Learning the Metric System
Blog friend Televisionarie recently informed me that she didn’t know much about Metric. As a recently converted Metric fan myself (got the appeal sometime in early fall 2008), and one excited about next week’s new album, Fantasies, I threw together this quick mix:
Succexy was the first Metric song I ever sought out, and only then after having it described to me as a modern war protest song. I expected a Masters of War type song, not something as flashy as Shock and Awe. This song’s ability to ape the breathlessness of the beginning of the Iraq War in order to protest it won me over pretty quickly. From there, I meandered through the albums. The songs above are all great, but the best ones are Succexy, Monster Hospital, Live It Out, and my favorite, the closer Dead Disco.
And as a bonus, stream the entire new album at the official Metric website.
A Change is Gonna Come…
…And it’s here.
For 8 years, some of us have made it through the years with this kind of determination and grit:
I am gonna make it
Through this year
If it kills me…
But, starting tomorrow, someone who cares about the values and troubles of real people will be in the White House. Miracles won’t occur overnight. America won’t suddenly gain renewed prosperity. The rest of the world won’t forget the hooded man of Abu Ghraib, but we can, through renewed engagement and hard work, return to the city on the hill (though the shine may have faded a bit). I’d be surprised if much of Obama’s domestic agenda will pass, beset as he will be with the economic mess wrought by the current administration.
But I’m hopeful. And as I brave the crowds and the cold tomorrow, there will be a lightness in my step, a smile on my lips, and a tiny bit of hope in my cynical heart. The problems we face will be new iterations of the same old ones, but we’ve solved them before, and we as a people will triumph again. So humming pride and patriotism, I will cheer:
A Busy Week, Pt. 2
So yesterday I promised a second round of music from last week’s crazy grab bag, and I make good on my promises. Track listing:
- Marching Band – Travel in Time
- The Clientele – George Says He Has Lost His Way
- Marissa Nadler – My Little Lark
- The Silents – Eat Your Face
- Viva Voice – From the Devil Himself
- Tricky – Bacative
- Starlight Mints – Pearls (Submarine #2)
- The New Year – My Neighborhood
So far this week, I haven’t had a whole lot of time to look around for new stuff, but I’m not super impressed with anything. It happens, I guess.
A Busy Week, or It’s Overflowing
Picture taken at Great Falls, VA
Whew, so 2 weeks ago, I said to myself, “dammit, must update blog!” and Self snickered but said sure. Who knew Self was going to rely on external exigencies to get its nefarious non-updating way?
Yes, the past week has been too busy for me to do any writing, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been listening.
There are some weeks where 1 or 2 interesting albums drop, and I pick up an album or two from a year ago from some band I’ve just stumbled across. But not last week! Last week alone the following great albums came out:
- Bound Stems – The Family Afloat
- The Broken West – Now Or Heaven
- Damien Jurado – Caught in the Trees
- Fujiya and Miyagi – Lightbulbs
- The Lovely Sparrows – Bury the Cynics
- Marching Band – Spark Large
- The New Year – s/t
- Okkervil River – the Stand-Ins
- Parenthetical Girls – Entanglements
- Tricky – Knowle West Boy
I also picked up:
- Birdmonster – From the Mountain to the Sea
- The Clientele – That Night, a Forest Grew
- Jessica Fletchers – Less Sophistication (yay!)
- The Last Shadow Puppets – The Age of the Understatement (finally on eMusic – glad I waited)
- Marissa Nadler – The Saga of Mayflower
- The Uglysuit – s/t
- Viva Voice – Get Yr Blood Sucked Out
- The Silents – Sleepwalker
I’m weary just from typing all of them up. So far, all of the new albums are standouts; not a bad album in there. I’ve never encountered Damien Jurado before, but I find his Elliott Smith suddenly got happy approach to music relaxing. The new Tricky, though at times a bit too reggae for me, reminds me how much I’ve always liked his work – and resurrects the giddy laughter that always bubbles up whenever I hear his music thanks to his minor role in Fifth Element. Some of the new stuff, like Marching Band or The Lovely Sparrows, is just beautiful orchestral indie pop. How can you go wrong with that? Finally, the new Okkervil River and the new Broken West kick ass. Haven’t gotten to The New Year’s latest yet.
So I threw together a quick mix; Part 2 will be up (probably) tomorrow and then it’s off to the races for another week’s new releases!
- The Lovely Sparrows – Year of the Dog
- Parenthetical Girls – Young Eucharists
- Damien Jurado – Coats of Ice
- Bound Stems – Happens to Us All Otherwise
- Fujiya and Miyagi – Knickerbocker
- The Broken West – Auctioneer
- Okkervil River – Lost Coastlines
- The Uglysuit – Chicago
Mixes, Browsers and more
I was sad when Muxtape was shot down. It was a glowing star arcing across the night sky, a great, simple service whose brilliance made its demise inevitable. Of course, the goons at the RIAA killed it instead of trying to work with it. I’m surprised it took them as long as it did. They don’t believe in innovation, even when it draws more attention to their (and non-RIAA) bands. You couldn’t download any of the songs in a mix, but any user could build their own mixes to share with people. It very effectively updated the old practice of trading mixtapes for the digital age. Moreover, it was quickly being upgraded for band use – so they could quickly and easily offer a selection of songs on their website in a more attractive interface than myspace’s clunky UI.
But Muxtape’s existence was a waltz with illegality. The act of storing songs on a server that are not owned by the server’s owner brought down MP3.com almost a decade ago, and this wasn’t too much different. Limited a bit, but only in that just 12 songs could be uploaded at any time.
8tracks.com, a Muxtape competitor, claims their service is a bit more legal, at least under the DMCA, because they believe they are a webcaster, not… whatever Muxtape was. I took it for a spin today, and was generally impressed. It’s not as slick as Muxtape; the interface is pointlessly disjointed, with the main focus of the site (the mix) shoved off to the right for some reason. Once you get past that, though, it’s fairly straightforward – upload your mp3s, reorder them as needed, and edit the title or author tag if it’s not recognized. It even allows you to embed the mix (see below) which was one of the shortcomings of Muxtape, and add cover art (I’m too lazy right now). You’re limited to just 8 tracks, in keeping with the site name, which can be kind of a drag. But arbitrary limits have to be set somewhere, right?
In other news, Google released their new web browser, Chrome, today. It’s got a lot of great features, including better memory management than Firefox, a privacy mode, and overall snappiness. I’m still playing with it, and not sure that it will replace Firefox as my browser of choice (especially since it’s not available for Macs yet), but it’s definitely running lighter than Firefox ever has. Check out this webcomic for more details.
Now for the mix:
Listing:
- The Real Tuesday Weld – It’s a Wonderful Li(f)e: What a terribly pretentious name for a great song.
- The Week That Was – The Airport Line:Sounds like Village Green Preservation Society era Kinks.
- Devotchka – Comrade Z :I’m really digging this Eastern European sound.
- The Race – Feathers
- Kyle Andrews – Tennessee Torture Dream:Andrews wishes he was old school Pete Yorn. We can forgive him for this, but only because new Pete Yorn is so terrible.
- Takka Takka – Silence:Check out the video.
- Good Old War – I’m Not For You:My friend Mike found this band, and he’s almost always right when he points me to his discoveries.
- Billie the Vision and the Dancers – Lily from the Middleway Street:A strange Swedish collective, all of their albums are available for free on their website. This is from the newest one, I Used to Wander These Streets.