One of my favourite releases from this year. It’s really just gorgeous.
The use of singing saws, ping pong balls and clackity old piano accordions all recorded on some of the warmest strips of tape you’ll ever hear makes this album sound so foreign and at the same time so familiar. Like an uncle coming down the stairs on Christmas morning, playing the whole family a tune on a fucked-up banjo.
Which is a nice idea because if I had an uncle that came up with the amazingly heartbreaking melodies found on this album I’d wish it was Christmas morning every morning. Which at this point I firmly do not. I saw decorations in the shops the other day and cringed. I should start making nice things for my family since I am a poor, poor man.
So please listen and enjoy. Click the image to download.

The year 2008 has been musicwise a good one, since some of my favorite bands released an album. Some other bands not so favorite, also put out some really nice music that accompanied my restless winter and summer this year. Tiamat released an interesting album after many years of stalemate (i.e. since A deeper kind of slumber), Motorhead unfortunately were unable to surpass their previous perfect album (i.e. Kiss of Death) and made a boring album with sole interesting moments those that try to copy their past, Dismember released a monstrous album impresively executed, Benediction released a huge masterpiece I have already listened a million times and I only have it one week! I here propose a 2008 playlist with my personal best songs for 2008, put together in a way that makes sense:

1. Dismember -Combat Fatigue

Combat fatigue could likely refer to the infinite studying during this winter and summer. An excellent song, one of the best songs out of Sweden for many years. It sets of with a riff that could only be written by Sarcofago of the INRI era! It continues with a simple and steady heavy beat and an old school Dismember riff. The chorus is massive. and for the final lines a totally new enthralling riff enters with Karki’s transfixing interpratation eventuating in the initial sarcofago-riff. Confusion-Angst-Fear-Tiredness and drums-monotonous riff-vocals tear the place apart.

2. Hail of Bullets - Advancing Once More

The album about war this year is the one released by “Hail of Bullets”, even though Dismember is about war as well. Martin Van Drunen leads this all-star band. Gebbedi, of “Thanatos” fame, is on guitar and Ed Wardby, of Goreferst, on drums. The song, as the album in general, reeks of Gorefest. The heavy Gorefest riff in the begining leads slowly to an impressive old scholl outbreak in the middle of the song. The riff reminds of “Death”, of the Leprosy era. Van Drunen’s vocals make me feel like time has stopped in 1995.

3.  Deicide - Horrors in the Halls of Stone

Probably the best song in the new Deicide album. I liked this album more than the previous one, which I found ok but shallow. This song is hellish and heavy in the beginning, not similar to anything Deicide have done in the past. The riff in the 1:48 and the grinding part however, is 100% early Deicide! A riff so simple and old fashioned, but no new band could pull off. Benton is repugnant.

4. Tiamat - Until the hellhounds sleep again

Even though because of songs like ‘The equinox…’ the new Tiamat album became so loved, my favorite and the one I listened more was this one. Scary atmosphere and a great chorus.

5. Portishead - The Rip

Maybe the song I listened more from the new album. I am ashamed to speak about it. It speaks for itself.

6. Hellacopters - I just don’t know about girls

The final Hellacopters album is unfortunately their worst because it is comprised of cover songs. However, almost all songs are very good. My favorite ones are the one from Asteroid B-612 (this one) and the amazing cover of Dead Moon’s ‘Rescue’. ‘I just don’t know…’ is perfect for Nicke’s voice and has an amazing chorus.

7. Disfear - Testament

One of my favorite records this year is the new Disfear. That song is among the ones which blew me away. See past post for more (i.e. Who’s who? About Disfear and others).

8. Disfear - Get it off

The killer opening track of the new Disfear. It signposts the period when I indeed had a lot to get off my back.

9. Unleashed - The greatest of all lies

A perfect song from the new Unleashed album, in order to get back to death metal. Death the way ONLY Unleashed know how to play. I dare anyone to point me towards another band that does what they do.

10. Benediction - Dripping With Disgust

PROBABLY THE BEST SONG FOR THIS YEAR. Benediction released a fuel injected death metal masterpiece. Nevermind the drum machine (I don’t know for sure but it sure sounds like one). Pure inspiration and early 90s feeling from one of Britain’s finest! The singer has gone mad in this album. I don’t think death metal has been more honest and furious for a long time. The best intro ever, best chorus ever!

I’ve heard all kinds of rumors about when this album is supposed to be released: August, October, Novemeber… It’s a moot point now because it has leaked. The cover art isn’t even out yet. But whatever: None of this is important. What is important is that this is one of the best releases of the decade: it’s currently in my top 3 of the 2000’s for sure. I really can’t praise it enough.

Look, I have finals going on right now, so there’s no way that I can really make a review right now that does justice to how great this is. In fact, this album is already interfering with my finals because I keep putting it on when I’m supposed to be working and drifting away listening to it. If I flunk all my classes, at least I get to be sublimely happy while doing it.

A brief history of Deerhunter: They release a debut album that is harsh and unfriendly. Nobody notices. They experience a bunch of in-band tension and nearly do not release their second album. What is eventually released, 2007’s Cryptograms, comes from a couple of different sessions and varies wildly in style and aim. The first half alternates between long ambient meditations and hard-as-nails post-punk where the band locks into a killer groove. The second half is largely psychedelic pop. Pitchfork loved it, and, after many many listens attempting to understand it, so did I. But it’s a hard album to listen to because of its enormous stylistic variance and the fact that it’s easy to feel a little… bored by the white noise noodling. A lot of people just heard it and went “WTF?” That said, “Cryptograms”, “Octet” are perfect, and many other songs are absolutely riveting and sound totally fresh. The band also got a reputation for their weird live shows in which the frontman, Bradford Cox, would show up in women’s clothing and discuss his feelings and… Deerhunter followed this album with the Fluorescent Grey EP, which lacks any of the ambient noodling and has a few good songs in its short length. Pitchfork and I love it too.

Bradford Cox has been spending most of this year doing solo work under his moniker Atlas Sound. The 2008 release Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel is a good album, but IMO not as good as his Deerhunter work (although some love it more). It certainly lacks the confusing lack-of-centeredness of Cryptograms and has a number of good pop songs, but lacks the awesome grooves that come from having a band.

My co-blogger and I had the privilege of seeing Atlas Sound live when they came to Stanford campus. We were both favorably impressed, and I liked his album more afterwards. He let his songs be less ambient and more dance-y because that was what the crowd wanted, and that displayed the pop hooks underlying them to great effect. I also got the impression that Bradford Cox is awesome: There is a story involved. Atlas Sound was going to open for the Breeders at a festival the next weekend, so Bradford was wearing a Breeders T-shirt. My co-blogger was wearing a Pixies tee. So of course, Bradford called him on it. He asked the crowd which was better (we thought it was the Pixies, to his dismay. We were also right) and challenged my co-blogger to an arm-wrestling competition. Any discussion of this arm-wrestling match would be incomplete if it didn’t mention a) that (from what I understand) Bradford is gay, cross-dresses for shows, and said that the arm-wrestling match would determine who was the more masculine (yay subversion!) and b) has Marfan syndrome, a disease which (I believe) makes him look a bit strange and stops him from having much muscle.

My co-blogger let him win for a moment, but then crushed him. We talked to him a bit after the show and he was really cool.

So up until I heard this album, I liked the band but their recorded output all left me unfulfilled. Cryptograms was too hard to love, Grey was too short, and Blind lacked the band and rock tendencies. Nevertheless, I was convinced that Deerhunter was AWESOME and had tons of potential. They have now proved me right. This album is Deerhunter at their tightest.

