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: