Current music: Amiina, Kurr; Current mood: intricate and intimate and charming and delicate

[ Editor's note: an early draft of this post may have leaked to the net prematurely. Someone, somewhere, is going to be fired over this. ]

Jim asked me what music I'm digging right now. That's one of those questions I'm likely to change my answer to not just from week to week but day to day. Hour to hour, some of those days. It's true, as I think I've mentioned in passing this week, that I'm sort of zany for the new Modest Mouse disc, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, which I think ranks up there with the most exciting rock records released this decade. Putting "Dashboard" and "Parting of the Sensory" and "Spitting Venom" all on one disc is the curve-breaking move that pisses off the other kids in class. And if you'd told me a couple weeks ago I'd soon fall for a Modest Mouse ballad, I'd have ordered you off my land. But then I heard "Little Motel" and well there you go, a Modest Mouse ballad, and I've fallen for it.

But enough of this malarkey: let's talk about Amiina.

They're an Icelandic four piece who are somehow so underground they don't yet rank a description on All Music. At heart, they're a string quartet; they've done back-up duty for Sigur Ros (whose album Takk I think is about the best thing Sigur Ros has ever done). On their own, Amiina play all other sorts of noise-makers, laptops and bells and harps and musical saws and that wineglass-rim trick (which they use to great effect) and things I can't identify but which look totally sweet when played live. The compositions they build up from these elements are intricate and intimate and charming and delicate. Pretty, if you don't let pretty connote dull.

I saw them open for Sigur Ros when the Hopelandic boys came through town, and it was obvious they had game, but just how much game I didn't recognize until I caught them headlining their own show last Sunday. They made so much more sense in an intimate small-club environment. I'll go so far as to call it one of my favorite concerts in recent memory--which is saying something, since I drove to DC to see Explosions in the Sky a couple weeks ago, who now own two of the four best concerts I've ever seen (Sleater-Kinney having walked off into the sunset with the other two).

I picked up a copy of Kurr, their debut album, after the show, and I'm pleased to say that while it can't match the strange intensity of their live performance, it does make for excellent home listening. Listening to it makes life feel nicer. Downright blissful, at moments. A mighty purchase, yes.

And, well, I mean, let's be honest here: they're Icelandic girls. Which, I don't know which ways your tastes run, but I for one am into that sort of thing.

As it is, I'm considering driving down to Cincinnati after work on Friday to hear them play again at the MusicNow festival. On the one hand, three and a half hours is a long time to drive to see girls who I have no hope of dating. On the other hand, looks like they're going to open for--and, I believe, play as the backup band for?--My Brightest Diamond. Shara Worden is one of my newest favorite singers, like, ever; check out Bring Me The Workhorse if you haven't yet; your reaction to the opening track, "Something of an End," will be used as a litmus test to determine whether you stay on my holiday card list. Really, there's some serious equation-balance-tipping action going on there, combining these two acts into one show. My car is begging me not to make that drive, but I think my brain is going to win that debate. Stupid brain. Stupid, awesome brain.