chris 45-41 45 "stay."
small sins.
small sins.
[astralwerks].

"you can stay if you want to / but you can't sleep in my bed."

if this song came out in 1998 instead of "closing time," i would have liked it a lot more. this stuff is soooo for 15-year-olds but i can't help but shout so loud in an awful falsetto along with the chorus. i'm such a priss. oh well. and the whining guitar in the background that sounds like your college roomate's old laptop being really loud and obnoxious while you're trying to study? what a sound!

44 "turn to the assassin."
junip.
black refuge [ep].
[teme shet].

"go repress your prudent side / it's beautiful but plastic."

jose gonzalez is fine. beautiful voice, beautiful guitar, but i wanted more when i heard "veneer." his band junip filled that void and added church organ, click-clack drums, and what must be some kind of wicked field recording. it sounds like a hazy day where you feel unbreakable, totally meshing together when they should absolutely not by any means. kind of like a lite-rock song singing about how you should go hire a professional killer to solve your problems.

43 "sunlit & ascending."
the appleseed cast.
peregrine.
[the militia group].

"you must come out."

i finally feel like the appleseed cast are from a different era in my life, and yet, i was still incredibly excited to hear this record. this is the only track that stands out to me from peregrine, but oh boy does it stand out. the drumming almost equals their past drummer in precision and whatthehellwasthatness and the guitars pierce the sky, eclipsing the mediocre storytelling. i cannot listen to them without imagining the beautiful outdoor concert that changed my life forever, with the sun setting against the madison lake. i cannot wait to see them again in a few weeks.

42 "bibo no aozora/04."
ryuichi sakamoto, jacques morelenbaum, & yuichiro gotoh.
babel: original motion picture soundtrack.
[concord].

moment @ 3:38

those three piano chords literally break my heart when i hear them. they might as well turn the sky grey while they're at it too. while the fountain's music was all about the moment, this song is all about infinity. allness, oneness, blah blah. i feel like i'm getting smarter AND sadder when i'm listening to it. then the strings and keys fall apart, out of sync with each other and then i just feel sad. i LOVE it. i sit here and i can't think of a retort for why it's okay to make music this sad and movies this sad and feel this sad and want to feel this sad, but let's just say "it's therapeutic in small doses." don't listen to this on repeat. and if you do, warn me so i can at least call the paramedic for you.

41 "according to plan."
i love you but i've chosen darkness.
fear is on our side.
[secretly canadian].

"in a perfect world / there are perfect places with you."

by the looks of the ridonkulous band moniker and album name, it doesn't look like we're getting much happier, does it? but truth be told, while they embrace the lite-gotheatrics of the 80s, they boast terrific depression and terrific groove-a-thons. the bass lines make me ooze headbobbing and the stealth snare makes me projectile vomit fist-pumps. a twinkle of desperate hope expels all notions of sadness for the sake of sadness too. maybe this is the reason why this genre was so beautiful when it begun (and also the reason why only a few bands, including ILYBICD, can gently transform the mold to their benefit).

#40-36 are coming up soon. keep checking in, thanks!  ¶ posted by chris at 11:28 AM