2010 Reviews, part 2

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1) Beach House - 10 Mile Stereo

Everyone has been masturbating over the new Beach House album, Teen Dream, but I'm having a hard time figuring out why. I understand the popularity of the band - at their best, their dreamy sound can be stunning - but here, a good half the songs sound exactly the same. It's still worth checking out, though. Here's one of the better ones.

2) Sunset - Gold Dissolves to Gray

The new album by Bill Baird's Sunset is kind of disappointing. Unlike most of his other material, Gold Dissolves to Gray (which is also the name of the album, is largely folksy. He doesn't entirely disregard the reverb-heavy psychedelic pop of his other material, but it's definitely not his main emphasis. Like the Beach House album, it's worth checking out, but not the best.

3) The Soft Pack - C'mon

The Soft Pack play really catchy garage rock, and there's very little that's going to stop them from their mission. Their self-titled debut is fun enough, but when there are so many bands doing a similar thing to similar success, what's the point?

4) Spoon - Who Makes Your Money

I've never been a huge fan of Spoon, nor am I familiar with them (except those couple of singles from Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga). I don't know how Transference relates to earlier Spoon releases, it doesn't feel very consistent. It doesn't help that about half the songs are (supposed) demos. This track, as well as The Mystery Zone, are probably the most interesting songs on the album - kinda sexy, with a neat synth touch.

5) The Magnetic Fields - Better Things

The new Magnetic Fields album, Realism, is (thankfully) the last in what has been termed the "no synth trilogy". Realism goes beyond that, though - it uses almost entirely acoustic instruments (to contrast its sister album, Distortion, which was all...distorted). Stephin Merritt's songwriting is pretty samey on this disc (the first track even is reminiscent of I Don't Believe You). The arrangements of the tracks make the songs seem distant, almost like museum pieces separated by glass. A weird album, to be sure.

New Year! 2010! Reviews for 2010 Part One

Hey everyone. As you can tell from the lack of posts, I haven't exactly been the most dedicated blogger in the world. Blame that on the computer and not the computer operator though; the computer I was using to post crashed for about a month. So now that it's 2010, I'm going to begin posting music from 2010.

Before we keep going, I'd like to comment on two albums from 2009 that have totally kicked my ass.

Richard Youngs - Under Stellar Stream


During my first listen to this album, I could not breathe. Here, Richard Youngs creates music so tense and repetitive that it becomes almost oppressively beautiful. Using mostly synthesizers and piano, he's created a soundscape that seems drenched in regret and longing. Please listen to his latest Jagjaguwar record.

Ergo - Multitude, Solitude


Ergo are a jazz trio more interested in texture and space than in your typical jazz performance. I guess you could call it cool jazz for a new generation? This is one of the better "jazz" albums I've heard, and I highly recommend that you buy it. A track from this Cuneiform release is below.


This list is actually of discs that I have finished reviewing this month (January), but it also includes some releases from 2009. Can't do anything about that. Shrugs!

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1) Tsigoti - With a Mirror and a Magnifying Glass

These guys are one of the newer rock oriented bands (along with the amazing Talibam!) to put out an album on the typically jazz-oriented label ESP-Disk. However, unlike Talibam!, these guys need to work on their form a little bit. "Private Poverty Speaks to the People of the Party" is an avant-punk album, not too far off from The Ex or The Minutemen (with both of their upfront political statements as well). Interestingly, the band is fronted by a pianist, named Thollem McDomas. I'd keep track of this band.

2) Nana Grizol - For Things That Haven't Come Yet

These guys play a sort of folk-punk type sound, but with a poppier edge than groups like This Bike is a Pipe Bomb or Against Me! I really don't care for this guy's music, nor do I think his latest album, "Ruth", is worth discussing.

3) Sufjan Stevens - Movement IV: Traffic Shock

It finally happened: Sufjan Stevens has released a classical album. "The BQE" is a tribute to the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and, oddly enough, rather good, if predictable. Every aspect of his songwriting style appears, except his singing. IF you love the instrumental bits of his albums, this is basically an extension of that. This song is the exception: it's a return to his electronic style, and fairly unique.

