APRIL
There's much to do about looping these days. One man bands live-looping riffs and a scant 45 seconds into a tune you've got 4 tracks for them to vocalize over. But no one does it like Tune-Yards (left). Anyone can loop-di-loop. Tune-Yards make a casserole. Coming to the surface on high profile tours the past couple years, WHOKILL is a much better representation of their live attempts at loop swooping, or so I'm told. On first listen you might think that O'Death was a wandering band of backwoods gypsies making noise on guitars with broken strings and banging pots and pans. The further along you get on Outside the more you realize that this is a masterful work of complex arrangement and structure performed by some dudes out of Brooklyn making noise on guitars with broken strings and banging pots and pans. Nine Types of Light is another fine fine album released by the energetic TV On The Radio, simultaneously defining their mainstream exposure with the release of a "Long Days Night"-style album movie and the untimely passing of their bassist. Let's see where it goes from here.
Heavy on instrumental passages, only adding vocals where absolutely necessary and full of curious chord progressions, High Llamas mark their 19th year of making music under the radar. Talahomi Way is a charming nylon-stringed record and perfect to soundtrack any late 60's film that highlights elongated transitions of lovers driving thru the Italian countryside in an Aston Martin. It's pleasant as hell. It's the haunting voice against the pacifying music that makes Timber Timbre (right) such an interesting group. Their last album was one of our favorites of a couple years ago, an early morning staple throughout fall mornings. The new album is darker and more experimental while entitled Creep On Creepin' On says they're not taking themselves too seriously. Low have been around forever. C'mon, I think, is their 11th album, but it's the first one I've listened to straight thru and it annoys me. Only because now I'm compelled to go back and listen to the other ten and I don't have that kinda time.
After having our ears blown out by the live show of Explosions In The Sky some years back, I've strayed away from their output, be it because I was scarred or had bigger fish to fry, either way. Take Care, Take Care, Take Care is obviously a reminder of what prompted us to want to go take on such a night of beautiful ear-splitting concussion and why Laura was dead set on one of their tunes being her "here comes the bride". The cellists weren't familiar with the tune. On Tomboy I feel that Panda Bear has collected bird calls and vocalized them into heavy sets of instrumentalized sound effects, tuned accordingly and lovingly to a glorious outcome. The mockingbird of the music world. Get three of your friends, grab some instruments and go nuts. That must've been the battle plan on the aptly named Do Whatever You Want All The Time, the new Ponytail (left) album. I can't say it isn't what I expected, after fully enjoying their debut a couple years back, and this time through the quick shifting time signatures, loosely coherent breakneck guitar noodles and the random whoops and girl hollers are in full display. I don't know that they necessarily built upon their previous work, but they sure seemed to exhaust every opportunity in just seven tracks.
Adding to the list of music I probably would never have listened to a year ago, Jay-Jay Johanson's (right) gentle swoons and smoky bar jazz pop on Spellbound is pleasant enough to play thru and quiet enough not to wake baby. It's funny how you cool to some artists. I was never a big fan of Smog, Bill Callahan's elder alias, but his last album is still one of my favorites to put on and drink a warm beer to. He entitled his latest Apocalypse, which could not be more misleading, but I guess, after hearing his past contributions to music, if he were to encite and apocalyptic event, this is what it would sound like. Best Armageddon ever! Someone may want to check in on Cass McCombs because after hearing the tunes on Wit's End I fear he may do something to inflit harm on himself. His songs have never been sun risers but damn brother, it's lovely and all, but I don't know if I can spin this again. I love cookie dough ice cream. I love Hawaiian pizza. The thought of those two coming together makes me vomit. I love Thao Nguyen & I love Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn but the combination of the two, thoughtfully entitled Thao & Mirah, sounds like Hawaiian cookie dough pizza would taste.MAY
Oh the ever-changing musical stylings of My Morning Jacket, held together by the glue of the angeli-voiced Jim James. Once a southern jam band, now a international poprock machine, Circuital is just another rung in the ladder. EMA was an unexpected gem. Known to her friends as Erika Anderson and the former member of such classic noise rock bands like Gowns, I gotta say, the attempt at experimental pop on Past Life Martyred Saints is surprisingly coherent and I ended up enjoying more tracks than I had expected to. Rounding out the weirdo groups and garnering more mixtape fodder, Gang Gang Dance (left), the band that if you met in a dark alley, you'd run, until you heard them play, then you'd run faster. Eye Contact is maybe their prettiest album to date, but that was probably an accident. Poppier than ever before, but the otherworldly and twinkling sound effects remind us where they came from.
