praying for pavement to get back together

The National – So Far Around The Bend

This band has to be one of the greatest in the world at the moment. I know, and understand, the difficulties (if not ludicrousness) of such a statement, but there’s really little else to describle these guys. The orchestration in the song is done by a 27 year old classical composer called Nico Muhly, and it couldn’t have been more apt for the track.

The track is from a compilation for charity (Red Hot Organization – works for prevention of HIV/AIDS) called Dark Was The Night. It also, amongst others, has songs from the likes of Feist, Sufjan Stevens, Antony Hegarty, Grizzly Bear, Jose Gonzalez, Iron & Wine, The Decemberists, Bon Iver, Yeasayer, Beirut, Spoon, Andrew Bird, Cat Power, Dave Sitek (from TVOTR) and others. Frankly, it seems as if it’ll be staggeringly good (you can hear daily streaming of single songs at myspace.com/darkwasthenight), and if you can afford it – which you ought to – you should get it.

The compilation consists of two discs, and the whole package is up for pre-order. At Amazon UK, it’s for £9, while at Amazon it is for $14.

Pittance I tell you, PITTANCE!

Coldplay’s new video

Now, despite someone inevitably proclaiming that i’m a music snob, I just want to say that though Coldplay are far from my favourite band, I’m nowhere near hating on them. They’re a good band, and definitely have their formula nailed. Besides, they’re supposed to write good music, no? And they do that in droves.

Anyway, one of the major criticisms most people chuck towards them is that they take themselves too seriously (e.g Viva La Vida is a stadium album that purports to be more). I don’t know if they do – their musical aspirations do tend to point towards that to be fair – but this video shows that they’re more than willing to laugh at themselves.

The link itself has an HD version also, just in case anyone’s interested: