when u were young: girlpants does your childhood

If you read the bios of our writers here at girlpants, one of the things you'll inevitably notice is that every single one of them spends and inordinate amount of time discussing the subject's childhood, generally in fond if overly wacky terms. Mike was born under a bad sign in Death Valley; Ben had an idyllic childhood, filled with boats; Joel matured into a rugged outdoorsman in the wilds of West Boca Raton, while somehow remaining perpetually 13 years old (this part is true); Niina was raised by bears. Jason, well… we're not sure he was ever a child.

Ok, so we romanticize our youth, but the truth is that childhood is a splendiferous and unique and unforgettable experience that you can never ever get back no matter how hard you try, and that makes us all depressed and makes us all have babies.

But hey, it's also fun to reminisce about, so here's a mix about childhood from your friends at girlpants. Some of these songs tackle childhood themes directly, some in a more roundabout fashion, and some simply remind us of our childhoods, but you'll find that all are killer tunes.


01. Cannibal Ox – "A B-Boy's Alpha"
First off, sorry for starting this mix with the line "My mother said, 'You sucked my pussy when you came out / don't ever talk back / I handed ya life and I'll snatch it back.'" That's downright confrontational, and frankly not at all appropriate for children. And it's not even the most confrontational birthing image Cannibal Ox were capable of delivering on their first and thus far only studio record, a pretty remarkable set called The Cold Vein. Try this one on for size: "You were a stillborn baby / mother didn't want you, but you were still born." Daaaaaaaaamn. But anyway, this song—it's basically a narrative of two kids growing up in the ghetto, surrounded at all times by death and loss, honing their skills, and eventually arriving on the scene as a fully formed artistic powerhouse. In some ways, it's a striking lyrical accompaniment to the Neil Young song we'll get to later on—just two kids trying to make it to adulthood without their brains getting splattered all over the pavement. (Ben)

02. Looper – "The Treehouse"
Looper is a little-known side act fronted by the bassist of Belle and Sebastian which got its start in the late 90s with a low-key and intensely earnest first album. The band is much the same today; that is, little-known. In order to maintain the journalistic integrity of this fine institution, I have to admit that this song does not remind me of my childhood, but it does succeed at invoking an image of a childhood. I was never much for climbing trees, personally. I was more interested in communicating with them. No, not aloud, I'm not crazy. Telepathically. (Jason)

03. Ous Mal – "Tähdet"
"Have you ever used the memory palace?" Bobby casually asked me this the other day. I haven't. So, Ous Mal is Olli and Iiris, who are both younger than me (shock) [Editor's note: patently impossible!] and make tunes that are virtually impossible to revisit. Boomkat calls it "highly enjoyable Scandinavian lo-fi melodicism," I call it total Eerie, Indiana: the tracks seem to change each time I put on Viime Talvi. Employing sampling, field recording, collage, and live instrumentation (everything is done analog), the duo construct melodies that seem to escape listening, making you feel like nothing but those old memories you try to inhabit. In "Tähdet," I feel like I’m caught in a time-trap; it sounds like young summers, like playthings, warm attics; it’s television snow, it’s dirty brown hair; it's distant but oddly personal. It reminds me to take better care of my memories. (Joel)

04. Laila Kinnunen – "Tanssilaulu"
As you may know from my biography, my childhood was spent in the bear-infested wilds of Finland. This song represents the old Finnish classics we always used to hear while wrangling woodland creatures, shocking city folk with our crude and forward ways, and binging on lenkkimakkara. Kinnunen has the iconic Finnish voice—unadorned but playful, and easy on melody, and when I listen to this song without listening to the lyrics as I imagine most of you might, I imagine it to be both melancholy and mysterious, which are qualities that embody the music I heard as a child. Kinnunen, a superstar in her time, had a kind of wholesome sexiness that 60s pop everywhere must have had, but with a strange sense of timing and humor (for this last bit, you should also view the video for her interpretation of "Hernando's Hideaway"). (Niina)

05. Neil Young – "Powderfinger"
Now, you might think I chose this song simply because it includes the words "mama," "daddy," and "brother." But no! Well… kind of, yes. But really, I think this song is one of the best at capturing the exact moment when a boy transitions into manhood and leaves the frivolity of childhood behind ("daddy's gone, my brother's out hunting in the mountains / Big John's been drinking since the river took Emmy-Lou / so the Powers That Be left me here to do the thinkin' / and I just turned twenty-two / I was wonderin' what to do"), even if this particular manchild dies in the transition ("raised my rifle to my eye / never stopped to wonder why / then I saw black / and my face splashed in the sky"). Internet scholars variously claim that this song is set in the turmoil of the American War of Independence, the American Civil War, or, most likely, Canada's Red River Rebellion of 1869, but in the end it really doesn't matter what the setting is. It's all about the character. (Ben)

06. Bob Dylan – "Just Like a Woman"
After Ben carelessly left a bag of blow on his desk and I stole it and snorted it, I got to thinking. Childhood, as any good anthropologist will tell you, isn't just a period in your development. It's a stance, a set of relationships between you and the world. You can snuff it out, or you can try to smuggle it into adulthood, but I think most of the time we just amateurishly pave it over. By that definition Dylan's hood classic is also a classic of childhood, of the way its wounds persist, suffocating you and those who would love you. This live cut, which switches the studio version's cantina waltz for a lonely stumble home, seems fitting to the sentiment. (Mike)

