The Fix Is In! The Silly Kissers.

The Silly Kissers Thinking Of You
The Silly Kissers Easy Fantasy

The thing about the first-wave of American cutesy indie-pop, the twee-types hosting sock-hops for credit at Evergreen College and singing about cats is that it wasn't any good. Oh, Lord, it was terrible, actually. Those bands are gone, as Belle & Sebastien and Camera Obscura sucked all the helium out of that balloon, and now the musicians live on as Etsy merchants. Or maybe a couple of them struggle on, wearing frumpy minis and vintage go-go boots, trying to sex-up the second act after a dismal first by covering ye-ye songs. (And what a sex-up! Matronly versions of Janeane Garofalo in scratchy polyester!)

Even if newspapers will soon disappear and there's a gigantic floating island of plastic (seriously, how come I only heard about this halfway through September 11th and now I hear about it everywhere?) that kills birds and fish, at least music's pretty damn good in the 21st century. So despite some major twee signifiers (lo-fi recording, dual male & female vocals, cracking voices, lyrics about yearning), Montreal's Silly Kissers transcend the limitations of a genre that, hey, maybe they're not even aware of anyway. So let's say they remind me of Lo-Fi FNK, without excessive programming, and maybe a little of Think About Life.

So, it's really, really good lo-fi synth pop. If the comparisons to Depeche Mode (Dreaming of Me vs. Thinking of You) ring at all true, it's because the Silly Kissers, like early DM (1981's Speak and Spell, for example), have a knack for writing vocal lines and melodies that stick. (And maybe there's a future of international stardom, drug addiction, and an album that mixes brooding ambiguous sexuality and religion with guitars ahead for the Silly Kissers.) Both tracks are from their Halloween Summer EP, which was released this July.

They'll be opening up for the Gossip on October 13th here in Montreal at Theatre National. New Yorkers and industry-types can catch them on October 21st at Arlene's Grocery at CMJ as part of the rolling chamber of indie-rock commerce that is the M for Montreal showcase, along with Beast, Think About Life, We Are Wolves, Malajube & Duchess Says.

Some Fantastic Place

Squeeze Take Me, I'm Yours
Kraak & Smaak Squeeze Me (featuring Ben Westbeech)

Missing Screenplay, Men With White Hair, Norwegian Producers

"But, what is it, what does it mean, to be loved by the French?"

Diskjokke Staying In
Lindstrom Another Station (Todd Terje Remix)

This week's episode of Bored to Death (the HBO series' third, titled The Case of the Missing Screenplay - coincidentally also the working title of Transformers 2) featured bit parts from film director Jim Jarmusch (loved by the French, subject of a documentary screening at the Festival du Nouveau Cinema), a timely Roman Polanski joke (the writing of which would have pre-dated the director's most recent troubles in Switzerland, where he's currently being held without bail - thank you, Zeitgeist!), a mixed bag of Jungian & Freudian psychotherapy, and Oliver Platt as the editor of GQ and rival of Ted Danson's George character. Now that the big American cable channels have decided to embark upon becoming broadcasters of sometimes culturally relevant and well-written (if not that, at least well-meaning) fare, their core, traditional audience of horny teenage boys* might feel left out. Sensing the (wanton) need, Bored to Death gave us a gratuitious display of the breasts of Trieste Kelly Dunn's Sophia character to entice that core constituency. She'll return for the sixth episode. For the trainspotters who got all enthused by the Young Marble Giants in the first episode, this week's episode features Flott Flyt by Norwegian Diskjokke (Joachim Dyrdah) from his Staying In album, and not to be confused with other Norwegian producer Lindstrom. (Diskjokke had previously remixed Lindstrom's Breakfast in Heaven, though.) Above you'll find two tracks so you can compare.

Is Bored to Death funny? It's what you'd expect, which isn't a bad thing - it's mannered and it's more drama than comedy, which is fine. It's enjoyable. It doesn't try to be overly clever. Californication, which also is about a struggling alcoholic writer dealing with the aftermath of his failed relationship tries to be both clever and crude, and only succeeds in the latter.

Expecting that I'd get my weekly ration of guffaws and big laughs from Curb Your Enthusiasm's highly-touted Seinfeld reunion turned out to be a mistake - talk about one boring snoozefest. I guess it's a sign of cultural relevance and success that the tidy little dialogue trick that Seinfeld introduced to the world ("Is that a testament?" "It's a testament!" "Testament?" "Testament!") is such a standard trick in the toolkit of lazy teleplay writers everywhere, because it was really, really, really boring. Mamet-speak and Sorkin-droid, as suffocating as they can be, aren't this limited. It might be interesting to have the Seinfeld characters caught in a lengthy, looping Terry Riley-like interaction, ("Testament?" "Testament!" "Testament?" "Testament!") trapped by their own inability to escape, as each repetition becomes, as in Nietzschean eternal recurrence more and more meaningful, man. Next episode, maybe?

