[FWIW, I meant to get this up yesterday. Apologies for my tardiness.]
So how was your
Mother's Day? Mine was pleasant enough, with the Gilbert men doing some serious BBQ grilling while the ladies sat back & relaxed. And I threw down, with two burgers, a dog, jello & some chocolate cake making for a very full young man. I made my mom a
Decemberists mix, picked up
Feist's
Let It Die (totally ripping off
JRDN's idea), and packaged them with
The Daily Show's
America (The Book) - always a good gift IMO - as well as the recent
Jane Fonda autobiography. It was the first time I had been in charge of Mother's Day gift buying (that I can recall, anyway), and I think I did an okay job. I can only hope Dana & Alan (my sibs) concur.
This weekend, I tracked down a copy of the new
Russian Futurists cd that I have been eagerly awaiting,
Our Thickness, at
Cheapo in
Uptown (shocker - it wasn't at the
Fetus). I stumbled across the Futurists, aka Matthew Adam Hart, back in 2003 when I went gaga for the unique blend of sugary pop hooks, clever lyrics & lush laptop electro soundscapes on "their" previous LP's, 2003's
Let's Get Ready To Crumble & 2001's
The Method of Modern Love. The ten songs on
Our Thickness are just as good, if not even better, than anything on those earlier discs - the buzz out there is well deserved.
MP3 The Russian Futurists - "Paul Simon"MP3 The Russian Futurists - "Still Life"Justin Cober-Lake writes from today's
Under The Stylus:
The first track on the Russian Futurists' new album, "Paul Simon" will, without a doubt, improve your mood for the day (even if it apparently has nothing to do with the singer it's named for. Matthew Adam Hart uses the kitchen-sink bedroom orchestration (meaning a multi-tracked keyboard) to great effect, creating catchy hooks and fun lyrics that bounce and tumble oh so fluidly.
Since tracks from
Our Thickness have already been blogged by
StyPod,
Moebius Rex,
Uncritical,
Stereogum &
Fluxblog, I'm only linking to the two songs above, available from Hart's Toronto-based label,
Upper Class.
ETA:
junkpile-art pointed me to an interesting review of
Our Thickness by Aaron Newell over at
Cokemachineglow that begins with a long, yet interesting rumination about the drawbacks of trying to keep up with the constant influx of new music as many of us mp3 bloggers tend to do. I am certainly guilty of underappreciating albums or artists while I am off hunting for the next thing to get obsessed with, and sometimes I get frustrated with myself when I realize I've done so. I get bogged down by the time/attention commitment necessary to actually catch up on what I haven't listened to enough, and it's hard to break out of that cycle. But I like to think that even if I neglect a worthy song/album, I'll probably get around to it eventually.
Anyway,
Cokemachineglow has more downloads from
Our Thickness:
MP3 The Russian Futurists - "Our Pen's Out of Ink"MP3 The Russian Futurists - "2 Dots on a Map"MP3 girlsareshort - "Mississauga Theme"While perusing the Upper Class website for Russian Futurists info, I checked out the label's
radio.blog & was reminded how awesome this track was from their now-defunct labelmates
girlsareshort (aka Alex Puodziukas & Daniel Zabawa, neither of whom are female). Like The Futurists, girlsareshort also produce eclectic saccharine bedroom electro-pop, though their particular brand gives off the distinct aura of summer (as I detailed
about a year ago).
MP3 girlsareshort - "The Natural"From Upper Class, here's another track from 2003's
earlynorthamerican LP.
Over the weekend, I picked up a couple more new discs, one of which was
The Milk of Human Kindness, the new disc from Dan Snaith - the artist formerly known as
Manitoba & currently known as
Caribou. Snaith's experimental electro-noise-pop (I don't know what else to call it, damn labels) has already been blogged about by
20 Jazz Funk Greats,
Music For Robots & even
me, so again I'm hesitant to post another track. But I am psyched for Caribou's June 5th show at the
400 Bar with the Russian Futurists & yet another Canadian laptop-electro-pop act,
critical darlings
Junior Boys. Snaith spoke briefly about the three-headed-monster that's currently out on tour in a
usounds interview that was posted yesterday.
Another purchase was
Lost & Safe, the latest album from the sample-heavy Massachussetts-based duo
The Books (aka Paul de Jong & Nick Zammuto). A follow-up to 2003's
The Lemon of Pink LP,
Lost & Safe is somewhat more song-oriented than previous works, making it more accessable (but less mysterious according to Mark Richardson at the
'fork) while maintaining The Books' unusual aural style.
