No. 30 of 2010: Caribou - Swim

Whereas some artists tend to get bogged down in the genre layers within which they work to create something new, Dan Snaith has the singular ability to take any genre of music and turn its' particular characteristics to his liking and create something wholly recognizable as a Caribou album. From the sunshine-pop influenced Andorra to the much beloved classic Up In Flames, Snaith has melded the disparate aspects of dance, pop, and krautrock (and other genres) into cohesive albums that reflected the ever-changing moods, and tastes, of their creator. And while his previous albums have almost always been warm, inviting affairs, at least in their given contexts, Swim sees Snaith treading much more brooding, cold synth-induced waters. Dance music by its base descriptors and musical cues, Swim can be a bit alienating when compared with other Caribou albums.  Seeing as how Up In Flames, Andorra, and really most of his other releases were pock-mocked with songs that could easily initiate someone into the Caribou histories, Swim creatively dodges such easy entries and classifications but still manages to feel like a Caribou album. Opener "Odessa" is easily the poppiest track here and the most clearly lineaged from Andorra. And while the narratives of these songs tend to be snapshots from unhappy lives, they never sound forced or purposely positioned an Caribou's dark album; it does seem a natural progression.  And by using what he has learned on his previous records, Snaith has managed to create a Caribou album steeped in its own history, proving that progression is possible even within an artists own canon.

Tracklisting:

01. Odessa (listen to the mp3 below)
02. Sun
03. Kaili
04. Found Out
05. Bowls
06. Leave House
07. Hannibal
08. Lalibela
09. Jamelia

No. 31 of 2010: Gil Scott-Heron - I'm New Here

Such a caustic firebrand in the 70’s and early 80’s, Gil Scott-Heron has lost none of his spirited outrage in the interim years. His latest album, I’m Not Here, bristles with the kind of righteous indignation and world-weary stories of bitter acceptance that fans of his earlier work have come to expect from him. Whereas an album like Pieces Of A Man showed him pleading for a revolutionary change in societal standards, I’m Not Here plays more as a confession and a personal reflection on the world which he fought so hard to change, and these changes, as he sees them, are part of something he hadn’t necessarily intended, or wanted. The songs and spoken-word tracks that comprise I'm Not Here paint a vivid, if scathing, picture of Scott-Heron's mind and where his thoughts drift from day to day. Tracks like the striking "New York Is Killing Me" or the statement-of-intent confession of "On Coming From A Broken Home (Pt.1)" place his voice first and fore-most at the head of these songs, leading the twisting way through the broken cities described within. As Gil Scott-Heron has grown older, he has seen many of the injustices he rallied against in his youth done away with, only to be replaced with newer and fiercer problems.  And when we have overcome those, I'm Not There will still be here to remind us that the fight can only be finished within ourselves, and this is the soundtrack to that interminable struggle.

Tracklisting:

01. On Coming From A Broken Home (Pt. 1)
02. Me And The Devil
03. I’m New Here
04. Your Soul And Mine
05. Parents (Interlude)
06. I’ll Take Care Of You
07. Being Blessed (interlude)
08. Where Did The Night Go
09. I Was Guided (Interlude)
10. New York Is Killing Me (listen to the mp3 below)
11. Certain Things (Interlude)
12. Running
13. The Crutch
14. I’ve Been Me (Interlude)
15. On Coming From A Broken Home (Pt. 2)

No. 32 of 2010: Liars - Sisterworld

When Liars released their debut, They Threw Us All In A Trench And Stuck A Monument On Top, in 2001, they were poised to be the leaders of the then-burgeoning post-punk revival. Owing more to bands like The Delta 5 or Gang Of Four than to any recent peers, Liars' initial sound was a welcome change to the homogenized rock that seemed to be coming from every speaker at the beginning of the decade.  On through the challenging, but no less welcome They Were Wrong, So We Drowned and culminating in Sisterworld, Liars have always pushed themselves into new and sometimes alienating directions and I'm sure there was a time when they wondered whether their fans would follow.  Sisterworld does indeed seem like a culmination, of sorts, of the elements that have made them so endlessly fascinating over the course of their four previous full-lengths. These songs inhabit a nervous, even schizophrenic head-space, and while acknowledging the stylistic flourishes that have come to mark their last few albums, the songs also use basic song structures to create depth and mood. "Scissor", the brooding opener and "Scarecrows On A Killer Slant", a definite album highlight, tread the cacophonous tendencies that have become Liars staples and turns them into haunting, damaged songs, revealing a more personal side to Liars that we've seen before, which really isn't saying much; they've never been known for their tender side. Sisterworld revels in its' capacity for evoking tension and foreboding, and these songs build to something that, even after you've listened to all 11 tracks, is still undefined and just a shadow on the horizon.

