lined with the silver bodies

Joanna Newsom - En Gallop

By weird coincidence, this song - an old favourite, and one I rediscovered only last week - was the first one I heard upon returning to Ireland, on a rural road at night, moths dazzling in the headlights, trees creaking in the darkness overhead. It's weird, because this song once meant something else to me, and I no longer know what that was. Now it's the time I came back and remembered all the things I'd forgotten, the cold, the mist, the bad roads, the damp and the ghostly countryside. It's staying awake on the long drive home from the airport. It's being that great Irish tradition, the son coming home from abroad after receiving the news.

The Milk-Eyed Mender is one of my favourite albums. Buy it here.

wanted to speak

{via}

Taxi Taxi! - Belle

I like to think of this song as being like the weather. When you're listening to it, it takes your mood and makes something else of it - like today, wandering through stuffy-aired Berlin, where clothes cling to skin like paint, and the ground is bleached a blinding white by the sun. Today the weather was an irritation to the senses, gnawing away at us, until the rain came down in great big drops that splashed onto your forehead, little shocks, welcome and delicious. The pavement shines, reflecting the clouds, lively and grey. People walk with a little more ease and haste, and maybe it gets worse, and it's an event, people congregating beneath balconies, can you believe this rain?
Things are so different so quickly. That's what this song seems like to me. It's been out for a long time now, on a nice little EP on one of my favourite little labels. You can buy it if you like.

{MySpace}

i don't know the answer

The Holy Roman Army - Stagger Gently Home

Most of the songs on this album seem imbued with city nightlife. Not the drunken pub-crawling, but the lonely wandering after the last club has shut its doors, looking up at dawn stretching the night out of the sky, and streetlights still lit, keeping watch and taking care. Not drunk enough to be senseless, but enough to feel the outer world creeping in.
These songs fit together in an interesting way, like hazy memories of different drunken rambles, all recalled at once. The album is gorgeous, but full of contradictions, one minute comfortable as in the song above, elsewhere cold and distant. The vocals aren't passionate but remain oddly warm, as much an instrument as the synths, samples and bump-click beats. It's a beautiful collection of sounds, and is undoubtedly one of the finest Irish releases of the year.

{Buy}

i bet that panther is really him

I have to admit, it feels a bit strange to write about Michael Jackson, but I think it would be weirder to ignore it. I was never a huge fan, I didn't pay attention to his personal life, I didn't watch that documentary, and I wasn't too shocked to hear of his passing. The sudden outpourings of grief seem a bit unexpected, as well as people criticising others for not being solemn enough. After this, it's not that the jokes aren't funny anymore, but rather that this full stop has made it clear that the tabloid drama of his personal life is utterly insignificant in the face of his originality, his songwriting skills, and the intro to Billie Jean.

Pitchfork's obituary does a rather perfect job of summarising the different sides of the story. I'm going to offer the music video that blew my fragile 6-year old mind in 1991, and still amazes, and a cover of Billie Jean, which is wonderful because it's absolutely straight, and that's the only way to play it.



Belle & Sebastian - Billie Jean {live}

Pogo & Mary Poppins

Australian electronica-ist Pogo has turned his attention to another Disney classic, and it's rather good. Here's another mp3 made out of Alice in Wonderland, which is appropriate considering the pictures of Tim Burton's adaptation have recently surfaced, and look very very slightly over the top.

Pogo - Lost

stumble with the words

Dave Deporis - Emancipation

The way he sings this song, right from the start, is like he's beside you. It's something you understand immediately, like some familiar feeling, like hiding inside your favourite warm jacket, pulling the softened sleeves long over your fingers, digging your chin into your collar for warmth. That's all this song tries to be, something to keep us warm, something to take the edge off the cold, showing you the kind of comfort that comes from other people.



The curl of the guitar being tuned up, the rustling of lyric sheets - these are little signs to show that nothing is being dressed up here, it's as plain and as honest as any song. That's why it works, that's why it sounds like something so much more than one man and a guitar by a cheap microphone. It rings so true, it's like the kind of song a non-musician would write in a fit of inspiration. I want this to be the first song someone really listens to, because for them, this will be the way music is supposed to sound.

This is from Dave Deporis' long-awaited For the Birds and Children, which he has just released in its current form, for free. You can contact him over MySpace, and pay for it what you will.

The above images are stills from Seaview, a film about the use of an Irish amusement park as an asylum seeker detention centre. It looks beautiful.

a couple of things

First of all, I've moved back to Berlin, so sorry for the extended absence. It's quite nice here. I'm likely to be a little busy looking for a home and employment and such, but I will make a very serious effort not to let the silences here grow too awkward.
Secondly, I witnessed Final Fantasy playing in Leipzig a few weeks back, and it was every bit as special as I had hoped. The new material is glorious, but since I don't have it, I'll share this slightly relevant session instead. It was recorded at Radio K some time back, and it's quite excellent.

Final Fantasy, Live in Studio, Radio K, University of Minnesota, 14 October 2007

Many Lives -> 49MP
Interview (Simon Bookish cover)
Flare Gun