give the drummer some!

the oons in poons gives us a playlist this month...

Orba Squara playing games with some really nice vocals and subtle shakers. I love the way the song buildings into a present-yet-not-too-overbearing euphoria, and I could think of no better entrance to my winter disc. I like Spoon a lot. Especially this song. It's creepy and heartfelt and badass all at the same time. Pick up their disc Ga ga ga ga if you haven't yet, before it's on everybody's year-end top 10's and you feel like the poser buying it at Newbury Comics on January 8th, and the cashier gives you the "oh-man-it-took-you-a-post

-christmas-gift-card-redemtion-to-buy-this-sweet-freaking-album" look. Le Loup is a weird-ass band from my former-yet-future home of the pacific northwest. The quirkiness works, especially when the song builds before the instrumental somewhere around a minute in. The latter build really works for me as well. Minus the Bear was an accidental discovery back in the day when I was buried in the WRMC shelves during Terry St. Jean's radio show. Although this song is on a newer album—and it carries traits from some pretty unfortunate late-90's Incubus—there's a soft spot in my heart for glossy production and driving hi-hats and those moments where the guitar and drums synch just right. This year has been marred by eastern European samples (see: Beirut), but to me there's nothing like the real thing, and thus behold the Orkestar Bobaba Marcovica. And while we're speaking of eastern Europe, we move on to a mulletted euro DJ named Shantel. The name of the song is "Disko Partizani. " Accordion? French horn? Need I say more? The only thing that would make this song more Eastern Europe would be a good ol' fashioned Canadian Tuxedo. Boards of Canada doing their best to make me want to drop everything and go snowboarding in the Swiss Alps. This song is so short and yet has such a honey-suckle vibe of which I cannot let go. Nina Simone sticking it to the man… I personally enjoy listening to this song driving through some of the more impoverished parts of my destitute city. "is my mic still on"? Yes, Nina, your mic will always be on. Groove on, baby. Duke Ellington making an appearance with an amazing highly-percussive track (That bass! Those drums!), named after a city I anticipate drinking a cup of coffee on a wrought-iron veranda sometime real soon. Mark Ronson is a remix genius, and I'd be lying if I was to say I wasn't trying to one-up Ari with the Britney Spears cover songs. Hey, if its got ODB, it can't be all that bad, right? Right? Tacoma, Washington's Blitzen Trapper seems to carry enough weight to please the masses, but I just dig 'em because it reminds me of the glory days with The Real playing out at the ranch, or the Mill, or any other "woooooo, college" party on cold VT fall nights. The Octopus Project is a relatively recent discovery, carrying many of the traits I look for in a band, and shirking many of those I tend to ignore. Like the band Mum but with a little low-end thrown in. Haven't heard much about these guys, but I'm looking for a reason to not go out and buy their album. Tell me if you have one. Charlie Parker plays April in Paris off an old Columbia recording he did with a full string section (The oh-so-aptly titled Parker with strings). This song makes me want to shake myself a Manhattan and park in front of a fireplace in Vermont. Oh well, one out of three ain't bad. The song Levees, as with much of Terence Blanchard's A Tale of God's Will: A Requiem for Katrina, is a gorgeous tune on a beautiful album. By far my pick for jazz album of the year. Blanchard, a native of New Orleans, puts the sentiment exactly where it needs to be and puts an appropriate soundtrack to a city still reeling from the floodwaters. Plus, he is a good trumpet player. Ummm, yeah. Woah. Holy Beck. Needed to jump out of my slump, and what better way from the layered napoleonic goodness (like the dessert, not the crazy Frenchman) who just happens to be one of my favorite artists from the last fifteen years. Bold but true. And then there's these guys. Radiohead really surprised me with this album, and this song has been a late-blooming favorite of mine. So stripped, so gorgeous, so very real. One of those that force the eyes to close and the head to shake every-so-slowly. And the outro? Man. A.J. Roach does his best impression of a bagpipe or Irish Tin whistle during the intro, but this song does it for me. Don't know why, but that's just the way the cookie crumbles from time to time. English guitarist / vocalist Scott Matthews really channels Jeff Buckley on this one, and still manages to give me the goosebumps with the similarities between himself and one of the greatest songwriters of the last half-century. And, yes, Guster sneaked (see: sneaked, v. to throw a punch without the victim looking in the aggressor's general direction) onto this mix. Something about this song hit me like a sack of partially-cooked potatoes the first time I heard it at my kitchen table in Seattle, and it resonates with me to this very day. Something about the airiness, the vacancy, the honesty… makes me feel so very small and yet so very inspired.

1. Sky Cloud (Winter Breeze)--Orba Squara
2. Black Like Me--Spoon
3. Outside of this Car, the End of the World--Le Loup
4. Knights--Minus the Bear
5. Hani Rumba--Orkestar Bobaba Marcovica
6. Disko Partizani--Shantel
7. Roygbiv--Boards of Canada
8. Backlash Blues--Nina Simone
9. Montevideo--Duke Ellington & His Orchestra
10. Toxic--Mark Ronson & Nick Catchdubs
11. Wild Mountain Nation--Blitzen Trapper
12. The Adjustor--The Octopus Project
13. April in Paris--Charlie Parker
14. Levees--Terence Blanchard
15. Timbomb--Beck
16. Nude--Radiohead
17. Devil May Dance--A.J. Roach
18. Elusive--Scott Matthews
19. Empire State--Guster


download: http://bazoomercom.com/ari/heady%20winter.zip