The new album is far more immediate than any of their past work. This can be seen through the production, which is much brighter and up-front, and the music which finally captures their sound. They describe themselves as ambient punk, but this is the first time that those two completely different styles of music have come together so well. Songs still vary quite a bit from the more ambient to the more psychedelic pop to the more punk but they now all sound like the same band. Part of that comes from the excellent sequencing. The first third is more pop-oriented. It slides from there into a more ambient middle section. Unlike Cryptograms though, every song is short and sweet and has a pop hook somewhere. Frankly, each of the short songs in the middle is absolutely gorgeous, shocking me every time I hear them. Finally, just before the ambient music becomes too much to take the guitars hit HARD and you’re thrust into “Nothing Ever Happened,” and the more raucus final third. But even at their most rock-oriented, you can hear their ambient textures which mean that these rock songs continually change and never get old. You hear them a second time and notice a little bit more of the subtext, the hidden sounds, the sort of little Easter eggs which are always there in truly great music.

So now I’ll just mention a few highlights. “Nothing Ever Happened” is probably my favorite, with its awesome guitar soloing, and solid groove. But “Little Kids” is a close second: It returns more to the themes and style of Blind and is absolutely transcendent. By which I actually mean that it sounds kinda spiritual in its lifting-upwards of innocence, increasingly submerged in static. “These Hands” is a brilliant little shoegaze track. It uses some beautiful textures: what sound like strings but might not be, underlining vocal wails and guitar noise. “Agorophobia” is also great: It’s more like psychedelic pop, but is more driving than typical for such music. “Never Stops” and “Saved By Old Times” both rock pretty damn hard, while still having great pop hooks, and “Twilight at Carbon Lake” is a beautiful drifting closer, which feels like it’s going to float away before the guitars come crashing in for the shoegaze-esque (reminding me of Ride) finale.

It’s a wonderful thing to listen to a record that is this good. You can stream some tracks at their Myspace.

9.7/10

posted by nerdbound

Here is a list of the top albums that I am excited for to come out this year. If I forgot one post a comment.

8. Green Day- UNKNOWN- 2008
7. Muse- UNKNOWN- Late 2008
6. Alice in Chains- UNKNOWN- 2008. (I have no idea how good this is going to be, considering
Layne Staley is dead.)
5. Franz Ferdinand- UNKNOWN- 2008.
4. NIN- The Slip- Released. CD in stores July 2008. (I might actually buy this one, even though they are giving it away free. This is a great CD.)
3. The Offspring- Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace- June 17
2. The Fratellis- Here We Stand- June 9
1. Weezer- Weezer (Red Album)- June 3. (Better than Make Believe from the tracks that I’ve heard so far.)

I suppose I’m a bit late to this party, now that Pitchfork has already given Best New Music status to their Sun Giant EP. But shit, a) sometimes the Fork has bad taste, and this is not one of those times, b) I’ve heard that not everyone reads Pitchfork (really? But don’t you want to be cool? Oh wait…), and c) their forthcoming Ragged Wood LP is similarly great. As in, it is the best album of 2008 so far.

Describing the music is tough. It’s folk music: not 60’s-style folk music, but something older. Of current artists, it most reminds me of Califone, Sufjan Stevens, Grizzly Bear, etc. Kinda folk music with a bit more rock influence than any of the acts mentioned before (although still not very much rock as such… As I say, it’s hard to describe. But it’s definitely livelier). While Califone and Grizzly Bear often sound fractured and muted, Fleet Foxes even at their quiet moments sound like they’re winning. It’s very spiritual-sounding music, in the old “Simple Gifts” sense. Their MySpace calls it “baroque harmonic pop jams.” Not too bad, actually.

Honestly, what they remind me of most (emotionally, not at all stylistically) is Nirvana’s live acoustic cover of “Where Did You Sleep Last Night.” That’s kinda a bizarre reference, I’m aware, but the two are similar in that both artists seem to believe that they’re something powerful (as opposed to merely ‘pretty’ or ‘personal’) in old folk music classics, and they bring out that power. It’s emotional music, and not always happy music, but it’s never whiney music because it’s not about the personal emotions of the artist. It’s about the emotions of the artist’s culture, the collective unconscious. It grafts a connection between the listener and some much bigger shit.

Many of their songs (such as “Blue Ridge Mountains”) alternate between soft, weary, nearly a cappella parts and big, ridiculously happy parts with the whole band. The emotional tension between the two styles is a lot of what makes the songs work so well. It makes the ’sad’ here sound more like ‘ loss and redemption’ than ‘emo’ and the ‘happy’ more like ‘at one with the birds’ than… well, however ‘happy’ is usually defined.

I actually like the Sun Giant EP a bit more than Ragged Wood. It’s a little artier, has a couple of amazing hooks, and is (of course, given its shorter running time) more consistent. As of now,”Mykonos” is my favorite Fleet Foxes song, due largely to its unusual song structure. It starts as a big, happy tune that slowly breaks apart, before voices enter a capella in the middle with what could be a totally different song. The drum sound is fantastic, and both sections have great hooks. It’s kinda like having two songs in one, but the two sections play off each other in interesting ways. “Drops in the River” and “English House” are also fantastic.

That said, Ragged Wood is the greater achievement. Every song on it is a success. “Ragged Wood” and “Quiet Houses” are big and exciting, and probably my favorite (given my rarely downbeat mood). “Ragged Wood,”like “Mykonos,” sounds like several songs in one, with hooks galore. At least two or three guitar parts that are beautifully combined with the vocal melodies: in parts, it really swings too. “White Winter Hymnal” wins the contest for most memorable hook, a big circling choral bit; while “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” and “Meadowlark” are just gorgeous in their simplicity. “He Doesn’t Know Why” and “Heard Them Stirring” sound like they’re going stratospheric.

I could literally praise every song here individually. No two are alike, and none fails.

9.1/10

posted by nerdbound

Sau, mai exact Edie Brickell şi fiul ei vitreg, Harper Simon. Proiectul se numeşte “The Heavy Circles”, lansat recent pe cd. Adică, zece piese foarte interesante după părerea mea.

“The Heavy Circles” este un proiect indie cu un sound foarte interesant, retro, combinat însă cu elemnte moderne. Vocea lui Edie, pe care unii o conoaştem din “The New Bohemians” se potriveşte foarte bine în contur.

Cele mai interesante piese “The Heavy Circles” sunt, conform opiniei mele: Oh darling, Easier, Maximo şi Confused.

Aici este spaţiul lor. Deocamdată însă nu au uploadat decât Confused. Oricum, e foarte faină şi Confused.

Aici puteţi găsi încă un articol despre “The Heavy Circles”, articol scris de Allan Raible, articol care tratează mai pe larg albumul şi fiecare piesă în parte.

Până acum este cel mai bun album pe care l-am ascultat în 2008, însă nu vi-l recomand decât decât dacă sunteţi fani indie sau dacă, cel puţin vă place muzica anilor ’80, caz în care merită încercat.

Nick’s Top Albums of January 2008

1. Vampire Weekend- Vampire Weekend (Mansard Roof)
   
2. Sons and Daughters- This Gift
3. The Helio Sequence- Keep Your Eyes Ahead
4. Thao Nguyen - We Brave Bee Stings And All
5. Xiu Xiu - Women As Lovers
6. Black Mountain- In the Future
7. The Shondes- The Red Sea
8. The Whigs- Mission Control

Biggest Disappointment: Marah- Angels of Destruction!

