Califone - "All My Friends are Funeral Singers"

Blogging about Califone seems to be a bit contradictory. Their aesthetic - one rooted in subtlety, pensiveness, and all things sepia tone - is pretty much at odds with the here-today-gone-tomorrow world of internet hype. I'm not really anticipating any tweets like"ZOMG the new Califone is SOOOO good!!" Especially when Major Lazer is probably doing something that involves more neon colors than you've ever seen before.

Califone's latest, "Funeral Singers," from the forthcoming All My Friends Are Funeral Singers (Due Oct. 6 on Dead Oceans) is a perfect testament to their aesthetic, relying on little more than an acoustic guitar (that sounds like it may or may not have rust on the strings - sweet!) and singer Tim Rutili's gravel voice. Thanks to said gravel, the lyrics are a bit difficult to decipher, but if the mood of the band is any indicator, things are looking pretty melancholy today. In the best way possible. Given the release date and what I'm hearing in this song, it looks like I'm going to be enjoying many cool nights this fall with a cup of cider and All My Friends Are Funeral Singers. And the next fall and the next.

Califone - Funeral Singers

Now listening to: Q and Not U - No Kill No Beep Beep (2000)

HEALTH - Get Color

L.A.'s favorite noise-punk spaz rockers (sorry No Age) are back! Not that they ever went away - HEALTH's self-titled debut dropped in 2007 to rave reviews, with plenty of Liars and Boredoms references to boot. 2008 brought the HEALTH/DISCO remix album that melted slabs of HEALTH's caustic riffs with slinky disco beats - it really shouldn't have worked, but for some reason did.

What's better is that they've taken the lessons of DISCO to heart (at least a little bit) on their latest record, Get Color. Lead single "Die Slow" is about as close to pop as these guys will get, with disco hi-hats underpinning alternating bursts of synth squall that function as a hook, and an icy guitar that kicks in for the "chorus." Generally, Get Color works much better as a whole album than HEALTH, giving up the thirty to sixty second grindcore bursts that popped up on their debut. Tracks like "Death+" take their time building intricate loops of sound, while others like "In Heat" bring back the breakneck speeds of their debut. The coda of "We Are Water" and the ensuing drum-less (what?) chillout of "In Violet" give the end of the album the feeling of rolling slowly back to the loading platform after just being whipped around for 20 minutes on the world's nosiest rollercoaster.

It's great to see a promising debut bloom into a more fully-realized sophomore effort. HEALTH's play music like they're going to burn out any minute from now, but it looks like they just might be able to keep up this pace for a while.

HEALTH - Die Slow
HEALTH - We Are Water

Now listening to: Jose Gonzales - In Our Nature (2007)

Big Moon.

I'm a big fan of full moons. Tonight is a particularly good one. I don't know if this is true, but I heard somewhere that the moon is brighter in September. Either way, I think it's a nice thought.

Tonight's large, glowing slice of cheese in the sky got me thinking about a great song from a great album. "Big Moon" is a song on Arthur Russell's Love is Overtaking Me (2008), a collection of folk/country/rock songs he recorded between 1973 and 1990 that were never previously released.

If you're unfamiliar with Mr. Russell, I'd highly recommend poking around this site a bit.

Sadly, the internet gods weren't in the mood to give me a stream of "Big Moon," so you'll have to settle for another knockout song from the record, "I Couldn't Say it to Your Face." Life is hard, right?

Arthur Russell - I Couldn't Say it to Your Face

Now listening to: Mogwai - My Father, My King (2001)

"House of Flying Daggers" Music Video

Yep, my Wu obsession is still going strong. Here's the newly released music video for Raekwon's "House of Flying Daggers" that I posted about last week. It turns each of the artists who are on the song into kung-fu masters of different styles. Awesome.

Oh, but be careful if you're turned off by gratuitous violence.

Was my love of music doomed from the very moment of its inception? I think so.

Here's another TMT feature article that does a great job of discussing music from a really unique vantage point. This one aims to understand our "compulsion to hear again." That is, "Why are we compelled to hear the same song a hundred times when there is so much music unheard?" The author decides that if we hear a song that we like, we are compelled to listen to it again, in the hope that we will like it equally (repeat our experiece) the second time. But the catch is that the second time will never be as good "because of the idealizing work of memory" and the inability of reality to live up to our idealized memories. Sound familiar, college students? It's all based off some theories by a philosopher named Kierkegaard.

The article is really well-written, name-checks Lightning Bolt, and has a really sweet picture at the top (which I stole for this post). All pluses in my book. Check it out.

Link: A Eulogy for Transcendental Music Experience: An Article After Kierkegaard’s Repetition

Now listening to: Radiohead - OK Computer (1997)

Raekwon the Chef - "House of Flying Daggers"

Recently I've found myself revisiting the Wu-Tang Clan's back catalog and wishing I owned some kung-fu movies. I think it's all because of this song. "House of Flying Daggers" is the latest track that's available from Raekwon the Chef's long-rumoured Only Built for Cuban Linx II, which will finally be released (cross your fingers!) on September 8. In the years since the entire Clan dropped Enter the Wu-Tang Clan (36 Chambers) (1993), their output both as a group and as individuals has been pretty scattershot. We're all in luck, though, because this track comes through with all of the things that make a solid Wu song: a sound clip from an old kung-fu movie at the beginning, a beat that reminds you of an army of skeletons running drills, a slew of hungry verses from other Clan members (Inspectah Deck, Ghostface Killah, and Method Man), and a sound clip from an old kung-fu movie at the end. I don't know what a Cuban Link is, but I don't care - I just want to listen to this song again.

Raekwon the Chef - "House of Flying Daggers"

Now listening to: Cave - Psychic Psummer (2009)

Dodos - Time to Die and "Fables"

Sorry - I've been doing a lot of things this summer, but posting here hasn't really been one of them. There's been a ton of sweet stuff that's come out in the past few weeks, so I'm going to do my best to catch up on all of that. Hopefully I can keep up with catching up.



I know the term "freak folk" is overused, but I think if there were an appropriate time to use it, it would be when talking about The Dodos. These San Fransisco weirdos play acoustic guitars and drums with a big emphasis on rhythm - probably because their guitar player studied West African Ewe drumming and their drummer proper used to be in a prog-metal band. Their second album, Visiter (2008) was one of my favorites of last year. And now, little over a year later, they're back with Time to Die. The band has made the entire thing available for stream here and is definitely worth a listen.

"Fables,"the first official single from the record actually tones down the weird a bit, but boosts the melody and overall catchiness, finding itself somewhere in the realm of The Shins. I dare you not to sing along with the chorus the second time it comes around. Another plus - the album cover looks like terazzo, and I love that stuff.

The Dodos - "Fables"

Now listening to: Cass McCombs - Catacombs (2009)