Pears, Plums, Books, Peaches

Even though it was released almost three years ago, I just recently heard the Final Fantasy cover of Joanna Newsom's "Peach, Plum, Pear." It's one of my favorite Joanna Newsom tunes and I really enjoy the cover too. Pallet's strings offer a pleasant parallel to the sounds of Newsom's harp and his voice is well suited to the song's delicate vocals.

"Peach, Plum, Pear" by Final Fantasy

"Peach, Plum, Pear" by Joanna Newsom

I've also been really getting into the books lately. Ive had their first album for quite some time, but it never garnered anything more than passing interest; something I wouldn't skip in shuffle, but probably wasn't seeking out otherwise. Last week though, a friend showed me a video from their 2007 dvd, Playall. This is "Smells Like Content."

At first I was drawn in by how wonderful the video is, but immediately after watching, I wanted to hear the song again. Initially I heard similarities to Broken Social Scene's "I'm Still Your Fag" (another great video and fantastic song) but the more I listened, the more I could hear Paul Simon in the melodies and harmonies of the vocals. I don't offer these comparisons to detract from the duo's originality, but rather to trace the development of my appreciation for the song. Since then, I've been listening to Lost and Safe near constantly and while "Smells like Content" stands out as my favorite, it is a solid album of experimental balladry.

"Smells Like Content" by the Books
"Be Good to Them Always" by the Books

One Snazzy Joint

So a couple nights ago I spent some quality time with the breetard and our parents and we were lucky enough to have gotten tickets to Dizzy's Club in Manhattan as a Christmas gift (yeah Grandma). I'd never been to the place before and was pretty blown away. It's a real small place, with a slightly raised stage, and the wall behind the stage is entirely glass, looking out over the city. The tickets didn't say who was going to be performing so it was a nice surprise when we got there that it was actually someone I'm familiar with, Paquito D'Rivera. He played with an ensemble of 6, plus a bandoneon player on several songs. Although all the instrumentalists were extremely talented, the bass player stood out for me as the virtuoso of the group (outside of D'Rivera himself). During one piece he played two extremely complex counterpoint melodies at once, using each hand to hammer-on the notes. The percussion was phenomenal as well. The set player was amazingly technical in his playing and the auxillary percussionists did a great job of blending their sounds with his, playing more drums, chimes, bells, and other little noisemakers than I could count. The trumpet / trombone player had a style very similar to D'Rivera's sax playing, very fast and highly melodic, with few sweeping notes and lots of staccato. Although he was playing mostly a background role, the pianist really shone on the slower pieces and one of the later up tempo songs. There was a section where he and the bandoneon took the center stage playing off of each other that was one of the high points of the show. D'Rivera himself still blew them all away, playing swirling complex melodies as if it was the most natural thing a person could do.

Unfortunately, he was not wearing this outfit.

Not only is D'Rivera an amazing sax player, but he was completely comfortable on stage talking to the crowd. He didn't overdo it with the talking, but threw in a couple stories about Gillespie, who he worked with from a very early point in his career, and background information on the pieces they played and the different genres they crossed. Monday is D'Rivera's last night at the club, and I'd guess it was sold out, but if you can get there by any means, It comes highly reccomended from yours truly. Even if you have a chance to see him elsewhere, or see someone else at Dizzy's, I'd say both would be enjoyable experiences.

"Guataca City" (to David Amram) by Paquito D'Rivera
This song's a great example of the style of most of his set. Upbeat, complex melodies. Awesome.

In other news, I've listened to "Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes" by Paul Simon at least 5 times today. I hope everyone keeps in mind how great a song that is. How great the whole graceland album is, even.

"Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes" by Paul Simon

Mixtape Murdaaa

So I put together a playlist to burn for driving in my car a while back, a mix if you will. I really enjoy listening to it on rainy days, but maybe someone else will like it for a beautiful day like today. Some of these songs have been up on Cigarbox before, but today it's not really about the individual song as much as it's about the set of songs as a whole. Anyways, without any further adieu, I present to you

Cigarbox Guitars Volume 1: El Producto

1. "Imagine" by Dizzee Rascal
Man, I like this song so much more than the John Lennon song of the same name. The production is just beatiful. Absolutely beautiful. The postal service needs to listen to this song and take notes.

2. "Rain Edit Interlude" by Prefuse 73
So maybe this song is why I like listening to this mix so much in the rain. The first time I played the "Surrounded by Silence" album in my house, my dad kept complaining that my record player had to be skipping, it couldn't sound like this on purpose. YOU JUST DON'T GET IT, MAAAAAN.

3. "Once Upon a Time There Was an Ocean" by Paul Simon
One of my firsts posts on Cigarbox was about how awesome the most recent Paul Simon is. I really feel like Paul Simon just doesn't get enough credit anymore for being an awesome musician. The guy has made music that goes in so many different directions, from this album with Brian Eno to his early American Folk sound to the African Folk sound on Graceland. The way he sings, "nothing is different, but everything has changed," at the end of this song is absolutely heartbreaking.

