Tag: canada

[Mix for NTS Radio] Getting Warmer Episode 66: Country Special

This months episode of Getting Warmer for NTS Radio was a country special, a sequel to the previous one which you can find here. It’s largely my favorite kind of Golden Age country: mostly from the 50s and 60s, lots of reverb, warbly with ghostly backing choirs and hazy heatwavey pedal steel guitar. It also features “Wichita Lineman,” an all-time favorite which I sometimes think is the most beautiful song ever written. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do! You can download an mp3 version here.

Tracklist:
1. Marvin Rainwater – Gonna Find Me A Bluebird
2. Brenda Lee – The Grass Is Greener
3. Loretta Lynn – Fist City
4. Jerry Lee Lewis – You Win Again
5. Hank Williams – Lovesick Blues
6. Jeannie Seely – Don’t Touch Me
7. Eddy Arnold – Cattle Call
8. Porter Wagoner & Dolly Parton – Last Thing On My Mind
9. Bobby Helms – My Special Angel
10. Webb Pierce – In The Jailhouse Now
11. Davis Sisters – I Forgot More Than You’ll Ever Know
12. Marty Robbins – Singing The Blues
13. Glen Campbell – Wichita Lineman
14. Lucille Starr – Heartaches By The Number
15. Don Gibson – I Can’t Stop Loving You
16. George Jones – The Race Is On
17. Wanda Jackson – Right Or Wrong
18. Little Jimmy Dickens – May The Bird Of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose
19. Roy Clark – The Tips Of My Fingers
18. Louvin Brothers – I Don’t Believe You’ve Met My Baby
19. Jim Reeves – Welcome To My World
20. Connie Frances – Your Cheatin’ Heart
21. Dave Dudley – Six Days On the Road

Jane Siberry – No Borders Here, 1984

Guest post by Nick Zanca (Quiet Friend / Mister Lies)

We don’t talk enough about the potential of the pop LP, as a form, to construct a kind of auditory theatre. Hounds Of Love, Big Science, Hejira, A Wizard A True Star, Jordan: The Comeback (which I’ve written about here before), more recently Blonde and Blood Bitch–these are records that build distinct sound-worlds track to track, display personalities so disparate, observations so tart, that you’re quick to forget they’re all coming from the same voice. And yet, the cohesion (where does it come from?) still exists.

For all intents and purposes, Jane Siberry’s sophomore LP No Borders Here is such a record. The title tells you everything you need to know before you press play–here she is acerbic, energetic, anxious, socially awkward and beguiled by the people she encounters with the same eye for detail present in Rousseau’s jungles. We step-ball-change between time signatures and synth flourishes as quickly as we shift perspectives from deluded waitresses to enigmatic dance class partners. The storytelling feels like the work of someone too well in tune with the anxiety of urban dwelling (in her case, Toronto) but also able to escape it. For the gearheads reading, you’re not going to find more advanced LinnDrum or Fairlight programming on a record marketed as “new wave.” You’re just not. Sorry.

I could go on about the thickness of the sound palette here, but I don’t want to give the game away, so I’ll end with a quote from Renata Adler’s Speedboat–what I feel to be this record’s literary spiritual sister–that I think sums it all up:

Speech, tennis, music, skiing, manners, love – you try them waking and perhaps balk at the jump, and then you’re over. You’ve caught the rhythm of them once and for all, in your sleep at night. The city, of course, can wreck it. So much insomnia. So many rhythms collide. The salesgirl, the landlord, the guests, the bystanders, sixteen varieties of social circumstance in a day. Everyone has the power to call your whole life into question here. Too many people have access to your state of mind.

Give this a front-to-back listen like you would for any of the aforementioned records, and then go watch this tour documentary and revel in how beautifully she presents this record in a live context (those headset mics! those backup singers!). I’ve seen Jen write this a lot, but it bears repeating here: if this record is for you, it’s definitely for you.

buy / download

Gino Soccio – Face To Face, 1982

Feeling heartbroken for peers, friends, musicians, and artists who have been affected by the Ghost Ship fire in Oakland. Like so many others, I’m unable to imagine what my life would be like without DIY, and often illegal, spaces for art, music, and living. These spaces are increasingly vital as cities become prohibitively expensive, and the news coverage that blames the victims of such a terrible loss is deeply upsetting. To echo others: this could have been any of us.

In the spirit of cultures that will, by necessity, continue to build beautiful things in marginal places, I wanted to share a favorite disco record (though to be fair, this record was a heavily produced chart-topper, not a homegrown experiment). This is one of my favorite records to dance to, and is also a rare instance of a disco LP that’s solid all the way through. Impeccably tasty production–hard to say no to this one. Please keep dancing!

[RIP] Leonard Cohen – New Skin For The Old Ceremony, 1974

I was deeply saddened to learn last night of the death of poet, novelist, and musician Leonard Cohen. For the countless fans that have connected with his music over the course of his 50 year long musical career, Cohen has served as equal parts companion and court jester, writing lyrics that were usually equal parts beautiful and cynical, mixing barbed love songs with enigmatic social commentary and plenty of self-deprecation. This was all packaged in his distinctively conversational lilt, a voice that I used to love to fall asleep to until I spent some time with his post-Songs From A Room work and realized just how biting and angry he was. Around the same time I started to suspect that his feelings towards women might be more complicated than I had thought–after all, he came of age in the 50s. All of this is to say that he wasn’t just the love-worn troubadour that the “general listening” CD collection staple The Best Of Leonard Cohen would have us believe. He was messy, cryptic, and seemed to contradict himself readily.

I wanted to share New Skin for the Old Ceremony today for a couple of reasons. It houses some of his more potent political songs, specifically “There Is A War” and “A Singer Must Die”—songs that are lyrically vague enough to be timeless, and as such feel apropos on a day as bilious as today. It also marks a turn in instrumentation for Cohen, incorporating new percussive textures, violas, mandolins, and jazz inflections—still minimal, but more orchestrated than the bare bones guitar-and-vocals of his previous records. From there, it’s easy to see a mostly straight line building up to the unabashedly synth-pop critic’s darling I’m Your Man. Finally, New Skin is the Cohen record to which I feel most attached: in particular, the brutally worded “Why Don’t You Try” has been a reproving reminder to ask uncomfortable questions about loneliness and codependency after every break-up I’ve gone through since I was a teenager. As with much of his music, New Skin offers new insights with every listen, so we’re all the more grateful for his large and generous body of work. Thank you for everything, Leonard.