JULY
Last time The Horrors scared the hell out of me. Now they're just freaking me out with yet another drastic shift in dramatics and studio experimentation. Skying is one of the coolest albums to come out this year, naturally skipping from across the pond, it's a miracle these one time UK darlings haven't buckled under the pressure. Bravos. The husky voice of Jolie Holland (left) is a comforting summer evening companion. Each tune on Pint Of Blood unfolds like a sunset, a glass of wine and the kids playing in the yard. Good timing lady. The consistent flip-flopping of anthems by Portugal. The Man has come to be expected. I love them, I love them not. I love them, I love them not. In The Mountain In The Cloud is an I love them.
Soul jazz for the 21st century, Greg Foat Group finally release Dark Is The Sun after greedily hoarding a collection of recordings. Rocking thru 10 tracks full of piano, organ, harpsichord and synthesizer atmospheric space jams, I cannot wait to see what treasures he decided to unearth next. Most would call Eleanor Friedberger (right) the prettier half of avant freaks Fiery Furnaces. I'd call her the better one too. While her brother in crime released five moderately hearable albums in 2011 alone, Eleanor released Last Summer, opening with her version of a pop hit and capping it off with a harmonica laden lo-fi tropicalia attempt, it's as commercial as she'll allow. Adding to the ever self-reinvented genre of chillwave, which seems to include anything you can eat mushrooms to, Com Truise dispenses Galactic Melt, and album of electronic grooves straight from the 80's that seem to be peculiarly relevant. With track titles like "VHS Sex" and "Cathode Girls" you know you're in for a ride.
Following in the footsteps of bands like Surfer Blood, Fair Ohs turn up the effects on their jangle guitar licks and come up with poppy verse after verse after chorus after verse, sometimes indiscriminantly. Everything Is Dancing will do what it advertises. Gardens & Villa self-titled debut floated by. I was most taken by the album closer. Even put it on a mix. Some bands are good for one. City Center (left) is a hard band to pin down. Maybe that's by choice. All I know is that when I listen to their new bit called Redeemer it plays thru and it's over before I realize and I usually feel more relaxed and have suddenly begun to write a novel about fish growing lungs that allow them to live in outerspace as opposed to the oceans, but we manage to mess that up too.
Now let's talk about Empty Space Orchestra (right). A female heroine chic drummer leads dueling guitars, blasting sax and supportive keys back into late 70's/early 80's progressive instrumentals with mixed outcomes within tracks. Digging it but live video left me wanting more. Adebisi Shank on the other, while Battles wannabes, really delivered the one-two punch on the creatively titled This Is The Second Album Of A Band Called Adebisi Shank. They have a decent mixture of hard hitting rock outs and slow ditties (for lack of a better term), something some instrumental rock groups can't pull off as cohesively.
Channeling early Björk and St. Vincent, the band Bell was quite a surprise. Something about such a simply named moniker turning out such interesting and rewarding music. Diamonite is a diamond in the rough and closer to the albums I expected from both of those comparisons. Winner of creepy cover art and creepier music, Matt Bauer's (left) The Jessamine County Book Of The Living is a moody affair best listen't to in early mornings when you're not already feeling full of dreariness. While Jeremy Jay may never break into my top 25 albums of any given year, he's usually a staple for the 26-50 neighborhood. There's something to be said for being good enough without reaching outside the comfort zone. I don't know what that thing being said is, but it's being said on Dream Diary.AUGUST
A couple years ago, Afro-pop exploded onto the hipster scene and as is our nature we flooded the headspace with it, chewed it down and crapped it out, almost to the comparison of a one night stand we'll never remember we even had. Well not me. And not Fool's Gold (right). They by far have surpassed their debut with Leave No Trace and are contenders for high marks come years end. At first listen I thought I Break Horses were gonna be too big for their britches but found myself ceased and completely immersed in the powerful production and songwriting by album's end. Hearts is one this years pleasant surprises. I'll keep it near. After seeing Yawn in Philly earlier this year I knew their album Open Season would be a keeper, despite their unconcealed attempts and being the friendlier little brother of Animal Collective, but can you blame them?
To this day I believe that the only people in America that listen to Gotye (left) are myself and anyone I've introduced to them. That being said, another quality mixtape style recording by my Australian wunderkind. Making Mirrors has all the trademark dance moves and scuttlebutts I've come to expect from you. And as usual there is no wrong done when it comes to Mirror Traffic by Stephen Malkmus. Every release feels like he's peaking and it's all downhill from there, but maybe he ain't got no downhill. That's a great lyric for his next album. The latest in a string of constantly changing monikers, Blood Orange proves to be the most restrained and possibly most easily enjoyable collection of tunes by British music blogger Dev Hynes (ex Test Icicles/Lightspeed Champion). Hopefully the Coastal Grooves namesake carries on for a couple more releases before he moves onto yet another alias.
A band continuing to plummet in the rankings is Pomegranates. Brilliance begets apathy it seems in the latest, In Your Face Thieves/Chestnut Attic, a title as confusing as the lack of effervescence experienced listening to it, but I listened to it. Gypsy posers Beirut (right) brought out The Rip Tide with it requisite accordion, mandolin, rattling snare and trumpet. That's not a slam. They got a thing they do. Many people love that thing they do. I like that thing they do. In another example of artists taking 3 songs and making them one, Moonface packages five long tunes onto Organ Music Not Vibraphone Like I'd Hoped and while they are enjoyable I feel like Spencer Krug is an artist best not left to his own devices.
