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One massive part of my life that hasn't recieved a single mention on the blog yet is music. Music is my companion for fully half the time I'm awake and I'd be pretty much lost without it.

In this post I'm going to introduce a few albums that I have been listening to over the past week. This isn't a list of all time favourites by any means but it is a nice cross section of what is powering my life at the moment.

Maybe you'll find something you like, maybe you'll think I'm a little bit weird for listening to this... Who knows, but let's have fun finding out.

Each entry is just a snippet from a review followed by links to various videos and mp3s.

A quick note for those of you unfamiliar with YouTube: No need to worry about codecs/media players/linux being a rubbish; All videos on youtube are converted into flash files, so if you can see flash animations you can view these videos.

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65daysofstatic - The Fall of Math

People say 65daysofstatic sound like Mogwai with a bit of Squarepusher, or Slint played at 78rpm remixed by Aphex Twin, or Godspeed! mixed with M83, or any other number of insightful muso.crit.com comparisons. And yeah, they do, insofar as anything sounds like anything else on drugs, but it’s a reductive method of description. What 65daysofstatic actually sound like is three men making a fast, wordless, angry and occasionally redemptive noise, part guitar, part drum(machine)s, part piano, part scree, part fuck-knows-what. They’ve built up a ferocious live reputation, adding a live drummer who propels them way beyond expectations of "three guys with laptops playing solitaire," and turning them into a seriously fucking heavy ROCK proposition.

I'd guess that not many people are going to get on well with 65dos but I absolutely love them. Anyway, here are a few samples:

65daysofstatic - I Drove Through the Ghosts to Get Here (YouTube video)
65daysofstatic - I Am Robot
65daysofstatic - I Swallowed Hard, Like I Understood

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The Dresden Dolls - The Dresden Dolls

the Dolls' proper debut, following the out-of-print primer A Is for Accident-- runs the gamut from theatrical to poppy, from oldies to showtunes. Remember that piano and drums were all that Jerry Lee Lewis needed to record "Great Balls of Fire", and the Dolls can match that frenzy. The world is full of songs about depression, but isn't it a relief to hear someone act manic for a change-- as on "Girl Anachronism", where Palmer pummels the keys like her skirt's on fire while Viglione clatters like a drawerful of razor blades? Palmer's voice drips and chills through the damaged-little-girl songs, but she can also melt into confessionals with melodic melancholy, like Tori Amos' punky younger sister.


The Dresden Dolls - Girl Anachronism

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STARS - Set Yourself On Fire

[Stars] have again created a near-masterpiece of a pop confection. In fact, as far as entries into the keyboard-heavy electro-pop epics category go, it’d be fair to say that Stars have created this year’s outstanding entrant.

It’s not that the male-female duo vocals make it or even the moments where the group channels the Delgados in their sublime use of strings and horns; it’s more that Stars has gotten tighter since their last outing. Codas don’t sound like tacked on reasons to wank, parts of songs fit together more intimately and, most importantly, there doesn’t seem to be wasted moments.

STARS - Your Ex-Lover is Dead (YouTube video)

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M83 - Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts

The power of music to seemingly construct, alter and distort space can be staggering. Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, the second album from French electronic duo M83, nicely epitomizes this: The sound is absolutely huge, its relentless attention to detail eclipsed only by the stunning emotional power it conveys. For fifty-seven glorious minutes, its impossibly intricate tapestry of buzzing techno synthesizers, distorted electric guitars, cheesy drum machines, and subdued vocals generate a sense of bodily movement through a landscape of beauty, disappointment, glory, and decrepitude.

I love M83. It's not often I describe things as beautiful, but M83 definitely are. 'America' in particular is completely glorious.

M83 - America (Youtube video)
M83 - 0078h (YouTube video)
M83 - Don't Save Us From The Flames (Youtube video)