Five Songs I'm Loving This Week

As usual I've waited until the last minute. An hour and a half until I'm due to be picked up to go see Tegan and Sara, and I haven't even gotten ready yet. Oh well. Let's see what magic I can perform in half an hour.

First, We have Kieran Hebden, AKA Four Tet. Four Tet isn't a band; it isn't even a collective. It's one guy in a London flat, turning out weird and surprising music using a computer, a turntable and some other odds and ends. It's like a jazz collective without the collective (or the usual instruments). The song "Smile Around The Face" is an excellent example of what this one talented musician can do with very little aid.

All the songs in 3Hive's Fast Computers post are excellent; I posted "Magic in the Air" a few months ago. Lately, though, I've been listening to "I Want to Be Your Professor" and "Don't Talk". I just love the idea of someone saying they want to be my professor, and wanting "to
teach me everything". There's something inherently desirable about the teacher/student thing. You know you liked that Police song. Don't pretend you didn't. ("Don't Talk" can also be found on Beat The Indie Drum).

Now that my gratuitous "too much information" part of the post is over, I'll continue. I just heard "Nearly Midnight" by David Francey for the first time today. Big Bad Bit (Hey--a Bit can be intimidating) made a comment in my blog, so I went over to hers and listened to the songs on the first few posts. This one stood out the most for me. His voice sounds very Irish, but his website says he's Canadian. He could be both. Or...he could be neither. He could be lying to us all...Anyways, now that I've entered the non-sensical portion of the post, I'll go on to say that I'm glad I came across this song and this musician. (Oh, and if I'd bothered to read the Biography part of his site, I would've seen that he was born in Scotland. )

How am I doing on time? Seven minutes? Ah, I'll make it. Well, I might've made it if I hadn't spent five minutes looking for this great song by the band Bottom of the Hudson, "Holiday Machine" The main problem was I thought that Holiday Machine was the name of the band. Leave me alone--I get confused. I have Her Space Holiday and Immaculate Machine mp3s--throwing in a song called "Holiday Machine" was a recipe for confusion. Anyway, I really like this song-I will say the vocals are too muffled; I can't hear him very well or decipher what he's saying. Eh, most of the music I listen to is muffled, anyway. The music reminds me of a not-so-nihilistic The Swans--the singer even sounds like him--muffled and all. I don't know what a Holiday Machine is, but he says "there's nothing here to live for, nothing left to breathe" so maybe he's hoping for a machine that will make a holiday for him...

Retroactively, I have a remix of a song I love by a band whose lead singer has formed several bands I admire, and also has made exceptional music under his own name. Lou Barlow, the singer/songwriter/principal member of Folk Implosion was also a founding member of Sebadoh and Dinosaur, Jr. The song I think of first when I think of Folk Implosion is "Insinuation". If you haven't heard this song, or don't remember, then I say definitely download it now. This was one of the seminal songs of the 90s, damn whatever the mainstream radio stations were playing.

That's it for this week. Sorry it was rushed--I should've done this yesterday, but I got stuck destroying my music blog and crying and pleading with the universe until I got it

put back together. It looks alright on my screen; I hope it does on every one else's.