So I took off on my bicycle

Recently acquired:



Andrew Bird, Weather Systems. It occurred to me, listening to the final track while lifting weights, that there's a possible paradox implicit in pairing weather and systems. I still like my Jeff Buckley-meets-Rufus Wainwright description of Bird's sound. Lots of string arrangments, a delicate tenor voice, lyrics that are actually lyrical and not just words to be sung. The melodies aren't as full of hooks and pep as those on Bird's Andrew Bird and the Mysterious Production of Eggs, but there's enough cautious power in the last song's drumming to intrigue and comfort just about anybody. I humbly submit. Bird writes music for people who are confused about the world - his melodies themselves can sometimes stymie or make you go Hmmm - but he always slips in a track that argues for the eventual improvement of whatever's wrong or off.




Mylo, Destroy Rock & Roll. Dance music that isn't all about sustained crescendo and breakdowns. Very fun stuff, very warm. "Sunworshipper" samples a precocious lad who one day just had had enough. Over a very gentle hip-hop beat, the kid says "Well to solve all my problems, to get outta drugs I'd I'd hadda enough of that, I'd had the college I'd had the earning the money and the material trip, I just decided I was gonna find a new way of life... So I took off on my bicycle." Then it breaks down into some decidedly post-rockish drum beats straight off of a Tortoise record. Then back to the cool bicycling. The whole record sounds like Air - super-cool French band Air scored The Virgin Suicides starring Kirsten Dunst - if Air were to put some stronger beats beneath them.




Alpha, Stargazing. If Massive Attack and Portishead took some uppers instead of downers, they'd sound like UK duo Alpha. Cool James Bond-style female vocals will make you want to pose in very slo-mo ways while brandishing your thumb-&-forefinger gun.




Broken Social Scene, You Forgot It In People. Not as likely to make you slap your forehead as the heavier, poppier, thicker mix of Broken Social Scene's more recent self-titled record, this one's worth your time as well.