*The following review was written over a month or so, and therefore any references to ‘last night’ refer to what was, in fact, quite a long time ago.

Generally I have stuck to singular albums for matters of musical discussion because they give me a structure, purpose and limitations. I surely can’t wander off and go forever when I’m only talking of a finite collection of songs. But last night I had the privilege of performing with Melbourne’s own folk quartet The Pale Fires, and seeing as they have no discernible album to review, I will have to make do with simply discussing their songs and live act in general. After all, it’s not like I can just let that shit go by without writing about it. (Read on » » » » »)

Aired: 2001 - 2005
Genre: Drama
Created by: Alan Ball
Starring: Peter Krause, Michael C. Hall, Frances Conroy, Lauren Ambrose

In Alan Ball’s film debut American Beauty, one of the story’s chief protagonists Ricky Fitz, a docile teenage drug-dealer with a passion for capturing abstract “beauty” on camera, gives an existential spiel about the day he discovered there is “this entire life… behind things.” What makes Ball’s works so frightfully meaningful is this very belief. His impeccable ironic wit and poignant commentary are essentially founded on ‘the life behind things’; the beauty behind mundanity; the hope behind morbidity; the philosophical miracle behind every-day life. While his work generally reflects an ambivalent agnosticism, the greater contention is that Life is infused with meaning in the very act of living. What makes Six Feet Under the most relevant show in television history is not its unabashed depiction of the polar entities of creation: life and death, nor its scrutiny of deep social and cultural issues, but its respectful appreciation of the fact that these things only matter through the lens and scope of human experience and that this is a wonderful thing. (Read on » » » » »)

Genre: Pop-Punk
Released: 2007
Produced by: Stephen Hawkes and Nickel Arcade
See below for Track Listing.

I tripped and fell on Nickel Arcade after a long money drought during which I spent a lot of time fantasizing about things I would do with money if I had it. When some came, my first order of business was to go to CDBaby’s top sellers list and simply buy five of the most promising albums I could find, the only prerequisite being that I must not have ever heard of the album before in my life. Among these were E.S. Posthumus’ second album, Jon Brion’s solo album Meaningless and a collection of soulful numbers by a young woman named Melody Gardot. I have listed them in order of favourite to less but still considerably favourite, and Nickel Arcade’s album comes in fourth, but that’s not because its particularly bad. In fact, the differing of caliber between all mentioned is marginal and subjective. (Read on » » » » »)

Genre: Indie/Electro-Pop
Released: 2003
Produced by: Jimmy Tamborello, Chris Walla
See below for Track Listing.

I should but do not know anything about Death Cab for Cutie. I am pretty sure I once heard a version by them of “Little Boxes” in an episode of Showtime’s Weeds, but it I don’t remember it very strongly, so it can’t have been that special. I’m sure this means that I’m lacking the focal point necessary to make my opinion of The Postal Service and their only album relevant. I don’t mind that much; I’m taking this quiet electro-pop effort completely on its own merits, which from what I can tell is exactly how frontmen want people to respond to their side projects. (Read on » » » » »)

Genre: Indie/Anti-Folk
Released: 2007
Produced by: Toby Goodshank
See below for Track Listing.

“I’m not your son, I can’t be raised.
Didactic drone, you cannot faze me.
Push me away; afraid of the demons in me…
Well, they’re very real, and they’re plenty strong -
coming for to carry me back where I belong”

So professes Toby Goodshank in that melancholy mumble of his, by way of introduction to 2007’s Everything Intertwingles. It’s an opening track (More Than One, by name) with an intense implicit isolation, one that well establishes the character whose tale the ensuing album will chronicle. If it isn’t the “real” Tobias Goodshank that we’re being shown through this delightful string of indie anti-folk, it’s certainly a facsimile thereof, and therefore an endearing self portrait that never has an effect on you that it didn’t intend to have. (Read on » » » » »)

Genre: Live Solo
Released: 1993 (Limited Release), 2003 (Extended Release)
Produced by: Jeff Buckley and Steve Berkowitz
See below for Track Listing.

Jeff Buckley’s Live at Sin-é was originally a four track LP, an attempt to slip him into public consciousness a good year before his debut album Grace. It was a solid and wise choice by Columbia records in what was otherwise a shaky and antagonistic Label-Artist relationship, and career. Buckley had unknowingly inherited his father’s deep loathing and mistrust of the music industry, as well as his heart-stopping musical talent. It was a war Jeff fought for most of his tragically short career, his supernatural love and gift for music versus his apprehension towards the world it entailed. Possibly my favourite thing about this recent, extended release of Live at Sin-é is that it predates all of that. It’s a musical photograph of a young artist on the cusp of becoming a world sensation, and its wordiness, goofs and occasional lulling means that it’s also a record of a freer time for Buckley. Live at Sin-é is just Jeff being Jeff, which is what us Jeff fans crave so dearly. (Read on » » » » »)

Genre: Pop Rock
Released: 2005
Produced by: Stars, Tom McFall, James Shaw
See below for Track Listing.

I’m infatuated with this album. And only time will tell, but I think it’s true love. In a field of mainstream Pop, laden with landmines of soon-to-be-dated garbage, it’s easy to forget the magic and wonder of discovering a hidden and little-known treasure like Set Yourself on Fire. The authors, a low-profile Canadian quintet with disparate musical impulses and an inability to commit themselves to one distinct brand of pop, will never be The Next Big Thing, and even in their own context this record is a diamond in the ruff. But I don’t mind – there’s something comforting and cozy about a group next to no one knows about producing five or so albums of absolute ordinariness and then creating something like this. You feel like you have it all to yourself. (Read on » » » » »)

Genre: Electronica
Released: 2001
Produced by: E.S. Posthumus
See below for Track Listing.

A film composition instructor told me not so long ago that music expresses what words can’t. It’s fitting that such a theory (completely accurate as it is) would be put forward by film composer, in regard to the teaching of that very subject. Film music has to express double what words can’t: it’s the greatest trick cinema ever pulled. All the subtlety of a big flashing sign telling the audience how to respond… but with all the efficiency and artistic merit of poetry. Consider then, how hard music for film advertisements has to work. Within a minute and a half, it has to rouse absolutely phantom emotions from an audience, and convince them sight unseen that they’re hearing the premature soundtrack to the greatest story ever told. Born simply out of two German brothers’ creative drive, E.S. Posthumus’ Unearthed ended up being exactly that. (Read on » » » » »)

Genre: Rock
Released: 1994
Produced by: Andy Wallace & Jeff Buckley
See below for Track Listing.

1. Mojo Pin
2. Grace
3. Last Goodbye
4. Lilac Wine
5. So Real
6. Hallelujah
7. Lover, You Should’ve Come Over
8. Corpus Christi Carol
9. Eternal Life
10. Dream Brother

Genre: Hip Hop
Released: 2002
Produced by: Dr. Dre
See below for Track Listing.

*To whom it may confuse: Marshal Mathers and Eminem are one and the same.

I missed out on Eminemania. Hip Hop was at the far side of the earth to me at the time of his quick eruption into the mainstream, which he dominated for a year or so while I shut my eyes and blocked my ears. It was only at a much later date, and while on a mad spending spree, that I got my hands on The Marshall Mathers LP and heard a little of what everyone had been on about. It hit me, quite after the fact, what a momentous thing it was to have a white boy be the face of Rap and (also after the fact) why that had happened. (Read on » » » » »)