The Emerald Down >> I feel like the sun, I feel like a wave

The Emerald Down - "Stars"
(Honest In Secret Records, 2002)

The Emerald Down were a shoegaze band from Olympia, WA who later relocated to Columbus, OH for some inexplicable reason.  Their only album is called Scream The Sound.  Some hipster doormat at Pitchfork ravaged it, so you know it's amazing and sounds nothing like Animal Collective or Neutral Milk Hotel or Daft Punk or Robyn.  This song comes from their 2002 or 2003 EP Aquarium.  The band seems to have fallen off the earth after that.  T.E.D. are obviously very indebted to Lush, My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, and other bands of that ilk & era, which is a very good thing.  I used to think the phrase "scream the sound" was taken from the beginning of Lush's song "Sweetness And Light," but it turns out I was wrong about that Lush lyric.  Singer Rebecca Basye is in the same league as Rachel Goswell (Slowdive) and Miki Berenyi (Lush) for breathy and seductive vocals with an icy edge.  I can't make out a single word she sings on this song, unfortunately, so I couldn't use a lyrical excerpt in the title of this post.  She was previously in the Olympia, WA-based punk/screamo band Mukilteo Fairies, which strangely enough also begat ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead.  I should post T.E.D.'s track "Heavier Than Ether, Lighter Than Air," for which T.E.D. even released an official music video, though it didn't actually show the band members, just some atmospheric shots of rippling water run through a color filter.  It's practically a Zen Buddhist experience watching it, so someone please add it back to YouTube!

Planets with similar climates: Slowdive - "When The Sun Hits" (1993), Band Of Susans - "Estranged Labor" (1991), Colfax Abbey - "Once In A While" (1996), Pale Saints - "Featherframe" (1992), Sonic Youth - "Becuz" (1995).


I got a chip on my windshield repaired for free under warranty down in Houma today.  In the waiting room at Safelite, they had the year-end issue of Vibe magazine with Keri Hilson on the cover which I bought last week (for the... articles), as well as this creepy ultra-right-wing pro-gun-and-"liberty" magazine whose name escapes me, though I think it had "Liberty" in its name.  I listened to two mix CDs that I had made in '04 and recently rediscovered, one of which was in my "Imaginary Soundtracks" series.  I walked around this outdoor store that sells statues for yards.  They had some sick Venus de Milos (replete with no arms) and some unimpressive swans.  The Oscars are this weekend and I haven't seen any of the nominees for best picture, though I did see Waste Land, which was nominated for best documentary.  I just don't like seeing movies in theaters, since you walk out of the building with no actual object in exchange for your money, just a memory of a film which is the same film that everyone else in every theater nationwide/worldwide saw.  Seeing a live performance is much more immediate and fulfilling to me, since no one else in history will see the same performance you saw on that day, so I prefer to go to concerts instead.