Best of 2011 (First Half)

"Best of" lists have always been contentious, so here goes anyway...

1. Destroyer – Kaputt

2. elbow – build a rocket boys!
3. White Denim – D
4. My Morning Jacket – Circuital
5. I’m from Barcelona – Forever Today
6. Radiohead – The King of Limbs
7. Bon Iver, Bon Iver
8. Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
9. Iron & Wine – Kiss Each Other Clean
10. Bright Eyes – The People’s Keys
11. The Antlers – Burst Apart
12. Nicolas Jaar – Space Is Only Noise
13. Battles – Gloss Drop
14. tUnE-yArDs - WHOKILL
15. TV on the Radio – Nine Types of Light
16. PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
17. Lykke Li – Wounded Rhymes
18. Gang Gang Dance – Eye Contact
19. Black Lips – Arabia Mountain
20. Explosions in the Sky – Take Care, Take Care, Take Care
21. Wire - Red Barked Tree
22. Thurston Moore - Demolished Thoughts
23. Digitalism – I Love You Dude
24. James Blake - James Blake
25. The Strokes – Angles
25. The Kills – Blood Pressures
Bubbling under...
The Vaccines - What Did You Expect from the Vaccines?
R.E.M. - Collapse into Now
Arctic Monkeys - Suck It and See
Gruff Rhys – Hotel Shampoo
Toro y Moi – Underneath the Pine

Let's see how this changes at the end of this year...

Some upcoming releases:
Wilco - The Whole Love, Bjork - Biophilia, Beirut - The Rip Tide, Red Hot Chilli Peppers - I'm with You, Modest Mouse - TBA, Jim O'Rourke - Unreleased?, Brian Eno - Drums Between the Bells and U2's yet to be released Songs of Ascent

Radiohead - The King of Limbs "Live" - From the Basement

Pencil this in! 

Come 1st July, website From the Basement will host Radiohead's "live" performance of the entire TKOL.  http://www.fromthebasement.tv/

Read up here & here.

  Sullen taster "Staircase"

Update:
Apparently the above show is being hawked to TV stations across the globe. 
So start petitioning your TV station to air it!
For Australian audiences, I've started petitioning on ABC's Facebook page.
http://www.facebook.com/ABCTV.au?sk=wall

Update 2:
http://stereogum.com/764691/king-of-limbs-from-the-basement-gets-us-broadcast/photo/

More White Denim!

Discovered more White Denim virtuoso and these clips are even better!!

I hope they're touring here!  Especially love "It's Him" above!

Upcoming Concerts: Jul/Aug 2011

WooHoo!
Looks like the end of July is going to be busy...

25th July 2011 Modest Mouse
Hope they play material from their yet-to-be named new album produced by Outkast's Big Boi!
Now @ Enmore Theatre!

http://musicfeeds.com.au/news/modest-mouse-recording-new-album-with-big-boi/

27th July 2011 Devendra Banhart
Hope it's new material. Squeal!

"Are those grapes..?!?" 

26 July 2011 The Kills

Hope they skip the ballads...

29th July 2011 elbow
Hope they keep the ballads &
Waiting for ticket...!!

... and on 20th August, Gotye @ Sydney Opera House looks a definite:

Art Center Stage
Animated Album Extravaganza

http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/whatson/gotye.aspx?start=yes


... and Battles Dec/Jan

How diisttturbbiingg

 Phew!

Album Review: White Denim - D

Contender for one of 2011 finest.

Depending on your view of music from the seventies, you might like to banish this away in some dusty dungeon or champion it as a modern classic.

The fourth album (Counting last year's donation/freebie "Last Day of Summer") sees the Austin, Texas band expanded to a four-piece to include guitarist Austin Jenkins. Incidentally, D is also the fourth alphabet...

The music instantly harks back to the glory days of Cream and also conjures up the ghosts of a chugging Grateful Dead.   There's guitar noodling extending into jams just shy of a drum solo.   There's twin guitar attacks, muscular riffs, complex rapidfire polyrhythmic drumming, James Petralli's bluesy, sweet yet strong tonsils, occasional kooky lyrics and even breathy fluttering flute (Courtesy of Alex Coke) set to a Samba marimba-flecked melody on River to Consider.

