New Fiery Furnaces

Fiery Furnaces' I'm Going Away

Amazon: it releases July 21.

The Fiery Furnaces are an experimental indie band headquartered in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, known among a cult following for their unpredictability and genre-hopping, and consisting at core of the brother and sister Friedberger. Most of the songwriting (often a found-language process) is done by Matthew, but Eleanor's strength of delivery and presence really make the music addictive. I got to hear a preview of I'm Going Away earlier in the month at their live show. It's much more straightforward blues-pop than their previous frenetic lyrical collages, but still has the pastiche spirit. This may be the Fiery Furnaces album for non-fans, in fact, which means that fans may be a bit disappointed that they're maturing. The songs seem closer to their New York abode than albums like Widow City (2007) or grandma-duet Rehearsing My Choir dedicated to their Illinois upbringing. They lament a string of exes (Drive to Dallas, Even in the Rain, Ray Bouvier, Lost At Sea, Keep Me In The Dark) or vaguely indicated petty triumphs and travails (The End Is Near, Cut the Cake, Staring At The Steeple), and only with "Cups and Punches" do they approach their trademark concealed absurdity. Their confidence approaches a retro attempt, which I find similar to Dylan's recent output, to refine the universality of pop cliché beyond irony into something raw, classic, comfortable, and eminently quotable.

Tracklist:
1. I'm Going Away +
2. Drive To Dallas *
3. The End Is Near
4. Charmaine Champagne +
5. Cut The Cake
6. Even In The Rain +
7. Staring At The Steeple *
8. Ray Bouvier *
9. Keep Me In The Dark *
10. Lost At Sea *
11. Cups and Punches +
12. Take Me Round Again

+ Good
* Personal favorite

Jordaan Mason and the Horse Museum

Are you one of those people that's just listened to Neutral Milk Hotel too many times and need something almost exactly like it, only maybe even sexier?


Divorce Lawyers I Shaved My Head is for you.

01. Bird's Nest
02. Organs For Oceans+
03. Avalanches*
04. Racehorse: Get Married!+
05. The Wrong Parts (Vivian Sisters Singing)+
06. Prayer
07. O Jarhead! O Wife!+
08. Hymn/Her
09. Is Water*
10. (S)Mother+
11. Wild Dogs: Divorce!*
12. After The Glandolinian War
13. Carpenter/Rebuild The Body Out Of Birds+
14. 1990 Was A Long Year And We Are All Out Of Hot Water Now*

Where I found it (has more of a description)

Saw an installation with congruity:
Gregory De La Haba's Equus Maximus. Only, not.

Little Boots

WARNING: POP TRASH


Little Boots's Hands is an album I've been anticipating since I heard her "Meddle" and "Stuck on Repeat" in late 2008. The first half of the album is stronger. It's your basic British dance-electronica by a hot chick, but with nerd-kitsch braininess.

1. New In Town +
2. Earthquake *
3. Stuck On Repeat +
4. Click *
5. Remedy *
6. Meddle +
7. Ghosts *
8. Mathematics +
9. Symmetry
10. Tune Into My Heart
11. Hearts Collide
12. No Brakes

From last.fm:

Victoria Hesketh (born 1984), known professionally as Little Boots, is a British electronica musician. She sings, plays synthesizers, Japanese electronic instrument the Tenori-on and the stylophone. She is the former lead singer/synth player in Dead Disco.

Hesketh was born in Thornton-Cleveleys near Blackpool, Lancashire and now lives in London. She attended Rossall School, Blackpool Sixth Form College and then the University of Leeds, gaining a first-class honours degree in Cultural Studies, with a dissertation on "The concept of originality in the music of Jamie Cullum".

"Little Boots" is a translation of "Caligula".
Holy crap this woman is my age. What am I doing with my life?