Mux217: Mr. Mux Breathes The Wild

Download or stream.

1. Japandroids - North East South West (Near To The Wild Heart of Life)
2. Craig Finn - Preludes (We All Want The Same Things)
3. LVL UP - The Closing Door (Return To Love)
4. Muncie Girls - Respect (From Caplan To Belize)
5. Cadence Weapon - Cheval (Hope In Dirt City)
6. Junior Boys - Bits & Pieces (Begone Dull Care)
7. Neon Indian - The Glitzy Hive (VEGA INTL. Night School)
8. Pile - Dogs (A Hairshirt of Purpose)
9. Pinegrove - Cadmium (Cardinal)
10. Preoccupations - Memory (Edit) (Preoccupations)
11. Phantogram - Barking Dog (Three)
12. Weezer - Surf Wax America (The Blue Album)

TRT 46:31

2017 music: Craig Finn, Japandroids, Pile

Rookies: Craig Finn, Pile

Mux215: Mr. Mux Gets The Hell Out of Here

Download or stream.

1. Neon Indian - Polish Girl (Era Extraña)
2. Jens Lekman - How We Met, The Long Version (Life Will See You Now)
3. The Radio Dept. - Where Damage Isn't Done (Less Matters)
4. Meat Wave - Glass Teeth (The Incessant)
5. Strand of Oaks - Everything (Hard Love)
6. Pink Floyd - Us And Them (Dark Side of The Moon)
7. Thundercat - Tokyo (Drunk)
8. Taylor Swift - Style (1989)
9. Atoms For Peace - Dropped (Amok)
10. Franz Ferdinand - You Could Have It So Much Better (You Could Have It So Much Better... With Franz Ferdinand)
11. Japandroids - Midnight To Morning (Near To The Wild Heart of Life)
12. Crystal Fairy - Crystal Fairy (Crystal Fairy)

TRT 47:58

Rookies: Crystal Fairy, Meat Wave

2017 music: Crystal Fairy, Japandroids, Jens Lekman, Meat Wave, Strand of Oaks, Thundercat

Mux213: Mr. Mux Makes A Mess

Download or stream.

1. Devo - Gut Feeling (Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!)
2. Queens of The Stone Age - I Sat By The Ocean (...Like Clockwork)
3. Franz Ferdinand - Cheating On You (Franz Ferdinand)
4. Elliott Smith - Pretty (Ugly Before) (From A Basement On The Hill)
5. Cloud Nothings - Up To The Surface (Life Without Sound)
6. Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb (The Wall)
7. Junior Boys - So This Is Goodbye (So This Is Goodbye)
8. Gorillaz - Superfast Jellyfish (Plastic Beach)
9. Big Boi - Mama Told Me (Vicious Lies And Dangerous Rumors)
10. Wolf Parade - Floating World (EP 4)
11. Japandroids - I'm Sorry (For Not Finding You Sooner) (Near To The Wild Heart of Life)
12. Radiohead - Black Star (The Bends)

TRT 45:23

2017 music: Cloud Nothings, Japandroids

Mux140: February 2014

[Released early into the wild since it was finished early and because Mux139 is terrible. Have already listened to it a dozen times in my car. I'm actually in that dangerous territory of basically having the final tracks and sequence for Mux141, but at the rate I'm ripping new songs, the end product could be wildly different.]

Tradition dictates that first-of-the-month muxes are dated, since otherwise this would be Mux140: Jack The Ripper given how much stuff I've yoinked from yet-to-drop albums via Soundcloud and YouTube videos. At least the quality of rips these days is pretty damn good.

Because of the ripping and running, I had an embarassment of riches to choose from versus scraping the bottom of the barrel for the last few. At one point I think I was debating just tossing out a two-hour mux, but that betrays my Rules and all. So I guess I've spared you a semi-hardcore breakdown with Rollins Band and Rage Against the Machine.

And any day I can toss on some Professor Murder is a good day. "Charttjunk" also has the best guitar solo of 2014 thus far.

So yeah.

Boom.

1. Kevin Drew - Good Sex (Darlings)
2. Real Estate - Talking Backwards (Atlas)
3. Thee Oh Sees - Toe Cutter Thumb Buster (Floating Coffin)
4. Japandroids - For The Love of Ivy (Gun Club cover) (Celebration Rock)
5. Professor Murder - Dutch Hex (Manhattan Version) (Professor Murder vs. The Magazine Culture)
6. Liars - Mess On A Mission (Mess)
7. Friendly Fires - Running Away (Pala)
8. Chvrches - Recover (The Bones of What You Believe)
9. Broken Bells - The Changing Lights (Live Acoustic) (Untitled 2014 Album)
10. Washed Out - Don't Give Up (Paracosm)
11. Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Chartjunk (Wig Out At Jagbags)

TRT 40:50

2014 music: Broken Bells, Kevin Drew, Liars, Real Estate, Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks

Mux121: Winter's Last Stand

Propers to JET for helping me shape the end of this.

I also broke my rule of not having a band on two muxes in a row, since Wiping out Thousands put out a great minimalist single, "Evening" (grab it here) that is a far cry from 120's "Hips." They've got a show coming up at the Entry on the 24th, so if you've got five bucks and a free Sunday nite, come and check them out.

Oh right: Boom.

1. Iggy Pop - The Passenger (Lust For Life)
2. Japandroids - Evil's Sway (Celebration Rock)
3. The Men - Half Angel Half Light (New Moon)
4. Wolf Parade - Grounds For Divorce (Apologies to the Queen Mary)
5. Neil D. Voss - Africa (The New Tetris*)
6. My Bloody Valentine - New You (MBV)
7. Wiping out Thousands - Evening (Single)
8. Friendly Fires - Pala (Pala)
9. Dog Bite - Prettiest Pills (Velvet Changes)
10. Wild Nothing - Nocturne (Nocturne)
11. Spoon - Vittorio E (Kill The Moonlight)
12. Kurt Vile - He's Alright (Childish Prodigy)

TRT 48:02

Rookies: Dog Bite, Iggy Pop, Neil D. Voss
*Yes, I happen to have the entire The New Tetris soundtrack ripped at 128 kbps, so if you want it, shoot me an e-mail. Way too good for a Nintendo 64, which I believe didn't even have a dedicated sound chip.

Mux118: February 2013

Slow, fast, slow. Sort of.

Boom.

Featuring the talents of Wiping out Thousands, whose name I defiantly spell with a capital O for my MP3 tags. They're from the Twin Cities and so am I, thus the special mention. HI GUYS.

1. Wild Nothing - Shadow (Nocturne)
2. Destroyer - Your Blood (Destroyer's Rubies)
3. Wolf Parade - What Did My Lover Say? (It Had To Go This Way) (Expo 86)
4. Japandroids - Adrenaline Nightshift (Celebration Rock)
5. Spoon - Metal Detektor (A Series of Sneaks)
6. Liars - Clear Island (Liars)
7. Metz - Get Off (Metz)
8. Wiping out Thousands - Below Tripping (This Came First)
9. Daniel Rossen - Golden Mile (Silent Hour / Golden Mile)
10. Ty Segall & White Fence - Time (Hair)
11. Spiritualized - Hey Jane (Sweet Heart Sweet Light)

Rookies: Daniel Rossen, Ty Segall & White Fence

TRT 49:46

Mux116: January 2013

Another grab bag (Original download expired.)

1. The Weakerthans - Aside (Left and Leaving)
2. Japandroids - Fire's Highway (Celebration Rock) (for JCD)
3. Spoon - Don't You Evah (Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga)
4. Ty Segall Band - The Tongue (Slaughterhouse)
5. YACHT - Love In The Dark (Shangri-La)
6. Sonic Youth - Do You Believe In Rapture? (Rather Ripped)
7. Junior Boys - Under The Sun (iTunes Session)
8. The Velvet Underground - Heroin (The Velvet Underground and Nico)
9. The Who - Behind Blue Eyes (Who's Next)
10. Ride - Time of Her Time (Going Blank Again)
11. The New Pornographers - Stacked Crooked (Twin Cinema)
12. Dum Dum Girls - Season In Hell (End of Daze EP)

Rookies: Dum Dum Girls, The Weakerthans

TRT 49:58

JDK's Favorite Albums of 2012 (Extremely Short Edition)

Continuing my trend of pushing out a list before the other sites do so I can't be, like, accused of following P4K too closely. But, hell, this, like most other music lists (and muxes) might as well be curated by them.

And if something awesome comes out in December, I'm sure it'll be on my giant write-up, complete with those lovely little graphics of the album art (that take forever to insert, but whatever).

The ordered list

1. Cloud Nothings - Attack On Memory
   
2. Flying Lotus - Until The Quiet Comes
   
3. Japandroids - Celebration Rock
   
4. Chromatics - Kill For Love
   
5. Sleigh Bells - Reign of Terror

The unordered list

• Bear In Heaven - I Love You, It's Cool
  
• Hot Chip - In Our Heads
  
• Liars - WIXIW
  
• Lotus Plaza - Spooky Action At A Distance
  
• The Men - Open Your Heart
  
• Titus Andronicus - Local Business
  
• Ty Segall & White Fence - Hair
  
• Ty Segall Band - Slaughterhouse
  
• Wiping Out Thousands - This Came First

You can download Wiping Out Thousands' This Came First at their Bandcamp page as a pay-what-you-want download. (And yes, that includes $0.) Favorite songs of the year (limiting two songs per band)

• Chromatics - Into The Black
  
• Chromatics - Lady
  
• Cloud Nothings - Wasted Days
  
• Cloud Nothings - Cut You
  
• Divine Fits - Shivers
  
• Flying Lotus - Electric Candyman (feat. Thom Yorke)
  
• Four Tet - Pinnacles
  
• Hot Chip - Flutes
  
• Japandroids - The House That Heaven Built
  
• Liars - No. 1 Against The Rush
  
• Liars - Brats
  
• Lotus Plaza - Strangers
  
• The Men - Open Your Heart
  
• The Men - Ex-Dreams
  
• Sleigh Bells - End of the Line
  
• Wiping Out Thousands - Creation
  
• Wiping Out Thousands - Beach

Mux104: July 2012

Obligatory OCD comment about how the volume is a little variable in spots since, for whatever reason, Liars master their stuff really, really low. Had the same problems with Sisterworld.

Also: Semi-random first appearance of a song from a soundtrack (that isn't from Guitar Hero or Rock Band). I've been way into TRON Legacy lately (like, uh, watching it five times in four days), so we'll probably get some Daft Punk love on an upcoming mux from one of the more electro tracks on the fine soundtrack of that very-underrated film.

Boom.

1. Liars - The Exact Colour of Doubt (WIXIW)
2. Sonic Youth - Dirty Boots (Goo)
3. Why? - Crushed Bones (Elephant Eyelash)
4. Joy Division - She's Lost Control (Unknown Pleasures version)
5. Hot Chip - Flutes (In Our Heads)
6. Deerhunter - Heatherwood (Daytrotter Session)
7. Lotus Plaza - Monoliths (Spooky Action At A Distance)
8. Japandroids - The House That Heaven Built (Celebration Rock)
9. Kavinsky & Lovefoxxx - Nightcall (Drive soundtrack)

TRT 39:09

Rookies:
Kavinsky
Lovefoxxx

Mux103: The 2012 Sampler

All 2012 tracks. The "newer" stuff are from Japandroids, The Walkmen, Liars, and PS I Love You.

Download.

1. Japandroids - The Nights of Wine and Roses (Celebration Rock)
2. The Walkmen - Heaven (Heaven)
3. Liars - No. 1 Against The Rush (WIXIW)
4. Bear In Heaven - The Reflection of You (I Love You, It's Cool)
5. Chromatics - Lady (Kill For Love)
6. Cloud Nothings - Separation (Attack On Memory)
7. The Men - Ex-Dreams (Open Your Heart)
8. PS I Love You - First Contact (Death Dreams)
9. Wiping Out Thousands - Bounce (Reaction Machine EP)
10. Tanlines - Nonesuch (Mixed Emotions)

Rookies:
Tanlines

Mux075: Spring Feverish

You know the drill.

1. Joy Division - Failures
2. A Place To Bury Strangers - Deadbeat
3. PS I Love You - 2012
4. The National - Blank Slate
5. Japandroids - Crazy/Forever
6. Radiohead - Optimistic
7. The Joggers - Since You're Already Up
8. The Kills - Heart Is A Beating Drum
9. The Rural Alberta Advantage - The Dethbridge In Lethbridge
10. Marnie Stern - The Things You Notice
11. Bear In Heaven - Ultimate Satisfaction

I was going to start a little feature called the HALL OF FAME, in which I honor the exceptionally-rare albums in which all their tracks have been on muxes. But it's pretty apparent that said Fame-Hall might only get one entry by dint of its few tracks:



Congratulations to Japandroids, whose 2009 album Post-Nothing (MPC's 2009 Album of the Year) and its eight tracks have been cannibalized across nine muxes.

The tracklists are valid but the download links are dead (yell at me if you want them fixed), and here is the Post-Nothing lineup with its corresponding mux:

1. The Boys Are Leaving Town (Mux036: October 2009)
2. Young Hearts Spark Fire (Mux030: Oh Nine)
3. Wet Hair (Mux022: May 2009)
4. Rockers East Vancouver (Mux073: Lousy Smarch Weather)
5. Heart Sweats (Mux026: August 2009)
6. Crazy/Forever (Mux075 and you're already there)
7. Sovereignty (Mux023: June 2009)
8. I Quit Girls (Mux071: Muxsplosion)

This feat may never be repeated. To knock Jpndrds just a tad, their LP is kind of within EP-length territory, but it speaks volumes when an entire record is solid front-to-back. Kind of like Weezer's The Blue Album. Hmm. Too bad I'm not a big fan of "Holiday," and I'd really need a huge gap to close with "Only In Dreams."

Mux073: Lousy Smarch Weather

Download or stream via my Dropbox.

Tracks:

1. PS I Love You - Butterflies & Boners
2. Metric - Front Row
3. A Place To Bury Strangers - In Your Heart
4. Japandroids - Rockers East Vancouver
5. My Bloody Valentine - Sometimes
6. The Go! Team - Bust-Out Brigade
7. Cut Copy - Pharoahs & Pyramids
8. Broken Social Scene - Major Label Debut (Fast)
9. Wire - Dot Dash
10. The Rural Albert Advantage - Muscle Relaxants
11. Ride - Dreams Burn Down
12. Radiohead - Give Up The Ghost

Mux rookie:

• Wire

Mux071: Muxsplosion

Download or stream via my public Dropbox.

Tracks:

1. Ride - Seagull
2. Blonde Redhead - Spring And By Summer Fall
3. Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart
4. Ty Segall - Imaginary Person
5. The Walkmen - This Job Is Killing Me
6. Peter Bjorn And John - The Chills
7. Elliott Smith - A Passing Feeling

(Yes, there is a long pause here because the fade-out of "A Passing Feeling" is too good to chop.)

8. Phoenix - Long Distance Call
9. Delorean - Deli
10. Holy Fuck - Red Lights
11. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Hysteric
12. Japandroids - I Quit Girls

Making their mux debut:

• Delorean
• Ride
• Ty Segall

Mux062: October 2010

I broke my record for crossfades. Of the ten tracks, six fade in or out. It's like that annoying "crossfade" setting on iTunes.

Download or stream at drop.io.

1. No Age - Life Prowler
2. Japandroids - Heavenward Grand Prix
3. Superchunk - Crossed Wire
4. The Arcade Fire - We Used To Wait
5. Deerhunter - Helicopter
6. Wild Nothing - Chinatown
7. Wolf Parade - Yulia
8. Marnie Stern - Transparency Is The New Mystery
9. Titus Andronicus - Four Score And Seven
10. The National - Terrible Love

And making their mux debut:
Superchunk
Wild Nothing

So that strikes them off the list for Rookies 3.

Upcoming music releases for the rest of 2010

This has already been a ridiculously-awesome year for music, and there's still more coming in these last four months. Off the top of my head, this is what I'll be looking forward to. I probably missed some stuff, so fill me in via the comments.

• Battles - Untitled Tyondai Braxton-less album (in production)
  
• Cee-Lo Green - The Lady Killer
  
• Daft Punk - Tron Legacy soundtrack
  
• Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest (plus at least a bonus EP or, hell, a secret double album)
  
• The Hood Internet - The Mixtape Vol. V (expected)
  
• Japandroids - 7" Singles #3, 4, and 5 (following "Art Czars" and "Younger Us")
  
• Kanye West - Album formerly titled Good Ass Job
  
• Lil Wayne - Tha Carter IV
  
• Marnie Stern - Marnie Stern
  
• Michael Jackson - Untitled posthumous release
  
• No Age - Everything In Between (leaked)
  
• Of Montreal - False Priest (leaked)
  
• Radiohead - Untitled eighth album (rumored; unlikely)
  
• Sufjan Stevens (feat. The National?) - The Age of Adz
  
• The Thermals - Personal Life (leaked)
  
• The Walkmen - Lisbon (leaked)
  
• Weezer - Hurley (it should have at least one decent song, right?)

Mux055: July 2010

Download or stream at drop.io.

1. Health - USA Boys
2. Yeasayer - ONE
3. Jay-Z - Empire State of Mind
4. Volcano Choir - Island, IS
5. The Big Pink - Velvet
6. Sleigh Bells - Crown On The Ground
7. Kevin Drew - Back Out On The...
8. The National - Apartment Story
9. Japandroids - Younger Us
10. Four Tet - Unspoken
11. Suckers - Save Your Love For Me

Bonus Track: Lightning Bolt - 2 Towers

The ten best albums for mowing the lawn

In alphabetical order:

1. Boris - Pink (once "Farewell" is skipped)
2. Death From Above 1979 - You're A Woman, I'm A Machine
3. Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport
4. Health - Get Color
5. Japandroids - Post-Nothing
6. Jay Reatard - Blood Visions
7. Justice - Cross
8. No Age - Nouns
9. Simian Mobile Disco - Attack Decay Sustain Release
10. Tobacco - Maniac Meat

Mux051: Springtime, Bitches

I think this is the longest gap in time I've gone without making a mux since when I started. But here it is. Some new, some old, some deep cuts. The usual.

I was also having a hell of a time trying to put a new Crystal Castles track on here, but that'll just have to wait for JDK Radio: Night 3.

Download or stream at drop.io.

1. Matt and Kim - Good Ol' Fashion Nightmare
2. The National - Bloodbuzz Ohio
3. LCD Soundsystem - Drunk Girls
4. Cut Copy - Unforgettable Season
5. Four Tet - As Serious As Your Life
6. Phantogram - When I'm Small
7. Rilo Kiley - Dreamworld
8. Fang Island - Welcome Wagon
9. Titus Andronicus - Theme From "Cheers"
10. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Gimme The Wire
11. Japandroids - Coma Complacency
12. Sonic Youth - Teen Age Riot

Mux048: March 2010

New month, new mux.

Download or stream off drop.io.

1. Japandroids - Art Czars
2. Local Natives - Wide Eyes
3. Rogue Wave - Solitary Gun
4. The Radio Dept. - This Time Around
5. Broken Social Scene - Looks Just Like The Sun
6. Pavement - Stereo
7. Gorillaz - Stylo
8. Hot Chip - Take It In
9. Modest Mouse - Gravity Rides Everything
10. Los Campesinos! - This Is A Flag. There Is No Wind.
11. The Soft Pack - Answer To Yourself
12. The National - Abel

JDK's 2009 in Albums

I hate it when websites put up their “Best Of” year-end lists. The implication of the word “Best” seems like it makes my own opinion moot. So here are some of my “favorite” albums of the year.


1. Japandroids – Post-Nothing

I saw the Japandroids play at the Pitchfork Music Festival this past summer. In short, they were fantastic, and they played with an energy I thought impossible for a duo.

