goyablog

With a band title like that (taken from Don DeLillo’s novel White Noise), aren’t you intrigued? I was. Reading their bio, explaining how the formation of the band by Mikel Jollet as therapy from a series of tragic events intrigued me too. T.A.T.E. hails from LaLaLand and are on lala too. Basically a traditional guitar-based rock band, they range a bit in style, but having a classically-trained viola/violin player to add emotional strains to Jollet’s rather poetic lyrics and why-has-this-happened-to-me voice helps distinguish them on certain songs. Here are two:

Inadvertently, this has turned into Music Week. Yes, I wrote my quota (600 words) for the day and I’m wondering who all has latched on to lala.com? I read a post about it on some other (far inferior) blog and I must say that I like the concept and execution. It won’t displace iTunes, but the “cloud of music” idea is appealing. If you are always around some web-connected device, why should you fill up terabytes of hard drive space by downloading digital music? You can do that too with lala (and cheaper than iTunes), but you have the option either to play songs free online and/or add songs to your lala collection for 10 cents apiece and/or buy for download an mp3 for 89 cents or buy the “web album” at a greater savings than each track alone. I need to test further the extent of lala’s cloud of music, but I give them credit for having The Feelies’ awesome album “The Good Earth” THAT iTUNES DOES NOT HAVE! In fact, I’m listening to it right now. Quality is very good too. I think the triumvirate of iTunes, Pandora, and lala now provides all the form and content you could possibly want. [holy crap! I just read that The Feelies have reunited and are on tour now, and that The Good Earth has been re-released! Where have I been?]

Here’s a cut from The Good Earth courtesy of lala:

Postcards From Italy by Beirut
Download now or listen on posterous

Postcards from Italy.mp3 (4018 KB)

Given that a Gentle Goyareader mentioned in a comment to a previous post the Old World-influenced oddball band Beirut and their signature album “Gulag Orkestar,” I figured I should let other Gentle Goyareaders in on it. Notorious PhD describes them best: “imagine David Byrne conducting a band of gypsy mariachis.” Here, enjoy, if you will, “Postcards from Italy”.

Posted via email from goyaboy’s digital dump

I’m sitting in my study writing my book with the fabulous neo-tango electronica mixes of The Gotan Project playing in the background and thought I just had to stop and share. It’s perfect music to work by: mostly instrumental (and if you don’t know Spanish, what lyrics there are won’t distract), and hip and upbeat in a way that gets your writing groove on. At least it gets me going. They are known mostly for sampling and remixing electronica into traditional tango, as in their first big hit, Santa Maria:

But they also have some western (as is wild wild western)-inspired film soundtrack-like songs that they give the same electronica-tango treatment to. Their tune “Paris, Texas” is an obvious example, but here is “Criminal” which works both as a dance club song and an aural evocation of bandits on the run across the southwestern (New) Mexican desert:

Highly recommended for offbeat music to work by, dance by, and drive across the desert by….