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Florence and the Machine gives us Lungs

Uninspired. Music, lately, has been completely uninspiring for me. Something I never thought would ever, ever, occur for such an extended period of time as this one. Thus, resulting in my inadequate posting as of late. That and the fact that perhaps my inspiration has greatly shifted from music to literature? I have been devouring countless books in the past 3 months. On average, about 3 or 4 per week. Thank the lord for cheap Montreal used book stores. Thank the lord for the man who works at The Word and finds the numerous books being added to my ‘must read’ list in his stock full attic. I’ve been considering transforming Withindianlove from music to book blog. Hmm. Perhaps in time, or perhaps…BOTH!

BUT, tonight, ONE SONG HAS INSPIRED ME. One song has stalled my devoted night reading time —–> ‘Cosmic Love’ by Florence and the Machine. I wrote about them a while ago here, and since then have been waiting PATIENTLY for the ever anticipated release of their LP. ‘Cosmic Love’ is our first little sneak peak off of Lungs which is to be released on July 6th. The tribal-esque instumentation is a perfect quirk to set Florence Welch’s vocals apart from other powerful female voices radiating our sound waves. I will leave you with a quote from her bio and the song itself:

Her debut album ‘Lungs’ is made of harps, choirs, drums, elevator shafts, bits of metal, love, death, fireworks, string quartets, stamping, sighing, strange electronic wailing, lambs, lions, sick, broken glass, blood, moon, stars, drink, coffins, teeth, water, wedding dresses.. and the silences in between. The songs are full of Gothic imagery, of fairytale flights of fantasy….

Florence and the Machine – Cosmic Love

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Introducing: Caytee Lush

Caytee Lush is a friend of mine who won me over the first time I heard her pick up a little half sized guitar at 2 a.m during a party at (“The Experimental Love Collectives”) house. I remember my very first initial (semi-intoxicated) thought was “KIMYA DAWSON!” (clever, witty, lyrics, etc.), but I have now come to realize Caytee’s talent is much more dynamic than Dawson’s (and I must say, I consider myself to be quite a fan of the Moldy Peaches).  Since then she’s played quite a few solo acoustic sets in cafes/pubs around Montreal, where you are able to pick up free (with hand drawn covers) home recorded albums, which I would gladly give money for if it weren’t for the fact that she refuses. Anyways, this blog post should have come ages ago, but now it has become completely and totally NECESSARY to announce and share her incredible talent with the rest of my world, since her recording of an album titled Good News For People Who Love Bad Covers, which I’m sure doesnt need much of an explanation. One of my very first blog posts was titled “We All Want to Be Like Modest Mouse” and consisted of my favourite Modest Mouse covers (Sun Kil Moon, Josh Ritter, Joshua James, etc.), and I wish Caytee Lush had been known to me at the time as she would have balanced (and surpassed) the male-populated playlist. Please, Please, PLEASE listen to these songs, I promise they will not dissapoint.

You can go to her myspace at: http://www.myspace.com/cayteesingssometimes and get all her albums for FREE INCLUDING Good News For People Who Love Bad Covers

Caytee Lush – Ocean Breathes Salty (Modest Mouse Cover)

Caytee Lush – Blame It On the Tetons (Modest Mouse Cover)

and from the album Everyone Thinks I’m Kidding

Caytee Lush – Straight Girls

Thom Stone due to Release new EP: Hearts & Bones May 25th

There was a stage in my life where I would spend hours upon hours on myspace.com going from one bands page to the next. It was doing this a few years ago that led to the discovery of Jenny Owen Youngs, the Age Of Rockets, Gregory and the Hawk, etc. One of my greatest ‘finds’ has been Thom Stone, who three or four years ago had only about 100 playcounts on the song that won me over, “She Knows” (one of the greatest summer songs), and played a few shows in some pubs in Manchester, UK. A miraculous discovery at the time, I must say. He has since gone on to release the EP Harmony on a Jet Plane which I blogged about here. Anyways, although he has yet to make it over to Canada, I am hoping the release of his NEW EP Hearts & Bones will sell enough copies to send him over this way!