07. Zookeeper – "I Live in the Mess You Are"
Babies populate Chris Simpson’s songs. They’re practically everywhere. Take "Delivery Room" from his Belle City Pop! ep (it’s about a delivery room and the babies in it). Or "I Was Born in Omaha” from his Start Here days in The Gloria Record (also about dem babes, 'cept here he's being one). While "I Live in the Mess You Are" don’t got a baby in it, it's totally about childhood. With an opening alarm clock ring, Simpson (figured as St. Francis) leads a drowsy, dow-eyed children's chorus and ramshackle, anthropomorphic baby rhinoceros circus trope in a street parade through sunny-side-up wonderment. It’s some imaginative heartachery that would make a Windsor McCay dream look like a funeral. I don't have to justify it; Simpson has always been one of my favs, and he's always taking me back to those moony names and faces peeking in the past from my own growings-up. (Joel)

08. The Mo-dettes – "White Mice"
“White Mice” is a brilliant song from The Story So Far…, the Mo-dettes' classic album. I have included 80s girlpunk on this list for two reasons: first, because I'm told my ma was in her heyday a bit of a punk rocker, and I believe this has gone on to genetically influence some of the choices in my life (some!) (I don't include most!). And the second reason is that I often used to joyride in my first and only car, a baby blue 1990 Civic hatchback, blasting sweet-ass punk rock and remembering freedom. I consider sixteen to be pretty much a kid, so y'know. All talk about punk aside, this song itself is a lower-key exercise in mesmerization. It opens with a rolling drumbeat copied many times over, including on that jangle you might remember called “Young Folks” from a coupla years ago. The lyrics are hilarious—“don't be stupid don't be limp, / no girl likes to love a wimp”—and in general it has a singsong quality that I associate with songs I really loved as a kid. Also, the handclap parts are interactive, which all children enthusiastically respond to, so feel free to play this for your junior. (Niina)

09. Alsace Lorraine – "You Are Like Charles Lindbergh to Me"
I came of age right on the cusp of mp3s, but for a few years I would actually go to record stores and try and build up my laughably meager vinyl collection. I picked up Alsace Lorraine's Through Small Windows because of the cover—some oddly shaped girl standing on a balcony, staring into the distance. I couldn't tell you exactly why it appealed to me, but I brought it to the counter and the almost classically aloof record store clerk started jabbering about how much he liked it. For a couple of minutes I got to nod along like I knew who he was talking about, and was afforded a glimpse into some of the music dork socialization mechanisms that probably don't matter as much with, uh, cool blogs like girlpants around. It turns out Alsace Lorraine was a great blind buy. Wispy twee pop in the vein of St. Etienne, but modest enough to feel like your personal little secret. This first track trades precisely in that kind of homegrown funcraft. It celebrates those goofy teenage relationships that are really like rebuilt childhood worlds unto themselves, made up of summers, inside jokes and odd totemic figures like Charles Lindbergh. You could probably draw a line from this to the xx's VCR, and it's a perennial theme that Alsace Lorraine just did right for me. (Mike)

10. God Help the Girl – "The Psychiatrist is In"
Imagine Dylan's little girl in her second act. She gets her shit together, settles down and for some unknown reason is flashing her kind, smiling eyes at you. Oh, she's quite sympathetic. She was a case when she was young too, and can help. Of course, the offer to 'listen to your stories' is at once more childishly sly and "adult" than most psychiatry is capable of. Those slightly swaying, decorous bongos, that honeyed voice; Dan Bejar once said "nothing does the body good like another body," and that's basically the therapy Catherine Ireton is proposing here. Sort of like the twee version of "fuck the pain away," after it's cooled into a sheepish kind of sad bastardism? I guess this is growing up. (Mike)

11. Nedelle – "Our Little Selves"
Nedelle could be seven (she has a song called "Tell Me a Story" that begins with a carefully-described puppy dog tongue, and it’s obvious that her rhyme schemes are lifted from Grover).  Or, she could (probably) be a regular adult who sings about the joys of being a kid. Her song "Our Little Selves," on 2005’s From the Lion's Mouth, makes this theme absolutely transparent, as she announces "sound the bell / our little selves are enough." It's a simple image, but it's Nedelle ability to bring this simple image to life with fable and anecdote (storybookisms that really flourish in her latest record The Locksmith Cometh) that animates From the Lion's Mouth. It's an album that, for anyone with a sappy side, is drenched with tiny reminiscences. And what more is childhood than that ever-present, self-mythologizing nostalgia? Little, I say. (Joel)

12. Chad VanGaalen – "TMNT Mask"
Whenever I hear this song—which is probably just about getting stoned and sitting next to the river—I inevitably think of 13-year-old Jason Taylor, protagonist of David Mitchell's excellent coming-of-age novel Black Swan Green. Jason is a melancholic kid of a certain sort—the kind who writes and publishes poetry at the age of 13, and who will later grow up to be an internationally acclaimed novelist. The kind who avoids the other kids his age and goes to sit by the lake in the quiet winter evening, skate around the frozen expanse, watch his ghostly shadow skating on the opposite side. VanGaalen's music here evokes pretty much every bleep and bloop and horribly artificial drum machine beat of the book's Thatcherian time period while marrying it to a distinctly aughties aesthetic. The song's only concession to childhood as such is the mention of a "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle mask / sunken to the rocks, plastic face half-buried" in the riverbed, as melancholy an image as they come. (Ben)

