I came up with the title then threw a bunch of stuff together. Apologies in advance for sudden aural shifts.
Boom
1. Cheatahs - I / Geographic (Cheatahs)
2. Metz - Dirty Shirt (Leave Me Out / Dirty Shirt 7")
3. Jack White - Sixteen Saltines (Blunderbuss)
4. Haim - Honey & I (Haim)
5. St. Vincent - Birth In Reverse (St. Vincent)
6. Real Estate - Crime
7. Cloud Nothings - Psychic Trauma (Here And Nowhere Else)
8. Superchunk - Unbelievable Things (Indoor Living)
9. The National - Learning (Perfume Genius cover) (I Need My Girl single)
10. Chvrches - Tether (The Bones of What You Believe)
11. Arcade Fire - Afterlife (Reflektor)
Bonus Track: Kanye West - Bound 2 (Yeezus)
TRT 45:06
Rookies: Cheatahs, Jack White
2014 music: Cheatahs, Cloud Nothings, Real Estate, St. Vincent
Showing posts with label National. Show all posts
Showing posts with label National. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Sunday, December 1, 2013
JDK's Favorite Music of 2013: Favorite Albums
Yep. It's December 1. But in my usual fit of insecurity, I'm typing up my list of my favorite albums and songs before all those other guys do it so that I don't have to say See, I liked it before they said I should!
And unlike aforementioned publications, I'm going to try to make this nice and brief and mostly non-ranked so there's no impetus to bitch.
Except for a ridiculous four-way tie for my top favorite; at least it's from four very different albums. So, in alphabetical order:
Deerhunter - Monomania
Play count: 19
Highlights: "Monomania," "PUNK (La Vie Anterieure)"
Regardless of your opinion of Deerhunter, at least you can't say they're content to settle with one sound. They went ambient and shoegaze-y with Cryptograms, majestic and classic-rock-y with Microcastle, spit-shined and stately for Halcyon Digest, and about as sleazy and junky as the fluorescent sign that serves as the album art for Monomania. All they had to do was distort the vocals instead of the guitars to bring out the snarl usually hidden in the background of most Deerhunter tracks.
Title track "Monomania" gives "Nothing Ever Happened" a run for its money for the band's best extended jam, though it's partly due to the appropriately-obsessive, paranoid repetition of the title. The rest lock into a switching off of Bradford Cox and Lockett Pundt for songwriting and vocal duties, and a shuffle in band personnel (their first since dropping Collin Mee from Cryptograms to Microcastle) have brought in a new bassist and an additional guitarist. The latter makes for the biggest change in a lot of songs that, once you get past the bleached-out, crackling vocals, you happen to notice that there is an awful lot going on in the guitar section. Deerhunter has always had stealth tricks like that, and it still feels like Deerhunter when it's just Bradfox Cox strumming his guitar all by his lonesome, be it last album's "Sailing" or, here, "Nitebike."
Maybe it's because of the lineup change despite a solid core of Bradfox and Lockett on guitar and Moses on drums, but Deerhunter is one of the bands that I'm always afraid is going to break up (especially in light of the recent news about The Walkmen, though Deerhunter hasn't been on the scene nearly as long). I can be cynical and shrug my shoulders at the possibility, given how good Cox's and Pundt's side projects - Atlas Sound and Lotus Plaza, respectively - are. But I think it speaks of the innovation of Deerhunter that, when these guys get together, anything could result.
Fuck Buttons - Slow Focus
Play count: 21
Highlights: "Stalker," "Hidden XS"
I always cringe when I hear the cheesy crossfade between "Sweet Love For Planet Earth" and "Ribs Out" on Fuck Buttons' first outing, Street Horrrsing. Though it's no fault of that album, the songs there never really seemed too comfortable sharing the same real estate. Sophomore album Tarot Sport pulled a little too hard in the other direction, coalescing into a lot of similar sonic landscapes and, in general, seeming more the soundtrack to an intergalactic rave than the introspective madness that made the band so initially alluring.
Slow Focus is the answer to that conundrum. It takes the loudness and the intricate arrangements of Power and Hung and propels them toward a place so utterly inhuman that it's hard not to be fascinated. "Brainfreeze" is an assault; the approaching drums of a cyborg army. "Year of the Dog" is the anxiety of the the first astronauts trying to land on a moving asteroid. (Stay with me.) "The Red Wing" is the greasy beat to a rap that Kanye West will record in twenty years. "Sentients" soundtracks the scariest fucking game of hide-and-seek ever, like you're running through a cornfield on the coldest night of the year. "Prince's Prize" is the song the guy who composed the music to the Sega Genesis game Columns really wishes he thought of. "Stalker" would be the most badass intro song for a boxer if they turned off all the stadium lights and just blared this shit for all of its ten minutes. "Hidden XS" is just badass; like watching the universe explode or something.
Given the years-long wait between Tarot Sport and Slow Focus, I'm usually far too impatient thinking of the possible wait for LP 4. But when it's this much of a jump and this fucking good, then, well, what's there to complain about?
Justin Timberlake - The 20/20 Experience (Part 1)
Play count: 50
Highlights: "Strawberry Bubblegum," "That Girl"
Everyone likes an album with a bit of a myth behind it, even if the myth reveals that this was all a cash grab.
So as the story goes, Justin Timberlake was very much done with music. Forever. But apparently there was some deal still active between LiveNation and Timberlake, something blah blah blah arena tour blah blah blah one billion dollars up for grabs.
Billion with a B.
So The Powers That Be got Timberlake in a studio with Timbaland in hopes that, over twenty days, JT could at least barf out a single to use as the impetus for said arena tour in which everyone would get nice and richer. Which would most likely be a greatest-hits tour, though his discography of the eh Justified and the dated FutureSex/LoveSounds wasn't the strongest musical backbone.
Flash forward twenty days, and not only was a single produced during the session (probably "Take Back The Night," the most single-y thing of the whole mess), but two entire albums worth of music came out of it.
Thank bog that JT tossed half of it and put all the best stuff on The 20/20 Experience (Part 1). It's not hyperbole to call this some of the best-produced pop music ever made, because, psst, here's the secret: it's not pop. Even single "Suit & Tie" (awkward, shoehorned Jay-Z verse or no) runs closer to some sort of big-band-flavored groove that Fred Astaire could take a few steps to; I mean, christ, listen to those harp glissandos, B! Forget it when it comes to "Strawberry Bubblegum," the first half of which should be pressed onto some gold record and flung out at the star system most likely to harbor life. They'd come running to get some more of the subterranean longing, hard DJ scratches, and warm synths, like if "Idioteque" was run through a blender and turned into the best pop song in memory. "That Girl" is straight bliss, some Motown-aping so good it forgives the corny pre-song intro.
So, yeah, forget about that whole Part 2, which more accurately would be labeled The 20/20 Experience (B-Sides). Timberlake makes yet another case he's the man best suited for the King of Pop throne, though he'd have to install an attached mini-throne for Timbaland.
The National - Trouble Will Find Me
Play count: 20
Highlights: "Don't Swallow The Cap," "Sea of Love"
It's getting silly now. With Alligator, Boxer, and High Violet all before this, I always feel the need to preface this album with the statement that it's The National's fourth masterpiece in a row.
The National is the only working band that I take the time to parse the lyrics, and that above judgment would be true if only for Matt Berninger's endless well of masterfully-worded anxiety. The band is still moving forward musically, instead of going the usual Big Rock route of adding even more strings and horns. (Not that they haven't done that, but, well...) "I Should Live In Salt," despite going all math-rock-y in 5/4 time, gives a hint that, sure, there's a lot of darkness ahead, but at least it will sound lighter than High Violet that, let's be honest, was a little too downtempo.
There's something in every song that sets it apart from the rest. Of note, it's refreshing that "Sea of Love" ticks the metronome up quite a few notches, and it's the first time in memory that Beringer has shouted during a song without screaming. "This Is The Last Time" starts with an unaccompanied guitar riff that is instantly one of the band's most recognizable. The end does drags a bit after "Graceless," but at 56 minutes, this is the band's longest release in recent history.
Of course, in a recent interview Matt Berninger suggested that the band, having been around since their self-titled in 2001, might just call it quits soon. Not because of any antics or bullshit (remember that four of the band members are two sets of siblings, and you're stuck with those people for life), but best to bow out on a high note than overstay your welcome. Far too many bands peter out after a few weak LPs. Here's hoping that Trouble isn't the last we hear from these sad sacks.
And now a one-sentence descriptor for all my Tier Two albums. Also in alphabetical order:
!!! - THR!!!ER
They survived dancepunk, and now they're the most underrated funk band in indiedom, dropping stealth dance albums at a reliable clip.
Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest
When the world ends, at least we already have the soundtrack.
Chvrches - The Bones of What You Believe
An almost-too-potent blast of pure synthpop.
Disclosure - Settle
[This year's obligatory out-of-nowhere London dance record by two teenagers that is really fucking awesome.]
My Bloody Valentine - MBV
The best album of 1993.
Tomorrow: My favorite individual songs of the year.
And unlike aforementioned publications, I'm going to try to make this nice and brief and mostly non-ranked so there's no impetus to bitch.
Except for a ridiculous four-way tie for my top favorite; at least it's from four very different albums. So, in alphabetical order:
Deerhunter - Monomania
Play count: 19
Highlights: "Monomania," "PUNK (La Vie Anterieure)"
Regardless of your opinion of Deerhunter, at least you can't say they're content to settle with one sound. They went ambient and shoegaze-y with Cryptograms, majestic and classic-rock-y with Microcastle, spit-shined and stately for Halcyon Digest, and about as sleazy and junky as the fluorescent sign that serves as the album art for Monomania. All they had to do was distort the vocals instead of the guitars to bring out the snarl usually hidden in the background of most Deerhunter tracks.
Title track "Monomania" gives "Nothing Ever Happened" a run for its money for the band's best extended jam, though it's partly due to the appropriately-obsessive, paranoid repetition of the title. The rest lock into a switching off of Bradford Cox and Lockett Pundt for songwriting and vocal duties, and a shuffle in band personnel (their first since dropping Collin Mee from Cryptograms to Microcastle) have brought in a new bassist and an additional guitarist. The latter makes for the biggest change in a lot of songs that, once you get past the bleached-out, crackling vocals, you happen to notice that there is an awful lot going on in the guitar section. Deerhunter has always had stealth tricks like that, and it still feels like Deerhunter when it's just Bradfox Cox strumming his guitar all by his lonesome, be it last album's "Sailing" or, here, "Nitebike."
