random music for the weekend

Here is some random music that I found over the past couple of days...


The North Atlantic Explorers are a down tempo indie rock band from British Columbia. They have lush, distinctive melodies -- most often described as dreamy. They're great. You can check out their music here and here. (Via the Hype Machine.)



Nuuro is a kid, Alejandro Ghersi, from Venezuela. If you believe the internets, he's only sixteen years old, but that's hard to believe once you've heard one of his songs. Think Postal Service or Death Cab. You can check out tracks from his second album, All Clear, here, here, and here. I love the song "Waiting." He's released a purely electronic album, In Transit, on the Poni Republic label, that's available for free here. But I don't think it's as good as the stuff on his second album. (Via Fat Planet.)

mattafix

My roommate has been raving about Mattafix, a hip hop/reggae/dancehall duo out of the UK. Mattafix consists of Marlon Roudette (an "Anglo/West Indian ... [who] is a steel pan virtuoso and was brought up in tropical St. Vincent") and Preetesh Hirji ("of Indian heritage, ... a self-confessed computer geek brought up on London’s Harrow Road"). Don't know how the two of them hooked up, but their diverse background leads to an eclectic mix of styles with an infectious sound. Their albums are a bit hard to track down in the U.S., but you should definitely check them out.

Their song "Big City Life":



"To & Fro":



"Cradle" (not an official video):

feist

Feist seems to be the current indie media darling. Last week, she had glowing profiles in the New York Times and the New Yorker, just in time for the release of her new album, The Remainder, which is out May 1st.

I'm not sure what to make of her new video "1 2 3 4." It looks like a G-rated American Apparel ad. It seems nothing like what I saw when she opened for Rilo Kiley in 2005 -- a stripped down set that featured her, a guitar, and her beautiful vocals on a sparse stage. But the song is catchy:



That was the first Feist video I had seen, but evidently she's no stranger to the group dance number. Here's her video for "Mushaboom."

yo gabba gabba

Next time I visit my sister, I'm going to make my niece and nephew watch this new show on Nick Jr. (I think) called "Yo Gabba Gabba." You gotta love a kid's show that has a segment on it called "Biz's Beat." That's right, Biz Markie teaches kids how to beatbox. Check it out:



I can't wait to turn my nephew into a beatboxing machine.

(via Your Daily Awesome)

deconstructing a hit song

Hilarious. The Village Voice uses Venn diagrams, flow charts, and logic to deconstruct Mims' #1 song, "This Is Why I'm Hot."

bloody mother fucking asshole

If you haven't fallen in love with Martha Wainwright yet, you must do so immediately. Try to track down her version of "Dis, Quand Reviendras Tu," which is one of my favorite songs ever.

Here is her heart-wrenching "Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole," set to highlights of Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica because...well, Starbuck kicks ass. Simona, you can thank me later.

the connells

Earlier this week, a friend of mine introduced me to The Connells, a (now defunct?) North Carolina band. Maybe she reintroduced me to them because I'm sure she played them for me while she drove me around in her car while we were in college. I'm not sure how I missed out on them the first time since their music is great. I think they came around a decade too early because I think they'd be indie darlings today. Of course, because they're not putting out any new records, it's almost impossible to find their music online. What's that you say? I should just go to a record store? Ummm...that would actually require me to get off my lazy ass. In other news, I hear there's an obesity epidemic in this country.

Here's the video for their song '74-'75.

you can thank my postcolonial marxist history professors for the views in this post

I thought this piece in the Post was interesting. It struck me, however, that the author (and the Washington Post), was a bit elitist about the whole thing. I confess, I would never have stopped to hear the guy. Specifically, I would have been the guy with the iPod saying "violinist, what violinist?"

But even if I didn't have my iPod on, I don't think I would've stopped. Personally, I never really "got" classical music. It's nice, I like some pieces, but at the end of the day, I'm never going to run out and purchase an album. In fact, I wouldn't be able to tell that a world class musician is playing an incredibly difficult piece of music, even if I went to Carnegie Hall. As long as it's fairly proficient, it all sounds good to me. Maybe that means I have no ear for music. But I get the feeling that a whole bunch of old white dudes are really invested in convincing us that there is something inherently transformative and beautiful about classical music. It's the same Eurocentric bullshit we've been fed our entire lives. I'm not saying the music is bad; just that whether you like it or not may be about history, culture, and taste as much as anything inherent in the music. I'd probably find a raga more compelling than a piece of classical music. But I don't expect the rest of the world to necessarily understand.

That being said, I get the author's larger point -- that we should stop and enjoy life more often. I'd like to, but I'm too busy being the right's poster boy for the decline of western civilization. Really guys, maybe you should take a look at Britney Spears instead of me.

obsessively happy sunday music

explosions in the sky

I can't stop listening to Explosions in the Sky, an Austin band that is probably best known (at least outside of Texas) for providing the score for Friday Night Lights (the movie and the NBC TV show). I feel like their songs evoke a nostalgia for small town America (where I spent some formative years of my life), but I'm not sure that's because I associate it with the TV show or if the band is actually connecting with some essential piece of Americana. I'd be interested in what people who haven't seen the show thought. Take a listen:

Also, if you're interested in how the show uses the music, check out:



Actually, you should just watch the show. I don't want it to get cancelled.

this is musiclogue

What is musiclogue? I wanted to do something a little different than your usual blog about music. Rather than just posting about music I liked, I thought it would be more interesting if a group of friends could have "conversations" about music in a blog format. (Plus, my friends are much more knowledgeable about music than I am.) I also thought it would be an easy way to find out what my friends were listening to, since I'm music junkie and always need a new fix.

This may turn out to be just another normal blog about music, or it may turn out to be something more. We'll see what happens. But if you're interested, come along for the ride.

-- sujal