13. Finally Punk – "5 Yr Old Angst"
This is a rather literal choice, as the song is a temper tantrum set to music, including childish angry growls and a refrain of "I wanna go outside!" that perfectly encapsulates the frustration of any person whose minute-to-minute activities are controlled by their parents. Beyond that, though, this is a band that seems to play just to make noise and doesn't mind punctuating a song with a piercing shriek or two: the adult equivalent of a kid banging cymbals together and screaming words to a half-remembered song. It might say something that, as much as I appreciate the notion of obnoxious noise as a form of music, even I can only take this band in small doses. (Jason)

14. M.A. Numminen – "A Proposition Is…"
M.A. Numminen is a revered Finnish eccentric who makes up for his distinct lack of singing ability with his awesomely capacious randomness. His voice is a snarl at best, sometimes cracking, sometimes wandering off key, but it's all in your face. And this song simultaneously discusses Wittgenstein and brings to mind the multiple albums that Numminen cut for children in the 1990s—awesome x2. Sure it's all standard rock n' roll riffs, wanky solos, and reckless piano mashing, but more than one childhood memory I have becomes in recollection accompanied by these very dulcet tones; here is hoping that you love Numminen, too. If not, then consider it an edification in philosophy. (Niina)

15. Ponytail – "7 Souls"
Ponytail is a frankly ridiculous band that does not perform in order to communicate a message or even to use real words. I like a lot of bands where the vocals are wielded like just another instrument rather than to add meaning through lyrics, but these guys take it to an extreme. So why did I pick this song? About a minute and twenty seconds into this track is exactly what getting out of school on the last day before summer vacation should sound like. (Jason)


Download the full mix (with proper ID3 tags and everything!):
[Multiupload]

friday filler fun

Well, we were supposed to have a new mix up for you by now, but, well… Mike left the coffee pot on and when it died a fiery death in the wee hours of the morning, no one knew how to cope. I mean, the fire put itself out and no one was hurt—or at least, not directly. But unable to get their caffeine fix in this sad state of affairs, Mike, Niina, Joel, Jason, and the homeless guy who's been crashing under Joel's desk variously lapsed into comas and/or delirium. The hardiest of the bunch, Niina managed to crawl downstairs and around the corner to Starbucks, using her dying strength and the chipped and cracked edges of her fingernails to drag herself toward a $4.99 Americano. This she graciously shared with the rest of us, caring soul that she is. Well, except for me, because I don't drink coffee. So while the rest of the crew are on the DL, here's some wacky internet shit I've dug up to hold you over:


First up we've got this curious and heartbreaking Youtube video in which a group of brave, misguided teens from the frostbitten wastes of Canada go on public access television to give you their vision of the sublime. As the uploader put it, "The band is called Mental Note, and they appeared on a show called Johnny Sizzle's Entertainment Watch, which aired on the Winnipeg Public Access channel in 1992." Enjoy! YouTube Preview Image Wow, what an incredible solo, amirite? Reminiscent of Creed Shreds 3: You Shit Here With Me, don't you think?


Up next is a gem of a remix—a reworking of Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi" by longtime hipinion.com boarder j_brooks. Now, I hate brooks as much as the next guy, but this remix… well, it's good. Someone in the thread where brooks outed it described it as "shits like audio ambien," to which brooks replied, "ambien is like my main musical influence." Thrilling, no? It sounds like exactly what you'd expect, given that exchange. Lady Gaga – "Paparazzi (Elite Gymnastics Remix)"


And actually that's all we've got for today. I have to go tend to the sick and wounded (I think I hear Jason calling for a mocha drip), and get that mixed finished up for (we hope) tomorrow. Please send all get-well-soon cards and/or packets of instant coffee via overnight shipping to Girlpants, Inc., at the address in our Contact Us page.

list & listlessness: an american journey

Handsome portrait of Richard McGrawThere's been something wicked and deadly in the New York air that's making me listen to Americana.  I've near worn out my copy of Emmylou Harris's Thirteen on the record player, and I've been outfitting myself in genuine honest-to-god colors like red and blue and white.  I'm not sure what's going on there, but I think it's worthy of noting (fellow Girlpantsers have found it pretty fearsome, considering my usual xenophilia).  Anyway, there is something to be said for when an Americana jangle can be emotional yet non-maudlin, singsongy yet unpredictable — and "Hurting Heart" by Richard McGraw (off his album Burying the Dead) manages all of these. It features many classic elements, which I will now delineate to you in a helpful list format.  Here, have a listen and read along.

Richard McGraw – "Hurting Heart"

  1. The beginning verse – sung with an endearingly breaking voice – acknowledge the wrongness of the narrator's love situation (you're with someone else now), and make a self-conscious reference to the song itself ("so I wrote you this song").
  2. 45 seconds in, McGraw introduces the man-versus-himself theme (common in country, bluegrass, and all other types of classic songwriting) of wishing to overcome personal bias in order to become a better man.  In this case, better-mandom involves bearing the love interest's ring at her wedding; enter the devastating emotional crux of this song.
  3. He follows this revelation with the wordless relief of an infinitely sing-along-able "La la la" refrain.  Note this refrain; it will proudly reappear in Point 6.
  4. McGraw then introduces a tinge of wry humor that both acknowledges the desperate predicament and dismisses the new partner as inferior and even gimmicky ("I could teach you how not to let go / But why you wanna learn that girl I don't know / Your bohemian friend has got you tied up now / And I don't think that you'll ever come down").
  5. Then, enter the chorus twice, to set up for the final crescendo: 
  6. The second layer of singalong chorus: "I know it's all wrong, I know it's all wrong" layered WITH "La la la" – a genius sticky songwriting move ensuring you'll be singing this song for days. 
  7. A clean outro reminiscent of the beginning of the song, but also invoking the tidy way that the narrator decides to disengage with the situation.

