House Playlist: Regina Spektor, Rocket Juice and the Moon, & Craft Spells

If “All the Rowboats” isn’t the first song to anthropomorphize the contents of a museum, then it’s at least one of the best.

House Playlist: Regina Spektor, Rocket Juice and the Moon, & Craft Spells

Regina Spektor, “All the Rowboats.” If Regina Spektor’s “All the Rowboats” isn’t the first song to anthropomorphize the contents of a museum, then it’s at least one of the best. The song opens with sharp blasts of percussion, Spektor’s rollicking piano mimicking her description of the rolling waves in a painting. The baroque instrumental breaks are the perfect complement to the singer-songwriter’s frantic inventory of oil paintings, sculptures, and other antique relics. Faces trapped in pictures are juxtaposed with lonely musical instruments propped up for display. Choosing a favorite line is a challenge: “God, I pity the violins/In glass coffins/They keep coughing/They’ve forgotten how to sing,” or maybe “Masterpieces serving maximum sentences/It’s their own fault for being timeless.” As the song comes to an end, the staccato percussion breaks down, like the sound of Spektor smashing the glass cases and letting all the prisoners free. This is baroque pop with a beat—and a beating heart. Sal Cinquemani

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Rocket Juice and the Moon featuring Erykah Badu, “Hey Shooter.” “[Tom Tom Club’s] production proves to the Paul Simons of the ’80s how to ebulliently transmute exotic sounds without whitening out their essence,” wrote Ed Gonzalez today in the just published first installment of Slant’s Best Albums of the ’80s. If this new track from the forthcoming Rocket Juice and the Moon jam collective is any indication, members Flea, Damon Albarn, and Tony Allen have taken a page from Tom Tom Club’s playbook. Of course, Allen did work with Fela Kuti in the past, and Rocket Juice did take out a hefty insurance policy by inviting Erykah Badu (who recently Tweeted her love for filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky) into the fold, so it’s really no surprise that the result is a loping, ungainly piece of funky pork belly. Eric Henderson

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Craft Spells, “Still Left with Me.” Craft Spells’ “Still Left With Me” manages to both sound right at home alongside the dreamy new-wave revivalists’ 2011 album Idle Labor and traverse uncharted territory. More energetic and electronic-based, “Still Left with Me” has a memorable main riff that delves deep, recalling the heyday of bands like New Order and the Cure. Resembling the crippled relationship that is the song’s subject, the first half of the track is lighthearted and playful, synthesizers echoing and percussion bouncing, while the second half is more intense, the lyrics more forceful. Justin Vallesteros sings about “uncertainty” and “mystery” with regret. Whereas much of Idle Labor focused on successful courtships (“From the Morning Heat,” “After the Moment”), “Still Left with Me” indicates that the forthcoming Gallery EP may be a portrait of darker, lonelier times. Mike LeChevallier

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This article was originally published on The House Next Door.

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