Fewer than 30 Songs Less Than a Minute

So, here’s a random mix of my favorite songs that are less than sixty second in length. I tried to avoid intros and interludes, as they lean toward novelty instead of real songwriting, but you’ll see a few that get close. Let me know if you have any to add. Thanks to Aileen and Alex for all their suggestions.

Gone in 60 Seconds
1. Monde Est Grande - Etienne Charry
2. Green Typewriters - Olivia Tremor Control
3. Boa Constrictor - The Magnetic Fields
4. Ask Me - Beat Happening
5. Barnyard - Brian Wilson
6. Tramp-Reszlet - Bergendy
7. Touched - My Bloody Valentine
8. Elizabeth My Dear - The Stone Roses
9. Kolyada #1 - The Music Tapes
10. Martin’s Story - Minutemen
11. Sweetheart - Micachu
12.Sickles and Hammers - Sebadoh
13. Telephone Conversation - Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention
14. Don’t Know, Don’t Care - Nobunny
15. Joanie Don’t U Worry - The Apples in Stereo
16. Avant Dernieres Pensees, Meditation - Erik Satie (Aldo Ciccolini)
17. Straight Edge - Minor Threat
18. Straight Line - Wire
19. My Pretend - The Apples in Stereo
20. The Eyebright Bugler - Deerhoof
21. Air Raid GTR - The Go! Team
22. Clipped Gongs - Lucky Dragons
23. Revelation Two - The Mae Shi
24. Gens Que Les Voitures Ecrasent - Etienne Charry
25. Barbwire - Nora Dean (Diplo dub)
26. V.O.T.E. - Chris Stamey & Yo La Tengo
27. Field Day for the Sundays - Wire
28. In Orbit - Komeda
29. Muscles - Steinski

White Rabbits - It’s Frightening

Artist: White Rabbits
Album: It’s Frightening
Release Date: 19 May 2009
Label: TBD

There are several moments on this album that I love: Simple guitar, piano, drum, and vocal combinations that keep each song evenly interesting.  If you liked The Walkmen’s You & Me, then you should give this album a listen.
The vocals are a little cringe worthy at times.  It sounds like they were recorded in a space that was too intimate and quiet.  They are at odds with the music, trying to overpower the interesting orchestration by oversinging at every moment. I wouldn’t mind the lead vocalist (Greg Roberts) relaxing a little, singing with the instruments, and weaving some vocal elements into different layers of the whole sound.

“Percussion Gun” - White Rabbits
I think this is the boldest track on the album.  Roberts could relax his voice a little, but I think the music is strong enough to balance out his vocal “closeness.”  The steady drumming fits somewhere between a tribal dance and a military march.  It fits the general tension of this album, a balance between groove and stiffness.

“They Done Wrong / We Done Wrong” – White Rabbits
This song is more in line with the rest of the album: hypnotically strummed acoustic guitar complementing a light, tight drum line while the vocals, bass line, and piano add flourishes.  My favorite moment of this song is the rolling piano and the guitar picking (2:13 and 3:10, respectively).  Moody and relaxed, these moments make the song memorable to me, and I would enjoy hearing those two elements interact more above the steady guitar and drum.

Micachu - Jewellery

Artist: Micachu
Album: Jewellery
Label: Rough Trade
Release Date: 4/7/09

You are what you eat, they say; I say, you are what you listen to, too. And Micachu is that organic, farmer’s market, community garden shit that I should be eating. It tastes fresh and a little dirty, like it’s just been pulled from the ground. With a cavalcade of instruments, some of them invented or repurposed by the artist (like the now legendary “chu,” a homemade guitar), and vocals that range from squeals and sighs to growls and shouts, this is an album of incredible texture and experience. Now if the previous sentence turns you off—perhaps you’ve been burned too often by the more experimental musicians of this world—take heart; Micachu makes pop music. The goal is not to make listeners endure, but to enjoy. So, enjoy:
Eat Your Heart – Micachu
This is on the darker side of Micachu, but it’s good dark. I like how the song has the feel of a sample-based song, one that pulls from many sources and remixes them into something new, but is entirely original material. Micachu, the performance name for Mica Levi, remixes herself and turns her own voice into the hyper, glitchy collage of contemporary pop music.
Golden Heart – Micachu

Yeeeeeaaaaahhhhh

Giorgio Tuma - “Let’s Make the Stevens Cake!!!”

Giorgio Tuma’s “Let’s Make the Stevens Cake!!!” from My Vocalese Fun Fair. Out now. Buyyyyyyy.

Gotta Be Slow

Did you know that if you slow down Desree’s “You Gotta Be,” she sounds like Antony and the Johnsons?

Gotta Be Slow (click to play)

I’ve included videos for your comparison:


Enjoy!

New year, New York, new post!

This evening at the gym every treadmill had a runner, every bike had a biker, and every machine had a lifter. I’ve never seen so many people working out at once. It is the new year in New York. A time and a place to change. Delusion? Perhaps. But who am I to judge? The same force flowing through the legs of those runners is now pushing my fingers to type. And just as others look back on what they did or should have done and why they did or didn’t, I’m looking at what music meant to me in 2008, at how my taste and habits changed.

