listen.

swimming with laura

Great Lake Swimmers have sort of barely been on my radar for a while now, basically just to the extent that I knew I'd heard a few songs that I'd really liked.  Well I finally got around to picking up (or "picking up", as in downloading from emusic) their most recent album, last year's Ongiara. And it's really super good.

They are a trio of handsome Toronto-based gents, with that guy in the front there Tony Dekker doing the songwriting, singing and guitar.

Amanda saw a picture of them and told me I'd like them even if they played cowbells and tinkertoys, which frankly is off the mark because I think a band based primarily on cowbells and tinkertoys would be totally awesome no matter how cute they were, but I get her point. Still, though. They're really hitting the spot for me right now. Kind of a hazy, countryish folky blend of banjo, guitars, some other random instruments, string arrangements from Canada's awesome one-man-band du jour Owen Pallett (another fave of mine), and then there's Dekker's vocals, which make me sad in that good-sad-but-still-sad way. Kind of a perfect soundtrack for yesterday's cozy afternoon at home, avoiding the rain outside by making quiche and drinking too much coffee.

Here are a couple of my faves:

Great Lake Swimmers - Your Rocky Spine

Great Lake Swimmers - Where in the World Are You
(you know those double-tracked vocals get me every time. also love the strings on this one.)

And an older one, from their 2005 album, Bodies and Minds:

Great Lake Swimmers - Various Stages

Just for fun, here's the video for Your Rocky Spine, which I think is completely adorable:

And as I was listening to Great Lake Swimmers yesterday, I threw some Laura Gibson into the mix, which was totally perfect.

The young and mesmerizing Laura, on Portland's genius Hush Records (see also big faves of mine Loch Lomond, not to mention hush alums The Decemberists of course), has a voice that breaks your heart and a simple, pared down approach to a classic introspective country folky sound. So good.

From her 2006 album, If You Come To Greet Me:

Laura Gibson - This is not the end

Laura Gibson - Country, Country
("Everybody in the country knows I always sing them country songs, and always fall for country boys."  Ditto that, Laura.)

And she just released this awesome limited edition EP (available for purchase and download here!) called Six White Horses, which is all reinterpretations of traditional songs, including this one I remember singing as a kid (but I don't think the lyrics we sang were this creepy):

Laura Gibson - All the Pretty Horses

Enjoy.

>ben

newsflash: Perfect (again) from now on -- live in NYC!

There's something really awesome about bands performing studio albums in their entirety live in front of an audience.  (don't believe me? go download the live concert recording of Belle and Sebastian's "If you're feeling sinister".)

and it's even more exciting when it's one of your favorite bands, doing one of your favorite albums of all time (see above).

so, is anyone else flipping out over the fact that Idaho's favorite indie rock sons Built to Spill will be performing their 1997 album Perfect From Now On from start to finish this coming September?  Because I am.

So the shows are September 25 and 26 at Terminal 5 (which I actually haven't been to yet but I hear it's awful but I don't care where it is i'd even cross the Hudson to Jersey to see this show).  Tickets went on sale yesterday. Who wants to join me?  Buy them here (thursday) or here (friday).

In case you forgot how good the album is, let this track jog your memory:

Built to Spill - Out of Site

>ben

listen gets bicoastal.

the reason you didn't hear much from us last week is that listen went on the road to beautiful PORTLAND, OREGON.

it was a pretty awesome trip, with all the trappings of your typical trip to the PacNW: crazy-beautiful nature, yummy seafood, cool laidback people, and some fun nights out on the town (nightlife points of interest include the talented performers at silverado, and the murinal at the eagle).  I also whipped up a little mix CD of some of my favorite portland-based bands to provide the soundtrack in our hot-hot-hot rented chevy impala (not even kidding), so I thought I'd share some highlights from that mix.

