So, here I am. Back in London for a few days on my third week in a month long tour of DJ booths, airports, hotels and the skies between. It began in Paris then Paris became London and, just as suddenly, London became Berlin…

It’s typical of berlin that I would bump into friends Heidi and Rolf at the airport. We all share a cab to another mutual friend Robin’s flat to hear stories of what I missed over the Berlin weekend. Yikes. The Berlin weekend. But really, Berlin doesn’t stop for the mid-week. It’s Tuesday and I head off to the infamous Cookies and do a set with Robin David Gilmour Girls and James ‘Fucking’ Friedman and when that gig ends, I head back to the airport and onto a flight back to London so I can catch a 24 hour flight to Australia. 24 hours. Yikes. I can’t sleep. There’s a fat man leaning way back and the seat’s cramped and I can’t sleep. I wobble off the plane in rare form. But the weather is perfect. It’s winter and the weather is perfect! I forget the fat man and I start dreaming up ways to get myself back for their summer. I’ll go sailing. I’ll escape New York and the ice and wind and dark and go sailing in Australia!

Five shows. Four cities. But I get a needed break after the first two and I’m able to spend the bulk of my time with friends in Sydney where I even manage to see some sights and make some music in between a few interviews and radio appearances. And Australians actually seem to listen to the radio! No one I know listens to the radio in America. Here, even when I arrive at the hotels they know who I am. That doesn’t happen in America.

The next two shows throw me to Brisbane and back. Maybe I’m just suffering a few minor psychological derailments I think finding myself on another long, long, long flight between hemispheres and then, now, here I am. Back in the present.

I’m now staying with my good friend Ali in his flat just outside of London. For a minute, things are calm. I’ve a few days off again so I can enjoy this town in daylight for once and catch up on a few emails. But in between the friendly hellos there’s business and the emails, happily, are already leading to more shows here in the future. The dates on the calendar are getting cluttered again. Tomorrow, Athens. The next night, Warsaw and then, Bank Holiday weekend in London. I’m given the impression it’s going to be mental. A big party weekend and I’m with Mock & Toof, Gerd Janson, Nightmoves, Reverso 68 and Warm Residents. Meanwhile Holy Ghost!, House of House and Lovefingers will all be playing in the area so I think there will be bouncing around for sure. It’s going to be my last show and night in Europe.


But I only head back to New York for two days and then I’m crossing the equator once again. Brazil! My first trip to South America and I’m looking forward to it. I have no idea what to expect other than the promise of a potentially scary flight over the Amazon. It’s not only the water in the sink that’s swirling one way and then the other. The stamps are adding up and as soon as I get to New York, I have to have pages added to my passport in time for the start of festival season in a couple of weeks when I’m back at it all over again! My friend Gavin shows me his passport. It looks like a brick. It’s a heavy reminder of planes and the lack of sleep and hotels and drinking all of it running you down. Despite it, I think I’ve managed to take care of myself. The swine’s haven’t got to me yet! And this trip was the long one. All the rest of the shows this summer are short hops broken up with enough days off and chances to get back home and to work.

The traveling is fun. It’s exciting of course but I’m so ready to be in my studio working on things. There’s big ideas and remixes waiting and collaborations and maybe, just maybe the chance to actually spend time with friends in the hot muggy light of Brooklyn.

Making a case for actually taking the time to listen to an actual vinyl LP from end to end the gargantuan rich and warm new double album ‘Veckatimest’ from Grizzly Bear just arrived in the mail! Case made, we’re taking that time now.
‘Veckatimest’ is dense, and clever like the kind of record they used to make back when The Beatles were trading blows with The Beach Boys and the likes of “Odessey & Oracle” and “Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society” were falling through the cracks.  12 songs, 3 per side, each like a little pocket symphony complete with choral & string arrangements and touched as much by a late 60’s/early 70’s southern California sunlight as it is by the very English rain of ‘Atom Heart Mother’ era Pink Floyd. It’s a big record with big ideas but one that never cheats to challenge with needy pretension. Instead, the tracks are soothing and lovely proper songs that at times like single ‘Two Weeks’ astound with their pop-fantastic status.

But as well grounded and connected to their lineage as they are, there’s also something very immediately ‘new’ about things. Throughout, the songs maintain an honestly refreshing class while the angst hidden within them exists very much in the ‘Post’–post-punk, post-indie, post all those collective naughties-breakthroughs–in a way that seems to allow them the space to stretch out with confidence. ‘Veckatimest’ breaths and swells, rising from track to track with an assurance and confidence accumulating in the giddy crescendos of ‘I live With You’ and the simple melancholic elegance of ‘Foreground’. That song’s final unexpected and fleeting rise of choral harmony to conclude the record could sum-up so much of what’s right about the orchestration. Never once does the quote un-quote sophisticated production overwhelm the tracks or draw attention to itself for the sake of it. It might be a youth choir, but it’s so seemingly graceful and natural it’s hard to think of it as any more indulgent than the act of plugging a guitar into an amp. Conversely, it’s more than satisfying to hear a clever band getting by on ideas and real musicianship that moves well beyond trading on delay pedals, swaths of reverb, and lo-fi grit. And finally, everything about the LP, from the songs and sounds to the cover art, tinted paper of the inner sleeve and full color photo booklet, are of a similar, effortlessly-beautiful quality. It’s a quality you would hope still earns a place in this physical world.