bellafea

bellafea is a duo that hails from north carolina. they just released an ep "family tree" that is, well, quite excellent. listening to thorn bird one can't help but think "hey, they've listened to blonde redhead" (which, really, can only be a compliment) but then they take the song in different directions and, well, pretty quiet directions at that. i look forward to hearing more.

jeff hanson

awfully busy these days. anyhow, jeff hanson's first album son sort of kept under the radar, which was very unfortunate for those who missed it. simply excellent stuff that sounds a bit like elliot smith if elliot had sung like a girl. no, jeff is not a girl. his new self-titled album treads much the same water as his previous effort but is perhaps slightly less poppy. perfect music for sunday mornings and thursday afternoons. highly recommended.

other stuff sticking to my cd player. the norwegian shining. on the label rune grammofon that is single handedly saving norway from the bottom seat on the list of interesting countries. the shining really can't be described without making them sound awful - words like prog, fusion, etc. pop up in my head so it was with great trepidation that i pressed that play button. but hot damn, did this stuff blow my mind! definately not the stuff i listen to normally but this one won me over. rune grammofon also deserve for their covers, see some here: http://www.boomkat.com/promotion.cfm?id=2. then there is red sparowes. another surprise. contains members of neurosis, isis and, uh, some other band. if you like mono, or mogwai, then this is something you must check out. stunningly beautiful and loud.

oxes

i hadn't listened to the oxes in a while. so i did. i still love them. and then i also have a soft spot for red martian. though they sound nothing like the oxes.

pony up!

yet another montreal band. this one actually counts as its member my former hair stylist - i guess that is my brush with fame! [pun not intended at first but i'm leaving it like this]. anyhow, quite nice. jangly guitar pop probably goes a far way to describe the bands. at any rate, their s-t ep is promising - except for an apparently unhealthy obsession with matthew modine, which is really the only blemish on the 7 song ep. above, great pop fun. check out their website: http://www.ponyup.ca/

les georges leningrad

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i never liked the name of this band - i was expecting some sort of russian folk punk or something (which actually sounds kinda fun) - so i never checked them out. that was probably a mistake. but not my only one so i'm not going to feel too bad about it. oh, well. this is of their sur les traces de black eskimo. they call it post-punk electro but in the end is sounds a little industrial - but with a sense of humour.

the talk

i quite like this. from the album like magic in reverse that is out in about a month or so on the north carolina's moRisen label. something to look forward to if the rest of the album sounds like this.

j & lou

who would have thought? dinosaur jr. is reuniting for a few shows. i'm not sure how i feel about that. but then again dinosaur jr. always just sounded like one long guitar solo live and you would never have guessed how great their albums were from seeing them live. at any rate, this should keep lou from releasing more crap for a little while. here is one of their best.

mary timony

well, well, mary timony (and her ex-outfit helium) seemed always a little underrated to me. and any polvo fan that hasn't checked helium out should be ashamed of themselves b/c of ash bowie's role. anyhow, mary has a new album coming out soon and although bowie is absent we should be in for a treat nevertheless.

kitchens of distinction

the first time i heard interpol on the radio i thought "cool, they are playing the kitchens of distinction." digging out my kitchens' albums and listening again to them after years of gathering dust of course makes plain that i must have been drunk. yet, there are certainly strong similarities in place. i guess the kitchens were lodged somewhere between shoegazing and the wedding present and, yes, their music hasn't aged terribly well - mostly thanks to the sound on the albums, which seems a bit thin. however, it is somehow easy to imagine how the albums would sound if they were recorded today - they would sound a bit like interpol! above, a sample from their love is hell album and here one from strange free world.

is this funny?

remember veruca salt? sort of weezer for the boys. decent fun, anyhow. then nina gordon left the band (she was the cuter one!) and started a solo career. the results were so horrible that you have probably never heard any of her stuff. i mean really horrible. anyhow, when i saw that she had done a cover of N.W.A. I thought maybe she had snapped out of it, stopped making whiny crap and would perhaps deliver something interesting. instead, it sounds like this. this is so incredibly bad. i can not believe how bad it is. it makes me laugh. but it also makes me a bit nauseous. therefore i had to post it. for nina's sake i hope that ice cube never hears this. but then again, i don't really care.

calla et al

what else is new. well, calla is preparing a new album - first taste over at www.callamusic.com. not disagreeable at all. caribou has been spinning but not scoring the points that manitoba managed to get. 13+god, the collaboration of themselves and notwist, is a little disappointing - each band is, well, absolutely fabuous (esp. notwist) but thinks don't really click here. the queens of the stone age, which i secretly love, aren't doing it for me either. the best track already appear on the desert sessions 124-125. still fun though. thee silver mount zion.... have been singing too much. british sea power is overpolished. hell, everything just seems crap these days.

lucky pierre

how did i miss this? arab strap's moffat has a side project! and touchpool is his second album. my, my! arab strap never really sounded like the very up to speed with technology with their simple drum programming but apparently moffat has a few tricks up his sleeve. lucky pierre is electronic, slightly cinematic perhaps. pretty pleasant.

enon

one of my big regrets in life is never to have seen brainiac live. sigh. it was a brilliant band and if you haven't checked them out you should. john schmersal formed enon after brainiac disappear from our sight after releasing an album under the name john stuart mill in between. jsm was in some ways a big departure from brainiac being almost acoustic but enon at first represented a return to a territority not dissimilar from brainiac. then enon took a different turn. and then several more. anyhow, lost marbles and exploded evidence is a collection of b-sides and other stuff that enon has released over the years. some of it is brilliant some of it not so much so. but then it is fun and inventive. the sample sort of represents pieces of both with the schmersal "part" of the song sounding very much like the direction brainiac was heading in towards the end.

webjay

improved services by ghostdogjr -- on the right hand side you should be able to find a new link to webjay followed by a few tracks. click the link and you will be transported to ghostdogjr's webjay page where you can listen to the playlist that has been set up there -- sort of like radio ghostdogjr.... the songs are a mix of the old and the new for now but do not include the samples I throw on this page. and if you get bored with me you can always find other good music on webjay.org. also, i would appreciate a comment if you try it out and like it - or dislike it.

kristen

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i caught kristen opening up for deerhof in berlin over a year ago and, well, i was truely impressed by them - and not only because it was the first polish indie band i've heard. live their sound was a bit polvoesque - i couldn't honestly say that i liked all their songs but the good ones were really damn good. on record they sound quite different - somewhere between the jazzy leanings of karate and, well, sort of the tortoise/chicago sound. really damn nice actually.

intransitive preferences, iia, or extreme preference change?

again pitchforkmedia is the subject - they just published there best albums 2000-2004. and you may recall that not to long ago they published their top 50 for 2004. interestingly enough arcade fire - funeral was choosen the best of the rest in 2004. Yet it only makes it to no. 45 in the period 2000-2004. so was 2004 such a bad year in music compared to the previous four? well, not really according to the results: no. 9 animal collective - sung tongs, no. 13 madvillain - madvillainy, no. 18 devandra banhart - rejoicing in the Hands, no. 25 brian wilson - smile (sic!), no. 36 the streets - a grand don't come for free, no. 37 ghostface - the pretty toney album, and no. 40 the fiery furnaces - blueberry boat. obviously there is some inconsistency here. or did pitchforkmedia happen to change its preferences so radically over the course of a month or so? a more likely explanation are the rules used to come up with the ranking - i.e. the may not guarantee transitivity (if A is better than B, B is better than C, then A must be better than C) or perhaps it just fails on the independence of irrelevant alternatives (like when the presence of Ralph Nader determines the outcome of what is really a contest between Gore and Bush in 2000 - maybe?). at any rate, although i don't disagree a whole lot with the list, this just goes to show that lists like these are rather meaningless and we can all just relax....

bossa nova part II

Nouvelle Vague - st

somewhere I read that nouvelle vague is french for bossa nova (portugese) and new wave (english). so, if camping's flirt with bossa nova seemed like destined for failure then nouvelle vagues' album seemed doubly so. basically, this is an album of bossa nova covers of joy division, pil, the clash, dead kennedys, the sisters of mercy, the cure, and others. basically songs that don't really lend themselves to the treatment they receive here in an obvious way. naturally, the results are a little mixed but overall it is an inspired effort and the successes (or not) are not where you expect to find them. e.g, the depeche mode doesn't quite work as well as it should while the cover of love will tear us apart works pretty well, perhaps because the band avoids giving too straight of a reading of the song. perhaps the biggest surprise is too drunk to fuck, which has never sounded as intoxicatingly fun. the greatest asset of this album is that it doesn't succumb to thinking of itself as a "fun bossa nova project" but attempts instead to focus on what it was that made many of these songs so great to begin with while offering a different interpretation.

bossa nova time part I

Camping - Suburban Shore

well, not your grandma's bossa nova really. for one thing the singer sings in german, which admittedly doesn't seem right ... although it ends up sounding quite right. the rest of the trio has also released cds under the name chessie sounding more like m83's kind of shoegazing and occasionally that sounds creeps through the bossa nova. a combination somehow unlikely to succeed (on so many levels) but nevertheless the trio pulls it off effortlessly and beautifully.

silkworm - cotton girl (acoustic)

i just rediscovered this song. an acoustic cover of their own - insanely brilliant and much better than the original electric version.

sage frances

oh, and check a couple of sage's tunes out at syrdurrjomi.blogspot.com. His new one is not bad at all - not that one would have expected that from his previous albums with or with-out the non-prophets.

what's spinnin'

well that damn list has prevented to post anything else for a while. so it looks like the year starts with a whimper and not a band. disappointing releases all over the place. bright eyes' albums were subpar - although there are some good songs inbetween. trail of dead was likewise a huge disappointment as i have mentioned earlier. and now, lou barlow emerges with a album so boring that it hurts. i think somewhere along the road i just completely lost my patience for lou. yeps, sebadoh was great but the more i think about it, lou's whining was the least attractive bit of the equation. and, of course, i don't like the way he holds his bass. but all is not lost, amon tobin's soundtrack (game not movie) is pretty "nice" - "nice" because it is kinda nightmarish and scary. not his most brilliant but damn it actually makes me want to get the game it was written for. prefuse 73's new album is also promising and includes contributions from almost anyone who is worth anything - including my what's-her-name in blonde redhead. busdriver also has a new album that sounds quite interesting as well. and finally, cloud cult released an album last year that was, well, interesting. earthy types these guys i'll tell you. i don't like the earthy types but the songs don't appear to be too recycled. check 'em out here. and here

at last at last

that took a while. and i certainly regret it. and now i have decided lists are stupid and serve no purpose except to upset people. i came to this realization reading pitchforkmedia's top 100 singles 2000-2004 (as well after spending lots of time tracking down their top 50 singles of 2004). this must be some sort of an in-joke, right? justin and britney in the top 20? lcd soundsystem with two entries in the top 20? are there different standards for singles? or do none of the "regular" people release single anymore? or is pitchfork the new rolling stones? counter-revolution please!

