Song obsessions are those songs that we listen to on repeat. I noticed that my obsessions are often a week long. I also thought that other people might have similar obsessions. I’ve collected a panel of a few like-minded individuals and gotten their “song obsessions of the week.” Quite often it’s easy to explain why the song is good; it’s much hard to explain why we’re obsessed. Maybe you’ll become obsessed with one of these.

–

Adrian (me):
Fanfarlo - You are One of the Few Outsiders That Understands Us (mp3) (buy)

Most of the bands in Drowned in Sound’s list of 2008’s breakthrough bands were crap (or they weren’t new to me), but I really liked the Fanfarlo stuff. I’ve been listening to it quite a lot and–here’s another part of the obsession–sending my friends to their myspace page with a wink. Nice vocals, nice instrumentation, nice dynamic changes during the song. Enjoyable stuff.

–

Keith:
Future Pilot AKA - Maid of the Loch (mp3) (buy)

This short instrumental leads off Future Pilot AKA’s 2001 CD Tiny Waves Mighty Sea. However its plaintive Hammond and strings action always fools me into thinking it’s from something 30 years early … perhaps a long lost interlude from an early Bloodrock lp. Y’know, that short sensitive part before the band really start to rock out. Future Pilot AKA never really rock out on this lp, but then again I’m not expecting Bloodrock from them.

–

Natalie K:
Swim Party - Twenty-Five (mp3) (buy)

Definitely one of my favorite San Diego bands - a little bit Modest Mouse, a little bit Broken Social Scene, and a whole lotta good melodies and interesting rhythms. There’s so much going on in this song that it’s hard for me to listen to it without giving it my undivided attention.

–

Scott:
Xiu Xiu - I Do What I Want When I Want (mp3) (pre-order)

–

Rob:
Bill Mallonee - Nothing like a Train (mp3) (free at archive.org)

I recently discovered the live sound offerings of archive.org. Though at the time I was trolling for old Waterdeep concerts I was excited to see a couple of Bill Mallonee gigs and, since they make excellent driving music (for me, at least,) have been listening to them pretty regularly ever since. I find that the larger dynamic range that a recording like this allows for draws out the strenths of Mallonee’s honest, straightforward style and distinctive Georgian accent much more than his studio work (heck, it’s even fun to listen to his talks between each track, something that is certainly not true for every artist.)

–

This entry was posted on Friday, January 11th, 2008 at 10:15 am Posted by adrian in SF bay area, blogs, mp3s, song obsessions. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.