Tiffany Leigh's Videos (CrimeSpace) - CrimeSpace

Elvis Perkins: "While You Were Sleeping"

2007-08-11T22:07:37.245Z

If I saw this performance on the David Letterman show when it first aired in June 2007 and didn't know a lick about Elvis Perkins or the band that performs with him or his amazing album "Ash Wednesday," I'd have been flummoxed. Absolutely ambushed. It should have come with a warning: "The performance you are about to see is haunting and cathartic and will wring the tears out of you uncontrollably."

Watch this and be mesmerized. By how a band can work within the framework of the clinical and cynical "in-studio performance" and still wring hot wet tears and emotion from a song that's also shortened from its 6+ minute album version down to four for broadcast length.

It's his phrasing. Bob Dylan made it okay to communicate in non-musical ways. Talk your way out if you don't want to sing. Perkins's voice has that 4AM hushed last stand quality. You can imagine standing before him, exhausted, in the doorway of a dark bedroom where the sheets are cooling or amid the empty beer bottles at a wobbly kitchen table; the cadence of his words and how he pauses each lyric mid-sentence like he knows what he's saying is true, and that it may stop his heart if he does say everything, but also if he doesn't.

It's the music. Each element is introduced separately to build this aural groundswell of emotion and feeling. And with a shrewd dash of showmanship and wink to Talking Heads and their Stop Making Sense concert film, each musician takes the stage separately and systematically fleshes out the song.

It's the spine of the standup bass, the pulse of the light drumbeat, the subconscious of the harmonium, and the ray of hope that is the trumpet's final cry in the song's finale. Not even Letterman's laconic shtick can ruin the mood.

Every time I watch this I can't stop crying. It's EXACTLY they type of song you expect to find descending upon Jack Taylor midway through one of Ken Bruen's novels: a devastatingly beautiful work of sad joy, or joyous sadness, that doesn't reconcile, but compels you to keep it close. Expect shivers.

Editors: "Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors"

2007-07-27T13:32:57.792Z

From their new second album "An End Has A Start." This UK band channels nu 80's post-punk and is often compared to Joy Division because of lead singer Tom Smith's vocal similarities to Ian Curtis. Musically they also park in the same garages as early U2 and Echo and the Bunnymen. Their songs are sonic and majestic sprawls, and they are unafraid to be accessible. They're a less-standoffish Interpol, and a more Type A Snow Patrol. It's ballsy to release a single that clocks in at five-and-a-half minutes, but this gorgeous anthem justifies every last second of it to deliver a shivery crescendo. The video even manages to induce some soundtracky chills.

The Veils -- "Calliope!"

2007-07-01T18:16:57.365Z

If the Waterboys were slumming with fallen angels in a dive bar, this would be playing on the jukebox. The video is fantastic, with subtle animations which infuse an already sneaky joyous song with further magic.

Lisa Germano - "Red Thread"

2007-06-25T13:27:37.335Z

One of the best female singer/songwriters you've probably never heard of. She's carved out a niche of confessional, vulnerable songs with spooky, gorgeous 4AD aural landscapes borne from her lucid-dreaming subconscious: blooms of sound, piano, fiddle, bursts of ominous feedback, and strong melodics. Her voice is gauzy, nasal, and not traditionally musical, but never ever mistake it as slight. She communicates honestly and nakedly: soulsick, left in the rain again but not doomed to it, trying overcome her latest chill and pain. She can also lash out: Red Thread is a languid waltz with tinkling saloon piano -- as if you got unceremoniously dumped by your partner in Deadwood. Her sweet-sounding, singsong chorus ("Go to hell/fuck you") shows she's not feeling sorry for herself or catching up on Cathy cartoon strips. This live performance is straight out of Twin Peaks. Amazing.

The Long Blondes: "Weekend Without Makeup"

2007-06-22T20:55:30.157Z

Excellent arthouse Brit band. A magnetic Siouxie-esque lead singer -- they are retro without parody or irony, and with a scrappy raw sound.