Later that day I won a charity auction for some Japandroids merch. While I was cradling a vinyl of their debut Post-Nothing, I was asked by some blogger if they could briefly interview me about the band. I obliged, and the first question was, “How would you describe their music?”

I paused for a moment because, honestly, I didn’t quite know how to call it anything other than the blanket term of “rock.” Sure, others have said they’ve part of some 90s revival of something-rock and garage-rock, but I don’t even know what that means. I just know what I hear on their album and live on stage: fast, intense, distortion-heavy, drums-heavy songs that are anthemic without the weight of being called an “anthem”; lyrics that, despite my usual habit of ignoring, I’ve actually read and found out usually consist of little more than a few sentence bits sing-shouted over the course of a track; rock about escape, which one could argue is what rock is all about; escape from the nothing-towns of our youth, the friends we had just because we went to school with them, not giving a shit about the weather in our hometowns “‘cause we’re far from home tonight.”

All this over eight blistering tracks and thirty-five minutes and forty-four seconds.

One could mull over the corner the band has painted themselves into, and how a second record could bring a change in sound or a change in some sort of direction that would probably seem untrue to themselves. Maybe they should just bow out now and leave Post-Nothing as their ultimate work after two pretty-good EPs.

Regardless, Post-Nothing was my most-listened-to record of the year; I saw Japandroids play live twice and they are one of my best live bands I’ve seen; I have an autographed t-shirt pinned up on my wall; I dug my mom’s old record player out of the crawlspace so I could listen to Post-Nothing on vinyl; and, despite the killer single “Young Hearts Spark Fire” and the single-quality of every last track, Post-Nothing coheres into a brilliant album, and it’s by far my favorite of the year.


2. The Antlers – Hospice

In the same vein I love The Antlers’ Hospice as I do Deerhunter’s Microcastle. Both make the case for the dwindling trend of an album as a whole instead of just a collection of songs, beyond the simple trick of having tracks bleed into each other.

Unlike Japandroids, though, I have blissfully ignored the lyrics to Hospice. I only know that album highlight “Bear” is probably about an abortion, and I’ve read reviews and year-end lists that mention the overarching story of a cancer patient and death and all that gloomy stuff.

But even with subject-matter that wouldn’t play well as a good driving record, Hospice manages to reach cathartic heights I haven’t heard since The Arcade Fire’s Funeral. “Sylvia,” “Bear,” and “Two” have their slow points, which makes their triumphant apexes all the more majestic.

And, like Japandroids and my next-favorite album, the band is apparently a duo. Consider it the Year of the Duo.


3. Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport

Take former album Street Horrrsing and LCD Soundsystem’s 45:33 and create a synthetic bastard child and somewhere in its angsty teenage years you’ll get Tarot Sport.

Gone is the sometimes-huge disconnect between tracks of the still-brilliant Street Horrrsing and the toy-microphone screaming. Gone is the inner-map-of-the-mind noise-madness that defines the former and, fortunately, keeps it relevant (meaning Tarot Sport is no replacement). Here is, by god, a Fuck Buttons album you could dance to. Here’s an album that goes from the paranoia of “Surf Solar” to something as high-flying as the march-step “Olympians” and spaceship-to-Mars glory of ender “Flight of the Feathered Serpent.” If Street Horrrsing was a way to see inside your mind, Tarot Sport is the world surrounding, in all its chaos and beauty, absolutely seamless from fevered start to breathtaking finish.


4. Why? – Eskimo Snow

I’m usually wary of albums culled from the same sessions as the prior album. How can an educated listener think of them as anything but B-sides? That’s my continued problem with Radiohead’s Amnesiac, which has been called Kid B by many.

But Why?’s Eskimo Snow is the comedown to last year’s Alopecia. Singer Yoni Wolf seems to be either apologizing or embarrassed of the massive guilt-admissions that peppered the band’s 2008 offering, in which Wolf dug down into some ugly shit like, “Sucking dick for drink tickets at the free bar at my cousin’s bar mitzvah / Cutting the punchline ‘cause it ain’t no joke.” Here, he seems more pensive, more guarded, still willing to admit “sporting my ex-girlfriend’s dead ex-boyfriend’s boxers” but unwilling to finish the statement “I need to quit doing all this random fucking,” just letting the anticipated word fizzle after a long-held F (which I thought he’d let rip at their live show, but didn’t).

