The Word: October Magazine & Now Hear This! CD

The cover story on the latest issue of The Word is Chris Salewicz's biography, Redemption Song: The Ballad Of Joe Strummer.

There's also an interview with Sigur Rós

"Ninety nine percent of the Icelandic population are nature lovers," says [bassist Georg] HHólm. "We all go camping. We enjoy nature." Urbanisation and overpopulation have served to remove most of the West from the land. We are disconnected from our past, our tradition, our culture. Folk heritage is either under siege or under contract. Not in Iceland. If you say you think there are elves in a boulder people won't necessarily think you have bats in the belfry.

The magazine also includes interviews with Badly Drawn Boy, Ray LaMontagne, and journalist Toby Young, as well as an article about Anthony Perkins, and another about Malcolm Hardee.

A feature on the death of the concept of indie strikes a chord with me. It's profitable to perpetuate the myth that "indie" and "indiepop", as mentioned in the article, are genres, so that will continue, regardless of how inaccurate and obnoxious it is. "Could it be that indie is actually a meaningless term, rendered obsolete by misuse and overuse?" writes Andrew Collins. I've been making that argument for a while; I think a fair amount of people feel that way. The term really has never been descriptive of a type of music so it should never have been used as though it was. "I play indie music" could mean someone plays folk, country, rock, or just about anything.

As usual, The Word includes a Now Hear This! CD.

All tracks today are YSI. Tomorrow's are EZArchive. There will be no quiz on all this.

Now Hear This! Track Listing:

1. Easy Star All-Stars Feat. Horace Andy - Airbag
2. Rhett Miller - I Believe She's Lying (available on The Believer) An excellent cover of a Jon Brion song (which is also excellent).
3. Helene - Nothing To You
4. David Lowe's Dreamcatcher - Sadhu
5. Peter, Björn & John - Amsterdam (available on Writer's Block) Bouncy, fun indiepop! Just seeing if anyone is paying attention with that description. Make that bouncy, fun synthpop, with handclaps.
6. Mary Gauthier - I Drink
7. The Walkmen - Lost In Boston
8. Duke Special - Brixton Leaves
9. Dan Arborise - Let Me Be
10. Suburban Kids With Biblical Names - Funeral Face
11. Micah P Hinson And The Opera Circuit - Diggin' A Grave
12. Yo La Tengo - Black Flowers (available on I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass) Beautiful, sweetly-sung, sax-and-trumpet-enhanced tune, with great lyrics.
13. M. Ward - Chinese Transaction
14. Charlotte Gainsbourg - AF607105 (available on 5:55) Creepy track, about a doomed flight and a passenger who's happy about what's happening in the plane toward the end... The song is strong, with really good lyrics, and Gainsbourg's suitably ghostly voice well-matched to the electronic space-lounge music. I do feel a little weird about the airline-crash-fetish angle though.
15. Davy Graham - Anji