A.M. 180

RUNNING IN THE DARK

2010-02-08T23:45:00.004-07:00

Bat For Lashes - "Daniel"
It would make sense if, instead of a song, "Daniel" was a vampire. That would explain the song's hypnotic presence, its eroticism--its cold, dark romance--and why you're powerless to resist it. Singer, Natasha Khan, barely has to whisper the first line and you're already hopelessly trapped in its embrace.

Equal parts dream and mystical invocation, "Daniel" conjures a landscape of ghostly strings and stately synths--elegant (yet melodramatic) and ominous, like the whole thing's been doused in theatrical fog--you can almost hear the whir of the fog machine backstage as it releases billowing cloud after cloud of smoke.

It's fitting, then, that Khan's lyrics are like the description of a dream: At first we're laughing "under wild blue skies", next spirited away in a "golden blue car", before ending up crying in a "goodbye bed", and finally hallucinating in a Wizard of Oz-referencing spinning house. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to imagine Khan penning the words while watching David Lynch's Mulholland Drive. But it's far easier not to discern the lyrics in their entirety, but to let the imagery, and the sound of Khan's voice, wash over you. (i.e. Are those "marble movie skies" or "Marlboro ruby skies"? Does it matter? Can it be both?)

****

4/3

2010-02-04T22:41:00.000-07:00

Mos Def - "History" (feat. Talib Kweli)

"History" might not be the most technically-stunning track on Mos Def's flawless pièce de résistance, but it's hands-down the most joyful. It also feels like the most relaxed and effortless moment on the album, beginning with Mos Def waxing philosophical about predestiny, before launching into an affectionate, sunbathed synopsis of his past.

Fellow Black Star emcee, Talib Kweli, romanticizes his birth, in the first two bars of his verse, with sweeping breviloquence:

I was born in the decade of decadence,
Where they worship what they have;
 Ford was president, do the math.
The war was ended
When the North Vietnamese
Stormed the city of Saigon; 
We was like "Bye", we was gone;
Let bygones be bygones.

Kweli tackles his verse with his characteristic easy-going lope, speeding up and slowing down, somehow--miraculously--finding all the time he needs to navigate multisyllabic internal rhyme schemes.

Dilla Dilla Dilla.

If "History" was the only song on The Ecstatic, the album would still deserve its name, and most of that euphoria is a function of J. Dilla's production. The elemental, barely-contained emotion bursting from the track is 90% Dilla. The late producer's sauntering bass and lonely snare are lessons in restraint; his effervescent orchestral flourishes are applied sparingly. But the honey-thick icing on the cake: the sped-up soul vocals that adorn the track's negative space, showering it in cherry blossoms and warm sunlight.

Phoenix - "Lisztomania"

For the love of "Lisztomania", please see the Summer of 2009.

*****

6/5

2010-02-04T00:32:00.003-07:00

Lindstrøm & Christabelle - "Baby Can't Stop (Aeroplane Remix)"

The original is MJ-certified fire, and Aeroplane's remix burns even hotter, like an incandescent blue flame in zero gravity. The Belgian hotshot duo responsible for my favourite song of 2008 turn "Baby Can't Stop" into an hallucinatory epic, immersing Lindstrøm's rhapsodic disco stomp in an oscillating mass of spaced-out, pitch-bending synthesizers, chromatic scales and arpeggios. Christabelle's seductive, scattershot vocals orbit it all, sounding like a dazed Siren caught in the track's gravitational pull.

Destroyer - "Bay of Pigs"

After Destroyer's Rubies and Trouble in Dreams--the laid-back reverie of "Rubies", or the chaotic sprawl of "Shooting Rockets" (and its Swan Lake doppelganger) come to mind--this 14-minute "ambient disco" composition could easily be regarded as a natural progression for Dan Bejar. It's a pleasant surprise, and another consummate masterpiece.

Thematically, the song doesn't stray far from Bejar's now-familiar, drunken mysticism--"Bay of Pigs" is a continuation of his seafaring odyssey in pursuit of "the world's inutterable secret."

