explosions in my brain

All you need when course readings are rough (and when you don't have time to maintain a real blog).

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First-past-the-post.

Their music has always been manna for critics, and milk and honey for weird indie kids (the kind who actually like the wacked-out experimental sounds they're supposed to listen to). And to the average listener, it sounds like sugar-happy toddlers unleashed on a keyboard loaded with trippy samples, animal sounds, and wobbly vocal mods. 

Last year I winced and pulled my hood over my ears at their music sound "experimentation" onstage at Rogers picnic.

But this time around, everyone's getting merry about their new collection. Two weeks in and its already the best album of the year―and don't be surprised if it holds its ground for another eleven and a half months.

This time around the post, the crazed combines with the conventional to create a masterpiece accessible enough for the open-minded radio listener, clear and sunny enough for the well-weathered ear, and still innovative enough to make dryest critics drip with excitement.

As for the album, I grant you three guesses. (Clue: the hint's in the puns. You know me, you know my lust for the lowliest form of literary musing.)

1, 2,... 3.

Merriweather. Post. Pavillion.

I've always liked Animal Collective (their studio work at the least), but sometimes their sounds are too, er, animalistic for me to corral. I'd file them away in the "experimental" section of my iTunes and hope one day my music tastes matured enough to appreciate the layers and the levels. 

Now, I don't have to. Finally, the collective has reached the perfect balancing point, the place where experiment and audible melody work harmoniously together, where inventions come from actual intentions, and where their "music" (which I might have just named "noise" pre-M.P.P.) is truly good music. And that is why this album is, and probably still will be, to the critics and the common folk, the best album of 2008. Shit. 2009.*

*That is, unless any of the following bands reunite and/or release an album on or before December 31, 2009: TV on the Radio, Radiohead, Wilco, or the Beach Boys**.

**Seriously.

the good kind of mix-up.

It's time to reintroduce the mixtape.

Or perhaps "reintroduce" isn't the right word. Since CDs, then MP3s, Ipods, and the resurgence of vinyl, mixtapes have experienced a few moments in silence, but they've been repetively glorified as icons of the early 90s in all kinds of pop culture memorabilia. From best-selling books to boombox bags, the mixtape never really shut up -- even once the sales of blank tapes did. 

My home collection of personal mixtapes is mostly stolen from Rick Dees and the Weekly Top 40 -- a collection of Enrique, Love Inc., and Vertical Horizon -- one which I refused to be ashamed of. I've carefully written the tracklisting in gold gel pen on each label, some a few times over when I ran out of 1-dollar blanks. I listened to more mixtapes than I bought real tapes, and I didn't own a discman, nor a CD player 'till mid-junior high (is that old?). I'm sure everyone and their dog wants to say they were a mixtape afficiando back in the good ol' days, but I'm pretty sure I played my part -- and I played my part loud. I mean, there was a large Coldplay phase somewhere in between... but no more needs to be said about that. Chris Martin's still one hot dada.

Anywho, now that I've bored you with my nostalgia, it's time to regrasp your attention, as I introduce you to something a little more aesthetically appealing than my own bewildering babblings. Now that muxtape's gone all muddly, and because I cannot afford to send each and every one of my three loyal blog readers their own personal tape, I have had to track down a substitute. And don't give me any credit, it wasn't a tough task.

So now please, I insist -- sit back, relax, and allow yourself to be soothed by my first "favtape". If you know me, you know I'm the nerdy music junkie type -- but I've had to tone it down for my introductory work (and fear not, I'll bring out my signature full-on weird-out stuff in due time). 

Now I know we all listen to foreign music - sure, Rolling Stones and Rihanna are outta-towners, but here I suggest you delve into some deeper cuts. And so, for the purposes of this playlist, I've ignored all artists from Canada, the States, and U.K. -- not cause I dislike 'em, but... well, they're just too easy. I've specially imported some select tracks from Sweden, Denmark, Japan, Australia, Lichtenstein... oh, and this one dude from Santa Fe, but his band is named after a place in Lebanon -- that counts, right?

