Positive Feedback

Briana Edwards, Live at The Wildflower Cafe 4/4/09

noreply@blogger.com (hyphen) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:02:00 +0000

Hearing someone sing after being so familiar with their speaking voice can be a bewitching experience. I've known Briana for some time, and for about a year now I've been lucky to hear the various stages of her music, primitive and roughly rolled into and back out of samplers and a four track. Though, when I'd first known her, I'd seen her play live in Monarch, I didn't really hear her voice until she started playing me home recordings/demos. I remember the first time she played me a tape, I was floored by this feeling of hearing a bareness and honesty in her voice. All of the sudden there was this distilled version of her coming through the headphones, where every emotion and thought inside of her was held in a way that I could sense without knowing or understanding. Like I was hearing a side of her that a million conversations would never expose.

I'd been looking forward to a possible live performance for some time when this show was finally set up, and waited eagerly to see it materialize. She'd been working with her sister Mikele (Relay/Arc In Round) and friend Anthony Perrett (Memes/--S--O--A--R--S--/Swimmers Union) on a live incarnation of the material she'd amassed. What I heard that night was both so different yet so true to those recordings I'd heard. The faces I saw in the audience were excited and enthusiastic about what they were hearing. I, myself, was ecstatic with each moment, giddy like a diehard fanboy of something that was only just coming into existence for the first time as it played out on stage. While I'd heard some of this music in it's earlier, more singular stages, I felt that same initial high as I had from the honesty of her voice. Those recordings were like ultrasounds now, or maybe a different monster all together. I looked to hearing how this performance would influence future recordings, and where those recordings would lead future performances.

Impressions of the Music

There was a lot of talk (from myself and many others), post-performance, regarding reminiscent sounds, influences and the like. The music of Angelo Badalamenti & David Lynch (and their chanteuse Julee Cruise), The Cocteau Twins, Tickley Feather, Valet, Pocahaunted, and on. These are all good reference points, but I'd like to give a sense of her music in less RIYL terms. Several of us discussed a general feeling of sadness in her music. I think Sadness is a key element of what she played, to be sure. But it feels, to me, like moving out of Sadness, "out of the rain, out of the snow" to quote her (quite possibly out of context). I hear an empowerment that comes from really knowing and having lived with Sadness. Not being lost in it so much as hindsight.

(the following are personal reflections/interpretations of the seven songs Briana, Mikele, and Anthony played that night. They are based as much on the overall sound of each song as they are of any particular lyric I may have heard or misheard.)

1.Adrift in a sightless sea, floating directionless in a small lifeboat while recounting a lifetime of lessons learned, spoken in a dialect devolved by solitude.

2.A creeping ghost in a narcotized drift, haunted by your own pessimism and full of bruised passion. Perception and Manipulation are heavy weights to carry.

3.Resigned to disappointment, moving toward resentment. Feeling revulsion at each tear that crawls down your cheek. A moment of negative clarity at the foot of a bridge on fire.

4.Numbness, like a cold winter window, proves the world is still there, bare and bitter but concrete. The malevolence of irrationality is powerless in the light of even the grayest days.

5.The physical comfort of a despised lover inspires nausea, but at least there's sensation. When the light's gone, the line between rebuilding and destroying is all but invisible.

6.You keep moving because you have to. Shame passes like road signs. Anyone can be a stranger.

7.Hope. A sense of humanity returns within and around, and the light from the past gets a little less blinding as Spring approaches. Melodrama is kind of funny at the other end.

Hyphen's Favorite Songs of '08

noreply@blogger.com (hyphen) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 00:42:00 +0000

This is in no particular order, in fact I don't believe it's even in any discernible alphabetical order. Let's Say it's shuffled then?

Sun Araw - "Horse Steppin" This is a bit of dubbed-out, sun-soaked shore break. A little brighter than what pocahaunted was up to.

Gruff Rhys - "Con Carino" A pretty, driving, slow-climbing little piece of anticipation. A much more earnest feeling than most of his work with SFA.

The Sea And Cake - "Weekend" Another offering of that up-tempo definition of perfectly pleasant, which they perfected on Oui.

Pocahaunted - "The Weight" The simple addition of slow-but-heavy drumming on this, and the other tracks on Chains, exposes the physical strength of these chants and fuzzy guitar drives. A slow march up a steep hill.

Crystal Castles - "Untrust Us" They might be song-stealing Hot Topic brats, but fuck if this song isn't catchy.

TV on The Radio - "Halfway Home" As album-openers go, this has got to be in the top ten of "hit the ground running" tracks.

Excepter - "Kill People" An evil, little synth pulse and strangled vocals burst into stomp-and-clap beats. The increasingly cartoonish mantra of the title shouted, squeaked, whispered, chanted, and gurgled in every conceivable way, until it's just another thing to dance around the fire pit to.

Tobacco - "Truck Sweat" An El-P -style clipped-and-compressed beat matched by Add N to X at their sunshine-iest.

Hot Chip - "Wrestlers" This love song by way of wrestling commentary/trash talk was Hot Chip at their best: a beautiful joke more heartfelt than any love poem.

Beck - "Chemtrails" The bitter-sweetness of "Nobody's Fault But My Own," the hazy colors of Sea Change's Gainsborg-cribbed psychedelic sex, and an un-ignorable rhythm.

No Age - "Things I Did When I Was Dead" A late night monologue around an electric campfire, over the calls of robotic crickets and frogs, as digital smoke rises up to the strings of christmas light stars.

Gnarls Barkley - "Blind Mary" A fluttering, midi calliope segues to the soulful bounce and loving croon of another undeniable Gnarls pop treat. (side note: I'd better hear this at a certain some one's wedding this summer...)

Alexis Taylor - "Coming Up" I'd only just heard Paul McCartney's original a short time before coming upon this, but the simple, bluesy sweetness of this version is a decent compliment to the peppy and insistent jump of the original.

Ruby Suns - "Tane Mahuta" Like a bunch of warm-hearted strangers, upon finding a couple guitars and horns, spontaneously broke into an island jam in some great banquet hall.

Rafter - "Love Time Now Please" (Actually, not a bad compliment to the previous song.) The repeatrepeatrepeatrepeat of the verses, sloping head-nod beat, groove guitar and complimenting xylophone & horns make for a strong, laid back smile.

Sebastian Tellier - "Roche" Push the driver's seat back, slide your ass down and forward, get a good scowl/smirk going, start your head nodding, and leer lecherously at anyone who catches your eye.

Fuck Buttons - "Bright Tomorrow" Remember how pumped you used to get listening to "Born Slippy?" This is Jock Jams for Geeks and Nerds. Try not to feel the "Fuck Yeah" vibe.

Portishead - "The Rip" That theremin undercurrent rides right up your spine, and your hairs begin to stand on end. But when the guitar's melody morphs into its synth equivalent, the gooseflesh spreads over you. Like the flip to Mothersbaugh's Ping Island/Lightning Strike Rescue Op.

Ladytron - "Ghosts" Their cooled-off Eurodance disconnect gets earth-shaken by some heavy Bolan rock rhythm.

Deaf Center - "Vintage Well" Melodies pulled and amplified from the dark corners of Caretaker, Philip Jeck or Burial, met with the guitar and atmosphere siphoned from the intoxicated chants of the self-ordained shaman of Pocahaunted.

She & Him - "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?" The Traveling Wilbury's take a crack at female-led pop country. The army of acoustic guitars stops me in my tracks, and then that fucking reprise at the end?

Stereolab - "Neon Beanbag" "But there's nothing to be sad about, really nothing to feel bad about." Really nothing for me, to be adding to that./"Daisy Click Clack" Again, the song itself pretty much covers everything. But if you don't find yourself compelled to move to this, then you're just being too self-conscious.

Neon Neon - "I Told Her On Alderaan" Cheesy, but in that weirdly alright way. Like a song you hear on the soft rock station at the doctor's office but, against all odds and in spite of yourself, you find yourself digging it. Not just some hollow 80's Sound retread (though the album is very uneven. Check out this along with "Dream Cars" and "Raquel").

M83 - "Skin Of The Night" Overwrought, melodramatic whispered Kate Bush resurrection with a stop-start drum pad beat and whaling guitar sting. Could be the love theme from a Michael Mann detective thriller, or the title theme to a lost teen vampire drama.

Fern Knight - "Magpie Suite: Prelude, Part II, Part III" Pleasantly ominous little folk epic about the end of the world, or at least the end of the night for those who live only in the dark.

Tile - "Wicked Witch of 1106" A warehouse packed with writhing, sweating kids pumping their fists to the crashing bang-bang-bang-bang riff/beat. They lurch forward as the amps growl and squeal, pushing back with a force equal to the crowd facing them. The song goes on and on and on until everyone and everything is exhausted, covered in sweat, blood and torn clothing.

Goodnight Stars, Goodnight Air - "viii" A flying mass of static begins to ripple and studder as it travels skyward in reverse, the chanting of its worshipers caught in its many folds. The lightning melodies it nurtures flit violently about its great, indecipherable belly, searching for sustenance; growing, then dissolving into one another and falling as rain onto the ice pools of the night-cloaked desert below.

Yeasayer and LV memories

noreply@blogger.com (ian) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 22:17:00 +0000

Another post from before everyone knew it was time to pretend and before Vampire Weekend was Vampire Weekend. Instead they were said to be "This one band, Vampire Weekend. They do a Paul Simon afro-beat thing."

10:55 AM Neil: so yeasayer sounds like a more percussion-focused depeche mode?

10:56 AM me: never heard them

Neil: oh.

that's what they sound like to me, so far

me: they are playing with MGMT but it's already sold-out

Neil: who's headlining?

10:58 AM me: Yeasayer has top billing

10:59 AM Neil: that makes sense

MGMT seems to be getting buzz, but I wouldn't think THEY'D be the reason for the show selling out

11:01 AM me: i dunno. I'm sure it has an effect. Personally, I know nothing about Yeasayer.

also, vampire weekend doesn't exactly have a following, but i heard about them no less than 5 times in one day.

that show sold out weeks in advance.

11:02 AM Neil: yeah, they're all everyone's talking about

the dense layer of cheering makes it hard to hear the music, you know what i mean?

me: absolutley

Neil: man, this yeasayer is catchy as hell.

11:06 AM it's like bands like animal collective made a bunch of people go, "well, World Music as a genre and Fanbase sucks, but it's rooted in really great musics."

11:07 AM me: you think it's more from that? rather than just an overall increased music in obscure music in general.

11:08 AM Neil: well, they're a flagship/gateway band for more obscure elements and genres

11:09 AM me: yeah, but i think there were others before them. i think that there were a lot of bands starting to lean towards those kind of things.

11:10 AM Neil: like peter gabriel and david byrne

11:11 AM i didn't mean they were the first, just that bands like animal collective reminded people

11:12 AM me: well i guess the reference is pretty present on their albums.

11:13 AM as opposed to being hinted at or touched on.

11:15 AM also stuff like tortoise and trans am on red line

Neil: and don't forget the magnetic fields' "world love"

me: june of 44

11:16 AM i'm so '90's

Neil: yeah, and Trans Am was influenced both by that music directly, and by the bands who were influenced by it in the late 70's Ealry 80's, at least on Red Line

11:17 AM me: jonathan richman has made a career out of it too.

11:18 AM Neil: byrne and gabriel (hey, Gabriel Byrne! weird.) made labels out of it

me: with trans am, are you talking like krautrock stuff?

11:20 AM Neil: some, but they were also influenced by Fear of Music and albums like that, too

me: never made the connection, but then again i avoided talking heads for a long time.

Neil: i grew up on them

11:21 AM me: i'm still avoiding peter gabriel.

was your dad an art school teacher?

or worse yet, a high school art teacher.

11:22 AM Neil: not then

he had many different jobs then

now he's a middle school/junior high teacher

me: is your dad rambo?

Neil: math/geography/history

11:23 AM he does like cargo pants

me: i just had this art teacher in high school who would get pissed when we'd put on bad brains/skinny puppy/nirvana/they might be giants

11:24 AM then she'd be like my turn to pick the music and it was always peter gabriel

i thought it was so lame and i've never been able to listen to it since

Neil: that explains the stigma

11:25 AM if you go back to the first 3-4 albums, I think you might dig them

me: she was partially my reference point for the new age thing.

Neil: figured

a lot of art teachers are

me: i don't know what her home was like but damn did she have some heavy looking jewelry

11:26 AM Neil: and flowy, blue fish dresses probably

me: nail + head

11:27 AM Neil: we used to swear that ours colored bits of her hair with magic marker, and this was around the time when i was all about Manic Panic

11:28 AM me: man, i'd make fun of that but i remember that one back room of then and now where i'd sit and stew of what color i'd get if i were to get one.

thank god i mostly didn't

11:29 AM or zipperhead, that was the other cool store

Neil: i mostly did

me: now there's hot topic in every mall

Neil: yeah, it used to take effort to look like an asshole

11:30 AM kids don't appreciate it now

me: i was just going to say

yeah, i miss that. hunting for shit.

Neil: that's it! that's our "3 miles, uphill, in the snow" thing

me: now i can just go on the internet and have it the next day.

Neil: hot topics and faux vintage

me: wow!

i feel like i've hit a milestone.

11:31 AM urban outfitters has replaced hours upon hours of routing their other people's moth ridden bullshit.