Cory’s Top Albums of January 2008

1. Thao Nguyen - We Brave Bee Stings And All (Beat)
   
2. Vampire Weekend- Vampire Weekend
3. Kate Nash - Made Of Bricks
4. Hello, Blue Roses - The Portrait Is Finished And I Have Failed To Capture Your Beauty
5. Magnetic Fields - Distortion
6. Xiu Xiu - Women As Lovers
7. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
8. Murder Mystery - are you ready for the heartache cause here it comes

Other January Releases

1/8
Marah - Angels Of Destruction! (Yep Roc)
Kate Nash - Made Of Bricks (Fiction)
The Shondes - The Red Sea (self-released)
Sia - some people have real problems (Astralwerks)
Wisely - Wisely (Oglio)

1/15
Black Mountain - Into The Future (Jagjaguwar)
Matt Costa - Unfamiliar Faces
Mike Ladd - Nostalgialator (Def Jux)
Magnetic Fields - Distortion (Nonesuch)
Rings - Black Habit (Paw Tracks)
Slim Cessna’s Auto Club - Cipher
Ringo Starr - Liverpool 8 (EMI)
Van Hunt - Popular (Capitol)
White, Blue, Yellow And Clouds - Introducing (I and Ear)
Zillionaire - The Street Lights Have Been Turned Down (New Granada)
One Small Step - Another Shelter

1/22
Steve Aoki - Pillowface And His Airplane Chronicles (Thrive)
Aster - Some Things Seldom Heard Of
Baby Dee - Safe Inside The Day (Drag City)
Blood On The Wall - Liferz (The Social Registry)
Bodies Of Water - Ears Will Pop Eyes Will Bling (Secretly Canadian)
Cat Power - Jukebox (Matador)*
Drive-By Truckers - Brighter Than Creation’s Dark (New West)
Evangelicals - The Evening Descends (Dead Oceans)
Fleshtones - Take A Good Look (Yep Roc)
Ghislain Porter - No Ground Under (Ninja Tune)
Hello, Blue Roses - The Portrait Is Finished And I Have Failed To Capture Your Beauty… (Locust Music)
Hey Willpower - P.D.A. (Tomlab)
Instruments Of Science And Technology - Music From The Films of R. Swift (Secretly Canadian)
The Jet Age - What Did You Do During The War, Daddy?
King Of Prussia - Save The Scene (Kindercore)
Love Is All - Mixed Up (Phonica)
Mahjongg - Kontpab (K)
Eric Matthews - The Imagination Stage (Empyrean)
MGMT - Oracular Spectacular (Columbia)
Jack Peñate - Matinee (XL)
Robert Pollard - Superman Was A Rocker (Happy Jack Rock)
Rafter - Sex Death Cassette (Asthmatic Kitty)
Savious - Into Abaddon (Kemado)
Steve Smith - This Town (G.A.S. Records)
Times New Viking - Rip It Off (Matador)
Whigs - Mission Control (ATO)
Whitsundays - The Whitsundays (Friendly Fire)

1/29
Bum Kon - Drunken Sex Sucks (Smooch)
Dirty On Purpose - Like Bees EP (North Street)
Ex - Building A Broken Moustrap (Touch & Go)
Future Of The Left - Curses (too pure)
The Helio Sequence - Keep Your Eyes Ahead (Sub Pop)
Ida - Lovers Prayers (Polyvinyl)
Joe Jackson - Rain (Rykodisc)
Jeffrey Lewis - 12 Crass Songs (Rough Trade)
Louis XIV - Slick Dogs And Ponies (Atlantic)
The Mars Volta - The Bedlam In Goliath
Murder Mystery - are you ready for the heartache cause here it comes
Thao Nguyen - We Brave Bee Stings And All (Kill Rock Stars)
Radar Bros. - Auditorium (Merge)
Sons And Daughters - This Gift (Domino)
Two Ton Sloth - Two Ton Sloth (Token Recluse)
Quinn Walker - Lion Land / Laughter’s An Asshole (Voodoo-EROS)
Xiu Xiu - Women As Lovers (Kill Rock Stars)
Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend (XL)
Chris Walla - Field Manual (Barsuk)
Jane Vain & the Dark Matter - Love is where the Smoke is (Rectangle)