Electric Six “Lovers Beware” “Lovers Beware” begins as a tale of banal office romance, but its narrative rapidly escalates until it becomes a hysterical, paranoid nightmare about a corporation hell bent on driving them apart, even if it means murdering the male half of the couple. In a traditional romantic tragedy, family would the institution standing in the way of love, but it makes sense that in modern life it would more likely be a supremely unforgiving human resources department enforcing a faceless company’s elaborate, restrictive rules of conduct. The song itself is a turbo-charged rock ballad with a fist-pumping chorus, and a lead vocal from Dick Valentine that acknowledges the silliness of his premise while selling its tragedy with genuine conviction.

Buy it from Amazon. Also, wow, look over here.

The Meanest Boys - “I'll Take Whatever It Takes” Smash my door in, burn my couch, take a crap in my sink. Break all my old VHSs, leave wet black ribbons of The Lion King and Velvet Goldmine all over my cracked and crushed tile floors. Put my books in the microwave, my CDs in the toilet, throw my stupid posters out the window. Sell all my clothes for a high-five, pawn my computer for the price of the plastic it's made of, get as much as you can for my tube tv, you can take it all. Just don't touch my skin, my body, don't look at me, I couldn't stand that. I don't know what I'd do. [MySpace] [via the surprising and oneiric No Pain in Pop]

Casy and Brian - “Rumble In The Jungle 1974” This song has its shorts around its ankles, beer and a tambourine, trying to walk, screaming and spasming and bellyflopping. The most chaotic, spasmodic, endoscopic, gin-n'-tonic tribute to the most choreographic, naturopathic, calligraphic, stoppin'-traffic fighter in history. [Buy]

In today's Time Magazine, Said the Gramophone was named one of the Top 25 Blogs. If you're new, welcome. If you're already a reader, thank you.

*Oops, MP3 link was b0rked. Fixed now*

Today, my band Get Him Eat Him is releasing a new EP called The Throat Is Bent. You can purchase it as a limited edition, handmade CD-R (a la Catbird) on our website, or as a high-quality digital download via Amie Street. This coming Saturday February 21st, we will play a record release show at Union Hall in Brooklyn, NY. After that, we’re officially (and mega-amicably) calling it quits.

Get Him Eat Him – Hearts Away

When Get Him Eat Him formed five years ago, I envisioned us growing into a “totally crazy” costume-wearing, synthesizer-abusing spaz-rock band. Somewhere along the line, it became pretty clear that the music I “wanted to make” in the most abstract and self-aware sense, and the music I was actually given to making with this particular band were very, very different things. I’m proud of the work we’ve done, and I think this EP is a fitting final release.

I caught the fish the day I met you. Margaret introduced us on the road. “Alan, this is Harriet.” Hello, I said. When I went down to the lake later I thought about you. Pretty, I thought. I cast my line and waited, and in time ate my lunch, and in time looked out over the lake to the sinking sun. That's when I caught the fish. He didn't even fight. He leapt right onto my hook. I took him home. I laid him on the stump outside to clean and gut, but I couldn't do it. He had such eyes. Cachalot have eyelids; they blink. The fish blinked and winked at me, kindly. I brought the fish inside and filled a fruit-bowl with water and put him inside. He swam. He didn't swim much but he swam. He swam in the middle of the bowl, big enough to fill the whole thing, just swimming in place. He was the colour of buried gold - black like the soil, gold like the gold. He blinked and winked at me. [buy it]

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Fever Ray – “When I Grow Up”

I’ll be honest with you, I’m not the type of person to get excited about the prospect of a “family prayer.” Nevertheless, upon hearing this amazing live recording of the Traveling Inner Lights from 1961, the concept suddenly became a LOT more appealing. The band sound exceptionally warm and joyous on this song, and as the group settles into a brisk vamp, the gravel-voiced lead singer becomes increasingly unhinged in his ecstatic exhortations to worship his lord and savior. There’s something especially mesmerizing about the vamp section — it almost sounds as though they are emulating the sound of a skipping record, with the vocal harmony and guitar rhythm settling into a very tight groove. It’d be very interesting to hear some modern acts play around with this sort of arrangement and performance, while not necessarily while working in the gospel genre.

Buy the Art of Field Recordings Volume II from Dust-to-Digital Records.

Explosions In The Sky
Lure Design, 2007