this is why events unnerve me.

Here is a collection of Joy Division covers. They range from idiosyncratic versions of Joy Division songs (Low's "Transmission", Hot Chip's "Transmission") to candid live covers of them (Pavement's 50-second "Disorder", Mark Kozelek singing "blah blah blah"). In compiling these songs I have learned that bands love to cover "Transmission", they really really love to cover "Love Will Tear Us Apart", and that Joy Division rules.

New Order - Ceremony
This song really doesn't count as a cover. It is just Joy Division playing Ian Curtis' song without Ian Curtis (RIP). It rules though and if you don't have it you need to download it.

And the covers...
Calexico - Love Will Tear Us Apart
Codeine - Atmosphere
Galaxie 500 - Ceremony
Hot Chip - Transmission
Jose Gonzalez - Love Will Tear Us Apart
LCD Soundsystem - No Love Lost
Low - Transmission
Pavement - Disorder
Radiohead - Ceremony
Red House Painters - Love Will Tear Us Apart
Tortoise - As You Said
Squarepusher - Love Will Tear Us Apart
Versus - Twenty Four Hours

Hardcore will never die, but you will.

Mogwai has a new album out called Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will. It's different. Dynamic shifts and repetitive song structure have always been a sure sign of a Mogwai record. These characteristics are still here, but the classic Mogwai sound isn't really what defines this record. Songs are still based on a recurring theme; but instead of suspending you in calculated drum lines until Braithwaite's Telecaster strings that theme together, Hardcore Will Never Die just kind of bombards you with it (see "Rano Pano"). This is also the most optimistic Mogwai album I've ever heard. And there are lyrics. I like it though. Hell, it's not like Mogwai has anything to prove.

Here are a couple tracks from Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will. If you don't make it to 4 minutes in "You're Lionel Richie", you are doing yourself a disservice. It is brutal.

Mogwai - "White Noise"
Mogwai - "Rano Pano"
Mogwai - "You're Lionel Richie"

Now run along to your local record store and buy it.

The sun smells too loud.

Mogwai has a new album. However, before I post anything from that I had to post this video. It is "The Sun Smells Too Loud" with a video edit of "Apache" by Tommy Seebach Band, whoever that is. For some reason the combination of this Mogwai song and the ridiculous music video is just mesmerizing to me.

5- The Sun Smells Too Loud.mp3
Oh, and just in case you were wondering...

Bullfight

Women has a new track. It is on a split 7" with Cold Pumas, Fair Ohs and Friendo. This band is really good. I think when you listen to their music Syd Barrett is looking down from the clouds smiling. One of my favorite things about Women is their erratic, trebly guitar lines--see two minute mark of "Bullfight". So good.

Women - "Bullfight"

Yuck, another lazy domingo.

I still can't decide if I like Sundays. Sometimes I enjoy resting on the seventh day. I'll relish in my last day of the weekend, take in some football, maybe do brunch. I might go to church, drink beer, do things that are done on Sundays. Sunday fun day. Still, sometimes Sundays are nothing but anxiety attacks and apprehension about plugging away at another week. Some days I'm sick and tired of a lingering football season, but don't want to watch Lord of the Rings on TNT either. Well friends, today is another Sunday during which I've erred on the side of perpetual nervousness. Yuck.

Yuck is a band from London. Their first LP is out right now on Fat Possum. You can check out a list of equipment they used to record the album on their website, which is pretty cool. Here are a couple tracks from it.

Yuck - "Rubber"
I am a sucker for bruising, distortion soaked guitars. This rules.
Yuck - "Get Away"
This one has more of a 90s power pop sound, which seems to be the direction of the rest of the album.

Sunday, fun day.

Vamos a la discoteca, Volume 2

Here is volume 2 of my disco playlist I started a couple weeks ago. I must say I'm happy to go ahead and get this one out because I'm getting a little tired of disco. But you should still listen to it. ps If you're upset that I left the Disco Biscuits out on both of these playlists then I hate you (and I hate your ass face).

1. Caribou - "Bowls"
The percussion on this is just amazing. I knew I was hearing music when I heard wind chimes on some suburban front porch--Dan Snaith brought my fake memories to life.

2. Destroyer - "Bay of Pigs"
You're not going to think this is disco until about...seven and a half minutes in. Dan Bejar said it himself though, this is an "ambient disco" track. It is long but give it a chance. Probably may favorite track way back from the year 2009. "Free and easy, gentle, gentle, the wind through the trees makes you mental for me. Nancy in a state of crisis on a cloud." That's the disco part.

3. Cut Copy - "A Dream"
I had this stuck in my head for a long time a couple of years ago so now you have to endure the same.

