Photo courtesy of last.fm/music/Electric+President

Sure, Electric President aren’t all that unknown, but sometimes we all need a nudge to listen to something a second time.  For me, really great music is initially appealing, but forever engaging.  Electric President’s completely* unique sound is undoubtedly forever engaging, it just took a few (dozen) listens before I realized it.

*Unique except compared with Radical Face, but that’s another project of Electric President’s Ben Cooper.  I included Radical Face’s best song, “Welcome Home,” on the Thanksgiving Mix.

These songs might not jump out and grab you immediately, but I really encourage you to listen to these less known songs that I really think deserve some attention.  I can’t get enough of 2:46 of “Graves and the Infinite Arm” or the bass at 2:48 of “Good Morning, Hypocrite” or the “yep” at the beginning of “Ten Thousand Lines.”

-charlie

Electric President – Graves and the Infinite Arm (download)

Electric President – Good Morning, Hypocrite (download)

Electric President – Ten Thousand Lines (download)

  Being the young age I am (under 30) this last decade was really the one where I can intensely focus on new releases, critically analyze and find real magic in modern music.  As much as I wish I was cool enough to say I bought “Slanted and Enchanted” on vinyl the day it came out or smoke a joint and sit around with my friends about to listen to “The Bends follow-up album” with everyone saying “this better not suck!”  But since I never saw Nirvana in a basement and didn’t hear “Loveless” until Billy Corgan recommended it I’ll just stick to this last decade and share what got me through the last ten years.

10. The Unicorns – Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone?

     Not a horribly popular top ten of the decade choice but I’m still baffled at why not.  Jump-starting an explosion of lo-fi, boyish child rock in the underground, the year following saw bands like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Boy Least Likely To taking notes from the drug hazed, short attention spanned rock that reminded everyone of easier, much more careless times.  Everything about this album is unexpected at first listen.  The old analogue synths, the fighting within lyrics vocals, the friggin recorder?!  WWCOHWWG spans from life to death in 12 sweet tunes and by the end I remember feeling the same way, subdued and ready to die.

The Unicorns – Les Os

9. Electric President – S/T

     So here’s another selection very unlikely to be absent from lists and I feel sorry for all those lists.  Guiding me through 2006, S/T is the self retrospective view of young Ben Cooper and every other confused young male in the world.  Songs like Insomnia tackle depression with uncompromising lyrics that find every emotion and leave it our to dry.  The album is soothing and instantly relatable, and Ben’s shy vocals and unique percussion roll you through the journey and dump you right off at the end.  By then you might feel as if you’re in the same place but with a simplified clarity.

Electric President – Insomnia

8. Of Montreal – Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?

     Kevin Barnes is the gayest straight man on earth.  And god damn, he should write every album in solitude in Northern Europe.  The genius in this album will never be something Barnes will be able to exemplify again (shown evident in the self absorbed Skeletal Lamping, an album where Barnes basically chews on his ego like bubblegum bugging everyone to watch him blow bubbles.)  The centerpiece here is obviously The Past is a Grotesque Animal, a bi-polar freak out of sorts with all of Barnes A-list lyrics jammed tight in its epic 12 minute sprawl.  Every track is interesting in its own way, and Barnes does a great job of making the album a single statement while never repeating himself.

Of Montreal – We Were Born the Mutants Again with Leafling

7. The Arcade Fire – Funeral

    What can I say that hasn’t been said a million times about this little gem?  This album wasn’t so much about the great songs inside of it but more about its perfect timing.  It was like the momentum of modern rock music was impatiently waiting for this album in order to push forward.  The 7 zillion arcade fire copycat that managed to squeeze their subpar disco beat driven garbage into the remainder of this decade still doesn’t take anything away from the happiest moments of Rebellion (lies) or the saddest moments of Neighborhoods #4.  I look forward to this band continuing to take us to new places in the next decade.

The Arcade Fire – Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)

6. Frightened Rabbit – The Midnight Organ Fight

   If you’ve never experienced real heartbreak, if you’ve never sat alone in your bedroom feeling ultimately hopeless and desperate, then you’ll never relate with this album.  Scott Hutchison perfectly describes heartbreak from start to acceptance in a power, real, and naked way.  No emotion is held inside here, no disturbing thought bottled up.  Songs like The Modern Leper and Keep yourself Warm much of the time hit too close to home for comfort, but their harsh realities keep you revisiting because when it comes down to it, we all wanna feel something.

Frightened Rabbit – Floating in the Forth

5. The National – Boxer

     In 2007 I knew early on that Hissing Fauna was my album of the year.  No one album was gonna change that, especially not some dark, professional looking, baritone led band called The National!?  But like any National album, repeated listens bring on a fierce addition.  Boxer for me was like cocaine for a confused 19 year old girl saying “I’m only gonna do coke on the weekends” and spiraling into an everyday occurrence.  It’s melodies are haunting, led by Matt Berninger’s deep, hypnotizing baritone.  Matt’s lyrics have always been satisfyingly selfish, but here he seems to take to others, and although hard to clearly identify with what he talks about each line paints his own portrait, colored perfectly by the band of brothers that provide a solid blend of melodic ecstasy, topped of by Peter Katis’s dark production.   

