Yes, the classic one, written by Phil Spector, Jeff Barry, and Ellie Greenwich and made famous by the Ronettes. But I promise you’ve never heard it quite like this, i.e. as if the person singing it – Frank Iero, of My Chemical Romance and LeATHERM0UTH – might be having both heart and throat destroyed.
It is creepy and beautiful and I love it.
BLVCK CEILING and Jenna Garcia have come together to remix (remake?) Feel So Close by Calvin Harris, and their version, which features her crystal clear voice winding through their dark fuzzy noise, is way more interesting than the original.
Check it:
The lost album is lost no more.
Conventional Weapons is composed of the 10 songs My Chemical Romance made – and shelved – in the space between The Black Parade and Danger Days. I titled this post “Conventional Weapons (to date)” because they’re eschewing a traditional album release and instead putting the songs two at a time over the course of several months, and so far only four have been released. Two more will emerge in mid-December, and the last four will surface in early January and February.
Not going to lie, this is maddening.
I want the whole thing, all of the songs, and I want it right now, so I can lie down on my kitchen floor with my iPod and crank it up and plunge in.
But I cannot have it, so I must be patient, and absorb them as they arrive.
So far my reaction is: This is very interesting.
The songs contains their evolution, as a band, and are an aural fork in the road, the point where The Black Parade finally shambled to a halt, and when it came time to choose their adventure, they walked briefly down a simpler (and so far, angrier) path before turning towards a candy-colored apocalypse.
The seeds of the bouncier, dance-inflected world of Danger Days are there, but the more I listen to the songs, the more I think some of them could have come directly after Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge.
The following are some more detailed observations:
1A: Boy Division: Propulsive and soaring; whenever they go on tour again, the pit will be screaming along with lines like I’m not dead / I only dress that way and Take me out there / far away / save me from my self-destruction/ Hopeless for ya /Sing a song for California. Extra points to anyone old enough to get the pun-reference in the title!
1B:Tomorrow’s Money: You fell in love with a vampire / A torch-song for the empire / So say hello to the brush-fire. Well, yes, Mr. Way, we did. But being a teen idol, even (especially?) the freak-show teen idol, it takes a toll. I sympathize with your urge to light it all on fire even as I walk closer to warm myself by the pyre.
2A: Ambulance: Honestly, this is the one that I can’t decide how I feel. I like it a general I like My Chem sort of way, but I also think it’s sort of muddled and incomplete. Essentially, though, it’s a coda to Tomorrow’s Money‘s commentary on being the freak-show teen idol. File under: Hmmm.
2B:Gun.: Naturally the one that is explicitly about an actual weapon is the one they release with cover art that has nothing to do with the weapon in question. Oh My Chem, never change. Also, it’s an anti-war song. Again, I like it in a general sort of way. I’m not going to flip past it when it comes up on shuffle but I’m also not going to seek it out to listen to it obsessively as I totally did with Boy Division.
Wölfbait is a sonic sledgehammer-steamroller, heavy experimental noise that walks the fine but bright line between deeply satisfying and painful to listen to; and is for anyone who has ever listened to Metal Machine Music and thought This needs to be faster and should also have some echoey howling and shouting and more weird screeching noises.
Other notes: they do interesting things with feedback, and their drums are steady and powerful but not as pounding and punishing as some hardcore drums can be.
The Dirty Nil’s summary of themselves on bandcamp is The Dirty Nil play rock and roll, and, you guys, that’s an accurate statement. They sound like a dive bar: loud and a little dirty.
Little Metal Baby Fist is the A-side from their most recent single, which I picked because I can almost see the circle belling out and the pit forming before they even get through the first chord. I would totally wade into the fray and put my arms up to bounce sweaty dudes away from me while scream-singing along to this song.
I can also recommend the B-side, Hate is a Stone (slightly heavier, sounds like stewing in self-loathing) and their cover of Moonage Daydream.
Nick Kinsey (Diamond Doves, Elvis Perkins in Dearland) has an exciting new project.
Working under the name Thunderclap, he’s reimagining the Child Ballads, a group of 305 English and Scottish folk songs collected by 19th century folklorist Francis James Child. Kinsey is not covering each one individually; instead he is reworking the songs, mixing and matching between tunes to create original and modern interpretations of the source texts.
The song you are about to listen to is based on Banks of Yarrow, but also borrows heavily from a song called Sir Hugh. It features Jean Garnett on lead vocals; Nick Kinsey on drum programming, percussion, synths, keyboards, guitar, vocals; Zach Tenorio-Miller on Celesta and effects; and it is quite lovely.
In the department of “electronic music I really enjoy”: AF THE NAYSAYER, of New Orleans, with a sampler for An Agglomeration of Thoughts, his most recent record:
AF THE NAYSAYER – An Agglomeration of Thoughts (Album Sampler) by AFTHENAYSAYER
Just so you can hear one all the way through, here’s Imagerial Denouement:
AF THE NAYSAYER – Imagerial Denouement by AFTHENAYSAYER
Four Future Standards is Jail Weddings‘ follow-up to Love is Lawless(2010) and the prequel to Meltdown (coming soon). It is both a teaser – Meltdown is apparently going to be about, well, meltdowns, and these songs certainly presage that development – and a breather – these tunes are tremendous, but have a different kind of energy than, say, Tough Love. They’re more cabaret than drag race.
This is the one I like the best so far:
I’ve been writing about a lot of dreamy electronic music and chill folk rock lately, but now I’m ready to push the pendulum the other way.
Luckily, I have some Empires – scrappy little band of my heart, North American division – to listen to. Garage Hymns is their latest record, out earlier this year, and it is just what I need to clear out the cobwebs.
Some sample tunes, with annotations:
Can’t Steal Your Heart Away: A perfect evocation of a particular kind of party, specifically, the kind that ends with people playing Bad Decision Bingo. And so wryly observed that it fills me with longing for nights that end with fries drenched in cheddar cheese and mornings that start with strong tea.
Night Is Young: This one will always evoke the lights of Times Square blinking while I study for the bar, for me, but there’s other things in there, too. Like, I live here in this rambling, sometimes beautiful sometimes disgusting 19th century city because every day is anything can happen day. Maybe I’ll pass the bar on the second try. Maybe someday I’ll get to spend a summer in France drifting between music festivals and eating French carnival food. The night is young!
Surrenderer: This is the one I put on in the morning when I need a little push to get moving.
Hard Times: Choosing between this one and We Lost Magic was difficult, but this tune finally won because as much as I like songs that double as squares on Bad Decision Bingo cards, I’m twice as fond of songs about finding people who love you even when (or perhaps because) you’ve got a bad habit of backflipping yourself into the slipstream and calling your dismount as you come down.
And now, from the wild woods of Washington State, is Wickerbird (Blake Cowan) with The Crow Mother.
I’ve been listening to it all weekend and it is just lovely. If dreamy, soothing folk music with rich harmonies and an undercurrent of melancholy is your thing, you are going to want to listen to these songs.
Some examples:
