What We're Listening To 8/12

It's Tuesday afternoon, which means it's time for this week's edition of What We're Listening To! Behold the music that's currently causing the folks here at TNG to roll over and purr like fuzzy little kittens. On the menu today, we have: Purple Crush, Eef Barzelay, Alice Coltrane, King Khan and The Shrines, Wang Chung, Fleet Foxes, The Gossip and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Go ahead and dig in below the fold...

Purple Crush—Blog Party

Electro-dance music isn't everyone's cup of tea, but if you like to drink it by the gallons like me, then you might be interested in checking out Brooklyn-based Purple Crush. Last week, this married duo released Blog Party an album that's chock full of electro-beats and fun lyrics. My favorite is Get Digital"- a digital throwback to Olivia Newton John's "Let's Get Physical." "Marry Me" is another great song - more electro-beats, but this time combined with some romantic, hipster-esque lyrics. I consider Blog Party the baby that would be made if CSS hooked up with Leslie Hall and forgot to use protection. Just listen and have fun! - Stephanie

Eef Barzelay—Lose Big

I was warned that I would be singing along to Eef Barzelay's new album, but I didn't expect to fall head over heels in love with him. The lead singer of alt-rock/indie pop band, Clem Snide, recently released his second solo album, Lose Big, but anyone who downloads it will definitely "win big." Tunes like "Could be Worse" and "The Girls Don't Care" won't leave my head, and his songwriting is easily the best I've heard in the last two years. - Ben

Alice Coltrane—Journey in Satchidananda

The music of the late Alice Coltrane, widow of John Coltrane, is entrancing. One of the first people to introduce the harp into jazz, her compositions are unearthly. Her spirituality (she was a Hindu convert) plays a big role in compositions; most of her oeuvre is intensely meditative. Other albums use Eastern modalities and instruments to create music as weirdly transcendent as the music of Sun Ra. - Craig

King Khan and the Shrines—The Supreme Genius of King Khan and the Shrines

This album is 16 tracks of pure fun. It's part rock-a-billy, part Morphine and part James Brown, combining screamed/sung lyrics, rich horn lines, classic guitar riffs and really unique themes. In "I Took My Lady Out To Dinner," King Khan describes how his girl is eating him out of house and home, and then screams the chorus, "She's Fat, She's Ugly, I Really Really Love Her." The track "I Wanna Be A Girl" reminds me of a Buzzcocks song: short, fast, catchy and slightly gender-bending. Another favorite of mine is "Land Of The Freak," where organ and horns create a textured backdrop for catchy verses and a chorus punctuated with energetic howls. This record is so far from what I'd normally listen to, but I can't help but love it. - Michael

Wang Chung—To Live and Die in L.A.: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

To Live and Die in L.A. is a highly underrated film. William L. Petersen (pre-C.S.I.) plays a Secret Service agent obsessed with destroying the sociopathic forger (Willem Dafoe, pre-creeping everyone out with every role he has ever played) who killed Petersen’s about-to-retire partner (Dean Stockwell, pre-Quantum Leap and, more recently, Battlestar Galactica). He bullies, berates, and uses everyone around him in order to do so, particularly his new partner (John Pankow, pre-Mad About You) and informer-cum-fucktoy (Darlanne Fluegel, pre-dropping into obscurity.) What makes this movie better than the run-of-the-mill plot would indicate is the great cast (also including John Turturro and Frasier’s Jane Leeves in a crucial non-speaking role), the production and direction (check out the car chase that was filmed last, in case any of the actors got killed while filming it), and the brilliant, disturbing score by…wait for it…Wang Chung! Wang Chung is the most underrated band of the ‘80s. A friend of a friend argues for the Thompson Twins. That friend of a friend is wrong. There is no argument. Period. By turns moody and menacing, this was the appropriate album to listen to as I feared for my life while crossing the rain-lashed Alleghany Mountains yesterday. The title song, “To Live and Die in L.A.,” is such a strong portrait of physical and emotional stagnation that I could have used it to teach my students existentialism. “Wait,” which was also included on Wang Chung’s brilliant New Wave debut, Points on the Curve, combines ambiguous, stalker-ish lyrics with dense synthesizers and piano stabs. And the four instrumentals that close the album are angry and propulsive. Nine-minute long “City of the Angels” is the best song to drive to that I’ve ever heard. Don’t wait for tonight. Go and Wang Chung today. Points on the Curve or Mosaic are more user-friendly, but you won’t find better music than on To Live and Die in L.A. - Philip

Fleet Foxes—Fleet Foxes

It took me a little while to get into this album, mostly because its cover is a Breugel painting, but it was worth the extra couple listens it took to make me love them. This band's big harmonies and veiled love songs make them like a cold weather version of The Beach Boys. However, in the stand-out track "White Winter Hymnal" the girls in bikinis are replaced by children in winter coats who may or may not be bleeding. It's a song that bears repeat listens. - Zack

The Gossip—"Careless Whisper"

I was introduced to The Gossip my freshman year of college. At first listen, I was hooked to their music like a white feminist to Gloria Steinam. To this day, Beth Ditto remains the main source of femme rock in my life. Her presence on stage is unlike any other vocalist I've seen live. She is able to cut loose while still staying true to the songs the band creates. As I play "Careless Whisper" quietly in my office, I find that my arm involuntarily fist-bumps to the beat, and I imagine myself marching in a protest with millions of punk rock feminists. - Allison

Charlotte Gainsbourg—5:55

Lately, for reasons that are my own, I've been feeling a little lonely and a little doomed, so I’ve been revisiting Charlotte Gainsbourg’s 5:55. Ms. Gainsbourg (probably most famous for her role as Stephanie in the brilliant, gorgeous, amazing “The Science of Sleep” and, of course, for being the daughter of Serge) released 5:55 in the winter of 2007 to little fanfare here in the States. Definitely a shame, but understandable. It’s a deeply dark, lonely, cynical album, but at the same time very intimate and witty, and extremely sexy. It’s like this funny little reminder that death and heartbreak and insecurity and all that jazz really do hurt and suck (even little kids suck, according to Charlotte), but in the grand scheme none of it actually matters and you’re actually ok. Perhaps you and yours aren't making the greatest decisions at the moment, but ultimately everything will be alright. And that’s something comforting to remember the next time your plane is on fire and dropping out of the sky from 27,000 feet. (Figuratively… I guess.) For me, there are two stand-out tracks. The first is “AF607105,” which is the sexiest song about a plane crash you will ever hear in your life. (And as a songwriter, I will forever be jealous that I did not write the line, “My heart is breaking somewhere over Saskatchewan.” It's just so ridiculous and so true.) The second is “Everything I Cannot See,” which is this gorgeous little mindfuck of a song about a deceptively amicable breakup. The verses kind of have this Get Well Soon card sort of vibe with water lapping in the background, and Ms. Gainsbourg talking serenely over lovely, Yanni-esque piano runs. Then suddenly the chorus comes and kicks you in the nuts with these crazy fast, off-key arpeggios and it’s all insane and bombastic and sad and romantic and raw. I haven't found myself actually surprised by a piece of music in ages, but that song kind of made me jump the first time I heard it. But the whole album is just beautiful and includes collaborations with Air, Jarvis Cocker, and Radiohead producer, Nigel Godrich. So whether you're just in a mood or actually going through something it's definitely worth a listen. - Rocky