one

Blood Brothers - Crimes

i guess this album represented a little change of pace for the blood brothers. there is a little new wave feel there i guess - at least that's what i thought when i first listened to the album but i can't really hear it anymore. now it just sounds like frantic screaming and wailing. well, not exactly, the music is actually quite "nice" and the two vocalists really make my day. but most importantly it all comes together in a solid whole. although this album is just mountains of fun i can't somtimes help notice it because i get too impressed with how the vocals and the instruments fit together. at any rate, certainly not the prettiest of this bunch but it is worth testing your patience with.

two

Madvillain - Madvillainy

well yeah, it should be apparent that i'm a sucker for mf doom. this album is just so brilliantly inventive that i have no words to describe it. and i'm not going to try. hip hop's biggest leap forward since public enemy.

three

Detachment Kit - Of this blood

the album starts of like the decemberists then kicks into gear with a song better than anything trail of the dead aspired to (ok, i'm pissed at the trail for their lame new album) before visiting the world brainiac left vacant a few years back. and then we get the prettiest song released last year. this band is just fucking amazing - most bands are content with sticking with one genre and doing it decently. not here. this band is also responsible for the best show i caught last year. devastating. how can i choose just one song? another one

four

Patrick Wolf - Lycanthropy

damn kids. don't the talented seem to get younger each year. or maybe it is just me. the new connor oberst with a taste for cabaret? it certainly shares some of the splendid theatrics that oberst is (was?) capable of. musically it is a mixture of electronics and more traditional instruments. very impressive, very addictive.

five

Arcade Fire - Funeral

if last year was any band's year it was arcade fire's year. one moment they were nowhere, the next they were on the top of the world. accordingly they are the band we would love to hate. but we can't. and i'm sure you know by now. and for god's sake, if you get a chance to see them live, do it.

six

Ratatat - Remixes vol. 1

well, i wrote about this album a couple of weeks back so.... feel free to look it up in the archives. in short, excellent reworkings of some hip hop songs. ratatat again brings horrid guitars to the mix and the results are no less fascinating than before. actually it must be more fascinating giving the higher ranking.

seven

Gonzales - Solo Piano

yes, this is the foul mouthed canadian rapper who brought us let's groove again a couple of years back. now he writes solo pieces for piano and i'll be damned if they just aren't damn pleasing. admittedly i don't think i'm perfectly able to distinguish the quality of the album and the fact that i'm still in shock after gonzales' turnaround. what next, jay-z playing the cello? at any rate, if you feel like trying something different and nice this just might be it.

i still can't help but find his website a little funny.....

eight

Max Richter - Blue Notebooks

i didn't really expect to like this album very much but i gave it a chance because it came out on fat cat. for a lack of words to describe the music it is in some ways classical (which is a bad word coming from my mouth) and in others electronic. or whatever the instrumentation not dissimilar from what many post-post-rockers (e.g. godspeed) are playing at. but the results here are very very pretty and this remained the album i listened to while working for much of the summer.

nine

Les Savy Fav - Inches

actually not an "album" but a compilation of singles released since their last release (i think). we should be thankful (or unthankful now that they are on hiatus) for bands that like les savy fav decide rocking out is far better than being cool (sorry guys). then again les savy fav doesn't really rock, i just think of them that way. there is more concern with sounds and textures but not at the cost of letting the energy down. sometimes they even verge on being dancepunk but again the emphasis would on the punk whereas everyone else seems to have forgotten that part.

ten

Interpol - Antics

probably the album i waited most anxiously for this past year. their debut really grew on me - from being just another band mining the past with good results to being (how come noone mentions the kitchens of distinction here) simple one of my favorite albums ever. deep inside i always feared that turn on the bright lights was just a fluke but at the end of the day antics proved to be about as good as one could hope for. its not a huge departure for the band in anyway.... but then again it wasn't really what i had hoped for.

eleven

The Go!Team - Thunder Lightning Strike

one frantic albums guitars, drums and horns all over the place and it sounds somewhat like what i would expect the theme song for dukes of hazard to sound like (yeps, i've never seen an episode). if i'm off track here feel free to let me know. anyhow, the album is fun as hell and i was very impressed from the moment i heard their first single. i was even more impressed when i realized these guys actually play instruments.

twelve

Frog Eyes - The Folded Palm/Ego Scriptor


so i'm cheating - it really is two albums. one studio and one live. i've been fascinated by this band lately - the 'deranged' vocals can be a little much to take at first but soon it takes over as the most important instrument in the band. these are albums that are pretty at time, powerful at others but always captivating. if you miss the young nick cave and his bad seeds this might just prove to be the fix for you.

thirteen

Ratatat - Ratatat

the album that should never have worked - horrible synth-sounding guitars mixed with hip-hop-ish beats. instead it is equally one of the most fun and most strangely moving album of the year. hot damn.

fourteen

Blonde Redhead - Misery is a butterfly

blonde redhead may just be may favorite band ever. i tend to think of misery is a butterfly as the 'baroque' version of blonde redhead. the songs are great but it probably would have ended up higher on the list if the sound hadn't been so polished - i miss the rawer breathing lo-fi sound of the earlier albums. but lovely nonetheless.

fifteen

mf doom - venomous villain

another killer album released by mf doom this year. normally productivity like this would make one suspect about the quality - and indeed many complained that his mm doom consisted mainly of beats from his special herbs albums - but there is no reason to complain. ok, it is perhaps not quite as good as viktor vaughn but then again one's expectations do change over time - mf doom brought something new to the game and it is hardly new anymore and therefore it is hardly as thrilling. at any rate, i have listened to this album as much as most of his earlier efforts. cartoon hip hop at its best

sixteen

Apostle of Hustle - Folkloric Feel

the broken social scene sound is unmistakable and frankly this album is the second best thing one could wish for (well, other than the fifteen albums that topped this one). somewhere i read that this album was supposed to be influence by latin music but i just can’t hear it. at any rate, definately the fix to tide you over until the new bss album but more importantly it is not simply a carbon copy.

seventeen

Masta Killa - No Said Date

i would like to say that i was nostalgic for the wu-tang clan but i never really got into them until after the were splintered all over the place. but of all the splinters this probably sounds the most like the wu-tang clan - and that without sounding dated. anyhow, you are dared to sit absolutely still through this song.

eighteen

Xiu Xiu - Fabulous Muscles

xiu xiu have always been an interesting proposition. while each release has had several great songs there have always been some that verge on the unlistenable. not so much this time around. still semi-disturbing at times but very very listenable and, well, likeable. and, yes, his voice grows on you. interesting trend this year (or maybe it is just me?) - sort-of-deranged singing? Anyhow, Xiu Xiu deliver this time around.

nineteen

Midwest Product - World Series of Love


oh well, this one was actually released in 2003 but since i'm a little slow.... this is yet another album that snuck up on me. as much as dislike the 80s it is quite obvious that Midwest Product draw their influences from the period. it is just so damn listenable. and admittedly their influences are more likely new order than paul young. anyhow, a near perfect blend of electronics and "real" instruments.

twenty

CocoRosie - La Maison de Mon Reve


this album should perhaps been disqualified for its pretention potential right away. two americans with a french fetish record an album mixing the old and the new with, what at least sounds like, odd instruments. thankfully i'm not particularily against pretention (how could one survive iceland otherwise?!) and what i found is one of the more refreshing albums of the year. it does sound unique almost to the point of being timeless and it is equal parts sweet and sinister.

twentyone

Mono - Walking Cloud, Deep Red Sky, Flag Fluttered and the Sun Shined


true, this album didn't get great reviews & i was a little disappointed with it myself. and at least for me part the reason was that it didn't quite live up to its previous outings - and, yes, there are a number of bands doing a good job at the quiet-loud-quiet-loud type of numbers. at any rate, walking cloud just wasn't the change of pace that i had hoped for but in the end i was still won over by the stunning beauty of this album. despite a number of well qualified in the category mono stands heads and shoulders above the rest. the sample song is perhaps not characteristic of the album but it hints at why, perhaps, they outdo their peers - this one could easily find home on an album by the delgados or mercury rev.

twentytwo

Department of Eagles - Whitey on the Moon

where on earth did this come from? and why did noone notice? released in 2003 but its my list so i'll dance if i want to. just a freakishly fun album from a couple of guys that don't seem to take themselves to seriously. not that there is any sloppiness around, it is a beautifully inventive album from all over the place. its variety reminds me of cex's earlier stuff but the neat bits could easily be mistaken for daedelus' best work - and coming from me that is high praise indeed.

twentythree

Sonic Youth - Nurse

another back to form album on the list. i had pretty much given up on sonic youth – not that i didn’t like there last few albums, i just never really got into them. here, however, just great sonic youth songs, nothing too revolutionary but simply a solid album.

twentyfour

Alias - Muted

released in 2003 but new to me. and it is all about me anyway. the song with Markus Acher from the Notwist has to be the song of the (last) year. great great song. nothing on the album can really compare but Alias is certainly someone to keep an eye on (like most everything on anticon)

twentyfive

Sondre Lerche - Two Way Monologue

my sunday morning album. coffee, fresh bread and a dose of sondre. extremely poppy in an orchestral sort of a way reminding me a bit of Beck at times. extremely hummable, extremely pleasant, and extremely nice.

twentysix

Fingathing and the Big Red Nebula Band

what a horrible name for a band. and what horrible cover art. i didn't have high hopes. especially when the line consists of a drummer, bassist and a dj. bound to be some sort of wankery going on. but they sound like daft punk. everybody dance like a robot now. but what a wank.

twentyseven

Ikara Colt - Modern Apprentice

did noone notice this album? nothing really new here and the influences shine through: the fall, sonic youth, joy division, unwound all stuffed in the ikara colt blender and the result is about as good as one could hope for. a great anti-dote to all the laptop rock, the freak folk, the dance punk and whatyouhave.

twentyeight

MF Doom - MM Food

the beats had most appeared on his special herbs series but who gives a damn...

twentynine

Efterklang - Tripper

back in the day the Icelanders spoke Danish to seem posh. today danish bands copy sigur rós. oh, how the tide turns. but to be fair, this is pretty nicely done and more than a basic carbon copy. for one thing some nicely done electronics…. and stuff.

thirty

Shannon Wright - Over the Sun

this album is intolerable. I’ve never been able to listen to it in its entirety – it just sucks the life out of me. But in small doses each song is a depressing gem. Nice guitars, nice voice, painful listening.

thirtyone

Norfolk and Western - Dusk in Cold Parlours

a quiet little album that managed to cling to my cd player for quite a long time. hints of calexico but, well, more alt-country. and i have never really got along with alt-country at all. more in the vein of the pernice brothers and lambchop perhaps? who knows? who cares? i like it.

thirtytwo

Erlend Oye - Dj kicks

i was prepared to hate this album as much as i did hate his last one. so i was a little disappointed that i just couldn’t hate this. a rather clever little album that is essentially a compilation but together by Oye but with the twist of adding some of his own vocals. surprise of the year. only half bad.

thirtythree

PJ Harvey - Uh huh her

frankly i started disliking pj harvey (as much as one can) about the same time everyone started liking her. on this album it was back to the basics and what pj does best. Rawer, simpler, less theatric.

thirtyfour

Ghostface - The Pretty Toney Album

i had somewhat mixed feelings about this album for a while and frankly i wasn’t sure if i wanted to like it. but in the end i came to my senses. the perfect marriage of hip hop and vintage soul (actually, i have no idea whether it is vintage or not but it sounds like it).