The National – Brainy

4. Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

   A billion things have been said about this album, from its difficult release to its beautiful drug tinged americana.  But it will never be enough.  Jeff Tweedy struck fucking gold with every track here.  Every song seems to get better, and the idea of mixing folk rock and sonic electronic noise seems insane (and is!) and could never be pulled off like Wilco did early this decade.  Songs like Jesus Etc. quickly find a place in your heart, with simple yet powerful and brilliant lyrics like “Last Cigarettes” and “Our Love is All of God’s Money.”  

3. Broken Social Scene – You Forgot It In People

    Here is one of those fantastic albums that you remember exactly where you were and what you were doing when you first heard it.  The amount of styles represented in this album are baffling, and prove of the large amount of brilliant songwriters at hand here.  Sexually charged and full of surprises, each song on here has its own style, flair, and fashion.  The jaw dropping Anthems For a Seventeen Year Girl is hypnotic and the lyrics are the perfect mix of vague and overlaid, mixed in and out of phase causing an almost unexplored emotion surfacing from the listener.  I’ve literally seen rooms full of people go dead quiet while this song was playing.

Broken Social Scene – Anthems For a Seventeen Year-Old Girl

2. Modest Mouse – The Moon and Antartica

   When I graduated high school I was religiously into Modest Mouse.  Obsessed, wished I was Isaac Brock.  TM&A is the pinnacle of Modest Mouse and as terrible as it is too say I truly believe if Isaac Brock would have killed himself directly after the release of this album they would have been hailed in a Nirvana like fashion, known for this and Lonesome Crowded West, there never would have been a Float On, and Johhny Marr could still focus on playing in his flavor of the month bands.  But even if isaac wrote Float On 63 times, it would take nothing away from the sheltered genius he created in this album.  Starting off with 3rd Planet, Isaac basical drafts his theory of the universe, and by track 2 you’re sold on it.  The drugged out drunken poetry never falters, becomes too indulgent or relaxes, climaxing up to the 8 minute Stars Are Projecters, a hallucinogenic sound scape of alternative theories, believes, and philosophies.  Even while isaac is busy re-writing the history of the universe he manages to find time to bring worthy singles like Paper Thin Walls into the mix.

Modest Mouse – What People Are Made Of   

1. RADIOHEAD – KID A

 There is absolutely nothing I can say about this album that hasn’t been said, yet no one has been able to properly describe it’s genius either.   Fuck this, I’m just gonna go listen to this album. 

Radiohead – Optimistic

We’ve blogged a fair but about the steady advance of electronic music on mainstream charts in 2009. The latest, and a surprising one at that is Owl City. Owl City have scored a huge hit on Billboard and other charts in “Fireflies”. Much has been made of their similarity to Postal Service (and let’s be clear – it’s very close. When Softsynth first heard this song we were sure it was Ben Gibbard using an alias.) but what this really is, is the latest in a long line of similar-sounding bands, usually one-man set-ups, breathy soft vocals, blippy retro synths and usually a little jangly guitar thrown in. PlayRadioPlay, Mobius Band, Electric President and scores of other bands have cropped up over the last few years. Minnesota’s Adam Young is simply the latest in a very long line of similarly-themed bands, Postal Service among them (his eery similarity to Gibbard vocally makes the connection there a little more concrete, right down to the syntax and vocal affectations; his claim that he never listened to Postal Service before doesn’t pass the smell test). He’s released two albums this year, the most recent being Ocean Eyes, and he’s consistently catchy and melodically beautiful if lyrically a little overly simplistic (okay, the lyrics are really bad – sounds like poetry written by a pre teen girl. It’s good stuff in small doses, though one grows pretty tired of the whole thing after a couple of doses.

The question we pose it why this particular band? Why now? The sound is so similar to the above list why did they fail to break through with mainstream recognition the way Owl City have (we disagree with McNutt’s theory: People like owls)? Either way it’s always nice to see a continuation of the public acceptance of the genre even if they aren’t always aware of what it is they’re actually listening to.

“explanatory”

Insomnia:

There’s a light bulb dangling from string
It’s slowly swaying up over my head now
As I jot down the words that’ll never be sung
And wait for my headache to numb
And the wind sounds as if the world’s sighing
And the moon’s just a torn fingernail
As the TV flickers and hums by the wall
And I wait for my eyesight to fade

So, So, So
It’s so damn slow
So, So, So
It’s so damn slow

And the bright-eyed choke on ambition
And the old folks circle their graves
And the young ones are busy destroying their names
And you’re still just wasting away.
I sit and watch the screen for a message
Some kinda sign that says we’re OK
But the screen stays blank till I turn the thing off
And wait for my conscience to break.

So, So, So
It’s so damn slow
So, So, So
It’s so damn slow

I hope you’re learning to listen
And I hope you’re learning to stay
And I hope you find what you’re missing
And I hope that you’re making your way
I’m a headcase if I don’t keep moving
And my head hurts if I don’t sit still
It’s an itch that I’ll never stop scratching
It’s a hole that I’ll never quite fill

So

Hello faithful friends,

I am truly sorry that I have neglected you as of late, especially at this most special time — sometime last week marked the 100th read of this little project of mine! To those of you who check in regularly, I’d like to thank you for your support. As you know, I do have another blog which I update more regularly and which has been much more popular, but this one is quite special to me because I get to share with you, not just random thoughts, but real emotion through music. For all the other readers who have just passed through or stumbled upon this blog by searching for songs (WordPress tells me that the old Google lyric-fragment search, which I am all too familiar with, has brought some of you my way), I am glad that I’ve been able to help you find what you’ve been seeking.

