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!

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.

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.

Extended: Run Rabbit Run performed by Osso

Sufjan Stevens has long been acclaimed as the future of Americana music, and it's easy to see why. His music has always been slightly more complex than many of the other people working in his field; his influences have also extended beyond just folk music. Check out the minimalist tendencies in the arrangements for tracks like "Detroit! Lift Up Your Weary Head!" (neat time signature as well) or "The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades is Out to Get Us!"; you could also note the delicate nature of some of his piano compositions, which suggest the bedroom music of Erik Satie. It's his combination of this with basic folk/country/indie pop tropes that have brought him the audience that he has today; the fact that he's able to wrap this all up in a very pretty package proves more than anything his success as a popular composer.

So to cut to the chase, I was surprised when I was given Run Rabbit Run to review. My immediate thought was that Sufjan Stevens was trying to make what's probably his least accessible work, Enjoy Your Rabbit, more palatable for his NPR-listening audience. Enjoy Your Rabbit is easily his most eclectic and "experimental" (which I use very loosely here) disc. It is filled to the brim with complex pieces based around the Chinese Zodiac, which might better fit on Warp Records' current roster than on his own label. But I was wrong with my assumption; this disc's origins lie with Bryce Dessner of the National. He commissioned Osso (who have worked with a slew of musicians including Kanye, Antony and the Johnsons, and Alice Coltrane) to reinterpret the album; they debuted four tracks off of Enjoy Your Rabbit for the Music Now Festival in Cleveland, Ohio back in 2007. Two years later, the arrangements have been completed and released on Asthmatic Kitty.

However, with the end product, it still feels as though Sufjan's original album has been dumbed down for the NPR crowd. I can't tell if this is due to the nature of the arrangements or the limitations of the string quartet. Many times, the dissonance in some of the compositions seem completely sanded down; other times, the arrangements are much less complex than the original pieces. This isn't always true: Michael Atkinson's arrangement of "Year of the Ox" contains probably the most riveting performance on the disc; Osso violinist Olivier Manchon also contributes a relatively accurate (yet somehow more interesting) version of "Year of the Rat". But many times, the original goal of arranging these pieces relatively accurately comes up short; many times, the percussive elements aren't even approached. I wouldn't even note this failing if it wasn't present in Atkinson's "Year of the Ox", but since one arranger had done it, I would assume that the others might have attempted something similar. Instead, what we are given is a set of very similar abbreviated versions of Sufjan Stevens' album.

This doesn't necessarily mean that the album fails though. What Run Rabbit Run manages to do is indicate more clearly the characteristics (both the strengths and weaknesses) of Stevens' compositions. By removing the particular timbres/textures of the sounds on the original album (as well as the eccentricities, regrettably), the disc brings to light a similar composer: that great American Charles Ives (especially at his most populistic).

Sufjan Stevens stated that his greatest regret for his Enjoy Your Rabbit album is that there is very little human element in the disc; nearly all of the pieces are recorded using synthesizers and other electronic devices. On Run Rabbit Run, we get a good glimpse of what it may have sounded like. However, the disc might have proven stronger if he himself had performed it; especially if the broad nature of his original piece was allowed to be present.

Reviews, Part. 3

I made a mistake! I thought I had gone through all the material I had to review for September, but I missed one item. So I'll cover that here, as well as the first half of October. I hope you enjoy.

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1) Joey Casio - Artists in Times of War
This is the b-side to a K Records 7" called "Debtor's Prism". Both sides are very similar - bedroom styled acid house with post-punk styled singing on top. If you got the reference to Howard Zinn in the title of the song, then you've realized how political this guy's material is. Still, pretty fun stuff.

2) Le Loup - A Celebration
Sam Simkoff is Le Loup. Or was, rather. His first album was recorded by himself and was largely focused upon synths and banjos (an odd combination, to be sure). But when he decided to tour for that album, he needed a band...so he used Craigslist to gather together similar minded musicians. On their latest album, Family, nearly every track seems like Akron/Family doing an impersonation of Animal Collective. I don't know if that's a bad thing or not. This track might be the best example of the tribal feel that they have throughout the whole album. Out on Hardly Art.

