"Houseboat Babies", Reptar

If you want a little something to dance to now that summer is sneak-attacking the weather, Reptar is a refreshing dose. Of what exactly? Euphoria put in a blender on medium with some ice, recorded into a microphone and sampled backwards over a array of unwieldy instruments and electronics – verbatim from their Myspace. If Foster the People's "Pumped Up Kicks" was the song that should have been THE song of the of summer 2010, but wasn't, "Houseboat Babies" is that song for 2011. Also recommended for intake: "Cannabis Canyon." Of course. 

P.S. For those of you in NYC, Reptar, rprztn' Georgia (like a special someone else I know) is playing this Thursday @ Music Hall of Williamsburg.

"How Dare You", Thao & Mirah

"this one wants something from you and you cannot do it. But you're going to do your version of it which actually doesn't cut it."

Thao & Mirah "How Dare You" from Yours Truly on Vimeo.

A La Paris vs New York

France:

US:

"The Rake's Song", The Decemberists

This past January, The Decemberists came out with their 6th album, The King Is Dead. But it’s really hard to want to write about their latest album when you haven’t written about their previous one – their hyperbolic genre–relishing humorously disturbing concept album – The Hazards of Love: a rock-opera, and a brilliant feat in story telling. 

Although probably the most commercial sounding song from Hazards, “The Rake’s Song,” is also where the self-proclaimed “writer of fictions” (remember “The Engine Driver”) showcases his mastery of irony. With the well-timed blazing guitar, the punctuating drums, and the chorus of voices backing up Colin Meloy’s ardent “alrights,” The Decemberists gives the “The Rake’s Song” all the qualities of an anthem. The song, about a man who ties the knot at twenty-one but realizes he’s fucked the second his wife starts popping out kids, will therefore have you rooting along with its narrator for the virtues of – as the title suggests – the single life.

So you root with the narrator for the bachelors, for the rakes, for the careless and unbound! You root for freedom! And you keep on rooting, until you're rooting for the twisted means that justify the end.