thirtyfive

The Thermals - Fuckin A

fuckin a! the thermals brought the rock. not quite the blast their last year's album brought upon us but still fuckin a! simple, lo-fi, catchy. end to begin

thirtysix

Autolux - Future Perfect

call it nostalgia. it is true that i still miss my bloody valentine. but this is not really anything like mbv. more like the americanized version of shoegazing. far more melodic and poppier but thick, crunchy guitars. pretty and loud - wasn't that really what shoegazing came down to?

it's been awhile

so i took a little break from blogging over the holidays... but enough laziness. at any rate, like any other proper music nerd i have spent the last few weeks trying to figure out what the best albums released last year were - b/c it really matters, you know.... due to time constraints i will be posting my top 35 (don't ask why!) in seven installments over the next couple of weeks or so . with song samples no less! at any rate, the links to the songs will only be active for a very limited time. first installment appears tomorrow (or the day after?). it's all very exciting, isn't it! but until then "old-fashioned" rock from the like young: out to get ME. sometimes simple is good. drums, simple guitar riffs and songs catchier than the flu.

namelessnumberheadmen

how to attract love

well, yeah, possibly the worst band name since, i don't know, chicago...? thankfully the band is a lot better than its name. basically electrotinged (?) pop a bit like hood or perhaps slowdive. that sort of reverb fueled pop but more pop. how to attract love doesn't really kick in until after 2 min. so be patient. & then the pop-bliss only lasts for about 22 seconds. quite nice though. & worth the wait.

&#""!%"%$%#&"

.... it seems some people have too much time on there hands. if you do to, try this: {}

12 rods

accidents waiting to happen

pitchforkmedia reports that 12 rods is no more. it is sad b/c after strikingly uneven career they really hit gold with last year's lost time, which was perhaps one of the best albums last year. ironically that album was released by the band itself after the left (kicked?) their major label. at any rate, lost time is great in the same way that weezer is great. great pop dressed up as rock. great fun. definately stuff to sing in the shower.

ratatat (reakwon remix)

smith bros.

ratatat may just have scored the song of the year with seventeen & their album was one of this year's most interesting propositions laying stale 80s guitars and synths over hip hop beats to a surprisingly great effect. althought the hip hop beats weren't terribly obvious their latest release of hip hop-remixes confirms that the hip hop influence wasn't just a happy accident but a real influence. so this time around ratatat rework missy elliot, raekwon, dizzee rascal, jay-z and some other rappers of varying "quality". and strangely enough, they pull it of again. the 80s guitars are not as noticable but somehow the manage to interject a touch of melancholy into the songs and, frankly, it adds a whole another dimension to these songs. in some ways a lo-fi version of rjd2's work with cannibal ox (which IS the best rap album since public enemy' it takes a nation of million to hold us back) without the paranoia. considering what they throw into the mix one might say the sum is greater than parts but more accurately one could say that they turn shit into gold.

gallon drunk

now and forever

somehow gallon drunk disappeared from my sights until recently. and frankly they never got the attention they deserved way back when. anyhow, they released their last album, black milk, maybe a couple of years back & it is finally now that i had the sense to track it down. sure it doesn't quite match the their old stuff and it is a lot more mellow. interestingly enough, gallon drunk's james johnston is now one of nick cave's bad seeds. interesting, because black milk actually sounds quite a bit like barry adamson who is an old bad seed. so once again the world makes sense.

playmusicmagazine.com

the idea of putting a magazine online always seemed a bit stupid to me. simply because it is much nicer to sit down with a coffee on a comfy couch to browse/read. staring at the computer screen which you probably do all day anyway can get a bit tiring. but this one goes at least halfway towards convincing me otherwise. the content isn't that great but it adds some stuff to what paper magazines can't achieve. background sounds, music to go with the fashion spread, animations. kinda neat.

ghostdogjr goes podcasting

well, well. apparently one of my two readers resents having to click on the links to download the music samples. my kind nature quickly implemented his suggested solution of setting the blog up for podcasting. more accurately, i needed some excuse not to do some other less exciting things. for those of you not in the know (which was me until a couple of days ago) this means that with the appropriate software the songs will be downloaded automatically and automagically to your computer and ipod (if you are lucky/rich/cool enough to have one). you can check www.ipodder.org and various other places on the net to find the software. an added bonus of using podcasting is that you no longer have to read the crap i write! but that would naturally make me quite sad and eventually bored with posting things.....

air novoselic

well, well .....

kingdom flying club

the closer i get

just a nice pop song from the album non-fiction. sometimes simply is good, sometimes great.

frog eyes

bells in the crooked port

i'm a bit mystified that people aren't raving more about this band. sure it isn't easy listening but you would be surprised how soon you get used the vocal and actually start liking them. for the meaningless lame comparisions think crossing nick cave with jeff buckley with a healthy dose of xiu xiu. the song is from the folded palm released this year on absolutely kosher (another song here) but they also released ego scriptor, an acoustic album, this year. it is just as good. carey mercer, the singer, also has a solo album under then name blackout beach.

the flesh

love your fate

the faint's wet from birth almost ruined my year. the flesh goes a long way towards giving me my dose of the faint for the year. though in all fairness they are more similar in spirit than in sound. not nearly as driven by rhytm as the faint was and the vocals remind me more of the blood brothers. love your fate hijacks bits of destiny's child and it sounds utterly brilliant. the rest of the album may be more brilliant. so brilliant indeed that it received a great review by cnn. whether or not that is a recommendation....