Maybe it's because of the lineup change despite a solid core of Bradfox and Lockett on guitar and Moses on drums, but Deerhunter is one of the bands that I'm always afraid is going to break up (especially in light of the recent news about The Walkmen, though Deerhunter hasn't been on the scene nearly as long). I can be cynical and shrug my shoulders at the possibility, given how good Cox's and Pundt's side projects - Atlas Sound and Lotus Plaza, respectively - are. But I think it speaks of the innovation of Deerhunter that, when these guys get together, anything could result.
Fuck Buttons - Slow Focus
Play count: 21
Highlights: "Stalker," "Hidden XS"
I always cringe when I hear the cheesy crossfade between "Sweet Love For Planet Earth" and "Ribs Out" on Fuck Buttons' first outing, Street Horrrsing. Though it's no fault of that album, the songs there never really seemed too comfortable sharing the same real estate. Sophomore album Tarot Sport pulled a little too hard in the other direction, coalescing into a lot of similar sonic landscapes and, in general, seeming more the soundtrack to an intergalactic rave than the introspective madness that made the band so initially alluring.
Slow Focus is the answer to that conundrum. It takes the loudness and the intricate arrangements of Power and Hung and propels them toward a place so utterly inhuman that it's hard not to be fascinated. "Brainfreeze" is an assault; the approaching drums of a cyborg army. "Year of the Dog" is the anxiety of the the first astronauts trying to land on a moving asteroid. (Stay with me.) "The Red Wing" is the greasy beat to a rap that Kanye West will record in twenty years. "Sentients" soundtracks the scariest fucking game of hide-and-seek ever, like you're running through a cornfield on the coldest night of the year. "Prince's Prize" is the song the guy who composed the music to the Sega Genesis game Columns really wishes he thought of. "Stalker" would be the most badass intro song for a boxer if they turned off all the stadium lights and just blared this shit for all of its ten minutes. "Hidden XS" is just badass; like watching the universe explode or something.
Given the years-long wait between Tarot Sport and Slow Focus, I'm usually far too impatient thinking of the possible wait for LP 4. But when it's this much of a jump and this fucking good, then, well, what's there to complain about?
Justin Timberlake - The 20/20 Experience (Part 1)
Play count: 50
Highlights: "Strawberry Bubblegum," "That Girl"
Everyone likes an album with a bit of a myth behind it, even if the myth reveals that this was all a cash grab.
So as the story goes, Justin Timberlake was very much done with music. Forever. But apparently there was some deal still active between LiveNation and Timberlake, something blah blah blah arena tour blah blah blah one billion dollars up for grabs.
Billion with a B.
So The Powers That Be got Timberlake in a studio with Timbaland in hopes that, over twenty days, JT could at least barf out a single to use as the impetus for said arena tour in which everyone would get nice and richer. Which would most likely be a greatest-hits tour, though his discography of the eh Justified and the dated FutureSex/LoveSounds wasn't the strongest musical backbone.
Flash forward twenty days, and not only was a single produced during the session (probably "Take Back The Night," the most single-y thing of the whole mess), but two entire albums worth of music came out of it.
Thank bog that JT tossed half of it and put all the best stuff on The 20/20 Experience (Part 1). It's not hyperbole to call this some of the best-produced pop music ever made, because, psst, here's the secret: it's not pop. Even single "Suit & Tie" (awkward, shoehorned Jay-Z verse or no) runs closer to some sort of big-band-flavored groove that Fred Astaire could take a few steps to; I mean, christ, listen to those harp glissandos, B! Forget it when it comes to "Strawberry Bubblegum," the first half of which should be pressed onto some gold record and flung out at the star system most likely to harbor life. They'd come running to get some more of the subterranean longing, hard DJ scratches, and warm synths, like if "Idioteque" was run through a blender and turned into the best pop song in memory. "That Girl" is straight bliss, some Motown-aping so good it forgives the corny pre-song intro.
So, yeah, forget about that whole Part 2, which more accurately would be labeled The 20/20 Experience (B-Sides). Timberlake makes yet another case he's the man best suited for the King of Pop throne, though he'd have to install an attached mini-throne for Timbaland.
The National - Trouble Will Find Me
Play count: 20
Highlights: "Don't Swallow The Cap," "Sea of Love"
It's getting silly now. With Alligator, Boxer, and High Violet all before this, I always feel the need to preface this album with the statement that it's The National's fourth masterpiece in a row.
The National is the only working band that I take the time to parse the lyrics, and that above judgment would be true if only for Matt Berninger's endless well of masterfully-worded anxiety. The band is still moving forward musically, instead of going the usual Big Rock route of adding even more strings and horns. (Not that they haven't done that, but, well...) "I Should Live In Salt," despite going all math-rock-y in 5/4 time, gives a hint that, sure, there's a lot of darkness ahead, but at least it will sound lighter than High Violet that, let's be honest, was a little too downtempo.
There's something in every song that sets it apart from the rest. Of note, it's refreshing that "Sea of Love" ticks the metronome up quite a few notches, and it's the first time in memory that Beringer has shouted during a song without screaming. "This Is The Last Time" starts with an unaccompanied guitar riff that is instantly one of the band's most recognizable. The end does drags a bit after "Graceless," but at 56 minutes, this is the band's longest release in recent history.
Of course, in a recent interview Matt Berninger suggested that the band, having been around since their self-titled in 2001, might just call it quits soon. Not because of any antics or bullshit (remember that four of the band members are two sets of siblings, and you're stuck with those people for life), but best to bow out on a high note than overstay your welcome. Far too many bands peter out after a few weak LPs. Here's hoping that Trouble isn't the last we hear from these sad sacks.
And now a one-sentence descriptor for all my Tier Two albums. Also in alphabetical order:
!!! - THR!!!ER
They survived dancepunk, and now they're the most underrated funk band in indiedom, dropping stealth dance albums at a reliable clip.
Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest
When the world ends, at least we already have the soundtrack.
Chvrches - The Bones of What You Believe
An almost-too-potent blast of pure synthpop.
Disclosure - Settle
[This year's obligatory out-of-nowhere London dance record by two teenagers that is really fucking awesome.]
My Bloody Valentine - MBV
The best album of 1993.
Tomorrow: My favorite individual songs of the year.
Mux136: December 2013
Last mux of 2013 and, like all milestones, I just throw together whatever tracks sound good. And I swear I'm almost done with GTA V tracks. But they all happen to be quite good.
Yep.
1. Haim - Falling (Days Are Gone)
2. Chvrches - Gun (The Bones of What You Believe)
3. Wavves - Nine Is God (The Music of Grand Theft Auto V)
4. Deerhunter - Back To The Middle (Monomania)
5. Future of the Left - French Lessons (How To Stop Your Brain In An Accident)
6. The National - I Need My Girl (Trouble Will Find Me) (For JET, as always)
7. Propellerheads - Take California (Decksanddrumsandrockandroll)
8. !!! - One Girl / One Boy (THR!!!ER) (For ECM, a !!! convert)
9. Baths - Miasma Sky (Obsidian)
10. Tame Impala - Keep On Lying (Lonerism)
11. The Rapture - It Takes Time To Be A Man (In The Grace of Your Love) (For JCD)
TRT 48:08
2013 music: !!!, Baths, Chvrches, Deerhunter, Future of the Left, Haim, The National, Wavves
Yep.
1. Haim - Falling (Days Are Gone)
2. Chvrches - Gun (The Bones of What You Believe)
3. Wavves - Nine Is God (The Music of Grand Theft Auto V)
4. Deerhunter - Back To The Middle (Monomania)
5. Future of the Left - French Lessons (How To Stop Your Brain In An Accident)
6. The National - I Need My Girl (Trouble Will Find Me) (For JET, as always)
7. Propellerheads - Take California (Decksanddrumsandrockandroll)
8. !!! - One Girl / One Boy (THR!!!ER) (For ECM, a !!! convert)
9. Baths - Miasma Sky (Obsidian)
10. Tame Impala - Keep On Lying (Lonerism)
11. The Rapture - It Takes Time To Be A Man (In The Grace of Your Love) (For JCD)
TRT 48:08
2013 music: !!!, Baths, Chvrches, Deerhunter, Future of the Left, Haim, The National, Wavves
Friday, November 1, 2013
Mux134: November 2013
And just on the day I was about to start my always-far-too-long-to-finish-on-time-unless-I-start-in-October yearly music roundup, an Arcade Fire album comes out. So if nothing else, there's none of that here, since I, you know, usually make these about a week in advance. And my hope-it-proves-me-wrong first-listen of Reflecktor had me thinking, "Eh."
And why the hell is the mastering so low?
And why the hell is the mastering so low?
Boom.
1. The National - I Should Live In Salt (Trouble Will Find Me) (For JET, obviously)
2. HEALTH - High Pressure Dave (The Music of Grand Theft Auto V)
3. Haim - Forever (Days Are Gone)
4. !!! - Blue (Strange Weather, Isn't It? bonus track)
5. Sleigh Bells - Bitter Rivals (Bitter Rivals)
6. The Men - Night Landing (Leave Home)
7. Deerhunter - Leather Jacket II (Monomania) (For the ex-pat Swede)
8. Volcano Choir - Comrade (Repave)
9. Fuck Buttons - Stalker (Slow Focus)
10. Oneohtrix Point Never - Chrome Country (R Plus Seven)
TRT 48:51
2013 music: Deerhunter, Fuck Buttons, Haim, HEALTH, The National, Oneohtrix Point Never, Sleigh Bells, Volcano Choir
Rookies: Haim
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Mux132: Portland Part 3
Three Portland trips in less than a year. Better be the last before the longest-delayed move ever.
It also justifies the rather obvious addition of the bonus track.
Boom.
1. Fuck Buttons - Brainfreeze (Slow Focus)
2. !!! - Sweet Life (Myth Takes)
3. Deerhunter - Hazel St. (Cryptograms)
4. Weekend - Mirror (Jinx)
5. Joy Division - Twenty Four Hours (Closer)
6. Boards of Canada - Sundown (Tomorrow's Harvest)
7. The National - About Today (White Session)
8. Volcano Choir - Byegone (Repave)
9. Bonus track
TRT 43:02
2013 music: Boards of Canada, Fuck Buttons, Volcano Choir, Weekend
It also justifies the rather obvious addition of the bonus track.
Boom.
