jaguar love

subsets of the blood brothers and pretty girls make graves join hands

jaguar love - highway of love

feral children

Spy/Glass House
Jaundice Giraffe

boat

(I'm a) donkey for your love
last cans of paint

wolf parade live

i had kinda mixed feelings about seeing wolf parade but it didn't have much to do with the band. with the show being at the house of blues (chicago) it was, in my mind, at the upper limit of the size of venue that offers any possibility of being fun. plus i resented having to buy tickets through ticketmaster. but it being a nice day and all (albeit kinda long since for some reason i woke up at 4am) i was still a bit excited about going to the show. in short, it was ok. nothing more than that really. it could have been a lot louder for one thing and a lot of the songs come of a little bruce springsteen-y. or maybe it was just the checkered shirts? at any rate, i wasn't a big of fan. the only song that i really got into was the, to quote the pitchfork, 'stubbornly unmelodic finale marked by a mush of throbbing guitars and histrionic vocals' (i.e., kissing the beehive). but again, i don't think it was wolf parade's problem - i do like their albums a lot and their performance was just fine. it was just the wrong surroundings. or just me. at any rate, i don't think i'll go to another show at a venue where i can't get i chance to kick a bandmember in the pants if i should feel like it.

call it a ritual

since posts here have become increasingly rarer i might as well mention alaska in summer that i also so live but in the right circumstances - and on paper alaska in winter wouldn't really seem to have a lot going for them when it comes to live performances. what are your expectations for a 'band' that consists of guy singing along to tracks on his laptop? right? but the show was damn close to brilliant - at least i left with a smile on my face and saw no reason to celebrate the evening by getting royally drunk. the brilliance of the show was in the video projections which consisted of the guy in the role of his own backing band complete with costume changes. it doesn't sound like much and it probably has been done before but it was done cleverly and worked beautifully. so, i guess, 2-0 for my kick in the pants theory.

close your eyes

mogwai

The Sun Smells Too Loud

Mriando

duke spirit

relay - context

starts of like just another band that has discovered shoegazing but somewhere circa halfway through the song the get things just right. nice noisy bits.

......

titus andronicus takes us back to the days before bright eyes turned into bob dylan light (and yes, john, that is meant as an insult in two ways). i guess i'm a sucker for singers that can bother to scream b/c i can barely bother to speak most days. the gutter twins are mark lanegan and greg dulli - don't know what else to say. don't know if i need to say anything else. i've always had a soft spot for jucifer. partly because they have stuck to their guns and they have played pretty much the same song from the start of their career (ok, that's not completely fair). Partly because they are loud. i guess their new album is a little different - so far i have decided i like the loud songs. thankfully, wolf parade aren't changing things up too much on their new one. pretty solid stuff but perhaps not on par with their debut. human bell - a couple of thrill jockeys. islands' new album is, well, strange. it seems too produces but, then again, it took me a while to get into their first one. mae shi. long blondes are sound slightly less annoying although i think they are probably a whole lot more annoying in person. that's just what they sound like. notwist. plants and animals. santogold lifts a bassline from the pixies. nice. people compare santogold to m.i.a. ok, there are a couple of songs where that makes a little bit of sense but, well, there are songs here. i'm not sure they are great but, at least, they are not offensive. windsor for the derby. uffie - just because i stumbled upon this song and it seemed strangely appropriately b/c i was thinking that it was hard to think much of uffie's music. for one thing it is silly. and then there is the gap between uffie as she appears in interviews and her music - it makes me think of people playing guitar hero. don't really know what my point is. but i guess uffie is right here, silly is not necessarily bad and her songs are strangely fun. and then some more of the same stuff.

oh, les savy fav and the kills are officially on my shit list for canceling their shows in oxford. so is oxford. and especially carling academy.

the last shadow puppets

i didn't really know what to expect from arctic monkey's frontman's side project, the last shadow puppets, but this wasn't really it.

phosphorecent - a picture of your torn up praise

nice song, pretty video. a picture of your torn up praise

dragons of zynth, etc.

