Catching up with DM... er... theSuburbanHusswife (04.10-07.10).

So, the world of internet music magazines giveth and, just as quickly, it taketh away.  I've been writing quite a lot.  But as some of you have pointed out, you can't see any of this stuff appearing, well, anywhere.  This has everything to do with a faulty upload/login and a somewhat unresponsive editor.  But complaining gets one nowhere and so, instead, a roundup of all unpublished articles since beginning of May.  A bumper blog of sorts.  Catch-up! Catch-up!

Go - Jonsi *****

As I sit here eating my veggie sausages with bland yellow mustard, my child now, finally, napping post-tantrum, it occurs to me that sometimes one is sorely in need of transportation. I don’t mean trains, planes etc. I mean that sometimes as the humdrum of daily life drags us under the universal covers, a bit of escapism is required, even if just for a moment.

Enter our dear Jonsi, straight off the heroic SS Sigur Ros, transporting us back to that night at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2003 when we watched mesmerised as Merce Cunningham’s dancers writhed away as Radiohead and SR axed poetic. Before babies and mortgages. Before responsibility. You get the idea.

On the 5^th of April 2010, Jonsi released his first solo album, Go, and it is auditory heaven. From the first strains of the bold opening electronica on “Go Do” to its inevitable completion with an acoustic “Tornado,” an album of pure joy emerges. With definite flavours of SR inherent but in a radically poppier direction, this album has all the hallmarks of a fast favourite.

Bordering on classical in places (the mainline “Tornado” makes excellent use of both fat piano chords and glorious cello) through to more of a Postal Service approach to the poppier selections (“Boy Lilikoi) though done so much more effectively, Jonsi manages to weave a tapestry of life moments through his wall of sound and deceptively simple yet meaningful lyrics; must one be born in Scandinavia to lend such poetry to the English language?

After weeks of listening to the misery of Liars and Gil Scott-Heron, and in the cold, cold gray of island rain no less, the sun is finally shining and the music is matching. And as I hear Jonsi’s words of renewal and growth, songs of real life bolstered by hope and sung with that beautiful inimitable voice against those perfect melodies, I wonder if spring has finally arrived. And I switch to spicy mustard.

Jonsi is live at London’s HMV Forum 26 & 27 May.

Big Jet Plane – Angus & Julia Stone ***1/2

Oh the irony.  The soundtrack during my futile argument with BA’s Customer Service was Big Jet Plane, the new EP from the family Stone.

This too short EP (with only four songs, it barely whets the appetite) delivers on one thing: cohesion.  It has some very dark tones and really goes the extra mile to blend those with the sweet vocals of this brother/sister duo to strike the right balance.  As they are notorious for each writing their own songs and then enriching those through work with the other, this is a very important point as it could easily go wrong.  

Opening with the title track is the Paolo Nutuni-like vocals of Angus with backing from sis who then leads the show on “Living on a Rainbow.”  I see the former as the single of the EP, certainly the more listenable/marketable of the two. The latter then takes over with superior vocals but perhaps a less fan-conscious sound.

“My Malakai” gives us big bro once again and this takes a note from the preceding piece, showcasing some beautiful acoustic picking then revving up to a more momentous song as the rhythm kicks in.  And finally, Julia does a thoroughly excellent cover of “The One that I Want” from Grease.  Just when you thought there was no way you’d ever like that song.

While Big Jet Plane may be a bit too sweet for some teeth, this is acoustic alchemy at its loveliest and well worth a listen.  It will at the very least go some way to calm you down when the pen-pusher tells you that you’re wasting her time.

Leave Your Sleep - Natalie Merchant ****1/2

Happy people make rubbish music.  It’s a proven fact.  Let’s face it,  the only thing that made the first Travis album a hit was how bloody miserable it was.  The next thing you know, he has a wife and kid and we’re subjected to that flowers on the window song.  Then there’s my old favourite, Liz Phair.  First she’s singing F*** and Run, queen of antipathetic BJs, then she’s getting voice lessons and doing backing vocals for Sheryl Crow and soundtracking the women’s NCAA. No one listened to that Cure album that was all primary colours.  And don’t even get me started on Cat Stevens. 

Those of us who can remember as far back as the early 90s know that Natalie Merchant fell into that trap as well. Oddly, Tigerlilly was one of her biggest hits in the US but to me, a disenfranchised youth in her apathetic prime, I felt it was schlocky and saccharine and promptly left her behind for black eyeliner and the Pixies.

