Jam of the day, and a rhetorical contemplation on music journalism: Yuck / "The Wall"

I present this jam, up front, sans debate or even really commentary, save for the title of the Daytrotter session wherein I discovered this tune: All The Old Is All The New.



So what did you think? Somehow, I had put off listening to Yuck for a while after they kinda "broke" in the blog world. (Blogosphere is not a word.) I didn't dislike the description of their sound, nor was I put off by the early and effusive press coverage. I just didn't care whether I heard their songs or not. There are only so many bands I can listen to and keep up with and ... that's that, really. About a month ago, though, I listened to their Daytrotter session ... on my phone! Because Daytrotter released an Android app. It's great, that app. Yuck were one of the "most played" sessions, so I gave them a listen. And I liked it. "The Wall", in particular, kinda stuck in my head. I listened to that session on my bike, riding around town, and it was catchy and hummable and singable and kept my mind buzzing and active and my head bobbing and my foot tapping and everything else that a good song should do. Did I think about the recycling of 90s indie rock sounds? No. Did I think about the complexity of lyrics, or lack thereof? No. Did I think about the ages of the band members, or their maturity, or musical history knowledge? No. It was a good song, and it really caught my ears for awhile, and still does. I like listening to it.

So can someone please explain for me this album review here, from The Quietus? This review says nothing about their music beyond how it's "retrogressive" and embodies "laziness". It's written by someone who admits that they "hated this kind of Lemonheads-lite, floral-dressed, clompety-booted, neurotic ninny inanity the first time round" and proceeds to dislike how it has come up in time and space again, and that admission was made in the first paragraph (including the teaser sentence along with that), so why should I lend any reasonable credence to the ensuing words? After rhetorically asking whether it even matters that this music is so "obviously" an uninspired rehashing of prior trends, the author responds with an emphatic, "yes": "It matters because there's absolutely no way this music could say anything to anyone about their lives in 2011. Try playing this album over news footage of the student riots and it will seems as appropriate as Mungo Jerry's 'In The Summertime'." Oh my god, or lack thereof. This music isn't saying something outlandishly weighty and everyone-join-handsy and meaningful for everyone at this current moment in time? Holy fuck, we shouldn't bother listening at all, because that's exactly what music should do, all the time, and anything falling short is not worth the shameful waste of atoms it represents.

The weird thing is, I'm not even a huge fan of this album, I just don't understand this review. Do people like to read complete thrashings of things that are "popular" out of some morbid fascination? I don't get that. Say something meaningful in your review, please. I spent the time reading it, and it shouldn't leave me feeling about it like the author felt about the album defamed therein. Why bother writing about it, if that's how you feel?

You should enjoy another song & video and forget about what you just read:

The best Pavement album ever?

That's a tough/easy question to answer depending on who you ask, it seems. Sadly, you might hear an answer of, "Who?", on occasion, but if you ask the right party, they'll either have an immediate answer, or they'll say that they can't really decide. At least, this is what I've noticed. The reason I'm bringing this up now is that the following exchange occurred at my place the other night during a weekly poker game. One guy was looking through my vinyl cabinet for something to play, found the Pavement section, and then this happened:


D: Without sounding too uncultured, what's the best Pavement album?

N: Slanted & Enchanted.

S: You said that rather matter-of-factly, N.

N: Well, that's because it's a matter of fact.


(Names abbreviated to unnecessarily protect the completely innocent.)

I chuckled out loud, as did some others around the table, but that was the extent of the discussion. I went back to focusing on losing at cards and forgot about the whole thing. But now that I think about it, I don't really have an immediate answer to that question, like N did. I can think of good sections of albums that I enjoy, a multitude of favorite songs and lyrics and guitar riffs and so on, but none of the albums particularly stand out as an overwhelming favorite to me. I'd like to investigate this further. I recently got the Watery, Domestic EP in the mail from an order I made with Matador Records (in addition to the Slow Century DVD) and that completely rounds out my collection of Pavement vinyl. I've acquired all of the LPs (Slanted & Enchanted; Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain; Wowee Zowee; Brighten The Corners; and Terror Twilight) at various record shops as I find them (all at pretty good prices for new vinyl, I might add). I know there are a bunch of other EPs and singles out there, but it seems like those 5 LPs and 1 EP are the "main discography", so to speak, or at least the easily acquirable ones. Sometime in the not-too-distant future, I hope to devote an entire afternoon (or more) to sitting down and playing them all in a row and settling on a favorite. Maybe one will jump out immediately. Maybe I'll be more confused than ever. Who knows, really? It will be fun, that's for sure.

In the meantime, what's your favorite and why? I'm really curious about the reasons for these types of decisions. Feel free to chime in with just an album name for the sake of a general poll, but I'm more interested in logical and/or metaphysical explanations, here. So have at it.