If you're in the US, you can catch all three episodes of Bored to Death back to back tonight on HBO starting at 9pm, or just download the torrent from EZTV, this time without the nasty HBO logo overlay.

Addenda: HBO has green-lighted Bored to Death for a second season.

*And let's be clear, the audience for HBO's Bored to Death (which it's aware of and plays off of) is a variation on that niche: horny boys in their mid to late 20s who haven't quite grown out of certain juvenilia.

How We Got To Bellavista...

Vue, way back when

Vue Child For You
Bellavista Temptation By Your Side
Tom Verlaine Souvenir From a Dream

Bellavista has a very storied pedigree, and if you're at all curious about the group, it's probably because of that pedigree - which is to say that this band, probably because of the capricious nature o' the music industry, isn't as high-profile as what it grew out of, but Bellavista is certainly worth your attention. I'll try to keep the back-story brief, and not like something you'd read in the pages of Skyscraper magazine if it was still around. (Actually, is it? I didn't check)

The story began with the San Fransisco post-hardcore group Portraits of Past (who tuned all the way down to C!), who were around in the mid 90s, and released a record on Goleta's Ebullition Records, (LP photography by Ottawa's Shawn Scallen!). I loved that record in high school. Although they gradually morphed into the much artier and interesting group, Das Audience, they've since re-formed to tour Japan, release a new album, etc. Like Six Finger Satellite's reunion, I'm finding it hard to get enthusiastic enough to bother listening to the music.

So, Das Audience eventually changed their name to Vue, a glammy garage group who put out an absolutely perfect EP on GSL called Death of A Girl, a couple of Sub Pop albums (the s/t album had a cover of Suicide's Girl on it), and a disappointing EP on RCA. An RCA debut, Down For Whatever, was recorded but never released, probably because sales were disappointing and maybe at that time, the expected rising tide that BRMC started didn't, in fact, lift all boats.

After a three year hiatus, Vue returned under the moniker Bellavista, which is both, in my mind, a return to form as well as a genuine progression. It's not as polished as Vue was for the majority of its existence, which is great, because there was something that the group lost between that amazing, astonishing EP and what Bellavista manage to get right here. It's different than what's come before - atmospheric and muscular guitar-work, surf-heavy drums, a hazy mood... I think that Rex (of all of the above bands) has one of the great voices in rock music today - there's something of Tom Verlaine in it, that's for sure, but he can also push it in a way that I've never heard Verlaine do.

Bellavista Myspace

Dan Bejar Was Not & Dan Bejar Is Not

Sam Roberts Brother Down

In honour of Michelle Adelman's birthday (happy birthday!), the trainspotter who pointed out the similarities between Al Stewart and Dan Bejar/Destroyer, and also, as Chris Clark told me, Dan Bejar being mistaken for Montreal's Sam Roberts, here are two songs. That's all y'get. Chris Clark's favourite Sam Roberts' song is Brother Down (probably the bongos), whereas I'm more of a Bridge to Nowhere guy, but they're both solid.

AIDS 2.0 HIV 2.0 New Wave of HIV

Deceitful, Complex

A creative writer must study carefully the works of his rivals, including the Almighty. He must possess the inborn capacity not only of recombining but of re-creating the given world. In order to do this adequately, avoiding duplication of labor, the artist should know the given world. Imagination without knowledge leads no farther than the back yard of primitive art, the child's scrawl on the fence, and the crank's message in the market place. Art is never simple. To return to my lecturing days: I automatically gave low marks when a student used the dreadful phrase "sincere and simple"-- "Flaubert writes with a style which is always simple and sincere"-- under the impression that this was the greatest compliment payable to prose or poetry. When I struck the phrase out, which I did with such rage in my pencil that it ripped the paper, the student complained that this was what teachers had always taught him: "Art is simple, art is sincere." Someday I must trace this vulgar absurdity to its source. A schoolmarm in Ohio? A progressive ass in New York? Because, of course, art at its greatest is fantastically deceitful and complex.

- Vladimir Nabokov, Playboy Interview, 1964

Glass Candy, Desire, CFCF, DVAS

Johnny Jewel doing what he does best...

I made my way yesterday to see Desire, Glass Candy and Cosmo Vitelli at Juste Pour Rire. Missed the Cocktail Club DJ set, and caught the last half of Desire, which (as Feeling Nouveau mentioned earlier today) wasn't the wildest in terms of stage performance, but that will come soon enough.