To celebrate the 100th read, and to apologize for my recent absence, as well as my upcoming absence (as noted in my other blog, I am staying away from my computer for the next week-or-so while I try to get caught up on some reading and research), I have decided to give you not just one song today, but 5 songs — some of which come from the albums listed in my recent Summer ‘09 Top 5’s, and some that just reflect my end-of-summer melancholy mood these days. These songs are as follows (click the links to play the songs, and check out the lyrics below):

1. Sundowner – “One Hundred Resolutions” (from the album Four One Five Two): chosen because of the reference to “one hundred”, and because, although this song is about New Year’s (when he sings “I wonder where you’ll be bringing in the New Year“, with that change in melody, my heart breaks a little every time), the band is #1 on my list of top summer bands (remember that gem “Midsummer Classic”? These are the same guys). I also feel that it is kind of appropriate for this time of year: New Year’s is all about change, yes, but the end of summer is a big time of change as well, especially when you are still in school. I tend to make more resolutions at back-to-school time, in fact, than I do between December and January. (This year I will spend more time working on my thesis and less time blogging perhaps ought to be a September ‘09 resolution, for example). And the depressing tone, with the ironic suggestion not of something new, but of something left behind, caters to my miserable feelings lately.

2. Electric President – “Insomnia” (from the album Electric President).

3. Electric President – “Hum“ (from the album Electric President): I absolutely love this band (hence my inability to narrow it down to just one song to include on here), and the whole self-titled album is amazing. Yes, really, the whole thing. Go buy it. Their sound is so fresh and light, even with their heavily unhappy songs. I love their use of electronic sounds for slower songs, rather than dance music (as seems to be more common) — it gives it such a unique and clean, great sound. And the lyrics are so good in both songs — “Hum” especially being, in my mind, a poetic masterpiece.

4. Billy Bragg – “If You Ever Leave“ (from the album Mr. Love and Justice): I find this song is so powerful. Even when I listen to this song in a good mood, it makes me cry. On my Top Played songs on iTunes, this one ranks 4th. Billy Bragg’s voice sounds wonderful and tragic with the perfectly-complementing instrumentals. And when he sings “If you ever leave my dear, there’s nothing for me here“, I break every time. Perhaps even more so than “One Hundred Resolutions”, this song captures perfectly my end-of-summer sense of loss and nostalgia — Tide and time march onwards… The season’s ever changing, ever moving on…

5. The Smiths – “Asleep” (from the album Louder Than Bombs): A 1980s post-punk band from Manchester, The Smiths are one of those Essential Bands that you must (if you haven’t already) make yourselves acquainted with ASAP. No matter what your current mood, The Smiths will have a song to both match it perfectly and amplify it. If you don’t feel like going through all of their countless songs (although you really should), at least get familiar with “Asleep”, “Back To The Old House”, “Wonderful Woman”, “Paint a Vulgar Picture”, “Unlovable” and “This Charming Man” (and also the great cover of this one by Death Cab for Cutie). “Asleep”, which I have chosen to feature here, is just so deeply sad — it is the 3rd most played song in iTunes not because I listen to it often, but because when I do feel awful, I can loop this song literally for days. So, although the Play Count says almost 400, I have probably only turned this song on 4 times, but let it play 100 times at each time. It is one of those songs that, even though it is over 4 minutes long, I always get the feeling when I listen to it that it is far too short, that I need to listen to it over and over to feel that I’ve fully absorbed all the beauty it has to offer. Listen to it and see for yourself.

—————————————————–

Lyrics: One Hundred Resolutions by Sundowner

Where have I been all your life?
Sitting on fences — a novocaine for all the senses.
Another year will pass us by.
Making sense of nothing, in defense of something.
I laughed too late and dug myself into a grave.
This year I’ll try not to think too much.
This year I’ll try to stand up for myself.
This year I’ll live like I’ve never lived before,
Yeah, this is my year for sure.
Another stupid clumsy story,
More accidental aspirations.
Another explosion of silence.
I think I’m going deaf, or maybe I’m just hearing less.
This year I’ll try to only listen to myself.
This year I’ll try not to think too much.
This year I’ll try to stand up for myself.
And this year I’ll live like I’ve never lived before,
Yeah, this is my year for sure.
I wonder where you’ll be bringing in the New Year.
As midnight clocks are singing,
Good chance I’ll be slobbering, somewhere.
I’ll probably pass out, wasted, and sleep until the smoke clears.
Vague memories of midnight flash in tune to morning sunlight.
I wake up knowing you’ll never be there.
I’ve got one hundred resolutions, but I’ve got no solutions.
I’ve got one song I write a hundred times.
And only a dozen or so rhymes.
This year I’ll try not to drink so much.
This year I’ll try to stand up straight.
This year let’s live like we’ve never lived before,
Yeah, this is our year for sure.

—————————————————–

Lyrics: Insomnia by Electric President

There’s a light bulb dangling from string;
It’s slowly swaying up over my head now
As I jot down the words that’ll never be sung
And wait for my headache to numb.
And the wind sounds as if the world’s sighing,
And the moon’s just a torn fingernail,
As the TV flickers and hums by the wall
And I wait for my eyesight to fade.
So, So, So,
It’s so damn slow.
So, So, So,
It’s so damn slow.
And the bright-eyed choke on ambition,
And the old folks circle their graves,
And the young ones are busy destroying their names,
And you’re still just wasting away.
I sit and watch the screen for a message,
Some kind of sign that says we’re okay,
But the screen stays blank till I turn the thing off
And wait for my conscience to break.
So, So, So,
It’s so damn slow.
So, So, So,
It’s so damn slow.
And I hope you’re learning to listen,
And I hope you’re learning to stay,
And I hope you find what you’re missing,
And I hope that you’re making your way.
And I’m a headcase if I don’t keep moving,
And my head hurts if I don’t sit still.
It’s an itch that I’ll never stop scratching;
It’s a hole that I’ll never quite fill.
So.

—————————————————–

Lyrics: Hum by Electric President

Footsteps echo through hallways;
Beneath the neon lighting, everyone looks sick.
We sit on a rusty staircase;
You write your name with lipstick on the rail near the wall.
What do you think about me now?
And what do you think about me now
That I’ve fallen down?
Watching the crowds on the sidewalks;
A steady hum of nothing is all that fills the air.
And we sit on a nearby rooftop;
It overflows with pigeons, and we idly scare them off.
What do you think about me now
What do you think about me now
What do you think about me now
What do you think about me now
That I’ve fallen down?

—————————————————–

Lyrics: If You Ever Leave by Billy Bragg

Walking out together,
All along the shore.
Arm in arm beneath the cliffs that tower above us
We hear the breakers roar.
Here we found each other,
Here we made our home.
Took the sea, the sky, the sun, the summertime,
Made it all our own.
If you ever leave,
If you ever leave me,
If you ever leave, my dear,
There’s nothing for me here.
The storms that pound the harbor
Scatter driftwood on the beach.
A million stars that fill the winter night sky
Seem just beyond our reach.
Tide and time march onwards,
Just as sunshine follows rain.
The season’s ever changing, ever moving on,
Yet our love remains.
If you ever leave,
If you ever leave me,
If you ever leave, my love,
You can take the stars above.
If you ever leave,
If you ever leave me,
If you ever leave, my love,
You can bring the curtain down
On this lonesome town.

—————————————————–

Lyrics: Asleep by The Smiths

Sing me to sleep.
Sing me to sleep.
I’m tired and I,
I want to go to bed.
Sing me to sleep.
Sing me to sleep,
And then leave me alone.
Don’t try to wake me in the morning
‘Cause I will be gone.
Don’t feel bad for me;
I want you to know,
Deep in the cell of my heart
I will feel so glad to go.
Sing me to sleep.
Sing me to sleep.
I don’t want to wake up
On my own anymore.
Sing to me.
Sing to me.
I don’t want to wake up
On my own anymore.
Don’t feel bad for me;
I want you to know,
Deep in the cell of my heart
I really want to go.
There is another world,
There is a better world.
There must be.
Well, there must be.
Well, there must be.
Well, there must be.
Well…
Bye, bye
Bye, bye
Bye.

—————————————————–

Well, that’s it. I hope you love these songs as much as I do, and that you’ve been able to get through them without developing a severe depression. They’ve all been chosen (aside from the fact that they are absolutely beautiful) to reflect the inevitable feelings of loss that seem to haunt me at this time of year. As much as I do love the Fall and heading back to school, I can never seem to shake the sadness that comes each year with leaving behind the carefree and somewhat mystical days of summer.

Anyway, I hope these 5 songs will keep you busy listening for the next little while, and I promise I will return before too long with all kinds of treasures for you! That is my resolution.

Thanks again to all of you for stopping by!

-W-

Ben Cooper is a prodigious musical talent whose main pursuit is Electric President and best known side project among many is Radical Face. Perhaps his most intriguing effort to date is an intimate 11 track compilation of unreleased tracks called Patients. The album is somewhat of a homebrew with Cooper personally burning 100 copies of the album and then decorating each disc with unique cover art using magic markers and spray paint.

Just as refreshing is the distribution channel Cooper chose: he put out a request on his blog for people to exchange anything but money for the discs. The album itself is an eclectic assortment ranging from country to melodic pop and  percussive instrumentals worthy of a listen (search the interwebs to find a download). For me the stand out track is Mind Ur Manners, which somewhat evokes The Postal Service. A list of the items that were exchanged for the albums is documented on Cooper’s blog, along with the story behind each track.

Patients – Mind Ur Manners

Website

Electric President is the second of Ben Cooper’s projects, this time with Alex Kane. The sound is a mix with folk, pop, electronic, with a sound that would be very much like if you threw The Postal Service, The Decemberists, The Flaming Lips, and George Orwell in a large blender. – from last.fm

because we are all machines.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/r2cbry

All the songs started like normal ones. I’d lay out some chords and get my vocals together. Then, Alex would add some bass guitar to everything. Then we’d start using computers to mess everything up. Splice parts out, mute and un-mute entire sections, record sections separately and edit them together, stuff like that. The drums were mostly random sounds we collected and made, knocking on walls, dropping bags, zippers, tools, scraping Styrofoam, cracking our knuckles, dropping rocks in a bucket, et cetera. – from an interview

But we’re all just part of some giant grand machine.

