1. Rogue Wave – Good Morning (The Future) [mp3]
   
2. The Morning Benders – Promises [mp3]
   
3. Frightened Rabbit – Swim Until You Can’t See Land [mp3]
   
4. Broken Bells – Vaporize [mp3]
   
5. Tuung – Hustle [mp3]
   
6. Lightspeed Champion – The Big Guns of Highsmith [mp3]
   
7. Final Fantasy – Tryst With Mephistopheles [mp3]
   
8. Charlotte Gainsbourg and Beck – Me and Jane Doe [mp3]
   
9. Ben Sollee & Daniel Martin Moore – Only a Song [mp3]
   
10. Four Tet – Angel Echoes [mp3]
    
11. Emancipator – Ares [mp3]
    

My weekly (well, not as of late) installment where I feature 10 of my current favorite tracks that everyone should hear.  One more until we reach #50!  Crazy stuff.  Enjoy the mix and, as always, let me know which songs especially stood out for all of you.

1. Philadelphia Grand Jury [mp3]
   
2. Langhorne Slim – Back to the Wild [mp3]
   
3. Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground – World’s Entire [mp3]
   
4. Office – Trainwreck DJ’s [mp3]
   
   (download their new album Mecca HERE for free!)
5. Headlights – Telephones [mp3]
   
6. Slow Club – It Doesn’t Have to Be Beautiful [mp3]
   
7. Sam Means – Yeah Yeah  [mp3]
   
   (this is a song from a recent soundtrack Sam did.  He’s the other half of the Format if you don’t remember.  Format = Sam Means and Nate Reuss)
8. Firekites – Last Ships [mp3]
   
9. The Dutchess & the Duke – Hands [mp3]
   
10. Alexi Murdoch – Toward the Sun [mp3]
    

1.  Owl City – Dental Care

2.  The Envy Corps – Screen Test [mp3]

3.  These United States – The Important Thing [mp3]

4.  Delorean – Seasun [mp3]

5.  Miike Snow – Burial [mp3]

6.  Jeremy Enigk – Mind Idea [mp3]

7.  Why? – The Blackest Purse [mp3]

8.  Barnaby Bright – Wake the Hero [mp3]

9.  Lonely, Dear – Everything Turns to You [mp3]

10.  Noah and the Whale – The First Days of Spring [mp3]

1.  The Morning Benders – Waiting for a War [mp3]

2.  The Silent Years – Madame Shocking [mp3]

3.  Regina Spektor – Folding Chair [mp3]

4.  Malajube – Dragon de Glace [mp3]

5.  Discovery – Can You Discover? [mp3]

6.  The Kooks – Shine On [mp3]

7.  The Whitest Boy Alive – Courage [mp3]

8.  Capybara – Magpies [mp3]

9.  Mountains Goats & John Vanderslice – Sudden Oak Death [mp3]

10.  Patients – Body Song [mp3]

Haven’t done a Perch Mix in a while.  Check out The Morning Benders and The Silent Years.  Both are great in their separate ways.  New Regina Spektor song.  New Malajube if you’re familiar with them.  Discovery is a new band from the lead singer of Ra Ra Riot and the keyboardist from Vampire Weekend.  The song in this Perch Mix is their take on Ra Ra Riot’s song “Can You Tell” and is a nifty remix indeed.  That Kooks song is in a commercial and it’s always good to have the song on your computer if you haven’t checked them out yet.  The rest of the mix is great, with a new track from Erlend Oye’s new band (he was in Kings of Convenience), a track from my good friend’s band Capybara, a new song from the Mountain Goats/Vanderslice EP, and a slow a capella number from yet another side project of Ben Cooper, who you know from Electric President and Radical Face.  Enjoy the mix and as always, let me know what you think.  Until next time…

Stand By Me

More videos:

-One Love
-War/No More Trouble
-Don’t Worry

Official Documentary Site / Playing for Change Youtube Channel

Buy the Documentary at your local Starbucks, or here if you wish

1.  Bishop Allen – Oklahoma [mp3]

2.  Steel Train – Alone on the Sea [mp3]

3.  Jenny Owens Youngs – Led to the Sea [mp3]

4.  Metric – Gimme Sympathy [mp3]

5.  Silversun Pickups – Growing Old is Getting Old [mp3]

6.  Lisa Hannigan – I Don’t Know [mp3]

7.  Manchester Orchestra – Please Don’t Go [mp3]

8.  Emancipator – Soon It Will Be Cold Enough to Build Fires [mp3]

9.  Saltillo – A Necessary End [mp3]

10.  Manchester Orchestra – La-Di-Da [mp3]

Anyway, I was just sitting here bored (hence the random rant just now), and remembered a cool music video Charlie showed me on Friday.  It’s a kenetic typography video some guy made while learning the After Effects animation software and what he came up with is simply stunning.  The craziest part is that he didn’t know the software when he started, and had clearly seemed to mastered it by the end of the project.  Look for how much more complex the video gets towards the end as his skills and confidence with the program are clearly seen improving over time.  Cool stuff indeed.

