Fucking in the Streets

The Free Sheep Foundation had a final party at its Belltown location
last Friday (it’s moving to as-yet-unknown new digs), but there wasn’t
much to report. FCS, playing their first show in several months,
have apparently dropped not just the “North” from their band name but
also keyboardist/guitarist/CD turntablist Mune Yamakawa. They’re
working on new material, but the bare-bones live setup (bass, drums,
laptop, congas) and Free Sheep’s not exactly overwhelming PA didn’t
make for any revelatory introductions. Foscil were skilled,
smooth, and satisfying, as usual—my colleague Dave Segal is
correct in his assessment that these guys deserve every bit as much
shine as their more raucous incarnation Truckasauras—but
by the time they played, a few rounds from the bar, as well as the
generosity of some of the Shameless crew, had my own FoCuS and
attention span a bit too impaired to fully appreciate their jazzy
electro acoustics. My bad.

‘Tis the season, but if you’re, like me, feeling more seasonally
affected than jolly and festive this time of year, you could
probably do without hearing any more Christmas songs. (And before y’all
call me Scrooge: I like Christmas just fine, especially the parts about
family and togetherness, it’s just that I can do without the shopping,
the Christ, and the carols, or the punked/indied versions of
same—apologies to Rosie Thomas’s presumably terrific A Very
Rosie Christmas.) Instead, let me suggest some albums and songs
that are perfect for the wintry weather without being about Santa or
Jesus or traditional spinning tops (this list will, for reasons of
space and time, be woefully noncomprehensive but hopefully a good
start).

At the first sight of snow each winter, there’s no album I want to
hear more than the Aislers Set’s The Last Match. I
have stumped for this album before around here, but it is worth the
repetition. From the obvious “Hit the Snow” and “Christmas Song” (which
gets a pass for being an instrumental) to less blatant seasonal jams
like “The Walk” and the title track, the whole album feels perfectly
bundled up against the bracing cold, faint sleigh bells keeping time,
vocal harmonies, guitars, and organ all alternately frosty and warm.
Sigh.

Swedish techno minimalist the Field fits here as well, not
just for song titles “Over the Ice” or “Sun & Ice” but also for his
fittingly frozen, slippery vocal microsamples and skittering beats. The
Pixies’ “Dig for Fire” comes to mind (and not just because I had
occasion to watch Singles recently—don’t ask). There are
other obvious picks: the Dismemberment Plan‘s ode to a cold,
lonely, anticlimatic New Year’s Eve, “The Ice of Boston”; the Postal
Service‘s entire chilly discography; Belle and Sebastian‘s
“The Fox in the Snow,” which I usually can’t stand but actually longed
to hear the other night walking across the ice after the batteries ran
down in my MP3 player. Newer and local: the acoustic instrumental
“Crushed Ice” by Exohxo, the new project from Speaker
Speaker’s Jasen Samford and Danny Oleson.