Posts published during September, 2009

09/22/2009

muse – uprising

waiting for an american muse tour

i had this great master plan of posting my current favorite track from the new muse album, “the resistance”, today to coincide with the release of the album. but then i found out that the album was actually released last week, leaving me embarrassed and humiliated. but then i remembered that nobody reads this so nobody will ever know. the good news is that im really feeling the british band’s fifth studio release, one that weve been waiting a few years to hear. im really really hoping this means that an american tour is in order because their live show is really something else. there are not many bands that can play a huge loud stadium anthem with an over the top visual show and then immediately follow it up with a classical piano solo.

“uprising” is the opening track of “the resistance” and it picks up exactly where their last album “black holes and revelations” off. well, unless you count “glorious” as being the last song of the album, then i guess it doesnt. but otherwise, the last album ended with the musethemic “knights of cydonia” (thats a word i just made up to describe the huge intense anthemic muse songs, of which there are many) with lead singer matt bellamy shrilly singing “no ones gonna take me alive/the time has come to make things right/you and i must fight for our lives/you and i must fight to survive”. this time, the band sings a few lines that are even more aggressive and triumphant sounding “they will not force us/they will stop degrading us/they will no control us/we will be victorious.” kind of makes you want to start a revolt while you sit at your 9-5 desk job reading this, doesnt it?

aside from the musethemic lyrics, this track has everything else that defines muse. the pounding beat of the bass, the minor melodies, which start out with a synth and the subtle sounds of a muted trumpet and remind you just a bit of halloween, though youre not quite sure why (the halloween thing is probably most evident in the track “time is running out” from their third album “absolution”), and of course those signature bellamy vocals and harmonies that sound just as good singing a slow ballad as they do singing a huge rocker like this. and dont worry when this song is over, because the rest of the album holds up to it too. and just for the record, anyone who ever tries to compare muse to radiohead is an idiot.

muse – uprising

Muse - The Resistance - Uprising buy this track on itunes
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09/21/2009

thom yorke – the hollow earth

incomparable radiohead frontman thom yorke

does anyone else think its been kind of odd how radiohead and its frontman thom yorke have been sort of randomly releasing music left and right as of late? lets see, just in the past month or two, theres been the release of “harry patch (in memory of)”, the charity track written in memory of, you guessed it, harry patch, who was the last surviving uk veteran of WWI who passed away at the age of 111. then there was the completely random leak/release of the new radiohead track “these are my twisted words”, which didnt seem to be tied to anything at all. and then theres the weird upcoming radiohead track on the “new moon” soundtrack.

the latest is the release of a thom yorke single that contains two tracks, “feeling pulled apart by horses” and “the hollow earth”. after listening to both of these tracks, all im going to say is that maybe i need to give them a few more listens. but on first glance i liked “the hollow earth” a bit more. but this begs the question — does this mean that there is a new thom yorke album on the horizon? i was pretty obsessed with his first computer-laden solo album “the eraser”, always finding a new favorite song that i listened to on repeat, the latest of which was “cymbal rush”, which i fell in love with after seeing thom play it solo as the first song of the encore during the webcast of their show at the Santa Barbara Bowl last summer. its getting hard to keep track of all of these one off releases, so hopefully it all means that some sort of album in some form is coming soon.

thom yorke – the hollow earth

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09/19/2009

saturday throwback. rush – la villa strangiato

legendary progressive rockers rush

are you ready for nine minutes and 37 seconds of instrumental greatness courtesy of geddy lee, neil peart and alex lifeson, better known as toronto progressive rockers rush? i sure hope so, cuz they are really good. besides having some of the most creative music ever, they are all crazy crazy good musicians who seem like they were way ahead of their time. which i guess is the definition of progressive rock? i actually remember the first i ever heard of rush. we used to have this huge raffle at our grade school every year, and one year my brother won tickets to see rush. i think he went to the show with one of our older cousins or something but then started listening to them all the time. and then i started liking weird music and started liking them too. and the rest is history i guess.

