Dirty Projectors – Uninhabitable Earth Paragraph One
Close To Monday – Come Undone
Japanese Breakfast – Orlando in Love
Ribbon Skirt – Wrong Planet
Franz Ferdinand – Hooked
Jake Vaadeland – Bound to the Road
Tunng – Didn’t Know Why
Yesterday’s Man – Fleetwood mac
Songhoy Blues – Boutiki
all my stuff comes from a great playlist from The Guardian – unusual, because these best of playlists are usually really terrible.
Dirty Projectors – Uninhabitable Earth Paragraph One
Dirty Projectors is an American indie rock band from Brooklyn, New York, formed in 2002. The band is the project of singer-songwriter David Longstreth, who has served as the band’s sole constant member throughout numerous line-up changes. The band’s current line-up consists of Longstreth, alongside Mike Daniel Johnson (drums), Maia Friedman (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Felicia Douglass (vocals, percussion, keyboards) and Olga Bell (vocals, keyboards).
Uninhabitable Earth, Paragraph One – David Longstreth, Dirty Projectors, s t a r g a z e
This song is written by David Longstreth, the frontman for Dirty Projectors.
The Pitchfork article gives a good account of the story behind the song, including a four-year collaboration. This song will be part of an album launch on April 4th – Songs of the Earth.
Nicholas Jarr – Aqui (Pitchfork)
The opening of the song comes from the book The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells and Songs of the Earth shares this title with Gustav Mahler – Das Lied von der Erde
Songs of the Earth received its premiere in March of 2024 with the LA Philharmonic:
Song of the Earth, which will be receiving its American premiere with the LA Phil, grew out of an engagement with Gustav Mahler’s 1908 orchestral song cycle, Das Lied Von Der Erde (The Song of the Earth). Where Mahler’s union of symphonic and song forms was a meditation—by turns joyous, angst-ridden and wistful—on the cyclical character of life and death, nature and the transience of all things, Longstreth explores these themes through the lens of the Anthropocene.
Song of the Earth was commissioned by the London Barbican and the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie in coordination with the Helsinki Festival. Only Uninhabitable Earth, Paragraph One has so far been released.
The uninhabitable Earth was a piece first written by David Wallace-Wells for the New York Magazine in 2017 and is their most-read article in the New York Magazine. In 2019, he turned the article into a book – The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming
There is a CBC Tapestry episode with David Wallace-Wells – Why large-scale activism is the ‘most powerful path out of climate despair’
You can read about it here
Japanese Breakfast – Orlando in Love
I have never played Japanese Breakfast and now that Michelle Zauner has her first album out since 2021, this seemed like a good time. She has called herself a “grief girl” in the past and this can be heard in her work. This album seems to be a departure from earlier material, but Orlando in Love is still pretty somber stuff.
The new album is For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) and hasn’t been released yet.
What is it about? She explains here in Live in Limbo
“‘Orlando in Love’ is made up of a hodgepodge of odd references. The title comes from an epic poem by Matteo Maria Boiardo called Orlando Innamorato, which ends abruptly at 68.5 cantos because Italy was invaded by French troops, and that’s as far as he got before he had to flee. I fell in love with the title and envisioned a sort of whimsical, foolish male protagonist who lives by the sea in a Winneabeago RV and is seduced by a siren. After writing it, it felt like the perfect thesis statement for an album that is largely about people, often men, who find themselves seduced by temptation and are duly punished for it.
Live in Limbo
Japanese Breakfast – Orlando in Love (Official Lyric Video)
Just a little bit from Pitchfork:
Japanese Breakfast has shared the music video for her new song “Orlando in Love.” The lead single from the Blake Mills–produced For Melancholy Brunettes (& Sad Women) gets a baroque visual directed by Michelle Zauner. In it, Zauner plays Orlando, and her friend Jungle plays Venus.
any Grammys?
Japanese Breakfast is an American indie pop band from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, formed in 2013. The project is fronted by vocalist, guitarist and primary songwriter Michelle Zauner, alongside Peter Bradley (guitar), Deven Craige (bass) and Craig Hendrix (drums, keyboards, backing vocals).
