MixtapEP #14: Audra to Jesse

1. El Perro Del Mar, “Innocence is Sense”

AW: This is NOT what I expected from El Perro Del Mar, either sonically or visually!  Does it surprise you? It’s so spooky! Is all of her stuff super spooky and I just hear it differently when I remember it?

It seems really abstract in every way. WHAT ARE THE WORDS WHAT IS SHE SAYING? WHAT ARE THE MOVES SHE IS DANCING? I like the beginning more than the end. I wish it built into something with more vocals. 

JD: Wow this is not what I expected at all either, but I like it better than anything else she’s done since the self-titled record!  I guess the words are not in some English probably.  Perhaps that is also the case with the dance moves. [This is a very funny joke. -AW]

I do think her stuff has been on the verge of spooky before, but not in this way.  The visuals probably contribute to that a lot.  I was annoyed at first that it wasn’t shot in a consistent style, in terms of the type of grain and colour, but then I got the idea that that was probably very intentional and maybe even the whole point of the video.  The video is very early 90s “alternative,” don’t you think?

AW: Yeah!! I feel like I’m seeing that a lot lately! I wonder what that’s about? I guess … nostalgia? 

JD: I don’t dislike it but I wouldn’t have the patience to watch it through again.

The best and worst thing I can think of to say about the song itself is that I don’t really care if I hear it again either, but that if this is what her new record sounds like then I really want to hear THAT.

AW: Me too!

2. Zaki Ibrahim, “Heart Beat”

AW: Okay I guess this is a boring house-music beat, but I don’t care.  This woman is so charismatic I cannot even stand it. The BOW TIE. The gap in her teeth! The grinning! The running!  I am going to make the Dirty Projectors comparison again on the harmonies, and hardly even feel that bad that I don’t know more bands.

I want to hear a remix album of just different versions of this song.  Zaki Ibrahim is friends with Jessica Kaya, so probably that isn’t the MOST impossible musical dream I’ve had (see my dream split 7-inch that has Liz Phair covering Iggy Pop’s 5’1” on one side and Iggy Pop covering Liz Phair’s 6’ 1” on the other).

JD: Remember the first time you asked me “do you know what my dream split 7” is?” and I was so excited that you even had ANY dream split 7”???

Yeah this video is great.  I’m not going to complain about the house music - all I listen to lately is Azealia Banks!  The other day someone referred to house music as being for/by white people and my impatience was PALPABLE.  Phew!  But also I wouldn’t listen to this song as it is most of the time, because it is pretty much some house music and no-one is doing jaw-dropping raps over it, just nice singing.

I will weigh in with my contrasting opinion on the harmonies - I think they are very UN-like Dirty Projectors.  They sound like pretty comfortable jazzy/bluesy (but not blues) scales, like a lot of R’n’B since the 90s has incorporated.  I think maybe that one Dirty Projectors R’n’B song is colouring your estimation here!  The rest of their harmonies are INSANE.

I really like hearing the song while watching the video, in any case, because as you have ably indicated, Ms Ibrahim is a walking (and running) charisma fountain.

3. Holy Hail, “Born Of A Star”

AW: Did you ever wonder what happened to one-third of the Fannypack ladies?  I think the video is not super well done but I guess the dude who did it is super famous so who am I to criticize? I like seeing a woman play electric guitar, and I like the handclap beats. Also I think I could probably mimic the dance that Cat Marnell does and that might be my new signature dance floor move. (Previous move: falling over.). 

JD: Hahaha falling over is not your only previous move.  There is the shruggy dance as well, and also that dance where you make uncomfortably enthusiastic faces in a never-ending sequence.  Oh and you tapdance on rap records HELLO.

AW: I like that you said that falling over isn’t my ONLY previous move. 

JD: I have bad news about the woman playing electric guitar: no performing musicians were harmed in the production of this song.  So she is kind of just an objectified ringer to stand in for the sampled SOUND of one guitar note that’s being triggered in this song.  Same with the drums, so even the long-awaited victory of finally seeing some white guy playing the drums has been robbed of its significance.

AW: Ha. Fine.

JD: Yeahhh this song and video failed to make me feel a way.  I feel like the director remembers what Michel Gondry used to do for White Stripes and Chemical Brothers and thought to his or herself “well… why don’t I do something almost like that but in the easiest way possible?”  I feel like these exact effects - which are pretty cool in isolation - could have been used to much better purpose with more of a vision to bring the whole video together.

Like I’m sorry I just don’t care about these infinite drum guy nautilus shapes shimmying into oblivion… but on paper that sounds GREAT. 

4. Peggy Sue, “Song & Dance”

AW: OBVIOUSLY I am also going to learn this dance. And OBVIOUSLY it is the dance that sold me on this song at first. It sounded really 90’s at first, but I love the production so much. It has elements of some of the things I love about Pony da Look, mainly the way it just takes up a lot of sonic SPACE and is like “Look at me!” and is really unapologetic about that.  That type of production feels really feminist to me.

JD: Heyy now we’re talking!  I like this track a lot!  I mean I also love things that sound really 90s, like for example many things which were produced in the 90s, and I didn’t get tired of this kind of rock in the 90s because I only listened to rap in the 90s, so this works out for me just fine.

AW: Yeah it sounds like Helium a lot, true! 

JD: I am not sure what Helium sounded like but I believe you.  I think they sound and look tough as hell.

I like the dancing and the dancers all individually but I am at this point in my life where when I see a bunch of people and they’re all white I don’t just see a bunch of people anymore, I see a bunch of White People, and it feels creepy.  (It is obviously something I contribute to in my own art, social life, and family photos, but I’m not comfortable with it anymore.)

This video is basically like GIRLS (the HBO series, not the gender) in that it looks great, I like the ideas in it, it’s kind of mean in content but kind in execution, and everyone’s white by accident.

AW: This is an interesting point. 

JD: Thanks Audra!

5. Rachel Goodrich, “Lightbulb”

AW: Last week, 90% of what I listened to was Rachel Goodrich’s self-titled album that this song is from. It’s like Princess Chelsea meets Piggy? Meets some animals?

JD: I wish it was Princess Chelsea meets Piggy meets THE Animals.

AW: The whole thing is SO precious. It also has handclaps. I WANT TO GO TO THE PARTY AT THE END OF THIS VIDEO SO BAD. Also I love how adorably dorky the girl is. Everyone is having the best time. I need a trumpet and I need to learn to play it. 

JD: You can borrow my trumpet any time!  I was moving boxes around this morning and I took it out and reminded myself that *I* sure as heck can’t play the darn thing!  Sorry for swearing but SHOOT.

[Conversation to make actual arrangements for Audra to borrow Jesse’s trumpet redacted]

JD: I’m going to have to coin a saying now that I expect to take off like a wildfire… This 1’s 2 3 4 me!

Get it?  ”3” has to kind of sound like “twee” for it to work I mean I guess that’s not obvious.  Okay I mean now it’s pretty embarrassing but it’s out there so moving on.  I like the arrangement of this song but it doesn’t speak to me otherwise.

I wish the whole video had the filter used for the moment of fake old-timey camera because I don’t love the colours in the outdoor scene.  They’re flat and drab and look like cheap kid’s TV from the 90s (ok there are some things I don’t miss from the 90s).  I don’t get how they didn’t process that at all if they were going for a kaleidoscopic wonderland vibe.  The indoor stuff looks better.   The dorky girl is pretty cool.

6. Dan Mangan, “About As Helpful As You Can Be Without Being Any Help At All”

AW: The fourth and final video in this pEP that features choreographed dance moves. (I was gonna say “People dancing in sync”, but then I realized that the Holy Hail video doesn’t have more than one person dancing at a time, that’s just an EFFECT.)

My confession about the inclusion of this song is that I had pretty much decided it was gonna go in as soon as I saw the amazing title.  It isn’t what I was expecting at ALL, musically, because I feel like solo musicians who want to make UNUSUAL music don’t do it as just their OWN NAME, they call themselves WOLF EYES or FINAL FANTASY or MOZART or something.

What I like about this is the instrumentation that is like a marching band, but I’m not 100% sold on the singing because we already have The Pogues. I don’t know. What do you think of it? 

JD: The title is a winner.  The title is a CHAMPION.  The song is less brutally victorious but I do like it - “don’t count the feathers, just count the wings” is a great line.

AW: Agreed!

JD: I had been meaning to start paying attention to danmangan for years now - I wrote his name down after seeing it in an ad in Exclaim!@?# Magazine but didn’t follow through and now he’s like the most popular beardy man in wooden guitar music of Canada.  Right?  Oh my god I’m an amazing writer.

AW: Hahaha. Fact. 

JD: (I don’t want to step on your MOZART joke so I am writing down here that it was REALLY funny.)

I like many things about this video.  The shot with the confetti is just great.  The costumes of the dancers are very individual.

AW: I really like that sentence!

JD: I’m not wild about the clutter but I recognize it likely means something.  I am confused as to why the dancers are required to be in quadroon-face makeup, but as mr manganmandan winds up that way at the climax of the thing, I guess that probably means something too.  And it is probably not intended to address ethnicity that is just kind of among my lenses lately.  For wondering things.

7. Brooke Fraser, “Something in the Water”

AW: I LOVE the animation in this.  It reminds me of Heather Harkins. Also I fell in love with this song in the first two lines, when she goes from referring to herself in the first person to the third person. I like the rhythm of the song and that there is clapping in it.  Also she is wearing a dress with a big floppy neckbow and I think we all know how I feel about those (positively). She sticks her tongue out at the end of the video and it is adorbs.

I found out about her because she sang in the Flight of the Conchords’ charity single “Feel Inside and Stuff Like That”. (You should watch that video right away, if you haven’t.)

JD: I really like the way the song sounds!  It sounds big and like it was recorded in the same room as “Little Talks” by Of Monsters And Men.

The opening lines are great but my attention was taken by the video from there.  All of the sitting in a room shots reminded me of our video, and made me worried that we missed out by having the camera not zooming in and out for those shots. [Our video is perfect. -AW]

She has a lot of outfits but her hair is always wet.

AW: Something in the WATER, Jesse. The WATER.

MixtapEP #13: Jesse To Audra

This pEPisode was compiled and commentated upon by Jesse in September, and replied to by Audra in November.

1. Blu feat. UGOD, “DOINNOTHIN”

JD: This the first track off Blu’s nOYORK album from early this year and I wasn’t really a fan of him before but then I heard THIS SOUND and how he found a space in it and now I really am a fan of him. The whole soundscape is so hypnotic and gritty! That bass is so woozy!

