Recently Released Album Obsessions

Here are some newly released albums at the library that are definitely worth listening to:

Vestiges and Claws by Jose Gonzalez
Find it in the catalog!
Regular fans of the Swedish/ Argentinian guitarist Jose Gonzalez will not be disappointed by his latest effort which has been eight years in the making.  The album features his signature distinctive brand of spare, gloomy folk music (a favorite of mine) that he showcased on his two previous albums, Veneer and In Our Nature.  However, this time out he has more complicated musical arrangements (featuring flute and cello) and a slightly more upbeat worldview.
Repeat tracks:  "Forest," "Let It Carry You," and "Open Book."

Kintsugi by Death Cab for Cutie
Find it in the catalog!
This latest release from indie rock band Death Cab is a duel break up album.  Not only is it the first album since lead singer Ben Gibbard's divorce from Zooey Deschanel, it also marks guitarist Chris Walla's departure from the band.  Loss haunts this album, and it's got some pretty great heartbreak tracks on it including "You've Haunted Me All My Life" and "Binary Sea." The music, however, remains relativity upbeat and poppy.  Chris Walla's distinctive guitar style is always a big draw on Death Cab albums, and Kintsugi is no exception.  His presence will be missed in the band (at least by me).
Repeat Tracks:  "Little Wanderer," "Everything's a Ceiling," and "Good Help (Is So Hard to Find)."

Magnolia Electric Co. by Songs: Ohia
Find it in the catalog!

Didn't It Rain by Songs: Ohia.
Find it in the catalog!
These two deluxe edition album reissues represent the finest work of the late musician Jason Molina.  For those unfamiliar with Molina, check out fellow Media blogger Jason's tribute to the singer. Songs: Ohia has sort of an alt-country sound that can achingly haunting at times (especially the back half of Didn't It Rain) or hard rocking (like the first half of Magnolia Electric Co.).  Molina's singing voice is deep and rich, and one of my favorite things elements of these albums is his vocals. If you haven't listened to Molina before, definitely check out both these LPs!  For hardcore fans, there are additional discs with demos and outtakes for each record.
Repeat Tracks:  I love all three of the last songs on Didn't It Rain: "Blue Factory Flame," "Two Blue Lights, and "Blue Chicago Moon."  Off Magnolia Electric Co., my favorites are: "Farewell Transmission," "Almost Good Enough," and "Just Be Simple."

Song Obsessions: Bob Dylan Edition

Though they certainly aren't mutually exclusive, of the big name folk singer-songwriters from the 60s, I tend to be more of a Paul Simon girl than a Dylanite.  I listened to Dylan in college, but not obsessively (minus Blonde on Blonde); and while I really enjoyed some of his lyrics, his music didn't emotionally resonate with me in the same way some of Simon's songs did (blasphemy, I know!).  Lately, however, I have been listening to a ton of Dylan.  I'm not sure what spurred this development. Perhaps, I just listened to Sounds of Silence one too many times and decided I needed something darker and more ironic (sorry Paul!).  Anyway, below are five Dylan tracks I can't get enough of currently:

1).  "Like a Rolling Stone" from Highway 61 Revisited.  I kept this album in my car stereo an embarrassingly long time just because I could not turn off this track once it had started.  This is pretty obvious Dylan, but I really like him at his meanest.  Dylan is great at crafting insults.  Here, he is able to be both ruthless to the song's subject while being occasional empathetic, especially at the end: "When you got nothing, you've got nothing to lose/ You're invisible now, you've got no secrets to conceal."

2).  "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" from Blood on the Tracks. There are a lot of great tracks off this album, but I adore the pessimism of this love song.  The song perfectly captures the early glow of a new relationship, "Flowers on the hillside, bloomin' crazy/ Crickets talkin' back and forth in rhyme/ Blue river runnin' slow and lazy/ I could stay with you forever and never realize the time."  However, the narrator has been down this particular road a few to many times to expect a happy ending, "Situations have ended sad/ Relationships have all been bad/ Mine've been like Verlaine's and Rimbaud's."  So, the most romantic thing he can muster up to say to his lady love is that she'll make him lonesome when she leaves. 

