Gig week concluded with an intruiging triple-bill. First up were the oft-hyped Junior Boys, who sounded exactly the same as the time I saw them in May. They still sound like 1983 New Order, although they did play a new one which ressembled a decidedly less creeped-out version of one of the instrumentals off of Ministry's "The Land of Rape and Honey".

Next up was Ratatat. In all seriousness, the best part of their show was the first minute and the last minute. Those parts contained sludgy one-note riffs that wouldn't have sounded out of place as the intro on a Spacemen 3 record. I had visions of an S3/Kevin Drumm dronefest with electronic beats pounding overtop. But it wasn't to be. Instead, it was 70's rock god guitar solo wankery with electronic beats pounding overtop. Note to aspiring bands -- please make my other vision a reality.

But the night clearly belonged to Mouse on Mars. With a live drummer/vocalist, plus live bass, plus live squiggly sounds and churning bass gurgles played on banks of electronic equipment, this stuff hit 500 times harder live than on record. The album is a pleasantly funky head-nodding experience, but the live show reaches deep into your chest, pulls the funk out of your body through your nasal passages and screams "DANCE, MOFO!! RIGHT NOW!!".

Gig week continued in fine (and cheap! Only eight bucks!) form Tuesday night. Do Make Say Think were their usual wonderful selves. I didn't catch the name of the opening band which is just as well because I don't feel the need to ever see or hear them again. Random squawks, long stretches of near-nothingness, and not a melody to be found anywhere made me glad to be "watching" their set from a couch on the balcony, as far from the stage as physically possible in that venue. DMST were loose and loud, stretching out the noise and drone sections to dizzying effect.

I've been at a loss for words about the sudden death of John Peel ... I only ever heard bits and pieces of his show over the years (thanks to Peel Sessions boots and internet streaming) and yet, I can recall his voice in my head without much thought. I suppose his voice is one of those you just subconsciously are forced to remember -- even though many North Americans couldn't hear his show every night, Peel's reputation still loomed large over a lot of the music they liked. So when we did get a chance to hear his voice, it slotted effortlessly into permanent memory.

Many North Americans first learned about him through the Peel Sessions. The most well known (The Smiths, The Fall, and so on) of them were readily available here. My introduction was the second Joy Division PS, which was not only my first PS but also my first JD recording, and was thus the touchstone for my subsequent adoration of that band. I'd sometimes open up the sleeve and just stare at the (incomplete) list of bands that had recorded Peel Sessions. The liner notes didn't lie -- it really did seem like anyone and everyone important had recorded a session for his show. "Peel Session" became a Grade A stamp of quality ... if you saw a Peel Session recording in Sam's or HMV, then you made a note to give that band a first or second chance.

Even in the age of internet, I didn't make a point to hear his show more often because it just seemed as though there was no hurry. He'd always be around. Funny how people always make those sorts of silly assumptions and then feel bad about them once a person isn't around anymore. I never heard the legendary Festive 50 (only read the charts). The last time I heard his voice was during Orbital's final performance -- which was on his show in the Maida Vale studios -- which for me (Orbital being one of my favourite bands ever), is a fitting way to close my books with him.

It's well known that "Teenage Kicks" by The Undertones was Peel's favourite song. BBC Radio 1, fittingly, played it as a tribute to him when they announced his death (I've listened to it twice today too). I learned it was his favourite from Melody Maker's "Rebellious Jukebox" column, in which music personalities were asked to list and comment on their favourite records. Peel said he got choked up every time he heard the song, and was physically incapable of speaking every time he played it on the air -- he always had to play a song immediately afterward. Besides the "choke up" principle being a fine way to identify one's favourite songs, it's notable that Peel was 39 when "Teenage Kicks" was released. People tend to have their strongest feelings toward the music of their youth. And yet, it's amazing to think that I might still be several years away from hearing my favourite song. And that's the way I (and many others, I'm sure) will remember John Peel -- as a favourite uncle who grew older and balder but never stopped being cool.

Gig week kicked off in outstanding form last night. Opening act Crooked Fingers (performing solo tonight as a Dylan-esque troubadour playing songs about screwed-up relationships -- romantic and platonic) sounded great, most notably with his second song which sounded so comfortable and second nature to me, and then I realized it was because the chord pattern was identical to Stereolab's "Tempter" (one of my fave songs by them), which put me more at ease with my deja vu.

The Delgados sounded far better than their last show here (April 2003), and I think it was due to the lack of a string section this time (which I wouldn't have thought possible, considering how much I missed the strings on their newest, "Universal Audio"). Simply put, they rocked harder and sounded tighter in doing so, and having another album of pristine pop to draw from obviously didn't hurt either.

So many recent acquisitions ... first, a shout out to the enriching power of black vinyl. Now, I can finally spin Starfish Pool's "Offday" at my leisure (and hear "Dead Acid Society" as it was meant to be heard ... oh my holy G-d is this a revelation, I can finally hear the echo and ringing in the background, it's a two dimensional recording suddenly inflating into three. This is exactly how I felt when I bought Philippe Cam's "Karine" on vinyl) and dance around the apartment to the synthtastic tones of M83's "Run Into Flowers".