Neil: and i hate that.

so much

11:32 AM me: man, did you used to get depressed after thrift shopping?

Neil: i look at the clean cut kids in the Salvo and think "Oh NOW it's cool to come here? It's not gross or 'Gay?'"

11:33 AM me: yeah there was that turning point

Neil: if I went to American Family on Sumner

me: "lousy socs"

Neil: with the warbly religious vhs tapes playing on the tvs

11:34 AM me: oh man, it was the kind of uncomfortable you loved to embrace

that's where i got that policeman's coat that's like your brown one

11:35 AM Neil: that's where I got my brown one!

me: ha

there was this thing in the back of your head where you knew you'd wasted a whole afternoon celebrating dead people's junk and you only had sort of cool crap to show for it

11:36 AM it was like bummer town

Neil: yeah

like when every other pair of pants you got really didn't fit that well once you went to wear them out for the first time

11:37 AM and you'd go "ugh, i don't want to wear that"

me: yeah, totally.

like 50% of what you bought at thrift stores ended up back at a thrift store

11:38 AM wedged between a busted lampshade and herb albert and the tijuana brass record

11:41 AM this conversation has made my life feel more relevant

Neil: it reminded me that i need to get more pants

me: yeah, it reminded me that i have a lot of useless junk i need to get rid of too.

11:42 AM Neil: jess was complimenting me on having less of a "footprint" because i buy a lot of used clothing

11:43 AM i think one of my favorite unexpected finds at Salvo was a Swans cd single

me: wow, that's a holy hell if i ever saw one.

i got a casio SK-5 at 7th st.

11:44 AM i think adam got that BOOM BOOM truck poster above our couch the same day

bitchin good day

Neil: nice

i passed up a sweet keyboard once

me: yeah they totally had no idea the value of that thing.

11:45 AM adam got another awesome one another time.

Neil: but i've since gotten an air organ and an activision system with 50 games

me: that's not at all lame.

Neil: right.

11:46 AM one of the more amazing finds i've heard of is Brad 2 finding the Criterion of In The Mood For Love for $5

me: that's weird

11:47 AM i think if i found a swans CD at a salvo, i'd gently put it down and back away slowly.

that shit ain't right

not that i can't see someone ditching it, but it's just odd

11:48 AM Neil: i kept looking at it and shaking my head

11:50 AM me: i gotta take you to this antique store in philly

11:51 AM it's so amazing.

11:52 AM Neil: you've got to fire walk with me

i'll show you my death bag

where is it?

me: it's right off south, it's equal parts junk shop and forgotten corridor at Q-mart

called antiquarium

11:53 AM it's like a museum at the same time

Neil: with a dash of that antique mall off of Lehigh Street?

11:55 AM me: don't know it, but i've probably been there

like that one junk store on hamilton right by the statue

Neil: never been to that one

sightings, transportation, iPod relationships

noreply@blogger.com (ian) — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 17:02:00 +0000

I probably could've trimmed this a bit, but whatever. I am really just trying to get something up here to detract from the fact that I am ridiculously behind on getting my top 25 out. So here is another little something from almost a year ago. Sightings is worth checking out and I like the bit about iPods and our relationship with music.

3:12 PM Neil: i'm listening to the new Sightings album

i think i might be a little more bummed now about having to miss that show

3:17 PM me: so i should get it?

i was listening to their myspace the other day. good stuff.

Neil: yeah.

3:18 PM it's very different than their earlier stuff

at least production-wise

3:19 PM but it makes sense that they've come to this sound

me: i'm not too familiar with them

3:22 PM i heard them a while ago but don't really remember

3:23 PM Neil: the used to very harsh, but they've come to a much more tribalistic sound

3:24 PM like Drum's Not Dead

I have a bunch I can share with you

me: that's what i got off the stuff i heard yesterday

3:28 PM Neil: if you're not going to samara lubelski, you should go see them with axolotl and electroputas, etc.

3:32 PM me: there was someone else good on that show wasn't there?

i keep looking for info on it.

3:35 PM

Satanized, Northern Liberties, Red Rocket, Shellshag, THE SLITS@ DD!!

damn.

3:36 PM Neil: what's DD?

nevermind

3:38 PM me: same day as the cribs shows

- s

Neil: cribs?

me: yeah

cribs

3:39 PM Neil: elaborate please

3:40 PM Sightings, Axolotl, Mincemeat or Tenspeed, Weyes Bluhd, Electroputas

circle of hope

march 8th

me: ah mincemeat

i knew there was a badmaster band on there

3:41 PM 16.The Cribs - Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever (The Cribs sound like they could be the British answer to the Strokes. Probably the most radio-friendly band on my list but there's one thing that sets them apart from all that horse shit: they sing with gusto. There's a grit and energy here that nicely compliments their streamlined sound. No drag here, and it's catchy as hell. )

Neil: oh yeah, that cover doesn't seem to fit your description

3:42 PM at least that's what i thought when you posted it

me: it loooks like a doves cover

http://www.myspace.com/thecribs

3:46 PM Neil: yeah it does

3:48 PM i can see the strokes thing, plus mid-90's brit pop

and the rakes, a bit

3:49 PM me: yeah

Neil: alright, i know i've heard men's needs before

me: rakes

yeah it's one of those songs

15 minutes

4:04 PM Neil: one of the albums on my "oh shit, i missed that in '07" list is Cass McCombs

4:05 PM and i'm listening it to it right now, and it's so perfectly warm

4:07 PM me: another one i don't really know

4:10 PM Neil: i read a review of it on vice that was spot-on

and a few others lauding it

4:11 PM me: vice reviews are often so juvenile but accurate and to the point

no fluff

4:12 PM Neil: that's what i like about them

4:13 PM they still get the point across

18 minutes

4:31 PM Neil: i'll drive sunday. is your car still in the shop?

4:33 PM me: ha!

my eight cars are all in the shop but i can go get any of them at any time

just need an appt.

Neil: commie

4:35 PM me: ha

yeah

i couldn't save that chat

i had to go to lunch

4:36 PM but i'm keeping logs no on my chat client so it should be formatted okay if i copy and paste it

Neil: cool

me: just got that text

and thanks for driving

4:37 PM my relationship with the last bonnie prince billy album goes like this

4:38 PM 1.got album
2.copied to ipod
3.didn't listen at all for about a week
4.deleted from ipod
5.repeat steps 2-5 bi-monthy

4:39 PM i'm about to delete it again.

i could break the cycle and keep it, but i need the space and i know i just don't really care.

4:40 PM Neil: that's such a weird, specific to the mp3 age, album relationship

4:41 PM me: yeah, here's another.
i could delete the clash to make room, but i like to keep album on hand just in case. i have moments when nothing else will satiate.

Neil: understandable

4:42 PM me: also i do things like putting black flag damaged and dirty projectors rise just in case i'm listening to one and feel the need to reference the other

but i've also been wanting to spend more time with "my war" so i have to black flag album's when really one is enough

4:43 PM Neil: how many gigs do you have?

me: the fact that i think so hard about what i might want to listen to later makes me think i am totally insane sometimes

this is only a 4 but it has the bells and whistles

4:44 PM it's fine normally, but it's a busy month. i've got a lot on my music plate.

4:45 PM Neil: hence my backpack of music

me: yeah, i was about to start feeling like a total weird but then i remembered your affliction

4:46 PM when you're heavily addicted you like to feel prepared.

but there is always the music conversation that you weren't prepared for.

god forbid you have to wait until you get home.

4:47 PM Neil: right?

me: all because someone says something outlandish like that they prefer cinerama over wedding present

4:49 PM but you just have to know immediately whether there is any merit to that claim

4:51 PM moving along... i accidentally put on the new caribou and i'm glad. it kept not clicking but i think it just did while i wasn't paying attention.

osmosis

Neil: that's usually when it happens, when you let it happen behind you

me: absolutely

4:52 PM or when you make up your mind in advance about some over-hyped band

4:53 PM then one day you're at some DJ night and you're all "holy shit, who is this"

Neil: "who is this" is the a good indicator of significant music

me: yeah, i love those moments.

4:54 PM growing for sunn is a pretty fair ipod trade-off but i'm not about to give up that growing even though the files are huge 320kbps

4:55 PM btw, when i texted you "holy shit" about the eric copeland album i was actually listening to growing but got confused cause i had a slight buzz and i couldn't decide which of the two to listen to

4:57 PM Neil: ha

4:58 PM me: but the eric copeland was good too, but not as "wow" to me

4:59 PM i just knew in either case it was exceeding my expectations, i did feel like an idiot for a second though

5:00 PM Neil: but we both know how much you love growing

me: is that some kind of innuendo?

5:01 PM Neil: take it as you will

5:03 PM i gotta roll

5:04 PM yo

me: cool, i'll see you sunday.

Neil: not if i see you first

me: har har

Neil: faaaaaaaaart

Hyphen's Honorable Mentions of 2008

noreply@blogger.com (hyphen) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 22:21:00 +0000

The following albums, while not making it to the arguably dubious "Top 25" list, are ones which I enjoyed throughout the year, and are worth mentioning.

Crystal Stilts - Alight of Night a nice mix of Blank Dogs-esque garble pop and post-JAMC Slumberland fuzzy feedback jangle.

The Folk Spectre - The Blackest Medicine Pete Nolan (of Magik Markers, GHQ, etc.) on some crumbly lo-fi, home recorded meanderings. The project's name, and albums title, give a decent indication of what's to be found within.

Fuck Buttons - Street Horrrsing Ambient Pop-Noise Anthems, best taken in one, fun chunk. Their live show seems to consitently be a fairly preprogrammed replay of the album, but it's still a solid listen.

Indian Jewelry - "Free Gold!" Fuzzy, drugged-out heaviness with moments of cooler beauty and drum pad nod-alongs. Hot, American desert music.

Ladytron - Velocifero A pretty direct return to the sound of Witching Hour, but a damn solid album.

Magic Lantern - High Beams These guys takes the heavy Psych sounds of each song and play them to their very limits. May fall on the repetitive side of things, but when the mood strikes, these extended jams are extremely infectious. Epic headphone journeys.

Monade - Monstre Cosmic Probably my favorite Monade album yet. These tracks are fuller, and really give much more of a sense of momentum without sounding like a Stereolab b-side.

Fabio Orsi - Picture Myself In A Cloud (Speaking Through Thought) Minimal sustained ambient tones, verging on drone, with touches of guitar and percussion here and there. Beautiful without making you feel like you're buying candles or hemp textiles.

Rafter - Sex Death Cassette Eclectic and irreverent indie-pop with kitchen sink-style production.

Religious Knives - It's After Dark/The Door A much more straightforward turn for the band so far (especially considering their respective other projects), though not fully abandoning the tribalism of their earlier releases. I get a definite Doors/60's darker psych vibe from this newer stuff, but it's growing on me in spite of that.

The Sea And Cake - Car Alarm Another solid album from a dependable band. For The Sea And Cake, this feels more like a rock album but, much like Everybody, it also feels like a summation of all their previous efforts.

Marnie Stern - This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That Super, high energy songs with lightning riffs. The associations with Hella are very aparent, but the vocals have a bratty confidence, and slight charming abrasiveness, not unlike early-to-mid 90's, female-fronted pop punk.

Sun Araw - Beach Head Eastern-influenced, otherworldly psych/drone meditations. Heavy and loud at times, but never dark and always wrapped in a friendly haze.

Alexis Taylor - Rubbed Out Hot Chip lead vocalist goes for a solo outing. Much more akin to the quieter first album, and definitely a lot more melancholy, overall. Relatively experimental, though nothing terribly avant-garde or difficult. I have to say I much prefer to Made In The Dark, overall.

Valet - Naked Acid Apparently an epic concept album dealing with the mysticism, cats and an invented of Portland. It reminds me of several other albums of this year (see: Pocahaunted, Magic Lantern, Indian Jewelry, Sun Araw) and yet has a flavor all it's own. A very ambitious feeling pervades, while still evoking the haze of a dream.

There are, I'm sure, many albums worth hearing which I missed over the past year, but here are a few which, while I may not have heard much if at all, I will definitely be catching up with.

Philip Jeck - Sand

The Music Tapes - For Clouds And Tornadoes

Raccoo-oo-oon - s/t

Skyphone - Avellaneda

Vivian Girls - s/t

Windy & Carl - Songs For The Broken Hearted

Women - s/t

(up next: Hyphen's Favorite Songs of 2008...)

Hyphen's Top 25 of 2008

noreply@blogger.com (hyphen) — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 14:23:00 +0000

(aka: We Always Seem To Start These Things Late) I may know a lot of music (though that's questionable), but I hope no one will mistake me for knowing a lot about music. I am, most definitely, a layman. What I do know is much more scatter shot than chronological, or even close to complete within any given genre. I know little to nothing of theory/scales/time signatures/harmony/melody and can barely play the thumb piano. What I offer here is a list based on my opinions of the music released in 2008 to which I was exposed (already doubly subjective). The numbers by which they are ranked are fairly arbitrary, though chosen through much internal debate. And while I have given you little to no reason to take heed of these opinions, I will say that I spent a great deal of time thinking about them and reflecting on them, trying to understand them and acknowledge them as objectively as possibly.

