The Post-Rockist

Gather ’round, chirren, and let Grandpappy Prockist tell ye a tale of yesteryear — a halcyon time when there was only one iPhone, one Flavor of Love, and, thank God, only one time of year when music bloggers would rigorously compile their highly informative and not-at-all redundant “Best Of” lists. But 2008 is a different beast altogether, and facing the onslaught of all this confusing New Media I can hardly remember the name of Barack Obama’s former madrassa, let alone the name of that album that I swore was the Greatest Thing Evah way back in February. So, for the purposes of posterity and to meet your clamoring demand,* the elders at the Post-Rockist have decided to piece together the following critically definitive and immutable** lists*** of their favorite records of 2008, so far. Enjoy!

* We’re assuming
** Lists subject to change at any time, most likely December
*** “Lists” are presented in no particular order whatsoever

Todd’s Faves of ‘08 so far

Atlas Sound - Let the Blind Lead Those Who See But Cannot Feel
“Recent Bedroom”

Imagine you have a pop album. Now, go ahead and load it with all kinds of aural embellishments — buzzes, beeps, fuzz guitar, ambient drones, synthesizer glissandos, glockenspiel, bells, music box, krautrock counter-rhythms, drifting choruses, sampler collages, etc. Next, and here’s the unusual part, take the meat and bones of the album, the hooks and riffs and backbeats and overearnest lead vocals, and chuck them out entirely. What you’d be left with would sound pretty close to Atlas Sound’s Let the Blind Lead Those Who See But Cannot Feel. Listening to it is a ghostly, out-of-body experience best suited for high-quality headphones in a zero gravity environment.

Forget the early ’90s, this is what I think of now when I think of Dream Pop.

No Age - Nouns
“Eraser”

Nouns is a raw, noisy, dense punk rock bulldozer. But underneath the squalls of distortion is a highly nuanced album, crafted with daredevil riffs, shocking melodicism, and a merciful willingness to plant green spaces in the wake of No Age’s destruction. It’s kind of like being roundhouse-kicked in the face by Chuck Norris: it’ll knock you flat on your ass, but at least you’ll appreciate the artfulness of the kick as you’re flying through the air. (Continued)

1. Woody Guthrie - I Ain’t Got No Home
(from Dust Bowl Ballads)

2. Hank Williams - Ready To Go Home
(from The Ultimate Collection)

3. Dolly Parton & Porter Wagoner - Better Move It On Home
(from The Essential Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton)

4. Eddie Floyd - Bring It On Home
(from Chronicle: Greatest Hits)

5. Elvis Presley - Baby, Let’s Play House
(from The Sun Sessions)

6. The Kinks - I Took My Baby Home
(from Kinks)

7. Solomon Burke - Home In Your Heart
(from Home In Your Heart)

8. The White Stripes - Let’s Build a Home
(from De Stijl)

9. Tom Waits - Come On Up To the House
(from Mule Variations)

10. Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young - Our House
(from So Far CSNY)

EPILOGUE: Swan Silvertones - I’m Coming Home
(from Love Lifted Me/My Rock)

Lately I’ve been giving a lot of thought to house music over here at Post-Rockist HQ, and not the four-to-the-floor variety. But the idea of “home” in music. Everyone has one, or had one: that place with four walls and a roof over your head where you plant your roots and watch Judge Judy comfortably in your sweatpants. But in pop culture “home” isn’t so much a place as it is a goal; a site for departures and arrivals. Someone’s always leaving home, coming home, dreaming of home, building a home, wrecking a home, sick of home, or homesick.

