Well, here we go. Some friends and I are days away from leaving for Southeast Asia on a one-way ticket, so it's likely this marks my final post for a long while. I've put off the music-lover's obligatory task of whittling down all the great 2008 releases into a 'best of' list for long enough, so what better way to go out than by writing about my favorite records from the past year?
While many similar lists might prioritize commercial success, artistic merit, or avantgarde-ism, the sole criterion for making my best of 2008 cut is how many times I've returned for another spin. Put simply: these are the records I spent the most time listening to, day after day, week after week, month after month. The records I still love and probably won't really ever get sick of.
A few housekeeping matters: First, in order to keep up uniform appearances, I've limited the length of my list at ten (plus one more because after trying for some time I couldn't excise any of these awesome records). Second, although they are given a hierarchical order, the particular "ranking" assigned to each release is not in stone, but more like plus or minus two; I don't know about you, but the way I feel about a record is often in flux.
Cue the drumroll . . .
The only thing that matched my fondness for these Kiwi polyglot popsters was the level of shock I felt in their absence from countless other year-end lists, so I'm especially proud to fly their flag atop my number one spot. The band's genre-itinerant Sub Pop debut amalgamates an enormous catalog of worldly influences into summery, psychedelic pop songs that arrive brimming with inspired melodies, exuberant percussion, and a restless sense of adventure. The ease with which the album sonically zig zags its globetrotting course is just as impressive, and its speaks to the depth of band leader and multi-instrumentalist Ryan McPhun's pop genius.
There's something universally appealing about Sea Lion: its incredibly fun -- and so long as the Ruby Suns keep that spirit as their amorphous music's common denominator, I've no doubt we can expect more great things to come from these guys. Trying to pick a single song as representative of the entire album is impossible with this peripatetic record, but here's one of my highlights.
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Dark and intense, wistful and moving, this incredible album sees the Walkmen as a band fully realized. Their signature combination of cavernous organ, twanging guitar waves, rumbling basement percussion and Hamilton Leithauser's idiosyncratic wailing sounds more developed than ever, as does the vision and command of their songcraft. Like last year's standout The Boxer, the allure of You & Me grows more compelling with each listen. A brilliant, stunning record.
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Talking Heads meets surf-rock. Earlier in the year, I wrote a lengthy post on what a superlative album Happymatic is, so repeating myself here seems kinda unnecessary. But I will put up a different song.
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At the risk of indie-rock blaspheme, I confess that Cryptograms just never did it for me. I cranked it up on my loudspeakers, tried soaking it in through some headphones while laying on the floor, and listened to it with a more persuaded friend to see if they could unlock its hidden magic -- but nothing seemed to work. The record just came across as indulgent and pretentious noise every time. Thus, imagine my surprise to find Deerhunter's latest record, Microcastle, so full of sing-a-long pop hooks and (relatively) conventional song structures, albeit buried within a thick gauze of distorting lo-fi. The band's mellow-loner tone is still as present as ever, but this album is pop music -- not esoteric hipster-rock. Dreamy and fully engulfing, I can't put this record down.
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On his second full-length album, the British one-man-plays-all wunderkind merges 60's surfer harmonies and classic rock psychedelia with modern electronic flourishes, making for an incredibly buoyant, charming pop record.
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12.30.2008
TOP 11 RECORDS OF '08/A HIATUS
12.15.2008
TULSA - I WAS SUBMERGED
As any fellow music obsessive will point out, creating 'best of ' lists and arguing about them is impossibly subjective and unfinished; but it's also a lot of fun. I've had a great time geeking out over the lists that in people radio, music publications, and my favorite stops in the blogosphere have put out for 2008, and I'm silently churning my critical gears trying to finalize a year-end list of my own (on the way soon). However, in combing through all the records I've come across since last year, I keep noticing that many of my favorite discoveries wouldn't be found in the new releases section. Rather---as I hardly ever arrive at new music linearly---a majority of my 2008 was spent amongst records from last year, or five years ago, or even from years before I was born. So it goes, I guess.
One such example is a record I fell hard for earlier this spring: Tulsa's I Was Submerged, a dark and lovely album that despite its 2007 release has yet to take off in the way I think it should, especially considering this year's mainstream critical adoration of folksy, melodic, roots rock nostalgia sounds (Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver, Moondoggies, etc.). I would describe their sound as a darker It Still Moves-era My Morning Jacket meets the interlocking smooth-pop of the Sea and Cake, but pick up a copy and give it your own try.
At a mere seven songs, this record plays more like an EP, and I'm crossing my fingers in hopes of a longer release in the near future. Check out "Mass" below.
Tulsa's Myspace.
