I Gave All Of My Money Away

Mahjongg “Vaxination” – This song seems as though the members of Mahjongg could not settle on which new wave band they wanted to sound like, so they opted to be all of them simultaneously. The chorus sounds almost like three or four different Human League songs being played at once, with the vocals passing each other diagonally. It’s a minor miracle that this song manages to be as catchy and cohesive as it is. (Click here to buy it from the Dim Mak store.)

Alan Astor “Dragons and Beasts” – Should it be a cause for concern that Alan Astor can be so straight-faced and convincing when he sings a song with lyrics expressing paranoia about dragons? Should it be even more distressing that the song in question is actually kinda sexy? (Click here to buy it from Alan Astor.)

Also: I will be interviewed today on NPR’s Talk of the Nation about halfway through the 3 o’clock hour, New York time. The interview will be live, so hopefully I will not stammer and um too much. Check the NPR website for local stations carrying the show, or NPR stations broadcasting the show online. (An archive of the program is here.)

For visitors arriving as a result of the NPR interview, here are links to the three blogs that I mentioned on the air – Music For Robots, The Tofu Hut, and Benn Loxo Du Taccu, which is the African music blog with the title that I could barely pronounce.