Too big to really understand.

But we’ll do our jobs till we break down and fall.

Push the Button

Let’s just call this Mix Tape # 1

For a future road trip to Boston, perhaps?

• Me & You! by Slow Club
• Ten Thousand Lines by Electric President
• Wake Up by Arcade Fire
• Crush On You by Brakes
• Lemons by Amos the Transparent
• A Wish by Gregory & the Hawk
• Cat and Mouse by Ben and Petie
• Look Up by Bradley Hathaway
• The Cave by Mumford and Sons
• Sudden Oak Death by The Mountain Goats
• Always Like This by Bombay Bicycle Club
• Burning Starts by Mimicking Birds
• Just Impolite by Plushgun
• Suicide Medicine by Rocky Vololato
• Cars by Now Now Every Children
• The Mountain by Heartless Bastards
• Honey, Let Me Sing You A Song by Matt Hires
• Ever Fallen In Love by Sportsday Megaphone
• Sleep Driving by Grand Archives

mi spiace non aver trovato il video di questa canzone, ma forse ho un file audio( some crap about the future) ma la tecnologia come chi ben mi conosce, mi è solitamente avversa.

quindi non credo sia nè l’url giusto nè una canzone nè chissà dio cosa.

ma vi posto il testo, per leggere e meditare di tanto in tanto.

You spread your rusty fingers across the ledge.
You get your grip and peer down over the edge.
You watch the city move and breathe and migrate.
You’re not apart of it. You’re broken now, like us.

And we collapse on a road.
On an old dirt road, where the sun doesn’t look like such a waste.
And we fall asleep, under leaves of a couple of them nearby tress.
And we never wake again.

side project of ben cooper (radical face and electric president)

1. Tall Tale Number 5
2. The Coldest Hands
3. Not In Nottingham (!!!!!)
4. Body Song
5. Mind Ur Manners
6. Doorways
7. Mathematics
8. The Voice Of Our Age
9. Leaves
10. Sad Business
11. If You Come Back To Haunt Me

i really, really love this record. highly recommended!

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?juky04tnmmu

To be honest, I’m tired of working on this cover. The longer it gets, the sicker I am of hearing that riff played on nylon strings. I’m looking forward to putting some original ideas into motion. Again, the mix sounds like cold mashed potatoes, but it’s a start.

I got a really good deal on a Roland SP-555 from a guy in Philly last weekend, and have stayed up late the last few nights mashing samples together / listening to Black Dice. It always feels good to listen to something like BD, Four Tet, Soft Circle, etc. after a day-long pop music overdose.

Also, a band I have been listening to at work recently is Electric President. Check out “Ten Thousand Lines” and “Insomnia.” Not too bad.

dessa vez, não tem buzina nem telefone. não tem espera e nem vontade. não tem dor e nem saudade.  juro, de pés juntos, que nem sinto mais o seu perfume. também não procuro seu rosto no meio dos outros. sequer, quero te encontrar. sei que você vai fazer tudo do mesmo jeito, vai repetir todos os passos nos quais outrora me envolveu. é uma pena, de verdade. e a culpa não é sua!

é que eu me encontrei quando você me perdeu. e me descobri bem melhor sem a sua companhia.

a saudade
é uma colcha velha
que cobriu um dia
numa noite fria
nosso amor em brasa

zeca baleiro

Being the completely self-irreverent alternative bro that I pretend to be, I’m always on the lookout for something obscure to totally get into. I impress my friends with my quirky homepage, which has the second advantage of loudly announcing when people have opened a sneaky browser on my unattended computer; the posters on my walls are of old superheroes you wouldn’t have heard of; my bookshelf is full of works, as I like to call them, that are so crammed with intrinstic value it’s almost leaking out all over the copies of Harry Potter in front of which they’re stacked. But the area in which my authentic and credible obscurity reaches its mighty zenith is in my taste in music. Having an iPod with an improperly large capacity that has been filled with bands that hardly even exist is my biggest drawcard in impressing people who entertain me to no end by actually taking it all seriously.

This deliberately pretentious yet only partially ironic aspect of my life aside, one habit into which I have consequently fallen is trawling through bargain bins at JB Hi-Fi and the like in search of impressively unheard-of bands that would rack up the maddest cred with the buffoons out of whom I mercilessly and privately take the piss. There’s little harm in purchasing a potentially shitty CD for two bucks, taking it home and realising that not only is it utter shit, but it transcends shittiness, and if the poseurs recording it “meant it as a joke” my hat would be swept off to them so fast it would wreck my carefully modelled long-on-the-top-with-shaved-back-and-sides-deal-type-thing, the unfortunate haircut of my generation that I hope will join the mullet in the annals of history. If my children aren’t embarrassed when they see pictures of me as a foolhardly youth, I will have failed them as a father.

