Triumph of Lethargy Skinned Alive To Death - “The Dirty Street”

This contrast is peculiarly grotesque. Indiana can give birth to different kinds of folks allegedly. Sometimes it’s a pop star that crosses out all boundaries while staying a 4-year-old boy seeking children to play with in his bedroom all throughout his life. And then it can sometimes give birth to a sick confused mind that concludes her own story by deciding it’s time to call it quits.

An Indiana woman shot her three children and set the family’s house on fire before turning the gun on herself, police said. (CNN)

This is not the first time in history that tragedy strikes. No one has a clue what has crossed the 30-year-old Amanda Bennett to shoot his three children and then committing suicide. The sadder evidence is the left out note from the woman to her husband writing: “You got what you wanted, no wife and no kids.”

Now, contemplating on such a trauma, the brilliant part of how our brains work is that we can all these blackness leave behind somewhere deep. No doubt, it’s just a transient state of mind. It has become a ridiculous entertainment for us: bad news, suicide news. It’s all over town. And then a heedless mind would also try to construct irrelevant ideas out of the story. Like, in my case, what song can fit as the background to this dreary film when she was attempting those horror shows? Yes, sorry! But why not? All drama films based on real events have music by John Williams or Hans Zimmer furnishing their weather. But I don’t wanted it to be a stereotyped sick cliché. I wanted it to be brand new and atmospheric.

There was an interesting tag line when I was reading about the new album by ToLSAtD. I couldn’t help but displaying it right here: “Triumph of Lethargy Skinned Alive to Death do what they want, tour when they feel like it, and will never, ever break up.” I think I made my point by not posting Aphex Twin’s “Come To Daddy” or anything by Impaled Nazarene and My Dying Bride.

» Antony and the Johnsons - “Thank You For Your Love”

Mayday! Mayday! We have a problem here. We’re back! The Ghost is back. I finally settled down – even though partially – in Sweden. I’m here for my master course as I’ve mentioned zillion times before. I think I’m going to be 4 folds busier than before. Hope I find time to write here on a daily basis again. Ghost FM will just keep going. That I’m pretty sure of. Over the last 2.5 weeks of no posts life has been great and it’s getting colder and colder here every day. Winter is striking Sweden. Get ready everybody to have some mega-chills. As of music, well I honestly haven’t found proper time to delve into the global village and fetch out fresh toasts for y’all. But I’m getting back on track.So here it comes…

Before Antony & the Johnsons come up with their October full length release of Swanlights, they accommodated us with a 5-track EP called Thank You For Your Love. Two covers are included: John Lennon’s “Imagine” (let’s not go through that again please, I know I know.) and Bob Dylan’s “Pressing On”. The title track starts off smoothly and soothing with a piano line picturing Hegarty’s collaboration with Boy George on “You Are My Sister”, tender and gracious. I really like to know who’s he thanking just for the sake of argument. Though the tune gradually tends to self-destruct. There exists some specific Antony moments that due to his unique nature can end up disturbing. Remember how an alluring song as “Hope There’s Someone” came to end? Or also how the chorus repeat on “For Today I Am A Boy” sounded a bit out of range? Well we have a situation here as well. Antony’s probably thanking you too much. So it’s a half-pleasant journey, and then if you’re not a genuine A&tJ fan, just leave it.

» The Greenhornes ft. Holly Golightly - “There Is an End”

Hey there my beautiful pumpkins! Don’t worry I’m not shutting down this thing. I’m just moving to Sweden tomorrow first thing in the morning. It’s for my masters course in Software Engineering (of Distributed Systems). This is going to be a great deal of fun and I’m intensely excited about this one hellaxprience!! So, I may not be posting music here for a couple of days (it’s only a couple of days and nothing more). Don’t lose hope! Don’t stop sharing your love and never ever push that dreaded “unfollow” button. I promise I’ll come back very soon with lots of great stuff. Wish me luck. See all you folks somewhere in Europe.

» Bombay Bicycle Club - “Ivy & Gold”

This nigh 3-min song basically sits on a simple acoustic country melody and it creates a slow soothing and kindergarten-style merry-go-round ride on a pink unicorn. This is half the aesthetics you get, the other half is in Jack Steadman’s voice that may not represent a thing from Crouch End, London where Bombay Bicycle Club comes from but to a new ear to the band’s music can resemble a jolly José González. Their new album sits on more acoustic and feel-good grounds. It’s called Flaws.

» Autechre - “ilanders”

Something has been keeping my mind pretty hectic on Watchmen for the past month. I read the whole 12 episodes and watched the movie again. Great adaptation I have to say. Everything about the doomsday, everything revolving around the apocalypse can take my breath away. It’s probably stupid bringing this whole elaborate graphic novel down to some lines of notes, but the coolest thing about it is the inevitable dismal fate, the one Adrian Veidt implemented on NYC while Dr. Manhattan were speculating Veidt’s masterplan on mars. Dr. Manhattan (Jon) to me was a symbol of a God, too almighty to be limited by this time-space world. And in the end, even he came to realize and got the grip on the final message of this brilliantly written and depicted comic book: “There’s only one way left. Kill a million to save billions.” Sounds vigorous to them humanitarians. They better come up with a better plan!