I couldn’t feel more differently this time around, however.  Her new double album, Leave Your Sleep, is a leap into the sugar-plum fairy domain of kiddie-poetry and folk guitars.  And it is wildly successful.

Singing verse written by Jack Prelutsky, Edward Lear and Gerard Manley Hopkins amongst others, makes for a magical ride full of delights for both children and adults.  Bleezer’s Ice Cream is sweet and jazzy whilst Peppery Man steals more than one note from traditional blues with deep, blustery males vocals offsetting the sweetness of Merchant’s own.  The double album is varied and engaging with more bluegrass, zydeco, folk and blues than you can shake a stick at.

Merchant seems to be growing as an artist whilst at the same time blowing away all the shoddy cobwebby children’s music that is out there.  Moreover, she seems to be singing from a place of genuine joy, a fact she confirmed last month when she was interviewed on BBC 6Music.  And I for one will be playing this on both my ipod and in my son’s nursery.

Who said happiness makes for rubbish art?  Not me.

Desperately seeking Hywel' Moving Castle - an evening with Jonsi at the HMV Forum.

Jonsi saved me. Again.

The evening should have been a disaster of the first order.  A manic day shuffling between a press conference hearing the Tory Minister for Culture tell us through smiles that he was cutting funding.  Racing to the office.  Racing to my son’s potential school.  Racing back to pick him up and get dinner on the table.  Forgetting mobile as sitter arrived and I dashed out the door.  Then arriving at the Forum and realising the person I was meeting there had no idea what I looked like nor I him.  Walking up to random men about the right age and asking them if they were Hywel.  Cue embarrassment.

Once I’d found him and we’d gotten inside, the opening band, Glasser, an LA-based, Swedish-flavoured outfit mainly peopled by Cameron Mesirow, did little to defray the mania.  While Mesirow has a stunning voice, her insular performance and wriggling movements seemed to alienate a love-ready audience.  Additionally, the costumes (she in a pink toga and her compatriot for the evening in a black-hooded cloak with shiny white trainers) placed them both in children’s pageant-land (and this done seemingly without intention). What did work was the pulsing electronica merging with her quite singular vocals and I suspect in a different setting (and a different outfit), she may have carried the day. 

Jonsi, on the other hand, delivered with bells on.  Literally.  While he and his support team were also kitted out in macramé and feathers, the blending of this with his outstanding sound and amazing multimedia show was, quite frankly, breathtaking. I was so tired and jaded by half-nine that I truly didn’t think I’d outlast the first intro.  But I, and indeed the rest of the audience, were transformed by the power of this performance. 

Ranging between definitively alto, Paul Simon-esque, vocals through to a falsetto Jeff Hanson would envy, Jonsi is one of the strongest performers I have ever seen.  His own dynamics were matched by the outstanding animation on the distressed box pieces strewn throughout the proscenium (provided and executed by 59 productions and Phil Eddolls) and projected across the 2-storey screen behind him.  At times on fire, at times drowning, this animation took what would have been a few pretty songs on a stage and elevated them to a true interaction for the collective us.

Additionally, his rhythm section is nothing short of spectacular.  From stringed open piano punctuated by a bow (during “Hengilas”) to taiko drums (“Go Do”), the effect of the wall of sound was transporting.  By the time an animated wolf-hunting-deer sequence exploded into a near-silent “Tornado”, I was completely captivated.  I can only liken it to being inside of a Japanese film, maybe Howl’s Moving Castle.  And as I looked around, we all seemed to be flying at the same speed.

After his short residency on the 26 and 27 May, Jonsi is returning to the UK to play Latitude on July 18^th.  I can only imagine how spectacular this show will be against a setting sun in a field with a cider in hand.  In the words of the man himself, Go Do!

And that brings us to summertime (cue Will Smith).  I'm currently sunning myself in the Adirondacks and enjoying a bit of a hiatus from the big lights, big city.  I have missed festival season this year (booo) but am choosing to see this as an opportunity to cleanse the musical palette and begin again.  Look for more here and hopefully at DMG as well.  I'll let you know when we've got our acts together. 

Xox tSHw.

New channel, same great taste.

Hi all - some bonkers person decided to let me rant on a slightly bigger stage.  

Henceforth, please have a look at the Daily Music Guide for Suburbanhusswife takes.

