Michael Jackson - Captain Eo (Disneyland - 3D Glasses)
by laingui

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tumblr post 2, de-lux and re-dux

literally thousands of words inside
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sun-dried sundries

As I wrote in my first post ever, nothing's better for the stretch of time between midnight and sunrise during finals period than The Field. I was head over heels for the first single from his upcoming sophomore album "Yesterday and Today", but I was also a little worried about it. I loved his debut record for a lot of reasons. It made me use genre names like "trance" and "minimalism" inappropriately. Listening to the way he arranges samples was a little bit like repeating the word "branch" or "Africa" over and over until it deforms in your mouth from picking up extra dipthongs and syllables. Most of all it was a very sterile techno record, evocative of ice and shiny things, and when I played it, rather than the sound traveling through the air it felt like it was coating the room in a shimmering layer of some semifluid. Only "Little Heart" and "Everday" really sounded like club tracks, though it was all danceable, and I have little conception of what music they play in da club.




The Field - "The Little Heart Beats So Fast"

The Field - "Everday"




I was a little bit worried about "The More That I Do" just because of how florid it sounded. I'm not saying that Four Tets are a dime a dozen, but actually I'm kind of saying that. (The coolest thing that Four Tet has done since I was in 10th grade is his just released collabo with Burial, whose style is similarly unbiteable) What was I saying? Oh, the new Field track. Pretty multilayered to the point that it's almost too busy. I worried, what if the whole album is like this? It'd just be another techno album whose pacing can't be matched by a non-fuckedwith human heart. Not that I'm saying it sounded like a rave album (wouldn't know) but I knew what I didn't want, and it was for the Field to sound like anybody else.

"Yesterday and Today" leaked a couple days ago! I'm going to buy it when it comes out, but you could find it on either torrent site that begins with a W and hear it right now. I was very pleased when I heard the first track. Another sterile, slow-burning, tactile techno song that I could easily love--but so much richer than the last album. Compared to the new one, FHWGS is kid stuff--too harsh, but it's an album full of ideas where this one is just more insistent, purpose-driven, even.

The second track took me way by surprise--it has words! Because I am a cultural rube sometimes, I haven't watched Eternal Sunshine in awhile (because I'm not in 11th grade trying to woo a classmate anymore, Adaptation and Synecdoche NY are better IMHO), and I don't really like Beck, I didn't realize it was a cover. Of course the Beck version isn't the original anyway:



The Field - "Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime"

More than a cover, really more of a re-appropriation. At first I didn't know how to deal with the fact that there were words on my the Field record at all, but I'm coming around. The fact that Axel banishes the tension-released "Everybody's gotta learn sometime" refrain in favor anxious synth harmonies is awesome. It took me by surprise, but I essentially love this song, and I'm really, really loving this record.

2009 has been a fantastic year in Music That I Like. The new Bill Callahan record is awesome and very Cohenesque. Alasdair Roberts, my favorite Scot, just released "Spoils" which is basically his "Ys" and maybe I'll write a post about it soon. The new Dirty Projectors album really took me by surprise, and I admit I really like Wavves. But I can't not write about the Field on here, so here you go.

The Field - "The More That I Do"

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After my family got Windows '95, most of my time not spent playing Chip's Challenge was spent watching the videos included on a CD-ROM called "Music Central '96" that came with the computer. Here I will try to assemble as many of these videos as I can find on YouTube, and perhaps whatever I can remember of my 5-year-old reactions to them.



My dad used to ride the school bus to Hollywood High with Lowell George.



It took me a while to learn David Byrne wasn't British. Also, "kiss kuh say" is fun to say.







Heavy.

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Pitchfork Media has a new design~!

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the cream of the contents of my pictures folder. (+ a bonus Jonah secret!)








































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lets play some 'rut

The story of Beirut so far: a surprisingly refreshing out-of-nowhere debut that cribbed old Balkan folk style into easy-to-swallow indie chamber pop, a follow-up EP that elaborated on the debut's vocabulary with more confident songwriting, and a sophomore album that failed to push the narrative much further than that. Now Zach Condon is at a crucial point in his career, at least as far as the Beirut brand is concerned, needing to show that he has established a musical identity more substantial than merely adapting the music of whatever exotic locale he has visited lately around his (admittedly superb, and always improving) baritone voice. Judging by the aimless double EP "March of the Zapotec / Holland", which has just recently leaked online, it isn't clear that he has accomplished this.

I'll start with talking about the "Holland EP" because I'm confident I can dispose with it in enough time to make it to my classmate's piano recital--I'll have to edit in my thoughts on the Oaxaca-tinged "Zapotec" half later on. What we hear on "Holland", which Wikipedia tells me is credited to the pre-Beirut band name 'Realpeople', is more or less the same electro-pop that we first heard on the original version of the old favorite "Scenic World", just with a far glossier production value. This doesn't sound like a bad thing--and the songs don't either--but even with a title like "My Night with the Prostitute from Marseille" the songs, though perhaps not the vocals, are devoid of Condon's touch. On "Scenic World", the jittery beat juxtaposed against the flowing violin was a touching kind of interplay. Here it's just all bubbling synths at the sacrifice of Condon's musical personality, an element which I hope he understands is key to the band's success. Continue reading...