12.11.2008
School of Seven Bells - Alpinisms
Well, the habitual best-of lists are rolling out once again. And yeah, I think the calendar year is about as good as any other arbitrary time frame to pause a minute, reflect, and categorize all the great music that's been recently (re)released. Only, for whatever reason, some really great albums inevitably get snubbed. With this point in mind, I want to write about a record I'm recently carrying a torch for: School of Seven Bells' Alpinisms. Released (I think) during the first few weeks of November, Alpinisms is one of a handful of these you-gotta-be-kidding-me-good records that have all been absent amongst the few best-of-08 lists I've browsed so far (see The Ruby Suns and Jim Noir for more examples).
Comprised of two identical-voiced sisters and the former guitarist for Secret Machines, School of Seven Bells make soaring psychedelic electro-rock music that's as hypnotically beautiful as it is meticulously executed. The record's eleven lush tracks have familiar touchstones: they bear an art-rock gravitas equivalent to a female TV on the Radio, and occupy a similar primeval realm of tribal, open-air spirituality as Brightblack Morning Light. The group's main attraction, however, is undoubtedly the spindling, exacto-precise harmonies of sisters Alejandra and Claudia Deheeza, which carry Alpinisms across an emotional landscape that's both haunting and rapturous.
You really can't go wrong with any of the album's songs, but for starters check out "Face to Face on High Places" and "Half Asleep" posted below.
11.29.2008
Siah & Yeshua DapoED - The Visualz
Some more hip-hop for you. This time of the old-school-vinyl-only-gem-turned-anthologized-digital-reissue variety.
Traffic records has remastered and digitalized Siah and Yeshau DapoED's The Visualz EP (originally cut on vinyl-only way back in 1996 on underground legend and hilariously named Fondle 'Em records), repacking the sucker with a ton of added bonus material and releasing it in stores everywhere as The Visualz Anthology.
The bonus material is all good and welcome, but the true jams are still the EP's original tracks. Siah and Yeshua tag-team rap over dusty jazz-sample beats, relentlessly sparring verses back and forth like they're trading hands up a baseball shaft, all the while maintaining a no-sweat, cool, nonchalance. Highlights abound, but the record's centerpice is unquestionably the eleven-minute opus "A Day Like Any Other," a grand and twisting narrative of rhymes that plays out acrosss dozens of seamless beat changes.
Check out the tracks posted below and go pick-up the full-length.
11.16.2008
Louis La Roche - The Peach EP
One welcomed side effect of the near-embarrassing amount of time I've spent compiling the playlist for this year's Space Party has been the rediscovery of Louis La Roche. The initial credit goes to Nick J and his ever-perked ears for sending me a link to this French-House prodigy's myspace page, and it should be noted that I've heard some of his tracks on more than one of KEXP's shows in the last week (seems they've gotten his awesome 2007 Peach EP in their mailboxes recently?). Either way, it's great to see his records get some proper love and representation, so I'm gonna try and keep his hype snowballing.
The few records that La Roche has put out in his burgeoning career are in the vien of all great booty-shaking music: their insanely catchy, musically straightforward, and dance-populist. Some might find La Roche's method formulaic or repititive, even for house music, but the basslines and hooks he strings together are undeniable. They could seduce even the most timid of wallflowers.
I'm pretty sure you can still download the Peach EP from his myspace page free of charge, and I've posted an unreleased song called "Be Brave" below.
11.04.2008
Crystal Stilts - Alight of Night
It's with a little trepidation that I start this post about Crystal Stilts--the latest buzz-band from Brooklyn whose critical stock has skyrocketed so quickly that it seems almost anachronistic to question just how good these guys really are. Just about every major taste-making outlet has certified their first full-length Alight of Night a shoe-in contender for their forthcoming album-of-the-year lists, and the immortalized bands (Velvet Underground, Jesus and Mary Chain) that critics (rightfully) cite as the Crystal Stilts' influences add several additional layers of impenetrable 'cool' cred to the band's already intimidating hype.
Which is not to say I think these folks are wrong, just exaggerating. Crystal Stilts make hypnotic, strangely beautiful pop music that floats about in your head long after the songs themselves have ended. This is music to get lost in; only there's no way to do so outside of intimate, attentive, listening settings like headphones or by yourself in a quiet room. Alight of Night takes some soaking in and some perseverance, and even then the band's brooding noise-pop and off-key mumble-singing may still alienate (or simply irritate) many listeners, including yours truly at times. This is a knotty, engaging record for sure, but not the kind that has the broad appeal necessary to validate such blind hyping.
Below are two Crystal Stilts tracks: one from Alight of Night, and another from the band's self-titled EP released earlier this year, which I actually like a little better than the full length.
