Elvis Costello once said that writing about music was like dancing about architecture. If that is the case, then what is music about architecture? Asthmatic Kitty Records’ compilation Habitat, a collection of experimental electronic music written around the theme of architectural space, answers that question with two discs of original music by a variety of artists, and an equally varied different takes on electronic music in general.

I first read about Habitat on It’s Hard To Find A Friend. I was immediately sucked in by the idea of music written around and within architecture, and KO’d by the fact that proceeds went to Habitat For Humanity. And if that wasn’t enough, the power of the titles compelled me. Titles like “Your God Is A Lion Recently Fed, Drowsy” and “Utiliterranean“. Even “Staircase And Water Pipes, 42 Broadway“, which sounds more suited to a high-contrast black and white photograph than to a song, seduced me with its evocative loveliness.

The CD shipped promptly, so much so that it surprised me in my mailbox (you know the feeling). The CD was a present from myself, arriving early and unexpected. Rushing upstairs, I popped the CD into my laptop and  began to listen.

The first track, entitled “A Cross Section Of Clown Mountain“, is partially the work of Asthmatic Kitty’s most famous son, Sufjan Stevens, whose work introduced me to the label. This, his collaboration with cofounder Lowell Brams and Bryce Dessner, The National’s guitarist (the three together under the moniker Tidal River) is a captivating opener, expansive, stately, and rather epic.

On that night, not too long ago, the first CD had progressed to its third track, “Little Furnace” by Jim Guthrie, a mellow industrial track evoking the titular machine, which I imagine as a stationary Little Engine That Could. As I listen, I read the artist statements for each piece, each one only slightly less nebulous and impressionistic than the piece it’s meant to represent. “Little Furnace,” for example, is “combustion at the bottom of the sea onboard a tiny metal submarine. Each note competing with the one before it; reverberating heat in an otherwise cold abyss.” Sigh. Bliss.

Meanwhile, my roommate, watching television in the living room, asks me, “What’s that noise?” I looked at her strangely. Oh, you mean that semirhythmic clanking in the other room? Just some ambient music I’m listening to, in case you didn’t find my musical taste strange enough.

The tracks are almost wordless to a man, with a couple of exceptions. One of my favorite tracks, “A Long Way From Home” by Moth!Fight!, is one such, but the words are Dadaist, chaos-filled. “I flew … to the castle … which was the only way to get there … the only way was to fly,” a male voice declares before it devolves wonderfully into something that sounds like a schizophrenic blend of the Polyphonic Spree, Animal Collective and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah after three straight espresso shots.

According to Moth!Fight!’s statement, the song revolves around creating the atmosphere of a new home. This isn’t a conclusion that can simply be pulled out of the music, which for the most part lacks revelatory lyrics. Like most of the tracks on the album, “A Long Way From Home” relies on the narrative power of sound to create a sense of the exploration of space and architecture. The tracks use the statement, only posted online (not part of the album booklet at all) in the absence of lyrics, to sharpen and pinpoint the reader/listener’s understanding.

This leaves the tracks sounding something like architecture – without a specific narrative, but storytelling nonetheless. Definitely not for everybody, but I love.

I’ve got a couple of CDs in my “to write about” line, a result of a regrettable lapse in fiscal judgement which resulted in a CD-purchasing binge. But while procrastinating in the apt this afternoon, I ran across a couple of things that cannot wait.

Firstly, you already know about my unabashed love for the Fleet Foxes. So you understand how excited I was when La Blogotheque posted a session of the Fleet Foxes performing a medley of “Sun Giant” and “Blue Ridge Mountain,” filmed in an abandoned wing of the Grand Palais in Paris (pictured above). So this appeals to both the architecture and music geek inside me.

Then, I ran across (via Fuel/Friends) these Myspace Transmission sessions with Bon Iver. Including four songs (“For Emma”, “Flume”, “Lump Sum”, and “Blindsided”) and interview clips about his process, leaving the cabin, and (perhaps best) his tattoos.

And in related news, on Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands are a great collection of “Flume” covers on Youtube. It doesn’t get any better for fans of etheral harmonization than this.

LATER: Cute kid. A baby Amelie?

I know I’m jumpin’ on the bandwagon just a bit later than all the cool kids, but I finally up and made a muxtape. I think it’s a cool idea, although its limitations (12 mp3s, that’s it!) made me think harder than I’m used to to decide which songs to include on it. And God knows I’ll want to change everything in about a week.

But it was fun to make. I hope you enjoy!

Just had to note an article I saw on pastemagazine.com: the seventeen most awesomely cool record stores in these United States. As someone who still enjoys getting her fix of real CD (hate hate hate exclusive iTunes releases!) I love this tribute to the lovely institution of the record store. I’ve even been to one – Electric Fetus, in my beloved Minneapolis. One down, sixteen to go!

Adam, shopping at Electric Fetus, originally uploaded by massdistraction. (Note: I think this is the Duluth Electric Fetus, not the Minneapolis one. But still.)

So the potato boy tipped me off to an amazing music blog called I AM FUEL, YOU ARE FRIENDS, and upon opening up the site I instantly fell in love with it, because of This Post. A preview to the Counting Crows’ new album “Saturday Nights, Sunday Morning,” at the World Cafe stage in Philly, complete with Adam Duritz discussing the songs, talking about the structure and meaning of the two albums in one, and of the individual songs themselves. My favorites are probably “Insignificant” and “When I Dream Of Michelangelo”, although “Cowboys” has somehow snuck up there too. Hell, they’re all good. Listen.

“And I dream of Michelangelo when I’m lying in my bed
I see God upon the ceiling, I see angels overhead
And he seems so close, as he reaches out his hand
But we are never quite as close as we are led to understand.”

— Counting Crows, “When I Dream Of Michelangelo”