micro reviews

low - the great destroyer: the best since their first? low rocks out - relatively, that is. surprisingly good. mercery rev - the secret migration: not bad unless you compare it with their old stuff. then it sort of blows. but as expected sort of flaming lipsesque poppy that I guess is every bit as much mercury rev's sound. i just miss the damn guitars. m83 - before the dawn heals us: more varied than their last & the sound isn't as distinguished. but basically the tracks that rock, rock and the slow stuff is a little boring. plus some horrible eighties vocals. terribly uneven. and you will know us by the trail of dead - worlds apart: let's just say that it is hard to see them destroy any stages to this music. not necessarily bad... just sort of retro bowie type sound. actually, it is kinda bad but maybe i need to give it another listen. bright eyes - digital ash in a digital urn & i'm wide awake it is morning: it sort of makes sense for bright eyes to release two albums. both their last album and the shows have suffered from being too all over the place. don't get me wrong, i think bright eyes is responsible for some of the best songs in the last few years, but i think at some point either i just lost interest or oberst ran out of ideas. the "acoustic" album in its better moments reminds me a little of a lesser elliott smith. the more folksy stuff just bores me now. the "digital" album also fails to convince though i think it contains a few of the better songs in this batch. another disappointment. hood - outside closer: the first single was fantastic (video). the album is a bit more low key. in terms of pop it doesn't quite reach the heights of their previous stuff but it sounds just as good - just more ambient than before.

khonnor

megan's present

it is a little depressing when these teenagers make such good records. khonnor is supposedly seventeen years old and he has put together a pretty nice laptop-rock album. for lack of time i'll just say m83, slowdive with a touch of the flaming lips. something along those lines i guess - or not. just check the song out. his website is pretty nice too: www.khonnor.com/

alias

unseen sights

well, enough bitching and whining about things that don't matter. i stumbled upon this album muted by alias released last year on the anticon label. the temptation is to label it instrumental hip hop because of the lable he is on but it is neither hip hop nor entirely instrumental. it is closer in spirit to boards of canada and occasionally maybe four tet. alias has worked with a bunch of hip hop artists of the good kind, e.g., slug and sage francis, but here is a song where markus acher from the notwist (another excellent band) provides the vocals. this song simply amazes me - the music and the vocal just fit perfectly together. i don't know whether i'm more impressed by the stunning prettiness of the song or just how it is pieced together.

on the methodology of the record review

record reviews don't usually bother me - it just someone's opinion & in most cases they probably reflect more on the writer than the artist being reviewed. but on the other hand most of us read reviews in the hope of finding out about the latest and the greatest so in a sense a writer, or a publication, can become a useful guide to what is hot and what is not. everett true (of the nme? or was it melody maker?) used to be my northern star for a while guiding me towards some great music. today, the internet has taken over and a number of websites offer a narrower focus than the aforementioned publications and i put a lot of stock into, e.g., pitchforkmedia. but once in a while i have my doubts. three things bother me - they don't apply only to pitchforkmedia but, hell, for the point of illustration. one. old farts that are no good. does michael jackson's compilation really deserve 8.0? i don't think anyone who wasn't a teenager while mj was at his "peak" would seriously consider thriller any good. take away all the memories you may associate with mj's music including the moonwalking in highschool and what is left? pretend mj was unknown and released any of his albums today. do you really think you would prefer listening to him rather than say modest mouse or out hud or max richter? my point is that i read record reviews to find stuff i like not stuff that may have some significance in pop culture history or in someones adolesence. i simply would never but mj's music on. because really, it is utter crap. two. old farts that are good. this really is the same complaint but i would feel terrible putting the clash into the same category as michael jackson. the clash made some stellar music no question. but did London Calling deserve a 10.0? great album but for the same reason as above i think someone's judgement may just be a little clouded by history and, as such, it doesn't signal accurately to me, or rather someone that hasn't heard the clash, how good the album is. how often do you think "i think i'll put the velvet underground on because they were so influential"? I don't know, but i tend to listen to them because i like the music. however important the music may have been in whatever social context you want to put it, it doesn't really make it better. write an article about these things - they are interesting in themselves - but don't call it a record review. three. "legends". now i'm thinking brian wilson and smile. forget the myth, review the album. C-. four. we're so damn hip we like crap. it is a tough world other people are also reviewing cool music. and you have to stay a step ahead. and it is good. pitchforkmedia, e.g., has exposed me to lots of stuff i wouldn't have stumbled upon if it hadn't been for their insistence to dig up new "more out there" stuff. but there comes a point in every hipster's life that they can't stretch any further. and the only way to stay cool is to start liking the lame. i refuse to believe that pitchforkmedia likes annie's anniemal that much (8.8) - i think it is misguided coolness. it is not a bad album but it isn't that good either. i check pitchforkmedia, and others (see links), out not because i'm curious to know what people there like but because they have shown themselves to be fairly reliable in recommending music. coolness, by its nature, is no reliable.

so i guess i'm arguing for a "veil of ignorance" method of record reviewing. Ideally, one should know nothing about the artists and simply let the music speak for itself. With famous old farts this, of course, is pretty much impossible but the reviewer should try to distance themselves from all those factors that don't really relate to whether the cd/album is worth listening to. well, enough bitching - got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning. and an hour too early as well.

