Mercedes Peon – O Mar
Maki has been introducing you all in the intrincacies of all things Flamenco, but Spain is a very diverse country and its folklore has many other, very different things to offer. The song’s about a woman who’s lost her man, a percebeiro (a barnacle picker, a very, very dangerous job), taken by the high tides while he was working. Peon is usually more adventurous when it comes to stretching the limits of Galician, celtic-flavoured folk, but in a more traditional framework, as O Mar proves, she really shines.
lambretinha
Please The Trees – Lost Mind
Can’t quite put my finger on what i like so much about this reflection on unrequited love by these Czech indie / alt rockers, but it could be the guitar hook. Spill points if you can pinpoint exactly who they remind me of… I can’t quite.
Amylee
Micah P. Hinson and the Opera Circuit – You’re Only Lonely
Classic Rock bands find it easy (if too often cheesy) to slow down to [power] ballad pace: even Motorhead are at it these days. Over recent years, what’s fascinated me more is typically gentle artists choosing to wig-out. With the sound-tsunami climax to this song, Micah P. Hinson nailed it.
DarceysDad
Maria del Mar Bonet – Vigila El Mar
María del Mar Bonet has tried her hand at more modern stuff but her real forte is traditional Balearic folk. This song, sung in Mallorquín, is a fine example. She has a beautiful voice and was one of the leading figures in La Nova Canço along with Joan Manuel Serrat and others.
Mrs. Maki
Madredeus-O Mar (The Sea)
The Portuguese have an illustrious seafaring past; here, Lisbon fado-folkers Madredeus allow themelves to become obsessed by the hypnotic prescence of the sea itself. The song has a certain melancholy beauty that recalls a mood I have often encountered at the shore.
Zalamanda
Panda Bear – Last Night At The Jetty
I don’t always get Animal Collective or Panda Bear, their drummer’s solo project. But occasionally they coalesce into moments of pop perfection. This song is an example – summery, catchy, yet somehow achingly sad – not so much sounding like the Beach Boys as actually becoming the spirit of Brian Wilson.
Barbryn
Please send any earworms that you care to share, along with a (short) blurb for each one, to earworm@tincanland.com. Thank you!
Oh dear, haven’t really got time to do this now but what the heck…
Mercedes Peon: Starts intriguingly, gets better, then gets better again, then stops. I want MORE!
Please The Trees: Sounds very ‘alternative 80s’ to me. Like Spear of Destiny or The Mission or Killing Joke or somebody. Not sure how I feel about it really. Not totally sold on the song but quite like the sound.
Micah P: My favourite this week. Loved it. Hilarious opening (f***face). Great vocal – what have they done to it? Slightly vocoderised it or something? Builds brilliantly. Fab strings. Yeah, I love this.
Maria del Mar Bonet: Yes, I love this too. Beautiful guitar work, beautiful singing.
<Madredeus: Very atmospheric. Can’t imagine listening to a whole album of it, but nice sound.
<Panda Bear: Extraordinarily Beach Boys-y. Runs Micah a very close second – great!
Lovely cohesive list again, Zalamanda! (No prizes for guessing this week’s theme, really!) Thanks all.
Oops, didn’t quite manage the bold there, did I?
I can fix it if you like?
Nah, doesn’t matter. But thanks!
Yup, this week was too easy. I’m saving up the ‘Spill points for another week. I’m just not sure which one yet…
Am I ever glad I signed up for Google Play now!
There’s other music services that let you play your own tunes or stream songs, but only Google Play has the ‘play back through Google Translate’ opion. http://mcaf.ee/rmwef
I got the theme! Lovely painting Zalamanda – one of your own?
Anyway, Mercedes Peon was fascinating, really liked it – but barnacle picking? Really? People eat them? How many do you need to make a meal?
Please the Trees – yes, reminded me of The Cult, or even Mansun. I liked it, but the huge chorus I was hoping for never came. I wouldn’t normally say this, but it needed to be a bit more U2…
Micah P. Hanson – wow, that got loud. Really liked this. One of those artists who’s been on the fringes of my musical consciousness for a while, and clearly needs further investigation.
I liked Maria del Mar Bonet, and liked Madredeus even more – beautiful.
Re. the painting: Yes, Barbryn, it’s one of my own. It’s a view of Godrevy Lighthouse from Gwithian beach in Cornwall. More details here.
re: barnacles… you’d be surprised!. a Kilo of the good stuff can cost as much as over one hundred pounds, easy… So, apart from those places where its harvesting is more or less regulated, you can see poachers trying to pick as much as they can to make ends meet.
The thing is, the bigger, better kind lives in the rocks that are hit by the coldest, meanest waves (richer in oxygen). Just one slip, and you’re done…
Percebes, which are gooseneck barnacles are a delicacy and absolutely delicious. Not a bit like the common barnacle (bálano or bellota de mar), which is what most of us English speakers think of the first time we are told barnacles are edible!
