your god is a lion

DM Stith - Pity Dance (live)

When David Stith isn't hunched over a Macbook, building cavernously beautiful songs out of the walls of his own voice, and when he isn't here, in Berlin, grabbing some sushi and sleep before a day of interviews, he studies and teaches design at a university in Indianapolis. And there he has students, and he worries about them, and tries his best to get the talented ones to open up, and to work hard, and get to class on time, for once.
One of these is a girl, not too much younger than him, very talented, and very shy. She shuffles into the room after the bell, she doesn't answer when he gives her encouragement or asks her questions, and she doesn't raise her head if she can help it - but she's still making some of the best work in the class.

One day David is chatting to some students while they work, about life outside the class, and what else they do. He mentions music; his songs, his album, his label, Asthmatic Kitty. The students ask what the music is like, of course, and it's a hard one to answer, but the shy girl raises her head, and speaks up for the first time, and says: "It's beautiful."

This isn't something that sounds too surprising if you've heard the music. Even when the lyrics aren't immediately relatable, there's something intensely personal about these songs, a little upright honesty that stays with you. It's almost exactly two years since I first posted about David's music, and since then this honesty and intimacy in his music has grown into something spectacular, the hugely confident and inventive Heavy Ghost. Comparing the music now to the music then is like comparing sapling to oak. It's without doubt one of my favourite albums of the moment, and I'm very glad to have been able to meet up with David to record one of the best songs on it.
As that big lump of image up at the top mentions, this is the first session (yes, one song can be a session) here, and hopefully not the last. It won't come as a surprise to any familiar reader that the recording is a little scruffy (it was kind of a last-minute affair, recorded hurriedly one morning this week in a bedroom), but I've never been a stickler for audio quality, and I'm just happy to be able to offer an acoustic rendition of this song. The studio version of 'Pity Dance' is an example of the kind of complexity usually reserved for mathematical formulae and peace treaties, so to hear it work so well in such a simple form is a joy. I hope you all enjoy it too!

DM Stith - Pity Dance (album version)

Heavy Ghost is released on Asthmatic Kitty in March. You can read about it here, and then get a taste of it by listening to this Daytrotter session, which features a live recording of the record's standout track, 'Braid of Voices.' You might also like this selection of his favourite music, as well as this one.

Fanfarlo - Reservoir

Fanfarlo - I'm A Pilot

This is the first song from Fanfarlo's forthcoming debut album, and as is to be expected, it is gorgeous, and lush, and warm, and really quite wonderful indeed. It's records like this that are making 2009 look like a fine year for music.
You'll be able to grab the record if you catch the band on their upcoming tour - which includes some dates in support of Snow Patrol, oddly enough. I'm trying not to hype it up too much, but I'm fairly convinced there won't be a bad song on it.

some things i would like to share

- This video of a live performance of one of my favourite songs of all time, by the inexplicably little-known NY band Auld Lang Syne. Since watching it, I am determined to get on stage with this band at some point. Seriously, I'll play anything.

- This phenomenal Daytrotter session by Clare & The Reasons. Their Tears for Fears cover is just gorgeous.

- The details of the latest My Brightest Diamond remix record - courtesy of Son Lux. It seems amazing, from what I've heard of it. Also, in sadder news, the label says goodbye to Sara, the Asthmatic Kitty.

- The news that there is now a Facebook group for The Torture Garden. Join us! There'll be cake.

- The following songs, which taken together, are a nice way for your ears to spend an evening:

Erik Levander - Sekund
The Antlers - Bear
Son Lux - Throw (an outtake from his amazing 2008 album, At War With Walls And Mazes)
My Brightest Diamond - To Pluto's Moon (Son Lux remix)
Winter Aid - October (demo)
Geographer - Can't You Wait

An Interview with The Antlers

The Antlers - Two

The Antler's latest release, Hospice, has come out of nowhere to be one of my favourite records of the moment. I had enjoyed their previous work, but none of it has resonated with me as much as this album does - the songs simply grabbed me on the first listen, and have only pulled me closer since. It's moody without being despondent, and joyfully melodic without being derivative. I can't really praise it enough.
In an effort to figure out just where something so good actually came from, I put some questions to singer, songwriter and all round lead Antler, Peter Silberman.

How would you describe the new record? How has your music changed with it?

