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December 22, 2007
Music To Dance And Hate Yourself To
Perhaps the most tragic moment in Margot At The Wedding is when Margot sighs and says "I never listen to music anymore." That line, to me, is more telling about her character than almost any other in the picture.
Which brings me to what I intended to be an assessment of the year in music before I realized that I didn't really get much new music this year, and what I did get never really won me over wholeheartedly. I lost some degree of patience with almost every new record I picked up, from The White Stripes to M.I.A. to Panda Bear to The Arcade Fire to Grinderman. Even former loves Radiohead and Bjork failed to make me swoon with their new offerings. From what I've read, this may in fact be a sign of clinical depression, which puts me in a bit of a Catch-22, because what am I going to listen to when I'm depressed? The answer, it turns out, is Umbrella, which I found myself listening to an awful lot, and generally not ironically.
Only two new albums have held up for me over the past few months. One is PJ Harvey's White Chalk, particularly the conjoined openers The Devil and Dear Darkness, two of the most beautiful, the most furiously fragile lullabies Polly Jean's ever composed.
The other is Of Montreal's Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? Kevin Barnes' glam rock arrangements are so magnificently layered and musically complex that it takes a spin or two to realize just how intimate and confessional these songs really are. It's a truly amazing record.
I know I'm missing out on a lot of stuff, though. Most of the music I've been listening to of late is older, or older sounding. I guess I've looking for something timeless, the kind of stuff that doesn't seem to fit into lists very well. A lot of Mahler and Gorecki. That one Jandek album. And of course, as always, Joanna Newsom, whose music has reminded me what true love feels like.
Speaking of older music, Margot At The Wedding, in spite of it lead character, ends with a truly sublime bit of soundtrack supervision: the credits roll to Karen Dalton's truly gorgeous Something On My Mind. Lest you haven't discovered this sometimes off-putting, sometimes enchanting chanteuse for yourself, allow me to share that particular number with you:
And now I've got something on my mind, and it's called going to sleep for the first time in 40 hours.
Posted by David Lowery at December 22, 2007 12:38 PM
Comments
I'm a big fan of Of Montreal for the very reasons you describe. This year was a little disappointing as far as music goes, but Pela, Beirut, and Cold War Kids were some of my personal faves.
Posted by: Chuck at December 23, 2007 02:51 PM
I need to pick up that Beirut album - it's been recommended to me by a lot of folks. And I supposed I neglected to mention above that I really loved Bill Callahan's Woke On A Whale Heart and really liked the new albums by Feist and St. Vincent - and perhaps Devendra Barnhart as well, although I keep getting waylaid by the wonderful Seahorse and neglecting the subsequent tracks.
Posted by: David Lowery at December 23, 2007 06:48 PM
i feel like nobody is talking about the Papercuts record. maybe it's a personal taste thing, but i feel like that's a gem of an album.
Posted by: tully at December 24, 2007 12:30 AM