marcusharwell.net

I suppose there was always a bit of Justine Frischmann in FF, but with the new single, I can’t ignore it.
Franz Ferdinand – No You Girls

Utterly catchy, and it gets my head bobbing when I hear it, but so was Elastica, and so do they.
Elastica – Car Song

Elastica – Line Up

Bishop Allen is currently making me very happy. I didn’t find any videos for the new album, but this one’s brilliant, and not far from the new stuff, stylistically. Pitchfork didn’t think much of the album it’s on (not enough gloom?), but fuck them.

More bands should do this. Maybe we could keep the barrier between celebrity and anonymous person lowered if we could walk down the street, stand next to Kate Winslet, and listen to Beck bang out a few tunes on his acoustic.

Ra Ra Riot – Dying is fine – A Take Away Show posted by La [...]

This is amazing work. Jazz pianist Henry Hey did an outstanding job creating a song out of spoken words. We don’t often think about it, but words have musical pitch (which is obvious to anybody in China, where they use pitch & tone as an integral part of language). Hey used the pitch of George [...]

Did Josh Homme produce U2’s new record, or did they just listen to a bunch of stoner rock before they made this. It’s got heavy Homme influence, to my ears.
U2 – Get On Your Boots

Only it’s not as good.

I’m noticing this cut-up, nonsense vocal thing happening more frequently. Justice does it a lot.
Justice – Newjack

The Field (Axel Willner) does it a bit too, and I like his music even better, even though it’s not quite the same rumpshaker-type tracks.
The Field – Over the Ice

This latest in this microtrend of my own discerning is [...]

I like Massive Attack, especially the collaboration with Mos Def on the Blade 2 soundtrack. But nothing they’ve done stirs my soul like Teardrop, from 1998’s Mezzanine. Most people know it as the theme from House. I’m glad I heard it soon after its release. It was part of a stream of ambient and dance [...]

Chemical Calisthenics, from Blazing Arrow:

I don’t care what anybody thinks, I love these songs. I bought this one, among others:

He’s got a gleaming pile of these.

And it is amazing. Actually, it’s not new, it’s from back in November, but the video is new. Hamster on a Piano fans, take note:

In case you didn’t catch the chorus, it’s
I was like, she was all
He was all, they were like
We were all like
OMG like totally
We were like, I was all
They were all, He [...]