The last time I had seen Glass Candy was about six years ago in Victoria, having formed a band (which will not be named, save me some face here) for the express intention of opening for them. When I first moved to Montreal Glass Candy was playing with Duchess Says (which was their second show, Johnny told me last night), but, and my memory's hazy on this, I ended up missing them or coming too late. Either way, a number of fate's machinations made it so that I didn't get the chance to see them until last night, at Pop Montreal, and it was a great performance. Old classics, exceptional sound, great lights, and a fuller and more solid stage performance, with Ida No pulling out a series of aerobic dance moves... If my hangover today is any evidence, there's a good reason why I don't remember how Cosmo Vitelli sounded.

DVAS Ambient Room

Tonight there's an embarrassment of riches (as per usual at Pop), and you already have my Os Mutantes & Plaza Musique recommendation (more Plaza than Os Mutantes, if I'm being honest) but if you're looking for something a little more clubby and fun, Upper Class Recordings' showcase is at Divan Orange and includes hometown balearic remix hero CFCF, DVAS, and recently transplant to Montreal, Cadence Weapon. As well, The Cansecos and Silly Kissers are playing earlier, so you'll have some time to perfect the stand-nod-clap look. A lotta the post-French Touch retro-wave club stuff (the DVAS song above included) isn't the most ground-breaking in terms of songwriting or what it brings to the table, but I like to think of it, like a lot of good dance and pop music, as being craft more than art. And it's fun to dance to. Should be enough.

It would also be re-miss of me not to mention Karnival, Poirier's new night, which debuts at Club Soda. Featuring Mad Decent's Paul Devro (and former Vancouver boy) and a helluva lotta bass. Check out the FB page here.

Let's Drink to Character!

Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward in A New Kind of Love

Caveat Emptor.

A scorpion wanted to cross a river, so he asked a frog to carry him. 'No,' said the frog. 'No thank you. If I let you on my back you may sting me, and the sting of the scorpion means death.' 'Now where,' asked the scorpion, 'is the logic of that? NO scorpion could be judged illogical! If I sting you, you will die - I will drown.' The frog was convinced and allowed the scorpion on his back, but just in the middle of the river he felt a terrible pain and realized that after all the scorpion had stung him. 'Logic!' cried the dying frog, as he started under, bearing the scorpion down with him. 'There is no logic in this!' 'I know,' said the scorpion, 'but I can't help it - it's my character.'

Caveat Emperor.

"Though at first considered an apt successor to the throne, Emperor Taisho (Great Righteousness) suffered a brain thrombosis in 1919 which left him extremely eccentric. A widely circulated story tells of one occasions when, while addressing the Diet, the Emperor rolled up the script for his speech, and holding it like a telescope, peered long and hard at the assembled dignitaries."

Arthur Murray Whitehill, "Japanese Management: Tradition and Transition"

AIDS 2.0 Social Networking

Let us not praise famous men, nor our fathers that begat us...

Thee Oh Sees Peanut Butter Oven
Thee Oh Sees Can You See?

Let us speak frankly now, because we're all friends here, and because I care... Now, with all due respect to Ian Svenonius, his contribution to popular music, and his lasting legacy as the one-time Sassiest Boy in America (and subsequent ignoble de-throning), I think Mr. Svenonius' creative output has gradually fallen, witness his painfully dated skewering of suburbia and economic progress. Fish in a barrell or the side of a barn - take your pick, Ian.

When did it start? Was it in 2001, when Ian Svenonius adopted the pseudonym David Candy for an extended, abysmal romp through kitsch? Did he give up after the International Noise Conspiracy & The Hives et al. purloined his look and approach whole-sale? The Scene Creamers? Weird War?

But then again, maybe high-concept garage rock that lifts heavily from the darker corners of post-Marxist thought & radical chic was never really meant to rock anyway. Maybe as close as we could get to that was the Yardbirds trashing their guitars in an Antonioni's Blow Up.

And thank God. I'm no purist - garage rock or elsewise, which is why Thee Oh Sees are such a god-damn revelation. Started by John Dwyer of Pink & Brown and The Coachwhips and from their ashes, rises a jangly, lo-fi phoenix. Or maybe a Griffon. If you're in Montreal for Pop, check them out this Saturday.

Thee Oh Sees at Pop Montreal
w/ Pink Noise, Golden Triangle, The Fresh & Onlys
Saturday, October 3rd
Sala Rosa

Check out the Oh Sees myspace page for more information.

Festival du Nouveau Cinema: Behind Jim Jarmusch

The French love Paul Auster and Jim Jarmusch. More than they love Umberto Eco and Italo Calvino, who are Italian and therefore beloved but not loved. Not in the gushy, Gallic fan-boy manner that Mr. Auster and Jarmusch are loved, at least. And that's fair - Paul Auster's post-Jungian mysticism is a lot cooler than Robertson Davies', and Jim Jarmusch has the right pedigree of Manhattan art-world cool, plus he's quiet. Still waters run deep. This is a nation that never turned its back on Mickey Rourke, and there's a consistency in that that must be admired. (This is also a nation that gave us Manu Chao, but I digress...)