25.Pocahaunted - Island Diamonds (This review does take into consideration the numerous releases Pocahaunted had this year such as Chains, Mirror Mics, etc. This is probably the case with several other artists on this list) Toward the end of the summer, I took a much-needed vacation at a family friend's house on Long Beach Island. Most of my time was spent letting the sun do terrible things to my skin while I drank, napped and read a bunch of Etgar Keret short stories on the beach. I kept mostly to one small section of the island but, by about halfway through my visit, I couldn't shake the feeling I should get out and see what there was to see. I decided to drive all the way to the top of LBI to the Barnegat Lighthouse State Park. The drive was long and slow, and I decided to listen to the new Pocahaunted [proper] album, Island Diamonds.
It was the perfect fit.
These hypnotic, dubbed-out, chant-and-drone jams carried me in a slow, sun-poisoned daze as the car crawled up the island amidst the meandering stream of vacationer traffic.The steady tick-tacking of the drum beat, and more precise monotony of the clanging guitar had given the established sound of Pocahaunted's echoing chant just the right, new path to follow.
As high energy as this kind of drugged-out haze can get, perfect for half-conscious cruising on any kind of slow, summer burn.

24.Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours This album is a mix cd that just happens to be composed completely of original material, at least in the sense that these are not someone else's songs. Sure it's fluffy, and maybe a little derivative at times, but at its heart, all it ever hoped to be was a really good dance pop album. And, unlike albums like Hercules and the Love Affair (which sounds a lot more like late 90's/early 00's Disco Revival than a pure Disco reinvention), it never feels locked into being one very specific sound. Plus I've been waiting patiently for this album since Bright Like Neon Love made my year end list of '03, and this new one didn't disappoint in the least.

23.Gruff Rhys - Candylion Everyone seemed to be talking about what a great comeback album Hey Venus! Was. I never quite heard in it what I read about it. It wasn’t bad or anything like that, but it didn’t make me feel anything like I felt with Radiator, Geurilla or Mwng. Then Candylion came out, and I didn’t pay much attention to it, as Rhys’ last album inspired about as much excitement in me as the new SFA album did. Toward the end of ’08 I finally gave Candylion a good listen, and I’m really glad I did. To me, it has all the variety and vitality that Hey Venus! Lacks. I’ve never pictured SFA being an arena band, but Venus seems to lend itself to such a presentation. Candylion, on the other hand, is intimate, irreverent, druggy, sing-songy, beautiful and silly all at once.

22.memes - with my whole heart (cd-r) The sound of dysfunction. An anemic rasp whispering secret stories to stumbling beats, and bass-lines from the floor below. Only the guitar has the strength to tell the truth plainly and its outlook is bleak at best. In fact, the only time things brighten, the feeling is of the peace that comes with passing. Moments of aggression tell the story of endured and inherited anger, followed with the frustration at the inevitable.
Shattered and shattering, this is the unquestionable knowledge and display of all things broken and sad, bruised and lost, naked and bleary. Though deformed and often ugly, it bares more beautiful truth in its vulnerability than anyone should have rights to.

21.Yuhasz - Pauline and Emile A while back I wrote a review, or more appropriately a description, of a cd-r pre-release of Yuhasz's first album. Well, this past year saw the proper, if very limited, release of that album. While the music is exactly as it was then, it is still just as solid of a release, and with the added appeal of beautifully elaborate packaging. Housed within several layers of greenish-grey, brown-speckled tile sheets, made complete with a hand-assembled hing and locking handle, it is a package befitting the music trapped inside. As its creator more or less put it, it's beautiful but with just the vague possibility of danger. Screws jut out from the base of the hinge, and the tile edges are still rough and somewhat jagged. It's slightly menacing, while beautiful and coldly organic.

20.Tobacco - Fucked Up Friends If you've heard Black Moth Super Rainbow, then you won't be too surprised by Fucked Up Friends. What you'll feel, though, is a focus a little more towards head-nodding and body moving. Cloudy synths, raspy vocoded voices and crunchy, lo-fi beats beg to be dropped at the club. Bruce Haack for the back-packing, hip hop set. The overall sound is a one or two trick pony that may not be able to sustain itself between the two projects indefinitely, but for right now it's a fun listen from a solid album.

19.Girl Talk - Feed The Animals In a weird sort of way, I've felt very torn about Feed The Animals, and dismayed by the polar reactions it inspires (both of which I can sympathize with). On the one hand, it is an extremely danceable, well-crafted and paced album. It's also a hell of a lot of fun to listen to. On the other hand, it's been done many times over before and, as a good friend of mine more or less put it, "if I wanted to hear Public Enemy, I'd listen to Fear of a Black Planet." Here's the thing, at least for me: for the last couple years of high school, into the first couple years of college, a lot of my friends were djs, and I spent many weekends at clubs, parties, raves, etc. Though never a true dj myself (thanks to lack of motivation and prohibitive equipment costs), I've always been a major proponent of mixes. I still think back longingly to the dubbed copy of one of Dieselboy's earlier Wu-Tang infused, drum-and-bass tapes, and the copy of Tony Touch's 50th mix tape (still floating around either in my car or storage) which forever burned the phrase "put it in my mouth" into my brain. 
To me, Feed the Animals is like one of those tapes. You keep it in your car, like surplus jet fuel to get you amped for a Friday night, or to rescue an increasingly monotonous car trip or lame party. Like the 2ManyDJs sets/mixes which came before it, it's got a lot of beats, melodies and choruses the vast majority of any dance-starved party can recognize, but made new/revitalized in a way which makes it enjoyable for those who wish they never had to hear that song again. ever. And, for those who would complain about the way he jumps from sample to sample, staying only briefly on any one song, I offer these two defenses: he's making something of his own, something new from something old; In using only snippets, he's proving that there's a reason these songs are pop hits, even if that reason is often quite small.

18.Excepter - debt dept Feels a little more Cabaret Voltaire than Throbbing Gristle to me (contrary to what some have said). These hippies have come a long, dark way from their earlier albums, but the link is still there. Songs still seem to lack any real link to a traditional beginning, middle, end structure. Much more minimal, beat-driven ideas march along, sometimes falling apart, sometimes giving birth to a new direction, mid-song. Though this and their last album seem to mine increasingly dark atmospheres, they also feel at their goofiest and most irreverent. Like dancing in a circle on a sugar high, covered in fake blood.

17.Future Twin - s/t (untitled?) Unlabeled except for wordless artwork which looks like something between the Aurora Borealis and an anemone erupting into a Super Nova, and dubbed onto what appears to be some sort of McDonald's promotional cassette, this first release from future twin feels like an artifact from an unplaced time. Clusters of decayed and decaying loops haunt and float through the brief collection of tracks. Squeals echo and bounce amid a drone that could be the multiplied cacophony of church bells or the distant but formidable din of some great, run down machine. All these sounds fight against varying degrees of muffle, wow and flutter. I can't begin to say what existed from the original recording, and what is the result of dubbing to a tape of such questionable condition. Much like the archetypal artifact, this only adds to its fragile charm. As though these loops might one day soon crumble right in my tape deck.

16.Robedoor - Closer to the Cliff A chanting choir is overpowered by the deafening rumble of a looming stack of impossibly large amplifiers. The ghost of a melody adrift a lost sea of harsh, dead winds. The bellowing pulse of an ancient computer wakens a swarm of ghosts whose cries reverberate in the rusted strings of an amplified but derelict guitar. A slow and deliberate evocation of chords from the unearthed organ of a crumbling church inspires mourning from its parishioners, trapped inside its great pipes.
These are the images I imagine while listening to Closer to the Cliff, and the idea that the very recording of this material caused the tape they were mastered on to wither. Not the sound of evil, so much as a meditation on darker things.

15.Emeralds - Solar Bridge Drone is such an overused word, isn't it? This is more like a deep, complex hum of electricity. Sounds making mountains to awe over as more crest and flow over their great and jagged tops, emptying into a shimmering sea. More, still, form a ball of white light, rising up and emitting rays to illuminate this world of sound.
This album's inclusion to this list is as much as a stand-in for their live performance (which I was fortunate enough to see at 2008's No Fun Fest), as it is for the two cuts which make up its length. Emeralds create within the listener a trance which brings the focus back to its hypnotic sounds rather than leaving the mind blank and vulnerable.

14.Ruby Suns - Sea Lion For those of you wondering what the fuck everyone was hearing in Vampire Weekend, maybe give this a go. Definitely post-Animal Collective, but more adventurous than just some also-ran. They’ve got that classic, shambolic indie charm, at times feeling like the lost, worldbeat-dabbling connection between the early lo-fi jangle and later electric/electronic white dance funk of Kevin Barnes’ Of Montreal. (The only bummer is that one of their songs, “Oh, Mojave,” is in a Windows commercial. But I guess that just finds more common ground between them and Barnes.)

13.She & Him - Volume One  It's been made painfully clear to me that I am in no way alone in my fondness for Zooey Deschanel. From her wise-ass make-up counter quips in The Good Girl, to her sweetly intimate shower caroling in Elf, I've been swooning. But, unlike that other de facto indie-boy crush, she's put out an album of covers that feels as honest, unpretentious and personal as any collection of singer/songwriter 4-track home recordings. She & Him have managed, pretty consistently, to shine some new or different light on a lot of familiar songs (not unlike Girl Talk). There's a certain feeling of vulnerability in her voice, not to be confused with weakness but, rather, a naked honesty (not unlike singing in the shower). She's got a voice, though not without its imperfections, which conveys the personality behind it, or at least the one she wants us to see, perfectly. What M. Ward brings to it with his arrangements and production only adds to it. The sound is sometimes huge, sometimes bare and minimal, but it always feels like it was recorded in a tangible space, not some pristine, sci-fi vacuum. Whether he's cribbing Jeff Lynne or Phil Spector, it always feels as though the sound was carefully determined for each song so as to get that much closer to the truth of it, at least as Ms. Deschanel (or Mrs. Gibbard?) tells it.

12.Fleet Foxes - s/t Warm, harmonic mountain folk hymns from some old souls. Each song soars with the reverb of a great church hall.Confident vocals sing with the feel of innocence, not naivety, and a refreshing lack of irony. Even the more melancholy pieces have a twinge of hopefulness and love. These songs are comforting in their familiarity without feeling like a just simply a stale genre revival. It's a quality that's rarely acheived well these days.
Production goes a long way on this album, but it's simple choices that add a bit of weight and bring out that warmth without getting in the way of the music, or calling too much attention to itself. It allows the life of this album to stand on its own and truly be heard.

11.Sebastien Tellier - Sexuality Like a more sly, but just as silly Chromeo, Tellier makes his intentions plain with his tongue only half-tucked in his cheek. Starting off with an instantly classic, headnodding summer cruising jam that makes me almost pine for a lowrider, he wastes no time in laying the sex on thick. Throughout the album he oscillates back and forth between the best aspects of cheesy and sleazy. From all those dumb songs of synth’s awkward adolescent years in the top 40 (that we can’t seem to forget in spite of ourselves), to all those trashy numbers better suited to a pole dance (until we hear them at the club and can’t help but dance a little closer in hungered anticipation). You only wish this album was ironic.

10.Squim - Zephyrus Layers of loops, disintegrations and tones peak and fall, build and recede. Quiet outbursts punctuate distant ringing. Stirrings jump cut to warbling echoes. Beacons projected in one directions pass sonar waves and reversed guitar lines headed the other way. Diminishing reverberations rattle into dust. Two stories are told in multiple parts, ranging from ominous to impatient, ambiguous to serene, immediate to confused. These are colorful stories worth hearing, if you’re willing to listen.

9.Social Junk - Concussion Summer Not necessarily noise rock, more of a general cacophony, but not without its quiet moments. Tracks built upon clatters and bangs over tribal drums, sometimes with harshly overdriven vocals riding their broken rhythm. Other times a single guitar chord is strummed rapidly and unevenly over the pounding wail of a distant electric guitar, sounding like the echo of hammering metal running from the courtyard through the halls of some old, stone prison. Cymbals steadily ridden to the effect of grinding metal. Drum loops sound like the deep, stomach-kicking elastic concussion of someone beating the side of a half-rusted oil barrel—what would sightings sound like at 2/3rds the volume but twice as clear? Patience is a virtue Social Junk can manage. Those listening at home will be rewarded for similar qualities.

8.Juana Molina - Un Dia Juana Molina has been exploring the creation and interaction of looped vocals and instrumentation for quite some time now. I would dare say she has been among those at the forefront of this ever-increasing group of musicians using recent advances in looping pedals and keyboard sampling to achieve the one-[wo]man-band effect of layered/harmonized vocals, percussion and melody without the assistance of other musicians, even in live performance.
Her fourth album, Son, used this technique to create a dense collection of songs that wound and twisted inward, feeling, at times, like an impenetrable tangle of overgrowth. Her sense of playfulness and curiosity was there, but it felt so tightly woven as to choke the overall flow of the album.
While Un DIa is definitely not a departure in technique, and has her trademark sound, it is a different album than its predecessor. For one, it never feels weighed down by or in individual tracks. There is virtually always a sense of propulsion and momentum. The times when the album slows feel more like a rest between sprints, a time for reflection. Then it's back to the race, as patterns relay with, and leapfrog over one another. Rhythms skip and skitter underneath the melodies, kicking up stuttered vocal cadences. Each song feels like a collection of transcending vocal textures and rhythmic patterns. Un Dia is an album to be appreciated for how well chosen its complimentary loops, melodies and rhythms are, and for the beauty they create together. Not as much for the intricacy of its craftsmanship.

7.Stereolab - Chemical Chords Pretty much from the beginning, Stereolab have mined the world of, and charted the universe of pop music. Their vessel was many times built from pieces of The Velvet Underground, Can, Neu! and others more on the rock end of music, but they have never strayed too far from the worlds of Esquivel, Perrey-Kingsley, Mutantes and others who sought to realize the idea of what Pop could be. Their output, however, was pretty consistently realized as either nuggets of pop embedded into streams and mountains of avant experimentalism, or fragments of pop stretched to the very limits of their former definition (The latter can also been seen in the work of frequent collaborator and sometime Stereolab member Sean O'Hagan's other project, The High Llamas). In short, PopAvant, not the other way around. With Fab Four Suture, they came close to the latter, approaching an album, quite literally, as a collection of singles. But the tracks which bookended that album made it quite clear that they were not quite there.
With Chemical Chords, they may have finally reversed the definition of their output. Condensing years of pushing, pulling and playfulness into 3-4 minute bites. Starting it off is the peppy, blinky bounce of Neon Beanbag, another beautiful tribute to their friend and former bandmate Mary Hansen (the first being on Margerine Eclipse, "Feel And Triple", which was, arguably in its entirety, a tribute to her, as well as a record of Stereolab at their most emotionally frank and direct). The album never really veers off this course, keeping things mostly up-tempo, musically at least. Lyrically, Sadier seems to have as many societal woes to speak of as ever but, since lyrics have never really been my forte, I'll leave that to the others. Many complain about this new phase in Stereolab's sound (which seems to have begun, in the wake of the appropriately titled Sound Dust, with Margerine Eclipse), but there has been much complaining as far back as Emperor Tomato Ketchup, much of it by the same people. Maybe I'm towing the party line, but this album makes it pretty easy on the arms.

6.Gang Gang Dance - Saint Dymphna Feeling like inspiration was found in dancehalls en route from North Africa to somewhere in the Middle East, Gang Gang Dance returned with their most aggressively direct and song-oriented album yet. For better or worse, their earlier releases seemed to meander peacefully until they found a song they felt was worth stopping on. Here, even at their most ambient-esque interludishness, the focus was sharper and the result more tangible. Not content to wash over you, their aim this time was to move you.

5.Ponytail - Ice Cream Spiritual Pure, mounting energy. Like a more primal Marnie Stern, a more singular Deerhoof, or a cleaner, distinct and more radio-friendly Lightning Bolt. These songs pulse, radiate and vibrate toward each new moment. The singer seems to be espousing some fresh revelation with each track. I have no idea what she's discovered but I'm keen to find out.

4.Portishead - Third What can I say about this band, and this album, that hasn't been said a million times over? To come from a genre that's fallen to a level just shy of pariah status (due to a glut of practitioners wore it thin and past it's welcome by turning all of its signature aspects into permanent cliches), and create something fresh and beautiful and relevant without abandoning the core of the identity you began with, that's fucking noteworthy. I remember thinking, sometime between the release of their second album and the live NYC Orchestra album, that this group could do a spectacular Bond song (in fact, there may have been some Hollywood rumors of this floating around for all I know). Looking back on what the franchise was like at that point, I'm glad they didn't. But it gets me to thinking, with the release of Casino Royale, the Bond franchise changed, or grew, into something more fitting the world around it: a little grittier and a bit more down to earth in its cynicism, pessimism, and violence. Sure, it's still a spy fantasy with big action set pieces, jet setting and sex, but it plainly shows a darker, brutish and bitter side to its main character, who is defined by the almost animal like immediacy of his actions. And, once again, I can't help but think that this "new" Portishead would make a good fit to the new Bond. Whereas once they wore their spy fetish on their sleeve, channeled through a hip hop sensibility via scratchy old record samples and sung through melancholy but detached vocals; they now project something more akin to a weary sadness and pessimism. Scratched up old record samples have given way to an overall fuzzy lo-fi crackle, evoking a certain dirty and rough immediacy, as well as an imperfect humanity, as opposed to a scene from some lost, noirish fairy-tale from a previous generation. Instead of the psych-tinged soundtrack, we get echoes of a happening gone sour, invaded by thoughts of torture, bombing and shadow conspiracies not as looming threats, but as everyday news.

3.Grouper - Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill With this latest album, Grouper has captured the sound of sad, dreamy pop folk emerging from her well established reverberating sea of disembodied vocals, droning guitar strum & fuzz, and floating artifacts of lo-fi hiss & hum. Somewhere between the changing of tides and an incoming/outgoing dream, songs condense from the fog enough to sound as though they're across a great, blooming field or just on the other side of half-shuttered eyes. Grouper's drones create an intangible but familiar world in which to listen and imagine the meaning of her gently muffled words. It's the kind of sadness you could swoon and marvel at all day, as the dampness creeps through your clothes to your bones.

2.Beach House - Devotion You know, it took a while for me to really warm to Beach House's Devotion. There was definitely an immediate appeal to the icy organ & spare percussion, recalling Antena's more melancholy moments. The music, and most assuredly the band's name, evoked a very specific image: a beach front house amidst a large storm in the middle of winter. The ocean is tumultuous chopping and crashing at the shore line. Outside the amber yellow of the living room, the world is a dense and hazy blue-grey. The windows bow and bend at the strong, whipping winds. What's funny about all that is that it's actually two memories combined: the shores of LBI in Winter time, and a summer beach trip spent inside due to a formidable hurricane pulling at the shore and pushing at the windows as though they were thin sheets of acetate. And that, for me, was the key to this album. Although I had responded, at first, only to aspects of the album, it wasn't until I saw them one sweltering summer day on Coney Island that everything clicked. There's is the sound of summer in winter, the thought of a grey, snowy day as the sun beats through your body to the hot tarmac. It's music to swoon to, and thank god I had someone to swoon over/with, or I might have been one of the many to swoon right to the ground that day in involuntary worship, most likely feeling a rush of cold as darkness funneled in between them and the blazing sun.

1.Burning Star Core - Challenger Feeling like the complimenting score to a spare title sequence laid over exterior shots of some distant, unforgiving planet, the opening title track to BSC's latest proper album sets a very potent tone. Feeling very minimal with its phasing tones complimented by solitary and alternating keys, it's like the breathing of a machine punctuated with the sting of its various indicator lights. And although its broken up by what feels like a door opening into another, livelier existence, the two worlds never merge but, instead, exist side by side, complimenting each other in their differences. This, as much as anything else, gives Challenger it's lasting quality. BSC hops from plain to plain with each track, but the leap never feels forced or too far from where he left off. Following the opener, we land on the Growing-esque delayed, bouncing guitar yowls of "Beauty Hunter"; the diminished warbles, crinkles, tings and pitch-shifted hums of "Through the Bars of a Rhyme"; the overlapping, layering and shifting vocal loop of "Mezzo Forte"; the imagined field recording of a thousand ping pong matches with "No Memories, No Plans"; and on... Maybe that spaceship didn't explode all those years back, maybe it just keeps blinking out to some new existence, maybe one where satellites crack like egg shells, leaking rainbows into the blackness of space.

MGMT, Black Flag, The Dirty Projectors and the psychology of commerce (from 02.07.08)

noreply@blogger.com (ian) — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 14:35:00 +0000

9:21 AM me: that MGMT video is amazing.

10 minutes

9:32 AM Neil: it sure is.

what?

9:33 AM me: Time To Pretend by MGMT

it's ridiculous

Neil: youtube?

me: yeah

Neil: i wonder if their live show's still quirky and low rent

9:36 AM me: low rent?

9:37 AM Neil: a white sheet with "MGMT" written on it, and guitars hung by hand with ropes

to the ceiling

9:38 AM my god, the video's like an orgy of early 90's cg and green screen excess

9:39 AM me: yeah, but that cat!

9:40 AM Neil: he is riding a cat. you cannot ride a cat.

9:41 AM me: surrealism!!!

whee!!!

9:44 AM Neil: they seem really flaming lips-hippie now. it's like they're all about having happenings now, but they're still smart-asses.

9:45 AM me: happenings, like they're sellin' it?

Neil: like a party at a commune, that kind of "happening."

9:46 AM me: do they have other songs that are catchy like that?

9:51 AM Neil: yeah, that's their sound. like head-nodder, singalong jams. but there are some more agressive ones on this album. when i saw them live, they wore sunglasses and hoodies, and it was this sort of jokey, over-the-top anthem vibe.

39 minutes

10:31 AM Neil: i have that first track from dirty projectors' rise above stuck in my head

10:32 AM me: still don't have that

been listening to a lot of black flag lately though

5 minutes

10:38 AM me: i get in these moods where i'm really into an album and i'm all "why would anyone listen to anything else ever"

right now that's black flag "damaged"

10:39 AM but i would seriously shoot myself or someone else if i didn't take a break

56 minutes

11:35 AM Neil: i've heard a good amount of people talk about black flag with the same fervor

11:36 AM me: i wouldn't say they are my favorite band of that era/genre but they definitely were pretty awesome

11:37 AM Neil: i've almost picked up damaged several times.

11:39 AM the song i have in my head is "what i see"

11:40 AM me: ha, that's funny! that's the black flag song that i am obsessed with now.

10 minutes

11:51 AM Neil: i don't exactly know the words, but i think the dirty projectors one has a female part repeating "i wanna live, i wanna live, i wanna live" "i wish i was dead" in this strange, stop-start rhythm

me: yeah, those are the words to the original

it pretty crazy to listen to the two back to back

i just listened to the itunes clip

7 minutes

11:59 AM Neil: it [the dirty projectors version] reminds me a lot of the african-influenced stuff from the early 80's (talking heads and the like)

12:02 PM me: yeah, it's weird

i want to get it because i feel like i'm not hearing what's there based on the itunes clip

12:03 PM but the lack of intriguing substance in the short 30 sec clip is also keeping me from having a strong desire to get it

12:07 PM Neil: even in the digital age, with such a seemingly unlimited access to everything, the "do i or don't i" lives on

but, instead of a whole album based on the hearing of one song, it's one song, based on hearing a 30 second clip

12:09 PM me: whoa

12:10 PM total mindfuck

it's funny how people are always like, "things are so different now"

12:11 PM i really think that even though we change the way we interact with different things, music, etc. human behavior remains for the most part the same

12:12 PM it just my theory

but people will always be indecisive

12:13 PM things maybe get easier and quicker, but i think everything has adapted in proportion

12:17 PM Neil: people who didn't care about music still don't

but now they have tons of mp3s they don't really listen to

7 minutes

12:24 PM me: ha, yeah

12:26 PM although i was thinking yesterday about illegal downloads and how psychologically it makes people less willing to spend time with an album because they've invested less in it

12:27 PM it really is true that when people spend money on something they have more of a desire to place value in it

outside of the cost

12:28 PM Neil: certainly. that's a big part of marketing. you actually want the price to be high enough that people place value in the product bacuase of the price level.

me: right

Neil: like it's seems easier to draw a crowd for a show if you charge just enough for it, rather than put it on for free

12:29 PM me: but with music its harder and harder to get people to pay for it when so much is for free

i don't know if i agree about shows

12:30 PM Neil: well, not if it's sonic youth in central park, or something

me: people are funny in that they'll often shy away from paying a cover but will shell out $30+ for alcohol that is pissed out by morning.

12:31 PM i agree with the fugazi approach. nothing should be more than $5

unless it's at a larger venue

12:32 PM maybe then, but i hate when bars charge $8 for local bands and then complains that they didn't draw

Neil: that's why i said "just enough"

12:33 PM like $3 for local bands

Colleen (from last year)

noreply@blogger.com (ian) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 15:46:00 +0000

We are going to continue posting old conversations that still seem relevant and/or funny. For 2009 we plan to get back into the swing of things with more regular postings.

3:18 PM Neil: i intend to check out more colleen, based on the song from the mix and your continued enthusiasm. though i'm wary of the new age warning

me: eh, it's really not that accurate

it's more ethereal

3:19 PM but not quite ambient

and somewhat classical

3:20 PM the earlier stuff is a lot of loops but she's pretty much eliminated that aspect

3:21 PM i think you'd like it

new age was probably a poor word choice

very poor

3:24 PM new age is also a pretty broad term

Neil: true

me: i think it just equates to bad music.

3:25 PM Neil: it's a catch-all for shitty ambient

me: slash "even shittier then world music" world music.

3:28 PM Neil: an unholy hybrid

me: "I'm a housewife with toooo much time on my hands. My husband got me a dulcimer as an early Valentine's day gift and I'm looking to jam."

* Location: oxford
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3:32 PM Neil: oh my god.

perfect.

3:35 PM me: whenever i think of new age, i think of weirdo eccentric older ladies who have too many cats, smell like musty oils, do their christmas shopping in new hope, subscribe to parabola, and have entirely too many beads on their neck as well as statuettes of gods they don't actively worship

Neil: you're choked by incense and the smell of burnt soy

me: i think those women could get into colleen, but she's WAY out of their league

3:36 PM that's probably more accurate

Neil: i picture the way your kitchen smelled on friday, but all the time, plus smudge stick

me: oh god!

Neil: exactly

3:37 PM me: piles of ash in places where you don't want ash

not that there are places you do, but this is in places that you specifically DON'T want ash

3:39 PM like next to the bed

3:40 PM Neil: yeah. and always sandals. and itchy wool.

