On edge

Eleanor Jane Parsons

We Carry On - Portishead

Carry on as in muddle through, grimly persevere, make do, endure-- it's all so characteristically English, though not uniquely so. These days, we Americans are muddling through til the next election, many of us holding our breath and crossing our fingers that the Dems don't fuck it up again. We carry on, despite economic news more dire by the day and the contradictory message that it's our patriotic duty to spend what we don't have. We grimly persevere waiting for the other shoe to drop. We make do, we endure. Portishead's got that limbo just right, its opaque face and hair-trigger nerves, its moody swings from boredom to emergency. I'd say Third is my fave 2008 album so far, but I keep getting stuck replaying replaying replaying just a couple songs.

Buy Third (Amazon), Myspace.

She's Gone - Langhorne Slim

It's like the closest country gets to Cab Calloway, hiccuped, hyperactive, jumpin jived, and so speedy it's rural meth lab to the typical highway roadhouse. Then there are the lyrics and music that wave at one another from opposite sides of the room.

Buy Langhorne Slim (Amazon), Myspace.

Falling Down - The Lodger

Careful as you pick up this amber-crisp lace cookie of a song--you might break it. Lucksmiths-lite (which is pretty darn lite) and The Smiths without the sexual subtext, "Falling Down" is also fresh as line-dried linen and welcome as the red and yellow tulips I see from my kitchen window (finally!).

Preorder Life is Sweet (Amazon), and def go to the band's Myspace to hear the super neato Slips remix of "The Good Old Days."