SS Recommends: Week of 1/23/07

I'm not even done sorting through last year (expect an '06-related podcast soon), and '07 is already off to a raging start. Tuesday gave us the new Shins, another Of Montreal album, the domestic release of Mew's Fengers, along with a handful of other notable releases. But the best of the lot is Deerhoof's Friend Opportunity.

Deerhoof's first release since the Chris Cohen left the group, Friend Opportunity is another step in the band's evolution from quirky no wave superstars (see also Erase Errata and Melt-Banana) to the foremost purveyors of prog pop. They've been feeling out the combination of hook-friendly tunes and noisy experimentation for the last few years. '04's Milk Man, was the best shot so far, but the new album may have trumped that effort.

You can hear "+81" on the last posted mix or on various places around the net.

Friend Opportunity on insound.
Download the album from Emusic.

2006 part 1

I'll have something to say later.

For now, here's a mix of some of my favorite 2006 tracks.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Phenomena"
Clipse "Wamp Wamp (What It Do)" (Feat. Slim Thug)
Cansei De Ser Sexy "Music is My Hot, Hot Sex"
Mogwai "Glasgow Mega-Snake"
Joanna Newsom "Only Skin"
Beck "Nausea"
Nas "Hip Hop is Dead" (Feat. Will.I.Am)
Cold War Kids "Saint John"
Deerhoof "+81"
Girl Talk "Peak Out"
Madonna "Hung Up"

Download Stoplight Sleep's 2006v1 Mix

I'd really appreciate feedback from anyone who listens to this. I've just got into to mixing, and I love some criticism.

Thanks till next time.

Hide & SeeqPod

One of my New Year's resolutions was to get back to updating this site more often. I plan on posting some new mixes, reviews, etc. soon, but here's a new site for now.

For awhile elbo.ws and The Hype Machine have dominated the music-blog-aggregator market, but SeeqPod may change all that. SeeqPod's design includes a streaming list of new mp3s posted on various sites. Click on a track and it's added to a playlist on the right side of the screen. You can move tracks around, skip them, and play them again, just like on your favorite music program, such as iTunes or winamp. There are also links to the site, recommendations (which don't seem to be working just yet), and artists info.

The site is still beta testing, so you'll notice some bugs, mainly in the form of poorly labeled tracks, which is sometimes a problem for even Hype Machine and elbo.ws. The site may never gain popularity, but the idea is sure to cross-over to other sites/programs. If anyone makes an iTunes plugin or something similar, you'll be sure to hear about it here.

Read about SeeqPod on Wired
The SeeqPod Music site

The Fountain of Batman. Soundtrack by Mogwai.

In the November issue of Wired, Steve Silberman discusses director Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain, his third film (after π and Requiem for a Dream). The Fountain is also a graphic novel from Vertigo featuring artwork by Kent Williams, but the story didn’t begin that way. As Silberman explains, Aronofsky hired Williams to create the book after his attempts to film the movie were thwarted by a wishy-washy Brad Pitt and a bloated budget. The big-budget sci-fi flick eventually reincarnated as a pawn-shop art film, fueled by Aronofsky’s guerrilla-filmmaking background. The film might lose money, even after DVD sales, etc., but D.A. has proven himself once again.

What we’ll never see is Aronofsky’s “gritty take on” Batman. Silberman cites Aronofsky’s vision of Batman “battling switchblade-toting pimps” as being too racy for mainstream audiences. This reminds me of why most superhero films are doomed to fall beneath my expectations. Many comic books are acceptable for a general audience, but those I’ve loved either couldn’t be loyally translated to the big screen without an R rating (Miller’s Dark Knight series, in the case of Batman) or would be too convoluted for a casual viewer (e.g. Kingdom Come).

Batman takes out a WB executive.

Consider my favorite comic-based movies: Sin City, Ghost World, and Hellblazer. Each has an R rating. With the general exception of Sin City, these aren’t verbatim stories put in motion, but--Keanu aside--they are loyal to the original spirit, tone, and maturity of the books they come from.

I swear not to let Schumacher touch this.

Rachel Wise’s, who co-starred in Hellblazer and is married to Aronofsky, performance in The Fountain struck me as saccharine, especially next to Hugh Jackman’s stoic coolness. In all three time periods in which the film takes place, all the characters are basically static. As with many films that aim for meaning and high-art, The Fountain is at times heavy-handed, but it’s consistently beautiful, visually and sonically.

Hey Jack, I think you've wandered into Apocalypto.

Clint Mansell, who scored Requiem for Kronos Quartet, also enlisted the help of Scottish post-rockers Mogwai on The Fountain soundtrack. The result is a score strong enough to stand on its own.

Kronos Quartet & Mogwai – “Death is the Road to Awe”

The Fountain official site


November’s Wired also features great articles on atheism, prosopagnosia, and six-word stories by Margret Atwood, Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Neil Gaiman, Kevin Smith, Mark Millar, Howard Chaykin, Neal Stephenson (my fav story), and Ronald D. Moore.

For now

Here's a quick review of the Rasputina show I attended last night.

http://www.last.fm/user/jarretlgreen/journal/2006/12/6/284527/