That Album Cover Game: Flaming Mountains / They'd Crush You If They Could

Maybe you've seen this silly but fun "game" wandering around on Facebook or message boards or whatever. I found an extensive thread on this game over on the forum at The Needle Drop and then a Facebook friend posted one, as well, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. The idea is: use the internet to generate a random band name, album title, and cover art, and then use your editing skills to put them together in an artistically menaingful way. There are specific rules for using Wikipedia and Flickr to get the components of your new band's debut LP, but I'll let you find them elsewhere.

Anyway, here's my result. I really like the band name (they might even exist somewhere!) and I fudged the rules a bit regarding the quote, since the last "few" words of my generated quote wouldn't make sense unless I used just the last two, but the phrase before that made soooo much more sense, given the band name :-D So I used that instead. Also, I was seriously doubting my artistic creativity and frustrated with my lack of knowledge of and skillz with GIMP (Photoshop-on-steroids for Linux) so my first attempt was quite shitty (and used the inferior quote, at that). But I settled back in and gave it another try and it came out much better. So yeah, here's my creation. And if you want to name your band Flaming Mountains and release an album entitled They'd Crush You If They Could, I'm all for it. I just demand royalties. Lots of 'em.



Band name source [Wikipedia]:
Flaming Mountains
Album name source [quotationspage.com]:
"I like weights. You know where you stand with them. Well, sometimes you're lying under them, trying not to let them crush you, but you see, you KNOW they'd crush you if they could. There's honesty."
---T. Campbell and Gisele Lagace, Penny and Aggie, 09-12-05
Photo source [Flickr]:
Jonah Larkander: "[red]"

Stream of consciousness album review: The Velvet Underground & Nico

For all of the music bloggery in which I've been participating lately, it seems like I've stayed away from album reviews and similar static assessments of a piece of music's effect on me and my mind and my ethos and my what-have-you; rather, I tend to stick to concert reviews and brief blurbs about songs that represent my temporal and visceral enjoyment of those pieces of music. However, I recently read the 33 1/3 series book on The Velvet Underground & Nico and it was fan-fucking-tastic. I've read some books in that series that were terribly boring and some that were absolutely fascinating, so I wasn't sure what to expect from this one and was pleasantly surprised. This is such an influential and seminal and important album and it would probably be so easy to fuck up writing about it, so I give mad props to the author for doing an awesome job with it. I actually read the whole damn book (it's only like 100 tiny pages) on the MegaBus ride from Pittsburgh to NYC earlier last week, and along the way, it reminded me of this thing I had written a few years ago, and I was only just able to refind the document now. I wrote this "essay" during college, when I was at home over summer break (I didn't remember when, exactly, just knew it was sometime at home). So yeah, long story short (or already short story even shorter), I smoked a bunch of weed and sat in my room listening to The Velvet Underground & Nico on my headphones and wrote a "poem" that was basically a stream-of-consciousness review of the album, in the sense that I just typed out what I was thinking at the time and what the music reminded me of, and how it made me feel, and all that jazz. Yeah, I know, it's a fucking hippie idea, but in retrospect, I'm really glad I did it; when I started to play the album, I had already heard it probably a hundred times, but I thought that I should record this listen, that I should commit to this time and think hard, and record my thoughts, and that's a hard thing to do. Seriously, I recommend that you do it for your favorite album: make yourself recognize why you love it and what about it makes you think (or not think, as the case may be). Anyhow, I caught all these words down on record, and thankfully saved them on my external hard drive for posterity's sake (or at least my own morbid retro-curiosity's sake). So here they are, those precise words I typed onto my laptop about 5.5 years ago when I listened to this fantastic album in the middle of the night in my room, stoned and carefree, letting the language flow freely and feeling the music. Or whatever. Just enjoy it. (I recommend listening to the album and reading along slowly, trying to fit the words to the moods of the songs; the paragraph "breaks" correspond to new tracks, so you can time it right via that.)

“experiment two: album review”
8/3/05

paranoia sets in right away
and in the sense more
literary
than figurative
it’s beautiful and slides right
through my ears and out my eyes
that close slightly
in wonderment
I’m watching out
for the world
the rising climb of heartbeats
settles in to rhythm
smoothly, with force
that calms the fingers
and now I know
the bangs are coming up next

a cadence rather
quick and controlling
that sways my eyes
and head
I see him dressed
in black
I see the man who strolls
and bounces, wild hair
flowing off the back
out from the straw hat
and I don’t seem to mind
the sense of time
that kills me
that I want to kill
that I can run away to
silence, muffled screams from
deep beneath the pillow
goodbye cruel father time
I’ll do you in with this here
jab
and sigh
here we go again
listen to both sides, the waves
of tangled melodies on
high
here she comes