So in that spirit of adventure, I’ve put together a little mix of house music. It’s not necessarily the greatest selection of home-themed songs, but it follows a loose story arc of homelessness to homecoming. We start with Woody and Hank bemoaning the absence of home in a socioeconomic and spiritual sense, respectively, before picking things up a notch with the saucy country duo Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner toying around with the foibles of spousal obligations. Eddie Floyd tries to smooth things over with his departed lover with remorse in his voice and a sturdy Stax strut to signify his sincerity. Meanwhile, Elvis and the Kinks, lovers in tow, want to bring their babies home with non-too-subtle metaphors veiling their animal intentions. The man with the sexiest voice on this list, however, Mr. Solomon Burke, is seeking a home with a little more permanence than a brief playdate. And Jack White… well, I don’t really know what he’s on about, but he sounds serious. With home finally in sight, Tom Waits is there to rattle our foundations with his booming growl, reminding us of the fragile and shambling nature of all those things we hold dear to our heart, but reassures us like a bohemian Baloo that transcendence can be found in our transience. Home at last, Graham Nash celebrates the little joys found in our domestic setting, and yes, this song has been overplayed, but that doesn’t make it any less beautiful. Finally, the a capella gospel legends the Swan Silvertones figuratively bring it all home to tidily wrap up the spiritual void first noticed by Hank Williams at the beginning.

Quite frankly, I’m a little surprised that “Home” hasn’t been the subject of one of Bob Dylan’s Theme Time Radio Hours yet, considering his other topics. Bob, if you’re reading this, and I know that you are, feel free to use the idea. Just be sure to give credit where credit is due.

TODD’s TOP 15 SONGS OF 2007

At the risk of sounding like a rock snob (which, after all, is the very antithesis of what being a post-rockist is all about), I can’t honestly say there were very many albums this year that grabbed my attention and drew me in obsessively from start to finish like in past years. Maybe it was because some of my favorite musicians released new records this year and my expectations were too impossibly high to meet, or maybe really good just isn’t good enough sometimes. But maybe it’s just been a result of my changing listening habits — weekly album downloads causing me to cycle through new releases at such a fast clip that if an album doesn’t catch my attention after one or two listens it’s automatically consigned to the digital dustbin. It’s a shame, really, but I’m not making any excuses for it.

In any case, there has been a slew of really fantastic songs, and the following is a list of some of my favorites in an only slightly meaningful order:

15. Wilco - “Either Way“ (buy)
(from Sky Blue Sky)

A hope-filled lullaby for the depressively predisposed. “Maybe you still love me, maybe you don’t, either you will or you won’t,” Jeff Tweedy sings with perfect complacency. Rarely do you hear such patience, restraint, and beauty in a song, but the opening track on Sky Blue Sky strolls along like a cautious optimist for those too old and tired to beleaguer the weight of pessimism. This isn’t soft rock, this is Zoloft rock.

14. Paul McCartney - “Ever Present Past“ (buy)
(from Memory Almost Full)

Upon first listen, you might think Macca’s “Ever Present Past” was released around the same time George had a hit with “I Got My Mind Set On You,” but despite the song’s sharp, youthful chorus it actually reveals to us a remarkably candid and far older Paul who is exposing his concerns of finding true happiness in the later years of his life and the fleeting permanence of his youthful exploits. It’s an honest, personal, and incredibly catchy song from one of pop music’s greatest songwriters.

13. Apples in Stereo - “Skyway“ (buy)
(from New Magnetic Wonder)

This is what rock ‘n’ roll sounds like to kids: electric riffs, banging pianos, ecstatic one-note solos, hand claps, and choruses where everybody chimes in with a “do-doo-doo-doo-do-doo!” All music should be this joyous.

12. The Pink Mountaintops - “Single Life“ (buy)
(from Single Life)

Good God this song rocks. Every single second kicks my ass and bleaches my bones. Take the two-chord punk energy of early Spacemen 3, the blasts of blistering white noise from The Jesus & Mary Chain, and add surrealistic, druggy vocals reminiscent of Bobby Gillespie and you’ve got a close approximation of The Pink Mountaintops’ “Single Life.” It’s a gritty, fuzz-rock gem and the closest thing to an endorsement of down and dirty hedonism you’re going to find on this list.

(Continued)

2007: Return to Indie Rock Mountain: The Mix CD by Amy

Wracked, anguished and awestruck after my typically tumultuous freshman year of college, and blessed with my very first CD burner (built into my computer!!), I made a mix CD that I thought would express to my friends what a very special, significant and emotionally trying time I’d had over those eight months. As a mix CD it was problematic: strictly chronological (in September I saw Dar Williams; in November I went home for Thanksgiving and saw 8 Mile in theatres, hence the Eminem track in between Lila Downs and fucking Dispatch), too many songs by the same artist (like Modest Mouse, which I had just discovered) and my taste in music was, at the time, terrible (hence, once again, Eminem. And Dispatch).