The Low tribute album, "We Could Live In Hope", is absolutely brilliant in spots, whereas other parts leave me scratching my head. It is the year's foremost Verve Release, perhaps excepting The Magnetic Fields' "i". First and foremost is Mark Kozelek's jaw-dropping rendition of "Lazy", which completely overhauls the song into a laid-back alt-country footstomper, resulting in the most impressive cover version hijack job I've heard since Johnny Cash's "One". Except he did something even Johnny didn't do -- he took a song I didn't even like much to start with, and transformed it into something sublime. Daniel G. Harmann succeeds in a very different manner -- he stays very faithful to the original "Words", but that song is so gorgeous that it couldn't be ruined even if one belched the lyrics. A Northern Chorus (whose 2003 album "Spirit Flags" is now mine, long live Lake Ontario Shoegaze) pull off the amazing trick of slowing down "Slide" to sub-Low levels. Beautifully done. On the other end of the spectrum, we have Kid Dakota, who somehow forgot that the best parts of "Lullaby" are the ones without lyrics. Overall, Low fans will want to check this out, although it is certainly worthwhile to wonder why they chose only the songs on their ten-year old debut album. Non-Low fans (particularly ones who fancy themselves allergic to reverb overloads such as those on said debut) should find lots to chew on as well.

I'M A DUMBASS, PART 583: I remember browsing through Donnacha Costello's "Together is the New Alone" when it first came out, and I was unimpressed. Glitch, pop, meander around, etc. Well, I got this last week from my crack dealer (Sonic Boom, duh), and ... what was I thinking back then? It's a beautiful album, and as heartwarming sentimental glitchy albums go, it's surpasses Neina's "Formed Verse" as the best of it's kind that I've heard.

This week, I've been completely smitten with Matt Elliott's "The Mess We Made". It was his late-2003 "comeback" album following the retirement of Third Eye Foundation a couple of years earlier. I mention this because TMWM picks up more or less where the second half of "Little Lost Soul", the final TEF album, left off (I am also impelled to express my relief that Elliott's retirement wasn't permanent, even if TEF's is). The skittering breakbeats of that album's first few tracks gave way to the sublime and stunning track "Lost", capturing a feeling of being confused and disoriented in a dimly lit environment yet unable to stop oneself from spinning in circles in the attempt to take in the surroundings with a sense of childlike wonder. These moods cover all fifty minutes of TMWM, yet compared to LLS, it is a quieter and more folky affair. It's full of simple, tinkly melodies, often stripped bare with just piano or guitar together with brooding ambience. It's the brooding qualities that keep the album folky but never twee -- the Morr Music clan only wish they pull off something like this.

The instrumentation sometimes recalls Yann Tiersen -- whose "La Dispute" was brilliantly remixed by Elliott -- which oddly enough, makes this Elliott's most romantic release to date (find me a woman who won't melt while listening to "Forty Days", and you'll have found a cold-hearted woman). The sad and swooning "The Sinking Ship Song" (with vocals attributed to "additional drunkards") carries a vaguely Yiddish melody -- a nice surprise! All told, "The Mess We Made" is another fascinating chapter in the Matt Elliott canon. No more retirement scares, please.

This month is stacked with great gigs, and for me, the fun began tonight. Adem (a band led by one of the members of Fridge) were mellow, pleasant, and anodyne, playing country-fied love songs amid odd and engaging instrumentation (various glockenspiels, a drum that sounded like a table top, sticks -- along with conventional organ and guitar). It was enjoyable, but wasn't the sort of thing I can ever imagine listening to at home. I own just one Mojave 3 album, and I haven't been clamouring for more.

Given Aden's modest volume, the eardum shock between them and the absolutely sensational Explosions in the Sky were even more apparent. They've taken the best bits of Godspeed and Mogwai (obvious influences), trimming the fat from the expansive intros (read: boring parts according to their critics) while attacking their instuments with the aggressiveness and sound levels of the latter. And like Mogwai, their records give little warning as to how much they'll crush you when played live.

I found the bill for all these cassettes. My memory was poor -- they were three for two dollars, not two for a dollar. Not such a great deal after all.

Okay, enough sarcasm, back to the music:

THE POSIES -- AMAZING DISGRACE. I might miss the post-grunge years had all the music contained such sunny harmonies. This album is basically what you would expect from the people who wrote "Dream All Day". It's a worthy successor to "Bandwagonesque" -- if Teenage Fanclub had chosen to stick with rawk and record such a sequel.

T99 -- CHILDREN OF CHAOS. Amazingly, this isn't "Anasthasia" plus support! Some parts are shockingly modern -- "The Skydreamer"'s lushness wouldn't be out of place on Ulrich Schauss' last album. Of course, the sirens and vocals have aged, but as far as early 90's rave albums go, this absolutely kills the Church of Extacy record.