Bingo, Richard McGraw.  You've hit the nail of heartache square on the head without hammering that shit to death.  You understand subtlety; this much I know from your MySpace, which proclaims you've never used the words "California" or "LA" in a song.  Brilliant movez all around.

Now, if any of you Greatpants readers reside in New York the way that I do, you should know: McGraw will be performing on Friday March 5th at the American Folk Art Museum, as part of the Free Fridays, along with readers from the Underwater New York project.
 

into the mouth of madness

How did I get here? I never meant for this to happen. I had a wife once. Two kids. The guys at work liked me. We had beers at the pool hall every couple weeks or so. I found a cat behind the new house. I took it in. It would only eat the seafood-flavored cat food. It loved that stuff. We were happy. Now… now it's all a distant memory. I'm here, and… and everyone is just talking about music? And they expect me to talk about music too? No. You don't know what you ask of me. The phrases here, so thoughtful. The musical taste, so… tasteful. No. You don't want this. Not from me. But… but they say I have no choice.  Listen, guys, can't we discuss this like reasonable adults? I… I guess not. All right. All right, I'll do it. But you're not going to like it.

Listen, it's great to like bands who are "artistically innovative," or whose songs contain "introspective" lyrics, or who can "play their instruments well." But look, I'm a busy man. I haven't got time for all that shit. I need my songs to consist of multiple layers of noise delving in and out of each other, not to contribute to a greater whole, mind you, but in direct competition with each other. The guitars should be so full of distortion that I can't tell whether my speakers are shit or they actually wanted it to sound like that. The bass has to want to be heard over the guitar, and not simply plod away in the background. The drums should be more full of kicks and crashes than a startled donkey in the beverageware aisle. There should be at least two vocalists trying to shout over each other, and under no circumstances should I be able to discern what the hell they're saying. In summation, a good song reaches such heights of confusion that I can't even work out how many people are actually in the band or whether they are in fact all trying to play the same song at the same time. And preferably, it's all delivered in two minutes or less. It might not sound good; in fact, it's almost certainly terrible. But it feels good.

mika miko singing and playing instruments like bands do Not long ago, I discovered a band which perfectly understood this philosophy. A band that went around playing shows for the sheer fun of it and released recordings as an afterthought. Five people whose energy and enjoyment of their music is obvious even when you can't figure out anything else that's going on in the song. Tragically, late last year, the band decided to throw away a promising future in favor of higher education and pursuing fulfilling relationships. Their loss is ours, but we can take comfort in the fact that their few recordings persist.

All right, enough bullshit. It's Mika Miko!


Mika Miko – "Take It Serious"

Imagine a husband, nearing retirement age, wearing a cardigan and slippers with the soles worn through, settling into what he still calls an "easychair" with a sturdy cup of icewater and the half of the paper that he didn't get to this morning. He finds a new record on the tray next to him by a band he has never heard of. It's called "C.Y.S.L.A.B.F." What could that possibly stand for? Well, he decides, a little music in the evening might be just the thing. He starts the record, then picks up the sleeve again and scans the track list as the music begins. The first track opens with an aggressive riff, the drums kick off, and his mouth opens in a silent O of mixed amazement and consternation as he realizes that the terrible grammar in the title of this song is not some mistake, not some typo; no, this band knows, and they don't even care. What is she saying? he asks himself in bewilderment that is now becoming total. Wait, and what is this other girl saying? Why does she do that thing with her voice? And now they're just shouting at each other! Why are they having so much more fun than I am! Because, my friend, this is Mika Miko. And your life is a lie.

Mika Miko – "Sev"

You know those people at punk shows who get right in amongst the band and wait for the really loud, frantic songs and then just bounce off each other like disoriented mice in a drug testing lab? This song was written for them. I'm not going to apologize for this song. It's utterly terrible. There is virtually nothing that might redeem it. Maybe the presence of a sax in a punk song is a little interesting, but it's been done before. The vocalist is struggling to be heard over the instruments. At one point she rhythmically calls out "Okay!" as if it's the only thing holding the band together, and perhaps it is. It almost feels as though the band is having fun while nobody else is, that their performance has become an unlistenable mess. But that's not so. Somehow it rises above all that. This is a beautiful song and it holds a place as one of my favorites of all time.

Mika Miko – "I Got A Lot (New New New)"

This band doesn't have much of a range, I must admit. It doesn't really need to. But regardless, here and there a song stands out as being a little different. This is a track from their most recent and perhaps final recording (although one last EP is rumored) called "We Be Xuxa." It's relatively clean. It's catchy. The singer actually sings… sort of (although she does still do that thing with her voice). It's a nice little tune that you wouldn't be embarrassed to bring home to meet your parents. I believe that this song and this final album show that, in other circumstances, the band may have ended up doing something more "interesting," if you're into that kinda thing. It's obvious the band were aware they were recording their final album (another track, "Turkey Sandwich," contains a 10 second aside which is a sort of open letter farewell from one vocalist to the other) and perhaps they felt some freedom to experiment.


