functions of the sun

Our nation is officially 232 years old, congrats everyone. To celebrate, I'll be going to the Phillies-Mets game to watch baseball, as well as, fingers crossed, a few incoherently drunk fans who live less than 100 miles apart beat the shit out of each other (it gets good around 2:35) and get escorted out of the stadium by security. God Bless America!

Oh yeah and here's some music.

Lykke Li - Little Bit
A twenty-two years young Swedish girl with a voice like fellow-Swede Victoria Bergsman of Taken By Trees and instrumentation/samples that smack of The Tough Alliance, also of Sweden. In twenty years, after it has finished revolutionizing American pop music we will look back at the aughts as the emergence of the "Swedish Sound." One of the catchiest songs of the year.

Air France - Collapsing At Your Doorstep
Sharing a label with The Tough Alliance (Sincerely Yours) and a hometown with Jens Lekman (Gothenberg, Sweden), Air France sounds similar to the former, though free of the vocals of either, relying on samples for their verbiage. Like many a TTA banger, "Collapsing At Your Doorstep" is based on a loop of deftly selected dialog and evolves into a catchy dance number.

Wale - The Mixtape About Nothing
A mixtape from the next big thing in hip hop, DC's Wale (pronounced wah-lay). It's loosely based on Seinfeld, with a number of tracks beginning with dialog from the show or the comedy acts of its racist ex-stars (see track 6: "The Kramer"), with some great cover (?) art to boot (click his myspace link above).

Nas - Queens Get The Money
New track from Nas with a beat (with no actual percussion, just piano loops actually) by Jay Electronica. Some say the beat and vocal styles clash. I think the piano showcases Nas' lyrics and the changes add a drama to each verse which a "normal" sounding rap beat often fails to achieve.

I'll leave you with this. It is a short back-and-forth in the commenters section of a recent Kanye blog post, in which Nobel-eligible Yeezy fans discuss the mysteries of time zones.

sweetpea | June 24, 2008
@tues. Hello there... how are you?! What time is it in America?

tuesdainoelle | June 24, 2008
@sweetpea: I'm on the East coast---9:18 am :)

sweetpea | June 24, 2008
It is 15:20 here... Why is there a time difference? between the two coasts?

tuesdainoelle | June 24, 2008
@sweetpea: Ummm, I think it's function of the SUN calculates the difference between two dates...at least that's what I think...I could BE wrong...but if anyone else knows FEEL free to share :)

You heard her, feel free. Continue reading...