gallopinging

[We Move Lightly, by Dustin O’Halloran]

By now it’s clear (at least to me) I’m officially a big fan of This Genre, whatever it’s called. Beautiful piano music with a dash of strings for a rainy day? Music to think to? Music to help tolerate that occasional bout of the city blues? Post-indie-classical? Choose the name that suits you, but don’t spend too much time on the semantics. Rather dive right in.

If you live in China, you might be able to catch Dustin O’Halloran live. If you don’t, you may just want to track down his beautiful new record Lumiere, coming out soooon on FatCat records.

[Too Beautiful to Work, the Luyas]

It’s been awhile since a first track has grabbed my attention like this one, from the Montreal-based (so not surprising) Luya’s soon-to-be-released record of the same name. Turns out the rest of the album is just as compelling, with sassy vocals, syncopation in all the right places, a fine mess of instrumentation, occasional bursts of joyful noise, and an overall, energetic* like-alot-ableness. Am especially drawn to one lyric that shows up in a few songs: “Listen to my fingers.” Perfect!

More Luyas tidbits: here’s an artsy video, and here’s a charming post from La Blogotheque about them.

If you’re in Chicago, see you at the Hideout on April 5th, when they’re playing with an Australian-born New Zealand-based fella with a famous pop star father - even MORE reason to go. Perhaps.

P.S.
Speaking of energy…hey Egypt!