From Third

Portishead’s “Nylon Smile,” surely one of the best songs ever written on depression. Lyrics here.

BTW, Third IMO is Portishead’s best, but it does take a little getting used to. But isn’t that often true of the best albums?

D.

I am writing

Just very, very slowly.

Here, watch this:

Now, I really really like the way Bjork mispronounces English. It wouldn’t be Bjork if she spoke American (or even British) English. But that does lead to certain misunderstandings of the lyrics. For example, in Army of Me, I was sure she was saying,

and if you complain once more
you’ll meet her, Annie Oakley

Which is a pretty creepy way of saying, I’ll kill you dead. Except she’s saying,

and if you complain once more
you’ll meet an army of me

Which I suppose I should have figured out from the title. Oh, well.

D.

music is subjective, but . . .

I recently added three albums* to my iPod: Rasputina’s Oh Perilous World, Vox Vermillion’s Standing Still You Move Forward, and Portishead’s Third. I picked up Oh Perilous World because it sounded interesting:

The storyline of Oh Perilous World, essentially, is an audit of six years of post-9/11 America and its domestic and foreign policies under President George W. Bush’s administration, but told through a fictional steampunk parallel universe. In this world, America is ruled by the tyrannical Queen of Florida, Mary Todd Lincoln, threatening war and occupation of the small, third-world sovereign of Pitcairn Islands (a metaphor for the Middle East) using her blimps and airships. Her opposite number in Pitcairn is an Osama bin Laden-like resistance leader, Thursday October Christian (in real life the offspring of Fletcher Christian, leader of the Bounty mutineers who settled on island).

and because, well, I really like Rasputina — at least based upon their live album A Radical Recital and their debut album Thanks for the Ether. The Vox Vermillion album I bought because I liked their stuff on Pandora, and Portishead . . . well, I’m a dope. It’s taken me this long to realize they had a third album. You know — Third.

I’ve listened to the Vox Vermillion album once. I haven’t even finished Oh Perilous World. Neither of them can compete with Third. I lack the vocabulary and knowledge to write a decent album review, so here’s a link to a review that does the job quite well.

And here’s an amazing song, and a mesmerizing video to boot.

D.

*Albums? Disks? Collections? People still speak of a discography, but isn’t “disk” only a little less archaic than “album”?

The first

“Sour Times” was the first Portishead song to ever catch my ear. I’ve long had the problem of hearing songs I like and having no way to track down the artist — and “Sour Times” was one of those songs. Came out on Portishead’s debut album, Dummy, in 1994, and it only occurred to me while listening to their 1997 album Portishead that maybe, just maybe, they were the same band who recorded “that song.”

Yup, they are.

I found them through Pandora, and figured this whole thing out only a couple of weeks ago. Seventeen years, give or take, between hearing the song and putting a name (and band) to it.

Dummy is one great CD, by the way. If you like “Sour Times,” you’ll like Dummy.

D.

Not a cover

Currently my favorite song by Rasputina. Lyrics below.

(more…)

Another discovery

Let’s see: my anticipation of the upcoming Alice sequel led me to wonder what Chris Vrenna (former NIN collaborator, who scored American McGee’s Alice) was up to, and I discovered Rasputina, with whom Vrenna worked on their CD How We Quit The Forest. Here, give this a chance:

You can find Rasputina’s covers of Bad Moon Rising, Barracuda, and Wish You Were Here over at YouTube. There’s also a “Rasputina collection” by crushedbyeyeliner, and that led me to Portishead.

Gotta love all that theremin.

Two interesting finds from one meandering search. Ah, the Internets!

D.

Going the way of Danny Elfman

I don’t know: do any of you give a damn about NIN’s Trent Reznor? Am I the only nailhead in this place? With his marriage last year to Mariqueen Maandig, I’ve been worrying that Trent will fall prey to Happily Married Man syndrome. Case in point: Talking Heads’ David Byrne, whose “Life During Wartime” was a pile of edges; then he gets married in 1987 and then turns out the atrocity “Stay Up Late” (you know, the one about the peeing baby crawling across the floor, keep baby up all night, yatta yatta?) in 1985, so the marriage effect was so potent it backwashed Byrne’s talent by a full two years. Yes, I know that makes no sense, but the chronology is inconsistent with my thesis. And here I’ve been blaming Byrne’s wife all these years.

Trent and Mariqueen have produced an EP for their band How To Destroy Angels, which I dutifully bought for my iPod. Must say I’m not impressed with Mariqueen’s vocals. I’ve wanted Trent to write music for a female vocalist for some years now, but I’ve had in mind someone who could belt out a song. Garbage’s Shirley Manson, for example. (Rather than Trent’s estranged protege Marilyn Manson. Not the same thing at all.)

Anyway, Trent’s into movie sound tracks now. (I really am looking forward to Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Slayer.)

Gotta go. Jake needs the computer.

D.

Am I going to have to host another contest

to get y’all to listen to Cortney Tidwell?

Here, she sounds a bit like a mad hybrid of Bjork and Shirley Manson, but the music is Pink Floyd circa Ummagumma. And honestly, when was the last time someone produced new psychedelic music?

And here she is with a very different sound in “Watusii,” on her album Boys.

My main regret is that she only has one EP and two CDs. Three if you count her most recent CD, “Invariable Heartache,” which as best I can tell is more country-western.

Do I like her well enough to listen to C-W? I never would have thought it possible, but my resolve is weakening.

D.

What a voice.

Carly Simon at her best:

Not sure I ever told this story . . . but at my old girlfriend’s sister’s wedding reception, she (the bride) had the DJ play this song. I asked her afterward, what was she thinking?

“I LIKE this song!” she said, and that was that. I guess she had never listened to the lyrics? Or perhaps she felt she had learned to be herself first, by herself.

But it always amazed me, the guts (or the cluelessness) it took to play this song at a wedding reception. And, yes, she’s still with the same guy, some 20 years later.

D.