though i walked alone, i was sure there was somebody there on my shoulder quietly guiding me

School has been keeping me pretty busy and it's hard to want to write when I'm averaging 5 pages a day every weekday for 3 months so sorry I haven't been posting a lot.

Lately, I've been trying to get myself to listen to The Finches' release from this year, Human Like a House. It isn't nearly as memorable as the Six Songs EP, though every bit as pretty and sad. I really really wanted it to be better than Six Songs but honestly, that was expecting quiet a bit because the EP is so breathtaking and impossible to stop listening to. Human Like a House reminds me a bit of childhood nursey rhymes and bedtime songs, which is great except that I am so tired these days that the last thing I need is to be induced into a 4 hour nap.

The album is crafted remarkably well, though. It comes close to sounding as if it were recorded in my living room, not in a Kimya Dawson kind of way but in a really soft and charming way that preserves the clarity of every guitar strum. I also really like that, like Six Songs, Human Like a House has a song about Goettingen, the German city where the Brothers Grimm lived and Otto von Bismark went to law school. I'm not really sure why I am so amused by this, but it seems as good of a city as any to include on two albums.

I will post some mp3's when I clear some webdrive spaces.

In other news, look for the new Joanna Newsom EP, Joanna Newsom and the Ys Street Band tomorrow. It only has one new song, but I am kind of excited to hear the new recording of "Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie."