Heart on a Stick

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Very Close to, if not actually in, the CD player:

Shiina Ringo - Karuki Zamen Kuri No Hana

seen/heard  °  listen °  buy

People Eating People - s/t

seen/heard   °  listen °  buy

Ted Leo - The Brutalist Bricks

seen/heard° listen °  buy

Zola Jesus - Stridulum EP

seen/heard   °  listen °  buy

Scott Lucas & The Married Men - George Lassos the Moon

seen/heard   °  listen °  buy

These New Puritans - Hidden

seen/heard °  listen   °  buy

Yeasayer - Odd Blood

seen/heard   °  listen °  buy

Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba - I Speak Fula

seen/heard   °  listen °  buy

The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night

seen/heard °  buy ° 

stream full album

Shiina Ringo - Karuki Zamen Kuri No Hana

seen/heard  °  listen °  buy








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MP3s that appear on this page are available for a limited amount of time; they are posted for illustrative or promotional purposes.  Everyone is encouraged to support the artists and buy their work.  If you are an artist or artist's representative and object to having the music posted, please contact me at the above e-mail address.

PR Reps/Labels/Bands:  At this time, I am not accepting any free product.  If I like an album, I'll buy it.  (Who would I be to recommend a CD I haven't bought myself?)  Links to album streams, MP3s, or myspace pages can be sent to the e-mail address above - though frankly I pay little attention to press releases and their ilk. Sorry.

 

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Shoe Fits, Bursts

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posted 12/01/2009

Tokyo Jihen, "Gaman" (via)

If you're resigned to existence as a many-headed beast, there's no reason not to emphasize how weirdly everything fits together.  The b-side to "Noudouteki Sanpunkan" jumps proggily between personalities.  It's possible deconstructionists hoping for an elaborated krautfunk meditation on the verses will fall apart when the chorus rocksthefuckout, it's possible the headbangers will hang them when the bridge (a vacation, really, with a nice little Steve Howeish drop around 1:50)  slaps down some cornball ritz.  When five necks are pulling in different directions, you may never get anywhere.  But you can lie to yourself and call the struggle a dance.

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YES? YOU THERE IN THE BACK? (3)


1. monad left...
12/02/2009 9:33 am

I need to digest this a little longer, but at first taste this is my favorite thing she (and especially Jihen) has done in a looong, looong time. I wasn't too keen on 3min by itself, but these two songs really work together well.

Variety was full of great ideas, and was almost a fantastic album* but most every good moment was counterbalanced by something excruciatingly awful. It desperately needed Ringo injecting herself into the songwriting, and if this single points towards what's coming down the pike with Sports, it looks like Jihen might finally have gelled as a monster *band*, instead of being just Ringo with a bunch of talented guys playing her songs.

(*and there's still a pretty good one there if you throw out some songs, replace them with some single B-sides, and rearrange the track order -- I'm at a total loss as to how anyone could have thought releasing that particular collection of songs was a good idea, except that they were hoping to squeeze more money out of people by forcing them to buy the singles)


2. J____ left...
12/02/2009 12:07 pm :: http://heartonastick.blog-city.com/

I get where you're coming from, and hope for the best."Tokyo Jihen" is, for me, so conceptually inferior to "Shiina Ringo" that the monster band realization is not exciting. Unless they totally break down and beat the shit out of each other. It's easier to take individual songs as they appear than look forward to a whole album, though of course I'll be happy to listen to that a billion times when it comes. I never listened to Variety's b-sides, and guess I should. (This too is a b-side, of course, so it might not be indicative in any way of what winds up on Sports.)

I still like Sanmon Gossip and found a coherency and depth there, so I have that. (As well as the older, even better stuff, of course.)


3. monad left...
12/03/2009 9:50 am

The OSCA B-sides (Pinocchio and Kaban no Nakami) are both really, really good. Killer Tune's (BB.QUEEN and Karada) aren't as hot. And Kameda's Senko Shojo is a JPop gem.

""Tokyo Jihen" is, for me, so conceptually inferior to "Shiina Ringo" that the monster band realization is not exciting"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEEQeCSGgbU#

That's what I'm talking about. Admittedly, it's a Ringo song, but there's lots of Phase 2 tics, and while she's wielding the biggest knife by far, the band leaves plenty of blood on the stage too.