3:44 PM me: anyway, you should get into her before may

3:45 PM apparently she'll be at the international house and i think it'll be awe-inspiring

3:46 PM Neil: of pancakes? what's this place?

me: it's another penn venue

they have part of the philly film fest there as well as regular screenings of art films

3:47 PM like under the radar and obscure classics

plus a whole bunch of events that mean a ton to a very limited group of people

red krayola played there

3:52 PM http://www.ihousephilly.org/about-international-house.htm

3:53 PM Neil: oh, i think i did hear about it via the film fest

3:55 PM me: yeah, cool shit happens there sometimes. i guess whenever some foreigner gets it in their head that they need to see holy mountain.

3:56 PM Neil: still haven't seen that

4:00 PM were you with me when jiri and jesse short were talking about that? were you in on that nonsense?

me: don't remember

i bet jesse said some pretty amazing things

4:01 PM Neil: i think it was after slaskifest?

me: i probably was there, but i don't really remember the conversation

4:04 PM was it really obnoxious?

4:05 PM Neil: no. it was, however, my first time hearing about the movie?

(ignore the question mark)

4:07 PM me: i think i was probably in on that conversation, i believe i had seen it at that point.

it's pretty wild stuff, but whatever.

4:10 PM Neil: so flippant.

4:11 PM me: yeah, i can be a real bastard about things that are "amazing"

4:13 PM Neil: hah

16 minutes

4:29 PM Neil: me, too.

Polyrhythmic Babble (from the backlog)

noreply@blogger.com (ian) — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 20:10:00 +0000

11:37 AM Neil: got my troubleman order last night. didn't listen to the new Religious Knives yet.

me: what's that?

11:38 AM Neil: i think i've played you some of their stuff before. people from double leopards and mouthus. it's actually on deleted scenes now, too.

me: cool

11:39 AM as far as animal names go double leopards is one of my favorites

in a "tallest midget in the circus" kind of way

11:40 AM i saw there will be blood yesterday.

11:41 AM i want to see it again.

Neil: it's veruh good

me: yeah, i totally eat up the style too

gold prospectors and what not.

11:42 AM traveling salesmen selling tonics and peddling their wares

H.W. is a cool name

11:43 AM Neil: yeah it is. catchy, right?

me: i finally get to listen to the soundtrack

jonny greenwood is so awesome.

11:44 AM Neil: yeah, i want to hear bodysong now

me: yeah he reuses some of his elements

i use that word too much

11:45 AM but yeah that scene with the wood block clicking and the weird timing

when he's cradling h.w. and running down the hill

so awesome

11:48 AM that track on bodysong blew my mind the first time i heard it.

it's like the two-turn signals effect.

Neil: where they go in and out of phase

11:49 AM me: yeah, my level of respect for him shot through the roof when i heard that.

11:50 AM Neil: i think there's an older Reich piece that does that with two short sound samples. i've read a lot of people site that as a huge influence

me: cause there is just too much difficulty there for it to not have been planned

don't know reich

guess i should though

11:51 AM ah steven reich

11:52 AM Neil: ah, steven wright.

11:53 AM also a huge influence on the avant-garde, eh?

me: totally

11:54 AM the wiki mentions eno, philip glass, tortoise, etc.

11:55 AM Neil: stereolab, too

me: that makes sense

11:56 AM as far as i'm concerned i think polyrhythms are like a new frontier for music

it's barely been explored.

11:58 AM i'm not a drummer so i'm less knowledgeable on such things, but it seems like there is still a lot of things that can be done with irregular rhythms manipulation of patterns of sounds

11:59 AM Neil: definitely

me: as opposed to manipulation of the sounds themselves

Neil: it's like an aural illusion, rather than the sound actually changing, for the most part

12:00 PM i love complex simnplicity

me: well put.

Neil: thank you

12:01 PM me: bands like sonic youth and before them velvet underground, etc. have really done so much to change our expectations of sounds with manipulation of feedback

12:02 PM but then you have thing like lightning bolt and battles (and before them don cab) who do such interesting things with rhythm

12:03 PM it's probably no coincidence that so many bands seem to be doing the multiple drummer thing.

Neil: i remember my dad playing me a synthesizer track (by Beaver and Krause), and talking about how just two simple notes played at the same time create that same sort of thing, with the waves bouncing off of each other

12:04 PM Like Teeth Mountain?

me: man, he really gave you such a head start on things

yeah, teeth mountain

i should have got that

Neil: 'cause they could have had similar rhythm with just one drummer, but it's a whole different thing with three

12:05 PM me: yeah, it gave it that whole layering effect

none of them seemed too complex but layered it was pretty interesting.

did you ever get into pattern is movement

12:06 PM Neil: no. do tell, though.

12:07 PM me: they are a philly band, but it seems like they have a niche following but that might just be me.

they do these complex polyrhythm

12:09 PM i think people around here are like whatever about them, i think because it comes across a lot better on the recordings than it does live.

but they incorporate string segments

12:10 PM Neil: that's weird. I mean, I've heard of bands sounding better on recording than live, but I would think the polyrhythm stuff would be more immediately evident in a live stting

12:11 PM me: well, i hate to say it but they just don't always seem to pull it off well live.

but the first time i saw them they were really one

*on

12:12 PM and it was pretty intense

but i think they've had such a rotating lineup that it's probably difficult to be consistent

12:13 PM Neil: yeah, i'd see a need for everyone to play off of each other well. like good jazz improv or, really, anything else

12:15 PM me: i think there has only been two of them for a while now, but i haven't seen them recently

12:16 PM man i forgot how good this band is

http://www.myspace.com/patternismovement

Crackberries and Colleen (02.06.07)

noreply@blogger.com (ian) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 20:16:00 +0000

11:06 AM me: have you heard the term "crackberry"

that one takes the cake

11:09 AM Neil: no. what's that?

me: like instead of blackberry, cause people are SOoooo addicted to their jobs

11:10 AM and meanwhile their sense of humor suffers cause they think shit like that is clever and funny

11:14 AM Neil: that makes me want to carve my name in my dick

me: hahaha

11:15 AM seriously, it's like could i fit any more throw up in my mouth?

11:16 AM Neil: i love office clever

me: the worst part is that every time i hear someone say it, they do it with this tone like it's the funniest shit ever that they just invented a second ago

11:18 AM me: or they say it so casually that you realize it's become accepted and the joke has obtained a permanence where it has replaced the actual terminology

11:20 AM Neil: and somewhere, in the back of your brain (or out of your mouth) some voice bellows "ffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuccccccckkkkkkkkkkkk"

11:22 AM me: i got that newish colleen album.

11:23 AM she definitely leans toward the new age side of things

Neil: you said something about her before, right?

11:25 AM me: yeah, in my reviews i mentioned her in the context of that beautiful schizophonic album

there is a track of her reading

9 minutes

11:35 AM Neil: hmm

was she on a comp or something? i want to say there was a track of hers that i heard

11:36 AM me: dunno

i still like her first album the best, it's the wierdest

11:37 AM Neil: you put her on a mix for me

me: i was thinking that i might have yes

The New Pornographers - Challengers (01.11.07)

noreply@blogger.com (ian) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 20:01:00 +0000

3:36 PM me: i'm realizing that my idea of how good an album is often swayed by my mood at the time

new pornographers i occasionally find irritating if my mood isn't right

16 minutes

3:53 PM Neil: it's like a band-aid

3:54 PM pull it off in one stroke, then go back and tend to it

3:55 PM me: i hear that

i tried to listen to NP today and it jumped down at least three places

3:56 PM i'm pretty sure i am right though

i think i initially thought that album was really good because i had low expectations for it based on things i had heard.

3:57 PM but now i am realizing its definitely not as strong as some other albums

of theirs

4:01 PM Neil: totally.

me: at the same time there are some really amazing parts

Neil:

i still think the title track is great

4:02 PM but you're non-plus on Keo, right?

Neko

me: i think that's my problem with that band.

it not whether or not i am in the mood for them, it's whether or not i am in the mood to hear her

4:03 PM something about her voice

it's so huge

4:04 PM Neil: i like where you're going with this

me: she's like that person that seems so perfect you almost want to see them fail even though they deserve what they have

Neil: i think you're onto something

but i think you're right, they've sounded like a huge, true super-group

4:05 PM even back when dan bejar was the most famous

4:06 PM me: the whole band really is like that person that super happy all the time and if you're in the mood you are super-excited to see them but if you're feeling kinda shitty you just wanted tell them to go the fuck away

i think that pretty much sums up my relationship with that band.

4:08 PM Neil: makes sense

4:09 PM me: does that sound bitter? i just think they are such a happy sounding band.

4:13 PM Neil: i think i get you, but isn't it more thann just the happiness? not every song is happy, but they ARE power pop.

4:14 PM me: it's something about the sound.

it's more like overachievers

4:15 PM the result of them being this supergroup

it's always huge

Mars Volta (01.29.07)

noreply@blogger.com (ian) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 20:00:00 +0000

4:47 PM Neil: i won't say that the music of the Mars Volta is predictable (in a simple sense, at least) but, man, are their titles ever self-fulfilling cliches.

http://www.avclub.com/content/music/the_mars_volta

4:49 PM "Tourniquet Man" and "The Bedlam in Goliath?" how many jokes about dart boards and grids can i think of?

me: those guys are so arrogant

4:50 PM Neil: right?

that's the feeling, isn't it?

me: you just mean cause the titles are so obnoxiously dark and weighty

4:51 PM like they drew them from a hat

Neil: yeah. and the lyrics. and the "concepts."

4:52 PM me: yeah totally

Neil: and, honestly, if someone other than those who already profess the greatness of each of their albums said that they'd actually put something decent out, i'd give it a go. i actually want them to put out something better

4:53 PM me: under the guise of deeper meaning

the concepts i mean

4:54 PM but yeah, i've heard people being really into them but it was like tim or someone who's really into mr. bungle

or it feels like someone grasping at the next at the drive-in album

4:57 PM Neil: see, what's with me? i must be part of a really small cross-section that loves mr. bungle, really liked ATDI, but thinks that there's about 5 minutes, total, of mars volta music that's interesting.

me: i just don't understand

4:58 PM it's seems like the kids really love mars volta, but i don't see how

what is it that they like about it.

Neil: i don't know.

4:59 PM you know what might be interesting?

me: it seems too challenging of a listen when compared to the garbage new emo kids eat up

5:00 PM Neil: ugh. anyway.

i'm thinking it might be interesting to intentionally subject myself to the "AWWWW, you gotta hear this" scenario

5:02 PM sit down with timmy and listen to one of their albums, and track both of our impressions

5:03 PM i say timmy because he recently spoke very highly of their last album

me: yeah i think he mentioned it to me and that's why i mentioned him

i was like "hmm" but couldn't figure how to respond

5:04 PM i guess i didn't hate the first album but it was just so

something

5:05 PM it was over-designed

too many bells and whistles and trying so hard to be epic

5:07 PM yeah, it's kinda all over the place

When did you get so post-modern?(Cutting edges)

noreply@blogger.com (ian) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:52:00 +0000

3:32 PM Neil: [ahem]

me: yeeeeeeeesssssss

3:33 PM Neil: did you see my last question?

3:34 PM me: yeah, but then i went to lunch.

Neil: 's cool

me: the thing about post-modernism

3:35 PM Neil: yeah

3:36 PM me: i don't know if there is ever a clear line that can be drawn

3:37 PM it's a gradual process that takes you to the point when nothing is clearly defined

3:38 PM Neil: yeah, i mean there's always been cross-influence and "stealing"

but it's gone beyond the rolling stones ripping off old blues records

3:39 PM me: i think no-wave was an important turning point cause it was so challenging to the casual music listener

3:40 PM Neil: i could see that as being a good benchmark

3:41 PM me: it was really strong attempts at breaking all musical tradition

all of it was so freeform that it was like saying, do whatever you want.

3:42 PM Neil: but it was doing so with pre-existing elements of music, without the usual reverence for the source material

3:44 PM me: you talking about the usual instrumentation or actual theory?

3:45 PM cause i think that was when people began rejecting theory or ignoring it, but also when they really started experimenting with sound.

Neil: both

3:46 PM you know what? i think what you said is the key.

3:48 PM i believe rules and theory are important but, at certain points in the timeline, everything should be torn down. at least by some. then those elements will eventually be incorporated into a revised theory, with respect to what came before

it's like political revolution

3:49 PM it's usually done, at least initially, without regard for the current regime and then elements of that regime are cannibalized once progress has been established

me: good comparison.

Neil: and you need a lot of lay-people/soldiers to break through the current regime

3:50 PM thank you. you brought it to my attention

that's why "punk" can't be duplicated, and doesn't exist as a true genre

same as folk

"folk"

or, even, "no wave"

3:51 PM me: yeah, all were really dependent on the time and place

Neil: you can incorporate the sounds they used, but you aren't really creating the same thing

3:52 PM i feel like we just discovered the basis for musical evolution, though i'm sure the ground has already been covered

3:53 PM you can also throw "blues" in there, too

3:54 PM me: yeah, every genre only means something in the moment.

3:55 PM Neil: i think that's where my train was going, too

and i don't think we're trying to say you can't use those sounds, but that you should be aware of what it means to use them

3:56 PM like, every once in a while I'll think to myself, "who is out there, right now, devoting themselves solely to the appreciation of ska music?"

