Trent England

livefromthenypl:

A great moment from the dense but incredibly thought-provoking event with Brian Eno, Peter Sellars and Anish Kapoor. 

“Powler” - Bohren & der Club of Gore

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This song is often credited as “Prowler.” But it’s actually “Powler.”

“Boiling ft. Sinead Harnett” - Disclosure

unusualyoung:

thomas talarico

“Birds Leaving” - Boo Hewerdine, from Thanksgiving

tupac:

by Duncan_Smith

travelerfromanantiqueland:

Larry Rivers 

unusualyoung:

katherine squier

katherinesquier:

jill, smiling (by katherine squier)

unusualyoung:

Rebekah Seok

indiernb:

Ayah + Slakah The Beatchild - “Keep Up”

“I’m Not Worried At All” - Moby

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Fewer artists have such a disparate catalog as Moby. Even within the constraints of the beginning and end of an album there are extremes (like in Animal Rights), but it’s in that span of differences that his best, most unloved and overlooked tracks can be found. 

Since his entering the zeitgeist, Moby has been embraced by a crowd somewhere in between the club scene and people who really like movie trailers. Fans of his earlier ambient and trance-like works were left in the dust when he peaked in the mid- to late-’90s, with his songs being featured in movie trailers and commercials.

It’s hard to be a Moby fan when you have to enlist the caveat: “only the good Moby songs.” Technically, I’m probably not a fan, and more of an interested listener, but I like too many of his songs for my absorption to be considered to be in passing: I like Play and 18’s b-sides a lot. I’ve been listening to the same copy of Ambient that I bought in 1998, and it still holds up. I take great issue with Animal Rights - sometimes it makes me want to throw the CD out the car window (“That’s When I Reach For My Revolver”), and other times, it blows me away with its grandeur (“Dead Sun”).

“I’m Not Worried At All” is the last track on 18 (yes, it was the eighteenth track), just around the height of Moby’s fame (Play). And like much of this era, was heavily sample-based, and suffers from the same highs and lows (look no further: 18 opens with the broad and uninteresting “We Are All Made of Stars” and ends with “I’m Not Worried At All”). “Not Worried…” takes liberties with the continuity of the sample, so that just as it begins to sound coherent, it’s zipped down and then looped again, lending the song a kind of a warped nature. It sounds as if someone’s held a magnet to the track a few times. Still, with its gospel sample and the minor choir that accompanies it, there’s a quality of reverence in the air. “I’m Not Worried At All” has a devotional feel, valedictorian and slightly holy. It’s uplifting as much as it is introspective.

Like the old design axiom, when you can’t see Moby, he’s doing his job best.

letsmovetothecountry:

Detalhe do campo
Frederico Mercadante

“Hubbard Hills” - Tindersticks

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I kind of feel sorry for people who came to Tindersticks by way of Eastbound & Down, not because it’s an inauthentic avenue by which to discover the band, but because this song doesn’t accurately reflect who they are (it smacks greatly of The Dirty Three - which is a great smack). Still, it’s a damn good track, and should be enjoyed and shared, regardless of whether you’re a Tindersticks fan or because you found them through a TV show. 

Curtains was meant to be one of the better British records of the ’90s and Stuart Staples’s group was meant to become a major player in British rock music (they’re still largely influential and have a credible legacy regardless of their popularity). I’m no pop music historian, certainly not even of the armchair variety, but I suspect Jarvis Cocker’s Pulp overshadowed Tindersticks, which is an unfortunate obscurity. I think Staples’s music holds up better over time (Cocker’s funnier, though), and I think newcomers to their music should get the chance to hear his voice. (Similarly, I have a bone to pick with fans of The National who blink blankly when I suggest their sound owes a great deal to Tindersticks.)

On 1997’s Curtains was an accessible and sad song called “Rented Rooms,” and like much of their songwriting, it featured a narrative of loss and regret. The lyrics tell the story of two lovers who seem bound to their sexual arrangement, and the narrator wants something more, but there is no time:

We can’t afford the time to sit and cry/ or to wonder why 
We got so many things started to say/ we have to get through 
We haven’t got the time for telling lies/ or to even try to  

It gets more specific, evolving from the suggestion that the groundless affair could continue, into real loss, without sounding sappy:

In those pillows all the feathers that hold all our dreams/ Whispered at the scene 
Now they just seem to float on a breeze 
I could have wrapped that pillow around my head 
Face down on the bed 
I could have drowned in those so-called dreams

I didn’t look these lyrics up until years after I had been consuming this record (though only in intervals - Curtains should be prescribed carefully and taken in doses). For a long time, I thought the lyrics “through the doors of that rented room” were actually “through the desert of the rented rooms,” which would have fit equally well:

Tindersticks inevitably remind me of when I came around to Nick Cave. Like many artists who I originally dismissed but then came around to in a big way (like Tom Waits), I had begun the journey in the wrong place. Eight years ago, someone had foisted upon me Cave’s newest, and it was the wrong Cave, wrong time. It was only a couple of years later that I discovered The Good Son, and, among its gems, “The Weeping Song”:

If you’re new to Cave, you’ll forgive the gothic flair for the sake of the percussion: the chimes, xylophone and drums really make this song. 