Great song choice, lambre, btw.
eeep! I had no idea, Maki, thanks….
Got my sea-legs on this week.
Mercedes Peon. This reminded me of a South American singer, popular in the 50s called Yma Sumac (she was in the Guinness Book Of Records for having the greatest vocal range). I enjoyed it and the way it builds.
Please The Trees. Pleasant sound.
Micah P. Hinson. Not bad, but I kept thinking of Leonard Cohen for some reason.
Maria del Mar Bonet. I like this very much, but again it reminds me of someone else. Catarina Valente?
Madredeus-O Mar. Very pleasant to listen to.
Panda Bear. I can see the Beach Boys similarity. Yes, nice.
No special fave this week – all jolly fine and ripping (very Jack London)
Perfect theme for me, Zala, as i’m in a fishermans cottage in Cornwall watching the waves crash on the rocks below. Love your painting – by chance, I’m just off to lunch at Carbis Bay overlooking Godrevy. Only trouble is, no wifi, so can’t actually listen – a treat for later. Ghe.
How splendidly serendipitous! Have a lovely lunch, GHE.
Now if I’d known you had a nautical theme in mind, I’d have sent Micah’s The Day Texas Sank To The Bottom Of The Sea!
oooo er, who’s the naughty boy?
Any idea what Tinny’s on about?
Y’know, if I telegraphed potential themes ahead of time, it would be too much like RR on the mothership… and, besides, it’s kind of fun to cobble together a themed list from random songs…
nautical boy … bottom .. naughty…..no, huh? They do say if you have to explain a joke it wasn’t funny enough so don’t bother. Mind you they also said not to take a puff of that….oh, wrong thread.
Don’t submit earworms because there is no theme and prefer it if people did their own posts. Just my view – & not meant to spoil the party.
Do see how a theme could be problematic (having to discard the ones you don’t like; too close to RR and ‘Spill challenge). Would suspect that having tunes lie around waiting for a theme to emerge may have it’s own problems, but you seem to be coping ok.
There might be some mileage in revisiting some old RR themes as a different series (although sometimes it seems that JonD is already doing that)?
Great artwork, btw.
Not everybody is happy with the idea of writing a post from scratch; maybe they don’t want a WordPress account, maybe they suffer from a form of computerphobia… maybe they just don’t feel that they have the time.
And, of course, the Earworms idea doesn’t require themes. But sometimes one emerges from the songs that are in the pot. And, I suppose, I find it easier that way – being kind of hung up on words and ideas, as I am.
As someone with a short attention span – and fairly eclectic music tastes – I like the range of sounds on offer each week within six short tracks. And the lack of a theme means people are just submitting songs they love, which tends to mean they’re rather fab. (Of course it’s particularly pleasing – especially for the compiler – when a theme coalesces out of the tracks on offer, but that’s by the by!)
Who’s by? Not that it matters, of course.
All it needed was the Sex Pistols’ Submission………..
Mercedes Peon – O Mar. This just kept getting better and better. It moved me.
Please The Trees – Lost Mind. Very lovely.
Micah P. Hinson and the Opera Circuit – You’re Only Lonely. Lovely buildup.
Maria del Mar Bonet – Vigila El Mar. I am wondering what Malorquin is. Is that a dialect, Sra Maki? It’s a lovely song.
Madredeus-O Mar (The Sea) Oh this is lovely; just beautiful.
Panda Bear – Last Night At The Jetty. Another great song. Yes, a touch of Les Garcons de la Plage, for sure, but that’s a huge compliment.
The sea theme and painting are gorgeous, and it’s a seafoam salad of a fantastic playlist. Thanks, Zalamanda.
It is so hard to choose standouts. It has to be a tie between Mercedes Peon and Madredeus for me.
Malorquin (Mallorquin?) is the Mallorcan language I expect.
Well, blow me down with a feather. I had no idea they had a separate language. The stuff you learn here. Thanks, ladies.
Neither do they, SR… Mallorquin and Catalan, are, for all practical purposes, one and the same. (slight differences notwithstanding. Said differences are played up or played down, depending on which side of the political divide one is coming from). Same with Valencian.
Would it be more accurate to consider these regional “languages” as dialect? A bit like Geordie or Scots?
From a linguistic point of view, that’s probably more correct, Zala, but I’m no expert. The problem is political, though. For better or worse, ii your area has its own language, a claim for more autonomy / independence / whatever is going to carry more weight than if it’s just a dialect… To illustrate how the divide is, in fact, political, let me put you an example. Tarragona (in Catalonia) and Castellón (in Valencia) speak the same language. Identical. But it’s called either Catalan or Valencian, respectively. However, Western Catalan provinces, such as Lleida, and Eastern, such as Barcelona have more significant differences in the language that they use, even if both will call it Catalan.
