TDDS - 2020 Shelter-in-Place on a Desert Island Music Draft - BONUS 5

Batelages blends rock and jazz with the avantgarde in a style of the band's own. It manages to be playful while simultaneously having a punk-like sneer. The record keeps listeners on their toes by being melodically and thematically capricious, both from song to song and within songs themselves. The highlights are the horn player and raw vocal style. That being said the drummer is fantastic, and the guitar holds everything together with its tone.

Tracklist

01 - L'Amulette et le Petit Rabbin
02 - Sololo Brigida
03 - Yvett' Blouse
04 - Madame Richard / Larika
05 - Histoire de Graine

 

hrdboild

Hall of Famer
Cat Power - You Are Free (2003):



01 I Don't Blame You
02 Free
03 Good Woman
04 Speak for Me
05 Werewolf
06 Fool
07 He War
08 Shaking Paper
09 Babydoll
10 Maybe Not
11 Names
12 Half of You
13 Keep on Runnin'
14 Evolution

Genre(s): Indie folk, indie rock, neo-soul, electric blues, lo-fi

Apart from Chromatics' lovely vocalist Ruth Radelet, and the pitch-shifted female vox on Burial's Untrue, my island is missing a bit of feminine energy. So my next couple picks will highlight female artists that I adore.

I encountered Cat Power (real name Chan Marshall) when I was in high school, shortly after the release of her sixth album, You Are Free. I saw her at a concert in San Francisco, and even several albums into her career, she remained a petrified performer, barely able to face the audience or even finish entire songs. Alcoholism played its part in her skittishness and erratic on-stage behavior, but without knowing the source, I found her stage presence deeply endearing, and the songs themselves struck a chord with 16-year-old me. I was an anxious and sensitive teenager, just starting to write poetry, just beginning to understand myself, just beginning to develop a sense of taste in film and music, broadening my horizons, trying new things.

Marshall is known for the husky sensuality of her voice. Imagine Stevie Nicks on the wrong side of a bender, and you end up in Cat Power country. The nakedness that Chan exhibits in these songs is stark and simmering. As a writer, she's like a female response to Ernest Hemingway, bare, elemental, stripped of varnish, with a shot of whiskey (or two... or three). With the occasional vocal assist from Eddie Vedder, and the occasional assist behind the kit from Dave Grohl, You Are Free is an indie folk record that will resonate with those who aren't necessarily inclined towards minimal singer-songwriter fare.
I've got this one in my collection too. Cat Power is one of my favorites. I almost put a different one of her albums on my list. Actually, it might still make it if something else gets bumped or I change my mind. Assuming no one else takes it first. :) She's also been hugely influential for me in my own writing. I love the sparseness of her arrangements. They have their own internal logic that holds them together even when things are slightly out of tune or off-time. In the same way that a simple line sketch sometimes captures the beauty of an image better than a fully fleshed out illustration, she's got a magical ability to zoom in on that initial moment of inspiration and breath it to life.
 
Padrino, you're slipping! That's two artists in a row that I actually have in my own collection. ;)
Haha! Well, despite what it may seem like, my goal in this draft isn't obscurity. ;)

I do tend to prefer to trod a less-beaten path, so to speak. But I'll happily pick albums of a slightly more populist bent if they're important to me. This last one was definitely just such an album. :)
 
I've got this one in my collection too. Cat Power is one of my favorites. I almost put a different one of her albums on my list. Actually, it might still make it if something else gets bumped or I change my mind. Assuming no one else takes it first. :) She's also been hugely influential for me in my own writing. I love the sparseness of her arrangements. They have their own internal logic that holds them together even when things are slightly out of tune or off-time. In the same way that a simple line sketch sometimes captures the beauty of an image better than a fully fleshed out illustration, she's got a magical ability to zoom in on that initial moment of inspiration and breath it to life.
Yeah, she's really f***ing great. Her most recent album was a bit of a letdown for me, but I find something to love about all the work she puts out.
 

hrdboild

Hall of Famer
k-os - Joyful Rebellion (2004)


(https://www.allmusic.com/album/joyful-rebellion-mw0000719431)

01. Emcee Murdah
02. Crucial
03. Man I Used to Be
04. Crabbuckit
05. B-Boy Stance
06. Commandante
07. The Love Song
08. Hallelujah
09. Clap Ur Handz
10. Dirty Water (ft. Sam Roberts)
11. One Blood
12. Papercutz (ft. Kamau)
Toronto based rapper/singer/producer k-os (Kevin Brereton) exploded onto the Canadian music scene with his second album in 2004, winning Single of the Year, Rap Record of the Year, and Music Video of the Year at the Juno Awards (the Canadian version of the Grammys). He never attained the same level of success in the US which is a little tough for me to figure out because this album slaps! I bought this album from the used racks at Amoeba Records in Hollywood based on a recommendation from a friend who lives in Vancouver and it lived in my car's CD player for almost a year. These songs have sound-tracked more of my commutes in LA and road trips up and down California than any others so they have been treasured companions for a long time and I don't think I could stand being separated from them for long!

I guess I have a thing for live band hip-hop featuring acoustic guitars. k-os is a better singer than rapper but he mixes up styles often enough throughout that I think everyone will find something here that they like. "Crabbuckit" is the hit single and is probably the most infectious thing he's produced though several later albums have highlights that come close. The three-song mini-suite comprised of "Commandante", "The Love Song" and "Hallelujah" are the heart and soul of what makes this album so special to me. They're filled with cool little guitar flourishes, orchestral string arrangements, soulful vocals and all sorts of endearing little adlibs.

Kevin grapples throughout with his purpose as an artist-- he's simultaneously drawn to the world by his desire to enlighten and inspire others and repulsed by the superficiality he sees all around him. Having "something to say" is often seen as a negative in the music entertainment industry but when you're writing music this joyful I feel like you've earned a chance to speak your mind. Once upon a time I was writing a movie loosely inspired by the song "Hallelujah" (no relation to the more famous version by... well, you know who) but that fell by the wayside along with so many other projects. Now that I'm stuck inside for what might be the rest of the summer, I might have to revisit that script and see if there's anything there worth refreshing.



Also, just for fun since Radiohead has been getting a lot of love here already!
 
Faces - A Nod's As Good As a Wink... to a Blind Horse


I'd probably be lying if I said I wasn't taking this because of Stay With Me. Because I am. That said I'm also picking to have Ronnie Wood before he joined the Stones and Rod Stewart before he went disco. I think it was years before I discovered exactly why my sitter growing up loved Rod so much. I hope this is why.

Basically this is blues rock at it's peak, tons of piano/organ/keyboard bits that I absolutely love in my rock n roll, and the precursor to pub and punk rock and I suppose it will be clear in short order why I'm grabbing this as essential shelter listening.

Side One
1. Miss Judy's Farm
2. You're So Rude
3. Love Lives Here
4. Last Orders Please
5. Stay with Me

Side Two
6. Debris
7. Memphis
8. Too Bad
9. That's All You Need


 
220px-Aenima.jpg

Ænima - Tool

Not sure how you would categorize them, but arguably the most successful prog metal band out there (I know, that's not their category, but...isn't it?) Alt metal? Also not right. Forefathers of Mathcore? Probably. I was choosing between two albums, and while I think I like one song off of the other album better than this one, I think this album is better as a whole. Aenima is probably the song most of you know, but I think Forty Six & 2 jams as well. Links forthcoming.

1. "Stinkfist"
2. "Eulogy"
3. "H."
4. "Useful Idiot"
5. "Forty Six & 2"
6. "Message to Harry Manback"
7. "Hooker with a Penis"
8. "Intermission"
9. "jimmy"
10. "Die Eier von Satan"
11. "Pucrap"
12. "Cesaro Summability"
13. "Ænema"
14. "(-) Ions"
15. "Third Eye"
 

Mr. S£im Citrus

Doryphore of KingsFans.com
Staff member
We interrupt your regularly scheduled early/mid-nineties nostalgia tour, to bring you the folowing announcement:


I haven't kept up-to-date with musical trends in literal decades. I can count, on my fingers, the number of albums that have been released after the last time I participated in one of these that I've listened to from beginning to end. I only had two albums released in the past decade that I even considered for my draft board, and one of them just missed the final cut. I was going to wait until much later to pick this, but I just happened to notice that two of the other participants in this draft are very conspicuously making all or most of their selections from this past decade, many of them coming from this genre. So, I figure that I'd better switch the order of a couple of my picks, and make sure that I can still get this one:









Rapsody - Eve (2019)


I came upon this album entirely by accident. I was listening to a podcast, and they mentioned that one of the songs on the album gave a shout-out to one of my favorite celebrities/media personalities. So, I listened to the song, and I dug it, so I decided to see what the rest of the album was hittin' on. And I was super-impressed; I've listened to this album at least once a week, every week this calendar year. According to Doctor Internet, Rapsody decided to write the album after a writer asked her whether she considered herself a successor to Nina Simone* and Roberta Flack*. Every song on the album is named after, and dedicated to, a woman that Rapsody considers a hero. To date, Eve has peaked at #76 on the US Charts, but has received a great deal of critical acclaim, holding 90/100 Metacritic score.


Track Listing:
  1. "Nina"
  2. "Cleo"
  3. "Aaliyah"
  4. "Oprah" (featuring Leikeli47)
  5. "Whoopi"
  6. "Serena"
  7. "Tyra"
  8. "Maya" (featuring K.Roosevelt)
  9. "Ibtihaj" (featuring GZA and D'Angelo)
  10. "Myrlie" (featuring Mereba)
  11. "Reyna's Interlude"
  12. "Michelle" (featuring Elle Varner)
  13. "Iman" (featuring Sir and JID)
  14. "Hatshepsut" (featuring Queen Latifah)
  15. "Sojourner" (featuring J. Cole)
  16. "Afeni" (featuring PJ Morton)


Source: Wikipedia


** I just realized that I had to redact the names of Rapsody's inspirations for this album, because they are two singers who haven't been selected yet. I guess I'll re-insert them after the draft has completed.
 
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Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
With my eleventh pick in the Shelter-In-Place Album Draft, I select:



Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain - Pavement (1994)

Track Listing:
1 Silence Kit
2 Elevate Me Later
3 Stop Breathin'
4 Cut Your Hair
5 Newark Wilder
6 Unfair
7 Gold Soundz
8 5-4=Unity
9 Range Life
10 Heaven is a Truck
11 Hit the Plane Down
12 Fillmore Jive

I had a very hard time deciding between two albums by Pavement for my lockdown, and I doubt I'll ever be able to say if I got it right. The album I didn't choose is more melodic and more textured, but lacks a bit of the raw we-haven't-even-rehearsed-this aspect to Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain that I think is indispensable to Pavement - the second Sacramento band on my list (though sadly, one I never saw live). Like my previous pick in XTC, I don't think - in fact I'm super confident - that nobody will ever accuse Stephen Malkmus of being a good singer, and that's part of the charm of the band. In a way, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain reminds me of an album taken much earlier in this draft - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (Smashing Pumpkins). Not that they sound alike - not at all. But to me, both albums have impeccably-written songs performed suboptimally. In the case of the Pumpkins, I feel that Billy Corgan often chooses to orchestrate the songs all wrong - in the case of Pavement, they write great songs and then play them as though they've never picked up an instrument before. Somehow, it works in both cases, because the songwriting shows through the flaws.

If Pavement has anything close to a hit, it's probably "Cut Your Hair" - which has a bit more pop sensibility than some of their other tunes, and even has a fairly amusing video that I remember seeing on MTV a few times back in the day. "Elevate Me Later" has a rising guitar line that is plain infectious. "Heaven is a Truck" is an understated gem, with overdubbed lyrics in the chorus making it unclear whether the woman in question is the queen of a "passive Pasadena thrill" or a "canceled California thrill" or something in between.

Perhaps my favorite track on the album is "Stop Breathin' ", which starts out as a song about having a rough go in the miltary ("Write it on a postcard/Dad they broke me/Dad they broke me") and then halfway through turns into a quiet instrumental that builds to a fever pitch before fading out on strings that are being detuned while they're played.

(PM Sent)
 
One of my besties at BU was a huge fan, not really my thing but I think Malkmus lives in Portland now. One of my dear friends and occasional bowling teammate here is his guitar tech. Or has been on and off. He's been hit pretty hard by the COVID-19 cancelling all the spring/early summer festivals.
 
Going back to my favorite band from the 60’s
This is the American version from 1965
Round 11

1586584204840.jpg

We gotta get Out Of This Place (us single version)

Take it easy baby

Bring it home to me

The story of Bo Diddley

Don’t let me be misunderstood

I can’t believe it

Club a go-go

Roberta

Bury my body

For miss caulker

Roadrunner

Don’t want much

We gotta get Out Of This Place (U.K. single version)

It’s my life

I am gonna to change the world





 
With my eleventh pick in the Shelter-In-Place Album Draft, I select:



Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain - Pavement (1994)

Track Listing:
1 Silence Kit
2 Elevate Me Later
3 Stop Breathin'
4 Cut Your Hair
5 Newark Wilder
6 Unfair
7 Gold Soundz
8 5-4=Unity
9 Range Life
10 Heaven is a Truck
11 Hit the Plane Down
12 Fillmore Jive

I had a very hard time deciding between two albums by Pavement for my lockdown, and I doubt I'll ever be able to say if I got it right. The album I didn't choose is more melodic and more textured, but lacks a bit of the raw we-haven't-even-rehearsed-this aspect to Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain that I think is indispensable to Pavement - the second Sacramento band on my list (though sadly, one I never saw live). Like my previous pick in XTC, I don't think - in fact I'm super confident - that nobody will ever accuse Stephen Malkmus of being a good singer, and that's part of the charm of the band. In a way, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain reminds me of an album taken much earlier in this draft - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (Smashing Pumpkins). Not that they sound alike - not at all. But to me, both albums have impeccably-written songs performed suboptimally. In the case of the Pumpkins, I feel that Billy Corgan often chooses to orchestrate the songs all wrong - in the case of Pavement, they write great songs and then play them as though they've never picked up an instrument before. Somehow, it works in both cases, because the songwriting shows through the flaws.

If Pavement has anything close to a hit, it's probably "Cut Your Hair" - which has a bit more pop sensibility than some of their other tunes, and even has a fairly amusing video that I remember seeing on MTV a few times back in the day. "Elevate Me Later" has a rising guitar line that is plain infectious. "Heaven is a Truck" is an understated gem, with overdubbed lyrics in the chorus making it unclear whether the woman in question is the queen of a "passive Pasadena thrill" or a "canceled California thrill" or something in between.

Perhaps my favorite track on the album is "Stop Breathin' ", which starts out as a song about having a rough go in the miltary ("Write it on a postcard/Dad they broke me/Dad they broke me") and then halfway through turns into a quiet instrumental that builds to a fever pitch before fading out on strings that are being detuned while they're played.

(PM Sent)
Mmmm nice pick. In an alternate dimension where I draft with a "Heavyweights of the Non-Radio 90's" theme, Pavement would have no doubt appeared somewhere in my top-5. But I would likewise find myself agonizing over precisely which album of theirs to select. For me, it's basically a three-way-tie.
 
Happy Easter. I have added some content to me last two picks.

For my next pick:

The Boatman's Call. Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. 1997.

