http://disqus.com/by/undercoversong/enSun, 15 Mar 2009 18:21:52 -0000http://overheardmusic.tumblr.com/post/86537352#comment-7243486<p>Note from the editor: Jamie Thompson will be taking over my position as editor-in-chief of Overheard Music. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But soon, and for the rest of his life. Okay, not really. I've already posted before about his own excellent website where he turns out unsurpassed musical experiments, commentary and advice for the less informed and almost-as-curious reader. For anyone impatient with my own, much slower process of melophilic inquiry, Jamie's site (and comments here!) make for a satisfying alternative! Highly recommend heading over to <a href="http://thesmallisbeautiful.com/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" title="http://thesmallisbeautiful.com/">http://thesmallisbeautiful....</a> </p>KPSun, 15 Mar 2009 18:21:52 -0000http://overheardmusic.tumblr.com/post/80573781#comment-6588117<p>Nice one!</p>KPTue, 24 Feb 2009 22:45:31 -0000http://overheardmusic.tumblr.com/post/80573781#comment-6497527<p>Ah, yes. My good comrades in Germany. I believe it's Episode 3! </p>KPMon, 23 Feb 2009 10:03:03 -0000http://overheardmusic.tumblr.com/post/79899085#comment-6426139<p>Everyone please also note the color of this new gadget matches my post title color, aka my favorite, sour cherry!</p>KPFri, 20 Feb 2009 02:50:33 -0000http://thenotes.tumblr.com/post/70998731#comment-6403259<p>Okay, so, I'm still obsessing over this song. The opening is *perfect*. Here's the thing: I can't for the life of me figure out why this track is buried so deep in the tracklist. </p>KPThu, 19 Feb 2009 10:33:05 -0000http://thenotes.tumblr.com/post/70998731#comment-6374417<p>Byzantine hard plastic!! Great review. I finally downloaded the whole album, and "Now's the Only..." is definitely my favorite track. You're absolutely right that what's so stunning about the record is its seamless seasonal transition from "eerie tropicalia" to "post-apocalyptic winter"---well said. She's able to command such a range of textures and moods. I'm committed.</p>KPWed, 18 Feb 2009 10:08:54 -0000http://thenotes.tumblr.com/post/76998837#comment-6325764<p>Viz. sinister atmosphere: what say you about Fever Ray? </p>KPTue, 17 Feb 2009 03:04:20 -0000http://thenotes.tumblr.com/post/76998837#comment-6132487<p>All right, yes, but two things!:</p><p>1) Just because we know the magician is engaging us in a "trick" doesn't mean we came to see him demystify us. Besleeved or no, the mood Salem's able to set in this an other tracks is its own pleasure. It makes me get all, "Do another trick! Do another!" and such.<br>2) Kanye West (erasing hip-hop from within hip-hop? Or is it just that hip-hop as, face it, evolving pop music, has just gained primacy of influence viz. production techniques?)</p>KPTue, 10 Feb 2009 00:40:03 -0000http://hatethefuture.tumblr.com/post/76191777#comment-6132279<p>Gah! So ... scared ....</p>KPTue, 10 Feb 2009 00:27:07 -0000http://overheardmusic.tumblr.com/post/76818730#comment-6132145<p>That review was what finally motivated me to write this mini-essay, which has been percolating in my head (as no doubt in so many other frustrated musicophiliacs') for too long. I wonder how many other people did the same? I mean, really; Pitchfork is bad in all kinds of ways for all kinds of things, and for all kinds of reasons, but Ian Cohen's review has to be the flimsy straw that breaks the Leviathan. It's just unconscionable. Even Vice Magazine doesn't outright call its readers "dicks." (That I know of, at least, although somehow I now feel I could easily be proven wrong!) Either way, that's just insane! So insane, actually, that it's kind of entertaining. I'm sort of more interested in reading Pitchfork now than I ever have been before --- just to see snake eat tail.</p>KPTue, 10 Feb 2009 00:18:12 -0000http://overheardmusic.tumblr.com/post/76818730#comment-6132096<p>Oh, yes. Yes and yes again: a dark minefield! The anxiety and negativity! Why? *Why!?* In my earlier, Clipse-related Pitchfork post (<a href="http://overheardmusic.tumblr.com/post/64834453/clipse-v-pitchfork)" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" title="http://overheardmusic.tumblr.com/post/64834453/clipse-v-pitchfork)">http://overheardmusic.tumbl...</a> I tried to make a distinction---or at least introduce the possibility of introducing a distinction!---between "music journalism" and art criticism. As someone haunted by the ghost of Oscar Wilde---and convinced that criticism has the capacity and the obligation to be artful---I hate to think that music writing, however currently impoverished, can possibly be blamed on the half-wits. The half-wits run a lot of things in this world, man. They do. But they're easy to topple, precisely because they're half-wits.</p><p></p>KPTue, 10 Feb 2009 00:14:02 -0000http://thenotes.tumblr.com/post/76249613#comment-6131646<p>Huh! I wouldn't have guessed there'd be such a good fuzz-guitar thing going. Shoegazey indeed. Still, it's hard for me to get past the chord progression sounding so much like a Nathalie Merchant song. And "shoot at the sky" isn't doing it for me, lyrically. At least not enough for it to be the only (or only discernible) line in the chorus. Regardless, though: I completely agree that Pitchfork has reached a window-shattering shrillness in its own (uniform) tone. The good news is that it seems like people are genuinely sick of it---not just in a backlash kind of way, but really fed up, offended and just fucking bored by all the narcissism, insecurity and shallowness Pitchfork displays... </p>KPMon, 09 Feb 2009 23:46:52 -0000http://overheardmusic.tumblr.com/post/68012684#comment-4856373<p>c'est vrai! <br>Check out previously posted Land of Talk Playlist here (<a href="http://overheardmusic.tumblr.com/post/66947023/land-of-talk-playlist)" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" title="http://overheardmusic.tumblr.com/post/66947023/land-of-talk-playlist)">http://overheardmusic.tumbl...</a> and Jamie Thompson's project, Small is Beautiful, here: <a href="http://thesmallisbeautiful.com/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" title="http://thesmallisbeautiful.com/">http://thesmallisbeautiful....</a></p>KPFri, 02 Jan 2009 19:19:12 -0000http://overheardmusic.tumblr.com/post/48223204#comment-1995828<p>From a San Francisco reader, via email, comes a pithy summation of the dialectic of distance and magnetism in pop composition. BRG writes that pop music aims neither directly for the heart, as in overtly emotional composition, nor directly for the brain, as in the cerebral clubs of prog, "math rock," and experimental and improvisational music. Right: rather, it works by engaging the two in the creative play of accessible compositional frameworks. </p>KPMon, 01 Sep 2008 19:12:02 -0000