French film director Léa Rinaldi shot Behind Jim Jarmusch over the course of three days, while Jarmusch was working in Seville on The Limits of Control, his most recent film, the poorly received and slow-moving absurdist crime film.

In this clip, Jim Jarmusch walks and talks about being lost, which when translated into French would be understood as "Lost. Being lost. What is this act of being lost? Are we ever truly lost? To be lost is... To be. To be lost is who we are."

Behind Jim Jarmusch is playing as part of the Festival du Nouveau Cinema on the following dates:

October 8th 1pm Cinema du Parc
October 15th 9:15pm Ex-Centris
October 18th 1pm Ex-Centris

If you miss it, the film will be featured as an extra on the DVD of Limits of Control when it's released in November.

Re-Ups: Crydajam, Plaza Musique, 45:33 Remixes, and Angie Dickinson in Opera Gloves.

It's Burt Bacharach's ex-wife, Angie Dickinson, and she's wearing opera gloves!

Crydajam Playground

Plaza Musique Magazine
LCD Soundsystem 45:33 (Theo Parrish Remix)

As many of you are probably aware, (those of you that aren't visiting to look at photos of Etta James or photos of Angie Dickinson in opera gloves), I've been using Yousendit to host mp3 files - with only 100 downloads available and traffic increasing to this blog (now that I'm actually updating it), it tends to run out before the 7 day period. I'll find a solution to that, but in the meantime, I'll start re-uploading some of the more popular and requested songs from the past couple of months.

Here are a trio to get us started. First, Crydajam's well-crafted bumping brass and organ-riffing house jam Playground was, for obvious reasons, gone in a second. Original Crydajam post here... Montreal's reigning rulers in the realm of sophisticated space-pop Plaza Musique have been getting a bit of attention (well-deserved, I have to say) from Anglo sources and beyond now that they're going to be opening for Os Mutantes this weekend at Pop Montreal. Original Plaza Musique post here... And finally, of course everyone's been looking to download LCD Soundsystem's 45:33 Remixes, with special attention to Theo Parrish's remix. Truthfully, I found the rest of the remixes snooze-worthy: Pilooski's remix of 45:33 was like being stuck in a k-hole of boring house. Zzzzz...

This Is What Europeans Do, This Is How They Are.

Vangelis Let It Happen

Vangelis Let It Happen (Beatfanatic Remix)
Lindstrøm & Solale Let It Happen
F.R. David Words

Vangelis' Let It Happen is a blissful, dreamy proto-Balearic song from his third album, Earth, (1973) with a bass-line that wouldn't be entirely out of place in an Air France song. Vocals were provided by F.R. David, who would score big with the pleasantly pleading Euro-synthpop song Words, also available above.

Beatfanatic's remix turns it more into a Still Going-style sitch: layering it with four-on-the-floor disco beats and letting the bassline carry you through an 8 minute expansion from the original. Don't hold his poorly chosen moniker against this Swedish boy ("I am your BEAT MASTER!" "I'm gonna cook up some funk in my groove kitchen!" "Take a trip through my rhythm garden!").

For his Late Night Tales mix (released in July 2007), Lindstrom tweaked Let It Happen into a darker and more sinister affair, the expansive original is now a constricted straight-jacket of a song that pops and stutters with a hammering bass-thump instead of our beloved bassline and decaying acid arpeggios... The vocals are provided by long-time collaborator Christabelle Solale If the Vangelis original calls to mind Meditarranean islands, Lindstrom's version is the musical equivalent of driving your 1980 Ferrari 308 GTSI in the abandoned city centre of Tokyo at night, during a rainstorm.

Grab Demis Roussous' version from the always amazing American Athlete blog. The gargantuan Grecian chanteur began his career in the psych-group Aphrodite's Child along with Vangelis and went on to greater, schmaltzier fame as a solo performer and, memorably, a birthday boy terrorist hostage to Lebanese hijackers in 1985. Mr. Roussos has a new album out in February of next year, two songs of which you can preview on his Myspace page.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is a Sex Symbol.

Ken Jeong as Senor Chang on NBC's Community

"Why you, teach Spanish?"
"Building a wall that you can see from outer space."

&

"I don't want to have any conversations about what a mysterious, inscrutable man I am."

Joe Russo and brother Anthony Russo (of Arrested Development fame) have a new show out, it's NBC's Community and it's pretty much a dud. Our title character, a charasmatic manipulator of a lawyer who must go to community college to save his career is played by Joel McHale, who is distinctly uncharismatic in his role, and as much as I want to give a man who gave me such joy in Fletch a little bit of love back, Chevy Chase is not-so-hot either. There are a couple of sparks in the darkness, and it's obvious that there are some smart people working on this (hampered as they are by the damp hamminess of Mr. McHale), but for the most part, it doesn't work. The scenario: a rag-tag-group of misfits pulling together, and being led by a flawed figure who needs redemption (whether he's aware of it or not) is ten times more stale now than it was when it was used in the Bad News Bears...

But... The one shining bright light in the whole thing has been this scene in the second episode, where Spanish professor Senor Chang (played my real-life MD turned comedian Ken Jeong) explains his own pedagogical impulse in a physical and dynamic monologue that I'd like to see more of. Seriously, 1:48 seconds in, and just watch. It's amazing...

Crazy People

Zenas Winsor Mackay's The Centaurs (1921)

Winsor Mackay, the possibly Canadian but entirely talented creator of the comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland, also might have been as crazy as his spiritual successor, Henry Darger, if one imagines what we aren't able to see from this baffling animated short from 1921. A family of centaurs in the forest, huh? Check out the rest of the footage and marvel at what once was and now will never be.

Pour mes amis Quebecois

Dude might have been another jerky separatist who could barely contain his racism, but at least he gave us the above genius piece of film. RIP, M. Falardeau

Comparing Losing Political Situations to Hotel California is Superior to Calling Them Quagmires

Chris: We should go out and have mai fucking tai's this weekend

Sent at 1:41 PM on Friday

Girls Hellhole Ratrace
JJ My Hopes and Dreams
Tanlines New Flowers
The Deele Body Talk

Well, it looks like my weekends going to be spent with a pack of fashion magazines and Style.com, but it's probably going to be good to get some brain-work in before the physical work-out and flurry of activity that is Pop Montreal begins, sparing no liver or ear-drum or bank account. So, some bits and pieces, then...

...And I thought I had a fucked up childhood dealing with Pentecostal Christians and post-60s California paranoid communal living (it creeped up the West Coast... Joan Didion's selection of essays, The White Album, is one of my favourite books and also chronicles the intense disconnect and anxiety that not just followed the Haight & Ashbury period, but was at the core of it). Girls' Christopher Owens had it way worse than I, growing up in some backwards universe in a Children of God family and emerging from it with a demo and a supremely solid album of music that, on first listen, sounds like Elvis Costello fronting Spiritualized, with lo-fi digressions.

Swedish super-secret-studio creations JJ you probably already know about, but if not, the back-story is the absence of a back-story. From their album on Sweden's Sincerely Yours label, also home to The Tough Alliance, Air France and other similar-minded Nordiques.

Tanlines also on the bill with Plaza Musique and Os Mutantes for Pop Montreal. Saturday, October 3rd at Le National. Don't sleep on that.

A new album by Chromeo is due next summer (too long!), but in the mean-time, check out their crate-digging skills on their recently released DJ Kicks compilation, which includes songs from long-time Goldkicks favourites Kano and Carmen (Time to Move, rather than Throw Down - difficult choice). If you register on the K7 site, they'll send you an mp3 of Chromeo's cover of the Eagles' I Can't Tell You Why. And yes, a vocoder harmonizing on the chorus is way better than Glenn Frey and Don Henley.

A couple of years back, Chromeo put together Le Mix for Turbo Recordings, which included amongst a number of high-lights (I can name at least four DJs who play Chemise's She Can't Love You, sing along to it and do weird hand-gestures regularly, to say little of my general peer group's love for Gino Soccio) The Deele's Body Talk, which I've posted above. Babyface was in The Deele. BABYFACE!

Is The Chronicle of Higher Education predicting that roving gangs of high school drop-out meth-heads may soon take a page from Mao's Little Red Book and attack the cities from the countryside, taking specific aim at the previously departed "achievers" and "high fliers?" Let's say yes. The next Khmer Rouge may be North America's poor white underclass.

Bixi Pop

Synergy
(but not exactly)

New Chromeo song "Night by Night"

Chromeo Night By Night
Jan Hammer Crockett's Theme (Miami Vice soundtrack)

The last we caught up with Montreal's premier R&B electro-funk duo, they were jamming with Darryl Hall of Hall & Oates in his restored colonial-era farmhouse. Now they've got a new song which skews more Moroderian Hi-NRG with its galloping bass-lines and guitar and keyboard solos that wouldn't be outta place on the Miami Vice score. Sweet. To cool down a bit and get into a moody Michael Mann mood, I suggest you follow it up with Crockett's Theme from the Miami Vice soundtrack, and maybe take a long walk on a white beach with appropriate pastels and linen pants.

Quick Fix

Natassja Kinski, One From The Heart

The Shirelles Baby, It's You (1961)
The Beatles Baby, It's You (1963)
Smith Baby, It's You (1969)

~
From the pen of Burt Bacharach, Baby, It's You was always a bit melancholic, but Smith turns it into a minor-key bluesy stomper that actually kinda works with a killer bass tone...
~

Joseph Smith Hustled, Brigham Young Was a Baller

Sports jackets, dookie chains, ball caps, and acid-washed jeans
2 Live Crew in the basics.

