21st Century Bites: A Mix

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Side 1 - 20:24

1. Suicide - Televised Executions

2. Si Schroeder - Brailowsky (schroedersound remix)

3. Battles - Tonto (The Field Remix)

Side 2 - 33:28

4. Q and not U - Soft Pyramids

5. Dan Deacon - Wham City

6. Grails - Silk Rd

7. For Carnation - Moonbeams

21st Century Bites - download as two tracks ('21-1' and '21-2')

21st Century Bites - download as individual tracks (1-7)

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The idea for this mix came when I was watching the film Manhunter on TV a couple of nights ago, and decided I wanted to listen to some cool 80's electro pop. Since Betamax Format haven't released their EP yet, the nearest (and yes, not very near at all) thing I had to hand was Suicide's 2002 album, American Supreme. Anyway, the first track on that, 'Televised Executions', was the genesis for this selection.

The '21st Century' part of the title is a reference to the fact that all these songs were released within the last 8 years, with the earliest being the For Carnation in the year 2000. Musically, it's not that these artists necessarily sound very 'modern', and indeed most of them have their origins - whether in earlier releases or in previous groups - in the preceding century.

Broadly speaking, these songs are 'electro' in at least some sense, moving towards more usual post-rock with Grails and the For Carnation, although there is plenty that is unusual about those two groups. The first side is the more wholly electronic, with far more rock tropes in the sound of Q and not U and Grails. If you're looking for punk, it's either nowhere or everywhere...

(A technical note: I decided to try out the long mp3 form of josephlovesit's playlists, one for each side. If I do say so myself, I think it works very well for the first side in particular. Nothing special was done to them, except for a few sections of silence between tracks being removed - no cross-fading or whatever it is you are supposed to be actually able to do with Audacity. Both formats are available for download above, although if you want both be aware that the zip files - and the folder in them - have the same name.)

21-1/Side 1

Suicide's 'Televised Executions' from American Supreme starts off with a combination of thin drum sounds which are characteristic of Suicide's sound right from 1977, and hip-hop scratching, which isn't. On top of this, of course, are funky, repetitive keyboard lines and echoey rockabilly vocals. This is a fantastic album, not just for the consistency with which it matches the original 'no-wave' Suicide, but also for the incorporation of contemporary sounds (well, contemporary in 2002 - you should hear their 90s album; a little dated!). What I said when I first posted this album still stands, that "if you've ever wanted to hear hip-hop played like weird 70s electronica, this is very possibly the album for you".

An instantaneous moment of relief, Si Schroeder's 'Brailowsky' remix comes from a limited-edition 2006 7" of the same name, with paper sleeves and original artwork. Si Schroeder, as his Myspace describes him, is "a six foot hairy male who makes 'music'" from Dublin in Ireland. Previously, he was one half of a Sonic Youth/MBV style noise band, so you can kind of guess where he's coming from in this piece and in his idiosyncratic electronica in general. 'Brailwosky' is instrumental, although other songs have lyrics, all with a soothing, ethereal and above all beautiful quality of sound. Road Records say of his full-length album, Coping Mechanisms, "hats off to mr schroeder for doing something very new and inventive with laid back electronica. really really superb stuff". 'Brailowsky' (a reference to a 20th century French pianist) has a lot of the same, characteristic melodies and flourishes follow on into that album; a really nice song. I met him in person once - I should say that he is a relative of a friend - and he seems like a very nice guy too.

While 'Brailowsky' is very calming, I think it has a hard enough edge to stand up to the intensity of the preceding song and the following, The Field remix of Battles' Tonto, from the Tonto+ EP. The original song is an epic, expansive and at times very intricate and complex post-rock/math-rock tune, full of space and balance - something which is largely abandoned here, as the heavy remix track layers on the intense rhythms and compresses everything into a tight, claustrophobic sequence of sounds. I don't know anything at all about The Field, except that I think their style can be classified as house - correct me if I'm wrong - yet I find this remix immensely and almostly unreservedly enjoyable. The vinyl EP of Tonto+ has the album version followed by this remix on the first side, and the Four Tet remix of 'Tonto' and a further remix of 'Leyendecker' on the other, neither of which do much for me. This version of 'Tonto' - and if you aren't familiar with the original, you owe it to yourself to watch the video here - is a revelatory take on the Battles' track, and a celebratory one of musical intensity in a way - techno, house, whatever - that is quintessentially electronic.

