TRANSFERENCE

is spoon's seventh album, january 26 2010.



tracklisting:

01 Before Destruction
02 Is Love Forever?
03 The Mystery Zone
04 Who Makes Your Money
05 Written in Reverse
06 I Saw the Light
07 Trouble Comes Running
08 Goodnight Laura
09 Out Go the Lights
10 Got Nuffin
11 Nobody Gets Me But You

this is shaping up to be the best january ever!
WRITTEN IN REVERSE --- SPOON. how sick will this be on the album?

JAM

HELP I'M ALIVE --- METRIC

MAKING GOOD ON THAT PROMISE

ASSORTED JAMS --- SURFER BLOOD
intensely and adorably likeable. built on a very classic and very delicious pop structure.

THE ONLY BAND I WILL BLOG ABOUT EVER AGAIN

this fucking band.

COTILLION BLUES --- WHITE RABBITS
this fucking song.

huge. messy. ecstatic. piano / horns / great layered vocal around the end, "oh what can i do." greg roberts recorded the vocals on this whilst drunk at 3am. this is so good i can't wrap my head around it. i want to revise my best of list from last year. i listened to it for the first time about ten minutes ago and by the end of it i had my head in my hands and kept saying "oh my god." PERFECTION

i promise my next post will be about a different band.

NOW, YOU WERE THE KID ON MY SHOULDERS

i'm just going to cut and paste my facebook status and those of my compatriots to tell you WHAT WENT DOWN LAST NIGHT when i endeavored to see white rabbits after an epic saga of show cancellation and reinstation and relocation to a 21+ venue and all that drama.

"21+ so standing outside by the window at the basement, surprisingly great sound, better when opened halfway through white rabbits' set by some random guy, drinking coffee and cider, invited in just to hear percussion gun. best night ever."
--- me

"Tonight shall go down as the Night of All Nights. Percussion Gun ♥"
--- olivia

"This is gonna be a night to tell the grandkids."
--- danielle

i snagged a setlist. they covered atlas sound's "shelia" and it blew the original out of the water. someone had better youtube that asap. i have to see them again now so that i can actually be inside the building for their entire set. this band is fantastic, especially live. go see them now.

here is a quiet and sexy and wonderful version of one of the year's best songs - coincidentally the only one i watched from inside. except, they played the REGULAR VERSION. which is a jam if there ever was one.
ANYWAY, this is quite enjoyable...
PERCUSSION GUN (LIVE) --- WHITE RABBITS

SEA OF RUM

"the devil went ahead in a fishing town
now he lives on a beach on long island sound."

all percussion and wrapped-up voices. fantastic.

WARPAINT

these ladies are fantastic. i saw them friday opening for school of seven bells. INCREDIBLE. here's a great song:
ELEPHANTS --- WARPAINT

LIGHTER OF FIRES

another contender for song of the decade. so great and so gorgeous.

the great talent of this band lies in their versatility. what's the continuity between their three albums? um, the trombone?

SAUVIGNON FIERCE

"i get up without warning and go flying around the house in my sauvignon fierce, freaking out. take a 45-minute shower and kiss the mirror, say look at me baby, we'll be fine, all we gotta do is be brave and be kind"



BABY WE'LL BE FINE --- THE NATIONAL
for lack of a better word, this song is stunning.

alligator, as a full album, is worth your time.

added: LIT UP (LIVE) --- THE NATIONAL
AVAILABLE (LIVE) --- THE NATIONAL

PARASITES

one of my favorite songs that no one's ever heard is the soft pack's "parasites."



i truly appreciate this song but i MOST APPRECIATE it recorded for daytrotter.

PARASITES --- THE SOFT PACK. other songs too, but parasites is the best.

a big powerful punch in the face of a song. all constancy, down to matt lamkin's voice (what an great voice) - until that moment when things fall apart and come back together. truly incredible.

IF I WROTE YOU A SYMPHONY

MY LOVE --- WHITE HINTERLAND
i'm a sucker for a well done pop cover, and casey dienel's got a voice LIKE NONE OTHA.

here's a duet that i love, with ms. dienel and another really fantastic underrated dude:

PAYING FOR IT --- CASEY DIENEL AND SAM BUCK ROSEN

ALL HANDS AND THE COOK

i'm pretty sure i've talked about this song before. let's talk about it again.



LISTEN TO IT LIVE, HERE

recorded, this song is good. live, different story, live it is great, live it is borderline terrifying. the walkmen know how to write a song that hits you in the face. this song might as well beat the shit out of you and then there's what hamilton called in an interview "the happy section" which is really just "the less violent section" when it will drive you to the hospital. all the reverb on the guitar and the organ and how subtle and insistent the drums are and the words, and how the words are delivered: "you were lost when i found you" --- there is something antique about this, something old, something dug up, something kept dusty in your attic, some dark familial secret. in my first post on this blog about the walkmen i wrote about how they know how to create these landscapes with music. you can see and you can feel everything, you can walk into everything, you can touch everything, everything pulls at you. what do you see in this one?

HORCHATA

okay i think i can do this now.