back and forth they run
across the viewscape
watching where they step like
hawks that circle
vicious
dying prey
the men she sees are like that
to her, spent with life and needing
one quick pick me up
a tease, a fatal flick
of fingertips
that sets off bells
that ring and ring
but never wake you
fading away

shrieks
awake you now, from just
behind the blackened curtains
heavy with soot
and leather boot straps
what do you see?
I see her waiting you
fingering impatiently
while you humble
yourself on the rug
when is it time to pass out
like the homeless drunks
on the corner that spit
on the cats and expect
them to bow in return
to their majesties
taste this blood
this body
and drown me with
your sound
your voice
and plucking strings
and let us, weary, sick
and satisfied
play fool
to the devil’s snaring charm
shake me from my
sleep

quickly now
to the top of the mound
where we tumble back down
and right into the street
angels scream and battle
just above our heads for
recognition while the morons
in the alley just outside the bar
know nothing of the world-changing
minds that sit no more than
one hundred feet
from their sorry asses
the waitress wraps her toes
around the floorboards
flashing smiles that could
melt dark doorways with
the charm of sixty year old
birth marks
and pimples
why is it so much easier
to imagine the scum of
the earth
and the ones who threw it
all away
for fleeting passions

pity washes eyelids
from their tears
and plays with my emotions
now, approaching midnight
silky robes that float
behind the masques
of death will hold me
down no more
on Wednesday, Thursday
and Sunday’s doorsteps
where the friendless cry
and the bountiful
socialites
lie to the faces
of the very ones they think
they can believe in
and convince themselves of
every day
tomorrow will
be the same
no parties

here comes the genius
skating in on the wings
of a wavy tyrant
brandishing his fist
at the passers by mocking
his story, his written glory
of the kingdom
he never knew
and has been searching for
since he could ever know
what life was meant for him
the drops of white foam
dripping down the mouths
of the howling dogs will
not explain my desire
a thousand years pass
me by at sea
and here I sit capless,
clothes no longer
off my back but
rumpled staring back
at me from the closet space
like coughing flower buds
dying slowly
and reluctantly
thunder pounds the brain
now, smacking the rivers
of thought and pulling
at weeds and overgrown
patches of grass on the
lawn
I collapse on the front yard
and stare up at the sun
like a curious child

there it goes
all the time
around the sky
hit me, drop me to my feet
and clobber me
blue with the notion
of foggy minds and hazy
streets that call your name
over the passing clouds
flying away
and fly fly flying off
the lamp posts
like owls heading
for the moon

reflect me now
tangle me up in blue
and cross stitch the patterns
the jangles
and wind swept flower beds
into my eyes
twisting my mind
like the sunrise
choking on the mug
of hot coffee
that’s just too much
right now
I’ll be you tonight
you can be me
this time

ripping sunlight
off the roof tops
calling out loudly from
the dark, city streets
in the northern part of town
no one hears but the
gods
and the men who have seen
the darkness before
ugliness abounds
and there goes the dawn
running off
like a blindfolded horse
that will dash like
a madman for the white
picket fences
as grandma rings the triangle
for supper time
and the whistle calls out
goodbye to the lonely remains
in the fields
I choose to move on

I hitch-hike off the
dirt road leading to nowhere
but death
and dash to the airport
for a straight flight
to Paris
I feel green on the way
and vomit
like a sickened lover
in the metal bathroom
sky high
and ripped
torn by shards
of glass that scatter
from the circle
of rats that shiver and
scamper away
flying and landing
and resuming the journey again
no end in sight
for a weary traveler
of his forefathers’ lands
and glorified mountain passes
through the charted wilderness
the time has come
for the talk of endings
we sit calmly on the turbulent
cavalcade
as the other jet-lagged
passengers huddle in
the corner like beaten
dogs
I sip at a whiskey
and slowly melting ice
while you laugh and
flutter your eyes
but now we are gone
there is nothing
here anymore

2010 Yearend List: Albums of the Year

I guess I'll throw my metaphorical hat into the metaphorical ring, assuming that makes any kind of sense, metaphorical or otherwise. In compiling this list, I had the same sorts of troubles I had with my list of jams: Was this album even from this year? What did I listen to the most? Should I rank by frequency of listening, or musical innovation? Does anybody even care about my "favorite" albums from this year? Eventually, I put together a long list of candidates and tried whittling that down to a smaller list, finally settling on a Top 13. Yes, 13; I'd like to simultaneously break out of the Top 10 mold and dispel the belief that 13 is unlucky, all at once. Check out the short list below, along with accompanying blurbs of opinion, album arts, and video jams (and links to info about the artist and places to buy the album), then check out the "long list" at the bottom of the page for all of the candidates. And understand that I'm just one guy with some thoughts and this is my list of "favorites"; they're not necessarily the inherently "best" or "ground-breaking" releases of this annual calendrical period. That said, I like a lively discussion, so please comment with your opinions!