4) Ergo - She Haunts Me

As I mentioned above, I love this album. This track is typical of the exploration made on this album. Dig it.

5) Olof Arnaulds - Ævagömul Orkuþula

Olof Arnaulds plays rather beautiful troubadour style folk music. It stays rather simple most of the time, which is for the best. The songs on here debut "Við Og Við" can best be compared to someone like Josephine Foster: repetitive but enchanting. Oddly, this album came out back in 2007, but is just now being made available in the states by One Little Indian.

Best wishes!

My Station's End of the Year ballot

Ugh! I didn't find much time to keep posting songs on here. Maybe I'll have some more up before the year officially ends. Anyway, here's the list I made for the station of my favorite things we received this year.

Here it goes (the bottom 20 aren't really in any particular order):

1) Mount Eerie - Wind's Poem
2) Sunn O))) - Monoliths and Dimensions
3) The Clientele -Bonfires on the Heath
4) Antony and the Johnsons - The Crying Light
5) Talibam! - Boogie in the Breeze Blocks
6) OOIOO - Armonico Hewa
7) Gary War - New Raytheonport
8) James Blackshaw - The Glass Bead Game
9) Zu - Carboniferous
10) Lotus Plaza - The Floodlight Collective
11) The Gaslamp Killer - All Killer...
12) Bill Callahan - Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle
13) Black Dice - Repo
14) 400 Lonely Things - Tonight of the Living Dead
15) Boredoms - Super Roots 10
16) David S. Ware - Shakti
17) Buraka Som Sistema - Black Diamond
18) David Sylvian - Manafon
19) Gui Boratto - Take My Breath Away
20) Ducktails - Landscapes
21) Valerio Cosi - Heavy Electronic Pacific Rock
22) Jandek - Portland Thursday
23) Arrington de Dionyso - Malaikat dan Singa
24) Brian Harnetty & Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Silent City
25) Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
26) Hudson Mohawke - Butter
27) Steve Lehman Octet - Travail, Transformation and Flow
28) Nomo - Invisible Cities
29) Julianna Barwick - Florine
30) Bohren & Der Club of Gore - Dolores

Best of 2009 part 9

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1) Jack Rose & the Black Twig Pickers - Revolt
2) Jack Rose & the Black Twig Pickers - Kensington Blues

Famed fingerstyle guitar player Jack Rose passed away at the age of 38 on the 5th, so I feel it's appropriate to include tracks from one of his recent discs, Jack Rose & the Black Twig Pickers. His music will be missed.

3) OOIOO - Uda Ha

Yoshimi P-We's project OOIOO is sorely underrated. Sure, they're not the cosmic psych-out music of the Boredoms, but that's no reason to hate them. I found their latest record, Armonico Hewa to be one of the most interesting records I've heard this year. Check it out if you like polyrhythmic drums, chanting, weird guitar lines, et cetera.

4) Steve Lehman Octet - Echoes

Steve Lehman is sorely underrated in the jazz world. His latest record, Travail, Transformation and Flow claims to be the first jazz recording to utilize Spectralist composition methods. The Octet's music creates this really weird floating sound, feeling as if the horns' presence is still lingering like a phantom after they've played. Plus, the drumming on this record is amazing, and there is a GZA cover.

Station Record Reviews: November part 1

This covers everything I did for the first week of November.

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1) Arrington de Dionyso - Mani Malaikat

Ever since the first time I heard Old Time Relijun, I knew I would always love the music of frontman Arrington de Dionyso. Even lately, when he's been incorporating reed instruments and throat singing into his music, the utter eccentricity of it keeps me absolutely riveted. His latest album might be among his best. Malaikat dan Singa is sung entirely in Indonesian, and de Dionyso plays every instrument himself. The resulting album is a bizarre fusion of the angular, primitive rock of Old Time Relijun with his later weird tendencies; it's probably the best summation of his works in general (but not his best album).