But don't let me do all the talking -- I've entitled my masterpiece "Erocktic Exotica". Listen, let the travelling tracks soothe your ears, repeat... there will be more to come.

a postcard from Sweden.

Meet Gustav Ejstes.

He's the one-man musical mastermind behind Swedish folk-psych-fantasy rock outfit Dungen (DOON-gen). He records every aspect of entire albums by himself, and graciously allows a few good men to accompany him on tour, carrying instruments and standing on stage... it's like he's in a band or something. 

The mass of musical instruments he brings on tour probably outweigh his slight frame, yet cannot overpower his mastery over each object he plays. A man of the many talents, Gustav can play a magical flute while simultaneously smoking cheap cigarettes. He's a man with the midas touch, everything he touches turns to musical gold. He's the magnificent merchant of everything beautiful and Swedish (he even makes dirty captain mo's and ginger ale mix well). He likes rap as much as John Bauer.

And, more than anything else, this 28-year-old loves 6 a.m. lectures towards unassuming younger women on life accomplishments and success. Bless your sweet, sweet Swedish soul, Gustav.  Please come back to Canada.

When you hear ringing and your phone's unplugged....

... you probably need to invest in a pair of ear plugs.

Ratatat and Tiger, Beck's and Beck. My white weekend's been full of bevvies fit to the tune of the music.  But because I need to revel in a few minutes of shut eye, stat, I'm giving the quick run-down...

Ratatat was wild(cat), perfect music for gamers who also enjoy sailing. A brilliant hybrid of natural outdoorsiness, with jungle and ocean themes, mixed with the sounds of Sega Genesis and euro beats, and topped off with a majestic light and dry-ice show. My only issue? I fear for a case of whiplash for the keyboardist. Happy t(r)ails to you, Ratatat!

MGMT, this time around appeared, as my pal so eloquently put it, "a cross between Prince and Axl Rose." With mullets and handkerchiefs, the dirty New Yorkers did recall a certain Welcome to the Jungle, but with less badassery and more inter-ga-lac-tic plan-e-tar-y. My, how their hair has grown. 

Beck, oh Beck. Are you crazy because you are on drugs or on drugs to help you live through your artistic(?) craziness? Beck's popularity would be shot without his rock anthem choruses and catchy slacker anthem riffs. It's like Cobain passed the early 90s alternative torch, er guitar, directly to Beck for the rest of the decade. Sure, you may be able to shout along to soy un perdedor, but what comes after "why don't you kill me?" Obscure, muttered beat poetry dots the funky, bass-heavy beats all throughout Beck's varied repertoire. Well, except for his latest. Beck's certainly feeling guilty about something lately, as his latest release does sound a whole lot depressed. I guess even rock stars go through mid-life crises... 

british invasion

When I was fifteen, I was known as "the Coldplay girl." The manically obsessed, poster-hoarding, freckled-faced nerd who bought every b-side the day it was released. I cried when I procrastinated too much for tickets to their Edmonton show. I cried again when I got tickets to see them in Las Vegas, but the kind of cry where you can't contain your joy. I went with my mom to the concert, bought the merch, and wrote the review (which, by the way, was my first published work... in the Edmonton Journal).

Well, I did a little grave-digging and dusted off a little gem I found on an old external hard drive. My portfolio from my application to the Journalism program―the original review. I planned to post it for your viewing pleasure, but I didn't want to lose any/all two of my dedicated readers and decided sternly against it.

Coldplay last Wednesday however, is way deserving of the praise my high school writer's hand doled out, and much, much more. Who else can cater to nine-year-olds, their moms, and the people with good taste in-between? Sure, the show sounded a little more Bono-infused than I'd hoped, and I left wishing they'd played more of their older repertoire, but I'd known that I would before I walked in the door (two songs late, I might add). But if that was the worst of their musical catalogue (IMO), then they're a stellar bunch of lads... it's not often that you hear a true, unpracticed had-to-be-there encore where one of the most technically perfect bands of our age loses tempo, but it's moments such as these, when they play their first beautiful song about a beautiful world, that you hear the genuine passion. They're brilliant musicians alone, and collectively it's mind-boggling.

