Word: sparingly
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...started talking. I asked him what he does at his job and he asked me about my school and what I do in my spare time. We just chatted. He had a white sedan and he drove us to some boring Italian place, I don't remember where. I had spaghetti, it wasn't expensive or anything. Then we went to a love hotel to have sex. He chose the hotel, it was in Minamiinta, Yamashina, off a toll road. It was just a normal place and he picked the room...
...sleep and brush teeth together. Chinatsu quickly falls in love with Kyoko. They kiss and touch one another - Chinatsu shows the uninitiated Kyoko how to masturbate - but the latter recoils from physical love. A stronger movie would have started where this one leaves off, but it's a compact, spare tale shot in night-blue tones, which may ultimately be a metaphor for Japan's listless youth rather than a vigorous statement on sexual identity...
Arab Strap's sound is a mix of programming and instrumentation, and the result has often been spare beats and a repeated chord that crescendos in silence, or sudden musical murk. This format is not at all abandoned on The Red Thread, but it is supplemented with strings and piano. In "Haunt Me," Arab Strap has perhaps their most crowd-pleasing song to date, a melodic work built around a few spare lyrics: "So haunt me / Cause I know / You'll keep me / In to," a double rhyme with gory details...
While these subtle shifts in style--bitterness traded for objectivity, a new commitment to songfulness--differentiate this album from previous ones. The Red Thread is basically another Arab Strap album. Arab Strap consistently produces sad, relaxing music. It is spare and, despite its obsession with post-coital anxiety, satisfying and wise. The band takes up common themes that usually inspire loud, angry rock and treats them delicately, like craftsman, with mature, objective description. Arab Strap has dignified the "songs about fucking" genre...
Well, since we all seem to think that we'll win our respective NCAA pools (beware Crimson colleagues), I'll spare you the misery and just tell you that it's going to be Duke, Michigan State, Stanford, and Illinois that go to Minneapolis for the final act in the Big Dance. The Blue Devils will beat the Spartans 75-70 on April 2nd to win their third championship in 11 years...