So sharing the Alopecia sessions is probably the reason for the band releasing two albums in two years. Because of the strength of Eskimo Snow, I might have to revise my opinion of multiple albums culled from single sessions.


5. Cymbals Eat Guitars – Why There Are Mountains

Cymbals Eat Guitars’ Why There Are Mountains falls into the sort of space as The Antlers’ Hospice. It doesn’t, however, have any clear singles. Some might point to “Wind Phoenix” as a standout track, but I see it as the long-coming burst after the four-minute build up of “What Dogs See.” And one of the band’s more accessible, stand-alone tracks, “The Living North,” comes at the very end of the album. Not to mention the album starts with “And The Hazy Sea,” a six-minute marathon with as many peaks and valleys as some entire records.


6. Dan Deacon – Bromst

I was talking to my friend Dan Kricke shortly after the leak of Bromst. I was already a big fan, and he was a bit on the fence. “I think what you don’t like about it is that it’s like a bunch of ‘Big Milk’s,” I said, referring to one of the slower, more contemplative tracks on Deacon’s schizophrenic Spiderman of the Rings. It’s arguably true, which may be due to the nature of Deacon using more “analog” equipment, like marimbas and vibraphones and all that stuff that was tucked in the back of the BHS orchestra room. Counter that, though, with the revealing documentary about the making of the album, which shows off Deacon’s new favorite toy: a computer-programmable piano capable of hammering out notes faster than human fingers could possible play.

Still, Bromst is a solid step for Deacon in terms of both his impossibly-complex compositions and his more toned-down, simple melodies. For those who fear change, there’s still “Woof Woof” and “Get Older.” For those thinking Deacon might get locked into his bright-neon-plastic cage, listen no further than the plaintive “Snookered,” which feature vocals by Deacon (“been wrong so many times”) that haven’t been contorted to Woody Woodpecker-esque shrillness, or the beautiful, computerized-piano ending of “Slow With Horns / Run For Your Life.”


7. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest

I didn’t really “get” Yellow House until I drove to my parents’ house on a predawn Christmas morning a few years back. Veckatimest, however, seemed poised as that fearful indie promise – a “crossover” record – once “Southern Point” slammed right into “Two Weeks,” which is the first song since Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” that I’m pretty sure I’ll have stuck in my head when I’m eighty years old.

There’s been a lot of ballyhoo concerning the album, from the “Two Weeks” Letterman premiere to the album showing up on the Billboard charts its first week to the Jay-Z sighting at a Grizzly Bear show. This all, of course, underscore the fact that it’s a fantastic album that lived up to the hype that the band was piecing together said “crossover” record after the acquired taste of Yellow House (that is, for those who venture outside of repeat listens of “Knife”).

But, like most of the albums on this list, it’s up here because it’s an album-album. Some might download it and delete everything except “Two Weeks” and “While You Wait For The Others” off their iPod, but I’m in it for the long haul. For me, Veckatimest starts with “Southern Point” and I’m sure as hell not done listening until the gorgeous closer “Foreground” goes silent.


8. Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca

I guess I’ve fallen into a trap that may or may not have been baited by the Dirty Projectors themselves. Much like the weariness associated with “crossover” records, here is the DP’s “accessible” album.

But other than “Stillness Is The Move” and “Useful Chamber,” what’s so accessible about it, really? Can anyone tell me what time signature most of these songs are actually in? Or how profoundly weird the track “The Bride” is without even hitting the three-minute mark?

After, I suppose, months of trying to figure out all this, the answer came pretty simple: it’s the first record in recent memory in which the singers can actually sing. It’s not just empty prettiness: all that other stuff – the weird guitars, the math-rock beats – keep it interesting. That, and from here to forever, the long-as-hell ending of “Stillness Is The Move” will segue into a beatmatched “Teardrop” by Massive Attack on every mixtape I make for the rest of my life.

Sunday: Notable albums that didn't make the top-eight cut.