I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t buy a bunch of music and swag on a European trip that started with a desire to go to a rock show. I tried not to overspend, but I cracked for a small stack of records at Rough Trade and a couple of CDs, notably the new one from the Noisettes. I was surprised by it, because I love their first album, which is pure garage rock, but this new one is soul-infused and has tracks that are downright disco.

I respect someone who switches gears before it gets boring, and I think the album works because Shingai Shoniwa’s voice really elevates even the less imaginative songs. Alas, Genius didn’t work on anything from their new album, so I was forced to use something from the old one. Click the link; it’s so worth it. Leave yours in comments.

Original song: “Don’t Give Up” by the Noisettes.

1) “+81”—Deerhoof
2) “Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse”—Of Montreal
3) “Those Dancing Days”—Those Dancing Days
4) “Lost”—The Mary Onettes
5) “Off The Hook”—CSS
6) “Friday Night at the Drive-In Bingo”—Jens Lekman
7) “Postcards From Italy”—Beirut (one of the bands I saw at All Tomorrow’s Parties)
8) “Knife”—Grizzly Bear (again! does Genius know?!)
9) “You Made Me Like It’—The 1990s
10) “Myriad Harbour”—The New Pornographers

Under the fold: cat pictures and videos from other albums I bought while overseas. I bought a double disc vinyl set from this series Eccentric Soul, which attempts to chronicle all the small soul and R&B labels that went up and down in the 60s and 70s. The first one is for Capsoul, and I figured a good place to start. It’s got some amazing tracks on it.

Marion Black—“Who Knows”

Figured I’d pick up Crass’s “Penis Envy”, since it was cheap.

On the CD front, I bought an album by General Elektriks while in Paris. I’m on the fence about this one. There’s a lot of good tracks, but it seems like a lot of filler. I need to listen to it more to decide if I’m missing something.

Dusty was hiding between the bookshelf and a chair, and when discovered, she hammed it up.

We got a Roomba dirt cheap on Woot, and while Dusty is largely indifferent, Molly hates it. This is her reaction:

Realizing that merely fearing it wouldn’t do the trick, she decided to let the new robot invader know that she had greater access to the dark side than a robot vacuum could even imagine.