December 05, 2007
The October / November 2007 Mix.
I want to make a quick plug for my new favorite album, Anna Järvinen's Jag fick feeling, from the Häpna label. Reviews later (like every other blogger out there, I feel obliged to come up with my year-end list soon), but here's the album blurb (plus downloadable mp3s and a video), and you can buy the whole album right away from Klicktrack (there are 30-second samples for each song). Or, if you want the physical thing, it's arriving on Amazon in a week. I'm not kidding, though, when I write that it's one of the greatest things I've heard this year. I just wish I could understand what she was singing.
(For people who don't know how this works: a flash widget opens at the bottom of the entry. Sometimes it takes a long time. You can play them and do other things, like d--nl--d them. Then I delete the mp3s after a while.)
1. Bergheim 34, "Take My Soul"
from the 2003 album It's Not For You As It Is For Us
I love the cold, Teutonic, skeletal clatter: the metallic rattle of robot femurs in a disco laboratory.
Forced Exposure link.
Bergheim 34 discography.
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2. Caribou, "Melody Day"
from the 2007 album Andorra
I was totally unprepared for the twin-drum attack at the Caribou show at Slim's a few months ago, but you can hear it on the bridges of this track of swirly, sun-tinged electronic pop.
Video on YouTube.
Amazon link.
Official website.
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3. Wild Billy Childish and The Musicians of the British Empire, "Date with Doug"
from the 2007 album Punk Rock at the British Legion Hall
There are more things in the Billy Childish discography than are dreamt of in your philosophy, and this three-minute, eleven-second track is but a tiny fraction of Childish's output. The man's a jack of all trades: singer, painter, composer, poet, Stuckist, guitarist, "the king of garage rock" -- and purveyor of this ragged piece of pop bubblegum, with Nurse Julie on vocals. (It's an unnecessarily mean song though, but it's part of Childish's long war against the insipid.)
Amazon link.
Official website.
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4. Hem, "Jackson"
from the 2002 album I'm Talking With My Mouth
Something in the water in Brooklyn feeding all this talent -- check. (That's where Hem is from, and not somewhere a little more south.) You may be more familiar with the faster Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash duet from At Folsom Prison; Hem slows it way down and luxuriates over one of the greatest opening lines ever: "We got married in a fever."
Amazon link.
Official website.
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5. Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings, "What Have You Done For Me Lately?, Part 1"
from the 2006 compilation Daptone 7-Inch Singles Collection, Vol. 1
It's a 21-year old song made to sound 35, and the dance pop of Janet Jackson's original is channeled here into a furious Declaration of Asskicking.
Amazon link.
Official website.
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6. Jean Knight, "Do Me"
from the 1971 album Mr. Big Stuff
This song just sounds dangerous, a nice thick slab of sizzling funk that can't be healthy for you.
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7. Jesse Sykes and The Sweet Hereafter, "Your Eyes Told"
from the 2004 album Oh, My Girl
Tin roof shaking, crashing black
Well, i ain’t going back
Deliver me, take me in
Let me breathe your coarse wind
Day is empty, night too long
River hums a sweet song
Every song your lungs sang
Every lie your eyes told
Canyon whisper, canyon weep
I thought you were behind me
Tin roof shaking, crashing black
Well i ain’t going back
Deliver me, take me in
Let me breathe your coarse wind
Sublime music for driving in a dry country.
Amazon link.
Official website.
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8. The Zombies, "This Will Be Our Year"
from the 1968 album Odessey and Oracle
The warmth of your love
is like the warmth of the sun
and this will be our year
took a long time to come
don't let go of my hand
now darkness has gone
and this will be our year
took a long time to come
and I won't forget
the way you held me up when I was down
and I won't forget the way you said,
"Darling I love you"
You gave me faith to go on
Now we're there and we've only just begun
This will be our year
took a long time to come
The warmth of your smile
smile for me, little one
and this will be our year
took a long time to come
You don't have to worry
all your worried days are gone
this will be our year
took a long time to come
and I won't forget
the way you held me up when I was down
and I won't forget the way you said,
"Darling I love you"
You gave me faith to go on
Now we're there and we've only just begun
and this will be our year
took a long time to come
Yeah we only just begun
yeah this will be our year
took a long time to come
My first reaction upon hearing this song was, "Where has this been all my life???" People should dance to this at weddings.
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Posted by the wily filipino at December 5, 2007 12:05 AM