1586645000933.png

Just another country kid who got kicked out of high school. Gets it right on this one.

 
Now that Cave has been picked I can state that it was Johnny Cash's Mercy Seat cover that really made choosing which American Recordings album I would pick a tough choice.
 

Warhawk

The cake is a lie.
Staff member
Mary Chapin Carpenter - Come On Come On (1992)

Mary_Chapin_Carpenter-Come_On_Come_On.jpg

https://www.allmusic.com/album/come-on-come-on-mw0000078504

We were glad to be able to catch Mary Chapin Carpenter along with one of her friends (redacted) at the Mondavi Center last year. The two sang together on stage, sang each other's songs acoustically, and shared stories of their friendship and love of music. It was a different kind of concert, but it was a wonderful evening.

From Wikipedia:

Seven of its tracks became Billboard Hot Country Singles hits in 1992, 1993, and 1994. They were, chronologically, "I Feel Lucky" at #4, "Not Too Much to Ask" (a duet with Joe Diffie) at #15, "Passionate Kisses" at #4, "The Hard Way" at #11, "The Bug" (a cover of a Dire Straits song) at #16, "He Thinks He'll Keep Her" at #2, and "I Take My Chances" also at #2. The album topped out at #6 on the Billboard Country Albums chart.

Carpenter's most successful album to date remains 1992's Come On Come On, which yielded seven charting country singles and was certified quadruple platinum in the US for sales exceeding four million copies.

Carpenter has won five Grammy Awards and is the only artist to have won four consecutive Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance, which she received from 1992 to 1995. On October 7, 2012, Carpenter was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
From allmusic:

Come On Come On proved that even with two previous hit albums under her belt, Mary Chapin Carpenter was still as hot as could be. This album serves as one of the signposts that contemporary country would not only aspire to, but actually become in the 21st century. One need only to stack this slab up against 2006 recordings by (redacted) to see the roots of Carpenter's blend of sophisticated pop, folk, and soft rock with country. This disc climbed all the way to number six on the country charts, yielding an astonishing seven hit singles, fully revealing Carpenter's meld of aesthetics, skill, and marketing savvy, and she established herself not only as one of her chosen genre's top artists, but crossed over into the then-burgeoning Americana and AAA radio formats as well. With friends such as (redacted) lending a hand, there's a full range of country, folk, and pop-styled songs strewn across the album, helping it and Carpenter herself gain enormous recognition from other audiences outside of country music. "He Thinks He'll Keep Her," a title keeping with country music's tradition of double entendres, became Carpenter's first number one hit, while the confident "I Feel Lucky" peaked at number four and netted her another Grammy. (redacted) "Passionate Kisses," with its beautiful guitar arrangements, also made it to number four, and Carpenter's vocal enthusiasm makes (redacted) "The Bug" one of the album's most spirited efforts. These songs, along with the title track's compelling folk essence, gave Come on Come On a well-rounded sound and exposed her talent for reaching slightly beyond the genre's long-established niches. Not only is Carpenter's music extendable, but her writing rescues country music from its familiar themes of "love 'em and leave 'em" conventionality while still managing to portray maturely the perils of romance and heartbreak from a female perspective.
She's got a great mix of country, folk, and pop mixed in here. Personal favorites are I Feel Lucky, Passionate Kisses, He Thinks He'll Keep Her and the minimalistically beautiful Come On Come On. There is one other song in particular I really wish was on this album (Down at the Twist and Shout), but if I have to pick one album I'll go with this one.

Track List:
1. The Hard Way
2. He Thinks He'll Keep Her
3. Rhythm of the Blues
4. I Feel Lucky
5. The Bug
6. Not Too Much to Ask
7. Passionate Kisses
8. Only a Dream
9. I Am a Town
10. Walking Through Fire
11. I Take My Chances
12. Come On Come On




 
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With more than half the draft gone, I’m at last getting to one of my favorite artists with the album that introduced me to her.