Most recently, Glasto: http://www.dailymusicguide.com/Features/glastonbury-dinosaur-or-dynamo-25042010-1527.aspx

Pants on fire - Liars; JJ; We Have Band

Sisterworld (Deluxe version and Rough Trade bonus tracks) - Liars

Back in December, my husband and I went to the Barbican’s Twisted Christmas mainly, if I’m being honest, to see Richard Hawley do something haunted and beautiful with a Christmas carol neither of us would otherwise have heard before.  And while dear Dickie didn’t disappoint, the rest of the evening was far more challenging than I was expecting. My husband is no big fan of Christmas tradition so I had thought that TC was going to be a happy middle ground for us to share.  I thought indie artists and perhaps a Rachel Unthank type would be covering God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen and that would be it.  It ended up being more a manifesto on atheism and death and I wasn’t very into it as a result.  And Liars – well, for similar reasons, I’m not so sure on this one. 

I’ve had Sisterworld for weeks and have found it very hard to reach a verdict. Liars are one of those bands that you hear and think for the entire length of the album that you must be listening to a Beck album you somehow missed.  And you’re drinking at some friend of a friend’s house and you’re too embarrassed to admit you have no idea what you’re listening to.  This is the way of the poser.  In fact, I had to fight with myself to prevent me from writing that I knew their earlier albums; I didn’t until an hour ago. 

I read a review on the BBC about these guys and I have to say, I think the writer was swept away by the folklore.  He/she rightly mentions the dark shadows present on the album but attributes these to genius whereas I see self-indulgence.

Apparently there were shootings and drug deals gone wrong and a move to Berlin all to prove they were so over the LA thing.  I find this a little funny as once again this is simply artist raging against the roots; they were born there.  Over the years, my accent has gone a bit funny, but I’m still a New Yorker and I always will be . Their spin on why they felt compelled to write this thing is foggy, all platitudes and moods wrapped up in poetry but it doesn’t really say a damned thing.  And hey, if denial is your thing, I think they do it relatively well.  But once again, it’s dismembered dollparts meets Jesca Hoop – you can take the band out of LA but you can’t take LA out of the band.

The best bits of this deluxe version of the album are the remixes at the end – Atlas Sound’s version of “Here Comes All the People” is wonderful and “Scarecrows On A Killer Slant” by Tunde Adebimpe is also great.  The best mainline track is the simple and aching “Too Much Too Much” bringing to mind Peter Gabriel in his early years.  Just lovely.  And I don’t know – it’s possible that this will grow on me but for the most part it just seems like a bunch of arthouse snobbies pretending to be in a Brooklyn gallery instead of a stripmall on Sunset. Anyway. ***

jj n° 3 

Now here we go – pretentious?  Yes, a bit.  But I really believe that these guys come up with the goods.  Like a soundtrack to a late 80s movie no one remembers or a moment in time out of the shop Instant Karma where I used to go to buy crystals during my New Age phase when I was 14 (go ahead and laugh - I am).  Beautiful vocals.  Beautiful plinky plonk organs and techo with a depth that you can’t quite identify. 

“Let Go” has had a bit of radio play but you can’t find any real singles on this album.  Still the entire thing is hugely listenable and oddly calming.  There’s nothing showy or rash about it.  What I hear is a band who just makes music because they want to and the fact that it is this good is a strange, unintended side-effect.  They also seem to have a proclivity for writing biography in verse but unlike Liars, these guys are actually eccentrics from Sweden.  For this reason alone, I will allow them their quirks.  ****1/2

iTunes free single - We Have Band

We Have Band is the free iTunes download this week and as it happens, it is also part of my Rough Trade package this month so I’m going to look at the whole album instead of just the single.  The fact that I adore it only makes my job a bit more enjoyable.

This is really good.  Full-on dance music that you swear you should have heard before.  It’s not that the album is samey, it’s that the flavours throughout are very familiar.  With Gareth Jones of DM producing, that’s no accident.  The band’s own glib statement says that they’re aware of their similarities to Hot Chip, the Rapture etc but I think they’re selling themselves short. 