However. This habit of trawling through the cesspool of musical faeces, hopefully searching for the diamonds that someone mistakenly dropped in with them, has been largely fruitless, although I did enjoy finding  the Very Best of the Housemartins. I guess it was just half their discography. There has been one notable, behemothic exception, however. Accompanied by two of my bros, the bargain bin was having the shit browsed out of it when Bro No. 1 commented on the particularly enamouring style of album artwork of this particular CD.Bro No. 2 added his enthusiastic approval to the record, and thus the requisite two dollars was parted with and the record became ours to own. Based solely on the cover and liner notes I found myself expecting uncomplicated, fluffy licks and riffs on cheap Stratocasters with the tone dial turned up to 10. My brain’s fondness for irrelevant tangents somehow put the word “President” from the band name and the word “Hypocrite” from the title of the first track together to come to the firm conclusion that this was going to be a political statement, full of misinformed goon-socialist magic, and I was thoroughly looking forward to showing my disdain for the pathetic excuse for aesthetica I was sure was about to put my hammers and stirrups to work.

The disappointment I felt when I realised my disdain was neither called for or warranted was dwarfed by how profoundly impressed I was by what I was hearing. It was, well, good. Really good. Oftentimes it takes me a good two or three listening-tos of an album for me to draw out the intricacies and deft subtleties I inevitably search for or simply invent, but this definitively understated album made them accessible immediately. The immediate comparison is the Postal Service, but even then Electric President leave you in no doubt that they aren’t just Gibbard fanboys who thought it’d be cool to try his schtick out. Their music isn’t necessarily challenging or confronting, but it gets to you in that indefinable way things do when you know there’s something real behind them.

On the surface, Electric President play the sort of music you’d expect to hear in a quiet Rathdowne St Cafe. It can fritter away in the background without really being noticed on a conscious level. It disappears into creating a comfortable atmosphere, and as background noise it functions flawlessly. But it still holds up to a rigourous listening-to, as the undeniable substance and sound thematic course it charts out is as strong as any album that sits up in your face a little bit more. The interwoven synth and acoustic sounds work in appealing harmony, always leaving room for the other to function properly. Layered vocals and complex rhythmic structures lend the album weight, but still the musically and aesthetically distinct lyrical content carves out an endpoint that still leaves the right sort of questions in the mind, the sort of questions you hope can be answered when the album proves itself to have the inestimably important quality of real replay value.

Electric President has rocketed into my Top Ten Albums Ever, which contains other undeniable masterpieces such as Give Up and We Shall All Be Healed. My usual facility with our language still leaves me lacking in the adjective department – let it be said that Electric President are fucking amazing, and let it further be said that they rock ultimate. I’m just glad my friends and I are still superficial enough to judge an album by its cover.

Entre pitos y flautas se nos ha ido retrasando la 2ª parte de nuestra particular lista de Los grandes desconocidos de 2008 (y por qué no debieron serlo). Y aunque ya llevemos dos semanas en 2009, y de momento este año parece venir cargado de bastante buena música y ya estamos descubriendo más y más “desconocidos” que os iremos contando, nos detendremos para señalar unos cuantos que también publicaron en 2008 y no entendemos por qué no se habló de ellos.

The Notwist: Una banda, que en absoluto es una desconocida y que no necesita presentación, pero cuyo último álbum, publicado en Junio, ha pasado totalmente de puntillas, y tan sólo si hacías un esfuerzo conseguías enterarte de este nuevo trabajo de los alemanes. Y todo ello a pesar de contener grandísimas canciones como este Good Lies.

Electric President: Otro caso semejante al anterior, banda contrastada, con varios álbumes en el mercado, que además edita uno de los mejores (y curiosamente solo una semana después que el de The Notwist), pero no se oye en ningún medio de comunicación, y casi nada en blogs y foros. Además, este disco “Sleep Well” contiene, a mi juicio, una de las mejores canciones de 2008: Monsters:

Lonely Drifter Karen: Debut, con respecto a LP, ya que anteriormente había sacado un EP, de Tanja Frinta. Un disco que mezcla el pop, el folk y el cabaret, para dar con una música que podría ser la banda sonora de cualquier cuento de hadas. Sin embargo y a pesar de estar afincada en España, Barcelona concretamente, apenas hemos oído hablar de ella.

Devotchka: a pesar de tener un nombre difícil de recordar, este grupo estadounidense fueron los encargados de poner banda sonora a Pequeña Miss Sunshine, con temas tan estupendos como How It Ends o Till The End Of Time (de la que incluimos el vídeo a continuación). En marzo de 2008 publicaron su tercer trabajo, The Mad & Faithfull Telling (bastante mejor que los anteriores, por cierto), un álbum capaz de emocionar y que nos recuerda bastante a Beirut, con canciones de las que te hacen imaginarte que el mundo puede ser un poco mejor, como The Clockwise Witness, Along The Way o Transliterator.

So I’ll start by saying that we had my entire family over for the holidays and it was crazy.  People everywhere, TVs on at all times blaring football games… and a very exciting game of Risk (I won’t go into detail, but it was intense, let me tell you).  But one great part of the holidays was that I was introduced to one of the most atmospheric and melodic albums I have ever heard: Ghost, by Radical Face.  It’s a concept album about houses and the memories they leave.  Some of the songs are even told from the house’s perspective (kudos for creativity!).  At first, when my super-awesome cousin showed me the cd, I thought it was alright, but not one of my favorites.  Then, a couple days ago, I decided I’d give it another go, and let me tell you, it was amazing.  I’ve listened to the cd quite a few times again since then, and it keeps getting better.  The vocals are very soft and sometimes near inaudible, but that just makes you want to listen to the music that much more carefully.  Each time you listen to it, you notice something about at least one of the songs that you didn’t notice during your previous listen.  So this is essentially just my way of getting it out there that THIS CD IS AMAZING!  Quiet, loud, atmospheric, thoughtful, and dramatic, Ghost is a must-have for anyone interested in the acoustic/folk/indie scene.