After his little stint, I'd say even Will Champion could go solo.

TGItuesday

Lately, I've been spending a lot more time downloading .torrents than spending downtime downtown, browsing record shops. My personal theory firmly states that more of my dirty, sexy money goes direct to the artist when I pay for their concert ticket than when I give way to their greedy record label by buying their overpriced merch. I'd drop twenty bones to see a show in a heartbeat, but fifteen for a c.d. means I'm more likely to open my web browser than my wallet. It's about as illegal as finding those under-the-table tax breaks you know your parents willingly take. And if my mom says it's ok, than it is. I harbour no modern guilt for my mass downloading.
Well, Tuesday, I was feeling lucky. I'd spent the last few days saying 'hell yes' all over again to Guero, and was reminded by a friend that Beck's new album hit stores that very day. It could have been the B.C. booze, it could have been one fall too many off the boat, but personally, I think the Modern Guilt got me inside HMV. On my way out I noticed the wonderfully psychedelic cover of Ratatat's new rousing record. Impulse struck, and I took both up to the counter. The cashier was your typical mall-music-store geek (fortunately not of the overbred emo family), drooling over b-sides and the latest LPs, and man, did he drip when he saw my selections. An initial burst of pleasure with the first CD, and when he flipped over to see the second I swear, he could barely keep it in his pants. He wished happy listening as I walked away, reasserted and highly confident in the brilliant, undeniable taste in tunes I already knew I possessed.
Me and my dad walked away, me feeling satisfied, and maybe a little proud. I mean, not that I had bought (er, Daddy had helped) a brand-new CD, but I'd make the day of an overly-enthused, small-town music geek. And once we put the futuristic sea chanties of LP3 on the stereo out on the water, my day was made, just as well.

Cold War Kids Heating Up... to more than 98 Degrees

*disclaimer: please excuse the lame-ness of this title, and read on. I promise it gets better.

Ugh, I know it's so not like me to behind the times when it comes to bands. But here and now, I'll (un)willingly admit my shortcomings—I've *gulp* been slacking. 
But I was disadvantaged.I first heard the jarring, wavering, yet punchy baseline of Hang Me Up to Dry in the dish pit of my unfortunate last-summer job at East Side's, and asked my fellow music devotee to explain to me why I'd never heard such a tune before. He went into his spiel, and before I knew it I had tuned the poor rambler out and headed back on the floor to respond to whining from overstuffed Canadians for "MO' BREAD! MO' SALAD! MO' DIET CO-CA CO-LA!", rather than succumbing to Nathan Willett's astoundingly unforgettable, piercing (and not in the pitchy ear-paining way) pleas. How could I associate such music with great things when I'd already associated it with crying over fresh-cut onions, mushy, half-eaten three-cheese capilletti, and lasanga al forno more resembling of lasagna a upchuck. Can you really blame me?

Well, in short, yeah. Cold War Kids are now waging the good war over my ears, and I think they're winning. Their Orange County sounds soothe my cravings for Cali. Seeing them at Sasquatch this weekend shot my respect off the thermometer for these heated hotties—they played harder than they skated, their guitars bouncing and swinging like punk-pop-rock dance partners, but kept it smooth with undeniable underlying piano riffs, and topped it off with the layering of a voice as powerful as the young Zach Condon. With bountiful layers, Cold War Kids are not layered like onions, no, they're a 5-tiered, majestically decorated cake with a smooth, delicious inside. And the icing on the cake? They're amazing live. The harmonies of Saint John will blow you away faster than you can blow out the candles.

Cold War Kids are here to stay, and now I can vow my loyalty as long as they're around.