Top Ten Albums 2009

10. Grooms – Rejoicer (Death by Audio)

9. Manic Street Preachers – Journal for Plague Lovers (Columbia)

“This Joke Sport Severed”


8. Circulatory System – Signal Morning (Cloud Recordings)

7. Wavves – Wavvves (Fat Possum)

Download audio file (wavves-sobored.mp3)
“So Bored” (buy)

6. A Sunny Day in Glasgow – Ashes Grammar (Mis Ojos Discos)

Download audio file (asunnydayinglasgow-closechorus.mp3)
“Close Chorus” (buy)

5. The Present – The Way We Are (Loaf)

4. Jonsi & Alex (Riceboy Sleeps) – Riceboy Sleeps (XL)

“Indian Summer”

3. Bobby Emmett – Learning Love (self-released)

2. Pastels/Tenniscoats – Two Sunsets (Domino)

“Vivid Youth”

1. I Was A King – s/t (Control Group)

Download audio file (iwasaking-normanbleik.mp3)
“Norman Bleik” (buy)

Honorable Mention Albums

Dalek – Gutter Tactics (Ernest Jenning)
Tenniscoats – Temporacha (Room 40)
Silk Flowers – s/t (PPM Records)
Savath & Savalas – La Llama (Stones Throw)
Jon Hopkins – Insides (Domino)
DJ Spooky – Secret Song (Thirsty Ear Recordings)
Little Claw – Human Taste (Ecstatic Peace!)

Top EP

Washed Out – Life of Leisure (Mexican Summer)

Download audio file (washedout-newtheory.mp3)
“New Theory” (buy)

Honorable Mention EPs

Mayfair Set – Young One (Captured Tracks)
Banjo or Freakout – Upside Down (Half Machine Records)
Julianna Barwick – Florine (Florid Recordings)
Olafur Arnalds – Found Songs (Erased Tapes)

Favorite Song

“If I Had a Heart” by Fever Ray (Mute)

Compilations/Reissues

Various Artists – Where the Action Is: Los Angeles Nuggets 1965-1968 (Rhino)
Milky Disco – Let’s Go Freakout: Vol 2 (Lo Recordings)
Big Star – Keep an Eye on the Sky Box Set (Rhino)

“The Ballad of El Goodo”

Starring Dallas Alice

Right-click the above link to download E. Kula’s definitive 2k9 mix tape. Track listing and artist information is included there within.

Scott Walker: 30 Century Man
Verve Pictures

I am a big Scott Walker fan, but I want to keep things in perspective. I have wanted to see Stephen Kijak’s documentary Scott Walker: 30 Century Man ever since its 2006 UK release. But I was never in the right place at the right time. It has felt like repeatedly being vexed by a good acquaintance with a smirk on his face. First, a message from London arrived in my inbox. “I saw 30 Century Man yesterday.” Six months later, a similar message arrived from an acquaintance in South Korea. Each time it felt like I had just been proven wrong in front of people I didn’t really like. But, the delay of its release has been appropriate given the content of the documentary. Ironic, but appropriate. The most marketable aspect of the documentary has been the promise of breaking through Scott Walker’s prior reclusiveness. And, almost as if by intent, the distribution has been restricted and painfully gradual. Verve Pictures is the friend with the smirk on his face. But, Scott Walker: 30 Century Man finally debuted in Los Angeles on February 27 for a one week run.

For some reason, the general fascination about the musical progression of Scott Walker has focused on the transition of Scott Engle-Teen Idol to Scott Walker-Literate Crooner and Baroque Visionary. That is misplaced curiosity. It has all been well-documented elsewhere. And Kijak recognizes this. Of course, Walker’s early development is addressed in the film. Through interviews with a comfortable set of contributors, Engle’s transformation to Walker Brother and Walker’s development as a solo artist is thoroughly addressed. But, the big questions to me are: “What happened between Scott 4 and Tilt?” “How could the cynical, beautiful Boy Child that sang ‘Duchess’ also sing ‘Farmer in the City’?’” “Seriously, what the hell, Scott?”