Blink 182 – Online Songs (kinetic typography music video)
[youtube N0LIvrxf-R0]
More kinetic typography I randomly found on youtube (some are NSFW):

-Pulp Fiction monologue
-Fight Club Chemical Burn Scene
-Who’s On First skit
-The Big Lebowski Jesus scene
-V for Vendetta

EDIT:
Just found a nice little typography video for a Ratatat song.  Obviously no words, but takes a more unique route representing the melody.  I like this one a lot.

-Video done to a Ratatat song

There’s like a hundred more HERE.  Typography done really well is one of my favorite things.  I’m sure there’s someone out there reading this that enjoys it as much as I do.  This post is for you.

I personally could care less about Pitchfork anymore.  I stop by once every few months to click on the myspace links at the end of reviews while never reading the review itself, because honestly, I find bands they rate 7.0-8.5 my favorite ones.  Sure, they’re pretentious, stuck up, indie snobs that are everything that is bad about the indie music culture, but you check in one every few months and that’s hundreds of new bands to listen to, whether or not Pitchfork liked them.  I stopped getting all worked up about Pitchfork a while ago, as most of their reviews in the 9.0 and above range, and oppositely in the super low score range, are usually laughable, but great reads for obvious reasons.  So, when I see a story like this, I simply smile and say, “I know, I know.  What can ya do?”  Of course, it’d probably be a completely different story if it were my music they were talking about.  But then again, I’ve got you guys and all kinds of people telling me they love it, so a Pitchfork writer bashing the heck out of it would probably make me happy because that means I’ve gotten big enough for Pitchfork to take note.  Even better, I hope Marc Hogan reviews it.  I can see the quotes now.  “Singing of long lost moments under Apple Trees, searching for love and finding it or losing it in nearly every song, and lyrics that border on infintile, the music of Honest Artist is pretty to say the least.  With piano, strings, and multiple singers.  But can I be honest for a second here?  The 3rd grade called.  They want their songs back.  -Marc Hogan”   Yeah, that would be awesome.  I think I’m going to write the first bad review for my own album once I get it done and released.  Why not beat everyone to the punch?  Plus, if I can pull out more of what I just wrote, it’ll probably be hilarious.

Anyway, the kids in Airborne Toxic Event wrote their open letter to Ian and the Pitchfork gang, responding to their hilariously harsch, just because they can, review, and as you can tell, I’m all about this kind of controversy.  I commend the band and their stellar letter writer for such a good response, and I encourage all of you to head over to the following links to read the letter, the review that spawned it, and the various blog reactions to this whole situation.  I can guarantee their responses won’t be nearly as all over the place and “what is he even talking about right now” as mine was.  But at least you got a few smiles from my Pitchfork bashing right.  Let do some more shall we?  Hogan’s response to this post:

“The Pelican’s Perch, yet another so-called music blog that’s really just more pointless stream-of-consciousness go nowhere music dribble in the already over-saturated terrible music blog landscape, has responded to our colleague Ian’s review of Airborne Toxic Event, a review I personally gave a 9.4 (does a review get any better than that, near perfection), and I must say, did this blogger even graduate from elementary school.  Such a shame for such a big tube on the internet to be occupied by such lack of talent.  Hey Kevin, the 3rd grade called.  They want their blog back.”

Ha.  I need to start a satire blog.  I think I’d be pretty good at it.  Anyone want to write one with me?  Here’s a few mp3’s from Airborne Toxic Event which I find to be quite good.  Early score from yours truly based solely on these two songs, 7.23/10

Sometime Around Midnight

Wishing Well

-Original Pitchfork Review
-Band’s Response Letter
-Ryan’s Smashing Life response
-Anyone’s Guess response
ATE’s Official Site / Myspace

1. Spoon – The Book I Write
   
2. Metric – Parkdale
   
3. Teenage Fanclub – It’s All In My Mind
   
4. Guggenheim Grotto – And a Tear Isn’t Such a Bad Thing
   
5. Cory Chisel – Home in the Woods
   
6. Ben Folds Five – Air
   
7. Whitest Kid Alive – Don’t Give Up
   
8. The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers – The Eventual Intimate of So Much Nostalgia
   
9. Radiohead – I Want None of This