08/14 - The Last Toe Leaving Ground

Sorry. No time. There is no time left. I've been to London. I listened to this on the megabus:

Antipop Consortium - Reflections

I think Fluorescent Black would be in my personal top 10 rap-albums of all time. It just blows my mind every time I put it on.

Fever Ray - Concrete Walls

Art has made me obsessed with architecture. I don't know how that happened. Looking out the bus-window, I absorbed concrete in all its wonderfully ugly forms.

Sigur Rós - Ný Batterí

Still magical after all these years. The bass and the drums. And then the brass on top of that.

Silverbullit - People Get Real

And here's another bassline to die for.

Tindersticks - Dancing

Call me sentimental, but this might be one of my favourite songs ever.

07/14 - Building Nothing, Laying Bricks

Electric Light Orchestra - Telephone Line

I know each twist and turn of this song like the back of my hand (my dad had an ELO greatest hits in the early days of my being), and I sing along to it virtually every time I hear it. It's a bonafide classic.

I look into the sky,
the love you need ain't gonna see you through
And I wonder why
the little things you planned ain't coming true

The Shins - Caring Is Creepy

It is. Creepy.

One day I'll be wondering how
I got so old just wondering how
I never got cold wearing nothing in the snow.

Charlotte Gainsbourg - Voyage

You can hear that it's Beck-produced. In my book, that's a very good thing. Serge Gainsbourg-inspired strings brings it full circle.

Led Zeppelin - Fool In The Rain

It was pissing it down. I was on a bus to the bleak eastside of Glasgow. I was listening to Led Zep. Thought it was alright. Not been a fan of this album, but it has moments when everything converges around it. Plus, that Jimmy Page-solo actually sounds a bit St. Vincent-esque...

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Push The Sky Away (live)

This is the album I've been obsessing over at the expense of other stuff this week. For a little while I was considering just having five songs from it on the list. It is a.m.a.z.i.n.g. Nothing new, no dramatic departures; just a bunch of the best songs that've been written in the past 30 years, in absolutely spinetingling versions.

06/14 - In Phenomenal Lies

No intro. Just my soul.

Little Richard - Ooh! My Soul

Kept listening to the Beatles' version of it on their Live at BBC-collection, and then decided to search out the original. Worth it. The rock'n'roll saxophone. An almost forgotten device today.

St. Vincent - Birth In Reverse

Every week is St. Vincent-week now. Expectations are at a feverish level for the new album. Not least after watching her live performance at this fashion show. That guitar solo in Rattlesnake! And the outro riff of this song!

Oh what an ordinary day.
Take out the garbage. Masturbate.

Anna Meredith - ALR

I can't help connoting this melody to fellow scots Chvrches hit. Both great songs, but I prefer this one. Such an unexpected turn from Meredith. Not on grooveshark unfortunately.

Beck - Blue Moon

Another album that I can't wait to hear in full.

I'm so tired of being alone...

Nils Frahm - Ambre

This almost made me cry the other day. It's one of the prettiest pieces of music I've heard in a while.



Oh and this fantastic remix from last year, has gotten an equally fantastic video:

05/14 - Just Wandering Free

I enjoyed this week. I enjoyed these tunes:

Grizzly Bear - Sleeping Ute (Nicolas Jaar Remix)

I know, I'm more or less flooding this blog with Nicolas Jaar-stuff. I can't help it. For the last couple of weeks I've been obsessed with this remix. It's basically almost 8 minutes of holding your breath for the next marvellous moment... and then the next... and the next. Like when the boys return from the void at 1:04. Or when the bass finally rolls in at 3:02. Or the kick into gear at 4:32. Or the perfect little ping at 5:39. Or the thunderous flutter at 5:55. Or the distant echoes at 6:45... This is the remix as an artform taken to its virtuosic climax.

Rachel Sweet - Suspended Animation

There is something appealingly anachronistic about this tune. Recorded in 1978, Rachel's vocals, and part of the instrumental arrangement are rather reminiscent of 60s girlgroups; while the production and soundscape sounds like something much more contemporary than you would expect from the late 70s. The perfectionist sound of the backing vocals is stretched further and further, until at the end it. is. suspended. Suspended animatioooooooo......

Cat Power - Cherokee

Speaking of witty sound effects. That baldheaded eagle shriek at 3:05. So wrong, but yet so, SO right. As right as Chan's slithering delivery and that weird handclap/marching drum mashup at the end.

Broken Bells - Holding On For Life

What a lovely day to be lonely. This is what I feel like.

Dave Van Ronk - Fair and Tender Ladies

Having seen Inside Llewyn Davis a few days ago I'm on a minor folk revival now. Can't say it was one of the Coen brothers' greatest achievements, but definitely an enjoyable and beauitful time-piece. Especially fun if you know your folk history. In addition to the eponymous hero being well based on this here singer, it was a joy to spot the others: Ramblin Jack, Tom Paxton, Al Grossman, Peter, Paul & Mary, the Clancy Brothers, and of course Bob, all flitted past in more or less fictionalized versions.

As if my love for Annie Clark wasn't already big enough; here she is in a futurist version of a De Chirico-painting, with a blue model of the stone from Albrecht Dürer's Melancolia: