Xmas eve!

Happy whatever to you and yours. Here's Stereogum and team9's gift to us all. Take a listen and visit their page for direct downloads.

I'm only 45 percent ashamed to say that I like the U2/Taylor Swift mashup. But it's actually pretty good! Top votes go to that one and the Cure/Phoenix one. Vampire Weekend/Rupert Holmes is an interesting also-ran but it sounds more like a remix of VW than a mashup.

Oh well.

Hate to say I told you so

It's Sunday so that means I buy a shit ton of CDs and hope that I find a new gem. I combed through the "Best of" 2009 lists and realized that I skipped over many hyped albums: Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavillion, Phoenix's Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, Miike Snow's self-titled, and Dirty Projectors' Bitte Orca. Honestly, I wasn't planning on hearing any of these albums but curiosity got the better of me, especially since three of these album have made every list I've read: but so did Bradford Cox and I hate him. For no apparent reason, too.

But these four bands had inadvertently fallen on my "For No Apparent Reason" list and once you've been FNAR'ed, it's hard to fall back on my good side. Usually it'll take an act of God. I once hated the Arctic Monkeys until I heard "Teddy Picker" in my friend's car. Instant love afterward. Now they reign supreme on my list of "Favorite Bands from Sheffield." In fact, they could be number one.

So when I come across a song that really piques my interest, there's some self-loathing involved as well. Because I wish I could have gotten rid of that prejudice and given the band a try in the first place. Oh well, better late than never.

So Phoenix, I salute you for reigning me with Liztomania. Barely three seconds into the song, I said to myself "Fuck, this is a good song." And all I heard were two repeated notes during those three seconds.

Animal Collective: You're alright. Way too overhyped, but alright with me.

Miike Snow and the Dirty Projectors, I'm still on hold with you because I haven't heard your album yet. But I will as soon as iTunes finishes downloading.

Bands on the FNAR list:
the Dirty Projectors (I'm really forcing myself to listen to Bitte)
Deerhunter/Atlas Sound/Bradford Cox
St Vincent
The Pain of Being Pure at Heart (one song in and I realized they ripped off the Field Mice, who I don't particularly care for because it's lo-fi shoegaze)
Au Revior Simone (I saw them in 2006 and was not impressed, annoyed in fact.)
Wilco (Yankee Foxtrot Hotel, ehhhhhhhh.)
CSS
Neon Indian (okay, this is legit hate because I don't care for this current fad of lo-fi moog electropop)
La Roux
Annie
Uffie
Julian Casablancas
Paul Banks/Julian Plenti (which is weird because I love Interpol)
Son Volt
Devandra Banhart
Volcano Choir

...should I stop there? Okay, part 2 will come when I'm too lazy to type up a review/praise of my new favorite band.

Rural Alberta Advantage at the Bootleg Theater Tuesday night. I'm going to shout out Neutral Milk Hotel songs and see if one of them gets covered. It's the closest I'll get to hearing that band live, unless I listening to a live recording. Tomayto, tomahto.

Get Down Stay Down

December is a bad month for music. For movies, it's awesome because Hollywood and its affiliate cram in their final Oscar films and advertising. But with music, not so much because of ranking reasons. Unless you're a small town indie band who does care about rankings, no good release happen during the year's end. To make up for this dearth, I flipped through Best Of lists to catch what I've missed or looked over. December 2009 is especially critical because it marks the end of the year and the decade, so double duty!

Based on a few music blogs, I've hunted down copies of David Bazan's Curse Your Branches, Thao and the Get Down Stay Down's We Brave Bee Stings And All, Song: Ohia's The Magnolia Electric Co and Belle and Sebastian's Fold Your Hand Child, You Walk Like a Peasant.

So let's start with Thao and the Get Down Stay Down: I was pleasantly surprised by her and her backing band. I expected cutsey, Emily Haines styled-vocals but I got Feist's beautiful baritone instead. Well, since she's a woman, it's mezzo soprano. But tomayto, tomahto. We Brave Bee Stings And All is a cohesive title for the album as Thao takes us through the whimsical journey of childhood segueing into adulthood. Nothing overwhelms on this album, from the trumpets to the guitars or the jaunty piano lines and even the handclaps on "Feet Asleep." All the instruments, including Thao's voice, merge into a warm blanket for the ears. The album is a bandaid for scraped knees and broken hearts. My only regret is not picking it up when it was released. My parting words will be taken from Thao Nguyen herself. "We brave bee stings and all/And we don't dive, we cannonball."

Words to live by.

Location is Everything

I found my Jade Tree Record compilation last night and I'm over the moon because I thought I had lost it. I also found a stack of records that I haven't copied to my computer yet. I own "Veni Vidi Vicious?" "The Life Pursuit?" Wow, news to me. The comp features a nice selection of bands, most recognizably The Promise Ring, Jets to Brazil and Pedro the Lion. Not so noticeable bands but still beloved by me are Denali, onelinedrawing, and New End Original. My favorite track is Lukewarm by New End Original.

Fun drum roll, fun hook, somewhat simple guitar chords, it's a poppy little indie rock song from the vault. So thanks, Jonah Matranga for this little gem from my high school days because the shout out loud anthem is still valid years today: I never want to be lukewarm and I never want to say my best days are behind.

P.S. Speaking of my high school days, I had a fit of word vomit on my friend's page: Permanent Standby. I need better metaphors but please do a hop skip long jump over there for some musical interludes for when I'm not available.

The Antlers

It is cold where she lies and when she wakes, white walls meet her eyes. Blank canvas for her unfocused eyes and you are hunched over with grief as you wait for the recognition to light up in her face. But such dark circles underlay her weary face and she gropes for your hand, the only warm thing in the room. While she sleeps, attached to wires and tubes, your own heartbeat rises and falls with the beep of the machine monitor. It is the only sound of life in this sterile room. Until you speak. To her.

This is Hospice by the Antlers. And that introduction was needed to prepare you for 53 minutes of highs and lows with main Antler-man Peter Silberman. This album is an emotional tour d'force. It is a journey. It is a march through a Russian winter. It is helplessness, stark fear, and loss. And so, so much more.

Sidelined as a witness to a love one's descent from cancer, Hospice begins with a sweeping Prologue and ends with a fluttering falsetto Epilogue, in between we sit fixated in bated breath. Silberman's smooth, patient voice treks through strained moments of dismay and simple melancholy. Without his voice, this album could have been a sad contender as Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion's little sister. With it, we play spectator to a hospital bed-bound victim. Each straining note, gripped hands are squeezed tighter. And we wait for Silberman to break beneath despair. Yet he never wavers.

On "Kettering," the words are slipping so softly that the words drip from his lips along a piano march. "There was no saving you" he ends as a fuzzy guitar reverb and drums segue us to "Sylvia," aptly named after Sylvia Plath. "Bear" is the most tragic (and easily best) track on this harrowing tale as it opens with a simple piano arrangement that could be for a child's mobile. But equating a bear cub with an unwanted pregnancy is where the beautiful turns into the forlorn as the chorus sweeps us into the realization that "we're too old/we're not old at all." How does one measure a life? Old enough to live, young enough to die.

I stick to my quick blurb on "Bear" as a summary of this album. With each track, we see Silberman's vulnerability slowly exposed and it is terrifying. And it is paralyzing to hope for a better end but when the penultimate track is titled "Wake," there is futile knowledge that the end is cold. So we listen, with knees pulled up to our chest and clasped hands to our lips. And we tremble along.

Tokyo-->Los Angeles

(Scanned postcard? Nope.)

I've returned from the lush green and red of Japan's foliage and I still want to marry my J-pop star idol. I didn't commit any international acts of kidnapping or poltical overthrows, hence my ability to post this entry. December will mark a return of fluid reviews. As a sign of my triumph escape through US Customs, here's a track by a Japanese band called OOIOO. Despite their band origin, their music is about as stereotypical un-Japanese as you can get. Tribal drumming and chanting, frentic beats, and downright psychedlic, they're pretty fun. For four little Asian girls, they pack a punch.



And just for kicks, here's a throwback to 2004.

Hiatus

I'm off to the other side of the world and would write an entry on pop music in Asia, but uhhhhhhhhh, let's not. Instead, I bought the following albums to listen to on the plane ride:

AA Bondy - American Hearts, which is what M Ward would have written if he was a boy from middle Americana who didn't sound like his voice box was scraped by cigarettes. Harmonicas galore!

I found my copy of M Ward's Transfiguration of Vincent and am so excited that I just can't hide it. You know, you know. I've seen him live and this man can turn a guitar beyond the definition of what a guitar can do. Finger pickin' awe. Musical talents aside, his voice is like a long drag of a cigarette. Smooth, calming, but laced with guilt that you shouldn't be smoking in the first place.

The Antlers - Hospice. "Bear" initially caught my ear, based on the title, because of my fondness for the majestic creatures. Then vocalist Peter Silberman takes me for a twist-turn ride through expectations and loss. His voice strains and all I want to do is take his hand and tell him it'll be okay. But I'm too busy crying in his arms, while he still sings in stretching notes. For four minutes and three seconds, his vulnerability is exposed and it is terrifying. With that said, the rest of the album is amazing and sits on my best of 2009 list.