Job's theme song, on cello.

What could be better?

h/t to diane :)

Jens Lekman @ Bimbo's 365

Oh, there was many a hipster, to be sure, donning plaid just like the headliner, and their "very unique hairdos" (as David sarcastically sniped). They were out in full effect, professing their "man crushes" and demanding their favorite songs. One was met with an uncharacteristically firm rebuke from Jens: "No. You can't get everything you want in life." But he couldn't keep a straight face long enough to be make his annoyance believable. This guy is too sanguine, too sweet to be cold -- dancing giddily around the stage with his band, all in matching outfits with matching keys around their necks, arms outstretched like airplanes during an electronic instrumental interlude.

No, the hipsters couldn't dissuade me. After all, with a"boyfriendable baritone" and "deadpan style of singing" reminiscent of Stephen Merritt*, what other musician is charming enough to make even the most mundane minutiae lyrical? Seriously, who else can pull off a line like this:

So you pick up your asthma inhaler
and put it against your lips
and oh those lips I've loved

or this

I was slicing up an avocado
when you came up behind me
with your quiet brand new sneakers

or my favorite,

Oh, I still remember "Regulate" with Warren G.
Could that have been back in the sweet summer of 1993?

Hell, he made a song out of Google Map directions!

Wasn't really expecting him to be a comedian, though I guess those witty lyrics had to come from somewhere. He related a story of telling his audience in Florence how he marvelled at what a beautiful city they lived in, and learned his lesson after the show when some fans cornered him and angrily insisted it was a shit hole. So he did a little reverse psychology -- "I hate San Francisco, with your rainbows, and your tiny tiny hummingbirds, and your cute boys and girls...fuck San Francisco. This song's for Oakland." Cheers all around, natch.

He played Sweet Summer's Night on Hammer Hill during an encore, violin and cello subbing for the horns like at this show in Italy:


Reminds me of clapping on a street corner in Santiago...

*Talking smack about hipsters and then linking to Pitchfork...no, the irony's not lost on me.

Read, read on.

most of all the world is a place where parts of wholes are described
within an overarching paradigm of clarity and accuracy
the context of which makes possible
an underlying sense of the way it all fits together
despite our collective tendency not to conceive of it as such
-The Books, "Smells Like Content"

"Sample-folk" duo The Books performed at the Great American Music Hall last night.

Experimental violinist Todd Reynolds opened for them, his style what the NYT has described as "impassioned violin soliloquies." He used the same live track layering technique Zoe Keating does to create intricate soundscapes. One of the most memorable parts of his set was "Outerboroughs"--his soundtrack to filmmaker Bill Morrison's old edited public domain footage of a cable car going over the Brooklyn bridge. He recommended Morrison's nostalgic Decasia--old film being played for the last time while being burned into oblivion by a light projector.

When The Books took to the stage, Paul brought out what looked like the hollow shell of a cello--he dubbed it the "celleton." Gorgeous. And travel-friendly, too!

from Pitchfork

They did a cover of Nick Drake's "Cello Song," one of my favorites to along with play at home. The visuals were stunning--for a new song entitled "8 Frame" included in their newly released DVD Playall, the video was timed so each frame lasted for a quarter note. At the very end of the song, they did a gradual time lapse of a water balloon bursting into a thousand shimmering water droplets. Breathtaking. Their music and images are so meticulously coordinated that even the slightest hiccup in rhythm or intonation forces them to start a song over. At one point during "Smells like Content," Nick hit a flat, stopped, and apologized, explaining that if they kept going, everything would be off, and it would be "really bad." We were happy to oblige.

I think what's even more striking than their precision is their ability to create something that is at once provocative, innovative and still accessible, with universal emotional charge.

Pitchfork review writer Mark Richardson nails it:

...the Books have plucked sampled voices from their original context and arranged them inside simple compositions for sliced-and-diced guitar, banjo, and cello. They've taken moments of contemplation-- when one understands something on an emotional level but can't quite articulate his thoughts-- and dressed it up in a melodic frame
...
[It's] a fantastic reminder of the musicality of the spoken word, an idea that lurks constantly inside the music of the Books.

The Books' achieve this sound through their own wholly independent production:

We do all of our own sample collecting, composing, writing, recording, mixing, and mastering in our home studios using pc's running cheap software and the ragtag equipment that we've pieced together over the years. What you hear on our records is exactly how it left our hands, with no producer, engineers, or sweetening in between. We are completely independent, beholden to no corporations and we have funded all of our music entirely ourselves.

Some videos from last year's tour, at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia:


Cello Song


An Owl With Knees


The Classy Penguin--about Nick's brother Mikey


"I want all of the American People to understand, that it is understandable that the American People cannot possibly understand." --The Books, "An Animated Description of Mr. Maps"

"Her next bold move"

A CampusProgress tribute to Ani, celebrating the birth of her daughter on January 20th.

Found on Fillmore St:

Talk amongst yaselves.

On a related note, here's Regina Spektor wooing the crowd at the Fillmore--anti-folk hipster darling that she is. She had everyone eating out of the palm of her hand, not a dry seat in the house.

Pitchfork nails it, though they think her blushing modesty does her a disservice:

She reaches her audience's ears and heartstrings through feigned naivete. The I'm-just-a-wee-lass stance is apparent throughout Soviet Kitsch, as well as her live performances, where she's been known to pout and giggle and murmur and feed the crowd chocolates.

That coy bashful schtick she'd lay on thick between songs was likely part of the performance, though I found nothing ingenuine about it, and she was anything but self-important. It was endearing and disarming, not overbearing or put on--the whimsy she had on reserve for when she wasn't teasing the microphone with those bombshell ruby lips or mesmerizing us with the range and dexterity of that polished instrument she calls a voice. Cause let's be honest, who needs to be a concert pianist when you've got one of those?

Check out this live show only gem:

You know that statue
Yhat statue of baby jesus
In the window
In the window of the 99 cent store
Last night I saw the owner kiss it
And whisper in its ear
I was walking home from walgreen's
And he did not hear me see him
And on the
Very very next morning
All the subway cars were hallelu-leluing
Welcome back the baby king, the baby king
All the believers they were smiling
And winking at each other
I could honestly say I was scared for my life.

Followed by a howling refrain of "BELIEVE! BELIEVE! BELIEVE!" Sacrilicious.