Post Rock - do not exceed the stated dose

I find the most interesting thing about Godspeed You Black Emperor are their song titles. Their pieces are dull in general, with only the occasional track that makes you go, "Finally! Something interesting." They aren't difficult, just boring. They are, in essence, a 25% efficient Tortoise, minus synths and electronics which aren't necessary to produce interesting music, but I find Tortoise infinitely more interesting with them.

Trans Am are OK but patchy - perhaps the Beach Boys of post rock to Tortoise's Beatles. Labradford occasionally show signs of excess but are generally welcome in any collection.

To Rococo Rot are better than the name suggests and their very presence signifies that the potential lover may have a superior intergalactic intellect and should be cherished, especially if their cerebral nature is counterbalanced by something akin to pre-1976 Rolling Stones, Charles Mingus, Otis Redding, or something just energy and soul.

Grizzly Bear and The Dirty Projectors

Lately I've been telling anybody who will listen that Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest and The Dirty Projectors' Bitte Orca are fab albums.

Because they are.

They're fab and they're sexy. As winsome as any consumer item hatched by a Danish design studio or French fashion house (especially if the French fashion house has a Japanese designer). You know, things you can buy to make yourself more attractive within the current cultural context.

I'll admit that these albums might up the 'excess' component of your collection, but not to the point of 'vainglorious excess' I wouldn't think.

Part of the appeal is how unclear the pronunciation of each title is. You and your date can giggle over it, and speculate, which will lead to all sorts of hand holding and wonderful, shared moments.

The first song on Veckatimest is my current favourite and I think it would do many relationships a world of good to get on board.

New York City Shite

I am so over the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and frankly most of those New York art scene post-revisionist-reconstructionist-punk/rock bands can just fuck right off.

Yes there was a time when I liked them, but that time belonged firmly in my mid-twenties when I still had a lot to learn about the opposite and the same sex.

I still have a lot to learn about the opposite and the same sex, but what I certainly do know now is that these bands are essentially just stylised shite dressed up in an aesthetic that somehow got absorbed into the zeitgeist.

It seems like a handful of people tuned their guitars differently, affected a pose and a snarl, and suddenly we had this whole 'art noise' genre that was intoxicating at first, and therefore perhaps important in its own way, but frankly those CDs should now be dusty or grouped together in a place that shows some of the shame that hovers over your past like the droning fuzz of a New York City concept.