Pedram the Humanoid

In a distinct world, I have already proven my enthusiasm on Canada and their major influence on today's music. Especially when it comes to these indie rockers. Wolf Parade has Spencer Krug to front with honor, Destroyer is the ever-curious brainchild of Dan Bejar (apart from his crafty work with The New Pornographers) and Carey Mercer leads Frog Eyes. So far, so good. The supergroup it is. All talented, all forward thinking and all thoroughly worth the praise. But there's one big deal this supergroup might lack from the get-go.

In my point of view, each supergroup member is responsible for pushing the others through, thriving out to extract the mandatory essence out of every other memeber musically. That's pretty much why The New Pornographers is considered a supergroup while Neko Case, A.C. Newman and Dan Bejar may have nothing in common in their own scope except being Canadians and crafty songwriters. Though there's one thing that keeps these Pornographers firm and holds them tight: management. That's what A.C. Newman does on the band, that's what Chris Cornell did on Audioslave and that's what Damon Albarn did well to create a record as brilliant and unappreciated as The Good, the Bad, and the Queen. Swan Lake, more or less seem to lack this big factor.

We have nine works here, each led by one soul in this threesome. They lead the songs as they want to, but probably this very space they leave out for each other is not a good idea. The critics believe this sophomore, Enemy Mine, is even more coherent than the band's first effort that was Beast Moans. That might be true but not enough.

Carey Mercer mourns like a wounded warrior of darkness on the opener "Spanish Gold, 2044" which judging by that year number is bound to sound futuristic but doesn't. And I wouldn't extract this energy-quenching song on track one. Spencer Krug wanders around for himself in "Paper Lace" and Dan Bejar stretches out his eccentric poetry on "Heartswarm" and then out of nowhere they collide on the ending of most tracks, I don't exactly call this collaboration. Each of these musicians walk lonely in their own parallel universe but also claim to have feedback on each other, but eventually they don't carry any burden. And most songs on Enemy Mine are long, not to the extent to reach a prolific state but only waiting for the other two musicians to show they're in this together.

In the end, Enemy Mine is a collection of songs by three Canadian indie rockers, I can't consider it as an album, it might sound like a sheer three EP rarity. But for each separate work they try to make it sound medieval and disturbing, they're not aiming to have fun with each other. They sound deliberately hefty and dreary the whole album while. But it's on "A Hand At Dusk" that they come to some kind of conclusion at last. They could make it last some 9 songs. I'll leave you with that.

Moby's new album Wait For Me will be out soon. "Shot In the Back Of the Head" is the title to his first free haunting single. Haunting I said, no the song is neither that terrifying nor that sophisticated, but haunting is for David Lynch who has directed this nightmarish video.

For Lynch fans it can be an impulsive amalgam of Eraserhead's Kafka-esque bitterness and violence, and then Dumbland's spontaneous stupidity. For Moby fans, it's nothing but tremendous honor to see their favorite ambient-freak weirdo being interviewed and applauded by an extraordinary director. Unfortunately the song is just too short for the video to have its full effect, but anyway, anything Lynch does is worth seeing and anything Moby does sounds tuneful and meditative, 'cept his last year's disco disaster of Last Night to be precise.

Moby "Shot In the Back Of the Head"


Links:
"Shot In the Back Of the Head" Video
Top 10 David Lynch Films

Weird thing when I checked my blog stats today. The day before yesterday I had about 500 clicks on my post for the top 10 male voices in indie! Weird thing.

But remember the low-budget SL Records we talked about? Well, no they haven't joined EMI nor Columbia nor Warner Bros. But they're out with their third volume of singles and I didn't mind putting a brand new track from Yossarian here i.e. "My Shy Boy Saint". How does it sound? Well imagine you're invited to a basement party by Beth Gibbons (Portishead) and then Jean-Benoit Dunckel of Air leaves you a message regarding to his interest in joining you, but then you wouldn't mind calling Jonzi from Sigur Ros, too.

Next thing you know, they all attend Gibbons basement bash and after four subtle shots of Bourbon you find the fellows jamming! Very impulsive it may sound at first but when it comes to a Portishead meets Air meets Sigur Ros jam, you're gonna change your mind upon the word "impulsive". That's why you CAN enjoy this song at the end of the day.