*****

10 BRICKS

2010-02-02T22:57:00.001-07:00

Raekwon - "10 Bricks" (feat. Cappadonna & Ghostface)

In the opening verse of "10 Bricks", Raekwon spins a tale of crime so convoluted and overrun with life that it has a kind of montage effect, with times and places running together and--even more surreal--a sense of characters disappearing into others. I don't think there is another rapper that can create depth to a story and reveal so little while suggesting so much quite like Rae can. Most of the details are left to our imaginations, Rae presenting us with haunting flashes of people and settings before obscuring them with further bits of disconnected history, or seemingly mundane tangents--women in see-through lingerie, a leather-and-matching-sweater outfit, etc.

It has a strangely powerful effect: we don't know where we are, or who we're talking about, so we imagine ourselves everywhere, and one character becomes the next. I wonder, for example, what the link is between the girl from Africa with the "pretty smile, nine teeth," and the woman who just "threw the rifle in her mouth and said 'good evening'" two bars before. It's never clear whether Rae is piling on more backstory, playing God, or both; we expect characters to die, but we don't expect them to come back.

****

I feel like I should say something about Cappa's and Ghost's verses--as great as they are, they can't help but pale a bit in comparison to Rae's cinematic opener. Cappa's verse feels distinctly linear following up The Chef, but it doesn't disappoint, Cappa's slurred rasp giving his rhymes a slow-burning intensity. Rae's might be the track's most enigmatic verse, but Ghost is an enigma himself. . . as usual, he doesn't appear to be trying all that hard even though he's consistently brilliant. He makes the banal interesting. His verse is a bunch of anecdotal one-liners delivered in a manic, sainted, stream-of-consciousness; its seemingly random construction and the rapper's immaculate, breathless flow defies comprehension.

More on Only Built 4 Cuban Linx. . . Pt. II here.

*****

#8

2010-01-28T21:15:00.002-07:00

Dirty Projectors - "Stillness Is the Move"

"Stillness Is the Move" feels almost too coherent for a Dirty Projectors song. These guys are now rocking breathless, multi-tracked R&B vocals, a verse-chorus arrangement, fully-formed sentences (actual lyrics!), and a bunch of other things that one would associate with pop songwriting? That's. . . just. . . so. . . weird! (Funny when generating lyrics from an Excel spreadsheet moves your band further into pop territory instead of further away. Of course, I'm presuming that the band hasn't been using Excel all along. (By the way, it seems rather monstrous to associate the cutting-edge of pop music with Microsoft Excel--but we're getting off topic here.))

Whereas most Dirty Projectors songs tend towards multiple personality disorder, this is one of the first tracks I've heard from the band that has contented itself with basically doing one thing very well. It begs the question: Why settle on doing one thing well, when you've proven you can do four things well all at the same time? (i.e. "Jolly Jolly Jolly Ego" ) Isn't that like regressing? Well, normally I'd say yes, but in the case of "Stillness Is the Move", it's just fucking catchy--an impressive feat since it also sounds completely original. The Dirty Projectors' typically abstract, sometimes-orchestral-sometimes-beat-centred/de-centred approach has resulted in some great songs over the years, but none have been quite this much fun.

****

#9

2010-01-27T19:59:00.001-07:00

DOOM - "Gazzillion Ear"

MF Doom to just DOOM is a fitting transformation. Born Like This features some of the most grinding, pessimistic songs of Daniel Dumile's career. The unearthed Dilla beats that comprise "Gazzillion Ear" are dead, hollow things--the grey, funeral organs of "Dig It" in particular sound like they've already started to decompose--repurposed by Dumile in such a joyless, monochromatic way that it still makes me draw in my breath every time I hear the track. The cold functionality with which the song shifts into its Midnight Express phase, with little more than a pause, is shocking, like the beats were crudely stitched together. A sense of malevolence and emptiness casts a dismal shadow over the song, but it's also grotesquely wonderful.