So, my new friends, that's Mika Miko. The recordings the band made over their seven year career add up to about one whole hour of listening time. You can buy them from PPM Records. So go on, give them a listen. A band doesn't have to be clever to be good.

water though it’s frozen

Truly, Joanna Newsom just don't give a fucc, and all the non-musical details that accumulate around her persona like so much space junk are actually pretty interesting. Weird harp-toting Ren-Fair space cadet, but one who's sort of a fashion plate? A babe, basically, and one with a command of language and meter so complete it intimidates the blood right out of your face? One who's dating Andy from SNL?! 

In a recent interview Newsom revealed that prior to recording her just-released triple album, she couldn't speak for two months. When her voice returned it had grown into something a little more polished, and less like an uncanny cross between a grandma and a nine-year old. It could've been a tale straight from one of her songs, which tend to fixate on unexpected metamorphoses. Skin is only…skin for her, a casing to be scraped off, stirred into tea, stuffed with sawdust, or removed in water. The things hidden within her characters–whales, bees, dreams–are the real objects of interest.

Joanna Newsom – "On a Good Day"

Which is why "On a Good Day" off the new album is so numb and so fuckin…sad. Newsom is firmly in Frosty New England territory here, stopping by a frozen lake to consider a couple of roads not taken. Unlike the sprawling opuses she tends to write, this is the barest sketch of a song. It addresses an ex-lover and the life they had started, how she had "just begun to fill in the lines, right down to what we'd name her." But metamorphosis isn't part of this universe–drearily, "nature does not change by will." Inside she's the same substance she was before, unable to return or move forward, just frozen still by the winter that befell her. 

how I spent my two and a half years in the wilderness, pt. 1

Hey there, loyal readers. Yes, all three of you! It's me, Ben. How are you? Oh, that's good. Me? I'm just fine, thanks. I recently got a haircut and a sandwich and my very own pair of shoes!

You know, it feels like it's been years since I saw you. What's that? It has? But how can that be?

Well, Niina wasn't far off when she intimated that it has been an "unmusical" couple of years since Girlpants faded from relative obscurity to the blackest depths of the internet. The past year has been perhaps the most unmusical of my life–I think I listened to less than a dozen albums total before the Christmastime arrival of my ridiculously named new media device by a certain software titan caused me to go on an tunes-acquisition spree. I've discovered some remarkable things since then (lookin' at you, jj), but in general my tastes are still hopelessly stuck in 2007.

That said, I do think there have been some excellent albums released in the intervening months. A few dozen have really stuck with me from the dark years, when I was living under the freeway and desperately trading opinions for sandwich crusts. In my next few posts I'm going to highlight a few of these, for your listening enjoyment and the preservation of my ever-dwindling sanity.


Menomena – Friend and Foe (Barsuk, 2007)
Menomena - Friend and FoeThis is a band that makes straight up interesting indie rock music. I know… them's some big words, right? Listen: Menomena aren't trying to go back to nature or create the synesthetic equivalent of an acid trip or create a sonic tapestry of all 50 of our gloriously star-spangled states. No–they just want to make some cool sounds that no one else has made before. In that way, they remind me of The Flaming Lips, but without the druggy noodling and overly bombastic worldmaking. Much was made at the time of this album's release about the band's recording strategy. Apparently, they create their songs in loops on custom software before transforming those arranged loops into live performances (you can get more info here). The result is music that's unusually complex and layered for this sort of indie rock–John Vanderslice's studio wizardry comes close, but it's got a different aim. In Friend and Foe, drums skitter along to techno-like beats, several guitar tracks scrape staccato over one another, pianos zoom in and out of the foreground. It's a truly big sound. [Buy]

Menomena – "Wet and Rusting"


Richard Hawley – Lady's Bridge (Mute U.S., 2007)
A longtime collaborator of fellow sleazy-voiced Brit Jarvis Cocker and his band of merrymaking men and womenfolk, Richard Hawley is a honey-voiced singer in the great tradition of the 20th Century's uncounted balladeers. Occasionally he picks up a rockabilly or a doo-wop touch, but for the most part Hawley's songs are velvety smooth and achingly quiet, but entirely without pretension. They're songs of love and loss, and on Lady's Bridge they flow with a master's touch. This is the perfect album for an evening at home, curled up with a glass of your favorite scotch and the sort of artificially illuminated memory of a past, lost love. He's put out a new album since this one, called Truelove's Gutter, but I haven't found my way to hearing it yet. Hopefully soon. [Buy]

Richard Hawley – "Lady Solitude"


The Besnard Lakes – The Besnard Lakes are the Dark Horse (Jagjaguwar, 2007)
The Besnard Lakes get lots of comparisons to their more popular fellow Montreal… eans? ites? ers?… I dunno… Anyway, I'm talking about The Arcade Fire. Such comparisons are really unfair. Sure, both are good at anthemic, arena-sized rock 'n roll, but The Besnard Lakes are a much rawer, much more heartfelt (rather than heart-considered) act. Every song on this album breathes with a kind of passion and vision rarely heard in modern indie rock, raw around the edges but incredible surefooted sonically. Great big riffs of feedback and distortion crash over the listener repeatedly, backed by huge choruses and layered vocals, and simple but tried and true rock 'n roll song structures. And man, those drums… These guys have a new album coming out this year that (at least some small part of) the internet is all abuzz about. [Buy]

The Besnard Lakes – "Devastation"


I'll be back soon with the ones that stuck with me from 2008, a year that saw me constructing a home out of discarded hubcaps and Big Mac wrappers at the confluence of Interstates 75 and 85. Look forward to it!

useless under the sun

Now that girlpants is back up and running we're getting invited to all the good parties again. It'd be gauche to go into too much detail, but I will say that Ben and Joel visited la Tour Eiffel together and Niina shot somebody with a revolver. 

