New Paltz Waltz - Owen Roberts

Easily one of the best songs I've heard this year. Totally lacking in pretension, rich with an unhurried love. You can almost feel the gentle clasp of a hand, the way the hair sits on her shoulder. And you look in her eyes and see fifty years into your future, to a quiet room filled with pictures of grandchildren and two old friends holding hands and watching the sunrise.

The only thing I like about Valentine's Day is that it gets people thinking about the people they care about. But in my mind, every day ought to be Valentine's Day. When you have someone that you care about, who makes you feel like the world is a bright and beautiful place, why do we need some artificial holiday to get us to recognize that daily miracle?

It's not like I only listen to love songs one day of the year. I listen to them every day, because love is a universal experience, one that infuses us in every moment. It makes no sense trying to lock it away. It should be all around us - to keep us warm on cool nights, to shield us from the drudgery, and to inspire us against all odds.

So, a few love songs that I enjoy any day, not just on one day in February.

Love So Pure - Puffy Amiyumi

Made a quick trip down to Boston this weekend to The Sinister Turns, a really great band I wrote about back in July, but who have been thoroughly under-represented by the rest of the blog world. C'mon people...

Anatomy Assessment - The Sinister Turns

This Vision have - out of nowhere, apparenlty - produced some of the finest synthpop I've heard in a very, very long time. I downloaded a couple tracks last month thanks to a tip from Hits In The Car but never got around to listening until tonight. And oh my, what I have been missing!

Overseas - Sonic Flyer

Oasis meets shoegaze and nine months later, out comes Sonic Flyer. This song features an absolutely killer intro - there are few moments in all of music finer than at 35 seconds when the vocals first come in - and while it drags on a bit at almost 8 minutes, this is a solid endeavor.

There's plenty more great songs to hear at their myspace, where you can get info about their Sun in My Pocket EP

Yesterday I mentioned Labrador - without a doubt one of my favorite record labels in the world. Today, I want to hype up another Labrador band, probably my favorite in fact: Club 8. I raved about "Whatever You Want," the opening single from their new record back in May.

Folder - Plastic Operator

Plastic Operator appear to be some sort of European electro-pop group. I had never heard of them, but an enterprising reader was kind enough to send me this great track. Then I checked the Hype Machine and apparently they're relatively well-known, at least as far as the blogs go. Who knew?

Is that not the scariest thing you've ever seen in your life? I've never been a huge fan of mascots, but I've also never feared that one was going to eat my soul...until now. (h/t Who Ate All the Pies)

Evil - Interpol
Lions and Tigers - Asobi Seksu

A few quick hits:

- My razorbloodz post got noticed by New York Magazine, which is pretty neat.

- An important update on my other blog about DFU Hockey's recent shocking run of victories.

- Is there anything more stupid than the recent spat about Obama's "bitter" comments? Sometimes I fret for this country and the media that "informs" it.

- A full post is coming later, but the new Frightened Rabbit is my early pick for best album of 2008. Stunningly good.

- This is incredibly depressing. What is wrong with people?

(from I Can Has Cheezburger)

The hit counter passed 200,000 today, which when I think about it is really pretty amazing. So I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for stopping by to read what I have to say. And even thanks to the bunches of you that just came to grab an MP3 with no care for what commentary might be attached. Hopefully at least a few of you stuck around for a minute or two, saw something else you liked, and maybe even became a regular.

It really means a lot to me.

So, while I'm in a good mood, how about some covers? Everybody loves a good cover, right?

(h/t Neatorama)

I almost think I have to subscribe to this, just to have as a conversation piece laying around the house.

SOS - Abba

I've got no time for the next few days to post, so I thought it would be a good idea to kick in the way-back machine and (re)mention an old favorite that most of you have probably never heard. The band is Super Deluxe, they were briefly big in the Northwest in the mid-90s, and for the brief period they were around they were possibly my favorite band on the planet.

I've posted about The Sinister Turns a few times before, but it never hurts to mention one of my favorite under-appreciated bands a little bit more. I managed to catch them last month at a little show in Somerville that was a lot of fun - they have some new songs that maintain the feel of their other stuff but take things in some slightly odd, extremely interesting directions.

I've got some more lengthy album reviews coming up soon, but it's also nice now and then to make a quick post on something that gets dropped in my inbox. Today it's a solid little roots-rock number from Beau Jennings, lead singer of Cheyenne, off his upcoming debut solo album Holy Tulsa Thunder. Innovative chord structures, wacky instruments, and odd tempos certainly have their place, but there's also something intensely satisfying about some good old-fashioned no-frills rock and roll.

Holy Tulsa Thunder - Beau Jennings

White Winter Hymnal - Fleet Foxes

I love a song where you can tell exactly what it sounds like just from the title. This effort from Seattle's Fleet Foxes is just such a song. It's a gorgeous, warm, and bluesy tune that calls to mind My Morning Jacket at their most joyful. It's an ode to a white blanket of snow, as a pane against which all the merry colors of winter can vibrantly stand. It has that wonderful sense of a round - a wide open sound that still manages to stay enclosed in a gentle arc.

