The Radiophonic Workshop

Wherever I've been and gone

2008-11-25T08:50:00.001-04:00

Blues Run the Game

Nick Drake

Glimpse of Me, Glimpse of You

2008-11-22T16:58:00.003-04:00

Taste

animal collective

anyway

2008-11-21T03:39:00.003-04:00

Any Way That You Want Me

Spiritualized

secret word

2008-11-17T08:26:00.002-04:00

Kim n' Jessie

M83

the only song that'll letcha sleep

2008-11-03T23:38:00.002-04:00

Winter Aid -- HEARTWINCE

float along like windless sailboats

2008-11-02T20:20:00.003-04:00

Haitus be gone!

Let's float along like windless sailboats, shall we?

Cut Copy -- FAR AWAY (RING TRICK MIX) (right click, save target as)
Denison Witmer -- NIGHTTIME (BIG STAR COVER)
Akron/Family -- DON'T BE AFRAID, YOU'RE ALREADY DEAD
Bob Dylan -- MOST OF THE TIME (ALTERNATE VERSION)
Jens Lekman -- IT WAS A STRANGE TIME IN MY LIFE

Dress in Black. Read Camus.

2008-08-31T19:08:00.002-03:00

Recently I saw Two Hours Traffic play for a park full of (mostly) old people who knew not who Two Hours Traffic were, or how they were a band from PEI with faces that all look vaguely familiar, like I've seen them all before. They played as the sun set, golden. At one point, they came on and declared, "Here's a song by our favourite band, The Magnetic Fields." And I whooped (the only one amongst a sea of silence) -- and onstage, the one with the dark eyes said, "Whoo indeed."

Then they played this: I Don't Want to Get Over You

and this:

Sure Can Start!

Blame the Symphony

2008-08-03T14:29:00.003-03:00

This is a video about life and death and sun and grass and trees and climbing upwards. It's also about marking the places you've been, your territory, saying I was here. I stood. I saw. This is my footprint; this is proof. I made this short film without Sunset Rubdown in mind, and it was only when a friend suggested its suitability during the editing process that I found it worked just perfect for everything I wanted to say. So many moments are strangely synched -- "helicopters overhead", "the sun on my shoes". Some were offended by the urination. In my defense I can only say: Hunt's dead. He does not care. I had to pee very badly. His gravestone felt somehow important. I had the familiar urge to take hold of that moment, to chronicle it, to put it to film with colour and sound and show it to the world.

What induces shivers about Sunset Rubdown is the sudden staccato strumming, that fretful voice, its pained urgency, and lyrics like tales from a storybook. There's this whimsical quality to all the heartbreak.

The following is from the Black Cab sessions, where they kidnap musicians and force them to play music in the back of a cab.

(you go on ahead (black cab session))

And if there are two eyes in my head there are four seasons in a year
And reflections on the water from a burning yellow sphere
And the days add up to weeks add up to months
And add up...
And add up...
And add up...
And add up...
And add up...
And add up... (X infinity)

Before the Fall

2008-07-20T20:08:00.004-03:00

This is a song about the end of the world. Or, well, the beginning of the end (of the world). "We had five years left to cry in," says Bowie. And we, the people, run frantically around and swim in our doom and kiss each other and smash things and cry and vomit. And miss our mommies. And this guy, the singer, faced now with the end of the world, has one thing on his mind:

Think I saw you in an ice cream parlour, Drinking milkshakes - cold and long, smiling and waving and looking so fine... Don't think you knew you were in this song. And it was cold and it rained so I felt like an actor! And I thought of Ma and I wanted to get back there-- Your face! Your race! The way that you talk! I kiss you. You're beautiful. I want you to walk.

We've got (five years).

That's all we've got.

I love songs that fall apart. By the end Bowie's voice fades away, shrieking for help or attention or mercy or whatever, and seems to get swallowed by the impending apocalypse.

Here's another song about when the buildings crumble to the ground:

The Fall (Tuvan Igil Version)

Red Hunter, frontman for Peter & the Wolf, tears apart his quiet little ditty "The Fall" with a tuvan igil. (This is basically a violin on drugs made of goatskin with a much coarser sound.) It fits for this version, and for Red's soaring voice and what he wants to say with it... which is: "Who were you before the Fall? I was a singer... I saw the future laid out in dominoes. Now I hunt the buffalo."

But more than wrecked cities, this is a song about the naked skeleton of humankind, forced to rebuild. Or rather, deconstruct -- to some primitive fire-dancing ritualistic lifestyle where all are full and happy and dirty. And everything is a little clearer.

The Whistle Knows My Name

2008-07-15T07:45:00.002-03:00

deliquesce \del-ih-KWESS\ verb

*1 : to dissolve or melt away

(born on a train)

2008-07-13T22:43:00.000-03:00

Computers are filled with beeps and hums.
City is filled with creeps and bums.
Chest is filled with heat and lungs.
And the cavern above it - teeth and gums.

(this must be the place [naive melody])

This Is Not Trying

2008-07-10T22:52:00.007-03:00

It's hard to say what ah-real does to me. I feel a little sleazy, a little insulted even, by the way he sounds and feels and looks (especially his grotesque drawings).

(my molly)

A lobster fisherman once told me that Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti was "so bad it's good," without further explanation. I sat cross-legged on the kitchen floor with this distorted smear of hopped-up noise echoing from the boombox. I understood it like nothing else and it seemed to fry my brain and everything I'd ever thought about music and what the criteria was for shitfuck awesome.

(interesting results)

Here ah-real tells us blatantly, "I know how to do it, there is nothing to it." His voicebox is sometimes-deep, sometimes-seagull high. He lazily says, "I'm not gonna try anymore." Soon thereafter, he shrieks: "THIS IS NOT TRYING!!" and breaks it all apart. Apparently he creates most of his drum beats using his armpits and mouth. Respect.

Little Garçon in My Head

2008-07-08T16:50:00.004-03:00

Just when
the caterpillar
thought the world
was over,
it became
a butterfly.

Here is a song of evolution. I saw the above quote on a coffee cup and thought it fit for what I want to say. This is a song which changes. It takes a sudden twist at the two-minute mark, from lazysunshine, to convertible cruise, to campfire pop, to clap along and sing out loud because by now you know the chorus--

Well, I get told, to never get old,
But the way it unfolds,
I'm a little garçon in my head
With a little fille that's stuck in bed.

It starts as a hum, a Mmmmmmmaybeeeee. Then the sun comes out and a harmonica pokes a shy little head into the scene. It feels like kindergarten. And then you're on the floor because you want to feel small again. It feels, now, like you should be riding a bike very slowly alongside a riverbed. A pause. Then we're off again, a century later, and everyone is dancing because we've reached some sort of finish line we never even knew we were running to.

(little garçon)

Unhappiness is Treason!

2008-07-06T17:33:00.000-03:00

Welcome ladybugs and gentlemen to The Radiophonic Workshop, where thousands of tasty musical breadcrumbs will lead you straight to heaven's white-washed doorstep.

To begin, I give you a song about love and flashy colours.

(strange powers)

The Magnetic Fields' frontman Stephen Merritt provides his usual effervescent wit, deep croonin', and a solid array of similes (SUCH AS: kisses like flying saucers, stars like Thai prostitutes.)