Beautiful people, you ride the same subway as I do/Every morning, and that’s gotta tell you something
It was the only thing I could do half right, and it’s turnin’ out all wrong/Look what they done to my song
Love it. Melanie, you’re my friggin’ hero.
Two groups you need to check out — Department of Eagles and Animal Collective. Just sayin’. You owe yourself.
Snow day today. I’m sipping coffee and debating as to whether or not I should go back to bed. I’m thinkin’ it’s bed time again.
xxAimeeCait
Furr – Blitzen Trapper
I love love love Blitzen Trapper. (Understatement much.) I love new folk. Download everything you can find by these guys.
Downpour – Brandi Carlile
Brandi Carlile is my latest favorite female artist. I don’t have many of these — I don’t know what it is, I just don’t respond as well to female vocals, but I can’t be bothered to attempt to figure that one out at the moment. Her voice drags the empathy right out of you.
Basin Street Blues – Kid Koala
I’m particularly excited about this discovery. I went digging through the track listings for my favorite episodes of Skins. If you haven’t heard of Skins, I apologize. Admittedly, it’s a horrifically trashy show on the BBC. But it also allows me my own glimpse (albeit fictional) into Bristol’s youth culture, and the soundtrack is killer. This track is an updated spin (no pun intended) on a New Orleans jazz standard. You owe it to yourself to hear this one.
New York, I Love You (But You’re Bringin’ Me Down) – LCD Soundsystem
Another Skins track — it’s my favorite kind of melancholy.
1922 Blues – Charlie Parr
Everybody needs a little bluegrass in their daily lives, and Charlie Parr is an absolute legend. Hard times seem a bit better when they’re sung over a catchy bit of finger picking.
Lay Lady Lay – Magnet
So, a confession: I can’t stand Bob Dylan’s original recording of this song. His voice in his later recordings just doesn’t do it for me. Give me young, yodeling Dylan, nottt crusty old snarling Dylan. Gag. So I was fully prepared to dislike this song when a friend recommended it to me, but I was pleasantly surprised and quite enjoyed this version of the track.
Herculean – The Good, The Bad & The Queen
Pistol – Dustin Kensrue
Raw, acoustic, folk magic. Kinda Ryan Adams meets Jeff Tweedy? Yeah, somethin’ like that. The lyrics are the best — “I love how you curse when I wake you up/And sweetly demand that I fill your cup/I follow your cool gun powder glare/Honey, you lay me bare“ – an honest man expressin’ his love for his beloved battle ax of a sweetheart.
You Make Me Weak At The Knees – Electrelane
Playful, sweet piano instrumental. Gradually builds momentum, remains interesting to the last trill.
Sun It Rises - Fleet Foxes
Anything the Fleet Foxes do is magic. The harmony (duh) is tight, haunting and gogeous. The tone of their guitars is so gloriously warm… it all blends just right. You should hear it.
Fake Empire – The National
Low, smoky, mature vocals, haunting piano riff. Mournful in a helpless kind of way.
Pull Me Out Alive – Kaki King
One of the few tracks I’ve heard by Ms. King in which she actually sings. Anything she does is gorgeous; it’s interesting to hear her vocals, which are basic, nothing extraordinary, but solid.
Theme from Skins - Fat Segal
Another gem gleaned from Skins. Fat Segal is their staff composer, and everything he writes is a work of genius. Fresh, dynamic, and relentlessly catchy. You’ll hum it later, promise.
Knife – Grizzly Bear
Sedative, yes, but pleasantly sedative.
Signs – Bloc Party
Yayyyy new Bloc Party. I’m a sucker for bells, and this track features a steady
I Wanna Be Your Dog – Iggy Pop & The Stooges
Iggggggggy Pop! You just need to hear it. It’s an essential for your music library.
Electro-Socket Blues – Rogue Wave
This one is from Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist Soundtrack.
Bryn – Vampire Weekend
Didn’t listen to this Vampire Weekend track when I initially fell for the prepsters from upstate New York; only recently has this track grown on me.
Artifact – DJ Shadow
It’s a getaway song.
Get Your Snack On – Amon Tobin
Go On, Say It – Blind Pilot
Oh my goooooodness. I know I’m always excited about the music I put up in these playlists, but I’m particularly excited about this one. Each and every track is so wholly satisfying. I promise I’ll elaborate later — it’s something worth doing when I have all my brain cells functioning properly.