And then “The Weeping Song” by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds reminds me of “Minor Place” by Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, and probably had a great deal to do with my acceptance of Cave (“Foi Na Cruz” also helped). I’m convinced the two tracks contain sister beats.

Consider “A Minor Place,” the opening track of Oldham’s most famous record (due in no small part to Johnny Cash’s cover of “I See a Darkness”):

Which brings me to my final thought on this string of bands: I would love a Nick Cave/Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy collaboration (Oldham’s work with Tortoise was how I discovered him in the first place - - which reminds me that Tortoise and The Ex’s record was/is really good! And still holds up!). It would bring Oldham to a different octave, figuratively. He and Cave both like to dance, too. There can be spotlights and everything.

letsmovetothecountry:

c. 1800 Southern Colonial
Accokeek, Maryland

Guest House Exterior

“Gulf Shores” - Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy

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There are a few artists that I really can’t talk about in conversation, all for different reasons: Woody Allen, because I can’t bear to hear a sideways word said against him; Larry Rivers, because his personal life clouds honest conversation; The Beatles, because they are so multi-sided that whenever someone talks about The Beatles, they’re all talking about a different band. Will Oldham, aka Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy aka Palace (among other names), I prefer to not talk about as there truly are so many facets to his career and his music (and, unlike, say, the maturing progression of a band like The Beatles, it was done purposefully), that I doubt I’d ever talk to someone who likes what I like about Oldham for the reasons I like him. 

I say all that to qualify my claim that I think Greatest Palace Music is his finest record to date. For those who don’t know: After Oldham retired the Palace era (names used: Palace, Palace Brothers, Palace Music, Palace Songs), he began recording under the name Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy (in the mid-90s, he did record an album under his own name - Joya - which is my 2nd favorite Oldham record), a name he still uses to this day. Greatest Palace Music was Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy recording a “greatest hits” album of Palace songs (not to be confused with Palace Songs). The album was recorded in Nashville, the songs performed in the style of classic country music, and the lineup is full of Nashville’s studio musicians. In short, it’s truly a country music album (unlike Lie Down in the Light and going forward), full of shimmering steel guitars and crackling backup vocals. 

The record is a joy to listen to, but admittedly a joyful inside joke. See, one of the many things that make this record unique is that Greatest Palace Music is doing two things at once: it’s a tribute to all the country musicians who have influenced Oldham over the years (he regularly cites Merle Haggard), but at the same time it’s meant to be a joke, one of irony - “See me making this record? You know I’m not really like this.” But he performs with such earnestness that, in a song like “Gulf Shores” or “West Palm Beach,” I sometimes even doubt my assessment of the irony. Still, knowing everything about Oldham, I know the irony is there. But this accessibility makes it a less puzzling inside joke than, say, Lambchop’s Nixon, because you don’t need to know the album’s pedigree or history to enjoy the album. You don’t need to know that Palace’s music (again, not to be confused with Palace Music) is nothing like this. GPM is so straightforward, it could be played in the background at a country-western bar, and its faster tracks could be line-danced to.

“Gulf Shores” stands out to me more than the others, for a melody that I can’t find in any of his other work, which is not to say that it’s better than something off I See a Darkness or Arise, Therefore; it’s a singular experience only a close listener could find. Someone who’s YouTubed Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and got bored after five minutes would never know about this song. Someone who downloaded I See a Darkness because it was referenced in an article at Pitchfork will be disappointed when they delve further in Oldham’s catalog. 

It’s hard for me to not take this moment to talk about how long I’ve been a fan (7 years), or that I’ve seen him in concert (3 years ago), or that I own a BPB t-shirt (it says BEWARE on it), or that I think I’ve listened to more of his music than a normal person should listen to. I have CDs and singles that are out of print, and I have very strong opinions on each of his eras. I can tell you which songs I find overrated, which ones I wish the public had never heard, and which ones I wish the public did know about.

This version of “Gulf Shores” is one of them. 

“New England” - The Modern Lovers

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I’m a latecomer to Jonathan Richman, and this was one of the first songs I ever heard of his. I’ve never seen There’s Something About Mary, and I should say that I tend to avoid singer-songwriter stuff for the most part (there are some very strong exceptions to this rule, but I’ll get into that another time). Needless to say, I had never encountered his music until I thought of him not too long ago and decided I wanted to check him out. 

I had also not known that he was from New England, specifically Massachusetts, my adopted home state. This song, “New England” is admittedly corny and uncomplicated, kind of a simplistic Lou Reed or Iggy Pop (which is in itself probably a simplistic description - maybe even dismissive), but the tune is happy and matches my current mood, which has more to do with the weather than I care to admit. The lyrics, too, I find sweet and honest; who would have thought Richman would have success writing a tune of which the thesis statement was nothing more than “I love home”?