I also like that it is “featuring UGOD” (least heralded member of Wu-Tang Clan) but that seems to mean only the one sentence repeated for the hook. When I played this for Tribe One on tour earlier this month, his theory was that when they asked him to feature, he quoted a price that they couldn’t swing, and all they managed to record was his shrugging explanation of why it would cost so much as he headed out the door.

AW: Whoa this looks so 90’s, hey? The animation? I couldn’t actually hear the bass until I thought about it, but yeah you are totally right. I don’t like that I can’t really hear his voice at all. I don’t really like that everything seems to be at the same volume! Also he could be more enthusiastic. I mean in this song. I dunno! It feels a bit like a freestyle, wish I know is the worst insult ever. There is more UGOD on this than there is Akon on that Gwen Stefani song!

But do you think maybe what happened was they called and said “Will you be in our song” and he named a price and they said “That is too much!” so then he said that sentence and then they made it into a song? If so, I hope you like my upcoming duet with Kristin Hersh called “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

JD: Wait… did you… repeat my exact same joke back to me??? Is that how we do things now?!?

2. Cold Specks, “Holland”

JD: I found out they existed from the front page of the National Post (I think) entertainment section which I fished out of the trash and read. They seemed really interesting on paper! Then I checked this song out and I didn’t have enough patience to really let it sink in. Then later I did and I don’t know if the juxtaposed images of the video are a big part of why it gets me, but it does get me, and I think the juxtaposed images of the video are a big part of why. Are you checking these cats out already?

AW: I don’t know these cats, no! I thought for a second this might be a cover of “Holland, 1945.”

JD: Oh discovering something is not a cover of “Holland, 1945,” is just about the most disappointed you can possibly be, if you’re you. The only thing you’ve ever been more disappointed by has been ever hearing a freestyle. I am not knocking it out of the park on this one I guess.

AW: I really love this though! If this was on a Wholphin, I would for sure make people watch it. I find it moving, yeah, the images and the music. What a great way to make a video! I especially like the ice breaker imagery. Nary a koosh ball in sight!

JD: What are those things, even?

3. A Band Of Buriers, “Cello Dub”

JD: Remember when this dude played with me and Thesis and some other European rappers at the Glue Pot Pub in like 2009 maybe and his French friends stayed in our basement and we didn’t see that much of him but he was pretty nice? This is his band now!

AW: I remember one of those dudes saw a lot of ME when he opened the wrong door!

Also I made everyone pierogies. Man, I’m the best.

Wait, didn’t none of those guys speak english? How did this dude learn so many words?!

JD: He is a British one, not a French one!

I wish the chime didn’t sound so much like a cell phone message alert, but I probably like everything else about the sound of this track. I find the lyrics impenetrable but usefully bleak, and I can’t tell whether I think “dumb and boring opalescence” is a great turn of phrase or a terrible one.

AW: It’s great. It reminds me of Morrissey.

JD: Gee whiz Morrissey huh? You wouldn’t be writing any essays about that guy these days, would you?

AW: I super love this a lot! I like how it is monotone but still gains momentum! That’s really impressive! I love this!!!

JD: The parts of the video with dancing are what I like best. Those girls look SO TOUGH.

AW: They do. And they aren’t even all white! WHO EVEN KNEW THAT WAS POSSIBLE??

I’m really stoked about everything to do with this.

4. Danny Brown, “Grown Up”

AW: Is this sort of a Velvet Underground sample?

JD: I don’t know! Want to elucidate on this question in the comments to the post?

There are roughly, but not precisely, 0 Danny Brown songs I would ever encourage you to listen to. Since you listen to El-P’s Cancer4Cure so much and surely heard him on “Oh Hail No,” you can probably imagine lots of reasons why that is.

AW: I don’t actually know! Okay I will go listen to that snog again one sec.

*actually goes and listens to it*

Huh I feel like I have never noticed this part of the song before. Maybe I’ve always wandered off and made myself tea or tuned it out or something? It’s not good.

JD: Yeah, so although I struggled with liking him at all for quite a while due to lots of those lots of reasons, he has a rare humanity that cuts through some of his own bullshit at striking moments and now I’m stuck checking for him and waiting for him to squeeze in little nuggets of interesting personal things to say between the dullest obsession with oral sex since Weezy’s.

AW: Hahaha. I don’t have much to say about this except for I love your writing so much.

JD: This video is the cutest, …
(AW: IT IS! The chorus is the best. I should get it as a tattoo.)
JD: …despite one mildly gruesome moment inaccurately depicting how Danny Brown lost his two front teeth.
AW:YES! YIKES!!

JD: I’m considering drafting a bill that would introduce the requirement that every musician making videos has to do at least one where a kid plays them. Would you support this effort.

AW: Everyone except Sage Francis. Just because I think he’d like being excluded because think of the SULK FACTOR.

JD: Shots fired!!

5. John D. Boswell, “Garden Of Your Mind”

JD: As much as it may feel like no-one ever needs to hear TV dialogue cleverly autotuned and edited into song lyrics, get ready to cry your fucking eyes out once again from even an inkling of the warmth and kindness radiating at all times from Fred Rogers.

AW: Oh this is 100% lovely. I love him so much. Have you read this? “Can You Say… Hero?” by Tom Junod in Pittsburgh In Words. You have to read that right away and then after you are finished crying, talk to me about it, okay?

JD: Wow that was actually pretty uncomfortable for me. It was moving, but it made him seem like such a cultish figure, and so unyielding. Also obviously I didn’t like the obsession with bodyweight, although I appreciated his being described as an ascetic for it. I don’t know though, gosh.

6. Desdamona, “The Comeback”

JD: I have no idea if she’s connected to Brother Ali at all or this is just what Minneapolis sounds like but wowwww does she ever throw down! I found her because someone linked to a series of blog posts she was writing giving shouts out to women rappers, and then realized she was also a rapper and clicked a link and then SHEESH this thing! I find the beat serviceably stirring-by-numbers without banging as much as I would like it to, but I just think the vocal performance is super powerful. Oh but the first few lines kind of threw me off because they’re so simple - it sophisticates from there.

AW: I like how much she looks like a kindergarten teacher. I don’t like the production at all! I don’t know! This kind of bounces off of me, homie. I can tell she’s good at rapping, I just don’t feel gripped by it.

JD: I guess I thought she seemed tough and bad-ass and had some of the same oomph as Eternia does, whom you love? Yeah I’m still not really picking them.

7. Joey Bada$$, “Waves”

JD: It was not my intent for this to be almost all rap! This is one I had to sub in when a different video got deleted by the angry internet machine.

AW: The angry internet machine only loves rap.

JD: Maybe it’s too close of a companion piece to the imaginary childhood of Danny Brown, but the actual childhood of 17-year-old Joey Bada$$ has kind of a different feel to it. I was already a fan of the kid from the track “Survival Tactics” but that’s just raw retro raps over a jacked Lord Finesse beat (lawsuit fodder…!) and actually on that I thought he was outshone by his guest…

(sad-as-hell update from months after writing - that guest, Capital Steez, died on Christmas Eve 2012. kid was only 19)

…but this track is so nice and positive and smooth, and so anchored in the New York sound that I not only grew up loving but am especially nostalgic for this morning while I’m reading that Michael Eric Dyson book about Nas’s Illmatic.

He starts the record off by kissing his mom and going to school, and ends it at a show that looks like any of the best I’ve been to in my life. In between is lots of syllables about being a person. I love rap.

AW: It’s too dense for me! It’s like a giant wall of text! It kind of gave me a headache! It felt like being cornered at a party.

JD: Oh. I was really hoping you’d like this video, even if the song isn’t something you’d put on just to listen to or whatever, because it’s a documentary of sorts. I feel like this whole pEP was a failure to connect.

Sorry homie

rljd:

  1. Rick Wakeman - Shear [sic] Terror
  2. Juggaknots - Loosifa
  3. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Satan Said Dance
  4. Holocaust - Sinister
  5. Sampson, Jokez, Nokes, Zach & Jesse Dangerously - Crazymen
  6. Gravediggaz - Zig Zag Chamber
  7. Sixtoo - Caukazoid Germ
  8. Buck 65 - Chip Chop
  9. Lovage - Archie & Veronica
  10. Goodie Mob - Cell Therapy
  11. Method Man - The Riddler
  12. Brother Ali - Sleepwalker
  13. Thirstin Howl III - Watch Deez
  14. THEM - It’s Them
  15. Governor Bolts - Teenage Angst
  16. Buck 65 - Pack Animal
  17. Dr Octagon - Halfsharkalligatorhalfman
  18. Ghost Bees - Erl King
  19. “Weird” Al Yankovic - Nature Trail To Hell
  20. Sampson, EMC & Joe Buck - C’est l’Hallowe’en
  21. Kool Keith & Noggin Noddaz - Sly We Fly
  22. DJ Vadim - Lord Forgive Me
  23. Cage - Lord Have Mercy
  24. Non-Phixion - Cult Leader
  25. Masta Ace Inc - Slaughtahouse
  26. Automator & Kool Keith - Cartoon Caper
  27. Aesop Rock - Mars Attacks
  28. The Gothic Archies - Scream And Run Away
  29. DJ Signify & Sage Francis - Haunted House Party
  30. Recyclone - Magic
  31. Joey Beats & Cunninglinguists - Hellfire
  32. Jesse Dangerously & Toolshed - Butchershop Quartet
  33. Prince Paul & Kool Keith - Weapon World
  34. Swollen Members, Saafir & Big Nose - Valentine’s Day Massacre
  35. Arsonists - Hallowe’en
  36. Buck 65 - Hallowe’en
  37. Camp Lo - Negro League
  38. Toolshed - Borderlines
  39. Gravediggaz - 1-800-SUICIDE
  40. Fu-Schnickens - Visions 20/20
  41. Wu-Tang Clan - Careful (Click, Click)
  42. Rubberoom - Evil Archangels 2
  43. Tri-Pinnacle/Antipop - Melted Wax
  44. ONYX & Biohazard - Judgement Night
  45. Geto Boys - My Mind Is Playing Tricks On Me
  46. Sway & Tech - The Anthem
  47. LL Cool J - Deepest Bluest
  48. ginzuintriplicate - Bite The Hand
  49. The Mighty Trans-Ill-Vanians - Aberdeen Stranglas
  50. B-Real, Coolio, LL Cool J & Busta Rhymes - Monstarrs
  51. Gravediggaz - Tales From The Dark Side
  52. Everlast - Shook Ones pt.II
  53. Shaquille O’Neal, RZA & Method Man - No Hooks
  54. P.O.S. - Crispin Glover
  55. Red Ants - Keep Your Satellites Out Of My Brain
  56. Dert Roads - Bring Out Your Dead
  57. House Of Pain - Back From The Dead
  58. Dangerdoom featuring Ghostface - The Mask
  59. Mick Smiley - Magic
  60. Bobby Brown Posse - On Our Own
  61. DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince - Then She Bit Me
  62. Edan & Percee P - Torture Chamber
  63. Method Man - Judgement Day (instrumental)
  64. Tears For Fears - Mad World
  65. Lords of the Underground - Psycho
  66. Boom Bip & Buck 65 - The Unthinkable (remix)
  67. Blanche - Superstition

(Hallowax 2008)

Remember this 3 hour mix of spooky and macabre hip-hop I post every year in the hopes someone will listen all the way to my Edan/Method Man/Tears For Fears/LOTUG blend?

This year is no exception.

Remember it’s almost all from vinyl, with a few tracks mixed in off CD turntable.

MixtapEP #12: Audra to Jesse

This pEPisode was compiled and written in June of 2012, but lost when the wild goose that carries our correspondence back and forth between Ottawa and Toronto went briefly rogue.  We are pleased to welcome that goose (doesn’t have a name??) back to our employment, and here is the lost pEP.

1. Fiona Apple, “Every Single Night”

AW: OBVIOUSLY I feel very triumphant that I got to be the one to pEP this track, and OBVIOUSLY it’s the reason I am scurrying so hard to get this done TONIGHT, hoping you haven’t seen it already. That said, please explain this video to me because, what.

JD: I am going to pre-empt confessing to the burning shame I feel at having been scooped on the Fiona tip [VICTORYYYY. -AW] and head straight into letting you know which of the unfamiliar images in this video made me feel the most off-balance and unreal:

  1. Fiona Apple in her thirties!

Thanks to her enormous quiet spell between records, I was not at all prepared for the revelation that she has kept pace with the rest of us and continued to age.  I never thought I thought of her as a kid, because she’s older than I am, but I guess I thought I kept getting older and she stayed the same age.  Way to show me up on that one, Ms Apple!

AW: I didn’t notice her looking that different I don’t think! Except for maybe she got bangs?

JD: That’s what I meant!  I meant she got bangs.

I can’t explain anything about the video.  I’m willing to chalk things that I understand about it up to Gondry-style dream logic, like golden threads that tie disparate scenes together.  I love the giant creatures that never come to the forefront.  I LOVE that they are just part of the background.  That’s PERFECT.

AW: Do we know who made this video? I don’t! Let me look! Okay I am back! It was directed by Joseph Cahil who “In 1998 was awarded a Fulbright Grant to move to Prague to work under famed Czech surrealist director Jan Svankmajer.” So it could have been worse!

On the music front, though: I had forgotten how many interesting things she does with her voice! Some of them I really like and some of them are sort of hiccup-y and sound like Ani Difranco who as you know I simply cannot stand. Anyway, I feel like this sounds exactly like a Fiona Apple song but I am really curious to hear what you have to say about the production!

JD: It sure does sound like a Fiona Apple song!  It has that attention to texture that was disrespected by the detested ruiner of Rilo Kiley (Mike Elizondo) [BOOOOOOOOOO. -AW] when Extraordinary Machine finally hit shelves.  I think she’s showing some really 201X-style vocal chops on this one, including my favourite part - the way she sings “braaaa-a-ai-ai-ai-i-ai-EH-ain.”  Could only come after Arcade Fire & Animal Collective & other bands I only know one or two songs from - it doesn’t come from her jazz, hip-hop, and chamber pop roots.

AW: That’s a really good point! You are so right about that!  That is by far my favourite part of the song! The rest of the song was good, but I wish it was more dynamic. I kept hoping it was building towards something!

JD: I didn’t hear any of the interrupted breathing Ani stuff that I think you’re referring to, but context is everything, right?  Fiona Apple’s voice is smooth even when she tortures it (as she does here and there on the new record, another unfamiliar innovation); Ani Difranco’s voice is harsh even when she croons.

AW: I guess that’s probably true! 

2. Ana Tijoux, “Shock“ 

AW: I missed the “Chile” slide at the beginning and thought this video was about Quebec! I find this moving, even though I don’t understand the words. I like the rapping part way better than the singing party, but this was the rappiest song of hers I could find. I don’t know if they make female rappers sing in EVERY country or what. Maybe she just really likes singing? Who can say! But I think she seems awesome.

Wikipedia says she is “is the daughter of Chilean parents living in political exile in France during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship of Chile.” She also used to be in a hip hop group called Makiza. They were around in the 90’s so you probably love them. 

JD: I love the cadence of her delivery!  The rhythms are really fluid, and all of her rolled Rs sound tough as hell.  It’s sing-songy, but it doesn’t feel like not rap, you know?  I started off skeptical of the Dr Dre influence audible in the production, but once the drums kicked in they sold me on the feel of the whole track.  It’s a loping beast.  I like this.

AW: Okay now I am going to reveal the SECRET THEME of this mixtapEP. It’s “For a few artists, I couldn’t decide which song to show you.” Because in THIS OTHER Ana Tijoux song, “1977,” she raps WAY FASTER in parts and you love that! But also sometimes it seems to be totally off of the beat. But 1) Maybe I am wrong and 2) Maybe that’s the fault of the person who put the song together? I mean she DOES seem to know where the beat is? So um which song do you like better? 

JD: [response TBD]

3. Le Loup - “Planes like Vultures”

AW: This is my favourite new-to-me band! They came up on Grooveshark, and I was really taken with them right away. I like how organic this song sounds, like the way all the choral lines aren’t said in unison, and the way I feel like he really means it all.  Not much happens in this video, but there is a cute girl dancing around in it cutely. Unfortunately this band doesn’t seem to have very many videos but maybe download their records and tell me if you like them at all? I’m sorry this pEP is so low on jokes by the way. 

JD: This is the kind of song actual mixtapes were invented for.  I was close to losing patience with the rich and clumsy harmonies when the drums kicked in and I was snapped back to paying attention and I liked every bit of it after that.  [Oh great!! -AW]

I totally did lose patience with the uneventful video - I feel like even lipsynching would have rescued it for me - but I want to hear more of this.  It makes me think of uhhh Bon Iver coming down to Earth a little, and getting produced by David Axelrod.

AW: I am not actually ever sure that I have heard Bon Iver.

This is the OTHER song by Le Loup I nearly included: “Forgive Me.” The video is less boring that’s for sure. There is a little bunny’s little tongue! But the song is less interesting to me but also good.

4. La Sera, “Devils’ Hearts Grow Gold”

AW: Okay first off this picnic DJ is VERY bad at DJing, but you’ll forgive him when you see how PSYCHED he is about dancing later on in the video. I really love the “devil’s” sneaky faces, and the idea that what he might do is snatch purses and taunt the gals he took them from, and they are kind of peeved but they still hang out with him. [Audra loves low-stakes narrative - JD] The music is very dreamy but I feel like the song is too short for how lush the production is. I need the bandaid of all of those layers to be pulled off slowly! 

JD: Yeah that is a short friggin’ song!  I guess I can’t complain about how the crummy USB turntable they’re pretending to dance to doesn’t even have a headshell, let alone a needle, but for the whole video I was like COME ON.  That guy does make some pretty sneaky faces.  I wonder if he’s known for them.  Like did his high school class vote him “Sneakiest Face?”  I bet he was in the running.  Top 3.

AW: Haha. Did you like the song at all? Even though it was short? Or were you like “Phew I am glad THAT is over”?

JD: [response TBD but probably in between]

5. French Films, “You Don’t Know”

AW: The subtitles on this video make me think of “Oh No (Oh No No No No No),” by Windom Earle … except they are about things that are actually sad? But at the same time, they are REALLY FUNNY in their understated subtitled retelling. Also in the declaration of something as “my thing.” That is great. Except for the dude whose thing is fake blood and vampire teeth? But other than that, I’m quite charmed by this video.

This song is ALSO too short, but it’s sort of garage-y so I forgive it for that?  SONIC DOUBLE STANDARD WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO? 

JD: Songs being too short to really be allowed to be songs is the theme this time!  Like if you caught them when song-fishing, you would have to throw them back until they grew a middle section, or another chorus.  

AW: That sounds like something Tori Amos would say. 

JD: OBVIOUSLY I ACCEPT THAT AS A COMPLIMENT.

It is a pretty cute video.  I forgive the vampire teeth guy even though it’s a little hard to watch… he’s just doing his thing, you know?

AW: My thing right now is eating a lot of chocolate covered almonds. 

JD: My thing right now is … uh oh.

6. Bruce Peninsula, “In Your Light”

AW: I feel like this band put a LOT of work into this video to only have 160 people watch it in the last three months. But it was nice of them to do it on my birthday!

JD: Well here’s the good news!  In the two weeks since you sent me this pEP to pERuse, an additional fourteen people have watched it.  That’s roughly one per day, assuming it really is two weeks and I haven’t been experiencing the phenomenon of Lost Time.

[the bad news is that in the three months since we wrote this pEPisode, the total views for the Bruce Peninsula video has not even doubled - it is at 297 as of this writing.  That kind of breaks my heart because I KNOW they are kind of a popular band so what is wrong here? -JD]

AW: ALSO feel like this band is what it would sound like if GY!BE (please put the exclamation mark where ever it will make me seem coolest) and the Dirty Projectors made a band together with maybe one of their roommates from college? I like when it gets really choral.

JD: I don’t hear the !!!!!! influence (oh you don’t know? it’s just all explanation points now, with the one that used to move around now always at the end), [Hahahaha. -AW] but it sure does sound like the Dirty Projectors made a band together with THEMSELVES (not the rap group Themselves, just the normal word “themselves” in all caps), but with special guest vocalists One Of The Guys From Dropkick Murphys (Whom I Believe Are Werewolves), [This also cracked me up for real. I just can’t type “Hahaha” all the time tho. -AW] and actually pretty much Fiona Apple.  There is a ton of pseudo-African rhythm and happy guitar picking and in some contexts I like it but these drums sound like crap (too much short-gated reverb!).  I like the choral part too, though.

AW: Clearly I need more choral music in my life. 

JD: Well what are you going to do about it?

AW: I also really like the nautical theme and the animation used for it! It’s like a oil painting. 

JD: Yeah, that’s what I like about this video!  Usually I have no patience for when nothing representing a performer is on the screen in a music video for more than a split-second, but this is a rare case where I want to get back to the animation as much as possible.  Sometimes the boats look like they aren’t really being acted upon by physics, but they sure are being acted upon by WHALES!  LOOK AT EM GO!!

AW: I love them!!

JD: Are creatures of the sea another theme?  Not convinced yet, but suspicious.

AW: Don’t ask too many questions, Dangerously.

JD: I shall try to ask my questions safely.

AW: Okay what about this song by them is it better? “As Long As I Live” I think the music is better but the video isn’t an oil painting.  It makes me feel more energized though!

JD: [response TBD; this pEP had a lot of homework!]

7. Rapsure Risin, “The Lights Go Out”

AW: I like so much about this! I like the contrast between the chorus and the rap parts. I feel like the melody of the chorus isn’t a typical “hook”, it’s more like … an Elastica song. It’s also super intense seeing two Indigenous women rapping in the halls of an abandoned residential school. (Click here for a SHOCKINGLY idyllic description of how that all went down) Probably you have things to say about how the raps aren’t the greatest, but I like Northern State so I love this! I can’t stop thinking about it.

JD: I think one of them is a MUCH better rapper than the other.

AW: Yeah, that’s true.

JD: I found the reference to residential schools jarring given that the context, as far as I can tell, is otherwise sort of sub-Goosebumps level spoooooky atmosphere, but I also get the feeling that the location and reference were not included for their impact on ME but on members of the artists’ community, so in this case - just for this once! - it doesn’t matter what I think.

AW: There is a good short documentary about them here. They seem super amazing. 

JD: I think the video is shot really well but I mostly dislike the way it’s edited.  The beat sounds cheap but the hook is catchy - to me it does sound like late 80s or very early 90s dance-rap hooks - most specifically I’m reminded of “On Our Own” by Bobby Brown.

AW: You should make them some beats!

JD: Nah I bet they really like their beats.

——

Ending Themes:

  • For A Few Artists, I Couldn’t Decide Which Songs To Show You!
  • Songs Being Too Short To Really Be Allowed To Be Songs
  • Nautical Creatures

Source: youtube.com

MixtapEP #11: Jesse to Audra

This pEP was compiled and written in May of 2012, so I’m sorry the videos are all kind of vintage and the jokes are now familiar to you from our touring mixtapEPs live revue [not a real thing -ed.]

1. The Magnetic Fields, “Andrew In Drag”

JD: Ol’ Stephin is up to his coleportery once again, cleverly rhyming just one thing over and over again for a whole song and making it clever!

I like his music more when it’s less synth-poppy, but I find this video touching because it is some people putting a lot of effort into something that is probably very personal, even if it doesn’t mean much to the song’s titular Andrew.

AW: OH YOU SNEAK. I had this included in my last pEP to YOU but then when you were at my house and we talked about how we found songs, you mentioned looking at the Merge Records YouTube Channel, and so I figured you’d already seen this video and not pEPped for some reason that I couldn’t figure out, like it was stupid in a way that wasn’t obvious to me.

I really like this video, even though I feel like drag performances are like gender minstrel shows! But I guess not just the costume part, I mean more the exaggerated performance.  Yeah I like this video. 

2. Madeon, “Pop Culture”

JD: It should be evident before double-digit seconds why I would send this video to you.  Hell the rest of it could be a really sexist dog fighting match, and I would send it to you for the first few seconds with the warning “DO NOT WATCH ANY OF THE REST OF THIS.”  The rest of it is a pretty entertaining video of a wacky dancin’ man, but it’s not necessarily the funniest or most interesting dancing video by this Nathan J. Barnatt character.  He has lots more, and you will like to enjoy watching them all of them. 

Bill HaverchukAW: BILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL.  Hmm, seeing this, I wonder if I get my whole fake grumpus persona from him. OH I hope so!!

JD: Musically I am kind of like “okay I get it.”  I would probably think it was neat at a live performance if someone chopped up all these songs and smushed them together, but I don’t really want to pay attention to it.  I guess I am supposed to do a sequence of flappy dances.

AW: Yeah the music doesn’t blow my  mind but if I ever seeing someone out in the world doing dances like this, I don’t even know what I’ll do. Something REALLY good. I like how his face is like HELP I HAVE FALLEN AND I CAN ONLY GET DOWN. 

3. Dream Jefferson, “The Ghosts of San Simeon”

JD: New wave raps by friends you like!  Hey there you go!  I think this beat is really pretty and the rhymes are good and melancholy and Owel 5 really has some fantastic rhyme schemes going on, while sounding like the saddest Funkdoobiest.

AW: LOOK IT IS OUR FRIENDS! I like how with their little hats and sometimes blue faces they are definitely Smurfs. I need to become good enough friends with him that he emails me the lyrics to his songs like you do. I cannot understand a word. Maybe one day I will try to transcribe these lyrics to show you just how much I’m mishearing them.  

JD: I think the video is cool, but I wish there were more parts where the different shots are layered.  That’s my favourite way for it to be.

AW: Wait, is their album called ‘Sasquatch bury their dead FOR FREE”?? Because that’s great!!! Shhh don’t tell me if it isn’t.

[ed. note: it isn’t.]

4. THEESatisfaction, “QueenS”

JD: The internet was reeeeeally psyched that race & gender politics luminary dream hampton directed her first music video, and I guess it’s not surprising that it makes race and gender luminescent!  I love the diversity of looks and appearances, styles and manners.  The first time I watched it I had this sensation of almost bashful disembodied voyeurism, like this party seems like it is for the people who are at it, and I might be kind of cramping their celebration even by ghosting around it on a computer.

AW: Wow dream hampton sounds like a 100% fantastic human, reading a bit about her! This party is gorgeous for sure and yeah it is so exciting to see so many people looking good so many different ways. I like to sound all tough and say “I’d follow any of these people home if I was at that party” but let’s be serious, I’m much more likely to, like, follow them on Pinterest. 

JD: I’m not sure how much the song itself works for me - I kind of like how R&B it is, and also how weird it is… but I kind of don’t like how R&B it is, or really how weird it is, either.  But it’s got great harmonies and interesting rhythms!

AW: I like the production a lot! I am surprised it’s on Sub Pop! I don’t think of that as a very diverse label!!

JD: I know! I had the exact same thought!  About Sub Pop!

5. Rae Spoon, “London Destroyer”

JD: For me this video is a really mixed bag!  I like the song the whole way through (this blog is in danger of being renamed “Every Week About How Great Rae’s Voice And Songwriting Are” seriously I am camped on the url EWAHGRVAS.ca (obvz .com is taken)), but some parts of the animation look really cool to me and some parts do not and make me boring.  Do you like any parts?

AW: This is like one of those animated-NFB-short-looking videos that I kept pEPping at first! I don’t feel like it matches the song (uh but if Rae Spoon reads this, I’m not saying I know better than they do, I just can’t reconcile the sonic textures and the visual ones!) Good work not getting stuck with the .biz!!!

JD: I would like to make a further joke about “getting stuck with the .biz” (probably playing off “giving [one] the business” but I can’t think of one and this pEP is four months late so I guess I will cede this battle to the aether.

6. Kool A.D., “La Piñata”

JD: Before I saw the video, this was already my favourite song on 51 because of tough drums, fun clever raps with a few good rhyming twists, and Mr Rogers sample.  And then the video is like a meditation on how these guys seem really fun and nice and probably a gas to hang out with.  You just wanna be like… aw, have fun, you guys!!

AW: I feel like the guys in this video wish they were invited to the THEESatisfaction party above. But they were like “No you have a bird and also is your hoodie made of chamois.” Has the line “Jewish Eddie Murphy.” been used by him before or did *I* make that up?

JD: Please say something about his hoodie.

AW: Jesse I already did, pay attention.

[ed. note: this is a joke about internet e-mail]

JD: “Jewish Eddie Murphy” is a Lakutis line from one of the songs on that I’m In The Forest EP.  AD is biting (or paying tribute?) to single lines all over this thing; Kanye’s “Urkels/team/Wins-low” pun, the GZA’s “drop megaton bombs more faster than you blink.”  I do think “y’all banana sniffers, baby Hitlers / aiming guns at all my baby pictures” is entirely original, however.

7. SWOOP, “COVE”

JD: Okay you know that theory you frequently return to that, say, Tom Waits wasn’t told he was in a movie when they were shooting Wristcutters, or Nick Nolte didn’t know he was in a movie when they were shooting The Hulk?  I think there is a very, very strong likelihood - and I can’t see you disagreeing with me on this - that DJ Weezl was just going about his ordinary, everyday business in and around the wilderness of Edmonton when it happened to be captured on film and edited - as one commenter on UGSmag put it - “by a woodpecker.”

I know it’s long but to me it just relentlessly becomes more and more fantastic as it progresses.

AW: OH MY GOD THIS SONG WAS REALLY STRESSFUL. Also, are you implying I recycle my jokes because you’re not supposed to notice that. You don’t even notice when I recycle YOUR jokes! Okay the video is really cool but holy crabgrass I said out loud to myself twice “Is this song still playing??”

JD: The answer is YES!

——

Ending Themes:

This week (HA week) we chose to keep the themes HIDDEN, in the hopes that our loyal and devoted readership can discern them!

So how about it?  Can YOU isolate the common themes represented in these videos?

Source: youtube.com

rljd: “Slept Through A Landslide” by Jesse Dangerously (Ottawa), featuring Noah23 (Guelph) & Krista Muir (Montreal) beat produced by M MAC (Hamilton)ukulele solo by Jeff Ngan (Ottawa)glockenspiel by Jesse Dangerouslystrings arranged by Peter Project (Toronto)scratches by Bad DJ Budget Cuts (Halifax) additional vocals by Jeff Ngan,& Rosie McDonald (lives in a van) mixed by Timbuktu @ FUN (Toronto), and mastered by Dorc @ Banging Masters (Toronto) artwork by Evan Dahm (Brooklyn/Overside) COMING THIS WEEK OK actually what I meant to say is COMING NEXT WEEK.  Got ahead myself for a moment there but the wait is gonna be worth it. And then at the end of August when the accompanying zine drops?  You’re gonna wile out.
Pop-upView Separately

rljd:

“Slept Through A Landslide”

by Jesse Dangerously (Ottawa),
featuring Noah23 (Guelph)
& Krista Muir (Montreal)

beat produced by M MAC (Hamilton)
ukulele solo by Jeff Ngan (Ottawa)
glockenspiel by Jesse Dangerously
strings arranged by Peter Project (Toronto)
scratches by Bad DJ Budget Cuts (Halifax)

additional vocals by Jeff Ngan,
& Rosie McDonald (lives in a van)

mixed by Timbuktu @ FUN (Toronto), and mastered by Dorc @ Banging Masters (Toronto)

artwork by Evan Dahm (Brooklyn/Overside)

COMING THIS WEEK

OK actually what I meant to say is COMING NEXT WEEK.  Got ahead myself for a moment there but the wait is gonna be worth it.

And then at the end of August when the accompanying zine drops?  You’re gonna wile out.

MixtapEP #10: Audra to Jesse

By request from pEPper Alex Kennedy of competing music blog, I Die: You Die, as of this week we’re going to start linking directly to each video individually in addition to the playlist at the top of the post.  Click the song titles to follow along with us, like those storybooks with 7”s in them!  You’ll know it’s time to turn the page when you hear Tinkerbell’s impression of a Mogwai.

1. The Balconies, “Serious Bedtime”

AW: There are actually songs that I liked more by these guys, but this video makes me SO HAPPY that I can’t stop watching it.  Oh man nothing is more fun than people being silly and smiley and having the best time.  This band just moved to Toronto do you think it would be creepy for me to track down this lead singer gal and make her be my best friend Y [ ] N [ ]?

LOOKIT ALL OF HER FACES!!! AAAAA I can’t take it. Also “Serious Bedtime” is a really fantastic combination of words let’s not even pretend otherwise.  Also the singing is good. Listen, I can’t really talk about the music I’m too happy about all of the dancing and goofing.

JD: The best thing about the video is definitely her wildly goofy faces.  The number of problems I have with the faces she is making is best expressed as ZERO.

AW: I need to see an infographic about this.

JD: I’ve had the graphics dpEPtartment whip this up for you:

I am weirdly disconcerted by how the drums don’t quite match the audio when they’re fully featured.  I am a stickler for accurately showing the high hats loosening and smashes getting smashier during a crescendo and stuff like that.  Better drum syncing is all I ask!

AW: Well I certainly didn’t notice that.

JD: Riff-wise there is an extent to which this song is “My Sharona,” and that extent would be best expressed as GREATER THAN ZERO.

AW: Again I am lost without a strong visual.

JD: After a great deal of consultation, the graphics dpEPt and I came up with this symbolic representation of the above concept:

It’s a pretty fun song and the video is nice.  I like that mural, but I feel bad for the dolphins in it!  Kind of hard not to be psyched for the squid kickin’ ass, though.

AW: Oh man now I want to hear you narrate a nature documentary so bad.  I want to know who did the mural! I really like it. Probably someone in Ottawa?

JD: I would narrate a nature documentary SO bad.

2. Casiokids - “Finn Bikkjen!”

AW: I think this video is maybe what it is like in Thesis’s head? I am still on the fence about the song.  It might be too high pitched? The melody is nice but it sort of feels like his voice is piercing my brain.

I really like the synchronized dancing of all the weird creatures, and I THINK I like the way the creatures don’t actually look that weird, they look like they were made using supplies bought at Giant Tiger.  I KNOW I like that dog.

JD: Do you think that guy bought his pretty face at Giant Tiger?  God damn!

AW: Ha! He probably did.

JD: I liked the dancing and the creature styles, but - oh man I’m going to seem the the picker of such nits this time - I felt like two scenes wasn’t enough.  I think a more traditional three acts would have made it seem like more of an ordeal, and then the first dance could have been shorter and stayed seeming just as cool the whole time.

AW: Jesus it’s like you didn’t even notice how cute the dog is.

JD: Audra I am bored of cute dogs.  I have to walk one every day now.  My LIFE is the real ordeal here.

I like the fluttery bass synth, that is my main thing I like in the music.  The voice is not super beautiful to me.  The music overall is not unpleasant to me but not something I anticipate putting back on for its own sake any time soon.  It’s lucky it has a video with weird creatures and some pretty dude’s face!

And fine a dog which is allegedly cute.

AW: Yeah also I feel like Casiokids is a really unimaginative name for a band. Is it? 

JD: I think it wouldn’t seem so weak if they were the ONLY band to co-opt the brand name Casio, but they aren’t.  Although Casiotone For The Painfully Alone recently changed his name to Advance Base, so maybe a spot opened up?

3. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, “I See A Darkness”

AW: Oh weird. There are so many versions of this song! Many by the same dude! Bonnie Prince Billy released in 1999 (like this, I think?), then Johnny Cash covered it the next year. And maybe Oldham did ANOTHER version at some point because I know I’ve heard a different one.

JD: I think if I were doing a bunch of variations on this song, I would have called them slightly different names - this one, for example, might have been “I Smell A Darkness” for example.

That’s just an example.

AW: Okay. 

JD: Is it clear that that was merely one example?  Just, you know, for instance.

AW: Anyway this is a NEW version, and it’s a weird boppy country jam with a 100% delightful and 100% baffling video.

JD: I can’t believe those walks he is doing.  Those walks are ridiculous.

Do you think it is even conceivable for someone to do those gaits and struts and bops if they don’t also have a bizarre walrus moustache like his?  I know for a FACT they cannot be done without a stuffy waistcoat.

AW: I know for a fact that this is exactly what Josh will be like in 15 years.

JD: For reference, this is Josh now:

If I hadn’t recently seen footage of Dave Van Ronk performing “He Was A Friend Of Mine,” I would be convinced that someone with facial hair that fanciful must be banned from ever doing a melancholy performance of any sort.

Still I don’t know how you would do it.  Wouldn’t you be just about to weep and then snap out of it like, “HUUHHHH I look just like a walrus!??”

AW: Hahaha the incredulous punctuation is what really makes this.

JD: Oh fuck what also there is that part where he has no eyes and I’m supposed to one day sleep again?  OH WAIT WHAT THE FUCK ALL OF THEIR EYES ARE GOING WILD ALL OVER THE PLACE WHAT IS THIS OH NO.

AW: I had to cover my mouth while I was reading this because I was laughing so hard in public.

JD: I’M GLAD THAT ONE OF US IS LAUGHING.  EVER AGAIN.

AW: This version doesn’t give me any of the feelings of the one I linked to earlier, but I find it so impressive that he could just remake it. Do you think you could ever take a really sad song of yours and then just do a totally chipper version?

JD: I can’t imagine it, but I don’t often write so broadly as this - the difference in tone really undermines the crushing, ominous presence of The Darkness as it appears in the original version, but a lot of that was atmospheric to begin with - the only phrase that doesn’t seem transformed in meaning is the song’s title.

The narrator isn’t hopelessly returning to depression over and over anymore, but just is kind of a wacky guy is all, it seems to me.

I think I’d have more luck making one of my upbeat songs seem sad!

AW: Think you’ll ever do THAT, then??

JD: Nah I’ll probably always have enough new sad feelings that I won’t have to!  I’m not some hack like Will Oldham.

4. Mint Julep, “To The Sea”

AW: Hope you like feeling crazy, because this video is going to do that for you a lot.  Unless you’ve already seen similar things in which case FINE.  This for SURE makes me motion sick but even with that I am super impressed by the effect.

I like the echoes on the vocals, and the handclaps.  Otherwise I find it pretty unremarkable on first few listens. I just don’t like her voice. I think a different vocalist could really change my feelings about this.  Keep that in mind, Mint Julep!

JD: Wow, you are ruthlessly trying to support a coup.  That’s cold.  I liked the handclaps too, and also the synth arpeggio.  The singer I was fine with!  Poor kid.

AW: Bah. 

JD: It took me a moment to realize that the effect was in fact nothing like the old still image morphing effect, and thought for a while that it was fading between left and right shots from a stereoscopic shoot.  So I pretty much drove my face crazy alternating one eye open at a time to see if it would turn 3D and I kept thinking I alllllmost had it but then thought I was going backwards and kept trying to switch and then I realized NO THIS IS MENTAL and tried to relax.

AW: I wish that was on youtube like when babies eat a lemon.

JD: That’s a very lyrical sentence.  You ever think about rapping?

Anyway I am pretty sure that trying to watch Mint Julep in 3D is how Will Oldham’s eyes got fucked up in the “I See A Darkness” video!!

I really like this video, although something about the books feels jarring.  Maybe I wish they were more integrated into scenes and not just product shots?  I do think that having all those books makes the barrel fire seem like a CRIME SCENE by the end of the video, and I almost had what I imagine the thrill of a horror movie might be like if you are terrible, when the viewpoint slowly encroached more and more on the flames and I was sure I was gonna see some book carnage in there.  But they were TOO SCARED!!

AW: I am glad you are not terrible!

JD: You silver-tongued devil.

5. Adam Arcuragi and The Lupine Chorale Society, “Presidents’ Song”

AW: Wikipedia makes a big deal out of this dude inventing a “Death Gospel” scene, but first of all I can’t really find any other bands who are labelled with that, and second of all I think that music writer needs to watch Searching for the Wrong Eyed Jesus and simmer down. 

JD: Or just ever hear Blanche, or some Lomax recordings!  This is like the very, very niced up version of those things.

I like the idea of a lot of people just singing one note each in a big, swelling chorus every four bars.  That’s clever.

AW: I like how grudging this sounds. Grumps forever!

There is a lot of tension to this melody that is increased by the harmonies.  I love that.  I like a bunch of friends making music especially while they are wearing suits.

If this song was playing at a party I’d probably dance a bit. But really I just want to be at the party in the video.

JD: Yeah that party is enviable.  Everyone at a big party looking cool and knowing how a song goes and how to play it well seems pretty exciting.  I like when the roles start rotating, like a Sloan concert.  I don’t like the slow motion scenes, because it makes the instruments not match the music WHICH WE HAVE DISCUSSED.

AW: Oh my god organize a protest why don’t you.

JD: That’s cold!  You know I don’t have Facebook.

6. Rufus Wainwright, “Out Of The Game”

AW: Rufus Wainwright just moved back to Toronto with his husband and son, and he gave an interview that I really liked, so I decided to look into his new stuff.

JD: Husband and son?  That’s a lot of hats to wear!  Dude needs to circulate more.

AW: This song’s chorus reminds me a lot of Hawksley Workman, probably in part because of the crescendo-ing melody and also because who else says “Sucker” in a song that is not a hip hop song?

Helena Bonham Carter is really endearing when she lipsynch shouts at the library. I bet they had a great time making this video. Here is some info about it from Wikipedia:

“The music video received mixed critical reception; many  reviewers offered commentary on Wainwright’s use of drag and noted that his characters appear to have sex with one another.”

Rich Lopez of the Dallas Voice thought Carter “anchored” the music video and found Wainwright’s performance “distracting”.

JD: Oh man how am I supposed to top such keen criticism and penetrating insight.  I wish they’d never started Wikipedia!!

AW: You should edit the Wikipedia entry, to say “They never started Wikipedia”. What would happen then??

JD: This feels like the premise of an amazing work of speculative fiction.  I should get my internet friend, whimsical cyberpunk author (and Dad-themed rapper) Jay Friedman to take a crack at it.  Watch this space.

Now, Audra, I think you’re right about the Hawksley Workman thing for precisely the reasons you describe.  I am just like, “yes, correct.”

AW: This is the point where you would take a pencil and underline it twice and write “Quite true!” in the margin. (That is a reference to a Dorothy Parker book review from memory so I maybe got it wrong.)

JD: That said, it’s not really like any of the many Hawksley Workman songs I enjoy.  I have yet to ever love a Rufus Wainright song, which I know puts me in the Wainwrong.

AW: Haaaaaaaa

JD: For sure HBC is a good performer…

AW: Whoa lucrative Hudsons Bay Company sponsorship opportunity squandered

JD: …there is something really different about watching an actor act-sing a song and the usual performer sing-act it.  But the narrative of the video eludes me to a point, and then past that point, it baffles me.

AW: There are three Rufus Wainwrights and they all get it on with Helena Bonham Carter but mostly each other?

JD: Um SPOILER ALERT for the pEPpers, Audra!  But yeah, at first I am really eager to be carried along by the broad symbolism of the cigarette, the flask of booze, and the minor display of sensuality, but then I am not sure what is up.

Is she envious of the Rufuses’ lack of uptightness?  Does she have them put into library jail, on cabaret day?  And then she fucks them because she decides that really she’s the one with the problem?  I think it would be hotter if not for Rufus’s creepy zombie eyes, and how his use of drag is “distracting.”

AW: THEY COULD BE WORSE EYES. 

JD: I feel like this is a threat, and has something to do with the Bill Oldham video from above (1979).

7. The Paper Kites, “Featherstone”

AW: This song and video is a bit like it is from my mind.  Also: trumpets are the best.

JD: Oh that got really beautiful!

I would have had the kids all asleep on their pillows at the end, though.  And also I wish that any of them weren’t white, if they’re trying to do a universal magical childhood make-believe world.  But the forest looks great, and even greater when brilliantly coloured feathers are cascading all over it.

I didn’t really hear the song from listening to it!

AW: You should listen, too! It is great and sad. 

——

Ending Themes

JD: This is the most thematically intricate pEP ever!  I detected the following themes:

  1. books with clearly visible titles, that are real books;
  2. instruments not quite synching up with playback;
  3. each eye going off in some other direction;
  4. things to do with beds! bedtime, sleeping & dreaming, mattress & sex, pillows.

AW: I am bad at themes.

JD: What are you talking about.

MixtapEP #9: Jesse to Audra

  1. Santigold, “Disparate Youth”
    JD: Bloodthirsty babes?  That frenetic guitar blast in the verses actually does make me think of TVOTR and if I were not so devoted to preserving my childlike sense of wonder, I would google it to see if the track’s name has anything to do with that.  Okay but apart from that, here is an exhaustive list of things to not like about this song and video: NONE OF THE THINGS.  The music is so rich and urgent!  The vocal is so trash and ready.  The video is so rich and urgent.  When did she change her name from Santogold to Santigold?  Am I crazy?  This video sets up the pEPisode theme, by the way.  Keep an eye out!  Oh don’t get all excited and think it’s kids singing the hook, though… that’s just this one.  Sorry.  Shit, sorry.
    AW: Oh this is not at all the Santigold video I was going to include in the first pEP I made you! I’ve never seen this! This is great! I don’t remember her being Santogold, or Santigord, or Santa. OH but wait you are right she did it because of being sued. There was a breakfast cereal called Santogold! Just kidding. It was a stupid movie.
    JD: I think she should have changed her name to Common Sense X.  I do appreciate that she only had to change one letter and it was fine.
    AW: ANYWAY.     You are right that this song is musical perfection!!  The video is really striking, too.  I looked it up, and she co-directed it! I think if she wasn’t a person of colour, I’d find it fetishizing.
  2. 10iller, “Native”
    JD:     I saw her by accident at SXSW when I was trying to see MOP - she was hyping Marz Lovejoy, and did some verses and tracks of her own. and I was really taken.  Now I follow her on tumblr, hoping she’ll leak more tracks.  I was sort of disappointed that her mixtapes have a lot more singing than rapping on them, but this one is RAW.  She raps kind of like if Ghostface was in Digable Planets but not like Ladybug, like Butterfly.  I wish this joint was longer, that beat is so mean.
    AW: She sounds like Kassy! Is that sexist of me? I like this a lot! Also it has a cat running backwards I HOPE THAT IS THE THEME!! Yeah this song is too short for sure. She should have made it longer if she wanted me to write more. I don’t have any anecdotes about her!
    JD: Pretty sexist, Audra.  That is also your sailor moon name generator result: Pretty Sexist Audra.
  3. M.I.A., “Bad Girls”
    JD:     Mostly I’m humiliated that I haven’t got around to watching this yet.  Are you in the same boat?  Dammit, maybe you’ve seen it already and this is old hat to you.  But then… you don’t HATE old hats.
    I started off liking the beat a bit and then starting to get bored and then WHOOSH the bassline introduced the chords underlying the basic monotonous sample and I had FIFTY HEART ATTACKS from how BIG the feeling of that progression is.  That combined with how much all the stunts they’re doing scare the hell out of me and I think I felt exactly like I’m supposed to feel - this is something momentous, and very dangerous.  I totally do not care about the many, many clunky lines.  I only care about how this is the new “Otis,” times “Otis.”
    AW: Didn’t I see this when YOU tumbl’d it?? I thought I did! I have watched this a lot of times yes but I am always happy to watch it again! I even posted it on the BIAAG wall and there was a really interesting discussion about it.
    JD: Okay yeah well that’s part of why I felt like a FRAUD for not watching it yet!  But I didn’t see the BIAAG wall thing because I deleted my Facebook to concentrate on my true love of tumblring.
    AW: I am SO INTO HER JUMPY DANCING. I need more of this in my life. This video makes me really emotional and tough. The big failing I think is that most people I know didn’t realize it’s women driving the cars which (I think?) is the entire point.  The other big failing is maybe everything in this blog entry but it doesn’t make me like it less even if it should. 
    JD: I think that blog entry links to a much better blog entry for problematizing the imagery in that video but I think both of them are asking a lot from even an edgy pop music video.  The criticisms seem to be that it’s insufficiently representative of a present Arab reality.  Most music videos are inadequately representative of the culture of anyone depicted in them.  It’s not a documentary, and if the dancers aren’t exactly doing their moves right… I mean, Cali Swag District didn’t invent the Dougie, either.  From Kala onward, I’ve understood a major component of MIA’s thing to be going places and incorporating the art of the people she makes contact with into her work.  I don’t really understand a critique of cultural appropriation that doesn’t hinge on power imbalance and colonialism, which maybe is just a failing on my part but for that reason I don’t think she’s doing any damange with this one.  I think it BANGS.
  4. Rye Rye, “Never Will Be Mine” w/ Robyn
    JD:     This isn’t so much a remix/collaborative jacking as it is a BOWL CUT BATTLE TO THE DEATH.  I like the shots where Robyn looks like a dude from a rap video of the era that “Show Me Love” emulated.  I also like how Rye Rye has the voice of Lil Romeo (when he was an actual child) but really excellent flow and rhymes.  Keep an eye on how the back and forth video stuff plays out and I guarantee your mind will fall out of your ear.  Like when you notice the camera movement stays steady!
    AW: Hahahahaha. Robyn sounds like Kate Bush on here! I didn’t expect that to ever happen! Robyn acts out TOO MUCH EMOTIONS in this song. Calm down Robyn. This is actually one of those videos that I cannot watch because of my FEEBLE NATURE. I am completely motion sick from all the jerky stop-start camera action. So I can really only listen to it. Which is fun for sure! But maybe not where the MOST excitement is about this track. I do like it, though.
    JD: I’m gonna find a Robyn song you jam out to if it kills me…
  5. Rae Spoon, “Ocean Blue”
    JD:     I hope you are ready for some ART!  I really like the scenes where he’s in high contrast makeup, mainly on the gondola.  Some of the stuff that apparently lends structure I was not entirely sold on but I think it LOOKS really good, and has a ton of style.  Is there a Madonna video, or thirty, that it likely reminds me of?  Or is it just a really eighties angsty pop set of visuals?  I think you will like the colour pallette a ton, and also the girls with parasols which you will wish figured in more of the video, as I do.
    AW: Rae actually uses the pronoun “they” now!
    JD: Yeah I knew that; I just find “they” harder as a singular pronoun when it has a linking verb after it.  ”Is” or “are?”  I kind of lean toward “is.”  I don’t think plurals are going to solve the problems represented by prescriptively gendered pronouns, but I want to be accommodating.
    AW: I love the gondola scenes the most, too. The pallet of this is AMAZING you are so right.  Oh this pEP makes me seem SO AGREEABLE. Whoa Rae is a sharp dressed individual. The scenes with the food make me think of Johnny Cash’s video for “Hurt.” They really have the most gorgeous voice, hey?
    JD: See I would have been tempted to write “they really has the most gorgeous voice…” but yeah, I love Rae’s voice at all times.
    AW: I love all the laundry lines of clothes. When the makeup all starts running it’s really interesting! And those umbrellas are so great! And sailor suits are the best! And everything! I love this!!! Why am I not at a beach right now.
    JD: Audra it is fucking freezing out.  Don’t be a hero.
  6. Bowerbirds, “Tuck The Darkness In”
    JD: I did not think this was going to get me.  I spent the whole video certain it wasn’t going to get me, and it was almost over, and I was so un-got and I thought it was kind of obvious and predicable and then IT GOT ME.  Isn’t the kid great?  The kid and the fish are two first-rate actors.  The song is I guess good for a soundtrack to the short film but I will never recognise it or remember it out of context, I don’t think.
    AW: This is maybe the most lovely thing I have ever seen!!  I am totally crying all over my entire face and feeling SO BAD about my tuna sandwich. I LOVE THIS LITTLE KID. I love most when he is a little fish under water! Aaaaaaa. Thank you so much for finding this video! The music is a good fit I agree, but I don’t think it would give me any feelings on my own. 
    JD: Be it resolved: a little kid who loves a fish so much it simply must live forever is more touching than any other theme in art.
  7. The Kills, “The Last Goodbye”
    JD: Oh are you called The Kills because you are fucking killing me, The Kills?
    AW: Yeah. Break up songs that aren’t angry are pretty much the hardest things to take in the entire world. I love you.
    JD: I love you, too.

