Beirut has a new album, No No No, with a September 11th release date; until then, there's a single, "Gibraltar," with a video. Pitchfork sees this as an island of trash, and it is, partly, but there's more going on than that. The song is catchy, with more of a beat than some of Beirut's more melancholy tunes. But this video seems to point at what we so easily abandon. We walk away all the time: we move on, but we leave things behind. That loss accumulates, maybe on an island, maybe in our minds, and it turns into something gained. Certain things remain true, no matter our accumulation. The moon is beautiful--the way it makes everything blue. The tide comes in and out. Pigeons circle around what we toss. It doesn't take long before we pick up and move on again. I like this song a lot. There's so much gained in loss: there's so much truth in shedding.
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So, Wilco released a new, surprise album. Amazing! It's called Star Wars. I won't pretend to be a super-fan of the films: they're fine. But! Wilco! It's been 4 years! Jeff Tweedy explained the surprise by saying, What's more fun than a surprise? Good point! This is like arriving home and finding a note from the one you love. This is like getting a check in the mail. These 11 tracks are just goddamn good. Like songs you already know: like favorite songs. "Random Name Generator" and "The Joke Explained" and "Cold Slope" are why so many people love Wilco. These are short songs, and the album is over before you know it, but it's packed like a perfect poem, and you definitely need to read it again.