A pseudonym to fool him: 5/4 show

This morning there were a lot more requests than usual, and also a lot more people on the road at 5:40 in the morning, and a lot more people on campus. I stopped by Nancy's bagel shop afterwards, and Nancy said they'd been pretty busy this morning as well.

Mary Weiss was the lead singer of the Shangri-Las, a band that I have come to appreciate more and more over time. We got her new album, her first since the Shangri-Las, in the 60s, when she was 15. I wrote a little about them in April.

At our music director's request, I reviewed the new Charlotte Gainsbourg album. It was good, though I'm a little on the fence about whether it's really great stuff or not. The music was written by Air, and most of the lyrics are from Jarvis cocker of Pulp, and the result sounds exactly like you would expect a collaboration among these folks to sound. It's very theatrical and moody, in a way that's reminiscent of Julee Cruise.

Andrew Bird is getting a lot of well-deserved attention these days, and I hope he doesn't turn into the sort of big-time artist we stop playing on indie radio, because I really enjoy his work. We saw him open for the Magnetic Fields a couple of years ago, and it was just him and a violin, plus a sampling machine he used to record himself and create beautiful layered pieces. On his albums (and sometimes in concert) he has a full band, but I think he's better on his own. This morning's song, "Spare-Oh", is a song I hadn't heard before yesterday, when I discovered Take Away Shows, a French project involving musicians strolling down the streets of Paris, performing acoustically, followed by someone with a hand-held video camera. In spite of the poor sound quality, Bird's performance of Spare-Oh on the narrow streets of Montmartre is fun to watch in that way that makes you wish you'd been there.

Currently I'm reviewing Rufus Wainwright's new CD, due out in about a week. I like it a lot; it's what you'd hope it would be. His last, Want Two, was a bit uneven and self-indulgent, but this forthcoming Release the Stars is generally not. It has its weak points, certainly, but generally it's the sort of tight, well-constructed music we expect from Wainwright. I'd say the sound is closest to Want One, opening with a fully-orchestrated tune full of high bombast, and taking you on a journey that is never boring or repetitive, if occasionally borderline-tacky.


*: new stuff
(r): requests

artist	song	album	label
Kate Bush	Babooshka	Never Forever	EMI Manhattan
The Detholz!	Last Train to Mars	Who Are the Detholz!?	Vortex
*Mary Weiss	Stop and Think it Over	Dangerous Game	Norton Records
*The Fall	White Line Fever	Reformation Post TLC	Namack
Liza Minelli	Use Me
(r)M Ward	Big Boat	Transistor Radio	Marge
*Mavis Staples	My Own Eyes	We'll Never Turn Back	Anti-
David Sugar	Just Like Heaven
*Cornelius	Sleep Warm	Sensuous	Everloving
Canasta	Model	Find the Time	Broken Middle C
*Charlotte Gainsbourg	Everything I Cannot See	5:55	Because Records/Vice
Jean-Claude Vannier	Danse des Mouches Noires Gardes du Roi	L'Enfant Assassin des Mouches	B-Music/Finders Keepers
(r)The Love of Everything	Rest Princess	Drinking Feeling	Sway 004
Selda	Yaylalar	Selda	B-Music/Finders Keepers
Roxy Music	Editions of You	For Your Pleasure	EMI
(r)The Decemberists	Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)	Crane Wife	EMI
*Elliott Smith	Almost Over	New Moon	Kill Rock Stars
*Joanna Newsome	Clam Crab Cockle Cowrie	Joanna Newsome and the Ys Street Band EP	Drag City
Andrew Bird	Spare-Oh	Armchair Apocrypha	Fat Possum
Haale	Baz Hava	Morning	Darya Records
*Blonde Redhead	Silently	23	4AD
As Mercenárias	Somos Milhões	O Começo do Fim do Mundo	Soul Jazz
*Modest Mouse	We've Got Everything	We Were Dead before the Ship Even Sank	Epic
The Narrator	The Horse with Blinders	Youth City Fire	Flameshovel
Zerostars	The Good Can't Escape	The Good Can't Escape	self-released zerostars.com
*The Blow	The Sky Opened Wide Like the Tide (Lucky Dragons Newage Powermix)	Poor Aim: Love Songs	K
Les Négresses Vertes	Les Mégots	Trabendo	Virgin France

Labels: music, playlists

posted by Tony at 12:38 PM