Episode 40

The Dodos – Visiter
I found out about this band from the, I think, Budweiser lime bear commercials that were out about a year ago. I loved the little clip that was used from the song called Fools from this album. By the time I got around to trying to find it in 2009 it became a little difficult. I could have gotten it on CD but that would have been too easy. I was also hard into finding albums on vinyl at this point. I was lucky enough to find it on the Amazon.CA sight. I ordered it from them back in last October or September. I was very excited. The record also sounded very nice when I played it.

There is a lot of music on this album. 14 tracks to be exact. The album is 75/80% awesome and the other few tracks are just not that great. It is all still good music but some of it just doesn’t work with the album as a whole for me. The group makes fluent use of African beats. They have done this from day one with their first album called Beware Of The Maniacs. This album is their second and because of the Bud commercial the one that they are most recognized for the start of their popularity. Although the third album called Time To Die is the one that most people would recognize the most with the exception of the song Fools from Visiter. I actually found out about this album just before the third album was released. I do have all three albums and will (I hope) review the other 2 at some point in the future.

Radiohead – Amnesiac
I remember when I got this album. Actually I did not get the album I had my sister get the album. I was fixing up my first house for sale at the time. I was on the roof patching some bricks on the fire place. I had her drive to Cheapo Records (when it was still on Central Ave). She came back not only with the album but with a few freebies too. There was a promo VHS tape with the first singles music video from the album and 2 pins with the crying demon on them. I thought this was so cool. I also did not just get the album but the limited edition of the album. It is a picture book that was covered in red fabric. It was designed to look like a book that you would get from your school library, with the library card pocket and card in the front cover. I thought it was very cool. I think that I already had the standard CD version (bought a couple days earlier). This was in the beginning stages of my depression and it was the music that was keeping me aloft.

The music on this album was actually recorded at the same time as the previous album Kid A. The first single on the album is very peaceful to my ear. Thom sings of understanding that death is inevitable and of the things he or the character he is singing of remembers of his life. The video to go with the song is very interesting as well. It is all digital and features a deep sea diver underwater in an area that has been under water, it seems, only just recently. The water is seen as ocean water and is very blue and clear. You can watch it here.

I really liked the album. It was very soothing except for a couple tracks. As time went on I started feeling like I did not like the album. This was all because of those couple of tracks. I have to remind myself that I should listen to it more often because it really is very good music. Since I have listened to it again recently I find that the songs that I did not like so much actually are not that bad. This makes the album that much better now than it did to me 9 years ago.

Death Cab For Cutie – Narrow Stairs
The first single for this album (I Will Possess Your Heart) got me on the first solo bass notes. Of course the first time that I heard this song it was on the radio and there for the song was a radio edit. The album version of this song has a very long open with the same bass line all the way through it. There are added bits of guitar and piano through the open but it is based on the guitar riff. I think that if you can’t handle the repetitiveness of techno you could probably not handle the opening of this song. I have been a long time lover of techno and other repetitive music that this song just warms my heart to listen to. It is disappointing to me that other people important in my life don’t find this as enjoyable as I do. This song came out while my then fiancé was over seas deployed with the Army National Guard. As I have spoken in past episodes, I sent her a copy of the song on a mix disc. I found out later that she hated the song. I was very disappointed in deed.

The third single was just as impressive to me. The song is called Grapevine Fires. I think that I liked this song over the second single (Cath…) because I happened to see the video that went with this song. The video was about wildfires that sweep across a populated area. At this time the regular wildfires were going across California. It kind of hit home to me that these fires were strong enough to send people packing and worse. The video showed that people could be killed in these fires. I always thought that these fires were slow moving and people could find shelter before it got to their homes. Although these people would lose all their belongings they still had their lives. This video showed me that this is not necessarily true.

I really liked this album as a whole. I bought it on CD when it first came out. Then I got into vinyl again and bought it in that format too. There are a few die cut squares and rectangles in the cover of the LP which give it that optical illusion feeling when you look at it. It also came with a 7” single. I haven’t recorded that 7” yet but it is on my schedule. So is the 7” that came with my box set of Nada Surf albums. Anyway, the whole album is really fantastic and they all flow very well in the order that they are set on the album.

Eggstone – Summersault
This is one of my favorite unknown bands ever! This album was how I was introduced to the group. When I was going to college at Brown in 95 or 96 the now defunct radio station, Revolution Radio (A.K.A. Rev 105), was playing the first single from this album. The song was called The Dog. It was very interesting to hear a group, from Sweden no less, play such interesting music and singing lyrics from the perspective of a dog owned by a human. It was so different and interesting that I had to run out and get the album as soon as I possibly could. I think that the album was not to be released for a few weeks from the first time I heard the song on the radio. It was killing me that I couldn’t hear more from this band. I did not even know that this album was the second from the group. After I finally got the album I fell desperately in love with the rest of the album. It was also at about this time that I also started getting into Hi-Fi stereos and components. I had listened to this album so much that I thought I new every nook and cranny in it. I was completely wrong. I listened to this album with my friend on his new Hi-Fi stereo. I was completely blown away. I heard things that I did not even know were there while listening through his more expensive stereo. It was door opening to say the least.

I found out near this time as well that they had an album that preceded this one. I had to have it. With a little research I found that I could only get this album from Japan. They were such an underground band that it was only being pressed still in Japan. The album, although not their greatest, was still very good. It is called Eggstone In San Diego. The only reason that I mention this is that the album came wrapped in some Japanese news paper. I had never seen a record company do this and thought that it was very interesting.

I am going to do this the easy way. This is what Wiki has on the group. It is the basics but it is the important stuff.

Eggstone is a Swedish pop music band, formed in 1986. The three members - Per Sunding (vocals, bass), Patrik Bartosch (guitar) and Maurits Carlsson (drums) - were raised in the small coastal town of Lomma, outside Malmö. In 1991 they formed Tambourine Studios in Malmö with friends Anders Nordgren and producer Tore Johansson.

Their debut album Eggstone In San Diego was released in 1992, followed by Somersault two years later. In early 1997, they released Vive La Différence!, their third full-length album, on their own (and now defunct) Vibrafon label. Spanish Slalom, a compilation album, was released on Madrid-based Siesta Records in 1998 and a second compilation appeared in 1999 under the Tricatel label, titled Ca Chauffe en Suède!.

Eggstone's songs, light and poppy on the surface, disguise great subtlety in their conception and execution. The trio delights in strange shifts of tempo, harmonic clashes and pseudo-amateurish incidental noises, whilst retaining an easy seductiveness for untrained ears; in truth, all three of them are accomplished musicians, Bartosch in particular, who has developed a guitar style entirely his own, both faux-naïf and virtuosic. A fourth album has reportedly been in preparation since the late 1990s, with some sessions taking place under the tutelage of Tricatel owner/in-house producer Bertrand Burgalat.

Per Sunding's work as an in-demand producer in his home country and Patrick Bartosch's taste for foreign trips have unfortunately prevented the band from doing more than teasing their fanatical fans up to now. Eggstone's lack of large-scale commercial success is all the more surprising since the trio was the inspiration and, to some extent, the template for a number of internationally successful Swedish pop acts such as Cinnamon and The Cardigans.

Any way, that is all I have for now

Signing off.