Simon the Magpie - Meow Meow

Tonight is Eman's Halloween dance, so i'm getting some quality headphone time in the car. I tried to figure out a way to bring the turntable and record crate, but sadly i failed.

That's ok. We'll just listen to the cat album Meow Meow by Simon The Magpie. This one's easy to find, and no annoying youtube commercials. Just follow the link and hit play and enjoy, then give the funny Swedish guy a few dollars and carry it around on your phone everywhere you go, like i do.

Simon The Magpie is a Swedish DIY glitch-pop artist. He mangles and manipulates all sorts of instruments and electronic devices to make weird, interesting, even terrible sounds. His youtube channel mostly documents his circuit bending projects, but he puts music up on bandcamp. More importantly, he writes some of the catchiest tunes i've ever heard. Cats are a pretty common subject for his songs in general, and this is a whole album of songs about cats, thinking like a cat, and meowing. He's even uses a cat shaped toy keyboard.

Obviously, this is miles away from the "hippie rock" i've been listening to for the last month, but is it really? Sure there's an ocean in between no matter which direction you go, and the subject matter is a little trivial, and he can swear as much as he wants, but musically speaking it's the same experimental attitude that prevailed in the late 60s and 70s. Really, is a song about getting stuck in an elevator because you were chasing a laser dot any more trivial than Steve Miller singing about spicy peppers. It's not rock, but it's no where near as bonkers as The Incredible String Band, in my opinion. It's the result of 50 years of tinkering with sound and technology and the craft of making large musical ideas come to life.

Forget about genres and labels and being angry about stuff and enjoy this lighthearted collection of catchy do-it-yourself glitch pop.

https://simonthemagpie.bandcamp.com/album/meow-meow

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