This song is off their upcoming debut album, set for release on June 2 from Sub Pop, but they've got an EP out right now to tide you over.

I usually cringe a little bit when people talk about 60s-inspired pop. Even though I love a lot of the music that actually created that genre, I find I have very little patience for the throwbacks. So I was a bit skeptical of The 1900s until I heard "When I Say Go" and all my doubts drifted away. I'm a complete sucker for this sort of rolling piano/bass beat and the way the chorus rises up and the piano follows along just blows me away.

So I'm back from New Orleans, after a fantastic trip. The main features of New Orleans are the seafood, the booze, and the jazz. And yet, despite being a vegetarian with no deep interest in alcohol or jazz, I had a stupendous time. It's such a beautiful and strange city, with all these amazing old houses side by side with buildings in complete disrepair, literally falling apart. At least in the more tourist-oriented parts of towns the direct signs of Katrina are mostly gone, but it's hard to do much of anything without feeling it to be a constant subtext.

I think I wouldn't be able to deal with the weather in the summer but in February, there was nothing finer than the chance to take a week-long break from the snow and slush and spend a a few bright, sun-dappled days wandering the Garden District without a care in the world.

(h/t to Boing Boing)

I'm instituting a new policy for the next few days. I'm busy again so there's no time for the posts-that-never-end I usually write. Instead, it will be some random song I like combined with a link to something on the internets I think is funny (see above).

Can't Believe a Single Word - VHS or Beta

1976 - Nick Schillace

A quiet evening, good friends, the smell of a fresh summer evening, toes tapping in beat, smiles, a cool cup of sweet tea.

A crystal clear memory of when you were young and the whole world seemed new.

A summer dress - grass-stained and beautiful, running through shaded paths in the woods behind the house, hair flowing freely behind you.

A first kiss - awkward and perfect, a crooked smile, eyes that shine and sparkle.

Nick Schillace is an acoustic guitar player from Detroit. This song is from his new record Landscape and People, coming out March 18th on NC's Burly Time Records.

I really ought to have posted about today's band a few months ago, when it was still a dance between the hot end-of-summer days and the cool autumn evenings. As it stands, the chill of late November and the dirty remnants of the year's first snow hardly seem a fair accompaniment to one of the freshest records of the year.

It's been awhile, hasn't it? I've been in Lexington, Kentucky for the last week getting nowhere close to enough sleep and working a little too hard, but I'm finally back home with a little bit of free time. I used about 12 hours of that to sleep, waking up at the nice early hour of 2:30 PM.

I've got an ever-increasingly backlog of things I want to write about here, so hopefully I should be able to post pretty regularly for the rest of the month.

I rant and rave about how much I love all the fantastic indie-pop music coming out of Sweden, but set all that aside. Yes Sambassadeur are from Sweden, yes they're on Labrador, and yes they make pop songs so sweet you could get a mouth full of cavities just listening to them (remember Kate? God I love that song).

I Could Be There For You - Eisley

A demonstration that even on a record with high production levels and a bit of a pop sheen there’s still plenty of room for a talented band to surprise you. It's shadowy, vaguely ominous - a reminder that light may shimmer on the surface of a lake, but underneath the water is a long, deep darkness.

But for all that, the chorus is absolutely gorgeous, and they hit their perfect pitch with a bridge that bursts and swirls like fireworks in a still night sky. Now, I’m not trying to say Eisley is quite at their level, but this song, at least, would feel right at home on your Delgados record of choice.

I've never been a huge fan of The Notwist, but I've certainly enjoyed some of their stuff. So the prospect of something new from them certainly piqued my interest.

Good Lies - The Notwist

And I have to say, it doesn't disappoint. At the risk of coming off like a complete Philistine, let me just say that this track is a decent representation of what I'm always hoping for every time I put on a new Radiohead record. It's got the same sleek, electronic, guitar-driven feel - like an endlessly flickering electrical circuit on the fritz - and the same mixture of despondency and starry-eyed wonder in the vocals. Except that the difference is...well...I actually enjoy listening to this song.

I enjoy melodies, what can I tell you?

I don't normally have much interest in regurgitating press material, but sometimes it's a band I love and a turn of phrase that so perfectly captures every reason why I love them, and I just can't help myself. So here's how the new Tullycraft record was described in a recent e-mail:

A kind reader recently tipped me on an artist that I've been enjoying a great deal. A Fine Frenzy is the stage name of singer-songwriter Alison Sudol.

There's something incredibly comforting about a good lo-fi song. It feels organic and close in a way that even the very best studio-produced music never can. It's hard to do well, which is why final versions usually sound better than demos and why words like "rough" or "distant" don't usually inspire people to listen.

But that's part of the charm - that the line between some folks in a bedroom with a laptop and that transcendental moment of unshorn perfection.

So Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize. Good for him. My favorite quote on the subject, from Talking Points Memo:

"You know, with Al Gore winning the Nobel Prize for his environmental activism, it really makes the Nader voters look prescient, doesn't it?"

For serious.

Tessie - The Dropkick Murphys
Dirty Water - The Standells