Fabulist!

Tastes Like Gold

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:40:44 -0800

That Neil Hannon! He's like... well, he's like garlic. No, come back! I'll explain.

See, thing is - you can put him with Air or Yann Tiersen, or Duke Special, or Ben Folds, or Charlotte Gainsbourg. Or you can have him cover a rock song as old 1923 German cabaret. Or write ridiculously catchy (and ridiculous) songs for the telly. Pretty much, you can add him to just about anything, and he just makes it better.

See? Neil Hannon is like garlic. Presuming you like garlic, that is.

Neil Hannon - No One Knows (Queens of the Stone Age Cover)

Duke Special feat. Neil Hannon - Our Love Goes Deeper Than This

(url) : (myspace) : (on tour - Paris & Dublin)

With Words and Cake

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 02:09:14 -0800

What birthday isn't complete without words and cake? Peer through the keyhole and watch a man play drums with rolling pins, a woman do a dance in flour, and people making music with cups and plates and silverware. So, a very merry un-birthday to all of us, courtesy of Faun Fables. Unless it's your birthday today. In which case, you're welcome.

Ps~If you know of any songs out there involving only voice and percussion, leave me a comment! I'm on a kick right now, you see.

Faun Fables - With Words and Cake

URL : ON TOUR : MYSPACE : BUY

The Course Of True Love Never Did Run Smooth

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 06:58:25 -0800

This makes me laugh. (via)

The Irrepressibles's In This Shirt

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 06:24:22 -0800

Lovely mad band creature sounding something like Antony & The Johnsons, something like the Smiths, all against the backdrop of a beautiful orchestra and looking like they stepped out of the circus. The Irrepressibles are currently trying to raise money to press copies of and run a PR campaign for their forthcoming album, In This Shirt. Go give em a couple of your pennies; they're too pretty not to see what they might do next.

The Irrepressibles - In This Shirt

(myspace)

Trip

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 08:27:24 -0800

A 50 pence piece, and my stomach bottoms out. I see your face in the rain, and the look in your eyes before you turned away.

It feels like a fall, the half-second before trip and impact. The foot crumples, and then a downwards lurch. You are everywhere, and follow me: rigid, tight, dense.

Balmorhea - Barefoot Pilgrims

Max Richter - Written On Sky ]]>

Coraline Sneak Peeks

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 06:56:17 -0800

From Neil Gaiman and Henry Selick-- this looks like it's going to be ridiculously brilliant.

(link)

Residue

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 20:54:58 -0800

I'm finding it very hard right now to find songs that fit. The ones that pull me are creased through with darkness - like love letters powdered black, they leave a fine, smudged residue that mottles my face and hands. I'm doing fine, but my listening material betrays me with ash on my fingers. It streaks through whatever I touch. I'm surprised, too, by the blackness.

While it lasts, it lasts. Songs like 'Long Goodbyes' bring me back again. The song invites the bleakness in, then pours it out again, filtered in fight and colour.

The power and pain is still there, but it feels more bearable, something transformed. It is knuckle straining against skin, a whitened face in a pool of light. It takes all that emotion, gripped so tightly, and casts it into the sky. All that is grit and grain becomes soft earth once more, scattering gently as it falls. Line by line, the song has ground it down, until the emotion itself is grounded: safe now, earthed, returned to loam. Earth to earth, and ashes on my fingers no more.

Watch above for a lovely bear-infused take on the song (sad panda, bad panda, bit of a cad panda). Also? I happen to know that the lead singer makes damn fine cake (if you ask nicely), and the best hot whiskeys in London. And if that weren't enough, the band, I am not lefthanded, is named after one of my favourite scenes from The Princess Bride. Rock.

A song to hold to yourself, to sing to the north-east wind until the dust is out of your eyes.

I am not lefthanded - Long Goodbyes

(url) : (myspace)

New Music Junkies Anonymous

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 04:30:33 -0800

* * * * *

Theresa Andersson - Birds Fly Away
Check out more Theresa on MySpace.

Cymbals Eat Guitars - Share
Something tasting like Explosions In The Sky from Indiecater Volume 1, a compilation album curated by mp3hugger.

Elsiane - Mend (To Fix, To Repair)
She's like Joanna Newsome electronica-- more on MySpace.

The Submarines - You Me and the Bourgeoise
More on MySpace.

Motel Motel - Harlem
Check out more on their MySpace.

This Is Ivy League - The Richest Kids
More This Is Ivy League on MySpace. ]]>

Amanda Palmer: It Runs In The Family

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:34:59 -0800

Elaine and I both have watched this several times today: the fourth installment in Amanda Palmer's music video set/short film for her new album. There's an intensity to this piece that is just riveting.

URL : MYSPACE

The Cotton Monster Returns

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 07:06:06 -0800
before, but I'm posting this little update to let you know that she is updating her Etsy shop at around 8 PM EST this evening with over FORTY brand-new Cotton Monsters. Also, there will be tote bags. Jennifer packs a whole lot of personality into such tiny little monsters, so now's your chance. Don't say nobody warned you.

(link)]]>

Here I Come To Save The Day!

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:24:23 -0800

(He gets the situation well in hand)

Smoke from Distant Fires

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 06:04:22 -0800
Lab 101 in Culver City is having an exhibit called "Smoke from Distant Fires" running from July 12 to August 13. So basically, now. This is an exhibit featuring smaller, more affordable (arguably, but still!) pieces by Jennifer Tong, Faryn Davis, and Elesavet Lawson.

So if you have several hundred dollars to spare, instead of several thousand dollars, now's your chance to pick up some snazzy paintings. I'm particularly digging the sushi, lemons and starfish paintings by Jennifer Tong, myself. Don't touch that "Lemon, Little Lemon" painting. I have dibs on that!

(link)]]>

I Think We're Having A Puppet Week

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:41:21 -0800

It's the Futureheads. As puppets. As if I needed to say anymore. (You can check out more Futureheads on HypeM -- like this Futureheads/ Alphabeat wonder-mashup.)

URL : MYSPACE

In Dreams

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:17:47 -0800
Bono, Roy Orbison and a dream.

Sometimes, the most precious thing about dreaming isn't what we find there, but what we can bring back.

Everything Bright and Lost

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:07:36 -0800

The vintage photographs are wonderful, but the real genius lies in the curatorship. This is an online exhibition in the best sense of the word. The themes bring out all that is latent in those images - everything blurred and sharp, bright and lost.

Look at how he has grouped them! There are people sleeping, smoking, and at dance lessons - 'a beguiling mixture of awkwardness and grace'. The groups are evocative, lonely, unexpected. We see the half-pauses, the stockinged leg, the moments before a childhood fight. There are photographs of the dead, of the limits of memory, of rising and falling. There is love.

The emotional content grabs you by the shoulders. What of 'On the Beauty of Absence' - an album where most, but not all, the photographs have been torn away? Or 'Defaced', where the faces have been destroyed, obscured, or omitted? Some of these faces have been scrubbed out, a violence on the page.

Alone, they would be powerful. Put together, they are transformed.

This is one man's journey through everything precious about the discarded, and the line he carves through the photos is as beautiful as the photographs themselves.

It is a dream, a story, a yearning and a contemplation. It is a site worth returning to. One to bookmark, and to fall into as often as you can.

(link) : (via)]]>