Our comprehensive year end coverage continues. These are the top 50 songs of 2008 according to one of your humble correspondents.  These truly are the créme de la créme – the finest mixtape fodder the year had to offer.  Albums are given parenthetically.

1. Bon Iver – “Flume” (For Emma, Forever Ago)
2. Frightened Rabbit – “The Modern Leper” (The Midnight Organ Fight)
3. TV on the Radio – “Family Tree” (Dear Science)
4. Kanye West – “Welcome to Heartbreak” (808s and Heartbreak)
5. The Broken West – “Gwen, Now and Then” (Now or Heaven)
6. Fleet Foxes – “White Winter Hymnal” (Fleet Foxes)
7. Shearwater – “Century Eyes” (Rook)
8. Margot and the Nuclear So and Sos – “A Children’s Crusade on Acid” (Animal!)
9. Death Cab for Cutie – “Grapevine Fires” (Narrow Stairs)
10. Sun Kil Moon – “Lost Verses” (April)
11. The Tallest Man On Earth – “Pistol Dreams” (Shallow Grave)
12. Ben Folds – “Cologne” (Way To Normal)
13. Sigur Rós – “Gobbledigook” (Med sud i eyrum vid spilum endalaust)
14. Okkervil River – “Lost Coastlines” (The Stand Ins)
15. Bound Stems – “Winston” (The Family Afloat)
16. Tapes ‘n Tapes – “Le Ruse” (Walk It Off)
17. M.I.A. – “Paper Planes” (Kala)
18. Deerhunter – “Nothing Ever Happened” (Microcastle)
19. Plush – “Born Together” (Fed)
20. The Hold Steady – “Constructive Summer” (Stay Positive)
21. British Sea Power – “No Lucifer” (Do You Like Rock Music?)
22. Vampire Weekend – “Mansard Roof” (Vampire Weekend)
23. Ra Ra Riot – “Ghost Under Rocks” (The Rhumb Line)
24. Cut Copy – “Feel the Love” (In Ghost Colours)
25. Lil Wayne – “Lollipop” (Tha Carter III)
26. Hercules and Love Affair – “Blind” (Hercules and Love Affair)
27. Shugo Tokumaru – “Sanganichi” (Exit)
28. Dodos – “Winter” (Visiter)
29. Estelle (featuring Kanye West) – “American Boy” (Shine)
30. Fleet Foxes – “Blue Ridge Mountains” (Fleet Foxes)
31. Kanye West – “Street Lights” (808s and Heartbreak)
32. Brendan Canning – “Possible Grenade” (Something for All of Us)
33. Atlas Sound – “River Card” (Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel)
34. Electric President – “Monsters” (Sleep Well)
35. Beck – “Modern Guilt” (Modern Guilt)
36. The National – “Tall Saint” (The Virginia EP)
37. The Raconteurs – “You Don’t Understand Me”(Consolers of the Lonely)
38. Bon Iver – “Re: Stacks” (For Emma, Forever Ago)
39. The Tallest Man On Earth – “The Gardener” (Shallow Grave)
40. She & Him – “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?” (Volume One)
41. Wolf Parade – “California Dreamer” (From Mount Zoomer)
42. Bonnie “Prince” Billy – “You Remind Me of Something” (Lie Down in the Light)
43. The Ruby Suns – “Remember” (Sea Lion)
44. Cut Copy – “Hearts on Fire” (In Ghost Colours)
45. Brian Wilson – “Oxygen to the Brain” (That Lucky Old Sun)
46. Franz Ferdinand – “Ulysses” (single)
47. Gnarls Barkley – “Neighbours” (The Odd Couple)
48. The Decemberists – “Valerie Plame” (single)
49. Coldplay – “Violet Hill” (Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends)
50. Ian McGlynn – “Play Dead” (This Is The Sound)

Ben Cooper and Alex Kane’s Electric President project are two of the many unheralded foot-soldiers in the indie/electronica movement that erupted not too long after Ben Gibbard and Jimmy Tamborello put out a record as The Postal Service. Their debut infused a quiet breed of folk with a healthy dose of electronic and shoegaze.

Sleep Well, their second effort, finds Cooper and Kane exploring a darker, more industrial aesthetic. The whole album is far more ethereal, mysterious, uncertain, and foreboding than its relatively light-hearted predecessor. On the introduction of “Graves and the Infinite Arm,” acoustic guitars lurk beneath atmospheric synthesizers, emerging only briefly before being buried again beneath pounding drums and sparse keyboards. “Just close your eyes; it’s comfortable,” Cooper intones. It’s an invitation into the mood of the song and the album, which achieves sort of the same mood as an Alex Proyas film. It’s dark, cleanly assembled, but always deeply human.

