Babelfisherman praises ze smiffs

This has to be the best forum post on The Smiths ever:

I have lately been listening to the Smiths recently. What I can say? My hammers of the sock oscillate. Morrissey is best vocalist and encounter its attempts in the company/signature on things very amused and heartrendering. I have bought most of its albums. I have bought "meat I am murder", "the queen is dead", "Strangeways we come here", and "Hatful of the hollow". My favourite song must be "sky knows that I am displeased now". The good thing is that it watches as now I have all the essential Smiths! You, my ventilators, loves the Smiths like amors of a boy of the fat its perfumed empanada of the apple?

Reccomend I you go to your store record store and goes obtains the "meat is murder" immediately if you have not heard speak of smiths!

totally OTM though...

Stop bothering M.I.A. (beech!)

I kind of enjoy the semi backlash M.I.A. is getting at places. Looking at the way Britney's arrival at the pop stage ('Baby One More Time') was smashed, how fake she was, how she couldn't be a virgin (when she portrayed herself that way) and seeing how many people were digging last year's 'Toxic' it seems hypocritical to dismiss M.I.A. instantly as a fake product of music marketing. But, it's part of the process and it'll do M.I.A. good there's talk about her, her (fake or not) issues and in the end, hopefully, the music. Because in a few years when M.I.A. rules the charts duetting with Britney I know all you haters have that song as your number 1 single of the year. TELLING YA!

by the way, How far can you go with the fake or not statement? Is it right for a white middle class American/Brit to analyze grime/hiphop for it's value and origins?

what u playin' fool?!

here's some early 2005 gems for you:

Marsen Jules - Herbstlaub [city center offices]
German Martin Juhls creates some of the warmest drones to invade your ears. Less cut up than Basinski's Disintegration Loops but similar in melancholic sweetness.

Red Sparrowes - At The Soundless Dawn [neurot]
I know some people really digged Isis' Panopticon but were a little put off by Turner's raw vocals. This right here is what you're looking for then. Members of Isis, Neurosis and Halifax Pier team up to deliver a chiming and rattling soundscape full of mighty crescendo's and aggressively built up climaxes.

Built Like Alaska - Autumnland [sweat of the alps]
I'm a sucker for the playful melancholy Grandaddy showcases on their albums. The bearded drummer put together this fine group of Grandaddy soundalikes. Quirky keyboardmelodies, vocals that linger between sad and happy and pretty big guitarexplosions. Not as instant hitting as Grandaddy tunes but more than satisfying.

Doves - Some Cities [capitol]
Unexpectedly I'm really liking this. Doves have a knack for creating dark and brooding melodies full of cinematic atmosphere. The first half of the album would be Top of the Pops material if the world made the slightest bit of sense. The rest drifts off towards hazy dreamgrounds.

Also, I badly wanna hear this. I'm ready to indulge in the black pools of black/death/doom and trashmetal again, it's been a while, yes indeed. Last week I picked up Burning Witch's Crippled Lucifer album by Stephen O'Malley and friends. Amazing over the top blackness which got me truly excited. I think I'll skip the burning down churches thing for now but intrigued and somewhat fascinated I am for sure.

Kind of really look forward to this!

Boris, Microphones, Caroliner and more.

Especially excited about seeing Boris and Microphones, haven't heard much of the rest. Except for the excellent Sung Tongy Skygreen Leopards

Tales of Life

There's a red line traceable throughout my musical voyage for some 10+ years now. It's the art of storytelling that always struck me as fascinating. I won't get into albums that I discovered after their highlight (Queen Is Dead, Daydream Nation, Unknown Pleasures etc.) but along that line there are some definite standouts that I frequently listen back to and be in awe of, again and again. I think Master of Puppets is the first example on which I was truly amazed by the perfect synthesis of music and lyrics. Dealing with heavy stuff as the emotional traumas of being put away in a mental hospital, the ignorance on part of the ever lurking world domination by armed forces of all kinds and the social blisters like hypocritical religion and drug addiction. It all was perfectly in sync with the epic, heavy music which I absorbed religiously (but never hypocritical) during my teenage years.

Next up was Raekwon's Built For Cuban Linx, I bought that and didn't leave my room for the next two weeks, spinning it endlessly. Around that time I was heavily into the Wu saga. After being numbed by the raw power of the eponymous Wu debut 36 Chambers, the laced in smoke Tical by prime Wu member Method Man it was Raekwon's time to shine. Ghetto mafia tales, completely awe inspiring reality (well for them, obviously) illustrated by Rae's urgent flow. As if that wasn't convincing enough GZA released Liquid Swords, a grim tale of ghetto survival. GZA's flow is one of the most striking in the whole game, can none match his up to this day. Oh go away 50 Cent.

