Letters Have No Arms !

Letters Have No Arms Is Moving!

2010-02-18T16:03:00.001+02:00

As we mentioned last week, Letters have no Arms will also be joining the Great Blogger Exodus Of 2010. We found a great new home over at www.lettershavenoarms.com and would be mightily pleased to see you there.

We're still ironing a out a few things over at the new site, but feel it's sufficiently presentable to welcome you there. Please bookmark/update your bookmarks! We'll probably keep this site up for a little while, but won't be posting here anymore. Blogger, you've served us well, but the time has come for our roads to part...

See you on the other side!

www.lettershavenoarms.com

!!!

Commenting on this post is mandatory if you happen to be Japanese.

2010-02-17T15:51:00.002+02:00

I'd like to introduce [clapclapclap] Akiko Hijichi - a person I know nothing about. I can only hope you will love the works of this talented artist as much as I do! (see how craftily I've avoided specifying gender there? If anyone here speaks Japanese or is familiar with Japanese names please let me know if that's a masculine or feminine one, please. Thanks. This is embarrassing.)

Hot from my inbox:

Mojib - May Day Revisited (ft. UNKLE, The Radio dept. and The Duke Spirit)

The e-mail said:

”Mayday Revisited is a one-off single from Swedish music producer Mojib (Staffan Ulmert). The track reconstructs the song ”May day” released in 2007 by UNKLE featuring The Duke Spirit. Using the vocals of Liela Moss the track is being mashed together with lo-fi indie act The Radio dept. Mojib then adds his own piano and acapella melodies."

From the depths of my external hard drive: Valentine's Day Edition

2010-02-14T14:45:00.005+02:00

For this year's Valentine's Day, we're time-travelling back to the 60s, folks. Enjoy!

Little Peggy March - I Will Follow Him

The Dixie Cups - Chapel of Love

Linda Scott - I've Told Every Little Star

What would I do if I could have these songs dedicated to me today, but 10000 miles away someone else would fall off a bike and die ? Hmmm...

(songs you should dedicate to someone today)

Give me my f**king songs back!

(songs you can no longer dedicate to anyone because they will be forever associated with that b***h/that bastard)

p.s. the reason we haven't been very chatty lately is that we're working on moving the blog to our own domain, something I assume many blogs will be doing after the Blogger Scare of the past days. Worry not! We shall return mightier and awesomer* than ever.

*disclaimer: not a word; do not use in academical writing.

If You Tolerate This Your Children's Blogs Will Be Next

2010-02-12T14:43:00.000+02:00

If You Tolerate This Your Children's Blogs Will Be Next

Phew, it's been quite a few days for the music blogging community. What happened? This week Google decided to take down (i.e. completely delete) a number of large and smaller music blogs hosted on the popular Blogger and Blogspot services. For supposed copyright infringement. While in the past, Blogger would simply delete the offending posts (if you've ever found a dead link to a post, that's usually the reason), they've now moved to deleting entire blogs. You can read the full story here.

This obviously places us in a rather difficult position (given the we're, you know, a music blog and all). We now run the risk of being deleted at any given moment if we post (or have already posted) music we have not been expressly given (or even that we have been given) permission to post. The same could apply to images/artwork used (like the one I stole to make the image above).

Clearly continuing like this would be impossible, so it looks likely that Letters have no Arms will soon be moving itself to an independently hosted site within the near future. So, unless they delete us before we move (please don't), you will therefore be seeing a few changes around here pretty soon!

Until then, we'll simply have to be VERY careful with what we post, and will start with a few songs SENT to us this week. Of course we'll have to delete them as soon as any of these bands gets big and starts selling records, after which their lawyers will hunt us down and delete our blogs. ;-)

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Beat the Devil's Tattoo

Remember them? Dark clothes. A bit moody. Sounded a bit like the Jesus and Mary Chain, then didn't. Had a very pretty drummer, then didn't. Well, they're back (so is the drummer), and if you just ignore the horrific title (In fact I even suggest changing its title in the tag of the song, to something like, oh don't know, how about, you know, just 'Beat the Devil'?), it's actually pretty good.

Godzilla Black - Fear of a Flat Planet

Speaking of names, how's THIS for you!? How could this NOT kick little fleeing human ass? Sounds a bit like Millionaire (early 00s and very overlooked - I know, what a fucking cliché - Belgian band) making out with Queens of the Stone Age in a dirty toilet somewhere. Listening to it might make you feel a little badass.

Infadels - Ghosts

This one's all electropoppy and has a dark sexy vocal singing about ghosts (double sexy!). I can totally picture boys and girls in a club drinking cheap beer and doing that cute arm swinging thing they do to electropoppy music like this (you know the one where you kinda let it hang and swing it from left to right, occasionally mimicking playing a keyboard along with the music). Remix options aplenty as well.

The High Wire - Leave Me In Love

Dreamy and sweet and perfect for Valentine's Day mixtapes.

Prince Flame - Girls

Close your curtains, turn up the heater, fill your bath, close your eyes and pretend it's summer, you're at the beach, and those girls over there are actually looking at you.

p.s. Subscribe to Letters have no Arms via that pretty link I just installed at the top right of the page!

p.p.s. BUY a Metric t-shirt!

New music: Trash Kit

2010-02-10T13:27:00.000+02:00

Trash Kit - Fame

Trash Kit - Cadets

Album is out February 22nd.

No, I have no random trivia or annoying rants about it. You can sigh the glorious sigh of relief.

Just listen to the songs.

*pic by Claudia Susana*

[though said with hands in pocket, I mean it hand on heart]

2010-02-04T23:01:00.007+02:00

So, Los Campesinos! rant today. Ready? Predictably, it's about the new Romance Is Boring, an album I've been listening to quite a lot these days. I am very perplexed by all the bloggers and journalists who have hastened to proclaim it the band's most "mature" work to date. Whatever they mean by "mature". This is the point where I feel the need to insert an innocent enough remark from a Pitchfork Guy that nonetheless quite bugged me. Here's what Pitchfork Guy said: "It's fun watching bands grow; it's been a pleasure watching this band grow up." My annoyance at that quote can be summed up thus:

Change is not synonymous with Growth.

Yes, this is a band that has changed a great deal from that first EP but does that necessarily mean they've grown? Would you say the Editors' sudden decision to Experiment musically (ahem) is growth?* No, you wouldn't. Why? Because growth implies a (gradual, to the point of being sometimes imperceptible) change for the better. To me, what they're doing is more of a completely willful and somewhat stubborn change, something like an eight-year-old pounding his fists on the table and demanding to be a grown up already so he can eat whatever he wants and play video-games all day long. Growth doesn't happen like that. Growth happens instinctively, naturally, without you having to force its [metaphorical] hand. We-don't-want-people-to-think-we're-twee-so-now-we're-moving-in-a-different-direction-just-so-they-can't-call-us-that-anymore is not growth. [Parenthesis: there's nothing wrong with twee, you know. There's also nothing wrong with catchy-ness and singalong-ability - both things the new album very much lacks.] Saying you're embarrassed of your previously-released material is really NOT growth. "There’s one or two songs that are a bit cringey, so we try to avoid playing them as much as possible. There’s one which I may have rid us of forever – 'We throw parties, you throw knives.' I don’t like it at all, I don’t think we’ll play that again. 'It started with a mix' is alright, but I doubt we’ll do that again either. But if I can get rid of Tweecore [2007 single 'International Tweexcore Underground'], I’ll be happy. Once that’s gone, onwards and upwards." Okay, I'm sorry: I respect this guy (for music he has made and lyrics he has penned) but that statement is just not nice towards your fans, especially towards that portion of your fans for whom the songs you now dis actually mean something. Personally, I LOVE "We Throw Parties You Throw Knives" and don't appreciate a) being made to feel self-conscious about that, as if my love for that song rather than the boring new These Are Listed Buildings means I am less intelligent/have bad music taste/don't "get" what they're doing now b) being told what songs of theirs I should have a preference for. Same with their statements about the new album. Okay, you might think that this is your best, most mature work and that's fine: most artists say that for every new album; they kind of have to. Just don't say- I can't remember the exact quote but something like - "anyone who doesn't think this is our best album is wrong." I'll pick my own favourite songs and albums, thank you very much. And because I suddenly feel I've portrayed myself as a whiny LC-hater (while I'm just an annoyed LC-lover) or, even worse, as the kind of person who thinks the first album or obscure EP (of ANY band) is always better than the new album because that's "too commercial, dude" I will also say the following. There IS one thing Pitchfork did get right:

For some, the cohesive, self-assured Romance will be their favorite Los Campesinos! record; others will continue to prefer the extremity of what came before. That's the breaks with an intensely personal band like this, I suppose; you're going to get intensely personal reactions.

Thanks for reading my intensely personal reaction. Now go listen to the album and develop your own. I'd love to hear all about it.

One of the few songs I kind of like from Romance Is Boring.

*Pitchfork's reaction to that debacle (Editors) was much more to my liking: "Give 'em credit here for going a long way towards dismantling what we've come to know about Editors." or "You know that kid in your dorm who took a semester's worth of intro lit and philosophy classes as a license to use the word "Kafka-esque" at every opportunity? 'In This Light and on This Evening' is for that guy."

Die Antwoord = the answer

2010-02-03T15:15:00.008+02:00

These are dark days. Rain. Cold. Darkness. Unemployment. Swine flu. And it's times like these that call for futuristic rap crews like Die Antwoord. Coming on like some twisted Chernobylesque Chris Cunningham, Flight of the Conchords, Chris Morris, Tim Westwood, David Lynch hybrid love child, Die Antwoord hail from ever-cooler South Africa, and have come to give us the fokkin antwoord. 

  
Based in his grandmother's house, beat-monster DJ Hi-Tek (he owns a PC computer, see) cooks up next level beats for zef rap-rave master Ninja's (he's a ninja, see) zieker dan ziek flow and crack-baby-chic jail bait bubble gum fre$h futuristik rich bitch YO-LANDI VI$$ER's 21st century answer to 90's eurohouse vocals.

  Fre$h!

 Die Antwoord - Enter the Ninja

 Check their interweb 

A Little Lost

2010-02-02T00:36:00.003+02:00

Hurray! Approximately 5 years* since season 5 ended with a pop, a bang and a collective WTF?, Lost returns to our screens tomorrow night - or for those outside the US, sometime Wednesday afternoon/evening (torrents permitting). As any true Lost fan and probably much of the rest of the TV-viewing world know, season 6 will be the final season of Lost, and the one in which fans will be looking for all loose ends to be tied up, their favourite couples to finally end up together, their favourite dead characters to be brought back to life and their least favourite characters to die spectacular deaths. Is it all a dream? Are they in Hell? A NYC block (a la Synecdoche, New York)? What's Smokie? Who's Jacob?

Find out starting tomorrow night!

Don't remember what's what or who's who? Catch up in just 8 minutes and 15 seconds:

Songs, simply, with Lost in the title...

Phoenix - Lost and Found

The Mary Onettes - Lost

Arthur Russell - A Little Lost

Radio Dept. - Lost and Found

Lightspeed Champion - Galaxy of the Lost

Songs that may well bring back a few Lost memories...

Petula Clark - Downtown

Mama Cass Elliot - Make Your Own Kind Of Music

And, something you can play to make your friends think Lost has already started when they're still in the kitchen making that cup of tea...

Lost main theme (Michael Giacchino)

*or what sure felt like it

Just another day.

2010-01-28T23:03:00.003+02:00

Today. Just another day, but at the same time, uhm, not really because today - of all days, today! - I HAVE BEEN SAVED. Someone has finally perfectly translated feelings I often have into intelligible English sentences:

"Have you ever made an effort to voice or give word-shape to your complaints or fears? Have you ever tried to articulate your reasons for stomping along the sidewalk glaring at everyone, or wanting to cry because of a snapped shoelace, or waking up in the middle of the night with a bunch of anxiety squatting on your chest like a copy of The Riverside Shakespeare? When someone asks you “What's wrong?” you try to tell them, and it comes out sounding stupid and petty and doesn't begin to touch the very deep sense of wrongness, you end up talking about the superficial things like the shoelace or how you have a lot of work to do or how you haven't been sleeping well. And that just makes you angrier with yourself, because now you have painted yourself as the sort of person who gets all bent out of shape about shoelaces and work stress. But isn't it easier to articulate the symptoms than the disease? The moral of this story is KEEP IT TO YOURSELF, BUCKO. It's easier for you. It's easier for others, because then they can just say “oh yeah work stress that sucks” and use that as a hook for them to launch into their own tale of woe, which call me cynical but sometimes that feels like what 90% of human conversation is about (everyone else asking, even demanding, that you share your feelings but listening only long enough to explain their own). Of course, the “keep it to yourself” maxim, when it comes to mental suffering, works only for a little while unless one has a safety valve, like a big mountain to look at, or a personal web page (ouch), or the opportunity and energy to go make a lot of extremely loud noise, or a friend who belongs to the other 10%.
I wish so much of my thoughts weren't all tangled up with my moods. I either want to (a) live up to my self-conception of being a logical and thoughtful person, all the time, and not let minor things like Crushing Despair With No Root Cause enter my world, or (b) become a creature solely of mood, and let my overdeveloped self-awareness muscles atrophy. Because when I am being stupid, as above, I know that I am being stupid, and when I am happy I think “Is this me, being happy? Is this what happiness is for me?” and when I am depressed I am never able to fully give in to it, because I totally recognize every little symptom for what it is, and I get all strict and disciplinarian and call myself on my bullshit, and I become irritated with my stupid overdramatic neurochemical system, and I end up just wanting to get over myself already. Which does nothing to fix the depression, but which does add another lovely little layer of self-loathing on top of everything."

Mimi Smartypants, I bow to you. I HAVE FOUND MY SAVIOUR, and it is you. Give it up for Mimi Smartypants everyone. She is one of my favourite bloggers. In fact, whenever Mimi Smartypants fails to update her blog for a few days at a time, I'm so starved of Mimismartypantsness that I have to go through the blog-archive and find something she's written in the past, like some lame, desperate smoker who scans ashtrays for cigarette butts that can be relit. Which is how I came upon the above text (posted back in 2002!) and nearly wept with "I'm not such a freak after all" joy.

A song: Memories (Someone We'll Never Know), the soundtrack to one of the most beautiful scenes from Moon - which you have no excuse not to have seen by now, whoever you are and regardless of how you might feel about sci-fi movies in general.

A video: Kiwi! by Dony Permedi is a cute animation about - how'd you guess? - a kiwi. Which is a type of bird that can't fly. But this particular kiwi is not to be discouraged by this oversight on nature's part. Instead, he/she (I'll stick with 'he' this time, it looks like a 'he' to me) spends what surely must be his entire life nailing trees to the side of a cliff so that, when he decides to jump off it, the kiwi will have created the illusion that he is flying. Visually, this isn't impressive animation but if that story isn't motivational, I'm not sure what is.

I'm sorry if I've gotten sloppy with these electronic dreams, but they're all I have.

2010-01-27T00:40:00.003+02:00

The colours were designed to promote the promise of a fantastic future,
A better tomorrow, instead we got this.

Hot Chip - Hand Me Down Your Love (One life Stand, 2010)

Cold Cave - Heavenly Metals (Cremations, 2009)

Lali Puna - Remember (Our Inventions, 2010)

Don't Judge a Song by its Cover

2010-01-23T16:47:00.001+02:00

I know, I know! I've been notable in my absence. Notably absent. Absence duly noted. Thankfully, Eliza's been holding down the LHNA fort in said absence. In my defence, I've been oh so busy; pretty much working non-stop since getting back from Spain a few weeks ago (more on that in the coming months...). And yet it's no excuse! So sorry, dear reader!

Here are a few pretty special recent covers (+ an older one) for your listening pleasure:

Grizzly Bear - Boy From School (Hot Chip)

Superchunk - Say My Name (Destiny's Child)

Jay Reatard - Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle (Nirvana)

Ted Leo - With Every Heartbeat (Kleerup feat. Robyn cover)

I am a wolf in sheep's clothing.

2010-01-22T14:24:00.003+02:00

Last Letter from the Mary Celeste

The Majestic Song of the Majestic Humpback Whale

These are the lovely songs of a band called Trouble Books.

What you should know about this band:

They are from Ohio. I like them.

Moving on.

The more astute of you might have noticed that something peculiar has happened to our last.fm widgets. There it is, on your right, first a drawing of a handsome-looking guy that bears the heading "Steven's Top Last.fm Artists of the Week". And underneath that, where an illustration of an equally good-looking girl is supposed to be (hey, if we can't make our alter-egos hot then why have them at all?) instead stands, smiling benignly upon our readers and blissfully chewing on some grass, a sheep. I have no idea how this happened. I guess I must have been messing around with it too much - anyway - the upshot of it all is that our blog appears to be written by a guy named Steven (unshaved, glasses, nonchalantly sitting in armchair reading books) and his charming even-toed ungulate.

It must be said that I'm a pretty cool sheep, thinking them thoughts and writing them words and listening to them songs like that. If you're completely in shock right now please, for the love of humanity, take some time to cool off and don't immediately go calling the news channels for I'll be submitted to horrid experiments and insane IQ tests and paraded on CNN like I'm some sort of freak and shoved in a cage for everyone to gawk at and my existence will be a bleak and miserable one. Take some pity on this unfortunate ovine and keep your awe to yourself.

Peace.

Dog days, MediaMonkey, the flu, Neil Gaiman. Wondering how all this could possibly be related? It's not.

2010-01-20T23:31:00.009+02:00

Photo credit: Miles Aldridge

Lately, in the morning hours, you'll sometimes find me playing the shit out of these songs:
Beach House - Used to Be

Beat Circus - Boy From Black Mountain

Colour - Over the Moon

Owen Pallett - Keep the Dog Quiet

But that's not all I do. I've also been obsessed with researching the etymology of random words and idioms lately. Which means I'm looking for people to annoy with my newly-found bits of trivia and I think YOU (yes, you!) fit the bill. Did you know, for instance, that the expression "dog days" is owed to an astute observation by those darling ancient Romans, who noticed that during the hottest days of the year (in late July and August) Sirius - the brightest star in the night sky, also called the Dog Star - was positioned in the same part of the sky as the sun? Nor did they believe this to be a mere coincidence (coincidence? in ancient Rome? HELL NO!) but they actually thought the presence of the star in the Sun's vicinity to be the cause of the heat. In a similar vein, (this is not something I discovered recently but it seems like a good place to mention it for those wondering) the word influenza (commonly known as the 'flu') takes its name from yet another phenomenon blamed on "the stars": the vicious flu epidemic that erupted in the beginning of the 1700s struck so many people in such a short period of time (SO not coincidental) that it was attributed to the, ahem, influence of a particular configuration of the stars. Thus, influenza - Italian for influence (derived from Medieval Latin influentia). I find all this fascinating. If you don't however - fair enough - don't think I stuck that song on top just because it had the word "dog" in it. I would never do that to you. Owen Pallett's newest album has been on repeat on my MediaMonkey. I kid you not. Go listen. To the whole album! - the song might sound weird out of context. (How many gazillions of times is the name Media Monkey cooler than Media Player? or iTunes for that matter? Even if you weren't convinced of the fact that it's a better program - which it IS - you should switch to MM just for the chance to utter the words Media and Monkey in the same sentence countless times a day. Parenthesis over.)

Adam Green - Bathing Birds

Out soon: New Adam Green album! New Album Leaf album! New Alex Tucker album! Hurray for the letter A! (The letter A is so cool that it actually rhymes with 'hurray!')

Delving into that tiny little corner of my heart reserved for juvenile, emo-sounding hardcore bands, I've been enjoying - in the masochistic sense of the word? - A History Of lately. Some of their songs sound like a less eloquent and less religious mewithoutyou. The latter is a good thing.

Neglecting the songs in your inbox, on the other hand, is a BAD thing. Very bad thing. And this band's why:

B for Butterfly - Photograph

Photo credit: Miles Aldridge

These New Puritans - Attack Music

State Shirt - This Is Old

Finally, the bit we've all been waiting for (fine, I've been waiting for): These New Puritans have a new album. Aww yeah. I have only listened to two songs from it thus far but cannot wait to get my hands on it. Drowned In Sound have awarded it a 9 out of 10, which bodes well and, fortunately, so do the aforementioned already-heard songs. I better be careful how I use my hands today because I'll need those fingers for crossing. They have potential for great things, this band. State Shirt now on the other hand are not a band I expect much from. Though they are tagged "experimental" on Last.fm, I confess mine ears hear no experimenting with new sounds being done. However in a way, they make me think of TNP, by way of contrast. They are less interesting, perhaps, but also more accessible and, one could argue, catchier. So the two songs perfectly complement each other - at least to my (booze-addled, twisted) mind.

Lastly, and in no way related to the above, I quite like Neil Gaiman's answer to the timeworn "If you hadn't been a writer...?" question in the New Yorker today:

"I would have wanted to design religions. I’d have a little shop, and people would phone up or come into the shop and they’d say, ‘I’d like a religion’. And I’d say, ‘Cool, O.K. Where do you stand on guilt, and how do you want to fund it? And would you like sort of a belief in the universe as a huge beneficent organ? Or would you like something more complex?’ And they’d say, ‘Oh, we’d like God to be really big on guilt.’ And I’d say, ‘O.K., how does Wednesday sound to you as a sacred day?’ ”

Terrible Yellow Eyes

2010-01-14T23:17:00.003+02:00

A grand statement to start the post:

"Terrible Yellow Eyes is a wonderful website."

Music to establish the right mood before elaborating:
Jams Dean - Where the Wild Jams Are
Language-Arts - Where Were You in the Wild?

Explanation:

Terrible Yellow Eyes is a project initiated by Cory Godbey in an attempt to pay tribute to one of his favourite artists, Maurice Sendak. If you have managed not to get sucked into the "Where the Wild Things Are" craze, congratulations. You must either have been living at the bottom of the LOST hatch, or you're much less impressionable than I am because, man, I'm such a sucker for it. Now Cory Godbey here appears to not only have fallen for it as well but also managed to convince a bunch of other talented artists to go completely Sendak-crazy and create their own rendition of Max and the wild things. Some drawings are scary, some happy, some nostalgic, some colourful, some dark, some in ink, some in watercolor - but they are all unique in their own little way. Terrible Yellow Eyes has thus managed to amass a most enviable collection of illustrations. We here at LHNA highly recommend you pay the site a visit, bookmark it, and go back to it again and again. Guaranteed mood-lifter.*

P.S. The illustration on top was made by mr. Cory Godbey himself, to whom we are so very grateful for not minding (?) that we've used some of the pictures. (that's one huge-ass assumption there)

Sample drawings

Sarah Caterisano:

Jason Caffoe:

Aurélie Neyret:

Shaun Pendergast:

Kyle Pierce:

David Müller:

Alina Chau:

*We guarantee your satisfaction with the site for at least 120 minutes from the date of mouse-clicking for all of our products. If you are not satisfied, we will refund the time you spent browsing aforementioned site according to the policies and conditions stated in our policy.

New Magnetic Fields!

2010-01-13T10:36:00.000+02:00

"But know that I love you, know that I wrote my last words to you from a sinking boat..."