Dumile's oblique rhymes and self-mythologizing are, as always--and thankfully--difficult to make sense of; for DOOM, lucidity would be a weakness. I have no doubt in my mind that the "verses" of "Gazzillion Ear"--a relentless stream of precise, evocative imagery--rank among his very best; every phrase that leaves his mouth is fascinating. But while Dumile is at the top of his game, there is nothing here to suggest that he is aware of the track's brilliance, which makes it somewhat of a bitter triumph. He sounds like someone just going through the motions, dispassionate, unhappy and altogether unimpressed with himself.

****

#10 [top songs of 2009]

2010-01-26T22:36:00.002-07:00

DJ Quik & Kurupt - "Hey Playa! (Moroccan Blues)"
"Hey Playa! (Moroccan Blues)" defies the notion that there are limits to how big a song can get before it collapses under the weight of its elements. It's a song that is bigger than I previously even thought possible. Its ferocious, bursting-at-the-seams production pose something of a challenge for the uninitiated, and it's maybe a difficult song to love on first listen; I just remember a disorienting sense of "what the hell is going on here?" the first time I heard it. But its brilliance is revealed with each successive listen as you start to hear how all the pieces fit together.

There's a reason why maximalism isn't the favoured approach of most producers: it's almost impossible to do well. By all rights this should be a chaotic monstrosity. Yet, somehow, I'm faced with a mind-blowing, revelatory masterpiece--"Hey! Playa!" is hip hop re-imagined in a way that's not just masterful, but completely without precedent.

****

top 30 songs (#30-21)

2010-01-15T19:54:00.002-07:00

speeding things up here...

Islands - "Tender Torture"

“Tender Torture” has this whole wish-fulfillment/denial thing going on. The melody is written in sections, any of which could be great songs on their own, and the band's strategy is to run with a particular riff or chord progression until you desperately want to hear it again, and then of course shift into something else, which ends up being even better. Thorburn's writing has never been more refined, or his peculiar style as perfectly envisioned, as it is here. (i.e. "I was a windblown, cast-down, carved-out watermelon without you in my arms.") It's an incredibly effective, and affecting, love song that rivals some of the best ever written.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - "Gentle Sons"

I don't care that I've heard something like this before (Hey! It's another song indebted to "Be My Baby"and sweet, canonical 80s bands), or that its verses have little use beyond framing its epic chorus, when the chorus is so beautifully fucking focused on catharsis--so utterly hellbent on making me feel emotion. Listen to it, develop a dependency, listen to it on repeat for 3 hours. Listen to it all day Saturday and for 5 hours on Sunday.

Sondre Lerche - "I Guess It's Gonna Rain Today"

"I Guess..." is your perfect Last-Song-On-a-Mixtape song. You'll want something elegant, relaxed--distinct (and refreshing!), but comfortable--something with all of its idiosyncracies balanced by familiarity. Something that's impossible not to like. Preferably something with strings and a horn section. Something a bit melancholy, but not too sad; happy, but not too happy. It should be a song that feels fully realized; its end should come with a sense of finality. It should leave things up in the air.

Hudson Mohawke - "Gluetooth"

A minor masterpiece of beat making. (He has others.) I say minor not to indicate its scale--"Gluetooth" is an absurdly flamboyant behemoth of a song-- but because it's destined to be a footnote in what will hopefully be a long, ridiculous (some might say glorious) succession of records filled with whatever it is that HudMo is doing here. In other words: as great as this is, I'm expecting much better to come.

Jessica 6 - "Good To Go"

The band formerly know as Deep Red, now Jessica 6, were all involved in some way with Hercules & Love Affair. Their sound is... gayer? --in the best sense of the word. Current trends suggest they are not bound for fame, but I for one will be checking out their album when it drops this year. This could be an unreleased track, or possibly a b-side to the band's incredible, campy (read: classy) single "Fun Girl" (Re: the video--They just don't make 'em like this anymore). In minimalist and seemingly effortless fashion, "Good to Go" out-sleazes and out-funks the competition. I talked about it over here, back in March 09.