After that [pause] I sought my relief in cheesy ass trance and, well just partied a lot. I came to my senses again with OK Computer. Listening back now I can see why people regard it as pretentious but when it came to me I couldn't ask for a better companion throughout my late teens/early twenties. Dealing with the claustrophobia of being awkward with society's norms and values, Yorke's wailing falsetto's and the cinematic soundscapes, it all added up to becoming my favourite record for a long time. And from that there's an even longer blank, I'm still searching for the next lyrical movie to accompany me during my late twenties. I do hope to give my view on all of these albums on Circus of Fools though, I simply have to I'm afraid as these records are part of what I am today. So maybe, if very irregular, I'll give my story on all those records, including Outkast's ATLiens cos I forgot that one.

Ah..maybe, if you will, you decide which I do first....the indecisive person I am.

Six Organs of Admittance - School of the Flower (Drag City)

It's kind of funny how I like this whole acidfolk thing when people constantly refer to it as incense drenched and freaky. Considering how much I hate the smell of incense and how biased I am towards those hippie types that walk on sandals day in and day out. Not my kind of thing really. That's probably why I don't play my own acoustic guitar in some park underneath a big ol' tree with sticks of incense laying around. I prefer to take this album in on the couch, eyes closed, legs stretched and mind set on meditation (oh!). It's modern day society's little extra that we, music lovers, can drown ourselves in this vast variety of different musics. We can dabble in all types of ambient, get our rocks off to some good old rock 'n' retro, put our g's up and ho's down to quality hiphop and grime and get our necks twisted, headbanging to terrific metal like that from the Haunted and Pig Destroyer. And that's not all. You have your weird stuff like the magnicificent Excepter, Black Dice, Sightings, Gang Gang Dance and the unconscious singsongs of Animal Collective.

Last year marked the rise and rise of a new folk movement spearheaded by Devendra Banhart. Around that movement in which Joanna Newsom, CocoRosie and others blossomed, a diversity of experimental chapters circled endlessly along droning acoustics and distant mantra-like singing. Those chapters are everywhere, in every style of music and it's right in the middle of that clouded sky that I hope to find new and glorious sounds on which I am trying to eloborate on this spot right here, in the periphery of the worldwide blogosphere.

When I came across Six Organs of Admittance last year I wasn't immediately flabbergasted or in awe of his freefolkish noodlings. That started to change when I stumbled upon The Manifestation. Two twenty plus minute tracks which are saturated in thick hypnotic ambience. You can hear Chasny's keen on Fahey like guitarplaying. He adds layers of bells, droning vocal moments and eastern percussion to it which makes the whole of The Manifestation an otherworldly, meditional experience.

This doesn't really resemble Chasny's latest output, School of the Flower, though. While The Manifestation is much more of a floating matter, School of the Flower drifts just above ground level, exploring popstructures alongside more experimental urges. The drumming intro of 'Eight Cognition/All You've Left' developes a Can like groove while Chasny turns up the volume on his guitar a little before releasing a delicate and sweet melody that, together with Chasny's soothing vocals, make up the rest of the track. The first half of the album consists mostly of relatively normal songstructures sometimes even resembling the semi-traditional folk stuff of Banhart and Co. ('Words For Two').

When signing to Drag City Chasny told the label he wanted to explore songstructures but he also made clear he wanted "the freedom to do some experimental stuff" and as 'Saint Cloud' progresses he moves into more and more obscure territory. The simple and reflective guitarnoodling changes into a web of droning feedback and in the distant there are floating mantra's, that, as far as I'm concerned, could have been going on and on and on and on and , you know, forever. It could be the soundtrack to an afternoon of puffin' on a waterpipe in a small Moroccan teahouse somewhere in the Atlas mountains. 'Procession of Cherry Blossomed Spirits' drifts further into meditational fingerpicking guitarwork, more or less sounding like Bardo Pond if they plugged out their instruments, which is funny cos in 'Home' Chasny actually plugs in his guitar and unleashes some offkey screeches throughout a furthermore sweet and folky song. Underneath it all lies a basic body of virtually unrecognizable percussion paterns by occasional Sunburned Hand of the Man contributor Chris Corsano.

Centerpiece of this work is the 13 minute title track. Here Chasny lays down a simple guitarmelody that multiplies several times, Corsano's free jazz drumming here is very recognizable and a big part in the way the track evolves with Chasny, eventually plugging in his guitar again and submitting some suffocating electric solo's out of his guitar. As the centerpiece (but not exactly) it takes up too much energy for the rest of the record to be as engaging as the first part. However, 'Thicker Than Smokey' develops as a nice come down. Originally recorded by an obscure folky called Gary Higgins (on Red Hash, 1973), a sweet and sour little folk song that seems made for this new folk era. The closing track 'Lisboa' is nothing more than that, a cleancut acoustic melody that fades into not much at all. It's this all in all weak ending that takes away a little of the magic from the first part but nonetheless School of the Flower is a stunning trip through Mid-Eastern valleys clouded with a thick of summery dawn.

My next and urgent mission now is to find that Gary Higgins record. Red Hash people, anyone?

...