Tracklisting:

01. Scissor
02. No Barrier Fun
03. Here Comes All the People
04. Drip
05. Scarecrows On A Killer Slant (listen to the mp3 below)
06. I Can See An outside World
07. Proud Evolution
08. Drop Dead
09. The Overachievers
10. Goodnight Everything
11. Too Much, Too Much

No. 33 of 2010: Los Campesinos - Romance Is Boring

Los Campesinos have managed to consistently release catchy, indie rock without the slightest trace of a sneer or unjustified swagger.  Amid all the backlash, and there was and still is a vocal contingent of indie fans who decry Los Campesinos as late-run imposters and hucksters, they have weathered their highs and lows with a certain amount of self-mockery and tour-bred acceptance.  On Romance Is Boring, led by ringmaster Gareth, the band sifts through the elements which made their past two full-lengths so memorable and instantly appealing and have managed to create an album which highlights their own brand of pop-rock punch without diluting or changing the essential nature of what makes this music work. Songs like "These Are Listed Buildings" and "I Just Sighed. I Just Sighed, Just So You Know" show the band working in sync, chugging out the hooks and melodies with an almost workmanlike ethic.  The seeming ease with which they toss off these colossal melodies and dynamic sing-alongs may seem ill-earned but for those of us who've followed Los Campesinos from their inception, it's exactly what we've come to expect.

Tracklisting:

01. In Medias Res
02. There Are Listed Buildings (listen to the mp3 below)
03. Romance is Boring
04. We’ve Got Your Back (Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown #2)
05. Plan A
06. 200-102
07. Straight in at 101
08. Who Fell Asleep In
09. I Warned You: Do Not Make an Enemy of Me
10. Heart Swells/100-1
11. I Just Sighed. I Just Sighed, Just So You Know
12. A Heat Rash in the Shape of the Show-Me State; or, Letters From Me to Charlotte
13. The Sea is a Good Place to Think of the Future
14. This is a Flag. There is No Wind.
15. Coda: A Burn Scar in the Shape of the Sooner State

No. 34 of 2010: Swans - My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky

If you’re at all familiar with the storied history of Swans, you’ll understand why a new album is a big deal for fans, and rightly so. Quickly after coming into existence in the early 80’s, Swans began a slow and steady churn of albums which took the concepts of disintegration and death to their extremes and created vicious records of seemingly endless darkness. These were not what you would’ve called conventionally “good” albums. But they were endlessly fascinating and a definite benchmark in what then would have been labeled doom metal. This was music made for cynics and the hoarding mobs of murderers and societal outcasts and miscreants. But on through the 80’s and 90’s, their sound refined and became slightly more melodic and, though never veering far from that original attitude of nothingness and decay, allowed texture and form to replace wanton gratuity. But Gira’s vocals were never anything less than scathingly ferocious. And it seemed that he was growing weary of what he perceived as the typical Swans aesthetic and so, in 1997, Gira disbanded Swans and began again as Angels Of Light. Thirteen years have passed since that time and Angels of Light have released records to great acclaim, and it seemed Michael Gira was happy in this stage of his career. So it comes as a wonderful surprise that he would gather the band together again and record a new lp’s worth of material, after having put Swans to rest. My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky is Gira’s attempt to place the Swans legacy alongside his current musical lineage, and by trying to reconcile the two, he has released one of the strongest Swans album to date. The martial beats and Grand Guignol church bells of “No Words/No Thoughts” that open the album allow a brief glimpse into the calm before the storm of the album. Quickly following these soft bell drones though, the songs’ intensity ignites and the fervor never lets up until we hear the final tones of closer “Little Mouth”. Michael Gira, despite all sensible notions, has reinvigorated Swans and brought to bear the full weight of his abilities, which is something that we haven’t seen in quite some time. Whether this is a one-off record for his die-hard fans or a return to active duty, you can be sure that Swans are back and they’re ready to fuck things up all over again.

Tracklisting:

01. No Words/No Thoughts (listen to the mp3 below)
02. Reeling the Liars In
03. Jim
04. My Birth
05. You Fucking People Make Me Sick
06. Inside Madeline
07. Eden Prison
08. Little Mouth

No. 35 of 2010: Wild Nothing - Gemini

Gemini seems to have been borne from hours of overdosing on 4AD and Slumberland records; you could even throw in a handful of Flying Nun releases as well. Within the past few years, there has been a resurgence of bands fixating on glittery, smooth indie pop from the 80's, with bands like The Radio Dept and Wild Nothing continuing the charge this year. And while this may come across as just simple nostalgia on some of the albums coming out, others bands, like the ones I've mentioned, seem to be doing it purely for the love of the music, not for some ultimately shallow or pedantic reason. Wild Nothing, much like The Radio Dept, take on the traditional forms of 80's pop and by adding their own personal touches, whether it be ambient effects or danceable beats, create songs that are so vivid and substantive that they often reach the heights of the bands from which they draw inspiration and so clearly love. "Live In Dreams" opens the album with a beautifully layered melody reminiscient of the best of The Cocteau Twins or The Smiths and proceeds to bring us into singer Jack Tatum's own depressed view of love and longing, while still showing him keeping a slight humor about it. And this slightly aware feeling permeates the rest of the songs. Wild Nothing has created an iridescent ode to pop music, which feels as unforced and as natural as the love which continually escapes Tatum.

Tracklisting:

01. Live In Dreams
02. Summer Holidays (listen to the mp3 below)
03. Drifter
04. Pessimist
05. O Lilac
06. Bored Games
07. Confirmation
08. My Angel Lonely
09. The Witching Hour
10. Chinatown
11. Our Composition Book
12. Gemini

No. 36 of 2010: ceo - White Magic

 If you've ever listened to The Tough Alliance, you're going to have some idea of what you're in for when you approach ceo's debut album, White Magic.  Not too surprising considering that Eric Berglund, the man behind ceo, is also one of the creative forces behind The Tough Alliance. And while both bands ostensibly make Swedish dance/pop, ceo manage to get beneath the surface peculiarities of that particular genre and create songs which hold genuine substance and weight, which can sometimes be a fault in this kind of music.  On White Magic, Berglund uses the synths and pop mechanics usual to his main band and creates songs that display a warmth and heart, which to me is indicative of man who seems to have finally found some happiness in his life.  Whereas most of The Tough Alliance songs were pleas and requests, although still hopeful, for contentment, the songs on White Magic plainly describe a man who has found, or at least is close to claiming, that desired end.  Songs like the jubilant "Illuminata" or the confessional "Oh God Oh Dear", show that Berglund has taken what he learned, and continues to learn, from his time with The Tough Alliance and has made a gorgeous pop record, which is really what this is, and by allowing us to share in his happiness, we feel the surging heart beneath these songs.

Tracklisting:

01. All Around
02. Illuminata
03. Love and Do What You Will
04. White Magic
05. Oh God Oh Dear
06. No Mercy
07. Come With Me (listen to the mp3 below)
08. Den Blomstertid Nu Kommer

