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June 8, 2009
Shorties (Dirty Projectors, Songs Inspired By Catcher in the Rye, and more)
Billboard profiles the Dirty Projectors.
The Dirty Projectors' last two releases, "The Getty Address" and "Rise Above," were lo-fi concept albums built around inscrutable song structures. Given the Brooklyn-based indie band's track record, "Stillness Is the Move" -- the group's pop-confection first single from the forthcoming album "Bitte Orca" -- represents a jarring departure.
The band is also Paste's band of the week, while The Quietus and Tiny Mix Tapes review their new album, Bitte Orca.
Classics Rock! lists songs inspired by J.D. Salinger's novel, The Catcher in the Rye.
The Mail & Guardian profiles cartoonist and filmmaker Marjane Satrapi.
She accuses the West of cultural imperialism, saying it always reduces Iran to Hizbullah or The Arabian Nights; the flying carpet or the flying rocket. What she wanted to do in Persepolis was tell her story and show what it means to be Iranian for her.
Hypebot interviews Voyno and Hoover, authors of the new book (and blog), The New Rockstar Philosophy.
At Meet Me at the Gate, Nam Le answers reader questions about his short story collection, The Boat.
Scene Stealers lists the top 10 rock star cameos in movies.
HOBART interviews Jedediah Berry, author of The Manual of Detection.
JW: The comparisons TMD is drawing out in the world are pretty broad (and very impressive). For example, The New York Times Book Review said The Manual of Detection: "Read[s] like something lifted from Ray Bradbury's 'Dark Carnival' and dropped into a Kafka setting...." This novel strikes me as having a very diverse set of influences. Apart from Bradbury and Kafka, reviewers have drawn comparisons to Wes Anderson, Borges, Terry Gilliam and others. What's the genetic make up of The Manual of Detection as you see it?
JB: It's been a bit dizzying to see those names pile up. Some of them I did have in mind, and some of them were probably swaying me without my thinking about it. But the two writers whose influence I'm most conscious of are Italo Calvino and Angela Carter. Calvino for his precise, crystalline prose — which I strive for as best I'm able — and for the levity he brought to most all his work. Carter for her sense of the carnivalesque, the grotesque, the mysterious. Few things have been as important to me as the discovery of those two writers.
Read Berry's largehearted Boy Book Notes music playlist for the book.
In the Sydney Morning Herald, authors discuss the challenges e-books present to their intellectual property.
Help me clean out some room on my bookshelves and CD cases with this week's Largehearted Boy contest, where I am giving away 25 books and 25 CDs.
Follow me on Twitter for links that don't make the daily "Shorties" columns.
also at Largehearted Boy:
Online "best of 2008" music lists
Online "best of 2008" book lists
daily mp3 downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
weekly music & DVD release lists
tags: music books popculture indie news literature