3) Karl Blau - Apology to Pollinateurs
I've loved Karl Blau ever since I became obsessed with Phil Elverum's work as The Microphones. He seems more wholesome in general than alot of the Anacortes recording folks; taking influence from Beatnik-related Buddhism and world music, his works always have seemed really pure. His latest album, Zebra, might be among his best. Almost every instrument was played by him; and while sometimes his ideas don't come across as well as they might have if a full band was playing, the ideas in themselves are strong enough to carry the songs along. This is the only track to feature other people (Arrington de Dionyso of Old Time Relijun and the lady from Tender Forever). Out on K.

4) BK-One with Benzilla - Eighteen to Twenty-One (featuring Murs)
BK-One is best known as Brother Ali's DJ...which (to me anyway) seems more like a detriment than anything else. Brother Ali, along with almost everyone else on Rhymesayers, is a horrible MC. Fortunately, BK-One isn't as bad at producing and DJing as compared to the rest of the Rhymesayers crew. On his first "solo" album (Benzilla helps produce more than half the tracks), Radio Do Canibal, the music is entired created from samples off of Brazilian records. The Brazilian influence does not show on this track...however, Murs has one clever metaphor in this otherwise kitschy track about sex.


5) The Mountain Goats - Phillipians 3:20-21

John Darnielle has been disappointing me almost consistently after he moved into a studio. His latest album for 4AD, The Life of the World to Come, is still not that good. Despite the occasional string work by Final Fantasy, he's still slumped in his MOR-styled production, whispering what seems to be imitation Darnielle lyrics. This disc has better lyrics, but the songs themselves still seem underwritten. This track is the one of very few that has any sort of melodic hook in the actual instrumentation. And the lyrics aren't bad either.

Reviews, Part 2

The next batch of reviews covers everything I reviewed for the radio station for the last two weeks of September.

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1. Julianna Barwick - Anjos

In a world where Britney Spears could be called a great singer, shouldn't we honor those with even better voices? Julianna Barwick is nowhere near as famous as anyone in the pop world (she self-releases her music in limited runs), nor does she sound anything like what is popular. But Julianna, I can say without a doubt, sings and writes better songs than almost anyone in popular music. This EP, Florine, is based around her voice, which she loops and overlaps into dense yet minimal soundscapes. The song featured here is an oddity for her - it barely features her voice - but its beauty is exceptional.

2. múm - Show Me

I know that many people were disappointed when múm started transitioning away from their Aphex Twin influenced electronica to a more organic, live instrument sound. I personally still enjoy their music just as much as before. Some might be pleased to hear that on their 5th album, Sing Along to Songs You Don't Know, there is a very, very faint return to electronica, albeit through (what sounds like) cheap casio keyboards. I preferred the tracks without those - these tracks produce still, serene beauty.

3. The Pastels/Tenniscoats - Boats

Best known as a twee pop band, The Pastels have been shying away from that description since the early 1990's. True, Stephen Pastel can't sing very well (in an adorable way), nor can he play guitar all that well, but their music has been much more sophisticated and well written than, say, Beat Happening. On this collaboration with the Japanese duo Tenniscoats, the group shines at creating atmospheric ballads. Two Sunsets feels like a perfect album for a sad autumn evening.

4. A Sunny Day in Glasgow - Shy

I'm not going to lie - the latest A Sunny Day in Glasgow was painful to sit through. Every track seemed like some sort of interlude to another song, but it seemed like there weren't that many fully formed songs. Ashes Grammar almost seemed like a half hearted attempt at dream pop.

5. Darlings - Eviction Party

I also wasn't thrilled to review Darling's debut album, Yeah, I Know, whose blatant overusage of the Helvetica font and semi-ironic black and white photos of various domestic scenes. I mean, how many mediocre hipster bands do we need? Even worse, how many do we need that are co-opting Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers? But still, I have to admit, this song gets stuck in my head quite frequently.

