The bitch said yeah, the bitch said yeah

There hasn't been much to blog about lately because I went for one whole month without buying any new music. I didn't even realize it until I started to feel the strain and stress of a bitterly cold January. I finally got hold of Thom Yorke's The Eraser, but needless to say, it Mr. Yorke's mournful warbling didn't help my mood. It's an excellent album, yet I can't figure out if it's good or bad that it's exactly what I'd expected. I mean, I expected it to be excellent, but I guess I always want to be pleasantly surprised by music and it was anti-climactic to hear The Eraser at last.

The Eraser

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Did you know that customers who bought this item also bought:

Twin Cinema - New Pornographers
Apologies to the Queen Mary - Wolf Parade
Everything All The Time - Band of Horses
Set Yourself On Fire - Stars
Illinois - Sufjan Stevens

I am not surprised in the least.

I bought Immaculate Machine's Ones and Zeroes on a whim; I'd heard one or two tracks via CBC Radio 3 and they seemed to have the kind of energy I need for these early winter months. Like the New Pornographers, they're infectiously peppy, and have similar male-female vocal interplay. Kathryn Calder even stands in for Neko Case when the New Pornographers tour.

But whereas the New Pornographers have a '60s pop sensibility, Immaculate Machine has its roots in the '80s. That is, the former makes me want to dance like I'm singing backup in a girl group; the latter makes me dance like I'm in the prom scene in a John Hughes movie. In fact, I am convinced that they are the same band, but due to some trick of quantum physics, they are co-existing in the same time and space despite being from alternate universes.

Immaculate Machine website
Immaculate Machine on MySpace

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Cansei de Ser Sexy has replaced Justin Timberlake's Futuresex/Lovesounds as my new guilty pleasure. Any other time of year and I wouldn't have bought the album. In fact, CSS made little impression on me when I saw them open for Ladytron last October, other than they were a cheerfully sleazy low-rent Go!Team. (Not that that's necessarily a bad thing.) One line from "Art Bitch" sums them up perfectly: "I sell my crap and people ask for more."

CSS on MySpace

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Speaking of JT, there was some excitement at work on Tuesday as his tour bus was parked near the office and visible from our windows. That's as close as I want to get to him, even if he is bringing sexy back.