Gem Club proceed with gentle caution and I was surprised. Usually going into an album with a preconceived notion based on a glance at the album art or a personification of their band name can be dangerous but for some reason it enhanced the listening of Breakers. A re-release is always something that catches my attention. Says that something is better than everyone originally expected it to be. The Mistress by Yellow Ostrich is the most recent recipient of the award and deservedly so. Ganglians (left) remind me of something. It may not even be music related. It's just familiar. Proudly stating that Still Living was recorded "without metronome" is an example of how charming this sunny psychedelic lo-fi band can be.
General Thoughts And Tastes by Honey For Petzi really reminds me of being in high school, pent up in the corner of my basement bedroom, guitar on my lap wondering how the hell these guys were playing what I was hearing. I'm smarter now (I think) and while the reverence has worn off, the nostalgia never will. Fruit Bats (right) are a band that don't get enough respect from me. Having a small dedicated following encourage these guys to keep churning out albums and I just give them the time of day. I gave time to Tripper. Just one time. And recent supergroup Mister Heavenly is another one off that I didn't really connect with. The recipe on Out Of Love called for 1 part Man Man, 1 part Islands, 1 part Modest Mouse and 1 part George Michael from Arrested Development and I still couldn't dig it. Maybe I'm the one with the problem.SEPTEMBER
I'm always brought back to the back streets of Boston with Wilco, tromping the grounds blasting Summer Teeth into the nerd-airs and thinking I was the only one. In the decade since I've met a fair share of Wilco fanatics and while my library isn't overly obsessed with the lyrical laureates they certainly have a strong hold and a fair share, The Whole Love only adding to the legend. Girls new album is macaroni and cheese. And by that I mean it's a staple of American suppertimes, company picnics and in the south, an essential side dish. But everywhere you go there's an apparent familiarity with the ingredients colliding with personal tweaks, family secrets and cultural enhancements to the point that a once simplistic concept becomes a savory masterpiece. To some it's canonical, so they give you Father, Son, Holy Ghost. The Drums (left) are doing the jangle dance punk better than most these days. Portamento follows a particularly dramatic time in between albums for these Brooklyn boys but they are the better for it, if not darker.
Originally voted most likely to succeed in 2011, I gotta say I was disgruntled by Strange Mercy by St. Vincent. There are cool things about the album, notes ending to places I didn't know they could, quality changes in effort, so i guess it's the songwriting as a whole that has me weirded out. I wanna like it. Maybe I do and I'm just being difficult. That must be it. A sonic milestone for Cymbals Eat Guitars, Lenses Alien introduces a new lineup and approach, daringly starting off an album with a 9 minute opus and following it up with nine tasty morsels of tongue heavy throwbacks. Then we have Das Racist (right) and like any good progressive musicians, they go where you don't expect them to ever go and they make you like it. One of the few hiphop releases I test drive this year, Relax is an insanely cool record, like the kid in your school you can't even believe lives in the same town as you.
Nurses (left) is such a weird band. While it's obvious they are in their own little world that only they inhabit, it's the familiar tones and beats that make this otherwise difficult listen into a welcome member at the dinner table. Whether by trial and error experimentation or oddities naturally flowing out of their pens, Dracula is a great album. And it's not every day I get immersed in a soul singer of simple voice like Jono McCleery but when nusic's good, music's good. There is something about There Is that is immediately favorable towards anyone with ears, a heart and a warm belly. Leading the woozy synth parade these days is Warm Ghost, I think. Having the knack for originality can be a curse or a crutch or a calling. Narrows falls in all three categories.
The new Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (right) have been getting some pretty harsh reviews from "critics" but that is what happens when you realize your childhood hero is really just a dude in a cape. And a dude in a cape is enough for some people like me. It's hard to tell, whether the hiatus the band took after such a firestorm of praise probably freaked them to their cores, if Hysterical is a tongue in cheek attempt at showing the real vulnerability of the man behind the curtain. I like it. It took Josh Rouse naming his backing band The Long Vacations for me to get on board with his pleasantries, but maybe all this time the joke was on me and he was just being patient. Kind as your music proves you to be. I swear Out In The Light by Waters is a time capsule from the early 90's alternative nation scene and naturally my fond memories are immediately accepting of such a thing. Individual sounds can sometimes be enough to get me through an album despite it's lack of killer tunes. Tropics blend one masterful blend into the next with surgical precision and Parodia Flare is an excellent listen as a whole.
Dan Mangan (left) comes in good company. Released from the Toronto beast label Arts & Crafts, it was an obvious must listen from the get-go, but it's where Oh Fortune differs from such accomplished label mates that it really starts to shine on its own. And I don't think there'll ever be a Mates Of State album we won't love. Maybe in some weird way we feel they are kindred spirits, seeing them live so many times, and sometimes speaking our own language as do they. Mountaintops is their latest. One chilly night at the start of fall I sat outside a big brick building at dusk and relished in the classic Simon & Garfunkel album, Bookends. Changed again.I've been slightly underwhelmed by new output from The Rapture, Blitzen Trapper and Grizzly Bear sideshot Cant but I'm willing to give it another go. Just not today.
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