Standout track “Ether” juxtaposes an easy, lilting verse with a quick-tongued chorus, rife with guitars straight out of James Murphy’s playbook. “Robophobia” follows, insistent rhythm guitar and bass complement the soaring backing vocals beautifully with more tact than any song on their previous record. It’s evidence of a general pattern here: Cooper and Kane are both growing as an outfit. This is not the coy electro-folk duo we heard on their 2006 debut. They are now a confident, focused artistic entity, who have taken on the ambitious project of exploring the darkest corners of the human condition.

Musically, it’s generally successful; it’s lush, dark, and gorgeous. Cooper and Kane craft beautifully nuanced sonic landscapes for the listener to inhabit and explore. The mix is spacious and yet completely suffused with noise. It’s easy to lose oneself in the sound of the record.

Lyrically though, Cooper isn’t up to the task. His lyrics are best when he is not trying to be profound: “My dreams are nothing special; they happen all the time.” But too often on this record, he tries in vain to answer the big questions. And it’s real tough to cogently and completely explain “why we’re here” in a four-minute song. So the big incongruency here is that between Cooper’s lyrical ambition and his skill as a lyricist. It’s annoying if you pay too much attention to it, but it’s not a damning flaw, especially since the vocals are so far back in the mix anyway.

All told, Sleep Well is a more mature musical achievement than their debut, but it finds Cooper grasping for his lyrical niche. He knows how to express himself well enough through music; if and when he figures out what it is that he wants to (or ought to) be saying, this band will start to get more attention.

7.9 / 10.0

最近聽了一個好聽的Indie團，【Electric President】，路線走的是叮叮噹噹的電子合成音效和著民謠曲風，沒有完全的冷冰冰電子味，專輯一路聽下來，清新偶而來點暖和的音色，在每一個節奏點都會小小觸動你一下。

他的花招不多，但同樣的手法只變一次。就像個專業魔術師，層出不窮的驚奇讓你目不轉睛，他手拿魔術棒，左點右點，吉他絃聲響起，三角鐵叮噹，鼓點迸出，Magic Show!

同名專輯，首先揭開序幕的《Good Morning, Hypocrite》，開頭的喃喃自語，中段的思索，停頓幾個轉角的無力傾訴，最終拉起簾幕的自省。一層層的堆疊，平順的在旋律中看故事。
　　
　　
　　

Electric President – 《Good Morning, Hypocrite》
lyrics: 森克 譯

Seems like the roads stretch out like veins,
but there’s no heart.
Nature’s haircut is concrete now,
and we played our part.
So we sing…
路像血管般長長的延伸下去
但沒有心臟
大自然的髮型具體的顯現
我們仍做著份內的事
所以，我們歌唱…
　　

I’ve lost my taste for modern things.
They’re not for me.
I want mundane: a quiet place, where time is free,
And I can sing…
我已失去嚐試潮流的滋味
他們不屬於我
我想窩在世俗中: 一個平靜的地方，有著自在的時光
而我能歌唱著…
　　

Climbed from my bed,
to collect the thoughts that’d fallen from my head,
And you watched me sink,
through the carpet,through the basement, and beyond.
And you didn’t blink.
爬下我的床
蒐集從我腦中掉出的思緒
你看著我無力沉下
穿過地毯，穿過地下室，直至更深處
而你視若無睹
　　

On the glass, I traced the sun with my thumb.
It sank into the ground.
And then the stars were blinking,
like kids who were staring into the wind.
So I climbed through the window
and walked until I lost my name.
Now I can play the victim.
It’s fine. I’ve seen it on TV.
But if there’s one thing I know,
it’s that I never really know enough.
隔著玻璃，用拇指勾繪出太陽
他正沉沒地平線
接著星光閃爍
像小孩凝視著微風
所以我攀越窗邊
不停的往前直到我忘了自己的姓名
現在我可以扮演著遇難者的角色
沒事的，我早在電視上看過這樣的畫面
但假使我清楚明白一件事
那就是我瞭解的太少了
　　

Our heads, our hands, our brains, our lungs:
they’re just machines.
These hearts are all that we’ve got left,
and they don’t beat.
我們的頭，我們的手，我們的腦袋，我們的肺:
他們都只是機器
心是所有中我們唯一遺留的
但他們已不再跳動
　　

Live a little, talk a lot; it’s the way this goes.
I’ve come to fear the little knives beneath their well-pressed clothes.
Their arms are reaching;
reach is spreading through the neon glow.
Their mouths are moving,
but their voices sound like telephones.
The traffic hums; the traffic grumbles near my old window.
The street lights flicker;
glow and hover like suspended snow.
I used to watch the moon retreat and wonder where it goes.
Now I just wonder why my head is overrun with ghosts.
生命短暫，我們卻不停的說話: 這就是我們生活的方式
我漸漸害怕在他們筆挺西裝後面暗藏的小刀
他們的武器延伸靠近:
穿越霓虹燈
他們的嘴巴不停動作
但是他們的聲音像似電話聲
車水馬龍的嗚鳴: 在我的老舊窗邊不停發牢騷
街燈閃爍:
發光且盤旋，就像懸浮的降雪
我曾看著月亮隱蔽，想像著他溜去哪了
現在我只懷疑為什麼我的腦子充斥著有的沒的東西
　　
　　

Genre(s) Electronic, Indie pop
Label(s) Morr Music

　　
　　
此篇文章同步發表於【音牆】，一個共筆音樂部落格，有兩個與我耳朵一樣的好朋友們，大家開心來坐坐哩