Purple Bottle...Blue Collar

#15 Feels - Animal Collective (FatCat, 2005)


The most recent offering from the collective was the second straight album in my countdown that I was too counting down the days till its release. The most recent release on my list is to me a modern masterpiece of psych, folk, and pop all turned on its head and splattered in purple. Passion is dripping from the cover and living on the inside. "Flesh Canoe"; 'And talk to your breath, And we enjoy the air, And I creep on your chest, To the how I love where, Pluck a few notes, On the strings of your hair, And I'm singing to you, What to do, If I asked you to make funny faces with me in the mirror of the bathroom.' As opposed to Spirit, these stories are taking place now. Avey's lyrics are playful and erotic though one gets the sense he's been burned before. But in the end its like, at some point you have to bare it and just dive in and frolic. From my favorite piece "The Purple Bottle"; 'sometimes you hear me when others they can't hear me hallelujah, sometimes i'm naked and thank god sometimes your naked well hello.' All four members' voices groan and chant and Kristin from mum gets reacquainted with her piano and adds delicate noodling on most of the songs, which for me takes them to the heavens. This is my only album that I can recall listening to for 7 straight days without listening to anything else. Um... this album just makes me love music.







#14 Silver - Starflyer 59 (T&N, 1994)


There's too much to tell here. My first shoegaze album and the first time my virgin ears had heard anything of the sort.

Lucky and I used to peruse our youth leader's office for those albums that were 'christian' but didn't sound like it. We used to stay up late to hear 'christian' grunge, punk, metal, rock, and then this sound came blister bombing through the speakers and I happened to catch on a tape who and what it was. We all used to tape the radio, that was our i-tunes. So, we'd have the tapes locked and loaded hoping to catch something cataclysmic and new. "Sin for a Season", their song off the Steve Taylor tribute album is the first SF59 song I ever heard and caught on tape. The next week I reel to reeled 2 from this album and just hit rewind over and over for weeks. What was he saying anyway? How many guitars could be stacked on that wall of drone? It was so downer-as a lot of us were in high school, and yet so immediate and hopeful. And Jason Martin's guitar tone will forever be embedded in my being.

The next logical thing to do was get mom to take me down to the bookstore... all I could find was a white tape called She's the Queen EP. What's an EP? Come to find out this was released just after the stuff I had been dripping into my ears for weeks. Some of the songs were 'lounge' versions of tunes off of Silver. Who in the 'christian' market was reworking and reinterpreting their own stuff? nevermind. Anyway, a d.c.talk freak at church had Silver, wasn't that geeked on it and let me borrow it for awhile. It takes the silver in the Starflyer catalogue. Sorry and thanks to my sis Lynn for enduring the squall during the long rides to school. If I was a song, and I don't want to limit it to just one, you can find me in "the zenith".
"now you're turning blue....the time i spent with you" Blue Collar Love