UNLKE - End Titles... Stories for Film

Filmscore is one of my favorite genres so when UNKLE came out with this album, I was excited to say the least, but the lack of excitement from the community lead me to believe that this album was just an afterthought. This is strange considering that we only recently got More Stories, the B sides compilation associated with War Stories. The reality, however, is that More Stories was the afterthought. After all, it was only released in Japan and Australia, and it contains only two tracks (Heaven, Blade in the Back) that stand on their own.

End Titles... Stories for Film retains the gained/chorused rock sound that defined War Stories but it also returns to the more epic sense of it's predecessor, Never, Never, Land. There's a heavier use of strings and quite a few transition tracks such as Even Balance (Part 2) which has flowing feedback and vocals and serves to buffer the next, more fleshed-out piece, Trouble in Paradise. The latter finds UNKLE sampling from straight filmscore. The album is long too. With 22 tracks it clocks in at about 74 minutes. End Titles also relies even more on collaboration than others before it, and almost every track holds another artist's name.

I love End Titles, but it doesn't feel as well packaged as UNKLE's three other LP's. This could throw off the average listener who might be a bit overwhelmed by the shear content of the album. Not only that, but the ethereal sound of some tracks don't seem to fly with a many of my friends. Still, some, like Heaven, have gone over well. In the end, however, this is an album for UNKLE fans.

Stars - Your Ex-Lover is Dead (Owen Pallett / Final Fantasy)

Edit: I'm hosting this tab as a file and a few of my other sheets on my new site.

I've had this one in my head for a while (not fully) so I took the time to transcribe it. This is the Owen Pallett (formerly Final Fantasy) remix of the Your Ex-Lover is Dead that's off the interesting but strange Do You Trust Your Friends. What strikes me about this song is how easily Pallet makes the transition to pop music composition. It's a beautiful reworking of an already beautiful piece and also makes for good stand-alone piano.

Shaun Tan - The Arrival

I was handed this book as a way to pass a small amount of time recently and 20 minutes later my eyes were stinging with tears. Every one of it's pages holds a spectacular pencil drawing that wordlessly depicts a nameless immigrant's journey to a foreign industrial capital. Opposite the cover and back, multiracial head shots (probably taken for identification) checker the paper. This follows the culturally blind scheme of the book as the world described would easily be intensively foreign yet familiar to any modern reader. If the story had been told with words, it would have only needed a few. Soon after it begins, the main character finds himself gesturing more than speaking. I would imagine words subtracting from the gravity of his confusion. Thus, in order to fully understand the story I was forced to examine the pictures more intensively in the same manner I might have walked down the hallway of a museum. I was told this was a graphic novel, but it hardly seems similar to things like Ghost World and Shortcomings. It would be much more accessible to a child then either of those, and would fit well on either a coffee table or in a bookshelf. Pick it up or give it as a gift if you have a chance.

Emily Haines - Detective Daughter

I finished transcribing another piece in my free time. This one's a bit harder to play and sing, but the all together it's wonderful. I'd recommend getting Knives Don't Have Your Back if you get the chance. Let me know if you want the .pdf.

Girl Talk - Feed the Animals

Let me get the fact that Greg Gillis jumped on the In Rainbows bandwagon out of the way. I'm happy about it. If groups aren't afraid to be branded as copycats, then maybe the floodgates will open -- or at least some sort of tiny faucet will turn on.

This album seems more like a sequel then just another LP. It's, of course, not a sophomore album. Girl Talk released other albums before Night Ripper, but that's what put him on the map. It is also when he started sampling heavily from straight pop and developed his current style. Feed the Animals feels like a sequel, and Night Ripper's recipe begged to be copied and expanded. Listeners had a mental list of hopeful artists as soon as they heard it. In Gillis' recent release we get Hendrix belting his most famous line and Jay Z over Radiohead. Then we also get tracks that have a history of showing in mashups like Ghetto Superstar, but with 10-20 songs per track, you could probably find overlap even with Guitar Hero (you can).

The sequel doesn't disappoint. Songs dance in from all corners and attack nostalgic nerves (Give Me a Beat has Tom Petty), and some combinations work like magic (Like This has Lil' Mama over Metallica). Feed the Animals doesn't break any new ground, but it doesn't have to. It's well polished, and the bits of annoyance from the quick changing tracks from before aren't there. Everything lasts a bit longer, and transitions come right where they should. A bit of me wishes that we'd hear something outside the Hip-Hop-over-Classic-Rock/Indie formula that dominates the record, but there's no reason in fixing something that not only works but still rocks. It's comforting to know that house parties will still have a great soundtrack, and even more exciting to know that Gillis will have a twice as much recognizable material when performing.

You don't really have a choice. Get the album. You'll hear it soon enough.

Death Cab For Cutie - Passenger Seat

I've been tabbing songs for a while, but with the lack of sheet music on the internet I've also started making notation. Here's a great, easy-to-learn song for piano.

Pictures

If anyone's been wondering what I've been doing with my life, these might give you an idea. The first is of a Bolognan soccer rally. The team won their final game of the season and moved up to the first division, which resulted in the honking of all horns in the downtown area.