Sunday, May 07, 2006

And Now Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming....

Folks—dear, dear, loyal folks—sorry about those last two tangential posts. Excuse my vagrancy. Temporary as it was.

So now a post about music, oh wait...this blog was never supposed to be about...well never mind...

J---, who probably doesn’t read this blog anymore because of all the annoying music posts, pointed me to yet another band I’ve missed the past few years, and an album from last year that completely flew under my radar. (I blame it on my ineptitude and utterly un-hip High School friends that drag me down. I surely don’t blame it on J, besides J doesn’t even read this anymore so blaming him would do no good. N-mode, can you paint that crying tears mime make-up on my face and I’ll do that ‘tearing your own heart-out and crushing it’ act right here.)

Oh the album. The band is Stars and the album is “Set Yourself On Fire” (maybe I should go all performance artsy and mime the sewing of my heart to a string, raise my arm as if I’m holding the heart on a string, hang my head, mime that one movement light a zippo trick, and set my heart aflame. Get it myself = my heart. So profound.)

Beautiful and restrained chamber indie-pop, even when they go all grandiose on your ass. Dizzying and dazzling at times, especially after a few listens. So they’re up there w/ The National now. Take them, remove the ‘sobering up after a one-night stand while away on a business trip’ pathos, and keep the regret and misery. As the p-fork review put it, it's "the moments right after you hit your emotional nadir and start getting your shit together." Not as cacophonous as Arcade Fire, but as swelling and climactic.

Go get the album and listen to ‘Reunion’ over and over and over and over...

P.S. I hope all the Mudville Gazette readers enjoyed this post. Seriously though, welcome aboard.

4 comments:

Shannon said...

I thank you for all your recommendations because I'm far to lazy to research new music myself even though I'm a bit bored with the albums currently on high rotation on my computer.

quasim said...

The thanks on this one goes to Josh. But yeah, a decent internet connection and constant lockdown make for a lot of music research. And it also makes for way too much money spent on iTunes.

Anonymous said...

...and I do read your blog. Not super frequently as work has picked up a bit and I can't usually understand what's going on but I try, sometimes...anyway.

quasim said...

Oh...you did find the right post!...do you want the Built to Spill cover of Macy Gray's "I Try"? Maybe that can be your theme music from now on.