The Short list (Top 13):

13. The Soft Pack / The Soft Pack [Kemado]

This quartet of guys from San Diego used be known as The Muslims but after "a slew of nasty emails" they changed their name to the term for "a fake flaccid penis that can be worn in the trousers of someone who doesn't have a penis that wants to convince people otherwise". That said, their brand of rousing, fast-paced, fuzzy, guitar-heavy, pump-your-fist-and-shout-along-with-the-chorus punk/rock makes perfect sense. And it's mighty satisfying. These 10 songs clock in at just over 30 minutes, and only "Mexico" slows down the pace below "blistering". The whole thing leaves you wanting to reexperience it again, but even louder and faster.



The Soft Pack: Website, MySpace
The Soft Pack: Kemado site, Insound, eMusic, Amazon

12. Citay / Dream Get Together [Dead Oceans]

It's tough to have a 7+ member band and have the songs come across sounding uncluttered and clean; Citay manages to make these songs sound perfectly uplifting and fun, at the same time, and they deserve much praise. Ezra Feinberg lays down the main vocals with two female backers, while three guitarists play some delicious riffs born from bright, running-on-the-beach-and-collapsing-into-the-waves California sunshine. It's fun to listen to, humming along with the guitars and letting the mood completely engulf you. Tack on a wonderful cover of a Galxie 500 tune and you've got yourself a solid album.



Citay: Website, MySpace
Dream Get Together: Dead Oceans site, Insound, eMusic, Amazon

11. Dum Dum Girls / I Will Be [Sub Pop]

I'll admit it: I'm a genuine sucker for catchy garage rock. But when it's done really well and with an interesting twist, I feel like my interest is more deserved, somehow. Dum Dum Girls certainly fall into this category, and the beautiful female vocal melodies and soft, sweet, and slow songs (including a cover of Sonny and Cher) put them in a class above all others. They're completely captivating live, too; I felt like singer Dee Dee's eyes were burning through my soul while I watched them, and I'm not sure now that she even looked in my direction the whole time. No matter, listening to the album makes me feel the same way, and that merits a lot of artistic credit.



Dum Dum Girls: Website, MySpace
I Will Be: Sub Pop site, Insound, eMusic, Amazon

10. Dr. Dog / Shame, Shame [ANTI-]

I'm finding it hard to describe what's ultimately really solid and listenable pop music. Dr. Dog fits together the guitars and drums and piano and vocals so well and unlike anyone else, really. You can hear the influences of 60s pop and folk music and current indie rock and whatever else you want to hear, really, but the bottom line is that they sound like no one else but themselves, especially given the fairly unique vocal stylings of the two main singers. These songs make me try to whistle and sing along simultaneously, and I hate them for making me want to do both at once and necessarily failing, but I love them for making such infectious and enjoyable music. "I do believe that there's no more tricks up my sleeve"? I beg to differ, Dr. Dog!



Dr. Dog: Website, MySpace
Shame, Shame: ANTI- site, Insound, eMusic, Amazon

9. Love Is All / Two Thousand And Ten Injuries [Polyvinyl]

There's something magical about the songs of Love Is All, and there must be something special about this album, in particular, because since finding it randomly via some Polyvinyl "garage sale" I've gone back to their older albums but didn't feel the same smile-inducing wonder as with this one. Admittedly, Josephine Olausson's vocals are kinda "love it or leave it" but count me among the totally-infatuated/love-is-all-I-have-for-it camp; it's tough to figure out her words (they're in English, but the heavy Swedish accent and tipsy warbling make it tough) but I think it's a fun game, and if I get distracted by the awesome guitar/bass jams in the meantime, I'm not gonna feel bad about it. Seriously, tell me that you aren't instantly caught by the opening drum/bass riff of "The Birds Were Singing With All Their Might" or the strained vocals over a bare bass line in "Early Warnings" or the stop/start guitar/drum intro to "Repetition" or . . . I could do that for every song on this album, and that's hard to ignore.



Love Is All: Website, MySpace
Two Thousand And Ten Injuries: Polyvinyl site, Insound, eMusic, Amazon

8. Meeting Of Important People / Quit Music EP [Authentik Artists]

At first, I thought that maybe my liking of this album was influenced by how frequently I've seen (and thoroughly enjoyed) MOIP playing live, but after looking back on the playcounts on my media player and iPod and thinking for a bit more, I have to admit that I really liked this album and listened to it a lot. And for good reason! Garage rock, punk, grunge, folk, reggae, this album has it all, and everything's filtered through the super fun, leg-kicking, toe-tapping, rock-out-like-nobody's-watching stylings of Josh, Matt and Aaron. They've put together a slick (albeit short) collection of upbeat and original pop-rock songs, plus a fun cover of a 60s bubblegum tune. I could listen to every one of these songs over and over and over, and you should too.



