take another picture with your clickclickclickclick camera...

Bishop Allen. 'Nuff said.

Bishop Allen ~ ClickClickClickClick

Bishop Allen ~ Rain

We are stars colliding, we crash like lightning into love...

My Brightest Diamond, aka Shara Worden, is the beautiful, dark, indie-opera queen from Sufjan Stevens' label, Asthmatic Kitty. She was trained as an opera diva, but ended up applying her emotive voice to the rock scene. I think her music is impeccable - densely orchestrated, adventurous, moody - I find myself returning to her last album, Bring Me the Workhorse, over and over again. Her new CD, A Thousand Shark's Teeth, came out yesterday, and promises to offer more of MBD's magic.

From A Thousand Shark's Teeth:
My Brightest Diamond ~ Inside a Boy

From Bring Me the Workhorse:
My Brightest Diamond - Something Of An End

And two tracks from the Workhorse remix album, Tear It Down:
My Brightest Diamond - Freakout (Gold Chains Remix)

My Brightest Diamond - Golden Star (Alias Remix)

Visit Shara's website or her Asthmatic Kitty site to find out more.

*sidenote: Currently reading Michael Chabon's book Maps and Legends, and it's very much worth checking out, for his essays on the power of fan fiction alone, or this contemplation of his hometown in Columbia, MD - "Our neighborhood of Longfellow was relatively complete, with fresh-rolled sod lawns and spindly little foal-legged trees, but just beyond its edges my friends and I could ride our bikes clear off the edge of the Known World, into that unexplored blank of bulldozed clay and ribboned stakes where, one day, houses and lives would blossom."

There's something about Death Cab For Cutie's music that feels like summer - it's warm, it hums and throbs, and it begs to be listened to on a long drive with the windows down. Listen to "Soul Meets Body" and tell me that it wasn't born to be played into the sunshine:

Death Cab For Cutie ~ Soul Meets Body
"I want to live where soul meets body / and let the sun wrap its arms around me..."

Their songs even ponder the meandering drive, as in "Title and Registration:

Death Cab For Cutie ~ Title and Registration

You can find more free DCC music at their Barsuk label site: http://www.barsuk.com/bands/deathcabforcutie/media
AND
the media section of the band's homepage: http://www.deathcabforcutie.com/medias/

and they jump the General Lee over the Bill of Rights...

SubPop is home to some great musicians - we know this. But what you may not know is that they house a range of very talented comics as well. Take favorite sitcom/movie sidekick Patton Oswalt:

Patton Oswalt - Dukes of Hazzard

Also, the very sad and immensely talented Eugene Mirman, and David Cross:
David Cross - Certain Leaders In Government Look or Act Like Certain Pop Culture References

David Cross - My Wife's Crazy!

Also, Flight of the Conchords, which, if you've paid any attention to this, is a well-loved favorite of the Jessay. You can grab some of their tracks from the FOTC fan site. Enjoy the funny!

you get stuck in traffic with your car and fall asleep...

Continuing with the theme from the last post, I'd like to put forth Chad VanGaalen as a creator of some lovely summer music. At least my sort - this is the fuzzed-out, humid version of summer, where everything is moving fast and slow at the same time. This type of summer is full of beach trips, and earning and spending money with equal speed, and driving just for the sake of driving - milking the summer for all it's worth and wrestling with it to last just a little longer.

Chad VanGaalen - Flower Gardens

Chad VanGaalen - Echo Train

Chad VanGaalen - Clinically Dead

Chad VanGaalen - Graveyard

Chad VanGaalen - Traffic