While the documentary fails to explicitly answer these questions, it does include an uncritical look at the exploitation and burnout Scott experienced between 1969-94. Thankfully, the creation of Tilt is well detailed. And, the reception of Tilt is the most entertaining part of the film. A composer explains the way an uninhibited Walker finds the untapped ground between discord and harmony, and that draws comparisons to the disjointed modernism of giants like Joyce and Eliot. An independent journalist laments on his regrettable over-indulgence in Walker’s music and the damage it has inflicted on his life. Marc Almond hates everything about Tilt. In the latter half of the documentary, the commentary by Walker’s associates and fans becomes increasingly aesthetic, focusing less on the man and more on the violent originality of his latest work. But, throughout the film, the interview clips of Walker (filmed near the recording of 2006’s The Drift) are refreshingly ordinary. It seems unbelievable that such adoration, usually reserved for the giants of literature, could be lauded upon such a normal guy in a baseball cap. But, in the same way that Walker finds inspiration between discord and concord, there is a certain comfort lurking between the ordinariness of Walker’s interviews and the fanatic comments of those interviewed about his work.

Scott Walker: 30 Century Man — Official theatrical trailer

Related Bloggings:

Leonard Cohen–”I’m Your Man”

BEST ALBUMS
(Record Label in parentheses)

10. Christina Carter – Original Darkness (Kranky)

9. Shugo Tokumaru – Exit (Almost Gold’s 2008 U.S. Release)

8. Nico Muhly – Mothertongue (Bedroom Community)

7. Juana Molina – Un Dia (Domino)
“Un Dia”
Download audio file (un_dia.mp3)

6. The Jealous Girlfriends – S/T (Last Gang’s Wide Release)

5. Cryptacize – Dig That Treasure (Asthmatic Kitty)

4. The Bug – London Zoo (Ninja Tune)
“Murder Me“
Download audio file (murder_me_mp3)

3. Love Is All – A Hundred Things Keep Me Up At Night (What’s Your Rupture)
“New Beginnings”
Download audio file (new_beginnings.mp3)

2. Pas/Cal – I Was Raised On Matthew, Mark, Luke And Laura (Le Grand Magistery)
“O Honey, We’re Ridiculous“
Download audio file (o_honey_were_ridiculous.mp3)

1. Atlas Sound – Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel (Kranky)
“River Card“
Download audio file (AS-River.mp3)

HONORABLE MENTION
Lacktherof – Your Anchor (Barsuk)
Eric Chenaux – Sloppy Ground (Constellation)
Lau Nau – Nukkuu (Locust)
PWRFL Power – S/T (Slender Means Society)
Cheap Time – S/T (In the Red)
Thomas Function – Celebration (Alive)
Cloudland Canyon – Lie In Light (Kranky)

E. Kula’s Song Of The Year
“Glitter and Gold” by Cheap Time
Download audio file (glitter_gold.mp3)

Other Top Songs (with one caveat)
CAVEAT: Every single track off Girl Talk’s “Feed the Animals” lp could be one of my top songs. But, invariably throughout the album, each track includes a particular mix (or two or three) to my chagrin. A fine collection of songs, but to make this list you have to plug the Big Muff directly into my g spot 100% of the time…not 90%

“Lady Macbeth” by Differnet
Download audio file (lady_macbeth.mp3)

“Opposite Sides” by The Epochs
Download audio file (opposite_sides.mp3)

“Baby I’m Just a Fool” by Spiritualized
Download audio file (baby_im_just_a_fool.mp3)

“Murder Me” by The Bug
Download audio file (murder_me.mp3)

“Get Out 3″ by Peter Rehberg

“I Quit’ by The Jealous Girlfriends

“O Honey, We’re Ridiculous” by Pas/Cal

“Sea Sick” by Love Is All

“Dance, Dance Dance” by Lykke Li (in particular the Youtube Lykke Li/Bon Iver collaboration)

Best Ep
Memory Cassette – Rewind While Sleeping

Best Compilations
5. Mary Anne Hobbs Presents Evangeline (planet mu)

