Nina
EMMA
gimme some salt, gimme some salt, gimme, gimme, gimme...
While my legs remain and will continue to be restless forever, this summer I’ve been keeping them busy, or at the very least, busier than last summer. I’m dividing my time between making sandwiches on a delicious vegetarian food truck permanently parked right outside of Kendall Square, writing for the Boston blog Ryan’s Smashing Life and interning at Performer Magazine in Somerville. So, though I can’t say I’m absorbing any new music at my only paid job (no, sandwiches do not play me back sweet jams… yet), my other two worthwhile time-occupiers are essentially flooding my brain with new things to listen to.
This is good. Though I haven’t felt at a loss for great music in a while, I do tend to get stuck on a band and hone in. For example, once upon a time, it was joked that I could not make a playlist that did not contain a Hold Steady song… and, by “once upon a time,” I mean earlier this summer. And by “joked,” I mean it was absolutely true.
Digesting new music is hard and I am not prone to appreciating a song on the first listen. I am often frustrated and quickly find myself settling back into the wonderful familiarity of knowing all the words to older favorites when something new can’t be swallowed whole.
So this summer, I’m learning to chew.
Performer Magazine really focuses on trying to get talented DIY and unsigned bands heard and recognized, so the office is constantly buzzing with new albums. They listen to EVERYTHING that gets sent in… EVERYTHING. Thus, I’m being forced to chew through some things I admit I would probably write off right away if I were listening alone.
Sometime last week, we received the July 13 release “All These Slippery Things” by Il Gato, a San Francisco band whose orchestra style string solos are paired with screeching vocals, and somehow it works. I’m not the biggest fan of “genre” labels but they describe themselves on their MySpace as “indie-baroque-folk,” and it sounds about right to me. Think Modest Mouse, with more violins and horns.
The first listen didn’t grab me, but over the course of the week I found each time I heard something I liked and asked who we were listening to, the answer was Il Gato. Here is my current favorite track from the record, On Feathers & Arrows (on Burnt Pine) but as I continue to listen I keep finding different parts of the album to latch onto. There are four tracks with “waltz” in the title, and each one is dark and beautiful. I recommend listening to the whole thing, all the way through, and then doing it again and again.
So in conclusion, my music digestion system is becoming more efficient, as are my vegetarian sandwich making skills. A constructive summer, indeed.
