Meet me by the vending machine.

I've been humming and singing this song constantly the past week or so, and I think it's best served justice by simply posting its astonishing lyrics.


'Julie', by Jens Lekman.

Oh Julie, meet me by the vending machine.
Oh Julie, I'm gonna buy you a wedding ring. 

Eating French fries by the dock of the bay.
Lots of ketchup and mayonnaise.
You said this town's too big for our hearts.
You can't tell where it ends or starts. 

Oh Julie, the future could be so bright.
Oh Julie, the ticket inspector's out of sight. 

What will you do when you graduate?
If you stay here you will suffocate.
And all your friends are moving to London.
While the cherry trees are still in blossom. 

Oh Julie.
Oh hold me, hold me for the sweet hereafter. 

The end with you can be very fatal.
Somehow we forget to pray for the angels.
Then the angels make sure that our hearts are devoured.
Make us jump from the Eiffel Tower. 

Oh Julie, you know that I ain't for hire.
But you can have me.
You can trade me for your cigarette lighter. 

Take a step from the humdrum.
Step out of the museum.
They said we had hit the bottom.
But the cherry trees are still in blossom. 

Julie, you know that I ain't for hire
but you can have me, you can trade me for your cigarette lighter
Oh Julie

What a hearty... 

Foals: Sacrificing finesse.

So, I went to see Foals this Friday at Vega, which I highly anticipated, since their sophomore album Total Life Forever is one of my fave releases of 2010. It's beautiful in its creative finesse; sharp guitar licks, interesting sounds and impressive sonic booms. It seemed Foals chose to bring only the latter to Copenhagen this weekend.


Sorry for being a killjoy, because it was in fact a really enjoyable and generally well-played concert. I guess it's just because I had expected something else. I had expected to enjoy and fully devour the comely guitar patterns of '2 Trees', the ease and airiness of 'Olympic Airways', the furious tightness and wit of 'After Glow', and enjoy five extraordinarily creative and skilled musicians. It seemed however that Foals' agenda was for everyone to jump around like crazy. At all possible times, the band's signature strong endings, outros and bridges were sacrificed for menacing and scrappy amok. The tight and vital rhythm section was much too loud, and often completely overpowered the little finesses from the guitarists that make both Foals' albums such enjoyable listens. Drummer Jack Bevan is normally credited with carrying a heavy load of Foals' euphony, which is completely true, just listen to tunes like 'Two Steps, Twice' or the aforementioned 'After Glow', but it seemed like he much too often resorted to simplifying his game, and applying steadfast disco-oohntz beats whenever possible, such as the outro of 'Red Socks Pugie', which normally is of a much dozier nature. Or the end of inevitable highlight 'Spanish Sahara', where the post-climactic blissfulness was sacrificed for yet more of the same unimaginative beats.


Of course, it was still good, and the music is often lovely, but I do think Foals sacrificed a big load of finesse and euphony for having the first four-five rows of audience jumping around like karrazzee. Sometimes it seemed that the prevailing mantra for the band was "as loud as possible", which seems quite unimaginative for a band of unquestionable musical skill. It was good, and it was a party, but it could have been so much more interesting.

These 10 albums are gonna fare well on end-of-year lists.

Time for the end-of-year razzmatazz, where everyone's trying to sum up everything from the past year, the most prolific being the album-of-the-year lists, that are gonna spring from every a music media soon. I'm not gonna do one myself, as I don't have near wide enough a span on different genres to be able to make sense. I decided it would be fun however, to try and guess which albums are gonna be recurring fixtures high on these lists. So I did a bit of researching and analysis, and these are ten albums you're definitely gonna see a lot of the next month!

The ArchAndroid by Janelle Monáe.
Monáe's debut project, The ArchAndroid has been one of the highest scoring albums on Metacritic this year, and she's gonna be a pretty surefire fixture in most of the lists. She widens the musical spectrum slightly in terms of genres, hear cinematically oriented approach is something new, and she scores highly on a variety of different media on both sides of the pond.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kanye West.
It's gonna be quite a feat to get a 10.0 mark in Pitchfork, and not appear right atop the benchmark magazine's end-of-year list, and near the top of loads others. Even if Kanye's new album is so great it transcends genre-preferences, some of the holier indie-media are bound to keep him off their lists, but he sure is gonna be on a lot of them. Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) and Kanye might be a curious match, but fact is they do hang out quite a lot together, and they probably smoke a lot of really high class grass. And they collaborated on this tune, which is mindblowing!

The Suburbs by Arcade Fire.
Alright, finally into my own territory here. The Suburbs is nothing less impressive than a third sublime album coming off two equally extraordinary ones. It really has legs, and I think it's only just starting to grow a lot of people (myself included). Arcade Fire are reviewers' darlings like few others, but the hype surrounding The Suburbs is well deserved, and it's gonna be near the very top of many, many lists.

Halcyon Digest by Deerhunter.
Deerhunter has a sound that usually doesn't fare well in British media, but when they get a Metacritic score of 80 from reviewers such as NME, The Guardian, Q and Drowned In Sound, you know they've got something going for them. On Pitchfork this is a surefire top 10 record.

Swim by Caribou.
Dan Snaith of Caribou has been here, there and everywhere this year, doing a lot of remixes, and of course releasing his followup to Polaris Prize-winning Andorra of 2008, and although Pantha du Prince, Crystal Castles and Delorean have made waves as well, Swim is probably gonna be deemed top of the crop on the independent, electronic scene this year by many.

The Age of Adz by Sufjan Stevens.
Sufjan Stevens sure is a wacko, but he's a pretty damn safe bet for a critic's choice in alternative music. The moniker 'Pitchfork music' is pretty fitting for Stevens' quirky but very talented antics. The NME hasn't even reviewed this, and it's definitely gonna fare much higher on American lists than on British ones.

Plastic Beach by Gorillaz.
Unless you want to be alternative and undergroundly just for the sake of it, Plastic Beach is pretty damn hard to avoid. In the year when Albarn and co. all but discarded their cartoony aliases completely, they also released their musically most interesting album to date, spanning genres far and wide. Amidst the identity crisis of British indie, Gorillaz are the sole UK act on this list.

Teen Dream by Beach House.
Bridging the gap between the indie-folk wave of 2008 and '09 and the chillwave-lo-fi craze of 2010 is Beach House, who are neither from Seattle nor from California, but from the East Coast. Less self-aware than Californian-turned-Brooklyner trends and trendsetters, Teen Dream became one of the unifying indie records of 2010.

Clinging To A Scheme by The Radio Dept..
Quietly clinging, perhaps not to a scheme, but to their own little department of hazily electro-indulged indie-pop, The Radio Dept. will be a welcome addition and counterpoint to the many big movements of some of the other artists, with whom they're presumably gonna share space on the end-of-year lists. One of my personal favorite albums of this year, I think its unambitious but melodic demeanor appeals to many a critic and listener alike.

Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty by Big Boi.
Alright, so I don't know a thing about this album, but this is the debut album by Big Boi, who came within striking distance to numerous album-of-the-decade recognitions with Outkast a year ago, and reviews for this album have been strong across the board.


Other albums I considered and researched on were:
Before Today by Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti.
This Is Happening by LCD Soundsystem.
Treats by Sleigh Bells.
High Violet by The National.
Black Noise by Pantha du Prince.
Lisbon by The Walkmen.
The Wild Hunt by The Tallest Man On Earth.
Total Life Forever by Foals.
Crazy For You by Best Coast.
Body Talk by Robyn.
Dark Night of the Soul by Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse.
Acolyte by Delphic.
Gorilla Manor by Local Natives.
Crystal Castles by Crystal Castles.
Heartland by Owen Pallett.
Love Remains by How To Dress Well.
Subiza by Delorean.
InnerSpeaker by Tame Impala.

"Our best gig ever!", three years on.

"Our best gig ever!" That's what Klaxons exclaimed towards the end of their legendary show at Roskilde 2007. A show bathed in glow-sticks and neon face-paint on youthful, sweaty, muddy, lusty bodies and young British musicians jumping off stage.


Quite a bit, it turned out, has changed since then. Saturday, when Klaxons went on at Amager Bio, there was no face-paint, no glow-sticks, and mostly men in their early twenties - guys who were there three years ago too, young and insane. Klaxons looked themselves. The femininely built James Righton is still clearly on the top five of men one would want to look like. He's one of the few guys who can hit the stage in a simple grey tee and a pair of jeans, and still have the attention of the entire female crowd. Jamie Reynolds is still his old, ungraceful self with his weird stance and his general ugliness, and Taylor-Davies is still the shy guitarist with his unruly shy guitarist-hairdo.


But still, something has happened. There was no crowd-surfing here (the meager crowd probably couldn't have withstood it anyway), and only a fraction of the insane energy of a few years ago. The sound however was sublime, and there's knack to a lot of the band's tunes that just makes it impossible to stand still. Amager Bio was only half-filled, but unless you looked backwards at the empty space, you wouldn't have noticed - the ones who were there clearly made it their business to rave on.


It does however seem as though this is a band inevitably on the decline. It was very clearly the Myths of the Near Future-tunes, of which we got a full seven, which excited the crowd the most, and it's not that Surfing The Void hasn't had sufficient time to sink in. Down the stretch, it just seems to be less elating than the old stuff.


It was however a good concert, and a well-crafted setlist, concluding with 'It's Not Over Yet', 'Surfing The Void' and 'Atlantis To Interzone' to send the aging ravers into the night.

Albums growing (like trees in suburbs).

I've got these three albums that have been growing a lot on me these days. I also (finally!!) got Halcyon Digest late last week, but the jury is still out on that one. It seems to be a quality album, but I'm not so sure how much I personally like it. It's the kind of album that needs quite a few listens. Anyway, the three albums on pace right now are:


The Suburbs, by Arcade Fire
This has been a classic slow mover, but I've now come to realize truly what a tremendous album this is. Truth be truth, there aren't really any that bad tunes here, anyhow not any irrelevant tunes. That's pretty impressive for an album that clocks in at an hour's length. Even tunes like 'Half Light II (No Celebration)' and 'Wasted Hours' are coming to me now, and the album impressively climaxes again and again, most prolifically with the haunting 'We Used To Wait' and the brilliant Sprawl-duology on the albums back part. I hope these guys will hit Roskilde next summer!


Troen & Ingen, by Søren Huss
I've been through this album five times now, and every time it hits me a little bit more, just how sharp it is. Huss balances masterfully on the edge of being sentimental without being whiny, but still being very evident and perceptible about the emotional landscape that has driven this record. It's a very pleasant and deep listen every time (still).


A Collection of Vibrations for Your Skull by Treefight For Sunlight
Back when this album came out, I doubted its longevity, so I think it's only fitting to take up this issue again. I've had the album for a month and a half, and my iTunes shows I've been through its (short) entirety 12 times. And honestly, I actually like it better now than I did after the first few listens. These guys seem to have legs, and the album is due for an international release next year, which is pretty cool!

Racy, funky new electro (and Finnish indie-schmindies).

I just browsed through the last few days of the Forkcast, while reading one of my buddies' travellog, and a lot of really interesting stuff actually showed up! I guess I'm in yet another electro phase, which will almost certainly not last too long, but right now, there's just a lot of tasty new stuff out there.

Most importantly, check out this track, 'American Mourning' by Bikini. It really amps up in a nice way at the end. I think it's a stretch to call them dance-pop as Pitchfork do - indie-house would probably be more appropriate.

Onra out of Paris, France is awesomely funky, in a laid-back, but not at all in an uneventful way. Try and check out 'The Perfect Match'. Oh, and never mind the bollocks lyrics, just keep it to the beatzzzz... 'All Around and Away We Go' by Twin Sister, is another track with a sweet, dirty groove.

My electro-wave might be sort of a counter-reaction to the wild and crazy lo-fi wave that's hitting indie right now. It's just sickening, and it's gone way, way, way, waaaay over the top! I mean, give White Fence a listen on 'Lillian (Won't You Play Drums?)'. Just too much.

I mentioned these Finnish Joe Shmoes in the header, which was mainly because they have quite another knish than all the club-tinged stuff. They're called French Films, and they've got a nice sorta The Drums'ey or late Raveonettes thing going on 'Golden Sea'. Very enjoyable!

Fuck, my tasteless flattie is amping up her Thursday with bone-dry, bland mainstream house - I think I'm gonna flee into my headphones with something nice and quiet!

