The Post-Rockist

Beat (Health, Life, and Fire)

Bag of Hammers

For the first verses of “Beat (Health, Life, and Fire)” I was nearly convinced that Shannon Hoon was actually alive and posing as this Thao Nguyen character. The “Oh no!” at about the 50 second mark of the song convinced me completely and I was ready to race home to check Pitchfork to see the announcement that the whole Shannon Hoon death thing was a big hoax and that he had written and performed this amazing album.

Sometimes, driving home after a long day of work, I lose my mind.

But the comparison is not completely unfounded. Like Hoon, she’s able to bend her notes while changing volume from a near shout to a near whisper. Her voice is versatile and has just enough rasp to rescue her words from seeming a bit twee and enough easy melody to lighten any burden her listeners might be carrying.

All of the songs concern the singer deeply. They are conversations over the phone, over a beer, or over coffee and cigarettes, only we don’t get the other side of the conversation. And Thao is assisted by a killer back-up band full of multi-instrumentalists to make music that’s sweet as sugar, no matter how tart the her truths may be.

From the insistent rush of “Beat” to the beatbox opening of the saucy “Bag of Hammers” or the sympathetically flowing “Yes, Soon and Soon” to the Billy Preston Let it Be-era Fender Rhodes organ stylings of “Geography”, folk pop doesn’t get much better than this pleasant and thoughtful album about relationships good and bad, healthy and broken, nourishing and sickly.

Check out Thao’s Daytrotter session here.

–Posted by Scotter

Beach House - “Wedding Bell”

Beach House - “D.A.R.L.I.N.G.”
(from Devotion)

I’m not really sure how this happened, but Beach House’s Devotion has managed to become my most played album of 2008. And the strangest thing is, I have only the fuzziest recollection of ever actually listening to it. It’s as if every time the clunky drum machine and mellow organ of “Wedding Bell” start to pump into my ears, my brain switches off into a gauzy reverie, wandering through a snow-covered forest where every tree has the eerily flat dimensionality of a View-Master. Twilight stars flicker on and off as the harpsichord plucks a melody around the occasionally backwards slide guitar. Snippets of somnolent vocals seem to float through the air, but they’re too heavy with reverb to carry much permanence. Everything shimmers and sways and then drifts away. Forty minutes later I’m right back where I was when I pressed “Play,” only my eyes are rolled back in my head and my mouth is dry. While this vacuum of time may not sound appealing, kind of like starting your day off with a cocktail of Vicodin and Tylenol PM, it’s a remarkably pleasant and comforting experience.

I don’t know if it helps things that Alex Scally and Victoria Legrand play in a very focused style (imagine Galaxy 500 recreating the last 60 seconds of “Candy Says” by the Velvet Underground; now extend that for the length of an entire album), but it certainly doesn’t hurt. And, to be fair, Devotion is notably more melodic and beautiful than the band’s 2006 self-titled debut. (Press information suggests that it’s lazy journalism to fall back on Galaxie 500 and Mazzy Star references — there are apparently hints of Dusty Springfield in here; Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra even! But music this pensive and languid doesn’t really scream for in-depth investigation to its sources. I’ll be on the couch with the shades drawn and headphones on.) The individual songs on Devotion tend to meld into one another, making it a frivolous exercise to say that any one song stands out among the rest, creating an overall sense of intimacy and warmth that you will either love entirely or not at all. Somehow I get the feeling that I’ll be getting lost in Beach House’s reverberant reverie for a long time to come.

-Posted by Todd

Do you hate Valentine’s day? Are you single and still nauseated from co-workers receiving and giving flowers and candies of various ilk to and from their “sweethearts”? Were you trying to get a stinkin’ meal last night only to find that you were the only one to bring a book as your date for the night? Do you have uncontrollable tendencies toward the decimation and destruction of happiness? Any plans to someday bring the universe and all its inhabitants to its knees? A penchant for purple hoodies?

Then St. Skeletor’s Day is the holiday for you. And it’s today!

From the St. Skeletor’s Day homepage:

St Skeletor’s Day is a non-commercial alternative to the corporate whorefest that is St Valentine’s Day. Each year, on February 15th, the festival of St. Skeletor occurs worldwide. The purposes are:-

* a) The destruction of ‘lurrve’
* 2) The destruction of saucy greetings cards
* d) The destruction of people with boyfriends/girlfriends

St Valentine of course is the patron saint of making single people feel like crap — each year, the celebration drifts further away from the celebration of love, and further towards the celebration of fluffy handcuffs, expensive flowers, thoughtless greetings cards and other tat shaped into heart shaped packaging, putting pressure on people in relationships to partake of their hard earned cash and actually buy this crap.

