KOLO, a three-piece from London, will be releasing Who Wants To Rule The World? in January 2015; Castro is the first single. The video, which is tremendously sweet, is mainly about the ups-and-downs of being a superhero in training.
Father John Misty (Josh Tillman), formerly of Fleet Foxes, started his solo career two years ago with Fear Fun. With it he positioned himself as a kind of post-modern Hunter S. Thompson, writing a doomed love story while high on mushrooms, self-loathing and irony. He publicly mocked critics who panned it, and audiences at his shows were often left wondering whether they were in on the joke, or just the punchline.
I liked it – I still do – but I also once described it as “Pavarotti singing nursery rhymes.”
Now, after a period of reflection and reconstruction – he put out a perfume, came unscrewed, got married, and pulled himself together, more or less in that order – he’s back with his second record, to be called I Love You, Honeybear, due out in February 2015.
Exterior signs suggest his puckish nature is undimmed at the core; the link text for his tour schedule is “I’m Coming to Your Town/Bring Your iPhone” and his Twitter reads like horse_ebooks:
Your Mom really was awesome if she packed Gushers in your lunchbox. Don't forget to send good luck messages to your favorite Olympians!
— AIKIKO – FJM (@fatherjohnmisty) January 22, 2014
Bored In the USA is the first single, and as the title suggests, is intended to echo Springsteen’s Born In the USA while also updating it for the modern era. The version below is from his appearance on Letterman, and so has a laugh track, which is accidental but nonetheless perfect.
http://youtu.be/hIFrG_6fySg
This is the video for The River and the Willow, the title song from the latest release by the Dinner Belles of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The barn in the background doubles as their practice space and sometimes also their living space. The song is delightful, but really what I liked about this video is how cozy it feels, like you’re sitting on a porch (or, okay, river bank) with them.
DINNER BELLES – The River and the Willow from Southern Souls on Vimeo.
This year Mac McCaughan kept the Superchunk tradition of Halloween cover songs alive by taking on First and Last and Always by the Sisters of Mercy. The result is a mellow, reflective take on a classic.
Blooming, the new compilation from Fleeting Youth Records, is 33 songs/90+ minutes of occasionally fuzzy goodness. There really is something in there for everyone. Here are a couple tunes to whet your appetites:
Simple Syrup by Lurve: deceptively sweet, surprisingly heavy on the bottom end.
Sloppy Joes by Vomitface (nice name, guys): perfect for if you enjoy a good heavy metal headbang two-step but cannot be having with ogre roar. I’m swaying slowly in my chair as I type.
Philadelphia by Mumblr: Because they are my faaaaavorite, okay, and I’m more fond of this song than the city it’s about. They’ve written an anthem for one complex, gritty, sometimes ugly place but it’s universally applicable: your place might be a hot mess but it is your place, where-ever it is.
Tidal Grave by Assault Shaker: This one has, I think, I little bit more of a pop-industrial edge, what with the opening sample and droning vocals. But it’s good stuff.
And now, all the way from Italy, international man of mystery El Xicano, with a deceptively idyllic video for “La Grande Paura” (The Great Fear), the first and most mellow tune from his self-titled but as yet unreleased EP.
Even on sunny days at the beach, there are flickers of darker things . . .
(I’ve watched this video three times and I’m still not sure if that sunny beach is just random found home video footage, or footage from Jonestown. So there’s an extra layer of creepy-crawly uncertainty.)
Good afternoon, NTSIBBers. I hope you all are enjoying your Halloween and/or Friday afternoon. In the spirit of Halloween, we have a very special treat today: the new video from City of Women, for Beaufriend.
It’s a challenge: the first and second times I watched it, I mostly came away confused. So I sent the band some questions.
NTSIB: 1) What is the story you are telling here? and 2) The parts I found most – disquieting, I guess – are the lady dancing for the kid and the man with the bullwhip chasing the girls around. Why did you include those scenes and what are they intended to contribute to the narrative?
M. Nero Nava (vocals, rhythm guitar, video director): This video (like our band name) is an homage to Fellini’s 8 1/2. The song (Beaufriend) and the film share a theme–finding inspiration in our messy lives.
We directly parody and parrot scenes from the movie. The man with the harem (or rogues gallery of women) is also the little boy who was fascinated with the woman on the beach. She’s his first fascination. She also chases his older self in the harem/dream/fantasy sequence.
