Forget the day-by-day schedule, I just heard this track and can't keep it to myself -- Modest Mouse's "Float On." The new single from their upcoming album, and the best thing they've ever done, it seems to me.
The guitars and drums jangle and flip in the background, happy to float on, with Isaac Brock squawking and rhyming in the front. It's like an amazing bird party that humans are never invited to, where there are strange bird drinks and strange bird rock'n'roll dances. And a river. And love. But you MUST TURN IT UP LOUD SO THE DRUMS AND BASS MAKE YOU CRAZY. holymoly! dan!!
So by popular request, day, uh, four of Moody Week features the one and only Kadane brothers, Matt and Bubba. Bedhead often get that "slowcore" tag, but really they just sound like indie rock to me, neighbourly and spirited - but yeah, I suppose a little down on themselves.
The group's coolest track is something they did with/via Macha, on the Bedhead Loved Macha EP. Namely, "Believe," a lethargic-and-lonely cover of Cher's 90s dance hit, replete with clumsily-pushed buttons on a telephone, and vocoder. It's probably the most widely-circulated thing that the band's ever done, though - I saw it pretty recently at Chromewaves, for instance - so if you're curious, you're just going to have to track it down yourself.
Because me, I want to push Bedhead's LPs: this stuff's very, very good. The AMG description of the group's "tones" seems pretty otm: "Somber, Plaintive, Autumnal, Laid-Back/Mellow, Hypnotic, Earnest, Melancholy." Although I'd spell "somber" "sombre."
Bedhead - "The Unpredictable Landlord". From the group's 1994 debut, What Fun Life Was, this is as upbeat as the band ever gets. The sound is typical, though - intercrossing guitar sounds, drums that tumble away to some sort of resolution, a vocalist (Matt Kadane) that hides inside the blur of guitar tones. WFLW is probably the most alive of the band's albums - the most spirited and colourful - but everything else they did as Bedhead is worthwhile, too. Bedheaded and Transaction de Novo are simply heavier on their feet, greyer, thicker with a sort of grief. (Unfortunately, the Kadane's post-Bedhead project, The New Year, was completely boring.)
Bedhead - "The Rest of the Day". My alltime fave Bedhead track, from Bedheaded. You can hear what I mean about the group's lassitude, I think - the way this song sort of trudges up a hill, leaves falling. When it reaches the top, though - as the repeated guitar strains peak - it soars with drums pounding, a bell/xylophone thing ringing, guitars beating like wings.
There are a number of Bedhead bootlegs out there, worth seeking out. There's a live show in Vermont, in particular, that sounds as good as anything on Transaction de Novo. I really, really wish I had had the chance to see them live.
Tomorrow: moody hip-hop. (I think.)