The Contradiction Of What I Just Wrote

[Edit: I was wandering through some old-growth files and stumbled across this reminder written about fifteen months ago and filed neatly under "Don't Forget". I'm so precocious, my teeth hurt. Alternately, I may be insane. Anyway, I subbed in the proper links, html'd away and posted it. And, yes, I really do write like this. Later, dudes. I'm going to listen to some Agent Orange.]

These are the cds you want to buy, me! You want to get the "Give It Back" single, from Gaelle. 1) Because she is really really good-looking, and when did that ever make you want anything less? 2) Because the music is low-key, low-key like sitting on a leather couch in an apartment owned by someone of the opposite sex, and you don't really know this person. It's late night, maybe eleven or one o'clock, and through the open window you can hear the lazy cars and warm blur of traffic below. This music is monotonous, BUT—the someone you don't know presses play and Gaelle's chai voice holds you attractively removed high above everything. Listen. She's singing, now. Perfect.

There's this band. They're called The Fiery Furnaces. They make really good music. Yeah, it's way arthouse, but who cares? And you can't help feeling, me, that it gets pretentious here and there, too, but—who cares?—it's in a good way, like in a Robert Browning pretentious way, sort of "I'm a Victorian poet and I'm bloody well interested in everything from modern chemical processes to regional quattrocento history, alright?" Browning somehow makes his readers interested in whatever he's interested in, and The Fiery Furnaces do the same. Me, you like their first cd and you like their second. If there's a third, check it out!

It's called Inches. It's by Les Savy Fav. You love them. You LOVE this cd. It's a singles compilation. Who releases a singles album before they've ever released an album? Seven years in the making, is what this cd took. Joseph had a dream of seven fat years, and then seven lean. If anything is going to get you, me, through the lean, this cd is it. Me, everything here is gold. Even the crap is gold. GET THIS CD!

A.C. Newman of The New Pornographers branches out into his own to put out one of the best of the beautiful things in this world. The Slow Wonder is full of excellent stand-and-look-for-where-the-music-is-coming-from moments. Newman is nearing the top of the pyramid with these lyrics. Where will he go next? He's looking at his own constellation, now, letting us hear what he hears, see what he sees, perfectly capturing the melodic movements of the spheres.

What is it about The Quick Fix Kills that you dislike, me? NOTHING. What is it about their first release that you stamp with your seal of approval? ALL OF IT! Go and buy Saint Something immediately!

Here's one you weren't thinking of, me. It just sort of condensed out of the ethernet like rain out of the clouds. In this case, though, you're talking about a sunny, sunny shower. The only thing dark-edged on this cd would be the humour evident in its title. Hell Is Eux Autres is the excellent release from Eux Autres. It's sunny, it's cheerful, it's full of brambly guitars and cheerful voices going "Whoo!" Good car music, good sun shower music, and the patio full of people. Press play.

The Arcade Fire. Seriously. What? Get your hands on anything.

Now let's talk about Aka "The Hots". Good name. Clear vocals. Catchy rhythms. Good music while you're making sandwiches in the kitchen for your girlfriend, me. If you don't buy their cd for you, me, buy it for her. Get out the cheese-bread and ham, and pile up the lettuce, and put on this Touchy EP. Wait, wait, don't go yet, me. One thing. This band gets really big, say, and gets printed up in ALL the big zines—how does the columnist refer to him? Because A"TH" looks very very awkward, like a bushman of the Kalahari trying to spell in Russian. And let's face it, that's an overdone cliché at the best of times.

[Update: Some of this stuff has serious memories attached, a lot of faces. Then again, I didn't even remember who AKA "The Hots" was/were/are. Lyrics like "I'm a reacher / With chiselled features" don't amuse me anymore. I love me on The Fiery Furnaces—"There's this band"!—and I don't remember where the heck I heard about AF. I bought controller.controller instead of The Quick Fix Kills, at HMV of all things, like, three days after the release! There was something fishy about the vids on the Fav cd, and I watched it in that cold candle-stuffed living-room buried behind Orlando II's. Eux Autres are still bloody marvellous and them and Newman were burned on that disc I took to Jasper and the hotel and the rain and sleeping in the railyard with C. Also, I stand by that Gaelle single. It's sexy-sexy, and adult contemporary never sounded better—and, yes, I realize the contradiction of what I just wrote.]

Something: My friend Monday is a pushy guy and talks with his mouth full, and sometimes I can't handle it. I'm sorry, and feel obliged to überpologize to all of you (both of you), but Listening and Reading will not be on today. Stop by tomorrow morning instead.