1586656124175.jpg

The Idler Wheel ... - Fiona Apple (2012)

Yes, Apple’s fourth studio album released in 2012 was my introduction to the 90s pop music icon. While I did scoop up her entire 90s catalogue in the last draft, that was only after Gadget picked this album and showed me the phenomenal talent of Fiona Apple.

So how did I miss her? From the three regular radio rotation singles I remember of her’s, combined with the negative media campaign after she called the music industry BS at the Grammys, I dismissed her as a stock 90s bratty singer with questionable mental health and drug problems. Nothing to see here.

How dreadfully wrong that proved to be. Her lyrics are imaginative, expressive, clever, and tight. Her voice can be both demure and powerful. Her songwriting and musical elements are experimental and expansive. She is the complete package.

She’s also the first musician I actively sought out to see in concert. And I can attest, she is just as superb in person.





Tracklist

1."Every Single Night"
2."Daredevil"
3."Valentine"
4."Jonathan"
5."Left Alone"
6."Werewolf"
7."Periphery"
8."Regret"
9."Anything We Want"
10."Hot Knife"
 
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VF21

Super Moderator Emeritus
SME
1586659745354.png

E5C4P3 - Journey - 1981

Track list
Side one
1. Don't Stop Believin'
2. Stone in Love
3. Who's Crying Now
4. Keep On Runnin'
5. Still They Ride
Side two
6. Escape
7. Lay It Down
8. Dead or Alive
9. Mother, Father
10. Open Arms

I can't explain why this album means so much to me, except that it came out during a very emotional time in my life. I played it every single day on my way to work for weeks. Steve Perry's voice is one of those that reaches into the depths of my soul - he could sing the phone book and I'd be enthralled. I'll be very happy with this album on my island. And if you're upset you missed it, don't worry. I'll play it loud enough so you can still hear it no matter how far away your island is. :)




 
That’s a much bigger question than you may have intended.

Let’s just say, my entire music collection during the decade consisted of a Weird Al album and Jock Jams Vol. 1.
Fair enough but still confused since half your picks are more or less 90s picks and you reference a number of them as college staples.
AND you aren't even the guy that picked the Weird Al album I can't even place a track on!
 
Sleigh Bells - Treats (2010):



01 Tell 'Em
02 Kids
03 Riot Rhythm
04 Infinity Guitars
05 Run the Heart
06 Rachel
07 Rill Rill
08 Crown on the Ground
09 Straight A's
10 A/B Machines
11 Treats

Genre(s): Noise pop, electro-punk

Now here's something novel. When I encountered Sleigh Bells in 2009, they had a single revelatory EP to their name. They expanded that EP to LP length for 2010's Treats, and if there was ever a title that felt perfectly-suited to the album it belongs to, it's this one. Here we have 32 minutes of sticky-sweet candy-coated explosions.

Sleigh Bells are a duo from Brooklyn, NY. Alexis Krauss on vox. Derek Miller on guitar and production duties. Despite the slightness of their line-up, this band makes gloriously noisy pop music, like a deranged cheerleading squad-of-one backed by the Doof Warrior guitarist from Mad Max: Fury Road. It's rare that I encounter something within the larger sphere of popularly-consumed music that strikes me as novel, but here was something truly new to my ears. Bubblegum noise, I call it. Sleigh Bells' sonic palette is made up of extremely familiar elements, but it's all married together in a way that hadn't really been done by anybody before they came along.

And it's such a simple, minimalist formula, too: catchy pop hooks over the top of garage metal riffs and monolithic electronic drumbeats that purposely push the waveforms of their songs beyond advisable amplifier levels. It's the Spinal Tap ethos. This album goes to 11. Some listeners may find it grating. They may wonder if the distortion is a problem in their own speaker set-up. It's not. I love Sleigh Bells' commitment to absolute sonic devastation. Pop music rarely comes to destroy. This band does.