For the last few years leading up to 2008, my predominant experience of music occurred around other people. I worked in a radio station, I went to dances, I listened to music in groups, I shared and swapped mixes, and I talked about music constantly with others. Even when listening to music alone in my different rooms, I felt like people were there with me. My musical life, and the preferences that developed out of my experiences, existed with other people. One could say that I was just following the crowd (so to speak), but I had a really good time doing it. We got excited about music together, and we expressed our love of music through one another.

The music of 2008, however, seemed to play in a different key. The crowd wasn’t there. I could still pick out a hot tune, one I knew my friends around the globe would like. But in general I went into something like a music abyss. For the first time in many years I only listened to music alone. Long subway rides with my headphones replaced those countless dance parties. Silent and diligent CD shopping trips replaced late-night sessions of loud, new music at the station with my friends. I think this new key, this new mode, made me start the blog, in an effort to reconnect with those others, with that crowd, and regain that same excitement.

It didn’t work. Or, it didn’t seem to work in the way I wanted: I still enjoyed music, but the excited crowd was still gone. So I stopped writing and took a few months to do other things. In that hiatus, I’ve realized that the blog itself, and the process of thinking and writing about something I love, should be the central goal. My goal this year is to love the things I love more. To begin this resolution is my 2008 mix, made of songs that brought me to a good place, whether around others or not.

Spring/Summer (click to play)
1. Three Way – The Magnetic Fields
2. Last Day of Magic – The Kills
3. Courtship Dancing – Crystal Castles
4. Paris s’enflamme – Ladyhawke
5. Hercules Theme – Hercules and Love Affair
6. Can’t Say No – Thomas Function
7. Hammer I Miss You – Jay Reatard
8. Converging in the Quiet – Crystal Stilts
9. Room Without a Key (Version by Studio) – Rubies
10. Shempi – Ratatat
11. Constructive Summer – The Hold Steady
12. Give Up – CSS

Fall/Winter (click to play)
1. River Card – Atlas Sound
2. I Am a Girlfriend – Nobunny
3. Valley Hi! – Stereolab
4. Four Provinces – The Walkmen
5. Little Bit – Lykke Li
6. Hundreds and Thousands – Fujiya & Miyagi
7. Mustaa Lunta – Fucked Up
8. Tell the World – Vivian Girls
9. Heavy Water / I’d Rather Be Sleeping – Grouper
10. Highway of Endless Dreams – M83
11. Give Him a Great Big Kiss – The Shangri-Las

If you like any of these songs, support the artist and go buy the album.

Happy New Year

I’m in Georgia, y’all. Posts to recommence in a couple days.

It’s my birthday, it’s my birthday!

I’m doing things a little bit differently today. I hope you enjoy.

Me - “Alphabet”

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

One of my earliest recordings. I slip up on W, but you get the idea.

Me - “Gotta Be”

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

One of my latest recordings. Listen to my story.

The Kills - Midnight Boom

Artist: The Kills
Album: Midnight Boom
Label: Domino

I was a little disappointed when I first listened to this album; the songs seemed a little exaggeratedly dark. A couple days later, however, while riding the subway to work, I couldn’t get today’s songs out of my head. Something catchy, delightfully trashy, and bouncing.

The Kills - “Last Day of Magic”

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This is a song to be blasted out the windows, to expand and stretch out over everything you see. The vocals have fleeting moments of TV on the Radio and Blonde Redhead (not as screechy). Everything has that brassy sound of something rough about to break into chaos.

The Kills - “Tape Song”

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

A little darker and simpler than “Last Day of Magic” but equally catchy. I giggle a little because the lyric “go steal ahead” goes into my brain as “go steal a head.” Oh well.

Want to know more? Check out their video for “Last Day of Magic,” visit their website, and buy the album.

Does It Offend You, Yeah?

Artist: Does It Offend You, Yeah?
Title: You Have No Idea What You’re Getting Yourself Into
Label: Almost Gold

I can’t quite figure out where these guys stand, and I can’t quite decide if I like them or not. At times dance-ready beats pulse behind fun pop melodies; other times the songs are verging on unlistenable. Perhaps too many influences are being melted together here; I hear moments of The Klaxons, LCD Soundsystem, The Mae Shi, !!!, multiple 80s pop bands, and others.

Though this may be somewhat mindless dance music, at least the songs don’t take themselves too seriously (see “Let’s Make Out”). They are fun, and the track-to-track variation keeps the album interesting.

Does It Offend You, Yeah? - “Dawn of the Dead”

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Light British pop with melodies channeling 80s bands like Flock of Seagulls. Chain gang backing vocals and steel drums add a nice twist.

Does It Offend You, Yeah? - “We Are Rockstars”

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

A little harder on this one. Some rough going. About a minute and a half to get to the center of the song. Not a spectacular track, but I think it shows their musical turf.

Check out the band’s site, which itself straddles good taste and annoying messiness, here. And of course, go buy the album if it strikes you.