Wednesday Mixtape

No particular theme for this one. A few obscure bands, a couple not-so-obscure bands, and mostly older songs that you might've missed. Enjoy.

Caribou - Jamelia

Electric President - Safe and Sound

Tindersticks - Black Smoke

Jason Anderson - July 4, 2004 (live)

Letting Up Despite Great Faults - In Steps

Queen Sea Big Shark - Love Is Pop

Radical Face - Welcome Home, Son

Animal Collective - For Reverend Green

Cut Copy - Bright Neon Payphone


Edit: Got a DMCA takedown notice for this one, so no downloads. Awesome.

Mixtape for a restless night

Something about these warm, quiet nights in the spring makes me incredibly restless. As I lie in my bed and feel the warm breeze from my open window, I have fantastic visions of myself dashing out into the moonlight and running and running until I become one with the night. Or maybe it's the espresso I had earlier. That stuff's strong. Regardless, here's a mixtape for your restless night.

Metronomy - Heartbreaker

Hot Chip - One Life Stand

YACHT - Psychic City (Classixx Remix)

MSTRKRFT - Easy Love

LCD Soundsystem - Us V Them (Live on KCRW)

Radiohead - Talk Show Host

Regina Spektor - Genius Next Door

Okkervil River - Starry Stairs

School of Seven Bells - My Cabal

Jens Lekman - Sipping On The Sweet Nectar

Tegan and Sara - Someday

Whole mixtape.

Songs named after the band

So lots of albums have a title track, and generally the stakes are a little higher for that song. You expect it to either be the best song in the album, or to carry some special significance in the album's message. And then, lots of bands have an eponymous album. It's often their first record, and they name it after themselves maybe to help get their name recognized more. We often expect the eponymous album to define the band's sound or style in a way.

But a song named after the band is exceedingly rare. There's something weirdly deliberate and recursive about an eponymous song, much more so than an album, so to me it's fascinating to find them. You're almost guaranteed to learn something about how the band sees itself. Many of them are anthems/mission statements, as you would expect, but many are not.

Wilco - Wilco (The Song).

Do you dabble in depression?
Is someone twisting a knife in your back?
...This is a man with arms open wide
A sonic shoulder for you to cry on
Wilco will love you, baby

A very accurate, and of course tongue-in-cheek, picture of Wilco. It's good to know they don't take themselves too seriously.

Belle and Sebastian - Belle and Sebastian. The band gets its name from a pretty old French novel of the same name. I don't read a word of French, but as far as I can tell, the characters in this song are modern versions of those from the novel, full of the band's usual adolescent unease and set to a catchy shuffle.

Okkervil River - Okkervil River Song. Gorgeous, folksy, and pretty much exactly what you'd expect this song to be about.

Built to Spill - Built to Spill. A great, grungy mission statement for a very under-appreciated band.

The Arcade Fire - The Great Arcade Fire. From a demo tape they recorded in their early days. Hilariously, it is quite literally about an arcade on fire.

The Rolling Stones - Like a Rolling Stone. I seriously can't believe it took them until 1995 to do this.

Flake Music - The Shins. Before they were called the Shins, they were Flake Music. Not their greatest song, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Sigur Rós - Sigur Rós. I have no idea what the hell this is.

Feist makes your song better

So earlier I was thinking about how Feist seems to have become a franchise of sorts. This elusive, genie-like woman will come into the studio with your band and make one, just one, of your songs better. The only band I know of that has gotten her to make TWO of their songs better is the Kings of Convenience. Nor, as you'll see in this mixtape, is she limited to the breathy romantic indie pop you typically expect from her. Here are my favorite Feist collaborations.

Wilco - You and I
Feist and Ben Gibbard - Train Song
Gonzales - Shameless Eyes
Kings of Convenience - Know-How
Feist and the Constantines - Islands in the Stream (Dolly Parton cover)
Rubies - I Feel Electric (TieDye Remix)

Monday Mixtape

A few newish songs and a few older ones you might have missed. Cuts from Yeasayer's and Joanna Newsom's upcoming releases, Beach House's recent album, Yoko Ono's not-so-recent album, and one very cool punk band from China who recently toured with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Islands - Disarming the Car Bomb
Beach House - Walk in the Park
Queen Sea Big Shark - Hard Heart
Joanna Newsom - Good Intentions Paving Company
Yoko Ono - The Sun is Down
Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out (Hot Chip Remix)
Yeasayer - O.N.E.
Anya Marina - Satellite Heart

Edit: So we got a DMCA takedown notice from some record label, particular to this post. Awesome.

Exciting(?)

The New Pornographers have a new album called Together coming out on May 4! It will, as usual, include A.C. Newman, Dan Bejar, Neko Case, and that cute keyboardist chick. But get this: according to Pitchfork it will also feature contributions from Zach Condon (Beirut), Annie Clark (St. Vincent), and Will Sheff (Okkervil River). Dayum.

Impressive, but hopefully it doesn't end up being something like the Wilco song that featured Feist... playing a garden weasel. I don't know what the hell a garden weasel is, but I do know, from this song, that the noise that comes out of a garden weasel sounds nothing like the noise that comes out of Feist's mouth.

New Pornographers - Mass Romantic
New Pornographers - The Bleeding Heart Show
New Pornographers - Dreams (live Fleetwood Mac cover)

Owen Pallett's Heartland

Owen Pallett, extraordinary one-man band and occasional contributor to the Arcade Fire, finally released his long-awaited Heartland this month. It's a work as impressive as it is ambitious. Where his previous album He Poos Clouds was pointedly minimal, Heartland is its opposite in being unabashedly vast--he uses a full orchestra in every damn song.

Heartland's sound is lush and complex, filled with woodwinds, horns, and strings complemented by a tasteful host of experimental electronic sounds, but it never gets excessively epic. Pallett's own voice is much less prominent than it was in his previous work, often distant and ephemeral behind the rich orchestral sound. He seems content to let the music do most of the speaking, and it works.

Give it a listen. It will break your heart. You won't be disappointed.

Owen Pallett - Lewis Takes Action
Owen Pallett - Tryst With Mephistopheles

By the way, he has officially dropped his old moniker, Final Fantasy, and will be going by his real name from now on, so update your tags.

Kevin's Albums of '09 in Brief

My own personal favorite albums from 2009. In light of Tyler's dissertation below, I'll go the other direction and cut out the verbosity to give you just one sentence about why I like each.

10. Antlers - Hospice
For listeners who don't mind the heaviness it's dark, dense, gorgeous, and more accessible than their first album.

9. Karen O and the Kids - Where the Wild Things Are
All those feelings escape and yearning captured in a fantastic soundtrack by a woman who just can't screw anything up.

8. Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes - Up From Below
A superb, layered folk sound that rocks hard. (also, their music videos will blow your mind)

7. Regina Spektor - Far
Definitely her most accessible and catchy album yet, but still with all the classic Regina weirdness and lyrical genius.

6. Neko Case - Middle Cyclone
Shows just how much of a shame it is that the New Pornographers don't let her sing in more songs.

5. Julian Casablancas - Phrazes for the Young
Everything that was good about the Strokes, combined with everything that was good about disco.

4. Passion Pit - Manners
Soaring, danceable electro pop that you'll still respect in the morning.

3. Handsome Furs - Face Control
Wolf Parade frontman, his wife, and a drum machine unite to kick ass.

2. The xx - xx
Minimal, sincere, and impossible to get out of your head.

1. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!
It's bliss!

And without further ado, a mixtape of album cuts:

Handsome Furs - All We Want Baby Is Everything
Neko Case - This Tornado Loves You
The xx - VCR
Julian Casablancas - 11th Dimension
Passion Pit - Moth's Wings
Karen O & The Kids - All Is Love
Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes - Desert Song
Regina Spektor - Laughing With
Antlers - Two
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Soft Shock (acoustic)

Download the whole mixtape here.

Occurances of 2009

DECADES DON'T MATTER:
It's a completely arbitrary way of organizing time, barely related to any natural function.
...and yet, staring down a new one as I presently am, I can't help but reflect a little bit.

For me it was a backward-looking year. Mad Men perhaps sums up the year the best: a look at the past with an eye toward setting the present in better order. Surrounded as I was with friends more interested in uncovering past gems than keeping on the latest music I fell somewhat behind. I briefly considered just posting what I have been listening to regardless of year. But it's important that the year be put in some sort of order. Or maybe its my experience that I think needs to be put into more order. I would like this to be a list that tracked my actual experience of the year, but I haven't figured out how to make that yet.
Anyway.

The story of my year in music starts with a coronation.
It has become very difficult to talk about Animal Collective in the 11 or so months since they released Merriweather Post Pavilion. The album's basically been canonized, especially in the circles I travel. It's a great album, that's for sure, but its been with us almost all year. It barely belongs to this year anymore. It's become entrenched in my understanding of the world, as all really good albums eventually do. But I find it hard to call it my favorite anything, simply because the album is a fact now. And I'd sort of like to move on to the more interesting parts.