4. Phoenix - "If I Ever Feel Better"
Guarantee you won't understand any lyrics in this except for the chorus. It's one of those things where you could make one of those really lame youtube videos with spoof lyrics text. Like I said, you'll understand the chorus. If I ever feel better :(

5. Memory Tapes - "Bicycle"
I don't know, I could dance to it. Soft synth, hard synth, soft synth, hard synth.

6. Faunts - "Feel.Love.Thinking.Of"
Not really as disco but still a little dancy. And infectious.

7. Broken Social Scene - "Hotel"
Groovy bass line. Sleek, looks like a Mexican sun.

8. LCD Soundsystem - "Disco Infiltrator"
Obviously. James Murphy rules.

9. Lykke Li - "Dance Dance Dance"
Acoustic disco. Disco that produces oxymora.

10. Disco Inferno - "New Clothes For The New World"
Just because I'm trying to make people listen to more Disco Inferno.

11. Bibio - "Jealous Of Roses"
Bibio is a sound artist. Vintage recording equipment, experimental recording techniques, found sound, etc. Really cool.

12. Here We Go Magic - "Tunnelvision"
I've loved this song since the first time I heard it.

13. Starfucker - "German Love"
This doesn't really seem that disco now that I think about it but it ended up on here and I don't feel like changing it. Sounds kind of like a happy version of a Pinback song sequence. German love, I'll give it to you.

14. Geggy Tah - "Whoever You Are"
Silly song that you may recognize from a Mercedes commercial from like 10 years ago. Really silly.

15. Pistol Disco - "Pool"
LISTEN TO THIS SONG. I don't know much about this band but this track is cool as shit. Buy their record.

16. Of Montreal - "Id Engager"
Bonus track, suggestion from The Great Gazoo.

David Berman has a blog now, says Pitchfork.

Pitchfork Media has reported that David Berman of Silver Jews (one of my favorite bands) has started a blog called mentholmountains. Perhaps one of the most literary rock 'n roll figures of my generation, David Berman can't really sing worth a damn but he sure can write. I'd say you'll eventually take away plenty of nuggets of wisdom if you regularly check mentholmountains.

Here is a video via Pitchfork of Berman reading some of his poetry. Top ten redneck moments: there aren't any.

Wild Nothing's Gemini is really good.

I've finally gotten around to listening to Wild Nothing's Gemini (2010), a glistening collection of dream pop that is a recipe for nostalgia. Wild Nothing's label, Captured Tracks, calls it a "texturally rich glo-pop album that could come only from the young at heart." I'm not old by any means but listening to Gemini makes me feel younger at heart, and I'm not going to fight that. Here are a couple of tracks from the album, which you can buy via mail order from Captured Tracks. Or even better, you could pay a visit to your local record store and pick it up.

Wild Nothing - Bored Games
Wild Nothing - Chinatown
Wild Nothing - Gemini

U.K. Post-Rock of the Day

Here is a track from a band called Butterfly Child that I know very little about. Information on the world wide interweb about them is sparse at best, and there aren't a lot of downloadable releases. I do know that they were born out of the post-rock movement in Belfast in the early 1990s. This track really is a gem. That swirling synth melody is the wind that just stripped all the trees of their leaves--it's always late autumn when you listen to this song.

Butterfly Child - Lunar Eclipse

Wish List: Slint's Spiderland by Scott Tennent

33 1/3 is a series of books about famous albums, usually seminal works in their respective genres. Albums that the book series has covered range from Radiohead's OK Computer to Reign in Blood by Slayer. Slint's Spiderland is the latest addition to the 33 1/3 books, "A thorough history of Slint, and the Louisville scene that surrounded the band, leading up to and focusing on the creation of their masterpiece, Spiderland."

Yes.

Spiderland is one of those rare records that just stops you in your tracks after your first listen, and you know life is going to be just a little different thereafter. I remember the first time I listened to it a couple of years ago it just kind of froze me...What the hell is this? Spiny, skeletal guitars teeter around the bleak, dry drum lines, sucking you in only to spit you back out in an uproar of pawnshop distortion pedals howling. Scary. Spiderland changed my notion of what an album could be, challenged my understanding of rock composition, and completely transformed my understanding of how to use a guitar in that composition. Equally compelling is the lore surrounding the album--not duly appreciated (or even noticed) until 15-20 years after it was released, there is much legend surrounding the making of Spiderland. Slint's members came from various niches in the gritty Louisville punk scene at the time. It is said that some of them were institutionalized during different stages of the making of Spiderland. The black and white photo of four kids' heads hovering above a lake was taken by none other than Will Oldham. Anyway, Scott Tennent did the research and he knows a lot more than I about it all. Get the book, I know I'm going to.

Here is the last track (probably one of my favorite songs of all time), "Good Morning Captain." Never heard a guitar sound like that...It will give you chills.