You say yea, I say sayer!

Yeasayer's Odd Blood album has really been growing on me as of late. It's quite a tricky, quirky record, that can seem lengthy at first listen, but I've now realized that it's an absolutely splendid collection of tunes. Aside from the obvious crown jewel, 'O.N.E.', I've really been raving to 'Mondegreen' this week, it's such an awesome and powerful tune!


I like to utilize every possibility I have to write horse on my blog, and it's only more fitting when it comes in the form of an interesting song. It's 'The Dwarf and The Horse', which is by Sleep Party People. The live take from the X-Sessions I've linked to, captures the rabbit-masked outfit's very intense live shows pretty sharply. The metallic drum pad percussion is sort of reminiscent to another masked group of much wider acclaim...


Finally, I'm often irritated by good intros or interludes that seem like sort of undeveloped tracks - as if they're the fetus from an aborted working process, to metaphorize. I often wonder how stunning tracks they could have become if they were expanded a bit. A good example is 'Intro' on The xx' xx. There's such etherealness to the guitar, and it could really become the most haunting, sweeping, murky tune. Now, it's not much longer, actually it's shorter, than the original, but curious Swedish outfit jj (what's with those lowercase double-letter-names anyway??), whom I've checked out way too superficially, have had a take on 'Intro', sampling it for 'I'm The One/Money On My Mind', which is kinda cool.

Leslie, you and I have been long overdue...

Oi, I've had quite a busy week, so I haven't had time to write a bit about my new albums yet. I got a few last week, and all are shaping up pretty nicely!

I'm especially pleased to finally have Leslie Feist's The Reminder in my collection. It is every bit as delightful as I remember from my first few listens (I especially remember a rainy day on the Great Ocean Road...), and it has been a welcome addition to my record collection as an album that works well on many occasions. It's pretty hard to distinguish the key tracks yet, but I enjoy 'The Park' and 'Sealion' very much. Also the pretty closer 'How My Heart Behaves' featuring Eirik of Kings of Convenience and the very Norah Jones'esque 'Brandy Alexander' deserves mentions.

I also got The Amplifetes' eponymous debut. I kinda bought that one on the spur of the moment, so I didn't really have huge expectations. It is however a decent album, highlighted of course by 'Someone New', which is a simply massive tune, unsurprisingly the highlight of the album. The oohntzy 'Blinded By The Moonlight' is good too.

Finally, and in a completely other ditch, I got Søren Huss' solo-debut Troen & Ingen. I guess sometimes good songwriters need to shed the weight of a band to truly shine. Huss is no Bon Iver, as one had perhaps hoped, but he fares very well in the maze that is making a sentimental album without ending up sounding like a wuss or an emo or both. The lyrical universe is very strong, and the musical is much more interesting than what he ever did with Saybia, seemingly mingling a lot of styles in the name of the lyrics and the concept being what carries the album, not its musical traits.

Heavy duty Spleen.

Yesterday, I went to Århus to see Spleen United, who are playing their (more or less) first concerts in Denmark in two years. They have let the word spread on a comprehensive change in style, spearheaded by this fall's single, 'Sunset To Sunset'. The new Spleen United is supposedly tougher and even more machine-like, which is pretty serious for an already very machine-like band, and the rumored change in style proved to be no fluke. 


Reactions to the new material, which has been played in Copenhagen and Århus the past two weekends, have been mixed, as is always the case when a band etches a new route - some will undoubtedly and unavoidably turn themselves against the new stuff, arguing not to change a winning team etcetera.


Truth is, Spleen United already turned a major corner when they developed from the slow-moving, Jean-Michel Jarre-inspired escapades of Godspeed Into The Mainstream into the more straight forward, club-oriented Neanderthal, although there are overlaps on both, such as 'In Peak Fitness Condition' and 'Spleen United' on the first one, and 'Heat' and 'Under The Sun' on the last.


To be frank, I didn't mind the new stuff. Especially the latter part of the new material was very interesting, and I also think it's really pretty limited how much of this will actually get on the third record, which the band announced to be out in "a year". They also said, that much of the stuff was made specifically for this occasion (probably in conjunction with their show in Copenhagen last week as well though). It was a bit too machine-like at times, as my friend Maria summed it up quite precisely at one point during the concert, stating that it could just as well have been The Chemical Brothers who had snuck on stage, but still I do think the third album will in some way have stylistic connection to Neanderthal as well as to the harder techno-house the band exhibited bits of yesterday.


