Stars, The Orange Peels, Radiohead

Albums Purchased

Stars – In Our Bedroom After the War

The Orange Peels – Square

Emily Haines and the Soft Skeleton
– Knives Don’t Have Your Back
(purchased for my sister)

Radiohead - In Rainbows
(reviewed)

A big week of Evites, DJ’ing for a party of one and hospitals. Friday was a good chance to visit with old friends that I have not seen or, in truth, talked with in quite some time. They are, for the most part, well and in fine health and spirits. I attempted to do some class of dance, dance revolution-esque thingy on the Wii which lead to large gesticulations, low scores and further disgraces to my family.

Saturday night was my sister’s birthday, something she's been celebrating for the past several years. The party was highlighted for me on two points: The first was me rolling my ankle on seasonal décor (a pumpkin) but still playing through the pain to compete in an admirable fashion in the high skill game of bean bags and the second was my Thoreau like determination to turn myself into a recluse.

To the latter point I excused myself from the bonfire in the backyard and, despite my sister’s previous warning against the action, removed the spaghetti of cords from the back of her stereo to play my music. The Stars, In Our Bedroom After the War, provided an excellent drunken party for one. Top to bottom it is nowhere near as satisfying as the bands main group Broken Social Scene, but tracks like The Night Starts Here and Bitches In Tokyo keep the album going and a night of sipping keg beer on a broken wheel moving ever forward.

I justified picking up the Orange Peels album Squares by putting myself in the mind of a teenage boy. Boys will buy the odd newsworthy magazine along with, in accordance with their hormonic make-up, magazines of more inferior repute. For instance they might buy something like Barely Legal and Super Suckers of the 70s and supplement the purchase with a magazine the likes of Time or Guns and Ammo. Such was my purchase of the Orange Peels; the music snob in me was embarrassed in myself for having the last several new albums I've picked up being Canadian in origin.

At their best, the Orange Peels have an almost My Morning Jacket feel: clean sounding, plucked electric guitars in major keys overlay bland, early sixty lyrics. At their worst… it’s a tough album.

I did go to the hospital, something I do not enjoy or do often, where a barrage of x-rays informed me my foot was not broken. I celebrated by sitting on the back porch with the lights off, an accoutrement and the knowledge that there are few finer conversations to be had then with the album In Rainbows. This is an album too personal to play in front of others; it is an intimacy that only translates to your self.

Radiohead’s In Rainbows is a difficult album to just jump to a track on. It has standout tracks that I find myself looking forward to but not skipping through the aesthetic to reach. There is not a real “radio” single off this album and my hope is that with their shunning of a record company they’ll extend that to radio stations as well.

The only reason this album was not worth the wait is that I wish I would’ve had it in my life earlier. For some reason it has felt like a bad luck week where nothing has went right. But this album has been a shiny spot and, after all, isn’t that what music is here for?

Two tracks off of the album...

Jigsaw Falling Into Place



Videotape

this is one for the good days…
…no matter what happens now
I won’t be afraid
Because today has been
The most perfect day I’ve ever seen