Aural Wes recently posted about the 1999 film Instrument by Wesleyan alum Jem Cohen ’84. I’ve had the soundtrack for years thanks to my much-cooler-than-me wife, and enjoyed it immensely. Except that I didn’t know that there was a film. There are three words on the album cover: Fugazi, Instrument, and Soundtrack… No? Nothing? I suppose I thought that “Instrument Soundtrack” had some kind of inside meaning. This is why I like psychoanalysis so much—an underdeveloped sense of the literal. Now I know. Netflixed it to the top, bumping out Blackadder, at least for now.

Update: I enjoyed this movie so much. Fugazi appear to walk the thinnest line between standing for something and not taking themselves too seriously. We listened to punk all weekend on the stereo after watching Instrument, and every time a Fugazi track came on it was so clear how far above the rest of the pack they stand.

The film is shot in a raw, understated style (on Super-8 film), without exposition. It chronicles ten years in the band’s history, 1987–1998. Occasional lines from Fugazi’s songs, printed on screen at the beginning of some scenes, are the only didactic narrative gestures from Cohen. Ultimately it’s a document of the band, written by someone who knows and loves them.

And here is your money quote. It’s Ian MacKaye talking between songs to an audience member who was being aggressive:

I saw you two guys earlier at the Good Humor truck, and you were eating your ice cream like little boys, and I thought, ‘Those guys aren’t so tough! They’re eating ice cream, what a bunch of swell guys.’ Oh don’t you deny it, you were eating an icecream cone. You were eating an icecream cone. Oh you’re bad now, you’re bad now, but you were eating an icecream cone, and I saw you. That’s the shit you can’t hide. You eat iceceam. Everybody knows it. The whole place knows it. Icecream eating motherfucker. That’s what you are.

Watch it.

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New Shpongle (Ineffable Mysteries From Shpongleland) is one month away about two months away:

Here’s the final track titles that will make up the new Shpongle Album now due for release in November 2009:

1. Electroplasm
2. Spongolise Spoken Here
3. Nothing Is Something Worth Doing
4. Ineffable Mysteries
5. I Am You
6. Invisible Man In A Fluorescent Suit
7. No Turn Unstoned
8. Walking Backwards Through The Cosmic Mirror

I gots the jitters.^†

Update: the album now has a Wikipedia page.

Update 2: Ineffable Mysteries ships on November 2 in the U.K. According to Amazon, the U.S. release date is November 28.

Update 3: Wow, shock. It’s awesome.

† Sidenote: according to the “ships on” Twisted Records link above, Storm Thorgerson designed the CD booklet.

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• broke up with eMusic last month → much happier
• The Stone Roses (1989): last great find on eMusic
• Vampire Weekend (2008): I… don’t get it
• The Moon & Antartica (2000), Modest Mouse: “the Universe is shaped exactly like the Earth”
• Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not (2006), Arctic Monkeys: nice
• Revolutions Per Minute (2003), Rise Against: love it, Elena not so much
• (500) Days of Summer (2009): so I can tolerate Regina Spektor
• No More Shall We Part (2001), Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds: intense beauty, deep sorrow, can’t fail
• Sunday was Dire Straits day thanks to Cutlers-style serendipity; four hours of uninterrupted bliss:
  • Dire Straits (1978)
  • Love Over Gold (1982)
  • Alchemy (live album) (1984)
  • Brothers in Arms (1985)
• Muse (Absolution) and Portastatic (Nature of Sap, Sour Shores) interlude, from the archives
• and now… The Wash EP (2009) by The Last Minutes, thanks to Wesleying: yep!

I know, I know. You don’t stumble across music criticism this astute every day. Count your blessings, dear reader.

PLACEBO have announced they have been forced to postpone their forthcoming tour of North America after their lead singer, Brian Molko, collapsed on stage at Summer Sonic Festival in Osaka, Japan. Brian had picked up a virus in Asia which, coupled with jet lag and exhaustion, caused the problem after the first song. […]

Riverman Management commented, “This is pretty devastating for everyone—we’ve only ever cancelled 3 shows in Placebo’s 14 year history, however Brian’s health is paramount. Our sincere apologies go out to Placebo’s loyal American fans who have waited a long time to see the band. We will try and do everything to re-arrange the dates as soon as possible.”

The band have had an intensive worldwide schedule this year, promoting their 6^th studio album ‘Battle for the Sun,’ this includes 24 high profile festival performances over the summer, an unprecedented amount for any band in 2009.

After listening to them for a few years I first saw Placebo at the Big Day Out in 2001. That was a great show. Their 1998 album Without You I’m Nothing would be among my top ten favourites, were I ever, in some Hornby-Frears-Cusackian moment, to compile such a list. Can’t wait to see them again…

Rating albums helps make your homepage better. Give it a go: visit your homepage, check out some albums and award some stars. See details below.

I don’t think so. I get that the market has shifted and I realise that in this new major label world of eMusic your service sort of still kind of represents reasonable value, but there is a limit to how much Stockholm Syndrome my ego can tolerate. I will not be rating albums or sending you my precious bodily data. It just leaves a bad taste when you repeatedly reduce my quota. You are doing what you have to do. Me three.

To be removed from eMusic’s promotional email list go to our Opt Out Page. Please note that this will remove you from all eMusic newsletter lists.

You bet, I’m on it.

A

Their reply to me:

Hello,

Please do not reply to this e-mail, as we are unable to respond to your reply from this address.

If you would like to contact eMusic, please visit our Contact Us page by going to:

http://www.emusic.com/contact/index.html

Sincerely,

Your Friends at eMusic

Oh, yeah? Then why didn’t it seem sincere? Fuckers.

