A Look Back: Primavera Club 2009

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!

Asobi Seksu Live at Olympia Studios

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.

Video of the Week: Grizzly Bear - Foreground (live on Pitchfork.tv)

go here for more

Belle and Sebastian - BBC Sessions

"If I could be a song/ I would be something that would snake into your room/ And be with you the whole night long"


 

So, Belle and Sebastian. Remember them? They were the band you were quite possibly listening to when you took your first tentative steps into indie™ . Maybe they even soundtracked an awkward first kiss, or a few weeks of unrequited love. Maybe not. Perhaps it was If You're Feeling Sinister that got you into them, or it could even have been Tigermilk, though given that only about 3 copies of that album were initially released, that's unlikely. You might be the kind of person that says you 'used to like them before they went poppy', i.e. before they made silly videos and just seemed so damn, well, confident. Surely this wasn't what they were about when you first met them? Back when they made grainy handheld videos with little stuffed animals and cute anorak wearing couples discussing J.D. Salinger and Sarah Records...

 

 

Perhaps you simply grew apart.

 

 

Maybe you still were that couple, or at least one half of that couple, while they, well, they definitely weren't. 

Perhaps you never had that much in common anyway.

 

Belle and Sebastian - Slow Graffiti (BBC Sessions)

Belle and Sebastian - Lazy Line Painter Jane (BBC Sessions)

Belle and Sebastian - The State I am in (BBC Sessions)

 

See what Pitchfork has to say about it here.

Or buy the album from insound

Check back on Letters have no Arms! in a few weeks for a full Belle and Sebastian retrospective. Or just pay Sweeping the Nation a visit for a beautiful, fascinating, and in depth article on the band.

They make me feel that I'm only all I see sometimes

 

1Animal Collective - Turn Into Something

Animal Collective - My Girls2

3Animal Collective - Fireworks

The Animal Collective boys made their way to our fair city last night, playing a rather brilliant set before catching a plane to Tel Aviv. Highlights included a stunning 15 minute version of Fireworks (which most of the audience were still singing on their journeys home, and probably woke up still singing) and closer My Girls.

I need A solid soul and the blood I bleed
With a little girl, and by
my spouse
I only want a proper house>

[Where's the cool pic from, you ask?]

Buy Animal Collective from insound

go here for a (live) track by track preview of the new Animal Collective album, Merriweather Post Pavillion