Unicycles 63 :: Tie A String To Summer
Unicycles 63 :: Tie A String To Summer, not to hold on to, but as to not let go.
Side A (zipped, ~68MB, via mediafire)
Side B (zipped, ~70MB, via mediafire)
1: Air France - Collapsing At Your Doorstep
♥ Using about 10,000 fewer samples than you think while still mainlining the subconscious undercurrent of every beautiful moment you've ever had or dreamed - but no - better, then throw in a handful of symphonic vinyl crackles, mix with faded polaroids, and garnish with beach foam; bam.
2: Culture Reject - Inside the Cinema
♥ Michael O’Connell specializes in playing any instrument that makes a noise, and playing all of them masterfully. He uses this considerable skill to shape the artful melodies that accompany his evocative lyrics. This soft, tender music will let him play your heartstrings too.
3: Indian Jewelry - Pompeii
♥ Indian Jewelry didn't used to be this nice or good. They used to be noisy, vaguely threatening, willfully iconoclastic, difficult and interesting but very ... did I say noisy? Ok, they still sound like they're singing from the bottom of a well, still spouting static, knitting dense nets of mild-to-moderate cacophony. And they continue to love a good coma-inducing drone. But for all intents and purposes, this here is a folky pop song, with clear, emphatic chord progressions draped in jingle-jangle and mope. Just don't ask me what the guy's singing.
4: Paavoharju - Kevätrumpu
♥ Raindrops falling on sheet metal roof melted together with old television's random-dot-pattern-noise. Her soft voice echoes in empty, dusty rooms. Catowls gather to the sky, appletrees bloom and waves rock a barrell against the pier. Without reason, all this formed esoteric mildew to a cassette's magnetic tape. Finished with prayer only a moment before the cold winds rose.
5: Lykke Li vs Holy Ghost - I'm Good, I'm Ghost
♥ Gavin and Lucy loved each other so much that they threw all their luggage into the river. They drove with their suitcases and trunks to the riverbank and threw them all right in. "We'll never need anything except each other," said Lucy, and Gavin traced her lips with his thumb. That night they had a fight, screaming and slamming, and Lucy packed her things into garbage bags. They tore as she clattered down the stairs. As she stood on the sidewalk and waited for the taxi, Gavin called out the window. "Come back!" he yelled. "What?" she said, through the rain. "Come back!" She couldn't understand. She got in the taxi. The next night she came back. It was still raining. She dried her hair on the comforter.
6: KiD CuDi - Day N Nite
♥ Out of the blue a kid from Brooklyn by way of Cleveland. Kid Cudi (AKA Man on the Moon) is a minimalist rapper with otherworldly inspirations. His unique hooks and unorthodox sentiments beg for categorization of which there will be none.
7: Paper Route Gangstaz - Rollin (DJ Ayres Remix)
♥ DJ Ayres reworks PRGz' "Rollin" using the enormous spacey synths from M83's "Couleurs" as his foundation. Not Shabby at all.
8: Flying Lotus - Robo-tussin (ft. Lil Wayne)
♥ Flying Lotus brings his intense, precise, ambient, organic, electronic, beat-filled, groove-laden, mind-altering head jams to Lil Wayne. If Weezy invited you onto his spaceship to preview Tha Carter III, this is what you would have heard.
9: High Places - Golden
♥ This tropical-prog racket will leave you dizzy and smiling.
10: Vivian Girls - Where Do You Run To
♥ The Ronettes as produced by Kevin Shields
11: Thee Oh Sees - Ghost In The Trees
♥ Striking up a garage beat and burrowing through psych scorched vocals and a rag-tag bit of surf on the fringes, Ghost chugs on a full tank of propane. The A.M. crackle deserves to be tossed on and blared out of car speakers long after the drive-in closes but before the sun even thinks about rising.
12: Jeff Hanson - Just Like Me
♥ If Elliot Smith had been a man who sounded like a woman, he would have sounded like this man. Crisp acoustic guitar and impressive gender-bending vocals are what this song is about.
13: Women - Black Rice
♥ This band's name makes it awkward to talk about them, which I'm sure is intentional. Women are from Alberta. Women are men. Women made Women. It's a very interesting little record. Women decided to make it only 29 minutes long. But not in that "19 tracks in 18 minutes" bark punk kind of way. No, it's half songs half ambience, which is both very effective and inevitably a bit too clever. "Women" is the introduction to Women, and to Women. And it's pretty exciting. One of the four straight-ahead songs on the album, Black Rice is easily, casually (like a runner strolling over the line) the best. It comes out of a track of 3 minutes of pink noise, and it's a gorgeous smooth ride in an air-suspension old car. One of those big old ones. Through the light on an old tree-lined street. The thumping clapping drum, the tubular (yes, I did) bass, the piano plinks, they're all kind of carrying you, they're happening, but not to you, you're just floating. You're growing.