MFR,
StyPod & the sorely missed
gabbaPod posted tracks from the new disc, just as
Comfort Music did on Monday.
ETA: The hilarious
Riff Central mistakenly attempts to "interview"
Spin editor-in-chief Sia Michel, thinking she doubles as the "chick in The Books."
Twins fan Craig Finn @ Warsaw in Brooklyn, 4/3/04 (photo by Kathryn Yu)MP3 The Hold Steady - "Chicago Seemed Tired Last Night"Lastly, my most anticipated purchase of the week was the new
Hold Steady album,
Separation Sunday. Last week,
Pitchfork gave it a 8.7 and slapped their
best new music label on the Brooklyn-by-way-of-Mpls rockers' sophomore effort, which should shine some more light on the band after being criminally overlooked for last year's excellent
Almost Killed Me LP.
When the Hold Steady played the
Triple Rock earlier
this spring, this song was preceded by frontman Craig Finn's tale of meeting the guys from
Dillinger Four (one of whom owns the Triple Rock) in Chicago & convincing them to move up to the
Twin Cities, where Finn's
Lifter Puller was part of the local hardcore scene. The track itself is kick-ass bar-rock at its best, with the band trying their darndest to drawn out Finn's emphatic shouted lyrics.
Sasha Frere Jones notes Finn's unusual vocals in his profile for the
New Yorker, "It is almost a mistake to call him a singer, though he is the one with the microphone," while Pitchfork's Tom Beihan likens Finn to "the sketchy drunk guy yelling in your ear at a show." They're both right.
MP3 The Hold Steady - "Stevie Nix"Brooklyn Vegan pointed me toward this mp3, which comes courtesy of the
Village Voice. The weekly NYC rag made The Hold Steady their
cover story last week (via
MN Speak), which according to
jinners is a rare occurance for a musical act. "Stevie Nix" goes back & forth from explosive & rebellious & sardonic to nostalgic & thoughtful & regretful, juxtaposting balls out classic rock riffs with torch song power balladry. And praise the lord, it works.
ETA (5/16/05): Brian Howe
interviews Finn & guitarist Tad Kubler for Pitchfork's weekly feature. Among the topics discussed: former band
Lifter Puller, shooting a film for
Target in LA, how
Freddy Vs. Jason relates to Finn's lyrics, their distaste for the
NYC dancepunk scene, the influence of
classic rock, the different kinds of
guitar solos & how Finn loves his
iPod.
love, love in a trashcan
Holy crap,
The Tofu Hut listed, like, every freaking mp3 blog. Holy moly.
ETA: The list has been copied wholesale for
Wikipedia's "MP3 Blog" entry.
I've got a ticket for
The Raveonettes/
Autolux tonite at
First Avenue's mainroom, where I saw a very laid back
Built To Spill last week w/JRDN. The Danish duo of Sune Rose Wagner & Sharin Foo impressed me when I saw them open for
The Strokes, which is why I bought an advance ticket. I wanna go, but I've also got alot of sh** to do this week - next week is going to be jam-packed, which I just realized, and I need to get ahead of the game. Of course if I stayed home, I would probably end up watching "fresh" episodes of
Gilmore Girls & The Shield and the season finales for
Scrubs &
Veronica Mars (which sucked me in during the latter half of the season).
What is a boy to do?
Geek that I am, I can't help but anticipate the upcoming
Star Wars flick (the same day as
LCD+MIA in Chicago!). So last week, I bought the dang PS2
video game & stayed up all nite beating it (on "easy," pussy that I am). Am I a dork? Probably. Did it spoil the movie. Oh yeah. Do I care? Not so much. We all know what's gonna happen anyway, or at least I do now.
Majority Report fans, take note that co-host
Sam Seder will be filling in for
Jerry Springer all week on
Air America's 9am-12pm ET timeslot. He did a solid job subbing for
Randi Rhodes recently, and he's pitching in yet again. Now you can get Seder-azy in the AM, at least for the next couple days.
Over at the new celeb-packed blog/newswire
The Huffington Post (brought to you of course by the esteemed
Arianna), actress/comedienne
Julia Louis-Dreyfus & her former
SNL castmate husband
Brad Hall give their disgusted take on the
issue of gay marriage. Shocking, just shocking.
BTW: In case you were wondering, yes,
they are still
fillibustering. I luv it.
WMV Charlotte Hatherley - "Bastardo" video (
via)
Lastly, this past weekend I couldn't help myself. I listened over & over to the catchy-as-all-get-out "
Bastardo" from London pop-rockstress
Charlotte Hatherley (off her debut album,
Grey Will Fade). Do you still respect me?