Category Archives: Tunes

August Album Reviews

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Why do I even do these if I do them three months later, you may ask yourself. Merely to cement things in my own (increasingly addled) mind would be my answer.

Absolutely Love & Adore:

The New Frontiers “Mending” – Pretty sure I bought this after hearing a single on Fuel/Friends. Wow, this album is oddly heartbreaking. “Mirrors” sends me pretty close to crying every time I hear it [hold up *ahem*, is this a God song? I am just listening a little more closely to the lyrics and getting that icky religion shiver up my spine]. “The Day You Fell Apart” has a total Travis feel. But my favorite song is “Strangers”.

Carla Bruni “Comme si de rien n’etait” – So lovely. I guess she’s gotten some flack in France for being a cheesy pop singer but this whole thing is pure sultriness to me. And my favorite song is definitely the (in)famous “Tu es me came” (“you are my drug”). I loved her previous album en francais as well, although not so much the one en anglais.

Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip “Angles” – Yay yay yay. YAY! The funnest rap out there. “Letter from God to Man”, “Beat that My Heart Skipped” and “Thou Shalt Always Kill” are all kinda obvious to have as favorites, but that’s the way it is sometimes.

Joseph Arthur “Foreign Girls” – His whateverth EP of the year (fourth?). I particularly love “Lovely Cost” which has a Bowiesqueness.

Paddy Casey “Addicted to Company (Part 1) – I can’t remember if it was MG or MF that sent me this but thank you to whichever because it’s kinda great. (Maybe too folk-y for some a yous though.) “City” is my fave, particularly for its great opening.

Favorite Singles (not on any of the above albums):

  • Jump Little Children “Cathedrals” – old and kinda cheesy but I’m lovin it lately.
  • “Bang On” the Breeders – YUPPERDO
  • “To The Bone” Mugison
  • “Let Me Go On” Seabird
  • “Chicago” Lucy Wainwright Roche (LOVE this)
  • “Long Division” Slow Runner
  • “It’s You” Pictures and Sound

Other Albums I Liked:

  • Dr. Dog “Fate” – I really really like some songs on this album (“The Rabbit, the Bat & the Reindeer”, “The Dearly Departed”, “Uncovering the Old”) but there are a few that I have to forward quickly past (“The Ark”, “The Beach”). So it’s a bit uneven to me (bad) but in general they’re a bit Beatles-esque (good).
  • The Ting Tings “We Started Nothing” – as with Dr. Dog, I like this, but not totally. It’s a bit uneven stylistically. Maybe they haven’t quite found “their sound” yet. Some of it’s rappish, some sing-songy (“Traffic Light”). When these songs come up on shuffle, I can’t always place them.
  • Newton Faulkner “Hand Built by Robots” – Also sent to me by MG or MF (dang I am losing my mind). Somewhat folky. Really really like “Uncomfortably Slow” and “Dbdbdb”. Sometimes a Jason Mraz vibe (“Feels like Home”, “People Should Smile More” “U.F.O.”) which may be why I’m not totally into it (I loved Mraz’ early stuff but then I saw him do some weird “come on give me attention!” stuff live and I kinda went off him).

Not really for me / but maybe for you!:

The Black Keys “Attack and Release” – I like these guys live a LOT. And the album’s fine…But I don’t find I listen to it much.

Shamefully have either not listened to at all, or not all the way through, or so few times that I can’t legitimately offer an opinion:

Nada!! [OK actually a couple mixes I was sent have only gotten a tiny bit o’ listenin’ time.]

À la Super Eggplant, currently, I am…

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Eating: Pumpkin scones from SBUX. They are sooooo good. They are also 500 calories, which lands on the not so good side. So as long as you just don’t eat anything else…

Making: Vaguely knitting socks for Dad and socks for me. Vaguely. [All the same quilts in all the same stages they’ve been in.]

Reading: Same as last week…since I spent a gazillion hours at the Chicago Film Festival I’ve barely done any reading at all: At home I’m reading the Ford-edited short stories from our July / October challenge. On the train I’m reading “The Conversations at Curlow Creek” by David Malouf which is very slow and measured but weighty in its own way.

Watching: The Offce, Pushing Daisies and Sons of Anarchy. Those three are definitely my favorite shows right now so I generally watch each episode a few times. You know, once the night it’s on, once the next night while I’m falling asleep, once over the weekend when I don’t feel like doing anything on my to-do list… [As well as random online video interviews of my future husband. They do keep popping up!]

Listening to: Last few days I’ve been listening to everything I bought in August, September and so far in October in one big shuffled pack. I am particularly loving Mumford & Sons “White Blank Pages“, First Aid Kit’s cover of “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” (Fleet Foxes), Carla Bruni “Tu es ma came”, The New Frontiers “Mirrors”, Jump Little Children “Cathedrals” (old and kinda cheesy but damn I can’t stop listening to it), Ryan Auffenberg “Pictures (of Someone Else)“, but that’s just a samplin’.

Favorite Album of Today

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“Love, War and the Ghost of Whitey Ford” Everlast
I’ve loved his gravelly thick voice for a long time and if you’ve never heard his cover of Neil Young’s “Only Love Can Break Your Heart”…then you probably didn’t get a mix from me during that two-year period when I put it on every mix because I just couldn’t stop listening to it. He also does the theme song to Saving Grace (love the song way more than the show!).
I guess they probably file him under rap/hip-hop? But he’s not really a rapper. Some of the lyrics are a bit rough and tumble…if you’re feeling a little murderous, they certainly keep you hyped up and may push you over the edge into actual violence, ha ha ha (I’M KIDDING). But that’s only some of the songs. And there’s his lovely bass singing over a kind of rollicking rambling background that is sometimes hip-hop-ish in its beats, but sometimes almost country.

À la Super Eggplant, currently, I am…

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Eating: The occasional square broken off a chocolate bar from a Claudia Care Package. But mostly just drinking beer.

Making: The second sock to go with the first sock that I mostly knit at Dragon*Con. I am sooooo close to being done with #2.

Gearing Up For: The Chicago Film Festival! Yay! I bought tickets to 11 films. Woooooooot. Although it’s highly possible I may not wind up seeing all of those.

Reading: “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larsson. So far that girl hasn’t been much involved. But I like the other characters as well.

Watching: One of my favorite shows from last year’s shortened season, LIFE, which has had three episodes in a week’s time and another on Friday. Last Monday’s? Pretty good! Glad it’s back. Friday’s? Sucked soooooo bad. May have been the worst episode of any TV show EVER. This Monday’s? Awesome. Mostly. I had a few reservations. What will Friday bring? Who can say.

Listening to: My Morning Jacket, who I’m going to see tomorrow nightoh. 🙁 Also Joseph Arthur, Nana Grizol, Carla Bruni and some songs from this post and this post .