The official Riverside Christmas 2K8 playlist is comin’ soon… I’m in the process of piecing it together. It’s a work in progress. Can’t put something like that together in one sitting, it requires a little more finesse. And with that, I must depart — I need sleep.
I’ll add notes regarding individual tracks in this list. You musttt check them out. It’s essential.
xxAimeeCait
Prescilla – Bat For Lashes
I’m Good, I’m Gone - Lykke Li
The Perfect Me - Deerhoof
White Winter Hymnal – Fleetfoxes
No Envy, No Fear – Joshua Radin
The Fear You Won’t Fall - Joshua Radin
Cut My Wings – Seasick Steve
My Donny - Seasick Steve
Dying Is Fine – Ra Ra Riot
Knife – Grizzly Bear
And a few old favorites resurrected…
I Was Born (A Unicorn) – The Unicorns
Jellybones – The Unicorns
In love. This stuff is incredible.
xxAimeeCait
I love that I can call my father in the middle of a busy day at The Rock Pile just to gush about my newfound love of Chrissie Hynde & The Pretenders.
Heroic.
What I love most, though, is that he was more enthusiastic about the discovery than I was.
My father is a legend. You might not have known that, but now you do. So now you haven’t got any excuse — whenever I mention Peter from now on, you’re gonna automatically think: “Peter Gwaltney: total legend.” That’s just how it works.
I don’t make the rules, I merely act accordingly.
Getting my bedroom ready for Nadalee. I’m pretty much psyched out of my mind about her arrival. Washing linens. (Having a white dog & black bedsheets? …really? Was that necessary?) I’ve already vacuumed the carpet, but I’m kind of on one of my cleaning kicks so I’m sure I’ll vacuum it at least once more before the day is over. And probably once again tomorrow before Nadalee gets here. Vacuuming is therapeutic. Try it sometime.
Class.
xxAimeeCait
Playing house.
Mom’s in Nashville, dad’s in New York. Thus, Linds and I are in charge for the weekend. Just the five of us… Me, Linds, Cassidy, Gray & Dog. Earlier, Linds and I made a Diet Coke run (duh) & also scored a couple pints of ice cream. That being the case, I think it’s fair to say that when the time comes, we will make such ace moms.
Linds is gonna be a great mom. I can’t wait to see her with kids… they’re going to be the funniest, smartest kids of all time. They’ll also have fantastic eyebrows. Being LindseyBelle, she’s already chosen names. (Note: If you were unaware, this is just one of those things that some girls do. We like to sit around and muse and piece together what our future might be like — this often includes baby names.) The two Linds has come up with are Abraham Parker & Scout Hutchinson. When Lindsey says the name Scout, it makes sense. I can just see a tiny cotton-haired little girl tugging at the hem of Lindsey’s skirt. And Abraham would be little brother. And he would pronounce it “Abwahayum Pahkuwh”. Too cute. I go through names every couple of months – particularly fixated on Hebrew names in the past year or two. So while Lindsey likes Abraham, I like Asher, Eli, and Ezra. I rarely come up with girl names. Not as interesting, maybe? We’ll see.
Watched ‘Once‘ tonight (finally). Five minutes into the film, I was in love with it.
I’ve already iTunes’ed the soundtrack. Just incredible. I can’t tell you how much I love simple, tight harmony. Homeboy’s voice was just so honest. Gorgeous. Such a sweet story. Naturally, I wanted it to turn out a certain way, but such is life. It wouldn’t have been as captivating if it had ended my way, so hey.
Currently loving me some BBCAmerica. (Somewhat homesick these past two days.) They’re running an advert for a programme focusing on (supposedly) revealing the hidden identity of Banksy.
(If you’re not up to date on who Banksy is – Google him. Promise you you’ll recognize his work.) Can’t we just leave him alone? He’s a brilliant artist, maybe a tiny bit scandalous, but regardless whether or not you’re a fan, you have to admit that he’s intriguing. I dare say that a great deal of the intrigue surrounding Banksy is due to his widespread anonymity. I’m not saying that if he were unmasked that he’d suddenly lose his following or his credibility as an artist, but why obsess over his identity? I really like that he’s anonymous. I like being able to focus on the art. So, there’s that. It’s not the first time they’ve claimed to have unmasked Banksy… we’ll see who they’ve come up with this time.
It’s late and I actually get to sleep in past 7:30AM. Words cannot describe how stoked I am about that. Friday will be ‘Let’s Sit Around The House And Read And Laugh And Watch Films’ Day.
Maybe.