No. 37 of 2010: Julian Lynch - Mare

Julian Lynch has succeeded with Mare where he fell short on his label debut album, Orange You Glad. Now I don't want it to seem like I'm being overly critical of his debut, but it showed just an inkling of what Lynch was capable of.  For instance, his conscious use of lower fidelity.  It seemed almost like Lynch was trying to think of ways to sound relevant in 2009, so he added that layer of lower fidelity, which was completely unnecessary.  He may have felt some kindred tie, with relation to fidelity, to the recordings he studied while working at Smithsonian Folkways Recordings and tried to pay some sort of strained homage to those artists, but in any case, the effect felt forced and did not contribute to the songs.  But on Mare, all pretense has been dropped and this is Julian Lynch's album, not what he thinks we want to hear, but his music, as it is, unadorned. The album culls from many genres to create an extended family of connected stories, which under his sure hand, never feel lazy or mismanaged. These quietly, assured songs feel like they could have been sung a hundred years ago, which may be exactly what he had in mind.  Only by the addition of ambient atmospherics and a few specific musical trend indicators could this record be considered modern and I'd wager Lynch wouldn't have it any other way.  The beautiful closer "In New Jersey" shows that when all artifice is dropped music can influence you in ways you could never begin to imagine.  By realizing that what his fans want to hear is just him, Lynch has created a work of hushed, comforted beauty that side-steps any easy classification and feels at ease with the world that it occupies.

Tracklisting:

01. Just Enough
02. Mare
03. A Day at the Racetrack
04. Stomper
05. Interlude
06. Still Racing
07. Ears
08. Ruth, My Sister
09. Travelers
10. In New Jersey (listen to the mp3 below)

No. 38 of 2010: Twin Shadow - Forget

Twin Shadow owes more than a little bit to the glistening synthpop of 80's bands such as Depeche Mode or The Blue Nile, and even a little to Echo & the Bunnymen. This adherence to a particular sound feels more akin to an honest love of that music than a careless attrempt to cash in on what he sees as a resurgence of interest in that particular vein of music. Without focusing too much on what some have dismissed as the "cold" aspects of synthpop and by allowing his songs to travel this well-worn territory without stamping out any trace of individuality, Twin Shadow tread familiar ground, while consistently evoking the mystery and haziness of the best of those 80's bands. The man behind Twin Shadows, George Lewis, Jr, creates wildly vivid songs that seem to be channeling some undefined traumas from his childhood, and with Chris Taylor of Grizzly Bear handling the production, the sonic palette, while limited, uses the standards of indie rock to filter out the dark, measured events of his upbringing. Not that this album relishes in its depression, it merely uses it as a starting point in the narrative arc of the album. Songs like "Castles In The Snow" and "Yellow Balloon" find Lewis bringing to bare the full complement of his songwriting styles, and along with Taylor, they mine these for a richly layered series of personal vignettes and half-forgotten, half-remembered memories. Lewis manages to evoke the spirit of the synthpop which he so obviously loves without losing the heart that allows this music to connect with the listener on a personal level.

Tracklisting:

01. Tyrant Destroyed
02. When We're Dancing
03. I Can't Wait
04. Shooting Holes at the Moon
05. At My Heels
06. Yellow Balloon
07. Tether Beat
08. Castles in the Snow (listen to the mp3 below)
09. For Now
10. Slow
11. Forget

No. 39 of 2010: Grinderman - Grinderman 2

Grinderman 2 follows in the same fierce, masculine footsteps of its predecessor. Like their self-titled release, Nick Cave and company have pulled together a group of songs that, while not being out of the realm of possibility of being on a Bad Seeds release, are firmly entrenched within the Birthday Party-era fuzzed out trash-rock of Cave’s earliest albums. Cave is now pushing past his 50’s, along with most of his band members, and this album, as was the same with the last one, he sparks a invigorating masculine take on indie rock. I’ve heard some say that Grinderman is an outlet for his more misogynistic tendencies and while I’ll not deny that songs like “No Pussy Blues” did little to curb that particular debate, I think Grinderman is more about accepting these stereotypes, and by working within them, Cave is allowed to play devil’s advocate for what he considers the ultimate male frustration, or possibly, at his age, he just wants to get laid a few more times. Grinderman 2 picks up this idea of aging frustration and perceived disuse and applies them to the band’s own individual psyches. The idea of sexual frustration and dilapidation run rampant across these tracks, as does Cave’s characters, and how they deal with it. “Heathen Child” finds Cave calling out to his young lover, and we sense in the mood of the song that this infatuation, as it clearly is, is not fully returned, and thus is borne more frustration. The only brief respites, such as they are, come in the form of “Palaces of Montezuma” and "All I Know", two gentle, beautiful songs that make the case for Cave’s acknowledgement of what his personal failings are but indicate a solid denial of surrender and thus the charge is begun anew toward some undefinable end.  When I get as old as Nick Cave, I should be so lucky.