MOIP: Website, MySpace
Quit Music: Authentik Artists site, eMusic, Amazon

7. Woods / At Echo Lake [Woodsist]

This might be another band where the singer's voice could turn you off completely, but I find Jeremy Earl's high-pitched, ragged, mic-effect-driven melodies totally endearing. It fits right in with the general lo-fi, psyechedelic folk-rock vibe of the band (and their label, Woodsist, as a whole, too), and it's to their credit that they achieve that without sounding like they're screwing up the audio quality for the sake of doing so; rather, it generates the perfect feeling of sitting on the floor of your friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend's basement, sipping whiskey straight from the bottle, and having a raucous sing-along jam session. Opening track "Blood Dries Darker" (see video below) really sets the mood for the album, jumping right in with a riffy psych-guitar solo and letting those falsetto vocals really shine. Other numbers run along that vein, like "Suffering Season" and "Get Back" and "From The Horn" (a fun raga-influenced instrumental, in fact) but now that I'm playing the album straight through again for critical purposes, I can't help noticing how many of these tracks are on the slower and softer side. It doesn't feel like a slow or sad or downkey album, though; Woods just sneaks those songs of respite in and you're caught up in the ride so you don't even notice. That's a testament to their power to wrap you up in their fuzzy, reverberating blanket of sound and keep you all comfy and cozy.



Woods: Website, MySpace
At Echo Lake: Woodsist site, Insound, eMusic, Amazon

6. Sharon Van Etten / Epic [Ba Da Bing!]

I kept hearing about SVE from the guys on NPR's All Songs Considered. I mean, Robin Hilton said that he cried at one of her SXSW concerts. I had to check her out, and I'm glad I did. If these 7 songs don't move you deeply and forcefully, then I just feel sorry for you, because you're missing out on an intense emotional experience that only music with this kind of raw honesty, brutal heartache, and beautiful sound can induce. Even listening to this one on my iPod, it feels like SVE is in the room with me, pouring her heart and soul into a cup, adding in some strummed acoustic guitar, some lap guitar riffs, some plinky piano and percussion, some dirgeful, drawn-out guitar (I think?) sounds, and of course her stirring and hauntingly beautiful vocals and, in the end, making a wonderful, languid mixture of sounds and words. It's amazing how I still feel the same emotional power every time I hear the beginning of "Save Yourself" or the crest after the long, opening crescendo in "Don't Do It" and . . . yeah, I really love the first 3 songs on this one since they have the most immediate pull (for me anyway) but the second half of this short album has been a real grower. Please, at least listen to this album once, straight through. If it doesn't hit you, sobeit, but if it does, you'll thank me. Better yet, thank her.



Sharon Van Etten: Website, MySpace
Epic: Ba Da Bing! site, Insound, eMusic, Amazon

5. The Black Angels / Phosphene Dream [Blue Horizon]

This is definitely a rehashing of 60s psych-pop, but I really don't care; they recreate that sound and feeling so well, right down to the 13th Floor Elevators-esque jug on "Entrance Song" and the microphone effects on the howling screams in "Telephone". At 36 minutes, this album is much shorter than their other LPs (59 for Passover and 70 for Directions To See A Ghost), a reflection of their choice to stick to quick, upbeat radio-single songs instead of the long and haunting and mostly instrumental stuff they've done previously. But I like that change and they've pulled it off magnificently; if I'm fixin' for some of their older stuff, I'll go listen to that, but for now I'm welcoming the new style. The guitar riffs in their songs are so tight and clean and catchy that I find myself humming along and playing air guitar immediately without even realizing. Also, despite the inherent "poppy" sound here, this album is still full of gloomy imagery and dark, sinister sounds. The opening track, "Bad Vibrations" (video below), has an awesome eerie vibe and lyrics about "eating hearts", and then there's a straight-up ghost story on "Haunting At 1300 McKinley". There are no bad songs on here, and I love the overall sound. Great stuff.



The Black Angels: Website, MySpace
Phosphene Dream: Band site, Insound, eMusic, Amazon

4. Beach Fossils / Beach Fossils [Captured Tracks]

I'll admit I wrote this band off early on for being just another surf rock buzz band. Lesson learned: never judge a band by its name. Beach Fossils sounds much, much better than the name indicates, and main man Dustin Payseur admits that it was a bad choice. No matter, I'm glad I finally gave this album a chance. It's truly simple (as in, not dense (as in, clean and uncluttered)) jangly guitar rock and simple (as in, not so complicated) drum rhythms, layered over with Dustin's vocals, and then everything's washed over with a little bit of fuzzy lo-fi echo. (Luckily, the record comes with a lyric sheet so I can actually understand everything.) It's a simple formula, I suppose, but it's so hard to do it this way and be infinitely repeatable. I've put this on the turntable so many times since buying it over the summer. At first, it felt like a perfect "end of summer" record, then it felt like a great "beginning of autumn" record, and now it just feels like a perfect "anytime" record. Part of what I like about it is the homogeneity and the way I can just listen to it straight through and feel the sound style envelop my mind. I honestly can't even name half the songs off the top of my head, which might make it sound odd that this is #4 on the list, but that just stems from the fact that I play this one and kinda space out. Favorite records don't require endless fandom on the order of memorizing the alternate touring bassist's mother-in-law's birthstone or shit like that, you know? Beach Fossils just has perfect little jangly pop songs and I want to listen to them all in a row and do it over and over again.



Beach Fossils: MySpace
Beach Fossils: Captured Tracks site, Insound, eMusic, Amazon

3. Lower Dens / Twin Hand Movement [Gnomonsong]

I'm very glad I happened to see Lower Dens live earlier this spring, but it meant I had to wait a number of months for their album to drop, and that was painful. They were awesome in person, projecting an incredible wall of sound from the stage, full of shimmering guitars and rollicking bass lines and metronomic drum pounding and ohmygod Jana's voice is super and sexy and amazing. Part of the allure of their performance and this album is the enigmatic nature of the muffled vocals and washes of guitar sounds. It feels like I'm talking to a guru who can only give me advice in cryptic nuggets of wisdom like "A donut with no hole is a danish". I think "Tea Lights" is a good example of that vibe, but some other songs have a decidedly punkier punch to them, like "A Dog's Dick" or "Rosie", whereas songs like "Hospice Gates" let the swirling, shoegazey guitars lead the way. In short, there's a lot of innovative song structuring and sound-crafting going on here, and all of it is incredibly catchy without fitting into any standard genre classification or sounding like any other bands. I like that. A lot. And I really love "I Get Nervous". It's so fucking pretty that it almost hurts:



Lower Dens: Website, MySpace
Twin Hand Movement: Gnomonsongsite, Insound, Amazon

[Side note: the folks of Lower Dens are downright nice people, too, and lots of fun to hang out with.]

2. The Spires / Curved Space EP [Beehouse]

Maybe it's strange that a 7 song, 23 minute EP could rank this high on my list, but that's a true testament to just how much I've enjoyed these songs. I'd been a fan of The Spires for a year or more since randomly finding them on the interwebz, and was actually eagerly awaiting the release of this one and downloaded it on eMusic the day it came out. It's markedly different from their previous albums which focused more on clean, sunshiney guitar pop and catchy sing-along strummers. This time, they took their whole sound and fed it through entire clouds of reverb and fuzz and it came out sounding even better. Sometimes, this type of lo-fi scuzz is a defense mechanism to mask poor songwriting, but not here; far from it, even. I'd argue that these are some of the best pop-songs the group has put together, but it just happens that they chose to smother these in delicious layers of guitar fuzz and vocal echoes. "Kent Studies" kicks the whole thing off with some foot-stomping percussion and it just never stops. Every song on here is catchy and makes me want to hum and sing along, if I could only figure out the damn words! Seriously, overall, this is the album I listened to this year the most, by far: on my iPod walking to and from campus, on my laptop in the office, on my speakers at home, etc. And apart from the overall appeal of the album, there are just tons of little moments that grab my attention every time and keep me waiting for that part in the song to come up so I can say to whoever else is listening with me, "Ooh ooh, wasn't that so good?" Examples include: the way the word "Telephone..." echoes away into the ocean of reverb on "Kent Studies", the way the guitars almost stop around 1:15 in "Curved Space" but then they kick back in again even louder, when singer Jason Bays breaks into "It's taking control" in "Dreamer In My Mind" (definitely belted that one out during a long car ride with the windows down), the entire song "Held", the drum fills leading into the choruses in "Orange Yellow", the feedback intro to "Today Was Tomorrow", and the way that spacey and mellow instrumental "Yellow Orange" winds everything back down, leaving you wanting to experience the whole thing all over again. I cannot wait to see what else The Spires can accomplish in this paradigm. Or if they abandon it completely, who really cares, since I'll still have this gem of an EP to cherish.