the duke spirit

red weather

over the years i have sometimes wondered about the influence of "geography" on music. it certainly seems that cities rise and fade in terms of their output of "good quality" music. think seattle way back when and montreal today. what i find more interesting, however, is the continental divide. why is there so much music coming out of the states and so little out of the uk? it might just be the size but in my estimation it doesn't account for the differences. there are simply very few british bands that i like these days. trying to think of a few i can come up with arab strap, mogwai, 22-20s, and british sea power. and, well, chris clark and aphex twins. when i first got serious about listening to music the situation was almost reverse. of course, flipping through my collection i have to say happy mondays were shit and the stone roses weren't really much of anything - though they certainly were a notch. still, my bloody valentine, jamc, and ride have stood the test of time. so maybe it is just a matter of taste. but of the bands above two are scottish and the rest (excl. the electronic) sound pretty american. anyhow, the duke spirits also sound american. except that the singer sounds like pj harvey but pj harvey always sounded a bit american to me. her early stuff certainly appeared more related to babes in toyland or hole than any british artists i can recall from the time. at any rate, the point is that i like the duke spirit. resorting to lame comparisons i think they bluesy version of sonic youth (read: w/o the experimental edge) mixed with tricky's reading of public enemy's black steel in the hour of chaos. and of course it comes nowhere close to describing the sound. but at least i tried. just check red weather from their first ep out.

daedelus

cadavre exquis

the title song (well, translated into french) from daedelus' upcoming release. if you haven't heard daedelus before he is pleasant sort of chap from san fran that likes to play with electronics. what sets him a part is probably the source of his sounds, which as far as I can tell are from the 20's and 30's. my first encounter with daedelus was invention which got me all excited. such neat sounds! and somehow it worked. later on came the weather, a collaboration with busdriver and awol one, which was essentially a rap album with daedules providing the tracks. well, it was a lot of fun but i often wished that they had mixed the album differently, bringing the music a bit more upfront. daedelus must have thought the same becomes rethinking the weather, an "instrumental" version, appeared shortly after the weather. on his forthcoming album deadelus keeps moving further away from IDM to hip hop, this time collaborating with a variety of rappers including mf doom, which i always imagined would be a near perfect match. i wasn't entirely right but the thing is that mf doom's stuff can't really be improved on so it nowhere near a miss. prefuse 73 also appears on a track that could belong on any prefuse 73 album. in the end it is all good fun but like before i'm not convinced daedelus should bother with the rappers. his fairytail mini-musicals are quite enough for me. at least this time around the music manages to shine through. the sample song features the french ttc who sounds a like a french missy elliot. which is not a bad thing at all. two thumbs up.

wordsworth vs. bush

i couldn't help but find this debate between bush and wordsworth a little entertaining.

hercules

can't go out

well, there is nothing really herculian about this band. pretty chamber pop recorded on a single microphone and mixed by maestro j mascis (though i wonder how much mixing you can do with something recorded this way... or maybe i'm just exposing my ignorance here?) at any rate, great stuff if you are in the mood for something, well, moody and melodic. more over at hercules' website + links to buy.

hood

the release date for hood's new album is slowly approaching. check out the lost you over at zuri's blog. i was completely floored by this song when hood played the airwaves festival here last month. completely brilliant in every way. the ep version doesn't quite match the thunderousness of the live version but it still remains one of this year's best songs. also, i've been hooked on mark lanegan's bubblegum lately. i won't offer a sample from the album because it works far better as whole than in parts. solid job from the old fart. also spinning on my, erm, computer: the danish efterklang and teenager khonnor's handwriting. samples will arrive shortly.

vincent & mr. green

like you

this sounds like a smoky bar (soon to be outlawed everywhere apparently) in the same way elysian fields does but less jazzy. also reminds me little of portishead. at any rate a notch above the other trip hop acts in my estimation. actually there is a whole lot more going on here than that would suggest. hints of country in some places, pj harvey in other. but altogether it makes for a nice listening.

department of eagles

the horse you ride

from nyc and consists of couple of guys named iron chrysalis and butterfly emerging. for my typically lazy review by comparison with other bands i would say that they are a little like hood and a little like radiohead. at any rate if you like either of these bands you just might like the department of eagles. fine fine laptop rock. a few more songs over at department of eagles.

gonzales

gogol

well, who would have thought! gonzales, yes the same potty-mouthed mc we love and hate, has a new album titled album solo piano, which is precisely what the album title describes. surprising in itself, what is even more surprising is that the album is pretty much excellent. the mood isn't dissimilar to max richter (whose blue notebooks is one of this years best albums). i'm totally flabbergasted.

john peel

BBC's John Peel died yesterday. few people have done more for indie music than this legend. he'll be missed.

the airwaves festival

so another airwaves festival has gone by. the highlights were not so high and the lows were low. the festival has become a bit too crowded. the frat boys have arrived. the scheduling was weird - the shins play in a glorified garage while the godawful gus gus get a prime spot at one of the bigger venues? so the music.

day 1. to rococo rot: good but after three songs I got a little tired. adem: boring. who on earth thought of giving these guys good reviews. they sound like the fucking barenaked ladies. hood: somewhat of a disappointment but some of the new stuff sounded interesting/promising. some "technical" difficulties going which probably didn't help. slowblow: very nice but please drop the 453 instruments and play some rock like back in the day. fourtet: the few minutes I saw were alright but not what I expected. úlpa: rocking it out at nasa. the two songs i witnessed were great. look out for these guys. ensími: very boring, formulaic alternative rock. avoid. sahara hotnights: it is nice to know that the swedes can fail at something.

day2. skakkamangage: my festival surprise. sound like arcade fire minus three band members. nice dynamics. i want to hear more. kid koala: koalas rock. hjálmar: 8 times better than i expected from an icelandic reggae band. which makes them alright. hot chip: nerd fun. great show, no desire to listen to their stuff ever again. kimono: can i say polvo? excellent stuff. can i ask for a more lo-fi approach to the next album, please?

