At the park or at the pier

Nosaj Thing - "Wandering Star/Coat of Arms"
(via Low End Theory Podcast, Episode IV)

I'm heading off to Vancouver. I will be back in a week or so.

****

GHOST OF A CHANCE

Turboweekend - "Sweet Jezebel"

sleeping sickness
 sleeping pills
    sleeping beauty

. . .

More on this song and Turboweekend's Ghost of a Chance LP over here.

late summer jams

Outdoor Miners - "Turn You Into Glue"
It's a bit late to be making additions to my list of melancholy summer jams, so this will just have to settle for being a charming and bittersweet pop tune.

Here's a couple others:

Irma Thomas - "Cry On"
Phoenix - "Rome" (Neighbors Remix w/Devendra Banhart)

****

21

Fever Ray - "Concrete Walls"

My favourite thing on the Fever Ray album are the streaks of numbed synthesizer that snake through the above track and fade off into its oppressive blackness. The multi-tracked vocals contain all the tenderness of an iceberg; the mournful bits of synth zero in on a sense of romance and deep sadness, and wrest it to the surface.

****

finally got my head right

Fever Ray - "Stranger Than Kindness"
(originally by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds)

****

543

Four Tet - Love Cry

This track might lack some of the magic of Four Tet's record with Burial ("Moth" being my current favourite track of 2009) , but it's still bordering perfection. It has the same panoptic vision, ambiguous climax--Is it the sweet build-up and convergence of the cut-up R&B vocals? or the stillness of the bass throb that follows?--and lack of resolution that made the Burial collab so brilliant. It's music that embraces you, but feels sad and cold and distant. In nine minutes, Four Tet gives you everything you could want in a track like this, and still leaves you feeling deeply unsatisfied.

even caramel sundaes, pt 2

Javelin
Andean Ocean Tape
via dollarbinsofthefuture.com

My computer says this mix runs 30 minutes, but it feels like a very long 30 minutes. It will not relieve post-summer blues, but it can make your sadness more meaningful.

****

even caramel sundaes is getting touched

Fabian - "Heatwave"
(photo, mp3, and quote via someplace much warmer)

Leftovers from a summer that I didn't have.

Please listen with headphones.

. . .

"Sometimes, in the colder months, when we get a bit of a warm spell, its like the sun reaches into everyones' chests and turns on an energy switch. People get a wild look in their eye and crazy things happen. Nights on the town turn into 3am hikes to the Hollywood sign, or sunrise swimming sessions in the Pacific. Romances are born and die in flames in the blink of an eye. This is true in any city."

No.

[pause for sigh]

It's not.

****

"blinking pigs"

Little Dragon - Blinking Pigs

Yukimi Nagano has a supernatural voice and perfect phrasing. She could sing a song about cows and chickens, and it would be beautiful.

****

Transition, on first listen

All of my free time is currently being sucked up by GRRM's vampire novel, Fevre Dream, and episodes of "The Wire", which I just started watching due to a massive number of friends' recommendations. Both the book and the show feel somewhat dated in 2009, like how I imagine a fine wine tastes to those who can tell the difference.

But I had to take a quick break to check out Ryan Leslie's newest offering, a sophomore album entitled Transition. Here's a quick run down:

"Never Gonna Break Up"
Perhaps one of the best tracks on the album. The song feels firmly stuck in place, and it's made instantly compelling by virtue of the lush, darkly-lit synth figure that opens the song. Its excessive brooding is what makes it so good. Perfect music for lonely nights wandering through empty hallways.

"Something That I Like" (feat. Pusha T)
Why would Leslie think he needs to rap on a track already featuring one half of the Clipse? I am beyond baffled. Wait. . . Pusha watches "Project Runway"? He doesn't exactly say as much, but if this is true, my masculinity can be validated in so many ways I never imagined.

"Zodiac"
There is some crazy, euphoric, synth-melting stuff going on here. It's overflowing with details, but it's done cleverly, without weighing down the song.

"Is It Real Love?"
I like this one, but it feels a bit by the numbers. That said, Leslie likes to throw in an interesting breakdown or interlude--like he does here--which can redeem the formula.