Atlas Sound - "Kid Klimax"

Cover me in cold light

Wake up with a sore throat

A sore throat

Drive your car to work

Down gray highways isolate

Your pain

Your pain

You will grow to be

Untouched, unphased

By the light that changed

By the way things change

You will grow to me

Detached in the mirror

Oh my god

Oh my god

Oh my god

Oh my god

Oh my god

Oh my god

Oh my god

Oh my god

I imagine it's easy to listen to a song like “Kid Klimax” and assume that it's intended to be miserable and depressing. But I think there's something empowering in its succinct expression of existential tragedy. There's a simple beauty to the way the mundane bleeds into the transcendent, and how its subject of detachment echoes the way the song splits apart to create an aural mise en abyme effect. The familiar sound of the recording, the creeping pace, and the suffocating introspection that characterize most Atlas Sound material are all there, but "Kid Klimax" impresses with an unusual elegance.

Mayer Hawthorne & the County - "Just Ain't Gonna Work Out"

More classicist than retro-ist, Hawthorne is both a gifted songwriter and a cruel thief. He's stolen some poor girl's heart and trampled it in sweet, sweet song. "Just Ain't Gonna Work Out" is endlessly amusing because while it's incredibly funny and cruel, it somehow never comes across as a joke. That's an impressive (and devious) accomplishment in of itself, but Hawthorne also seems to be in possession of an immaculate falsetto previously belonging to one Smokey Robinson. Somebody stop this guy.

Ne-Yo - "I Don't Care"

Another addition to my list of Us-Against-the-World jams, currently keeping company with Masta Ace and Jean Grae's "Hold U", and Cassie and The-Dream's more recent "Keep On Lovin' Me". It's debatable, but "I Don't Care" might be the best of them.

Most pop songsmiths write a catchy hook and think they're done for the day, but one hook isn't good enough for Ne-Yo. As evidenced by "I Don't Care", hooks must be layered over more hooks. The chorus can't just be infectious; it has to be all the elements of the song coming together to become a living, breathing thing. And it has to come off as the easiest thing ever. (Browse through You Tube and try to find a bad song.) He didn't even release this shit.

let...them...hate...if....they.....wanna

Blaq Poet - "Ain't Nuttin' Changed"

Nothing more should need to be said about the producer, but a quick look at the disparate pieces used to create this beat is additional proof of genius. I'm not an "anti-Akon" (I confess an unhealthy love for "Smack That"), but his heavily-processed vocals have never struck me as particularly soulful (no matter how many Asian and white boys tell me otherwise). That said, Blaq Poet's "Ain't Nuttin' Changed" demonstrates that DJ Premier is still the exception to every rule. I also have love for this because its Four Tops sampling makes it a distant cousin to one of my favourite songs of all-time.

Fever Ray - "Concrete Walls"

The Fever Ray album is a strange beast, unsettling for the way it juxtaposes its mood of isolation with the use of pitch-shifted vocals to create different characters, thus suggesting a kind of internal dialogue. This multiplicity of personalities originating from the same person would be disturbing enough, but the album also has the exploratory feel of someone dipping into their subconscious to see what dark things are dredged up. Much of it feels channelled rather than consciously written. This perception likely has very little to do with how the album came into being, but it's the sense that one takes away from it nonetheless.

"Concrete Walls" is a mystery--full of meaning, but providing no answers to what that meaning is. There is little use in trying to "review" it. (I talked about it over here awhile back.) In my experience, it's songs like "Concrete Walls" that shake me the most, because while I've been able to connect to them, I'm unable to describe what exactly the connection is. Something about it feels true to me, but I can't explain it; it's truth that sits on the edge of my memory, just slightly beyond my reach, and I can't pull in into the rational circle of my mind and express what it is in words.

Whatever it is, it's constantly in my periphery no matter where I look. It's rather disturbing to think about something that you can't actually think about (and to me that's being able to put it into language)--and I often tell myself that whatever I'm feeling doesn't really exist. But then a "Concrete Walls" comes along, and that something makes itself known--looming in the shadows, eminently, immeasurably real . . . and I can't seem to grasp it.

