goodbye berlin, hello autobahn

Sorry for the prolonged absence. Leaving Berlin is pretty difficult, even without that damn wall.

Hanne Hukkelberg - Berlin
Winter Aid - East Berlin (demo)
Parade Me - ...Und Berlin
Arcade Fire - Surf City, Eastern Bloc

Marla Hansen & Inlets

The latest installment of the wonderful Take-Away Videos series features two of my favourite NYC musicians, both of whom have played with My Brightest Diamond, and make fine music in their own right. Marla Hansen's music starts on her viola like a seed, and grows up and around itself like ivy. Inlet's music is just as organic, but it is already old and grown, and full up with a spent life.
The above song is a new one by Marla by the name of New Zealand. It's great to see her getting some attention.

Marla Hansen - Wedding Day
Inlets - See Her, Seer

You can download Inlets' debut Vestibule EP here for free, and buy Marla Hansen's Wedding Day EP here.

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If you're looking for something to download, Harlem Shakes have just done a session over at the Daytrotter studios. It's fancy.

Simple Kid

Simple Kid - Seratonin

Good news for Simple Kid! His most recent and excellent album 2 is about to be released in the U.S. by Yep Roc Records. He's also doing some residencies in New York (including one at Apple's SOHO store, showing people how to use Mac applications to make music) so more people can hear what Beck would sound like if he was an Irishman instead of a Scientologist.
A great example of what he sounds like at his best is 'Lil' King Kong', the opening song on 2, and available on this free EP - which features two other songs. It's a fantastically mad mix of banjos, beats, slides, and pets. You really have no excuse not to listen to it.

You'll be able to buy 2 here soon.

Gloomy Sunday

1933 was a dark year for anyone living in central Europe, as German democracy fell under the Nazis, and her vulnerable citizens fled the crackdown on the opposition, not knowing when they would ever safely return. It was in this atmosphere of shock that Hungarian Rezső Seress composed his most famous song, 'Gloomy Sunday'. As well as being the most popular song he would ever write, it was also associated with a spate of suicides in Budapest, and when the song was translated into English this became part of its publicity campaign in the United States. Since then, the song is as famous for this urban legend as it is for its beauty. Seress himself committed suicide in Budapest in the equally fateful year of 1968.

The first translation was sung by the great Paul Robeson, and retains the heavy gloom that weighs down the Hungarian original. Soon afterwards, a more light-hearted version was popularised by Billie Holiday, and this version has been covered most through the years. Elvis Costello's version in particular is impressive, as he transfers the melody to an acoustic guitar in a style very reminiscent of Grizzly Bear's wonderful Yellow House. His version (and the German version below) can be found on the soundtrack to a recent German/Hungarian film.

Whether or not the song is enough to drive someone into depression is doubtful, but there is a definite air of hopelessness in the faint vocals of the original and the forceful gloom of the Robeson version that hasn't passed into the others - though it always remains a beautiful piece of music.
These are my favourite versions:

Rezső Seress - Szomorú Vasárnap (original)
Paul Robeson - Gloomy Sunday
Paul Whiteman, Johnny Hauser - Gloomy Sunday
Billie Holiday - Gloomy Sunday
Elvis Costello - Gloomy Sunday
Erika Marozsán - Das Lied vom Traurigen Sonntag

Writing about this song seems very appropriate, given that I only learned about it on Friday, and on my last Sunday in Berlin, the intense sunshine of the week has disappeared, and instead the rain is torrential.
There's more covers of this song here.

{Buy the Gloomy Sunday - Ein Lied von Liebe und Tod OST}
{Buy The Essential Billy Holiday}

St. Vincent - Paris is Burning

I've written before about how amazing some of these songs are, but this video really has to be seen. It shows how well Annie Clark can play without the beautiful instrumentation and production of her album, and proves that she's better with a guitar than most indie waifs seem to be. Also excellent is this new song, 'Bang Bang', recorded live courtesy of Cable and Tweed. It's edgy, and as was pointed out, a little like Nancy Sinatra.

Bang Bang (live)
Paris is Burning (live)
Now. Now.

