Not to run this space into Grizzly Bear overload, especially since I quite honestly haven’t ever given them the proper attention they’ve deserved in my own musical rotation, but since running into the video above yesterday afternoon, I’ve been as utterly disgusted as I am transfixed, and unless and until I work out exactly why that is I’m losing more sleep than normal.

First off, Grizzly Bear’s no stranger to that interplay of the grotesque and the gorgeous — see Wanderlust-directors Encyclopedia Pictura’s gloriously anatomical/biological video for their earlier single Knife, but there’s something even more deeply disquieting for all its initial mundanity about this latest Two Weeks clip, directed by Patrick Daughters (he of Feist’s moving sidewalk musical, and he who helped bring Marcel Dzama’s drawings to life for GB-related band Department of Eagles) that won’t unseat itself from my craw.

So what is it? There’s an instant uncanny-valley repulsion that takes hold as soon as their faces — which, seated left to right, go Chris Taylor, Ed Droste, Christopher Bear, and Daniel Rossen –  come into focus. Here’s my thought process, unfettered from actually google-searching to see if Daughters has already broken the video down in a million other places: first, there’s the too-prim glee-club cherubim anachronism of their get-up — they are, in their natural habitat, significantly more suitably scruffed. But are their eyes enlarged to Margaret-Keane-ly disproportion? Chris B., in particular, can’t be as doe-eyed up close and in person, but that doesn’t seem to be a trait that carries across the line.

And is it just stage direction that their eyes continually blink out of sequence? On my 13th viewing last night, I sat trying to deliberately ape the right-to-left delay, which is theoretically possible, but looks too natural here. So: could it be that Daughters shot multiple takes of their faces and composited their parts back on one head? If so, he did a masterful job of seaming everything together, as I couldn’t spot even a pixel-off shift during the whole take.

So is it, then, just the dichotomy of overcranked/normal-frame sequences put out of order, that their mouths move at human speed while their eyes take twice as long? Or simply that same unbroken gaze that made BOB’s Twin Peaks appearances so consistently horrifying? There is something subtley Lynch-ian about the video’s first half, something unsettlingly glacially paced — the unflinching OH!Mikey-ian stillness (and perhaps occasionally, ala Lynch, displayed in reverse?) — that your brain wants to work more quickly at processing, but the images won’t let it.

So what is it, then? As many times as I watch it I still can’t manage to work it out. Please, anyone with answers or theories, leave them via the comments below.

Last week I noted the release of Bloom, Brian Eno’s first generative music iPhone app, which — to say the least — is beautifully done. Less accessible, perhaps, than the anthropomorphic charm of the lively Electroplankton, but as duly hypnotic and engaging as you would expect. It’s safe to say, though, that less than a week out of the gate, Bloom’s stint as the iPhone’s musical vanguard has been lapped, beat, and trounced by an app that, under the right conditions, could herald a minor audio revolution.

That app is RJDJ, from what appears to be a team of mad European sonic scientists with a good amount of credibility behind them: team co-founder Michael Breidenbruecker was one of the original staff behind last.fm before its $280 million sale to CBS, who explains that the idea for the app had actually come previous to that company’s founding, but needed the near decade of technological progression to catch up to his foresight.

Then what is RJDJ? Pick apart the acronym — Reality Jockey, as much as Disc Jockey– and it shifts a bit more into focus: it’s a compilation-album-like framework divided into song-like “scenes” (each with its own cover art and individual composer), but as opposed to passively listening to each, RJDJ acts as a reality-altering real-time audio processor that modifies and enhances your surroundings.

Frank Barknecht’s Gridwalker, for instance, generates harmonious bleeps not entirely far off from Eno’s Bloom, but modifies their intensity based on the volume of the input. Sit quietly and Gridwalker slowly drips out its subtle tones, but move into a noisy crowd and it responds in kind with a more hyper pitched composition.