Yossarian "My Shy Boy Saint"


I'm sorry I have to go watch the rest of Federer vs. Djokovic match… I may or may not return…

*****
Back. Alright, who's currently the noise sensation of all? No Age? Sonic Youth? The Thermals? Negative. For the time being it's actually Wavves who's taking over. Period. But can they get as low-fi and disoriented as Times New Viking? Negative. But they're disturbingly cool in their own universe I think. And despite all the distortions all along their album with the same name except for the V counts (Wavvves), I eagerly find this lo-fi guitar corner of "Weed Demon" ammmusing. They have twwwwwo songs containing the word Demon and then double it out and they have Goth, it's Goth galorrrrrre. I'm still sticking with my vvVvvvVikings, though this one surely makes endddddddds meet. Sorry for not being too noisy upon a noise-art act. Sometimes you...nevvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvermind.

Ben Harper met Relentless7 on his 2006's hopeless double-disk of Both Sides Of A Gun. It was technically the worst Ben Harper record ever. 2007's Lifeline saw a more down-to-earth bluesy version of Ben, he's apparently more at ease when he's working with his own ol' fellows i.e. The Innocent Criminals. The ninth studio album will be released tomorrow and God it sounds so rock 'n roll.

It's, I guess another aging syndrome if you ask me. Neil Young's new album Fork In the Road is also as rock as it Neil gets. Guys somehow are not really happy with it, though Ben is not as old as Neil, so the sound is fresher and more vibrant. Relentless7 sounds so crafty when it comes to live. And yeah I guess Ben needed another sweating young blood audience after a long time.

There's this distracting factor on most Harper albums to me that doesn't make him a very album friendly artist in general. Right from the scratch 'til the pre-White-Lies era, Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals didn't manage to record an album that was free of comprehensive eclecticism. On every BH&tIC album we had pop tunes as well as rock 'n roll moments, a mandatory doze of R&B and folk and of course some gospel material. Except for Lifelines, Ben Harper albums were merely a collection of songs! Although I have many Ben favorites, still. But White Lies For Dark Times comes with this happy news that you can be sure there are almost 11 rock songs on this list.

But the album is best played live and drunk the way the band wants it than just stream on your studio in a static environment, since there are no standout choruses or even not much of Ben's tender or subtle singing. "Skin Thin" and the closer "Faithfully Remain" are more down-beat than others, though I can't really choose a favorite and if I wanna go for it, I'd sooner pick a rock tune or something as mediocre as "Lay There & Hate Me". But the good news is the sufficient amount of energy left in Ben's veins as he swings away his guitar with passion.

According to Ben in a RollingStone interview:

"We’ve taken turns kicking each others’ asses in the most gracious fashion, pushing this into new places. Which means the album is more Cream than Jack Johnson, more “Faded” than “Steal My Kisses."

And then here comes an exceptional full stream of the album thanks to Sound Cloud and The Sounds From Way Out. If anything goes wrong, THEY are in charge.

Guys!
Become a This Winki's fan on Facebook.
It helps you get through.

If you could only stop your heartbeat for one heartbeat. This one simple pearl of challenging wisdom takes about two minutes to be accomplished/sung by Bill Callahan. "Too Many Birds" is without a doubt one of this year's most well-thought and patiently composed songs. In fact his whole Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle has this sense of deep serenity inside of it. It can be your album of domestic soothing poetry. Sometimes very conservative and plain ("Jim Cain"), sometimes enigmatic and mysterious yet groovy ("Eid Ma Clack Shaw") and sometimes very striking, stretching and even defiant ("Faith/Void"), but all in all Callahan does his best not to sound like an ordinary folk loser, at least he deviates by keeping his baritone masculinity in a spoken-word pitch and volume and his guitar never jumps over the paling fence. "Too Many Birds" tell the story of a lost soul, seeking a shelter to flee from the cocoon of a covey of black and screaming leaves. Yet the ending line has its metaphors.



The twee-pop of The Bird and the Bee may not sound perfect. In fact the sampled drums (and there's a lot of them) may not make your day as the tracks pile up in your ear, but they're eventually satisfying when it comes to playing single songs. I'm talking about a song with funny lyrics i.e. "Polite Dance Song" as if you're in a party held by a character very close in personality to J. Gatsby (from Scott Fitzgerald novel The Great Gatsby), and you're invited to a very aristocrat tango but then you're too drunk to keep your balance, that's why the party ends up somewhere between High School Musical 3 and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me! So give it up for the Bee Bird, please. Put your hands in the air. If you know it's good for you, you wanna shake it like you just don't care.

A Boss BR864 digital 8 track he bought off of Craigslist for $200 and one cheap condenser mic. Go for a gritty sound! But make it an extremely laborious, exhausting effort. That's how Stu McLamb has come up with The Love Language. And in a low-fi way of thinking, he has succeeded in every possible way. It's just all in his '50s subconsciousness, these gauzy brokenhearted astounding doses of vibration.