MixtapEP #8: Audra to Jesse

  1. Lianne La Havas, “Forget”
    AW: I LOVE THIS. I admit that the first thing that caught my eye is that her hair looks exactly like a bagel stuck to the front of her head, but then I was won over by the weirdo harmonies and the urgent guitars.  I know I am not blowing anyone’s mind by liking something that sounds like one parts Goapele one part breakfast pastry and two parts Dirty Projectors but I don’t care! Okay I care a little bit!
    JD: Oh my god this is amazing.  I feel like my whole next pEP is in jeopardy just from how good this one song is.  I like how you snapped up all the good bloggy comparisons to make.  I can’t even mention how I hear a little Björk in there because your mention of the DP’s makes it redundant.  Instead I will just be like “OMG those drummmmmms!” which is becoming my catchphrase and it’s not very funny.
    AW: I knew you would love it!! She is only 22! Before making music, she was a student at Norbury Manor Business and Enterprise College for Girls!! That is the most British school name in history.
    JD: The Norbury Manor Business and Enterprise College for Girls Alumnae Society is going to FREAK when they hear this. 
  2. Soko, “I’ve Been Alone Too Long”
    AW: Well    , Soko still exists! And nothing really happens in this video, FILMOGRAPHY-WISE, but I still find it really affecting. It’s like a simple raw song in a simple (aesthetically) raw setting. I totally believe every word she is singing.
    JD:     That’s gorgeous and a great performance.  I feel guilty about how much I lump together heavily-accented English-language singers into a category that seems sympathetic in my head… like, I would put this with Emiliana Torrini, Rita Pavone, and any of the first-name-only singers featured on Nouvelle Vague compilations.  They all seem like one artist to me!  And that artist is AMAZING!!  I think even Leoncie is in there somewhere!
    AW: WHOA I FORGOT ABOUT LEONCIE. I think Rita Pavone is more [ADJECTIVE NOT FOUND. SUGGEST: ZAZZY? JE-NE-SAIS-QUOI?].
    JD: I do find this video a bit long for how much less is going on in the middle bit.  It starts off completely captivating but I did switch to another window for a bit midway through.  It’s not only because youtube has ravaged my attention spa… oh I have to put my clothes in the dryer!
    AW: Yeah, I sort of like that it’s a bit aimless. I had a hard time choosing which of her new songs to put on this pEP! I love her tiny braids. 
  3. Trust, “Candy Walls”
    AW:     I’m not going to lie. I have no idea what the narrative for this is. It makes me really nostalgic though, I guess because the vocals sound like music I (my dad) listened to in high school, and the visuals are like the sort of summer I couldn’t ever handle having really because I am neither foot-loose nor fancy-free. I’m all feet and all fancy.  But I like that their hair is visibly dirty and I like the way he hugs her at the end. In the middle maybe she dreams she is a horse or something?
    JD:     My parents crossed the continent on a motorcycle not long before there was me.  There was camping and long hauls and I think they had an amazing adventure together.  I’ve never heard them say anything about it that wasn’t wistful and glowing.  This video mostly makes me think about them, and how the experience wasn’t just made up of the slides I’ve seen, but infinite minute moments along the way.
    AW: That’s a good way of putting it! I guess they wouldn’t have taken any video, hey? Too bad! It would have been so grainy and amazing!
    JD: It also makes me want to eat a REALLY FRESH gummy coke bottle like they have here, because I feel like I only ever have maybe once in my life and then every subsequent one was from the same batch because no-one ever bought them on purpose.
    AW: Hahahahaha. How do people accidentally buy them??
    JD: Oh you know, they’re just in with some other stuff.  So as far as narrative, I guess she has a late night freakout?  I thought she was going off to pee but then yeah she seems upset and sometimes there is a horse.  I guess it could be both.  It is really affecting!  The music is great, and sounds just like the music your dad listened to while you were in high school, but I kind of lament not being able to make out any of the lyrics because I feel they would provide some clarity to the narrative.  CLARRATIVE.
    AW: Thants. 
    I feel like kind of a chump because Trust (or maybe TRST? I’ve seen it written both ways) opened of for Sleigh Bells (who were selling t-shirts with “Slay Bells” on them, so clearly NEITHER band is super concerned with being accurately googled) last month, but we missed the opening act. I kind of wish I’d seen them, but also I don’t wish I’d had to hurry more that day. COMPLICATED.
  4. Princess Chelsea, “Yulia”
    AW: This is sort of like if Krista Muir and Kate Walchuk and BA Johnson had a baby. Oh man that would be such a cool baby. Haha look at that cat.  Why are cats so ungrateful when they get to be in music videos?? Most people are quite excited. Also most of this woman’s videos are very similar but I am still charmed by them.  Like sometimes it’s her singing into a camera with a monkey puppet on her bed, sometimes she’s holding a cat, sometimes she’s in a hot tub. I really like the xylophone in this song. Glockenspiel? Oh and singing. 
    JD: Okay she LOOKS exactly like the infant Katie that we once knew - and she also has a bagel attached to her hair so I think I have detected this pEPisode’s theme.
    AW: YES!!
    JD: She makes all the faces, and it’s adorable.  That cat is MEAN MUGGIN’ HARD.
    AW: Haaa I know!!
    JD: He looks exactly like Lil’ Wayne’s pretend dad, Baby.Baby/Daddy
    AW: I don’t know anything about this but it is SO FUNNY I can’t stop reading that sentence.
    JD: I bet he has an amazing grill but he’s not even concerned with stunting enough to show it off.  He’s just like “WHAT U SEE IS WHAT U GET.”
    AW: This is all so funny about the cat.
    JD: I think the other theme of this pEP is really tough drums.  You have my number on that one.  And yeah, glockenspiel - xylophones are made of wood.  I tell you that not to be pedantic, but because it’s fun to know that “xylo” means “wood!”  In Greek!  WOW.
    AW: OKAY WHAT ABOUT A MARIMBA IF YOU ARE SO SMART??
    JD: Without googling, I can tell you from personal experience that a marimba is pretty much a really nice xylophone.  If there is a subtler definition, I’ve forgotten it since All City Intermediate Percussion Ensemble in high school.  I had too many crushes to remember EVERY SINGLE KIND OF XYLOPHONE.

    The music in this track is kind of a brilliant synthesis of “Ain’t No Sunshine” and “Take 5.”
    AW: I don’t hear “Ain’t No Sunshine!” Explain!!
    JD: Okay first let’s talk about that triple negative.  What you are trying to say is “I hear no sunshine.”  Second, just listen to the bassline on the original Bill Withers recording!

    Oh my god her album is called     Lil Golden Book?  I’m gonna make friends.  Also I’m gonna put a link to where to buy her record on vinyl because next time I have a few bucks in the paypal I’m gonna snag it up: http://lilchiefrecords.storenvy.com/collections/6311-princess-chelsea  It better not have crazy New Zealand shipping costs or I’ll freak.
    AW:  Too late I tricked you and bought it for you haaaaaa sucker.
    JD: EVERYBODY LOOK UNDER YOUR CHAIRS IT’S LIKE OPRAH IN HERE ALL OF A SUDDEN!??
  5. M. Ward, “The First Time I Ran Away”
    AW: I love the textures of this, both the song and the video. The soft “oooooos” in the background are … voices? I think? But the fact that I can’t tell makes me feel like it’s a warm summer night and it’s room temperature outside and I can’t QUITE believe I’m not indoors. The colour pallet is so lovely, too. I just bought this album ON VINYL but I haven’t listened to it yet at all. 
    JD: OH GOD DAMMIT well I guess I will be taking this off of my totally finished next pEP I had all ready to send you.  I’ve never been so angry.
    This is the M. Ward we like, eh? Huge production and his weird little voice with that exact filter and reverb on it.
    AW: Well I’m still not sure I’d LIKE him ha ha! The album is really pretty, I mean to look at. This is the first song I’ve heard from it.
    JD: I like the llama, and I like the faces, and I like the geometric elements of the natural scenery that make me think of that stonecutter book from when I was a kid.
    AW: It for sure has olde CBCe animatione look to it, do you agree?
    JD: I agree that it was very funny to put “e” on the end of those words, but the animatione looks more like Craig McCracken than olde CBCe to me - Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack, that stuff.
  6. Fifth Column, “Like This”
    AW: I feel like you would like to know about Fifth Column, In case you don’t already.  They are a Toronto band whose album “All Women Are Bitches” was on K Records. They were super interesting but I don’t feel like enough people remember them. They got a lot of media when I was a kid and I actually didn’t know the term “Fifth column” referred to anything but their band for the longest time.  They started in the early 80’s and they all made zines and they are the only Canadian Riot Grrrl band I can really ever think of. This video was directed by Bruce LaBruce.  You can learn all about them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Column_(band)
    JD:  Ohoooo we are adding videos from the PAST to this whole enterprise??  I’m not prepared for this!  There’s LOTS OF VIDEOS FROM THE PAST.
    AW: I just really wanted you to know about them!!
    JD: For the first two and a half minutes the bass tone and jagged 8mm thing was like an extended interstitial from Kids In The Hall, …
    AW: Oh that is totally true. 100% How did I not notice that??
    JD: …but then vocals kicked in and I was mesmerized for the remaining thirty-five seconds during which I had patience for the song to be going on, and then it was another two minutes, and then I was rewarded for sitting through the chaotic, seemingly plotless video by watching everyone surprisingly meet their GRISLY DEATHS at the end.  This was a rollercoaster!

    Overall I like this sound, it makes me feel like I’m a kid listening to community radio late at night all night (because I was a kid in the 90s).  I just wish this particular song were more compact, and that Bruce LaBruce wasn’t such a rascal.
    AW: Oh no I think I didn’t notice the gory ending? Maybe I tabbed away or blanked. Maybe check out their other stuff? It isn’t all like this! Um, some of it I don’t like as much. Ha! 
  7. Hoodie Allen, “James Franco”
    AW: Okay you don’t have to watch this video more than once but this is payback for the James Franco weirdness on YOUR last PEP.  How is this funny for three minutes?? I have no idea but it REALLY is to me.  I feel like I will laugh every time I see this video.  I might watch it with the sound off next time.
    JD: The beat is great but it’s just “Hand Clapping Song” by the Meters, like various huge sections of it, with another breakbeat layered in.  It’s a really lazy beat.  These are really lazy rhymes - in the middle of the second verse I realized it was post-Das Racist free association “I don’t give a fuck” rap, but like… they have the charisma to pull it off.
    AW: Yeah it just sounds like LFO. Which is the worst insult I can give anything.
    JD: I neither get the sense that he genuinely doesn’t give a fuck in the ways that it’s cool that they don’t, or that he actually does give a fuck in the ways that they do.  I wonder what is the point of singing the first half of the first line as though it’s from “Criminal” by Fiona Apple.  Like was it fun or what.
    AW: Ha!
    JD: I know Thesis played a show with this dude somewhere some time.  So that’s a cool story.
    AW: Interesting! Probably some people should have had giant Thesis heads.
    JD: Obviously I think that every day of my life.  I wanted to like the James Franco head effect, but I think it was also kind of lazily applied and failed to immerse me in a universe where lots of people legitimately have giant James Franco heads.  Which is ALL I ASK.
    AW: I like how lazily applied they are and I like it most of all when they change facial expressions.
    JD: Yeah it’s pretty good I guess.

