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From The Desk Of The Old Ceremony’s Django Haskins: The Vibraphone

The Old Ceremony, the orchestral-pop quintet Django Haskins has led since 2004, just released its fifth album, Fairy Tales And Other Forms Of Suicide. The band’s first LP for Yep Roc is also its first to receive a vinyl pressing, as well as its first to be released in Europe. In other words, it’s the perfect time for a provocative album title. Like many of the reinvented and rejuvenated performers the band now calls label mates (such as Robyn Hitchcock, Nick Lowe, John Doe and Paul Weller), the Old Ceremony makes music unencumbered by the ever-shifting demands of new and now. Haskins will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Old Ceremony feature.

Haskins: Nobody seems to quite know what to call the vibraphone when they see it in person. Marimba. Xylophone. Glockenspiel. But after helping to haul our mallet wizard Mark Simonsen’s set of vibes around for the past eight years, I’ve come to realize the vibraphone is ubiquitous: This American Life segues, Tom Waits records, car-insurance commercials, nearly every soundtrack every recorded. I’ve become convinced that the vibraphone is the stuntman of musical instruments. You may not know its name, but it makes everyone else sound better.

Video after the jump.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByfL-QhUQ1Y