i want to be in your living room. (with these mp3s.) i don't know. all i can say, kids, is that when you burn out, you burn out. nothing does it for you until something does it for you, and that's just it. that's how it goes.

what did it for me happened just a few days ago. i was standing in my dad's living room, having just given him Annuals's Be He Me for the first time. he sat at his desk and decided right there that he liked what he heard -- "oh i like this shan, i definitely like this" -- and it was the feeling i got at that moment that made me remember. accomplishment, auditory goodwill. that's what did it for me. and it's always what continues to do it for me, even when mp3s don't work and i sleep three hours a night and it's more work just to scrimp out reviews than it is to sit there, like my dad, and declare my approval of a sound. the thing is, i feel great knowing i can give you guys that sound. i feel good that my work isn't wasted, that it's read, that someone somewhere is looking up and telling me, even just in their heads, "oh i like this shan, i definitely like this."

what's always the drawback for me is the pixelated coldness, the unfeeling and lonely environment of cyberspace. it's a void that we turn to desperately for contact, and somehow it makes us float farther away. my issue with the blog is that i'm the woman in the big black space reading her proud little ditties into the microphone, spotlight on, papers rustling on a cold hard podium -- but i want to be in your living room. i want to make you a mixtape, come to your house and plop on your floor while i change discs for you and put on that album from that new band that's going to make your day, month, year-end list (sigh). those of you who've seen me and you and everyone we know will remember the cringe-worthy yet touching "WARM: 3-D and TOUCH in the DIGITAL AGE." it's an odd story, and mostly irrelevant here, but the script did its best to say, Hey. We don't know each other anymore. What do we do.

and for now, there's nothing i can do except pull together and remember that there are those of you out there who are really reading, and that's as damn close to your living room as i can ever get.

::::imagine me on the floor in front of your cd player (if it's perched, work with me here). this is my 3-song mixtape -- new material from artists you know or don't.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Yankee Go Home
- i'm really excited about the new material trickling out from CYHSY, because they weren't my favorite band in the entire world, and i did feel like they had a lot of room to grow. it's nice to see evidence of that growth and more of a concentration on subtleties, and other such notes. important: this track is from the February issue of UNCUT, before anyone gets uppity about my posting it. just let me know if any toes are stepped on and we'll immediately take it down.

Kaiser Chiefs - Ruby
this Brit rock sensation (about as big to them as Franz Ferdinand is to us, though FF are gods over there) is taking away that stripped-down, repetitive Strokes feel and replacing it with a little more maturity, a little more... oh, hell. they're going more pop. and i like it. i like it a lot.

Softlightes - Heart Made Of Sound
this is a repost, but it's very much on purpose, because this is a band that i'll be pushing at you from all angles. this single is amazing -- sometimes the piano is just literally breathtaking. original post here.

in the meantime, have you all heard any of Bloc Party's Weekend In The City? we can't post any of it here (yet) but hot damn! you're going to love it. look for some stuff through the hype, i'd say. remember, i'm Miss Advocator of The Whole Album, so just wait until you can hear all of it consecutively, as you were meant to. this is one of those bands that really deserves to get big big big.

hey, you know i love you all, don't you? it wasn't you. it was all me. i needed to catch up on a year and half's worth of movies, or something. but i'm back.

allllllllso. let us know if there are server issues, any problems with getting the mp3s, etc.

Labels: mp3s, reviews

  shan  2:22 PM  |  view comments (2)