That is, the unveilings.

my favorite song of the year:
Change of Heart, El Perro Del Mar
This is barely a sketch of a song, a simple beat, a traced out bass line. It shimmers, drives forward. It's being caught in-between two places: I can't tell if Sarah is singing "we will never start" or "we will never stop" and that's perfect.
Just listen.

the runners-up:
Golden Phone, Micachu & The Shapes
In the video for this song, Micachu and her backing band halfheartedly wave their hands back and forth with bored looks on their faces (around :30). Don’t be fooled: Micachu is one of the most overachieving musicians out there today, writing this song and album in between symphonies for the London Philharmonic – she apparently doesn't even have time to brush her teeth – but it’s to her immense credit that she can come off that and find a bunch of time to sit around and lip sync and dance really badly. Herbert’s fingers are all over this song (that’s where that hyperventilating beat comes from) but the shuffling rhythm and nonchalant charm are all Micachu. The song bounces like nothing else.

Spring, Saint Etienne (Air France Remix)
Foxbase Beta, the Richard X produced remix of Saint Etienne’s seminal Foxbase Alpha was released to Saint Etienne’s fan club earlier this year, but for the larger, less official version of their fan club will have to make do with this in the meantime. It’s a pretty good deal: Air France plays it close to the chest but manage to turn a slowly flowering song into 5 minutes of joy. Spring becomes summer just like that.

Surfin’, Memory Cassette
This song, supposedly recorded sometime in the 90s and only now released, is practically liquid nostalgia, undefined and hazy, not for anything in particular. Once that chorus hits, it just lasts the entire rest of the song, because what else can you do? It's like rain. Listen to it in the rain. It's nice.

Daniel, Bat for Lashes
Keyboard horns kick this song off. Really obvious ones, too. And yet it's remarkable for its sincerity? And it's a riff on The Karate Kid? On paper this doesn't work at all. But running in the dark, dreaming of home: those are real, I've done those. Then everything goes still, and then it works, and there's nothing to do but to play it again.

Hard On, Withered Hand
This is a patient song. It sounds like someone telling himself off. He picks apart object and feelings, makes it absolutely clear that objects are that, but man, how they rule us. Just as it's about to take off, that's when it ends.

IRM, Charlotte Gainsbourg
I suppose we would expect a song about an MRI to be claustrophobic, but this is far more like a production line. Charlotte isn't trying to be sexy anymore, she's trying to be a robot, and this is probably for the best.

Make Her Say, Kid Cudi, Kanye West, Common
With Lady Gaga taking this year’s Dave Matthews Trophy (awarded to the most talented hack) by a landslide, what's someone who actually enjoys engaging with music supposed to do about it? Gaga is dance-floor fascism at its worst, so who else could bring it down but three people caught in their own narcissistic crises? This is the Ayn Rand novel of 2009 singles. It could have been terrible – it’s based on a blowjob joke – but Cudi, Yay and Common manage to fall on the right side of the amazing/terrible divide, unlike the one they’re puncturing. Plus, who’s better at ruining coronations than Kanye West?

My Maudlin Career, Camera Obscura
A proclamation of disgust with one's career is a strange way to promote an album. Camera Obscura has always been best at walking the line between bitter and sweet, but the stories they've told in the past have been personal accounts. This is a social collapse. The wedding-march piano line weighs it down but lets the song really grow. Never has such a cheerful song felt so much like the end of the world.

Trust Me, The Streets
Mike Skinner is a terribly self-aware rapper. Most of his great songs up until now have been recountings and genre exercises, some that one imagines started out as piss takes. This is the first song of his where he’s sounded in the present, fully in control of his own persona. And that persona sounds a lot nerdier than his previous ones did. This song was leaked on Twitter, against the wishes of his label, and maybe it will go down as evidence of the effect that Twitter will have on a person: it makes you spit beautiful, nerdy, nonsense.


and then,
my favorite album of the year:
Broken Record Prayers, Comet Gain (You Can Hide Your Love Forever)
It’s not really fair: this is a compilation of singles and b-sides spanning from 1993 to the present. But it's so perfectly composed, so well tracked, and ultimately just so good that I had to put this hear. It feels like a snapshot of a band at its peak: most of the songs reference each other and in some cases tell parts of the same story. But more than that, its an image of everything I want from a band: pop songs, just a little damaged from travel but no worse for wear.

Its runners-up:

Psychic Chasms, Neon Indian (Psychic Chasms)
Seemingly patched together from random joyous bits of song, this album sounds like flipping through an almost permanently sunny FM dial. Just wait: this is going to sound so good when it starts getting warm out.