But the first semester of my sophomore year was even MORE full of chaos and drama as I learned that everything I had thought about the world and my life during my freshman year of college was all wrong (and that my taste in music was, in fact, terrible). It was so full of chaos and drama, in fact, that I had to create a commemorative mix CD at the end of the first semester. It became a great tradition, a rite of passage into breaks and summers, a way to close things up, a reflective album to listen to in the car on my way home.

Several important things happened to me this year. I quit one job and started another far more wonderful job. I moved out of one apartment and into another. I broke up with an Edan-worshipping, beat-making boyfriend and started dating a 12-string-strumming, Phil-Collins-poster-posting kind of guy. In my writing I started using adjectives made out of several mish-mashed words. In literature I believe these syntactical tics are called kennings, and I hope they go away soon.
(Continued)

BRYAN’S ALBUMS OF 2007 (Bryan writes for the Post-Rockist courtesy of Better Chatter).

10. Liars – Liars (buy)

Sailing To Byzantium
Liars have a big bag of tricks. They follow their heavy krautrock opus with an album containing some actual radio-friendly songs. “Houseclouds” sounds like a long lost Beck tune, “Sailing To Byzantium” eerily sounds like Radiohead, and “Freak Out” is pure snarling Stooges. There’s still a heaping spoonful of their classic murk, but Liars is as varied an album as I’ve heard all year while being raw, upbeat, and straightforward. It’s fun listening to a band known for experimentation prove they can play by the rules. I consider this their Loaded.

9. The Twilight Sad – Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters (buy)

That Summer, At Home I Had Become The Invisible Boy
As you can tell from the band name and album title, this Scottish quartet is a little bummed out. That doesn’t mean their music isn’t pretty. Layered My Bloody Valentine-inspired guitars and vivid lyrics make Fourteen Autumns‘ angst touching rather than whiney. Lead singer James Graham occasionally screams lines with an accent so thick and charming it’s tough not to feel for him. In a year full of great danceable albums, it was refreshing to hear The Twilight Sad’s big rock sound and tormented lyrics.

(Continued)

Happy Holidays, my babys.

Here’s your gift from us, and it’ll keep on giving for three more days. It’s this year’s Post-Rockist 2007 lists!

Due to the various musical tastes of our various contributors, we daren’t dare give you a commutative list (another reason is that we can’t do the math required). But these lists aren’t about the math, they’re about the music. Sure, some of us fall in line with the Great Arbiters of music taste like Pitchfork and some of us fall in line with the masses and some of us straddle the two and some of us choose the road less traveled, but equally rocked.

Sample tracks will be available for about two weeks. If you’re a record label and want us to take down a song, just let us know. No need to start a fuss.

DAN’S FAVORITE ALBUM’S OF 2007

10. Junior Senior – Hey Hey My My Yo Yo (buy)

Can I Get Get Get
Technically Hey Hey My My Yo Yo was released in Japan and parts of Europe in 2005, but didn’t make it to the U.S. until this year, but the good news is that is was totally worth the wait! Jesper and Jeppe are back having just as much fun as they ever did, but this time out adding another dimension to their sound. Moving away from the raw garage-disco attack of their debut album, D-D-Don’t Stop The Beat, Junior Senior focus more on melody, pop hooks and glossy production, while still maintaining their positive and playful rhymes about boys and girls.

(Continued)

I don’t know about you folks out there in cyberspace, but I’ve about had it up to here (gesturing to neck) with all these Top Ten lists these days. I have literally been drowning in year-end lists the past few weeks; I can’t tell which way is up, which lists are sincere and which are sarcastic, and whether I can continue taking notes on all the supposedly great albums that I missed. It’s the New Year, and I need to start focusing on 2007. Everything 2006-related from this point forward is officially for the archive, meaning my buying habits can no longer differentiate between finally picking up the Thermals’ concept album or downloading Jerry Lee Lewis’ Sun Sessions. But if you, unlike me, are still thirsty for meaningful and contradictory “best of 2006″ lists, please direct your attention to the past few days of the Post-Rockist Year-End List-Posting Extravaganza:

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3
• Day 4

And for your Day 5 needs, read on…

TODD’S TOP PICKS OF 2006

10) Peter Bjorn and John - Writer’s Block
“Objects of my Affection”

Bridging the musical arc from Buddy Holly to Wilco, Swedish trio Peter Bjorn and John have crafted a remarkable pop album that manages to combine elements of New Wave, British invasion rock and roll, and shoegazer, all while remaining wholly original. Utterly irresistible.