Winning the award for most interesting collaboration is Cat's Eyes (right), taking spook-rock frontman from Britain's The Horrors and a Canadian opera singer and attempting to make cohesive music. And I'll be damned it works. Apparently the sum of those two parts equals ambient Phil Spector chillwave. Hoo-gah! Taking what worked on their debut and expanding the repertoire, Fleet Foxes don't necessarily improve upon their modern CSNY with Helplessness Blues but they started off pretty strong to begin with so.... Still one of the hardest bands to pin down is White Denim, but since I'm not one who feels the need to label all the stripes on my shirt I can sit back and enjoy their utterly enjoyable exploration of the song. Rattling drums and winging guitars, a few surprise sounds, all applied to indetermined time signatures and a free for all approach on D is alright with me.
Winning album cover of the year so far is Celebration, Florida by Felice Brothers, another chance listen I took despite the obnoxious Americana tag placed on all their reviews (including this one) but man did I enjoy more than just a few of these aggressive, timely and relevant tunes with great lyricism and clean musicianship. Man Man (left) is an acquired taste kind of how swinging from tree branches is an acquired mode of transportation, but seven years into the game they may have taken their garbage and toy orchestra and figured out how to appeal to the masses. Listen to Life Fantastic and see. One of the most anticipated albums for me this year is the new Wild Beasts, Smother, but I have been less than blown over. They definitely continue to inhabit their own niche of dark and quirky soft rock, along with that sexy syncopated high tom, but the hooks haven't made themselves clear yet. The previous release still has theirs deep in me. Give it time.
What is it about these lo-fi garage freaks coming into a right all their own this year? Thee Oh Sees (right) captured my interest with another contender for album art of the year and ramshackled their way thru Castlemania, 16 tunes of wishy wash backyard band glory. On the other side of the production booth there's the debut by Foster The People simply called Torches. Dance tune after quality dance tune, one crisper than the last, each invoking a sing-a-long chorus where it's wholly evident that knowing the lyrics is not a requirement. Then somewhere in the middle we have The Antlers. Maybe the most emotional band in this article, when they sing "I Don't Want Love" you kind of believe them. There are some light moments on Burst Apart, a quality collection of tunes, but in the end, I wouldn't play any of these tunes at a family barbecue.
The figurehead of the most influential underground band of the 80's and grandfather of experimental rock music, Thurston Moore (left) has been releasing music outside of Sonic Youth for over a decade, and tho I haven't heard it all, I'm betting this is his most gentle and introspective work, and while Demolished Thoughts doesn't have the gouging qualities he's so well known for, it's still an integral piece of the puzzle. Setting the tone early and often is the game for hometown heroes Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat. Everything's Getting Older is the kind of album you spin on your deathbed playing like a musical journal of a life at it's end and voiced over by a Scottish pianist, and you cry. There's lots to do over the new Okkervil River, a band that I do and have loved in the recent past. I Am Very Far is exactly what I am from getting on the love train. Next.Oh and the new Architecture In Helsinki, Moments Bends, stinks.
