I Pick My Nose’s Song Obsession Friday, 7.20.07

I Pick My Nose, once again, puts together a great mix of tunes. I particularly dig Adrian’s pick, “Call and Response” by Or, the Whale. I downloaded the full album on eMusic and it’s a great listen from top to bottom.

Adrian:
Or, the Whale - Call and Response

Oh man, I just can’t get past this song. I’ll put on Lights Poles and Pines (which I talk about here) meaning to listen to the album, but I’ll sort of stutter at this song. It’s something about the pedal steel and the great harmony-laden vocals that do it for me.

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Scott:
Sir Richard Bishop - Zurvan
From Scott’s review of the album for the Stanford Daily:

The flamenco-tinged “Zurvan” begins the album with two minutes of dramatic guitar quotes, suspending the formation of the narrative for a good while. Bishop then transforms these figures into a more organized composition; flurries of notes gradually increase in intensity, and return to the same dissonant cadence just often enough to draw these fragments together.

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Oz (Me):
Bon Iver (Justin Vernon) - Skinny Love

Justin Vernon, aka Bon Iver, has this seemingly simple track stuck in my head. It’s a sincere acoustic song with powerful vocals.

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Natalie:
Battles - Atlas

I saw them play recently at Slim’s, and they were crazy! I love the weird warped vocals in this track (off their latest album Mirrored) and the playful guitar. And of course, the drumming is the center of this band (at the show he was front and center with a 7-foot cymbal…rock!). I really recommend seeing Battles live, it’s amazing watching them recreate their multi-layered songs. This song really makes me bounce around!

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Andy:
John Vanderslice - White Dove

I chose White Dove mostly because I spent several days with the chorus running through my head. That doesn’t always mean that I like a song, but in this case, I definitely do.I think White Dove is an interesting case for the new album - clearly a throwback to the low-fi-hi-fi of Cellar Door, but with some of the tricks that he learned during Pixel Revolt. I especially like the double-tracked vocals and the background vocal parts during the chorus.

Keep your ears open around 2:10 - I have this gut feeling that he’s not actually using vibrato there, but rather, key-gating the guitars like he did with the organ on “Dear Sarah Shu.” He’s a tricky producer, that JV.