And then it comes to music and music that can bring brain to the Armageddon. Autechre released an album and an extra EP this year after quite a while. I still haven’t tried the EP but the album is believed to be the duo at their best. It’s quite a long record per se. 14 tracks and they mostly go over 4:30 minutes. It’s a dark futuristic swim that due to the robust studio work and those subtle crystal pings can play with your ear if you can dedicate some time to it. The second song “ilanders” can approximately sum up the record. It can also make so much sense if you’re into more prolific video game soundtracks: Halo or Half-life for instance. Perhaps you already know what I mean.

And by the way speaking of comics, make sure you follow Comically Vintage, a tumblr devoted to virtual wellspring of sex, drugs, violence and poor table manners! You’ll have fun with it. And by the way the album is called Oversteps! Possibly a pompous word for something that overtakes dubstep musically? Dunno.

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I’m on a comic book roll in fact: Ghost World, Maus, Watchmen, Blankets and now Black Hole have been my constant nightly companions.

» The New Pornographers - “Crash Years”

It must be pretty simple to calculate: We have Neko Case + AC Newman + Dan Bejar + some other people that add up to the charisma. Even when one of these faces underachieves, there are back-ups. What I’m trying to say is that The New Pornographers, even at their most mediocre state, can write and perform tasty power-pop. On our Canadian supergroup’s latest effort Together, we’re exactly referring to those states. There are no jaunty noise hooks as in Mass Romantic or showstoppers with likes of those in Twin Cinema. I can safely say the new album resembles the band’s previous work Challengers except that there are no sign of electrifying tunes like “My Rights Versus Yours” or “Go Places”. What we have here is a selection of down-tempo meh songs manicured with each member’s personal talents.

We have indie folk’s gold throat Neko Case and we have Newman’s signature compositions. “Crash Years” alongside the opener “Moves” might contain the album’s peak moments. Sorta live up to Porno standards of the band. But as I said, that mustn’t mean these are hopeless stuff. You will still find power-pop comfort in the album. It’s just that the songwritings, although solemn and with bona fide, lack an adequate dose of meticulousness and motivation. You may try to convince yourself with the song’s message: “Traffic was slow for the crash years. There’s no other show like it ‘round here, as a rule.” Lower your expectations and in the end “Crash Years” is an apt description note to the postcard of a modern city you send to your grandma. She doesn’t know what emails are capable of. But she lived slower than your hurried joy and here she is now turning 85.

» Ratatat - “Billar”

For their 4th LP, NYC electro-pop duo Mike Stroud and Evan Mast have used the same material they did back with their other previous records. The question is whether these guys have an alternative? We instantly recognize the sound of Ratatat with those crystal guitar sounds and the hip-hop essence of the band’s principles. So, for most avid Ratatat fans, maybe they just like their favorite band remain unharmed and just the way they are.

On almost every Ratatat record, there’s a tune that reaches a momentum of glory locked in a loop that you wish it just could go on forever. To me, it was “Loud Pipes” on 2006’s Classics (with “Lex” as a very close #2) and “Shempi” on 2008’s LP3. I found this tune on the opener on LP4 “Billar”. Well at least for the better half of the song. Due to its intro nature (even though it’s a full 4-min song), I couldn’t expect that much. A lot of time goes for construction and then a half-a-song duration goes just to catch up with what had already been accomplished. But that Japanese melody stays an epic killer gem to start your album with. It could go on a bit more perhaps. Never mind.

» Deerhunter - “Revival”

Well, I wouldn’t have said it if it was three years ago. I guess even back in heydays of Cryptograms people like I didn’t cogitate that deeply into either the domain frequencies or inner layers of a vague phrase called “ambient punk”. It all was revealed with Microcastle. That was when I could take Bradford Cox seriously. I still have questions about what it means but that pile of thought didn’t stop me from enjoying what this guy  and his band do. On Atlas Sound, his main side-project, Cox has space to be more liquid, he can experiment at ease, but on Deerhunter we’re talking bandly. There are rules and regulations. The guy has to play more cautious and there are other opinions other than his, too; opinions that eventually turn out to be pretty constructive.

Just before we go around the new Deerhunter 7”, let’s head to a page the band has designated for their new upcoming album Halcyon Digest (out 9/28 via 4AD) in which you’re prompted for a password. It’s “tapereel” and it opens up an image from Deerhunter trying to make some noise. Everything is camouflaged. You just have to move your mouse cursor ‘neath that “…ok..” T-shirt to be surprised. Happy birthday! Thanks I guess. Move that dreaded mouse all over the place to hear more sounds. My download is still in process. I’ll let you know if this 44MBs of stuff was all worthwhile.

“Revival” is the new Deerhunter single. In a hazy comparison, it can remind you of last year’s Rainwater Cassette Exchange EP and the brief drenched out title track. Except that this one tends to be more Kinks-y and buoyant and it’s not about “Two weeks of misery”. On the contrary, it spins around survival, probably Deerhunter at their most sunny and open form. Especially when you hear that banjo of relish bridge (that can remind some folk of Coldplay’s “Clocks” but in reality they’re from different dimensions, honest) and then Cox sweeping your doubts away with “Darkness always it doesn’t make much sense.” It’s like Deerhunter is striving out to swim to the surface as they’re sounding more transparent and glossy every time. On 7 inch’s b-side it’s another song called “Primitive 3D” running under two minutes.

Download is over, let’s unzip our hunt: uhm ok! What was I really thinking? I was downloading a file named revival.zip! Of course I would get both 7” tracks followed by two bulky printable .pdf files and the cover. Sometimes my mind just doesn’t click!