"They altercate in the mototrcade with the steely man in steely shades" (Perfect Songs #2)

Here we go again. Differing from the smooth, pretty melancholia of the last track, we're diving headlong into a pool of pure madness.Vancouver-based Frog Eyes make pretty much the weirdest music I've ever heard in my life. We're talking weeeeeeeeeeeeird. Carey Mercer sings like Robert Smith having a bad acid trip, and a speech disorder, and the music is a chaotic, apocalyptic swirl. It's Mercer's voice that really anchors the band, though- he can be pretty as hell sometimes, but he sounds more like a homeless doomsday prophet than anything else, twitching and shivering and yelping and howling. It can be scary, unsettling stuff, and I've been listening to their most recent album, Tears Of The Valedictorian, a whole bunch lately.

Not that all the stuff is great. When it doesn't work, it really doesn't work. And I thought that, when it came to Swan Lake (Mercer's project with The New Pornographers/Destroyer's Dan Bejar and Sunset Rubdown/Wolf Parade's Spencer Krug, who are geniuses in their own right), Mercer's contributions to the excellent album Beast Moans were the weakest. But "Bushels" is an absolutely amazing song, and that's what we're here to talk about

I've got no clue whatsoever what it's about. When Mercer wails that "he pulled the flies off of their wing to give the birch birch birch birch back its spring," I just shrug. But the song is a brilliant, sprawling, messy, cryptic epic. The guitars that tap, scuttle, brood, and meander throughout it, the occasional somber keyboardery (is that a word? I like it). And, of course, that ghostly, "ooooweeeee-ga-ga-ga-ga-toolaaaay"-ing wail.

So, if you want to just puzzle your brain, grab the song over here. Most of the other songs they recommend, especially the Hello Blue Roses and Swan Lake tracks, are also fantastic.