Blog: Pretty Goes with Pretty

Until this weekend, when I set out to remind myself of some of my favorite new releases of the year, I hadn't listened to Fleet Foxes for a while. I'd burned out. But that's because I listened to their debut intensely for about three months out of the year. I wonder???I can't guess???if I'll return to this album again and again in the future or if it will forever and always just remind me of 2008???that era of my life when my brilliant wife and I lived in West Hollywood, when we didn't have kids yet, back when I worked [...]

There they are: the 89 albums I acquired in 2008 (up from 57 in 2007!). As you may or may not have surmised from this post (actually I think a lot of people missed my point), I enjoyed what indie rock had to offer in 08, but I didn't depend on it: almost exactly 50% of my purchases???46 albums???were musical blind spots. 24 albums acquired this year were 2008 releases; rounding things out, 12 albums were from 2007 and 7 were from 2000???06. For the rest of the week I'll be highlighting my favorite [...]

Little Joy, s/t Deerhunter, Microcastle Fleet Foxes, s/t Ruby Suns, Sea Lion Vampire Weekend, s/t The Shins, Oh, Inverted World and Wincing the Night Away The Smiths, The Queen is Dead Andrew Bird, Armchair Apocrypha Dr. Dog, Fate The Little Ones, Sing Song EP The Walkmen, Bows + Arrows Most this week was spent reminding myself of what I've enjoyed for the last year. The late contender is Little Joy, [...]

It's the month of lists, you've no doubt noticed. It's an entertaining yet tedious time of year: we get to find records we might have slept on and argue over albums that are underrated or underhated. Maybe it's the lack of galvanizing consensus albums this year, or the oft-repeated complaint that everyone's favorites are too boring , but I'm detecting an odd, if fascinating tone to the usual kvetching this time around. It's not the same old sux/rulz dichotomy: rather, there seems to be a distinct lack of trust , a suspicion of the listmakers' motives. [...]

It???s the month of lists, you???ve no doubt noticed. It???s an entertaining yet tedious time of year: we get to find records we might have slept on and argue over albums that are underrated or underhated. Maybe it's the lack of galvanizing consensus albums this year, or the oft-repeated complaint that everyone's favorites are too boring , but I'm detecting an odd, if fascinating tone to the usual kvetching this time around. It's not the same old sux/rulz dichotomy: rather, there seems to be a distinct lack of trust , a suspicion of the listmakers' motives. [...]

The Band, s/t Black Sabbath, Master of Reality Brian Eno, Before and After Science David Bowie, Station to Station Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim Elvis Costello, Get Happy!! The Grateful Dead, American Beauty Pixies, Doolittle and Bossanova The Smiths, The Queen is Dead Deerhunter, Microcastle Little Joy, s/t Dr. Dog, Fate Juana Molina, Un D??a Velvet Underground and [...]

The Band, s/t Black Sabbath, Master of Reality Brian Eno, Before and After Science David Bowie, Station to Station Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim Elvis Costello, Get Happy!! The Grateful Dead, American Beauty Pixies, Doolittle and Bossanova The Smiths, The Queen is Dead Deerhunter, Microcastle Little Joy, s/t

The Replacements, Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash Minutemen: The Punch Line and What Makes a Man Start Fires? Mission of Burma, Signals, Calls, and Alarms Buzzcocks, Singles Going Steady Pixies, Doolittle David Bowie, Young Americans and Station to Station Elvis Costello, Get Happy!! Sex Pistols, Never Mind the Bullocks Brian Eno, Before and After Science Terry Riley, In C [...]

• The Buzzcocks - Ever Fallen In Love?

Mission of Burma, Signals, Calls, and Alarms Matmos, The Civil War Four Tet, Rounds Juana Molina, Un D??a Jose Gonzalez, Veneer Dinosaur Jr, You're Living All Over Me My Bloody Valentine, Loveless Minor Threat, Out of Step R.E.M., Murmur Unfortunately I haven't had much time for blogging lately. Regular job + a couple freelance jobs + a few other projects have been keeping me busy. Amidst all my nostalgic listening over [...]

