Aural Story of the Week – She & Him

The Queen of Yuppie Brooklyn singing about seeing you in the light of the morning. It’s OK, that was just your heart skipping a beat:

I want to see you with the light in the morning
Theres never been such a beautiful warning to me, to me
Why dont we just sit and stare and do nothing?
Nothing at all for a while, I like the way you smile

I could be your state and I could be your nation
It doesnt get better than home, now does it?
Doesnt get better than home, now does it?

That would be Zooey Deschanel, the “She” of She & Him. M. Ward provides the countrified guitar, and it all lands delightfully throughout Volume Two, their latest album. This one’s “Home”:

Aural Story of the Week – LCD Soundsystem

It’s always greener:

Talking like a jerk
Except you are an actual jerk
And living proof that sometimes friends are mean

Present company expect it
Present company
Just laugh it off
It’s better than it seems

A whole story there, from James Murphy, of LCD Soundsystem. It’s called Dance Yrself Clean:

They didn’t play it the other night at Terminal 5, when I was in the audience. Regardless, the band puts on the most tightly-produced show I’ve seen in ages. Worth every penny.

Aural Story of the Week – Tallest Man on Earth

Sometimes, all you need’s a dude and a guitar. Kristian Matsson, of Sweden, who goes by the silly name above, is just such a dude:

The whole album’s much like this, and it’s refreshing for being simple. As for the song, dude with a guitar still needs a girl, and having that girl will get him a long way:

I never knew I was a lover,
Just cause I steal the things you hide,
Just cause I focus while we’re dancing,
Just cause I offered you a ride.

Still I am not from Barcelona,
I am not even from Madrid.
I am a native of the North Pole
And that can mess up any kid.

Well if you could reinvent my name,
well if you could redirect my day,
I wanna be the King of Spain.

Aural Story of the Week – Broken Social Scene

Broken Social Scene is back with a new album, so in their honor, we go back to 2002:

That’s “Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl,” which says it all. I imagine this is what’s going on in my own teenage sister’s brain:

Used to be the one of the rotten ones
And I liked you for that
Now you’re all gone, got your make-up on
And you’re not coming back

Bleachin’ your teeth, smiling flash
Talking trash, under your breath
Bleachin’ your teeth, smiling flash
Talking trash, under my window

Park that car, drop that phone,
Sleep on the floor, dream about me

Aural Story of the Week – The Silhouettes

For these trying economic times, we go back to 1957 with The Silhouettes:

Every morning about this time
she get me out of my bed
a-crying get a job.
After breakfast, everyday,
she throws the want ads right my way
And never fails to say,
Get a job

One of doo-wop’s finest, here:

Aural Story of the Week – Joanna Newsom

Count me among those who found Joanna Newsom’s voice to be more akin to a screeching 13-year old girl’s than anything I would actually want to listen to. I’m coming around, OK. This is “Good Intentions Paving Company”:

Grandpa always said the road to hell was paved with good intentions. So is the road to a breakup, apparently:

And I did not mean to shout, just drive
Just get us out, dead or alive
A road too long to mention, lord, it’s something to see!
Laid down by the good intentions paving company

All the way to the thing we’ve been playing at, darlin’
I can see that you’re wearing your staying hat, darlin’
For the time being all is well
Won’t you love me a spell?

Aural Story of the Week – Richard Hawley

Banksy is the most famous street artist in the world. He’s a filmmaker now, and his new documentary is a surprising joy:

You’ll notice the jumpy British ode to the night that opens that five minute sneak peek. It’s by Richard Hawley, and he’s trying to convince a gal to hang out with him all night:

Do you know why
you got feelings in your heart
Don’t let fear of feeling fool you
What you see sets you apart
And there’s nothing here to bind you
It’s no way for life to start
Do you know that tonight the streets are ours?

Aural Story of the Week – The Morning Benders

It’s Spring. The New Yorker’s latest cover features naked satyr’s ravishing each other in Central Park. Tiger Woods is back. Sex is floating in the air (ever-present, loud), not unlike the sound from the jackhammer outside my window right now. The Morning Benders – who I had the privilege of watching live not long ago in the studio apartment HQ of Epilogue Magazine –  have your soundtrack:

You tried to taste me,
And I taped my tongue to the southern tip of your body.
Our bones are too heavy to come up,
Squished into a single cell of wood.

I made an excuse.
You found another way to tell the truth.
I put no one else above us.
We’ll still be best friends when all turns to dust.

We are so smooth now.
Our edges are beaten drift wood and whittled down.
Old bodies slip when they make love.
We’ll mine our sparks to shoot us above!

Hot! Heavy! Awkward first encounters! Some say this is the best song of 2010 (so far!); it’s not, because this is, but “Excuses” is delightful. Enjoy:

Aural Story of the Week – Charlotte Gainsbourg

Charlotte Gainsbourg is all kinds of pretty. She’s an actress (the sadists among you might have seen her smashing Willem Dafoe’s scrotum to pieces in Antichrist), and she’s a singer-songwriter. She wrote and sang this:

If I had my way
I’d cross the desert to the sea
Learn to speak in tongues something
That makes sense to you and me

Honey, we have a hard time believing you need to travel anywhere to find a man willing to learn your language. Able, I suppose, could be tougher. Enjoy the song, “Me and Jane Doe”:

Aural Story of the Week – Local Natives

Pitchfork says “Airplanes” by Local Natives is about a band member’s grandfather. Sub in anyone you’d like to have a few more moments with, and it works:

The desk where you sit inside of a
frame made of wood
I keep those chopsticks you had from when
you taught abroad in Japan

I love it all so much
I call
I want you back

I did not know you as well
as my father knew you
every question you took the
time to sit and look it up in the
encyclopedia

I love it all so much
I call I want you back

It sounds like we
would of had a great deal to say
to each other
I bet when I leave
my body for the sky the wait will
be worth it