Pitchfork Forkcast: Story: The Walkmen: "Sex and the City" readings [Stream]

Story: The Walkmen: "Sex and the City" readings [Stream]

While many of us still remember the Walkmen's note-for-note 2006 recreation of Harry Nilsson's legendarily soused 1974 Pussy Cats as merely "a curio," it wasn't until this summer that someone, namely Pitchfork's William Bowers, thought to describe the band's preceding album, A Hundred Miles Off, as a "classic audio novel." So you never know what hindsight will do. Daytrotter has posted a couple of recordings of the Walkmen that could count both as curios and-- more naturally than A Hundred Miles Off, in fact-- as parts of an audio novel, or at least a mildly trashy book on tape.

For whatever reason, the New York indie rockers saw fit to record themselves reciting scripts from TV's "Sex and the City", with frontman Hamilton Leithauser in the Sarah Jessica Parker role-- whether because he has a raspy voice and her Carrie character loves to smoke, or just because he loves to narrate, we're not told. In any case, the Walkmen can be heard here rattling off comically expensive brand names, describing a fantastical journey to the New York Yankees locker room ("Well, honey, his cup runneth over") and teaching us how to work through our feelings for our exes ("I always enjoy a good math solution to any love problem"). The sound effects, such as the clacking of high heels in the second clip, are pretty near priceless. And surely even Miranda would love "The Rat".

Streams:> The Walkmen: "Sex and the City" readings
[Pussy Cats and A Hundred Miles Off are out now on Record Collection]