Yes, a new EP! Not only that, but one that is double disked, therefore, it contains enough songs to tie me over until he releases more of his incredible, incredible music. Thank you to Josh from Airbag Recordings who sent me an advance copy of the EP which is to be released on May 25th, which everyone should buy here on that very day. Also, unfortunately, I won’t be able to make the EP launch in London at the Soho Arts Club on Frith Street, BUT, for those of you who reside in that part of the world, GO! Anyways, I’m going on my third time through both disks, and I am really quite impressed. He just does it for me, his voice, it has this constant air of ‘what the fuck ever’ in it, or something. You know? A Bob Dylan, no big deal, sort of appeal. The EP is bending a little more on the acoustica-americana-harmonica driven side of things, which makes it an IDEAL driving-through-the-alberta-praries-with-the-windows-down-because-you-don’t-have-air-conditioning-in-your-1982-VW-Jetta type of summer album. YES!

Thom Stone – Hearts & Bones

Thom Stone – Fever

Thom Stone – She Knows

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July

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The final day of Folk Fest is also the day I start looking forward to the following years. Alley and I start placing bets on who’s going to show up ‘next year’, from obvious local bands to… ‘IMAGINE if SUFJAN came?!’.  I think I feel the MOST infinite those four days of the year. This one festival (and my mothers home made sangria) brings together everyone I care about most in this whole entire world. This all sounds cheesy, I know, but honestly!

Anyways, I’m writing all this due to the fact that last night I nearly died. Nearly. I mean, I’ve been nostalgically looking forward to the summer, and more importantly, Folk Fest, for quite some time now, but it hit me at a speed of about 6 million miles per second last night. I was making my way down St.Denis (for those who know this street and how it comes to life on a friday evening, you may have an easier time visualizing) by myself, going to pick up some food at Le Commensal (a vegetarian buffet) after a grueling Calculus final, when I WAS HIT SMACK IN THE FACE WITH THE MOST HEART WARMING SMELL OF MY ENTIRE LIFE!!! It took me a whole 3 minutes to pin point exactly what it was, I mean, okay, it was the smell of spicy chai, (a smell i smell nearly every morning as I steep myself a pot), but there was something about this spicy chai that made me near TEARS. TEARS! In fact, I had to sit down on the curb out of fear of fainting from my light headed state. WHAT WAS IT!? Does it smell like the chai I had at a really good Indian restaurant I once ate at? NO. Somewhere I went on my travels? NO!!!…it’s…..IT’S…. It was the exact, EXACT, home brewed, huge witch cauldron, smell of the chai brewed in the gypsy van at folk fest. EXACT. And, my god, right then, I swear I would have given away both my legs just to be time warped to late July.

On that topic, I’ve been stalking the ‘leak of the week’ page on the site for the last few months now, and besides The Acorn and Mark Berube, there hasn’t been anything too exciting yet, BUT, THIS WEEKS LEAK OF THE WEEK: IRON & WINE. IRON & WINE. yes! a band we have most likely all ‘grown up’ on. Indie folk at its finest. Along the same lines as The Shins, and The Postal Service, Iron & Wine were right there pushing me in the right direction through my puberty rich years. What makes me verrrry excited about this is that: a) I have yet to see them perform. b) of those that have seen them, I have received the most incredibly mixed reviews (SUSPENSE). and c) If Iron & Wine were to play an infinite show somewhere, it would be Prince’s Island Park.

Anyways, here’s three things for us to look forward to:

Mark Berube – Say It Aint So (Live)

The Acorn – Flood Pt. 1

Iron & Wine – 16, Maybe Less

and most likely (as they come everyyy year, and will never, ever seize to unsatisfy me):

Great Lake Swimmers – Concrete Heart

My name is Pearl, and I’ll love you the best way I know how.

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Bat For Lashes – Siren Song

as far as these crooked legs take me

<—>

The Acorn – Crooked Legs

*Ottawa’s, The Acorn are coming to Calgary for our annual Folk Festival from July 23-26, please make an effort to come*

*note: this weeks leak of the week: Bell Orchestre ———–> YIPEE*

Metric – Fantasies Album Review

I rarely write negative reviews. Instead I discard the album from my memory as quickly as possible. Even the act of THINKING about unfortunate music releases for too long exhausts me. Drains all positive areas of the brain and replaces those little capsules of light with “….UGH!”. This affect is completely and incredibly magnified when the anticipated release of an album occupies my thoughts for MONTHS. I start to formulate the storyline in my dreams: mysterious start, intrigue, intrigue, a few twists, CRESCENDO, INCREDIBLE, INCREDIBLE INCREDIBLE FINISH TO AN INCREDIBLE ALBUM.

and so, I will keep this short, as not to ruin my entire day…

The new Metric album sucks. It sucks. I would have liked it, MAYBE, when I listened to B*witched and Aqua 12 years ago. It sounds like the band fell into a downwards spiral of trying too hard to recreate hits like “Dead Disco” and “Succexy” but came up 3 miles too short. The songs sometimes come close and sound a little like the sort of hits their trying to be, but the chorus’ don’t contain that attitude and push that Emily Haines threw at us in Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? From the video on the website I was waiting for some sort of SURPRISE, some sort of location influence maybe? A big change in sound? I mean it has been quite a few years…I don’t know, all in all I think it just sounds immature, the sound is immature, I mean most of the songs remind me of THE GOD DAMN VERONICAS or Jimmy Eat World or something! FRICK! I think maybe my 14 year old sister would appreciate this album a lot more than I did.

I don’t know, maybe I’m just being bitter over not attending SXSW. Maybe the album will grow on me. For now, though, lets go back to 2001 when Grow Up and Blow Away was released:

Metric – Soft Rock Star

PJ & Thom

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haunt |hônt; hänt|
verb [ trans. ]
(of a ghost) manifest itself at (a place) regularly
• (of a person) frequent (a place)
• be persistently and disturbingly present in (something)
• be persistently in the mind of (someone)

PJ Harvey & Thom Yorke – This Mess We’re In

– this song, again, and again, and again.-

It’s Blitz! It’s Blitz! It’s Blitz! It’s on repeat!

Good god, again, I’m sorry for the lack of updates. I wish one of my classes was devoted to “blog updating”, because so much has been going on in the world of music lately, I just need to sit down and get it all out on here. Firstly, though, I have to devote a little space to the most wonderful birthday present I received (because it directly ties into the naming of this blog) from my incredible friend (and TAALK member) Alley Lind-Kenny, a painting by “Jo”, whose work was being displayed in one of Montreal’s wonderful cafes; Le Cagibi a while back, and I became instantly attached to it due to the presence of little Native American boys! (I apologize for the crooked, and bad quality picture, as I don’t own a digital camera and it is quite difficult to balance a laptop in only one hand while maneuvering the mouse over to the ‘capture’ bottom on photo booth)(also, as soon as I purchase the proper hooks this is taking over Bob Dylan’s spot above my bed)

In music news, my first listen of It’s Blitz, was not a great one. I put it on intending to give it a thorough listen, and to be honest, i kind of forgot about what exactly it was that I was intending to do, and the end of the album came without me even realizing it. My immediate thought was: another un-entertaining/boring new release. Shitty. BUT THEN. BUT THEN. a few days later I gave it another chance! and THANK GOD i did because, I must have been in some sort of COMA the day I listened to it, KAREN O HAS BLOWN ME AWAY. I absolutely love it. I do. And again, as much as I may not like to see myself as a ‘mellow music person’ or an ‘acoustic blogger’, as much as I think my music taste is more spontaneous than that, in all honesty, it’s not. This can be proven by the fact that my favourite song of off Show Your Bones is the “Let Me Know” DEMO which isn’t even technically on the album, and now, its the ‘acoustic’ versions off It’s Blitz that have been played on repeat. And I’m sure the majority of the population has already listened to the album, but if not, here are my favourites:

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Soft Shock (acoustic)

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Skeletons (acoustic)

preview of whats coming:

– why I haven’t downloaded the recently leaked Fantasies

-I received Clem Snides new album album Hungry Bird in the mail yesterday from their manager (along with some cute little pins), and I am very much enjoying it! review to come!