We’re in the basement today to keep cool, Elena’s on the couch napping, Genie’s sprawled on the floor sleeping, I’m playing some nice, trancey music (see above) and dicking around with serious Internet business and—I kid you not—Elena’s and Genie’s right hand/paw are both blipping occasionally in concert, and in time to the music. Maybe they’re on patrol together, chasing down that bagel…

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Jon Pareles on a recent performance by Younger Brother in New York (same guys, but not the same event, above):

As Younger Brother remakes itself into a band from a studio project, its music has become less futuristic and more conventionally structured. But the music has also grown more human, approachable, dynamic and unpredictable, and that’s a worthwhile trade-off.

Their next album is expected in 2010. I hate this “waiting” shit.

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…we met James Ensor at the MoMA:

Raise a glass and sit and stare. Understand the man.

The exhibition runs until September 21.

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The patterns and illustrations in Pet Shop Boys’ “Love, etc.” are beautiful—shades of “Take on Me” with a wry glance at Monty Python. The animation feels like an orchestra conductor waving one of those sticks around. In a good way. Strong pop song, with a bit of grit under the hood. The Boys have still got it.

Via Michael.

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New Röyksopp is on the way with collaborations galore, including the incomparable Karin Dreijer. Check out the beautiful throwback music video for “Happy Up Here,” replete with blinking nostalgia bombs.^† More Melody A.M. than The Understanding, this first taste.

† Via Dan Benjamin

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They røck so härd.

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There is no reason—none—why you should not immediately acquire this. It’s available from Klicktrack (320 kbps MP3), iTunes (256 kbps AAC) and Amazon (256 kbps MP3). Praise be to Sweden.

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Westlake neighbourhood, Daly City, CA. (But dude, El Caminos ain’t ticky tacky.)

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If you recall the end of Terminator 2, when Arnie is lowered into the smelt and finally his lights go out—that’s what our TV did tonight. Compressed to a single, hot white line, then gone. Cathode Ray Tubicide. And like the end of Terminator 2, tonight’s turn of events was hard to accept. How could something that powerful just be gone? (And why now? Our microwave went into a coma several weeks back—all 88:88, and the DVD player has been ticking monotonously since Labor Day, and the muffler fell off the Dodge a few weeks ago… Seriously, WTF?)

Fortunately, there is Triple J.

Elena says, “This music is so good.” I say, “Yeah! Triple J.” The Monday morning news comes on, she says, “They can say ‘arvo’ on the news?” I say, “Yeah, it’s Triple J!” And, they never ask you for money? Triple J! (You could probably run a successful marketing campaign here just based on this.) And they talk about U.S. politics? Triple J! And Australian politics? Triple J! And indigenous issues? Triple J! And no frickin’ ads? Triple J! You’re just making it up now. Triple J!

There is currently no equal in the world to this radio station, and the way that media (and political economy) is changing there may never, ever be. Our new TV should arrive by the end of the week (don’t even start with the whole, people can live without it, you know) and I for one would just like to say thank @#$% for Triple J.

Postscript: It’s nice to pipe the sounds of home right into your living room. Thank @#$% also for the Internet.

It’s indulgent to say this about a stack of CDs, but I really needed to find The Knife. I’d first read about the Swedish siblings’ 2003 album Deep Cuts in a Pitchfork review and it had stuck with me so well that it was one of the few records fresh in my mind each time I stepped into a record store. Looked in vain for a while, whenever I passed the Ks. A few weeks ago I finally found their first album (The Knife, 2001) at Cutler’s Records—and then I really did need more. Since technology makes it possible to double-click new stuff from a warehouse into your home I now have all three albums, including 2006′s Silent Shout.

I consider this kind of music electropop, but it’s different from the other artists I’ve given the label to (e.g. Goldfrapp, Röyksopp, The Sugarcubes, White Town) and it took a while to feel they belonged there. The Knife takes this genre to a foreboding, shadowy place and although some of their loops and melodies achieve the velvety deliciousness of their contemporaries, the general tenor of The Knife keeps you on more of an edge (sorry, I had to say that). This effect is as much in the lyrics as in their sound. The Knife’s themes are oedipal (“I’m in love with your brother, yes I am, but maybe I shouldn’t ask for his name”), anxious (“She does it all the time, making mistakes and then I’ll ease her mind”), politically challenging (“Is it medicine or social skill?”) and socially disturbing (“I took a cab there to hold her, I took a plane there to feel what she felt—you make me like charity, instead of paying enough taxes.”)

The Knife’s aesthetics are sinister and foreboding, like if Autechre turned to pop and started writing words. Karin Dreijer Andersson and Olof Dreijer appear masked and distorted in photographs, and their sonics and imagery evoke artists like Aphex Twin and Chris Cunningham. There’s a hardness in here, both technical and emotional, that you wouldn’t expect in electropop, a brittle theme that contrasts with the subdued incantations and rounded synth sounds more distinctive of the genre. You can’t chill out to The Knife. But you won’t be able to relegate them to the background. Even their quietest tracks will wind their way back into your consciousness, like when someone turns off the TV and you suddenly hear the silence.

Edited to add: Karin Dreijer Andersson’s voice was driving Elena crazy yesterday because she was sure she had heard it before. Today she found the answer: Dreijer Andersson is the singer in Röyksopp’s amazing “What Else is There?.” (The floating woman is model Marianne Schröder. Dreijer is the figure at the table about two-thirds of the way through the video.)

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