"are there still ravers?"

3:57 PM me: someone, somewhere.

i love when older people refer to ravers or something that is "grunge"

it's so dated but they think it's relevant.

3:58 PM i hope i never get to a point where my friends kids are snickering at my ignorance of music.

Neil: i really hate hearing the term "grunge," but it is now the term for that moment of music

3:59 PM see, i think about that, too. i think it will be similar in someways, but different when we interact with our kids' generation on music

4:00 PM not necessarily better, but i don't think we can conceive of what that will be like

4:03 PM me: yeah, i'm hoping that because we've witnessed such changes in music in our lifetime we'll probably be more tolerant of anything in the future.

and how much more abrasive/upsetting can you get than what has been done?

4:04 PM Neil: but i think that we WILL lose touch with the "zeitgeist," or at least whichever one our kids are on. since such a thing seems more fragmented than ever

4:05 PM me: true, and people do tend to get more conservative as they get older.

4:07 PM Neil: that's another thing i wonder about. i mean, no one could have even conceived of black metal in the 50's, but then again, i think Marilyn Manson, Cradle of Filth and all of those Nordic bands are a sign that that type of "shocking" may have reached an apex

4:08 PM me: yeah, i've thought that too

4:09 PM again, if it were easy to see what hasn't been done, we would never be surprised at what is new.

4:10 PM Neil: point.

me: when i was listening to nirvana for the first time it was refreshing at the time, but it's rare for me to listen to them now and i would not have imagined at that point ever listening to let alone liking anything close to a band like wolf eyes.

4:11 PM Neil: two sub pop bands

well, sort of

me: ha true.

at the time though, nirvana was pretty shocking to me.

4:13 PM Neil: but then i heard all of the stuff about them thinking Nevermind sounded over-produced (my first experience with them), and it was like, "well what should that sound like?"

4:14 PM me: i think i missed something, was there something before "but then i heard..."

4:15 PM Neil: no, i mean, i was shocked by Nirvana, too. but then it seemed as though I ought not to have been

according to their assessment of their own album

it was a side note

me: gotcha

4:17 PM it's pretty funny to think of that as "produced" and at the time it seemed so raw

speaking of shocking... i meant to say earlier that i think noise music of today is really carrying on that tradition of no wave but it pushes things even further. there are so many more ways to create sound these days and thusly what is considered noise music is really a broad range of sounds and moods.

4:19 PM Neil: but since what they're doing is less about a structured song than an expression of a single nuance or feeling, their influence shows up as elements of songs or a band's sound

4:21 PM like someone hears a skullflower track and recreates some of that sound as a series of pedals with a guitar, but they use it as an overlay/backround element over a structured song. or they use that sound for their guitar

4:22 PM me: right, i see what you mean.

Neil: like what Eno did with ambient, he then incorporated into before and After Science and Another Green World

4:23 PM me: and it's an interesting point, i'll try to create a tremelo effect similar to kevin shields but i wouldn't ever say my band sounds like my bloody valentine.

4:24 PM with so many genres and people less dedicated to any one specific sound or genre musicians are pulling from everywhere.

i think that's where the whole post-modernism thing comes in.

Neil: i think that's what's confounding when you hear people list off their influences, or what influenced a particular song or album'

me: yeah, it can be surprising.

4:25 PM and then you can listen again and hear it.

Neil: it affected this one small part in a very significant way, but it may ahve been only one part of a million different pieces that made up an entire album of influenced elements

to be able to go back and spot it, that's so fun.

4:26 PM like spotting a Hitchcock cameo

me: which i think is bringing us full-circle to my original point that you can make almost any comparison and find a way to justify it.

4:27 PM there are so many elements at play with contemporary artists

Neil: like 6 degrees of separation

4:28 PM me: and an LOL to your Hitchcock and an emoticon to your 6 degrees

Neil: yeah, two movie references (sort of)

4:29 PM ahh, to see Will Smith play a gay man again

me: i've still never seen that

4:30 PM Neil: meh

me: that and shawshank redemption are possibly my two greatest slackings in the cinema world

actually i am sure i have missed out on a great many others.

4:31 PM Neil: you know, it'd be easy to dismiss Shawshank, since it's on every toolbox's top movie list, but it really is a great movie in the Classic Hollywood style

4:32 PM if the major studios cranked out movies like that on a regular basis, i'd sleep better at night

4:34 PM me: yeah, i don't get it.

4:35 PM i don't know about movies but i don't get how major record labels sell so much of the crap that they put out.

Neil: same reason people eat junk food

4:36 PM me: and i wonder if they started putting out the records of the bands i actually think are good if they would do less complaining about losing money on illegal downloads.

Neil: it's terrible for you, doesn't make you feel too good, and the majority of it doesn't actually taste all that great

4:37 PM me: yeah but quick and easy and i think you don't realize how bad it is until you stop eating it for a while.

4:39 PM i also think people hear a really produced album and think that it's good because of that sound quality that is present in what they have already accepted as good

4:40 PM they are used to things sounding ultra-crisp

Neil: i think that's probably pretty true

4:41 PM me: but indie recordings are better and better these days with recording equipment being so much better on the consumer level

Neil: or if it doesn't get right into the meat of the song, they'll tune out

(just wanted to point out as an aside) Liars-Houseclouds sounds so much like early 90's psych-influenced brit-pop/rock

me: so i'm not sure how much water that argument holds

Neil: point

4:42 PM me: yeah i guess that's a big thing too. the hook.

4:44 PM it's got me thinking too about how the argument against pop music is that it's so repetititve but then you've got a great indie song like "all your friends" by LCD soundsystem

4:45 PM but also the old indie labels are so not indie labels anymore

Neil: or most of stereolab's catalogue

4:46 PM but, keeping with a post-modern frame of mind, that LCD song and Stereolab's stuff is as much about that repetition

4:47 PM whereas pop songs are just repetitive like a used car dealership tv ad where they say the name of the dealership at least three times everytime because repetition is a cheap way to increase retention

4:49 PM me: repetition as an element vs. marketing tactic

4:50 PM writing a song that you want to hear vs. having someone write what they think people will want to hear you sing

granted every major release is not like that, but i do think every element is strategized on some level

4:53 PM Neil: when you stick to the rule solely because it's the rule

4:55 PM me: yeah, if it ain't broke.

but i guess now is the point that it is breaking

4:56 PM the tactic of producing a hit and putting on an album's with 9 other tracks that are dry toast isn't lucrative when people can pay $.99 for the hit.

4:59 PM good conversation but i gotta go.

5:03 PM Neil: goodnight

5:04 PM me: night night

Reflections on Pitchfork's Top albums of '07

noreply@blogger.com (ian) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:49:00 +0000

We took a long break (almost a year) but we have a back log of stuff to share. Hopefully some of it's still relevant. I thought this was a pretty good conversation even though it's dated now. This is from 12.18.07.

ian you see the fork's top albums yet?
9 minutes

neil no. did you see i posted yuhasz? checking pitchfork now

ian yeah it's really good except i can't find anything about that release anywhere.
you should add a link somewhere in there or some direction toward obtaining said album

neil working on it
it's self-released right now
seems like the top tens are all variations of each other so far
people seem to like pada bear more than animal collective

ian yeah, i feel almost justified in thinking that by so many sharing that opinion
11 minutes

neil i only just listened to it in one sitting for the first time yesterday. i don't know if i agree yet. look at it in terms of a wu-tang album versus a ghostface album

ian yeah, it's sometimes hard to see how a one man show could be better than that man's show with evryone

neil each AC member is adding a different flavor, whereas Panda Bear's is one specific type of sound
i'm, of course, speaking of his work with Anal Cunt

ian ha
6 minutes

neil i guess it's similar to what we were talking about with neko case and the new pornographers

ian yeah
or archer prewitt

neil i think that Animal Collective will probably be more ambitious as a rule, but each of their solo projects has a greater chance at being a successful translation of an idea, since it's one person worklng toward their own end(s)
instead of something being pulled in several directions, which can be just as successful, but often there is a lot of compromise, for better or worse
this coming from a guy who's never been in a band

ian true, and i have thought of this as well
i think it depends on the clarity of your vision and how true the final product is to that vision

neil either way, i love the new animal collective, and person pitch is growing and opening very quickly for me. but strawberry jam is much more about moment to moment, and person pitch is like a continuous progression. not to say that jam is as fragmented as something like twin cinema

ian Maybe it's escapist of me, but I like albums that really make me feel enveloped by another world. I feel like I really get that more with Person Pitch. It really sucks me in.

neil yeah. defintely. and that makes sense with your affinity for black dice
and growing

ian yes

neil oh, and on another note regarding the top album lists, the new caribou album does not sound like oddysey and oracle
it sounds like psych pop, but not that album

ian i still don't have that one

neil it's good. i keep thinking it's what rjd2 thought his pop album would sound like. instead of what it actually sounds like
7 minutes

ian do you have the dirty projectors rise above

neil no, i don't have any dirty projectors
or the teeth, if that matters

ian me either
but i have owned damaged for a long time and it's pretty cool to hear it reinterpreted

neil wait, what?
you mean black flag?

ian yeah
that whole album is Black Flag songs that sound nothing like the originals

neil huh. guess i should read things and stuff.
did you see fran's 'bout it-'bout it with the japancakes' loveless album?

ian no

neil i still might give it a try. what with me liking them and all
40 minutes

neil oh yeah, and I think Eric Copeland's album ranks higher with me than Black Dice's

ian i still got to get that
for some retarded reason i didn't get it when i saw them

neil next time i see you
39 minutes
look what i found on pitchfork:
092: Kate Bush
Hounds of Love
[EMI; 1985]

Discovered in 1975 by Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, Kate Bush began and ended her career with sappy sentimentality bathed in new age-isms and unicorn fantasies. Yet, at the heart of her discography lies this uncharacteristically forward-looking full-length, whose striking arrangements are aided by her Fairlight synthesizer/sampler and dipped in mind-blowing, crystalline production. Side one begins with "Running Up That Hill", setting the scene with tension and galloping programmed percussion, and ends with the government conspiracy ballad "Cloudbusting", which pours on strings like liquid nylon. But it's the suite on side two that's hauntingly inexplicable, comprised of dissimilar songs tied together by a dreamlike pall. Her singing is seductive and wraithlike, especially when joined by disembodied voices, and a distant, watery choral group. --Chris Dahlen
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/36736-top-100-albums-of-the-1980s
just like what i was saying on sunday

ian crazy

neil i'm getting that album

Songs I never really listened to until just now - "Caramel Prisoner"

noreply@blogger.com (hyphen) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 14:39:00 +0000

(this may or may not turn into a regular series, wherein I review songs from albums I've known for years, but for one reason or another I'd never really listened to, or heard in the right way, until now. This i actually one of my favorite things about music collecting. I've often revisited an album or song I had previously dismissed, discovering overlooked treasure. That track you always skipped over, or your least favorite album by your favorite band. I find that listening to these in a new context often reveals qualities that had, until now, been taken for granted.)

Bloated Failure is probably way too harsh a description for 10,000HZ Legend, Air's second album. Overwrought, Cosmic Misstep seems a little more on target. In some ways, following Moon Safari should have been easy. It was like an album of comfy, fuzzy demos. On the other hand, it was also a hands-down, worldwide instant favorite, at least in the indie and electronic circles. EVERYBODY was playing the shit out of that album, and I saw the domino effect it had on new listeners first hand.
So the anticipation preceding this second album was most likely ravenous, and apparently palatable to the band, given the title. They did what most instantly hyped bands do for their sophomore album: they shot for the moon, leaving behind most of the subtle grace that was key to the success of their first. The majority of the album sounds way too big for me, and it suffers from unnecessary Guest vocals (I still can't really tell the Jason Falkner vocals apart from the Beck ones, and I don't care.), something all too common in the late 90s/early 2000s.
Also, even though it is in keeping with their pleasantly incongruous mix of gentle acoustic and electronic, I really don't like the computer vocals on "How Does it Make You Feel?" though the music is beautiful.
"Radian" was and is my favorite track of the album. The epic prog space soundtrack feels like 2001 transitioning into some American New Wave film of a character's decadent and erotic tour of the cities of Europe, complete with masks, anonymous lovers, back alley clubs and lots of train rides. It's Grand and intimate, Subtle and over the top, detached and heartfelt all at once. It is the song of a 10,000HZ Legend.
"Caramel Prisoner" starts off in a similar fashion, tittering electronic blips of some gargantuan 60's sci-fi super computer, powered by an ominous oscillating/pulsing tone/drone and complimented by somber, "ooohooooh" harmonizing. Then, about halfway through, the fog is lifted, but not broken, by some steady yet still melancholy guitar strumming. It's the epilogue to Radian's journey; a foggy, chilly dawn to the warm, humid excesses of the previous night. Eventually the whole thing devolves into buzzing space dust, orbiting around and around between my ears until it dissolves into silence. What a perfect end to an imperfect album, and what a fitting bookend to one of my favorite Air songs. And to think, I might have missed it.

getting personal and the new retroism

noreply@blogger.com (ian) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:21:00 +0000

(Topics Touched On: Love Of Diagrams, Faux Slang)

Miss V Export, by Love of Diagrams

noreply@blogger.com (hyphen) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 12:26:00 +0000