The Spires: Website, MySpace
Curved Space: Beehouse site, Insound, eMusic, Amazon

[Side note: The band posted some videos of live alternate takes of songs from Curved Space that sound a bit more stripped-down. They're different but also quite awesome. Check them out.]

1. Tame Impala / Innerspeaker [Modular]

Shamefully, this is another band I almost wrote off at first without giving them a fair shot. Yeah, I saw they got a good Pitchfork score and the album cover was kinda trippy or whatever, but for some reason I just didn't feel compelled to investigate, until the guy at P4k Reviews Reviews kept raving about them (the description of "a sumptuous slab of psychedelic joy" really piqued my interest). I sampled some previews at eMusic and liked it enough to download the whole thing, and I've been listening to it nonstop since. It really is a perfect psychedelic rock record, filled with shimmering waterfalls of guitar sounds and effects and glorious, pounding drum fills and skippy rhythms, plus some seriously druggy lyrics (opener "It Is Not Meant To Be" is ostensibly about a failed romance because she doens't like "sitting around smoking weed") that still sound as sweet as honey and marshmallows (but not together, eww). I'm incredibly impressed by the song-crafting here, but it's also an outstanding studio production. I can't imagine the kind of work it took to put all of the effects together in such a well-balanced way: nothing sounds too echoey or too dampened or too loud or too soft or anything that's not fucking perfect. Every song on here is outstanding, not a note or tune out of place, but the 3 song run of "Lucidity", "Why Won't You Make Up Your Mind?", and "Solitude Is Bliss" right in the middle of the record really steals the show, for me. For a while, I would just play that section over and over on my iPod when I walked around town. Lately, though, I've been playing it straight through at least twice a week, and I can't imagine ever not listening to at least a few songs on this album in any given week. It's that good.





Tame Impala: Website, MySpace
Innerspeaker: Modular site, Insound, eMusic, Amazon

[Interesting observation: Of these 13 albums, I own 8 on vinyl, purchased 4 on eMusic, and got 1 as a free CD at a live show (thanks MOIP!). So fuck you, people who don't pay for music.]

Honorable mentions:
The Black Keys / Brothers [Nonesuch]
Kurt Vile / Square Shells EP [Matador]
Mariage Blanc / Mariage Blanc [Self-released]


The Long List:
Beach House / Teen Dream [Sub Pop]
Beach Fossils / Beach Fossils [Captured Tracks]
Bear Hands / Burning Bush Supper Club [Cantora]
Belle and Sebastian / Write About Love [Merge]
Best Coast / Crazy For You [Mexican Summer]
The Black Angels / Phosphene Dream [Blue Horizon]
The Black Keys / Brothers [Nonesuch]
Blue Giant / Blue Giant [Vanguard]
The Books / The Way Out [Temporary Residence]
Breathe Owl Breathe / Magic Central [Hometapes]
British Sea Power / Zeus EP [Rough Trade]
Broken Bells / Broken Bells [Columbia]
Citay / Dream Get Together [Dead Oceans]
Deerhunter / Halcyon Digest [4AD]
Disappears / Lux [Kranky]
Dr. Dog / Shame, Shame [ANTI-]
Dum Dum Girls / I Will Be [Sub Pop]
Dungen / Skit I Allt [Mexican Summer]
Frightened Rabbit / The Winter Of Mixed Drinks [Fat Cat]
Charlotte Gainsbourg / IRM [Elektra]
Glasser / Ring [True Panther Sounds]
Holy Fuck / Latin [Young Turks]
Lohio / Family Tree EP [Self-released]
Love Is All / Two Thousand And Ten Injuries [Polyvinyl]
Lower Dens / Twin Hand Movement [Gnomonsong]
Maps & Atlases / Perch Patchwork [Barsuk]
Mariage Blanc / Mariage Blanc [Self-released]
Meeting Of Important People / Quit Music EP [Authentik Artists]
Moon Duo / Escape [Sick Thirst]
The New Pornographers / Together [Matador]
of Montreal / False Priest [Polyvinyl]
Amanda Palmer / Amanda Palmer Performs The Popular Hits Of Radiohead On Her Magical Ukulele EP [Self-released]
Ty Segall / Melted [Goner]
The Soft Pack / The Soft Pack [Kemado]
The Spires / Curved Space EP [Beehouse]
Spoon / Transference [Merge]
Strand Of Oaks / Pope Killdragon [eMusic Selects]
Tame Impala / Innerspeaker [Modular]
Titus Andronicus / The Monitor [XL]
Sharon Van Etten / Epic [Ba Da Bing!]
Kurt Vile / Square Shells EP [Matador]
The Walkmen / Lisbon [Fat Possum]
Warpaint / The Fool [Rough Trade]
Wavves / King Of The Beach [Fat Possum]
Woods / At Echo Lake [Woodsist]
Woodpigeon / Die Stadt Muzikanten [Boompa]
Wye Oak / My Neighbor, My Creator EP [Merge]

Jam of the day: "Marquee Moon"

Artist: Television
Song: "Marquee Moon"
Album: Marquee Moon
Released: February 8, 1977 (reissued 2003)
Label: Elektra (reissued on 4 Men With Beards)

Alright, this is an old song, but I've played it so many times in my life after first hearing it because it's so fucking good. I heard again it this past weekend while hanging out at a friend's place and listening to records, and I essentially got to reremember why it's so great. The whole album is awesome, really, but this has always been the standout track to me. Go ahead, play it while you read along below.



