What I learned this week: being sick while maintaining a blog stinks.

It’s incredible how a couple of days with a really bad fever can totally throw you out of any and all loops you have going. People always talk about “the” loop, but I’m of the opinion that there are many loops, loops for all sorts of different realities. Some are easier to jump back into than others. Some are more forgiving than others. Some you just hate more than others.

Just a thought. I may still be delirious from fever, so I’ll just move along and sound off the list of my five favourite songs I wrote about in the past week, in order of appearance:

• Sloan - I’m Not A Kid Anymore
• The Young Sinclairs - Cancelled Flight
• Junior Pantherz - On And Off
• Bart Davenport - Miami Afternoon
• Pomegranates - Thunder Island

Consider the quirkyness of the premise: a millionaire Yemeni sheik contacts a mild-mannered British fisheries scientist to devise a way to bring the sport of salmon fishing into the arid Yemen. As in transplanting salmon into a Yemeni river and ensuring they survive so they can be fished by the local population.

A vision of pure madness, one immediately surmises, as did said fisheries scientist Fred Jones in the opening pages of Salmon Fishing In The Yemen; and I was honestly expecting to get into some sort of comedy of errors situation where a strain of foolhardy decisions and quiproquos would lead us to the inevitable failure of the salmon Yemen project. You know, a “it’s not about the outcome, it’s about how you get there” thing.

But then I found myself believing that the project could work. For the book, in essence, is a testament on faith, and how faith is conciliated in our modern Western lifestyle. And as the main characters of the book, rational, career-driven, normal people, begin to find sincere conviction in the success of the project, I followed as well. What was once too grand, too immense to even consider had become plausible, feasible, if not logical then definitely conceivable. Fred Jones discovers the meaning of faith, one of personal ideals and passions free from doctrines, just as he discovers the natures of those who surround him. Such uplifting aspirations are complimented with a deft satirical exploration of Western politics, in all its frustratingly wry nonsense and obviousness.

When the songs cut from an already excellent LP are released as b-sides or extra material, and it turns out those songs are equally as excellent as anything that did end up on the album, it’s a tell-tale sign of the mettle of who we’re dealing with. And while everyone has been showering Santogold in praise for her debut eponymous album, her extraneous material has begun to appear, and it’s highly, highly indicative what kind of place she’s about to carve for herself.

I’m talking about Your Voice, which had mysteriously been kept off Santogold’s hot, hot, flesh-fusing hot album, but which is now released by RCRD LBL as a free, non-album download. It’s a phantom reggae jam, unmistakably influenced by Jamaican roots, but Santi’s irresistible voicework is soaked in flighty reverb, swirling perfectly amidst the smokey, spaced out, playful glitter, giving the whole song an aeriform dreamyness. It’s a refreshingly mellow cut that refuses to be conventional, yet remains wholeheartedly endearing.

Oh, Pomegranates, You sneaky little sneakers, nice try.

You really tried your best to try and confound me into becoming completely dumbfounded by that shapeshifter of a song you named Thunder Island. Fie on you, you Ohio songcrafters and your slippery styles which will enable the laziest of music reviewers to label you as “genre-defying.” Fie!

Yes, you thrive off the diverse musicality of post-punk, what with your calculated intros and deliberate executions, complete with progressive tempo increase and stylistic shifts. How clever are you to sound like a composed band looking to install a sonic space of melodious musical exploration, only to slip right into crunchy guitar-led punk inflections like the coarsest of garage bands, allowing the perfectly uneven vocals to rush over us like a raiding squall. Yes, one would probably completely give up on your case once the glorious mayhem of tribalistic percussion trounces the already forked nature of your song with unappeasable furiousness.

But I won’t. I’ll stick by and love your song for all the right reasons. And there is nothing you can do about it.

I am an absolute sucker for lemon pie. I love lemon pie. The combination of sweet and tart, plus the gelatinous texture of the yellow filling is unequivocal heaven to my palate. I could probably eat a whole pie in a single sitting. It’s probably the only food-type thing that I could ingest beyond the threshold of satiation. But the tragedy in this tale of love and adulation is an allergy to eggs which keeps me from eating the usual meringue topping which accompanies a proper lemon pie.