And me? I've been ensconced in Lali Puna's bangin forthcoming album Our Inventions.

Run Lali Run

Lali Puna – "Move On"

Not just anyone can sing "you're just a small light, so useless under the sun, no will recognize your shine. Try." In the wrong hands it's like Thomas Kinkade territory. But rendered in that flatly Germanic, sexy robot voice of chanteuse Valerie Trebeljahr–I dunno, it seems earned somehow. By the chorus I find myself gazing out onto the horizon contemplatively, morning coffee commercial style, wondering what the day will bring. Warm, pulsating electronica and swelling major chords, apparently.

certain birds

I first saw Shearwater open for The Mountain Goats in 2004. Darnielle was on tour for The Sunset Tree, and Shearwater was supporting the release of their ep Thieves. I had never heard Shearwater before, and their performance left a lasting impression. Earlier that evening, I had read about the rediscovery of a long-extinct bird, the Cozumel Thrasher, a bit of esoterica that my young undergraduate mind stored away and quickly populated with winged imaginings. To my surprise, lead singer Jonathan Meiburg spent the better part of the evening talking up this finding — apparently, he's huge into birds. The combination (bird talk and socks being rocked) spurred not only an interest in the band, but in pursuing a bachelor's in ornithology.

Shearwater on Oct 19th, 2008 at Cafe 939. Photo by Cassandra<br<br /><br /><br /><br />
 /><br /> Marino.Since then I've been a big fan of Shearwater. I still prefer the original Misra release of Palo Santo over its reworked Matador cousin, which I think makes me a pretty big fan. I guess I'm not a big enough fan though, since I missed out on the rarities they had over at Kickstarter. I've rectified this by pre-ordering their upcoming release, The Golden Archipelago.

I've been listening to The Golden Archipelago for the past month (sorry fellos and fellas, I couldn't wait until February 23rd); it's definitely the most produced Shearwater album to date, and probably the most epic. Of course, this doesn't say much of the music; comparisons have been made to Talk Talk and Pink Floyd, both "influences" seemingly lost on what Shearwater actually produces. Despite meticulous compositions, orchestral arrangements, carefully-planned and thematized albums, their music never sounds belabored or overwrought. I think Meiburg and co. epitomize the struggle/tension I feel in my own studies between earnest and self-deferential art. I've always felt that, depending on which you embrace, you're bound to be ridiculed for the moments when your work slips towards the other side. It's a fine line, and a line that Meiburg walks whenever he sings; he has a voice that always sounds like it's about to break, fall silent, or simply disappear. For the majesty of each sweeping piece, it's a voice that can be (to invoke that fine line again) truly breathtaking, or completely humbling. Strung together with Kim Burke and Thor Harris, it's remarkable how they seem to be at once thunderous and quiet (with a heavy-hitter like Thor on skins, you damn well better be straddling that divide), expansive and minute, as if pitching the entire symphony from the pit into a leaky basement and still expecting stage cues.

I've read that Meiburg planned The Golden Archipelago as the last record in a trilogy beginning with the remastered version of Palo Santo and followed with Rook. In the spirit of that triptych (although breaking from the spirit of the "indivisible" album), here's a song from each panel:

Shearwater – "Seventy Four, Seventy-Five" (from Palo Santo)

Shearwater – "Leviathan Bound" (from Rook)

Shearwater – "Corridors" (from The Golden Archipelago)

You can still pre-order the album at Matador Records; CD pre-orders come with a 50-page booklet of images, photos, and ephemera Meiburg has collected over the past few years, while the LP comes with a download link to the unabridged "Golden Dossier" in pdf and a few bonus tracks. For a limited time, the band took orders for the complete dossier in a nice, sealed envelope. You and I both missed out on that. However, Meiburg recently posted info on a lecture he'll be giving on April 24th to the Texas Ornithological Society in Austin, and you'll bet I'll be there. The lecture is entitled "The Caracaras: Distribution and Ecology of the ‘False’ Falcons," and I'm inclined to believe there will be good snacks.

Photo courtesy of Cassandra and Keith at itsundertherotunda.blogspot.com.

Our Triumphant Return, or: From Girlpants, with Love

THIS MUCH
 
It wouldn't be hyperbolic to say we've had some shakeups at the Girlpants offices. When I say offices, I mean offices: we had some pretty nice ones, but we lost them in an ill-considered card game that big time hustlers Joel and Mike initiated against a rival blogful of poker-shark web journalists. Then several hard, unmusical years passed, and we could nary afford a seven-inch as we lived on oatmeal packets, the paltry nickels from our freelance stump grinding, and whatever Ben could scare up spanging by the highway on-ramp with his "Opinions: 25 Cents" sign. But our hard work (and the steel toes I had to pawn) paid off, because we finally collected enough minutes on the internet cafe card to be able to print out the application and–blessing of fiscal blessings–got that government bailout. 
 
And now we've landed here, in the amore month, and we're about to romance your ear-betweens with this love-themed mix. It's not Valentine's Day anymore, but who cares? Love is better late than never.
 

