Possibly The Best Video Of The Year

Scottish instrumental band Mogwai add some vocoder/ make some lovely music..

 

A second-by-second run-through... lovely waves. where is this? MOGWAI!. love Mogwai; name of song... makes no sense. love it; on land now. tropical? yup; ooh excellent - silvery hooded woman walks lonely road; never seen that before!?! guy fidgets in room; likes masks apparently; smiley masks; baldy man walks strangely; its nighttime; freshly shaved head? silvery hooded woman still walking; no longer in middle of nowhere; videographer keeps his distance; gymnasts practicing; wtf? tropical, foggy, daylight scene; silvery hooded woman still walking; pretty sure this is Hawaii; her calfs are probably nicely developed; yup; masks! dude tries them on; gymnasts! stalked by freshly shaved-head guy; he looks angular; ex-gynmnast or freaky stalker? mask man walks in yard; pretends to speak into a non existent walkie talkie; ooh - eccentric mask guy; bamboo! what's he up to? gymnasts are spinning; mask raised to the sky on bamboo; mask man drives bamboo into ground by hand; strong, strong mask man; silvery hood woman finds barren, volcanic landscape; videographer gets arty; is she not tired? she should be wearing steel-toed boots; yes mask man, you're very strong, time for a new hat though; not-so-creepy masks on sticks; creepy, sweaty out-of-focus gymnasts; mask man shows off his unlit light bulb; it's dirty; gymnasts are making me dizzy; also, they're flat chested; ooh, close up of silvery woman sans hood; she's admiring a sunset; that's not a sunset! she's walking toward the non sunset; stay safe silvery non-hooded woman; fini.. bonus: a grave; in Africa?

Best Music :: 2013

1. (ALBUM) Wondrous Bughouse by Youth Lagoon; (VIDEO) Raspberry Cane by Youth Lagoon
non-sensical yet wondrous animated video...

2. (ALBUM) Free The Universe by Major Lazer; (SONG) Watch Out For This (Bumaye) by Major Lazer
and sales of neon coloured tights go through the roof...

3. (SONG) Something In My Heart by Röyksopp

4. (SONG) Fresh by Summer Camp

5. (SONG/ VIDEO) Gay Goth Scene by The Hidden Cameras
new album out in January; "gay goth scene" not-so-subtly focuses on bullying; song also features the slaughterhouse vocal stylings of Mary Margaret O'Hara - last heard dying on Morrissey's "November Spawned A Monster" . so that's lovely...

6. (SONG) Instant Crush by Daft Punk
You would think the combination of auto-tune and that boy from The Strokes would be nothing short of disaster but no... best song on the album..

7. (SONG) After The Afterlife by Cocorosie
"wet snails get wetter, crawling towards perfume"..?? oh well.. it's got a good groove>

8. (SONG) Holding On For Life by Broken Bells

9. (SONG) Home by Austra

10. (SONG) Sleepwalk With Me by Young Galaxy

11. (SONG) Bagboy by Pixies
A song about a bespeckled bagboy. but wait.. he's a bad bespeckled bagboy...

12. (SONG) Step by Vampire Weekend

13. (SONG) I Need Your Love by Calvin Harris (feat. Ellie Goulding)

14. (ALBUM) Yes, It's True. by The Polyphonic Spree

15. (SONG) Metroland by Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark

Further Coolness (songs):
Mira by Baio
Pyrakantha by Balmorhea
Defiant Order by Birdy Nam Nam
Now Is Not The Time by Chvrches
I Can Hardly Make You Mine by Cults
We Found That Beat by The Derevolutions
A Stone In The Ground by Fainting By Numbers
Living, Loving, Partygoing by Future Bible Heroes
Pursuit by Gesaffelstein
Play Hard by David Guetta (ft Akon & Ne-Yo)
Lying To You by Keaton Henson
Full Of Fire by The Knife
And The Birds by Light Heat
Just Make It Stop by Low
Oblivion by M83
So Good To Me by Chris Malinchak
Anthem For a Lost Cause by Manic Street Preachers
Alien Days by MGMT
Remurdered by Mogwai
Toothwheels by múm
Sugarcane by New Order
Lifetime by Noah And The Whale
After You by Pulp
Ísjaki by Sigur Rós
Never Run Away by Kurt Vile
Don't Give Up by Washed Out
Despair by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Friend by You Say Party!

RIP = Legend

La cocaina no Es buena Para su salud

English children's choir gets Crystal Castles' "Untrust Us" pretty much perfect/ tell themselves over and over "the cocaine is not good for you."

