On The List :: Stornoway @ Union Hall [7.7.10]

Last night, Stornoway were in Brooklyn for their first show in the United States. At home in the UK, they sell out major venues and appear on late night television. Here, they won't sell out Union Hall, a venue that fire codes at 92. Of course, this sets up one of those special moments where an audience sees a band in a milieu that will never exist again; and a band to return to its beginnings, remembering what it felt like the first time someone knew the words to your songs. This band is on its way inexorably up, and the audience are the lucky people to see this arrow just before it takes off.

Sitting at the bar just after 8:30, the Stornoway bassist revealed they would be playing some songs acoustically. "It's such a small room," he continued. "It'll be nice to go unplugged." He returned to his hamburger held by a hand connected to a wrist covered to forearm with old show bracelets, like rings of a tree that stayed out too late. This unplugged promise seemed innocuous, in fact, it was hard to imagine how it would happen.



Stornoway opened with the crushing, "I Saw You Blink" before rolling into the pub shanty, "Fuel Up". The back of the crowd remained far too chatty, the mark of too many industry kids, but this is semantic. Singer Brian Briggs commended so many of us for knowing the words to "I Saw You Blink" and then made some magnanimous criticisms of illegal downloading. Yes, only in America will the people from your label talk through your set, while the people who stole your music sing loudly from the front row.

The set became unforgettable in the final two songs, performed without mikes and without amplification. Briggs' heart-broken vocals soared out over the room, and on the final song, "We Are The Battery Human," he encouraged us to return to our roots, "we were born to be free range, free range," as the audience agreed in unison. After an encore they closed with first single, "Zorbing," a song so light in weight it nearly floated away. Bassist, Oliver Steadman got one of those silly grins as the front rows spun and sung the words. You can travel 3,000 miles and find strangers who love your work; it's weird, but it works. At the end the band disappeared behind a curtain and their fans clapped into the night, glad to have met each other even as cross-directed arrows.

Listen :: Stornoway - "On The Rocks"

32ft On The Road, An Invitation

Last summer, we took the blog to LA for a month. We were welcomed with open arms. But it was one city, one location, easily navigable. This summer, starting on July 14th, we're taking this project on the road, cross-country into the month of August. Some of this is scheduled and some of this is open. We will be in Chicago for Pitchfork in mid-July and we'll be in LA around the end of the month. Basically, if you're a band (or if you know a band you think we might want to see), and you exist between New York, Cincinnati, Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, LA, San Diego, Sante Fe, Austin, New Orleans, Charleston, DC, and Philly, let us know. 32feet(at)gmail.com. We'll try to make it work. Otherwise, thanks for your ridiculous patronage of this continually absurd project.

Last summer we raced to see if California readers or New York readers would tip the scales and take the title as 32feet's home. This summer, it's America. We're expecting a lot out of you.

Listen :: Marina and the Diamonds - "I Am Not A Robot" (Clock Opera Remix)

Bishop Morocco :: "Last Year's Disco Guitars"

Perhaps motivated by and perhaps disgusted with dance, Bishop Morocco destroy last year's disco guitars with a song of roughly the same name. Languid, down-stroke guitars mix with an insistent, if not entirely demanding, bass line, together approaching just shy of the zip code where "Love Will Tear Us Apart" has been receiving mail since 1979. Think of a Toronto-based Egyptian Hip Hop, and cast your eyes downward, shuffle your feet and throw out anything shiny. There will be hush in the darkness and slow movements on the dance floor this year; disco be damned.

Listen :: Bishop Morocco - "Last Year's Disco Guitars"

tooth ache. - "Skin"

Both weaving and baroque, tooth ache.'s "Skin" sounds like Our Constant Concern-era Mates of State being played by 2009's Beach House. The keys are nearly irritating, Nintendo saccharine, too sweet like juice concentrate mixed with the wrong proportion of water. However, when added to bottom-of-the-pool vocals and a clap track, the result is utterly perfect. Dizzy, disorienting verses lead inexorably to one of those elevated choruses with a melody built for repetition. The lyrics, almost impossible to distinguish, encourage the joy of irrepressible youth, "Not to sleep but to drag color into the wake/ And speed into morning after/ Oh, how we tickled the belly of the lake/ And rolled in its laughter." It gets no more simple, stream and download below.
tooth ache. - Skin by fatherdaughter

Happy Birthday, America

234 years ago today, we declared our independence from Continental rule. We can debate if it was freedom versus tyranny, a refusal to be taxed without appropriate representation, or if it was a group of rich, white merchants and planters looking out for their wallets, but the ultimate truth is that we wouldn't exist without the actions and rhetoric of 1776. Today, we celebrate by gathering on rooftops, cooking meat over open flame and launching illegal combustibles into the air. We may be divorced from our history. We may not fully grasp national sacrifice. We may focus on our divisions too readily. But for today, we can meet in the middle. We love this place that we have come to know. Happy Birthday country.

Listen :: Sufjan Stevens - "The Star Spangled Banner"

[Elevator] Computer Magic :: "Electronic Fences" and "Teenage Ballad (High School)"

Brooklyn's Computer Magic is about to blow doors off with the hurricane force of taking chillwave to its final, logical, ground-down When In Rome/Human League conclusion. That is a compliment. An adorable, and yet not without depth, series of loops and bright synths provide the backing for longitudinal, strung-out meditations passing in the night as arrangements. On "Electronic Fences," Computer Magic spins like a anti-authoritarian pinwheel before a clap-clap track finds a chorus in the cold meds. Personal favorite, "Teenage Ballad (High School)" almost evokes the melody from Rilo Kiley's "Execution Of All Things" before the arrangement gets serious, insisting blithely, "I wanna be really mean." It is one of those washed out anthems for a John Hughes movie that never got made, kids in Wayfarer glasses and drinking straight from the hose. Computer Magic are on the edge of blowing up, like Chairlift songs played by Ernest Green or like an all-nighter slowed down to 45bpm, blurry, spinning stars and warm summer evenings.

"Electronic Fences"

Electronic Fences by Computer Magic

"Teenage Ballad (High School)"

Teenage Ballad (High School) by Computer Magic

Math and Physics Club :: "Jimmy Had A Polaroid"

Back with a second LP, I Shouldn't Look As Good As I Do, Math and Physics Club aren't poised to be the biggest band around, in fact, they are intentionally not that. They make close music, a branch of acoustic twee, meant for mixtapes and hushed moments between good acquaintances. The hooks are undeniable, the pop crystalline. This is music that takes a modest personal investment, the return on which is obvious and valuable. "Jimmy Had A Polaroid" is the most spacious sound the band has ever pursued but even then the portrait is intimate, the guitars warm and spinning, like a Camera Obscura cut played by The Lucksmiths. Even for an intentionally small band, MAPC aspire to be only your favorite. It's certainly the least you can do.

Listen :: Math and Physics Club - "Jimmy Had A Polaroid"
Listen :: Math and Physics Club - "Love or Lonliness"
Listen :: Math and Physics Club - "Darling, Please Come Home"