Other than that, the band was intense and party-starting as always, and cleverly finished off with 'Dominator', 'Spleen United' and 'Suburbia', although they could have worked the show even more powerfully by not introducing these tunes as obviously as they did. The crowd was raving about, and really Train as a venue was perhaps a bit small. There was a lot of pushing and shoving - not the dancing way, but more the territorial one.


This viddy from Berlin showcases a bit of the new style!

Well, can I ask you about today?

It's no secret that one of the major musical stories for me the past months time has been the discovery of The National's old Cherry Tree EP, off which especially 'About Today' is staggeringly beautiful. I just wanted to point out this amazing live version of it, it's about four years old, but the sound is actually quite alright, and it's all just marvelous! The National, by the way, are swinging by Århus late February, which'll be awesome.


I've been ill the past few days, so I've been geezing a lot around Youtube, and I stumbled upon this feller Chris O'Riley, a classical pianist doing Radiohead-tunes. Some of them are very interesting, such as 'Exit Music (For A Film)' and 'Subterranean Homesick Alien'.


Also I've been digging more into Mumford & Sons' Sigh No More album, beginning to understand why it was a Mercury nominee, even though the mandolin is still a bit hard on my ears. Ordered a few new albums the other day, which should be here soon - sweet!

This is Valleys! (and sweet electro treats)

Right, I stumbled upon this here on the Forkcast earlier this week  - it's 'Ordinary Dream' by Valleys. It does become a bit to noisily psych at times, but I do find it quite enjoyable.

In other news, some new interesting stuff is shaping up in the world of electro. I guess I would never forgive myself, if I let 'Not In Love', the all-star collaboration between kings of electropunk Crystal Castles, and Robert Smith of The Cure fame. Especially because it's a pretty nice corner of CC's otherwise sometimes very unaccessibly noisy sound spectrum.

A few of my more peripherical acquaintances maintain the blog HoerLigeHer.dk, which is often a good source of music. They honestly have their fingers on the pulse much more than I have, such as the case of new Swedish outfit The Amplifetes, which sounds armed and ready to take over the airwaves massively - try listening to 'Somebody New' - stinkingly catchy, huh?!

The Rumour Said... Treefight.

I'll give them this: It was a pretty difficult task for The Rumour Said Fire to really capture the crowd at Studenterhuset yesterday, performing after Treefight For Sunlight. Not only because the young warm-up band is musically vastly their superior, but also because a sizable minority of the audience was indeed there not for the big name on the bill, but for the "homecoming" of the locally born and bred new fast cats of Danish indie.


You probably already caught the knish: The main act was honestly a quite bland experience. I had perhaps hoped they could convince me to go buy their recently released debut album, The Arrogant, but sorry guys, that's not gonna happen. There there just isn't much zest to neither their music nor their performance, and they seem to have tough time building up anything substantial around their improbable, ultra-minimal breakthrough hit, 'The Balcony', which features a whopping four of the six-piece live line-up playing percussion. There's nothing wrong with percussion at all, but I didn't really like the impression of a band, who have achieved success on a sound which is a so massively stripped version of themselves.


On the other hand, Treefight For Sunlight was an interesting experience. As with their album, the rumor had run ahead, and had perhaps led me to having very high expectations, once again ending up with their splendor being somewhat matter-of-factly. The bands high degree of advanced vocal work was executed spotlessly, and the entire performance was very professional for a still relatively unexperienced foursome. I would almost define the performance as grave, which at times seemed awkward juxtaposed with the band's merry sound. But when the shit hits the fan, it's all about musicality, which is definitely in abundance with Treefight For Sunlight. The first few songs, the same first three as on the album, weren't as strong live as on the album, but the rest of the set was very impressive, especially 'What Became of You and I', which is definitely not one of my favorites on the album, and the darker, heavier songs 'Time Stretcher' and 'They Never Did Know'. Indeed a very exciting band to follow, and one that more than likely hasn't reached their full potential yet.

An absolute abundance of concerts!