3).  "4th Time Around" from Blonde on Blonde.  I've been listening to this album on-and-off since college and I just recently learned it's a parody of the Beatles' "Norwegian Wood."  John Lennon's lyrics sounded a little too Dylanesque for Dylan, so he decided to show him how it was done. Now, when I listen to the song, I can definitely hear the similarity.  But really I like it because Dylan portrays himself as hilariously jerky in these lyrics.  It's one of two songs on the album that make me laugh out ("Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat" being the other).  I love what a little punk Bob Dylan was on this album.

4).  "Mr. Tambourine Man" from Bringing It All Back Home.  This is one of the few Dylan songs I actually listened to growing up.  My father did not become a big Dylan fan until later in life; so while I was growing up he pretty much only listened to the "Greatest Hits."  Since my dad loved this song, I didn't allow myself to like it until recently (Dads are so uncool).  However, I really admire the complexity of the rhymes with in this song.  The lyrics are little more poetic, and less flippant than my favorite Dylan.  However, the guy was like 23 when he wrote, so I'll give him a pass.  It's much less literary mag than the stuff Paul Simon wrote at that age.

5). "Idiot Wind" from Blood on the Tracks.  This is a Bob Dylan put down song of the finest caliber.  The lyrics have the bitterness and biting of his earlier angry songs like "Positively 4th Street" and "Like a Rolling Stone," but their is less self-righteous coldness and more emotional pain in "Idiot Wind."  Dylan sings the song so passionately, that at times he sounds vaguely like a pirate.  One of my favorite line sequences in the song nicely sums up the hurt accompanying the end of a long relationship, "I can't feel you anymore/ I can't even touch the books you've read/ Every time I crawl past your door/ I've been wishin' I was someone else instead."  By the end of the song, Dylan even includes himself as equally culpable, "We're idiots, babe/ It's a wonder we can even feed ourselves."  Awesome song, awesome album, check out both!

Josh Ritter: The Beast in Its Tracks

Josh Ritter's new album, The Beast in Its Tracks, opens with a minute-long fragment of a song addressed to a former lover: "Last night I saw/Someone with your eyes/Someone with your smile/Someone with your smile/We danced/And I regret that she asked me to/'Cause she didn't have your arms." This image of attempting to move on whilst preoccupied with a former love is the overarching theme of this album. The Beast in Its Tracks feels an awful lot like the songwriter without his mask on; an attempt at confessional - if not autobiographical - work. Musically, The Beast in Its Tracks is in keeping with Ritter's established sound; acoustic guitar, crystal-clear vocals, and strings that enhance the songs without being intrusive. "Bonfire" sounds remarkably like a classic Paul Simon song, and wouldn't sound out of place on any of Simon's early solo records. But this time out there are no third-person narratives about mummies doomed to live and love eternally, or tragic first-person reminiscences of Arctic explorers. What we have instead is a beautiful collection of songs about starting again in the wake of a love affair, and the singer's feelings of exhilaration and ambivalence. There is a tension to the lyrics about starting anew. It's as if Ritter is trying to convince himself that he's okay ("I'm happy for the first time in a long time"), but his misgivings are on display on every song ("I can't pretend that all is well, it's like I'm haunted by a ghost"). I think the key to this recurring theme lies in track nine, "The Apple Blossom Rag". Seemingly recorded live - the song begins with unintelligible whispering near the microphone, and what sounds like plates being cleared in the background - "The Apple Blossom Rag" is bitter, funny, and wistful, all at once, concluding with the heartbreaking self-realization: "Lord, I'm such a fool/For things that sing so sweet and sad/But are so [expletive] cruel." Whether this move toward more personal songwriting proves to be a permanent one for Ritter or a mere detour into "breakup album" territory, The Beast in Its Tracks is well worth your time.

