azeda booth: in flesh tones.

dl: AZEDA BOOTH - Big Fists (Z - YSI)

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It's easy to forget about the sad, slow songs when it's summertime. I feel like my ears and body instinctually crave upbeat jams that correlate with the sunny weather, barbecues, and beach-time. Even if it's a cloudy day, I'm grill-less, or I get to the beach so little that I still look Casper the Friendly Ghost's first-cousin...there's some sort of innate tendency to stray away from what I like to call "indoor songs"---the slower, sadder, occasionally experimental tunes I listen to while curled up under a blanket on my couch, reading or drinking a hot cup of tea.

This explains why it's taken me so long to write about Azeda Booth's debut album In Flesh Tones, which was released on Absolutely Kosher back in late July. It's not the type of music to fit in my playlist between BMX and Passion Pit, yet it's one of the best albums that came out this summer. It just, well, shouldn't have come out this summer. The album's opening track "Ran" has managed to get a good amount of hype since the release. But if that's the only song on your iTunes, you're seriously screwing yourself. The musical arrangements paired with Jordon Hossack's scary-ass "I can't believe it's not (but) her" falsetto throw you into a forest of emotional ambiguity. I can hardly understand a word he's saying, I'm not really sure if it's all necessarily sad, and it all makes me want to bust out into some modern dance moves that incorporate a dash of delicious movement.*

This isn't an album made for shoving hot dogs and potato salad into your face, so don't let your summertime musical instincts get in the way when sampling this track. Even if you have to wait until December to grab a copy of In Flesh Tones, you won't regret the purchase.

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* I love that Eiko Otake's wikipedia entry includes this sequence of sentences: "She is teaching classes in both the dance and east asian studies departments in addition to intermittently organizing delicious movement workshops. They love to dance!" More importantly, I love Eiko Otake.