What does your soul look like? (Pt. -7)

Song: "Didn't I"
Artist: Darondo
Source: Gilles Pearson Digs America comp, via Big Brain comics
Day: 8/24/06
After arriving too late to see Monks singer/guitarist Gary Burger live, I wandered our fair city aimlessly, finally ducking into Big Brain Comics to escape a torrential rainstorm. For my troubles I was rewarded with this amazing song. Its a slow, sweet, falsetto, come-back-to-me-baby, soul number with a great string arrangement, tastefully understated guitar lines, a bridge/breakdown worthy of "What's Goin' On" and backing vocal ornaments somewhere between a sung horn line and Esquivel.

But wait, it gets better because Darondo's voice is kinda weird. His falsetto is not a smooth, Al Green style soul croon. Or it almost is, but there's this raspy edge to it as if he has laryngeitis. And occasionally his pitch is slightly off. The effect is like listening to those compillations pre-war 78s. This is a real person. I mean Al Green is great musically, but its hard to imagine him really having to plead to get his beloved back, because he's Al Green and he has that voice. (Yes I know he has had personal tragedies, but a) I'm talking sound here not biography and b) the triggering event was Rev Al rejecting her. Not that this makes it any less tragic, I'm just saying for the baby-come-back-I-was-good-to-you genre Al's got a slight credibility gap.) Or a better way of putting it is, when you hear Al Green sing that kind of song, that's how you wish you could sing it, 'cause it'd work. When Darondo sings it, its like you on a really good day. But that doesn't change the fact that neither one of you is sure its going to work, which makes it all the more moving.


Song: More Action! Less Tears
Artist: A Silver Mt Zion
Source: Pretty Lightning Paw
Day: 8/25/06
The Silver Mt Zion show a few weeks ago has got me revisiting their older records. This song is a tad more upbeat and fun than most of their songs with a big graceful riff (like doug martsch covering one of godspeed!'s more triumpant moments) and its playful intro mistake. How can you (unless you are a gramatical stickler) not love a song that starts out with a voice shouting "The name of this song is more action! The name of this song is less tears The name of this song is 1-2-3-4!" Kick ass.


Song: Silent Shout
Artist: The Knife
Source: Silent Shout
Every so often I'll give into indie hype and check something out that I probably wouldn't otherwise. This is one of those cases. I don't quite know why everyone is making a big deal about the things everyone is making a big deal about, like the effects on the vocals (hasn't any one ever heard a Kate Bush album before?), or the dark sound (um to my novice electro brain, I thought that's what half this stuff was all about, anyone remember Depeche Mode?). However, I can say this song (and the album) is really good.

btw - to answer my own question, I think the problem is twofold. People writing about music are a) younger than me and don't really remember the 80s and b) they have word counts to meet and I don't. So where I can say "this is stripped down dark-sounding electronic music with solid songwriting and interesting synth lines that doesn't make me feel like I am being pandered to", they can't. But ihmo that's really all the description you need. They conviently stream it on a website (although it relies on flash).

Or perhaps I don't listen to this kind of stuff enough to really grasp the uniquness of The Knife's particular genius.

Honorable Mention: I am still digesting the new album by the Mountain Goats. Preliminary thoughts most center around the string arrangment on the title song, its back-loaded-ness and the similie involving something coming something else like a drifter to a highway ramp.