Pick of the Week #41: The Ghost is Dancing

Often, I think our favourite albums are ones that get you at the right time and place. Hayden's Everything I Long For was the perfect album for me in 9th grade to moap in my room to about how my parents didn't understand, Beirut's Gulag Orkestar was a great album to listen to while I lived in a horrible, moldy, basement apt in Seoul, SK and it turns out, The Ghost is Dancing's Battles On has been a perfect fit when attempting to deal with people who take their recreational activites far, far, far too seriously.

This whole time-place-mood thing probably explains why, although the band was good enough to send me their CD in April, I hadn't written about it. It just never seemed like the time to put on the boy/girl rock/pop album. And much like last week's pick, That's the Spirit, it's an album that has grown on my steadily since the spring. Otherwise, the distinctions between the two albums really couldn't be much different.

While TtS had the whimsical nature of children's adventure stories like The Point and The Phantom Tollbooth, tGiD's Battles On is reminiscent of the sort of epic fights that you get into with significant others when you're in a really unhealthy relationship, or the kind of fights that you get into with your parents during adolescence. The album has that sort of ebb and flow of one of those epic fights: talking firmly using 'I' statements, raising your voice a little bit, yelling, crying, yelling while crying, taking a break to calm down, resume yelling while crying and repeat. These aren't just spats, lovers quirrels, these are the sort of fights that you remember years later -- the make or break sort of fights, you survive, it signals the beginning of the end, or, I guess, it's the end of the end.

And this, to me, is what Battles On really captures, but it makes you feel like whatever happens, whatever you said (or they said about you) you're going to get through it, be okay, and come out even stronger. At any rate, if you're going through some type of battle yourself and you like the poppy-'indie'-rock-boy-girl thing, then this may just be the album for you.

[mp3] The Ghost is Dancing - This Thunder
[mp3] The Ghost is Dancing - Old Children

Pick of the Week #1: Ketch Harbour Wolves
Pick of the Week #2: Rah Rah
Pick of the Week #3: Glasvegas/Animal Collective
Pick of the Week #4: Bruce Peninsula
Pick of the Week #5: The Antlers
Pick of the Week #6: The Darcys
Pick of the Week #7: Ohbijou (Swift Feet for Troubling Times)
Pick of the Week #8: Gentlemen Husbands
Pick of the Week #9: Chris Whitley
Pick of the Week #10: Alela Diane
Pick of the Week #11: K'naan
Pick of the Week #12: TOR/Sufjan Stevens
Pick of the Week #13: Timber Timbre
Pick of the Week #14: Justis
Pick of the Week #15: Hibiscus & Rosehips Compilation
Pick of the Week #16: Patrick Watson
Pick of the Week #17: Olenka and the Autumn Lovers
Pick of the Week #18: The Liptonians
Pick of the Week #19: Sunparlour Players
Pick of the Week #20: Black Hat Brigade
Pick of the Week #21: Howie Beck
Pick of the Week #22: Pink Mountaintops
Pick of the Week #23: Still Life Still
Pick of the Week #24: Hayden
Pick of the Week #25: Snailhouse
Pick of the Week #26: Dog Day
Pick of the Week #27: Ohbijou (Beacons)
Pick of the Week #28: Dog is Blue
Pick of the Week #29: Parkas
Pick of the Week #30: The Wooden Sky
Pick of the Week #31: Bowerbirds
Pick of the Week #32: Miss Maya
Pick of the Week #33: Ben Folds Presents ...
Pick of the Week #34: Mantis
Pick of the Week #35: Diamond Rings
Pick of the Week #36: The Wilderness of Manitoba
Pick of the Week #37: Asher Roth
Pick of the Week #38: Julie Doiron
Pick of the Week #39: Chad VanGaalen
Pick of the Week #40: That's the Spirit

Stuff I've been Digging.

I've been listening to a tonne of stuff lately, a lot of it good, but nothing has really, really, stood out like it has when I heard albums like Dead Calm Horizon, Illinois (and Illinoize), Gulag Orkestar, Hymns for the Happy, etc., etc.

I think part of this has been because I've been trying to listen to everything that comes in, and I'm getting a little overwhelmed; and, also, because I've been listening to a lot of stuff on my computer speakers, which are howdoyousay... shitty. Any commentary, like "hey - you should really listen to this again, or, this sounds a lot like..." would be helpful.

1. Handsome Furs Face Control
... sounds almost the same as the first one, which was good, but for me its just a little too much of the same.

2. Bonnie "Prince" Billy Beware
... I like this one a lot better than the last one, whateveritwascalled, but it hasn't stood out. Definitely need to give this one a couple of runs through.

3. Dog is Blue ... Makes Ghost Noises
... after two laps through I'm really enjoying how different/unique Paul's voice is. Expect a "review" and some type of email exchange - provided Paul is still agreeable - sometime in the next... month/3 weeks.

4. The Ghost is Dancing Battles On
... really, really, great boy-girl rock/pop.

5. Brother Ali The Truth is Here EP
... the beat from the first song "Real As Can Be" is awesome, but I can't remember anything past that. Bad sign? Probably... but it is the B-Sides from last year's album...

6. The Rest Everything All At Once
... Allan (awmusic.ca) is super high on this album, I'm warming up, and I'm expecting Adam - from the band - will give me his best sales pitch when we exchange emails this week...
[mp3] The Rest - Everything All At Once

7. Thunderheist Thunderheist
... not exactly profound ("youcanyoucandothistaptaptaptapthebooty"), but fun.
[mp3] Thunderheist - Sweet 16
I almost forgot, although you're all probably sick of me mentioning them:

8. The Black Hat Brigade Fathers EP
... which I've talked about ad nausea the past couple weeks...
[mp3] Black Hat Brigade - Zombie City Shake

... the odds of me getting to all of these? Saying that its unlikely might be the understatement of the year...