While they are definitely of an ilk, that doesn’t mean that they don’t do it really well.  You know when “Blue Monday” starts because everyone instantly knows it and are ready to go.  Go where?  It doesn’t matter – the power of that intro just propels people.  I think WHB has a similar (albeit greener) power.  They will only get better and this album is freaking great.  ****

Save 6 Music - http://www.petition.fm/petitions/6musicasiannet/1000/

Guys, BBC 6Music is one of the all-time greats.  This digital radio station with fantastic programming and an amazing line-up of DJs, both celebrated and unknown, fostering the growth of burgeoning artists and keeping sacred the history of modern music, is now being threatened with extinction.  The BBC bosses say that  with only 700,000 of us listening to it, 6Music is grabbing money from what could be better programming for both TV and radio.  But they're at split purposes here because the low listenership is due precisely to the lack of mainstream on show on 6Music.  Meanwhile back at the ranch, BBC 3, a totally mainstream, youth-angled station with very little (if any) originality seems nice and cruisey simply because they are more visible and more people know about it.

We have a chance to try to do something about this.  Please sign this petition to let the BBC know how important 6 Music is to the future and history of music. http://www.petition.fm/petitions/6musicasiannet/1000/

Saturday night’s alright for fighting. Yay! Sayer! – Yeasayer; Marina & The Diamonds; The Hurts (almost)

Yeasayer - Odd Blood

Oh hooray.  Just when I thought my belated love affair with Vampire Weekend would allow no room for pretenders, Yeasayer walked right in.  Right! In!  And in fairness, SXSW tried years ago and then it was that whole thing they did on the Paris Metro, then inevitably Rough Trade whispering sweet nothings but you know that old chestnut; first there was love then marriage and then a baby in a baby carriage. 

But here they are, Brooklynites yet again leaving one to question why I moved to London when I could have just crossed the East River.  (I always thought it would be like Saturday Night Fever if I moved to Brooklyn, all white leisure suits and light up dance floors.  And at the time, it was.  That whole nu-rave thing was reason enough to be afearful.  Alright for brunch but would you want to live there?)  They called it Bridge and Tunnel back in the day.  They, poor fools, must have been commuting from Great Neck. 

Anyhoo, Brooklyn again and lovely sounds.  These guys, the darling buds from SXSW 2007 who have been touring with MGMT and making a raucous ruckus ever since.  This album, Odd Blood, is very, very poppy, much more so than the debut album, All Hour Cymbals.  But strangely, though they were lauded (mainly by themselves) as being all eclectic and eccentric, I heard more King Missile and Pet Sounds in that first one than whatever citar-playing beardy they were going for.  And now I hear some New Order and some Howard Jones.  And I love Howard Jones so don’t go making fun. 

Anyway, people who bought this also bought Beach House, Animal Collective, MGMT, TNP.  Aha (the declarative not the band though they do have a new album out).  Then we have a full complement.  But here’s the thing about these guys – they really sound different.  Born in the Williamsburg scene and though very much of it, they have something unique and different.  Remember a few reviews ago I said that this band that RT had sent me also sent a bonus DVD of baby doll parts floating in a pool and I was like, come ON.  Why?  Why bother with all the “aren’t we cool and weird” stuff? Because seriously those guys had over 30 and what is the point if not to improve adolescent cool points?  These guys, Chris Keating, Ira Wolf Tuton, and Anand Wilder to be precise, skipped that BS altogether on this album and what’s left is the music, a jolly mix of rave and trad dance and some folk and harmonies and country.  Why didn’t anyone do this before?  Because they were too busy cutting up doll parts and making thoughtful films about them.  *****

ITunes free download of the week – Marina and the Diamonds “Rootless”

There is a positive furore on iTunes this week in regards to this Miss Marina and her shiny rocks.  Some say Kate Bushy and some say not worth the money paid (it was free).  But they are absolutely fighting with one another over this track. Fabulous.  If you want to read some seriously self-righteous people with some seriously bad writing skills, please run don’t walk.  With regards to the track in question, I say, close but no cigar.  And that’s only because it’s been done before and better (Frou Frou’s “Let Go” springs immediately to mind – now there’s a track).  Not bad but not quite good though I’m betting the album has better on it.  Still I won’t be buying it.  ***

The Hurts – Paul!  I tried desperately to listen to these guys online but their myspace page was being maintained and couldn't find them anywhere else. What rotten luck.  Where can I get my hands on more?

NWO, Snow and Cro (ydon) - Blakroc, Gil Scott-Heron and Beach House

Ugh to snow and citizenship tests, little-man-flu, food poisoning and Croydon (sorry – tis true).  All these things add up to a new once-a-month-a-write policy on Suburban Husswife;  I just can’t hack it otherwise.