4. The Postmarks: By The Numbers (Unfiltered) (Compiled covers album)

3. Jay Reatard: Matador Singles ’08 (Matador)

2. Wierd Compilation, Vol. II Analogue Electronic Music 2008 (Wierd)

1. Titan: It’s All Pop (Numero Group)

Download audio file (SeaSick.mp3)
Love Is All – “Sea Sick”
(from A Hundred Things Keep Me Up At Night)

Sometimes it doesn’t take long to realize you’ve found a good thing. A great pilot episode. The first bite of a delicious meal. The first time you went to the Post-Rockist website. Sometimes it just doesn’t take long. And such was definitely the case with Nine Times That Same Song, Love Is All’s 2006 singles collection that really announced them to the American market. The opener “Talk Talk Talk Talk” was a full-throated, howling announcement of their arrival that grabbed my attention in less than four beats with only voices, generously applied echo effect, and clicking drumsticks. In the time of literally one bar, I was impressed, intrigued, and a little bit terrified by how good this post-punk was. They wasted no time. On their newest album, A Hundred Things Keep Me Up At Night, Love Is All challenges their listeners and demands patience. The opener, “New Beginning,” is not the same slap-in-the-face, capsizing upheaval as “Talk!” The Swedish bastards, just like a cheap, blonde, Nordic tease, get off on being withholding. They delay our gratification. Indeed, Love Is All keeps us waiting a whole five bars and six seconds before this jagged, art-pop treat is in full gear. It really didn’t take long to realize I was in for a good listen.

True to form, the Swedish quintet kicks off their newest effort with another confident attention grabber. In the matter of a few seconds, “New Beginning” introduces a tinny guitar line which is doubled by the bass, joined by drums, and pushed forward by a catchy sax line. Josephine Olausson joins in a few moments later with her recognizable frenzied vocals. The album’s energy rarely wanes and for the next 30-plus minutes, providing 11 tracks of new-wave inspired grit-pop, with choruses that have the odd ability to remain memorable and catchy despite the constant agitated saxophone squeals and rough guitars that accompany them. A truly engaging aspect of this record is the dynamic variation that persists throughout (and should no doubt be largely credited to the studio contrivance of producer Wyatt Cusick). The post-punk stomp never stops, and melodies are often repeated, but instrumental arrangements, tempo and mixing are in constant states of flux. At the end of each song, I am never left thinking that cleverness masks simplicity. Inevitably, I just think “I like those changes. That was pretty cool.”

Standout track “Sea Sick” is a great example of this dynamic variation, as well the odd mixture of post-punk, saxophone-blowin’ angst, and pure pop chorus. Of course, when I write “pure pop” it should be noted that it is of the Gary Glitter variety. The chorus of this song plays out like a faux stadium rock chant, but without straying too far from their punk roots. Over the foot-stomping kick drum and sparse, deliberate guitars, Love Is All deliver a sneering “I’m bored to death/ I’m bored as shit.” (This is a punk rock sneer and not a Glitter inappropriate leer). This mantra is repeated at different tempos, with varying levels of intensity throughout, and even this chant seems to work well with the otherwise spiky tone of the record.

There are a few misguided lyrical selections that rely on purely narrative story-telling. In particular, “A More Uncertain Future” explores lovers’ lament through dual narration. The band tries to escalate the emotional tension of a decayed relationship through a back and forth spat. But, the accompanying crescendo of instruments, (a flawed attempt to bring ballad into brute bombast) ends up making the woman sound shrill and the man sound emasculated… but isn’t that the case of any break-up involving an indie boy? However, previous fans of Love Is All will find A Hundred Things Keep Me Up At Night to be a similar collection of songs to Nine Times That Same Song. Exceptionally intense, noticeably Scandinavian post-punk, a ballad or two, and just enough thematic and tonal variation to keep us hooked. A great rock record.