Young Black Teenagers First True Love Affair
Jimmy Ross First True Love Affair
Tag Team Whoomp! (There It Is)
Kano I'm Ready (Spank Rock Edit, Fabriclive 33)
2 Live Crew Pop That Pussy
Billy Stewart Summertime
Eazy E Gimme That Nut

Wrongly maligned by history for their poor name choice and remembered (if at all) for Tap The Bottle, the Young Black Teenagers deserve another look, especially considering production duties were handled by Hank Shocklee of the Bomb Squad. Good enough for Public Enemy, good enough for me. Time To Make The Dough Nutz, which samples Rush's Tom Sawyer is not the place to start, but listen to First True Love Affair above, which samples, you guessed, Jimmy Ross' First True Love Affair, which was produced by the friendliest face of Italo-Disco, Kano. Kano's back-catalogue has been cherry-picked for samples, (and recently nickied by Spank Rock for their Fabriclive mix), from way back in my grade 8 days by Tag Team (Miami Bass from Atlanta?) for Whoomp! (There It Is). I always found it a bit strange that, because of the Jock Jams compilation or whatever else, there was a substantial and ready-made fan-base for Miami Bass amongst the Mormon basketball players in my high school.

One song not so easily adopted by the Mormon ball-palmers in Miami's greatest contribution to music would have to be Pop That Pussy, by genre-definers 2 Live Crew, which features a spectacular re-working of the Billy Stewart's Summertime. DJs, follow that up with Eazy E's Gimme That Nut for maximal libidinal labial dance-floor expression. By the way, does anyone know where the hell that songs from? I found it on a CD five years ago and have no idea where it came from.

HBO's Bored to Death

I watched the first two episodes of HBO's Bored to Death last night. It's the Jonathan Ames scripted half-hour comedy-drama starring Jason Schwartzman as Mr. Ames' alter-ego: a failed writer, recently dumped, scribbling here-and-there for Ted Danson's character, addicted to white wine and pot, who decides to advertise as a PI on Craigslist, against the warnings of his pal Zach Galifianakis. Ensuing complications and plot-twists, you get it. Well, it couldn't be any worse than Californication, right? Few shows could be. There were a couple of out-loud laugh moments, but it's what you'd expect from the principles - the flip-side of the loud-and-quiet Will Ferrel/Vince Vaughn dynamic - mannered performances, chuckles, and the low-level thrill of recognition. It was great to hear the Young Marble Giants in the first episode, but Christ, whoever was responsible for music supervision was playing it a little bit heavy-handed, y'know?

Download the first two episodes via torrent here
(Caveat emptor: screener files have an obnoxious HBO logo over-lay)
Bored To Death Side-Line

Young Marble Giants Brand New Life

Nancy Franklin of the New Yorker on HBO's Bored to Death.

Neglected Greek Children Favour Bixis

Children of Greeks ghost-riding Bixis on a Saturday evening on St. Viateur in the Mile End neighbourhood of Montreal, Quebec.
photo: Chris Clark

Playground's A Battleground

Another Bad Creation Playground

I'm sorry to ruin the whole week for you just as it starts, but I guarantee this is the best thing you'll hear all week. Discovered by one of the Bell Biv Devoe guys, Atlanta's Another Bad Creation had a glorious outta-the-gates start with a couple of singles, an appearance on the Meteor Man soundtrack, and a New Edition cover. Not much after that, though. An sophomore slump, and an indie flop. Still, if all they gave to the world was Playground, well, they've done their part.

And check out that video! Pie in the face, and some old white fogey trying to keep the most junior members of the Rhythm Nation down. Quick question: does it really get cold enough in Atlanta to warrant those gigantic down-filled jackets these kids are sporting?

Every Pop Song is a Celebration or a Complaint

~celebration~

Herb Alpert This Guy's In Love With You
Dusty Springfield This Girl's In Love With You
Fleetwood Mac You Make Loving Fun

~complaint~

Otis Redding Security
Etta James Security
Steely Dan Dirty Work

...

....or else it's a story about a mysterious hotel that you can check into, but never check out of.

A Drum Beat 21 Hours a Day

Photo by Jacob Ring, Bianca Chang or Nikolaus Kaiser. You guess which one.

Black Moth Super Rainbow Roller Disco
Black Moth Super Rainbow Lost, Picking Flower in the Woods
Laura Burhenn Just For The Night (Black Moth Super Rainbow Remix)

I don't like Boards of Canada, and I don't think I ever will. Klaus Schulze, Sinoia Caves, other spacey synth-based music I love, in fact, but there's something distinctly un-musical (to my ear) about Boards of Canada. In their weirder moments, it makes me think they were exposed to Jeff Mills at too young an age and for too long a period of time. In Boards of Canada's more accessible moments, (Dayvan Cowboy, let's say) they sound like trip-hop elevator music for a Zen shopping mall populated by soul-less yuppies with a sci-fi twist in a CBS mini-series from the mid-90s. Or more appropriately, it sounds like coming down off some seriously bad drugs, feeling depressed and praying for sleep. I didn't grow up on electronica, Squarepusher, Aphex Twin or anything like that, so it's all beyond me, and seems to exist in a realm where I can't comprehend the musical touchstones or signifiers, with inside jokes that don't make sense to me and genre conventions that are equally as baffling.

