[Editor’s Note: this was supposed to go up yesterday, but… well, you know. Life happens.]

Since Fridays are always a bit frivolous, fun and flirty (and other fabulous words beginning with f), I figured it would be a good day for some spare parts, so to speak.


On Myspace:

Cara Beth

Cara Beth has a sizable following out here on Strong Island. Islanders may have seen her name stuck in randomly on a few smaller hardcore shows or singer-songwriter showcase type of gigs. She’s got this whole Fiona Apple meets Regina Spektor thing going on, and I highly suggest that you give her a listen if you enjoy either of those artists. I would just post the songs from her MySpace, but for some reasons it’s giving me trouble when I try to download them.

http://www.myspace.com/carabeth

Gregory & The Hawk

I forget how I came across Gregory & The Hawk. I think they may have friended me on MySpace, or someone sent me the link – who knows. All I can tell you is that I’ve had their band page bookmarked for about a month and last week I finally listened to them. They are absolutely phenomenal. Their music is gorgeous and dream-poppy, but not boring – it’s a rare combination of music that is pretty but also very interesting (seems like a lot of pretty music is very ambient these days) – and therefore, I imagine, incredibly hard to dislike. If only they had songs available to download so that we didn’t have to visit their MySpace page to listen…

http://www.myspace.com/gregoryandthehawk


In movie previews:

Marie Antoinette

I went to see Memoirs Of A Geisha over my winter break – it was a relatively well-done movie that I enjoyed, but what I really left thinking about was the trailer for Sophia Coppola’s upcoming film, Marie Antoinette. I was a little apprehensive about the casting choices when I first heard them, but after watching it, I have absolutely no reservations.

I also have no reservations about Ms Coppola’s taste in music. The song in the trailer was driving me nuts, because I recognized it but couldn’t remember it. Later, of course, I realized that it’s New Order’s “Age Of Consent,” and after listening to it over and over and over, etc., I’ve decided it’s probably my favorite New Order song (well, along with “Perfect Kiss”).

I wish “Falll 2006” wasn’t so far away…

View the trailer here.
Download New Order’s “Age Of Consent” here.


In other MP3 Blogs:

Weekends are especially good for listening to pop music (not that there are many bad times for listening to pop music). I tend to be more of a pop-tinged rock person than a pop purist, but that’s not to say that it doesn’t have its moments with me.

In that vein, lately I haven’t been able to get enough of Of Montreal – especially Sunlandic Twins (although, usually, I’d probably count them as more neo-psych than pop). I was very late to the race with that album (I listened to it a handful of times after it came out, but I didn’t really, really listen to it until this past Thanksgiving break), so it’s still new to me in a lot of ways.

There are a couple Of Montreal tracks from new releases that have been floating around, both quite delightful:

Of Montreal, “Micro-University”: (download)
Of Montreal, “Psychotic Feeling”: (download)

and, in honor of my Sunlandic Twins infatuation:

Of Montreal, “Requiem For O.M.M.2”: (download)
Sunlandic Twins on amazon.com (seriously, buy this right now)

The following two songs have been on MP3 blogs for about the last month or so, so there’s probably little reason to post them. However, for anyone in my audience that may not be on top of the MP3 blogging community (which I wasn’t, either, until a few months ago when I first thought about starting one), here are two songs that have become the whores (except in a good way?), so to speak, of the MP3 blog community:

The Knife, “Heartbeats”: (download)
The Knife on amazon.com

The Elected, “Not Going Home”: (download)
The Elected on subpop.com

Stay tuned for the next edition, in which I will gush about Two Gallants.