royalty, birds and forgiveness

I have found myself with a whole lotta free time recently and I've spent a lot of it reading. I've learned things like Will Oldham first made music under various incarnations of the name "Palace". There was Palace Brothers, Palace Songs, Palace Music and plain old Palace. That was from 1993 to 1997. Then after one release under his birth name he became Bonnie "Prince" Billy. Now he's 39, bald and kind of ugly (sorry Will). I took to his 2008 release Lie Down in the Light rather quickly and still turn to it often. It's kind of quiet and sweet despite his imperfect voice and feels like the work of a much older folk musician. I have never listened to any of his other fifteen recordings as "Prince" Billy, even though I have five of them in my possession.

In my reading I have also learned that this band I've been listening to called Shearwater actually started as a side project of another band called Okkerville River. That band, Okkerville River, made an album I liked in 2007 called The Stage Names. In particular, the song "Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe" became one of my favorites of that year. Now I'm getting to know Shearwater's 2008 release Rook. Shearwater was formed by Okkerville members Will Sheff and Jonathan Meiburg. As it turns out, Sheff is no longer a part of Shearwater and Meiburg is no longer a member of Okkerville River. I'm not sure why any of this is relevant, but I found it interesting. Something else that's interesting, "Shearwater" is the name of medium sized seabird. Meibug has a Master's degree in Ornithology (the study of birds). I'm assuming he choose the band name.

I read that the band Broken Social Scene is less like a band and more like an outlet for bored musicians. Founders Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning are the constants. Just about everything else is up in the air. Sometimes Feist is involved. Sometimes she's not. You're a member a Canadian indie band? You're in the neighborhood? There's an open mic for you! Members of Stars, Metric and Do Make Say Think are all contributors. BSS has a new album. It's called Forgiveness Rock Record. I like the title.

Bonnie "Prince" Billy's second album, Ease Down the Road, was released in 2001. It's noticeably different than the 2008 album I liked so much. On "A King at Night" he sings things like - Where is my queen, she's as gone as she can be. She was a fine looking lady and she liked to go down on me, and I liked to go down on her too. I think it's safe to say Ease Down the Road is not quite sweet. It seems a bit more bitter, but maybe that's just because I haven't gotten to know it well enough. Something tells me that songs like "Grand Dark Feeling of Emptiness" won't exactly change my mind.

Jonathan Meiburg does the singing and songwriting for Shearwater. He doesn't sound like your normal indie band leader. His voice is almost operatic. He displays great range on Rook, and his writing is more dramatic than anything I've heard from Will Sheff and Okkerville River. The result is a sprawling sound with Meiburg softly setting the stage at one turn and then calling the whole show down the next. Mirroring Meiburg's voice, Shearwater doesn't sound like your typical indie group. This is intelligent, mature music. They're a less folksy version of the Decemberists, putting on a Broadway musical instead of a Civil War reenactment.

Forgiveness Rock Record doesn't sound all that different from the previous two Broken Social Scene albums (You Forgot it in People and Broken Social Scene). That's a credit to Kevin Drew, Brendan Canning and the other handful of regulars. There is something slightly different about the way this record sounds though and I can't quite put my finger on it. After the first couple of listens it feels like it's missing a heart. It's still a big sound with lots of percussion and lots of layers, but something didn't make it in the pot when this one got thrown together. I'm hoping that listening to it more will prove me wrong, but I'm not so sure.

This is what I'm listening to this week, along with some Radiohead, Over the Rhine, The National and all the old school hip-hop Pandora can throw at me.



Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Ease Down the Road (2001)
I like "Just to See My Holly Home"




Shearwater - Rook (2008)
"The Snow Leopard" will give you a good sampling of their sound.




Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record (2010)
The opener is nice, "World Sick"

audio addiction

I may have broken the rules. Just a little.

"Sorrow found me when I was young. Sorrow waited. Sorrow won."

The National's High Violet was not one of the three albums I selected to spend time with this week, but..

"I was carried to Ohio in a swarm of bees."

I just couldn't wait another week to check it out.

"I never thought about love when I thought about home."

Perhaps part of the problem is that Boxer was so excellent. I listened to it a lot. I went to see them in concert. I listened to it until it made me sick. Then I listened some more.

"Tired and wired we ruin too easy."

Then I spent all of my free time at work last week reading about their follow up. The New York Times website featured a lengthy article about the band and streamed the entire album a week before it's release. I read their Wikipedia page at least three times. Pitchfork followed the band's every move in anticipation of the new release and then predictably listed it as a one of the best offerings of the year the day it was dropped in stores.

"I'm a confident liar. Have my head in the oven so you know where I'll be. I try to be more romantic. I want to believe in everything you believe. I was less than amazing. I do not know what all the troubles are for. I fall asleep in your branches. You're the only thing I ever want anymore."