JUNE
From the first vibration of notes on the new self titled Bon Iver (right) album I knew that I had a new entry for album of the year contender. This guy has been a workhorse the past few years, writing in numerous thrown together one-offs (Gayngs & Volcano Choir), a split 7" with Peter Gabriel and performing Duke Ellington songs with his highschool jazz band. The more I listen to the majestic tunes on this album, the more I love it. Look out now. Laura & I saw Unknown Mortal Orchestra open for Smith Westerns back in April or something and boy were they delightful. Had we known more of their tunes we might have enjoyed them more than the headliners we came to see. The only potential downside of their self titled debut is the lo-fi nature, which guys I know is the hip approach, not to mention cost-effective, but they sounded better than this at their live show. Still, quality tunes are quality tunes and I haven't heard better guitar riffs this year. When I heard that Battles lost their effervescent frontman Tyondai Braxton I was more than a little concerned with my ability to adore their new album as I had their last, but after a few internet viewings of live performances and more than a few listens to Gloss Drop, it's clear that #1- this is a band to best enjoy live, and #2- there ain't nothing like them.
Patrick Wolf is a weird dude. I was hesitant to even give the new release Lupercalia a listen after being supremely disappointed with his last album but, whether it was the mood I was in or the new album is just that good. I was tapping my foot and singing along on the choruses second time around. It's that kind of album. The guy/girl thing is cute. It's even cuter when they're married. But The Rosebuds got to show everyone what the guy/girl thing sounds like after they've divorced. A Noble attempt to say the least and proving that amicable departure is possible, Loud Planes Fly Low address the sadness of love lost, but also the hope in a new life that still lies ahead. Heavy. I wish I had taken an evening back when I lived in Atlanta to go see the Black Lips (left) whose local shows are now something of garage rock folklore. And like any aging rock band (the members are late 20's but the band's been around since 1992) who created a subculture of flower punk amongst a world of grime and hiphop, they must disperse or be regarded. Arabia Mountain, to someone admittedly unfamiliar with 80% of their catalog, sounds terrifically frantic and masterfully bombastic. I can't think of better poster children for a genre that's all too dismissed.
It's always nice to discover a new band that you feel immediate affection towards. The name 1,2,3 imply simplicity, but the music itself is anything but. Continuous surprises and an overall flow beginning to end that is astonishingly absent within most releases nowadays, New Heaven made the list after first listen. There's been a lot of early contenders for greatest album art, but you're more likely to prevail if the content meets the cover as is the case for Ty Segall (right). Trudging through ten dirgy pop songs, jangling his guitar and rattling his drums, Goodbye Bread is like a sad hound of a gem. I fell in love with Woods (the band, not the actual woods) back in 2007 on an off chance listen to a strange album that appeared in my mailbox with a cover depicted a lamp and an owl statue on a desk next to an old microphone and then listened to the creepy folk music on the disc. Their frequent releases have made it hard to keep up with the output but Sun And Shade were getting them quite a bit of attention from psychedelic folk folks so I came back around. Oh how I missed them.
Some ghosts got together and started a beach pop outfit, they'd be Cults (left) and they'd name their album Cults and they would garner a cult following on the internet, of ghosts. Did the 80's cult classic My Science Project ever get a proper soundtrack release? No? Well Ford & Lopatin have put together a collection of dark synth-y sweet nuggets that could serve just that purpose. Channel Pressure: Easy on the fringe Kojak. Cassettes Won't Listen is a name I keep seeing at the end of remix tracks in parenthesis. Then I came across an album called Evinspacey by them/him and thoroughly enjoyed each and every track. Slick electronic tracks with clean, simple sampling and backseat vocals that create such a pleasant listen.
One of my favorite bands is Minus Story. I think they broke up tho, because this Hospital Ships album is a solo endeavor by their frontman and it has Minus Story written all over it. Lots of great ideas on Lonely Twin but it lacks the wild gang of fellow musicians that gave MS such draw. Still good tho. Givers was a surprise like. A group of kids in the verge just happy to be in the game. Can't help but smile and bob your head thru In Light, as they trade boy and girls vocals and the guitar skitter along, and every chorus should have maracas. One of the finest true folk bands out there is Vetiver and they've put a new album this year called The Errant Charm. It's deep. It's pleasant. They'll keep churning out top shelf campfire tunes as long s we let 'em. If rickety jazzbot drumming and dreamy plunk guitar and raspy desperate shouting vocals are your thing then you should pick up the new album Go Tell Fire To The Mountain by Wu Lyf (right). It's mine and I did.
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