I did have a thought though:  why don’t you guys contribute too?  I think it would be so much better if we shared our thoughts on new music.  Because honestly, don’t you just get sick of listening to me go on and on all the time?  You know you’ve always wanted to write for Rolling Stone.  As middle-age is where dreams apply the principle of fight-or-flight, let it be the former.  And no, I’m not delusional – I know this isn’t Rolling Stone.  But hey, they haven’t called me yet, you? 

Blakroc – Blakroc

I’m late on this one as it had been sitting in my lounge over Christmas while I galavanted around the east coast.  Upon first listen, I was like, oh come on.  Why is Rough Trade sending me this?  It’s laughable when 30-somethings in pant suits (not really) listen to hip-hop; it doesn’t even really work when you do it to be ironic.  I couldn’t see why they would subject me to this unless they were just trying to prove a point (which I think they may have been, actually, on some level.  I mean isn’t Rough Trade always trying to prove how cool they are?  Someone back me up here). 

So I did what I always do – I procrastinated.  I went a-researching.  And no, I didn’t know they were a supergroup until I did so and I kind of wish I’d skipped this nugget of knowledge because then maybe I would have loved the album just because it was a great album and not because of the eclectic line-up.  But as it stands, research I did and it enhanced my experience of the music. 

Here’s the thing, I really didn’t like the music the first time I listened to it.  I couldn’t for the life of me find what was so cutting-edge about it.  It’s got an old-school flavour to it but nothing so extraordinary that you stop what you’re doing to dance in the street (I did honestly have that reaction to Jurassic 5’s Quality Control while waiting for a bus on the Upper East Side).  And though some of the blues riffs underneath made me take notice, I was a bit unimpressed by the general rhyming – it seemed a bit obvious really.  So I dug around online and lo and behold, my mind was veritably changed.  

So first off, Black Keys, which I haven’t really explored much before, are this bluesy Americana band with some real grit to them.  They end up on the ipod (guessing) of Damon Dash, producer/founder of Roc-A-Fella Records and he’s like, these guys are awesome.  Some fortuitous timing means the project starts recording off the back of this love affair and somehow gets Mos Def alongside “Raekwon, RZA and the late Ol' Dirty Bastard of the Wu-Tang Clan, Jim Jones and NOE of ByrdGang…  singer Nicole Wray, Pharoahe Monch, Ludacris, Billy Danze of M.O.P., and Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest[2].” (Wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blakroc) to record bits and bobs for it over the course of 11 short recording days.  And I have to say, considering how many cooks they had on this, it ended up a pretty cohesive and interesting project.  The blues temper the overall effect of having so many male hip hop divas recording together, saving it from sounding like something P-Diddy would have put together.  And there are some lovely, chewy rhythms, especially “Ain’t Nothing Like You (Hoochi Coo)” and “Hope You’re Happy” with the very good Nicole Wray.

 Saying that, I don’t really like it.  I’m not really much for hip-hop and I struggle with anything that isn’t really really accessible in that arena.  This is close but still not my cup of tea.  But on artistic merit and creativity, I give it a 3 1/2. ***1/2

Gil Scott-Heron – I’m New Here 

Accidentally, this has suddenly become hip hop week.  So I’m embarrassed to say that while I was busy not listening to Blakroc, I was also busy being totally ignorant of Gil Scott-Heron.  He’s one of those names that I keep filed in the back of my mind just in case he comes up at a dinner party (people who consider themselves writers/poets often talk about good ol’ Gil though I question how many people have ever really listened to his stuff).

He’s a true poet, real spoken word action and very very cool.  He came up during the volatile 70’s, a prodigy really, and was a huge force behind the conception of hip hop, teaming up with Brian Jackson to pioneer that inimitable hip hop sound.  This before falling prey to drugs and alcohol, spiralling into addiction and ultimately prison.  Obviously this is only a very brief and simplistic account, but the up-shot is that he’s walked a hard road. 

The new album shows glimpses of his hardships over the past few decades but has a real tone of optimism and wisdom in it.  His gravel-paved voice spilling over Massive-Attack styled beats and samples brings to mind not the sound, but the quality of Johnny Cash’s music.  Something happens to music written by older, weathered persons; it’s a tapestry covered in tiny intricate stitches.

