My lazy summer:

Ive having a wonderfully self-indulgent, sunny, warm summer. Basking in the post-graduation glow, I am being incredibly lazy.

On lala I've had the chance to listen to the lush electronics of the Helio sequence. Particularly their first and second albums.`This surreal track, filled with floating, spiraling processed sounds appeales to my taste for heavlily layered musical anarchy. Animal collective holds the same attracton.

But compared to the earler tracks of Animal collectve, the vocals here are more conventional, fitting in with typical indy-rock Sprechgesang melodic patterns .

Recently, i've been more or less focusing my musical attention on Last.fm, listening to various radio stations, and generally being awe-struck by the incredible diversity and sheer number of groups of musicians i had never heard of who are/were making very interesting music. on my page (shamless plug) theres a list of all of this music i've up until now been unfamiliar with-

Stereolab,Prefuse 73,The Residents, Philip Jeck, Deerhoof, Four tet, Jackie-O motherfucker, Charalambides. I had only heard of Stereolab, and only the name, and im really impressed by all of this stuff and i hope to hear more. The dazzling array of music thats presented on Last.fm leaves me humbled, I dont by any means have anything close to a big picture of independent music today, and i dont know if that would ever be possible in the first place.

Im traveling to Spain on the 3rd till the 12th.

Hoping for a heat wave.

Im currently revisiting my rather small collection of Arcade Fire tracks*, after the ump-teeth person tried to tell me their music was in some way strange or bizarre, a claim which has not ceased to amaze me. Bizarre? them? no, Stockhausen is bizarre, Xiuxiu is bizarre, but these guys? The first time i even listened to the group i nearly dismissed it all as being too kitch, too pop, all melodies i'd heard before, but maybe after Broken social scene and Animal collective as an indy benchmark, i may have been a little harsh.

Dare i quote myself. **

I was expecting more of an adventure and I ended up with a sort of bus tour, with a comfortable seat that looks out at interesting things through the safety glass of the rock tradition, [edit] things that you never quite get to.

and i still feel that way, but now, looking at it from a brighteyes perspective, or whatever, i can see how their re-hashed 50s-esque ballades in 3/4 could seem a little unusual. Granted i don't know their entire opus, i could be missing out on some fun radicalism that's hidden behind the regular harmonies and mildly expanded instrumentation.

Alright, i'll stop spitting venom. I dont deny these guys have talent, they do, and i know they're capable of creating something great and there are already moments of sheer beauty in their work, a passage in The backseat, for example. But strange? eccentric or even close to the avant garde? i have yet to hear it. Again, i could be just not hearing the right works, so im going to have to listen to this perceived "wierdness" from their own computers.

_____________

*(9 tracks currently, i used to have more, but i remember was bored with a lot of them and got rid of many)

**linkie!