This mix is for all of you who are apt to send the girl in the next cubicle’s roses through the paper shredder today.

The Mountain Goats - “No Children”

from Tallahassee

The Pink Mountaintops - “Single Life”

from the single Single Life

Franklin Bruno - “I Blame You”

from A Cat May Look at a Queen

The Hadituptoheres - “In the Beginning”

from “…are bringing the hammer down”

Tom Waits - “The Part You Throw Away”

from Blood Money

Belle and Sebastian - “There’s Too Much Love”

from Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant

Robyn Hitchcock - “Executioner”

from Eye

You know, Freddie Mercury does bare a striking resemblance to Man-At-Arms.

–Posted by Scotter
By the way, I put this short mix of songs together quickly, and as Lurrve destroying as they are, I would like to have a few songs by female artists on this list. Any suggestions?

Elvis Presley - I Love You Because
(from Elvis Presley)

Buddy Holly - You’ve Got Love
(from The “Chirping” Crickets)

Jerry Lee Lewis - Let’s Talk About Us
(from The Essential Sun Collection)

Ricky Nelson - Never Be Anyone Else But You
(from Greatest Hits)

Sam Cooke - Cupid
(from Portrait of a Legend: 1951-1964)

A collection of sappy love songs on Valentine’s Day? What a novel idea! That’s right, it’s hard not to get sucked into the sentiment at least once a year, so wipe off your spectacles, throw on your spiffiest turtleneck, bite onto a red rose, and start practicing your cha cha cha, because this mix is all about love spelled L-U-V. It’s amazing to think that early rock & roll was ever controversial.

I don’t know what these guys are singing about. I’ve heard of Bizet–he wrote Carmen and was French–but that doesn’t matter with music this moving. Although I’m sure that my experience would be heightened if I knew what they were singing, I still get chills from this piece.

A piece on classical music on NPR this morning guided me here, and I’m pretty sure I’ll be listening to this recording for the rest of the day and over and over again. Just another reminder that any indie kid or bowery tough who hasn’t given the occasional classical piece a try is really missing out on spectacular music. No shame in having a music collection where Battles and The Beatles are surrounded by Bach and Bizet.

Looks like we beat Pitchfork to the punch yet again. Through friends of friends of friends of friends of friends of friends of friends of the band, The Post-Rockist has acquired a complete track listing to of Montreal’s next full-length album, entitled Skeletal Lamping, due out on Polyvinyl in October 2008. Reportedly, the album will more closely resemble of Montreal’s early albums like The Gay Parade and Coquelicot Asleep in the Poppies in that it will be composed of several shorter vignettes.

Pagan Wanderlust
Stealing the Metamorphosis En Route to Gothenburg
Mortician’s Studio Hopscotch
Pwning God
Feminine Effects
Grover Cleveland’s Been Schemin’
Mingusings
Our Last Summer of Independence
The la Rochefoucauld Palindrome
Tran-Sister Radio
The Parade of Pompous Paramours
The Enduring Appendage on the Doctor from Eckernförde
We Can Do it Softcore if You Want
Billy Goat Stomp
Part-Time Doughboys and Predisposed Dissidents
A Requiem for Judy
Rhapsody in Rouge (Parts I - III)
Exquisite Confessions
Rhapsody in Rouge (Part IV)

^{Photo Credit: Lindsay Benson}

Daniel Johnston started the show with a rocker. Yeah, you read that: a rocker. With full band in tow, Johnston blazed into “Speeding Motorcycle,” gripping the microphone as if he were holding on for dear life. And just as quickly as the band entered the stage, they exited, leaving Johnston to strap on an acoustic guitar and have some alone time with the sold-out crowd.

“I got a broken heart, and you can’t break a broken heart”

Alone on stage, Johnston flips through a binder full of lyrics with the frantic determination of a frustrated scholar looking for just the right quote to illustrate an idea before losing it to oblivion. As he sang the words “Mean girls give pleasure. / It’s my greatest treasure,” I couldn’t help but notice his shaky and uncertain fingers on the fretboard of his guitar. I’ve never seen anyone hold a guitar like that–so feebly, but with such a tight grip, like a man holding onto the side of a lifeboat. (Continued)