1. Fuck Buttons - Brainfreeze (Slow Focus)
2. !!! - Sweet Life (Myth Takes)
3. Deerhunter - Hazel St. (Cryptograms)
4. Weekend - Mirror (Jinx)
5. Joy Division - Twenty Four Hours (Closer)
6. Boards of Canada - Sundown (Tomorrow's Harvest)
7. The National - About Today (White Session)
8. Volcano Choir - Byegone (Repave)
9. Bonus track
TRT 43:02
2013 music: Boards of Canada, Fuck Buttons, Volcano Choir, Weekend
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Mux130: Two Weeks Left
Apparently I ripped the first track back in an era when all rips sounded like the radio. The rest fair better, even my YouTube MP3 rips.
Also, here's advance warning that the clatter that is "Monomania" might just end up being my favorite song of the year. Because, obviously, I am a tastemaker for a worldwide audience.
Boom.
1. Franz Ferdinand - Jacqueline (Franz Ferdinand)
2. Arcade Fire - Ready To Start (The Suburbs)
3. The National - Graceless (Trouble Will Find Me) (For JET)
4. Foals - Providence (Holy Fire)
5. TV on the Radio - Golden Age (Dear Science)
6. Capital Children's Choir - Untrust Us (Crystal Castles vocal cover)
7. Justice - Phantom Pt. II (Soulwax Nite Version) (Propers to JLA for giving me this a while back)
8. Boards of Canada - Split Your Infinities (Tomorrow's Harvest)
9. Fuck Buttons - Hidden XS (Slow Focus)
10. Deerhunter - Monomania (Monomania) (For TS, who Bradford Cox once mistook for Britt Daniel)
11. Diarrhea Planet with Patrick Stickles - Born To Run (Bruce Springsteen cover)
TRT 55:21
Rookies: Capital Children's Choir, Diarrhea Planet
New(ish) 2013 music from: Boards of Canada, Deerhunter Foals, Fuck Buttons, The National
Also also: I was spinning a few old muxes the other day, and I came across the unusually-excellent Mux059: The Muxtape Reloaded (no Matrix affiliation). I reuploaded it to my Dropbox for all of the world to enjoy or something.
Also, here's advance warning that the clatter that is "Monomania" might just end up being my favorite song of the year. Because, obviously, I am a tastemaker for a worldwide audience.
Boom.
1. Franz Ferdinand - Jacqueline (Franz Ferdinand)
2. Arcade Fire - Ready To Start (The Suburbs)
3. The National - Graceless (Trouble Will Find Me) (For JET)
4. Foals - Providence (Holy Fire)
5. TV on the Radio - Golden Age (Dear Science)
6. Capital Children's Choir - Untrust Us (Crystal Castles vocal cover)
7. Justice - Phantom Pt. II (Soulwax Nite Version) (Propers to JLA for giving me this a while back)
8. Boards of Canada - Split Your Infinities (Tomorrow's Harvest)
9. Fuck Buttons - Hidden XS (Slow Focus)
10. Deerhunter - Monomania (Monomania) (For TS, who Bradford Cox once mistook for Britt Daniel)
11. Diarrhea Planet with Patrick Stickles - Born To Run (Bruce Springsteen cover)
TRT 55:21
Rookies: Capital Children's Choir, Diarrhea Planet
New(ish) 2013 music from: Boards of Canada, Deerhunter Foals, Fuck Buttons, The National
Also also: I was spinning a few old muxes the other day, and I came across the unusually-excellent Mux059: The Muxtape Reloaded (no Matrix affiliation). I reuploaded it to my Dropbox for all of the world to enjoy or something.
Monday, July 15, 2013
Mux128: Something Something Summer
Basically a semi-Back To Rock mux. Some new, some old, e.g. the usual. I'd also like to take a moment to state that !!!'s THR!!!ER, annoying title aside, is one of the most criminally underrated albums of the year.
Boom.
1. Radiohead - Packt Like Sardines In A Crushd Tin Box (Amnesiac)
2. !!! - Even When The Water's Cold (THR!!!ER)
3. Controller.Controller - Magnetic Strip (X-Amounts)
4. Wolf Parade - Call It A Ritual (At Mount Zoomer)
5. Iceage - Everything Drifts (You're Nothing)
6. Modest Mouse - Tiny Cities Made of Ashes (The Moon & Antarctica)
7. Foals - Everytime (Holy Fire)
8. LCD Soundsystem - Pow Pow (London Sessions) (For JCD, for some reason)
9. The Wrens - Hopeless (The Meadowlands)
10. Tame Impala - I Don't Really Mind (Innerspeaker)
11. The National - Lit Up (Parisian Party Version) (Single) (For JET, as always)
TRT 44:15
Rookies: Controller.Controller (hey, remember those guys?)
New(ish) 2013 music: !!!, Foals, Iceage
Boom.
1. Radiohead - Packt Like Sardines In A Crushd Tin Box (Amnesiac)
2. !!! - Even When The Water's Cold (THR!!!ER)
3. Controller.Controller - Magnetic Strip (X-Amounts)
4. Wolf Parade - Call It A Ritual (At Mount Zoomer)
5. Iceage - Everything Drifts (You're Nothing)
6. Modest Mouse - Tiny Cities Made of Ashes (The Moon & Antarctica)
7. Foals - Everytime (Holy Fire)
8. LCD Soundsystem - Pow Pow (London Sessions) (For JCD, for some reason)
9. The Wrens - Hopeless (The Meadowlands)
10. Tame Impala - I Don't Really Mind (Innerspeaker)
11. The National - Lit Up (Parisian Party Version) (Single) (For JET, as always)
TRT 44:15
Rookies: Controller.Controller (hey, remember those guys?)
New(ish) 2013 music: !!!, Foals, Iceage
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Mux117: One Last Winter
Boom.
Boring tech note: The last three tracks were originally all very low-volume, so I boosted them until they started to distort. So apologies that you'll have to ride the levels at the end.
Another grab bag. Started as a clearinghouse but turned out rather nice. So says the man who sequenced it.
1. Ty Segall - Thank God For Sinners (Twins)
2. Divine Fits - Would That Not Be Nice? (A Thing Called Divine Fits)
3. Enon - Pigeneration (Grass Geysers Carbon Clouds)
4. LCD Soundsystem - Movement (LCD Soundsystem)
5. The Knife - Silent Shout (Silent Shout)
6. Chromatics - Night Drive (Night Drive) (For JCD)
7. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Baby (Mature Themes)
8. Hot Chip - So Glad To See You (The Warning)
9. DIIV - Doused (Oshin) (For JET)
10. Arcade Fire - Headlights Look Like Diamonds (Arcade Fire EP)
11. The National - Wasp Nest (Live on KEXP)
12. Slint - Good Morning, Captain (Spiderland)
Rookies: Enon
TRT 51:12
Boring tech note: The last three tracks were originally all very low-volume, so I boosted them until they started to distort. So apologies that you'll have to ride the levels at the end.
Another grab bag. Started as a clearinghouse but turned out rather nice. So says the man who sequenced it.
1. Ty Segall - Thank God For Sinners (Twins)
2. Divine Fits - Would That Not Be Nice? (A Thing Called Divine Fits)
3. Enon - Pigeneration (Grass Geysers Carbon Clouds)
4. LCD Soundsystem - Movement (LCD Soundsystem)
5. The Knife - Silent Shout (Silent Shout)
6. Chromatics - Night Drive (Night Drive) (For JCD)
7. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Baby (Mature Themes)
8. Hot Chip - So Glad To See You (The Warning)
9. DIIV - Doused (Oshin) (For JET)
10. Arcade Fire - Headlights Look Like Diamonds (Arcade Fire EP)
11. The National - Wasp Nest (Live on KEXP)
12. Slint - Good Morning, Captain (Spiderland)
Rookies: Enon
TRT 51:12
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Mux115: Counting Down
Little bit of everything. No special fanfare for the last mux of the year, though the last track is something I've wanted on a mux for a long time.
Boom.
1. Wolf Parade - Cloud Shadow On The Mountain (Expo 86)
2. Black Lips - The Lie (Arabia Mountain)
3. Franz Ferdinand - The Dark of the Matinee (Franz Ferdinand)
4. Arcade Fire - Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) (Funeral)
5. Wiping Out Thousands - Creation (This Came First)
6. The Juan Maclean - Give Me Every Little Thing (Less Than Human)
7. Chromatics - Back From The Grave (Kill For Love)
8. Purity Ring - Lofticries (Shrines)
9. Spiritualized - I Am What I Am (Sweet Heart Sweet Light)
10. The Walkmen - Line By Line (Heaven)
11. Wilco - Via Chicago (Summerteeth)
12. The National - Lucky You (Daytrotter Session)
Rookie: Spiritualized
TRT 52:54
Boom.
1. Wolf Parade - Cloud Shadow On The Mountain (Expo 86)
2. Black Lips - The Lie (Arabia Mountain)
3. Franz Ferdinand - The Dark of the Matinee (Franz Ferdinand)
4. Arcade Fire - Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) (Funeral)
5. Wiping Out Thousands - Creation (This Came First)
6. The Juan Maclean - Give Me Every Little Thing (Less Than Human)
7. Chromatics - Back From The Grave (Kill For Love)
8. Purity Ring - Lofticries (Shrines)
9. Spiritualized - I Am What I Am (Sweet Heart Sweet Light)
10. The Walkmen - Line By Line (Heaven)
11. Wilco - Via Chicago (Summerteeth)
12. The National - Lucky You (Daytrotter Session)
Rookie: Spiritualized
TRT 52:54
Monday, October 1, 2012
Mux110: October 2012
I may or may not have simply forgotten to put "Blindsided" by Bon Iver between tracks 7 and 8 when I was compiling this in GarageBand. We can all pretend it's there.
Here.
1. The Kills - Future Starts Slow (Blood Pressures)
2. Ty Segall Band - Tell Me What's Inside Your Heart (Slaughterhouse)
3. The Men - Bataille (Leave Home)
4. Joy Division - Interzone (Unknown Pleasures)
5. Chromatics - The Page (Kill For Love)
6. Broken Social Scene - Swimmers (Broken Social Scene)
7. The National - Conversation 16 (High Violet)
8. Phantogram - Nightlife (Nightlife EP)
9. Deerhunter - Wash Off (Fluorescent Grey EP)
10. Ride - Polar Bear (Nowhere)
TRT 38:51
Here.
1. The Kills - Future Starts Slow (Blood Pressures)
2. Ty Segall Band - Tell Me What's Inside Your Heart (Slaughterhouse)
3. The Men - Bataille (Leave Home)
4. Joy Division - Interzone (Unknown Pleasures)
5. Chromatics - The Page (Kill For Love)
6. Broken Social Scene - Swimmers (Broken Social Scene)
7. The National - Conversation 16 (High Violet)
8. Phantogram - Nightlife (Nightlife EP)
9. Deerhunter - Wash Off (Fluorescent Grey EP)
10. Ride - Polar Bear (Nowhere)
TRT 38:51
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Mux097: Iced Out
Available via some Droppable Box.
Somehow kinda really quiet. Probably because I had to take the A Place To Bury Strangers track way down and the Sonic Youth track way up.
1. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero (It's Blitz!)
2. YACHT - Beam Me Up (Shangri-La)
3. Hot Chip - Over And Over (The Warning)
4. Sleigh Bells - Crush (Reign of Terror)
5. Cloud Nothings - Separation (Attack On Memory)
6. A Place To Bury Strangers - I Lost You (Onwards To The Wall EP)
7. Sonic Youth - Wish Fulfillment (Dirty)
8. The National - Think You Can Wait (Single)
9. Frankie Rose - Apples For The Sun (partial edit) (Interstellar)
10. Wiping Out Thousands - Closer (Reaction Machine EP)*
11. Phantogram - 16 Years (Nightlife EP)
TRT 39:34
Rookies:
Frankie Rose
Wiping Out Thousands
Wiping Out Thousands is a Minneapolis duo. No, they aren't on here simply by dint of their locality; it's because I really dig their Reaction Machine EP, which you can get completely free at their bandcamp page.
Somehow kinda really quiet. Probably because I had to take the A Place To Bury Strangers track way down and the Sonic Youth track way up.
1. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero (It's Blitz!)
2. YACHT - Beam Me Up (Shangri-La)
3. Hot Chip - Over And Over (The Warning)
4. Sleigh Bells - Crush (Reign of Terror)
5. Cloud Nothings - Separation (Attack On Memory)
6. A Place To Bury Strangers - I Lost You (Onwards To The Wall EP)
7. Sonic Youth - Wish Fulfillment (Dirty)
8. The National - Think You Can Wait (Single)
9. Frankie Rose - Apples For The Sun (partial edit) (Interstellar)
10. Wiping Out Thousands - Closer (Reaction Machine EP)*
11. Phantogram - 16 Years (Nightlife EP)
TRT 39:34
Rookies:
Frankie Rose
Wiping Out Thousands
Wiping Out Thousands is a Minneapolis duo. No, they aren't on here simply by dint of their locality; it's because I really dig their Reaction Machine EP, which you can get completely free at their bandcamp page.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Mux095: Still Burnsvillainous
Boxed.
1. Boris - Pink (Pink)
2. A Place To Bury Strangers - Onwards To The Wall (Onwards To The Wall EP)
3. Metric - Collect Call (Fantasies)
4. Real Estate - Younger Than Yesterday (Days)
5. The National - Exile Vilify (Single / Portal 2 soundtrack)
6. The Radio Dept. - A Token of Gratitude (Clinging To A Scheme)
7. The Flaming Lips - Feeling Yourself Disintegrate (The Soft Bulletin)
8. Cloud Nothings - Wasted Days (Attack On Memory)
TRT 38:13
Rookies:
Cloud Nothings
1. Boris - Pink (Pink)
2. A Place To Bury Strangers - Onwards To The Wall (Onwards To The Wall EP)
3. Metric - Collect Call (Fantasies)
4. Real Estate - Younger Than Yesterday (Days)
5. The National - Exile Vilify (Single / Portal 2 soundtrack)
6. The Radio Dept. - A Token of Gratitude (Clinging To A Scheme)
7. The Flaming Lips - Feeling Yourself Disintegrate (The Soft Bulletin)
8. Cloud Nothings - Wasted Days (Attack On Memory)
TRT 38:13
Rookies:
Cloud Nothings
Monday, August 15, 2011
Mux083: Back To Cool
In the Box.
Black Lips - Family Tree
Burial - Stolen Dog
Iceage - New Brigade
Titus Andronicus - Breed
Tune-Yards - Powa
Rookies:
Amy Winehouse
Iceage
McLusky
- TV on the Radio - The Wrong Way
- Iceage - White Rune
- Titus Andronicus - Breed (Nirvana cover)
- Black Lips - Family Tree
- Tune-Yards - Powa
- Burial - Stolen Dog
- The National - Green Gloves
- Broken Social Scene - Feel Good Lost
- McLusky - Alan Is A Cowboy Killer
- Amy Winehouse - Tears Dry On Their Own
Black Lips - Family Tree
Burial - Stolen Dog
Iceage - New Brigade
Titus Andronicus - Breed
Tune-Yards - Powa
Rookies:
Amy Winehouse
Iceage
McLusky
Friday, April 15, 2011
Mux075: Spring Feverish
- Joy Division - Failures
- A Place To Bury Strangers - Deadbeat
- PS I Love You - 2012
- The National - Blank Slate
- Japandroids - Crazy/Forever
- Radiohead - Optimistic
- The Joggers - Since You're Already Up
- The Kills - Heart Is A Beating Drum
- The Rural Alberta Advantage - The Dethbridge In Lethbridge
- Marnie Stern - The Things You Notice
- Bear In Heaven - Ultimate Satisfaction
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:
- The Boys Are Leaving Town (Mux036: October 2009)
- Young Hearts Spark Fire (Mux030: Oh Nine)
- Wet Hair (Mux022: May 2009)
- Rockers East Vancouver (Mux073: Lousy Smarch Weather)
- Heart Sweats (Mux026: August 2009)
- Crazy/Forever (Mux075 and you're already there)
- Sovereignty (Mux023: June 2009)
- I Quit Girls (Mux071: Muxsplosion)
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Mux068: January 2011
New year, old music.
Download at Megaupload.com. Stream below.
1. The National - Secret Meeting
2. The Magnetic Fields - I Don't Want To Get Over You
3. The New Pornographers - Letter From An Occupant
4. Stars - Elevator Love Letter
5. LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great
6. Four Tet - Smile Around The Face
7. The Knife - Heartbeats
8. Robyn - Hang With Me
9. My Bloody Valentine - Soon (Glider Version)
10. Spoon - The Ghost of You Lingers
11. Neil Young - Rockin' In The Free World (Electric)
12. Lightning Bolt - Ride the Sky
Mux rookies:
Neil Young
Robyn
Download at Megaupload.com. Stream below.
1. The National - Secret Meeting
2. The Magnetic Fields - I Don't Want To Get Over You
3. The New Pornographers - Letter From An Occupant
4. Stars - Elevator Love Letter
5. LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great
6. Four Tet - Smile Around The Face
7. The Knife - Heartbeats
8. Robyn - Hang With Me
9. My Bloody Valentine - Soon (Glider Version)
10. Spoon - The Ghost of You Lingers
11. Neil Young - Rockin' In The Free World (Electric)
12. Lightning Bolt - Ride the Sky
Mux rookies:
Neil Young
Robyn
Thursday, December 16, 2010
JDK's Favorite Music of 2010: Albums (Part 1)
Here we are at the year-end, and instead of living in a
pleasant continuum of shifting seasons, we must make lists to mark one calendar
day apart from the next. We must.
Statements like this are impossible to gauge, so I'll just
say it: 2010 was a hell of a good year for music. We got great material from
big acts and a lot of surprises from bands we had all but written off and some
we'd never heard of. Yeah, yeah, some might say 2009 had better music, or 2011
will, or that 2004 hit some magical sweet spot. (It did for me, but it's more
because I started attending a cool college with cool kids who listened to cool
music.)
I'll just take the year from what it was. And, thus, since I
hate assigning a number to something to say it's better (in a perfect world, it
just means it's different), here are my four most-favorite
albums of 2010.
Titus Andronicus - The Monitor
Current play count: 28
I listened to The Airing of Grievances probably twice, and
both were heard in that shitty stretch between the last toll stop and the clog
and clutter of driving-to-Chicago traffic. In short: I wasn't playing close attention. It
seemed weird enough that a New Jersey punk band was playing songs named after
Brueghel paintings and Albert Camus, and then came the news that their second
album would try to avoid the sophomore slump by loosely, conceptually being
about the Civil War.
Right.
And then The Monitor came out, and we loved it, and that was
that until I saw Titus Andronicus absolutely explode on stage at the 7th Street
Entry early in the year. On my .doc file of shows I've seen, Titus at 7th St.
is up there on that pedestal of "Best Show Ever."
Of course, trying to describe that lightning-in-a-bottle
feeling of seeing and hearing and experiencing something really awesome is
fairly impossible. And this was before the festivals, the Fallon appearance,
and the victory lap with Free Energy. Titus Andronicus was barely crowned Best
New Music when they hit the road with every intention to open every night with
the seven-minute "A More Perfect Union" and close it with the
earth-shattering, fourteen-minute "The Battle of Hampton Roads." Punk
fucking rock, right?
The album is obviously American. It's
about the goddamn Civil War, if nothing else (and, beyond that, if only
really about the War during between-song quotes). Beyond the
lyrics - which aren't so much about North vs. South or Us vs. Them as Myself
vs. Myself - it was like the band was trying to recapture a sort of real
American patriotism that hasn't been around since pre-9/11 days. When I saw
them at the Entry, frontman Patrick Stickles had a US flag tucked under his guitar
strap, and one was draped over the front of the keyboard setup. Since then
they've abandoned the flair, but it seemed all the more appropriate in that
loveable little hole known as the 7th St. Entry.
And, of course, there's some phenomenal music in the collection.
You can't rip into a set or a mixtape much better than the tape hiss and rising
chord of the first 53 seconds of "A More Perfect Union" and the
resulting explosion of Stickles spitting about the picked-over, blown-out New
Jersey as a microcosm of the eroding United States. And then the song gets its
first Boss reference out of the way and belts out a full-throated guitar solo
at 1:45.
"Theme From 'Cheers'", front to back, is the best
sing-along of the year. Never mind the "Rally 'round the flag!" off the
first track, nor the genuine-in-a-it's-not-coming-from-fucking-Green-Day
"The enemy is everywhere!" on "Titus Andronicus Forever"
(reprised on "…And Ever"), but there's more shouting along than most
records in recent memory. "No Future Part Three: Escape From No
Future" has the delicious nihilism of "You will always be a
loser!", "A Pot In Which To Piss" shouts "They will always
be laughing at you!", and the warm-blanket comedown of "It's all
right, the way that you live," on "To Old Friends And New."
That's far too much enthusiasm for a critique of music. But
also check out my
Titus Andronicus odyssey (featuring a special guest appearance by
Craig Finn of The Hold Steady) which was easily the best concert-going
experience of my life. (I only hold their 7th St. Entry show in higher regards
because I didn't know they were so fantastic live.)
While this is supposed to be about looking back and not
forward, it's not hard to see that Titus Andronicus has a pretty fantastic
theoretical future. There's enough difference both lyrically and musically
between Grievances and The Monitor to shroud the sound of their third record in
mystery. And what about any sort of concept? Stickles certainly has enough
angst for several LPs worth of self-deprication, self-pity, and self-loathing,
but will it be framed? Like as thought by the first astronaut in transit to
Mars? Whatever. It doesn't matter when it rocks this fucking hard.
The National - High Violet
Current play count: 40
It's fairly redundant, at this point, to say that High
Violet is The National's third masterpiece in a row.
I don't dispute the claim. Alligator and Boxer are unfairly
good. But, to me, the difference is a bit illusory. To the outside listener,
sure, the limits of Berninger's croon and the increasingly-downtempo
instrumentation might make all National listening sound like slowly applying
more and more pressure to a turntable stylus, just making everything get slower
and slower and--
But to me, it's fairly concrete. Interviews with the band
have highlighted it. When it comes time to write, the Dessner brothers often
come up with a "sketch," and sometimes that sketch is filled out with
lyrics and drums and bass and, boom, you have yourself a National song. For me,
it seems that a fair number of tracks off Alligator and Boxer never fully filled
out, and thus remained "sketches." In the case of Boxer stuff, it
seems like the drumming just never came together, and regarding Alligator, it's
a little dashed off.
Fuck it, I'll list songs to hammer this point:
Alligator
"Baby, We'll Be Fine"
"Friends of Mine"
"City Middle"
Boxer
"Squalor Victoria"
"Start A War"
"Racing Like A Pro"
But with the case of High Violet, every single track is
fully formed and complete and every bit as polished as everything that we've
come to know as A Song By The National.
It seems, though, to come at a bit of a cost. High Violet
doesn't have nearly as many highs as the prior two albums. That factor, though,
is really what elevates "Bloodbuzz Ohio" to such epicness, as does
"England." There's also the quality of each National album is that
they're all obvious growers, and only on repeated listens do the intricacies of
"Terrible Love," "Afraid of Everyone,"
"Lemonworld," and "Conversation 16" reveal themselves.
Calling High Violet the band's best record just by dint of
its illusory "completeness" is disingenuous. It's a fantastic album
because it's greater than the sum of its parts; because it's not just
"Bloodbuzz Ohio," "England," and whatever other songs some
random listener doesn't delete off their hard drive.
It's inevitable that I end these blurbs on a Where Do We Go
From Here? note. It's easy for The National: the fire that burns slow burns
much longer. That's ultimately what makes a track like "Terrible
Love" suddenly explode on a tenth listen. These are songs made with a
craftsmanship few bands can equal, and all those little parts eventually reveal
themselves to whoever is wise enough to stick around.
Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest
Current play count: 17
Microcastle brought me into the Deerhunter fold. Prior to
that, they just seemed some obnoxious band fronted by an obnoxious guy named
Bradford Cox who took some obscene pleasure in blogging pictures of his feces
and posting barely-legal male porn.
And Microcastle elevated the band to Band status, with Cox
handing over some songwriting duties to second guitarist Lockett Pundt and
bassist Josh Fauver. Whether or not the latter two's involvement caused the
shift away from Cryptograms' uneasy mix of hazy shoegaze and droning
instrumentals will be forever unknown (unless I just, you know, ask next time I
see them), but Microcastle and its more-straight-ahead rock ("Nothing Ever
Happened," "Saved By Old Times") and immaculate pop
("Agoraphobia," "Little Kids") seemed to signal a
fundamental change in sound and accessibility.
But take grandiose Microcastle opener "Cover Me
(Slowly)" and put it up against the hush of Halcyon Digest's starter
"Earthquake." There's no 1:1 correlation there, and for my first few
listens of Digest, I was looking for the big hooks that made Microcastle such a
surprise hit (for me, at least). What I first thought was the band just turning
things down a notch revealed itself as another side of their perpetual
chameleon sound. Microcastle seems such a perfect Album as Album, whereas
Halcyon Digest seemed to take a left turn every track change.
But because of sequencing or production or some secret X,
Halycon Digest is its own discrete unit. Contrast that with a disparate Deerhunter
release like the bonus Weird Era Cont. comp that spun out of control. Contrasts
somehow creates unity, with the short, poppier numbers ("Revival,"
"Memory Boy," "Fountain Stairs") pressed up against breezy,
airy, atmospheric pieces like opener "Earthquake," the one-take
"Sailing," and the oblique this-is-a-Jay-Reatard-tribute?-you-sure?
of "He Would Have Laughed."
A few listens in, you'll stop wondering where's the
"Nothing Ever Happened" rock-out (well, it's really there in
"Desire Lines") and come to grips with the hushed, room-to-breathe
sound that characterises most of Halcyon Digest. And much like Titus
Andronicus, the thrill of Deerhunter - beyond their hyper-prolific output - is
that they're a young band unafraid to chart out new sonic territory. And also
like supergroup Wolf Parade, it's astounding that all the individual members
have their solo projects to chase their stray ideas, only to come back to a
Deerhunter LP proper with a propulsive focus.
The Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
Current play count: 20
In my write-up for standout track "Sprawl II (Mountains
Beyond Mountains)," I mentioned how The Suburbs, as a whole, seems a
reactionary piece of music compared to Neon Bible. That is, Neon Bible took
itself seriously to the point of pretention, far removed from the lonely
musings of the band's debut Funeral.
The Suburbs skips the preaching of Neon Bible and gets back
into the mindset of Funeral. But whereas Funeral was about discovering the
haunted sheen on once-beloved childhood memories, The Suburbs is about having
grown up and now "the kids" don't live in Neighborhoods anymore but
the giant Suburb surrounding. It's not so much about the loss of innocence as
is it in the assertion that there was never any innocence to begin with. It's
about waking up at six and going to "punch the clock" and driving
past "dead shopping malls" in the abandoned upkeep of suburbs, that
oh-so-strange post-WWII living zone we haven't yet fully grasped.
At sixteen tracks, The Suburbs is almost twenty minutes
longer than both Funeral and Neon Bible. There's some filler, sure -
"Wasted Hours," "Deep Blue" - but beyond the standout
"Sprawl II," there's a giant tie for the second-best song among title
track "The Suburbs," the jaunty "Ready To Start," the
wonderings of "City With No Children" and "Half Light II (No
Celebration)," the halcyon "Suburban War," the rocker
"Month of May," and the coiled "We Used To Wait."
It's odd that one of the Biggest Indie Rock Bands put out a
record I best describe as "refreshing." I, like many others, was
probably awaiting Neon Bible II, with the kind of pomposity of something like a
U2 record, or Green Day's overreaching social commentary, or grade-school
can't-we-all-just-get-along thematics like late-era Michael Jackson albums.
Instead, The Arcade Fire, wisely, once again turned inward and subtly made us
reconsider whether all this supposed Progress outside of cities is a liveable
place or just sloppy, oppressed sprawl.
Next: Memorable albums worth a listen or two.
Monday, December 13, 2010
JDK's Favorite Music of 2010: Songs
(Stupid disclaimer: I started writing this a few days ago, so this has nothing to do with the fact that Pitchfork posted half their list today and that both lists have a fair number of similarities.)
I hate to wrap up things prematurely, but it's safe to assume that 2010, music-wise, has been spoken for. There might be some slim chance of a phenomenal album coming during these last few weeks (as evidenced by the universally-acclaimed My Beautiful Dark LiveJournal Fantasy by Kanye West that dropped recent), but all that theoretical music is in the same league with all the 2010 stuff that was great that I haven't even heard yet.
And as much as I'm an Album Guy versus a Singles Guy, here's a CD-length sampling of some of my favorite music from the year. One note: Placement does not indicate numerical status, e.g. track 1 was not my favorite song of the year.
Tracks:
1. Japandroids - Younger Us
2. No Age - Glitter
3. Spoon - Written In Reverse
4. The National - Bloodbuzz Ohio
5. Marnie Stern - Transparency Is The New Mystery
6. Deerhunter - Helicopter
7. Liars - Scarecrows On A Killer Slant
8. Phantogram - When I'm Small
9. Health - USA Boys
10. Big Boi - Shutterbugg
11. Crystal Castles - Doe Deer
12. Tobacco - Fresh Hex
13. Four Tet - Love Cry (JDK Fuck The Intro Edit)
14. Best Coast - When I'm With You
15. Titus Andronicus - Four Score And Seven
16. The Arcade Fire - Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
17. Holy Fuck - P.I.G.S.
18. Sleigh Bells - Crown On The Ground
For the sake of fitting this on a disc and for the principle of not repeating bands, there's a lot of stuff that needs some recognition that didn't make this 18-track cut. I'm going to run down my top four songs of the year in some sort of nebulous order, and then I'll do the rest alphabetical.
1. Titus Andronicus - Four Score And Seven
"Four Score And Seven" starts off the second half of The Monitor on a rather mopey note. "This is a war we can't win," frontman Patrick Stickles begins over some lonely guitar strums, and not long after laments "And all my heroes died at the end."
The band veers into some choice instrumentation that usually reeks of either pretention or crap but works here. A low-key violin line comes in, followed by that most American of all instruments: the harmonica, appropriately sounding like it's coming from a boxcar of a passing freight train.
Things start to pick up with another chant, this time the waiting-for-comeuppance "You won't be laughing so hard." And then, hell, there's a brass section before the first evidence of drums and any semblance of rock in this eight-and-a-half-minute epic.
A guitar solo leads into some of the most intense angst from Stickles on record. At the start of a particularly-venomous rant he just yells "Fuck, I'm frustrated!" at the prospect of doing so much and feeling like it's so little and how it's so easy to just "urinate into the void" of all this "miserable quote-unquote art." Somewhere along the vent Stickles finds his confidence, picks his shit-covered self out of some New Jersey gutter and declares that he "wasn't born to die like a dog, [he] was born to die just like a man."
And then the ultimate rallying cry of the album sounds: "It's still us against them!" repeated, as usual, several times, each with varying degrees of neck-vein-bursting fury. The "us" and the "them" are subjective, and if you don't really care you can just think it's about the Civil War or something instead of the delicate mental gymnastics that any artist has to perform in that just-starting-out terror of figuring out whether you suck or you actually have something pretty fucking important to say.
"It's still us against them" Stickles screams and, for whatever reason, doesn't sound particularly defeated when he finishes the line with "and they're winning." It could be that the whole idea of all this being a battle is total bullshit; that if you don't think of it as Us and Them, you can actually get on with your life; that everything you do isn't permanent, or malleable, or either Perfect or Garbage; that life isn't Yes or No or any one of those millions of dualisms. It's about finding peace within that battle, even if "they're winning."
2. The National - Bloodbuzz Ohio
And now, with much less to say...
It's easy to pick out "Bloodbuzz Ohio" as the standout track off High Violet. It's one of those rare National tracks that gets out of that middle-class gloomy paranoia and just fucking soars. And that, of course, isn't to say that "Bloodbuzz Ohio" is the best tracks off the album. And just because it's the most accessible doesn't mean it'll eventually relegate itself to the backwaters of The National's catalog.
Another reason I hate cherry-picking songs is that they lose all context. If High Violet were filled with uptempo numbers, "Bloodbuzz Ohio" wouldn't feel as good as it does. Coming right off the dread of "Afraid of Everyone" and, in general, an A-side that isn't exactly a blue-skied sunny day, "Bloodbuzz Ohio" seems almost defiant in its instrumental optimism.
Lyrically, though, it's still like getting sucked through the kitchen-sink vortex of Matt Berninger's mind. It doesn't sound particularly pleasant to be "carried to Ohio by a swarm of bees," and (another one of the great choruses of the year) there's a resignation to knowing "I still owe money to the money to the money I owe."
It's also pretty amazing that The National made one of the best rock songs of the year that, if you listen closely, realize is basically just piano, brass, and drums until the guitar "solo" at the end.
3. Marnie Stern - Transparency Is The New Mystery
It must be standard that the most affecting lovesick rock songs have some sort of impenetrability about them. Yeah Yeah Yeah's "Maps" seems an enigma, since Karen O apparently addresses the song to someone literally named Maps, or that maps, in general, have to do with something. You only figure it out after you find out that Maps is really M.A.P.S., which is My Angus Please Stay, which is to say it's about Karen O's relationship with Liars frontman Angus Andrew.
Marnie carries the torch, starting out with "In order to see it, you've got to believe it," and from there not resolving the question at all. Yeah, it's clear there's some sort of relationship going on, as well as some distance, in which Marnie sings "You said to try patience." She then goes through denial and anguish in the same breath with, "Can't you tell? You're like me. I'm too late. You've got her."
And then, christ, the chorus is repetitions of "It's not enough" and "I'm not enough." Only female vocalists can make songs like these sound so beautiful while they're about black-hole pits of sadness.
This song shows Marnie's maturation as a lyricist, given that the song floats along on a basically two guitar notes and a little background drumming. There's no tapping. No solo. No real hook except the downer of a chorus.
There's maybe a shred of optimism at the end, when the song closes on "I want this." Whether it means she's accepted the end of the relationship or that she's in need of a good brood, I don't know.
4. The Arcade Fire - Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
Shout out to the prescient Luke for immediately knowing this would be one of the best songs of the year about two minutes after the album leaked.
Somewhere written into The Arcade Fire's record deal must be a stipulation that each album's penultimate track is its best. Funeral had "Rebellion (Lies)," Neon Bible had the refurbished "No Cars Go," and The Suburbs comes to a near-close on the part-bubblegum, part-sinister synths of "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)."
The Suburbs, in a way, is a knee-jerk reaction to Neon Bible, which many saw as far too preachy. Especially for a Quebecois band trying to stick a finger into the American political debate (of the then-upcoming 2008 election), which is quicksand territory for any band comprised of mere mortals. The Suburbs regressed back to many of the familiar roots of Funeral, with its many references to "the kids" and childhood imagery, though the latter's naivete and pain is replaced with the dull resignation to the droll outer rings of cities.
"Sprawl II" conveys this in only a handful of lyrics surrounded by a bouncy pop instrumental. Regine Chassagne starts off on the defensive with "You heard me singing and you told me to stop" and acknowledges the seeming irrelevance of Art in daily life, when her detractor says, "Quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock."
The Arcade Fire has never been too coy with their lyrics, and co-singer Win Butler frequently shouts with an intonation suggesting that his heart is firmly attached to his sleeve. For her part, Chassagne keeps some songs from swelling too big. She drops a fairly large bomb with a one-sentence damnation of suburban sprawl with "Dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains, and there's no end in sight."
Just like Funeral, it's a pretty bleak fucking statement, but it's said with a sort of optimistic Fuck All that's much harder to master than mere cynicism.
There goes the song dissection, so I'll now just run through my laundry list of also-great 2010 songs. I'll spare the headache of pointlessly ranking them, so we'll just run it alphabetical:
I hate to wrap up things prematurely, but it's safe to assume that 2010, music-wise, has been spoken for. There might be some slim chance of a phenomenal album coming during these last few weeks (as evidenced by the universally-acclaimed My Beautiful Dark LiveJournal Fantasy by Kanye West that dropped recent), but all that theoretical music is in the same league with all the 2010 stuff that was great that I haven't even heard yet.
And as much as I'm an Album Guy versus a Singles Guy, here's a CD-length sampling of some of my favorite music from the year. One note: Placement does not indicate numerical status, e.g. track 1 was not my favorite song of the year.
Tracks:
1. Japandroids - Younger Us
2. No Age - Glitter
3. Spoon - Written In Reverse
4. The National - Bloodbuzz Ohio
5. Marnie Stern - Transparency Is The New Mystery
6. Deerhunter - Helicopter
7. Liars - Scarecrows On A Killer Slant
8. Phantogram - When I'm Small
9. Health - USA Boys
10. Big Boi - Shutterbugg
11. Crystal Castles - Doe Deer
12. Tobacco - Fresh Hex
13. Four Tet - Love Cry (JDK Fuck The Intro Edit)
14. Best Coast - When I'm With You
15. Titus Andronicus - Four Score And Seven
16. The Arcade Fire - Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
17. Holy Fuck - P.I.G.S.
18. Sleigh Bells - Crown On The Ground
For the sake of fitting this on a disc and for the principle of not repeating bands, there's a lot of stuff that needs some recognition that didn't make this 18-track cut. I'm going to run down my top four songs of the year in some sort of nebulous order, and then I'll do the rest alphabetical.
1. Titus Andronicus - Four Score And Seven
"Four Score And Seven" starts off the second half of The Monitor on a rather mopey note. "This is a war we can't win," frontman Patrick Stickles begins over some lonely guitar strums, and not long after laments "And all my heroes died at the end."
The band veers into some choice instrumentation that usually reeks of either pretention or crap but works here. A low-key violin line comes in, followed by that most American of all instruments: the harmonica, appropriately sounding like it's coming from a boxcar of a passing freight train.
Things start to pick up with another chant, this time the waiting-for-comeuppance "You won't be laughing so hard." And then, hell, there's a brass section before the first evidence of drums and any semblance of rock in this eight-and-a-half-minute epic.
A guitar solo leads into some of the most intense angst from Stickles on record. At the start of a particularly-venomous rant he just yells "Fuck, I'm frustrated!" at the prospect of doing so much and feeling like it's so little and how it's so easy to just "urinate into the void" of all this "miserable quote-unquote art." Somewhere along the vent Stickles finds his confidence, picks his shit-covered self out of some New Jersey gutter and declares that he "wasn't born to die like a dog, [he] was born to die just like a man."
And then the ultimate rallying cry of the album sounds: "It's still us against them!" repeated, as usual, several times, each with varying degrees of neck-vein-bursting fury. The "us" and the "them" are subjective, and if you don't really care you can just think it's about the Civil War or something instead of the delicate mental gymnastics that any artist has to perform in that just-starting-out terror of figuring out whether you suck or you actually have something pretty fucking important to say.
"It's still us against them" Stickles screams and, for whatever reason, doesn't sound particularly defeated when he finishes the line with "and they're winning." It could be that the whole idea of all this being a battle is total bullshit; that if you don't think of it as Us and Them, you can actually get on with your life; that everything you do isn't permanent, or malleable, or either Perfect or Garbage; that life isn't Yes or No or any one of those millions of dualisms. It's about finding peace within that battle, even if "they're winning."
2. The National - Bloodbuzz Ohio
And now, with much less to say...
It's easy to pick out "Bloodbuzz Ohio" as the standout track off High Violet. It's one of those rare National tracks that gets out of that middle-class gloomy paranoia and just fucking soars. And that, of course, isn't to say that "Bloodbuzz Ohio" is the best tracks off the album. And just because it's the most accessible doesn't mean it'll eventually relegate itself to the backwaters of The National's catalog.
Another reason I hate cherry-picking songs is that they lose all context. If High Violet were filled with uptempo numbers, "Bloodbuzz Ohio" wouldn't feel as good as it does. Coming right off the dread of "Afraid of Everyone" and, in general, an A-side that isn't exactly a blue-skied sunny day, "Bloodbuzz Ohio" seems almost defiant in its instrumental optimism.
Lyrically, though, it's still like getting sucked through the kitchen-sink vortex of Matt Berninger's mind. It doesn't sound particularly pleasant to be "carried to Ohio by a swarm of bees," and (another one of the great choruses of the year) there's a resignation to knowing "I still owe money to the money to the money I owe."
It's also pretty amazing that The National made one of the best rock songs of the year that, if you listen closely, realize is basically just piano, brass, and drums until the guitar "solo" at the end.
3. Marnie Stern - Transparency Is The New Mystery
It must be standard that the most affecting lovesick rock songs have some sort of impenetrability about them. Yeah Yeah Yeah's "Maps" seems an enigma, since Karen O apparently addresses the song to someone literally named Maps, or that maps, in general, have to do with something. You only figure it out after you find out that Maps is really M.A.P.S., which is My Angus Please Stay, which is to say it's about Karen O's relationship with Liars frontman Angus Andrew.
Marnie carries the torch, starting out with "In order to see it, you've got to believe it," and from there not resolving the question at all. Yeah, it's clear there's some sort of relationship going on, as well as some distance, in which Marnie sings "You said to try patience." She then goes through denial and anguish in the same breath with, "Can't you tell? You're like me. I'm too late. You've got her."
And then, christ, the chorus is repetitions of "It's not enough" and "I'm not enough." Only female vocalists can make songs like these sound so beautiful while they're about black-hole pits of sadness.
This song shows Marnie's maturation as a lyricist, given that the song floats along on a basically two guitar notes and a little background drumming. There's no tapping. No solo. No real hook except the downer of a chorus.
There's maybe a shred of optimism at the end, when the song closes on "I want this." Whether it means she's accepted the end of the relationship or that she's in need of a good brood, I don't know.
4. The Arcade Fire - Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
Shout out to the prescient Luke for immediately knowing this would be one of the best songs of the year about two minutes after the album leaked.
Somewhere written into The Arcade Fire's record deal must be a stipulation that each album's penultimate track is its best. Funeral had "Rebellion (Lies)," Neon Bible had the refurbished "No Cars Go," and The Suburbs comes to a near-close on the part-bubblegum, part-sinister synths of "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)."
The Suburbs, in a way, is a knee-jerk reaction to Neon Bible, which many saw as far too preachy. Especially for a Quebecois band trying to stick a finger into the American political debate (of the then-upcoming 2008 election), which is quicksand territory for any band comprised of mere mortals. The Suburbs regressed back to many of the familiar roots of Funeral, with its many references to "the kids" and childhood imagery, though the latter's naivete and pain is replaced with the dull resignation to the droll outer rings of cities.
"Sprawl II" conveys this in only a handful of lyrics surrounded by a bouncy pop instrumental. Regine Chassagne starts off on the defensive with "You heard me singing and you told me to stop" and acknowledges the seeming irrelevance of Art in daily life, when her detractor says, "Quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock."
The Arcade Fire has never been too coy with their lyrics, and co-singer Win Butler frequently shouts with an intonation suggesting that his heart is firmly attached to his sleeve. For her part, Chassagne keeps some songs from swelling too big. She drops a fairly large bomb with a one-sentence damnation of suburban sprawl with "Dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains, and there's no end in sight."
Just like Funeral, it's a pretty bleak fucking statement, but it's said with a sort of optimistic Fuck All that's much harder to master than mere cynicism.
There goes the song dissection, so I'll now just run through my laundry list of also-great 2010 songs. I'll spare the headache of pointlessly ranking them, so we'll just run it alphabetical:
- Allo Darlin' - Kiss Your Lips
Really only here because I don't think a song has even had the genius (or laziness) of word-for-word singing the chorus to "El Scorcho" within the narrative of a song. - Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Round And Round
The chorus is one of the bigger payoffs of the year. The Hood Internet seized on that and made a remix that pretty much exclusively uses the chorus, and it falls a little flat because there's no anticipation. - Band of Horses - Laredo
The band's trajectory has steadily gone downhill since the debut of their pretty-good Everything All The Time. Maybe it's just because they haven't changed much from their midtempo, charming tunefulness, or maybe I'm getting sick of hearing their songs in car commercials. (Okay, maybe that was just "The Funeral" in one a few years back, but still.) - Baths - Maximalist
The title says it all. I first latched onto Baths when I saw a video of him performing some tracks at a record shop. Instead of the usual laptop-show standing-behind-your-MacBook-and-head-nodding, he was going crazy pressing buttons and twisting knobs and shit. Without that necessary layer of aural insanity, he'd be another minimalist electro dude. - Beach House - 10 Mile Stereo
This is probably the only way to build up a Beach House song: add elements that give the impression that the song is getting faster and faster. - Best Coast - When I'm With You
Yeah, yeah, I know this was actually on an EP from 2009, but it was on their full-length Crazy For You so I can include it. Speaking of the latter, it already hints of the embarrassing number of times "lazy" is rhymed with "crazy," and that is endemic of the whole notion that Best Coast generally writes sloppy lyrics. "When I'm With You" stands out from the sounds-the-same-as-everything-else song-collection Crazy For You because it changes tempo after a fake-out slow-mo start. Really it comes down to the choice that, if I had to pick one song from the catchy but lackluster album, it'd be this. - Big Boi - Shutterbugg
Any track that has a beat partly comprised of scat-like vocals is worth a few repeats for the novelty alone. - Broken Social Scene - World Sick
I think everyone is getting pretty tired of BSS. Every since You Forgot It In People, the band has gotten less structured and far jammier, especially on the "solo" Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning records. "World Sick" doesn't redefine anything, and even with it's obscenely-long runtime of 6:49, there are very few Hell Yes moments. It's kind of like the inverse of the bloated self-titled closer "It's All Gonna Break." - Caribou - Bowls
It's a shame that Caribou radically alters his sound for every record, since the territory he explores on Swim is by far my favorite work of his. There's very little of the sunshine, flowers, and weedy high of The Milk of Human Kindness and Andorra, and a lot of Swim sounds downright dangerous. - The Chemical Brothers - Escape Velocity
Is it cool to like The Chemical Brothers? Or way outdated? It's like they forgot the memo that straight-up techno was no longer In, much as how similar back-in-the-day acts like The Prodigy, The Crystal Method, and Propellerheads have shuttered up their studios. The album proper Further mostly plays like a long-form electrojam, and the 11:57 "Escape Velocity" lies at the center. - Crystal Castles - Doe Deer
On an album that gets pretty close to fully embodying that goddamn label "chillwave" that needs to die, I find myself drawn to Crystal Castles' most unhinged track on an otherwise more-tamer-than-their-debut album. It's sort of like how my favorite cut off their first release was "Tell Me What To Swallow." Everyone thinks I'm just playing some bullshit angle, but I'm serious. - Deerhunter - Helicopter
I might be cheating a little, since my mental perception of "Helicopter" was their live version, which sounded downright apocalyptic and not as bubbly as the album version. Still, in the indie-rock arena of bands that come and go within the space of months, Deerhunter is the ultimate wildcard: their sound always shifting, their music-producing pace prolific, and the results consistently fantastic. - Dom - Living In America
Sun Bronzed Greek Gods is my EP of the Year if I haven't written it yet. Dom grasped the idea that an EP can be a viable release instead of a glorified demo tape before an LP proper. While Dom juggles a surprising number of sounds throughout the seven-track EP, and while "Bochica" might be the catchiest, there's always something to be said about the lead-off track. "Living In America" is Dom's announcement that, yes, they exist, and yes, you can make infectious pop songs without recruiting Timbaland to produce. - The Drums - I'll Never Drop My Sword
I really hate these throwback bands, but I'll be damned if I deny a decent song out of principle. (Well...) - Fang Island - Welcome Wagon
The band did me a favor and pinned it down. They described their sound as everybody giving everybody else high-fives. Also refreshing to hear an indie band that can shred. - Four Tet - Love Cry
There Is Love In You is a great album, and it pointed me back to the probably-greater Rounds. I've scoured Four Tet's back catalog, and while it's far more danceable than his 2010 release, "Love Cry" is, if not the best dance marathon of the year, it's at least the most ambitious. - Free Energy - Light Love
How and why Free Energy is on James Murphy's DFA label, I'll never know. I'll have to refer to my main man Patrick Stickles on this one, who responded, when I asked him the same question before a show, "I don't know. I think [Murphy] is trying to diversify his portfolio." - Frightened Rabbit - [just pick a track off The Winter of Mixed Drinks]
The Midnight Organ Fight somehow attained some mythical status, which led many to give The Winter of Mixed Drinks a bit of a brush-off. Besides having the best album title of the year, Frightened Rabbit gets a little less gloomy this time around (especially considering there isn't a lyric as harrowingly optimistic as "I'll save suicide for another year") and dares to actually think forward. "Not Miserable" is pretty true to its title; "The Loneliness" seems more about a lack of such; and "Swim Until You Can't See Land" finds a sort of joy in going so far as to get lost. - Gorillaz - Stylo
How Gorillaz are popular enough to play the goddamn Target Center is a mystery I'll never really uncover. Maybe it's because they first hit when MTV still played videos, and the novelty of the Virtual Band performing "Clint Eastwood" had enough momentum to sustain the bloated Demon Days and its swath of singles. Plastic Beach, even with its staggering guest roster, tends to sag around its setpieces. "Stylo," for all its repetition, is the single for a reason, if only because the mere title of "On Melancholy Hill" gives no indication of the track's upbeat instrumentation. - Health - USA Boys
Consider it another one of those rare cases where a band progressively sounds more accessible without sacrificing their secret X factor. After the chaos of their self-titled and the slight taming of Get Color (with its gorgeous closer "In Violet"), Health dropped the single "USA Boys" on the remix comp Disco 2. Combined with the chilled-out-but-not-chillwave vibe of live track "Drugs Beach," this could be the start of Health heading toward the dancier side of things without losing their noise cred. - The Hold Steady - Hurricane J
Anyone from Minneapolis has a contractual obligation to love The Hold Steady. Heaven Is Whenever forgoes the slight missteps of Stay Positive and gets back to the broader, no-backstory-required narrative rock of Boys And Girls In America. "Hurricane J" wouldn't sound at all out of place on the latter. - Holy Fuck - P.I.G.S.
Holy Fuck knows how to bookend an album. "1MD" is a slow burn leading into "Red Lights," and the six-minute "P.I.G.S." takes the grimy bop of everything proceeding, stuffs it in a blender, presses the "ANNIHILATE" setting and pours this shit directly down your gullet. Conventional wisdom for all linear art (books, movies, music) states that if you end on a high note, you've got a hit. "P.I.G.S." proves this for the excellent Latin. - Hot Chip - Take It In
One night a carload of guys and I were driving back to Burnsville after a Minneapolis shoot for Archetype. We played this song on repeat until we could passable sing the harmony of the chorus. Anything that can get a group of mostly-cynical mid-twenties dudes to sing well beyond their vocal range is list-worthy. - Japandroids - Younger Us
Listen to this fifty times and you'll hear the shiny nuggets of better production that will probably come to define the band's follow-up to Post-Nothing. This was intended for their first album, but because of limited studio resources they couldn't get it on the record. Keep that in mind: "Younger Us" isn't a B-side, but rather one of Japandroids' best songs. - LCD Soundsystem - Drunk Girls
This was the only music video I watched the entire year. I was not disappointed. - Liars - Scarecrows on a Killer Slant
The narrative for this song and its supposed origins (someone getting killed in the doorway of the band's bad-neighborhood LA studio) are pretty freaky. And while it's pretty redundant to say at this point, if you listen past all the scariness, this is one of Liars' most accessible songs. Granted, you have to stomach the random terror of the chorus, "Why'd he shoot the man with the gun? 'CAUSE HE BOTHERED HIM!" - Los Campesinos! - Straight In At 101
I think everyone was already tired of Los Camp after "You! Me! Dancing!" was re-recorded for Hold On Now, Youngster… It's also getting tiring to hear that each subsequent Los Camp album is "darker" when, really, it's just more breathless singing, overstuffed twee pop arrangements, and a lot of angsty melancholy. - The National - Terrible Love
As I mentioned in my "Bloodbuzz Ohio" write-up, that track might not be the best off High Violet. I think "Terrible Love" gets that honor. That itself can't have any sort of persuasive power, so I can only recommend you listen the album at least thirty times. At about that point I realized why the band closed with this on their first night at First Avenue versus second night standard closer "Mr. November." - The National - Lemonworld
On my first listen of Alligator (my introduction to The National), there was something off I couldn't place. Subsequent listens made it obvious: the lyrics rarely, if ever, rhyme. That's a fairly bold move for any band, but when you abandon the rather trite obligation to rhyme, you can pen such a beautiful, albeit cryptic line like "You and your sister live in a lemonworld. I want to sit in and die." - The National - England
For whatever reason it took me a while to realize that "England" was the only other non-"Bloodbuzz" track off High Violet that dared to unfold mainly in major keys. - No Age - Glitter
If only to avoid more than a few Nouns comparisons, I think Dean Spunt of No Age made the executive decision to sing more of Everything In Between than shout it. - No Age - Chem Trails
I don't know if it's been done before, but adding firecrackers and little fireworks to your song makes it seem so much more exuberant. - Phantogram - Mouthful of Diamonds
I had never heard of Phantogram until I saw them open for The Antlers. They cemented my now-iron-fisted rule that I never miss opening bands. I'll get to my 2010 In Shows write-up in due time, but for their show they added a live drummer, which kicked everything up several notches. Now, tracks off Eyelid Movies sound a little chintzy with synth drums, but doing something as simple as adding live guitar really legitimizes what would otherwise be a laptop band. - Phantogram - When I'm Small
I guess you could consider this Phantogram's attempt at making a Hit. It doesn't pander to a possible Hit crowd - it even dumbs down the guitar part - but nearly every 89.3 The Current and Radio K and random CD samplers I get at shows have this song. And now I've done my part by adding this to my 2010 comp in attempts to get Phantogram some much-deserve attention. - School of Seven Bells - Bye Bye Bye
While most of Disconnect From Desire takes My Bloody Valentine's "Soon" and tweaks it every way possible to magically form new songs, "Bye Bye Bye" is a little noisier and more confident. If you listen to the background discord of "Bye Bye Bye," it's not so odd to consider that A Place To Bury Strangers remixed "Windstorm." - Sleigh Bells - Tell 'Em
This is how you start an album that probably strays furthest from any easily-defined genre this year. You've got in-the-red noise that lays off the vocals; hardcore guitars that'd seem more at home in a garage-metal band; massive drum-machine drums; the sugary sweetness of Alexis Krauss's vocals; and handclaps and jingles and other window-dressing that all coheres into a sort of (I know I've said this before) cheerleaders-on-meth sound. - Sleigh Bells - Rill Rill
For whatever reason, I was going to make a short film earlier this year for MNKINO that would be stock footage of fighting in Baghdad set to "Rill Rill." I thought it'd be a nice clash. But taken at face value, "Rill Rill" is the best approximation of what it'd be like if doo-wop ballads were first invented this decade. (Side note: It was fairly hilarious when the swarm of Alexis-groping twenty-something guys at the Sleigh Bells show sang along to this word by word.) - Sleigh Bells - Crown On The Ground
This is going to be #1 on a lot of lists. Sure, the intro guitar is a little atonal and screechy for the uninitiated, but by the end this is the giant pop explosion that makes it hard to dismiss Sleigh Bells as a band that only has enough good ideas for one album. - Spoon - Written In Reverse
Transference almost seems like a deliberate attempt for Spoon to hide behind the ridiculously-good-and-accessible Gimme Fiction and Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga and do stuff like ending tracks abruptly under the guise that the album is somehow cerebral and conceptual. "Written In Reverse," if nothing else, is a song for Spoon to play on late-night shows and for the radio to pluck off Transference. If there's such a thing, it has all the elements of a Classic Spoon Song: a lot of room to breath, an airtight rhythm section, and Britt Daniel starting off cool and end up sounding like he's going to lose his shit. - Spoon - Out Go The Lights
No sarcasm: This is a beautiful song. - Surfer Blood - Floating Vibes
I can play this on guitar. - Titus Andronicus - A More Perfect Union & Theme From "Cheers"
I wrote a lot about these for my write-up of The Monitor, so we'll save it for now. - Tobacco - Fresh Hex
For all you Scientology haters out there (myself included), I kind of wince every time I have to make a fair assessment of Beck. But the man earned himself some serious cred for his (long distance) appearance in a Tobacco song. Yeah, if you step out of the room you'll miss the 1:35 "Fresh Hex," and you'll also miss one of the weirdest guest spots by a well-known musician on a lesser-known musician's record. "Fresh Hex" takes Beck and puts him in a cement mixer with some of the am-I-on-drugs?-because-I-feel-like-I'm-on-drugs synth madness that classified Tobacco. - Vampire Weekend - Giving Up The Gun
Yes, I'm a self-loathing Vampire Weekend fan. - Wolf Parade - [pretty much any song off Expo 86]
All context I have for Wolf Parade is thrown off balance now they've announced a hiatus. I'm bracing for the worst of it and anticipate a breakup, which wouldn't be a big deal given their many side projects (and the fact that Sunset Rubdown's "Stadiums And Shrines II" sounds exactly like a Wolf Parade song), but WP happens to play an unreasonably-awesome live show. It's hard because Expo 86 doesn't particularly sound like a swan song. As great as the band is, each of their records has their weak spots, and I think, song for song, Expo 86 might be their strongest collection. Duds aside, it defies many sets of odds that a band with two distinct songwriters can congeal into this level of coherence, with Spencer Krug's "What Did My Lover Say?" and "In The Direction of the Moon" sounding inseparable from Dan Boeckner's "Little Golden Age" and "Ghost Pressure."
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Mux065: The Quarter Century
Here's a lot of mux tracks on my giant Put-On-A-Muxtape playlist that I finally decided to halfway-decently sequence and, well, put on a mux. Side note: Do you know how hard it is to find a place for "Transatlanticism" without shoving it at the end of a mix? I barely squeezed it in there without grinding things to a halt.
And since Megaupload doesn't let you stream, I'll be posting these on Soundcloud with an embedded player. Only problem is I have a finite time limit for my overall uploads, so I'll probably have to delete each mux when the next comes out. A necessary-evil workaround.
So download via the obnoxious Megaupload and stream below via Soundcloud.
The tracks:
1. David Bowie - Five Years
2. Pulp - Common People
3. The Get Up Kids - I'm A Loner, Dottie, A Rebel...
4. Harvey Danger - Flagpole Sitta
5. Weezer - Say It Ain't So
6. Death Cab For Cutie - Transatlanticism
7. Brian Eno - By This River
8. Radiohead - Sulk
9. Spoon - The Underdog
10. The Arcade Fire - Rebellion (Lies)
11. The National - Mr. November
Making their mux debut:
Brian Eno (though I swore I had the Eno/Byrne track "Strange Overtones" on a mux...)
The Get Up Kids
Harvey Danger
Pulp
And since Megaupload doesn't let you stream, I'll be posting these on Soundcloud with an embedded player. Only problem is I have a finite time limit for my overall uploads, so I'll probably have to delete each mux when the next comes out. A necessary-evil workaround.
The tracks:
1. David Bowie - Five Years
2. Pulp - Common People
3. The Get Up Kids - I'm A Loner, Dottie, A Rebel...
4. Harvey Danger - Flagpole Sitta
5. Weezer - Say It Ain't So
6. Death Cab For Cutie - Transatlanticism
7. Brian Eno - By This River
8. Radiohead - Sulk
9. Spoon - The Underdog
10. The Arcade Fire - Rebellion (Lies)
11. The National - Mr. November
Making their mux debut:
Brian Eno (though I swore I had the Eno/Byrne track "Strange Overtones" on a mux...)
The Get Up Kids
Harvey Danger
Pulp
Monday, November 1, 2010
Mux064: November 2010
Download or stream via drop.io.
And it may sound silly, but I dedicate this mux to the recent death of Twin Cities rapper Eyedea, who was far too young to pass. Usually my first-of-the-month muxes only have 2010 music, but I put "Smile" as the final track, off Eyedea and DJ Abilities' 2009 underrated record By The Throat. It seems fitting, given that pretty much every mix I've given to a "new" friend has had "Paradise" off E&A on it.
1. Male Bonding - Year's Not Long
2. The Walkmen - Angela Surf City
3. The Arcade Fire - Empty Room
4. Titus Andronicus - Richard II
5. Deerhunter - Fountain Stairs
6. The National - Sorrow
7. Future Islands - Swept Inside
8. The Thermals - Not Like Any Other Feeling
9. Cee-Lo - Fuck You,BPD
10. Health - Nice Girls (Little Loud Remix)
11. No Age - Chem Trails
12. Eyedea & Abilities - Smile
Making their mux debut:
Cee-Lo
Future Islands
Male Bonding
And it may sound silly, but I dedicate this mux to the recent death of Twin Cities rapper Eyedea, who was far too young to pass. Usually my first-of-the-month muxes only have 2010 music, but I put "Smile" as the final track, off Eyedea and DJ Abilities' 2009 underrated record By The Throat. It seems fitting, given that pretty much every mix I've given to a "new" friend has had "Paradise" off E&A on it.
1. Male Bonding - Year's Not Long
2. The Walkmen - Angela Surf City
3. The Arcade Fire - Empty Room
4. Titus Andronicus - Richard II
5. Deerhunter - Fountain Stairs
6. The National - Sorrow
7. Future Islands - Swept Inside
8. The Thermals - Not Like Any Other Feeling
9. Cee-Lo - Fuck You,
10. Health - Nice Girls (Little Loud Remix)
11. No Age - Chem Trails
12. Eyedea & Abilities - Smile
Making their mux debut:
Cee-Lo
Future Islands
Male Bonding
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Mux063: Rough Around The Edges
Download or stream at drop.io.
1. The Fiery Furnaces - Bright Blue Tie
2. Band of Horses - Is There A Ghost?
3. Tokyo Police Club - Your English Is Good
4. Death Cab For Cutie - Soul Meets Body
5. The National - Mistaken For Strangers
6. Radiohead - Karma Police
7. The White Stripes - Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground
8. Pavement - Here
9. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood
10. Why? - Fatalist Palmistry (Demo)
11. Jay Reatard - No Time
1. The Fiery Furnaces - Bright Blue Tie
2. Band of Horses - Is There A Ghost?
3. Tokyo Police Club - Your English Is Good
4. Death Cab For Cutie - Soul Meets Body
5. The National - Mistaken For Strangers
6. Radiohead - Karma Police
7. The White Stripes - Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground
8. Pavement - Here
9. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood
10. Why? - Fatalist Palmistry (Demo)
11. Jay Reatard - No Time
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)