I'd say Hospice isn't exactly a different direction for me/us, but more like the culmination of the past few years of releases. I've tried a few different approaches so far with The Antlers. Uprooted was the "folk" album, In The Attic Of The Universe was sort of space-pop, and Cold War & New York Hospitals were something slower. Hospice could be the "shoegaze" record, but I didn't really have that in mind while making it. The subject matter was more important than anything to me, and telling the story coherently was the goal. The sound was more or less the result of bringing all the sounds of past albums together into something new. I wanted to make something bigger, darker, and more complete than before, and to do that, I had to stop working alone.

So who did you work with on Hospice?

For awhile, I worked on the album alone. When I started it, I felt like it was something I should be writing and figuring out myself, and at the time, The Antlers was still more or less my solo project. At the start of the recording, I had just recently begun to put a band together, but we were still getting used to playing together. The recording took much longer than I expected, and as time went on the band solidified and started contributing. The band, during the recording, consisted of Darby Cicci, playing trumpet and bowed banjo, Justin Stivers, playing bass, and Michael Lerner, playing drums. Sharon Van Etten sings on the record some also, though sometimes it's not recognizably her voice. The lineup's changed a bit since then, with Justin leaving and Darby moving to keyboards and synths and homemade equipment.

From what I've listened to so far, there seems to be an element in the subject matter of getting to grips with something and taking it more seriously (I'm thinking of 'Two' especially, I adore the lyrics to that song) - do you think that's fair to say?

Really, the album's about some kind of attempt at redemption. It's about understanding something that's knocked your life off-track, figuring out how you let that happen, and pulling yourself out of it. Even after you come back from something like that, you're still constantly trying to pull yourself out of it. It's about honesty, too... Being honest with yourself. I think I'm still figuring out what it's about.

Might that be representative of your writing style - in that you use what seems to work for you and then figure it out, rather than deciding on an idea and following it?

Well, I think I definitely knew what I was trying to do when I started this album, and usually have a specific idea in mind when I start any album. But I think the more space I've had since finishing it has lead me to understand it differently than I did when I started it or when I was working on it. My life has changed so dramatically during the past two years that the person who started the record isn't necessarily the same person who finished it, if that makes any sense.

Do you think this approach you're taking with Hospice might be the best fit for the Antlers so far?

Starting this record alone, doing a good deal of it alone, and bringing a band in later on can be an awkward way to make a record, and I don't expect the next to be made like that, but it was probably the way this one needed to be made. I think the ways in which all the albums have been made so far has made sense for each one, but they all had to be made differently. Uprooted was made half before moving and half after, February Tape was recorded in a bathtub in an hour, In The Attic of the Universe was just one long song, Cold War was made in a week with just a guitar and vocals, & Hospice was made over a couple of years of constant work. I don't know what the next one will be like, or how it'll come about, but right now I'm happy with that. I've always been planning ahead with The Antlers and moving on to the next record as soon as one gets finished. For the first time in my life, I'm not doing that... I have no idea what's coming next.

Does this feel right, or maybe slightly unnerving?

Both. I'm not used to that feeling, and sometimes it has me worried that I've run out of albums. But ultimately I know that's not true, just that this one took a lot out of me. I don't think I'm ready to move on from this one just yet. In that way, it feels fitting that I'm not moving on yet.

What's coming next in the short term - will there be a tour?

We're touring down to SXSW in March, in support of the new record. After that it's really anyone's guess. We're contributing some tracks to a few different compilations over the next several months, mostly covers. Lately I've been getting more serious about the idea of starting a record label, so hopefully that'll start to materialize. We'll see what the next few months bring. My hope is more touring, more music, more everything.

Hospice will be released in March. You can learn more about the album, the band, and download more music on their website.

this time it's different

Uzi & Ari - Missoula

This time round, Uzi & Ari are using different colours. Where before they favoured warm spreads and rich cushioned tones, here those shades are used only to provide a brief respite to the cold and solid whites and greys that surround, like a snowfall that has ceased to be beautiful, and instead grown dirty and hard underfoot, like a badly-laid footpath.
'Missoula' is exactly like this, with different rushes of guitars and glockenspiel melding with cut up beats to roll past like unwelcome clouds, casting shadows on all beneath them. But in the same way such moody weather can weirdly suit your temperament, the melody here seems often to be exactly what is needed.
This is the opening track of Headworms, Uzi & Ari's follow-up to one of my favourite ever albums. It's very good. They're on tour at the moment - they played Dublin tonight, and tomorrow (Saturday) they're playing the Quad in Cork, which should be pretty intimate. The rest of the dates can be found here.

{Buy}

Arcade Fire, Obama and Bruce Springsteen

Not the best Arcade Fire performance, but a damn sight cheerier than 'Windowsill', even if that guy singing during the chorus can't seem to decide what key the song is in.

carved in your coffin

Meursault - Lament For A Teenage Millionaire

Listen to those machine sounds that burst in and out of the song, all percussion and staccato. It's like some part of your home pulling itself out of place, wires stringing from the wall, creaking and aching to its feet, reaching out and pulling parts to itself. A television is attached as its head, a heater for its barrel of a chest until it's something that can drag itself along the floor over to you, a message on its cracked plastic lips, telling you about what you've surrounded yourself with. Telling you about the fiercely thumping heart in your chest.
This song is a little compulsive in its pushiness. Once you've listened to it through once, you'll want to play it again, often and repeatedly. It feels a little like being plugged in.

You can buy Meursault's very very fine album from Song, by Toad Records, on CD or as download. It's a really very fine collection, and I'm very impressed with this fledgling record label for putting it out, so let's all show our support. I'll be buying it as soon as I get paid at this new job of mine, which is keeping me away from here.

the look on your face

{via}

Frightened Rabbit - Keep Yourself Warm

Somehow this song builds a perfectly accurate image of a cheap student bedsit, the kind I've only seen in Britain. The floating organs at the start rise from some tinny guitars like heat from a cheap radiator, flecked with the thin paint haphazardly raked across the wall. You can see someone reaching over the bed to turn the heat up hurriedly, having rushed into the still-icy room - bringing their own heat with them, but wishing to be surrounded by more, along with whoever they've found themselves lying with.
Afterwards, there are awkward silences. There's the muffled sounds from the room next door. Eyes scanning the walls settle absently on patches of sellotape and missing posters. The heat is turned off, the room is suddenly less welcoming, the bed much smaller.
All this the song creates perfectly, so listen, and enjoy, but never ever leave the album playing at the wrong time. You know.

{Buy}

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Also: Bell Orchestre have announced a new album! Replete with an Aphex Twin cover, it would seem - more details here.

New Fanfarlo!

Yes! Check out the lovely new version of 'Harold T. Wilkins', a taster of things to come from the band's debut album - and a wonderful video too. If you fancy more, subscribers to their email list might be in line to receive some new material! So head over here and subscribe. You can also catch more album-related fun on their MySpace blog.

In other news, yes, the songs-of-2008 list is coming. Thank you for asking.

with our dreams disjointed

The Antlers - Two

If, like me, you've found yourself staring out your bedroom windows lately wondering how to make sense of such massive accumulations of snow, and such unrelenting cold, here's a song to help. This is what it would sound like if the snow talked back, and showed you all the fun to be had, finger-numbing cold or not. It's -17°C outside, but my German friends tell me about the best hill for sledding, and where the best snow is to build big snowmen. That's what this song reminds me of: a little like if snow came with instructions for use. This is how music helps us make sense of new things that seem big and overbearing, snow, or love or other weird natural phenomena like that.

The Antlers have been making music for a while now, which I have been quietly enjoying. This song seems to me to be the best thing they've done yet, and I'm hoping that the rest of their debut album, Hospice, will be as good as this. I suspect it will. Hospice will be self-released on March 3rd.

starting 2009 with some good news...

There's a new Swan Lake record on the cards, set to be released in late March on Jagjaguwar. Though 2006's Beast Moans was a slight let down (considering the band contains two of my favourite songwriters, perhaps expectations were too high), it still remains one of my favourite albums to listen to in extreme detail, if that makes sense. I think it's just put together like that. The cover is apparently a court painting bought by Carey Mercer for 25 dollars, and the tracklisting goes like this:

Spanish Gold, 2044
Paper Lace
Heartswarm
Settle on Your Skin
Ballad of a Swan Lake, Or, Daniel’s Song
Peace
Spider
A Hand at Dusk
Warlock Psychologist

Here's one of the songs on the record, probably retitled 'Paper Lace', (but formerly 'Jackie') as covered by Sunset Rubdown:

Sunset Rubdown - Jackie/Paper Lace (live Swan Lake cover)

Elsewhere in the new year, the Skinny have named Rob St. John and Meursault as ones to watch this year, which is good because they are both brilliant, Indiecater have started oh nine with a very nice new release from Belfast's Burning Codes, and the news in the papers is worrying.