We're Up All Night To Get Lucky

Low :: Just Make It Stop
Pure beauty from Low:



Daft Punk ::
The May 21st album release could not come soon enough...


David Guetta :: Play Hard
There is so much coolness going on here that by the time fireworks start shooting out of those boots, well, never has something so strange been so expected!



Keaton Henson :: Lying To You
Great tune, longest legs ever, interesting jacket adornment...
(also: Keaton's contender for saddest-video-ever)


and it's...
Gonna Be Alright ::

Words Are Useless Here

New favorite band... CHVRCHES! Hard to spell, easy to love. The Glasgow electrosynth band has about five songs to their name so... NEXT. BIG. THING!

How's it supposed to feel?

Good Song...

they're doing it wrong:

this cunted circus never ends

the best song from the past 10 years...

Arab Strap :: The Shy Retirer

I lost my social skills a while ago
but now I feel them coming back.
My eyes were rolling when we met
and now they are preparing for attack.
I want to fall in love tonight
and form the perfect unbreakable bond.

You can be my teenage Jenny Agutter,
swimming naked in a pond.
You know I’m always moaning
but you jump-start my serotonin.
But how do you know you’ve ever really loved?





The song gets the censored treatment here but... Aiden plays with toys, fillets a fish, shows off judo skills, throws darts dangerously ::

Or Is He More In To Young Girls With Dyed Black Hair?

Retro-Friday:

Woman lip synch's to The Knife's Pass This On in front of an odd collection of on-lookers in what looks like a Soviet Russia clubhouse. An intrigued guy joins in. What's with Soviet Russia these days? All those oddball youtube videos and car crashes.

"Woman" should have quotes around it.

The Knife
Deep Cuts
2003











Now I get it... the main dancing guy is Olof, one half of The Knife (though he looks about 16 here). The woman giving the "I'm in love with your brother" singing she-male the stink eye is his sister Karin, the other half of the Swedish brother-sister act.

In Which James Gets Arrested At The End

Getting my non-electronic on... it's Yo La Tengo's excellent and under-stated new song "I'll Be Around". The video features a tortilla soup recipe. It is not everyday a video features a tortilla soup recipe. Then the big guy from the band gets picked up by the cops. Spoiler alert. Oh, and Georgia needs a hair brush.

Alright, soft, subtle music time's over - back to electronicness... The Knife have finally come up with new material not from an opera and there's lots to look forward to with their new album due in April. Song's good but 10 minutes in length - come on... who has 10 minutes anymore? The video is long, strange and even a little too Swedish for me so no embed here.

I think I may have found the long sought after new identity for this site - commenting on new music I have no intention of sharing. Enjoy!






All I need when I die is someone to bluntly say "I can see my friend no more, he's gone for good". You Say Party's drummer died a few years back from a brain hemorrhage and now they've sung just that. I don't care if sadly uplifting's not a real thing - this is sadly uplifting:

Your Silent Face

Retro Soothing Friday (sound formed in a vacuum):

The sign that leads the way 
The path we can not take 
You've caught me at a bad time 
So why don't you piss off

New Order
Power, Corruption and Lies
1983

Old Man, What Now?

Morrissey in 2013.
ugh...

That Place That We Both Loved A Lot

Californian Jason Lytle feeling sad in his isolated Montana home as he gingerly hammers out new single "Somewhere There's a Someone", a natural update to 2009's appropriately named "Good Chord Song for L.P. 2". Now we all feel sad. But it's a good kind of sad. Pure elegance:

That's Okay, I Was Bored Anyway

New Music Roundup!

James meets Clap Your Hands Say Yeah with Light Heat's dreamy "And The Birds"...

Foxygen channel Belle and Sebastian...

Chairlift do a Japanese version of "I Belong In Your Arms", unable to translate song title...

Free Energy :: Girls Want Rock... everything I despise all wrapped up in one neat bow-adorned video package. And yet I can't turn away.

The end is nigh...


Dan Deacon goes on tour in a school bus. Plays whacked out tune. Takes many photos...

Have zero interest in Dinosaur Jr. but this video of a husband, a wife and the subwoofers that may or may not come between them is awesome...

This is Your Baptism

Almost time to start looking forward, but first... the most listened to and one of the best songs of the past three years...



And... the even more effective non-vocal version set to scenes of a freakish family... reloaded from 2010 here.

Girl You Know You've Got To Watch Your Health

Major congrats to Claire Boucher - she had a mountain of my pent-up snobbish opinion to wade through to get in the top 5. And that's not the 24 year old female part... she's from Vancouver!