****

top 30 songs (part 5)

2010-01-11T20:35:00.004-07:00

Four Tet - "Love Cry"

One of the many elements that makes "Love Cry" so interesting is the gorgeous, high-frequency noise that appears in its opening seconds and becomes the heart and guts of the track--more central to the song than even the 4/4 beat. Since I don't understand what these noises are, allow me to be vague and metaphysical: Like analog signals appearing from the digital ether, the best way I can describe them is if there was an old, dial-up modem only capable of producing heavenly sounds.

I also wrote about "Love Cry" over here, back in November.

Javelin - "Vibrationz"

It's hard to believe this song song came out in 2009. Forgetting this fact, if a fellow music nerd told me it had been their favourite song for three decades, I would have believed them.

King Midas Sound - "Cool Out"

"beats be shiver in the belly of the night" …music that infiltrates your body as pure, white tendrils of smoke and turns you to ash from the inside out.

Ever since hearing "Cool Out", I have been unable to recall a song more menacing, or imagine how a song could be more uncompromising in its worship of death, destruction and forgetfulness. The ultimate "get down" music.

****

top 30 songs (part 4)

2010-01-07T19:40:00.002-07:00

El Perro Del Mar - "Change of Heart"

I would be remiss not to mention (again) the haunting percussion. The drums are pushed into the foreground, which is a strange choice for such ethereal music, but it works to highlight the sad monotony of the lyrics and melody. "Change of Heart" is a song with no real beginning or end; it fades in as if picking up from a previous verse, and it fades out without any resolution. We get a couple minutes into the song, and words are already being replaced with sighs.

Mono/Poly - "Beatles Bitch"

There's room to breathe beneath its black tide, but just barely. "Beatles Bitch" begins with a low end that's so thick it's close to impenetrable, but Mono/Poly finds space to sneak in--among other things--a dark, winding synth-line reminiscent of Bladerunner or Midnight Express, and tops the whole thing off with flashing neon lights.

Lil' Wayne - "Yes" (feat. Pharrell)

Completely ridiculous and positively ecstatic. I mentally remixed this shit, and it's just me on the beat going: yes. yes. yes. yes. fuck yes.

****

Never thought the sun would be like this... (top 30 songs pt. 3)

2009-12-29T19:30:00.002-07:00

If I had to pick just two songs that soundtracked my summer this year, Ryan Leslie's "Quicksand" and Neon Indian's "Deadbeat Summer" might be the front runners.* Lovesick and sunstroked, respectively, both tracks are dizzying and romantic, and despite being musically quite different, both effuse a similar mix of joy and ambivalence. Ambivalence because, in the one, love is a trap that hooks you and pulls you in half against your will, and in the other, fever and loss of consciousness are just a few sun-baked minutes away.

Both songs revel in too much of a good thing, capturing the moment before things head south--before the hangover, the heartbreak, and the disenchantment of waking up on the beach with a sunburn.

Ryan Leslie - "Quicksand"

Neon Indian - "Deadbeat Summer"

*I've mentioned "Quicksand" previously, in my review of Ryan Leslie back in August.

****

top 30 songs (pt. 2)

2009-12-26T21:08:00.000-07:00

It wasn't the greatest year for Cassie. There were naked photos, a weirdly shaved head, the commercial failure of a bunch of singles, and most tragically, she ended her musical collaboration with Ryan Leslie. In the meantime, Leslie has put out two good albums in the span of a year, while Electro Love, Cassie's long-awaited follow up to her debut, remains on the Bad Boy back burner.

Cassie - "Must Be Love" (feat. Diddy)

The problem with “Must Be Love” is immediately obvious--a “kiss of death” guest star that clearly shouldn't be rapping on anything anymore.

I guess it's a testament to the strength of the track, or my personal obsessions, that even compromised by a Diddy guest spot, Cassie's “Must Be Love” is still one of my favourite songs of the year. Like with her previous hit, “Me & U”, it thrives on simplicity, the back-and-forth sway of languid guitars and a paralysis-inducing bell chime paralleling the song's theme of uncertainty and conflicting desire. Cassie's voice is a combination of barely-there lightness and pure, sugary sweetness--in this respect it's a lot like Janet Jackson's; it needs room to breathe--and, more importantly, production that doesn't drown it out. “Must Be Love” gets this formula right, doing more with less; simple choices, like a pop-and-hiss vinyl record effect add dreamy atmosphere but keep the production feeling understated.