21-2/Side 2

To bring this mix back to the - perhaps unlikely – haven of Dischord Records, this is the opening track of Q and Not U’s second album, Different Damage. ‘Soft Pyramids’ begins with a wonderful spoken word intro, “S-O-F/T-P-Y/R-A-M/I-D-S E-V-A/P-O-R/A-T-E in day-light”, and for that alone it is a quintessentially math-rock song. As Mr. Mammoth wrote last year, “q and not u disbanded two years ago, ending a seven year stint as one of the more relevant and original bands to emerge from the d.c. punk scene. though the term "dance-punk" is one often associated with q and not u, the unfortunate connotations and limitations of that genre really can't explain the band's rather unique post-hardcore sound”. Like him, the frantic, punky No Kill Beep Beep is my favourite of their albums, but given time, what Different Damage reveals in its subtlety and complexity more than matches up with the quality of their debut. With the band’s re-emergence as a three-piece (following the departure of the bassist on No Kill Beep Beep) on their sophomore release, “a more sober (yet just as disparaging) look at America”,

“the first two songs on Different Damage set the album's tone, the divide between ferocity and reflection - "soft pyramids" is almost tender, a sweet singalong that is starkly contrasted with its neighbor, the vitriolic "so many calls," a jittery and sneering attack on our broken healthcare system”

('yo, you remember how good q and not u was?')

Lyrically, I think this song has something to do with the ephemeral and supeficial nature of modern human civilization - appropriate for the mixtape then! Most of Q and not U's lyrics are very interesting, but also very distracting to try and understand. This tends to be the case with these kind of math-rock bands, like the current Foals. Really, it's just a reflection of complexity and cerebral twistiness in both words and music.

Trickling gently into the next song, it is Dan Deacon's utter masterpiece, 'Wham City', "the all-encompassing complexity of the perfect creation" which stretches to nigh on twelve minutes of sonically and emotionally confounding composition. It's awesome live; you can see the lyric sheet here. Listening to this song again reminds me that a Dan Deacon live show is not just a musical experience, but a deeply emotional one as well. It's strange, perhaps, because Deacon's songs are based so much on electronic - albeit analog - instrumentation, something I don't immediately associate so much with feeling. However, the flourishes, the slow build-ups and sustained, drawn-out electronic riffs on 'Wham City' are sincerely affecting. The incessant drumbeats only add an underlay of urgency to the epic soundscapes of emotion and ambition present on what is possibly this man's, or anybody else's like him, finest work.

Next up is the rhythmic, exotic post-rock of Grails on 'Silk Rd'. Grails are possibly the least electro of the artists here, although 'samples' and 'tapes' are listed on their liner notes. Instead, they bring a range of Eastern influences to pretty usual, guitar-based post-rock. GY!BE seems like both a good and a bad comparison: Grails play similarly rich, textured compositions in which, usually, a good deal more happens; but that which does happen is still quite subtle. The title 'Silk Rd' conveys the sense of a journey, and this is an especially propulsive song. Yes, it gets quite heavy at times, but in a melodic, cymbal-bashing kind of way and not with epic, labyrinthine guitar riffs. The sound, as josephlovesit notes, is largely clear and undistorted, allowing the strange and exotic sounds to come through. Blend77 says on Zen and the Art of Face Punching, where I was first hipped to this album, that

"The eastern feel of these songs is not hokey in anyway and goes a long way to legitimizing these songs as mantras for spiritual understanding. Yeah, that sounded like some new-age shit. Grails are not new-age. They are incredible-age."

Finally, turn your speakers up for one of the quietest albums I know of, released by musicians known for their work in ultra-quiet rock and in a genre known for the exact same thing. This is the For Carnation, Brian McMahan from Slint's later group, and the closing song from their self-titled album, 'Moonbeams'. This is the first time I have posted this up on the blog, although the first three tracks of the album were up previously (and will not be upped again - just go to the Touch and Go website for samples). As far as I know, this was released in 2000, so it just slips into the 21st century mix. The electronics are restrained to a shimmering, elliptical ambience which trails the sparse guitar and drums, and occasional, carefully placed keyboard bloops. The sensation of darkness pervades this record, as a thematic of each song and as a backdrop for slowly unfolding post-rock structures. Gentle and delicate, yet masking a hard core of brooding, neurotic intensity. Powerful stuff.

