservative and close minded when discussing popular phenomenons from Twilight to 500 Days of Summer. Do I sound the same? Possibly, but among the hipsters i know I am comparatively open minded. I am not probably classifiable as a hipster. My mother buys all of my clothes as birthday and Christmas presents. That's not very hip. I am wearing a nice pullover at the moment, a Christmas present, it came in useful as I was shoveling snow thre days after it had snowed. When the snow falls here it falls as snow and then in the evening when the humidity falls away, when the mercury deeps close to zero the snow changes. It turns to crystals like tiny pellets of graphite that lubricate the rapid steps between automobile and front door. A groovy disco number has started, jungle whelps, and urgent vocalizing. A bit Electronic Tomato? Rather good. They are from Mexico. I've recently finished the Zimmerman Telegram and am amazed to discover how events in Mexico were in turn so influential in deciding whether the US would join the allies side in WWI. It's a terrific read. It is short. I recommend it, also everything else that Barbara Tuchmann has written. Pancho Villa, Carranza, they all had Wilson's number, knew he would roll over and die, somewhat similar to how the thugs of the world today know the same about our current administration. But whatever. There isn't any snow in Mexico this time of year. Well I suppose in the mountains there may be snow. This is not snow music. It is not blood music. they aren't passionate or thrilling but it's clever and entertaining. It could be that I am some tepid admirer in the same reference frame as my tepid colonialism as embodied by the recent Club 8 record. I could find real Mexican dance music. I love Murcof. He's pretty authentic although I imagine his upbringing was even more posh than Hello Seahorse!. Will they jettison the exclamation? It is terrifically twee to place an exclamation after your name. Oro Y Plata, now. I imagine the next record will be more minimalist, members will depart during the sessions, disgruntled over the change in direction, I'll love it and then there will be two offshoots one that sounds like this record and a band that records the hum of their hair dryer. This song is basic, loops of sound, her voice, that's about it. All of the songs hover around the 4 minute mark. i can't burn many calories dancing to a 4 minute pop song. It's still an album, it isn't a movement. Next track, Me Has Ovidado, this one is really sparkling. Maybe the kids do love this record. They should. could it be that I just rebel against what everyone else likes? Possibly. I am not much for Captured Tracks and everyone else loves them. I listened to the Soft Moon record and it was like easy-listening The Gordons. I think they meant to be menacing. Perhaps not, perhaps easy listening lack of menace menacing was the effect they were reaching for. I kinda like the Beets. Wild Nothing does little for me. This makes me uncool. Also I like the Pomplamoose commercials. I am uncool. Will Hello Seahorse! have their own car commercial soon? I hope so. They can repatriate the funds and help out those who use to build Fords and Chryslers in Mexico but who now must commute to China to make cars. There is a fascinating photo series in the Guardian showing the ruins of Detroit. Hello Seahorse! are just melancholy enough to soundtrack the accompanying documentary, should it ever be made, and Peter Weller could host and he could mention his PHD in renaissance art and discuss the beautiful architecture that has ben abandoned in the city. Detroit was once a glimmering jewel. Sad. If this track was playing over the reliquary that is Michigan Theater or the United Artist Pavillions I'd be moved to heartache. I used to travel down Livernois, through the fashion district, past the convenience stores selling live poultry and lament to death of a city. It is dead. And snow covered. But their football team is much improved. Last track is a reprise of the second track, acoustic. Lovely things. I will assign this as ninth best album from 2010. Congratulations, you win nothing!

New Cortney Tidwell and Kurt Wagner record of country duets is stunning. All covers, but all hopelessly obscure, at least for my ears.

New Third Eye Foundation, who knew that a new Third Eye Foundation record was even a possibility, is amazingly awesome.

When will the new Panda Bear surface. 'Person Pitch' made me a new friend this evening. Everything is beautiful and nothing hurts.

Democracy has broken out in Belle & Sebastian again, I don't mind at all. Will their fans' heads explode when they hear Norah Jones on a Belle & Sebastian record? Norah Jones as the new Monica Queen. I would have preferred Monica Queen actually.

Update: Record is not great, mediocre, same as the rest. What was unknown was that we are all in anticipation of a Sarah Martin solo record which will not ever likely come to fruition. Sadly.

I think I really like the new OMD album. I've only listened once. Nostalgia could be clouding my judgement.

Sally Seltmann record is my record of the summer. It is romance and love and everything wonderful.

Stereolab singer solo record is not very good. Snoozy. New Fabienne Del Sol record is only slightly better, makes you wonder what a record with her singing Best Coast songs might sound like though.

Update: But the Stereolab record is very good, mostly. Why leave something good to do something not good? Is it all down to ego?