Jason Molina: 1973-2013

News outlets report that singer-songwriter Jason Molina passed away March 16, 2013, at the age of 39. He had been in poor health in recent years and a campaign was underway to help raise funds for his mounting medical bills. Molina is best known for the music he recorded under the names Songs: Ohia and Magnolia Electric Co. His music was noticeably influenced by American folk and country, and his unique voice was instantly recognizable. Molina's highly poetic lyrics often centered on the lives and concerns of working people, particularly in his home state of Ohio and the city of Chicago, which had become something of an adopted home for the musician. His protagonists were tired, anxious, uncertain about what their lives meant and where they might end up. But Molina expressed these pervasive anxieties with such tenderness that many of his songs have the comforting qualities of lullabies. I am reminded of a lyric from his song "Blue Factory Flame":

when i die put my bones in an empty street
to remind me of how it used to be
don’t write my name on a stone
bring a Coleman lantern and a radio
a Cleveland game and two fishing poles
and watch with me from the shore
ghostly steel and iron ore ships coming home
where i am paralyzed by the emptiness

The Tallest Man On Earth: Love Is All

The Tallest Man On Earth is the enigmatic stage name of Swedish singer-songwriter Kristian Matsson. He has been recording original music and performing live for several years, but recently received a significant profile boost when he toured with critically-acclaimed artist Bon Iver. All of Matsson's work is guitar-based and heavily folk influenced, and his distinctively raspy voice is a wonderful instrument for his evocative song lyrics. While I would recommend the entirety of his 2010 album The Wild Hunt, it's the song "Love Is All" that has really stolen my heart. The video director Johan Stolpe has collected and edited vintage home movies - seemingly shot on Super 8 - into an unexpectedly moving complement to the song itself.

Time Capsule Album Obsessions: High School

My high school years aren’t really a period I’m nostalgic about.  Like a lot of people from a small town, I spent much of  high school looking forward to leaving home and going to college.  I was more of an honor students than a rebel, but I did experiment with punk rock and light subversion.  After spending my freshman and sophomore years listening to emo (Bright Eyes, mostly) and glam rock (thanks to Ewan McGregor) I discovered the Cure and 80s post punk (which would dominate my playlists until grad school).  Below are five albums that I listened to way too much during high school:  

 

The Smiths- The Queen Is Dead.
Find it in the catalog!  
The Smiths are basically required listening for every angst-ridden high school student.  At the time, I could certainly relate to Morrissey’s sizable amount of self-pity on songs like “I Know It’s Over” and “Never Had No One Ever.”  But it was more than just adolescent woefulness that drew me to the Smiths.  Morrissey has one of best voices in rock, and he can be pretty funny at times.  Also, Johnny Marr’s excellent guitar work makes the music still sound fresh today.  
 

Favorite tracks: The Boy with the Thorn In His Side, There is a Light (That Never Goes Out), Some Girls are Bigger Than Others

Joy Division- Closer

Find Closer in the catalog! 

I think I definitely enjoy this album more now than I did in high school. Back then, I thought liking Joy Division made me dark and edgy, so I pretended to enjoy it more than I did.  And I liked the cryptic but bleak lyrics.  It wasn’t until college, when a lot of bands started to emulate Joy Division’s sound that I began to appreciate how spare and yet awesomely rocking they were.  Still, I listened to this album a lot in high school for only sort of liking it.  Perhaps, I just wanted to scare my parents.

 

Favorite tracks:  Isolation, Heart and Soul, The Eternal.  

  Joni Mitchell-Blue

Find it in the catalog! 

My sophomore year of high school, I bought a turntable.  I had a cheap box record player before this, but the turntable was a definite step up.  To build up my record collection, I'd buy pretty much anything from the 60s and 70s that was reasonably cool or had a spiffy cover. This was one of those records.  I bought it for it's pretty blue cover, but played it over and over again for its mellow vibe and romantic angst.  At 15, I hadn't really lived enough to understand the complex emotions on the album.  But I was naive enough to think that I did.

