The Morning News

Listening • We Are All Made of Stars

You don’t realize how far you’ve come, how insignificant you are, until you look up and remember—oh yeah! There are things called stars! Two hundred stars are born every second, filling me with the sort of hope too big to be printed across a nation. Stars don’t rise and set—it’s us who blanks them out. And it’s us who links them with lines of light trillions of miles across, making constellations worshipping gods of old.

The Constellations are two bands, both of whom I discovered on the same day. Are they the same band? Oh Zeus! I wish. One featured on Said The Gramophone, and they have a song called “Oh Captive Princess.” It’s funky, with hundreds of bulbs flashing on intermittently, helping the plants grow as the gardeners drum their fingers on the watering can, wait to feed on the fruit, and begin the whole process again. Enjoying the band so much, I searched more and found another song by The Constellations called “Love Is A Murder” featured on Stereogum. (The song is in the comments.) The song features a cameo from Cee-Lo, one half of Gnarls Barkley. (I think he’s the Gnarls, and Dangermouse represents the Barkley.) It’s one of those songs I listen to 50 times in 24 hours. Instead of flourishing fruit think feasting on burgers grilled on hot-rod hoods before the big race.

Are they the same band? Could be. How will you tell them apart? How do you tell the stars apart? I don’t. I just listen, watch, and the read the sky, allowing other people’s lines to link everything up into a sometimes good, sometimes bad whole. What is art, except drawing a line somewhere? —Mike Smith, Mar. 6, 2009

» Listen to "Oh Captive Princess" at Said the Gramophone

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