Other Lives

Gut check.

I had a hard time deciding on a single to post for this band. I'd have to listen to the album in it's entirety every time and mull over "oh this one. eh, i don't know, maybe that one?" Not a bad thing. Tamer Animals, May 10 release by Other Lives on the White Iris record label {whattup Daron!}, was crafted to be an immersion experience. Fold your legs underneath you, relax into the grass, be swept away by prairie winds.

Originally collected under Kunek by founders frontman Jesse Tabish, cellist Jenny Hsu and drummer Colby Owens - Other Lives grew in the great West of Stillwater, OK. After the studio fare of their self-titled debut, the band returned to Stillwater and took things slowly {14mos., to be exact} before producer, and Beck longtime drummer, Joey Waronker tied it off with rough-hewn twine and bolts of dusty velvet. The end-result of 11 tracks are densely layered with horns, gypsy rags, ringing ivory keys and coyote guitars. There are oboes on this album. I f*cking love oboes. Seriously.

So. I went with the song that transported me the farthest and most completely.

Other Lives are playing Red Palace / DC 6.10.11. Tempting, awfully tempting.

Other Lives // Dust Bowl III

Arcade Fire

I perch on my second-hand couch in a shotgun 1-bedroom flat on Grace Street. The first place of my own on an "artsy" block in this old, slow, charming city. The stylish kids coast down the street on single-speeds. Leashed dogs pad down the sidewalk. A lover's pair of cardinals have a nest in the oak in front of my window.
My quartered building is two down from a halfway house, my bike's been stolen, I suffer the August drone of window units, and I make my sandwiches on top of the washer - as it's the only counter-top available.
That's my personal interpretation of The Suburbs, releasing Aug. 3. Read on for something a bit more glossy.

It's a different notso different Arcade album compared to what's come before. Funeral, '04 was our first taste of the massive singalongs influenced by several deaths of relatives to the septet; drenching us in an orgy of instruments - viola, French horn, doublebass, xylophone, glockenspiel and hurdy-gurdy just as appetizer. Neon Bible, '06, a soldier's concept album, was cramped and paranoid; disavowing the things American dreams are made of. The Suburbs, even more so than NB, needs to be listened from start to finish. And it might take a few listens, so dedicate more than a coupla hours to your headphones. Admittedly, I had moments of "they are turning into g-d U2" and "what is this, a Bruce Springsteen relic," but just keep at it, they'll become more themselves. Because see, before Win and Will Butler made their way up to Montreal to set the kindling of Arcade Fire, they grew up in The Woodlands - ridiculously ordinary suburban sprawl of Houston, TX. This piece of information changed them a bit in my eyes. They're not quite so pale, tightroping another dimension. And so we set our stage.

When you first turn in, all you see is the dreamy haze of sprinklers. The music rollingly plinks along "The Suburbs," the sun shines on tow-haired children and cars stay under 25mph.
Drive through a roundabout or two of "Empty Room," and you catch glimpses of angsty, lonely teenagers. Unhappily smoking filched cigarettes, collecting together by ditches lining the manicured hedges. There is wistfulness, a pull of where you come from and where you'd rather be.
By the time you crest the hill of "Half Light," couples are fighting in the driveways after one too many at the neighbors, not noticing their middle child slipping away into the evening. Even the twilight can't keep the edges from being hard and unyielding. No amount of drawn shades can keep the prying eyes away.

But then after all the "Sprawl," dimmed dreams and forgotten teddy-bears in emerald front lawns. You can drive away away, flicking your gaze to the rearview mirror. "If I could have it back, all the time we wasted, I'd only waste it again."

Arcade Fire // Suburban War

Beirut - La Llorona

Just take it in. Feel the horns and be at peace. Then go to Mexico and try not to kill yourself. That's the message I get from this video apparently created by a seven year old blind kid. A+