"Sunday Night"
I fully admit that this one is an acquired taste. But if you liked "Anniversary", which this seems to be riffing off. . . The following deserves quoting:

"Do you know what today is? It's our anniversary /
Got so many flowers-- your living room like a nursery."

Say what? I guess "greenhouse" didn't rhyme with "anniversary".

"You're Not My Girl"
Alex at The Singles Jukebox nailed this one down back in September.

"To the Top"
Like a couple of the productions on Leslie's self titled, which seemed more like filler than prime cuts, this is definitely one of the less-inspired tracks.

"Nothing"
This is a textbook example of Leslie's ability to seemingly pull an idea out of his ass and make it sound good. The electric guitar, which could be ripped from the theme song to so many '80s TV series, definitely steals the show. Nothing says "tasteful experimental R&B" like a guitar solo.

"Guardian Angel"
By far the sappiest moment on the album, but he doesn't rap on the track. So there's that.

"All My Love"
Still don't know about this one. Seems pretty weak. The handclaps are especially awkward.

"I Choose You"
Not much here, either. But it's an appropriately stark and simple conclusion. A fitting "quiet death" for the album.

****

walking up the ramp

photo by Gagan Mahan

Small Black - Despicable Dogs (Washed Out Remix)

****

...In the dull catalogue of common things.

Seek Magic is not as cryptic or pretty or as magical as I thought it should be, or imagined it being. Every day I seem to rediscover this irritating fact about life: that what I want is almost never what I'm going to get. When I approach an album with high expectations, so often I expect it to be transcendent right off the bat--that it's just going to explode into my life and be The Greatest Thing Ever.

Even before hearing Seek Magic, I imagined a philosophy or concept behind the music--thinking of it as an attempt to uncover some deep spiritual reality by way of childhood nostalgia-- and despite very much liking this concept that I created in my head, after hearing the album, I can muster little more than ambivalence. For me, this music recalls the soundtracks to animated shorts on PBS that I saw as a kid, or the music that played in Sears or The Bay at those listening stations where you could sample the New Age cds--mind-numbing instrumental fluff with names like "Sounds of Spring" and "African Tapestries". On a one-to-ten scale of extremely boring to exciting, some of that music maybe managed a 'two'.

Seek Magic raises more than a few pleasant memories as well--some of the synthesizer occupies a vague space between the music of Super Metroid and Donkey Kong Country (or, at least, my memories of it)--but overall, the album seems to have hit upon some of the most boring moments of my childhood. Mostly, it reminds me of waiting. Those PBS shorts were the things you had to sit through while you were waiting for your favourite television show to come on again. No kid old enough to understand what they were watching actually liked those things. This was the time when you went back upstairs to refill your cereal bowl with more Froot Loops. "Sounds of Spring" was only slightly less boring than following my mother around the department store while she searched for tea towels or whatever else she was looking for. There are so many other sounds and recollections that I'm not mentioning, but overwhelmingly Seek Magic is comprised of the sounds of seconds becoming minutes and minutes becoming hours, with nothing to show for it. This is not a good feeling. Not really.

I'm telling myself not to romanticize this overall sense of disappointment even as I do it. I remember lazy Saturdays, where the mornings blurred into afternoons and seemed to draw out forever. I remember school days spent at home, sick with the flu, where the most exciting things were a piece of dry toast and the sound of the dishwasher running.

I've listened to Seek Magic three times now beginning-to-end, and I can feel it growing on me, but I'm not sure I want it to.

Memory Tapes - "Green Knight"

Memory Tapes - "Pink Stones"

****

uk funky

I put Roska's FACT magazine mix on a cd and brought it to work awhile back. I've been playing it steadily for 5 months now, and no one has complained yet. (Because. It's. So. Good.) It gets better each time I hear it. Also, "In Your Handbag" scares off would-be shoplifters.

download here (via sendspace)

tracklist:
01 Magic Touch - Signed & Sealed
02 Afroganic – Embargo (Wookie Mix)
03 Roska - In Your Handbag
04 DJ Naughty - Cheap Talk
05 DJ Mystery - Speechless
06 D-Malice - Dreams Come True
07 MA1 - Give It Up (Roska Remix)
08 DJ Naughty - Trouble’s Back
09 Meleka - Go (Crazy Cousinz Remix)
10 Geeneus - Emotions

****