Anni Rossi “Ecology”

“Ecology” is a short, tightly constructed piece of music that evinces a deep fascination with natural order, particularly in the ways counter-intuitive behaviors can make sense within their specific contexts, but are nevertheless the part of a larger interdependent system of life on earth. In the middle of the piece, Rossi expresses non-specific confusion and uncertainty, which I read as a way of underlining the disconnect we can feel from these systems — they can seem so alien, so obscure, so totally disconnected from what we understand of our lives as humans. The composition reaches no conclusion on this matter — its structure ends as it begins, like a mental digression returning to a default position.

Pre-order it from 4AD/Beggars Group.

The band that spawned The Hold Steady will get an Anthology and Book treatment this year. So says lftrpllr.com.

Fuzz.Com, one of the infinite number of music/social networking sites out there, is going tits-up on 2/13. Their announcement cites “increasing operating costs and flat revenues.” Their music-centric Twitter clone, Blip.FM, will live on.


Speaking of flat revenues, Pandora has begun inserting audio ads in their service. I don’t expect the users will cotton to that.


And speaking of upsetting users, Sirius XM is going to raise their subscription rates, and also, begin charging for their now-free online streaming. A Lefsetz diatribe on this is practically inevitable.


Anthony voices his concerns about the new Echo Nest PromoBot, “the web’s first targeted online music promotion system, that acts like a recommendation engine for music marketers.” Bloggers all over the world: rejoice at the prospect of even more PR emails in your inbox!

Fever Ray - “Concrete Walls” “It wasn't scientists who discovered the fever ray; it was a woman. She was 23. On January 22, 2009, she returned home by public transportation. She wore a navy blue down jacket, jeans. She had a backpack with three notebooks, stories by Kelly Link, Milton's Paradise Lost. Disembarking from the 55 bus, she walked to the apartment she shared with a man. The apartment was full of sounds. The television was on, the radio was on. As the woman crossed the rooms she turned the devices off. She then heard the other sounds. At the end of the long hallway was their bedroom, and in their bedroom the man was with another woman. The woman stood in the doorway watching them. Finally she lifted her arm and pointed her open hand at the man. The ray was invisible and did not feel of anything. The man noticed her standing there, stopped what he was doing, said "Kay, I--". She turned and left the apartment. She waited for the 55 bus. One day later, the man developed a fever of 103°F. He developed nausea, fatigue, insomnia, chills, sweats, mild hallucination; there were effects of the fever ray. The man did not get better. Nor did the man get sicker. The man's fever persisted for 51 years, until he died of unrelated liver failure.”

[buy Fever Ray, the tremendous solo album by The Knife's Karin Dreijer; and more important still, watch the music video for "If I Had A Heart".]

Aidan Moffat & the Best-Ofs - “'Big Blonde”This is a song about seeing your love through a window and loving her, richly. And about her being the only one, even when you see one of your "heart's former keepers". I can confidently promise I could not give a fuck. Because you love the love you love, richly, with skip of heart and glitter of guitar and rhyme of rhyme.

[the music video for this one is fucking beautiful, too, in basically the opposite way from Fever Ray's; and it reminds me of the way Aidan Moffat bellowed "YES!" at this Herman Dune gig we were both at: because he meant it]

From our friends at Sufjanbeat: Rare PHOTOS of the wedding of ELASTICA‘s JUSTINE FRISCHMANN, where MIA was a bridesmaid.

Bad Brains
Eye Noise, 2007

“Kiss My Name” starts out with a rather solemn introduction before settling into a steady, simple groove that provides a bit of solid ground to contrast with Antony Hegarty’s lovely, gently floating vocal melody. As the piece progresses, Hegarty’s voice is increasingly overcome by romance and elation, and the rest of the instruments in the arrangement follow suit, leading to one of the most wonderfully rhapsodic sequences in any composition I’ve encountered in recent memory. The composition is remarkably articulate in expressing extraordinarily nuanced emotional states, with every minute change in the arrangement suggesting a gradual shift in the balance of a delicate set of emotional shades and hues. This is truly the sort of expression best suited to music — the tones, beats, and inflections convey so much more than the words, which are fine enough and give shape to the sentiment, but are only the most superficial element of the song.

Buy it from Amazon.