The Magnetic Fields - From a Sinking Boat

Pre-order Realism here (UK)

LHNA's Best of 2009 Pt. 2 (50-1)

2010-01-07T00:27:00.025+02:00

50. The Dutchess and the Duke - Hands

49. Camera Obscura - French Navy

Best song on the new album? But of course.

48. Ramona Falls - I Say Fever

[E:] That video. Those drunken piano notes. That Poeesque sense of atmosphere. Jesus.

47. Cymbals Eat Guitars - Wind Phoenix
[E:] Electric guitars are not out. Proof.

Also. Don't dare take the lovely ohoohoh at 1:48 for granted, for it's only offered once during the whole song.

[S] If you are a cymbal, we definitely do not recommend eating guitars. Should you ingest even a small piece of a guitar (or even a pick for that matter), please induce vomiting and seek medical advice immediately.

46. Devendra Banhart - Angelika

[S] If you Google Angelika, the first batch of hits are for a girl called Angelika, who just happens to be naked and posing in a rather suggestible manner throughout - usually around a swimming pool. Actually there appear to be several Angelikas. I don't think Devendra Banhart had any of these in mind when writing this, but I can't be sure. In fact, the song above may well be about the same girl.

45. Julie Doiron - Consolation Prize

[E:] Harshly realistic after-the-breakup lyrics sung by a sugary-voiced girl who manages to sound heartbroken and amused at the same time. Like she sees the humour in the situation as well. "People insisted on telling you what a great couple you had been". A song about survival with a folky-pop vocals feel, yet with Ramones-like power chords and drumbeats. The sound of glass breaking and Julie screaming "Look out! LOOK OUT!". I'm in love.

44. Dawes - When My Time Comes
"I thought that one quick moment that was noble or brave
Would be worth the most of my life

So I pointed my fingers, and shouted a few quotes I knew
As if something that's written should be taken as true"

[E:] This song makes me feel better about failing, about stumbling about, about getting lost, about screwing up, about not knowing what the fuck I'm doing.

43. Los Campesinos - The Sea Is a Good Place to Think of the Future

"It affords me a curious pleasure to stand upon this bridge and watch the violent forces which the churning waves, advancing or retreating, generate within the confined space of the rocky hole."
The Sea, The Sea (Iris Murdoch)

42. Modest Mouse - The Whale Song

41. Cursive - From the Hips

[E:] 2009. The year Cursive release "Mama, I'm Swollen". Practically every critic, reviewer or blogger on the planet says it's either bad or not-that-great. Take your pick. I'll go with not-that-great. I won't say bad because there are two or three songs like this one on it. It sounds like typical Cursive and it reads like fin-de-siècle literature. Tim Kasher going on about how he hates the Enlightenment and how people are better off as animals. They're certainly not the first band to sing about this but somehow it sounds different -edgier, more dangerous - when Cursive do it. If there's one thing this song does it's this: it leaves me hopeful that one day I'll sing along to "Oh, Cursive is so cool!" again without wondering if I still mean it.

40. Animal Collective - Bluish

[S] From the album the blogosphere collectively fell in love with, listened to on repeat and used up last year's supply of superlatives on. My Girls was great, but for me, this was the real standout track.

39. Jay-Z ft Alicia Keys - Empire State of Mind

In New York,
I'm from where dreams are made of,
There's nothing you can't do,
Now you're in New York,
these streets will make you feel brand new,
the lights will inspire you,
lets here it for New York, New York, New York

[S] Don’t know about you, but every time I hear Empire State Of Mind, I have to fight the urge to surf to Skyscanner.com to check upcoming prices to NYC.

38. The Wailing Wall - Sister, I

[E:] How refreshing that the sweetest love song of the year should be addressed to a sister, not a lover. That piano has one superpower: it can crawl right into your bones and numb you.

37. Fever Ray - When I Grow Up

Fantastic imagery:
"When I grow up I want to be a forester
Run through the moss on high heels
That's what I'll do
Throwing out boomerang, waiting for it to come back to me.
When I grow up I want to live near the sea
Crab claws and bottles of rum
That's what I'll have
Staring at the seashell, waiting for it to embrace me."

36. Slow Club - Our Most Brilliant Friends

[E:] Slow Club finally released their first album. In a way I envied people who hadn't heard of them before this album because they got to experience the glee of stumbling upon such irresistible, teasing songs like Me and You and Because We're Dead, or bittersweet, hopeful ones like When You Go or Apples and Pairs. Slow Club didn't ignore their fans though and rewarded them for their patience with great new material the likes of It Doesn't Have to Be Beautiful (in the vein of their catchiest songs), I Was Unconscious It Was a Dream (continuing the tradition of their quirky ballads) and this, Our Most Brilliant Friends which is effectively a combination of their two types of songs and probably my favourite of their new ones. Part 1 of the song would make you believe this is really just a tune about dancing; but when a song so catchy and melodically unpredictable manages to pack lines like "All our most brilliant friends are doubting themselves" , you know you've got something great there. Part 2 of the song - several seconds of silence after the end of part 1, as is customary with last tracks - is here to calm you down after all that dancing. Lyrically though, the quirkiness continues: "I just wanted to see that new Tim Burton movie/ or hang around with Laura, Jane, and Suzie /And I definitely want to be a rapper/ but I'm just a northern girl from where nothing really happens/ And the bones inside my shins are crumbling/It's from all the crunking I've been doing"

35. Future of the Left - The Hope that House Built

[E:] This is 2009's "American Jesus". Too big a compliment? Don't think so.

34. Lil'Wayne - A Milli (DJDT Remix)

[S] Motherfucker, I'm ILL, not sick.

33. Nurses - Caterpillar Playground
[E:] I want to paint all my dreams over with this song. Mash them all together until they're one big gooey mess of whistles, rainforests and polka-dotted galoshes stomping around. 2,3,4. 1,2,3,4.

32. Dead Man's Bones - Young & Tragic

[E:] DMB's debut album is one of those records you can play without the necessity for song-skipping ever arising. So I listened to it lots this year. I listened to it at home, I listened to it on buses, I wrote about it on this blog, I posted lyrics from it as Facebook status updates. My Body's a Zombie for You was the first song from the album I fell in love with, Pa Pa Power is the catchiest one, Flowers Grow Out of my Grave probably the most unconventional. But for some reason it's Young & Tragic that struck a chord with me the most. Possibly because it sounds like it could belong on Nosotrash's "Popemas" (anyone who knows the album will understand what I mean), possibly because it sounds like a Japanese proverb put into song, or maybe because it doesn't even feel like a song at all but a magical incantation or prayer reiterated by a chorus of dreamy children. Possibly because it makes me nostalgic. Possibly because these two lines might be the most beautiful ones I've heard all year: "I wish that we were magic, so we wouldn't be so young and tragic"

31. Their Hearts Were Full of Spring - A Question of Trust
Without a doubt, their best song to date.

30. The Juan MacLean - One Day

[E:] Seeing the title on its own would suggest a song full of clichés about world peace and saving the environment and all that. One day ...*wistful sigh* there will be no possessions. And no religion, too! But then you realize it's actually a song full of clichés about an unfulfilling relationship! ("You've denied me, baby, the satisfaction of your love so I've been walking home alone because you left me out in the cold.") Of course by that point you're bouncing up and down faster than a yo-yo, so you don't really care that much what the song is about. You just wish all electro was this catchy.

29. Passion Pit - Eyes As Candles

[E:] This is how I sing this song: BLAAAAH! BLAH BLAAH! BLAH BLAAAH! BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH! BLAH BLAAAH! BLAH BLAAAH! BLAH BLAAAH! BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAAH IT FEELS THE WAY YOU TOLD ME HOW IT ALWAYS FEELS.

Repeat.

It never gets boring.

28. Philip Seymour Hoffman - Roads and Paper Routes

[E:] The Books have been successfully proving to everyone, for a while now, that not only musical sounds, but also random snippets of conversation, interviews, scientific babble, laughter or crying or coughing, or any other sound generated in the human larynx can be used to improve a song. Philip Seymour Hoffman, with this song, consolidate that theory beyond any doubt.

27. The National - So Far Around the Bend

You've been humming and I think it's forever
Praying for pavement to get back together
Nobody knows where you are living
Nobody knows where you are

You're so far around the bend

[S] Perhaps it was the cumulative force of thousands of hipsters worldwide singing along to this line that did it, perhaps it was just the promise of a mountain of cash - whatever the reason, fuck it, it's happening. Just another reason to love The National.

26. The Music Tapes - For the Planet Pluto

[E:]Holy interplanetary yard stick, Batman! Who needs clever lyrics and storylines when strange spaceship sounds and a simple enumeration of planets can sound so damn cool? They should introduce this song in kindergarten. "The easy way to learn the planets of the Solar System." Now, come on children, let me hear you sing: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus and Neptune and Pluto...and Pluto!!! (And hey - if these guys say Pluto is a planet, then it's a friggin' planet again, ain't it?)

25. Royksopp ft Robyn - The Girl and the Robot

24. The Paper Chase - What Should We Do With Your Body? (The Lightning)

[E:] This is creepy and seductive and morbid and addictive at the same time. And of course by saying that I'm completely missing the point the band is trying to make, which I'm sure is something huge and important about the fate of humanity and religion and war and all sorts of grand things like that. But I'm not gonna talk about the lyrics this time. I'll just say that this is a beautiful song. Of course it's very possible that the main reason I'm saying that is the part from 3:58 onwards. It's a possibility.

23. School of Seven Bells - Iamundernodisguise
(in an interview with LHNA earlier this year:)

LHNA: What are the advantages of being a band? And what’s not so great about it?

School of Seven Bells: "Putting everything you have into what you love. Putting everything you have into what you love."
Can you tell?

22. La Roux - Quicksand

[E:] Some might say the singer's voice gets annoying after a while. Some might say it's not exactly "sophisticated". Some might use the words "trendy" or "commercial". Some might say it's nothing new. I say: it sure gets your body moving though, doesn't it?

21. Karen O and the Kids - Rumpus
[E:] I know now what this song is all about.
It's about moments.
Moments like these:
0:24 seconds into the song - "LET THE WILD RUMPUS START!" (aka "this is what childhood tastes like")
0:28 - the most exhilarating transition in a song this year. Max's roar ends. Screams of "Go! Go! Go" in the background. The gleeful, inebriating piano. The drumbeat pulsing with a sense of wonder and adventure. I feel I'm six again. I feel HAPPY. Not just happy - but genuinely, thrillingly delighted and HAPPY in capital letters.
1:40 - Ahahahhhah ahaaahahh aaaahhh aaaaaaahh aaaah

20. Matt & Kim - Daylight

[E:] I dare you not to move, bounce, clap, sway, waggle, rock or shake any body parts during this one.

19. Kings of Convenience - Boat Behind

[S:] 2009 surely saw few images as joy-inducing as the two Kings of Convenience driving their car through the countryside singing ‘so we meet again, after several years’.

And about time, methinks!

18. Cats On Fire - Horoscope

[E:] Points for the Morrissey-esque vocals. Bonus points for lyrics such as these:

"You say you don't belong here because someone once said you look like a star

Another drunk man saw a chance."

And extra funpoints for the lovely and incredibly catchy guitar riff that sounds like a bouzouki. Trrum trrumtrum truumtrumtrum trumtrum trumtrumtrum trum.

[S:] Letters have no Arms strongly discourages you actually setting fire to your c... oh, you get it

17. Mew - Silas the Magic Car

[E:] Daydreamers of the world unite. Time for some serious woolgathering.

16. Atlas Sound - Walkabout (ft. Noah Lennox)

15. Regina Spektor - Hero

[E:] No one can say I didn't try to get into Regina Spektor's new album this year. I failed abysmally. Maybe I'm weird in that I notice and care a lot about the lyrics in a song but I just couldn't get over the absurdity, idiocy or plain awfulness of some of the ones on this album. "No one laughs at God in a hospital/ No one laughs at God in a war /No one's laughing at God when they're starving or freezing or so very poor"? Seriously? If she was kidding it might be funny but the scary thing is she's actually serious. Wait it goes on. "No one laughs at God when the doctor calls after some routine tests/ No one's laughing at God when it's gotten real late and their kid's not back from that party yet"? I'm sorry but NO. Let's try another track. "It's like forgetting the words to your favorite song /You can't believe it, you were always singing along /It was so easy and the words so sweet /You can't remember; you try to feel the beat"? I'm 101% certain that if I payed a five-year-old to write poetry he would come up with better rhymes than so sweet/the beat. Thankfully on "Hero" Regina has kept it simple, and it seems simplicity and repetition work for her in this case. The hero of the story doesn't need to be saved. No one's got it all. It's alright. It's alright. Simple but powerful sentences. The song was also an excellent choice for the soundtrack of 500 Days of Summer and played during what is arguably one of the film's most poignant and wonderful scenes (poignant and wonderful partly because of this song). I could have done without the bit about TVs trying to rape us (wtf?!) but okay, "no one's got it all", right?

14. Au Revoir Simone - Take Me As I Am

[E:] Au Revoir Simone's 2009 release, "Still Night, Still Light" was so good I didn't listen to anything else for the whole first week after it came out. It was so good it proved impossible to pick one representative song from it - as they are all great - and we ended up picking one at random. It was so good that David Lynch hastened to proclaim himself a fan of the band: "Their music really makes me dream. It opens up a world that wasn’t opened up before.” I'm glad he did because the album probably reached a wider audience than it would have without his blessing. And it deserves a wider audience, damn it.

13. The Pains of Being Pure At Heart - Young Adult Friction

[E:] Geeky teenage romance in a library. With an unhappy ending. And a song full of library / sex puns: "you put your back to the spines", "don't check me out". Get it? Oh, you clever New Yorkers. I'm so glad you're making music.

12. Yacht - Psychic City (Voodoo City)

11. The Antlers - Wake

[E:] The Antlers had plenty of good songs on their debut album. Songs people raved about. Songs posted and re-posted. Most of them in a way easier to like than this one. Most of them that require less patience. Wake, at 8 minutes and 44 seconds, is a track you must invest in. With a build-up that lasts pretty much until 2 minutes before the end and the only semblance of a chorus kicking in (actually more like tiptoeing in) at around the same time, this is obviously not a song that offers instant gratification. But it is on this, the last song of the album before their Epilogue, where the Antlers reach a greatness they merely promised with the previous tracks. Everything about it is understated, subtle. Missing instruments replaced by a subdued background hum. Explanations offered only through gentle suggesting metaphors. " When your helicopter came and tried to lift me out, I put its rope around my neck. " A grimace of pain rather than an agonizing scream. An understanding nod that's more moving than the strongest hug could ever be. And that's because you feel they're actually sincere - it actually means something: "Some patients can't be saved, but that burden's not on you. Don't ever let anyone tell you you deserve that. Don't ever let anyone tell you you deserve that."

10. Ghost Mall - Johnny Appleseed

[E:] We said: "Their songs feel rusty but comfortable, kind - like a friend's handshake and the promise to see you later; to get you through the day. "Let's save the world. Let's save the world. That's why we do this. " As if they're constantly trying to jolt you, make you move, wake up, do something. And if extending a sweaty helping hand is what it takes for you to start living, they'll offer it to you. They'll do that. They'll mutter words of encouragement: 'Listen, we can do this together. But you need to be a part of it, too. That's the point we're trying to make here!' " But nothing we said can possibly put into words what is surely the best intro to a song we've heard all year. Possibly the best intro to a song ever since 'You! Me! Dancing!':

" It will be at a party or at some sort of reunion or a funeral... I won't recognize you right away but I'll make sure we talk. You'll paw at the ground with your patent leather shoes, eyes staring straight at the floor if we talk about you - but that little flicker in your face when we mention those historic 792 days, 11 hours, 18 minutes and 47 seconds will let me know that you know that I know that you know *emphatic pause*

you fucked up."

*enter guitar*

9. Jeffrey Lewis - Bugs & Flowers

[E:] Oh how I love Jeffrey Lewis this year. I didn't use to. In my head for a long time he was always in the same vague indie folkish dudes I kind of like but will not put on any favourite lists any time soon. You know. Andrew Bird. M Ward. Iron & Wine. Whatever. Until I saw him live. That's when I realized that this is not a guy that grew up on indie pop or folk and then decided he wanted to sound like that so he joined a band. Nope. This is a guy that grew up on a diet of punk and rock-n'roll but was talented enough to put his own soul into them and brave enough to write clever lyrics for them and not care whether someone would notice or give a damn. We have here not the geeky guy in school (the geek look is cool now anyway)- but the nerdy one: the one that was drawing comics and making music in the hope that he would be a little cooler. And of course, the irony of it is that now he is cool for a lot of people exactly because he's uncool. Anti-folk, or whatever they call it these days, is a scene and people love you more the weirder you are. But you know what? It doesn't matter. You can call him anti-folk or folk-punk or indie-rock or indiepopppofolkiehiphotwee or whatever you want. As long as you listen to his music. Which is fan-fuckin'-tastic.

8. The Drums - Don't Be a Jerk Johnny

"You used to be so pretty but now you're just tragic
Believe in something! You're full of horseshit."

[E:] The ultimate after-breakup revenge song? A casual lovers' fight in an endlessly repeated series of casual lovers' fights? One of those couples that get off on being mean to each other? Are the lyrics meant to be bitter or angry or funny? And why is it that I feel a deep sense of satisfaction and smugness every time I sing them?

[S:] In an alternate universe, this could be a sequel to Jonathan Richman's I'm Straight, which concerns a boy by the name of Hippie Johnny (he's always stoned, he's never straight).

7. Grizzly Bear - While You Wait for the Others

[E:] Best song from the new album, hands down. And with an album as unanimously praised as this one, that really is saying something.

6. Metric - Blindness

Find us a trap door, find us a plane
Tell the survivors help is on the way
I was a blindfold, never complained
All the survivors singing in the rain
I was the one with the world at my feet
Got us a battle, leave it up to me

What it is and where it stops nobody knows
You gave me a life I never chose
I wanna leave but the world won't let me go

[S:] This was the year Lost went all crrrazzee. Time travel! Death! Love! Madness! More time travel! This was also the year Metric blew our minds with their album Fantasies. Just when did Metric become THIS GOOD??!! I couldn’t help but think of the former while listening to Blindness by the latter.

5. Emmy the Great - City Song / MIA

[E:] Both of these songs were really on my Best of 2007 list, when they were just demos. But Emmy's debut album was only released this year so I suppose they count. as 2009 releases. What I love most about her songs is probably the same thing that makes me love the Magnetic Fields: the combination of incredibly beautiful, sugary-sweet instruments and mellifluous voices on the one hand and the sad, tragicomic, downright depressing, or even gory lyrics on the other. That's why these are songs that take you by surprise. When you hear the soft chords and the barely heard mutter-sung words at the beginning of MIA ("The day that we took out a car in the rain...") you expect this to be a typical I-love-you or a why-did-you-break-up-with-me? song. You certainly don't expect her to say, two lines later: "I still remember holding my hand against your face just before it was sprayed across the radio!". "Fingers and voices and teeth". Eww. Did she just say that? And the truly Great thing about Emmy the Great is she tackles this sort of topics - loss and death and abortion and betrayal - without ever over-dramatizing. Her tone in City Song while singing "they pulled a human from my waist/ it had your mouth, it had your face/ I would have kept it if I'd stayed" is matter-of-fact, not whiny. The universe reacts to the death of her loved one in MIA with indifference rather than sympathy. "The scenery moves - well why would it stop just 'cause suddenly there's one where there used to be two?" Her own reaction to a best friend's betrayal in My Party Is Better Than Yours is this: "Tomorrow I will buy a new friend at the New Friend Shop because my friend you are not and I hate you". And just when you're ready to go with this tone and you think she won't surprise you, the song continues with "...as much as I miss you." Surprise!

4. Lady Gaga - Poker Face

[S:] Lady Gaga. Pop mutant. Sex freak. Hermaphrodite starlet. 2009 in a nutshell.

3. The Thermals - Now We Can See

[E:] Hypothetical but entirely plausible scenario: Thirty-eight-year old male, medium height, balding slightly, impeccable music taste, let's call him Bill. A banal and ugly name but what can you do, most people have those. Bill here goes to the doctor to some test results. It could be serious. He's not too worried, though. Doctor's secretary has made the mistake of leaving the radio on in the waiting room. Bill's turn is up, he steps into the doctor's office and closes the door behind him. This, unfortunately for Bill who has to hear some bad news twice, does not block out the music coming in from the waiting room. Bill is humming in his head ohehohehohoh ohehohehohoh while the doctor greets him with a quick sitdownmrReese and a worried look on his face. (ohehohehohoh). "I'm afraid I have some bad news for you." (We were born on an island, we grew out of the sand) "It's worse than we thought." "Oh really?", says Bill but in his head it's all ohehoh-s and drum beats. "You have 3, maybe 4 months." "A-ha. Sure." Bill is now humming loudly. OH-WAY-OH-A-WHOA. "Mister Reese did you hear what I just said? You may-" "Sure, yeah. Whatever you say." OUR ENEMIES LAY DEAD ON THE GROUND AND STILL WE KICK, HEY. "Mister Reese! I understand you are in a state of shock but -" YEAH, NOW WE WE CAN SEEEEEEEEEE. End song. "I'm sorry did you say something, doctor?" [ All this nonsense to say that if we had a prize for "Most Addictive and Hummable Song of the Year" this one would win it.]

2. Fanfarlo - Finish Line

[E:] It's true, it hasn't been a great year for indie pop. What with the ultra-commercial freaky pop sensation that was Lady Gaga, catchy alternative anthems (see: Now We Can See, Walkabout, Lisztomania, Lust for Life, Sleepyhead), dozens of folk/freak-folk/anti-folk acts (Devendra, Noah and the Whale, Cass McCombs, Elvis Perkins, Dave Rawlings Machine, Daniel Johnston, Taken By Trees etc etc etc) and electronic music being all the rage these days (please stop sending us remixes.) there was admittedly not much room left on people's iPods for indie pop. Music trends come and go, people's tastes change and it seems that they are simply moving in a different direction nowadays. Electro, experimental, synthpop, psychedelic. Animal Collective and the XX. Good ol' indie pop isn't cool any more. Now it has to be electropop, or folk-pop or synthpop. Maybe it's the fact that artists are aware of this fact or maybe they're just getting lazy but many records released in the genre this year - records I had been impatiently waiting for - were huge disappointments for me. New albums from bands like Bowerbirds, Modest Mouse, Noah and the Whale, or Tegan and Sara could not reach the standard set by their previous efforts, unlike the vast majority of the Earth's population, I was not impressed with Yeah Yeah Yeah's latest album, I regret to say that for me Florence and the Machine is the definition of mediocrity, Idlewild's 2009 release Post Electric Blues was... okay, Morrissey released yet another album that won't make a difference, and last, but certainly not least, The Decemberists broke my heart by releasing their first album to date that did not live up to my expectations. All this indie pop-rock starvation could have pushed this dedicated blogger,music-lover and incorrigible nostalgic into serious depression had it not been for the miracle that was Fanfarlo's "Reservoir". Comets, The Walls Are Coming Down, Drowning Men, Finish Line - song after fallinloveable song, each more wonderful than the other. Let's forget that this is a best songs top. Go get the whole album.

1. Phoenix - Lisztomania

[S:] du-de du-de du-de du-de du-de du-de du-de du-de din din din din din din din der der was the sound of pure unadulterated GLEE being injected into the hearts of anyone who was lucky enough to have this song in their lives this year. Phoenix were always brilliant, but this took them to new levels of greatness. What's it all about? Who knows!

Not easily offended
Know how to let it go
From a mess to the masses!

And yes, that brings us to the end of another year. The end of 2009 and the end of the decade people don't seem to know what to name. I don't know about you, but I find comfort in the fact that every year we think, shit, it's never going to be as good a year as this, and then sure enough, another year comes to an end, and we think the same thing all over again.

A big thanks to you all for following us. We really do love you for it.

Bring on 2010!

-- Sorry, we had to remove the songs for legal reasons! --

LHNA's Best of 2009 pt. 1 (100-51)

2009-12-31T02:59:00.011+02:00

100. The Silent Years - Forest Fire

"I'm just trying to act my age

Find some new ways to pretend

I'm not everybody's loser friend"

99. Octoberman - Thirty Reasons

A sweet come-back-to-me love song to wipe that cynicism off your face.

98. Shelley Short - Time Machine/Submarine

97. Lily Allen - Not Fair

[Eliza:] A lot of unhappy Lily Allen fans wrote angry letters to NME complaining that she "sold out" because she changed the, ahem, 'controversial' line "I spent hours giving head" to 1950s-housewife-style "I spent hours kneading bread". Frankly, it doesn't matter whether it's one or the other about when the song is so addictive.

96. Best Coast - When I'm With You
[E:] What I like about this song is that is avoids hyperboles. No grand statements, no rich metaphors or romantic declarations. Just: when I'm with you I have fun. Because, at the end of the day, what else is there to it? When I'm with you I have fun. I hate sleeping alone. Simple as that.

95. Big Spider's Back - Perfect Machine
[E:] No idea why the band chose that horrible name for itself. Or what sort of contraption its members had in mind when they were singing about this "perfect machine" of theirs. I can't even make out the lyrics most of the time. But in unexpected moments after a glass of wine I find myself singing "I've got a perfect machine, I've got a perfect machine, I've got a perfect machine" ad nauseam; sometimes literally.

94. Monsters of Folk - Man Named Truth
[Steven:]Yes, this really should have sucked as hard as a porn star in debt, and yet, it's actually pretty good. Perhaps there's hope for Conor after all...

93. Orba Squara - Come So Far
Maybe my favourite song off Orba Squara's 'The Trouble With Flying'. Like the rest of the tracks from the album, it's extremely understated. It never peaks. It's content with dancing softly around, a leaf carried by the autumn wind. And that's precisely what makes it stick with you.

92. Go Away Birds - The Year of Letting You Down
Catherine Ireton proving she doesn't need to sing Belle & Sebastian songs to win us over.

91. Sunset Rubdown - Apollo and Buffalo and Anna Anna Anna Oh
[E:] The problem with Sunset Rubdown is their songs are often so complex they shift and transform right before your eyes when you least expect it and jump around and slip between your fingers. Each song seems to take so much out of you that it's hard to listen to the whole album. So you focus on two or three tracks that stand out. This is one of them.

90. Julian Casablancas - 11th Dimension
[S:] Well what do you know!?! Who knew Julian had it in him!? It bleeps, he beeps and pings and makes us want to shake our metallic asses.

89. Tinariwen - Imidiwan Afrik Tendam

88. Emmanuel and the Fear - The Rain Becomes the Clouds

[E:] Sometimes I have weird, dystopian-novel dreams about the end of the world. There is a huge hurricane, or a fire, or the trees start swallowing the Earth or the air solidifies and closes in on us and squashes us. My most memorable one is of a volcano. I've had this dream more than once. There is lava everywhere - everywhere! - covering every little surface apart from skyscrapers and mountain peaks. I know it's the end of the world, me and everyone around me, we all know that. But no one is scared. It takes me a while to figure out why; and I'm swimming around and around in lava until it finally clicks: the reason no one is afraid is because nobody is hurt. Nobody is going to get hurt. It's the end of the world, yes, but not for us, we are all swimming in lava that I now realize is cold. It's not hurting us. The planet looks different but we're still the same. We'll build new homes that float on top of the volcano. It's all okay. It starts to rain. That's when I wish this song would start playing in my head.

87. The Lovely Feathers - Lowiza

[E:] If I say this is the catchiest song about asexuality you're likely to hear this year you'll probably think that's not saying much, right? After all, there aren't that many songs out there that tackle the subject. Well, uhm: "it's the catchiest song about asexuality you're likely to hear this year". There, I said it.

86. Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse - Little Girl

The coolest little girl in this whole town!

85. The Pastels vs Tenniscoats - Vivid Youth
[E:] When we run and then come home. When we lose each other and find each other. When we think it's over but it starts all over again. When we feel older every day and suddenly find something that makes us act like children again. When we do nothing but stare at the sky, and still understand each other perfectly. Silently. Easily. Like this.

84. Sister Suvi - Deadwood

[E:] Sister Suvi's 'The Lot' was one of our favourite songs of 2008. And, though I still think it's better than this one that doesn't mean there isn't a lot to love in this song. It just means this one needs more listens in order to get what they're trying to do here. It just means that this is the kind of band that will have you falling in love with a different song of theirs every month. It just means that it's a damn shame they broke up.

83. Cuddle Magic - Expectations
Thanks Said the Gramophone for this one.

82. Woods - To Clean

For once a band that sounds exactly the way its name suggests it might.

81. Themselves - Roman Is As Roman Does

[E:] A: "What do you call this? Can you call this hip hop? If not, what else? Do you call it electronic? What d'you call it? Experimental I suppose?"

B: "You call it brilliant. Then you recommend it to your friends. Then you start writing Anticon Rocks! with permanent markers on white T-shirts and give them out free at kids' lemonade stands. That's what you do."

80. Window Twins - Maybe It's Time

79. The Sound of Arrows - Into the Clouds

[E:] They have disco parties in heaven every time someone plays this song.

78. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero
[S:] 2009 was the year Yeah Yeah Yeahs took back the zero from Billy Corgan, while the latter lost the plot even further.

77. Bill Callahan - Jim Cain

76. Thunder Power - Ship in a Bottle

75. Black Lips - Starting Over

[S:] This was the year the Black Lips (almost) got kicked out of India, released 200 Million Thousand and blew our minds (again) at Pukkelpop in August.

"We'll it’s just a wasted year
I'm doing my time
If things don't go right I'll drink some more beer
And I'll blow I blow out my mind"
Hear hear.

74. Egyptian Hip Hop - Rad Pitt

[E:] Back in 2001, the Moldy Peaches released their by now legendary self-titled album. There was a song on it called 'On Top'. Its lyrics went like this:

"We hate dance and we hate rap
But we like to contradict ourselves
And that's alright"

The irony of it all was that they were actually rapping these words, not singing them. It looks like someone was paying attention, because seven years later this couldn't-get-any-indier band decides to name itself Egyptian Hip Hop and put pictures of 50 Cent on their MySpace page. And make some good music while they're at it, too.

73. Old Canes - Little Bird Courage

In the face of danger, these guys are not afraid. It's essential that you know that.

72. Girls - Hellhole Ratrace

71. David Shane Smith - Miserablism

Don't dismiss the track until you reach the shift at 3:20.

70. Museum of Bellas Artes - Who Do You Love

The only cover in this top, so it bloody well be good huh? Have a listen.

Can you get more... Swedish?

69. Fuck Buttons - Surf Solar
[S] In which our heroes fill a rusty blender with several buckets full of coloured and trampled glass, feed it to a blender. Then RE-mix the contents of said blender (+a bag of sugar) and push RECORD while chasing small children around a small circular wallpapered room until all participants are puking up their cupcakes, feet are bleeding and the children crying.

68. Wale - New Soul

67. Dark Mean - Lullaby
"I close my eyes, haven't slept in five days
I'll sleep when I'm dead again."
[E:] In the year 2617, all the joie-de-vivre in the world will be squeezed in glass jars, left there to soak up the summer sun and freeze in the winter cold for a whole year. After exactly 365 days, on the first day of spring, the jars will be thawed and emptied out and their contents will reemerge as these two song lines. Mark my words.

66. Jónsi - Boy Lilikoi
[E:] I've tried thinking of little starving African children, 101 gruesome ways to carry out the capital punishment and puppies crushed to death by merciless filthy trucks - all in an attempt to wipe that ridiculous dopey smile that appears on my face whenever I hear this song. Pointless.

65. Warpaint - Billie Holiday
Well if you want to know me, I'm a war. Come paint.

We are birds of a feather.

We can't explain it any better than that.

64. The Crayon Fields - Impossible Things
[E:] I would like to play this song in the morning, rain beating confused drops against the window, a barely-alive flame glowing faintly in the fireplace; slippers on my feet, coffee mug in hand. I would like to say that it makes me feel good, makes me dance, makes me whistle. I would like to pretend its rhythmic handclaps are hopeful rather than nostalgic. I would like to be able to listen to it on cold days like this one without longing for warm summer sun. I still want impossible things.

63. Glass Ghost - Ending
Something new is happening, indeed.

62. Windmill - Big Boom
I can't say Windmill's 2009 effort is a great album. It's a good one. Not a great one. As far as concepts albums go, better than many. An album nostalgic for a lost childhood, for fleeting moments gone unnoticed. Well worth listening to for their fans. If you've never heard of them before though don't start with this. If you've never heard of them RUN get your hands on Puddle City Racing Lights. Fall in love with them. And then listen to this.

61. City Center - Open House
[E:] Doorbell. Key. Open house. Open Arms. Come in. Noise, noise, noise. Beautiful Noise. A thousand nails scratching, a thousand bottles breaking, a thousand voices screeching, noise. It's all coming together.

60. Neon Indian - Deadbeat Summer
Bounce?

59. Horse Shoes - The Imperial School
"I want to be your only friend in life
I want to hold your hand all through the night"
So sweet.

58. Cass McCombs - Dreams Come True Girl (ft. Karen Black)

57. Daniel Johnston - Mind Movies

56. The Rest - Modern Time Travel (Necessities)

[E:] It is a truth universally acknowledged that all songs about time travel must have a few oh-oh-ohs and yeah-yeah-yeahs in them. These guys are well aware of that fact.

55. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Killers

[E:] Fuck lovers. Why should we be lovers when we could be killers... just for one night?

54. Delay Trees - Desert Island Song

[E:] The first time I heard this I thought of Cast Away. Yep, that movie with Tom Hanks and no one else in it. I wish my first thought would have been something else set on a desert island - something cooler than that - maybe Lost or The Tempest or Lord of the Flies or, heck, even Robinson Crusoe but no - it was Cast Away. I imagined Tom hanks crying his eyes out and asking the volleyball "Do you really think that they are coming back? We're stranded on this island..." And I smiled. Then I imagined him hugging the ball romantically and singing: "I know I'd never make it without you". And I smiled. Then I stopped thinking of Tom Hanks and started paying attention to the soft tropical-sounding guitars and the singer's voice. And I smiled again.

53. The Lonely Island - I'm on a Boat (ft. T-Pain)

[E:] Continuing with the Cast Away theme (I know, where the hell did that come from?) this song should play during the part where... well, come on you can guess this. YES, that's right , during the part where Tom Hanks thinks he's dead and then he's unexpectedly found by a passing cargo ship. Of course that would make the movie funny for five minutes, something that its creators would definitely not want. It would totally ruin the "this is SO dramatic" atmosphere so maybe instead it should play during the part where... you know, fuck this. Forget Cast Away. The point is this is the funniest shit I've heard all year. If you can't see the humour in this, then I think it's safe to assume you have no soul. (ultimate proof: you probably didn't think Coco Jumbo was funny either) I mean just listen carefully to the way the singer/rapper shouts at the world: "I'm on a BOAT motherfucker!" with the same sense of pride and achievement as if he were saying "I've just single-handedly put an end to world hunger, motherfucker!" Someone less shameless would be embarrassed to do this. These guys don't give a fuck.

52. Yeasayer - Tightrope
A charity album one of the best of the year? Yep.

51. Taken By Trees - Anna
[E:] This song made me think of the countryside and barns and yellow hills in summer and how there are so many sounds out there I never pay attention to - crickets, bells, wind, voices, feet. The sound of leaves cracking under our boots,the sound of pencil on paper, the sound of our breath. It makes me want to start listening harder.

>The content provided on this post is for promotional purposes only. If you like the mp3s, please consider buying them. If you own the rights to any of the music/images found on this post and do not wish it to appear here, please contact us at letterarms[at]gmail[dot]com< Thanks!

Letters have no Songs!

2009-12-25T21:49:00.000+02:00

Our mp3s will probably not work for a day or two. We apologize for that. We need to pay for our server ASAP.

Merry Christmas!!!

Letters have no Arms, December 25th 2009

It's Christmas! Let's be Glad!

2009-12-23T13:24:00.001+02:00

it's Christmas! let's be glad!
Sufjan Stevens - It's Christmas! Let's be Glad!
The Hives & Cyndi Lauper - A Christmas Duel

The Raveonettes - The Christmas Song

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - All I want for Christmas

Darlene Love - Christmas (Baby please come home)
The Lisps - The Winter that I Missed

John Prine - Christmas in Prison

Low - Just like Christmas

Three things

2009-12-19T03:00:00.004+02:00

1. Songs that will sadly not be making our top 100 for the year
...but that we love nonetheless:

Washed Out - New Theory
Small Black - The Kings of Animals

Blake Miller - Tomorrow Sorrow
Orenda Fink - High Ground

Tada Tátà - Hit the Wall
Real Estate - Black Lake

2. Another thing that begs to be mentioned. Okay so maybe I'm begging for it to be mentioned. I keep seeing The Rural Alberta Advantage's "Hometowns" on so many best-of-the-year lists. But the album was released in 2008 - and was re-released by Saddle Creek in 2009. I'm not really keen on the idea of counting re-released albums and we had the album - or a song from it - on our top last year. The annoying thing is, if I wasn't so anal about release dates I would have my quandary about what to place as my number one solved. I'm pretty sure the top spot would have gone to "Frank, AB". If only for those last 20 seconds of the song. Or just for those lyrics. Seriously that song makes my hair stand on end every time.
You need the backstory first: (Wikipedia) "Frank, Alberta is a coal mining town in the Crowsnest Pass, Alberta. On April 29, 1903, at 4:10 a.m., 90 million tonnes (30 million cubic metres) of limestone crashed from the east face of Turtle Mountain and covered approximately three square kilometres of the valley floor. The slab of rock that broke free was approximately 650 m high, 900 m wide and 150 m thick^. The slide dammed the Crowsnest River and formed a small lake, covered 2km of the Canadian Pacific Railway, destroyed most of the coal mine's surface infrastructure, and buried seven houses on the outskirts of the sleeping town of Frank, as well as several rural buildings. Frank was home to approximately 600 people in 1903; it is estimated that 90 of the roughly 100 individuals in the path of the slide were killed. Only fourteen bodies were recovered from the debris at the time of the slide."

And now lyrics:
My love, I will hold on to your touch until there's nothing left of us
save you from this life
And the cold depths of the rocky clutch won't take away our love
save you from this life
...
And under the rubble of the mountain that tumbled
I'll hold you forever
I'll hold you forever
They'll build up another on the bodies of our brothers
I'll love you forever

And if the end doesn't touch you you're dead inside.

3. This post might have evolved into a love letter to The Rural Alberta Advantage, but initially it was meant to be used as an excuse to post some of Chelsea Greene Lewyta's exquisite illustrations. So here they are:

Adam's Song

2009-12-17T23:22:00.000+02:00

Blink 182: Adam's Song

A Look Back: Primavera Club 2009

2009-12-16T16:22:00.000+02:00

It was a tiring week (we're staying 30 minutes outside Barcelona and the daily back and forth was something of a challenge) but well worth it. We ate Pakistani food, visited our beloved Wok to Walk, saw a lot of the city and uhm, obviously a bunch of great bands!

-Best venue: Sala Apolo (located in a beautiful 1940s dance-hall)

-Best performance: Beach House (Steven), Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard (Eliza) - I'm sure the fact that they played Bugs & Flowers specially for her had something to do with that ;-)

-Cheapest beer: Monasterio (€3.50)

-Best (and funniest) inter-song talking: So Cow

-Most fun: Devendra Banhart and the Grogs (though Eliza thought: "So yesterday we saw Devendra Banhart. It was packed, he was cool, did some cute silly dancing, the crowd loved him. But, this being the first time I'd seen him, I couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed. I've always felt his biggest strength lies in his quieter, mellower songs, the ones that bring out his voice. Todo los dolores. At the hop. This beard is for Siobhan. The Beatles. Mama Wolf. He played none of these songs. Highlights: Baby, Angelika")

-Best standing-in-one-place-dancing-and-looking cute-as-hell: Neon Indian's keyboard player

-Longest queue: Woods at Jamboree

-Best surprise: Furguson

Best covers* we heard at Primavera Club:

Neil Young - Out on the Weekend (Deer Tick)
John Prine - Sam Stone (Deer Tick)
Television Personalities - This Angry Silence (So Cow)
Nirvana - Sifting (Jeffrey Lewis)

(*These are all the original versions)

The Pastels - Sala Apolo

Furguson - Sidecar

Jeffrey Lewis merch table - Sala Apolo

Jeffrey Lewis & the Junkyard - Sala Apolo

Post Woods - Jamboree

So Cow - La [2] De Apolo

Neon Indian - Sala Apolo

(waiting for) Neon Indian - Sala Apolo

See you all in May!

Repetition

2009-12-12T22:25:00.000+02:00

Repetition.mp3 - The Fall

Lists and subtitutions.

2009-12-12T19:55:00.008+02:00

photographs via Esther K.

My most played albums in 2009, according to Last.fm*:

1. Au Revoir Simone: Still Night, Still Light

2. Metric: Fantasies

3. Slow Club: Yeah So

4. The Thermals: Now We Can See

5. Emmy the Great: First Love

6. Sin Fang Bous: Clangour

7. Passion Pit: Manners

8. Fanfarlo: Reservoir

9. Nurses: Apple's Acre

10. Dead Man's Bones: Dead Man's Bones

11. Mew: No More Stories Are Told Today, I'm Sorry, They're Washed Away

12. Cymbals Eat Guitars: Why There Are Mountains

13. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone: Vs. Children

14. The Woodlands: The Woodlands

15. Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavillion

This top of course doesn't necessarily - actually cross that, it definitely DOES NOT coincide with my favourite albums of 2009. First Love, for example (Emmy the Great's debut album) was a bit of a disappointment for me. Sure some of her old songs - previously unreleased but available online of course - were as good as I remembered, but the new ones left me decidedly unimpressed. The fact that the Thermals' Now We Can See is in this top is due almost exclusively to the song of the same name, which I must have played ad infinitum ever since I first heard it. The rest of the album however, apart from one or two songs, is unexceptional. And, while I enjoyed Yeah So, Fantasies, and Clangour, Fanfarlo's Reservoir should have been higher on the list than all of those if the aforementioned list were to reflect my preferences. So basically what I'm saying is that this list is just a lazy substitute. It's a lazy substitute for the Best Albums of 2009 list that we're not going to make. And we're not going to make it because, just like last year, we want to focus on individual songs rather than albums that may or may not have more than one or two good songs on them.

One album I was surprised to see on that list was the Woodlands' self-titled debut. Not because I didn't think it was great but because I hadn't realized I'd listened to it so many times. I'm glad that it did get to be there however, because that means the video we received in our inbox yesterday came just in time:

Can We Stay from The Woodlands on Vimeo.

The Woodlands - Can We Stay

Fanfarlo - Drowning Men (Acoustic)

LHNA's Best Songs of 2008 pt. 1 (mp3s still work!)

LHNA's Best Songs of 2008 pt. 2 (without mp3s)

LHNA's interview with The Woodlands

*Last.fm shows all the albums I've listened to the most during the last 12 months. I've included here only the ones released in 2009.

Asobi Seksu Live at Olympia Studios

2009-12-10T16:00:00.001+02:00

If you were expecting more playful showgaze from Asobi Seksu, you might be disappointed because this is an album of softly sung words, acoustic guitars and toy pianos. If you were expecting new tunes, again you'll be out of luck, because this is all about remastered stripped down versions of their old songs. If you were only expecting some beautiful music though, then you'll probably find that this will do.

Thursday (Live at Olympia Studios)

Suzanne (Live at Olympia Studios)

I also wanted to mention that...
Seabear are set to release their sophomore album, We Built a Fire in March. I know, that's not very soon, is it? The good news is you can already listen to the whole thing here.

And one last thing...
We haven't been posting very much lately. Sorry about that. We have two good excuses, though. One, we're busy with Primavera Club. And two, Steven and I are both working very hard on compiling our best albums of the decade and best songs of 2009 lists, respectively.
Patience, grasshopper.

And we're off! Primavera Club 2009!

2009-12-09T13:27:00.000+02:00

art by Jose Manuel Hortelano

Yes indeed, Primavera Club 2009 is upon us, kicking off with The Pastels, The Black Heart Procession and HEALTH tonight. It'll also be my very first concert in Barcelona (and Eliza's second), so we're pretty excited.

The festival will continue until Sunday night, and we hope to see these bands and more over the next five nights, before collapsing from sheer exhaustion on Sunday night, smelling of fast food, good music and cheap sponsored beer. Whee hee!

The Pastels - Nothing to be done

HEALTH - Nice Girls

The Galloping Horse

2009-12-06T03:28:00.000+02:00

Burning Hearts - The Galloping Horse

Burning Hearts - Aboa Sleeping

Close the door
Go down the stairs
This is goodbye.

Music sounds better with you: 10 cheesy, sad, obvious, wistful, yearning or seasonal songs about missing someone

2009-12-04T13:27:00.001+02:00

"It could rain for a thousand days
Or something i don't know
Look to the sun and we're having fun
Beside the river flow
You're doing this and you're doing that
Workin' all the time
Tonight you'll call me on the phone
You've got a worried mind"

Ween - I'll miss you

Where are you and I'm so sorry
I cannot sleep, I cannot dream tonight
I need somebody and always
this sick strange darkness
comes creeping on so haunting every time

Blink 182 - I miss you

I dreamed of a fever
One that would cure me of this cold, winter set heart
With heat to melt these frozen tears
And burned with reasons as to carry on
Into these twisted months I plunge without a light to follow
But I swear that I would follow anything
If it would just get me out of here

Bright Eyes - If Winter Ends

Wait
They don't love you like I love you

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps

I've been hanging out so long
I've been waiting on your call
Lord, I miss you

I've been sleeping all alone
I've been hanging by the phone
Want to kiss you

I've been haunted in my sleep
You've been starring in my dreams
Lord, I miss you

The Concretes - Miss You

When life is a loop,
you're in a room
without a door.

Pick up the phone
and answer me at last.
Today I will
step out of your past.

The Notwist - Pick up the Phone

I send my love to you
I send my hands to you
I send my clothes to you
I send my nose to you
I send my trees to you
I send my pleas to you
won't you send some back to me?

Palace Brothers - I send my love to you

I wish they didn't set mirrors behind the bar
cause I can't stand to look at my face
when I don't know where you are
Then the feeling fades away
but you sort of wish it would of stayed
inside... the golden days of missing you

Silver Jews - Inside the golden days of missing you

Darling won't you please come home

Math and Physics Club - Darling, please come home

They're singin' 'Deck the Halls'
But it's not like Christmas at all
I remember when you were here
And all the fun we had last year

The Raveonettes - Christmas (Baby please come home)

Ether

2009-12-03T01:50:00.000+02:00

It's a wonder I've never felt the need to post about these songs before, given that All About Lily Chou-Chou may well be one of my favourite movies. Iwai's unique vision (there are some truly stunning, heartbreaking shots), the haunting music and childlike innocence combine to create a film that will always have a special place in my heart. It is even more surprising that I've neglected to mention this album if you take into consideration the fact that this is a film that would not really work without its soundtrack. And that is not a hyperbole because, apart from the emotional effect of Takeshi Kobayashi's string arrangements and Salyu's ethereal voice, the music here is also a vital part of the plot. The fictional singer Lily Chou-Chou (played by Salyu) and her music is the centerpiece around which the whole story revolves. I won't go into details about the film, trying to convince you to watch it because, hopefully, the music will do just that. This may be a fictional singer, and a fictional album, but that heartbeat getting stronger with every note is damn real.

Lily Chou-Chou - Kaifuku Suru Kizu (Breathe, 2001)

Lily Chou-Chou - Erotic (Breathe, 2001)

winter on the east coast

2009-12-01T11:23:00.003+02:00

I leave Athens at 16:00. Slight delay. Long lines at security. Please remove your laptop. Place your phone in the basket. Enjoy your flight.

Touch down at 18:05. Rubber spinning on the cold black ground. It's dark outside. Thursday evening. GMT +1. Barcelona. Brand new airport terminal - white, bright, with floors so shiny they make you dizzy. My mom and brother are waiting for me behind the sliding doors - 'hi Steven' is written in the dirt on the back of the car. Follow the arrows and leave the glittering multi-layered parking building. Now we're driving on the toll-road, heading south along the coast. Tunnel after tunnel burrowed through the coastal mountains. I look out, attempting to make out the surroundings as they speed by in a dark blur. I see myself reflected in the window. I look tired.

We get to the newly rented house on the edge of town (there's a river running behind it). My upstairs room overlooks a school - small energetic voices echoing across the wintry fields and surrounding hills and mountains. When the river's dry, people walk their dogs in it. Melville is jumping, embracing me as another human to love and be chased by. Throw Garfield! Throw Garfield!

My brother is in love. Returned from England on Monday. Cambridge. Did you know Cambridge has canals? Couples rowing, discussing Chaucer and last night's television. Possibly.

He's considering a move there. Bright white future mornings. Rented films. Fish and chips and Easyjet trips.

E is arriving on Sunday and I miss her. The outside temperature is 11C degrees. Enjoy your stay. Click click click on the shiny black floor.

***

Hot Chip - Take It In

Atlas Sound - Quick Canal (feat. Laetitia Sadier)

From the depths of my external hard drive: By the Sea

2009-11-30T01:44:00.000+02:00

Wendy & Bonnie - By the Sea (Genesis, 1969)

(known by most of the world as "that song playing in the beginning of Super Furry Animals' Hello Sunshine")

Introducing: Ghost Mall

2009-11-28T01:06:00.002+02:00

This is what we long for: building weak walls in creaky floors

And going to leave while they become debris and windows and doors are left crumbling

This is what we long for: awkward waltzes on kitchen floors

And going to sleep on sands of the beach, just the waves to wipe our sleepy eyes

No Lemon No Melon

Johnny Appleseed

I don't know much about Ghost Mall. They sent us an e-mail. They call themselves a "ramshackle pop band". They like comic books and, apparently, sponge baths - that's what their MySpace says. They're from New York. They sound like they're from New York. Their songs feel rusty but comfortable, kind - like a friend's handshake and the promise to see you later; to get you through the day. "Let's save the world. Let's save the world. That's why we do this. " As if they're constantly trying to jolt you, make you move, wake up, do something. And if extending a sweaty helping hand is what it takes for you to start living, they'll offer it to you. They'll do that. They'll mutter words of encouragement (- Listen, we can do this together. But you need to be a part of it, too. That's the point we're trying to make here.) "Simple songs won't save your soul, they'll just fill you up with some false hope. And I'm not asking, I'm TELLING you: there's something you need to do." You can imagine yourself 30 years from now, all old and wise, sitting in this dusty, rickety chair by the fire , and thinking of these words. Wishing you'd taken these guys' advice. And suddenly you know that from now on and for the foreseeable future you will use these songs again and again as some sort of periodical reminders to do that something, no matter what it is. Not waste another minute, not feel lazy, not take things for granted. You need that reminder. Perhaps not every day. Just on bland evenings such as this.

Cupcakes and holiday spirit

2009-11-25T22:00:00.008+02:00

Action Biker: Frosty Snow Winter ❅Lois Casino: All I Want for Christmas is You

The Smittens: Magpies and Eccles Cakes ❅ Pajaro Sunrise: Salt and Spoon

The Airfields: Icing Sugar ❅ Piney Gir: Of All the Wonderful Things
+

The Futureheads - Struck Dumb

Our Time Warp Christmas Party last week - which we threw for our friends because we're going to be out of the country in December - had eggnog, homemade oatmeal cookies, Santa hats, a Christmas tree with fake wrapped-up presents under it, mistletoe, lights, and Christmas-y songs and carols. Which is all very nice, except for the part where I find myself in this huge dilemma the day after: since we already used up all the holiday traditions for the time-warp Christmas, what else is there to do when the real one comes? (the one I refer to in my head as the Second Christmas) There is the present-exchanging ceremony of course, which we wisely left for December. But apart from that? There had to be something special out there we hadn't thought of. And the answer was this: Christmas cupcakes. At first it just seemed like a cute idea, but my fixation with cupcakes grew exponentially over the next days. Liners, pops, toppers, sprinkles, candle holders - I searched and searched the web until I found everything I wanted. I decided to go on a Christmas splurge and order right away. I went completely cupcake-crazy: elves, snowflake liners, Santa Claus figurines, reindeer with edible antlers, red and green cases. The items were shipped today and I couldn't be more excited. If one is to judge by the pictures, they look absolutely freaking amazing. So if you decide to go with cupcakes this holiday season, you can find pretty much everything you need on Etsy, whether you decide to shop from Sweet Treats Supplies, Cupcake Social or Hey YoYo.

Now if I hadn't spent all my money on the aforementioned items, I would also go for Hello Cupcake, a recipe book apparently full of "irresistibly playful creations that anyone can make".

And of course this post would not be complete without a mention of the incredibly talented, ever-inspiring Bakerella. There are some great sites on baking out there, but this one surely takes the cake. (Oh look I can do baking puns! Hmm...maybe I should have gone with "icing on the cake" instead. Nevermind, moving on.) If you need any ideas or recipes for your cupcakes, pies, cakes and brownies, or simply feel the need to spend some hours drooling all over your screen I suggest you head over to Bakerella's scrumptious website. Here are some of her wonderful creations:

In a boy-meets-girl story the boy should always meet the girl.

2009-11-19T23:57:00.008+02:00

When candles light themselves and the air turns creamy
Why not take a photograph? You look so dreamy
Then stand in the blackness, smile at the tinkling
Blinded by lovedust; what did I see?

A million, a billion, a trillion stars.

Otouto - Sushi
Luna - Lovedust
Back in Judy's Shack - The Puff, The Drag, The Whiff
*

"EVERY day Justin Horgenschlag, thirty-dollar-a-week printer’s assistant, saw at close quarters approximately sixty women whom he had never seen before. Thus in the few years he had lived in New York, Horgenschlag had seen at close quarters about 75,120 different women. Of these 75,120 women, roughly 25,000 were under thirty years of age and over fifteen years of age. Of the 25,000 only 5,000 weighed between one hundred five and one hundred twenty-five pounds. Of these 5,000 only 1,000 were not ugly. Only 500 were reasonably attractive; only 100 of these were quite attractive; only 25 could have inspired a long, slow whistle. And with only 1 did Horgenschlag fall in love at first sight.

Now, there are two kinds of femme fatale. There is the femme fatale who is a femme fatale in every sense of the word, and there is the femme fatale who is not a femme fatale in every sense of the word.

Her name was Shirley Lester. She was twenty years old (eleven years younger than Horgenschlag), was five-foot-four (bringing her head to the level of Horgenschlag’s eyes), weighed 117 pounds (light as a feather to carry). Shirley was a stenographer, lived with and supported her mother, Agnes Lester, an old Nelson Eddy fan. In reference to Shirley’s looks people often put it this way: “Shirley’s as pretty as a picture.”

And in the Third Avenue bus early one morning, Horgenschlag stood over Shirley Lester, and was a dead duck. All because Shirley’s mouth was open in a peculiar way. Shirley was reading a cosmetic advertisement in the wall panel of the bus; and when Shirley read, Shirley relaxed slightly at the jaw. And in that short moment while Shirley’s mouth was open, lips were parted, Shirley was probably the most fatal one in all Manhattan. Horgenschlag saw in her a positive cure-all for a gigantic monster of loneliness which had been stalking around his heart since he had come to New York. Oh, the agony of it! The agony of standing over Shirley Lester and not being able to bend down and kiss Shirley’s parted lips. The inexpressible agony of it!

* * *

That was the beginning of the story I started to write for Collier’s. I was going to write a lovely tender boy-meets-girl story. What could be finer, I thought. The world needs boy-meets-girl stories. But to write one, unfortunately, the writer must go about the business of having the boy meet the girl. I couldn’t do it with this one. Not and have it make sense. I couldn’t get Horgenschlag and Shirley together properly. And here are the reasons:

Certainly it was impossible for Horgenschlag to bend over and say in all sincerity:

“I beg your pardon. I love you very much. I’m nuts about you. I know it. I could love you all my life. I’m a printer’s assistant and I make thirty dollars a week. Gosh, how I love you. Are you busy tonight?”

This Horgenschlag may be a goof, but not that big a goof. He may have been born yesterday, but not today. You can’t expect Collier’s readers to swallow that kind of bilge. A nickel’s a nickel, after all." (...read the rest of the story here)

excerpt from "The Heart of a Broken Story", J.D. Salinger

What Emily Did

2009-11-18T04:54:00.001+02:00

I can honestly say I'm a fan of pretty much everything Emily Haines has done so far, musically. There is Metric of course, and there is her solo stuff, but there's also - let's not forget - her many wonderful collaborations. Some, like "Anthems for a 17-year Old Girl", seem to be universally loved while others, like "Stopwatch Hearts" or "Uptown Girl", are less well known. From her songs with Stars and The Stills, to her involvement in Crystal Method and even Tiesto projects - it seems that this is one musician who cannot go wrong. Here's a look at some of the highlights of her career.

What Emily Did

K.C. Accidental - Them [Pop Song #3333] (Anthems for the Could've Bin Pills, 2000)

Stars - On Peak Hill (Nightsongs, 2001)
Stars - Going, Going, Gone (Nightsongs, 2001)

Broken Social Scene - Anthems for a 17-Year Old Girl (You Forgot It in People, 2002)

Delerium - Stopwatch Hearts (Chimera, 2003)

Broken Social Scene - Backyards (Bee Hives, 2004)

Metric - Poster of a Girl (Live It Out, 2005)

What Emily Did Next

Jason Collett - Fire (Idols of Exile, 2005)

The Stills - Baby Blues (Without Feathers, 2006)

MSTRKRFT - She's Good for Business (The Looks, 2006)

Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton - Doctor Blind (Knives Don't Have Your Back, 2007)

Metric - Hardwire (Grow Up and Blow Away, 2007)

Crystal Method - Come Back Clean (Divided By Night, 2009)

Tiesto - Knock You Out (Kaleidoscopes, 2009)

k-os - Uptown Girl (Yes!, 2009)

Metric - Blindness (Fantasies, 2009)

That summer.