Zeitgeist: The Mixtape

Zeitgeist: The Best of '07 Mix

(Zeitgeist Your Ears/Time-ghost Sie Ihre Öhren)

Download

Here in the dying days of 2007, it's time to revisit some of the artists which made this year. Part of the idea for this mixtape, and the format in which it is presented, comes from josephlovesit's Playlist: Synthetic 2007. Musically, this mixtape takes one song from each of my Top 10 releases, plus a couple of others to round off the hour and bring it up to a proper dozen. Some attention has been paid to the construction, particularly in the separation of the two sides, so you should be able to listen to this enjoyably, straight through. (In addition, the gabba tape and the anti-mix Melt Yr Ears are still available)

Read on...

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Before we begin, though, an important plug for a new (music) blog in town:

Rgratzer from (mostly) blue skies above us has started digitizing old 90s hardcore/emo records, and has already posted Nuzzle, Reach Out, Breathing Walker (post-Moss Icon) and Rye Coalition. As he says:

"The music shared here comes from records I've collected. The purpose is to get people, who might otherwise not have access, into the music."

Check out his site for some cool photography, too...

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Side A:

1. Fight Like Apes - 'Jake Summers'

2. Arcade Fire - 'Keep the Car Running'

3. Dinosaur Jr. - 'Crumble'

4. The For Carnation - 'get and stay get March'

5. Envy - 'Thousand Scars'

6. Dan Deacon - 'Jimmy Joe Roche'

Side B:

7. Christian Scott - 'Litany against Fear'

8. Battles - 'Tonto'

9. Burial - 'Ghost Hardware'

10. Japancakes - 'Sometimes'

11. Fight Like Apes - 'Accidental Wrong Hole'

12. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs - '10X10'

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1. Fight Like Apes – ‘Jake Summers’ from the Jake Summers/How Am I Supposed to Kill You When You Have All the Guns? EP.

Everybody likes a good bassline to start off a song - and by extension, a mixtape - especially Bouncing Souls fans. In this case, the fan would have to be a Mclusky one, because that’s what this song sounds exactly like for the first few seconds. It’s great to be able to connect a undeniably unique band that are playing around now, with a defunct band from your musical past - especially when they write cracking tunes like this. I would apply josephlovesit’s appraisal of Mclusky to this band – “One of the few instances where humor can completely work in the context of actual good tunes”. Even at its silliest, it’s still sung in earnest – and that’s what makes it so good.

2. Arcade Fire – ‘Keep the Car Running’ from Neon Bible.

I won’t say there’s been a lot of hating on this album here – because there hasn’t – but it still seems this album has something to prove for a lot of people. Hence I wanted to choose this song carefully. Unfortunately, ‘Black Mirror’ wouldn’t fit (maybe the ‘un, deux, trois, miroir noir’ part is a bit pretentious, even if they are genuine Francophones, but it’s still a great, stirring song) so you’ve got this, probably overplayed, track instead. However, this was the song that encouraged me into buying the album, hearing it as the single with the long, slow-burning B-side ‘Broken Window’ (you can hear the four Neon Bible singles here). A tense, propulsive song which sounds, at least to me, as much like the songs from Funeral as anything else on this album.

3. Dinosaur Jr. - 'Crumble' from Beyond

And this was the song which got me into Beyond. One of those songs which has you turning up the volume whenever it comes on the radio. I don't know if the term 'mumblecore' properly applies to Dinosaur Jr., but it sounds like it should. Alternatively, 'gorgeous' could also be used to describe this song's sound. I quite like the Lou Barlow songs on the album, but it's the J. Mascis stuff that clinched it for me and made Beyond my no. 1. Probably the closest thing to rock, or punk for that matter, that I listened to this year.

4. The For Carnation - 'get and stay get March' from Promised Works (originally from the Fight Songs EP, released 1995)

From one guitar song to another, completely opposite (in style and volume) one, I kind of arbitrarily chose this as the most beautiful track from Promised Works. The 'Slint performing Spiderland' gig from back in August (review here) was probably the show of the year for me, but I had been getting into both Slint and the For Carnation since late spring. If you see the For Carnation s/t, buy it, but there is much to recommend this collection of earlier pieces. The full length is an eerily quiet, super-intensive atmospheric wonder but these simpler, almost folkier songs have their own haunting charm. And carry a good tune.

5. Envy - 'Thousand Scars' from the Abyssal EP

Continuing the slow part of the mix, the crescendoeing quietness of this song is one of the really fine parts of this EP, even if it isn't for every Envy fan. As I wrote before:

"...very much for the Insomniac Doze fan. Trilling, vibratory emo-peggio sustained over some six minutes, with a few loud steps into hyper-Spectorian, wall-of-sound screamo which really just amps up the arpeggio behind it. All very post-rock, and with the long, drawn-out chord progressions pinned to the quiet vocals and building crescendos, at some point you've got to stop trying to describe or categorize it, and just lie back and let it wash over you."

6. Dan Deacon - 'Jimmy Joe Roche' from Spiderman of the Rings

Perhaps not the quiet part of the mix, now, but the epic, pensive section. It also seems to me an appropriate counterpart to the Envy song, a kind of twisted take on post-rock build-up and catharsis. Once again I'll refer to mr. x indeed's masterly summation, "Gorgously complex composition that keeps slipping under itself, and all that", as well as pointing you in the direction of my live review. One of my favourite Dan Deacon songs (also named after, I think, the guy who produced the insanely good Crystal Cat video) and also the album closer, so a natural choice for finishing off the first side of the mixtape.

7. Christian Scott - 'Litany Against Fear' from Anthem

Apologies for the slight mindfuck it might be to switch between the manic-electronic heights of Dan Deacon and the cool grooves of jazz, but this is now side B! This year, I've been picking up the Miles Davis albums ending in -in' (Cookin', Steamin', etc.). My jazz collection now jumps between 1957 and 2007 (not entirely true - I have a couple of Ornette Coleman albums plus Christian Scott's 2006 debut, but that's about it). Apparently something happened in between, but I'm not too keen on listening to it. 21st-century bebop album Anthem incorporates a lot of 'rock' elements to it - guitar, non-jazz drumming - but far from sounding tacky or (god forbid!) 1970s-ish, it comes across as very original. As befits an opener to an album about the horrific natural disasters in Louisiana, there is a lot of captivating, moving tension in the song. All I said before was "'Litany Against Fear' really sticks in your head": partly because that's all you really need to know, and partly because I'm very much out of my depth in jazz criticism. I now notice someone on eMusic has written:

"This is not just an album, but this is a visionistic journey. You can feel the emotion in ever note that is being uttered. It is also an album that people of all musical tastes can enjoy. If I had to call it something, I would call it Jazz Emo."

Perhaps. After all, look at the song title!

8. Battles - 'Tonto' from Mirrored

This band not only gets the joint award (with Dan Deacon) for Pitchfork Indie Band of the Year That Is Honestly Fantastic, but also the similarly joint (with Dan Deacon, on account of 'Crystal Cat') award for Best Video of the Year. 'Atlas' might be a bit old hat by now, but it did show a band that had fantastic visual artistic sense in addition to mathy chops. 'Tonto', which by the way I chose to fit not-too-disconcertingly with the jazz track, continued and in some ways excelled that tradition. The song, so named because the beat is reminiscent of "old cowboy-type movies" (according to Dave Konopka) and probably because of that, the video is set in a rocky desert - although at night, and with vertical blue strobe lights. Like I said then, "while 'Atlas' was about mirrors (naturally enough), bright lights, and performing in a glass box, 'Tonto' is about strobe lighting, darkness, sharp rocks and performing in the desert".

9. Burial - 'Ghost Hardware' from Untrue

This is an artist I've been getting into just recently, based on multiple 'best of' lists on other blogs. Burial plays 'dubstep' which is simultaneously a return to two-step garage electronic music and an embrace of some of the spacey sounds of dub music - or something like that. To be honest, with ethereal male/female/androgyne vocals, it's not a world away from Massive Attack. The best description is from floodwatch:

"Crackly, neck-snapping rhythms collide with disembodied voices, icy string pads are buoyed by murky throbs of bass, and mangled synth tones scrape their way to the surface, all enveloped in a mysterious aural environment that’s neither welcoming nor alienating"

'Ghost Hardware' is only one of the most melodious and accessible tracks; the album doesn't quite hold my attention for its full length. However, as someone who likes the dub aesthetic in a variety of settings, rather than particularly in the original form, this is definitely an interesting find for 2007.

