So, do I throw like a girl?

Blurt Digizine

I’ve never had the bandwidth to check this out before (it’s 90 KBs), but Blurt does a digital magazine now that looks very much like the old Harp. It’s just that you have to print it out on your own paper.

Anyway, I have reviews of Christina Carter’s Original Darkness and Chris Brokaw’s Canaris, both very fine, in the current issue, as well as a short interview with the Wild Beasts.

Download the whole thing here:


Also, I’m not crazy about holiday music, except when it’s played on pipe organs and sung by boys whose voices haven’t changed yet, but 65 Days of Static has graced us with one called “I’m Dreaming of a White Noise Christmas.”


The combination of less to say (everything’s closed down now until 2009), Christmas and travel probably means that I’ll be posting infrequently for a while…have a nice holiday everyone!

Another best-of list

Blurt (the old Harp) put out its year end list yesterday, and, I have to say, it's way more in line with my 2008 than any other aggregated list I've seen. I had some input into it...but then I had some input into the PopMatters list, which has not a single one of my top-ten picks in its top 60.

But Blurt has singled out a bunch of my favorites -- not just Alejandro, but Thalia Zedek and the Gutter Twins.

So, wow, I feel like a part of something for once, instead of a lone kook in the desert.

Here's the list.
http://www.blurt-online.com/features/view/240/

Illustrating the “scraps” principle

This very low-key but enjoyable folk-influenced album by a member of the extended Banhart tribe came from PopMatters’ leftover list and was released on a label so small that no website exists.

And I could have been reviewing Fall Out Boy.

Viking Moses, The Parts that Showed (Epiphysis/Music Fellowship)
Viking Moses, the musical nom de plume of Brendon Massei, has been turning out limited edition vinyl and short-run CDs since 2003, but The Parts that Showed is only the second full-length. Massei is loosely associated with freak folk movement, having gotten early exposure on the Golden Apples of the Sun compilation and played bass with both Devendra Banhart and Vetiver. Here, however, he takes on not the hearts-and-unicorns fancies of new folk, but rather the more plainspoken aura of Palace Brothers and Bonnie Prince Billy. (It’s no surprise really, since he recorded chez Paul Oldham in Kentucky.) These are lonely musings on hardscrabble lives, sung in a ruminative voice and couched in subtle arrangements of guitar, drums and bowed saw. The single “Jones Boys” rumbles along on percussive strums and old-time-y brush and hit hat rhythms, a porch sing-along-chorus buoying the song into communal optimism. Yet it’s better still to turn to the slow drama of “Little Bows” with its pulsating rhythms and warble-y intensity or the slow, lovely flourishes of guitar in “Under a Soda Sky”. Massei says his dearest wish is for Dolly Parton to sing this album, which is maybe why he’s included a cover of “I Will Always Love You”. It’s a bold move, stripping this diva-friendly show-stopper down to the barest shades of longing, but it works. Dolly, who never let big production get in the way of emotional honesty, would be proud. [Amazon ]

“Jones Boys”


I’m interviewing Fennesz in 30 minutes…wish me luck.

an interview with an unusually perceptive freelancer

no fucking clue who it is...

Try here

Dancer Vs. Politician

I'm thinking Politician by seven...what do you say?

Here's my review of this German pop-electronic confection, up yesterday in Blurt:

Dancer Vs. Politician
A City Half Lost
(Self-Released)

For dream-fuzzed ventures through warm acoustic and percolating electro territories, Berlin-born Sanni Baumgartner has enlisted almost a score of Athens, Georgia-based musicians, playing everything from electric guitar to cello to clarinet to musical saw. Yet populous though this CD is, it never feels overweighted. Baumgartner's supple, soothing voice weaves through rich string arrangements and twinkling glockenspiel, augmented, never overwhelmed.

More

MySpace

"Mach Dich Los"

"Justin Fairborn"

Stealing other people's ideas again

Nate Knaebel, one of the garage people at Dusted, has his list up today. What I know on this list (Dirtbombs, Cobra Verde, Jay Reatard, Pink Reason) is mostly excellent…I’m not sold on the Vivian Girls, but everything else looks pretty good. But there is also a ton of stuff that I don’t know, so I thought I’d throw a few videos up and see what you all think.

Eddy Current Suppression Ring, “Which Way to Go”
I’m pretty sure I have this on at least one computer, so you might want to rifle through Raven Sings the Blues and see if he put any mp3s up. I think he probably did.


Nodzzz, “I Can’t Wait”


The Goodnight Loving, “Drafted Into War”


And, to close things out, Prisonshake live in Columbus in September. There are bunch of videos from Prisonshake’s first incarnation, but this is the only one with current footage.