OH I AM NOT READY

(photo source unknown - tea break on the set of Metropolis)

Vic Chesnutt - “Flirted With You All My Life” Crisp like an apple, smelling of the cellar. Chesnutt has again recruited some of Montreal's finest, members of Silver Mt. Zion who put aside their scowls and furies for at least four minutes and forty-one seconds. "Flirted With You" is such a pretty song, coaxed and caressed; but it's also a song with a twist, an early lyrical pirouette. What seems at first to be a song about, well, a girl - turns out to be a tune about the great oblivion, about the millionfold void, about the thing with a cowl and scythe. Chesnutt is not singing about temptation or infidelity; he is singing the joy of living, of still living, of still still still living, still. [buy/listen to more of At The Cut]

Cousins - “Anxious” Bees that work in a pharmacy, buzzing as they measure and distribute soft white pills. Wasps that work tirelessly at a rollerskate diner, zipping back and forth to the parking lot, bearing malted milks. Hornets at the garage, wiping their black & oily hands with a rag, standing lets apart, watching you drive away. Black and yellow stripes, everywhere. // A blurry beeswax & beautiful song, by Halifax's Cousins. [MySpace/on tour and hitting Pop Montreal]

- Sean Michaels