I just wish we could forget about The Bravery already.

diggin'

I don't really dig The Blues that much, it might be too straightforward and perhaps too workingclass for my ears. Not that I have anything against the workingclass as I am part of it myself but when I listen to musics I generally search for stuff that picks me up and drops me off on a cloud high above reality. I am liking that folk stuff a lot since last year. Psychedelic like that new and very pretty Six Organs Of Admittance album, School of the Flower (maybe more on this one later) or the cryptical semi-nonsense beardfolk of Devendra & Friends. I guess music has to tickle my fantasy and create this subconscious reality that I can dwell in for as long as I want to. No need to tell me straight up how blue life can be. If you give it to me in a cynical and ironic/sarcastic way though, I'm right with you. Let's laugh at our troubles and twist those facts to make them look slightly funnier. And yeah, School of the Flower is right up there. Ben Chasny plays those delicate strings of life Fahey style, how I wish he was still alive to, at some point, jam along with this Chasny guy. pling-plong-pling

Antony & The Johnsons - I Am A Bird Now

At the start of last year I discovered the raw beauty of the sisters Cocorosie. Their startling record, La Maison De Mon Reve, had me longing for French fields packed with sunflowers. The ones I so often enjoyed while gazing out of the car window when on holidays as a kid. Somewhen last year the opportunity to interview them came up and I gladly took it. By phone but still, not only are the sisters pretty, their music raises some interesting questions that could spawn even more interesting answers. A nice conversation it was but funnily enough the two things that I remember most of that talk is Bianca's mention of Antony & The Johnsons when I asked her what she was excited about musically.

After I hung up the phone I did a Google search for Antony & The Johnsons. Not much later I found out about his selftitled debut, originally released on Current 93's Durtro label in 2000. It was gonna be released worldwide through Secretly Canadian. The intensity of that album slapped me right in the face. I can take some melodrama and I am fairly charmed by singers with typical voices. Antony's voice was something entirely else though. By the end of 2004 I got a chance to see Cocorosie at Paradiso. Not only that, the girls brought Antony with them. And not only that, I even got the opportunity to interview them, both. I didn't know what to expect but to find out this theatrical and melodramatic performer was very charming and full of jokes wasn't exactly what I had in mind. The show was sparse, just him, his piano and his amazing voice. It cut through the hearts of the dozens of goths that were attracted to Antony through his friendship with David Tibet. Sierra 'Cocorosie' Casady eventually joined him on stage for a mesmerizing duet.

After the gig he chatted with some fans for as long as they would like to. The guy is a friend to all who gives him attention. And he likes the attention, that's what he lives for when the day is done. After the fans were gone we sat down in the bunkers of Paradiso, it was a nice chat although the presence of Bianca Casady made him less serious and slightly too witty.

Now there's I Am A Bird Now and Antony is ready to spread his wings to reach a bigger (and brighter) audience. The album is less orchestrated than his debut but there's still a lot of soothing sounds that will tickle your belly. At his best the man becomes one with his pianoplay, intense, haunting and mysterious at times. The climax in the middle of 'Hope There's Someone' illustrates that as he lifts his voice over mountains snowed with brooding falsetto's. His tenor vocals hit the highest notes at times and when caught up in his own tales he's relentless and won't back down for anyone. Not even for his idol and likeminded spirit Boy George or his guiding light and great friend Lou Reed.

He invites both to play a tune with him on I Am A Bird Now but he always manages to surpass them with his engaging vocal style.
Boy George turns up in the appropriately titled 'You Are My Sister', his vocals are much more subtle than Antony's, he seemingly keeps him self low key and let's Antony shine in a world they both share. The music here is kept to minimal pianoplay, chambermusic if you will although that tag doesn't come close to covering the emotional depths of the song.

Reed returns Antony's favour, Antony appeared on Reed's Raven album, in 'Fistful Of Love'. A swirling and lightly jazzy singsong, Lou Reed takes care of the spoken intro as Antony unwinds and the songs hits new highs with soaring trumpetplay. This track stands out in a way that it sounds more positive and even festive. A beautiful highlight which shows Antony at his best is 'Man Is The Baby'. A mysterious piece that takes place in the twilight zone of the man's mixed up soul. The pianoplay is haunting and perfectly in tune with Antony's brooding vocals. Same goes for 'Spiralling' that twists and turns over magic violinplay and playful piano.

What goes on in Antony's mind is our guess but the way he showcases his doubts and feelings on I Am A Bird Now are revealing mixed up emotions. Judging from the way I've seen him behave on stage and in person I'd say he's a terrific actor who is able to pull off a Waitslike play on his albums and in his shows. Nevertheless, his stories and tales are closer to most of us than you'd imagine and in Antony's case, he's living his songs everyday. No matter how forceful an actor he seems, he draws on experience and his heart can be found at the core of every single song.

In essence, this is nowhere near indie music, this is Soul Music. Antony could sit down at the dock of the bay together with one of his heroes, he'd ashamed to be there but Otis would be proud as hell.

2000-2009

BEST ALBUMS OF 2000 - 2009

why wait in vain i'd say