14: Young Coyotes - Momentary Drowning
♥ A song that's yell and thump but is still brilliantly slow - relaxed as it booms, as it dings and claps and bobs. Young Coyotes play this music like they've figured it out, like they've solved it. (The reason there are many bands who try to sound like this is that this sounds very good.) It's too early to tell if this is the kind of band that becomes a reason to go out at night, a reason to drive for hours, a reason to shell out bucks and stand in the sun. But it might be. They are young. Eighteen months from now we might all be standing around agog, like kids at a giant prayer meeting, faith-healed. All our denials rendered ridiculous: I can't be jaded because I am sodalite! I can't be drowning because I'm made of ice! I can't be in love because I'm unable! I can't be alone because my hands are clasped! Let's hope.
15: Forest Fire - Fortune Teller
♥ Here is a secret: One night you turned to me in bed - you were still asleep, - and you said "I have nevers in my mouth." But it sounded like bullshit.
16: King Darves - All In My Sleep
♥ An unexpectedly weathered take on the singer-songwriter/bedroom folk idiom. A whisky and smoke cured croon that filters old soul touches through the threadbare assembly. The key to this seems to be the combination of the rich booming vocals that reach far beyond their years and the patchy beauty of Darves' songwriting. A delightful surprise that ends up as enjoyably timeless as any long lost Mississippi blues gem.
17: Sic Alps - Gelly Roll Gum Drop
♥ Still burning up the tubes with fuzz caked blues in many places but tripping into more sensitive territory with bleary eyed strummers that bake in the sun. The finest moments divine some ragged spirit of shamble-down blues squeezing the ghosts of Skip Spence and Roky Erikson through the frayed wires of your speakers. Raw, ragged, perfect.
18: Power Douglas - Pangaea
♥ Sure, the opening notes sound just like a TV On The Radio track, all the way down to a guest spot by Tunde Adebimpe, shouting out lyrics in his inimitably guttural style. But, more circumspect than TVOTR’s punk-gospel rhapsody, Power Douglas has a voice all its own. Adebimpe’s voice is not the focus as the rhythm section pummels along at drilling speed. Power Douglas front man Furor Thin (and, here, Aku from Dragons Of Zynth) follow with verses, with each vocalist sounding more indecipherable than the one before him. “Pangaea” is joyous chaos, a cyclone of heart-pumping bass, machine-like percussion and indecipherable hollers.
19: Abe Vigoda - Animal Ghosts
♥ I was in a grocery store yesterday, we were getting juice or something, and there was meat being delivered. They were wheeling in the carcasses in spare carts. But they came in all at once and swarmed around us and suddenly stopped. In the span of a minute I went from standing in a regular grocery store, to being surrounded by 40 shaved calves stacked in shopping carts with their legs tied and their feet sawed off. I realized quickly this is how certain people view any meat section, that this WAS a regular grocery store for some people, a complete horror show, and all I could think was: "animal ghosts". I love my life.
20: Ponytail - Beg Waves
♥ Ponytail get it exactly right: electrically live and still marvellously composed, like a Duke Ellington suite for hoarse throats, scraped knees, joy. It's The Fall, not Deerhoof, I hear clearest in their song - but with fewer regrets, fewer chips-on-shoulder, just thrills & fears & squawk. Let's say you were arriving overnight from California, muscle-tired and underslept, but you have a whole day in front of you; let's imagine there's a million reasons to fall asleep but one big one to stay awake; let's imagine you have to go on and on and on; let's imagine you need a new reason to pump yr fist in the air. Well: here. Beautiful and squalid.
21: The Dodos - Jodi
♥ (wait until the finger-picking is over)
Given six minutes to pack up my entire life, stupidly, I went right for the kitchen. I just packed up food and soap and liquor. I even forgot your picture, my wallet, my shoes, a change of clothes, a blanket. Believe me, I panicked, pissed in the plant, brushed my hair 28 strokes, and tripped out the door. I've already forgiven myself and lost the key in the grass.
22: Chad VanGaalen - Willow Tree
♥ I picture this performed to an egg, a necessary serenade for every egg to hatch. Chad vanGaalen, his voice worn out from the bird warbling for 10 hours a day, bringing as many little hatchlings to life as one banjo and two muted trumpets and some simple organ can do. It's the chick that brings the bass drum, the xylophone, joins in, plays along, whistles, and all those other fitting, tired, lively things.
23: Titus Andronicus - No Future
♥ A speaker as big as a house, enough furniture to get drunk on, and a screen door to keep the bugs out. A slow dance with the wolfman, four aspirin, a shooting star and a swimming pool. A dark grass field, noise complaints, tagging a lot and begging for sex. Wasted allowance, shock value, breakfast and sleep.
Super Secret Bonus Track: Night Shall Eat These Girls and Boys. - Where Did Our Love Go? (Supremes)
♥ A song performed when lost at sea. When slowly spinning in circles in a round little dinghy, with candles for atmosphere, and the supper of distilled salt water and dried seaweed having been joyously consumed. And when I say "joyously", please understand that it's all relative, this is as joyous, as raucous, as it gets for these men. But when the wind stops and the motion settles briefly, they keep on singing. An intention, a hallucination, being all they can claim as their own in this strange boiling air.
Luckily, they were rescued instantly. They haven't spoken since. The band is still together, though.