Favorite Tracks: California, River, A Case of You.

Simon and Garfunkel- Bridge Over Troubled Water

Find it in the catalog!

I went to high school about 30 years after it was cool to like this album.  Thankfully, none of my classmates knew who S and G were and therefore were clueless as to how much of a geek I was.  I started listening to S and G after hearing that Paul Simon was a big influence on my then rock-God, Connor Oberst of Bright Eyes.  My dad didn’t have Graceland, but I permanently borrowed his copies of Bookends and BOTW.  Paul Simon’s witty, literate, and offbeat lyrics really appealed to me.  I also liked the band’s quirky folk rock sound.  BOTW is an ambitious but fun album.  S and G played around with a bunch of sounds, including gospel (“Bridge Over Troubled Water,”) straight rock ‘n’ roll (“Baby Driver”) and even Bossa Nova (“So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright”- not my favorite).  There are lots of classic songs on the this album, including the title track, “The Boxer” and “Cecilia,” but my all-time favorite song is the haunting “Only Living Boy in New York.”

 

Favorite Tracks:  Cecilia, Keep the Customer Satisfied, Baby Driver, Only Living Boy in New York, and Song for the Asking. 

Belle and Sebastian- If You're Feeling Sinister

Find it in the catalog! 

I discovered this band from one of my friends who was much hipper than me.  From their cool, retro red cover to their jangly, 60s inspired folk pop, Belle and Sebastian were pretty much perfect in my book.  Stuart Murdoch's lyrics were smart and funny, but a little wistful.  Belle and Sebastian were more or less the sonic equivalent of watching a Wes Anderson movie.   What more could a pretentious, old soul 17 year old want in a band?  Even with their post-Juno popularity and accusations of tweeness, If You're Feeling Sinister and Tigermilk are still favorites of mine. 

Favorite Tracks: The Fox in the Snow; Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying; If You're Feeling Sinister

Check out my whole list of high school album obsessions. 

Record Collection Crushes: Geeky Musical Benchmarks

Paul Schneider rocks on!

Anyone who has ever been to a concert knows that just because someone likes your favorite band, it doesn't mean they aren't totally annoying.  That being said, as a music geek, it's hard not be impressed when someone has a really killer record collection or iTunes Library.

So what makes someone's record collection crushworthy?  Usually its the weird stuff that you like that you think no one else does.  As a suburban teenager, my bar was pretty low.  If someone had heard of (and liked) Radiohead, I thought they were pretty awesome.  Now, as a jaded twenty-something who knows a lot of people with similar taste, I'm much pickier ("You like LCD Soundsystem, yeah, so does EVERYONE...").   

Earlier, I did a post on musical dealbreakers; bands and artists so heinous, they are potential relationship-enders.  These musical benchmarks are the opposite; bands and artists so supremely awesome, that if someone liked them, you'd respect them a little more for it. Overall, this list was much trickier to compile than the dealbreakers.  They are not necessarily my favorite bands (Note: no LCD Soundsystem, no Black Keys), just the ones that seem obscure and rocking enough to earn my musical admiration.  Below are my picks:

Jonathan Richman and/ or the Modern Lovers.  Find him in the catalog!

Post-Punk:  Wire, Gang of Four, Jesus and Mary Chain, etc.

Elephant 6 bands:  Neutral Milk Hotel, Apples in Stereo, Olivia Tremor Control, etc.

Madvillain, Madlib, and MF Doom.  

Any blues music from the Fat Possum Label.  R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, T-Model Ford.  Fat Possum's indie stuff is cool too!

Smart, Literate NYC Indie Rockers:  The Walkmen, The National, etc.

Okay music geeks, what additions (or subtractions) would you make to the list?

