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.

Best of 2009, part 7

Eep! I only just realized how closely the end of the year looms upon us. So I'll be updating this more frequently...maybe at least twice per week? Who knows.

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Tracklisting:
1) Kevin Blechdom - Face the Music

One of the greatest pleasures I had this year was meeting Kristin Erickson, aka Kevin Blechdom. Had I not been introduced to her by Irene Moon (another great artist that I was fortunate enough to meet) and Jonathan Dean, I probably would have never discovered either her solo work, or her collaboration with Bevin Kelley as Blectum from Blechdom. Her latest album, Gentlemania, might surprise people who were expecting some sort of electronic music. Instead, this is a break-up album, seemingly directly influenced by Tin Pan Alley. Seeing her play these tracks live (several times, actually) could definitely be included in one of my favorite experiences of the year. This song was my favorite.

2) Atlas Sound - Quick Canal

I never really understood the hype for Deerhunter; however, the solo projects that Bradford Cox and Lockett Pundt have released I absolutely adore. This is probably my favorite track on Logos, the latest Atlas Sound release. Admittedly, I haven't heard the whole album, but this song gets stuck in my head. That might sound like a bizarre statement when you listen to the song - it seems to exist in the state between sleep and awakeness. The presence of Laetitia Sadler of Stereolab only gives it a more breathy quality. Hopefully, the rest of the album is as good as this track.

3)Zu - Obsidian

I'm having trouble determining if this disc came out this year or last year...either way, Carboniferous was my first encounter with the Italian jazz-metal trio Zu. Interestingly, they don't have a guitar player - they only have a baritone sax, bass, and drums (who also will play mellotron and synths). For only about 4 or so tracks on the album, they used a guitar player, this being one of them.

4) Julie Doiron - Blue

I had to begin and end with two songs of heartbreak. This is definitely another one of the best sad songs I've heard this year, even if it wasn't written by Julie. It's off of her album I Can Wonder What You Did With Your Day, which is definitely worth a listen.

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.