Recently in Music Category

I've long said that there's a non-stop soundtrack in my mind's ear. Music has been a long-held enjoyable passion and a topic I can chat about or write about or think about for moments/hours/words on end. For a while I even did the writing bit semi-regularly with some dudes who created an e-zine in the late '90s and brought me along for the ride. That expression of bytes and pixels ended over a decade ago. More recently we gave a half-assed attempt at a reviews-based Twitter feed, but that idea ended nano-moments after starting. Yet we're still damn opinionated and have hotly-contested top 10 lists we share each year. (As a decent proxy for our untethered though always-connected world, the four of us have never been in the same room at the same time.)

To no small degree, keeping up with those Joneses, aka Rob, Pete(r), and Burt, has kept my toe (and wallet) in the game, and ears interested in hearing new music. While thinking about and wrestling with my top 10 from last year, I found myself again reflecting on how rapidly my music consumption habit has changed. Consumption as in purchasing, collecting, and listening.

OK, before it's time to start thinking about my musical moments of the current year, time to take five to ponder the sounds in my ear buds from the past year. On the whole, I listened to more albums actually released last year than any year in recent memory. Thanks to Spotify and a couple of music-oriented podcasts, primarily. But my acquisition and consumption of music is fodder for another post or two for another time. And away we, er I, go...

Annual award for record/artist everyone seems to drool over and I don't get in the least: St. Vincent. And I do mean drool. Annie Clark was voted "Top Indie Rock Crush," and Pitchfork (an uneven guide to be sure) rated her Strange Mercy as a 9.0 out of 10. Suffice it to say I disagree on both counts.
 

10. TV on the Radio - Nine Types of Light

I thought long and hard about giving this slot to Dum Dum Girls' Only in Dreams that I like quite a lot (and the accompanying EP He Gets Me High with a killer Smiths cover). But, the continued innovation and neck sticking-outed-ness from TVotR, coupled with their incendiary live show that included a startling and spectacular cover of Fugazi's "Waiting Room" get the coveted last spot on my list. Nine Types of Light is a suite of much slower-tempoed and tender songs than on past outings. Admittedly I took to it much less immediately than their two prior releases, but it's strong through and through.

9. M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming

I've not followed the career of Anthony Gonzalez that closely since his/M83's debut (Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts) which was much more ambient/electronic and basically free of song structure and vocals, save the requisite "ethereal chorus." It won't surprise me if this isn't a record I return to often in future years. There can be an evanescent quality to annual faves after all. But (again) I applaud the over-reaching at the expense of the safer and surer. A double album song cycle? Yeah, OK. I'm in.

8. Wild Flag - s/t

I wanted to like this record both more and less than I do. More because of the ridiculous hype behind the band and its individual members led one to believe this was the future of all indie rock. Or something like that. Less because I still miss sleater-kinney bitterly, now recognize that for about a four-year run they were lightning caught in a bottle, and hold an modestly-unfounded and probably irrational boycott against Carrie. And "Portlandia" isn't that funny.

I think the women are still sorting out how to make the whole greater than the sum of its parts. But I cannot deny Wild Flag kicks out some pretty solid jams. "Romance" deserves to be the lead track and is as good a calling card as it gets. And I've always fallen for Carrie's metaphorical lyrics. She's left the water and Civil War behind for the aggressive and relentless "Racehorse." Probably worth laying a wager.

 

7. tUnE-yArDs - W H O K I L L

Merrill Garbus' curiosity shop of sounds, loops, and imagery unveiled something new on just about every listen. I can't fathom the studio trickeration that went down to commit all this to tape. And, woo! horns.

But try this on for size, Pazz and Jop #1. Wow. That's really my only reaction. Was the 2011 landscape so fragmented that the crowd-sourced hipster-biased critics poll put tUnE-yArDs at the top of the pack. How surprising? Pazz & Jop winners the past two years? Kanye West and Animal Collective in 2010 and 2009, respectively. Makes the notion of a parliamentary-style election for the Congress something to consider.

6. Deep Cut - Disorientation

Mix one part guitar swirl and sustain with one part airy vocals from a woman named Emma and you have...Lush. Just kidding. Deep Cut's lead singer is Emma Bailey not Emma Anderson and I'm probably being unfair to both of them with the allusion. Mat Flint, whose Revolver dissolved way too soon, provides the effects pedals mastery. And let's face it, I just can't get enough of that shoegaze sound. Full props to Jack Rabid for playing Deep Cut on his Big Takeover podcast. Otherwise I never would have heard this record nor...