You can see more videos from the same session here, and keep up with Annie's blog if you like.
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Meanwhile, Pitchfork gives us a new look at a track from the new Sunset Rubdown record. It sounds weirdly Pogues-ish, but unsurprisingly great.

Stauffenberg

Today is the 63rd anniversary of the attempted assassination of Hitler by Claus von Stauffenberg. It was the highpoint of organised German resistance to the Nazi regime, and represents still proof of decency amongst the leaders of the time.
Stauffenberg took it upon himself to deliver a bomb to the meeting room of Hitler's eastern hideout: were it not for luck and coincidence, the bomb would have killed the man outright. Instead Hitler survived with barely a scratch, even more certain of his own infallibility. Stauffenberg and many of his co-conspirators were executed that same evening in the courtyard of the Bendlerblock in Berlin. It is this location - now a memorial to the resistance - that has been closed to the makers of a film of the events, Valkyrie (featuring Tom Cruise as the would-be assassin), though they are receiving a grant from the German government. Today the Berlin tabloids are revealing pictures of Cruise in costume, most likely with some angry invective - it seems many people are unhappy with a Scientologist playing the one well-remembered character of this period in German history.

Normally I would post a list of various songs tangentially related to this, but I visited the memorial at the Bendlerblock this week, and posting anything funny just wouldn't work. It's strange to walk into the courtyard where the assassinations took place, and to read photocopies of resistance magazines from the forties. There are images of notes written by Jewish children who've been 'collected', telling their father where to meet them. It all settles heavily on the heart, all this dust torn up by conflict, and I don't know what to write about it to justify it going here. I think the only option is some music that predates it all, that is beautiful in an old way, that was shining before all the lights went out.

I don't think I liked to this (or anything else by Schubert) before I heard Josephine Foster's version, but it works well. And as much as I like that Wilco song, it just wasn't going to do here.

Sigfridsson, Kopatchinskaja - An die Musik
Fischer, Dieskau - An die Musik
Josephine Foster - An die Musik

Broken Records

Broken Records are a seven-piece from Edinburgh, as far as I can gather, and though they have yet to release an album, or sign to a label, they're worth getting excited over. Toad mentions Beirut and Calexico, and wouldn't you know, he's not far off. 'Lies' is probably the closest to this sound, with rampaging mandolins, strings and accordions all blurring away together in a beautiful chorus, like insect's wings beating away. Marvellous!
The song that really swayed me was 'Kathy'. It's a bit more straightforward to be sure, but it's lovely in the same way that Arcade Fire make their music sound, people who have lined their hearts up in the same way, and the significance of this becomes clear as the song dances away to a violin's refrain.
The band have two more songs available for download on their MySpace, and they're all worthy of attention.

Lies
Kathy
The Russian Song

On a Grassblade

Well, it feels like it's been an achingly long time, but Timothy Dick has finally released an album. Anything that features both 'Florence' and 'Lost Star' is going to be worth your money, but On a Grassblade truly is a special record. There are songs here that seem to push the limits of what one man and a guitar can make you feel. These songs seem to come straight from the land, they make me want to visit America and find the buried things that hide themselves among tree roots, far away from the roads, forcing you to take the beaten track, the way left pale clay brown by the heat.
If you want to know what this actually sounds like, imagine Win Butler with the voice of Tom Waits, writing songs like an aged Red Hunter would. Some of the tracks here come from a studio, others are rougher around the edges, bearing the marks of Timothy Dick's distrust of computers. But they are built of sturdy stuff, you want to cut them open and count the rings, because they sound intimidatingly beautiful in the same way that a great oak can overpower you, so steady in its place in nature.
'Florence' is updated for the album, it seems to push along with more urgency, and features some new vocals from David Stith (who is also behind the artwork). It remains something astonishing, a man-made oak of a song.

Timothy Dick - Florence

You can buy On a Grassblade here for $12.50. It is well worth it.

Les Fleur

I first heard this song about 5 years ago in a Baileys advert. Now, the topic of the moral equivalence in adverts for alcohol in a country beset by legendary and frankly impressive problems with the stuff is a theme for another day. The fact is, I remembered this song out of nowhere tonight, like remembering a dream, and hunted it down, and listened to it, and then, dear readers, I had one of those moments, where crashing waves of emotion seem to meet in your brain, your heart dances merrily away beneath the stars of the universe, all feelings of meaningless you ever knew dissipate like water into hot night air, and the lightless joy of living, all your love for fellow humanity, the race that survives by presenting moments like this to one another, all these thoughts occur at once, and come together in your mind, crystallise into a single all-encompassing, clear and concise thought:
Isn't music fucking great?

Yes. Yes it is.
The first version is the original, by the great Minnie Riperton, a fantastic piece of music in itself, but the second one, a cover/remix by 4Hero, is like a gentle touch-up that makes the greatest parts of the song shine even brighter. It brings it back to life for our times.

Minnie Riperton - Les Fleur
4Hero - Les Fleur

{Buy Les Fleurs: The Minnie Riperton Anthology}
{Buy 4Hero: Creating Patterns}

authenticated

What do you do when Arcade Fire won't lend their song to your advertisement? Well, you get some other unscrupulous folks to write a rip-off, and turn one of the best songs of the times into a hackneyed soulless shadow of itself, thus lending your advert a pinch of the authenticity you so desperately needed people to associate with your brand. Ugh.

Arcade Fire - Wake Up

Edit: here's another slightly less scandalous one:



Arcade Fire - Rebellion (Lies)

Thanks Vanslyde!

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And again!





Final Fantasy's love song reinterpreted for Wiener Stadtwerke. Distressing.

France Gall

Das War Eine Schöne Party (Poupée de Cire, Poupée de Son)
Laisse tomber les filles

For some reason, the first time I heard 'Poupée de Cire, Poupée de Son' (after Arcade Fire covered it probably), I didn't find it particularly impressive. But this German version definitely makes a difference, the way she rounds the hard German words out with a French accent, and puts barbs in some words where there should be none. It's a strange effect.
The second song (a cover of which is on the soundtrack to the last Tarantino film) is something completely different. It seems that when you take a voice like France Gall's, and combine it with Serge Gainsbourg's songwriting and the French accent, there's just no way she's singing about anything but sex.

{Buy}

Small Time American Bats

After a request for more demo material as posted last week, here's an old EP of Zach Condon's. It doesn't sound much like anything from Gulag Orkestar, which is the most obvious thing about it, but it is nice music nicely done. My favourite is 'The Electric Show', which is slow and treads gently, but evokes the slightly nervous air of someone alone in their room getting ready to leave. If you know what I mean.

The Fish Inside Me
Covered the West in Phone Lines
The Electric Show


Also, and unrelatedly, I want a t-shirt. Preferably the one that says 'I Wish Arcade Fire Were Playing', because after they cancelled their tour three days before Berlin last time around, this time they're playing here in November - not in August like they're playing in Cologne. Frustrating stuff.

Dosh!

Dosh - Um, Circles and Squares

I had the luck to see Dosh play in Berlin a few weeks back supporting (and drumming/sampling for) Andrew Bird - a concert which was so good a review is still undergoing editing.
After investigation, I got to know a little bit about what Martin Dosh's music is like - he's kind of a one man Go! Team, but without the attitude, and with more of an ear for a sweet tune. The above song (from The Lost Take) remains my favourite so far, with it's bubbling and flowing keyboards, backed up by tap-whatever's-in-your-reach beat keeps the song going without every getting dull. Live, he gives full rein to the patterns of his music, assembling building blocks out of his own drumming and keyboard playing, and it's quite a sight.
As well as this, he wrote the music for one of my favourite songs on Andrew Bird's fine Armchair Apocrypha, 'Simple X' - a song included here in its live incarnation, and thanks to the fine collection of mp3s on the Dosh site, there's also an earlier version.