So, while Halcyon Digest still hasn't dropped in my mailbox (seriously, fuck you Play.com, it wasn't free!), and while I can't access my e-bank to get an overview over how much I can afford to spend on new records tomorrow, I do have other things to look forward to. The next month and a bit is an extraordinary abundance of interesting concerts, which is nice, of course. Here's the calendar:


Tomorrow, on October 29th, I'm gonna see The Rumour Said Fire with Treefight For Sunlight. Let it be no secret, that I'm gonna be there primarily for the latter, but as regards TRSF, they might be able to convince me to buy their record. We'll see.


Next friday, November 5th, I'm off to Århus for Spleen United, which is gonna be massive. I have only seen them live once, and I've been listening to them much more since then - especially the first album, Godspeed Into The Mainstream, off which they're unfortunately probably not gonna play much. But what's gonna be really interesting is that they're showcasing a lot of new stuff from their forthcoming album - exciting! Also, Kenton Slash Demon are performing alongside them, which is gonna be massive too!


Friday, November 12th, it's back to Aalborg for Figurines and The Kissaway Trail. I've seen Figurines a few times live, and even though it's gonna be interesting to hear their new stuff, I'm again primarily there for the smaller act. I've been listening a bit to The Kissaway Trail the past half year, and it really bugs me that I've never seen them live.


A fortnight later, it's at Studenterhuset in Aalborg again, for Casiokids with Vinnie Who - perhaps the most interesting international name to come by since RJD2 a few years ago. I think it's gonna be awesome!


The real heavyweighters lurk at the end, though, as Saturday, November 27th, it's Klaxons at Amager Bio. This is gonna be seriously insane! I'm glad the new album has picked up pace on me, and together with a few of the classics off Myths of the Near Future, it's gonna be sweat-drenched for sure!


Finally, on December 3rd, it's Foals at Vega. This is probably the show I'm looking forward to the most. I've never seen Foals live, and with a sophomore album that is even better than their debut one, it can only be good!


So, that's whats in store - be sure to check back for comments on all these rad shows!

Kurt, Agnes, Val and The Alcoholic.

This Philly-bloke Kurt Vile has been buzzing in my radar the past week, showing up here and there, and I decided to check him out. He's pretty good - really chill. I'm constantly on the lookout for chill stuff these days, I guess its fall making me sombre. Try and check out 'Blackberry Song', which is a really enjoyable tune. The only thing I'm not crazy about is the vocal mix - why does it have to sound purposely sloppy and low? No thanks.


Berlin-based musical amazon Agnes Obel has garnered some pretty serious reviews for her new album, and 'Brother Sparrow' was on the Soundvenue High 5 until recently. It's a really graceful and pleasant tune. 


The National's songs come creeping and crawling one by one these days, and right now, it's 'Val Jester' off Alligator, another good example of Matt Berninger's tremendously timely and witty lyrics:

All the most important people in New York are nineteen.

Guess it only goes down from here huh? Anyway, it's incredible how Berninger is able to very accurately and touchingly describe feelings that he hasn't necessarily had. He's an astonishing ghost-writer of sorts.


Finally, lets conclude with a group that has somewhat gone only ever downwards from their magnificent debut. It's Röyksopp, who just released their fourth full-length, Senior, which didn't really impress me. 'The Alcoholic' however is pretty sweet!

Winter's on its way, 'Blindsided' tells me.

Halcyon Digest is still nowhere to be seen, and I am beginning to suspect Play.com, or the everyday devil we all know, the mailman, of fucking something up.


In the mean time, things have been really bloody quiet. I am in a tremendous musical void, to be honest, but out of voids, interesting tendencies tend to appear anyway. It's still mostly about The National's Cherry Tree EP, but being an EP, it doesn't exactly contain sufficient depth and inexhaustibility to bear endless hype. I'm also sorta coming around to The Suburbs, Arcade Fire's pretty damn well acclaimed third album, on which I was initially slightly lukewarm. Some of the gems have shined from day one, but many of the more anonymous and inaccessible tunes, initially seeming to be excess and overtime work for a band too flutteringly ambitious to fit a concept album into 40 minutes, are now emerging as strong songs in their own way. Today, I also finally downloaded a few of Beach House's tunes off Soundcloud (sorry). I'm really pissed their record is so impossible to get at, because a tune like 'Face It' is really enjoyable!