Any suggestions?
xxAimeeCait
Okay, if you’d like, you can go ahead and skip to arounnnnnd… 0:41. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
So here’s the story on the song & the artist:
Borrowed from his website:
It wasn’t planned. The goal was to hibernate.
Justin Vernon moved to a remote cabin in the woods of Northwestern Wisconsin at the onset of winter. Tailing from the swirling breakup of his long time band, he escaped to the property and surrounded himself with simple work, quiet, and space. He lived there alone for three months, filling his days with wood splitting and other chores around the land. This special time slowly began feeding a bold, uninhibited new musical focus.
This slowly evolved into days filled with twelve-hour recording blocks, breaking only for trips on the tractor into the pines to saw and haul firewood, or for frozen sunrises high up a deer stand. All of his personal trouble, lack of perspective, heartache, longing, love, loss and guilt that had been stock piled over the course of the past six years, was suddenly purged into the form of song. The end result is, For Emma, Forever Ago, a nine-song album comprised of what’s been dubbed a striking debut by critics and fans alike.
Bon Iver (pronounced: bohn eevair; French for “good winter” and spelled wrong on purpose) is a greeting, a celebration and a sentiment. It is a new statement of an artist moving on and establishing the groundwork for a lasting career. For Emma, Forever Ago is the debut of this lineage of songs. As a whole, the record is entirely cohesive throughout and remains centered around a particular aesthetic, prompted by the time and place for which it was recorded. Vernon seems to have tested his boundaries to the utmost, and in doing so has managed to break free form any pre-cursing or finished forms.
For Emma’s tracks consist of thick layers draped in lush choral walls, with rarely more than an ancient acoustic guitar or the occasional bass drum providing structure. Vernon sings the majority of the record in falsetto, which painfully expresses the meanings behind its overt, yet strangely entangled words. This newfound vocal path acts as each song’s main character and source of melody.
Despite its complexity, the record was created entirely by Vernon with nothing more than a few microphones and some aged recording equipment. This homemade aspect shows itself in sections as creaks and accidentals are exposed in the folds of the songs, but is hidden well by the highly impressive and almost orchestral sound that Vernon managed to produce by his lonesome, within the creaky skeleton of his father’s cabin.
He’s brilliant – the falsetto is haunting, the way he wails evokes heartbreak, loss, guilt, all sorts. And the primitive style of recording is in a category all its own. It gives the music that much more character (as if it really needed it). It’s amazing.
And now, lyrics to Skinny Love:
Come on skinny love just last the year
Pour a little salt we were never here
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Staring at the sink of blood and crushed veneer
I tell my love to wreck it all
Cut out all the ropes and let me fall
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Right in the moment this order’s tall
I told you to be patient
I told you to be fine
I told you to be balanced
I told you to be kind
In the morning I’ll be with you
But it will be a different “kind”
I’ll be holding all the tickets
And you’ll be owning all the fines
Come on skinny love what happened here
Suckle on the hope in lite brassiere
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Sullen load is full; so slow on the split
I told you to be patient
I told you to be fine
I told you to be balanced
I told you to be kind
Now all your love is wasted?
Then who the hell was I?
Now I’m breaking at the britches
And at the end of all your lines
Who will love you?
Who will fight?
Who will fall far behind?
One of those songs that makes you want to cry the first time you hear it, and you’re not sure exactly why, you just know tears are streaming down your cheeks and you feel bad, but you feel better than you did before. Mm.
xxAimeeCait
“I had never really known you/but I realized that the one you were before/had changed into somebody for whom/I wouldn’t mind to put the kettle on/Still I don’t know what I can save you from”
Love love love them.
They’re a dynamic indiepop duo from Norway called Kings of Convenience, and the song is “I Don’t Know What I Can Save You From“, and they’re my new favorite artist. It’s like Iron & Wine meets Belle & Sebastian in the best kind of way. It’s also fairly reminiscent of one of my Top 10 Ultimate Artists: Simon & Garfunkel. Where have you been all my life, KoC?
Their sound is comprised of gorgeous, intricate acoustic guitar melodies paired with sweetly intertwined vocal harmonies. They also do a couple of songs each on their albums Quiet Is The New Loud and Riot On An Empty Street where another indie favorite of mine, Feist, does some really smooth guest vocals. So mellow & ever so sweetly melancholy – it’s fantastic. I’ve iTunes’d it & can’t bring myself to take it off repeat. I deem this my ultimate relaxing/driving/studying soundtrack. Do it.
xx Aimee Cait
