O’Death at Backbooth
Lure Design, 2009

Amber Albrecht made these pictures for Said the Gramophone, very specially, and it took her a very long time to make them what she wanted. They are illustrations of two songs she loves, by an artist called The Constellations.

The Constellations - “Oh, Captive Princess!”

The Constellations - “Spirit, Come Back!”

[Amber Albrecht lives in Montreal, inside a giant bee-hive. Demarcations is showing at the Division Gallery from this Saturday, February 28 until April 4.]

Jackson C. Frank - “Just Like Anything” If one can understand Jackson C. Frank at all, then one can understand him in two ways when he explains that he “speaks in answers only/to see them in my mind.” Either a) he exclusively speaks in answers (and does so to see them in his mind), or b) when he speaks in answers, he does so for one purpose only: to see them in his mind. If the former, then he's like the television show Jeopardy in that his answers aren't solutions but questions, though Frank's (e.g. “Death has no season/so I know I'll never die”), unlike Trebek's (e.g. “The largest North American rodent”), are metaphysically puzzling and unGooglable. If the latter (or, for that matter, if the former -- and therefore, yes, necessarily), Frank is obviously in jeopardy of losing his grip on coherence and meaning and maybe even sanity -- the last being something that, when the singer was still a young man, would forever escape him. This fact casts an added bleakness on what is already an unrelentingly bleak folk song. The song's premise -- that, “just like anything, to sing is a state of mind” -- reminds us how sad was the fate of Frank's gifted mind, prematurely lost along with all its states. [Buy]

Shirley Collins - “Died for Love” Jeopardy has a legal sense, too. It is the danger, posed to defendants in a criminal trial, of being found guilty and of consequent punishment. In most constitutional democracies, a defendant is prevented from facing jeopardy twice for the same crime. But as in law, not so in love. Just ask Shirley Collins, who has been losing trials of the heart related to the same misguided tryst since the beginning of time. Despite the song's title, Collins has not died for love. She wishes. [Buy]

There are at least two ways to be a curmudgeon.

• MP3: Sole & the Skyrider Band - “A Sad Day For Investors (Astronautalis remix)” You can build a house out of cinders, chalk and dustbunnies. A perfect house, no one would ever know but you. Then you sit in your IKEA parlour with friends, all sipping Glenmorangie, and you're the only one who knows: this whole place is cinders, chalk and dustbunnies. You hold yr curmudgeonliness to your own chest and walk around town chewing on a piece of paper, a little slip that has the word SOURPUSS written in bitter ink. You glare at the news-agent. You shake your head when you see someone buy an extra-large ice-cream cone. If they only knew. You sit in your corner office and look onto the city and suspect, every day, that maybe this whole place is cinders, chalk and dustbunnies. [buy/MySpace]

• MP3: Rihanna ft. the Dream - “Hatin' on the Club” You can wake up early and while the sun is low, start making jars of sky. Cover your kitchen table with mason jars and pour sky blue sky into every one of them, boiling & sealing & setting them near the patio door. When your boyfriend arrives, that asshole in sunglasses, you don't go with him. You don't go out. You fold your arms and mouth the words "No way." Instead, as he watches you through the patio doors, you drink that sky. One by one you twist open the lids of the jars, your hold them up to him, and then with the sun nooning through to you you drink that sky up, drink it in front of him, in glinting gulps; stand all alone in your apartment drinking a hundred jars of sky. [official website]

Those Dancing Days “Those Dancing Days” I suppose that if you’re going to have a song title that doubles as the name of your band, it ought to be the ultimate expression of what you’re all about. This is certainly the case for “Those Dancing Days” by Those Dancing Days, an incredibly lively number about fun, music, dancing, and romance that encapsulates the group’s charming mixture of youthful enthusiasm and wistful nostalgia for moments that have not yet passed. That slight undertow of melancholy mostly comes through in the cool, understated soulfulness of Linnea Jönsson’s vocals, but the rest of the arrangement is focused on conveying excitement and pleasure. There’s a particularly cheery tone in the organ that carries much of the song’s melody, but the recording’s giddy vibe is mainly a direct result of the rapid-fire drum fills that provide a jolt of energy every few measures.

Buy it from Amazon.

Condo Fucks - “Dog Meat”

Rick leaned hard into the table and said, “This shit is awesome, it tastes like 1991,” and then threw up hard across the table. He had on purple shoes with purple leopards, chocolate pants, a sweat shirt, as in “made of”, and hair that fell limp like greasy knotted laces... Continue Reading... [pre-order]

Red Red Meat - “Gauze” “We,” in stunned whisper, hands propped like folding a thought out of the air. “Whee?” fake confused and confident, looking at light, looking suddenly at the same soft light. “We...get...great.” A more reasonable piece of nonsense I'd never heard. Slow, those caveman words sunk in and rested embossed and gleaming, like an implant, a living tattoo. Like if you actually had another heart, with an arrow through it, on your shoulder. Or an actual bird down the middle of your back, its feathers and eyes dark and quiet. Sleeping hadn't been that easy before that was out there, said, hung on bending string from the corners of the ceiling. [pre-order]

Autumn de WildeAsk yourself, “what is the smoothest record I’ve heard this year?” Now if the answer is anything except The Bird & The Bee’s new record Ray Guns Are Not Just The Future, then you simply haven’t heard Ray Guns Are Not Just The Future. The sophomore effort from the duo of Inara George and Greg Kurstin is effortlessly stylish and slick, in the very best sense of the word, blending lounge, jazz, tropicalia and, most importantly, Bacharachian pop into a blend that’s unabashedly retro in spirit but still very contemporary. After all - true cool doesn’t go out of fashion.

The Bird - that’d be George - has the sort of gorgeous coo that was made to go with berets and huge sunglasses but most importantly, perfectly suited to the sort of divine melodies that you’ll find in tracks such as “My Love” and “Birthday”. The Bee - Kurstin, of course - surrounds that voice with the perfect musical shimmer and shine and vintage beats of the sort you might have gotten had modern computers existed in the ’60s. And together, they create the sort of tunes that’d perfectly soundtrack the act of driving a convertible down from the Hollywood Hills and straight into a downtown penthouse lounge. Don’t question the physics of such an act - if you’re cool enough, it’s no problem. Sure, it’s all decidedly saccharine and breezy, but when you look and sound this good, who needs depth? Just sit back and go with it.

Video: The Bird & The Bee - “Love Letter To Japan”
Video: The Bird & The Bee - “Polite Dance Song”
MySpace: The Bird & The Bee

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