6. Six Organs of Admittance - Actaeon's Fall

At first, I was kind of disappointed by the latest release by Ben Chasny's solo project. Luminous Night seemed to continue the more drab sounds of his last album, Shelter From the Ash. But after further listens, I realized that Chasny is using minimal finger picking to create a different sort of psychedelic music than his earlier albums. Here, he doesn't even bother with guitar drones that often, instead relying on Eyvind Kang's viola and keyboards. Still, a really solid album.

7. Castanets - Dance, Dance

What can I say? Ray Raposa knows how to write a good country tune. Maybe Texas Rose, The Thaw, and the Beasts isn't as diverse in sound as his earlier albums, but it's still worth listening to.

A Different Sort of Best Of

Instead of what I usually do, this is a post summarizing several of the albums I had to review for the radio station in chronological order. Everything is still lumped together into one mp3 file, but this time (and probably from now on) I won't say anything on the track. Here goes nothing:

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1. Pens - Freddie

They always start new reviewers with albums that aren't particularly great, and "Hey Friend! What You Doing" is no exception to this rule. The hot new thing these past couple of years has been lo-fi, either in the vein of Ariel Pink or of the Siltbreeze catalog. Pens tries to write cutesy, nonchalant pop songs, but jesus, they can't write songs worth a damn. It just seems like they're not even trying at times. Other people do the lo-fi thing much better - check out the aforementioned Ariel Pink, Dum Dum Girls, or Vivian Girls. Out on De Stijl records.

2. Shonen Knife - Super Group

Okay, so Shonen Knife have been irrelevant for how long now? Even when they were big, they always seemed to be kind of a joke - they seemed incapable of playing their instruments at times, and they definitely didn't have the best grasp of the English language. "Super Group" is the band's 16th album, and they have yet to change their formula at all - loud guitars, catchy vocals, lyrics written in Engrish about the goofiest things. Out on Good Charamel.

3. Frida Hyvonen - Jesus Was a Cross Maker
4. The Bye Bye Blackbirds - There's a Rugged Road

My good friend Jonathan introduced me to 70's singer/songwriter Judee Sill about a year ago. I was amazed that she even got a record deal at all - her songs, while they are incredibly catchy, aren't the most accessible. A talented musician, she would often include sections in her songs that had a different time signature, or occasionally have odd arrangements. Then there's the lyrics - nearly every song is about Christianity. This in and of it self wouldn't be a big deal, but all of the Christian images are seen through a gnostic or mystic point of view. So when American Dust announced that they were releasing a tribute album to her, I was excited. The album is pretty great, even though many of the artists temper down Sill's eccentricities. Frida Hyvonen's much-lauded cover of Sill's greatest single is an example of this when it works - beautiful choir vocals and a minimal piano make her song become like a classic hymn. I included the Bye Bye Blackbirds track because it was my personal favorite from this album. The disc is called "Crayon Angel: A Tribute to the Music of Judee Sill"

5. Vivian Girls - Can't Get Over You

If there's one thing I love, it's noise-pop, and Vivian Girls have been conjuring up some of the better tunes in that sub-genre for the past year or so. That being said, their second album, "Everything Goes Wrong", doesn't really live up to the standards of their self-titled debut. The songs seem underwritten in some spots, hoping to ride merely on velocity and noise. This track might be the most solidly written track on the album (although it might not be the best). Out on In the Red.

6. Ramona Falls - Always Right

Since Menomena is on a temporary break, Brent Knopf took some time to record a solo album, "Inuit". This can barely be called a solo album though - he has over 30 guests on this album. The recording process is slightly odd - Knopf had some ideas for songs, took them to individual friends of his and recorded with them for three hours. He did this many, many times. The results were then edited together (similar to Menomena's editing style) into cohesive, swelling songs. This track may not be the best one on the album, but it's been the favorite of mine since I first heard it because of it's cobbled-together style. If you like this, you'd probably really love the rest of this album. Out on Barsuk Records.