[You gotta know it's special because it bypasses YouTube's standard 9:59 length restriction :-D ]

This is by far the longest song on the album (it developed as an extended jam during their early live shows) but it also has the shortest lyrics, built around a strange night spent wandering around (presumably) NYC and encountering an after-dark thunderstorm, an ostensibly sane man hanging out by the subway/railroad tracks, and a Cadillac at the cemetery. The rest of its length is filled with punchy drum beats and waves of undulating bass lines, all forming a background on which Tom Verlaine paints the most wondrously uplifting, magically never-ending but finite, oh-so-close-to-punk-but-that's-debatable-and-has-been-for-years-and-who-really-cares-because-it's-so-fucking-beautiful guitar solo the world has ever seen. It starts out fairly simple, a playful up-and-down melody that meshes with the rest of the instrumentation so perfectly that you think that's just how it will go, but then it edges ever so slightly upward, pulling you with it. And then it goes a little higher, and a little higher, and .... Whenever I listen to it, I can feel my posture straighten and my neck stretch out and my head rise a little and I'll be darned if I don't think that I'm just about standing up straight and levitating a few inches off the ground but, no, I'm still here in my chair by the time the solo ends and the first verse rolls back around for a reprise.

The best music isn't just music, it's sound and an effect, and this is one of the more compelling instances of that I've ever experienced. When a friend of mine first shared this glorious album with me in college I listened to it on repeat for a few weeks. It was eye-opening. I'd played it fairly often over the years, too, and was delighted to stumble on a sweet used vinyl copy at Wicked Discs earlier this year. It's made a great addition to the record collection, although there's a minor skip in the first few minutes of this song after the first verse, and another one in the middle of the lengthy guitar solo I described. Boo. But I don't really care, it's just part of the experience now. (Also, apparently the original vinyl faded the song out at 9:58 due to length restrictions, but reissues, like mine, keep the full 10:40 length.) If you're ever at the Brillobox on a Wednesday night before Pub Quiz and hear this one on the jukebox downstairs, it was probably me. It's a hell of a bar tune, and it's just about the best bang for your buck you could find :-)

I'll leave you with this quote from Wikipedia that is simply stunning to me:

"The song "Marquee Moon" was done in one take; drummer Billy Ficca thought that they were rehearsing."

Jam of the day: "Rag to a Bull"

Artist: Mariage Blanc
Song: "Rag to a Bull"
Album: Mariage Blanc
Released: November 16, 2010 (nationally), October 8, 2010 (Pittsburgh)

Come on out to the Brillobox tomorrow (Friday) night to catch Mariage Blanc playing some tunes from their new, self-titled LP. There's a cover story in this week's City Paper that details the technical struggles the band overcame to even release this album, in addition to the differences between this and their previous release, the Broken Record EP, in terms of instrumentation, collaboration, recording style, etc. It's a good read; check it out and kudos to Andy Mulkerin for his writing. Local musician extraordinaire David Bernabo also posted a slick-as-all-hell review of the album on his blog; check that out here.

So what's my take? This album is well thought out, perfectly planned, and rewarding upon multiple listens. There's something about the way that the guitar layers play off each other without devolving into chaos nor predictability, and the way that the subtle drum beats drive the novel lyrical constructions that just makes the whole thing incredibly listenable. I was lucky enough to snag an advanced copy of the files for this one (thanks Josh!) and have listened to it every other day for the last couple of weeks striving to find something meaningful to say about this record; it's not broken, for sure, yet it's not earth-shattering. I don't know what else to say except that it's really, really good. It has literally left my speechless in the sense that I can't describe it to you in any meaningful way; I'd much prefer to share a set of headphones with you, spin this record, and stare at each other the whole way through as we nod our heads and say, "Yeah, I dig this." Apologies for being entirely inarticulate about it, but you should really blame Mariage Blanc for that. And you should do that in person, tomorrow night. See you there.

This particular track exhibits the kind of lyrical talent I was referring to above, as well as the switcheroo from softish, keyboard-led chamber pop to some solid guitar- and bass-driven melodies. It's delectable either way.