Slint, Tweez Sonic Youth, Daydream Nation and Dirty Dinosaur Jr., Bug Drive Like Jehu, Yank Crime I've been reading Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life for the last week???can you tell? I'm on a steady diet of '80s and '90s indie rock right now. I even got all anal with my iTunes and created a genre for "Classic Indie"???basically anything from 1985???1995. (Prior to '85 it's punk; after '95, it's just indie rock.) I've also got a long list of [...]

O is the One That is Real

Monks, Black Monk Time Tied & Tickled Trio, Observing Systems Kronos Quartet, Kronos Quartet Performs Philip Glass John Coltrane, A Love Supreme Of Montreal, Skeletal Lamping Icebreaker International, Trein Maersk: A Report to the NATOarts Board of Directors The Dave Brubeck Quartet, Time Out Brian Eno, Another Green World Four Tet, Ringer Holy Fuck, LP Okkervil River, The Stand Ins Slint, Tweez and Spiderland [...]

Secret Machines, September 000 , Now Here is Nowhere , Ten Silver Drops , and s/t Animal Collective, Feels Fran??oise Hardy, La question Of Montreal, Skeletal Lamping Animal Collective: Banshee Beat

News that guitarist Benjamin Curtis left the band made me approach the new album with caution, not so much because he was the heart of the band (he wasn't), but because it signaled that something was going to change for this band, which to my ears was batting a thousand so far. Something did change. I can't say it wasn't inevitable. Over an EP and three albums, I've watched the Secret Machines morph from an indie rock band with a serious knack for muscular epics that toyed with pop structures yet never eschewed great hooks into something altogether [...]

Cat Stevens, Greatest Hits Midlake, The Trials of Van Occupanther Andrew Bird & the Mysterious Production of Eggs Animal Collective, Strawberry Jam Peter Bjorn & John, Writer's Block The Radio Dept., Lesser Matters The Monks, Black Monk Time Faust, s/t and So Far The Fiery Furnaces, Blueberry Boat The United States of America, s/t Paul Simon, Graceland Animal Collective, Feels Secret Machines, s/t [...]

Here's a bunch of Monks performances from an appearance on German TV in 1966. "Monk Chant" and "Oh How They Do" "I Can't Get Over You" "Complications" "Boys are Boys and Girls are Choice"

I'd never heard of the Monks until earlier this year, when I came across their song "Monk Time." The track is immediately visceral, as singer Gary Burger shouts "You know we don't like the army. What army? Who cares what army? Why do you kill all those kids over there in Vietnam? Mad Viet Cong. My brother died in Vietnam! James Bond, who was he?" It's part stream-of-conscious spew, part protest, part undirected rage. When the rest of the band attempts to chime in with a discordant volume swell, Burger says to them "Stop it! Stop it! I don't like [...]

My journey deeper into krautrock continues, after recent purchases by Neu! and Amon D????l II , with the first two Faust albums. I've had them for a few weeks now and have been listening to both pretty religiously; in fact, I'd say these are my favorite kraut acquisitions of the year by far???not as cold as Neu!, not as aimless as ADII. For the longest time I was put off by Faust, mostly because of their album covers and their band name, both of which radiate a kind of proto-goth/industrial vibe. Once again I was guilty [...]

Four Tet, Rounds Fran??oise Hardy, La question The Fiery Furnaces, Blueberry Boat Faust, s/t and So Far Josh Rouse, Nashville Monks, Black Monk Time Most of this week I was in an "Acts that start with F" phase, apparently. That Fran??oise Hardy album is excellent, by the way. A few tracks kinda remind me of Astrud Gilberto; really relaxed, less self-consciously sexy (as so many other French female singers can seem). Recommended. Fran??iose Hardy, [...]

I don???t know where I got the impression that they were boringly gentle, either. It???s weird how you get these weird impressions of bands - I???ve been hearing about them for so long that I kind of accidentally built up this little cluster of impressions around them, mostly, it seems, plucked from thin air. This is something Song By Toad said last week about Neutral Milk Hotel, whom Mr. Toad just heard for the first time. It stuck out at me because I'd just finished saying something similar about Brian Eno the [...]