yacht rock saturday: "magnet and steel" by walter egan

paraphrasin' wikipedia is like writin' the gambler

walter egan was a native new yorker who grew into a '70s soft rock cat. his stuff was produced by the fleetwood mac team. i got into "magnet and steel" through the boogie nights soundtrack. it really is one of those random, perfect, soft '70s pop landmarks. i would put it right up there with starland vocal band's "afternoon delight".

incidentally, boogie nights has an amazing, spot on soundtrack. that got me into the emotions. has there ever been a better song than this?:

Video Sunday: Massive Attack

In preparation for new Massive Attack stuff this year, I though I would post some promos of theirs that I haven't gotten around to. "Teardrop" is one of the most spine tingly dingly pop songs ever, and it has a striking video wherein a fetus sings Liz Frazer's unforgettable vocal. And, yeah, now it is the theme to "House":



"Inertia Creeps" is creepy. It is also one of the most awesome (and fairly prescient) interpolations of Aegean rhythms into beat pop.



Those two were from Mezzanine. This one, "Sly", is from Protection. Both rank among the best albums of the '90s in my brainbook.

Telefon Tel Aviv Review At 24SevenCities

Maybe you've heard about the death of Charlie Cooper, half of Telefon Tel Aviv. It is a shame. The new album Immolate Yourself is great. I reviewed it here on 24SevenCities. A sample:

"Each of Telefon Tel Aviv’s albums has its own distinctiveness, building upon its predecessor. Map of What is Effortless explored the light, experimental ambience of 2001’s Farenheit Fair Enough, and extended those devices to new operatic emotion. The new album Immolate Yourself builds on the more immersive, transcendent moments of Map of What is Effortless, creating a layered, sublime and sad experience. It marries textured ambience with wrenching, resigned sentiment."


Here are some more links to things I've written for 24SevenCities:

Afro Samurai Resurrection soundtrack review
Loer Velocity Uninfatuated EP available for free download
Revisiting Paul's Boutique
Rilly long liveblog about television
Talkin' 'bout Auto-Tune
Thoughts about Being There
RIP Charlie Cooper of TTA

Cuts Like The Knife: Video Sunday

So maybe this will be a regular thing, maybe it won't. Let me know if you enjoy it or not. There is nothing particularly new or hyper-relevant here, I just realized I had not taken the time here to slather the Knife all over a post. This came from finding this nifty flash video for "We Share Our Mother's Health" as remixed by Ratatat:



Silent Shout was an incredible album, and here is a cool, creepy video for my favorite song on it, "Marble House":



The previous album, Deep Cuts, was not too shabby itself. It is more pop oriented, and lacks the soul shuddering sparse creepiness of Silent Shout, but it is certainly a gem. Here, from Deep Cuts, is perhaps the Knife cut that you have most likely heard on a commercial (or covered acoustically by Jose Gonzalez). This is "Heartbeats":