MUSIC REVIEW: Great Northern

Great Northern
sleepy eepee
eenee meanie records

sleepy eepee may be short, but is it ever so sweet! Consisting of 5 brief songs, this prequel to Great Northern’s highly acclaimed Trading Twilight for Daylight, packs a whole lot of talent into a teeny (eenee) space. For starters, the vocals are pretty great. Great Northern’s primary songwriter, Solon Bixler, delivers his disaffected lyrics with a scratchy voice that is perfectly picturesque. However, the songs get boring somewhere in the middle of the album, on tracks like “summertime,” in which Bixler’s vocals are not heavily featured. But the album’s best songs – “loose ends” and “this is a problem” – feature memorable vocal melodies and skillful harmonization over a spare instrumental framework of piano, guitar, and percussion. And as if simple, adept songwriting weren’t enough to make an album great, producer Mathias Schneeberger has helped create a highly polished package, with sounds reminiscent of works by New York’s The Fireflies.

–Gregory Hyman

The Daily shortlist April 23

©2008 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Location: Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Art: ©MURAKAMI
Venue: Brooklyn Museum
Show Time: Wed to Fri: 10 AM to 5 PM; Sat to Sun: 11 AM to 6 PM
Food: Tom’s Restaurant
Drink: Soda Bar
Miscellaneous: Old Brooklyn Parlor

Celebrating the art of Takashi Murakami, this retrospective of the acclaimed Japanese artist shows more than 90 of his works, spanning painting, sculpture, installation, and animation. It’s the place where Susanne Vega wrote “Tom’s Restaurant,”but Tom’s restaurant is just as famous for its food. With a near insane breakfast menu, expect items like pancakes with apples and pecans to be brought to you by the sweetest waitresses in Brooklyn. Soda Bar is a great place for drinks. The alcohol is cheap, there’s surprisingly excellent food, and there’s even another room where DJs spin. If it’s too much, you can hang outside in the backyard patio under the stars. The Old Brooklyn Parlor specializes in old school drinks like the Brooklyn Egg Cream and the Lime Cherry Rickey, making it an excellent anchor to this neighborhood.