Finally, as the title states, I have had yet another revival of what seems to be the most immortal album on the face of indie Earth; For Emma, Forever Ago. I listened to it loudly and in utter darkness last Thursday night, when I had little else to do, and once again it slowly came creeping upon me, the greatness and total embrace of it all. Especially 'Blindsided', which also to me carries strong associations of last winter, when I came home from abroad, and everything was bloody cold as ice, and everyone were happy and rejoicing and some were dying and some were kissing, and all was bitterly cold and white.


I like fall, which is upon us now. Apart from the bitter cold, which is of course crap, I like when days are getting slightly shorter, when it's dark when you come home from work, and when colors are all grey and brown and even browner and orange. It's a time for melancholy, quiet musing and reflection and a slower pace.

Horse and Superpitcher.

I must admit I heard this tune primarily because of the title, as 'horse' is one of my favorite words. There's such a calmness and potency to it. Calmness perhaps isn't a fitting descriptor for Brian Eno's 'Horse', but there's something to it that made me return and listen again, regardless of the title. If you don't like Battles or Radiohead's 'Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors', this is however probably not for you.


Maybe Superpitcher is then. Distinctly German, but in a pleasant way. I find 'Rabbits In A Hurry' really catchy! It's got sort of a loungy laid-backness, but still doesn't become irrelevant. There's some sort of poise and edge to it.

New potent Danish electro.

The Danish electro scene has been booming in recent years. I guess after a few years of indie revolution, people needed something new to do. An interesting outfit is Kenton Slash Demon, who teamed up with Malthe Fischer of Oh No Ono fame for 'Matter', which really rocks. KSD are warming up for Spleen United at Train in a few weeks, which is gonna be rad.


Another interesting young artist is Oh Land, part of the crazy wave of female electro artists. Check out 'Sun of a Gun' (yeah, it's sun, not son, for some reason...), it's pretty catchy.


Another very catchy tune is WhoMadeWho's 'Left Hand of The Boxer'. Only thing is, I always get seriously irritated when Danes sing with a noticeable Danish accent - it just sounds so shit! (Carpark North anyone?).


Other than that, things are pretty quiet. I'm still waiting for Deerhunter's Halcyon Digest to pop into my mailbox. Where oh where has it gone, I wonder? I've been (very slightly) reviving Oasis, and also Danish band ENTAKT last week.


But October sure is quiet...

Just too much country, and just enough psych-pop.

All right, so they slightly drowned in my sudden discovery of the Cherry Tree EP, but I bought two new albums last week, and they deserve a mention.


Worst things first: Mumford & Sons. I was introduced to them by two Maltese blokes while traveling this summer, and after I saw they were shortlisted for the Mercury with their debut album Sigh No More, I decided I had to get a hold of it. I don't know in which way it sounded different this summer, but I am slightly disappointed. If you asked ten people to place this band geographically in either London or somewhere in the American Midwest, nine of them would opt for the latter. Thanks to globalization and the ever-karrazzeeer mingling and criss-crossing of genres and influences, that's however not true. Now, I listen to much more music from London or Brooklyn, than from Seattle, but I don't think this is for me. It's purely a question of taste and preferences I guess, and I cannot completely rule out that Sigh No More will one day grow on me (can you ever, really?), but this is just too country for me. There's too much mandolin, too much banjo, and it seems to be applied very uncautiously.


Then there's young Danish indie-psych-poppers Treefight For Sunlight's debut, A Collection of Vibrations for Your Skull. I'm not quite decided on this one yet. That's a lie, actually. It's a bloody impressive album. I don't know, it's perhaps just all the hype surrounding the album - the 5- and 6/6 reviews and all that has led me to expect a masterpiece, and then it becomes sort of an anticlimax when the album, so far, turns out to be "just" very impressive. It kicks off spotlessly, with the two first joyful and pleasant tracks give way to 'The Universe Is A Woman', which is one of the albums definite musical highlights.


It almost becomes too rollickingly psychedelic and nauseatingly joyful at a few points, but only just about. The band cleverly keeps the sometimes slight over-the-top-ness in short leach, and turns it down a knot on pleasant tunes like 'They Never Did Know' and 'Time Stretcher', both of which are refreshingly finger-in-the-soil, and leave sufficient room for a beautiful escapade like 'Riddles In Rhymes'.