But, were you, Hypothetical Fan, to describe in a short couple of sentences the sound of Boards of Canada to me, I would be very interested to hear it, but actually, in my mind, that band would sound like Black Moth Super Rainbow, who belong just as much to the mythical Jungian life-force as they do to wherever the hell it is in Pennsylvania they were born.

I first came across Black Moth Super Rainbow when they put a Sonicbids submission in to Pop Montreal for the 2005 edition and, while the showcase I ended putting on drew, oh, about 15 people, you can chalk that up to my own incompetence, and the fact that no one knew just how good this group was. And damn, they were good, even to a crowd of 15 people in Petit Campus.

Black Moth Super Rainbow's music is tuneful, layered, interesting, bringing up sunny summer days in the woods just as much as space travel and star dust and intergalactic flights, forward-looking and slightly whimsical, but not kitschy, although they did release an EP with a scratch-and-sniff cover...

The Just For The Night remix posted above is from last year and slipped under my radar. Ms. Burhenn is a singer-songwriter with a who appears to have some tangential connection to the Dischord post-hardcore & indie scene in Washington, DC, but a voice that's more closely related to Sarah McLachlan or, in the case of this song, Alison Goldfrapp.

VGA or Super-VGA

Toro y Moi Human Nature (Michael Jackson cover)
Toro y Moi SadSams2 (Demo)
FM Attack Sleepless Nights
Real Life Send Me An Angel

By popular demand and for a limited time only, more from Chaz Bundick, known to most now as Toro y Moi, including his cover of Human Nature from Michael Jackson's Thriller album.

FM Attack is the nom-de-chanson of one Shawn Ward, from Vancouver, BC, supposedly newly signed by Tiga (although I can find scant mention of that). This is from his debut album Dreamatic, half of which sounds like it belongs on the soundtrack to the Canmore, Alberta-filmed 80's BMX film Rad (like Real Life's Send Me An Angel), the other half of which brings to my mind a toned-down Designer Drugs (octave-jumping bass-lines, synth stabs, and those tight mid-80s LA tom fills). Slow-dancing BMXes were the height of mid-decade romanticism, I think.

I'd like to make an early Christmas request: a Cat Power & Sade duet, please, and preferably nothing too blues-y.

Sondre Lerche in Montreal

Sondre Lerche Good Luck

Jenn Wong's favourite Norwegian songster (and now Brooklyn transplant) Sondre Lerche (even more than Kurt Foss!) is in Montreal tonight along with his rollicking songs for a solo electric performance at Cafe Campus. I assume he'll be mostly playing songs from his new album Heartbeat Radio, but I'd like to hear personal favourites Sleep on Needles & On The Tower. Requests, respectfully. The song above is from the first on his new album, and doesn't the trailing guitar line and accompanying crescendos remind you of Destroyer? No? The near-overwhelming string arrangements were provided by Sean O'Hagan of The High Llamas.

Leaked LCD Soundsystem 45:33 Remixes, early Lifelike .WAV files, Misheard Can Lyrics, et plus

Neighbourhood Romeo No, You Call Him
Fatback Band Yum Yum (Gimme Some)

Despite its giant floating plastic vortex twice the size of Texas, is my preferred fish provider and general all-around ocean. So, here's a little something from the close-to-the-coast duo Neighbourhood Romeo, comprised of Calgary, Alberta's Wax Romeo & Neighbour. Fun and crisp funk with a up-pitched Loleatta Holloway vocal sample that helps buoy oil city's reputation as a fine producer of super-slick sleeper funk hits. Grab whatever you can from these guys. Neighbour will be in Montreal performing at Studio Just For Laughs on Thursday, October 1st as part of Pop Montreal's Red Bull Mega Hurtz alongside Grahmzilla (of Thunderheist), Hovatron (aka Phil Aubin), Lunice, Megasoid, and uh, some sort of weird Burning Man hippie-techno-alien-rave DJ named JELO. Don't know who programmed that...

Okay, so the Fatback Band (later Fatback) were never from the West Coast, but they sound like it. Good enough.

THEO PARRISH 45:33 REMIX OF LCD SOUNDSYSTEM AVAILABLE HERE

LCD Soundsystem's 45:33 remixes got leaked. Eight in total, from Padded Cell, Pilooski, Riley Reinhold, Prins Thomas, Trus’me Prince Language and Theo Parrish. Stream them in 320 kbps on Feel My Bicep.