In a nutshell we have a character who has long been infatuated with with infatuation. Since an early age, when at a desolate beach he was alone with this woman. It rules his life. It’s his mate, his girlfriend/wife. It’s not so much about having several women as some source of inspiration (he even encounters a friend who has two women in his bed). It’s about wanting, and longing, and using those feelings as a source of inspiration. They carry him. Those feelings ultimately will revolt. Since they are unfulfilling. When he realizes this, that it’s all a play. He also realizes that he is alone on that beach… I don’t know. That’s my abstraction from Fellini’s movie in partnership with my song.
“Beaufriend” – City Of Women from VIV G on Vimeo.
Editors note: Fellini links, for context and contrast: 8 1/2 (original trailer), 8 1/2 (movie).
It’s a simple yet sublime pleasure, and just thinking about it can make you feel a little calmer, a little more content. Imagine: You bring out one of the good rocks glasses (or your favorite mug or a special occasion tea cup) and pour a couple fingers of amber liquid (or something dark and strong or just some whole milk). You drop the needle on the jazz platter (or pull up a blues album on your mp3 player or dig out that mixtape from college). Ensconcing yourself in the coziest seat in the house, you crack the spine on a classic (or find your place in that sci-fi paperback or pull up a biography on your e-book reader). And then, you go away for a while. Ah, bliss.
In this series, some of NTSIB’s friends share beloved albums, books and drinks to recommend or inspire.
Last we checked in with Arum Rae was in April, when she was about to release her first EP. Now she’s putting out another EP, called Waving Wild, and it different from the first one – less echo-ey, syrupy synths and drum machines, more stripped down guitars – but still awesome.
Let’s Shake is the first song, and as you can hear it’s a stomper:
Waving Wild also reflects a lighter sound, though there’s a ribbon of fuzz running through it:
And with that, I turn the floor over to her, to tell us about a favorite book, record and drink:
Photo by Dominic Neitz
The Autobiography of Malcolm X is my favorite book ever. Malcolm was a rebel and seeker of the truth. He had conviction to make the world a more fair and loving place for all humans… But white America has soured his reputation and summed him up to look like a violent racist…. Which might have been true at one point but not at all where Malcolm ultimately evolved into being…. That’s why this book is inspiring and fascinating. The Autobiography of Malcolm X unveils the CIA, Nation of Islam and the true Malcolm X.
A Good Listen
If I were to put on music while reading it would be Piano Solos Volume 2 by Dustin O’Halloran.
Dustin O’Halloran – Opus 23 – directed by Marco Morandi from Dustin O'Halloran on Vimeo.
A Good Drink
My drink for this occasion would be lapsang souchong tea. Either hot with milk or ice in a margarita. It’s smoky and tastes like cow shit smells. I like that.
Posting it this year and every year because:
1) I looooooove it –
2) they made it themselves, apparently using change they found under couch cushions on the bus –
3) It was the last thing they did – the last vaguely happy thing they did – before they split in half –
4) Spencer Smith playing the tambourine and/or awkwardly fall-spinning in circles while wearing a wolf mask: never not funny –
5) I miss Spencer Smith, a lot –
6) If you watch all of Panic’s pre-split “official†videos in order of creation, you can see a band gradually coming apart at the seams. Northern Downpour is beautiful and unbearably sad for this reason. It’s Almost Halloween is just them having dumb fun in the woods.
7) Ryan Ross wearing diva sunglasses with a mummy costume: also never not funny –
8) I miss Ryan Ross and his infectious pop hooks a lot, too –
9) Their boy-band-style dancing is hilarious year round –
10) I don’t grudge current!Panic! At the Disco any of their ongoing success, and in many ways the split was the best thing possible for all concerned, but: I miss those four goofballs being all together, sometimes.
(reasons lifted and modified from a post on my personal Tumblr)
This is the video for Are We Saying Goodbye by Kan Wakan, from their new record, Moving On, and it is – unexpectedly powerful, I think, is the word I’m looking for. A visual meditation on all the ways you can love somebody, both who they are and who they pretend to be and what other people make them into (but you know it isn’t real, and hate it, but still love them) and the point where that person and all of their faces is on their way out of your life.
For more music, check out their Soundcloud page.