Clay Bodies

Zola Jesus - Clay Bodies

Previous Post "Zola Jesus: Diet Coke with Tar" (Feb 2008)

Hovering With Short Wings

Paul McCarthy - M (2008)

Vic Chesnutt - We Hovered With Short Wings (mp3): He's the type of guy who'd rather not sing. When people talk to him, he pays close attention all the while offering nothing in return. Smiles and nods nicely until they tire and return to their paperwork. He saves his emotions for laundry baskets and the bottom of sweater pockets. In the evenings, though, he whispers into a tape recorder when no one is listening. Only when the playback of his voice sounds most hidden, most breathy, most still, most honest, most like his inner monologue... he saves it. It's the sound that no one was ever meant to hear. And it's for you.

Cupping the Ocean in My Dreams

Aaron Maurer - Fatal Cure

I like when the song title is longer than the post.

Amit Erez - Last Night When I Tried To Sleep I Felt The Ocean With My Fingertips (mp3)

Obscene Queen Bee

John Stark - The Apiary (2008)
[from We Used to Have Faces]

Alec Ounsworth - Obscene Queen Bee #2 (mp3): You'll surely recognize the voice. There's no other mumble as shrill. The band is new, though, and bends a pedal steel guitar over an organ with ease.

Repost: We All Fall Down

Sam Green - Lady

Merill is a puppet master. She puppets ears drums, up and down to say yes and left and right to say no at her whim. Her blunt yodel pounds the membranes and her screech plucks the hair cells. She makes the lifeless listener expressive with only dirty moans and a ukelle. It's a hard job, but someone has to make humans shake inside. And she does it with her knuckles pressed deep in the skin.

Tune Yards - Hatari (mp3)

Tune Yards - When You Tell The Lions (mp3)

Tune Yards is playing at the High Noon Saloon tonight (10/20/09) at 7:00pm.

PAST POSTS:
Great Songs of 2008 (4/21/09), Top 20 JustSayin Shows of 2008 (12/31/09), We All Fall Down (7/18/08)

Everything Gets Old

Michel de Broin - Black Whole Conference (2006)

I'm sorry this isn't very subtle today. It sounds like taking off my shoe and throwing it at you. But I'm not mad. Surely you understand. Everything gets old.

Mark Eitzel - I Live In This Place (mp3)

Or What You Think Other People Want You To Want?

Mike Watson - Chocolate Jesus (2008)
[Originally inspired by the Tom Wait's song]

Jesus Christ (the indie band) - Is This Really What You Want? (mp3): This song sounds like a looming memory. It grows slowly by playing and replaying teen movie morals from back when rewind really meant tape was being rewound. Bouncing echos, beating minutes, intersecting thoughts - all overlaid by a wandering inner monologue. It's unsure, but trying to get through to you.

Przewalski's Horse

Richard Barnes - Animal Logic (mp3)

Likely a joy of being a horse is the regal posture and stride inherent to the word equine. And having the largest eye of any land mammal. Also, stables.

Soy Un Caballo - Robin (mp3)

In the Hands of the Rememberer

Cathy Jean Clark - My Grandmothers' Trees II

The Last Dinosaur - Home (mp3): This is the part of the episode where the camera slowly zooms out to juxtapose a weighty decision with its plain context. Wide shot of a twin bed in a stark hospital room. Steady cam of a Toyota leaving someone standing in the driveway. Close up of a hand reaching out to touch a cheek. Slow motion of sneakers sprinting down an empty street, black and glistening in the streetlight. Pan to boxes being packed. Montage of memories ending in a still shot of the rememberer sitting alone in a living room arm chair.

The Plume

Thorsten Brinkmann - Rio (2007)

He stood in his shoes, a white Hanes shirt, and boxers -- bent at the knees and with his face driven into his elbow. "You're not typing what I say are you?" I promised I wasn't.

More about him: He is green. And lanky. And frail. Small. He loves to touch rusty spoons. Or at least that's how he describes himself. "You know who Salad Fingers is? Literally he has salad for fingers and loves spoons. " I told him to take this more seriously.

He shifted his feet a couple times and stood up straight, arm still laid across his face. I could tell he was trying to peek a little. "OK, this song is a beautiful sacred object that no one was meant to touch. The essence of natural. Gift from the Gods." I reassured gently so he'd continue.

"It's so beautiful. But we just slam shit into it." We sat in silence for a second and then I asked him to explain. "But I'd advocate for that. I'd talk about how cool and powerful it would be. To destroy something beautiful."

He opened opened his eyes. "I want to see the plume, damnit."

Br'er - Painted Lady (mp3) [Project Lodge on 10/11]

LCROSS IMPACT 6:31:19AM CST

Op Hop - Trip To The Moon

In the early morning tomorrow, 10/9/2009 at 6:31:19AM CST, the US will shoot a rocket at the moon. That rocket will deliberately crash into Crater Cabeus proper near the moon's south pole and send a plume of debris several miles high. A second probe will then fly through the cloud, collecting particle samples that will allow us to detect evidence of water under the lunar surface. Thanks to the internet, you won't need a telescope to observe the impact (and the universe potentially imploding). You can watch the mission streaming live right here.

John Marmie - Water on the Moon (mp3): This song was written by the Deputy Project Manager of this LCROSS mission. He's an amazing nerd.

Light As Balloons

Jason Hackenwerth

All monsters are pop-able like Jason's life-sized balloon animals. Close your eyes. Tighter. Take a deep breath. Let the black in your eyes pool like oil. Picture the slither between your mattresses, the dark in your closet, the insurmountable in your schedule, the eerie looks, and all the not knowing you can find. Grab it close. Snarl. Pop. And float away.

Phantogram - Turn It Off (mp3)

Phantogram - Mouthful of Diamonds (mp3)

JustSayin Presents... Mount Eerie & No Kids (11/7)

www.JustSayinIsAll.com is excited to present an early evening of hushed intensity (with metal overtones) at the High Noon Saloon on Saturday, November 7th (5:30-8:30pm). Blog favorite Mount Eerie (previously The Microphones) will be returning to Madison with No Kids and Tara Jane O'Neil. Those who participated (yes, sang along) with Phil Elverum at the Gates of Heaven Synagogue last fall witnessed pure magic [read about it here or here]. Come join us for more.

Pitchfork (June 12, 2009): "When Mount Eerie tours this autumn, Elverum will bring a full band with him, including two drummers. A press release promises gongs and walls of amps. This is going to rule." [link]

RSVP here.

Mount Eerie - Wooly Mammoth's Absence (mp3)

A Soil Creature

Kim Winderman - Uchu Tanjyo [from "Immediate Growing Anamnesis"] (2009)

Grand Salvo - Road (mp3): I keep my heels rough and calloused for songs like this. When I wake up from this dream, or if peak oil happens, or if I suddenly find myself without a job and with a gift of pure time... I need to be able to know how to walk down the street barefoot. Financial advisors help you build a nest egg, but sandals help you remember to kick off your plans and climb a tree. I practice this. I keep it as a parallel life in the background always. A knowledge of national parks that rivals PBS, only a month-to-month lease, an ability to sit quietly and listen for hours on end, a duffel bag big enough to fit inside. Dirty puddles are for jumping into. I keep my fingernails ragged to hold onto this.

Won't Give More

Marcel Schlattmann - Golden Coins (2007)

Mirah - Generosity (mp3): A song as a glass half empty. Plastic and neglected and refilled with water to sober up.