Sean offers two songs from the forthcoming Kings of Convenience album Riot on an Empty Street. The first one sounds like a forgotten tune by Simon & Garfunkel. The other one has a nice female guest appearance by Leslie Feist on it and is more of a well flowing ballad.

Kim im Interview mit der taz:

Translation: How do your songs form?

Don't laugh: When we recorded this album, I jammed with Vincent Gallo. I took his guitar, played it and it was tuned totally differently than the guitars from Sonic Youth. Therefore I asked him: What kind of subtle way is that to tune a guitar? And Vincent answered: 'Usually every guitar is tuned like that, with the tuning fork.' (laughs) There I felt like an idiot.

Stream Sonic Nurse, the new Sonic Youth album in its entirety (Windows media player required). There is also an interesting interview where Kim and Thurston are blind tested. They have never listened to Surfer Rosa by the Pixies!

P.S. And here is the quite busy ILM thread on the album. Most people are pretty enthusiastic about it. I listened to it pedalling on my ergometer last night. Some very nice songs but overall I am still not in love. Ok I know I should listen a. on the stereo b. more often and c. when I am relaxed and not sweating like a pig with a pulse of 172.

Setlist and a tour diary entry on Frankfurt by Mike (when he writes Rhine he means Main, hint: Frankfurt=Mainhattan 'cos of the high bank buildings). The concert was good. Very intimate. Like the Amazon flowing slowly and majestically into the Atlantic. Margo's pure and at the same time sensual voice is maybe even more beautiful than it used to be, Mike did some expressive extended guitar improvisation on a Robert Johnson cover and there was at least one person dancing in the church. I must admit though that over the course of the two hour concert I found the songs a little samey and got slightly tired of them. Blame it on my lack of patience and my yearning for variety.

Next stop on their tour is the Passionskirche in Berlin on Sunday. Be warned, tickets are rather expensive with almost 30 euros.

P.S. I didn't expect them to play their great VU cover Sweet Jane but I was slightly disappointed that they didn't play any song from Lay it Down. My personal fave of theirs. The most pop but also the most touching of their albums. And I have all of them 'cept the one before One Soul Now.

P.P.S. Link sent by Swen: 64(!) Cowboy Junkies concerts from 1989 to 2003 to download.

Last night I went to see three trios over at the Oetinger Villa in Darmstadt. I think it was the first concert I ever attended where I was the oldest person. A strange and slightly uncomfortable feeling. The first band on stage was Diario (mp3) from Leipzig. Guitar, bass, drums. They weren't the luckiest band that night. First their laptop didn't work and we had to wait for a quarter of an hour. Then after something like three bars the guitar amp conked out. When they finally got their act together they played maybe three instrumentals. Okayish post-rock in the vein of Tortoise though a little less focussed. They had found their groove on the last piece and there was some very nice answer-response interplay between the drummer and guitarist. And then it was all over.

It took ages before the next band arrived. In the meantime I got very much annoyed by the African girl choir cd the deejay had put on. Those girls should dance or drum but never sing. Then Zu from Rome appeared on stage. Bass sax, bass, drums. Punk attitude meets free jazz. Wild outbursts of saxophone lines underlined by some very ferocious drumming and a bass player who was mainly striding back and fro to the amp for some feedback effects. In the beginning I thought he had never played a bass before. He picked as many strings as possible in the most unrhythmic way imaginable. Later on he did some amazing feedback where the bass sounded like a tenor sax. The problem with this band was that everyone was doing his thing, the music didn't hold together, there didn't seem to be a band feel. I had liked the first couple of tracks as they were so raw and energetic but after a while it was getting too much. And they didn't stop as the already thinned out audience kept on clapping. They got obsessed with their jam and had to go on with their ear-bursting noise set. Apparently they have played together with Eugene Chadbourne which doesn't come as a surprise to me.

The last band (for which I had come actually) started well past midnight. Ostinato from Washington D.C. Guitar, fretless bass and drums. They began their set rather low-key but with each song the music became louder. Nice warm minimalistic melodies embedded in drones and walls of fuzzy guitar noise drawing the small audience left in like a maelstroem. Put Spaceman 3, My Bloody Valentine, Godspeed, Mogwai and American Analaog Set to equal parts in a mixer and add a dash of D.C. hardcore shouting and you get near the phantastic sound of Ostinato. Somehow the guitarist reminded me of Kevin Shields. When he played you couldn't see his face. It was covered by his dark hair. He created some amazing soundscapes with his instrument. The bassist of Korean origin had this kind of rare naive charm which gives the final perfect touch to a live performance. He said that they had only been 3 days in Germany yet and every place they had played had been so wonderful that they would have liked to settle down there forever. When the guitarist introduced the song Optimist, he immediately took the relay and said "Yes. This song is called Optimist. Because in the state the world is in right now you have to be an optimist." So f*cking true. And sad.

I payed 8 euros for three bands. Together with maybe 50 co-spectators. That makes about 40 euros per band member not counting the technicians and cd/t-shirt vendors. Hardly enough for a hotel bed. How can these bands survive? The labels must support them or they just do it for fun. I really hope Ostinato become big. They deserve it. I doubt it though. They seem to be rather unknown in the US. All internet sites mentioning them I found were German except their US label Southern.

Last night I listened to the first "movement" of Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music. Right now the second part is spinning in my cd player. Yes I know that MMM on cd is not the real thing. As Bob Ludwig the sound engineer said the most difficult thing was getting the locked groove on side four of the double album. MMM on vinyl doesn't stop when you don't stop it. It is the perpetuum mobile of guitar feedback noise. Basic idea: tune all strings to one note, put the guitar near the amp and let it feed back, let it play itself.