day3. mugison: thinks he is cool. and he is a little bit. but not enough for the act he tried to pull off. could have done with out ragga gísla on the second song. actually, just scrap that song altogether. but when he was good, he was good. Unsound: pretty good. i'll see him again. singapore sling: despite most of the members leaving the band they rocked and were better than last time i saw them. the stills: i wasn't crazy about the sound but they did a good job nevertheless. the shins: i didn't like the last album so i had rather low expectations that they thankfully managed to exceed. quite entertaining despite the crowd. Croisztans: i only caught one song but what a song. some definately ungodly noise. the pogues vs. death

dayafter: nursing a hangover i went for a beer and happened to see hudson wayne at sirkus. i may have enjoyed this show more than the entire festival. they are just a nice band. not terribly original but they do their stuff well. somewhere close to idaho, mojave three, ....

hood

you show no emotion at all

hood is playing at the airwaves festival in Reykjavík this weekend. i saw them live about two years ago and they were absolutely great. live they were a little louder and twice as pretty. only fools will miss this show - probably the same people that missed Calla and Tv on the Radio last year. anyhow, their album Cold House was a little bit of a sleeper but once it kicked in there will be very little need for those other 39.4GB on your iPod for the next couple of weeks.

modest mouse

broke (live)

stumbled upon this unofficial bootleg Baron Von Bullshit Rides Again that doesn't look terribly unofficial. at any rate, decent live album that any serious mm fan will want to get there hands on.

fugazi vs. destiny's child

independent room

well, well

sonic youth

eyes and teeth

this song escaped my attention when it came out in 1999. some more sonic youth goods at saucerlike.

the legends

there and back

another band trading in retro sound from sweden. but this time going further back and digging up some soul. reminds me little of afghan wigs doing those fabulous soul covers - even though they don't quite reach those heights. but quite nice nevertheless

earlimart

the hidden track

death from above

romantic rights

just in case you missed it when pitchfork mentioned it. the canadians score again. home.

moron parade

grip

from seattle. indie stuff. visit them here. where you will find more songs. remind me a little of pavement back when the became incredibly bad and annoying. and it didn't get any better when the singer went on to do his own thing. sad really how great albums (ie slanted and enchanted) just seem to be accidents somehow. anyhow, i enjoy moron parade more than the combined output of pavement since s&e.

fingathing

walk in space

well, boredom sometimes pays. everything about fingathing appears kinda lame. the cover art, the line-up (bass, drums and a dj), and, well, the name of the band. but because I am bored i did decide to check them out and, what do you know, they are actually kinda fun. i couldn't have been more surprised. so they sound like, you know, a drummer, bassist and a dj, but a little like that band with that song around the world. i'm getting old can't remember anything anymore. sad really. anyhow, this song makes me want to groove like when i was young way back in the day. off to copenhagen. have a good weekend. both of you.

sondre lerche

the norwegians seem a little bit odd. but how many norwegian bands can you name? well, st. thomas is was for the longest time the only one i could think of. until now, that sondre lerche has started making waves. loung-y, popp-y, sondre lerche. and very enjoyable. check his stuff out here: sfgate.com's Sondre Lerche piece

patrick wolf

a boy like me

in my humble opinon (which is why i put it on the web) patrick wolf's lycanthropy is a strong contender for the album of the year. powerful, poppy and twisted. according to the merriam-webster dictionary lycanthropy means a delusion that one has become or has assumed the characteristics of a wolf. which makes the album title very clever. although i'm not sure what it is intended to mean. patrick has taken on his own characteristics? he is delusional? maybe i'm just confused because it is monday.

the detachment kit

ricochet

from chicago. most of the time they rock. but somtimes they don't. and it is difficult to tell which suits them better. they may suffer from a multiple personality disorder as a band. their rock is urgent, their quiet stuff sincere but onstage they are clowns. caught them at the lit lounge this summer where they were wearing costumes. it is a perfectly good reason to hate a band for wearing costumes. but in this case it had the opposite effect. their 2001 album They Raging, Quiet Army was just plain superb. their new one Of This Blood probably reaches higher in places but is not as consistent but contains the pretty song of the year, ricochet.

over at epitonic, a couple of songs from They Raging, Quiet Army

over at self-starter foundation, a couple more. if you are in the states they are offering a great deal.

british sea power

fear of drowning

this band got pretty smashing reviews when the decline of british sea power came out. then the hype sort of died out but what remains is one of the very best albums of last year. but it is one of these tricky ones. there isn't really a stand-out track that stands out - the album works as whole. it works ok in pieces too. but it is better as a whole. and you will actually not realize you like it until one day that you realize that you can't really live without it. ok, maybe a slight exaggeration but it is pretty brilliant. so, in short, a single song has no chance of doing the album justice but here it is anyways.

and, if you don't want to take my word for it, take Lou Reed's word it: it is a good album. [and if you don't like Lou Reed, like me, the album is still good.]

the lights

i'm a dangerous snake

the lights are from the northwest (usa) and are not all that bad. they released beautiful bird last year (i believe) & it is not a bad album. not at all. its just not great either. but the next one might be. there is certainly some excellent parts here - like the above song.

gus gus

how absolutely crap have gus gus become? not that they ever where that terrific to begin with. i had the unfortunate experience of seeing them last weekend and they were just incredibly ridiculously bad.

ted leo and the pharmacists

me and mia

i always had rather mixed feelings about ted leo but he finally won me over with the hearts of oak album, which is just hell of a pop album. for some reasons i think of billy bragg when i listen ted leo. but the kind of billy bragg if billy bragg was more fun. i managed to catch ted leo and the pharmacists play an outdoor show at east river park this summer and it was all good fun. not at least thanks to some old man that kept trying to get people to dance. ted leo put on a fine show but sea ray sort stole the show (album doesn't live up to their live show but try quiver). But back on topic, ted leo and the rx have a new album titled shake the sheet which is a little disappointing but does contain some excellent popsongs... like the above song.