And what you may not realize about The National is that their music seeps into you like water until all the free space in your head has been filled with their lyrics. It's a slow process. A "Slow Show" if you will (that was in poor taste, I know). One listen is innocent enough. But you can't just listen once.

"I wanna hurry home to you, put on a slow, dumb show for you and crack you up so you can put a blue ribbon on my brain. God, I'm very very frightening. I'll over do it."

I won't go on about how unique Matt Berninger's baritone is. I won't bore you with ramblings about how his lyrics seem to be just as unique, confessing the thoughts and feelings of the committed, the married, the middle class, the suburbs, the bored and the exhausted. You don't need me to tell you how this separates The National from their fellow indie rock bands.

"With my kid on my shoulders I try not to hurt anybody I like."

In my opinion, it's obvious how and why this band is different.

"I still owe money, to the money, to the money I owe."

After four days of listening I wake up in the morning with these lyrics running through my head. Well, not just these lyrics. It's any number of words from both Boxer and High Violet because, of course, I had to go back and listen to Boxer to compare it to the new album.

"We're so disarming, darling. Everything we did believe is diving, diving, diving off the balcony."

It's usually just one line. Then another will pop up later in the day. Then another. I really have no choice but to listen to these songs over and over again, just to get the lyrics out of my head. But this is by no means torture. Somehow The National have found a way to make music that doesn't get old. I can't stop listening. I don't want to stop listening. It's about more than just the lyrics and Berninger's vocals, of course. The drumming is pristine. The piano and horns are sprinkled in just right. The steady roll of the guitars is perhaps just as mesmerizing as Berninger's baritone. It's the perfect storm. It's night time, you're "six drinks in" (as Pitchfork describes it) and this band has somehow made a soundtrack for a life that is not quite your own but is close enough to it that it's soothing.

"Nowhere that I thought I'd be by now. My head is a buzzing three star hotel."

They have a way of making things sound the way I often wish things would in my head.

"You're all humming live wires under your killing clothes. Get over here, I want to kiss your skinny throat."

So, consider this both a warning and a recommendation. It will stick with you. And you will like it.

"I was afraid I'd eat your brains, cause I'm evil."

still trying

I'll be honest, I've felt rather uninspired about most things lately, including writing. I've still been scooping up new music and I've been trolling through my collection trying to get things organized on my brand new, super-sized iPod but I haven't gotten much out of the music. I'm not sure what's happening. Maybe I'm getting old and growing out of the "music speaks to me" phase, although I doubt that's it. Maybe they aren't making music like they used to. There might be something to that. I think the more likely reason is that I've felt particularly stressed and down in the dumps lately. I have found myself in a continuous battle with me about when and how I should become a newer me. When will this post-divorce funk wear off? When will I stop thinking about doing things and actually do them? Fortunately that still small voice that whispers in my ear "waiting is not wasting time" gets heard most days and at least once a week I get a healthy reminder that I'm not doing nothing, I'm growing even if it's often too slow for me to see. I've never been more grateful for Sue Monk Kidd's When the Heart Waits. If you've ever experienced crisis, if you've ever felt impatient with your own personal transformation or if you've ever felt a little lost inside your cocoon read this book and know that you are not alone.

Today I remembered this blog and I decided I need to keep writing. It would be more like the old me to forget about it, or pretend to forget about it and casually abandon it with some lame excuse as to why I couldn't do it any more. So, here I am, being new by continuing something I started a couple of months ago. I've picked three more albums to spend time with, in the hopes to get to know them a little better. Somehow it makes sense for one of them to be Kid Cudi's Man on the Moon: The End of Day. Kid Cudi, as it turns out, is a new breed of sad, sappy rappers with a Kanye West sized ego. No doubt, Cudi took a cue or two from his fellow mid-Westerner's 808's & Heartbreak (on which Cudi performs) and makes an attempt with his first solo album to appear vulnerable, flawed and prone to sadness. I haven't spent much time with it, but I'll at least give him credit for trying something a bit different. The third single "Pursuit of Happiness" features new wave, electronic dance bands MGMT and Ratatat. That's a welcome collaboration, in my opinion. Steve Aoki's remix can also be heard in the following Cudi narrated Vitamin Water advert:



For my other two selections I've chosen Best New Music dubbed Big Echo from The Morning Benders and the third full length from Kings of Convenience - Declaration of Dependence.

PS. Apple sucks and has pulled the plug on Lala.com so, I can't share audio with you at the moment..boooo


Try out the album opener "Excuses"


My favorite so far is "My Ship Isn't Pretty"


The aforementioned "Pursuit of Happiness" is the one that catches my ear.