Friday, May 22, 2009
ME LIKEY - WHITE RABBITS "PERCUSSION GUN"
This song is very good, and the album is pretty Spoony (which is ok by me)... and this video is pretty cool.
ME LIKEY - GRIZZLY BEAR "WHILE YOU WAIT FOR THE OTHERS"
This is my favorite song of Veckatimest at the moment. A really great album, a really great song, and a really great live version.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
JASON LYTLE - YOURS TRULY, THE COMMUTER
THE BEAT
4 out of 10
Grandaddy. Sum Day was a great album... and that was about it for them, creatively. This effort by the lead Grandaddy man is more of the same boring synthy whisper music and "wierdo" lyrics that tends to piss me off. Anybody can write weird shit: the giraffe wears a crash helmet and feels depressed about the injustice in the world. So what? Who cares? The Flaming Lips do the same thing and people eat it up... probably the same people who always write "I'm crazy" in the ABOUT ME section of their Facebook profile. He was better back then, for a moment, and now he's old hat. No good piece of indie-trash.
DEERHUNTER - RAINWATER CASSETTE EXCHANGE
4 out of 10
Deerhunter is a boring band. They always have been, and always will be. Why do so called "indie" fans listen to this kind of stuff? Because they like inoffensive and unchallenging music. Its the equivalent of a self-proclaimed hippie listening and liking The Doobie Brothers. Lets get this out of the way right now, "indie" is not synonymous with quality. Its becoming more and more like "alternative" every day...
WAVVES - WAVVES
THE BEAT
2 out of 10
Waste of time. If you wanna listen to punk, go back to the late-fucking-seventies! Music has been there and done that... like thirty years ago. Total crap.
EMINEM - RELAPSE
THE BEAT
3 out of 10
I was an Eminem fan back in the late 90s... when he was new and offensive. Somewhere between then and now shocking stopped being shocking, and without the shock-value, there isn't much value at all. This album is the same-ole-shit... same meter, same Dr. Dre loops, same subject matters... except a different decade. Its boring. Barely made it through the obligatory full-listen. Of course, the twenty-five year old white guys who still wear backwards baseball caps an shell necklaces will still love him and swear by him.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
WHITE RABBITS - IT'S FRIGHTENING
THE BEAT
6 out of 10
This record is more of a post Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga release for Spoon's frontman Brit Daniels. I mean, its soooo reminiscent of Gimme Fiction that I thought I was listening to it's B-Side collection (maybe I was). Fact is, it was produced by Brit Daniels, and you hear more of him than them... which IMO is actually a good thing (wasn't much of a Fort Nightly fan). A pretty catchy album if you like loud thumping drums and strait forward guitar riffs.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
DAN DEACON - BROMST
THE BEAT
8 out of 10
A much more mature release than his earlier efforts. He spent more time on it, put more effort in to it, and planned it out more... and its apparent in its quality. A really excellent noise-pop electronic album. The highlights begin at track one with Build Voice, continue with Snookered, and climax at Slow Horns / Run For Your Life.
TV ON THE RADIO - DEAR SCIENCE
THE BEAT
6 out of 10
They're a pretty good band, and this is a pretty good album. Sounds very Bee Gee-ish, which isn't an all together bad thing. Nothing new though. Golden Age is a really good song. Worth listening to at least once.
Monday, May 18, 2009
DEPARTMENT OF EAGLES - IN EAR PARK
9 out of 10
Department of Eagles is the other band of Grizzly Bear member Daniel Rossen. This album is has a real bold sound. It goes from quiet to loud and back to quiet in nearly every song... which is great, especially if you like that type of song structure (I do). Reminded me of Figure 8 a little bit... but then again, thats just me. After listening to this, you'll definitely come to understand why Grizzly Bear is so much better with him than without him.
PHOENIX - WOLFGANG AMADEUS PHOENIX
THE BEAT
6 out of 10
A good album... but the highlights are definitely the first three songs. The problem with it is that it gets slightly repetitive, and has a sort of been-there-done-that kind of sound. Still a decent listen, but its nothing groundbreaking.