I'm opinionated about music. OK, I'm opinionated about a lot of things, though I tend to write the most about my music opinions. So, cutting to the chase, what I heard that was released in 2010 merits, at best, a C-. Longstanding personal favorites who released albums this year mostly get a thumb's up from me. Objectivity and I are sometimes ships passing in the night. "Mid-career" bands releasing a third or fourth or fifth album this year mostly were disappointing (Ted Leo (sorry, buddy) and the Hold Steady lead this pack). And probably the less said about the career turn of Paul Weller the better. Wake Up the Nation was certainly more coherent than 22 Dreams, but I think he needs to take another walk through the wild wood for inspiration.

The annual nod for album that gets a lot of praise and I don't get in the least: Broken Bells. Oooh, James Mercer sings about mean things. But the real penalty flag I'm throwing here is on Danger Mouse who's gone from the astounding Grey Album to just plain grey.

And the moment you've all been waiting for...

10. Sun Kil Moon -- Admiral Fell Promises
A man and his guitar. An album of all originals from Mark Kozelek under his band name, Sun Kil Moon. Two years ago, Sun Kil Moon toured as a full group; in 2010 it was just Mark solo on stage as he is on nearly all the tracks on Admiral Fell Promises. He isn't breaking any new ground here: long songs that unfold at a deliberate pace with detailed stories as pinpoint as photojournalism. The formula works for him and you either like it or not. I'm firmly in the like camp, though objective enough (HA!) to say that this collection doesn't hold from song one through ten. He has added some flamenco flourishes to his intricate acoustic guitar runs that don't always add the right color, but the story-telling is top-notch. The brilliance and beauty of "Half Moon Bay" cannot be understated. Name-checking Highway 1 and Devil's Slide that wind past the seaside town and attendant nostalgia. It instantly shares top billing among my favorite Mark songs -- Sun Kil Moon's "Carry Me Ohio" and Red House Painters' "San Geronimo," another track about a San Francisco Bay Area village.

9. Los Lobos -- Tin Can Trust
This is going to date me, but the boys from East L.A. have been doing this for what, 30 years now? I can argue they are quintessential American band weaving Mexican cumbia, American roots, rock, and straight-up blues, effortlessly shifting from English to Spanish and back again. Melting pot, anyone? And, remarkably, through three decades the Wolves remain the same, led up front by David Hidalgo's mellow-as-whisky voice and Cesar Rosas burlier guitar leads. (And the next time you see Rosas without his Ray-Bans will be the first; the man must have had them on his face in the crib.)

For the most part, the extra guests that have found their way onto recent Lobos' releases were left off Tin Can Trust to the album's benefit. The most visible partner is the Grateful Dead. Lyricist Robert Hunter has a co-songwriter credit on the weak link "All My Bridges Burning," but Los Lobos dig deep into the Dead's "West L.A. Fadeaway" to great affect. The lyrics ("I met an old mistake walking down the street today" and "I need a West L.A. girl, already know what I need to know") take on extra bite coming from a very East L.A. dude. The question wasn't rhetorical in 1985, but the view from here -- wondering whether wolf will survive -- isn't tough to answer.

8. Best Coast - Crazy for You
Those who know me can't be surprised I fell for Best Coast. To borrow an Imperial Teen album title, what is not to love? Fuzzbox guitars, catchy hooks, easy-to-pick-up lyrics, girl singer...it's like the Jesus and Mary Chain was fronted by a Reid sister. And yes, I know all about Sister Vanilla.

7. Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
OK, OK, I submit. I'm a late-comer to Kanye. His off-mic persona is off-putting. But, I'll now give him the Russell Crowe defense: a total asshole (and he'll tell you so about 5,000 times on ...Fantasy) but a top-notch performer. C'mon, rapping to the beat of Sabbath's "Iron Man"?! 'Nuf said.

6. Emma Pollock -- the Law of Large Numbers
One is the loneliest number, yes? The Law of Large Numbers is actually full of songs about a pretty small number: two. As in a couple. And just about every song has a first-person narrator and a "you." The exceptions? The book-ending instrumental tracks "Hug the Piano," a solitary pursuit with a very consistent partner. In the first song with lyrics, "Hug the Harbour," the narrator says, "My trust lies in your precision." And "precise" is the descriptor I kept coming back to as I listened to ...Large Numbers more and more.

The music is impeccably turned out and matches to the cadence and rhyme of the lyrics. There's not a spare beat, not an overstuffed thought. Even Pollock's diction makes every word, especially on the end of a line, clearly distinct. An odd observation I readily admit, but the production is so sharp that it genuinely seems to have been a calculated decision. For instance, "Red Orange Green" has end rhymes of "weekend" and "weakened" and you can hear the difference. This song, perhaps my favorite, also suggests that Pollock listens to fellow Glaswegians Sons and Daughters -- and probably should give their "Rama Lama" a co-songwriting credit. The film noir-ish music matches the onomatopoeia in the chorus ("creak creak creak...tick tock tick...flip flop flip"). With a family and a business (Pollock founded indie label Chemikal Underground Records and was in the "house band" the Delgados), tours to North America are infrequent. Best pick this one up to hear her at all.