Sleigh Bells released three further albums after Treats, each with its pleasures, each worth listening to. But none of them matches the blown-speaker audacity of this one. Perhaps theirs is a sound with a ceiling, but my f***ing goodness, what a debut album, something that felt so vital and alive in the moment of its release, and remains a startlingly self-assured listen ten years on.
 
When Journey Escape came out they also released a video game for the Atari 2600 shortly after. I remember seeing the add and thinking they were the ugliest group of gals I had ever seen. That was when I learned dudes could have long hair.

The 2600 game was so-so. The arcade game they released a little later is widely regarded as garbage but I played the crap out of that back at the Time Zone in Old Sac.
 

Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
Fair enough but still confused since half your picks are more or less 90s picks and you reference a number of them as college staples.
AND you aren't even the guy that picked the Weird Al album I can't even place a track on!
If you can't place a track on that album, you need to start listening, my friend!
 

Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
Now here's something novel. When I encountered Sleigh Bells in 2009, they had a single revelatory EP to their name. They expanded that EP to LP length for 2010's Treats, and if there was ever a title that felt perfectly-suited to the album it belongs to, it's this one.
Well, huh. Several to many years ago I had friend who was trying to purge herself of her worldly things (something she has done more than once) and she gave me a stack of CDs that I dutifully ripped and promised to listen to at least once (promise kept, FWIW). Included was an EP by a band called Sleigh Bells, but it was so scratched that it wouldn't play. I tried a couple of different computers, couldn't get it to rip, gave up, never thought about it again.

Well, well, well. I guess I have to check this out.

Edit: Well, I'll be damned if there ain't a particular itch that this don't scratch!
 
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Well, huh. Several to many years ago I had friend who was trying to purge herself of her worldly things (something she has done more than once) and she gave me a stack of CDs that I dutifully ripped and promised to listen to at least once (promise kept, FWIW). Included was an EP by a band called Sleigh Bells, but it was so scratched that it wouldn't play. I tried a couple of different computers, couldn't get it to rip, gave up, never thought about it again.

Well, well, well. I guess I have to check this out.

Edit: Well, I'll be damned if there ain't a particular itch that this don't scratch!
Glad it's working for you! I had a similar reaction upon first hearing Sleigh Bells: didn't even know my ears were craving something exactly like this!
 
Ordinarily extraordinary. Extraordinarily ordinary. Simply complicated. Complicatedly simple. I can't think of anything else that sounds like this record, which is amazing considering how few tools were used to make it. Everything about this record will put a smile on the listener's face. It flutters between being lighthearted, calming, humorous, cute, reminiscent, spontaneous, and it's just pleasant.

Tracklist

01 - Droumier Assai Per S'Amourousis D'Un Moustre - Prelude aux Memoires D'Un Chien
02 - Droumier Assai Per S'Amourousis D'Un Moustre - Premiere Tentative
03 - Trop de Douceur ou les Trois Soeurs: 2e Soeur
04 - L'Armoire
05 - Le Grand Compositeur Vu de Dos - Boston Mexicain No.1
06 - Le Grand Compositeur Vu de Dos - Boston Mexicain No.2
07 - Le Grand Compositeur Vu de Dos - Boston Mexicain No.3
08 - La Pointe de Tes Seins est Comme un Petale de Pavot - 1e Movement
09 - La Pointe de Tes Seins est Comme un Petale de Pavot - 2e Movement
10 - La Pointe de Tes Seins est Comme un Petale de Pavot - 3e Movement
11 - Solo un Dia
12 - La Vieio Mostro: Part II
13 - Espelisoun D'Uno Ribambello D'Evenimen Espetaclous Valentin Bilot
14 - Armistice Couronne de Feullages
15 - Le Grand Compositeur Vu de Face
16 - Seynete
17 - Editioun Especialo D'Uno Grino de Jardin
18 - Annie la Telie
19 - Naive Description de la Formation
20 - Avril en Suede