The Twilight Sad – Walking For Two Hours
(from Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters)

Rumor has it, when Scottish band the Twilight Sad went down to Brighton, UK to meet with their label reps at Fat Cat Records, they took the piss out of everyone’s southern accent. It’s hard to believe they meant it maliciously. The affective souls responsible for Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters wouldn’t offend, would they? Of course not. But, at the same time, don’t take these lads as creampuffs just because their band name suggests a night in with red wine and Morrissey on the hi-fi accompanied by more than a few tears. The Twilight Sad can run with any crowd, and they will surely please people all over the indie spectrum. They’ve certainly pleased this Post-Rockist contributor.

Part way through opener “Cold Days From The Birdhouse” their Achilles heel/ace in the hole is revealed: James Graham’s voice. More specifically, it is his accent that shocks. With one of the thicker sung Scottish accents in pop music, it’s distracting to say the very least. It may also be that one extra idiosyncrasy that launches this band to superstardom! Well!that’s not going to happen. But, there’s no denying that what lies just beneath the thick Scottish brogue is a powerful set of pipes well-equipped to belt it out, even over the frequently cacophonic guitars and equally aggressive rhythm section. But, don’t get cocky on us, Mr. Graham: your vocals aren’t that sexy. The album feels a bit sluggish when it relies too heavily on his vocals. Songs such as “Last Year’s Rain Didn’t Fall Quite So Hard,” which is built around a repeated vocal line, are a bit aimless and boring. But, in defense of The Twilight Sad, shame on any listener who expected something spine-tingling or exciting from a song titled “Last Year’s Rain Didn’t Fall Quite So Hard.”

That said, the album is a very solid debut with a lot more highs than lows. The Twilight Sad will surely draw comparisons to fellow Scots Mogwai, or, I think even more appropriately, to Texans Lift to Experience. But, unlike these classic post-rock groups, the order of the day isn’t dynamics; it’s complements. Rather than drafting every song around the quiet/loud dynamic, the Twilight Sad complement their loudest, most distorted moments with a powerful, hooky vocal line here, a humming accordion there. These little touches make the louder moments more unpredictable, the quieter moments more memorable. Even as “Walking For Two Hours” opens with guitar tones that swing back and forth, seemingly with reckless abandon, it’s all done to a melody that wouldn’t sound out of place on Ride’s Nowhere. At other times, given the urgency captured in both Graham’s howling messages and the frenzied percussion, they sound reminiscent of the urban paranoia of New Yorkers like Interpol or Longwave. But, in a very Scottish way.

And, since there is no better place to insert this comment, here’s a sidebar. Though I haven’t been able to get confirmation on this point, I am quite certain that track two, “That Summer, At Home I Had Become The Invisible Boy,” is a reference to Rob Reiner’s 1986 classic Stand By Me (or possibly Stephen King’s novella “The Body,” on which the film is based). But, instead of telling us their story about a fat kid named Vern and a dead kid name Ray Brower, the Twilight Sad deliver a tale of about the clash of everyday disappointments and affirmations. And they prove convincingly that a row of effects pedals and an accordion make for better storytellers than Richard Dreyfuss.

-Posted by E. Kula

 

The Skygreen Leopards
Disciples of California
[Jagjaguwar; 2006] 

In 2001, Bar/None re-released some obscure recordings made in a grade school gymnasium with the key performers being…grade schoolers.  The Langley Schools Music Project captures nine to twelve year old children singing their hearts out to some of the best pop music of the 1960s and 1970s and showing the cynics among us how purely joyful pop music can be.  Of course, you have to suspend cynicism to take pleasure in the out-of-key hollering, the mistimed percussion, and the clumsily collided clave sticks.  But they’re children.  In 2006, Jagjaguwar asks us to enjoy playful warbling, mistimed percussion, and clumsy piano…from grown men.  Grown Men!  The Skygreen Leopards, formed around core duo Glenn Donaldson and Donovan Quinn, really put the Post-Rockist ethos of eschewing music snobbery to the test.  Or, perhaps not.  Is their rhythmically sparse and lyrically eccentric Disciples of California really an experimental folk record that caters to snobs?  It is, after all, on Jagjaguwar.  I say no.  Disciples of California, much like those wide-eyed Canadian children, really taps into the core of pop music: simple songs that make you smile.