Grimes turns her back on sporting events, seems to enjoy locker rooms...


Grimes 'Oblivion' from Somesuch & Co. on Vimeo.

Hot Chip :: How Do You Do?

Despite the green screen overuse, ill-advised wardrobe, stock Calgary Stampede footage (hate Calgary) and the fact members of Hot Chip are butt ugly... this video kinda works (perhaps the skateboarder saves it).

And anyway, this is the No. freakin 1 song on the only charts that matter!!

But Who Am I To Judge A Man's Heart By His Yacht Wear?

I dunno, this song seems a bit five years ago but still its got a darn infectious chorus and I like those CAKE-like talk-singy verses.

Other than that, and that it's No. 22 (!!), and that the video is stupid, I don't know who WHY? are or what this guy's yammering on about (dude gets nasty graphic near the end)...

Diplo :: Set It Off

I would find this video equally mesmerizing if those were aged rodeo clowns gyrating on that infinite space pole. 
I would find this video equally mesmerizing if those were aged rodeo clowns gyrating on that infinite space pole. 
I would find this video equally mesmerizing if those were aged rodeo clowns gyrating on that infinite space pole. 
I would find...

Some snare drum n' electronica goodness from Diplo (Major Lazer). Song No. 10 from last year...

Drinking the Kool Aid

Jason Lytle's "Your Final Setting Sun": No. 6 in the top 50 (No. 1 in your hearts baby)...

"That light you see's the setting sun
I know you seen a few friend
but tonight is gonna be your final one"



Wardrobe courtesy The Polyphonic Spree!

The One AM Radio

No. 8 on the top 50!



Starring Christina Hendricks' husband.

When We'd Breathe In Common Air

1992: Back when shoegazing wasn't such a dirty word.

Lush: number one among the ethereal dream pop bands (yeah, there was more than one!). been dead for 16 years now.

"Nothing Natural": One of the best from the best of 90's compilation currently swirling around in my head.

Miki and Emma - big-ass lipstick. connected by the ear apparently...

It Would Help To Seek Comfort In Destiny

No. 7 on the Top 50!


Too slow perhaps. Here's the pop perfection version:

Impregnable Question by Dirty Projectors

And the tears in our eyes when we ski fast in the forest

not because this is new or that i haven't posted before... but because its winter and i have yet to see snow and sunny day swedish snow is the best type of snow:


also, i miss Annika. she seems to have disappeared. more.

Open The Window Man

Fuzz n' melody... in a garden:



... and bad teeth, pixies and dueling tambourines (album out Feb 5th)

Best Songs 2012

1. How Do You Do? by Hot Chip
2. Get Free by Major Lazer
3. Oblivion by Grimes
4. Sad Eyes by Crystal Castles
5. Dark Parts by Perfume Genius
6. Your Final Setting Sun by Jason Lytle
7. Impregnable Question by Dirty Projectors
8. Accidents by The One AM Radio
9. Tides by The xx
10. Set It Off by Diplo
11. Lazuli by Beach House
12. Peach Blossom by Eels
13. Cherokee by Cat Power
14. Bait and Switch by The Shins
15. Today's Supernatural by Animal Collective
16. Professional Griefers by Deadmau5
17. Andrew in Drag by The Magnetic Fields
18. Asunder by Fang Island
19. Sedna by Efterklang
20. Kill For Love by Chromatics
21. The Wave by Miike Snow
22. Sod In The Seed by WHY?
23. Origins by Tennis
24. Drift Dive by The Antlers
25. Before We Run by Yo La Tengo
26. Man on Fire by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
27. Tearz for Animals by CocoRosie
28. Laura by Bat For Lashes
29. Days by The Drums
30. Sommarfågel by Vintergatan
31. The Messenger by Johnny Marr
32. Gramma by Lana Del Rey
33. One Drop by Public Image Ltd.
34. Rise by Antony and the Johnsons
35. Same Love by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
36. Put Me On by Diamond Rings
37. Tonight by Saint Etienne
38. Hail Bop by DJango Django
39. Expire by Screaming Females
40. Wind Was the Wine by Woods
41. Feels Like We Only Go Backwards by Tame Impala
42. Dreams by Taken By Trees
43. Dirty Paws by Of Monsters And Men
44. The Child With the Star On His Head by Das Racist
45. I Belong In Your Arms by Chairlift
46. Ungirthed by Purity Ring
47. End Of The Line by Sleigh Bells
48. Millions by Eternal Summers
49. Dead Flowers by Young Prisms
50. Fitzpleasure by Alt-J