MixtapEP #7: Jesse to Audra

Hey ‘pEPpers - it has come to my attention recently that maybe I wasn’t totally clear that the video links in these episodes are YouTube PLAYLISTS, and not just a single video at a time?  So you can play all of the songs we link, like, and discuss as one roughly half-hour sequence.  That’s what makes it the most like a mixtape!  (The way it is like an EP is the length; hence: MixtapEPs!)

Yeah so I hope that clears everything up for everyone forever.

Here are some great videos… PLUS A BONUS… VIDEO.

  1. Summer Camp, “Losing My Mind”
    JD: I kind of can’t believe we didn’t think of this concept for BYGF2RD, first of all.  It’s too perfect.  I think this is your new favourite video.
    Huh it is only just now that I am hearing the lyrics - I was paying attention to the blazing drums (I can’t tell if it’s a couple of my favourite breakbeats with heavy processing, or all new live drums with heavy processing to make them sound like a couple of my favourite breakbeats), and realizing it is another deceptively upbeat but sad as hell duet about a breakup.  I guess that is a genre.
    AW: This song makes me really sad! I think it’s partly why I’ve been so pokey about replying to this mix, because mid-way through this track I feel really sort of crushed. The video itself is super adorable and I especially like the inclusion of a cat!! And ASL, but I can’t tell what part of the lyric he’s doing!
    JD: Yeah it is really sad isn’t it.  Sorry, homie.  I was distracted by the video.
  2. Robyn, “Call Your Girlfriend”
    JD:     I’ll be honest, I just went to find out what was the latest Robyn video because I figured it would probably be good.  And I think this dance routine for one that keeps swapping in and out of set and setting (does that make sense?) is really smart, especially with the contrast between the almost cruel confidence of the lyrics and the desperate sadness of Robyn’s face while she performs it.  It’s like the anti-“Girlfriend” (by Avril Lavigne), you know?  It’s like “You Are My Sunshine,” almost, except with a sentiment that’s less sympathetic to begin with.  It’s like she’s just met someone she really likes and then found out they’re unavailable and this is her next thought… “okay so here’s what we can do about that, don’t worry…”
    AW:  Wow that is a serious bowl cut. IS THIS VIDEO ALL ONE TAKE? WHAT ARE THOSE SHOES!!! Okay. I’m not sure what you mean about set and setting. Do you mean that in kind of a “fourth wall” way? Like “Look we have it lit like she’s at a dance club but whoaaaaa now look again I am really in a gymnasium!” That makes sense if that’s what you mean and if it isn’t you should pretend that it is because great point! I love the dance routine a lot, sometimes it seems really choreographed and other times it seems like a little kid freestyling (backwards somersault for sure).  The song itself I’m not really sold on! Maybe I need more COMPLICATED EMOTIONS in a song like this for it to grab me?
    JD: I think the emotions are really complicated!  Only if I’m reading it accurately, though.  Like I think there’s a lot of sophistication to writing a song where you’re supposed to know that the longing expressed is not only a terrible plan, but ill-founded, and probably a way that the character would only feel for about as long as the song lasts, but with a false intensity suggested by the epic and sweeping music.  It ties in with the overthinking I do about Louis C.K.’s comedy, where I view it all as instantaneous thoughts extrapolated into ersatz full-blown attitudes.  Yeah your boy will just use some words like “ersatz” in a normal sentence WHAT.
    And yes, either you’ve explained exactly accurately what I meant by “set and setting,” or I am pretending you did because it’s an improvement. 
  3. Shadia Mansour, “Al-Kufiyyeh 3Arabeyeh” featuring M-1 of Dead Prez
    I’ve never heard of Shadia Mansour before, but she throws DOWN!  In fact I find her cadence and attitude very reminiscent of Eternia, don’t you?  I don’t know what she’s saying at any point in any verse of course, but she avoids the pitfalls of a lot of non-English language rap, where people often neglect rhyme and syllable placement.  She just sounds super tough and on point.  M-1’s less intense verse gives us sort of a legend for interpreting the song’s overall message - the kufiyyeh is a symbol of a particular resistance, not just a fashion statement.
    Weirdly some Scottish dude in the comments to the video was like “um I DO wear it in solidarity, and NOT as a fashion statement… but if that’s how you feel about it, maybe I’ll just STOP!!”  Some Scottish dude is a weirdo.
    Musically I am not in love with this song, but am fine to hang out casually.
    AW: I showed Silk (Eternia) this song, and she is like “Oh I am friends with this girl!”. Of course. She seems crazy talented and really really mad at me. I really really like her raps and singing. I would for sure listen to a whole album of it. The M-1 verse was appreciated as a translation but I feel like it goes off the rails when he says “I said it in Spanish”. I KNOW I HEARD YOU. I’m a big fan of instant nostalgia but come on. Anyway the hook is really catchy and get stuck in my head. Take that weirdo Scottish dude (not you).
    JD: Haha I wish he said, “Hey remember that time I said it in Spanish?” 
  4. Ke$ha, “Sleazy (remix)” featuring Wiz Khalifa, Andre 3000, T.I., & Lil Wayne
    JD: I was linked to this video without any indication of who the features were, so at first I didn’t recognize Wiz Khalifa’s voice and I thought the person shown rapping in the video was the artist.  I didn’t even recognize Andre3000 when that second dude starts, and I thought whoah these guys are really good, who are they??  The guy doing Ke$ha’s part sort of was tipping me off that something was up there, but I didn’t completely get it until the third full verse.  I guess it’s ageist of me, but I realized that old dude was not the rapper I was hearing.  And then yeah the last one was Lil Wayne so duh.  I had also misfired a brain cell and thought “Kreayshawn” when I read “Ke$ha” so I had more of a reason to think it was less known artists, you know?  I think this video is great for the most part, and I like the beat a lot, and everyone raps good, except I think it all falls apart a bit at the Lil Wayne verse.  I don’t know why that kid doesn’t do any lip synching, but it kills the whole point of the project, right?  I don’t expect this to be your new favourite video, but I think there’s enough that’s neat about it that you might think it’s worthwhile anyway?
    AW: Yeah I really like the video a lot! I like that they build characters so quickly in the different verses. It’s really well-acted.  You are right that it falls apart when the kid doesn’t lip synch.  What a weird choice. Maybe he’s someone’s friend and they thought he’d be able to do it but then he couldn’t and they wouldn’t let him just leave the bandana on the whole time? But other than that it’s enjoyable and catchy. Also do people say “bougie”? I feel like only old labour people say that (don’t tell Marnie I just called her old). Also I always think Ke$ha sounds like Alanis, but she didn’t in this song.
    JD: “Bougie” is definitely alive and well in African-American parlance, or at least was well into the nineties.  I always felt weird about it because it comes from pronouncing “bourgeois” as “BOOJ-wahr.”  In my head, I can hear it said by young Will Smith, Prakazrel from Fugees, and also… Lauryn Hill from Fugees.
    I totally agree about the usual Alanis-ness of Ke$ha’s singing voice, although I usually describe it perhaps less accurately as sounding like Shakira. 
  5. Wild Flag, “Romance”
    JD: I expect THIS to be your new favourite video, suprisingly upsetting the Summer Camp video from just a few songs ago.  Yes I read in a terrible fashion magazine about a Travelling Wilburies of all-girl indie rock featuring members of Sleater-Kinney, Helium, and The Minders.  Yes I was like HOLY SHIT I HOPE THEY HAVE VIDEOS AND ARE ALSO GOOD.  Yes I was not disappointed, and neither are you, and I guess now we both want to start watching Portlandia.
    AW:  Whoa!! This is so amazing! It’s really funny when she says “This is supposed to be a pie chart.  This is a square.  Who did this?” So they are all work friends who put on masks and do … at first I thought it was pranks, but then I think I realized they’re just doing whatever they feel like! Petting dogs, helping people out, going to garage sales. Stuff like that. Interestingly, I think this sounds more like Helium than any other band represented by the line up! I would be happy to watch Portlandia with you! I also like that they all have different sorts of jobs.
  6. Wye Oak, “Holy Holy”
    JD:     Who knew roller coasters were bad-ass!?  Okay maybe those mean guitars and slow motion make it seem that way.  But like, good work, mean guitars and slow motion!
    AW: I like the guitars a lot. I’m not sold on the vocals! It sounds too inoffensive like Coldplay or something! Man those carnival swings look fun, though. I don’t think that about any other carnival ride. Do you think they would make me sick?
    JD: Huh I kind of heard the vocals as more bored indie in the vein of… early 90s Matador?  I have to start thinking of something other than Matador Records to compare all sort of venerable-sounding indie rock to, but they’re actually ON Merge Records so that would be tautological… yeah I don’t know.  I wasn’t thinking soft-ass Coldplay, though!  I thought it was tough for girls to sound bored over pulse-shattering guitars?
    Yeah I think those carnival swings would probably make you sick.  My sole criterion was: does it move at all while you are on it? 
  7. Kalup & Franco, “Rising”
    JD:     I’m going to be up front with you - this is pretty terrible on every conceivable level!  I include it merely because I read that James Franco had recorded an EP with a performance artist and some jet-setting electronic musician, and I thought it might have some charm.  THIS song is low on charm, and also low on Franco, and basically has one or two almost interesting effects, not well used.  But floating wig, right? That’s something.
    AW: Weeeeeird.  Did you read about this guy? “For example, Linzy has produced a series of soap opera video works, and has described soap operas as having been a key social component for his family and community. He has said that shows such as Guiding Light were a part of daily life when he was growing up, and he often includes soap opera stereotypes in the characters and plot of his videos. His soap opera videos can be characterized by their low-tech quality, themes of community, socializing, family, the church, sexuality and homosexuality.” James Franco you are pretty interesting but I don’t think I want to see this video again!! 
    JD: Whilst editing together this ‘pEPisode (!!!), I listened to this song through a whole time without subjecting myself to the video, and I found it more palatable.  Probably not going to make my end-of-year list.  I’M SORRY JAMES FRANCO TRICKED US.
BONUS!
8. Wild Flag, “Electric Band”
JD: Surprise bonus song!  I thought it was cheating to have two videos by the same band in one ‘pEP, but it’s only like 1% less fucking amazing than the other video, so what was I going to do?
AW: Haha! This video asks the question, “What sort of animal do YOU think you could beat at a baseball game?” It’s completely amazing in every way. This song sounds even MORE like Helium! Mary Timony must be a real strong personality or something. I don’t love the song but these are the greatest bear costumes in the WORLD.
JD: Hopefully it will get us some crossover reblogs from the bear admirers frequenting my main tumblr, right?

Source: youtube.com