Here’s the truth: I’m really attracted to Simon Amstell. British, snarky, Jewish, and, unfortunately for me, not a player on my team. The hilariously funny presenter for Never Mind the Buzzcocks recently had two indie stalwarts on his show—-that dude from Hot Chip and that dude who used to be in Test Icicles but started making moderately acceptable indie pop.

Everybody loves a good pop show!

part 2 + part 3

Have a listen:

Hot Chip - Wrestlers

Lightspeed Champion - Listening to Crunk

Featuring resident dreamboat Zach Condon of Beirut fame, this track from Brandon Bethancourt’s Alaska in Winter project is Condon-heavy, carrying the signature mix of Balkan-y instruments and electronic sounds. It’s soft and charming and makes my heart warm, the end:

Alaska in Winter - Close Your Eyes

Alaska in Winter on myspace.

Bonus Points:

Little Name’s full-length release, How To Swim and Live, hearkens back to the sadder tones of Elvis Costello.  Think Costello after hearing some motherfucker named Morrissey for the first time; dwelling on it, being moved by it for a couple of songs, then moving on back to the way it’s meant to be–the aim’s true, after all.

Little Name - Orienteering

Little Name at Myspace.

I’m back, lovelies, from the cold and wintery artistic dead. Even in a funk the music tends to set a mood; lately I’ve opted for the bleary experimental-folkiness of Grizzly Bear and Akron/Family. The latter, composed of three multi-talented instrumentalists, create in their songs either a glorious buildup of noise/non-noise or a dreamy melancholy–never in between. Grizzly Bear, who have garnered significant buzz on the internet lately, are more precise in their melancholy. You know that kind of loneliness you get when you can’t fucking get to writing / painting / drawing / designing / creating and nobody else understands? The mix between the echoes of quiet sounds and the chaos of frustration seethe through these two acts in a way that many of the records on my shelf fail to do.

Akron/Family - Don’t Be Afraid You’re Already Dead

Grizzly Bear - Knife

P.S. : check out the awesome video for this grizzly bear song:

As far as musical phases go, my infatuation with 60’s French pop was a lot more longstanding than I could have accounted for. Pieces of it go on today, as I’m more apt to opt for a singalong or a two-step than experimental balderdash. That period was romantic, as all accounts go. Everyone was stylish and frank, the women dyed their hair blonde to look like Brigitte Bardot, and the youth culture became an international phenomenon. It was the era of Gainsbourg and Birkin; of European pop, also called Yé-yé music come from kids weaned on early rock’n'roll. France’s response to the girl groups and enthusiastic soul singers from Motown.

I have found more than my fair share of albums from this period for a quarter’s worth at thriftstores, and in incessant digging I came across my favorite: Jacques Dutronc (who ended up marrying another icon of the age, Francoise Hardy).

His songs are a little grittier than other songs from that era (think Ray Davies’ Kinks influence) but still have that same youthful kick. He’s gotta be in his mid to late 60’s now, but he’s probably retained that suave European charm (although in that photo, he’s lookin’ real intenselike).

Jacques Dutronc - Et Moi, Et Moi, Et Moi

Jacques Dutronc - Les Playboys

The Headphone Masterpiece, that two-disc album by Cody Chesnutt, may be the most aptly titled album released in recent memory. Recorded on a 4-track in his bedroom recording studio, the sound is soft and warm, muted guitars and vocals adding an interesting lo-fi layer to some soulful and well-written songs. It’s difficult for some people to understand the album as a whole as a masterpiece; it’s unclean, with tape hisses and sometimes undecipherable vocal tracks, 40-second pieces, and completely random song topics. But the aesthetic is completely real and true, coming off as the honest diary of a man whose art, at any point, may be messy and unclean. Oh well.

Despite being remixed by The Roots (The Seed 2.0) and having a cameo appearance in Dave Chappelle’s Block Party, he’s eluded any real mainstream success—-and taken an indefinite hiatus from the music industry. There are enough songs on this 2-disc album to keep my appetite full until he decides to come back.

[On a personal note: the song below was included the one mixtape I recieved last year, and it was so perfect and coherent and complete that I nearly broke down in tears.]

Cody Chesnutt - Six Seconds

Buy Headphone Masterpiece from Amazon.

At some point in my adolescence, I was watching 50’s science fiction films and listening to a ton of Cibo Matto.  Miho Hatori and Yuka Honda had, in my eyes, always brought along this ethereal space-age cool, blended effortlessly in their sometimes uptempo, sometimes undecipherable music. Most people found that cool in Bjork.  I opted for Cibo Matto.

Miho Hatori released an under-the-radar album this past year (I believe), dabbling in the tempo shifts and electronic sounds that defined Cibo Matto but coming into an influence all her own.

Miho Hatori - Barracuda 

Hello, Jens Lekman. You’re the latest in a sucession of scintillating Scandinavian musicians in my life. Night Falls Over Kortedala made a mark on a year of distinctly unsolid releases, and you’ve gained a ton of success for witty performances and general all-around storytelling ability. And disco samples.

Kortedala is full of honest sincerity and pop sensibility–a feat in an age of ever-present corniness and lack of wit in songwriting.

This song is a narrative about Nina, a friend of his who’s put him in an uncomfortable situation; he’s gotta pretend to be her boyfriend so her dad won’t find out she’s a lesbian. I’ve seen a live version where he says, “Oh! God! What’ve I done! / I just wanted to have some fun / And it turned into Buffalo 66…”

Jens Lekman - A Postcard To Nina

In another domestic thriftshopping escapade we found Songs of Leonard Cohen on vinyl, his first album.

Shortly thereafter I came upon this robotic gem of a Cohen, live in 1979:

This is from the Spector-produced Death of a Ladies’ Man, and from what I understand, the mastering process of which culminated in Cohen being barred from the studio, kept out by a crossbow-wielding Spector. Guess a wall of sound just wasn’t enough.

Enough with the sissy-girl prog rock! When it comes down to it, I really just wanna dance filthy with all my good-looking friends under a high powered strobe light that gives the same effect to every shot from every camera! I wanna tune out and still look fabulous!

Please, folks. Let’s not take ourselves seriously here.

Calvin Harris doesn’t. And he’s a sex machine.

For fans of, oh, I dunno… electro shit. Only, better. Funnier. With a better accent.

Calvin Harris - Merrymaking at My Place

Bonus! For your aural pleasure: