I’ve been doing a lot of programming this week, and that means I’ve been listening to a lot of music. Between the Current’s always excellent new music podcast and a few free iTunes songs from a Facebook promotion, I’ve got a few new favorites: Beirut - Nantes
Beirut took me a few listens to warm up to, but he does have an amazing voice. Nantes is their best track (that I’ve heard). Unfortunately there’s no music video, so here is a live version. See also Elephant Gun, which is another great song, but a very strange music video.
White Stripes - You Don’t Know What Love Is (You Just Do as You’re Told)
I’m not always a fan of “traditional” rock groups, but the White Stripes are really good. My favorite track is “A Martyr For My Love For You,” but again there’s no music video, so here’s another track from the same album:
José González - Down the Line
This is a phenomenally strange video, but the song is excellent.
I was introduced to The National by The Current, and I can’t stop listening to their latest album, Boxer. It’s got a laid back folky feel, and seems to have intelligent and contemplative lyrics. Here’s the music video for the track “Mistaken for Strangers”. The video isn’t great, but the song is excellent.
I’ve finally started to make use of some of the gift cards I received over the holidays, and that means new music. I was originally thinking of posting some tracks like an mp3 blog, but I decided to avoid that legal and ethical quagmire by just posting links to music videos on Youtube. Enjoy.
Psapp Tiger, My Friend
Psapp is an English group that makes quirky eletronic pop music. Tiger, My Friend is their first album, and I’ve been enjoying it quite a bit. In many ways Psapp sounds a lot like Lali Puna and their ilk, but their songs sound a bit tighter, and they make more (or better) use of vocals. In addition to the video for “About Fun” below, I also recommend the song “Hi”, from the 2006 album The Only Thing I Ever Wanted
Zero 7 Simple Things
Zero 7 was one of the groups that featured prominently in Garden State and immediately thereafter became unpopular among the indie set. Whatever their status now, I’ve really like Simple Things, which is their first full length album. It’s very polished downtempo electronic music that recalls Air or the Notwist. “In the Waiting Line,” the groups’ single from Garden State (which is also on Simple Things) is still my favorite.
Annie Anniemal
I wouldn’t usually describe myself as a fan of ” pop” music, but Anniemal is definitely a pop album, and I like it a lot. Annie is a Norwegian singer who I gather is an experienced DJ, and her foray into indie pop is as infectious as they come. The song “Heartbeat” won Pitchfork’s Best Single of 2004, and its probably my favorite song on the album.
Junior Boys So This is Goodbye
The Junior Boys’ latest effort is another indie rock/electronic album in the vein of the Notwist, Lali Puna, etc. Unlike Psapp, however, I don’t really think that the Junior Boys add much to the genre. So This is Goodbye makes for nice background music, but none of the tracks really stand out. I couldn’t find any official music videos from the album, but here is a fan video for the song “In the Morning.”
Yesterday evening I attended the Basilica Block Party, which is a big outdoor concert in downtown Minneapolis. It’s on the grounds of a Basilica and is sponsored by the church, but it’s really just a big rock concert. I ended up hearing the Olympic Hopefuls, Carbon Leaf, and the Wallflowers. I’d been wanting to hear the Olympic Hopefuls since I missed their visit to Carleton, and I’m glad I caught them yesterday. The singer had a few intonation problems, but the songs were good and the band was clearly enthused. Carbon Leaf is a group from Virginia that I’m not really familiar with. The lead singer was pretty good and the crowd seemed pleased, but their song writing didn’t quite match their performance – the best songs they played were covers. The Wallflowers were clearly the big draw of the evening, and the crowd was very large and enthusiastic. They sounded very polished and had a few good songs, but most of them sounded pretty much the same. I think the live setting drowned out some of the vocal nuances, but that may be a bit generous. Still, it was a fun evening.
Work has been a bit hectic lately. Some days I’ve felt overwhelmed by work I need to do, but other days I’ve spent waiting for emails from my collaborators to give me some idea of what to do. I think I’ve finally got a specific objective, but unfortunately I don’t really know how to accomplish it yet. I need to learn enough OpenGL to visualize the results of a wavelet transform. Whatever, I’m sure I’ll figure it out.
Wow. The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra performed on campus this evening, and it was absolutely mind blowing. Not only is the SPCO really good on its own, but the guest conductor (who also played violin on a piece) was the former concermaster and assistant conductor of the Boston Philharmonic, and the solo violinst was Sarah Chang, who was really incredible.
The started with a Mozart symphony (k. 319, if anyone cares). I’m not usually the biggest fan of Mozart, but I find that I like his work infinitely better live, and this was definitely an excellent rendition. The precision of the orchestra was amazing, and the sections truly sounded like one instrument at times.
Following that several of the players (including the guest conductor) played a Mendelssohn Octet. It’s always fascinating to see really great players peform chamber music – you can literally see the performers communicating with each other. At one point the young second violinist looked over at the (old) conductor/first violinist and just smilled, as if to say that he was just really excited to play with such an great experienced musician. The old violinist, for his part, kept looking at his music with a sort of quizzical look on his face (He looked sort of like a turtle) while playing magnificently. It was awesome.
After an intermission, Sarah Chang came out and played the Dvorak Violion Concerto (in A Minor). To say that it was impressive would be something of an understatement. She obviously has an incredible technical mastery of the violin, and she knows it, so she plays with the sort of confidence that you only really see in virtuosos. And it worked, I don’t think she missed a note, and the audience was riveted the entire time.
So anyway, it was an amazing concert, and I’m really glad I got to go. Unfortunately Northfield doesn’t exactly draw a lot of world class performances, but this was definitely one of them.