HORCHATA --- VAMPIRE WEEKEND

ezra kills on this, by which i mean his voice sounds like stabbing me in the heart. that part with "ohhhh you had it but ohhh no you lost it!" let's just NOT TALK ABOUT IT. i love the breaks with the drumming and the "ohhhhh!" it kind of throws back to m79. they make great use of the marimba (almost as great as paul simon's "can't run but," except considerably less sexy than that song --- face it, "can't run but" is HOT. i wish i could find an mp3 because that song is sexier than hell, entirely without intending to be). the only sexy thing about horchata is ezra's voice, which just does that naturally. "the lips and teeth that asked how my day went..." DIDN'T I SAY I WASN'T GOING TO TALK ABOUT IT?

horchata goes in a different direction - the first thing i thought was "this is weird" - but when you listen to it, it is very natural. the electronics are a bit like white sky and a bit like discovery, there are some lovely strings on it, it's got those sweet pining regretful lyrics that i adore. the way it builds at the end (from 2:20) is just fantastic, adding pieces and pieces and pieces and then backing it all off.


i almost like it better live, HERE, IN TORONTO. fantastic how they do the marimba line on the guitar.

IMPORTANT SONG

a little bit south of provence in france is the camargue.



when i was in france we drove through here. it was wintertime and colder than usual. the countryside is full of these old stone houses, wild horses, green brush, salt flats.

this is the song i listened to, over and over and over.

SHAKE A FIST --- HOT CHIP

DECADE

this is the first full decade of my life. needless to say it's pretty damn important to me. it is so hard for me to pick what my favorite albums are because i am very much a child of this decade and all my music is loose, intangible, unassigned. here are five that stood out to me. without these albums i would not be who i am. without these bands i would not be who i am. each of these albums are lovely unique creatures. i wish i could properly extend my thanks to everyone who had any hand in making any of them. i am forever in your debt. thank you guys.

TOP FIVE IN ORDER


FLAWLESS. FLAWLESS, FLAWLESS, FLAWLESS.


not flawless. endearing in its flaws. beautiful in its flaws. there is a great sense of foreboding in this, and there is a great sense of fun, and there is a great sense of talent. so much happening, but not too much. never too much.


gorgeous, chilling, incredibly influential. i remember spin once said that funeral made it no longer okay to just mope and sound like joy division. now you have to overcome something, and you have to sing about it in french it over a string quartet.


sexy, self-assured, incredibly influential. this put a sound to a time and a place and an aesthetic that it can bring you back to unfailingly. what an achievement for five twenty-something kids.


all sweet smart simple love songs and fuck-you songs disguised as songs about grammar and songs about things no one would ever think to write songs about. like dancing alone in the summer - blind sweaty ecstasy, buried melancholy.


i think the final three albums here will one day prove to be very important. we've seen it with funeral and is this it already, and i think we'll end up seeing it with vampire weekend. the first two aren't necessarily the ones that i thought were really influential, they were just the two that i liked the most. i didn't rank this by MOST INFLUENTIAL (because if i did the strokes would be #1).


RUNNERS UP, IN NO ORDER

--GRIZZLY BEAR "VECKATIMEST" gorgeous, sweeping, lovely, i think the word is "epic"
--MIA "ARULAR" a true badass and a true innovator
--THE NATIONAL "BOXER" stunning, glorious, calming
--THE WALKMEN "EVERYONE WHO PRETENDED TO LIKE ME IS GONE" the walkmen IS - reverb, insane drums, organ, and THAT FUCKING VOICE.
--DIRTY PROJECTORS "RISE ABOVE" black flag reimagined as talking heads-y afropop. does this not sound amazing to you
--RADIOHEAD "HAIL TO THE THIEF" of course
--ANIMAL COLLECTIVE "FEELS" the best thing they have ever done, or will ever do
--NEW PORNOGRAPHERS "MASS ROMANTIC" a perfect framework for indie pop music
--BLOC PARTY "SILENT ALARM" angry when it wanted to be, sexy when it wanted to be, always confessional
--INTERPOL "TURN ON THE BRIGHT LIGHTS" vacant hollow sound. "puts the weights in my heart"
--BELLE AND SEBASTIAN "FOLD YOUR HANDS CHILD, YOU WALK LIKE A PEASANT" the beginning, for me
--SPOON "KILL THE MOONLIGHT" sparse, sexy, sharp, amazing
--TAPES N TAPES "THE LOON" hype and backlash and bullshit. tapes n tapes made good

I MADE THE BEST OF IT

i am in love.
this song is beautiful.

EVERYONE WHO PRETENDED TO LIKE ME IS GONE --- THE WALKMEN

hamilton has a real gift for saying a lot with a little. there is very little in this song. it has this great bleak energy. the way it all builds up - the drums. holy shit. always the drums, with the walkmen. if the rat is as hopeless as you can be, this song is how you got there. "i made the best of it." over the organ and the drums and that fantastic reverby guitar, over loops of itself, over everything - "i made the best of it." i did all i can do. i did all i can do. this is a perfect song for the fall. leaves crunching beneath your feet. you are walking with your head down. you did all you could do.