Love Comes Close, Cold Cave (Life Magazine)
Yes, that’s a Joy Division reference in the title, and yes, the singer Wesley Eisold has a songwriting credit on several Fall Out Boy songs (which he got after suing Pete Wentz, who lifted some lyrics of an older group of his) but this is no dull and dreary affair. The album positively bounces, puts the (I am so sorry) Joy back in Joy Division, and remembers that Joy Division became New Order. This is seriously catchy stuff, and even if the hooks are buried in layers of fog, we know there are pure pop songs hiding behind the gloom.

s/t, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (A Teenager in Love)
Tightly spun, perfect, noisy pop has always been a little underappreciated, so seeing The Pains of Being Pure at Heart hit it (comparatively) big was one of the most heartwarming things to happen this year. It's dripping with indie pop references. But don't call it twee. It's way too much fun.

See Mystery Lights, Y.A.C.H.T. (Summer Song)
Jona Bechtolt's had his fingers in some great projects this decade but this is probably the best top to bottom project he's produced. I hope this Claire L. Evans person sticks around: Jona seems to work much better with a musical partner to work with (which is why The Blow kicked so much ass when he was a member). He's a pretty charismatic guy, but where I always felt like he was leaning on that a bit much in the past, this time his music has caught up with him. The songs bounce as he does, with an intensity that's sometimes hilarious but mostly infectious. If there was a musician I would want to hang out with it would probably be him: appropriate that he gave us all his address when we saw him in concert.

Love is Not Pop, El Perro Del Mar (Gotta Get Smart)
What a huge step away from the past. Sarah Assbring’s songs have blown up into full fledged pop, away from the one line songs of her debut. She's gotten multidimensional. She's also grown a backbone: where she just used to sing complaints of how love was treating her, the first song on the album is a tale her dumping someone. It's still sad and sensitive, but sensible now, and a little more mature. I love hearing musicians grow up.

Jewellery, Micachu & The Shapes (Lips)
Matthew Herbert launches another brilliant career. The album's all over the place, but when it gets warmed up, watch out. It's an album of a very technically talented musician who could care less how to actually use her instruments, and instead just makes up chords and just runs with it, and it works perfectly.

s/t, Royal City (A Belly Was Made for Wine)
Another collection, this time just of brilliant b-sides lost to time before this year. It's a lot of ache and pull but joyful at times. The things it celebrates: sleep, a city, a feast, a dog, a conversation, it celebrates so convincingly, it makes me long for the ceremonies of the everyday.

Two Suns, Bat for Lashes (Siren Song)
After that damn bike music video Natasha Khan could have honestly just cashed in, gone all Lily Allen and end up with her nipples all over the British tabloids (This is what happens to the Hot New Bands in the U.K.). Instead she holed up in studio, hung out with Scott Walker, and came out with something weird and a little scary but mostly really good.

Ashes Grammar, A Sunny Day in Glasgow (Close Chorus)
It’s not a dream but it sure passes like one. You forget whole segments of the album when listening to it because you start thinking about other things, like how did they make that sound, and maybe I'm a little hungry. Not that it's boring: it's a series of tightly connected sensations that deserves to be listened to in full. But it'll probably take a while.


Maybe I'll do a recounting of musical moments in my life this decade in a few days, but this'll do for now.

Cross-Marketing

So obviously this is a rockin' song, and Santigold is in top form (as usual).

My favorite part, though, is at about 2:08 in the video, when it stops being a slightly dumb throwback video and starts becoming an action figure commercial. This is the one thing that I am really going to miss about the near-universal culture that Micheal Jackson represented; the ridiculous cross marketing. As I'm sure you know, the man had a videogame.

It doesn't seem to make any sense to have action figures of members of bands these days. Not only is no one that big, but no one is demanding that kind of fandom, the kind that requires you to own everything associated with them and obsess about them from afar. Recent promotional material seems to mostly involve buying stars lunch, finding out they're just dudes, etc.

The distance between us and our stars is shrinking. And isn't this what we wanted? Talulah Gosh was singing about imagining themselves as pop stars just 4 years after Thriller. "Her life will be a movie". They knew it wasn't just pathetic to dream like that; its also liberating.

Talulah Gosh - Talulah Gosh

So yes, its sad that no one who makes good things will ever be that huge again, but that's the choice we've made. To be less dependent on the vast marketing network, to be more "independent".

Maybe we can make our own action figures.

(I promise I will shut up about MJ now.)