Odds 'n Sodds 2

I received an exciting item in the mail today.

Jack White has always impressed me, though I'm not quite as enamored with him as I think I should be. I do respect his label, Third Man Records, and I like all the random releases they put out. I discovered last week that Laura Marling had released a limited edition single, and as I'm still in love with this woman's voice, I picked up a copy through the Third Man store.

It's a 7" with covers of "Blues Run the Game" and "The Needle and the Damage Done." They are more sparse than her records, both tracks stripped down to just an acoustic guitar and that voice. This is all fine with me, as her voice is the reason I'm head-over-heels for the woman. You can listen to both tracks here, courtesy of Pitchfork.

I'm sorry for the lack of real reviews in recent months, but I've found a lack of albums to review. Whether this is my failing or not is probably open to quite a bit of debate. Avey Tare, member of Animal Collective, has released a solo album, Down There, which I have listened to, but I'm still digesting it. The new Girl Talk album came out this morning, which I'm listening to now. Again, give me some time.

Robyn's Body Talk trilogy comes to a close today with the release of Body Talk. Originally expected to provide a third collection of ten new songs, Robyn has instead delivered a full album, comprising of ten tracks from the previous 2010 releases Body Talk, Pt. 1 and Body Talk, Pt. 2, in addition to five spankin' new songs. Most of the ten chosen holdovers are great (I'll express my disagreements when I review the album in the next week), and from what I've heard of them, the five new songs are very respectable. I saw Robyn play at the Metro on Saturday night, and she was brilliant. They oversold the venue, so there was no room to dance, but, had there been, it would have been every bit as good a show as when LCD Soundsystem tore the roof of the Aragon Ballroom two weeks ago. They were fucking great. No other word for that.

Finally for now, I've spent the last two weeks working my way through Stephen Sondheim's Finishing the Hat, a collection of the lyrics for his shows featuring his comments, notes, and stories. It's been a highly entertaining, informative, instructive, valuable read. If you're into musical theatre or the technique behind lyrics, you should give it a look.

Odds 'n Sodds 1

October has been a peculiarly fallow time. Only one album has come out this month that's crossed my radar, Sufjan Stevens' The Age of Adz, and I was underwhelmed. This is, I think, in large part to my preference for "a good song." This is an album of impressive music, but it's not something I'm keen to listen to again. Well-made, as all of Stevens' work is, just not for me. As such, I don't feel giving it a review is fair, since I couldn't possibly do it properly. Such is life.

I've been listening to a lot of Randy Newman lately, which is balancing well with the brief Robyn overdose I went through; her Body Talk, Pt. 3, a summation of the first two Body Talk albums, comes out in a month, and I'll certainly be reviewing that. Both previous installments are well worth your time. I'm partial to Body Talk, Pt. 1 as a whole, but since Pt. 3 is going to feature the five best tracks from each of the first two albums, in addition to five new ones, it bodes very, very well. It will be the best pop album of the year, and it could be the best one in the last ten years. No pressure, Robyn.

I just recently finished reading Alex Ross' Listen to This, a collection of essays and articles he's written over the course of his career as a music critic for The New Yorker. Ross is a remarkable writer. He has a gift for relating music to you in a way that makes it palpable. No individual writer is more responsible for making me seek out new music I haven't heard. Anyone can tell you why they like something, but it's a rare talent that can make you feel and share in their enthusiasm for things you have no prior knowledge of. I highly recommend both of Ross' books. The other, The Rest is Noise, is a survey of compositional music in the twentieth century.

I'm in the middle of reading Infinite Jest for the second time. It's still an exhaustive, busy, sprawling, and chiefly indulgent read, but it is hilarious, and staggering in its scope.