I have Gold. And I love the green and copper taste of it.
Random Spirit Lover, Sunset Rubdown's third album leaked about 2 weeks ago, and I've been exploring the territory for just as long in an attempt to leave no stone unturned in Spencer Krug's new world. If you've never visited any of Spencer's States(first off you're life is worthless) it is littered with some of the following:
Leopards, Ghosts, Colts and Stallions(there is actually a big difference between these two animals), Trumpets that go Toot! Toot!, Pier's, Hands coming out of graves, Snakes with Legs, Courtesans, Morticians... I could go on for days. Random Spirit Lover IS the best album out so far this year, and this year has been very kind to music so that's saying a lot. I'm not going to do a full review here or anything cause it's set to be released October 9th, and a review wouldn't exactly be prudent at this juncture. And the only sample MP3 I shall provide is the official first single off the album; the glorious "Up On Your Leopard, Upon the End of Your Feral Days". I just want to write some of my favorite lines from this magnificent and historic peice of art for now, in album song order so I can kill more than one bird at a time(what I intend to do with those dead birds are a subject of discussion in one of these such lines). So here goes:
The Mending of the Gown:
-You never heard it from me but there’s a breach in the hull of the truth, and the water’s too deep to prove.
-It was the tender mending of this slender gown that brought me bending to the ground.
BUT THIS SHIP WILL HAVE TO GO DOWN. SEE THE PADDLE GO UP AND THE PADDLE GO DOWN!
Magic or Midas:
-How dare I speak of trickery, I am not the store of the Midas touch. I don’t close my eyes when I’m dancing the same way I close my eyes in my lover’s clutches.
-You can follow the lead of the jackal to see where I am. You can follow the lead of the jackal who waits for the kill to be made by a mightier hand.
-You made up a list of your luckiest stars, and you made me familiar to you in the dark.
Up On Your Leopard, Upon the End of Your Feral Days:
-‘Cause you’re the one who’s riding around on a leopard; (ba-da-dum). You’re the one who’s throwing dead birds in the air. And you’re the one whose wild hide will weather, In the weathering days to a leather, made soft so princes can lay down their princely white heads! OF HAIR!
The Courtesan Has Song:
-Think of the scene where a washed-up actor wipes the makeup off his wife and says, “Morticians must have took you for a whore. Oh, morticians must have took you for a whore. Oh, I’m sorry that they took you for a whore.”
Winged/Wicked Things:
-Unraveling heavenward. It’d saddled two tiny birds. Or other such winged things. Either way they were struggling
-But the pattern of flight is chaotic and blind but it’s right ‘cause chaos is yours and it’s mine; And chaos is luck, and like love, and love blind
Colt Stands Up Grows Horns:-I follow the trail you left in the snow. Picked up your footsteps and made them my own
Stallion:
-And fight for your right to hate the night, children sing like a choir with no taste for the wine.
For The Pier(Dead Shimmering):
-Oh the speed of a year It runs the wood dry, and water unclear
-So I’ll be out till the shimmering dies. I said I’ll be out till the shimmering dies. It’s the reigning of the predatory nature of the sky. And the raining sound it makes when it’s burning out your eyes
The Taming of the Hands That Came Back To Life:
-I am embracing the cold rushing in like ice to a diamond; it's a new kind of rough you can find me in.
-When the sail starts flying in the wind I say, ‘cool that looks cool now do you think the second movement has too many violins’?
-She said, “My sails are flapping in the wind.” I said, “Can I use that in a song?” She said, “I mean the end begins.” I said, “I know. Can I use that too?”
Setting vs. Rising:
-Do you call a setting sun a sun rising?
Trumpet, Trumpet, Toot! Toot!:
-You gotta refine your breath and beats with a graduation hat—use mine.
-I'd like to think the actors never panic. I'd like to throw this trumpet down and go empty-handed.
Child Heart Losers:
-All a diamond is, is good timing. All good diamonds are uncut diamonds Oh
Spencer Krug is without a doubt the single most talented musician of our generation. His poetry absolutely comes to life through the excellent play of the other band members on this album, and their preceding one: "Shut Up I'm Dreaming". His work on Wolf Parade's debut album was the scratch on the surface, but boy are things running deep now.