It's late and I'm tired. I'm tired all the time, anymore. And, for the record, it's not really all that late.
This is nice. Loosey-goosey bass strings strumming. Guitar jumping up, up, up off the bass, all dub-delayed. And the drums, so steady and insistent, 1-2-3. This feels cut from the same cloth as interpol, but a little rougher around the edges and a little more closely tethered to the ground.
God, if I were still a disenchanted teenager and there were still some decent underage clubs (Scarlett's, anyone?), I hope I'd be listening to something like this.
There seems to be a hybrid here: Early-to-mid 90's KRS-type punk, dipped in the glut of that early 2000s post-punk/neo-new wave. Can you mix flannel with skinny ties? Lego hair and cargos?
All of that might come off as dismissive, but it's not. I think the moment that gets me the most, the moment I'm trying and failing to convey, is appropriately right in the middle of the song. Just as Miss V is dejectedly putting herself into space, just as the guitar sounds as though it's gazing longingly after her, the bass feels at its most impish and playfully petulant. As the guitar's melody delays its pretty plinks into the cosmos, the bass is down on the ground, stop-starting an obstinate little moment of counter play that keeps me from swooning without sneering.

http://www.loveofdiagrams.com/
http://www.myspace.com/LoveOfDiagrams

Electrelane, Bedhead, etc. (from 12.28.07)

noreply@blogger.com (ian) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 18:35:00 +0000

(Topics Touched On: Electrelane, Joy Division, 33 1/3, Bedhead, Transaction De Novo, Lou Reed, Galaxie 500, jazz, blues, movies, Terminator 3, elevator music, Transformers, Christina Aguilera, Times New Viking, Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, Blade Runner, At The Drive-In, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, Inland Empire, Dave Brubeck, Kroke, world music, throat singing, WMUH)

Ashrae Fax - Static Crash

noreply@blogger.com (hyphen) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 12:21:00 +0000

There have been a lot of great shows at Jeff the Pigeon (and, now that it's dead, i'm sure no one will mind if I share the link to that list: http://www.whitedenim.com/jeffthepigeon/ ), and I would have to say that I missed most of them. I mean, in my brief tenure there (roughly late 2005-2006) I saw a lot of amazing bands and scarring performances. At the same time, I can't escape the idea of all the ones I didn't see. I came away from that place with a lot of memories, some new friends and a reinvigorated passion for music. After the Pigeon, I knew I could look everywhere, for the rest of my life, and still not find it all; there is an infinite amount of sound and an endless sea of people creating and experiencing it. That might be an obsessive view of it, but fuck it.
There is one thing I came away with from the Pigeon, which I cherish wildly and harbor greedily and, up until now, have shared only with those who I thought would truly appreciate it. It was actually two things: an older stereo component cd burner, and a copy of an album called Static Crash, by Ashrae Fax. I paid $50 bucks for the pair, and might've been convinced to pay more, if only to be able to take the second home with me.
I can't say for certain which show it was, they've all sort of blended together for me, but I'm pretty sure it was either Family Underground/Fursaxa/We Have Heaven or Monarchs/Pocket Gallows/Air Conditioning. Franco was selling off a bunch of his stuff (I think I'd already bought a Melt Banana lp and an Aisler's Set cd off of him), including the aforementioned cd burner, which I hadn't really considered buying. As is usually the case at shows, music was played in between sets. Thinking back on it, the first track that struck me was probably the third (I still don't really know their names, if there are any). It grabbed my attention away from wherever it had been at the time, and I jumped to figure out what it was. The sound was cool and artificial, it reminded me right away of that Q Lazzarus song, "Goodbye Horses," and also seemed to me that it might be something by Cocteau Twins, although I hadn't really listened to them much at that point (another shameful admission, looking back). It was like something I should have unsuccessfully asked a girl to dance to in High School, had I been old enough in the early 80's.
I began asking around, to see if anyone knew, mostly getting my guesses parroted back to me.
Finally Evan, whom I knew from Double Decker, was able to give me what I was looking for. It was Ashrae Fax, apparently a band from down south formed by some weird, semi-reclusive guy Franco had met on tour. I gushed about how perfectly it evoked some sad 80's prom, and how much it reminded me of "that song from Silence of the Lambs, that sounds like what's-his-name from Depeche Mode, but is actually a girl." (brilliant, right?)
My next goal was to find Franco, some time in between bands, and find out if I could get a copy, something which clearly would not be easy to get by other means. Franco had always been straight with me, and I'm in now way speaking ill of him, but he'd always seemed the type that, if you didn't ask the right question, you weren't going to get the right answer. This was too important, though, to just pass up and hope to find elsewhere, some other time. I mentioned to him what Evan had told me about the song, and asked how I might get my hands on it. It became clear that I was out of luck, unless he were to make a copy for me. Somehow, I'm not quite sure, his cd burner was brought into the discussion, and became part of the terms. Although it hadn't occurred to me earlier, I figured I could make good use of it (I was regularly making and distributing mass mix cds), and $50 bucks seemed like a decent price, especially considering the cd.
Money was got from an ATM a little farther away than necessary, the cd was burned, and I made off with my prize(s). I remember driving home afterwards: windows down with cool summer air running in and through the car. My ears were still humming from the music earlier, and the sweat was still drying in my clothes and on my arms, face and hair. The music insinuated itself in that night, or maybe I insinuated the moment into the music. But, either way, it fit like i fit in the car and the car fit the road. It was chilly warmth and exhausted melancholy, and I was feeling nostalgic for times I'd never had, and for each moment as it passed.

http://www.myspace.com/ashraefax

Deconstructing Noise

noreply@blogger.com (ian) — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:49:00 +0000

Albums I missed in '07

noreply@blogger.com (hyphen) — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 23:52:00 +0000

The following are albums I missed this past year, either by conscious neglect, or by inexcusable ignorance. Either way, I regret not being more familiar with them (as well as, I'm sure, many others that came out) in the previous year.

Angels of Light - We Are Him (Michael Gira seems to be one of those rare artists that manages to make relevant music well past the average musician's prime. He still seems to be a very dark man, but it's as though he's coming to that darkness with the approach of malaise and weariness, rather than rancor and hatred. Like Disease and Time, as opposed to the Violence and Destruction of his earlier work with Swans. But this album has a puppy on it, and have yet to hear a single track from it.)

Radiohead - In Rainbows (So, depending on who you ask, and which format you consider, this could be one for the '08 lists. Either way, I've only heard a little bit of this album, but I'm sure I'd like to hear more. Plus, it's not like there aren't already a wealth of blogs on the subject of "In Rainbows." Didn't it make Ian's list?)

Mouthus - Saw a Halo (Without noticing, I've developed a respectable collection of Mouthus releases. Though their sound shifts quite a bit [relatively speaking], they always manage to be what I want to listen to, when I come across another album of theirs. Currently it's their split with Double Leopards, but when I get around to buying it, I'm sure Saw a Halo will be just what I needed. And it doesn't hurt that they're working, again, with Samara Lubelski.)

holy fuck - lp(?) (I saw these guys open for clinic in the spring [?] of '07 and was more than a little impressed with their sound, though the whole junk shop/toy synths seemed to get a bit more messy than necessary, and somebody came off as a bit smug stage-side [this was gleaned from a distance, so don't quote me on that]. Their first self-titled album [ep, maybe? it was pinkish with blocky lettering and a bug that turns into a lady's hair on the cover] reminded me of listening to Chemical Bros. for the first time, and "Casio Bossa Nova" got me nodding and bopping right away. In this new year, I finally got my hands on the new album, and it's a solid progression from where I left off with them last. More focused, boiled-down pop electronics but without forsaking the appeal of their improv sound. "Lovely Allen" got me just as quickly as "Casio Bossa Nova," too.)

Letters Letters - s/t

Health - s/t (I came across both of these albums at the station, and while I played numerous cuts from each, I never really sat down with them. Pleasantly harsh but catchy noise rock from both, but a little more no-wavey from letters letters as opposed to the impish "fuck you, buddy" vibe i get from health. It might have something to do with the fact that one hails from the cold, grey north and the other from California, respectively. I don't know, though, 'cause I've never been.
My point is, I wouldn't punch you in the mouth if you gave me either of these albums, 'less you wanted me to.)

Cass McCombs - Dropping the Writ (Holy shit, but I must be getting old. I love the hell out of this album right now, but if the This American Life/NPR set isn't listening to this album near constantly, than I don't know what they like anymore.
It's just like all the reviewers that were smart enough to catch this in '07 said: skip track one and you've got a perfect album [and, really, track 1's not that bad]. It's already joined my list of comfy Sunday albums, and is bucking to become the most pleasant cup of bittersweet I've ever tasted [watch out, sam prekop - s/t]. Touches of the Smiths/Morrissey, Brian Ferry, Nick Drake, Archer Prewitt, etc.
It gets the award for album I really want my mom to hear [in a good way].)

Dirty Projectors - Rise Above (I've known of black flag since well before the first time I tried to be punk. Really, since before I was double digits. But I never really listened to them all that much. If they were playing, I'd listen. If pressed, I'd be able to name a handful of songs. I'm probably most familiar with the Pettibon covers, burned into my young mind at Spinster's and Now and Then.
Similar could be said for Dirty Projectors, until I finally got around to listening to this album. I'd played "Gimme Gimme Gimme" on my show, but when I heard "What I See," i was floored. There have been long stretches since that first listen where I will have the opening vocals loop endlessly around in my head until I'm able to get the cd or my computer and play the song in hopes of quelling the need to listen to it again.)

Up Next: Hyphen's Songs of '07 (I swear.)

White Heterosexuals: CrazySexyColdClammy

noreply@blogger.com (ian) — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 23:27:00 +0000

(from the album "Maiming Of The 72 Virgins")

With it's warbling background noise, vocal squeals, and speakers peaking with forced out feedback, easy comparisons can be drawn to Whitehouse and power electronics. Thank God for obscure sub-genres, but what can they mean to a stranger to the terms? How can one relate this to more traditional pop compositions? Should the two be compared? Will we ever see a time when noise music is respected with the same standards as blues-based rock and roll?

Neil and I were talking recently about how it can be hard to get a handle on sound. With so much being manipulated in modern music and so many methods for tweaking, it can be difficult to pinpoint what you are hearing. With music today being as densely layered as it is, it has the ability to evoke such strong moods. My mind reacts by wandering and conjuring very detailed and specific images. It leads me to wondering if by reversing the process by describing the image I could perhaps induce the same mood and thus convey a general sense of what the piece of music is offering. I suppose I am not the first to explore this route, perhaps you can let me know how I fare.

The trance-inducing qualities of noise music engage a more primal side of my brain. Appropriately, machined howls and grunts trickle through this track and reverberate as they might inside of a great ape house. But the zoo I'm visiting is somewhere in a distant future. One where all manner of life is extinct and have been holographically recreated by humans only shortly before their own expiration. All that is left is the malfunctioning technology; creatures of light shift in and out of phase as their voices decay through crumbling corridors. As dismal of a forecast as that sounds it is merely an echo of the discordant sounds one will find throughout the varying array of chaos and clamor. Similar to the sense that one "enjoys" a well made horror film, I quite liked this track.

...but only while my ears were peeking.

...or perhaps peaking.

Genres / Innovation in Music

noreply@blogger.com (ian) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 16:23:00 +0000

[holdover from Jan. 7, 2008]

[lunchtime]

a Favorite '07 Re-Release I forgot to mention

noreply@blogger.com (hyphen) — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 22:37:00 +0000

bruce haack - the electric lucifer (Having only one's self to be accountable to as an editor (for the most part), works as a double-edged sword. It allows for a greater freedom with regards to length and topic, but also allows for endless tangents, self-indulgent writing, and missed points.
How I forgot The Electric Lucifer is beyond me. It was a release that, had I known it was coming ahead of time, I would have waited for with my breath held deeply and heavily in my lungs. As it was, I had already been coveting the $80 vinyl copy at Double Decker, and scouring the internet for a decent rip. So there was a good deal of conscious restraint involved in not "flipping the fuck out" when I saw the newly released cd version at AKA. I don't know if any of you ever get this feeling, but there's almost a fear that builds inside me from the moment I spot a long sought-after album, until well after I've gotten it home. Like if I'm not careful, I might drop it and some other lucky nerd might get their hands on it.

As far as the album itself [finally], I came to know it through its sequel, which I came to know through a more than serviceable electronic comp put out by Rough Trade, seven or so years ago. Though the sequel is much humbler and looser in sound, The Electric Lucifer is a fairly grand sounding, quirky combination of the familiar moog/synth-as-a-concept-album, and a heady psych/prog concept album with a revisionist take on Christian symbolism. There are so many ideas and moments of awe packed into this album; bubbly grooves, earnestly choral psych vocals, creepy meditations that bely a life of great pain and dysfunction [Song of the Death Machine is a slowly decaying lullaby of Maternal Destruction and oppression], and general moog wonderment. The laundry list of inspired followers, alone, is worth picking this up. It's the Velvet Underground of kitchen sink, synth experimentation [giving a nod to Brian Eno's famous statement regarding the effect of that album].)

