problems?

From a top 10 records of 2008 list I meant to finish but realized this record wasn't from 2008 so I stopped but I liked this one so I kept it.

Paavoharju - Yha hamaraa

"I can't say enough about this record. It's like finding something, like a picture or old film after a huge snowstorm next to a factory that used to make other, smaller factories, except it was deemed useless and shut down and now it's a place for huge snowstorms to happen. Also it's right next to the Baltic Sea, so everything's that special sort of Northern-European frozen that makes you think of national loneliness. Anyway, you take whatever you find back to your bright white apartment and for the next week, strange but not unimaginable things happen, and for the rest of your life, you're never sure if those things happened because weird things happen all the time, or because of what you found in the snow that day. It's spooky, infectious, welcoming, and terrifying."


I'm not sure either.


Also, I think I might like gin and tonics a little too much. It's not my fault that I used to drink tonic water and lime juice during the summers before, and gin just introduces a freshly-sliced-greenwood flavor that just tops the whole thing off marvelously. It's pretty much the perfect drink for hot night time-wasting. Read More...

plum ice cream

That phrase popped into my head a couple nights ago, and I figured I should do something. I've never had this particular flavor, but I'm relatively certain as to the qualities of its taste - greenly, juicily sweet, and tempered with cream.

These songs try to evoke both the brightness of flavor and comfort that plum ice cream should have. Tracklist after the jump:



plum ice cream



Kurt Vile - Breathin Out
Dara Puspita - To Love Somebody
Little Joy - Unattainable
Paz Lenchantin - 365
Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions - Sparkly
Juana Molina - El Desconfiado
Wanda Sa - Vivo Sonhando
Azure Ray - For No One
Yoko Kanno - Egg
Ai Aso - A Lo N
Mark McGuire - Blue Basket
Ariane Moffat - Terminus
Lunar Testing Lab - Topaze Bay


Lunar Testing Lab comes highly recommended - Dan at OngakuBaka describes it as "another release to add to my "listen to this shit next time you're at the beach" playlist". It's not the fantasy beach that's always in the mind of the vacationer on the way to the coast, it's the real beach that remains in the memory once you've left. Dreamy wistfulness that doesn't stray far into the realm of imagination - which is what the rest of these songs are as well.

I've also been listening to Dara Puspita's cover of the Beegees' "To Love Somebody" a lot lately. I found them at Sunflower Chakra Milk back in December of last year, and now that the haze has risen from the ground and the temperature has gone up too high, their garage-fuzz tone and earnest, Brenda Lee-like vocals fit the weather a bit better than they did in winter. Regardless, they're excellent garage rock (and apparently the only Indonesian pop band in the '60s to actually play their own music).

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