kareno decided to show you this image:

DS Lite + Animal Crossing = I am six years old

^.^

A pairing of Brangelina proportions

So two of my favorite songwriters, Spencer Krug and Dan Bejar, are teaming up for a band called Swan Lake. (via) It's a bit too bad that they had to include that screaming maniac from Frog Eyes, but maybe if he weren't there, they'd produce such amazing music that everyone who heard it would experience such a fit of ecstasy that they'd expire on the spot. Maybe. Anyway, their first album, Beast Moans, comes out November 21st. The blurb on their site makes it sound kinda weird:

Their full-length record features, among other things, beast moans, starling voices, cobra hi hats and arpeggiating pianos.

But I think that's all just a code word for "super fantastic".

Hm I wonder what they're brainstorming sessions must be like. I imagine Dan and Spencer tossing lyrical poetry at each other in a midafternoon haze while Carey sits in the corner banging on a drum while occasionally cursing himself.

Never wants to go, always wants to stay, iilllluminated
But I'm no horse, and you are no aaangel
All good things must come to an end, the bad ones just go on forever.
And I will mutter like a lover, who speaks in tongues, oh he speaks in tongues
Don’t make a sound
Don’t make a sound
Don’t make a sound...

sidenotes - a midsummerish reflection

• So was anyone besides me confused about the new Spoon album, or, rerelease rather? I saw this cover and I was like, that can't be Spoon, what kind of bizarre album art is that? I guess they just took the old art n smashed them together, but really, is that guy supposed to be an ugly Britt Daniel? For a long time I thought it was some other band, until I saw the CD on Merge's site. Really, all bands should maintain some sort of consistent design in their album art. i.e. Franz Ferdinand. They were going to have all their covers be the same as their first, just with a change of color scheme. So it'd be kinda confusing to name them ("the red, brown, green one"), but how modern and stylish would that have been! Their albums could've been lined up on the wall like Pop Art. But nooo, in the end they decided to have different covers instead. They could've had it so much better.


• In terms of actual music, it seems there're no new hot bands breaking out this summer, no one hot single being crammed down everyone's throats. There's "Crazy", but in my opinion that's no "Hey Ya". I guess Beirut is sort of this year's Sufjan and Lily Allen is sort of this year's hot British import, but no one seems really...big. Maybe I've been reading too many mp3 blogs where bands have a shelf life of about 2 weeks.

"Some people might say the Polyphonic Spree aren't exactly a religious group, but I say that appearances are never deceiving."

I love reading TinyMixTapes news, even if I couldn't care less about band X going on tour. TMT is like the Daily Show of music news. Exhibit A:

Philip Glass Scores Again; I Get Wet; You Have a Dirty Mind

Exhibit B:

An Open Letter To The Common Class From A Captain Of Industry

Dear Lower And Middling Sort,
I have noticed an air of dissatisfaction, a rumbling of disapproval, in the way I'm running my... our business. Now, I know that it seems like I am far removed from your day-to-day jobs on the factory floor. It seems like, "Hey, Old Man Garbo up there doesn't know his girders from his girdles," but I will have you know that every time you send in a small boy to unclog the furnaces and unkink the gears, it's like I'm sending in one of my own children whom I abandoned to the finest boarding schools on the eastern seaboard. I put my gilded leaf-lined pants on one leg at a time, just like you...

Mm I think that's enough to earn the site a bookmarking, no?

Paranoidal agents

It is so hot and disgusting and I just spent the last 5 hours trying to fix my program for a pset before realizing I'd done such things like write "i + row1" "j + row1" when I meant "i + row1" "j + col1". *despairs* And there's little bugs flying around in my room and I'm kinda scared to turn off the light because I'm afraid they might mass reproduce during the night and take over my room.

Anyway, here's something a bit more positive, sorta, to look forward to. A trailer for Satoshi Kon's next movie Paprika:


w00t, it looks cool! Neon parasitic organisms! Scientists! Spices! "Terrorists"!

Oh I stole the above from Jean Snow, who writes about "design and pop culture in Tokyo" for various magazines. Man I want that job.

Come on hide your lovers, underneath the covers

Indie Blockedappella (why not Rockappella? copyright issues?) makes these cute acappella versions of indie songs like "Rebellion (Lies)" and "Be Gentle With Me". They're not the best singers, and sometimes brink on whiny and annoying, but it's nice just to hear something besides "She Will be Loved" be acappella-ized once in awhile. I couldn't figure out how to get direct audio links from their site, so you probably just have to subscribe to their podcast. Or visit their myspace. But I advise you subscribe, if only to avoid the visual monstrosity that is myspace.

Now they only need to make indie karaoke...