10. Japancakes - 'Sometimes' from Loveless

Another late purchase of 2007, this fully instrumental cover version of My Bloody Valentine's Loveless has received more than a few spins. I chose 'Sometimes' because I think it best exhibits the two main traits of this album: that "at some times it is eerily identical, while at others you would forget that you are listening to My Bloody Valentine songs at all". Assuming you know Loveless - the "Pitchfork-approved exemplar shoegaze album", in their own words - you'll surely recognize the opening melody to this track, especially the pedal steel which comes in at the 1:11 mark. However, elsewhere the sparseness of the instrumentation stands in such contrast to the original, distorted sound - easy to be reminded of if you put on the MBV disc at the same time - that the Japancakes version seems quite alien. In terms of criticism that isn't meant as a disparagement, but rather that Japancakes have created something simultaneously authentic (to their source), original, and wonderful.

11. Fight Like Apes - 'Accidental Wrong Hole' from the David Carradine is a Bounty Hunter Who's Robotic Arm Hates Your Crotch EP

I guess it makes sense to put the Irish with the Irish stuff, except that My Bloody Valentine were never technically Irish (they recorded in London) and become even less so when covered by a band from Georgia, USA. The bouncy synth lines at the start of this track might make for a slightly jarring transition, but they're only one part of the song. Only a short track, due to constraints of space, and doesn't quite pack the punch of 'Do You Karate?' which is probably the best song they've released so far. But fun nevertheless; it has the title 'Accidental Wrong Hole' and the hook/chorus line is "you're such a clumsy lover". Should I say more?

12. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs - '10X10' from the Is Is EP.

I wanted to get this EP for quite a while, but never saw it in the shops (admittedly, I didn't try very hard). 'Gold Lion' was one of the songs of the year for me in 2006, but I didn't think Show Your Bones was without its flaws. As an album, it goes on for a bit too long and tends to repeat itself. So the brevity of Is Is (when I went on Google Blog Search to track it down) was refreshing. I could have chosen any of the five songs for this mixtape - 'Rockers to Shallow', in particular, is a real firecracker, and 'Down Boy' brightened up a lot of radio playlists - but decided to match closer with closer. There's a slight agit-punk affinity, I think, between the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Fight Like Apes, which is also why I paired these two. '10X10's quiet opening, electricifying guitar riff and heavy beat make for a good rockin' showdown.

Happy New Year!

The Obligatory End of Year List: Hardcore for Nerds Gets Zeitgeisty

1-10, from top to bottom. I thought I would present it graphically first, since I'm a sucker for artwork anyway. Pretty much in order, although with a small break between #'s 7 and 8 which I'll explain below. Album-by-album descriptions, with a few others warranting a mention added in at the end, follow.

1. Dinosaur Jr. – Beyond

Grungey, well-produced goodness. Shamefully, this was my first introduction to Dinosaur Jr., even though they were on SST and all. Been listening to Bug a lot now lately, and I have to say they don't seem to have changed much. Awesome music then, awesome music now. Here's what I said about the album back in October, when I posted their Peel Session from '88:

"I never really knew this band until I heard their latest single, 'Crumble', on heavy rotation on my local radio. Soon I went out and bought the album, Beyond, and boy, is it good. So good that it's still on heavy rotation on my stereo; so good that the first 3 seconds of 'Almost Ready' contains the sum of all human emotion ever expressed through the electric guitar. Yes, it's that good."

(Peels Sessions II - Dinosaur Jr., Timber)

One might ask what that leaves for the remaining 2,969 seconds of the album, and the answer would be, honestly, more of the same. And what's wrong with that? First on the list because it's the most enjoyable thing I've bought all year.

2. Arcade Fire – Neon Bible

Yeah, I’m a hipster.

Well, not really. But I did like this album so much I went out and bought it, along with gods knows how many other people fooled into shovelling yet more money into this band's coffers. The thing is, there's a reason why this band is so hyped up, live show regardless: they make some really great music. At the same time, I don't have much love for Funeral, so I'm not totally sold.

Also one of the best records of the year because, as the A.V. Club says, Arcade Fire are "the only modern indie band that can namecheck Bruce Springsteen and get away with it." I actually thought 'Antichrist Television Blues' was a Boss song when I heard it first. If you look on YouTube, you can see a live video of Win Butler and Regine Chassagne performing Nebraska's State Trooper' with Bruce; and as you may know, I've got a lot of love for that album.

3. Dan Deacon – Spiderman of the Rings

What did I just say about being a hipster?

