Haus Arafna - I Did It For You
The bleakest romances sometimes make for the best songs, and vice versa. This song is both bleak and best, and so must be the romance that gave rise to it. Haus Arafna, the husband and wife duo who I speculated are the antipode of Tennis, recorded this album before their "You" LP, but wanted to put it out after because it was so different from what they had been doing. "New York Rhapsody" was written, primarily, for a fashion show put on by the designer Katie Gallagher. You can hear that this is a little more lend-me-your-ears than "You," a little more attuned to the audience and the pleasures of interaction with the audience. It's still dark, propulsive, desolate, but where before Haus Arafna's songs were monolithic, this new (old) batch has seams, cracks, pretty little ruptures all throughout. "I Did It For You," for instance, is a love letter written in black ink on a piece of black construction paper, folded and tucked inside a black envelope, but sealed with a wax kiss from a red candle.[Buy New York Rhapsody]