The Love Language is pretty much a DIY lo-fi work from McLamb that was added with some other musicians later for live purposes. It's more or less an album of heartfelt but loud shrieks of begging for a comeback, an album written and dedicated to his ex-girlfriends (yes there are many according to his interview with New Raleigh). With an album design by one of THEM. Though the petrified lost woman laughing in sepia background is McLamb's aunt, who he never got a chance to meet. She's somewhere in his box of family photographs, but she's probably a comprehensive depiction of the album's vintage gloominess. Sad I said, not Beach House sad, and nor Mazzy Star, this sadness can get you up dancing on your feet. An album of immaculate dreamlike flashbacks this is. "Lalita" (mentioned earlier) is a paradox itself. It can make you dance and leave you high and dry simultaneously: let's call it 2009's "Gila", remember?



And this self-titled release will never let you down, thanks to the measured wise selection of only 9 songs on its tracklisting and the state of being not that studio quality concerned. At the end of the day, that's the best thing about this language. "Two Rabbits" jump starts the album with a trippy nightmarish introductory, the very key to your rapid eye movement. And then McLamb's voice that sounds like Robert Pollard rehearsing a disparate bonus track on Bee Thousand, not knowing it's a Buddy Holly cover! "Sparxx" sounds as vibrant as Robert Smith dancing joyfully on "Friday I'm In Love" and you know how sick Smith and The Cure can get sometimes, "Manteo" is like Grizzly Bear singing soulfully about compassion and faith.



And McLamb is trying not to sound as a front man at all, as if it's a whole loyal band of friends playing for the sake of love. I guess I just wouldn't have wanted The Love Language any other way. I got a chance to hear this album thanks to Jed Sundwall. And it's one of this year's favorites already. It has everything a Mazzy Star, Camera Obscura, Beach House and even The Band (Stu favorite) fan may need. So be it!

Browsing through the fabulous TheSixtyOne.com, I couldn't help myself but having fun time with some appealing covers of my favorite tunes. Yeah, covers people cannot resist much. Even when it's a Britney one, you just yearn for hearing a diverse interpretation. So stretch out and have fun with these catchy covers while I go take a shower. You won't regret it. Plus, you can finally hear a Daft Punk song covered by a band that is not necessarily electro-sick!

The Chairs "Flume" (originally by Bon Iver)


Glen Case "I'm Only Sleeping" (originally by The Beatles)


Vitamin String Quartet "Angeles" (originally by Elliott Smith)


Obadiah Parker "Hey Ya" (originally by Outkast)


Violent Femmes "Crazy" (originally by Gnarls Barkley)


Vampire Weekend "Exit Music (For A Film)" (originally by Radiohead)


Ben Gibbard "Thriller (Live)" (originally by Michael Jackson)


Mobius Band "Digital Love" (originally by Daft Punk)


Bat For Lashes "A Forest" (originally by The Cure)


Sarah Morgan "Time Is Running Out" (originally by Muse)


p.s. Lots of love to TheSixtyOne for these lovely embeddable players, made this post so joyfully easy.

NASDAQ, Richard Quest analysis on CNN, no pension benefits, no future in Manchester! Girl we have to flee a.s.a.p n.m.w (that's "no matter what"). not the American Beauty way of escaping and nor the Exit Music for a film approach, but there must be some way. We can talk to your mom on this. We hipster youngsters are not supposed to live like this. You got a fast car, I got a plan to get us out of here and we won't have to drive too far. Here we go over and over and over you're talking about it again, let's move on, relocate!

I may be a Manchester United fan, though this short disturbing piece of eulogy is the best thing I found on the new Manchester Orchestra album Mean Everything To Nothing. It's just too teen-angst to me, I don't blame it on the stock market since there ain't no stock left for me to pick. Let's just blame it on aging.

It's difficult, I know. I have many more. I love "One Love", "Could You Be Loved?", "High Tide Or Low Tide", "Is This Love?", "Iron Lion Zion", etc. All legendary and sweet. But these are my top 10 Bob Marley & the Wailers songs. You're a builder a baby.

10 Concrete Jungle
09 I Shot the Sheriff
08 Three Little Birds
07 Buffalo Soldier
06 Roots, Rock, Reggae
05 Sun Is Shining
04 Cornerstone
03 No Woman No Cry
02 Redemption Song
01 Jammin' (more on this song)