But what really stupefies is just how tight this band is.  They've developed a synergy or sixth sense which can only come from hours and hours of playing together.  No amount of studio wizardry could mimic the interplay this band has mastered.  Some veteran musicians should hang their heads in shame.  They are that good.

I had this album on high rotation but have yet to tire of it and this review took that much longer because I wanted to do it justice.  This is a quantum leap for the band; and if all goes well should catapult them into Rock's A-listers.

Give them time and watch them explode.  9.3/10

Album Review: Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues

It's incomprehensible that some city person like me has an ear for country music, let alone folk music.

Still, there is no denying there's something in Fleet Foxes' music which evokes backwoods sentiments; that of warmth, humility, earnestness and of a time uncomplicated and unhurried.  Perhaps the best antidote for this 21st Century city-living burnout?

This, their difficult second, has much to live up to.  Their eponymous debut won them both critical and commercial success and was a mainstay in many 'Best of 2008' lists.

Robin Pecknold, chief lyricist and vocalist has admitted the two year gestation took a toll on his personal life and the band's coffers.

A plethora of obscure instruments has been employed to imbue each track a sepia'd bygone feel.  Gorgeous chamber melodies and lush earthy harmonies abound; and was only curiously punctuated by track 10's "An Argument" - An excursion into jarring jazz territory.

Big-hearted campfire reveries.  8.6/10

...and long attention span not necessary:

Album Review: Bright Eyes - The People's Key

I knew I had a challenge ahead of me when I tried to introduce Bright Eyes' latest (and hopefully not last*) album to a friend of mine.

You see, the album starts with some fervent proselytising from a religious nut and I had to explain that said nut was not part of the band but merely some found library snippet intended only as an atmospheric setting...
(Insert disclaimer sticker here...)
It's quite possible this particular hurdle proved too much for my friend and I suspect, a bigger majority of listeners which accounts for the album's totally undeserved mixed reception.
Or perhaps it's the band's departure from rootsy Americana which alienated some fans?

Connor Oberst was voted Best Songwriter by Rolling Stone in 2008. Being the consummate storyteller, his bittersweet yet insightful lyrics observes the gamut of the human condition.

While the album may toy with some Rastafarian concept, Oberst himself has personally expressed disappointment in the narrow-mindedness of major religions, and is fascinated and frustrated by "eternal" concepts.

* Connor considered retiring the Bright Eyes moniker with this album, which is an absolute shame since his solo venture and his stint in supergroup Monsters of Folk only saw the potency of his lyrics diluted.

Listen up, People!  8.8/10

Album Review: I'm from Barcelona - Forever Today

It has been a while since I found a pop album worthy of any serious attention.  Perhaps not since The New Radicals' Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too in 1998 or more recently, The Apples in Stereo's New Magnetic Wonder in 2007.

I'm from Barcelona (They're actually from Jönköping, Sweden) is the brainchild of one Emanuel Lundgren whose pop ensemble boasts 29 band members.  It's almost criminal not to have a local distributor for this album.  Yet.

This, their third studio effort, is unabashedly upbeat.  The songs are rousing and infused with positive messages; the music spritely, sunshiny confections which defies you to put a skip in your step.

Handclaps, ba-ba-ba singalongs, perky piano lines and irresistible pop nous abound and are infused into each track.  Perhaps someone slipped something in their water? 
Clear blue skies all the way then, only on closing track are there faint signs of Altostratus forming in the distant horizon.

It'd cross my mind to be selfish and keep them my own little secret.  Alas.

A generous serving of pure pop perfection.  8.8/10

 

Desert Island Disc(s): Prince - Sign “☮” the Times (1987)

Ever had one of those pivotal landmark albums that has changed your world, coloured how you listened to music and been crucial to your very musical DNA?

It is a well known fact that Prince was one of the mega forces which shaped music in the 80s, right up there with Michael Jackson and Madonna.  His reign since Purple Rain (couldn't resist) has been nothing but phenomenal for the dimunitive imp of pop, with each album eagerly anticipated and offering a new direction and a new look.

