Attention all Weddoes out there // David Gedge is on your internets and he's coveting your girlfriends

It seems that no matter how hard I try, I'm still catching up from great stuff released last year... This time around, it's The Wedding Present. Remember when the Smiths broke up? (it's a rethorical question, I know I'm only twenty something going hard on thirty, so bear with me ok?!?!) This was apparently what everyone turned to. Not quite the same, true, but close enough! Yeah, this is an official video by The Wedding Present and yeah, twenty years have past since George Best and yeah, they sound like they did back then and yeah, I FUCKING LOVE IT; nevermind the seriousness of Take Fountain, it's full on raging toung-in-cheek fun from the Bizarro album - as it should be - and I for one won't be running for the older stuff. There is no time to navelgaze the past here through nostalgia gazed spectacles: this stand on it's own.

The Wedding Present - The Thing I LIke Best About Him Is His Girlfriend

web scopitones
myspace theweddingpresent
label Manifesto (US) // Vibrant (UK)

Interspecies love, we say MOAR!

All naps this weekend were sponsored by one of the greatest albums of all time. The side effect is that I'm mostly dreaming of hairy fairies and cannibalistic squirrels getting it on. Again, I cannot help but wonder that perhaps my subconscious is trying to tell me something...

Blur - Good Song

web blur
myspace blurtheband
label Parlophone

News from the Casiotone for the painfully alone world

Owen Ashworth, the man behind the morose blips and beats of Casiotone for the painfully alone is due to return this year with a double release! Firstly we'll have VS Children, the follow-up to the gorgeous 2006 Etiquette LP, then a compilation of B-Sides and rarities, Advance Base Battery Life, for all the casiotone fanboys out there and, last but not the least, an european tour that doesn't have Portugal on it. As usual.

Tracklistings for both albums with cover arts are already available via casiotone's website and a first single out of the compilation album. Yeah, that's right, a video. Owen Ashworth means business!

Casiotone for the painfully alone - Vs Children

1. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone vs. Children
2. Tom Justice, The Choir Boy Robber, Apprehended at Ace Hardware in Libertyville, IL
3. Optimist vs. The Silent Alarm (When The Saints Go Marching In)
4. Natural Light
5. Traveling Salesman's Young Wife Home Alone on Christmas in Montpelier, VT
6. Man O' War
7. Northfield, MN
8. Killers
9. Harsh The Herald Angels Sing
10. You Were Alone
11. White Jetta

Casiotone for the painfully alone - Advance Base Battery Life

1. Old Panda Days (w/ Nick Krgovich)
2. Lesley Gore on the T.A.M.I. Show (version)
3. White Corolla
4. White on White
5. Holly Hobby
6. Lonesome New Mexican Nights
7. The Only Way To Cry
8. It's A Crime
9. Missoula
10. Hot Boyz (w/ Dear Nora)
11. Born in the U.S.A. (w/ Concern)
12. Streets of Philadelphia (w/ Concern)
13. Graceland
14. Sunday St
15. Voice of the Hospital

And now, it's time for dancing kittie cats and one armed panda bears, all falling in interspecies love.

Casiotone for the painfully alone - White Corolla

web cftpa
myspace cftpa
label Tomlab

The dreaded V-Day // Turn on, tune in, drop out with Elysian Fields

Elysian Fields - Bend Your Mind

Let me bend your mind
Just give up your body
If you give it a try
Know you won't be sorry
Filling inside turn you outside
Find you shining
Spanning acres crashing breakers
Can be blinding
Ride sweet smelling ride
Your shoulder blades like sails
And your mouth my rosary
That terrifies my tail
The feral dance of infinity
Limbs are singing velvet stinging
Seashell pining
Dripping sapling nature grappling
Tear the binding wide
Spread so wide
I wanna hear you sigh
Just give me your body
I want to see it in the light
Surrender to debauchery
Bend your mind dear
Now your mine dear
Earth is grinding
Keep on beaming
Are we dreaming are we dying
Ride sweet smelling ride
Ride sweet swelling ride
On the verge dear, as we merge dear
Now we're flying
Sacred balling so enthralling
Mystifying
Ride to the other side
Til we're sanctified
On the verge dear, as we merge dear
Now we're flying
Sacred balling so enthralling
Mystifying
Minds are bending happy ending
Silver lining
Ride, Ride

web elysianmusic
myspace elysianfieldsnyc
labels Jetset Records // Diluvian (independent) // [PIAS] (FR) // Naïve (FR)

