slightly longer reviews

4.25: online music
i'm in love with 3wk! Awesome real audio indie songs (not clips), as well as a station. Also fun is spinner, esp. "modrockgirls".
*
heard on my desert island on march 30:
1. sleater-kinney, the hot rock
2. nine inch nails, broken
3. pj harvey, is this desire?
4. neutral milk hotel, in the aeroplane over the sea
5. the butchies, population 1975
6. bikini kill, the first two records
7. veda hille, spine

PJ Harvey, Is This Desire?
i've been listening to this album for a few months based solely on the sonic atmosphere; the lyrics in general didn't really capture my imagination (well, except for "Electric Light"). but my head flipped inside out when i really thought about "the garden". the chanteuse of albion is just a more subtle shocker than she was in her Dry days, and focused diferently. The ability to turn tired Christian tropes into popular music is wacky and fabulous, to turn judas into a lover shows powers of imagination and re-vision i didn't think anyone used creatively since the great religious masterpieces. sexy and powerful scope, enough to make over-dogmatized me think about the bible without acute rage. christ-love and not christian, in the same way polly can sing the most "feminist" things imaginable and still refuse the box of that ideology. i love her.

The Butchies, Population 1975
it took me a while to fall in love. Their Are We Not Femme? is more consistently up-tempo like Team Dresch's Personal Best, the best fast album about being queer I've ever heard. The Butchies' second album is slower, sure, but more thoughtful, and even more critical of queer issues. I think abut "Movies, Movies " every time another flick comes out that the gay community trips over itself to adore, that stars str8 people and is made by str8 people. This feeds into the "desperation for validation" complex that so many of us suffer from. here's a quick analysis of gay marketing. Anyway, Pop. 1975 is about finding a voice and a place and it's a growing up record both thematically and structurally. There's a tension between the faster electric material and the slower ballad stuff, but it's all held together by melissa's drum pounding.

Rose Polenzani
Dragersville
Anybody

aaahhh. rosie the riveting. think about her lyrics too much and yer head might implode while you find yourself achieving that long-sought state of sonic grace. her way with words is both quaint and ponderous. i'm a sucker for poets that sing (have i said that before?) and rose's words add to mood without being too hot on literal meaning. for a long time, songs like "Or" just made no sense at all, until i stopped trying to understand it in my head and let it all seep into my ears. then i appreciated it. months later, i'll be listening and the meaning will just come to me. that's the way to listen to rose.
rose's subject matter is frequently love, with the songs so imagist, inverted and personal one can only guess at the references. they're incredibly intimate, often in the second person, and there are always stories to sort out, and like short stories the endings are ambiguous.
she's bewitching live as well, with her languid movements and delicate and brazen way of speaking, as well as her odd idioms and anecdotes. Seeing her live is the perfect corollary to hearing her sing. the songs are whispered, spoken, crooned, and sometimes howled, but she is always a unique invention.

Cat Power, Moon Pix
Bis, Social Dancing

You'd think they had nothing in common.  You'd be right.
I've been on a moody jag lately, vacillating between the tortured and the exuberant, and these two new records suit me well.
Add to this emotional melee the self-esteem problems/happy voices on the Murmurs Pristine Smut and the dulcet-voiced addictions on  Ruby Falls' last album, Heroines.  All girls who embrace their fucked up selves and fearlessly let their emotions run raw and feel/convey those dichotomies without feeling contradictory.
And I write this as one who hates her manic dualities and paralyzing procrastination, wishes she was of a strong character, but ultimately prefers to be a mess than anything except herself.
Um, the music: Bis is fun, sassy, and self-conscious.  Cat Power is blue and proud and a textual genius.