Last year, The Skygreen Leopards released a six track EP, Jehovah Surrender, and every track was characterized by squalls of blissfully distorted guitars that practically poured out of the speakers.  It was truly some of the best effects work I’ve heard in quite some time.  So, on first listen, Disciples of California is unexpected.  It’s largely an acoustic affair, and excessively lo-fi to the point that one must wonder if those scrappy Canadian tikes had superior recording facilities.  It is rhythmically sparse with several songs pulling their structure solely from lazily plucked guitars.  Bass lines lumber along with no urgency and nothing about the album would lead us to believe that the Leopards are dedicated to keeping time.  The similarities between this and The Langley Schools’ recordings are numerous: carefree timing, casual recording, but above all an unabashed, childlike enjoyment of pretty, sunny pop melodies.  The lack of complexity in both arrangements and melodies doesn’t take anything away from the music.  Oddly, it is the unvarnished quality that reminds me of the unrestrained enjoyment that can be had when stripping pop music down to its basics.

Though simple, Disciples of California captures some unique beauty that Canadian school children just can’t.  However, this inability is less because of their age and more because of their nationality.  This album radiates Californian charm and, though unique, could easily be called new Americana.  Like The Beachwood Sparks’ or The Byrds’ best moments, the acoustic guitars chime rather than strum. Electric guitars are gentle and reverberate above the acoustics rather than abrasively piercing the moment.  “Egyptian Circus” and “Jesus Was Californian” are perfect examples of these crisp, chiming guitars that soften the longer they reverberate, yielding neither to structured timing nor strict tempo.

Disciples of California is strangely simple.  It is stripped down, fanciful, and unrefined.  Its simplicity doesn’t provide any hiding spaces for the Leopards to conceal their enthusiasm for a pure Californian pop song.  Its stalled and lazy tempo can’t put the breaks on its reverberating charm.  Its lack of complexity in both arrangements and melodies allow for The Skygreen Leopards to sing their hearts out in their own distinctive way.

The Skygreen Leopards – Disciples of California (from Disciples of California)

-Posted by E. Kula

 

Mouse on Mars
Varcharz
[Ipecac Recordings; 2006]

The least frivolous record ever!like a hard electronic spanking.

Germans have never been regarded as the most playful or jocular people.  They have developed a reputation that is easily lampooned as ill-tempered drill sergeants mixed with androgynous perversion as seen on “Sprockets.”  One need only briefly glance at the photos I took on my trip to the Beate Uhse Erotic Museum in Berlin to see what I’m talking about.  To me, and countless other non-Deutsche, that is what we think of when we think of Germans. Varcharz isn’t going to do anything to change that perception. 

On their latest release, Mouse on Mars means business.  Serious Fucking Business.  This is quite possibly the least playful and least jocular album of the year.  Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner have put together a snarling beast of an album.  And it is good!really good.  According to the Ipecac Recordings website, Varcharz has its foundation in the same recording sessions the resulted in 2004′s Radical Connector.  This is almost impossible to believe.  Varcharz is no dance album.  Gone are the overtly pop songs and with cleverly manipulated vocals, replaced by extremely aggressive and wildly experimental electronic rock.  The attitude change between albums is even reflected in the language.  While Radical Connector boasts song titles like “Detected Beats” and “Send Me Shivers,” this violence that is Varcharz includes “skik” and “igoegowhygowego.”  Even the song titles mirror that uniquely German trait of ill-tempered perversion. 

