Best of October

Some October faves, all the more relevant with cold air howling as their accompaniment.

1) Before I Die - Roma di Luna
A mainstay on the current this past week, and a favorite of mine for Channey Casselle's haunting, Cat Power-like growl. A homegrown independent music-making genius.

2) I'm Not Calling You a Liar - Florence + The Machine
Best with the iTunes visualizer handy.
There's a ghost in my lungs and it sighs in my sleep
Wraps itself around my tongue as it softly speaks
Then it walks, then it walks with my legs
To fall, to fall at your feet

3) Miracles - Jeremy Messersmith
J questions fate vs. free will with poignancy, as always.

4) When I'm Small - Phantogram
By far one of the most exciting discoveries this year. Sure to be around for many moons to come.
5) Rome - Phoenix with Devendra Banhart
The remixed version is more Bon Iver than Phoenix's Wolfgang Amadeus, which is why I dig it.
I never loved you
And if I loved you
I wouldn't say it, I'm sorry

The Guardian

I lack collateral on the parts I've loaned you
If you've seen any tell them I'm incomplete
Without knowing where they are
Or what they're doing
If they're wandering the streets
Cold and hungry
Stopping in shame against the better judgments they no longer need
Begging for mercy,
a half hour of your time,
a ride home
If they've taken up another trade
In your restless presence
If they are being resourceful
With time
With money
If they are careful to lock their doors
And not talk to strangers
Tell them I'm sorry I didn't teach them any better
And that I love them
And I want them to come home
Show them how confused I was to give them up
How ancient I've grown in their absence
Taking life like a shot with a grain of salt
But never sell them on manipulated bliss
The water draining from my veins as you told me
I've had this fever my whole life-
don't wait for it to break
Skeptically breathing in the same space
Shield them.

Everywhere I Go

I have some major beef with Lissie. First of all, she's talented, gorgeous, and has toured with Ray Lamontagne. (Not to mention she cancelled the concert I had tickets to last weekend.) Despite these reasons I find I can't stay away from her honey-smooth, Fleetwood Mac-remniscent vocals. Kicked out of highschool and spending time in Colorado, Paris, and eventually making her home in LA, Lissie is an indie-rock rebel after my own heart. The powerful, evocative "Everywhere I Go" breaks my heart in just the right way; and "Worried About" has one of the catchier hooks I've heard in a while. (You like to see/Your thumb on me/Just checkin in/To make it begin again.)
By far the biggest hit is the aching protest "In Sleep."
Fast asleep where I keep my memories
Calling me out in dreams, he visits me
I know that when the story ends
The one that's in my head
Well, I'll be alone again
If you're a fan of Laura Marling or Marina & The Diamonds, you'll find a pleasant surprise in Lissie. And if she ever comes to town again you'd be wise to get tickets...just make sure they're refundable.

Matthew, Dear?

Black City, the latest release from electro-darling Matthew Dear is equal parts Bowie and Bjork, with just enough avant-garde lyricism to keep the hipsters happy. Proving to be more than just an obscure dance album lending itself to an Urban Outfitters soundtrack, Black City is Dear's most genre-evading, mind-blowing work to date. Thought it's tempting to qualify Dear as techno, there is more order amidst the ambiguous chaos and more meaning to be derived from his careful arrangements than the usually haphazard impression left by this genre. Drawing comparisons to The National on tracks like "Gem," and Spoon on "Soil to Seed," this is an album that despite such modern comparisons ushers in a totally new era of its own.

One More Time With Feeling

One More Time With Feeling - Regina Spektor

your stitches are all out
but your scars are healing wrong
the helium balloon inside your room has come undone
and it's pushing up at the ceiling; and the
flickering
lights it cannot get beyond

everyone takes turns
now it's yours to play the part
and they're sitting all around you
holding copies of your chart
and the misery inside their eyes
is synchronised
and reflecting it to yours

hold on
one more time with feeling
try it again, breathing's just a rhythm
say it in your mind until you know that the words are right
this is why we fight

you thought by now you'd be
so much better than you are
you thought by now they'd see
that you have come so far

and the pride inside their eyes
is synchronised
to a love you'll never know
so much more than you can show

hold on
one more time with feeling
try it again, breathing's just a rhythm
say it in your mind until you know that the words are right

this is why we fight

Se Destruyan

Over the last year a lot of questions have come up for me. My whole life I would classify as one, enormous, self-persisting question; beginning when I was maybe 5 (when I remember acknowledging that time moved so quickly and how desperately I wanted it to slow down), and continuing to this day with the equivocally insoluble and ever-changing questions of faith.
These questions, you know, the big ones, keep me up at night. (As a white, middle class, pretty permeable-minded citizen of my time, it's only natural that I reference a Coldplay song here; one that I think can generally sum up my view of everything logical and reasonable: Questions of science, science and progress do not speak as loud as my heart.) But more legitimately than something Chris Martin penned to soothe Gwen Pal is this universal idea that there are simply things in life we cannot explain, reason, or affect. There is only so much we can take on every day, and these questions without easy answers only serve to complicate our thoughts that much more.

I think, though, that these questions are important. And that these sort of complications are okay. I don't believe that I'll ever know a lot of things. The only thing I'm really sure of is that there are A LOT of things I am completely unsure of.... All the time. And I think that's alright. For those kind of moments though, I need music.Every day, despite some of our best efforts at avoiding these questions or, my faaaaavorite, the kind of people who pretend they know the answers to them and love to tell you just-what-they-are, the searching persists. The meaning is limitless. But the music is there. Two of my favorite Mason Jennings songs take the questions right out of my head and into a verse. The endless wondering, the at times demanding that I have done to the universe exists because I let it. The questions that I've thought about this past year mostly revolve around change and faith; and most interestingly: their intersection.

Things Change - Mason Jennings
How'm I gonna live with all this pain in my heart
Never thought that I would have to make a new start
Strange, how the moment just can't last
No way of living inside the past

Now that you're gone
Things can die, they can't stay the same
Things change

I mean every - everything
Things can die, they can't stay the same
Things change

God it's been so long, I don't know where that we've been
Try to find a way to let the light back in
I can't stop thinking of what you said
Only one person could live inside my head

Now that you're gone
Things can die, they can't stay the same
Things change

I mean every-everything
Things can die, they can't stay the same
Things change
Some Say I'm Not - Mason Jennings
To look at a baby
You've gotta be brave
In the black of his eye
Is your own grave
And something darker
You wanna touch
It must be love
Cause it hurts so much

Love

I've been to Egypt
I've been to Rome
I was a young man
When I left my home
Looking for something
I couldn't find
Now I'm back where I started
It was here all the time

Time

Out of the darkness
Into the light
I had it wrong
You made it right
I had it right
You made it wrong
Same old story
Same old song

Song

Some call me Allah
Some call me Tao
Some call me Buddha
Some call me now
Some call me Jesus
Some call me God
Some say I'm real
Some say I'm not

BangBangBang

Bang Bang Bang, the latest remix by music genius Mark Ronson, may just be the perfect kick start to your September. Collaborating with Q-Tip (whose laid back vocals upgrade any track with effortless cool) and the up and coming electro-rockers MNDR, Ronson has created an instant catch.
MNDR is an electronic music duo out of New York featuring frontwoman Amanda Warner. Warner has co-written Bang Bang Bang along with other tracks displaying her undeniably modern French-siren sound. Check out the video for an aesthetically pleasing throw back to some international hits.