Sun Kil Moon
Tiny Cities
Play Tiny Cities
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AMG Review of Tiny Cities
Thom Jurek
All Music GuideThe curious sophomore effort from Mark Kozelek's Sun Kil Moon -- with both Geoff Stanfield and Anthony Koutsos returning from Ghosts of the Great Highway -- is a tribute album to indie rockers Modest Mouse and is entirely made up of songs from their catalogue. That said, Kozelek treats these tunes as if he wrote them himself. The same blend of acoustic and electric guitars exist here as they did on the band's debut, but Kozelek's voice is mixed way up in an otherwise sparse production. Shimmering acoustic ock and country meld and wind together on "Neverending Math Equation," and "Space Travel Is Never Boring." The slow, off-waltz time of "Jesus Christ Was an Only Child" is, in a way, the hinge piece of a recording that deals with memory, childhood, and the emerging of a fragmented person built from these experiences. The allegorical tone of the tune suggests affinity, difference, and the small ways in which what we were taught when we were young opens up spaces in us where we can encounter the world. "Four Fingered Fishermen" acknowledges this with its small strolling blend of acoustic guitars and Kozelek's iteration of his witness of those different than himself. The beautiful and moving "Grey Ice Water," done mariachi style with backing vocals from Michi Aceret and Emily Herron, is the full articulation of seeing people and the world as somehow interconnected, no matter how random the encounter with them. Tiny Cities is so aptly titled, a recording of motion, the passing of distances, and the sometimes too-close experience of intersection, connection, and disconnection that happens in both open and claustrophobic environments -- check "Trucker's Atlas" for the rootless awareness of caged-in restlessness no matter how wide the terrain is to run and move. How it comes off is a seemingly original work, which makes it more extraordinary considering that these aren't his songs. This is a gorgeous recording, one that in a very intimate way opens up an entire universe of possibility for understanding, integration, and brokenness. A fitting tribute indeed.
Tiny Cities
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I picked up this album after seeing Mark solo in Nashville. He played these songs acoustic as well as some Red House Painter material. He continues to be one of the only songwriters I know who can keep me riveted for a whole album. He is also the only artist whose entire collection I own. I have to say that "Trucker's Atlas" is probably my favorite track of this album right now.. but the who...
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Reason #453 why the ocean scares me to death
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Don't get me wrong. I think the ocean is beautiful, but there is a reason I have lived in landlocked Ohio for 32 years. Things like this:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070222/ap_on_fe_st/new_zealand_colossal_squid_4I have this recurring dream all the time where I am floating on a tiny raft on the open sea in the middle of the night with nothing but black skies and water for as far as the eye can ...
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The best kind of boredom
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I am in fact bored on a Friday night in the heart of Hollywood. But it is a sort of self induced boredom. It's a boredom born out of a lack of money at the moment, Which can, and hopefully will be soon, remedied. The sort of boredom I was coping with in Ohio was much, MUCH worse. Here, at my beloved intersection of Vine and Santa Monica, I can open the door, walk a few hundred feet, look in any...
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Cover o'the day
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Sun kil moon covering modest mouse....boring video, great song
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Want to play MOG through your AirPort!?
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I just found radical piece of software called AirFoil that gets rid of the obscenely offensive restriction of allowing only iTunes to access your AirPort. AirFoil allows your wireless speakers to play sounds from any application on your computer!!! I have been blasting tunes all day long. Down side, after ten minutes of play, AirFoil adds an ugly hiss to your songs unless you pay 25 bucks for ...
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The Two Sides of Ocean Breathes Salty
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You have the one side of Ocean Breathes Salty, which is the version song by Sun Kil Moon on their album Tiny Cities. It's the version that makes you want to draw a bath and sit in the dark, except for a few flickers of candlelight dancing on the surface of the lukewarm water that surrounds you. And it doesn't matter if you shed a few cathartic tears because you've already chosen to dampen you...
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Tiny Cities
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Artist:
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I picked up this album after seeing Mark solo in Nashville. He played these songs acoustic as well as some Red House Painter material. He continues to be one of the only songwriters I know who can keep me riveted for a whole album. He is also the only artist whose entire collection I own. I have to say that "Trucker's Atlas" is probably my favorite track of this album right now.. but the who...
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 "Tiny Cities")