even though i like a ton of their stuff, this song has always stood out for me. i think i just really enjoy the creativity of taking basically one theme and replaying it out a bunch of different times throughout the track at different speeds and different rhythms. and remember how i said these guys are crazy crazy good musicians? well, pay attention to the drums throughout the song, and the flamenco-ish electric guitar solo a few minutes in (or the intro, for that matter), and some of the crazy bass fills, and just how many ways they twist and turn that theme if you dont believe me.

rush – la villa strangiato

Rush - Hemispheres - La Villa Strangiato buy this track on itunes
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09/18/2009

feist – i feel it all (diplos plastic remix)

diplo

another friday, another pretty cool remix to brighten your day. i have to thank elyse (aka peeflyse, aka auntalyse) for playing this track at a recent sideyard phone book bonfire. as one of the millions of members of broken social scene, feist has made a pretty huge name for herself as a solo artist. and diplo seems to be everywhere these days, with his major lazer project catching quite a buzz this summer. as i mentioned before, diplo was pretty awesome at lollapalooza, and i just read on wikipedia that diplo used to be a school teacher. so i guess theres still hope for me to quit my 9-5 job and become a famous musician and/or dj.

i happen to like feist, depending on the mood im in, but “i feel it all” is one of the songs that i always like because its so upbeat and happy sounding. and the video is kind of cool with choreographed fireworks that go along with the music. and diplo is pretty good at remixes a lot of the time, so right off the bat theres a pretty good shot that this unlikely pairing will bring happy results. i think i like the way that diplo takes the little things in the original song, like feist doing an ad-hoc “ha” and turning it into a major part of the remix. a pretty cool take on a great song.

feist – i feel it all (diplos plastic remix

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09/17/2009

jack penate – tonights today

a skull-shirted jack penate

lets take things on a much lighter note today than yesterday. todays song is by british singer songwriter jack penate. theres a tilde over the n in his name, so its pronounced “pen-ya’-tee” i believe, but i dont know how to do that character and its really a lot of work to figure it out, so use your imagination on that one. his website features some kind of neat things when you move the mouse around, and right now theres a list of songs hes been listening too a bunch, the first of which is plasticities by andrew bird. and since thats one of my favorite andrew bird songs, jack penate must be at least a little bit cool.

i think probably his most famous song is “second minute or hour”, which is a really fast paced upbeat tune that almost has a little bit of a ska vibe to it. but that song is in stark track to todays song, “tonights today”, which is much more slow-paced and much darker sounding. the music features a repeating guitar riff that has some sort of pretty cool effect on it that, along with some reverb, gives off a weird dreamy vibe, and the lyrics seem to corroborate the dreamy feel of the song. that would be sweet if i just used the word “corroborate” correctly. and the vocal effects at the very beginning, which come back in halfway through the song, seem to give the whole some a sort of tribal feel too.

jack penate – tonights today

Jack Peñate - Everything Is New (Bonus Track Version) - Tonight?s Today buy this track on itunes
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09/16/2009

the antlers – sylvia

peter silberman, the genius behind the antlers

ive pretty much been obsessed with the antlers album “hospice” the last few weeks. once i got over my miike snow fix, “hospice” became the new album that i had to listen to at least once a day. and with the low lows and high highs of the album, its tricky to get the volume just right to listen to the album at work and hear all the quiet parts without disrupting half the floor when the louder parts kick in. ive kind of been avoiding posting about this album because theres just so many good things to say about it. im not even really sure how i settled on one song to post because the album is so great from start to finish. i think what i like about it is how the lyrics are so sad and depressing but a lot of the time the music is just the opposite. listening to this whole album is kind of like being in some sort of dreamlike state. a big, beautiful, soft, loud, passive and bold dreamlike state.

the album tells the tale of a man being forced to watch the woman he loves die of cancer. the lyrics are extremely real and pretty intense at times and often in stark contrast to the music. while i chose “sylvia” as todays song, it could have just as easily been “kettering”, the utterly sad defacto opening track that sets the tone of the whole album both musically and lyrically, or “bear”, the track that starts out sounding like a lullaby describing cancer with the lyrics “theres a bear inside your stomach/the cubs been kicking from within/hes loud, though without vocal chords/we’ll put an end to him” and builds into a huge french horn laden song reminiscent of the national, or “two”, where we learn more about the couples torrid past and whose lyrics are almost too real and depressing for comfort.

but no, instead i chose “sylvia” (coincidentally ive already posted another song with this title by the aforementioned miike snow) after giving the lyrics another look. having recently experienced a close friend battle cancer (currently in the finishing stages of beating it, cuz shes a huge baller!), i can completely identify with the helplessness of the whole situation, wanting to help make things better but unable to do so. although in the case of this song, its more about a guy who basically didnt seem to realize what he had until it was too late, wishing for things to be the way they were before, best exemplified by the huge chorus that seems to come out of nowhere after the soft verses of the song:

sylvia, get your head out of the oven/go back to screaming and cursing/remind me again how everyone betrayed you/sylvia, get your head out of the covers/let me take your temperature/you can throw the thermometer right back at me/if thats what you want to do, okay?

and the closing lyrics:

sylvia, cant you see what you are doing?/cant you see im scared to speak/and i hate my voice cuz it only makes you angry/sylvia, i only talk when youre sleeping/thats when i tell you everything/and i imagine that somehow youre going to hear me.

whew. that was deep. im usually not huge on lyrics, but its almost a sin to not read the lyrics to this album while youre listening at least once. one of the realest albums ive heard in a long time, and hard to imagine something else beating it out for my album of the year.

the antlers – sylvia

The Antlers - Hospice - Sylvia buy this track itunes
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09/15/2009

great lake swimmers – pulling on a line

great lake swimmers

im not sure if youve been able to tell, based on my relentless references to wikipedia and google, but most of the time i dont really know anything about the bands that im posting about until i start writing the post. and a lot of the time ive only even heard one or two songs by the band. while i try to listen to as many albums as i can all the time, its just not possible when theres a new song every day. and a lot of the time i really want to listen to the album but i just havent yet. and this is one of those times. i first heard great lake swimmers when their single “your rocky spine” was released. its one of those songs that sounds so familiar the first time you hear it. and i figured theyd be from somewhere in the midwest based on their name, but it turns out they are really from canada.

while “your rocky spine” was pretty acoustic sounding with almost no beat or percussion other than the twanging of a banjo, todays song “pulling on a line” is a more upbeat instance of their great folky sound (but still pretty much acoustic). i was so close to seeing these guys (and girls — if i am ever in a band, i think it needs to be a co-ed band) at the ark in ann arbor a few weeks back since i still have never been there, but it just didnt work out unfortunately. this song also sounds completely familiar the first time you hear it. maybe thats a trend in their music, and if so its a good one. its really simple with great harmonies and is pretty catchy folk rock goodness. and anyone who lives in michigan knows that great lake swimming is awesome, so this group was destined to be excellent.

great lake swimmers – pulling on a line

Great Lake Swimmers - Lost Channels - Pulling On a Line buy this track on itunes
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09/14/2009

volcano choir – island, is

volcano choir

even if you havent heard of volcano choir, youll definitely recognize the vocalist as soon as you hear the song. thats because its none other than everyones favorite lovelorn singer songwriter justin vernon, better known as bon iver. in this very interesting side project, he collaborates with collections of colonies of bees in releasing the album “unmap”. i dont really know anything about them, but apparently they are also from wisconsin. and im listening to some of their stuff as i type this, so now i know more about them. and they sound like a pretty cool instrumental and experimental posse. and they sort of remind me a lot of a grittier version of do make say think, and thats a good thing.

while “island, is” is a pretty straight forward song with really neat music and those trademark vernon vocals, do not expect the rest of the album to follow suit. as vernon says of the album to pitchfork, “i sing on the album, but there arent a lot of lyrics — its definitely on the experimental side of things”. and he aint just whistlin’ dixie. on the track “and gather”, vernon sings nonsensical noises throughout the song, all layered over what sounds like it could be the soundtrack for a baby einstein video, but for some reason, it just seems to work. i wanted to make sure i listened to this album a few times and really got a good sense of it before i posted, and i can say that im really liking it in all its glorious weirdness, even though a few of the tracks are too much even for me. while this track is pretty mainstream sounding and great (any song whose final lyrics are “and your old tits on your hard drive” is bound to be good), dont approach this album expecting “for emma, forever ago pt II” or you will be sorely disappointed.

volcano choir – island, is

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