I always find it odd when the epilogue on an album is one of its most memorable tracks. Epilogues are thematic conclusions, often a rough sketch of the predominate elements of that collection of songs. Much like the throw away intro track, this is stage setting music, or at least it can often be. The Weakerthans had a perfect prologue/epilogue combo on Reconstruction Site that lent the album a feeling of cohesiveness and further emphasized the loose but present narrative structure. I would hardly label those songs as throw away songs. One of my favorite tracks on The Carter II is "Fly In," one of several variations Wayne does on the same hook and beat through out the album. So there are exceptions, but they seem few and far between.

The Receiving End of Sirens aspired to produce a cohesive and progressive album on Between The Heart and the Synapse, and the album feels like a complete work instead of a collection of songs, but it falls short in other areas and thus never fills out its packaging. However, the album's epilogue, fittingly titled "Epilogue," is draped in brilliant, glowing melodies over a full post-hardcore breakdown, equipped with somber lyrics and accompanying instrumentation as an accent. It is a lot of fun to listen to because it so concisely captures the feel of the album and, to a greater extent, that band. It's pretty amazing how effectively they convey their ideas.

The main lyric in "Epilogue" is also a refrain from one of the earlier tracks on the album (how's that for planning) so I've posted both here. If you are as big a nerd as I am about album planning, you'll understand.

The Receiving End of Sirens - "Epilogue"
The Receiving End of Sirens - "Planning a Prison Break"

Hauschka - Ferndorf
The latest from German pianist Volker Bertelmann. It continues his fascination with prepared piano and Satie-esque compositions. Here is plays alongside cello, violin, and horns in various combinations. Some of the pieces are improvised and some are fully composed, but they are all pretty solid with standouts in Heimat, Neuschnee, and opener Blue Bicycle.
I was initially attracted to the record by the tone, which has a great deal in common thematically with Tin Hat Trio (now just Tin Hat after the departure of a member and the addition of a few others). There's a near film-score quality, which I think comes from the sense of wordless narrative rather than relying on specific film score tropes.



Monkey - Journey to the West
The new project by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett, who are the people behind the Gorillaz. Albarn continues to grow his interest in non-European music by writing in pentatonic scale of traditional Chinese folk music.
The music was originally created for an opera directed by Chen Shi-Zheng and you can here it on the record. The pieces tend to be short and can be hard to follow sonically because we don't have the visuals to help us, but the music is fascinating. Mixing electronic music with traditional Chinese vocals turns out to be a great idea. Who had any idea that this is what Albard would be doing after leaving one of the most popular bands in England?

I've started contributing to Late Night Wallflower after being a fan for some amount of time. I'm pretty excited about it and it present an opportunity to share (force) my opinion on a larger audience. Yay!

You can read my review of the Jealous Sound's Got Friends EP here and just visit the site here. They're one of the few music blogs I know of that is dedicated to punk, hardcore, indie, etc., etc. I love their work and am pretty happy to be onboard.

Heavy Metal Band Name Flow Chart.

Well, really it's Does It Offend You, Yeah?, who I wrote about a while ago, but now I think I discussed the wrong song. As good as their upbeat dance songs are, "Dawn of the Dead" kicks like it's the late seventies/early eighties and New Order is the coolest shit around. It's a tight, well crafted pop song with forlorn vocals and not a penny spared on production. The chorus glows with a really nice keyboard part and the thin, electric sounding distortion on the guitar gives it a synthy feel. The drums are just perfect. They put this big reverb on the snare at just the right times and the symbols share space at the top of the mix with the guitar, so they don't consume, they only emphasize. It's awesome, awesome stuff.

My sister conducted a video interview with the rock band Lissy Trullie for Venus Magazine. The video is posted below. I am, admittedly, unfamiliar with the band, but the clips sound good.

WELCOME TO AMERICA, BITCH!
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/archives/2009/02/super_bowl_extr.php

Sam Cooke writes soul songs that sound like how I want soul songs to sound. They have light, basic instrumentation, often accompanied by a swinging drum beat, and immediately memorable melodies. It sounds like the simplest formula, and certainly there is no dearth of soul groups, especially not from the middle of last century, but I don't know if any group or single musician recorded as many great songs as Sam Cooke.

His catalogue is too large, and strong, for me to really attempt to hit all the highlights. That's actually why I am so infatuated with his music. It seems like every time iTunes throws on one of his recordings, I'm always completely floored. He has this warm feel to his voice that, combined with the poor sound quality produced by studios in those times, creates this really interesting textured sound. The melodies are all in key and he never sounds flat, but it lacks the polish of autotune and digital recording where countless vocal takes are chopped up and interspersed with each other to get the melody that will ultimately be tweaked further by modern recording equipment. Analog recording gives you less control and I have little doubt that we are often hearing full takes of verses, choruses, or even entire songs. The result is something less than perfect and astoundingly human.

Sam Cooke - "Whole Lotta Woman"; "Twistin' The Night Away"; "Cupid"