“But let’s talk about you for a minute…”
The opening lyric of Los Campesinos!’ third full-length (yes, I’m counting We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed, 32-minutes is not an EP in my book) suggests that the Welsh septet might stop complaining about the petty emotional problems of their pretty young selves and start focusing more on their audience’s internal struggles. Such an assumption would be ridiculous, of course. As just stated, the guys and gals of LC! are young and attractive, so all they ever seem to do is have sexy struggles involving sex and struggles, but that’s what we love about them. What Romance is Boring brings to the table that debut Hold On Now, Youngster… didn’t is sheer size. In every way, Romance is Boring is a substantially bigger album.
The Memphis Commercial Appeal 
With enthusiasm in performance and a refreshing openness in delivery, it’s almost hard to believe July Flame is Ms. Veirs’ seventh album. While Laura’s intimate vocals remain a constant, each album brings with it a new slant on the studio performance. 2003′s Troubled By Fire saw Laura at her American Folkiest, 2005′s Year of the Meteors embraced the grunge/alternative roots of her Pacific Northwest homeland, and 2007′s Saltbreakers was a huge studio affair clamoring for the Starbucks audience (Paul McCartney, Ray Charles, and similar auteurs).
I was recently sent this absolutely charming one-man tribute to the Super Mario World soundtrack. Aside from being a rather stunning piece of music arrangement by a fan, it’s also pretty much perfect music for a balmy summer day like the one hitting NYC right now:
Hit “play” on the debut from Ra Ra Riot/Vampire Weekend sideproject Discovery and be prepared to be instantly smitten with the tongue-in-cheek goofiness of opener “Orange Shirt”‘s pulse synth stabs, 80′s summer jam beat, and overall vibe of madras shorts at dusk. Keep listening past that first song, though, and you’re likely to get nauseous. The following nine tracks follow the same formula as the first, like a bad joke that just doesn’t get any funnier with each retelling, and suffer from the abdomen-stabbing addition of auto-tune. Discovery’s LP is a bad idea, do not give it the opportunity to spread.
Two fairly prominent chiptune tribute albums have been released in the past month: Da Chip and Weezer – The 8-bit Album, based on the music of Daft Punk and Weezer respectively. On the one hand, this perfectly shows exactly what kinds of nerds were into both bands and what kind of nerds chiptune musicians are, namely exactly the kinds of nerds I am. It was hard to find bands more prominently dorky in the 1990s than robo-electronic pioneers Daft Punk and thick-glasses garage dweebs Weezer, and it was just as hard at the time to not be romantically whisked away by the wonderlands of 8- and 16-bit videogames, so naturally the two worlds should meet in euphonic bliss, no? Well, not quite.
As for Weezer, well, the covers are varying degrees of successful. It’s often distracting to hear vocals in chiptune, especially when the musicians are very much not singers, as in the case of Anamanaguchi’s take on “Holiday.” With the exception of videogame orchestra’s Castlevania-inspired take on “Island in the Sun” and Bit Shifter’s glow-stick-raver “The World Has Turned And Left Me Here,” the songs are all pretty straightforward covers. Tugboat’s “El Scorcho” winds up a sconce adorable and would fit in perfectly on the Little Nemo: The Dream Master soundtrack. While neither is particularly impressive, both seal of quality’s “Hash Pipe” and Unicorn Dream Attack’s “Jamie” are entirely likable fun. The biggest disappointment of the bunch, without question, is nordloef’s “Buddy Holly” which forgoes any sense of experimentation or playfulness in favor of a straight midi cover with a fist-pumping club beat.
The second purchase I made in the pursuit of really making music in college was an M-Audio Oxygen 8 MIDI controller (pictured at right, the first purchase was a cheap microphone). Despite its compact size and rampant affordability, it was totally a professional keyboard. I bought it at a big fancy music store and have since seen the same model on many a concert stage played by big professional bands. Sure, its many knobs didn’t do anything in my decidedly lo-fi recording environment, but it still did just about everything I asked it to with ease. Lately, though, it’s keys have been sticking on notes, and that’s kind of a major drag when recording. I hate to think about buying a replacement for the girl who has been so good to me for nearly six years, but then I saw these two beauties coming soon from Akai:
