Moonlighting as a journalist and writer in Calgary, but mostly just listening to music, watching movies, reading books, and drinking espresso while tracking the various things I've done in an effort to get other things done.
In their review of James Blake's self-titled debut, Pitchfork mentioned that Blake could be among a new crop of singer-songwriters to merge the bleeding edge of electronic music with traditional singer-songwriter tropes. It's a fair enough assessment, given that triphop is approaching twenty years of age as a genre (making it almost as old as James Blake) and there are those who trace dubstep, drum 'n' bass, and all forms of house music back even farther.
It will be interesting to hear what happens next.
Speaking of singer-songwriter electronic music collaborations, I wonder what Justin Vernon is up to these days?
Man, September has been a busy, busy time. I think I picked up a dozen albums in the last month, which is a lot, even for me. It's a new album every two to three days, which requires a lot of listening. Luckily, I guess, I also spent a lot of time driving across Calgary doing site visits, giving me ample opportunity to listen to a lot of this music.
I stumbled across this Belle & Sebastian side project, God Help The Girl, courtesy of my friends over at Spectrum Culture. It's a kind of concept album, with a story set to music by Stuart Murdoch, who then recruited three amateur vocalists. It's interesting, but I wouldn't go much farther than that.
Speaking of Belle & Sebastian, Spectrum also ran down their recommended playlist for the Scottish group, and I spent a considerable amount of time trying to pick my favourite tracks. The end result? I'm not particularly crazy about Fold Your Hands Child... and I appear to like the "happy" Belle & Sebastian songs.
Speaking of favourites, The Big Pink's A Brief History of Love has been one of my favourites on the year.
I also picked up the Bon Iver Blood Bank Ep.
My friend Dan Vacon, lead singer of the Dudes, released an album under his quieter side-project Dojo Workhorse.
I also picked up the new Grizzly Bear album, which to be honest, really couldn't hold my attention for long.
I also found myself spending some time with Lou Barlow's latest album, Goodnight Unknown:
The new Magnolia Electric Co. album Josephine was something I listened to a fair bit back in August and so picked up the Songs: Ohia album Didn't It Rain on a bit of a whim.
I've also picked up the new Bonnie Prince Billy and Bill Callahan, two highly recommended albums that I hope to listen to more in October. Similarly, Saddle Creek's Orenda Fink has a sophomore album, Ask the Night, that just recently joined my collection.