Horseclaw's Top 25 of '07

noreply@blogger.com (ian) — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 23:26:00 +0000

It took me far too long to compile this list. At any given moment my favorites will change with a few exceptions(constant favorites). With every experience with these albums I find new elements to appreciate. I'm still new to verbalizing these findings and my relationships with these albums, but it's opening my ears to a lot through learning to listen more attentively. The internet is turning us all into critics but perhaps the time devotion required to write adequate record reviews is a beacon of hope for our dwindling attention spans.

Some of these albums deserved more of my attention but perhaps didn't click with me fast enough or were added to my collection too late in the game. Some of these albums had a better chance from the beginning given my familiarity with certain artists or my expectations. I'm realizing more and more how factors such as environment and state of mind contribute to ones appreciation of an album. The ordering of these selections, while mostly accurate within the context of my own taste, is subject to change. In the end I stand by my choices.

- Horseclaw '07

25.LCD Soundsytem - Sound of Silver (The fact that this is even on my list speaks volumes about this band. I never used to like them until July 8th of this year. I remember because I spent the day prior irresponsibly drinking all day at an annual picnic in my old stompin' gorund. Neil was giving a few of us a ride to brunch and he put on "All Your Friends". I began to spout my skewed reasons for my distaste of the band. Bottom line: by the end of the song I was not only appreciative, but a fan.)

24.Holy Fuck - LP (I can imagine a conversation like the following happening at some point:

Dude from Holy Fuck's less-informed friend: Hey, I finally heard your CD.

Dude from Holy Fuck: Oh yeah? What did you think?

Friend: It was good... just, yeah, really good.

Dude: Cool, thanks.

Friend: ...reminded me of Trans Am.

Dude: Wait, who?

Friend: Trans Am?

Dude: I've never heard of them.)

23.Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (Some where floating around the internet is a live version of "Metal Detektor" from the April 6th, 2003 performance at the Rotunda in Philly. At the beginning you can hear me audibly scream "Yeeeeaaahhh" in a guttural moment of extreme elation. These are the moments Spoon has consistently given me for a decade and always at the moment when I'd almost forgot that they are one of my favorite bands. The same show they covered a Wire song("Lowdown") and a John Lennon song("Isolation"), which the acts themselves felt as if they were for my benefit. The first time I heard "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga" was another of these moments. While it may not have been the greatest it was still enough of a reminder and stacks up quite nicely against the rest.)

22.Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? (Until now Of Montreal has appeared in my mind as a band of traveling circus-folk passing their evenings huddling around a campfire in Sgt. Pepper's junkyard with a menagerie of ball twirling critters. It's hard to make out faces in the darkness, but I think David Bowie and Prince just showed up. I think there are some other new arrivals, but this psych freak show is definitely picking up some new tricks.)

21.The Beautiful Schizophonic - Musicamorosa (There were a number of really good ambient releases this year, but this one stood out to me. It sounds much more classical than its contemporaries and has such a mood to it that it acts as one large piece. I feel as though I'm transported to another world, one that is at once soothing and slightly discomforting in its unfamiliar surroundings. There is also a track of the musician who goes by simply "Colleen" reading of an excerpt from Marcel Proust's "À la recherche du temps perdu" which scored extra points for me. Admittedly I didn't get Colleen's album in time for my top 25 but I imagine I might have found a place for it so I thought I'd mention it.)

20.Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - Living With The Living (The timing was perfect for this album to reach my ears. I had just seen Ted Leo give a stellar performance and I was also heavily binging on the Clash and Reggae at the time. Besides that, it's punchy, the guitars are huge, and the songs ring out like anthems for a revolution that I'm secretly hoping for. Reassurance that there's definitely some mileage left in Punk Rock.)

19.Glass Organ - Our (I had to rewrite this a bit since Neil already posted his anecdote about the time we first heard Glass Organ and simultaneously had a "holy shit what is this" moment. I haven't since heard a band with a more brilliant dichotomy than their pairing of glisten and decay. "Our" is a continuation of that sound and sings like an oil tanker's hull scraping the icy tip of Atlantis in destructive moment of discovery.)

18.Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago (Beautiful, passionate, personal and spacious. It feels like someone giving you their diary. I feel the weight of the artist's emotions and it's a powerful thing. Everyone should spend some time alone with this album. There's really no other way to listen to it.)

17.Future Of The Left - Curses (At first I was a little bummed about McClusky calling it quits, but then I heard what happened next. Filthy basslines and thick beats rumble behind stabs of guitar and shouts that assert subjects like the benefits of violence. The track listing alone is enough to scare a suburbanite right out of their L.L. Beans. This record grabs a spot at #17 and then proceeds to beat it relentlessly like a coked out ape.)

16.The Cribs - Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever (The Cribs sound like they could be the British answer to the Strokes. Probably the most radio-friendly band on my list but there's one thing that sets them apart from all that horse shit: they sing with gusto. There's a grit and energy here that nicely compliments their streamlined sound. No drag here, and it's catchy as hell. )

15.The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible (Maybe it's the Springsteen-esque elements of this album, but it conjures up images in my mind of tired American towns. The sentiment seems to be supported lyrically but the depth of it far exceeds that impression. While not as epic and cohesive as their previous album, it is still an excellent offering. It's fresh enough to be more than just a rehashing of their previous approach which proved so successful.)

14.Feist - The Reminder (It's hard to believe there was a time when Feist supposedly would never sing again. Her voice has such an amazing tone to it - warm and soothing with just enough rasp to bring it sexy. It was present in her charming howls with Broken Social Scene and it was there on her last album, but here she sounds more confident than ever. Maybe some of that can be attributed to the backing band. This album would work fine as an instrumental soundtrack but what she adds brings it to excellence.)

13.Black Dice - Load Blown (This album sounds like a leaky cop-car with a flat tire chasing a locomotive carting buzz-saws through a field of magical popcorn. I could go into more detail about the sounds that statement represents and where I'm getting that from, but I'll just say that what I hear puts that exact image in my head. Any lack of clarity is probably fitting being that their methods for creating music are probably barely comprehensible to most. The results are challenging but, given enough attention, rewarding for the listener.)

12.Love Of Diagrams - Mosaic (This is post-punk at its finest. I love this band for so many reasons. One of the more shallow reasons(besides them being charming Australians) is that the singer/bass player is a Graphic Designer, like myself. I do feel like maybe that has something to do with how it engages me. The song "Things Look Better At 100%" means something very specific to a designer but there's more going on here. I anticipated this album for over a year and I'm still working on wearing it out. It's every bit as dark and mysterious as I had hoped for. I saw them in a small bar way back when and the impression they made hasn't left me since.)

11.Deerhunter - Cryptograms (The opening track on this album opens with Bradford Cox repeating the phrase "there was no sound" and while that may hold true within the lyrical context of this song it certainly is no reflection on the breadth of the album. You can actually hear water trickling off the end of that track as if the entire song had been crushed by a tsunami of fuzz and delay. The next piece "White Ink" reminds me less of anything from My Bloody Valentine's "Loveless" than it does of "All I Need" from their album "Isn't Anything". This should be taken as a huge compliment from me being that I consider that song to have such unique qualities worthy of further exploration. Sometimes it seems like the rhythm section is a piece of machinery operating independently from the guitars and such, but it works and results in a definitive sound for Deerhunter. All the songs are some combination of things listed above but each is unique and unmistakably their own.)

10.Pissed Jeans - Hope For Men (There's an abrasiveness here that bitters my brain with hints of a forgotten Albini project or any of the better Nirvana demos. The track "Scrapbooking" is an unsettling late Tom Waits meets Jandek interlude that leads into the belching intro on "I've Still Got You Ice Cream"(the "hit" of the album). Perhaps it is an homage to Iggy's intro on "Raw Power" and if you've ever witnessed a Jeans' live show it's a spectacle worthy of the same comparison. It's probably poisonous to listen to this too much, but it's perfect for anyone with the phrase "Gimme Danger" on their tongue. Songs like "Fantasy World" keep it from being too serious a source of trouble and make it fun while remaining sincere. It's like the feeling of bursting a bottle from the window of a tire-squealing joyride.)

9.Deerhoof - Friend Opportunity (Their songs are loaded with hard right turns that throw them in your face but the sugary sweet vocals with lines like "CHOO CHOO CHOO CHOO BEEP BEEP" keep them from being to aggro. Electronic sounds and manipulated samples pepper their arrangements while maintaining a healthy level of infectious pop melodies. This album really shows how they keep maturing as a band and continue to excel. Every album seems more accessible but also more involved and interesting than the last.)

8.Black Moth Super Rainbow - Dandelion Gum (There's a bass line reminiscent of McCartney on "Taxman". There's the constant vocoder effect on hushed voices. There's the tickling of synthesizers and fuzzing out of keyboards. There's cymbals that are gong like and some that are reversed. The sounds they chose are potentially disastrous but in they've managed to use them tastefully and the result is a fantastic psychedelic record worthy of Stereolab comparisons.)

7.Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam (When I was young my family toured Austria with my grandparents. At one point my grandpa visited a pastry shop with the hopes of stuffing us with sweets as grandparents are prone to do. Insecure with his knowledge of the language he simply went with what he did know and said "vier von jeder" which translates to "four of each". Needless to say we ate a lot of cookies that week. I bring this up because of the childlike wonder I experience with Animal Collective and their songs that are so densely layered with treats for the ears. It's at the same time very collected noiseyness as their name implies. It would be as if my gramps went to a store that sold sounds and didn't understand the locals (with weird names like Panda Bear). He would then order four of each and they'd arrange the sweets neatly in a little package for me to gorge myself on for a long long time.)

6.Radiohead - In Rainbows (Radiohead have such an ability to create textures in their music that make it simultaneously spooky and enchanting. Beyond that they add such catchy hooks and melodies that seem neither too complex nor overly-simplistic, yet always well-placed. Their pay what you want brainchild had me worried that it was some ruse to distract us from sub-par content. I did well to ignore that lack of faith, they consistently give me more than I pay for.)

5.Liars - Liars (Neil and I have already covered this album pretty thoroughly, but I really enjoyed this album so I thought I’d provide some of my reactions to some individual tracks. “Plaster Casts Of Everything” reminds me of a caffeinated factory hard at work with a cacophony of machinery and chants of disgruntled workers. Scattered throughout the album are similar industrialized sounds and soulful moans of discontent. “Sailing To Byzantium” has a trip-hop feel to it. “What They Would Know” brings a spacey element to things in a early Sonic Youth no-wave fashion. “Cycle Time” has a Zepplin feel to it, with big guitar riffs and odd rhythms that break in and out of the song. “Freak Out” is a standout track to me that’s a refreshingly simple track with leanings toward surf-rock and the placement gives the album a nice flow. "Pure Unevil" might be my favorite track on this album. It feels like someone attempting to fill miles of open space with the sound of their Jesus and the Mary Chain records cranked through torn speakers at the wrong RPM. "Clear Island" takes us back to the factory. "The Dumb In The Rain" is great title and gives us a more eerie take on some of the sounds explored earlier on the album. "Protection" closes out the album with some somber organ.)

4.Akron/Family - Love Is Simple (Akron/Family, as a simple definition, bounce back and forth between folky ballads and folky jamborees. Through their incorporation of tribal beats, uplifting choral segments, and uncommon instruments, they appear to embrace every culture. Without being dull or too "jammy", many of the songs on Love Is Simple extend well past the 4 minute mark through many variations and mutations. The concept of love is ever present here and the instruction to go out and love everyone bookends the album and makes for a really positive and uplifting listening experience.)

3.Panda Bear - Person Pitch (This album captured my attention immediately and moreover held it. Neil had a different experience completely, but eventually came around to it. As I expressed earlier, judgment is so easily swayed by things like personal experience, taste, and the reference points music can trigger in our brains. It makes me wonder about the legitimacy of any year-end lists but overall the response to this album has been quite positive. Amateur criticisms and Brian Wilson comparisons aside, I personally keep coming back to this as I find it quite comforting and I'd rather stay focused on that feeling since it is worth more than any descriptive terms I could muster. Maybe this one case where I'm going to be honest and say figure it for yourself.)

2.Battles - Mirrored (More than a few times I heard the adjective "cartoony" used to describe this album. I see how that word can accurately apply to the bouncy rhythms and springy synth sounds, but I don't like the term for it's implications. Mirrored is no joke to me and certainly isn't silly. If you aren't as bold as I am in my opinion that they are challenging our expectations of music and sound I think you should at least be able to admire their approach. It's hard to compare Battles to anything. Past experimentations in music have brought us to a truly new place without clear genre defining lines to be drawn. To people who think every boundary has been broken and rock is over, I say it's only been reborn. Without boundaries bands like Battles are free to incorporate anything they want. Similar to the way science fiction has helped to shape the world we live in, the innovation of earlier bands have allowed bands like Battles to shape the soundtrack to the future that is happening right now.)

1.Prinzhorn Dance School - S/T (I feel somewhat alone in my feelings toward this album, but I also feel I am right. Presently a lot of bands challenging music as we know it are doing so by layering on instrumentation and noise. Prinzhorn Dance School's uniqueness comes from their ability to make such interesting songs with so much stripped away. Reminiscent at times of Wire's "Chairs Missing", sparse instruments and spooky vocals create a sense of anticipation in all of their minimalism. At the same time songs like "The Space Invader" and "Don't Talk To Strangers" are shining examples of the bands ability to lock into some pretty slick grooves. Well placed single string guitar with simple bends and non-abrasive vocal shouts add to the songs and only seem appropriate in their intentionally odd placement.)