What’s genuinely surprising is just how potent its comparatively mild hallucinogenic powers are, particularly the ’scene’ from New Zealander (and former Sidhe staffer!) Damian Stewart. I’m (mostly) sure it’s not just the latent techno-hippie in me that’s suddenly shot into full bloom, but taking it for a test drive with a late night cigarette break was a revelation: his ‘Eargasm’ transformed every exhale into a glittering swirl of reverberating air and distant suburban dog barks into sudden colorful bursts. Essentially, if you’ve ever wanted to live directly inside that warm nostalgic analog echo that molasses-drips from every Boards of Canada album, your magic key is a $2.99 App Store download away, as witnessed by this demo video.

Beyond that mood altering gimmickry, though, the company’s intentions are as noble as they are lofty. Apart from the six scenes that come with the first RJDJ ‘album,’ the group has at least 10 more waiting in the wings for both free and paid future release. Interestingly, not all are simple sonic modifiers — many will introduce motion-controlled elements like turntable scratches, what appears to be a bit Generations-esque audio-ping-pong game, and phase shifting ala Reich.

The company fully intends to get new artists in on the aural action as well, hoping to evolve RJDJ from proof of concept into a true platform for new audio experiences, somewhat similar to how Harmonix is challenging the idea of passively listening to a band’s music as opposed to participating in it through Rock Band or Phase. As intoxicated as I currently am with the app, it’s admittedly too early to tell whether the company’s “sprints” will continue to churn out scenes as magical as their initial release, but even half as good would be 100% better than what we’ve never heard before.

I told you the one thing I know how to say, through the bright ringing drone of 8-bit choirs.

I’ve got a remarkably long history with The Mountain Goats that stretches back some 13 or 14 years — had frontman John Darnielle give me impromptu relationship counseling in my teens, used his Sweden (quite possibly the most gut-wrenching concept album of all time) and this brilliantly anthemic YouTube video as the salve for more than a handful of rough breakups — but never, in all those years, did I imagine  the day would come where he would sing from the perspective of a frightened and lonely Toad, quivering breathlessly in his underworld holding cell, hoping for rescue.

But now, courtesy Pitchfork, we’ve got just that, from his forthcoming Black Pear Tree EP in collaboration with Kaki King (who you should also hear here).

Mountain Goats and Kaki King – Thank You Mario But Our Princess Is In Another Castle

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

It’s light and quirky stuff, but worth the novelty if just for the celebratory refrain where Kaki joins in. See them both together on their forthcoming fall tour and hold your, you know, fire-flowers up when they hit on this one.

Back in the summer of 2007 I met with a lot of resistance when I predicted an as-yet un-Pitchfork’d Brooklyn band called Vampire Weekend would emerge as one of the Next Big Things, not so much on the quality of their music as their name alone. I say that less as an I Told You So (though I did!), but because with the tables now turned, I think the one thing that could stand in the way of Moody Motorcycle reaching the critical mass it deserves is the band name alone.

Human Highway, unless you’re a devotee of obscure Devo and Neil Young ephemera (a cinematic tie that Vampire Weekend coincidentally shares), strikes me as too soft – no consonants to give it that punctuating punch – to be as memorable as it should be. It took me no less than two weeks to fully commit it to memory, two weeks during which I was listening to almost nothing else.

The exact opposite is true for the music itself, which has the highest earworm count of any album I’ve heard recently, an attribute likely due in no small part to Jim Guthrie’s (left) career as a jingle-writer (his ‘Hands in my Pocket‘ for a CapitalOne Canada commercial was striking enough to spawn more than a handful of tributes).

Human Highway – The Sound

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

Case in point, the opening track on the just-released album, which has been right there with me as soon as I’ve woken up on more days than not. It’s perfect quirky sunny pop for summer almost ended, exactly the same stuff we’ve been missing since Nick Thorburn’s (right) prior band The Unicorns split in 2005.

Human Highway – What World

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

The same is true for What World’s more plaintive misinterpreted refrain, followed by what is surely 2008’s best use of timpani.

Nearly all of the tracks from the debut can be heard on the band’s MySpace, which I’ll leave you to with one ultra-valuable piece of earworm wisdom given to me by Margaret: the best remedy for clearing out a maddening loop of melody? The Flintstone’s theme, which has some mystical property that silences the worm without burrowing in itself.