This Music Moment- Belle and Sebastian (2007)

When I mentioned Belle and Sebastian in my post on Two Door Cinema Club, I recalled this particular Music Moment very vividly and instantaneously; I believe I compared Two Door to them because of the instant perking of ears that occurred in both cases when I heard a particular song of theirs.

Belle and Sebastian was a band name I was familiar with, but at the time I could not honestly put a sound to the impression I had of then from their name. Naturally, I thought they were a duo, playing who knows what kind of music. But in summer 2007, I was living in New Hampshire and commuting 70 minutes to Boston to paint the interiors of vacant apartments with my two roommates, Jacob and Claytor. It was a grueling, tough day for us, and I was exhausted for our long drive home. I put on some college radio station to add a little variation to the usual sounds of NPR we listened to most of the time, both driving or working; I just wanted to hear some tunes. After a few songs went by, this one track popped on and I instantly woke up, befuddled and excited, wondering who the hell was making this great, harmonic, classic sounding pop music. The broadcaster didn't mention the band after the song ended, so I had to go home, check the radio stations website and their playlist timeline, and after a long while I finally found what I was looking for. Wrapped Up In Books, track 8 off their 2003 release, Dear Catastrope Waitress:



Naturally, I picked up Dear Catastrophe Waitress, and I was not disappointed. Linkage: It starts off hilariously with a Zombies-style ode to sex with Step Into My Office; they follow that up with the superbly produced title track, a love song to people working dead end jobs with high hopes; their first single from the album, I'm A Cuckoo, is neat but, to me, Wrapped Up In Books is the lynch pin of the album. Further listening comes from their follow up studio album (after a singles and eps collection and a live album), 2006's The Life Pursuit: Act of the Apostle starts it off great; Funny Little Frog is just classic, wonderful, happy go lucky pop song about the idolization of romance. Enjoy, Slingers.



dear catastrophe waitress

the life pursuit

9th Wonder- The Listening (with Little Brother)

I was chilling in Waltham for celtics game 2, against the heat, at my friend nates, and through the game my friend Greg V and I got to talking some classic hip hop production, mostly stemming from my rediscovery of Bizarre Ride by the Pharcyde. My hip hop collection came by deep recommendation, and incurring hands on analysis, from my highschool pal DJ Shinyo, mister Matt H. Hes responsible for my love of Pharcyde, and my discovery of Madlib through Quasimoto on some blunted cruises, and so much of that classic production that makes good damn rhyming great.

Greg got to recommending the producer 9th Wonder, and a few choice albums through his long career. As Greg left for the night, i sighted checking out The Minstrel Show, and he said "yeah thats cool, but im really talking his earlier stuff". I checked the wikipedia again, and saw that the first album by Phontes group Little Brother also happened to be one of dudes first releases as a producer.

This song, the title track from The Listening, uses an arrangement style of building a song similarly to much of Madlibs work, starting a track with a short musical skit, then adding a tight band with MCs for a verse or two, breaking into a skit midsong, adding background music throughout the skit, and diving back in and out of verses and choruses. The album is awesome; thanks Greg.



the listening