Tracklisting:

01. Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man
02. Worm Tamer
03. Heathen Child (listen to the mp3 below)
04. When My Baby Comes
05. What I Know
06. Evil
07. Kitchenette
08. Palaces Of Montezuma
09. Bellringer Blues

No. 40 of 2010: Diamond Rings - Special Affections

Despite the strange lead-up to the creation of Diamond Rings, John O'Regan has managed to confound everyone expectations with the release of Special Affections. Conceived during a stint in a Toronto hospital, he worked through the time there battling Crohn's disease and writing new songs on guitar and keyboard. And from these songs, Diamond Rings was born, a far cry from his usual time spent in the post-punk band The D'Urbervilles. But the electro-glam musings of a rocker's side-project would generally be the last-ditch effort of someone trying desperately to hang on to some sort of notoriety, but thankfully, this is not the case for Diamond Rings.  Between the classic piano, ballad-y opener "Play By Heart" and the so-hummable-it's-criminal closer "All Yr Songs",O'Regan manages to encapsulate all those hoarded fantasies of kids wanting to put on eyeliner and sing along with Bowie. The songs here run the usual dance-pop gamut but they'll constantly flip through the course of each track and show you something that was hidden, something that was totally unexpected.  And it's here that Diamond Rings prove their meddle beyond the novelty of their own creation, they are a legitimate band and one that may manage to eclipse O'Regan's daytime job in The D'Urbervilles. And on the strength of this debut, that may happen sooner than he expected, or wanted.

Tracklisting:

01. Play By Heart
02. Wait & See
03. On Our Own
04. You & Me
05. Give It Up
06. Pre-Owned Heart
07. Something Else (listen to the mp3 below)
08. You Oughta Know
09. It's Not My Party
10. All Yr Songs

No. 41 of 2010: The Magnetic Fields - Realism

After the wholly original but unfairly tread-upon Distortion, Realism can frankly be called a Magnetic Fields album.  All the markers of Merritt's music are here, from the multi-vocal duties to the ornate and quite lovely strings and keys. He musters the quiet, and sometimes not so quiet, beauty of life and the despair that inevitable accompanies that same beauty, as only he can. Whereas Distortion layered those compelling Merritt melodies beneath an abyss of noise and hiss, Realism is a return to The Charm of The Highway Strip and Get Lost-era sharp, beautiful melodies and they are front and center. Songs such as the wistful opener "You Must Be Out Of Your Mind" or the mournfully accepting "Always Already Gone", show Merritt not merely treading familiar ground, but working within his own confines, he creates beauty and a surprising take on the stereotype of a Magnetic Fields song.  Yes, Realism is a quintessential Magnetic Fields album, but he has now taken that conceit to its next logical step, which is to go back to the basics of what made them wonderful to begin with.

Tracklisting:

01. You Must Be Out of Your Mind (listen to the mp3 below)
02. Interlude
03. We Are Having a Hootenanny
04. I Don’t Know What to Say
05. The Dolls’ Tea Party
06. Everything is One Big Christmas Tree
07. Walk a Lonely Road
08. Always Already Gone
09. Seduced and Abandoned
10. Better Things
11. Painted Flower
12. The Dada Polka
13. From a Sinking Boat