What We've Been Listening To: Admiral Fell Promises by Sun Kil Moon

Call No.: CD-ROCK RAP SUN ADMIRAL
Find it in the Catalog!

I am a big fan of Sun Kil Moon's previous albums, especially April.  Mastermind Mark Kozelek makes really pretty, melancholy music that is tranquil enough to play as background music for a dinner party, but complex enough to warrant listening to with headphones on.  Admiral Fell Promises is probably the barest and most delicate work by Kozelek yet.  The first few times I listened to the record, I thought the album was beautiful but excessively chill.  Then I turned up the volume about ten notches and was thoroughly impressed by Kozelek's guitar work and the album as a whole.

Admiral Fell Promises is a spare album; it's pretty much an hour of Kozelek's vocals and classical Spanish style guitar work.  Kozelek plays alone (all alone).  This sparsity makes the album perfect cold weather listening; in fact, it stayed in my car stereo pretty much all winter long.  However, Kozelek does manages to incorporate some warmth and brightness into the album, particularly in the almost joyful "You are My Sun."  So the album will probably hold up for some of the more bittersweet days of spring and summer too.

Standout tracks: "Ålsund", the aforementioned  "You are my Sun," "Admiral Fell Promises," and closer "Bay of Skulls."

Recommended for fans of:  Red House Painters, Jose Gonzalez, and the Kings of Convenience.

Music Roundup: My Top Reissues of 2010

2010 and the latter-part of 2009 have been banner years for reissues. The canonical recordings of Bob Dylan and the Beatles were re-released in mono (yes, mono), the Rolling Stones' 1972 masterpiece Exile on Main St. was released in two variations of deluxe-ness, and the bonanza continued with a high-profile exhumation of the Apple vaults. What follows is a brief list of the reissues that stand out - for me - as definite musical highlights of the past year.

A Bittersweet Curse

How seriously can you take the idea of romance between an Egyptian mummy and the archaeologist who discovers him? Not terribly, am I right? Such scenarios are generally limited to black and white horror movies and pulpy Anne Rice novels. Singer/songwriter Josh Ritter somehow manages to invest this fantastical relationship with pathos and tenderness, making "The Curse" the standout track of his 2010 album So Runs the World Away. "The Curse" is a lilting waltz with perfectly punctuated horn accompaniment and one of the most elegantly written poetic narratives in pop music. Ritter's drummer, professional puppeteer Liam Hurley, painstakingly created a visual corollary to the song that enhances its already powerful emotional impact. (You can read Hurley's thoughts on the song/video and see photos of the production process on NPR's All Songs Considered blog.) You can scoff at the perceived preciousness of an all-puppet music video, but if you're not moved by the sight of that marionette mummy reaching out to stroke the archaeologists hair (1 minute, 19 seconds into the video), then I'm not sure you're alive. Recommended for: lovers of poetic, finely wrought songs; puppeteers and puppet aficionados; video geeks; and any human being in whose chest the dried fig of a heart still beats.

Kings of Convenience at Metro, 6/10/10

Norwegian folk duo the Kings of Convenience played at Chicago's Metro theater last Thursday. The concert was originally scheduled for last February, but had to be postponed because band member Eirik Glambek Bøe came down with swine flu.  The show was definitely worth the wait.

I'm a moderate fan of the Kings of Convenience.  I was first introduced to the band because band member Erlend Øye toured a couple years ago with my Scandinavian indie rock crush, Jens Lekman.  Erlend's awkward charisma and awesomely bad dancing intrigued me.  I am a fan of the Kings' two older albums, Riot in an Empty Street and Quiet is the New Loud.  They have a quiet, peaceful, melancholy sound that is really nice when you're in the right mood.  I also enjoyed Erlend Øye's techno side projects including the Whitest Boy Alive and his solo album Unrest.  However, I haven't really gotten around to listening to the Kings' new album, Declaration of Independence, even though it's their first record in five years and has been out for almost a year. Which is to say that I wasn't the biggest fan there or the most familiar with the material, but I was interested to see how Erlend's charms held up with material that was darker and less danceable than his solo efforts.

