Indifference Is The Hardest Blow

Vashti Bunyan, "Turning Backs" - Blah blah blah thirty-year hiatus blah blah raised her kids blah blah blah blah rescued by Animal Collective blah Nick Drake's college roommate blah blah. I think it's safe to say that Vashti Bunyan may have come up with a record cursed with a rich backstory, because nuanced and relevant as it is, the fact of the matter is that Lookaftering stands mighty tall as one of the best albums of the year on its own merits. I'd actually meant to write about this for days now, but (a) other stuff kept coming up, and (b) I felt pretty confident that music like this would work just as well even after the Pitchfork kerfluffle starts to die dow (and seeing as how it's been a staple for early-morning car rides the last few weeks, I'm pretty sure I was right on that one). See, all the backstory might lead you to expect stuff from Lookaftering which (thankfully) isn't there; casting Mrs. Bunyan as some thirty-years-later folkie chanteuse only sells the album to people looking for an undiscovered "At Seventeen", and while there may well be that kind of sincerity on the record, so far I've found it to be completely consumed by the album's value as an aesthetic experience - or in other words, she's got nothing to say that producer Max "The Blue Notebooks" Richter's sweeping orchestration doesn't articulate perfectly anyway. Bunyan, in turn, is thereby freed up to come up with possibly the least cloying lyrics I've ever heard on a folk album - seriously, I have even less of a tolerance for People Giving The Breath Of Life To Their Worldview As Set To Music than you might think, but as Bunyan is neither a showoff nor a diva*, I'm actually able to take an awful lot of pleasure from her lyrics and ESPECIALLY her singing. I really can't say enough about this album; I chose "Turning Backs" as the song to represent it mostly because I think it's the best example of the arrangement complementing the song (not to mention ZITHERS), but in reality I probably could have chosen any of a half-dozen tracks, all of which stopped my heart dead where it stood. Really, it's just one of those very, very incredible albums, like Sung Tongs or Songs of Leonard Cohen or that Langley Schools Music Project album; everything else is just window-dressing, no matter how crazy it lets you get with structuring your review. (Click here to buy Lookaftering from Amazon.com)

*For those of you wondering, I mean to say that she's neither Jewel nor Whitney Houston.

Negative For Francis, "Losing Control" - By now I've come to terms with the fact that all this spiky angular Nu-Britpop is eminently disposable, and not a moment too soon - I'd rather enjoy this stuff than sit around thinking it's good. Negative For Francis' debut single "Losing Control", for instance, will get old in a couple of months, but that's going to be a couple of months where I get to bop around my apartment howling "I'M! LOO! zingconTROL!", and then train all my friends to do the same by throwing it on every mix CD I make for parties, and then ramble uncontrollably about the godliness of Paul Epworth, and THEN I'll be done with it, and that sounds like a pretty good bang-for-buck arrangement right there. Oh, and of course the song could turn out to be indispensible, too - it's sure been getting crazy play whenever I can put down the new Strokes album or Shitdisco single lately. (Click here to buy the "Losing Control/Love Bug" double A-side from Rough Trade. If I were you, I'd buy it ASAP - this sold out of Piccadilly practically on pre-order, and it's pretty limited to boot.)

ELSEWHERE

- Speaking of Shitdisco, you REALLY need to hie yrself hence to 20jazzfunkgreats and cop "Disco Blood" while you still can; it's the Talking Heads song that Clap Your Hands Say Yeah only wish they could write.

- And I'm going to be cutting this short because I'm forcing myself to do this entry before giving my life over entirely to Animal Crossing: Wild Worlds. I don't think I've given the speech about how everyone on earth should do the right thing and buy the greatest video gaming system since the majestic Sega Dreamcast, so I guess you're all excused for now, but if you happen to be one of the smart people and are hooked up with WiFi, by all means hit me up at the email address on the right and we can swap friend codes. The viral stuff in this game just sounds way too sick - perhaps I will be able to pass along to you my constellation of the cover of Can's Future Days (or, failing that, the DFA lightning bolt).