BURIAL - BURIAL
6.5 out of 10
You have to be in the mood for this one, but when you are in the mood for ambience, then this is the go-to-album. Again, if you're not in the right mindset for repetitive transient sounds, this is to be avoided, but I personally found this album to be a great late night listen, especially with some deep bass headphones and a bottle of your favorite alcohol. Give it a shot.
ANIMAL COLLECTIVE - MERRIWEATHER POST PAVILION
3 out of 10
Animal Collective. To some (mostly liberal arts students), their name is synonymous with progressiveness... to everybody else, the name is synonymous with shit. Personally, I can respect their efforts to do something different, but I can also in the same breath say that I don't like and have never liked anything they've ever released. I will, however, continue to give them endless chances in the hopes that one of their future releases will be breakthrough. For that to happen, they have to tone down the anti-melodies while keeping their unique sonic sound. I'm picturing Tom Waits playing the laptop. We can only hope he beats them to the punch.
JONNY GREENWOOD - BODYSONG
8 out of 10
There aren't many multi-instrumentalist better than Jonny Greenwood. In addition to being Thom Yorke's right hand man for every Radiohead release, he also provided Yorke with many of the piano samples used on his solo release The Eraser. Even beyond that, Greenwood has done a few movie soundtracks. Most recently, he composed the score for Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood, which featured a song called Convergence that was originally written for the film Bodysong. Bodysong (The Album) is an excellent work of contemporary classical music.
THOM YORKE - THE ERASER
OLDY BUT A GOODY
This is one of the best albums of the past ten years, hands down. If Thom Yorke isn't leading music into a new era, then nobody is. Every track on this album is beautifully crafted, thematically loyal, and positioned perfectly in to the mix. Additionally, the remix album (The Eraser RMXS) features remixes by great dub-step/electronic musicians such as Four Tet, Burial, Modeselektor, and The Bug... and I'll give this album a 10 out of 1o too. Get your hands on both.
Friday, May 15, 2009
DIPLO - FLORIDA
OLDY BUT A GOODY
8 out of 10
When I first listened to this I was half expecting clubish DJ-ing... lets not forget that he wasn't always that far from that in times past. However, this album is great. Consistently good from start to finish, loyal to a specific vibe / sound, and infectious. One of the highlights of the hip-hoppish end of the electronic scene. Listen to it, enjoy it, and keep it on hand because you'll go back to it.
ST. VINCENT - ACTOR
THE BEAT
7 out of 10
She's got a really Elliott Smith-ish kind of vibe throughout this album, I think its the soft voice and the climactic guitar endings. Some of these songs are really really excellent, but a good two or three are take-em-or-leave-ems. If it was a bit more consistent from start to finish, it would've garnered a much higher rating, but the lulls are a little too lull-ish... enough to interrupt the listening process.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
FOUR TET - EVERYTHING ECSTATIC
OLDY BUT A GOODY
8.5 out of 10
This one's not new (2005), but how many new albums are coming out as soon as you start one of these blogs? Anyway, this is one of my favorite electronic albums by probably my favorite non Thom Yorke electronic musician. It was a big leap from the early folk-tronic Four Tet of Dialogue, Pause, and Rounds... but he settled in to this loud and percussionist sound nicely by the end of "A Joy".
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
WILCO - WILCO (THE ALBUM)
LEAKAGE
Another mediocre album by Wilco. Its good, don't get me wrong... but it's not A Ghost Is Born, or Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, or even Summerteeth. It's more along the lines of AM. Maybe some of the disenfranchised Uncle Tupelo / early-day Wilco fans will think this is the long awaited second coming of alt-country, but for those of us who appreciated the feedback-heavy drug-induced Wilco... its pretty much Sky Blue Sky: 2.
GRIZZLY BEAR - VECKATIMEST
LEAKAGE
9 out of 10
An excellent album that continues to grow on me every time I play it. "Two Weeks" is the stand-out track the first time around, but subsequent listens will expose the full album as being a very precise and thoughtfully composed work. The music has a very atmospheric quality to it, and the vocal harmonies are pretty much flawless.
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