Idiot Heart

All those years ago, when I still went to the beach, I used to love the feeling of laying in bed after a day of swimming. A few hours in the waves meant that by the time I lay down, my bed was a boat that rolled over the swelling ocean like the gentle hills of a golf course. Its been a really long time since I even remembered that feeling, but music can do all kinds of weird things to your head if you let it, and so the nostalgia is dragon-shaped in the form of Sunset Rubdown's glorious new album.

When your favourite band releases a new album, the first thing you notice is change. Random Spirit Lover threw an entire orchestra in a blender (with a healthy dose of electricity) and spread it all over every single song. Dragonslayer is more careful in it's approach, each song has a particular instrumental focus, paired so lovingly with Spencer Krug's lyrical whimsy that it conjures images of those weird cousins you know, who touch each other a little too much. But hey, they're happy right?

But while the music has been turned down to 5, said lyrical whimsy has been cranked to 11. This is an album of words, it's heart and soul made from random grabs of Greek mythology, American history and the ever-pitiful human condition. It's sometimes happy, sometimes sad and sometimes darkly funny. It always punches, but never painfully. Like the stupid inflatable hammers you get in a showbag, squeaking harmlessly off the head of a very stern father while he tries to read the paper. International Business (Squeak Squeak Squeak) could be the alternate title for every song on the album.

When the guitar is in charge, you can almost forget about the words and rock the fuck out to the musical equivalent of a Christmas cracker going off in slow motion for 6 minutes at a time. But why would you read the blurb and say "Yes what an accomplished novel." Its a cookbook you knob. The music is the possibility, and Krug's wandering vocals give it an unreal reality.

And unreal it is. He doesn't sing about bringing in his bins, or chatting up someone at the library, or doing his tax return. Spencer Krug is a dreamer, because dreams are better. I have a favourite everything, Sunset Rubdown is my favourite band because dreams are better.

Icarus and his idiot heart are more real than anyone you will ever know. Paper lace is better than designer denim. A black swan outside the palace is better than a brick letterbox outside your boring grey apartment. The ocean is better than my shitty cream coloured room.

I like it alot. Case dimissed. Order in the court. Squeak Squeak Squeak.

Radio Kaliningrad

Handsome Furs have crossed a line. Their first album was a very quiet achievement. Withdrawn and reserved, it was sweet in a way that you would never say was sweet to save face. Well, fuck my face i thought it was sweet. It was never going to shift continents or collapse governments, and i like that. Everything in its right place.

So earlier this year they released Face Control, their second album. It was supposed to be sweet. It was supposed to be peaceful. It was never supposed to have some badass dog on the front, and it was certainly never supposed to be this fucking cool.

Face Control is written for Russia, and played with the kind of flair that this decade finds most unfamiliar. Its the guy that doesn't need friends, he'll have the party on his own. You just can't hate that guy. Or the girl at the train station with enormous headphones, dancing around as if possessed until you can't help but go tap her on the shoulder and say "Excuse me? Hello?"

But she'll never even look at you. She is too busy dancing. And it kills you.

How can anyone possibly be jealous of a song? And yet here i am, what a sad situation. I mean, who wouldn't trade dull computer desk dreams for a military cap, several litres of vodka and a tank that won't start.

Don't lie you've thought about it too. At least now we can live it for a while. This album should be sold as therapy, escapist medicine. Red Sqaure for one hour. Even the KGB can't resist this, if Putin gets wind then Russia will have 12 new national anthems. Or more likely he'll play it to his girlfriend, in some hotel room while dancing in his underwear for her enjoyment. Because this album has the power to make that happen.

Long live Moscowdisco, comrades.

I wanna go to Russia.

http://www.myspace.com/handsomefurs

Cryptograms

I saw Deerhunter last week. It was all very swirly, songs never seemed to stop, they rolled. Pleasantries weren't exchanged, they were taken. Wikipedia says noise rock and shoegaze, but that doesn't seem to go far enough. They did nothing BUT play noise, and your shoes were for nothing BUT to gaze at. There was no show at the music show, you didn't even have to be looking at the stage.

Floor rock. Overhead ceiling pipe tangle rock. But never check your phone rock, or what time is it rock. The support, well yeah they may have well played their shoes, but Deerhunter, somehow, did it better. They did it right.

Everyone likes new things. New drugs, new lovers, new ways to smile, new ways to fall asleep. New ways to chill out, new ways to hear the same thing, new ways to talk about something that only happened once. I have a new way to relax, a new place to bury bodies and a new place to go. And it only cost me 40 dollars.

Isolation tank rock.

I read somewhere on the internet that your brain has a weird instant replay function, something to do with short term memory. That's why when someone says something and you say "what" you know what they said before they repeat it. If it takes about half a second, its someone calling out your name in a busy room. If it takes 2 hours, it's a Deerhunter show.

Magic ear puzzles. Audio illusions, all blurry nonsense and useless static, but give it a bit of time, concentrate enough, and FUCK ME its a dinosaur!

Thats what i'll tell anyone who asks me what kind of music they play. And if anyone asks what i did last saturday, i will tell them i did nothing. And it was incredible.

http://www.myspace.com/deerhunter