2) Jimi Tenor/Tony Allen - Darker Side of Night

Strut Record's Inspiration Information series brings together two artists who have never collaborated before to create a one-off album. This is volume four of it, and a classic. Tony Allen is one of the founding members of Fela Kuti's Africa 70 band, and one of the best drummers I've ever heard. Jimi Tenor is a Finnish multi-instrumentalist who has put out records with a range of sounds, from industrial, to lounge, to afro-beat (with his group Kabu Kabu). On this disc, members of both of their bands collaborate to do a slight twist on the afro-beat genre; the main difference being that Jimi Tenor sometimes uses his electronics to create some odd sounds within the mix.

3) Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson - The Sound

MBAR represents everything that's wrong with singer/songwriters in general. The lyrics are overtly direct in a way that's incredibly banal. So banal, in fact, that it just emphasizes the perfectly bored "tragedies" that happened in his life. Oooooh, he got drunk alot and had some relationship problems. So did Dylan (whom this asshole is often claimed to be the next version of), but instead of straightforwardly describing his angst, he'd at least have a variety of images, use some metaphors, and in general sing in a way that didn't sound like he had some sort of constipation. MBAR's latest album, Summer of Fear, is fucking terrible, and probably the worst thing I've had to review for the radio station.

Best of 2009, Part 8

Moar (with tiny blurbs):

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1) Gary War - Edge of Mess

This record, New Raytheonport is amongst my favorites of the hypnagogic style, and this track is my favorite off of it (second is the Alan Parsons Project cover).

2) Boredoms - Ant 10 (Remix by DJ Finger Hat)

Super Roots 10 is amazing. The entirety of the album comes off as some amazing mix of minimal techno and The Holy Mountain (the movie).

3) Bon Iver - Woods

I hate Bon Iver. Hate hate hate. But this track off of The Blood Bank ep may be the best thing he's done, thanks to the great usage of a capella auto-tune. Almost as good as T-Pain.

4) Brian Harnetty & Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Under the Winesap Tree

Please, please please listen to their album Silent City and Harnetty's earlier album, American Winter. Very few people make music as haunting as Brian Harnetty.

Reviews, Part 4

This covers the extent of the albums I had to review for the second half of October: a grand total of three CDs. So I'm playing two off of one of the discs.

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1) Tickley Feather - Club Rhythm 96 and Cell Phone

Much has been written, on blogs and in The Wire magazine in specific, about the so called "hypnagogic" pop sound. First explored by people like Ariel Pink then developed even more by Gary War and others, the sound is so named because it explores some half-state between sleeping and being awake. Or, in terms of music, it's pop songs that are barely present, surrounded instead by lo-fi sound production. Tickley Feather, the project of Annie Sachs, hasn't been written about very much when it comes to this sound, and it may be for good reason. Her songs don't always seem too fleshed out. However, this one is seriously the jam. It's off her second album Hors D'Oeuvres, which just came out on Paw Tracks

2) Joe Morris Quartet - Animal

Our music director, Stone, said he still wanted to phase me a bit when he gave me this CD, somehow implying that I hadn't been tested fully enough in my skillz. Joe Morris is one of the best known (maybe among the best?) jazz guitar players, but I've only listened to a couple albums he's played on. Today on Earth is the second album he has recorded with his current quartet, which consists mostly of members of the group The Fully Celebrated Orchestra. In general, the album switches between two modes. Half the songs are free-bop inspired by early Ornette Coltrane, and the other half is a group of moody tracks which seem just as inspired by "rock music" as by jazz. This track falls into the second category, and may be amongst my favorite jazz pieces.

3) Lake - Gravel
4) Lake - Loose Wind

Lake are a collective of musicians from the Washington State area who've been putting together some absolutely gorgeous pop tunes. Let's Build a Roof never really fails to please. The pieces all have a very 60's feel to them, in a way that Belle & Sebastian usually does, but then the songs also have these horn arrangements (done by Karl Blau) which belie influences from elsewhere. Basically, this disc feels like the perfect autumn album, and you should listen to it.