Yes, who would have thought that a light, fluffy, white condiment could be such an uncompromising wall of sorrow.

I do not feel so terrible now, however, not since I have the music of Bart Davenport in my life. Whatever tangy redolence I ached for seems to find some satisfaction in Davenport’s flowing melodies, and most particularly with a song like Miami Afternoon. Here we have your quintessential blissful soft-rock track, cut from the bedsheets of bossa nova and sewn together with the timelessness of analog, aligning effortlessly into a breezy, carefree, mellow flow of Sunday afternoon golden hits impact. A few warbling synths are thrown into the mixture to accentuate the spacey, dewy feel, but behold: the final third of the tune splendidly evolves into a bit of a psychedelic shuffle, supported by a suddenly very funky bass groove, which commands you to set your cold beverage down and be part of a warm moment of foot-flowing revelry.

Although, I have been known to dance for lemon pie before…

Even though fever flowed through my body, wave after chillingly hot wave, over the past couple of days, I could at least count on the natural soothing nature of music to make the erratic flow of my body temperature, and all accompanying symptoms, seem not so bad. It is therefore with a great amount of gratitude that I extend a “thank you” to Junior Pantherz, who helped keep my spirits up.

Listening time and time again to On And Off (from their upcoming LP Rejoice, Remain), I couldn’t help but imagine this Saskatoon-based group on the verge of a national break out, what with such a wonderfully melodious and insidiously dark track. In fact, On And Off song starts off on rather penetrative tones, as a solitary guitar picking off aching notes is joined by bereaved violins and glaucous horns. Its introspective nature is carried on by singer Terry Mattson’s earnest, haunting vocals, echoing thickly, as if resonating from within one’s mind. But however fragile the song may have been at its onset, it slowly builds into a strong, more assertive sound, guided by crisp, determined drums which uproot a fuller overall instrumentation. Even Mattson’s tone becomes more grounded, accompanied by an uplifting chorus of wishful vibrancy, as if the brittle burden of self-doubt could be lifted.

So I salute you, Junior Pantherz, with a crusty-lipped smile and a runny nose, for being there for me, and I can only hope that the rest of Canada’s music lovers will be there for you over the next year as well.

Does anyone else have issues with vestmental appropriateness? I have a terrible, terrible time getting my mind to settle on what should be appropriate in such-and-such a situation. Especially when it pertains with the business side of things.

I’m a very jeans-and-T-shirt guy. Sometimes, a groovy button-shirt makes it work, too. But usually, I slap on a nicely designed Tee with a pair of jeans and I am set. Totally against whatever they teach us on What Not To Wear, if you know what I mean. However, I do have an issue when it comes to meeting business clients, because anything that requires suit-like apparel just isn’t me. It doesn’t represent me. If I’m meeting a client, I’d go for a neatly cut, high-range pair of dark jeans, with a nice, pressed shirt and a blazer. But sometimes I wonder if it’s too inappropriate. But then again they’re hiring me to be creative, so that’s something I have to present as well, right? Would you hire someone to be creative if he dressed like a Republican?

And that’s just one example. Another dresscode issue would pop up if I were to go see The Young Sinclairs perform. What do I wear then? After all, musically, they draw from mid-1960s psychedelia with enough hallucinatory haze to take you on a trippy, far out rock jangle. The soft-spoken vocals are invitingly entrancing and easygoing throughout this treble-friendly, tambourine-sporting recording, which features poised instrumentation, refusing to go overboard in their execution or their effects, while being generous in feeling and colour. As the track ends with a beautiful, vibrating melodious guitar solo, the dulcet, spacey tune hangs around your consciousness like a star, as perfectly executed as any love-in era tune could have wished to make happen. So considering that, does that mean I have to pull out some sort of brightly coloured petticoat and combine it with a fluffy-sleeved shirt to be appropriate to see them live? God, the decisions, the decisions!

You know, I blame all my wardrobe insecurities on casualwear at the office, what with hippies becoming CEO’s and whatnot. I’m looking at you, Steve Jobs.