Oh, Manchester, So Much To Answer For

new/ish and great.

mcalmont & butler, "falling"
apparently, after their first album in '95, david mcalmont and bernard butler (ex-suede) grew to loathe each other, so they broke their musical partnership. shame, really, as phenomenally spector-over-the-top the music was. well, for whatever reason, they're back, like they never left. hallelujah! lush, lush waterfalls of strings, bernard's t(w)angy guitar (he sounds more like marr with each year), and that voice, that thing of beauty that is david mcalmont's pipes, soaring above the cities, nearly into the ether, like a homosexual angel.

dirty vegas, "7am"/dirty vegas live
saw this bunch of blokes opening for moby last week, and they knocked me on my ass. like a new order/underworld combo platter (the pop hooks and songwriting of the former, the gorgeous complexities of the latter), they rocked and grooved and damned near swooned, cutting it live like more 'dance music' has to if it's ever to establish that mythical beachhead in the yew-ess. you know the single, "days go by" by now, but don't think of them has "that song from the mitsubishi commerical," for they cut much deeper. as if to purposefully throw the audience's expectations, dv started the single acoustically -- that's right, one voice and one acoustic guitar -- before diving headfirst into its shag carpeting textures. "7am"'s the knockout punch, however, instantly derivative of u'world while marrying their vision to jolly rancher-sweet pop, but with a nearly bitter twist (think of it as a gin chaser). if you're on the west coast of the usa, do NOT miss them once moby picks up his solo dates again after area:two's completion.

elvis vs jxl, "a little less conversation"
something I forgot to mention about this yesterday: the line "all this conversation ain't satisfactioning me. elvis creates a new word, and the world (kinda) notices 34 years later. "satisfactioning" = genius!

beth orton, "concrete sky"
don't tell my heart, my achy breaky heart, beth. you either, ryan.