Sleater-Kinney - Dig Me Out
this is the title track from what i think may have been the first truly indie CD that I ever owned.  I bought it sound-unheard based on a friend's recommendation, and as a shy kid almost exclusively immersed in the indigo girls and tori amos at that point, i didn't really know what to think of it at first, but it didn't take long for me to get into it. these girls taught me what it meant to rock out. once when i was in college i cut all my hair off to this song and felt REALLY cool and misunderstood.
{{Sleater-Kinney}}

Quasi - I Never Want To See You Again
Another track from the early-ish part of my love for indie music, Quasi is a divorced couple, Sam Coomes (keyboards) and Janet Weiss (drummer; incidentally, also drummer for S-K).  the spare keyboard-drums combo makes for a pretty unique sound, and sam has a really sweet tenor voice that he uses to sing with a clever yet poignant dare-I-say Chekhovian perspective about the plight of the modern working class and the rat race in which we - i mean they - i mean we - are mired.
{{Quasi}}

 

Horse Feathers - Walking and Running
I've blogged about these guys quite a bit, and not just because frontman Justin Ringle is a friend from high school. Words Are Dead was one of my favorite albums of '06 - it's gorgeous.  They recently got signed to Olympia, Washington's Kill Rock Stars which is exciting. This track is from their daytrotter session last year. (photo by Jason Quigley, from HF's myspace page)
{{Horse Feathers}}

Loch Lomond - Bird and a Bear (I Am The Bird)
Loch Lomond - A Field Report
I just ran across these folks a couple months ago and have really been digging them.  I believe there is some crossover in the lineup between them and Horse Feathers.  "A Field Report" contains the awesome line "The sound of children laughing makes my eyes bleed."
{{Loch Lomond}}

Menomena - Wet and Rusting
Menomena - Gay A
Another recent Portland discovery, Menomena sort of calls to mind Animal Collective, but they strike me as being both more experimental and more pop-oriented, if that's possible. Wet and Rusting would have easily made it onto my top tracks of 2007 if I hadn't somehow missed it until a month ago. A bizarre and complex pop song with some erratic rhythmic stop-and-go to it, along with some killer piano hooks, it's all built around the simple (yet undeniable) refrain "it's hard to take risks with a pessimist."

Gay A is a track from the Wet and Rusting ep, cleverly taking issue with those Christian camps where self-loathing homosexuals go to either "cure" themselves of their "condition", or learn ways to ignore and stifle their sexuality. With the ironic opening line "All my pathetic and small life, I made big steps with small strides to fight what just feels right" the song illuminates the wrongheadedness of such an approach.  So I was kind of troubled to find a recent interview on the (awesome) blog You Ain't No Picasso with bassist Justin Harris, containing the following passage:

JH: A friend of mine went to one of those… like, places where they didn’t want to be gay any more.

YANP: Like a religious camp?

JH: Yeah. Like one of those where they didn’t want to be a part of the gay lifestyle any more. It’s based on my misconception about what that was. I was under the assumption that you go to these places to not be gay any more, but that’s totally not what it is. It’s just for people who don’t want to be in the gay lifestyle. You can’t really can’t stop being gay. But the point isn’t to rid you of your gayness, but just to help you if you don’t want to be a part of that lifestyle.

So, I just want to point out that the ex-gay movement is a complex and splintered social phenomenon, and yes, many groups or organizations do describe what they do as curing or treating homosexuality as a condition or disease.  I question what exactly JH means here when he uses the phrase "gay lifestyle".  If he means a healthy, non-repressive relationship with one's homosexuality, then it's unhealthy and irresponsible to be fostering people's avoidance or fear of that.  If he means, as many misguided people do, some sort of self-destructively promiscuous or otherwise unhealthy sexuality, then that's not a "gay lifestyle", that's an unhealthy relationship with one's own sexuality. I firmly deny the legitimacy of ANY formalized attempt to treat, cure, ignore, stifle, or "overcome" one's homosexuality. And I'll leave it at that.
{{Menomena}}

Sorry to end with the rant, but Gay A is a great song, so... give it a listen.

xoBen