Archive for the "Play This If You Hate Music" category
The category title is misleading. Sorry about that. I actually like these songs, but I get a lot of grief from my friends about my musical tastes. However, that never stops me from forcing them to listen to my “new favorite song.”
Exit Petra Haden, enter Lisa Molinaro of the experimental Portland band, talkdemonic as the latest touring member of the Decemberists. Like the excellent duets of the past with Colin Meloy and Haden, this duet from The Crane Wife is perhaps the best moment on the album. Typical Meloy songwriting, it’s the story of two lovers during the Civil War; a dead soldier buried after the Battle of Manassas, and his pregnant sweetheart left behind.
Roots and Crowns. “Uniting where you come from – your roots — with what you strive to be or what you reinvent yourself to become — crowns,” explains Califone’s Tim Rutili. “At the bottom of these songs are the memories and images you sift through in the process.”
“Before we started to work on the new the record, I was listening to ‘Orchids’ by Psychic TV on repeat,” says Rutili. “This song made me want to start writing songs again.” Califone offers a sparse and beautiful cover of “Orchids” on Roots & Crowns. The line from the song, ‘In the morning after the night/ I fall in love with the light,’ became a theme for the new album.
Heron King Blues was very much the dark end of the band’s last cycle; in many ways this new album is a kind of dawn after the darkness. The songs and sounds all feel fresh.
Imagery of rebirth comes up often on Roots & Crowns. On “3 Legged Animals,” Rutili sings, “3 legged animals shut their sweet eyes/ lick your scars and grow wings,” and later, “leave your memories, we’re almost new.” He explains, “that song started out as a song called ‘Dreamless’ for the end credits of The Lost. The last scene in the film is a total bloodbath; after that it seemed like the film could use a little sweetness, a bit of salvation for these dark, misfit characters after a period of intense violence. We re-recorded it with Califone and took a more detailed approach, both lyrically and instrumentally. Where the first version felt more about balancing the mood of the film, the one from the album feels more about hope and joy, rebirth, survival and self-acceptance.”
Gustaf Kjellvander with a past in bands as Sideshow Bob and Songs of soil has a new album coming out under the name of The fine arts showcase.
The new album is being called Radiola and will be released February 2006 in Sweden; it’s been recorded at Mission Hall Studio by Mathias Oldèn from the band Logh.
His latest release was called “Gustaf Kjellvander Proudly Presents The Fine Arts Showcase and the Electric Pavilion” and was released in May 2004 on Startracks.
Gustaf has mentioned that his albums are a bit like mix-tapes representing his multi-sided influences. The new album is more varied than his earlier records but maintaining his well-known writing and song style.
Having grown up outside Seattle after being born in Sweden he’s well familiar with the English language and uses it fluidly. After 10 years in the states his family returned to Sweden, where Gustaf as a mean of coping with boredom and alienation started writing music. One of his first gigs were at his school when he was 12 years old. And so the story goes.
He’s currently residing in London, travelling to Sweden for gigs and promotion.