Sixteen Horsepower - "The Partisan". A google search for sixteen horsepower informs me that it equals 11,931.1979 watts. Which is interesting, albeit not pertinent. This is a soft-but-shrieking version of the Leonard Cohen classic, sent to me by Matthew. Sixteen Horsepower are at their best when David Eugene Edwards is bellowing from a flaming field, so it's not till the song's smouldering bridge that this track really shines. Before that it's too shrill somehow, too bare. We need the flutter of acoustic guitar, the flutter of french, with the crashes and electric howls set far in the distance. While Leonard's lull is gone, Sixteen Horsepower make this song much more clearly about war - about raw death. The snarls of guitar are like bomb tremors, the hard consonants like artillery fire. All eyes are black. And as soft as the song is, it's trying very hard to shake you, to unsettle the patted earth over graves. Frightening, intense, Chiron's folk music. (From the French release of Low Estate.) [buy]
Candypants - "I Want a Pony". As promised, a song for any newcomers who have joined us from Metafilter. It's sassy sugarpop transposed from the early 60s into the late 90s. Lisa Jenio's sour voice is at once a plaint and a challenge - demanding and flirtatious. Drums and synths hammer things into a sparkly confetti box-fight, while Jenio stamps her foot in time. "I want a pony / I want a pony / I want a pony / now." It's when your cute girlfriend turns out to be a disaster, and an equestrian. Courtesy of Aurélien. (Also, Candypants' website is on Geocities, which is cool.) [buy]