I don't know about you (I don't read Pitchfork everyday) but this must be the indie success story of the year: not necessarily the man himself, as he may well still be riding Greyhound buses with tied-up pants filled with corn when he gets back to the States, but the 'brand'. What I mean is, an electro-acoustic performer from a Baltimore experimental arts collective is not exactly a likely list-topper. It’s a valid point that a lot of people just extrapolate from 'Crystal Cat', pop song of the year (and not entirely representative of his work), to what the full album sounds like, but songs like ‘Okie Doke’ and ‘Jimmy Joe Roche’ are amazing in their own right. And yes, ‘Wham City’ as well. All the songs are good; it's a great album.

Video here; live review here; and, just found this today, an excellent mini-site on how Dan Deacon works - from Associated Press, of all people. So fuck Pitchfork.

4. The For Carnation – Promised Works

Okay, so this breaks all the rules of year-end lists. It’s merely the repressing of two old releases from 1995 and 1996 onto CD, but for me – not having heard the EPs, nor likely to ever – this came out in 2007. The s/t still rules, but this has its own twisted charm. My money’s on the first three songs, from the Fight Songs EP.

Of course, this year was a big Slint year for me, having discovered Spiderland through Zen and the Art of Face Punching back in March, and then seeing the reunion tour in August. This isn't Slint, but it's something close - kind of a 'logical extension' sort of thing - and it's definitely helped make my year.

5. Fight Like Apes – David Carradine is a Bounty Hunter Whose Robotic Arm Hates Your Crotch

It's good to have something Irish on this list, because there aren't a whole lot of home-grown bands that I identify with or really like. We're a small island nation, and as such have a small but vibrant indie scene, without pretensions to much else (except for U2, that is, but fuck Bono too). Fight Like Apes have kind of changed all that for me, even if they only have eight recorded tracks out. Great pop songs, but keeping noise-punk alive too, particularly with their nods to McLusky - another parochial interest, I guess. I’m putting this EP first on account of the song ‘Do You Karate’, and also because overall I think it’s the stronger of the two...

6. Fight Like Apes – How Am I Supposed to Kill You When You Have All the Guns?

...again, I'm breaking all the year-end rules. Not only are they both only EPs (but who cares) but I'm also putting both of them in, as separate entries, directly one after the other. However, I can't really choose between the two, and I reckon they deserve a good 20% of the list space. This disc is also known as the Jake Summers EP after its first track; but more importantly, it has the wonderful ‘Lend Me Your Face’. Better than the recordings, is of course the live show, which I talked about a little here (the Fuck This Band Mclusky post).

7. Envy – Abyssal

Maybe it’s because I actually paid attention to it, in order to write a track-by-track review, but I’ve really gotten into Abyssal. It may not be their best work, but it’s good enough to make my list. If I had done a list for 2006, it's likely that Insomniac Doze would have made it (not as no. 1, however - that would have gone to the Bouncing Soul's Gold Record). I can understand, though, that a lot of people haven't really fully warmed to Envy's new sound - even if has been part of progression that's been going on for the best part of a decade. However, no-one has taken me up on my debating point (very end of the review, in brackets): has Envy fallen between the cracks of hardcore and post rock?

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(That’s pretty much my 'top 7' – I haven’t bought enough new stuff this year to make a fully fledged top 10. However, there are a few more albums which caught my ear, so here’s the last part… this isn’t a top 10 as much as it is a Top 7 + 3)

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8. Christian Scott – Anthem

Discovered this guy via the eMusic 21st Century Bebop Dozen (Dozens are basically where a staff editor picks the top 12 releases in some genre or context). A New Orleans trumpeter who garnered comparisons to Miles Davis with his 2006 debut, Rewind That, this is an artistic response to the Hurricane Katrina tragedy of that year. I’m still a jazz neophyte, despite my own best efforts and the help of the eMusic catalogue, but the rock/jazz sounds of this record impress me pretty effortlessly. 'Litany against Fear' really sticks in your head.

9. Battles – Mirrored

Not to sound too self-conscious, but another hipster pick. Another show – like Dan Deacon – that I only got to see the second time around. But another excellent, outstanding album, and truly one of the most interesting of the year. (On which - polyphonically stretched - note, I found this via my new favourite blog Geek Down, a song-by-song discussion of the album by the band themselves - Paper Thin Walls - listening party. Incidentally, Mirrored is the only commonality on our lists - myself and josephlovesit, that is - although he puts it a couple of places higher). Anyway, Videos: 'Atlas' 'Tonto'; Hardcore for Nerds live review

10. Japancakes – Loveless

Just picked this up from eMusic this week, on the strength of the A.V. Club review. It’s a fully instrumental cover version of My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless album. Funnily enough, I guess this takes it out of the shoegaze range, since the defining feature of that genre is distorted guitars. Pedal steel is used heavily. So countrified, yet so beautiful. Strangely, at some times its eerily identical, while at others you would forget that you are listening to My Bloody Valentine songs at all. Perhaps it sounds like it shouldn't work, but trust me, it does.