9) Jay Dee aka J Dilla - Donuts
“Time: The Donut of the Heart”

A late addition to the list, but just a few listens to the shuffling high-hats, Holland-Dozier-Holland samples, and successive rapid-fire impact of these 31 instrumental bursts make it painfully clear that Donuts is a strikingly visionary piece of work. That Jay Dee composed and released an album filled with this much joy just days before he died leaves me speechless.

8) Juana Molina - Son
“Yo No”

I can honestly say that I have never heard anything like this before. Juana Molina, former Argentinean TV comedian, has created a breathtaking work on her fourth album that defies all conventional expectations. Son is a rich patchwork of laptop folk, organic noise, acoustic guitars, free-floating electronic blurbs, and her processed, hypnotic native tongue. The song structures appear and disappear with remarkable fluidity, like an enchanting, detached mystery.

7) Belong - October Language
“I Never Lose, Never Really”

The hum of machines, the arc of dreams. To call this record experimental ambience would be to miss the nuanced sway and swell of this New Orleans duo’s debut fuzz. October Language is the perfect prescription for anyone who loves to gets lost in Kevin Shields’ white noise reveries or Fennesz’s endless summer sounds.

6) Bob Dylan - Modern Times
“Beyond the Horizon”

This album has already been covered several times over in this publication, and yes, it is that good.

5) Ghostface Killah - Fishscale
“The Champ”

I can’t breathe when this album is on, and, while listening to Dennis Coles blaze through the visceral street narratives of Fishscale with unrelenting spitfire intensity, I don’t think he has any intention of letting up and giving me a break. Although there are plenty of tales of uncut cocaine distribution and firearm bravado set to samples with the makings of classic hip-hop noir, the Iron Man still makes time to create affecting odes to ladies who hide him from the Feds and to a mother who whupped him but loved him anyway. This is hip-hop par excellence.

4) I’m From Barcelona - Let Me Introduce My Friends
“We’re From Barcelona”

I’m from Barcelona, you’re from Barcelona, we’re all from Barcelona. This is the magic of childhood as provided by 29 exuberant, adorable Swedes. I couldn’t be any happier.

3) Regina Spektor - Begin to Hope
“Fidelity”

Regina Spektor’s third album is endowed with elegance, raw talent, and, yes, hopefulness. On the upbeat, hip-hop-influenced “Hotel Song,” Spektor sings, “I have dreams of orca whales and owls, but I wake up in fear,” which places in succinct focus the wild-eyed imagination that fuels her songs, as well as the human frailty that gives them so much resonance.

2) The Fiery Furnaces - Bitter Tea
Matthew Friedberger - Winter Women/Holy Ghost Language School
“Police Sweater Blood Vow”

A three-way tie for second place. With the Highway 61 Revisited-for-Grand Turismo of Bitter Tea, and the trans-atlantic, genre-hopping journeys of Matthew’s two albums, the siblings Friedberger have forged a musical universe unto themselves, in which stunning pop melodies emerge out of snarling junkyard pastiches, complex storylines are woven together by hyper-detailed prose paragraphs and alliterative childlike verse, and thunderous guitars crack the heavens wide open. Uneven and accidentally glorious, this output is impressive in both magnitude and impact. This is the stuff obsessions are made of.

1) Camera Obscura - Let’s Get Out of this Country
“Lloyd, I’m Ready to be Heartbroken”

Forget the Lloyd Cole references; forget the Belle & Sebastian comparisons. The ten lilting, wistful pop masterpieces on Let’s Get Out of this Country are pristine portraits of heartache and longing, each track flawless in its on right. There is nothing about this album that I don’t like.