The Rob Gordon Shuffle, 4.15.07

Justice Vs. Simian – “Never Be Alone”: mp3
WE! ARE! YOUR FRIENDS! YOU’LL! NEVER BE ALONE AGAIN! WELL COME ON! If only it was that easy. Between the Knife last year and all the praise heaped on “bands” like the Field and Pantha Du Prince now, it seems like electronic music matters again. That being said, I’m a guy that until very, very recently only cared about indie folk.

Shearwater – “Seventy-Four, Seventy-Five” (new version): mp3
This is one of my favorite songs (and records) of last year, so I was scared/excited to hear the new version. It’s not so different, really — the recording sounds better, but aside from that, its pulsing insistence and mid-song fury remains. I guess “better,” in that the recording quality is higher. There was something about the lo-fi recording that made it even more powerful. I’ll have to listen to the new version record as a whole a few more times, but I think I’ll stick with the original. (Pick up the just-released two-disc Palo Santo reissue from Matador)

Darren Jesse – “Magic”: mp3
A discussion of Ben Folds Five’s starkly mature bow-out, The Autobiography of Reinhold Messner, led me to scrounge up this home demo of one of the album’s best songs. Jesse’s post-Five solo career never quite took off; his shaky emoting and the slightly awkward mixing of this recording might be reasons why. But as far as acoustic ballads go, this one’s a winner.

***

The Rob Gordon Shuffle is a weekly Sunday rundown of fascinating songs without particular regard to genre or timeliness. It is absolutely not a top five. To read further installments, click below.