 
01: The Mountain Goats – "Cai Dao Blowout"
They say women look for their fathers in the men they date, which sounds like Freudian bullshit to me. But they fuck you up, your mum and dad, and in "Cai Dao Blowout," John Darnielle asks the perennial question of well-meaning boyfriends everywhere: "When the ghost of your father comes to town, what the hell else can you do?" There's a lot to like about this song: the way the ramshackle banjo and organ give it a buzzy, backyard-summer-evening feel, the way the word 'citronella' unfolds into an unexpectedly pretty sound, all the funny bush-devil antics (knocking over furniture? Getting into the reception on the wireless? LOL?) But what really gets me is how affectionate it is. While JD writes bitter, loathing and doomed pitch-perfectly, he doesn't always connect with the more heartfelt stuff. But he here manages to capture a rare kind of sweetness: resignation at its lightest and warmest. This is a song about loving someone and wanting to do everything you can for them, even when you can't do anything at all. Hardly the stuff of a valentine's day crush, but we should be so lucky to be loved like this, in all of our stupid, helpless vulnerability. (Mike)
 
02: Acid House Kings – "This Heart is a Stone"
I was never a big fan of Acid House Kings. Actually, I'm still not a big fan of Acid House Kings. They make that kind of cutesy, innocuous, soundtracked-pop that makes me think of a teeny kitten getting smothered by a soft, marshmallow pillow (a familiar nightmare for all, I imagine). I confuse them with just about every other Swede combo/trio/quartet (well, maybe not ABBA); I hit "skip" every time one of their songs ruins a sweet run of blissed-out glo-fi (rare); I think I made a mean face at Nina Persson when I thought I saw The Cardigans outside a Jiffy-Lube last week (doubtful). Yet needless to say, I still listen to the Acid House Kings, and now find myself putting "This Heart is a Stone" on a crummy love-mix for cranky hipster people. And this is a song about cranky hipster love, about hearts calcified into small pockets of coal. On the opening bounce, Julia Lannerheim begins "They say your middle name is 'Trouble' / but I know it's Caroline" and "They say that you only bring heartache / but I know you brought a bottle of wine," that self-knowing delivery suggesting the type of tongue-in-cheek playfulness that is so tongue-in-cheek it's like there's a smaller tongue inside a smaller cheek tucked away inside. Coupled with that long pause right before the insta-classic chorus ("This heart is a stone / no one will ever break it / this heart is a stone / just for you it breaks easily") and you've got mixtape fodder for years of catty Carolines who are lookin' for the right guy to cleave that heart-shaped carbonate rock. (Joel)
 
03: First Aid Kit – "Hard Believer"
This song puts me in a corny but genuine mood. I want to believe there is a bit of Emmylou influence in the singing style of the Swedish sisters that make up First Aid Kit, and listening to the crystalline melody and harmony makes a statement even as brash as this one pretty easy to back up. But though most of the other songs lack the necessary melancholy, “Hard Believer” delivers and that's the reason to pick this song off their debut, The Big Black and the Blue. “And it's one life / and it's this life / and it's beautiful” – these are not complex lyrics, but set in the framework of this melody, they're words that you want to wail when you're drunk.  And love, like the best Americana, should be spoken plainly and timed as tight as a rope walk. (Niina)
 
04: The Shondes – "Make it Beautiful"
From the Shondes' upcoming album My Dear One, which is one album I'm highly anticipating. The gorgeous blend of riot grrl and classical instrumentation is what makes their sound, and this song, so fucking irresistible that I can't even make a halfway decent metaphor to describe it. The Shondes have a special magic with melodic breakdowns, and this song is no exception, with its self-conscious lyrics about structure. Singer Louisa's voice makes the instruction "let's make it beautiful" seem more like a command than a coax, and I'm totally along for the ride. (Niina)
 
05: Pia Fraus – "Loveloops"
It's tough not putting this song in the mix, although I know what it'll do to my reputation: make my colleagues pin me for some sort of sappy, depressive, aspiring song-smith who thinks any and every song with the word "love" in it means that the "special feeling" is somewhere buried in that composition (please take note the repetition "and again / and again / and again" that loops into sunny hysteria at the end of the song, and further note that I don't own no song-smithy). Here I appeal to higher reason: Pia Fraus is a band all about feeling music, and After Summer is one of those records that has a feeling of its own. I put "Loveloops" here knowing its bright synth leads and soft boy-girl vocals don't lend to the lovelorn atmosphere of a few of the other cuts — the heady-drone tracking from beginning to end like a wave of August heat,an ambient nostalgia in each note — but with hopes that it'll serve as sanctuary from the trials and tribulations of love lost. (Joel) 
 
06: Why? – "Good Friday"
Awesomely named band frontman Yoni Wolf is something of a specialist in heartbreak and longing. Having made an entire album's worth of songs about those two subjects in Elephant Eyelash (also: family, drugs, suicide, and death in general), he turned around and made another, even better, album about the exact same stuff with Alopecia. Like most of my favorite lyricists, Yoni has the rare ability to employ seemingly nonsensical, or at least impressionistic and scattershot, verse to sneakily devastating effect. "Good Friday" is about many things, in that it covers a pretty stunning array of scenes and moments for a song that runs just under four minutes–but at its base, this song is about the process of assimilating the loss of love. A litany of the ways the narrator tries to forget, the lyrics are at the same time intermixed with admissions of pain and confusion as well as fonder reminisces, leading to a conclusion in which he gives the girl the best sendoff he can muster. In a roundabout way, it covers the entire breadth and depth of a relationship in the space of a pop song. (And hey… the music is awesome, too.) (Ben)
 
