Joanna Newsom

Young girl sings in strange screech-voice, wears renaissance outfits and plays harp. Not sounding like the latest hipster phenomenon? Well, it's precisely this inability to predict the next trend that makes the wearers of skinny jeans so effortlessly cool, and me (and you) left gasping in their uber-nonchalant wake. For reasons entirely too complex to be grasped by my behind-the-curve brain, it has been decided that Joanna Newsom is "in". While I quite enjoy the featured song, I'm having real difficulty getting on-board a whole album of 12-minute harp/vocal tracks. But seeing as how Erasure have featured in my recent posts, my opinion probably don't count for shit.

The Beta Band

Last night I watched It's all gone Pete Tong, a mockumentary about an Ibiza DJ who overcomes deafness and a mammoth drug habit to rise to the to of his game. The metaphor for cocaine addiction is a giant badger that makes Godzilla-eqsue noises. What's not to like? Anyways, the point is that The Beta Band did a good chunk of the score, and I was reminded of how much I loved their blend of laid-back indie/electronica.