The Village Voice: Features: The Essay: Pod People by Izzy Grinspan (copied & pasted from the sofa):

Das Ende des Interviews der Frankfurter Rundschau mit der Wiener Schauspielerin, die vor kurzem ihren privaten Briefwechsel mit dem negativen Dialektiker veröffentlicht hat:

The Rambler draws a couple of Venn diagrams on the elements of the set of pop music and the set of non-pop music (inspired by clap clap blog's posting on three definitions of pop). I guess I like the music exactly on the border where art and pop or music for its own sake and music with a function meet. Like Howe Gelb for example. He is doing it also for the money (not for the big bucks though) but mainly doing it for itself. He struggles (I guess) and his down to earth music seems to show it. Maybe I am just repeating the old myth of the poor sincere artist here but who cares.

An anecdote, too nice too be true as we say in German:

BBC: Spot The Fake Smile (via MeFi). A psychology test with 20 questions taking 10 minutes. I got 16/20. Weird. During the test I had the impression I had no clue. In the end I spotted all the fake smiles. But only 60% of the genuine smiles. Does this make me a misanthrope or what?

is my music discovery of the day. A Walloon band who played tonight chez Bernard Lenoir. The concert was diffused on France Inter. Their music is partly drone pop partly melancholic songwriter stuff. There is a warm melodic aspect reminding me of American Analog Set. The drone parts also make me think of the early Dandy Warhols. The singer's voice isn't very pronounced. Sometimes it veers towards a non-annoying falsetto. The song Flavour which was heavily relying on a bass figure from PJ Harvey's Victory was the noisiest thing they played. I had the impression I was back in 1991/92. This is the kind of eclecticism I love. Tomorrow the concert should be streamable here. In my little music universe Girls in Hawaii have taken the place of dEUS who used to be the best Belgian band up until today.

Stream all the rare and unreleased Cocteau Twins tracks (altogether 25) from here. My fave, an edited version of Heaven or Las Vegas (via largehearted boy).

P.S. Somehow I find the sound of the Cocteau Twins which was so innovative and breathtaking in the 80s didn't age well. It's a pity as I still like the idea of it.

Sehe gerade, dass es außer unserem Antville Minima Moralia Weblog noch einen Ort im Internetz gibt, wo der olle Adornotext momentan diskutiert wird. Im Forum der Popmusikzeitschrift Spex. So sehr weit sind sie da noch nicht (bei Aphorismus 7 oder so), dafür scheint dort mehr los zu sein. Mal sehen, vielleicht kann man die Teilnehmer ja überzeugen bei uns mitzumachen, um unsere Diskussionen etwas anzuheizen. Heute morgen habe ich übrigens gerade 109 L'inutile beauté reingestellt. By the way, die Diskussion zu 108 Prinzessin Eidechse war (und ist?) recht aufschlussreich.

I decimated the blogroll from 125 to 103 blogs. Somehow I didn't attain my target of 99 (with one spot left for someone I haven't read enough in the past). Sorry but there were four blogs which link to me in the 22 I unlinked. And I won't hold my recent promise to give the reasons why I deleted a blog from the roll. But if you miss yours you can ask me via e-mail. Or in the comments if you are courageous.