Andrew Bird - Simple X (live)
Simple Exercises/Call the Kettle Back (live in 2005)

{Buy The Lost Take}

Beirut, Postbahnhof Berlin

{via}

Beirut take to the stage and Zach Condon flips open his hip flask, rumours of alcoholism be damned. Feedback scatters the sound of the opening songs, but an overwhelming torrent of music and noise flowing from the stage drowns everything, including the fears of the audience that the band was overhyped, and it's at this moment that everything becomes past tense and not present, because it's not something easily remembered apart from the laughs and noise and experience. It's only at the encore, when they return to the stage to blaze through 'The Gulag Orkestar' and a cover of Kocani Orkestar's 'Siki, Siki Baba' that I can remember it as it happened, and it was fantastic. Even after the band left and the dj began playing music, the crowd wouldn't stop the applause until they returned for one more.
The new material sounds fresh and new, but still recognisably Beirut. The band play like few bands that I've seen, absolutely comfortable together, but still eager to prove themselves, and always utterly in love with the noise they make. It's safe to say the weren't the only ones.

Le Moribond (Jacques Brel cover, live at SXSW)
Siki, Siki Baba (Kocani Orkestar, live in London)
Postcards from Italy (demo)
Covered the West In Phone Lines (early recording)

Kocani Orkestar - Siki, Siki Baba (fucking brilliant)

the upcoming exams blues

Leadbelly - Where Did You Sleep Last Night?
Robert Johnson - Love in Vain

I'm just in that kind of mood. Researching fascism in Ireland for an essay is kinda depressing. But also interesting.

Things You Didn't Know About Irish Fascism:
Of all the foreign contingents who made their way to Spain to fight against the Republic, the Irish one was the largest. Thankfully, they didn't do much except get drunk and throw up after eating burro, so after their first engagement, which consisted of little more than friendly fire, they were sent home.

The leader of the Blueshirts (for that was what they called themselves) was an army man named Eoin O' Duffy. Had he triumphed in his quest for power, Ireland's Fascist state would probably have been the only one led by a closet homosexual.

The Nazis made a couple of attempts to infiltrate Ireland. In 1940, a Luftwaffe agent named Hermann Görtz parachuted into Meath, and immediately began to walk the eighty miles to his destination, asking directions along the way, including in a police station. Despite the fact that he was wearing a full Luftwaffe uniform, they let him go.
In Operation Seagull of the same year, two agents were to land and make their way to Britain after sailing from France - unfortunately for them their boat hit a storm on the crossing, and a member of their crew lost consciousness after an accident. So it didn't work out.

See, you just can't expect me to write about music when I'm reading stuff like this.

Oh, Seven!

I didn't plan on writing one of these lists this year, but I realised that it has actually been a rather fine year for music. Naturally I'm focusing on songs rather than albums, which is just as well, as many of the songs here haven't actually been released as such yet.
Anyway, enough with introductions, you're here for lists! So here, more or less in order, are all the wonderful songs that made it so.

Arcade Fire - Ocean of Noise (live)
DM Stith - Be My Baby (demo)
Timothy Dick - Florence
Sandro Perri & Friends - Double Suicide (Original Version)
St. Vincent - Now. Now.
The E.L.F - Cockroaches
Fight Like Apes - Lend Me Your Face
Hanne Hukkelberg - Berlin
Lucky Soul - One Kiss Don't Make A Summer (acoustic)
Bell - Moon River
My Brightest Diamond - Gone Away (DM Stith remix)
Sandro Perri - Dreams (Fleetwood Mac)
Girls Doing Embroidery - Summer Feet
Bowerbirds - In Our Talons
Peter & The Wolf - The Fall (Tuvan Igil version)
Arcade Fire - Keep The Car Running (live)
Electrelane - To The East
The National - Fake Empire
Mumblin' Deaf Ro - Brother Peter
Klima - The City
Stars - Your Ex-Lover Is Dead (Final Fantasy remix)
Dave Deporis - Be Strong
Panda Bear - Comfy in Nautica
Snowden - Dreams (Fleetwood Mac, Stutter remix)
Shout Out Louds - Tonight I Have To Leave It
Bodies of Water - These Are The Eyes
Dark Room Notes - Love Like Nicotine
New Pornographers - My Rights Versus Yours
Andrew Bird - Heretics

Expect many of these to reappear at year's end, joined by more tracks by Sandro Perri, Cathy Davey, Michael Knight, Bell, and something from the new Sufjan album, probably not titled: New York, New York, or, You were expecting a pun, weren't you?