No. 42 of 2010: These New Puritans - Hidden

I would never have imagined the giant leaps stylistically that These New Puritans would have made from their last album Beat Pyramid to their newest album, Hidden. In just a few years, the already confident sounds on Beat Pyramid have given way to an almost complete overhaul of what These New Puritans seemed capable of doing, or recording. The almost boundless energy and creative haze surrounding these songs is as far removed from Beat Pyramid as it is from These New Puritans themselves.  Gone, well mostly, are the post-rock posturing and Bloc Party chorusing favored on Beat Pyramid.  These songs here are built upon the belief that they could indeed be songs if the These New Puritans were cleaver enough and creative enough to discover them.  Each song forgoes the chorus-verse-chorus routine and simply lets the band range from beat to beat.  There are spoken word diatribes, instrumental half-breaks, even strings and woodwinds thrown together and somehow through the tight control of the band, it works and it is fascinating to see the music flow.  Semi-concrete ideas and half-finished lyrical etchings comprise most of the vocal duties here; so the music, for the most part, carries the album, though I'd not diminish the wordplay, as some of the songs do indeed provide forceful reckoning.  Hidden is the album, I'd wager, that These New Puritans wanted to make from the get-go, but, new to the studio, weren't quite sure how to go about doing.  With their new found technical, as well as creative, prowess in hand, I'd say These New Puritans are only beginning to show us what they can do.

Tracklisting:

01. Time Xone
02. We Want War (listen to the mp3 below)
03. Three Thousand
04. Hologram
05. Attack Music
06. Fire-Power
07. Orion
08. Canticle
09. Drum Courts - Where Corals Lie
10. White Chords
11. 5

No. 43 of 2010: Delorean - Subiza

After last years bright, and immensely enjoyable, EP Ayrton Senna, Delorean have placed themselves firmly in the forefront of bands joining in on the Italo-electric pop scene; Jesus, what a descriptor. But nevermind the long-winded, deconstructionist labels, Delorean make great pop music, derived from the same dance/rock hybridization as bands like Prinzhorn Dance School and The Juan Maclean. The beats, synths and other classic house/electro qualifiers give these tracks a grounding in traditional dance music, which seems to be lacking in bands of similar standing. And as much as we're making the case for their inclusion within the dance music heriarchy, Delorean spend just as much of their time invested in those small moments that mark the best of pop music royalty. Tracks like "Grow" and "Infinite Desert" show the finesse with which Delorean has managed to combine the poppier side of dance music with the rave culture so thoroughly attributed to it. And, as one would hope, on the strength of Ayrton Senna, Subiza progresses further into the sound which that EP only hinted at. Delorean have a made a-dare I say-fun album that pulls together the symbiotic nature of dance and pop and washes them together to create a vivid portrait of a band at the height of its' creative powers.

Tracklisting:

01. Stay Close (listen to the mp3 below)
02. Real Love
03. Endless Sunset
04. Grow
05. Simple Graces
06. Infinite Desert
07. Come Wander
08. Warmer Places
09. It's All Ours

No. 44 of 2010: Surfer Blood - Astro Coast

I think that we all, myself included, have a very specific reaction when we hear an album described as a guitar album. And despite my better intentions, it's generally something like, "Oh, okay. Another one? Didn't we just have an album like that?" But in the case of Surfer Blood's debut album, Astro Coast, that label is a tad misleading. Make not mistake, guitars are front and center on all of these tracks, so just for the sake of content, the label would appear to be valid but there are many things going on beneath the ever-present swirl of riffs that set this album apart from like-minded artists. A prime example of this is the way that the 2009 single "Swim" took the typical indie rock presets and over the course of its' 3 minute length managed to evoke everyone from Pavement to Dinosaur Jr, and yes, those bands were also pegged as guitar bands. Although young, Surfer Blood seem to possess a maturity beyond their years, at least when it comes to the understanding of what a simple song is capable of. And never ones to rely just on the goodwill of a few indie listeners need for their quick anthem-belting fix, Surfer Blood turn the typical lyrics about girls, confusion, and insecurity into sincere, although still naive, sentiments depicting the ever-changing difficulties of an ordinary life. It's this ability to relate to the listener on a simple, though still meaningful, way that helps Surfer Blood rise above the meandering pack of lifeless anthem-parading rock bands constantly doing their best to gain your attention. And Surfer Blood has mine.

Tracklisting:

01. Floating Vibes
02. Swim (listen to the mp3 below)
03. Take It Easy
04. Harmonix
05. Neighbour Riffs
06. Twin Peaks
07. Fast Jabroni
08. Slow Jabroni
09. Anchorage
10. Catholic Pagans