The majority of Varcharz is a mix of experimental IDM-style electronics and the more chaotic side of post-rock.  Grainy sounds, hissing backgrounds, and jolting beats rampage along through each song, usually getting more intense as the song builds as if the different components are fighting each other.  But, the knock-blow never comes.  These songs don’t collapse into cacophony as if noise triumphed over rhythm or vice versa.  Rather, noise and rhythm interact with each other and everything in the song mutates.  Beats become tonal, melodies become syncopated and the whole songs changes complexion.  So, while the original timing or melodic phrasing endures, it only exists under a thousand tiny distortions.  Perhaps the standout example of this transformation occurs in “bertney.”  It begins with a series of frantic and impatient beats, but as you listen these staccato noises actually spell out a hummable melody.  These skittering beats continue, with the same melody, but as the song evolves, melody becomes the property of hazy squalls of noise with almost no rhythmic structure.  The whole of Varcharz is marked by these instances of distortion and variation.  The most amazing part of this feat is that Mouse on Mars is able to deliver these subtle variations in a way that isn’t subtle at all.  It’s just too extreme and intense to be subtle!or to give a fuck about subtlety.

Leave it to the Germans to create this music.  Rock and electronic music perverted to its very core.

{Visit the Mouse on Mars home page.  Or, pre-order Varcharz today.}

-Posted by E. Kula

On their fourth album, Martyn Leaper and company return with a sound that, thankfully, can be identified as a distant cousin of earlier Minders’ records.  Call it maturing, re-inventing, or gracefully aging, but The Minders are definitely not the same band that their fans have come to love. It’s a Bright Guilty World shows The Minders to be a band that has outgrown their earlier warm, fuzzy, child-like exuberance and embraced a delightfully refined, albeit less exciting, pop sound. 

A majority of this album bounces along at roughly the same tempo, and Leaper rarely ventures into the minor key, but these musical consistencies avoid boring the listener.  Each song is endowed with a fairly distinct melodic hook, a fairly unique interplay of male-female vocals, and a fairly creative arrangement that work well with the Minders seemingly-official tempo.  And, all these elements lead to!a fair pop album.

It’s a Bright Guilty World has confidence and seeks no validation.  Leaper and his bandmates have been around long enough to know what works and what they want their record to sound like.  This is not the sound of a novice group of kids that are still working out the kinks of what hooks and what alienates the devoted indie-pop fan.  “Accidental Joy” and “Red Admiral’s (Gonna Pass Me)” are driven by well-timed guitar lines and melodies that are not too far removed from The Shins.  “Same Time, Same Place” includes a breezy male-female vocal line that skims along the top of a deceptively full backdrop of fuzzy noise.  The album’s strongest cut, “357,” was more than likely the indulgence of the band members as Elephant 6 alumni.  At 4:38, the album’s longest song, “357″ starts with a repeating guitar riff that is joined and abandoned by a variety of other instruments that lulls listeners into a hypnotic yet unpredictable soundscape.  The vocals, appropriately, capture the same psychedelic demanding tone as John on “Tomorrow Never Knows.”  Midway through, the song itself drifts away from the foreground leaving only a dreamy outline of the melody before the guitars return in a (quite frankly) dazzling crescendo.

And, just when the album seems to have done the impossible and bridged the gap between the polished pop of now and the noisy excitement of earlier efforts by The Minders, “357″ ends and the soundtrack to a hippie’s wet dream that is “Glittering Dream” begins.  The reverb-heavy guitar and the vocals are as saccharin as anything released in the hazy days of 1971.  The result is sickeningly sweet.  The clunky closer “Guns of August” bookends the album with a syncopated sound that is out-of-place and forced.  The biggest flaw with this album is the innocent mishandling of the song called “Jenny.”  Any indie-rock song named after a girl, especially a name as well-suited to lamentation as “Jenny,” deserves something more than The Minders were able to put forth.  Its melody is the least memorable on the album and the stripped-down delivery certainly doesn’t do justice to any Jenny I know.

Ten years into their career, The Minders have put together a better-than average album for the summer.  Its strong points are well-emphasized and its weak points don’t really detract from its overall sheen.  The gloss and polish of It’s a Bright Guilty World certainly doesn’t excite, but it pleases!and none will be more pleased than The Minders.  This is exactly the album they set out to make.

The Minders’ It’s a Bright Guilty World is on Future Farmer Recordings.

-Posted by E. Kula