Black Milk - Tronic
In posts gone by I've alluded to my former hip-hop-head self: those glory days of early high school where I would spend hours in my basement furiously downloading every underground rap album Napster had to offer. Fast-forward to the present tense and I still have an enormous soft spot for hip-hop, but am long out of touch with the genre's current output. This neglect feels legitimized each time I check out a newish rap record and am left really, really, unsatisfied, but since Monday night--when I stumbled onto a preview of Black Milk's latest and second full-length album Tronic and nearly wet myself--I'm begining to think that maybe the joke's on me.
This guy's beats bang so hard. One taste of the tracks below and I'm betting you'll be as fanatical as I am about this up-and-coming producer/emcee from Detroit. Seriously. He's that dope.
a great review of Tronic on coke machine glow.
11.02.2008
Deer Tick - War Elephant (reissue)
Hoo-doggy! Yes sir, that's about how excited I was to read that Deer Tick's criminally underappreciated 2007 debut War Elephant is set for reissue Novermber 11th on Partisan records, complete with the saucy new cover art shown above. Hopefully the resources and support of a legit record label will help get John McCauley and his band the love they deserve.
A couple of standout tracks from their whiskey-and-sin-soaked alt-country album can be found below. I triple dog dare you to try and not dig on "Art Is Real"
10.14.2008
Black Mountain - In The Future
A while back former philistine Nick "the hair" Johnson tipped me towards Canadian apocolyptic rockers Black Mountain--suggesting that they'd appeal to the soft spot of my "jammier" side. Well, it took me forever to finally get around to giving their early 2008 record In The Future a proper listen, but Nick was more than right: this record is awesome.
The band's musical stylings are steeped in canonical prog, metal, and psych influences, incoporating the dark, netherworldy guitar riffs of Black Sabbath, the mysticism and nods to English folk of Zeppelin, and a Pink Floyd-sized ambition for extended, shapeshifting songs that evoke the dramatic weight and movement of an epic poem. Yet somehow they pull it all off, holding things together with inventive, solid songwriting. Two of my favorite tracks are up for listening below. However, if you've got the stomach for it, go check out the whole record. Two songs alone are a poor stand-in for the full attack of the album.
HILOTRONS - Happymatic
My last post ended with a musing on forgotten records, a nod to the unknown classics by bands that nobody's heard of because for whatever fill-in-the-blank reason they never got their aural due. Hence, it's with a bit of hope that time and musical justice will prove otherwise for HILOTRONS and Happymatic, a fucking awesome band and what I think is no question one of the best and most overlooked records of the year.
The second half of that last sentence may seem a little grandiose, but I don't think so. Just give these pop-geniuses a good listen, and then compare it to their media coverage. For instance, try searching the band name on Pitchfork (the veritable big brother of the independent music world) and nothing comes up. Which is a real shame, as the HILOTRONS have got it going on with their catchy, sinuous pop that's as danceable and fun as it is smart and well-crafted. Also, they hail from Ottawa, Canada--which has gotta count for something, right?
There's alot happening within the band's deft interplay of pipeline guitars, punchy rhythms, and touches of synth; stuff that rewards repeat listens. For the sake of posterity go check them out.
A few songs are posted below and/or you can stream the full album: here
10.10.2008
Rodriguez - Cold Fact
I love buying vinyl, only it can get pretty expensive, and unlike it's digital counterpart there's more of an all-or-nothing threshold to cross: Should I fork out almost twenty bucks for this whole album, or would it be more prudent to just buy or pirate the mp3s? Usually, I won't buy a record unless it's one I know front to back and never really tire of. But what's musical discovery without a little risk? Insular and no fun---so sometimes exceptions have to be made.
A great example of one of these whims paying off is the Rodriguez's Cold Fact LP I blindly purchased last Sunday. Originally released to meager success in 1973, this overlooked and largely forgotten gem of soulful, sometimes psychedelic, singer/songwriter tunes was just re-issued by Light In The Attic. Rodriguez's voice is magnetic in the same way that Dylan's or Albert Bell's is, and his gritty, poetic songs about the everyday struggles of Detroit street life are just as appealing with their timeless feel. Check out "Inner City Blues" below.
The fact that this record somehow managed to remain neglected for so long makes me wonder about what other potential classics are out there gathering dust in dereliction.
10.07.2008
Pretty & Nice - Get Young
Hardly Art has only been around for a year and a half, but the folks over there sure are wise beyond their talent-scouting age: proving once more with their latest release that the lable just can't miss. The record I'm cryptically raving about? Get Young, from Boston dude-trio Pretty & Nice. Part urgent falsetto-pop, part brash post-punk--all jams--these guys pack a ton of jerky, hairpin-ing melodies into an infectious, breakneck sound that their one-sheet aptly describes as "sharp-toothed, heavily-armed, snappish pop." Think Of Montreal with less disco and more garage.
The Pretty & Nice website currently features a link where you can stream the full record (do this!), and you can listen to (and download) the track "Tora Tora Tora" below.
click here to download