It was also a very different time.

We did not have the internet then.  Fans stuck by an artist and there were actual physical fan clubs.  It was exciting finding someone who liked the same artist you did.
You didn't just log on.

Recording companies were a different animal too; they had to nuture and invest more in their artists and took more risks.  Lenny Waronker from Warner Brothers looked after a roster of artists, amongst them Prince.

Sign 'O' the Times was a very bold move in many ways.  Initially planned as a triple album, it was whittled down to a double album to help boost sales.  A double LP then meant a statement of confidence in an artist by the recording company.   Prince was amongst esteemed artists like Bob Dylan, The Beatles and Pink Floyd.  It was also his first solo effort since disbanding The Revolution.

Lead single of the same name caused enough controversy when people thought Cat Glover was Prince in drag.  Lyrically, it was snapshot of the times addressing AIDS, gang violence and drugs, poverty and even has a cursory reference to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986.  The music video was also in stark contrast to trends; with only the lyrics running through bringing focus to the words.

Prince laments the lack of intimacy between a man and a woman on second single If I Was Your Girlfriend, siting "we could go to a movie and cry together" - Not a subject matter easily broached by a rocker hung up on their machismo.

Third single U Got the Look had Scottish lass Sheena Easton do a cameo and hit US #2 while last single I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man peaked at #10.



The album was deemed too musically diverse by some.   In turns serious, playful, funky, devout, soulful, eccentric, intimate, romantic and lustful .  It was produced, arranged, caomposed and performed by him.  1987 was the height of his prolific output and probably his perosnal life.
Still it wasn't till I saw the concert movie that my socks were blown right off.

The schizophenic masterpiece of a true genius.

Happy Birthay, Prince. ☮.

Live Webcast: Elbow @ St Paul's Cathedral

Absolute Radio hosts this momentous occassion where a rock band gets a first to play the crypt in London's St Paul's Cathedral.

If, like me, you're not too keen on waking up at 4:00am to catch the radio broadcast of this event, head over to: http://www.absoluteradio.co.uk/artists/Elbow/article/3928-Elbow+at+St.+Paul's+Cathedral  to catch the concert and an interview by Dave Gorman.

This is a definite precursor to whet my appetite for July 29's concert at the Enmore Theatre.

Essential viewing.

Guy Garvey croons some.

Live Concert Stream: My Morning Jacket Unstaged

My Morning Jacket will be live-streaming their concert 9pm ET / 6pm PT.  This had me scurrying to find out the equivalent time here in Sydney Australia - which worked out to be 1 June 11am.  Hope this conversion is right!

Super-excited!!

I have been trying to connect via my bluray wireless so I could watch this on the large screen and even subscribed to My Morning Jacket's Vevo channel which has no videos uploaded yet??  I only hope it works.

I know, modern technology, right?

The Aftermath:

What was that I said about modern technology?  Well, it was exciting enough being my first ever live concert webcast. I must say many technical glitches* put a damper on events. While the concert was going on, there was a running comment box below and viewers were encouraged to keep commenting to "unlock" pics.(I suspect they were time-released). You were also encouraged to post in vids of your retina so it could make an appearance in the giant "eye" prop backstage. I thought Erykah Badu was a strange choice for a guest, but MMJ displayed they had the chops to be funky as well. The concert was filmed by Todd Haynes and would hopefully hit the shelves soon.

I subscribed to MyMorningJacketVevo channel on YouTube, but was unable to access it via my Sony bluray (Must be some overlooked licensing issue); so was reduced to watching it on my much reduced computer monitor. I wished I was there to experience it in person.  MMJ's strength lies in their live performance.

I remember when they last performed at The Metro on 22/1/2009.  Their wig-out moments were unparalleled.  They had a 3 hour long set and this was no different.  See link for setlist.

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/my-morning-jacket/2011/louisville-palace-theatre-louisville-ky-3bd33830.html

* Apart from recurring pixelations, sound dropouts, freezes and being locked out of chatroom halfway through and initial poor editing between embarassing "acted" skits and live footage; I'm sure that with careful editing a much improved experience can be achieved.  But for now, 5.6/10.

Jim James belting it out some.