It gets trickier… if you have two different variants of the same language, who’s to say which one is the dialect, and which one’s the original one?
Languages come in lots of different forms and shapes. Some are strong, established, and need no support of any kind. Others are dying. Others (like Galician, for instance) are somewhere in between: they have enough speakers to survive, but are not fully formed, standards are still being defined to this day, are still mutating. And politics have a lot to say about the direction these mutations are going to take (as always has been)
cf Cornish…
Would that be the Cornish dialect of Celtic or the Cornish dialect of English, TFD?
The former (which I suspect is what you’re thinking of) is, of course, a revived language which may (I am not sure) form part of the call for devolution.
I love this! You just never know where an Earworms thread is going to lead
You are right TFD !, It is the language from Mallorca island, better said, from all Balear islands, a Romanic language mixture of Italian, Catalan, etc., Mediterranean language at the end.
Glad you like it
Mercedes Peon: what a gorgeous web of voices! Like bish, I wanted something more to happen.
Please The Trees: only Moe Tucker is allowed to hit the drums with a hammer. Sounded like a lot of other (not terribly attractive) stuff, although the bridge gave it some individuality. The voice reminded me of Spandau Duran.
Micah P. Hanson: could have done with a few more lyrics. Sorry Rich: I find it a rather ‘standard issue’ climax, even down to the noise leftovers at the end.
Maria del Mar Bonet: a lovely song, beautifully delivered.
Madredeus: more gorgeousness. A moonlit night over the ocean, drifting.
Panda Bear: interesting but maybe a bit too much going on.
Madredeus is my fave this week. Gorgeous (did I say that?).
Thanks all.
Chris, No sweat; I’ll take a “‘standard issue’ climax” any day of the week!!! OO-er, titter-ye-not, etc.
Mercedes Peon – Liked this a lot. I do love a bit of acapella. And yes, it did stop too soon.
Please The Trees – Very eighties. I thought of Simple Minds and U2. Not overwhelmed but I liked the guitar.
Micah P Hinson & the Opera Circuit – Very intrigued. Never heard of him/them. I think I would like to hear more though. What a strange vocal and the big rockist climax would have been very unexpected if you hadn’t tipped us the wink.
Maria del Mar Bonet – That guitar opening put me in mind of “Girl From The North Country”. Lovely voice. Quite beautiful.
Madredeus – I really love this. Love, adore. Wonderful.
Panda Bear – More than a touch of Beach Boys in there. But yes, there’s the sound of the sea too. Nice floaty, seafaring sound to end on.
Now this, of course, was what was really needed:
That just leads me to think of this …
Mercedes Peon and Madredeus for me, another good set. And GHE is off To The Lighthouse – used to be a nice pub at Godrevy, and another further in land near Hayle, called The Bucket of Blood. It was a long time ago but hope there’s still a welcome, GHE!
Lovely painting, Zala. And thanks to Severin for restoring the tone to normalk
This set makes me think of Nigel Mazlyn Jones. A friend who used to live in Penzance introduced me to his music, and this song in particular reminds me of those times and illustrates the melancholy feeling Zala mentions above:
http://www.24listen.com/g65o_nJOsMA/nigel-mazlyn-jones-sentinel/
The sound isn’t great but it’s a beautiful song. An extra earworm!
Lovely, Ali.
Good call Ali, I’ve seen NMJ play a few times with long term collaborator Guy Evans (VDGG, Echo City) but it’s been a while since I listened, those albums are going to appeal to Roy Harper fans for sure.
Amy – I claim my ‘Spill points for who Please The Trees sound like: it’s Icehouse.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUVWT8tVKyw
If it isn’t them, then it’s a bunch of 1980s Scousers that I can’t quite pin down …
Good lord, i just got to this thread. And no time to listen either now either, off to the grind). As i’m not familiar with Icehouse – (heard of them, but nothing i recall) that’s a damn good call by the sound of them! I really liked that!
The other thing that’s sort of popped into my head was some of the Bunnymen. Going to get pilloried for that though.
Love the Madredeus, Zala. Just what I need at the end of a hectic day.
I had a few long bus journeys across Leeds today and I was glad of the company of these earworms. It’s past bedtime and I’m not sure where the evening’s gone, but I’m most grateful to all contributors and Zala for putting it together. The score for me was Iberia 3 – 1 Rest of the World, I loved the Spanish and Portuguese tracks and the Panda Bear grew on me after a few listens, I agree that the Brian Wilson homage comes off splendidly and is a good thing.
As Spike Milligan wrote:
I must go down to the sea again
To the lonely sea and sky
I left my vest and socks there
I wonder if they’re dry ?
Wow. I had no idea that Madredeus would prove to be so popular!
I like all of the songs, but Mercedes Peon and Michah P. Hinson just edge ahead of the others, for me.