Frog Eyes - "One In Six Children Will Flee In Boats [acoustic]". The original "One In Six Children" is my very favourite Frog Eyes track, and you can listen to it here, courtesy of Absolutely Kosher. Whereas the original's got a drunken and staggering allure - shiny, wet, jubilant - this acoustic version takes things to a calm, close place. Somewhere between Iron & Wine, Devendra Banhart and a Neutral Milk Hotel bootleg, there's a nobility in the way that Carey Mercer's voice goes small, in the way that the drums clatter, bang and knock in the rear. It doesn't feel drained of power, like a merely "mellower" take (as do a lot of acoustic interpretations) - it feels like a song with different things to say. When Mercer sings of "creaking," we can hear that sound more clearly in our minds; there's a new futility, a fresh slow sinking. Mesmerising. (From the band's fascinating new acoustic EP, Ego Scriptor. Read more Frog Eyes/Destroyer blogging at catbirdseat.)
Broken Spindles - "Fall In And Down On". Dark electro with a vicious dance beat and a streak of black-silver makeup. Kind of like Nine Inch Nails doing garage... there's a squelching bass beat and Petersen's serious/energetic goth voice, but then stabs of dissonant strings, a musical puppet jerk that recalls David Axelrod's "Suburban Hell" remix of "Rabbit in Your Headlights." This is the sort of dance music that plays at raves in episodes of Inspector Morse, but it's very good: what it lacks in outright fun it more than makes up for with fierce and spastic crests. (Broken Spindles has moved from Tigerstyle to Saddle Creek, of all places. But then I read that Joel Petersen plays bass in The Faint, and it all fell into place.) Offa the upcoming Fulfilled/Complete.
Jay-Z's new video, for "99 Problems," is both an entertaining story (love the biker dude Rick Rubin [thanks tim]) and a fantastic array of sparse, black&white imagery. By Mark Romanek, who did the excellent piece for Johnny Cash's "Hurt," really outdid himself here: gravitas mingles with play, bragadocchio with vulnerability [ie, it's Jay-Z]. Also, Hov gets shot at the end. [via aaron]
Sadly, the new Beastie Boys single (which I think is available on iTunes) is not very good.