Gabriel Birnbaum, recording under the alter-ego Boy Without God, is a literary and spiritual seeker and songwriter in the vein of Leonard Cohen, mingling straight-forward melodic songs with the experimentalism and long-form composition style he picked up writing fifteen-minute free jazz epics during high school. Your Body is Your Soul, his first studio full length, was released this summer, and he is hard at work on the follow up, titled God Bless the Hunger.
Cuddle Magic / Expectations
So well written and eternal sounding that when I first heard it, I thought it was a cover, because I was positive I’d heard it before. It also has all the amazing little orchestral touches that make every Cuddle Magic song so great: that weird pizzicato part after the first chorus, the drum beat inverting over the second verse, the way the vocals pull back really hard on the time, the shaker entering for the whistling part.
Life Partners / Men Are Talking
This song is so over the top, it’s hard not to love. The pensive picking intro, the chorus riff, the hilarious tongue-in-cheek arrogance of lyrics like ‘Men are talking/it’s a gift from our minds to the world!’ It’s the ultimate cock-rock song that is also making fun of cock-rock. The thing is, it’s funny, but it’s also really complexly arranged and the second half is seriously heavy and intense.
Henry Threadgill & Very Very Circus / Next
Threadgill is an amazing alto saxophonist and composer from the Chicago/AACM avant garde. This particular band featured French horn, two electric guitars, two tubas and drums and honestly sounds like nothing else you’ve ever heard. People say that a lot but it’s really true here. My attempt at capturing it in words: free jazz + Nola brass bands + samba drum corps + 80s TV sitcom theme song. Uh, just listen to it.
King Expressers / Passed Ascension Parish
I write for a new music blog called Ampeater Music, so I spend a lot of my listening time digging up new bands for that. These guys have the West African influence that seems to be all over indie rock these days, but they’re way more capable musicians than most. This song is perfectly summery and laidback, and the guitar lines are all fluid and shimmery, like light reflecting on water. I would definitely hang out on the porch to this song.
David Daniell / Sunfish
I don’t really know much of anything about this guy, but this album — Coastal — is beautiful. It’s largely ambient without being at all dull. When it repeats itself, you know it’s doing it on purpose. It also does a really good job of making electronic sounds resemble natural sounds and conjure up natural imagery. Good music to have on repeat while writing papers, which is pretty much all I’ve been doing for the last week.
Songs: Ohia / Blue Factory Flame
God, I love sad bastard music. Didn’t It Rain is the ultimate sad bastard record, and this song is an eight and a half minute, three chord dirge that starts with Jason Molina warbling ‘when I die’ in the bleakest voice I’ve ever heard and pretty much stays the same the entire time. And the chorus is just the words ‘paralyzed by emptiness’ over and over. YES.
Erik Satie / Gnossienne No. 1
Dissonance can sound pretty. This piece proves it. The melody is in a different key half the time, and it’s still gorgeous and totally natural sounding. I really love the Reinbert De Leeuw recording, in particular, because it is so slow and moody. Satie also makes for excellent paper writing music, though it makes for even better wandering around Copenhagen in the winter music.
Slaraffenland / Long Gone
I just got We’re On Your Side and haven’t really had a chance to get my head around it yet, but it’s really interesting so far. So many open vocal harmonies and droney, repetitive guitar lines. It’s like rock music built on minimalism. The chorus on this song is basically just a melody over one guitar note. Really cool. Love the way they use horns, too, so textural. Most indie bands are so damned lazy with their horn arrangements.
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