2009-11-17T03:51:00.001+02:00

Marine Girls: Honey

Sunny Summer Day: Something in Your Eyes

The Subways: No Goodbyes

The fire in leaf and grass
so green it seems
each summer the last summer.

The wind blowing, the leaves
shivering in the sun,
each day the last day.

A red salamander
so cold and so
easy to catch, dreamily

moves his delicate feet
and long tail. I hold
my hand open for him to go.

Each minute the last minute.

(Denis Levertov: "Living")

10 reasons to look forward to: Primavera Club 2009

2009-11-13T14:55:00.001+02:00

With Primavera Club (aka Primavera Sound's little winter brother) less than a month away, I for one am getting mightily excited. I'm flying to Barcelona in a little under two weeks, (Eliza will follow a little later) and we'll be spending the holiday season there (at my mom's house), only returning home in early January.

I've collected ten tracks that I'd like to see played over the five days of the festival..

1. So Cow

So Cow - To Do List

2. Me and the Bees

Me and the Bees - Aaahhh!

3. Scout Niblett

Scout Niblett - Drummer Boy

4. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - The Ballad of the Sin Eater

5. Cass Mccombs

Cass McComb - You saved my life

6. Woods

Woods - To Clean

7. Deer Tick

Deer Tick - Art isn't Real (City of Sin)

8. Neon Indian

Neon Indian - Deadbeat Summer

9. Port O'Brien

Port O'Brien - Close the Lid

10. Jeffrey Lewis and the Junkyard

Jeffrey Lewis and the Junkyard - Bugs and Flowers

Full lineup:

Official site

Primavera Club on Last.fm

Who said that the Album is dead?

2009-11-12T14:36:00.002+02:00

Okay, so I'll be the first to admit that I rarely listen to whole albums nowadays. These past weeks however, I found myself obsessively doing exactly that. It started innocently enough, when I played the first track on the brilliant Where the Wild Things Are OST. Then I let the next track play as well. And the next one. And the next one. Before I knew it, I was loving it so much I truly could not skip a song. Not even parts of the song, like skipping the end when you feel it's getting too long! I know, I feel like it's 1999! Here, then, are some other records that I've been playing straight through, again and again, during the last month.

"Dead Man's Bones" by Dead Man's Bones (buy)
Download: My Body's a Zombie for You
Download: Young and Tragic

"Við og við" by Ólöf Arnalds (buy)
Dowload: Englar og dárar
Download: Moldin

"The Limes" by The Limes (buy)
Download: Beyond Blue
Download: Dead Furniture

"Pony Up!" by Pony Up! (buy)
Download: Shut Up and Kiss Me
Download: Marlon Brando's Laundromat

"What Will We Be" by Devendra Banhart (buy)
Download: First Song for B
Download: Last Song for B

The Magnetic Fields Announce New Album!

2009-11-11T01:02:00.003+02:00

As regular readers of Letters have no Arms will surely already be (perhaps excessively) aware of, we here are rather big fans of The Magnetic Fields. You can imagine therefore our unbridled glee (yes, glee!) (and yes, unbridled!) upon reading today's news: The Magnetic Fields are set to release a new album, titled, Realism, on January 26th!

Tracklist:

01 You Must Be Out of Your Mind

02 Interlude

03 We Are Having a Hootenanny

04 I Don't Know What to Say

05 The Dolls' Tea Party

06 Everything Is One Big Christmas Tree

07 Walk a Lonely Road

08 Always Already Gone

09 Seduced and Abandoned

10 Better Things

11 Painted Flower

12 The Dada Polka

13 From a Sinking Boat

As for what it might sound like, we can perhaps look back to an interview Stephin Merritt gave to the Village Voice in October of last year:

Q: Are you inclined to unveil the direction of the new material?

A: Well, it will be the third record of the 'no-synth' trilogy. So I'm willing to unveil that it isn't an electro-pop album.

(Dare we hope for a tour?)

The Magnetic Fields - Long-forgotten Fairytale

!!! - Take Ecstacy With Me (The Magnetic Fields cover)

!!UPDATE!! (from The House of Tomorrow official site):

"The Magnetic Fields' new album, "Realism," will be released on Nonesuch Records on January 26, 2010. Swerving from the unrelenting feedback pop of "Distortion," this record explores the various genres under the umbrella of folk. Stephin says, "I thought of the two records as a pair, and I initially wanted them to be called 'True' and 'False.' But I couldn't decide which I wanted to be called 'True' and which I wanted to be called 'False.'" The band will be touring in 2010"

A Chat with School of Seven Bells

2009-11-10T14:55:00.003+02:00

Download: Iamundernodisguise

Download: For Kalaja Mari (Drum Outtake Mix)

Letters Have No Arms: First of all, tell us about your band name. Why “School of Seven Bells”?

Alejandra Deheza: I heard the name on a doc I was watching about these movie heist like shoplifting rings that plagued the east coast in the 90's. These invisible thieves allegedly were trained at the school of seven bells in the 80's in South America. Now, this was a pickpocketing academy that trained expert prodigious thieves that would then be released into the world to impoverish it one pocket at a time. True or not, it's a great story, and therefore a great name for a band. Simple as that.

LHNA: How would you describe your sound to someone who’s never listened to your music before?

A: Easy to visualize, but hard to explain in words. A good dose of psychedelics might take care of that.

LHNA: Most articles I've read concerning SOSB emphasize the fact that you have what some people have called a rather unusual song writing process: apparently you always start with the lyrics? How important do you think lyrics are in a song? Is there a particular message, idea, frame of mind, or feeling you want people to take from your songs?

A: Actually, that was just one method we used. It varies from day to day. We have no rules for it. Having them (rules) you end up writing the same song ten times. We've all heard records like that, and it works for some people. It's just not the record I wanted to make. Lyrics to me are crucial in a song.

LHNA: What are the advantages of being a band? And what’s not so great about it?

A: Putting everything you have into what you love. Putting everything you have into what you love.

LHNA: What would you have liked to do for a living if music wasn't an option?

A: Write write write.

LHNA: What’s the one book that you would force everyone to read?

Anything Borges.

LHNA: If you could ask for a superpower...

A: it would be to have unlimited superpowers.

LHNA: You really suck at...

A: Any sport that requires hand eye coordination.

LHNA: What is the one thing that makes you feel better no matter how crappy a day you’ve had?

A: Night wanderings always do the trick.

LHNA: What provides inspiration for your songs?

A: The idea of writing a new song. Really.

LHNA: There are so many new bands popping up all over the place. Do you keep up with them? Or are you more focused on your own? Any favourite bands at the moment?

A: I pretty much focus on what I'm doing, but discovering Phantogram this past tour was such a fucking treat. Beautiful songs. I wake up singing them.

LHNA: Do you read music blogs? Which ones?

A: Not really. I'm more into sites like Beautiful Decay and FFFFound.

LHNA: Where do you see yourself in 20 years?

A: I don't want to think about that yet. It'll ruin the surprise.

A big thank you to Alejandra Deheza for taking the time to do this!

I'm not gonna tell you to buy their album because, of course, you've already done that (duh). How 'bout a cool T-shirt instead? ;)

SEXUAL LANGUAGE

2009-11-07T01:02:00.006+02:00

5888 5 (you don't care) Jason Loewenstein's A Wanker

Peleg. Babylon. Flesh came back onto their bones. Return of the Prodigal Son. Silly Symphony. Recurring word patterns. Like, Like, Like, Americans in Europe. Morning erections. Procreation. The family system. The whole fucking kit and caboodle. We talk, but, essentially, we are saying nothing. I’m gonna cover myself in mud, yeah, I’m a Believer.

They burnt her like a spider. (you don't care)

I have no words. No words. My dear friends, I greatly appreciate your attempts, but, really, there is no end. There is no end. And the more I contemplate, the less I work. Touche, froggy monster friar - twas blixa bar money he doth the rapeth, he doth too nigh. Papa Satan, Papa Satan.

Doth approaceth. Doth glove foxy silken twiddle.

Spanish Rain (you don't care)

The cat that was a dog,
and was a singing boat,
and was a doormouse,

Well,

He was a gold and singing boat,

Too.

He was also my boat,
He was also my ship,

2. (you don't care)

he was watching your boats unfolden

Swelter Nertile (Now remove face-screws)

Swelter Nertile Merkent (Now unhinge thy knee)
A titulary rextile (Now ungle mine past)
Rentile swelters (Now forget her memory)
Tersatile men... (now head)

They drewel tan burs,
like say the thing (Now snap off)

Then, know who what Meanest Swelter Temperature (Now)
Or Sprang through window fly-net (Now eat nose)

television Rorsites. (Now remove face-front)

and

you don't mind.

drip drop drop

From the depths of my hard drive - Orange Juice - Falling and Laughing

2009-11-06T14:05:00.002+02:00

You might say
That we should build a city of tears
All I'm saying
Is I'm alone and consequently
Only my tears satisfy the real need of my heart

Orange Juice - Falling and Laughing (1980)

Letters Have No Arms !

Letters Have No Arms Is Moving!

Commenting on this post is mandatory if you happen to be Japanese.

From the depths of my external hard drive: Valentine's Day Edition

What would I do if I could have these songs dedicated to me today, but 10000 miles away someone else would fall off a bike and die ? Hmmm...

(songs you should dedicate to someone today)

Give me my f**king songs back!

(songs you can no longer dedicate to anyone because they will be forever associated with that b***h/that bastard)

p.s. the reason we haven't been very chatty lately is that we're working on moving the blog to our own domain, something I assume many blogs will be doing after the Blogger Scare of the past days. Worry not! We shall return mightier and awesomer* than ever.

*disclaimer: not a word; do not use in academical writing.

If You Tolerate This Your Children's Blogs Will Be Next

New music: Trash Kit

[though said with hands in pocket, I mean it hand on heart]

Die Antwoord = the answer

A Little Lost

Just another day.

I'm sorry if I've gotten sloppy with these electronic dreams, but they're all I have.

Don't Judge a Song by its Cover

I am a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Dog days, MediaMonkey, the flu, Neil Gaiman. Wondering how all this could possibly be related? It's not.

Terrible Yellow Eyes

New Magnetic Fields!

LHNA's Best of 2009 Pt. 2 (50-1)

LHNA's Best of 2009 pt. 1 (100-51)

Letters have no Songs!

Top 5 reads of 2009

It's Christmas! Let's be Glad!

Three things

Adam's Song

A Look Back: Primavera Club 2009

Repetition

Lists and subtitutions.

Asobi Seksu Live at Olympia Studios

And we're off! Primavera Club 2009!

The Galloping Horse

Music sounds better with you: 10 cheesy, sad, obvious, wistful, yearning or seasonal songs about missing someone

Ether

winter on the east coast

From the depths of my external hard drive: By the Sea

Introducing: Ghost Mall

Cupcakes and holiday spirit

In a boy-meets-girl story the boy should always meet the girl.

What Emily Did

That summer.

10 reasons to look forward to: Primavera Club 2009

Who said that the Album is dead?

The Magnetic Fields Announce New Album!

A Chat with School of Seven Bells

SEXUAL LANGUAGE

5888 5 (you don't care) Jason Loewenstein's A Wanker

From the depths of my hard drive - Orange Juice - Falling and Laughing