'Grunge was never for me'

She Don't Care About Time (1972), Gene Clark
While Gene Clark is best known for his work with the Byrds, there is a wealth of incredible solo material. Everyone thought that Byrds frontman Roger McGuinn was poised to become the more successful solo artist, but I think the quality of Clark's songwriting eclipses his peers. The close harmonies and the 12-string guitar create that classic layered sound. And with the lyrics "And she'll always be there, my love don't care about time", this song is heartwarming.
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What Am I Going to Do? (1965), the Dovers
The Dovers are a garage rock band I discovered on a Nuggets compilation a few years back. The sentiment of this song is quite bubblegum, but I felt I had unearthed some vital part that made me want to cover it as soon as I heard it. I started singing it with my friend Jonathan Rice when he played with Death Cab for Cutie on our last tour, but it was his solo version that was recorded. I would love to have committed this cover to record, but Rice's version is pretty outstanding.
Not available from iTunes but you can watch the video on YouTube

Indoor Fireworks (1979), Elvis Costello
Costello is ubiquitous in certain circles that insist you must own Last Year's Model, but what impresses me about him is the sheer quantity of great records he put out. Year after year there was a new album, and then Blood and Chocolate and King of America both came out in 1984. From all that, I think what stands out about Indoor Fireworks is how heavy handed the metaphors are. There's one line that always makes me shiver: "Don't think for a moment dear that we'll ever be through. I'll build a bonfire of my dreams and burn a broken effigy of me and you."
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She Thinks I Still Care (1963), George Jones
I think it was Elliott Smith who said Jones's voice brought him to tears. I agree that there is something in the tone and simple quality of his voice that is powerful. This is a country song in which every verse finds him trying to make excuses for himself, claiming that just because he dials her number by mistake or "haunts the same old places" doesn't mean he still cares. Of course it does. The simplicity of the sentiment is something I instantly identified with.
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Folsom Prison Blues / That's All Right (Mama) (1968), International Submarine Band
This is Gram Parsons' first band, who were signed to Lee Hazlewood's LHI label. Actually, I was never a major fan; I preferred the work of fellow Byrds man Gene Clark. However, there are two things I love about this song: one is the propulsive rhythm with which the band chugs away, and the other is the way this song is a medley of sorts, going from one song right into the next, which is unusual. It strikes me as an interesting way to present songs by Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley.
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Did I Say (2003), Teenage Fanclub
The Fannies are the kind of band I loved way before I loved their influences, which included bands such as the Everly Brothers and the Small Faces. They really introduced me to all that 70s power pop. All that aggressive metal and grunge that dominated the 90s was never for me; the kind of angst-ridden, beautiful harmonies of Teenage Fanclub was what I was about. Did I Say has an unusual time signature that keeps me coming back after all these years. Still, it's hard to pick their best song because they have such amazing quality control; every album they release has at least two songs that rank among their best.
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Southbound Train (1972), Graham Nash and David Crosby
Because Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young are still ever present in American culture, I never felt they needed any special attention from me. Then a couple of years ago a friend made me a mix CD of early-70s singer-songwriter stuff that included Southbound Train. The harmonies in the third verse are so intricate, I've been studying it over and over to try and work out how they made it. It's insane how beautiful it is. Nash is a great lyricist. Again, while Neil Young is a legend and deserves every accolade he gets, Nash's songwriting abilities shouldn't be overlooked. He deserves some of the limelight too.
Not available from iTunes.


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Nine films on Foreign Oscar longlist

Nine films on Foreign Oscar longlist

Nine films have gone forward to the next round of voting in the Best Foreign Language Film category for the Oscars.
Sixty-three films, including the Irish-language film 'Kings', had originally qualified in this category.
The nine films in contention are: 'The Counterfeiters' (Austria), 'The Year My Parents Went on Vacation' (Brazil), 'Days of Darkness' (Canada), 'Beaufort' (Israel), 'The Unknown Woman' (Italy), 'Mongol' (Kazakhstan), 'Katyn' (Poland), '12' (Russia) and 'The Trap' (Serbia).
The Oscar nominations will be announced on Tuesday 22 January with the awards ceremony taking place on Sunday 24 February.

Matmos

   
Artist: Matmos

   Genre(s): 
Industrial
   Techno
   

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Discography:


   
 California Rhinoplasty EP

   Year: 2001   
Tracks: 4


   
 A Chance To Cut Is A Chance To Cure

   Year: 2001   
Tracks: 7


   
 Quasi-Objects

   Year: 1999   
Tracks: 7

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Matmos was one of the more unconvincing left field experimental electronic acts of the Apostles to come along when their self-titled debut was restfully released on their take Vague Terrain label at the beginning of 1997. Based in San Francisco and whole out of the mostly U.K.-dominated electronica loop, the pair (John Drew Daniel and Martin C. Helmut Heinrich Waldemar Schmidt) stood small opportunity of being heard among the cacophony of marketing budgets and entrenched proppers of popular mainstays such as Warping, Rephlex, and Astralwerks and invasive big-name acts of the Apostles of the Apostles such as the Chemical substance Brothers and the Prodigy. Finisher in disembodied spirit to the American indie tube (a whimsy buoyed by a flood of early weigh in fixtures such as Alternative Press, Magnet, and Selection), the mathematical group was besides embraced by hardcores of the Autechre/Aphex/µ-Ziq like, in the lead to a feature article in highbrow U.K. avant-garde stalwart The Wire and interest group from a number of noteworthy European labels.


Although only the pair's first acquittance, Matmos' microscopical shout of sourcings as wide-ranging as electrical guitars, impertinently cut hair, the amplified nervous activity of ecrevisse, and the human being voice (at that position are a few synthesizers and drum machines in in that location as well) was right away distinguishing, transferral an data-based fire several stream diagrams removed from the to a greater extent than dance-entrenched U.K. electronica scenery. While with Matmos that experimentalism is elevated railroad to method acting, in fact both Schmidt's and Daniel's musical pasts ar cluttered with foreign associations, the well-nigh bizarre of which is in entirely probability King G & the J Krew, a "patrick Victor Martindale Edward Douglas White Jr. funk/rap" outfit that overly included Jason Noble (currently of indie salon/string foursome group Rachel's). Helmut Schmidt was a substructure appendage of van electronic mathematical group X/I and worked with San Francisco-based experimental music collective IAO Magnetic core alongside flow members of groups such as Amber Psychiatric hospital and Tipsy.


Matmos began as a long-distance call taping recording interchange exteriorise slice Book of the Prophet Daniel was living in London (he's in the first place from Bluegrass State), with the ilex paraguariensis subsiding in the San Francisco Alcove scene of action (where Daniel was pursuing a Ph.D.) in the mid-'90s. Schmidt, a visual creative person, excessively co-manages the San Francisco Fine art Institute's Newly Genres division. Several releases followed prior to the unexampled millenary: Quasi-Objects (1998) and West (1999). A Opportunity to Cut Is a Luck to Cure followed in 2001. For 2003's The Civil Warfare, the duet took aspiration from chivalric music and 19th c American tribe, slice the followers year's Betray Relocation Program farther reconfigured samples that were used on A Opportunity to Hack Is a Luck to Cure. Matmos too worked with Björk, both in the studio and on term of enlistment, on her albums Vespertine and Medúlla. She returned the favour by coming into court on their 2006 album The Blush wine Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Brute, a collecting of "audio frequency portraits" that also included cameos by Mark Anthony of Anthony and the Johnsons and Kalonica McQuesten.