A Californian band called Franklin for Short opened for the group. I had not heard of them before, but they were very impressively bearded.  I half-expected them to sound like Leonard Skynyrd, but they had more of a conventional indie pop rock sound mixed with some alt-country twang.  The band is sort of a blend of twee indie (they have a song named after everyone's least favorite gift, "Electric Blanket") and neo-hippie (hence the beards).  I started out tolerating them, but their general affability, good lead guitar work, and use of the theremin won me over enough.

The audience for the show was different than I envisioned.  Somehow I didn't think that a semi-obscure, Scandinavian folk duo that sounds vaguely like Simon and Garfunkel would have a mostly male, mostly preppy fan base (polo shirts abounded).  Especially not one that loudly shouted and wooed like they were attending a sporting event.  There were times, several in fact, that the audience was louder than the band.

The Kings took the stage a little bit before 8:30 and played for over an hour and half.  Musically, the show was a little less than perfect.  Metro is a larger concert venue and was packed full of rowdy super fans; the King's delicate sound wasn't quite big enough to fill the room.  They also had some technical problems, including Øye's guitar making an irritating feedback noise.  Still, that wasn't really my draw to this show.  Bøe and Øye have known each other since they were fifteen (both are in their mid-30s now), so they had a lived-in onstage chemistry and peppered their performance with humorous stories about each other.  Gangly and bespectacled, Erlend Øye looks like one of the least likely rock stars in the world.  However, he is probably one of the most charismatic performers in indie rock.  Øye's persona definitely emphasizes his awkwardness.  However, he was able to captivate the audience with his off kilter comments and nerdy enthusiasm. At one point, he made the comment, "You are a very strange audience," prompting an audience member to yell back, "You are very strange too!"  Erlend could only nod his head in agreement.

The band played a variety of songs from their different albums, but material from their most popular album, Riot on an Empty Street, was best received by the audience.  Later during the show, Franklin for Short joined the Kings to play back up and finally gave them enough sound to fill up the room.  Additionally, it allowed Erlend to showcase some of his awkward dancing skills.  The highlight of the evening was the closer, a cover of Paul Simon's "You Can Call Me Al."  During which, Erlend encourage the audience to form a dancing circle which he jumped off stage to join.  Along side with Dan Deacon and Greg Gillis (aka. Girl Talk), Øye is one of the few indie rockers with enough pizazz and lunacy to be a genuine rock star.

What we're listening to: I Told You I Was Freaky by the Flight of the Conchords

I Told You I Was Freaky includes songs featured on the second (and final) season of HBO's series Flight of the Conchords. A duo from New Zealand, Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement have a chameleon-like ability to write and sing songs from different musical styles in a hilarious fashion. On "Hurt Feelings" they demonstrate how "rappers have feelings" by rapping about situations where people were mean to them. For example, when Brett wants to buy a wetsuit he's told to "try a ladies' size." Or, on Jemaine's birthday in 2003 no one calls to wish him a happy birthday: "The day after my birthday is not my birthday, Mum!" Rhys Darby, who plays Murray on the show, joins Bret and Jemaine on "Friends," in which the guys give several definitions for what constitutes being a friend: "I'll cheer you up if you're depressed / If you get murdered I'll avenge your death." My favorite on the album is "Carol Brown," which finds Jemaine singing about past girlfriends and the ways they left him. Jemaine mopes about being dumped by a long list of women; a chorus of those same ex-girlfriends make him out to be a less than amazing guy: "He doesn't cook or clean / He's not good boyfriend material." The comments of Jemaine and his exes sung back and forth get better as the song progresses:

(Jemaine) How can we ever know
We've found the right person in this world?
(Ex-girlfriends) He means he looks at other girls.

I love listening to the Flight of the Conchords because they're funny songwriters and also talented musicians.
Find it in the catalog!