07: Xiu Xiu – "Chocolate Makes You Happy"
Then again, in the vagueries of romance, there is very little solid.  As we dart through the shades of delirious love-lorn innuendo like guppies through a miniature ceramic diver mask, all the while we secretly long for something obvious. Luckily there's chocolate, which we can use to mash into our eat-faces when we don't get that phone call we deserve. And even more luckily, Jamie Stewart's new Xiu Xiu iteration drops this month, and it contains this dark and danceable tidbit concerning chocolate. It may also concern depression. It may also want to make you reconsider being happy. But that's not my issue, that. (Niina)
 
08: Rocketship – "Naomi & Me"
"You were in my favorite band, Naomi understand I'll do all I can…to love yoooou." Let's be honest, the best Valentine's Day crushes are the ones you don't actually know. None of the blemishes and complications of speech–why write lyrics when you have the hook in all of her pure, pop perfection? This is something twee understood inherently, in all of its radical idealism. Sometimes all you have to do, as Rocketship demonstrate, is sing along with the 'Oooos.' (Mike)
 
09: Love Connection – "All Over"
I wanted to include something on the mix that I've been digging recently, and figured (by name alone) that Love Connection fit that bill. They've got their first record out now on Sensory Projects/Inertia, and after d/ling it on a fanciful whim (I was cheery that day), it's been on constant rotation in my bedroom. What I know about Love Connection I've gleaned from their Myspace page and an interview on Mess + Noise: Dean Noble, Kobi Simpson (who is adorable), Nathan Burgess, and Michael Caterer are from Melbourne, and they play music. I'm fond of labelmates Minus Story, and I'll use their frantic, wide-eyed, fractured psych-pop as a frame of reference: they are not similar at all. Instead they remind me of Mojave 3 and Miracle Fortress, with that same hazy, whirling hum circling each finely-tuned track. Spoiler alert: "All Over" is the last song on their album. From that breathy line "I love / the way / you talk / to the friends / inside / my heart," "All Over" grows and grows in warmth, building to a fuzzy wash of synth paired with a meticulously-patterned, clean guitar line. It manages to be sweeping and big while sounding tiny; it's the part of our mix that will probably make you feel tingling under your nice button-up shirt when thinking about a girl. (Joel)
 
10: jj – "My Love"
11: jj – "Intermezzo"
A low-level buzz band that snuck into the eardrums of a few listeners last year and refused to leave, jj are a mysterious act from Sweden, but you'd never be able to tell that from their sound (accent aside). Like their labelmates Air France and groups like Lindstrom and Studio, the anonymous act incorporate elements of what has come to be known as the Scandinavian balearic sound. I'm not enough of a specialist in this genre to be able to tell you exactly what that means… just that I know it when I hear it. "My Love" is a simple pop song with lyrics that don't aspire to much–a simple tale of love lost, but this time from the other side of the divide. Unlike Yoni Wolf's emotionally crippled protagonist, this one is empowered enough to tell her former lover that the "next time you see me; you better stand in line." "Intermezzo" is an instrumental outro that carries "My Love" to a charmingly ramshackle conclusion. (Ben)
 
12: Florence + the Machine – "You've Got the Love (XX remix)"
I dunno, I just imagine icy, coked-up Cupids floating over the beat, plucking their celestial harps. This remix is all pizzicato, really, from the two-step beat to those chirpy lasers and weirdly precise tabla samples–a perfect 180 from the ringing power chords and belted vocals of the original. And so with the sound, the feel. They take Florence and the Machine's exalting "you've got the love" and even it out into a groove, an encouragement. If you're too cool for valentine's day–which, let's face, would be pretty fucking cool–this'll be playing during your makeout session in the club tonight. (Mike)
 
13: Genius Sir – "Girl U Want (Devo cover)"
"Girl U Want" is pretty simple and pretty dead-on in its assessment of the sort of blinders love (both in air quotes and out) can put on you. Inbetween the repeated chorus of "she's just the girl you want," the lyrics elevate said girl to "the top of the greenest tree," from which she "sends out an aroma of undefined love; it drips down in a mist from above." First recorded by Devo, this homebrew cover of the song was put together for the recent Hipinion Totally or Totally Not: 80s compilation by boarder Genius Sir. To my ear, it somewhat miraculously captures and even improves on the manic energy and the barely masked hopelessness of the original, while substantially upping the tempo. (Ben)
 

 
Get the mix in full (with special edition cover art!) here:
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(links updated to correct iTunes tagging/importing issue)

Autumn Shade

With all the dismantling of worker-benefits here at girlpants, evil cigar-chomping mogul Ben came in and told me I had to write something, then laughed until his belly shook. Have you ever seen a corpulent CEO try and fit into girlpants? Strangely sublime.

So, onwards.

Autumn Shade, aside from being the best-worst fictitious Jade Tree emo band name EVER (debut album title: Falling For You), is the cri de coeur of Jes Lenee, lapsed piano prodigy and lovely goth-waif songbird.

While Niina would probably be all over this album like black on nails, it’s a little ponderous for my taste. The first (full) song kills, however. With a brisk acoustic gait under wintry piano, ‘Shade’s ghost-child voice mourns and moans with impressive range. Basically, this is what Chris Issac’s Wicked Games would sound like had it been written by someone with miles to go before they sleep. “Home, I don’t want to go home. But I’m not going back, even if it kills me.” I can relate.

Autumn Shade – Home