listen.

Sigur Rós - Hvarf/Heim

talk about a post i have been meaning to do for a couple of months!
the new sigur ros came out around NOV 6, 2007 (or maybe ON that date? i'm not sure, nor do you care)

so here's the deal - stop me if you've heard this (and by stop me i mean skim this paragraph) it's a two disc album (and in case you fancy buying from a record store: it's got very aesthetically pleasing packaging.)   Hvarf, the first disc consists of sigur ros revisiting songs from their "cannon." the second disc, heim, is live recordings from their free icelandic tour -- it had stops like this:

where you saw them do this:

and this:

these images are from Heima, their new film (and companion to this album), which is out now.  for a while you could write to their myspace page and set up a screening of the film.  wouldn't that be awesome?
anyway - this album is AMAZING. i must admit that Heim is definitely my favorite (but PLEASE don't tell Hvarf.)

so, i am going to share a few tracks. and then you should go buy the album.  you won't regret it.

from heim:

Samskeyti

it's like an amazing wave. i want a symphony to explode with music at the end -- like in the end of rhapsody in blue.

Agaetis Byrjun

so acoustic - so beautiful.

from hvarf:

von

it's an opera.

so now that you've sampled the music, you may be thinking: "okay, i want to buy this - but how shall i best enjoy this music?" well, look no further! here are several ways i think you can best enjoy said music:

• in a beautiful, damp-green icelandic field wearing a really pretty wool sweater with ruddy cheeks.
• riding your bicycle on the west side highway bike path  (wearing a helmet and not playing it too loud, of course)
• stoned in a dance/movement studio
• walking to work in the morning
• underscoring in a movie that has a scene were the fabric of the universe rips open leading to a parallel world.

enjoy.

Wed 7:03 pm December 31, 1969

that would be the date my ibook claims it is. 
a minute after i turned her on a sign popped up telling me my date and time MIGHT not be correct
a new window then popped up asking me if i would like to restore to my previous "firefox session"

which i guess was way back in 1969, the glory days of fire fox as it were.

also, doesn't "firefox session" sounds dirty?

regardless:
RHAPSODY IN BLUE!
and new york city...

now - it took my love for the song to investigate what, in musical terms, is a rhapsody.

and folks: a rhapsody is:
A one-movement work that is episodic yet integrated, free-flowing in structure, featuring a range of highly contrasted moods, colour and tonality. An air of spontaneous inspiration and a sense of improvisation make it freer in form than a set of variations.
(thanks wikipedia!)

now -- gershwin wrote rhapsody in blue in the hopes of capturing all the different sounds one encountered as they moved about the neighborhoods of this city.  he was this guy from tin pan alley living uptown composing scores and songs rapidly.  and they were about this city.  it's amazing.  have you seen the fanatasia 2000 that uses this piece and partner it with animation inspired by al hershfield?  it's worth a viewing.


so here is rhapsody in blue....
george gershwin -- rhapsody in blue
(leonard bernstein and the the LA philharmonic)

and (further down) a little walt whitman - who also captures the voice of this city.

and a few more songs that also contains moments of life here (for me).
some specifically reference the city and others fit (in my mind).

So, listen to these songs, read the poems. do both, or: one or the other OR niether (the less good option)

life is on the sidewalk.

ani difranco - both hands (with a symphony orchestra)

now, some of you may have rolled your eyes when you read "ani difranco."

but, listen: it's epic, and i know we have all painted the walls of an apt white, especially an apt where we shed some blood, sweat and tears.

magnetic fields - i'm the luckiest guy on the lower east side.

can't you just picture the movie musical scene this song would inspire?

(i would post chelsea morning -- but i've posted two versions already ((better slow my role)))

Nick Drake - Poor Boy

i love this song!  i like how the voice and the piano react to one another. then the saxophone? you gotta love lisa simpson. and those back up singers...

jethro tull - skating away on the thin ice of a new day.
listen to the man who stands on one leg to play the flute with his rock band:
So as you push off from the shore,
Wont you turn your head once more --- and make your peace with everyone?
For those who choose to stay,
Will live just one more day ---
To do the things they should have done.

that almost sounds like a quote on a lame journal in barnes and noble.

but jethro tull makes it work

the clientele - here comes the phantom
ben introduced me to the clientele. so we're coming full circle on this one!
but...sigh. this song?

this is such a good song to listen to as you ride around on your bicycle.... on some saturday when you don't have to be anywhere.

my heart is playing like a violin...

panda bear - take pills
it's like the beach boys smashed into a thick glass wall of animal collective. but it's just panda bear.

and make sure you wait for the shift  that happens around 2:28 -- STELLAR!

also: CYCLISTS!

they are going to build a copenhagen-style bike lane on ninth ave!

also -- on friday sept 21 - there was ticketing blitz to riders getting on and off the williamsburg bridge on the manhattan side. so watch out. the cops big thing was "obstructing traffic"  - personally i think at that specific HORRIBLE patch of nyc street most cyclists are just trying to stay alive and cross the street in the :7 second walk light they get -- not sure if they obstruct traffic.  it's just so dangerous and poorly designed and there is no choice but to brave it -- so to get ticketed is maddening.

in terms of bridges...

simon & garfunkel - the 59th st. bridge song.

our music teacher in preschool, music mary, would make us sing this song. i always think of that.

(poems 19 and (part of) 20 of song of myself)

     19

  This is the meal equally set, this the meat for natural hunger,
  It is for the wicked just same as the righteous, I make appointments
     with all,
  I will not have a single person slighted or left away,
  The kept-woman, sponger, thief, are hereby invited,
  The heavy-lipp'd slave is invited, the venerealee is invited;
  There shall be no difference between them and the rest.

  This is the press of a bashful hand, this the float and odor of
     hair,
  This the touch of my lips to yours, this the murmur of yearning,
  This the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face,
  This the thoughtful merge of myself, and the outlet again.

  Do you guess I have some intricate purpose?
  Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the
     side of a rock has.

  Do you take it I would astonish?
  Does the daylight astonish? does the early redstart twittering
     through the woods?
  Do I astonish more than they?

  This hour I tell things in confidence,
  I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you.

     20
  Who goes there? hankering, gross, mystical, nude;

-----

  I know I am solid and sound,
  To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow,
  All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means.

  I know I am deathless,
  I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter's compass,
  I know I shall not pass like a child's carlacue cut with a burnt
     stick at night.

  I know I am august,
  I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood,
  I see that the elementary laws never apologize,
  (I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by,
     after all.)

  I exist as I am, that is enough,
  If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
  And if each and all be aware I sit content.

  One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,
  And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten
     million years,
  I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.

  My foothold is tenon'd and mortis'd in granite,
  I laugh at what you call dissolution,
  And I know the amplitude of time.