Albums with Damoclean Question Marks/Honourable Mentions/The Following Also Ran:

American Steel, Destroy Your Future. The Weakerthans - Reunion Tour. Jesu - Conqueror ("16 years to top My Bloody Valentine"? See #10, above). The Future of the Left (ex-Mclusky), Curses. Saul Williams, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust (all the boring kids are downloading In Rainbows... but this Trent Reznor-produced album is where the free music scene is at). And last but not least, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Is Is ... I'm literally listening to it for the first time right now. It's good!

Favourite Christmas Song for 2007:

Asobi Seksu - 'Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight)'. Available for free at http://www.asobiseksu.com/audio.php. Gotta love the unveiled Ramones reference...

Exorcising the Zeitgeist: Pitchfork's Top 50 Albums

So their list was just published today, a big bloated mass of indie rock. But seriously though, some of it's quite interesting, more so than the amalgamated A.V. Club list. Strangely enough, Dinosaur Jr.'s Beyond, Arcade Fire's Neon Bible and Dan Deacon's Spiderman of the Rings (1, 2, and 3 on my list) all appear on the same page as 28, 27 and 24 - in that order. I guess that means that, as a hipster, I'm of middling but backwards taste.

Their piece on Beyond is actually pretty good, and nearly more praising than my own. Battles's Mirrored is no. 8, not unexpectedly. Finally, their Top 100 Tracks include 'Almost Ready' at 33, 'Wham City' (I'm still partisan for 'Crystal Cat', but since 'Wham City' comes with a 5-min radio edit too, apparently, it's not surprising) at 30 and 'Keep The Car Running' at 29. Almost spooky, that cluster. Battles, 'Atlas', comes in at 2. Verdict: fuck them anyway.

The For Carnation - s/t

A couple of people have expressed interest in hearing this band, a post-Slint project of Brian McMahan, and I'm all for sharing with a purpose! Slint themselves are pretty well known by most people but the For Carnation seem to slip under the radar somewhat. Personally, I think this album rivals Spiderland itself for atmospherics, intensity and, of course, emotional potency.

Touch and Go have recently released the first two For Carnation EPs (Fight Songs and Marshmallows) together on CD under the name of Promised Works, so now is as good a time as any to promote the group. Blend over at Zen Face posted this album way back at the start of the year, but the link has lapsed so I'll take the liberty of doing this repost myself and putting in his excellent description of the band:

"The For Carnation's recipe is simple. Or more accurately, simplicity. With ex members of Slint, their modus operandi is to take the most basic principles of the formers sound and play them out over long dark expanses of time. The result is an extremely bleak and delicate framework of carefully placed notes and rhythms. Some songs drift by barely noticed like creeping shadows on the wall, others warp the air around you, building a slow and steady terror. The pulsating beacon of Being Held is near the point of utter devastation before a heavy beat brings it all together with menacing result. Nothing is in excess, and nothing is wasted. Even the vocals are bare and minimal, evoking a darkness not unlike the cover art. Despite the sparse use if instrumentation the songs slowly lurch into a deep and murky voodoo blues groove. The songs have a definite slow burn and almost a sexiness, like watching a flickering fire dance before your eyes. The playing and production are tops and richness and texture of the songs is very evident on repeated listens."

An inspired commenter also described this album as "like being inside the awful pulses of someone's neuroses". I don't think I would go as far as that, and I think a lot of the music is quite aesthetically pleasurable or even soothing, at least on a passing listen. Nevertheless, as with Slint, this is wonderfully and challengingly intense music, and you will quite likely be captivated by the unique, yet effortlessly smooth post-rock sound.

This time I have only uploaded the first three songs, for various reasons (among them being Touch and Go's rather touchy policy on music blogs), making up presumably the first side of the vinyl. From the standard bearer track and seductive opening of 'Emp. Man's Blues' to the gripping, claustrophobic mid-piece of 'Being Held', this should definitely be enough to get a good feel for this band.

The For Carnation - The For Carnation (Side A): divshare / mediafire