This week for our song of the week we are giving Mike the week off as he is on vacation. To fill in, one of our favorite bloggers, from just down I-75 in Lexington, KY Matt Jordan from You Ain’t No Picasso fills the void. Enjoy!

Matt Shiv - Dirty On Purpose- “Car No Driver (Cassettes Won’t Listen Remix)”

Cassettes Won’t Listen (aka Jason Drake) has earned as much attention in the blogosphere for the remixes he’s been producing as he has for his own music. While continuing to work on his new full-length album, his recent remixes
for EL-P, Midlake and Asobi Seksu have been getting a lot of online love. His latest effort is no exception as he’s taken on one of my favorite tunes from DOP’s “Hallelujah Sirens” disc. Sometimes when you’ve lived with a song for so long, it’s really cool to hear it in a new light.

Here, the rock elements of “Car No Driver” are stripped away and take a backseat (as it were) to a new bouncy drum track and some very New Wave-influenced keyboard action. Drake’s interpretation helps give this song a new life just in time for your summer mixtapes.

Dirty On Purpose - Car No Driver (Cassettes Won’t Listen Remix)

Joe Long - LEVY - “King James”, from the CD Glorious.

For those of you that listen in to Nothing But New at 6pm, you know I have been giving this song regular spins. LEVY is a New York based band that sound like they should instead be from the UK. With some heavy Brit pop influences their music would be just as comfortable on a Verve album as their own.

This song, “King James” begins with some piano keys that make you think a lullaby is in order, only to wake you from that comfortable place with some percussion and a guitar riff reminiscent of that 90s brit-pop sound I mentioned already. And don’t confuse the song’s title for an ode to the Bible translator, LEVY clearly states that the king in this song refers to himself. “I’m the King, I’m the King of this town, and you folks trying to take my thrown down.” The second full length from LEVY is not due out till September, but this should tide you over till then.

LEVY - King James

Matt Jordan - Handsome Furs - “Sing Captain!” from the CD Plague Park

The story of my love of all things Wolf Parade (Dan Boeckner included) is one of me being dragged, fingers scratching into the dirt, towards something beautiful. I was hesitant to listen to their Sub Pop full length because I was so in love with the sound presented in their CBC Radio session and had been disgusted with Isaac Brock’s production on their preceeding EP. And now my fear of “solo” works nearly kept me from hearing one of the year’s best releases.

Boeckner’s newest outfit, Handsome Furs, have a few songs on Plague Park whose themes bleed over onto one another. The most notable is one summed up by their song title “Handsome Furs Hate This City.” It’s echoed again on “Sing! Captain,” but given a glimmer of familial hope: “We hate this place here / But it’s our home.” The whole song trudges on nobly, questioning God and life, before exploding into cries of “sing, captain!” like a glitchy Okkervil River.

Stream “Sing Captain” from Handsome Furs.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 8th, 2007 at 12:31 pm and is filed under MP3's, Music, Song Of The Week. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.