Friend Of The Night

Once again, another "holding-the-fort" type post instead of anything substantive. [I should add that I vomited out this massively long meditation on the 20th anniversary of Nevermind a few months ago but chickened out of publishing it on the blog at the last minute due to general embarrassment. But you know, whatever, I might still put that up.] I still have to do Parts 2 and 3 of my Joni Mitchell retrospective. For those interested, Part 1 is still here. And then I have another one coming up on "crappy/totally uncool bands that have one awesomely good song." [Yes, even the Eagles had a good song or two]. Anyway, in the meantime, here is one of the best Mogwai songs every made. The track is called "Friend of the Night" and highlights how incredibly dynamic Mogwai can be. This is some beautiful interplay of guitar and piano that creates an almost sinister vibe that, by the second half of the song becomes all too inevitably tragic. Mogwai have a reputation for being the loudest band on earth but this is all about subtlety and understanding space, minimalism, and melody.

Somehow I managed to see them live in 2009 in Brooklyn and... amazingly that very live show was released on CD as Special Moves and packaged as a special actual motion picture (and DVD) as Burning. I am uncertain if I'm featured in the film but I guess I should find out. The audio is incredible.

Chromatics - "Into the Black"

I'll have more detailed posts coming up soon. I've been so incredibly busy that I don't have had much time to devote to this. However, I did want to make sure people (well, whoever reads this blog) hear this "new" song from Chromatics, a band from Portland, Oregon who made a splash with albums a few years back. They recently contributed a song to the soundtrack to the movie Drive, one of my favorite movies from last year. They now have a new album coming out soon called Kill For Love, and among the songs they cover is Neil Young's "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)" from Rust Never Sleeps. This is an AMAZING cover version which they call simply "Into the Black." I can't wait to hear the whole album. Check it out.



You can also download an mp3 of the song here.