Makeshift constructs of stage and screen // hearts and wants

He reached the end of Vine Street and began the climb into Pinyon Canyon. Night had started to fall.
The edges of the trees burned with a pale violet light and their centers gradually turned from deep purple to black. The same violet piping, like a Neon tube, outlined the tops of the ugly, hump-backed hills and they were almost beautiful.
But not even the soft wash of dusk could help the houses. Only dynamite would be of any use against the Mexican ranch houses, Samoan huts, Mediterranean villas, Egyptian and Japanese temples, Swiss chalets, Tudor cottages, and every possible combination of these styles that lined the slopes of the canyon.
When he noticed that they were all plaster, lath and paper, he was charitable and blamed their shape on the materials used. Steel, stone and brick curb a builder's fancy a little, forcing him to disturbe his stresses and weights and to keep his corners plumb, but plaster and paper know no law, not even that of gravity.
On the corner of La Huera Road was a miniature Rhine castle with tarpaper turrets pierced for arches. Next to it was a little highly colored shack with domes and minarets out of the Arabian Nights. Again he was charitable. Both houses were comic, but he didn't laugh. Their desire to startle was so eager and guileless.
It is hard to laugh at the need for beauty and romance, no matter how tasteless, even horrible, the results of that need are. But it is easy to sigh. Few things are sadder than the truly monstrous.

Nathanael West - The Day of the Locust (1939)

PS: There is a typo on the author's name on this cover... which is bizarre, to say the least.

The swedes and their catchy pop // Suburban Kids With Biblical Names

Like some sort of northern harbingers of warmer days to come, this Swedish duo is on a mission: make you lighten up your mood through out these harsh winter days and, lordy lordy, bless their 8-bit twee pop tinged hearts for their are succeeding. This is just a sample of the EP named #4 just released under Labrador label and, as far as I'm concerned, I want more! Who knows, perhaps epiphany lays but a vinyl away...

Suburband Kids With Biblical Names - 1999

web skwbn
myspace suburbankidswithbiblicalnames
label Labrador (EU)

Give us hype or give us death // Animal Collective phenomena

By the time that the album leaked somewhere in December, it was already slated as the best album of 2009, which is paradoxal to say the least. Then when it was released in January, various music oriented websites and magazines confirmed it as the best of 2009. It immediately put me off listening to the album, but perhaps that's just me: an antagonizing anti hipster little music cunt. Truth be told, based both on what I mentioned earlier and their previous albums I was very wary of listening to it.

Escaping the single My Girls was/is impossible and I do agree that the song, with it's weird electronic beats and distorted echoing voice dubs, does work. It's catchy and comes across a bit of a more accessible departure from the previous Strawberry Jam and Water Courses releases which is refreshing, so I'm now keen on giving it a good listen. Nevertheless, no matter how good it is, it won't be the album of the year, at least for now. Let's leave those hyped fanboy preconceptions to pitchfork and their ilk, shall we? After all, we still have 11 months of (hopefully) good music to go.

Animal Collective - My Girls

web myanimalhome
myspace animalcollectivetheband
labels Domino (UK/US) + Paw Tracks (US independent)

A menina dança? (VII) // Somebody loves me, somebody somewhere

Cazals - Somebody Somewhere

web Cazals
myspace cazalsuk
label Maison Kitsuné

Visual pattern anyone // M83 & Animal Collective

File under: How to get 100 page hits per second due to all the AC fanboys and fangirls out there.

M83 - Run Into Flowers

web ilovem83
myspace m83
label Gooom Disques

Animal Collective - My Girls

web myanimalhome
myspace animalcollectivetheband
labels Domino (UK/US) + Paw Tracks (US independent)

Lovers of balding and bearded schizo American singers songwriters // Beware

Well hello and welcome to my blog. This is your friendly musical newsletter non-vajeen whore speaking.

Will Oldham aka Bonnie Prince Billy aka Palace aka Palace Brothers aka Palace Music set to deliver... hummm... their customary melancholic folky lo-fi on the 16th of March and tour Europe during that same month. Amsterdam anyone?

Ca caw!

(via Domino's newsletter)

web bonnieprincebilly
myspace princebonniebilly
labels Domino (UK) // Drag City (US)

How to make awesomeness look easy // Arctic Monkeys + Roman Coppola

Arctic Monkeys - Teddy Picker
director Roman Coppola
web arcticmonkeys
myspace arcticmonkeys
label Domino (UK/US)