*****

top 30 songs (part 1)

2009-12-21T19:11:00.001-07:00

Perhaps 2009 was a strange year in music, or maybe it's just me. My year-end lists are always fundamentally subjective, with little concern for critical consensus or cultural impact, yet at the end of 2008 (and 2007 and 2006) there were still a handful of artists and songs that to me seemed obvious choices. This year, nothing seemed obvious. This is probably reflected in the songs on this list. I also think it's my best list so far, but of course I would think that.

I spent the first half of 2009 working harder and more hours than I have in a long time, and the rest sleepwalking through a haze of mostly reggae, 90s hip hop/R&B, and various other dance musics--basically a slave to anything that made rhythm its central objective. (I know this impacted the song choices as well.) As my life started to drift out of balance, I slowly lost my patience for anything that didn't have a pulse. Since July, I've been hopelessly trying to catch up, both with my personal life, and with all the music that I'd missed.

Jogger - "Nice Tights" (Nosaj Thing Remix)

Nosaj Thing seems a perfect soundtrack for a life out of balance, and as good a place as any to start.* Jason Chung's strange pseudo-hip hop exists in a space between genres--not quite hip hop, not electro, not dubstep, not ambient or techno. It incorporates elements of glitch hop, but never comes across as “glitchy”. Instead, there's an immaculate, haunting quality to everything Nosaj Thing touches. Bizarre, but never gimmicky, his songs combine unnatural electronic textures with brooding sadness, resulting in works of horror and beauty, like Frankenstein's Monster re-imagined as music. His remix of Jogger's “Nice Tights” (the original can be heard here) renders the song almost unrecognizable, steeping it in eerie video game nostalgia, suitable for navigating 2-D mansions outfitted with lava pits and spiked ceilings. It's dark and disorienting, and seduces with a grace that is odd for music that relies so heavily on an 8-bit synthesizer.

*Drift was one of the few albums that I spent considerable time with this year, but picking a single track from it to include on my top 30 list seemed wrong somehow.

****

TOP 30 SONGS of 2009

2009-12-17T08:00:00.003-07:00

In keeping with the last three years, here's my year-end list of 30 songs. I will be doing write-ups for each of them over the next couple of weeks.

Download all the songs separately, or in a .rar file here.

****

****

Touch of Evil

2009-12-15T18:50:00.000-07:00

King Midas Sound - Darlin'

"Darlin" is a prophecy of loneliness, and quite possibly madness--a parting gift to the woman who poisoned the singer's heart with tainted love. The prognosis is. . . not good. King Midas Sound find beauty and cold satisfaction in returning the favour--pumping carbon monoxide through your speakers. Not "misty-eyed take-me-back begging"*, only mutually-assured destruction.

Some sections of Robinson's mantra are barely audible through the London fog of the production, words surfacing from the murk in a stream of consciousness, but most of it is startlingly direct: "Do you need me? You don't. Please take me back. You won't."

* An otherwise excellent review. I also found this list of Waiting For You's inspirations/influences pretty enlightening.

****

Quadron - Buster Keaton

2009-12-10T00:25:00.004-07:00

Quadron - "Buster Keaton"

These two are an electronic soul outfit from Denmark that, I expect, are too good for bloggers to ignore much longer. This track somehow comes across as both incredibly lush and pared down to its bare essentials--with an oddly aseptic feel that brings to mind some of Matthew Herbert's music.

It's casually gorgeous, with clipped horns, and hummingbird vocals arranged around a kick drum that quietly thumps and detonates like the famous heartbeat to "Be My Baby". The duo toss in a Shangri-Las-inspired spoken-word interlude, as well.