Vancouver's always generous promoter & DJ U-Tern puts up some .WAV files of early Lifelike vinyl-only releases. Thanks! His new weekly The Terrace is every Thursday at Republic Nightclub (958 Granville Street), which is great news - something to do during my next visit to Vancouver.

"Animal Collective in the house!" Dam Funk to sparse and skeptical East Coast funk fans, as reported by the New York Times.

Misheard Can Lyrics/Misheard Damo Suzuki lyrics must be collected into one archive for the betterment of mankind and an increase in human understanding.

Os Mutantes, Plaza Musique, Echo Kitty, Automelodi

There are always about six or seven shows during Pop Montreal that I've marked down as must-sees (and generally end up missing, or just having enough time to catch two or three songs - sigh), and that's certainly the case this year. Matt & Kim? Okay, no. I've never even heard a Matt & Kim song but something about their promo pictures has always prevented me from investigating any further. I find it hard to believe they're not secretly from a Vancouver suburb and that half of their stage banter involves thanking their show promoters for baking them vegan brownies.

Os Mutantes in younger, witchier times

Os Mutantes Teclar

But yes, Os Mutantes. Os Mutantes are, of course, the Brazilian founders of the Tropicalia movement whose influence has been felt far & wide since forming in 1968. There have been numerous line-up changes since that time, of course, but with a new album Haih or Amortecedor on Anti (that seems to be mostly about geopolitics - uh, okay), it should be more than a greatest hits performance. The production is remarkably faithful to the jazz-inflected sounds of years past, although I think sometimes the songs veer into (gasp) Jethro Tull territory. The excesses of youth magnified by the indulgence of age.

Plaza Musique at Francofolies 2009

Plaza Musique Magazine
(MP3 RE-UPLOADED & AVAILABLE HERE)

But actually, what I'm most looking forward to on that bill is seeing Montreal's Plaza Musique. I missed them during their performance at Francofolies earlier in the summer (pictured above), and their tasteful & smooth baroque space pop, with its requisite homages to the better retro-futuristic work of Air or Stereolab. ( It wouldn't be out of place on soundtrack to Roman Coppola's CQ.)

M. Paradis

Echo Kitty Suzi
Automelodi Baunderie Jazz

Plaza Musique recorded their new EP with Xavier Paradis (formerly of Echo Kitty, currently of Automelodi, and ocasionally known as Arnaud Lazlaud). If there's anyone in Montreal with a better ear for the textures and sounds of the early days of synthesizers & new-wave pop who is also blessed with the ability to write a great hook, I've yet to find her or him. The most obvious touch-point for a poor observer of Francophone music such as myself with Echo Kitty is Indochine, but it's deeper than that. (I'm unschooled in chanson française, alas.) Visit Automelodi's Myspace page, buy the EP, see them live.

Crydajam "Playground"

Crydajam Playground
(MP3 REUPLOADED & AVAILABLE HERE)

Eric Chedeville, Guillaume Emmanuel de Homem-Christo and Mederic Nebinger under the Crydajam moniker, the b-side of 2002's If You Give Me The Love I Want, the 18th release on their Crydamoure label. Needless to say, it's wonderful.

To Be Making the Party [sic], To Be Playing the Vinyls [sic]

Angels, harpsichords, house music: the usual.

1977 Chocolatt
Clyde Alexander & Sanction Got To Get Your Love
Rico The Wizard Spell of Love

I don't know anything about 1977, and the 61 website where it was posted isn't very helpful, but it's a great sample-based house track - I love the percussive element (smaller bells, the guitar) in certain songs that immediately conjures up the sounds of an over-packed party somewhere. (Hey, I know how lame that is - about as lame as my obsession with music that makes me think about the ocean or even (God) sounds like the ocean. Real 6 year old territory here...) Roxy Music's Love is the Drug, for example, or Clyde Alexander's Got to Get Your Love, re-posted above, which must be the prototype for the years of soulful house (some good, a lot not) that followed.

Axel Le Baron and Julien Kourbatoff's Darling Records' second release is Rico The Wizard, part of the label's grand scheme to bring us back to the glory days of French Touch. Nice.

Summer's over, so the only physical fitness solution for the easily-chilled nightclub-frequenting denizens of Montreal is a dancefloor workout. Thankfully it's not going to be difficult to dust off the dancing shoes & find a place to dip & sweat in the next couple of weeks, with visits by The Juan Maclean this Thursday and Italian DJ Bottin on September 26th. Bottin is going to be joined by a stellar line-up of Montreal's finest, including Andrew Ward & Matt Bain from Love! Disco Style and the Loose Joints guys. Exceptional, and a great opportunity to, in the patois of my French-Canadian countrymen, make the party (FB event ici).

Manic Street Preachers "So Why So Sad (Avalanches Remix)"