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Moon on horizon: songs for the road

We, the jaded post-post modernist generation, are always in search of the neoteric. This can certainly prove most difficult in the realm of music. Are ...

Aug 31, 2013

We, the jaded post-post modernist generation, are always in search of the neoteric. This can certainly prove most difficult in the realm of music. Are you just plain sick of your friends pulling out your iPod/iPhone/Windows Phone/Galaxy Note and seeing docile looks of familiarity as they scan your playlists? Face it — we all love Justin Vernon’s crooning and the folksy and rebellious nature of Laura Marling — but with all this interest in the latest Indie find, I’m afraid their sonic power won’t do justice to your cause. You seekers of classy nonchalance, there is no better time than now to take a delightful sojourn into the wayward past of the original hipsters of music – those that never quite found their footholds in the mainstream avenues. Here is a top five list of songs that your playlist craves. Become the daredevil whose tunes no one will recognize and everyone will love.
1. "Blue and Wonder" by Richard Buckner.
[embed width="480 height="270"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIToWtcSLfM[/embed]
The surreal and sad desperation of a love wrought with whiskey, as told by the honey-graveled voice of Buckner.
2. “Plain and Sane and Simple Melody” by Ted Lucas
[embed width="480 height="360"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyTlo4mPbFc[/embed]
Within Bon Iver is the essence of this man. Perfectly earnest and unbelievably unknown.
3. “New Partner” by Palace Music
[embed width="480 height="360"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhqAfSzFDgs[/embed]
Described as a post-punk appalachian warbling of sorts, this song is bittersweet grunge at its prettiest.
4. “Church of the Pines” by Sun Kil Moon
[embed width="480 height="360"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ7xnMtv7uw[/embed]
If you’re one for cigarettes, record players and long drives along a coastal bay in winter’s grey, then this song is for you. Mark Kozelek is the most tender of poetic geniuses.
5. “Low Man” by Alberta Cross
[embed width="480 height="360"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWvFjL8vs5w[/embed]
Let this catchy, light and wonderfully exasperated hit be your infectious summer song.
Finally, a very special song for those of you who find the indifference of the urban sprawl tiresome and just need a friend to complement a cheap drink and Chinese take-out. If loneliness is blue, then Jason Molina was the deepest cobalt, singing, "My ghost in flames on the desert road / Horizon to horizon oh woe."
Eerily foreshadowing his own untimely death, he is haunted by the ghost of himself.
6. "Magnolia Electric Company" by Shiloh
[embed width="480 height="360"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nKgCvwhJhQ[/embed]
Keriana Piripi is contributing writer. Email her at thegazelle.org@gmail.com. 
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