A lot of night music

because staring at my darkened reflection in the nighttime windowpane is only fun for so long.

In which our heroine may or may not relate the thrilling details of:
*two really, really great songs
*and one more that makes me giggle even in the midst of the up-chocolate-creek-without-a-popsicle-stick FIASCO that is my academic career
*a broken green earring
*antipodean blog goodness
*an entire thing of candybeans (or rather Tim Tams)
*my undying love for Zach Braff
*a sudden enthusiasm for soccer
*one very, very late American Politics essay.

Let's start at the very beginning. It's a very good place to start.

I ate an entire thing of chocolate biscuits. It was so good. And so very, very bad. I am currently compensating with an orange.


anywho. ONWARD!

Several bloggers have made the point of late that a lot of obscure music is thrust upon the blogosphere daily without an overwhelming regard for true quality, because let's face it - everybody wants to be able to claim that they were the first to post on the Uber-Clapping Antipodean Glasswolves or whatever bestially/onomatopeiaically-named-excuse-for-the-kind-of-hyperbole-everybody-used-to-sneer-at-the-NME-for-embracing is next in line for descent upon the unsuspecting blogerati. So with that in mind, Connor from iGiF today posted this song:

~mp3~ Arms - Tiger Tamer

Because he really thought it stood out. and it really does. Don't listen to MC Lars (laa laa laa laa, la la la laa...damn, it's catchy, though), download THIS song. it's really, really, really good music. I won't bother repeating everything Connor said about it being DIY, homemade stuff, whatever. Really good tunes go beyond all that. It's a fantastic track. Read the post, and try not to let the comparisons to Wolf Parade and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's inital promise turn you off for fear of being up the front on a soon-to-be-very-full bandwagon. I almost did. *shudders to think*

The other slice of brilliant soundwave comes in the form of Nathan Asher & The Infantry's "Turn Up The Faders". Where Arms is only tonight's discovery and the glee-and-squee sensation is yet to stand the test of time, i have been listening to this song for a week straight and I can't see myself getting one foothold on this side, let alone getting over it any time soon. (Did we get the gate metaphor? Like the song's a gate and i'm climbing...never mind. I've forgotten my keys a few too many times this week...) It won the John Lennon Songwriting Competition, which sounds well impressive and all but not as impressive as the actual song. By turns it reminds me of Bright Eyes (Nathan's vocals are actually quite a lot like Conor's, but less damaged and vulnerable-sounding), Springsteen, The Album Leaf, and charcoal city almost-morning nights and not being as drunk as you were an hour ago and thinking the world is slightly less beautiful than it was when you had a little less scotch in you and a lot more idealism and suddenly you find yourself walking down the quiet street you grew up on, and you go sit down on the small strip of grass next to the road and it's enough to lie down and watch the sun come up sideways with your head on the cool concrete of the curb.

Download the song from his mySpace now. Send tearstained notes of heartfelt fanboy/girl thanks later.

Opening line of the week:

"Why don't you ever wanna play?
I'm tired of this piece of string."
- The Weakerthans, "Plea From A Cat Named Virtue"

That always makes me smile. Seek that song out on The Hype Machine. Somebody somewhere posted it this week. The entire song has got me through every morning this week where I've woken up and realised how badly I've screwed up my Government unit this semester; it leaps nimbly up into my lap, twines its fuzzy melody softly around my arm, purrs its insistent but warm drumming onto my tummy, looks me in the eye and quirks its gaze as if to say, what are you so grumpy about?

More tomorrow. It's stuvac, so I've got free time where I would normally be busy making up excuses not to go uni.


For reading this far, you totally have the right to spare Arms.
~mp3~ Whirring
~mp3~ Jon The Escalator