Grace Notes @ Snarkattack

Friday afternoon, week before last. Melbourne was torrential. I was due to have lunch with IP and having stayed up the entire night before was too wobbly on my legs to ride to the train station.

I walked down Bourke St to JB HiFi to get a whole stack of CDs I’d been lusting after…none of which were there, and ended up with the following:

Dark Was the Night, various artists
2CD set, with what is essentially fantastic indie music. I’m really picky when it comes to indie. So yes, Bon Iver is okay, as is Bright Eyes (though I’ve heard some of his live stuff and he seems to sound so much better). This compilation is just gold. I prefer the second disc to the first because it has more electronic-indie stuff, whereas the first disc is more folk-based.

On the first disc, I liked The Books featuring Jose Gonzalez’ ‘Cello Song’, Feist and Ben Gibbons’ ‘Train Song’, Iron & Wine’s (who I understand is just one fellow) ‘Die’, and the Kronos Quartet’s ‘Dark Was The Night’. I’ve heard a bit of Iron & Wine before and didn’t really fancy it much so I’m surprised I liked his contribution here. As for the Kronos Quartet, well, I’m a bit biased there: I love string quartets, it’s my favourite chamber group. Their track is purely instrumental. Sufjan Stevens’ track ‘You Are the Blood’ is quite quirky – bit more electronic than usual. Recalling his Illinoise album, that uses a lot of traditional band instruments, and other acoustic ones like banjo and such. Reminds me of a really slowed-down Dan Deacon.

The second disc is much more upbeat. I loved a lot of tracks on this – Arcade Fire’s ‘Lenin’ (I keep meaning to check this band out but haven’t got round to it) is really boppy. Again, with great bias, the Beirut track ‘Mimizan’ comes recommended though it’s a little less gypsy than the stuff Zach Condon has come up with. Dave Sitek’s ‘With A Girl Like You’ is a cover! A very DIY Casio keyboard version of The Troggs’ song, I think? I love it, it’s hilarious. I’ve subsequently learnt that Sitek is of TV On the Radio fame. There are so many songs on this that I really like. I’ll limit my comments to two more: Conor Oberst singing his ‘Lua’ with Gillian Welch sounds a lot less broken in this rendition, gives it more of a country lilt, and Blonde Redhead with the Devastations is haunting in their collaboration ‘When the Road Runs Out’. This disc has the songs that speak to me more, I feel, but that’s purely down to personal preference.

Oh! and it’s put together for fundraising and awareness of AIDS.

The Fall, Totally Wired: the Rough Trade anthology
Ugh, such a sucker! Ground-breaking British post-punk band with an anthology put together by a famous independent record label?! How was I supposed to resist? After not being able to find Joy Division’s special edition of Closer, I defaulted to The Fall. To my surprise, shitloads of their back catalogue was there, but not my beloved Slates. Then I happened upon this comp and thought “must have!” Seriously, I have an album of The Fall from 2002 or 2003 and Mark E. Smith (a founding member and pretty much the core member) still hasn’t lost it. He’s looking ancient now but his voice has barely changed. Still sounds like he’s spitting out the lyrics in his inimitable fashion. Now he just gets these young things to play around him.

The first disc has a lot of tracks easily accessible from the extended re-release of Slates – many of which are just gold to my ears. The second disc contains songs less familiar to me but notable were ‘Hotel Bloedel’ which is sung by a woman, the Hexen Definitive track ‘Strife Knot’, and ‘Eat Y’Self Fitter’ – a more than fitting parody on society’s fixation with eating right for health. Of course I am going to feel passionately about this comp because it has one of my all-time favourite songs ‘An Older Lover Etc’.

I’ll try to review the other CDs I bought a bit later.