Thaw of sorts

Oh January! No sun, weekly snowfall, endless football. Oh miserable month! I spent my Sunday pouting over the iniquity of January and napping on the sofa, rereading Joan Didion's White Album and listening to the new (in March) Low record, trying to understand why, in the middle of this somber, serious LP, the band drops one rather silly track ("Hatchet"). This is exactly why I prefer songs to albums. Like the bunch I downloaded this last week from Seekers Who Are Lovers and got around to listening to more intensely yesterday. Side project to Monterrey, Mexico's Angel Sanchez Borges' regular gig, Antiguo Automata Mexicano (no, I wasn't familiar with it), the Seekers catalogue holds spectral electronic folk songs. Love songs, Borges claims, though I haven't spent much time with the words. The sound though, is captivating. Just listen to the keyboard's modal bagpipe drone in "Blended," and how Borges' plaintive voice weaves through its fog. And listen especially (well, how could you miss it?) to the wonderful glitched loop of what sounds like a needle scraping vinyl. But also like dry, rasped breaths, and you hanging on each one.

Blended - Seekers Who Are Lovers

Seekers Who Are Lovers' website.
Buy You Are The Pride Of Your Street EP (Amazon, Darla)

And: With a lotta blood, sweat and other yucky body stuff (read the intro) Heart on a Stick completed a massive 2006 Music Bloggregate aggregating the top 10 albums of 640 (!) music bloggers. Exactly one of my 10 favorite made the bloggerate top 10. Which sounds about right.