Art is the image of life, its purpose simply to enhance it. Look out for Nick Valensi in the background on drums. Oh, what fun to be had.
[Purchase Little Joy by Little Joy.]
In my mind, this is my free time… to let it all away
“That’s why I hold you. That is why I hold you, dear. That is why I hold you near.”
“Lights” is rock & roll’s ever present six minute crescendo of song with the surprise hint that finally there may be a band that can lie comfortably and relish a discovered plateau of sprawling sound. No demand for further surges, no nervous excitement, but simply a grand and orchestral thunder smack of sound, and the volunteered escape from the forcibly darkened vistas that usually inherit the ideal Interpol track. Precision and intent throughout; raucous it most certainly is not.
This newly released track, a free download from Interpol’s official online home, is one of insistent keyboard-like drum beats and atypical percussion. Each beat failing to offer the ominous drumming tones of Forgarino that have long since been the trademark backing for this band. There’s unexpected fun to be had here and he’s having it – with the introduction of a discovery, multiple new arms, as numerous tips and taps invade your ear per flickering second.
Bank’s vocals are a continuation of his solo exploits as Julian Plenti… Is Skyscraper – a slight, but clear departure from earlier Interpol records – and had this been an guitar instrumental only then its identity as an Interpol track would have held. It’s the change in structure and rhythmic section – along with a supporting role for a bass, the instrument that once danced for this band – which is enough to to ensure “Lights” is not simply a continuation of what has gone before. It may only be a taster of the proposed new Interpol, but it’s certainly enough to instigate an itch for more. An album opener (perhaps) or a risky first single choice? Whichever, whatever, however, they are back – and to be welcomed with open arms. Hands away!
“Maybe I like to stray… but keep it clean.” [Download, free, at InterpolNYC.]
Fishing for forever
Sun Kil Moon – Australian Winter
Mark Fredricks, 35, had dropped out of school once. He liked the rush it gave him, how he had felt totally free, like he could stand straighter because he didn’t have all that bullshit weighing him down. He’d spent the rest of his life trying to get his shoulders to feel so light again.
Well, if dropping out of school had done it once, dropping out of life should work too, he thought. So he took all the money out of his bank account, sublet his two-bedroom apartment, and donated all his collected junk to Salvation Army. With the money he bought a boat and enough supplies to last him two weeks, give or take. His guitar he unstrung and tied the nylon strings together – tight knots, satisfying knots. He soldered the knotted ends together so they wouldn’t come undone.
Near the inlet where he kept his sailboat he picked up a thick, sturdy stick, and added that to his small bag of possessions aboard the boat.
He had a plan. He would fish for sustenance, throwing his line into the velvet sea and hauling his meals out of the water. He’d stay fishing forever out on the seas, sleeping in the boat, setting anchor in remote areas where no one would bug him. He had a pot to catch rain water. He had a book and he had a tune to whistle and he had hope.
As Mark Fredricks set sail, away from life and away from the Australian beach, his shoulders felt so light he could swear he was floating three inches above the deck.
[Pre-order Admiral Fell Promises and get a free EP featuring covers of Casiotone For The Painfully Alone and the Jackson 5.]
GROWING UP (I)
At five, I didn’t do much. I watched cartoons, I listened to the radio, I read books, and I drew pictures. I drew a lot of pictures. I wanted to be a cartoonist, you see, and pausing videos to try and draw my favorite cartoons was the pastime for most afternoons.
“I’m going to be a cartoonist.” I was adamant. I bought scrapbook after scrapbook with the change my mum would spare me, and sketched daily, ripping out the pages where I’d made a cluster of mistakes. Some scrapbooks would finish with only one or two pages in them out of a hundred.
Mostly I’d draw with a photo by my side, and sometimes for the more elaborate pieces I’d trace the outline and try to do the rest by memory. Eventually, I’d draw regularly from memory, and started to try my hand at a range of subjects and materials. Portraits and landscapes, pencils and paints, crayons and markers – you name it.
Sometimes in class, people would ask me to draw things for them. If the person who asked was somebody I wasn’t altogether fond of, I turned these requests into some sort of deal involving Pokémon cards, red frogs, etc. If I liked the person who’d asked I’d do it without question. Just for fun. I was damn near an adult.
The edges of my fingers were always smudged with lead – I have a peculiar way of holding pencils and pens – and I never remembered this. Smudges of lead could be found anywhere I’d scratch: shoulders, cheeks, the backs of my ears. Combined with the torn knees and ripped sleeves of my school uniform, and my reliance on my parents for any kind of food or drink, I was the primary school equivalent of a struggling artist.
I was starting to make inroads into the cutthroat world of courtyard success. People were telling me they liked my drawings. The pretty girls who had once laughed when I professed my love to them were now always around, pushing me and then running away in a giggling fit. I considered changing my hairstyle. Maybe piercing an ear. I mulled over the multitude of brash changes I could make, and weighed them against the likelihood of my mother agreeing. But I had change on the mind, and that counted for something.
It wasn’t long before there were scraps of paper everywhere. Days, if that. Everybody was drawing something. Some were even drawing the same cartoon characters I was, and better! Soon, I couldn’t turn a corner without seeing smudged hands and ripped uniforms. I was done for. I sat dejectedly in classrooms, rolling my worn-down red pencil (the red pencil was my thing) along the desks, not knowing what to do. It had slipped from my fingers, the fame. I let the red pencil roll, dk-dk-dk-dk-dk-dk-dk-ing its way off the edge of the desk.
I decided there: I was never going to be a cartoonist.
[Buy Life here.]
She danced on tables
Relieve me of all responsibilities, sedate me heavily, and let’s start our own peculiar ways, please. What would suit is to opt out entirely; to jump ship and abandon it all, but I’m not sure I believe in the foreign sea, and so the towering anxiety suffocates what little interest I may have held. Onward we will march.
Shoo-bah-doo! Shoo-bah-doo! Shoo-bah-doo!
Doo! Doo! Doo!
[Buy The Greatest.]
I’d fuck Stevie Nicks, even at 61
You’ve probably already seen this. You should probably watch it again.
She is not a poor version of Florence.
Passion Pit – Sleepyhead (rmx. Starsmith, f/ Ellie Goulding)
[Our friend Luca writes for us this morning. We’re off being lazy busy.]
I’m in a phase in my life where I don’t make an effort for music. I rarely download or purchase albums anymore, and my only interaction with it is by the joys of the car radio. I can’t imagine not listening to the radio in the car.
The same can be said for breakfast. The energy involved in preparing and eating a flat meal like cereal is not a fair excuse to be woken up from. So when I made breakfast one morning and then listened to the same song for a disturbing amount of time all in the same day, I had to share it.
London-based producer Starsmith combines with Indie-pop sweetie Ellie Goulding to deliver a fresh rework of Passion Pit’s “Sleepyhead”. It’s less energetic than the original, but more solacing. I hope it’s enjoyed; I dread the day I’ll get bored of it.
[Stop being so rude. Purchase Manners here.]
When does the nightshade kick in?
They say that after his son died, old Earl sat alone in his two bedroom apartment night after night building a contraption, on account of he used to be quite the inventor in his youth, you know, but the bottle of moonshine he drank each night meant his stubby greasy fingers didn’t work right so he always screwed things on the wrong way and it took months before people realized it was some sort of crude jet pack and even then they weren’t sure what to make of it since it had wings and he fueled it with the same muck he poured down his throat but sure enough one night the neighbors heard a crash and policeman Warren found Earl’s crumpled, eerily still body with the jet pack attached still whirring and a huge dent on the ceiling and people said he forgot the roof was there maybe — so celestial was his vision — and that’s why he did it or maybe he knew it was there and that’s why he did it.
[Buy War of Currents, or download it for free until May 1, at which point it will cost your stingy ass $5.]
And when the truth goes ‘bang!’ the shots let out.
[Buy the Metropolis Suite I of IV: The Chase (EP)]
You can’t get rid of me yet
Leonard Cohen & Sharon Robinson – In My Secret Life
Quiet little voices creep into my head and they begin chewing.
I wonder if he’s worth it.
What? Worth what?
It all.
He’ll make you happy, Bambi. He will. When you turn in bed and stick out your butt, no matter what mood, no matter what came before, he’ll fall in beside you and won’t stop holding till he wakes. Even then he’ll probably shimmy in closer.
When I look at him, I believe that, too. Yeah, I think…
One thing I can assure for the coming summer is the desire for a scorching sun to spray heat upon this earth, and – when it finally does – for me to profess, ‘I don’t like this. I’m not used to this,’ and for me to scurry in return to the cooling sensation of a walled space.
Just like that! Just like that he’ll change his mind. He will.
I was trying to move us along. Don’t worry. He won’t. He won’t change his mind. It’s set.
[Buy 10 New Songs.]