Once again, I don’t love this music, with the exception of “New York is Killing Me” which I really like.  But then I like clapping in music.  My favourite actually.  But in deference to the beauty of a true original, 4stars.  ****

iTunes free download of the week - Beach House’s “Norway”

Back to my comfort zone, lovely floaty indie rock from Beach House.  In the ilk (somehow) of Vampire Weekend and Jesus and Mary Chain as well (is that possible), this is a humdinger.  Lovely guitar and vocals that render the lyrics a complete non-issue as you can’t for the life of you understand a word.  And yet somehow so lovely.  ****

Who's Bad? TNPS, Delphic, Vampire Weekend

Back from the states and badder than ever.  Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmakuh and New Year and that the easing into 2010 hasn’t been entirely painful.  We did the east coast for three weeks, celebrating everything from births (word up Patrick and Gracie) through to an 80^th birthday in Florida.  I’m entirely exhausted and that wasn’t aided by the violent bout of food poisoning I dealt with from 4am yesterday, but I’m pleased to be home and yes, pleased to be back to a normal weight even if it took a Moroccan parasite to get me there.

Now on to the important stuff – what has everyone been listening to all month?  I’m way behind in my bellyaching so I think the time has come to get my finger out.  Please send me some shout-outs for new music.  I’m running out of fantastic suggestions and need some more.

These New Puritans – Hidden

What starts out with a Salvation Army band song and leads directly into Aphex Twin?  Must be These New Puritans.  And the Bartnett twins have released their second effort, Hidden, at a good time if you consider how well their fellow Southend-on-Sea scenesters, The Horrors, are doing at the moment.  But TNPS is a different kind of band altogether.  Or are they?

Like their compatriots, TNPS grew up out of the Experimental Circle Club (ECC) which grew out of the edgier Junkclub, mother of Essex’ Southend Scene, both vehicles for sub-mainstream clubby music.  It’s a good idea at its core:  a floating club night devoted to bringing a different sound to a select group who really want to hear it.  And of course if you’ve got the right people making the music and the right people listening to it, it’s also a venture which proves fairly lucrative.

The NME had a lot of good stuff to say about TNPS last album, Beat Pyramid, ultimately saying that they were surprised by “a singularity of vision that just shouldn't happen to 20-year-olds.”  But, let me ask you, when else in life does one truly have a singularity of vision?  Before all the passion gets subdued by dayjobs and middle-management, that’s when.  And that’s 20, pure and simple.  I always want to laugh at people who are so surprised by the standard of art produced by adolescents.  Teenagers feel everything as if it was their last emotion, as if this is the one that is going to kill them or save them or at least get them laid which is tantamount to the same thing.  As we all get older, we lose that desperation.  It’s there beneath layers of responsibility and carrying on, but it’s quelled enough that we just don’t run out as frequently at age 40 to make ground-breaking music.  We don’t even go out to listen to it.  And no, I'm not 40.  I just feel like I'm 80.

But back to our lovely boys.  Now listen – some of this is pretty self-indulgent.  There are flutes for christsake.  Flutes!  But - and this is a big but – it’s very interesting.  I have to say, it’s not interesting enough to make it onto my greatest albums of all time list, but I am glad I listened to it.  It makes me feel like I have a soul buried somewhere in there.  I have a vague recollection of listening to similar sounds when I was 20 and I’m glad they reminded me of that.  ****

ITune free download – “This Momentary” Delphic

Acolyte is finally out.  Hurray!  For those of you (I think there are one or two… seriously) who have been reading this from the beginning, you’ll know that Gills suggested Delphic way back in October.  Well the new album is as great as the EP for “This Momentary” was when we first listened to it.  Run run run to listen to Acolyte.  As I said before, this is getting ready to go out music.  Remember when it was as much fun to get ready as it was to go out?  So much promise.  So much alcohol.  Ah.  Those were the days.  ****1/2

Recommendation from ME - Contra – Vampire Weekend

Don’t you feel like “Horchata” has been out for years?  I think it has been.  And although no one recommended that I listen to them, I’m going to recommend Vampire Weekend to you.  Yeah I know, you all already know.  If you like that, you should try Radiohead and while you’re at it, there’s this great new band, the Rolling Stones.  Har-dee-har.  I don’t care what you say, Contra is fan-freekin-tastic stuff.  No adjustment time to listen to this album.  Surf-rocky and ska-ey and lovely lovely lovely.  And what the hell is Horchata anyway?  I’ll tell you.  According to Wikipedia, “Horchata or orxata is the name for several kinds of traditional beverages, made of ground almonds, sesame seeds, rice, barley, or tigernuts (chufas).”  There.  Now you know.  ****1/2