oddly enough, dragons of zynth released their album last year without getting much notice. it kicks as. in the tv on the radio sort of way - and i can only imagine how tired these guys are of hearing that. but it is sort of true but there is enough else going on here. man man's new one is out and it doesn't disappoint. slaraffenland... well, they sound kinda dull compared those two bands. don't know about them. black keys sound slightly less than the black keys than they normally do. is that a good thing? i have to say to get dangermouse to produce their album is a clever thing to do.... how can you not check it out. now, that is an odd couple. tokyo police club. not bad. not too exciting either. their last one grew on me though so i'll give it a shot. the notwist... hmm, i have a feeling the went ahead and tried to something new when all we really wanted was neon golden II. death cab for cutie also have a new one. i still think they are kinda boring.

thao, amc, white hinterland

today's helping is kinda quite and nice. maybe b/c i'm feeling sickly. anyhow, thao reminds me a little of cat power and, wait, edie brickell. is it good? i can't decide. i gave up on amc/m.eitzel some 10? 15? years ago but their new one sounds more like i what want them/him to sound like. white hinterland sound like nice music for sunday afternoons. and then a couple of more upbeat songs with team robespierre and hercules and love affair.

oh no

neon neon = boom bip + gruff rhys?

breeders, fleet foxes, no kids, throw me the, etc

i guess the breeders are back, who would have thought. also some other goodies...

these new puritans

yet another band i almost gave a pass b/c i didn't like their name. now i'm thinking i should only listen to bands whose names i hate. tnp's beat pyramid simply kicks ass. it's battles except they are fun. and there are obvious influences from bands such as joy division and wire (whose member, i believe, produced beat pyramid) but there are also bits that recall les savy fav and some unnamed poppier bands.

the teenagers, crystal castles

don't know quite what to make of the teenagers. i generally don't get the point of funny music - i mean how many people have actually listened to an art brut record more than ones. i guess i should give the teenagers for sounding funny. and stupid. or is it clever? the crystal castles. like them. maybe love.

evangelista - truth is dark like outer space

i never really got into the geraldine fibers but carla bozulich's new outlet, evangelista, makes me think i have some listening to do. truth is dark like outer space is one of these songs that seems way too short because there seems no reason why it should ever end. it sounds like sonic youth fronted by thalia zedek, which, if you think about it is about the best possible combination one can think of. if one can criticize sonic youth for anything it is that sonic youth was always a little bit too arty (not necessarily a bad thing though) and that they were always more out to impress than depress. thalia zedek, with come, on the other hand, could seriously fuck with your head.

above, truth is dark.... below, sonic youth's mote (which i think is one of the instances sonic youth sounds invested in their songs), plus a few come songs, and for good measure, the faint's cover of mote.

9

a fairly schizophrenic collection of songs. but the real reason for the post was just mention warlock's somewhat underrated album from last year, heavy deavy skull lover. the least you can say is that the album is better than the title. anyhow, i really like moving mountains of that album. and since i am bothering to post, it is followed by (more) xiu xiu (obsessed with that song), nadja (if you like a bit of noise in your diet, this is for you - really cool album), benoit pioulard, black kids, the depreciation guild, bon iver, bodies of water, kim hiorthoy and probably something else...

clark - turning dragon

clark's new album, turning dragon, represent a bit of a left turn. or probably more accurately a right turn. clark's previous output has been pretty much ambient music that hasn't outlawed beats. turning dragon is essentially clark's assault on club music. it sounds like something you would expect to hear in a club but the vibe is altogether different. like most of clark's other stuff there is something threatening about his music except here you get the sense that things are about to boil over. i puzzled a bit over the rave reviews burial received last year but i guess there are some parallels here - both draw on what is essentially club music but replace the jump-around-and-be-happy feeling with something a little darker. neither succeeds entirely but in my book clark's album is more interesting. below a track from clark's latest, one from throttle promoter and the delicious herr barr from body riddle along with a reinterpretation by broadcast.