Sufjan Stevens - RUn Rabbit Run

Sufjan Stevens - Enjoy Your Rabbit

I'd kind of lumped Sufjan Stevens in with the Devendra Banhart crowd and in some ways maybe that is fair, on others it’s purely coincidental and probably quite a n a l of me to do so. I fell out with Devendra, so to speak, when i saw him at ATP, around the time of Cripple Crow, when he was prancing around thinking that he was Jesus and singing about little boys. I place him alongside Herman Dune in that it's clear that he has talent but he is far too self obsessed for me to have any time for the said talent.

Sufjan had kind of made his way there in my mind, maybe it was his idea to make an album about every state, and the fact that the first had over 20 songs on and the second had a whole album of surplus tracks, either way i think i was wrong to dismiss him and welcome him back with open arms, although he is pushing all the wrong buttons with me again, releasing two albums prior to his new one, i'm yet to hear the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway one but i will openly admit to being completely won over by the reworking of his debut(?) album Enjoy Your Rabbit, entitled Run Rabbit Run and amazingly packaged:


Quote: Run Rabbit Run is not a new Sufjan Stevens album exactly, and neither is it about John Updike. Instead, it is a version of Stevens' 2001 album Enjoy Your Rabbit, reimagined for the New York string quartet Osso (who provided the strings for Illinoise). Originally commissioned by Bryce Dessner for his Music Now Festival, Stevens, Dessner, and the Osso quarted decided that they needed to document this music on a physical format. The songs, rewritten for strings by such composers as Michael Atkinson and Nico Muhly, among others, comprise a song cycle about the Chinese Zodiac.
Having not heard the original i can't comment on how true it is to that but i can confirm that this is plain beautiful stuff, like Dirty Three and Esmerine at their most accesible and quite possibly a contender for album of the year in my humble opinion. Beautiful string based "post-rock" or maybe "instumental" would be more apt. A delight for the ears.

Sufjan Stevens - Year of the Ox mp3

Source: I Guess I'm Floating

Cue & Suburban Kids With Biblical Names Reviewed

Cue – Wedding Song (Thirty Ghosts)

I only recently discovered quite how much decent post rock there was out there, everyone is familiar with the Godspeed’s the Explosions in the Sky, The 65 Days of Static, the Dirty Three’s and although I had long been ignorant perhaps Mono were not so deep in the underground as I imagined. Thanks to Jordan Voldz Silent Ballet and particularly their top 50 Instrumental albums of each year since 2005 I’ve unearthed a number of great bands not least the Ascent of Everest, Laura, The Pirate Ship Quintet and Souvenirs Young America, still what I’ve found is that all too many whilst undoubtedly being excellent have often followed the straight forward formula that Explosions in the Sky do so well. As I say, it’s not that its bad, it just lacks depth, much like with a “pop” band I get bored of seeing guitar, bass and drums, at the very least bring in a keyboard, so it is with post rock that the piano and violin can add that extra depth that allows the band to take on a new level, to dig deeper and express a dictionary full of new and unknown feelings. It’s refreshing to hear a band like Texas, Austin’s Cue, that are described rather nicely on last.fm as a four-piece progressive instrumental/chamber noise rock band. Although one of the things that draws me to post rock is the slightly doomy outlook most bands have, the darkness and apocalyptic direction most take, its again refreshing to hear such an upbeat instrumental band.
It comes as no surprise to discover that guitarist Colin Swietek is an occasional member of Graveface Records outfit the Octopus Project (perhaps best known for their collaboration with the also fantastic Black Moth Super Rainbow. Wedding Song for Living Things and Dead Things, YROKROLSUKKDN2002, Can You See My Skeleton? And Fleur de Lis stand out, though as whole this is a great upbeat album that could quite welcomely be my wedding song.

Cue - Forests of Pencil Pierced Children - MP3

Cue - Fleur De Lis - MP3

Myspace

Thirty Ghosts Records

Suburban Kids With Biblical Names - #3 (Labrador)

I was first drawn to the Surbaban Kids by their excellent name, I don’t know how many times I have been disappointed with this theory yet this time I was far from disappointed, their first EP bragging the instantly classic Rent a Wreck and Trumpets & Violins. This was followed with #2 boasting the instantly loveable Funeral Face as lead song and now #3 a classic collection of songs sung in the style of Jonathan Richman and generally accompanied with handclaps, drum machines, whistles, and ba-ba-ba’s, unsurprisingly as they to quote ”want turn all the dance floors into a burnings inferno of Ba-ba-ba”
The majority of the album is excellent but really peaks at track 9 with the trio, S_____y Weekend (take those silly shoes off and go back to summer camp/ and don’t ever come back/ you look like you live in a tent…), Rent a Wreck and Seems to be on my Mind (love seems to be on my mind/ seems to be all the time/ oh what a lovely way to spend your life/ not needing anything…I’m a young boy with a lot of things on my mind) which’ll all have you singing along before you finished hearing them for the first time. Suburban Kids With Biblical Names, not just kids with great names after all.

Suburban Kids With Biblical Names - Funeral Face MP3

Suburban Kids With Biblical Names - Rent a Wreck MP3

Myspace

Labrador Records