4. "I and I Survive" by Burning Spear
This is one I picked up off of Soul Sides. As guest blogger Joe Schloss explained, this song is a great example of musicians using the absence of sound to create a musical soundscape. Fucking cool song.

5. "Talkin' Bout Hey Love" by De La Soul
This might be my favorite De La Soul song of all time, off of what's definitely my favorite album, De La Soul is Dead. Does this even count as a song, or is it technically a skit? I'm not sure. Either way, the Stevie Wonder melody is just wonderful.

6. "Analyse" by Thom Yorke
Thom's solo effort was a bit of a letdown to me. That's not to say I don't like the songs individually, I do, but as a whole the album just wasn't as captivating as I expected. That being said however, I like the piano on this song a lot.

7. "One For The Head" by M.I.A.
This beat reminds me so much of this little casio keyboard I had when I was younger. I really wish I could find that little keyboard.

8. "Arc of Time" by Bright Eyes
I've said it before and I'll said it again, Conor Oberst is a master beatsmith.

9. "(This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan" by Dntel
Yet another song that the Postal Service should listen to and take some notes on. According to Wikipedia, Ben Gibbard had a weird dream involving Evan Dando and Cat Power (Chan Marshall) and this song was born. It also has a video you can watch here, but I don't think the group had anything to do with the video.

10. "Hollow Bones" by the Wu-Tang Clan
I was in Florida with my family years back and I bought a magazine to read, just because it had the Wu on the cover, raising the Iron Flag. It came with a CD sampler and this was the Wu song they chose to be on it. Ghost's finish to the song makes me wish he rapped like that more often these days.

11. "Mysterons" by Portishead
I love Portishead. The second time I saw the Strokes, they played this whole album before Kings of Leon went on. Once I heard the drum on this song, I basically fell in love with it. I went out and bought the album, I think the next day.

12. "This Room" Remix by the Notwist
For a while, I was only familiar with the Notwist's Neon Golden. I heard some of their older stuff, from when they were more on the thrash side of things and I wasn't really interested, so I never really delved deeper than the one album. Then I heard this song and it definitely has a very different sound from Neon Golden, but I really love it.

13. "Just the Thought" feat. Masta Killa and the Gza by Prefuse 73
Another great one from Surrounded by Silence. The effects used after the gun and sword references are so clutch.

14. "Artificial Intelligence" by Autechre
This is pretty much just simple digital music, but I rock reeeally hard to it when I'm all by myself.

15. "Stand Up Tall" Ghislain Poirier Remix by Dizzee Rascal
When I made this mix the first time, I had the McSleazy remix of this song on it. This version is just so much better though. My life won't be complete until I hear this song while I'm out on the dancefloor. This song makes me shake my moneymaker.

16. "Afterclap" by 13&God
13&God are a Notwist offshoot that I honestly don't know a whole lot about. I do know though, that the spoken parts, "Big Money! Big Prizes!" remind me of Requiem For a Dream and I like that a lot.

17. "Battle" by Wookie
Man, this song is cheesy as hell. It's all about fighting temptation and negativity and shit like that by relying on your faith. I dunno, on paper I should hate this song, but it makes me dance. I like the keyboards a lot, even though they're pretty quiet in the mix.

18. "Milkman" by Aphex Twin
The lyrics to this song are so awesome. This song always reminds me of KMFDM, even though it's not thaaat similar.

Download the Mix

Today's Blog, in which Paul Simon gets out of the tub to make some cool music

So Paul Simon dropped an album in early May of this year, and I really didn't hear a goddamn thing about it. In all fairness, I tend to be oblivious to things sometimes, so for all I know the album cover could've been plastered on every bus in Newark and every blog on the internet. But anyways, I didn't hear about it until I was reading The New Yorker in a shrink's waiting room and I saw a review for the forthcoming (when the magazine went to press, at least) Paul Simon album produced by Brian Eno. Wait, what? Yeah. Brian Eno. The Album's called Surprise and I've really been having a blast listening to it. Eno did a good job of producing an album that sounds different from anything Simon's done before without making it sound like an aging musician trying to revamp/revitalize their sound (see Celine Dion, "and that's the way it is" not that I've ever listened to Celine Dion.). Aside from my initial shock, it's not terribly Surprise-ing to see Brian Eno on the album. Paul Simon is the man who went from collaborating with Art Garfunkle to Lady Blacksmith Mambazo. In addition to the beautifully layered sonic landscape that Eno lays out, the album is great lyrically. Simon touches on our current state political turmoil, growing old, and being a father, to name a few themes.

Paul Simon - Sure Doesn't Feel Like Love

Paul Simon - Once Upon A Time There Was An Ocean

All in all, Paul Simon's been cool since before I was born and he's still cool.