. . .this track comes via one of my new go-to blogs. Props to cmehr (who should really just start his/her own blog)--Stalking, um I mean "following", like-minded people on Hype Machine is making the music discovery process a bit easier.

www.myspace.com/quadronquadron

****

Fuck Buttons

2009-12-10T00:00:00.000-07:00

Fuck Buttons - "Surf Solar"

Never paid much attention to Fuck Buttons before this. If you have a cold, "Surf Solar" will decongest you. Headphones are necessary.

Listen and be healed.

****

amor(ph)ous

2009-12-09T20:16:00.002-07:00

It's hard to pick just one of these, so you get both of them.

Jesse Boykins III - AmorUs (MeLo-X Mix)
Jesse Boykins III - Amorous (AFTA-1 LOVE MIX)

MeLo-X brings the buzzy synth and heavy bass, but the ambient keys and muted, drum-machine shuffle of AFTA-1's remix might take the cake. Both contain piano chords that dissipate into fog, and beats that occupy an indefinite space between stasis and collapse.

She was amorous, motherfuckers. (via)

****

SNOW DAY

2009-12-04T18:25:00.001-07:00

Blakroc - "Dollaz & Sense" (feat. Pharoahe Monch & RZA)

****

THE BOXER

2009-12-02T20:30:00.002-07:00

I finally got around to watching "The Boxer"(1997), starring Emily Watson and Daniel Day-Lewis, and set during a precarious "ceasefire" between a militant IRA members and the British police in 1990s Belfast. It's a flawed, but beautiful film about violence and fidelity, which I think quite brilliantly examines the close ties between the politics of gender and the politics of violence, and their destructiveness in the lives of the men and women. All are victims, and almost everyone is complicit. Early on, the film's heroine slaps the male protagonist across the face and both of the characters seem to think she is entitled to do so. Later, her 14-year-old burns down a precious historical building to punish his mother for her infidelity, as if it is his right. Meanwhile, the men are given license to kill each other, and children are trampled to death in stampedes triggered by bombs. It's easy to see where the 14-year-olds get their twisted sense of justice.

The Hollywood-baiting "star-crossed lovers" theme can be safely ignored, as the love story might as well be background to the real drama, which centers on the social/psychological malaise created by the war in Northern Ireland. It's a film that is much more ambivalent and tragic than suggested by its "Love Is Always Worth Fighting For" tagline. If anything, I thought the film was lacking in the romantic department; the desire of the main characters--to consummate their love and to escape their miserable lives--is palpable, the 'romance' of it not-so-much. The film also suffers a bit from its script--Day-Lewis is forced to deliver a couple of awkward monologues that should have been written out--but the acting is of course excellent.

****

I also watched "Robocop 3" over the weekend, which I got very little out of except the discovery of this gem:

The Go-Go's - "He's So Strange"

****

At the park or at the pier

2009-11-20T18:43:00.005-07:00

Nosaj Thing - "Wandering Star/Coat of Arms"
(via Low End Theory Podcast, Episode IV)

I'm heading off to Vancouver. I will be back in a week or so.

****

GHOST OF A CHANCE

2009-11-19T18:19:00.000-07:00

Turboweekend - "Sweet Jezebel"

sleeping sickness
 sleeping pills
    sleeping beauty

. . .

More on this song and Turboweekend's Ghost of a Chance LP over here.

late summer jams

2009-11-17T18:43:00.000-07:00

Outdoor Miners - "Turn You Into Glue"
It's a bit late to be making additions to my list of melancholy summer jams, so this will just have to settle for being a charming and bittersweet pop tune.

Here's a couple others:

Irma Thomas - "Cry On"
Phoenix - "Rome" (Neighbors Remix w/Devendra Banhart)

****

21

2009-11-13T19:47:00.002-07:00

Fever Ray - "Concrete Walls"

My favourite thing on the Fever Ray album are the streaks of numbed synthesizer that snake through the above track and fade off into its oppressive blackness. The multi-tracked vocals contain all the tenderness of an iceberg; however, the mournful bits of synth zero in on a sense of romance and deep sadness, and wrest it to the surface.

****

finally got my head right

2009-11-12T23:20:00.002-07:00

Fever Ray - "Stranger Than Kindness"
(originally by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds)

****