Zauner started the band as a side project in 2013, when she was leading the Philadelphia-based emo group Little Big League. She has said that she named the band after seeing a GIF of Japanese breakfast[1] and because she thought the term would be “exotic” to Americans and thought it would make others wonder what a Japanese breakfast consists of.[2]
Here is Japanese Breakfast playing on Jimmy Fallon
Franz Ferdinand – Hooked
New Musical Express has a little article on Franz Ferdinand and the release of their sixth album – The Human Fear.
here (sigh) is the official video
Franz Ferdinand – Hooked (Official Audio)
I have never been a big fan of Franz Ferdinand (but they are from Scotland). Maybe this week I am trying to clear my mental attic of bands I have never played here before.
The next featured song – Tell I Should Stay is better, but The guardian’s best of playlist didn’t cover it so here we are.
Here’s a bit from FF playing Hooked in Mexico
Tunng – Didn’t Know Why
Tunng has been described as pagan-folktronica by KLOF mag and this is the 20th anniversary of their first release (Thanks Guardian)
So what is pagan-folktronica? Watch and listen
You can listen to a 2007 track – Bullets, to compare how their sound has changed – pretty similar, I would say, which is what they are going for in this new release – their eighth.
Here is the full article from KLOF mag
Tunng are an English folk music band. They are often associated with the folktronica genre, due to the electronic influences evident in some of their work. Tunng are often noted for their use of unconventional instruments, including seashells and percussive electronic samples.[1][2][3]
Songhoy Blues – Boutiki
Boutiki
Songhoy Blues is a desert blues music group from Timbuktu, Mali. The band was formed in Bamako after being forced to leave their homes during the civil conflict and the imposition of Sharia law.[3] The band released its debut album, Music in Exile, via Transgressive Records on February 23, 2015, while Julian Casablancas‘ Cult Records partnered with Atlantic Records to release the album in North America in March 2015. The group is one of the principal subjects of the documentary film They Will Have To Kill Us First.[4 Some similarities to last weeks Mdou Moctar – Imouhar
This is a great video that actually shows them playing – lots of fun here!
Songhoy Blues – Barre (Official Music Video) + Lyric Translations
this is how they describe themselves (from Fat Possum Records)
Songhoy Blues has always been about resistance. We started the group during a civil war, in the face of a music ban, to create something positive out of adversity, As long as we have music left in us and something to say, we’ll keep fighting each day with music as our weapon, our songs as our resistance.
Close To Monday – “Come Undone”
Close to Monday is a Europop synth duo who have just released a neato cover of an old Duran Duran track.
Here you can compare their version to the original. You be the judge!
Ribbon Skirt – “Wrong Planet” – Bite Down
Led by Anishinaabe musician Tashiina Buswa, Ribbon Skirt are a band from Montreal. Formerly Love Language, Buswa, changed the band’s name to Ribbon Skirt , which is a piece of Indigenous clothing and a universal symbol of resilience.
I find the the video for Wrong Plant a little unsettling.
Jake Vaadeland – “Bound to the Road” – Retro Man
To quote Exclaim Magazine , “Veering between high-flying Appalachian bluegrass and Sun Records rockabilly sensibility, the retro-bespoke Jake Vaadeland is both master of his domain and just a lad at nearly 22 years old. Evidently a workaholic from his continuous round-trips over the Atlantic, Vaadeland’s pastoral pastiche is always spirited enough to outplay the dreaded “homage” label — and his gang, the Sturgeon River Boys, puts on a poised and physical live show. With a new album on the Prairie horizon, keep this lot in your saddlebag; you’ll thank yourself come Stampede time.”
North Sask Music Zine – 2024 NSMZ Country/Roots/Folk Artist of the Year: Jake Vaadeland and the Sturgeon River Boys
Here’s a great live version of our featured track.
Yesterday’s Man – “ Fleetwood mac” – S/T
Yesterday’s Man describe their sound as “classic indie rock” I am a sucker for songs that name check famous people or bands in their titles so this is right in my wheelhouse. It was Exclaim Magazine’s staff pick of the week!
Whole-Hearted 