Then there's 'Facing The Sun'. It's often pretty hard to release a debut album on top of a highly successful hit single, but Treefight For Sunlight manage to overcome 'Facing The Sun's summer dominance - it fits pretty snugly into the whole ordeal, and while it by far isn't the most musically advanced track on the album, it's still an absolute favorite. I like it the same way I like Phoenix, for example, and even though it does seem slightly out of the place when the calendar reads October, it is a wonderful tune.


A Collection of Vibrations... is a pretty short and neat album, clocking in at only about 34 minutes. That's a good thing - sometimes young bands, especially very ambitious ones, tend to try and stuff much too much into their albums. To stay a bit within the genre, think of MGMT's Oracular Spectacular, on which, in my opinion, there's a pretty big drop-off between the 3-4 best tracks, and the less spectacular ones. Of course, there are tracks on A Collection of Vibrations... that are less interesting than others, but there isn't much of a gap. Another way Treefight For Sunlight manage to balance cleverly on the curious knife edge of debut records, is not selling out. Remember what happened to Oh No Ono between the Now You Know Oh No Ono-EP and their debut album? That's right - they became boring. Luckily, Treefight For Sunlight retain their confident sparkle.


So, what's the skinny on this? Well, it's a very good album. It's a very good debut album, which seems to have been what has propelled reviewers upwards, but it's a good album in it's own right, debut or not. It still very much remains to be seen how its longevity's like (I have my doubts...), but for sure Treefight For Sunlight have set a good benchmark for climbing even higher.


I'm waiting for Deerhunter's Halcyon Digest to drop in my mailbox. 9.2 on Pitchfork - that'll be rad!

Cherry Tree, you stunning hidden gem!

I had a revelation yesterday! I was listening to The National's wonderful album Boxer, and as 'Gospel' rang out, it segued into the Cherry Tree EP from 2004, which I haven't ever really heard, for some reason. I'm not good at EPs to be honest.


But holy shit, why didn't I think of this one sooner? Cherry Tree is like a The National album boiled down to the most essential and touching parts. It's just so beautiful. Like the absolutely amazing 'About Today', or 'Wasp Nest'. I mean, what astonishing ballads! And they're just the top of the bunch, the entire EP is just so soothing, save for the kinda misplaced live version of 'Murder Me Rachael' perhaps. 'Cherry Tree' and 'All Dolled-Up In Straps' are beautiful little pieces too, and 'Reasonable Man (I Don't Mind)' is so fantastically intimate. And 'All The Wine' (which is on Alligator too) is exquisite too - it reminds me very much of Bloc Party's wonderful 'Kreuzberg'. These songs are exactly in lieu of some of my favorite songs from Boxer and Alligator, such as 'Slow Show', 'Ada' and 'Daughters of the Soho Riots', and they're just so lovely all together.


I'm really lost for words on this one... Just really, really do listen to 'About Today'. It's just splendidly beautiful!

Dance little brother sport - and a new remixx.

Oi! A few tunes from the class of '09 have popped up this past week, that I wanted to share with y'all! One is  one of the at first glance more anonymous tracks on Arctic Monkeys' Humbug-record of yesteryear, that's really a prime representative of the much dustier style of the Monkeys on their third record. It's 'Dance Little Liar', which really kicks off viciously at 3:16. This latter part of the track is to some extent a comely reunification of Arctic Monkeys' earlier, intenser style and their obscureness of late.


The other sits at the unforgiving last spot of an album that is very easy to lose focus on, and thus it has taken me a long time to really get into this. I haven't really gotten into the album yet, even though everyone seemed to rave about it when it came out (and still do). It's 'Brother Sport', from Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion, which is really a joyful and much more popish tune than many of the more oddball tracks on this album. Very enjoyable.


Just to add some new stuff, Four Tet have done this marathon of a remix of 'VCR' from The xx' Mercury Prize-winning, eponymous album. It's pretty chill!


I had an awesome few days in Copenhagen this weekend, and I'm really massively looking forward to moving there! To make time pass, I ordered a few new albums this Monday - more on that soon...