yes, you should.

Molina & Johnson - s/t (downloaded 12/something/09)

It's been kinda tough being a fan of Jason Molina since he stopped recording as Songs: Ohia. He left a uniformly great project behind and placed a clear marker at the point where it all starts to get spotty. I can certainly understand why someone who's only heard one Magnolia Electric Co. album or a few songs released under Molina's own name would wonder what all the fuss was about. There's been a lot of worthwhile stuff released under both monikers, but it takes a lot of patience to parse it all out, and I'm sure a lot of people wouldn't think it was worth the effort.

I still root for the guy and will continue to give him more chances because he consistently teases with a handful a great songs here and there. I was almost ready to give up after Josephine from earlier last year (which was as close to a barren, uninspired wasteland of an album as he's ever put out), but this collaboration with Will Johnson of Centro-Matic and South San Gabriel again shows nagging promise. Particularly the opening track "Twenty Cycles to the Ground", unfortunately the highlight of the whole album, shows a spark and life and penchant for actual, memorable melody that's been absent from a lot of Molina's work of late. I don't really know who's responsible for what here (aside from some fairly obvious solo performances), but that track is also the one that feels the most like an actual collaboration, and maybe that's what Molina really needs to do more of. Get out of his own world and his own head and expand a little. It's felt like he's been running around in circles for a while, and I know he's capable of better. At least this album as a whole doesn't sound like something he's already done a hundred times, and it's generally good moody, atmospheric music that isn't plagued by Molina's recent overuse of pedal steel/slide guitar and generally stale-sounding bar rock. Things are kept open and sparse, and without the perfectly complimentary musicians - like Jim & Jenny and the Pinetops on Didn't It Rain - I think that's how his songs are best served. And not to completely ignore Will Johnson, his offerings work nicely alongside Molina's in this same dusty, minimal style, and may actually be better on the whole. I just don't like his voice quite as much.

Rating: 7/10

Julianna Barwick - Florine (emusic download 12/30/09)

"Banshee wails" probably doesn't look like a very appealing descriptor, especially when it isn't used to describe rock vocals but the actual music itself. That's sort what this EP sounds like, but oddly enough, it's fairly pleasant and soothing. I've only just now come to this realization, but I suppose that Julianna Barwick's music really sounds pretty similar to Sigur Rós, if Sigur Rós was almost entirely vocal-based. With one exception, the songs on this EP seem to be made mostly out of layered vocal tracks, and yet words are barely discernible most of the time. Sound familiar? Well, it does sound familiar, and yet there's definitely something unique going on here, too. Her music isn't bombastic or built on sweeping, cinematic crescendos but rather is focused on creating and maintaining a sort of shimmering and entrancing atmosphere. The "banshee wails" mentioned above are probably one of the most distinct features, but they're layered and affected in such a way as to be just another "instrument" in the mix. All in all, it's a very pretty and fairly interesting listen.

Rating: 7/10

I actually liked Josephine enough to put it on my top 25 of 09. I feel like it was judged kinda harshly by many because of its departure in sound from his earlier records.

The Molina/Johnson record unfortunately came across my radar after I had pretty much honed in my 09 list. I think. I can't be sure. I really like it though, and yr right, it is better than Josephine.

William Fowler Collins - Perdition Hill Radio (emusic download 12/30/09)

I imagine that if certain scenes from No Country for Old Men had a soundtrack, this is what it would sound like. The aftermath of the big shootout in the desert where LLewelyn finds the case of money, for instance. Now of course I don't really think that there should have been music there - and this is possibly a little more appropriate for horror/sci-fi - but just to give an idea of the kind intensity and desolation that this music conveys, I think that's a pretty good image. This is aggressively bleak, but almost elegantly so. I mean in comparison to more outright noise artists who want to bludgeon and aggravate, WFC makes much more soundtrack-worthy music. It doesn't scream for your attention but seems more interested in telling you a story. A very dark and disturbing story.

It's drone music on the one hand, but on the other it's far less monotonous than a lot of drone tends to be. It's not at all minimal but is richly textured and fairly dense. Since it isn't ear-splitting or overly patience-testing, I think it makes great headphone music. Of course this isn't the sort of thing for all people/seasons/places, etc., but for what it is, I'm not sure I've heard any better.

Rating: 7.5/10

Barn Owl - From Our Mouths a Perpetual Light (emusic download 1/7/10)

Barn Owl are a little bit like the band Earth (Hex and onward) and little bit like... a bunch of other droney artists. Much of this album leans closer to Earth's recent dusty, sparse, Western-tinged guitar-scapes, like Neil Young's Dead Man soundtrack, but darker and heavier. The latter portion of this record recalls a variety of drone acts and is a good bit less interesting and distinctive. At least with the more clearly guitar-driven stuff, Barn Owl begin to carve out their own identity and highlight their strengths. There are actually some pretty memorable segments in the first two-thirds of this record, and they create that sort of ominous, post-Apocalyptic American desert vibe arguably better than anyone else, Earth included. I feel like there's not enough here in the way of interesting sounds or ideas or memorable melodies for me to feel very strongly about it, but it's good enough background/atmospheric music.

Rating: 7/10

Real Estate - Reality EP (emusic download 1/7/10)

Real Estate followed up their debut album last year almost immediately with this EP, and as expected it functions as sort of a companion piece. It doesn't have the highs of the s/t, but it's a solid release front to back that mines pretty much the same slack, lazy beach vibe. And yeah, "beach" has been a little too much of a thing lately, but Real Estate does a good job of coming at it from a different angle. While they don't really sound like Pavement at all, in a way their music is a little like a hybrid of the first two Pavement records. The breezy California vibe of Crooked Rain but with the slightly rougher-hewn, more amateurish and slipshod aesthetic of Slanted & Enchanted. It's relaxing music, and I'd imagine it's pretty damn good for sitting out on a beach in the late afternoon and having a few too many drinks to.

Rating: 7.5/10

Cryptacize - Mythomania (CD purchased 4/26/09)

Cryptacize was my favorite new band of 2008, and their debut was my favorite album of that year when I did my year-end list. Something about it really scratched a particular itch perfectly. A sort of pristine clarity and simplicity in sound but not in structure. A lot of people said the songs sounded unfinished, but to me they sounded unburdened and unsoiled by unnecessary flourishes. Maybe a lot of the songs/chord progressions sounded unresolved as well, but I like their open-endedness. If I were to have one issue with Dig That Treasure (which I don't really), I suppose it would be that the third member of the group, the percussionist, did not seem fully incorporated into the songs. This album addresses that concern, as well as dressing up the songs just a tad more and sounding just a little more "normal" in doing so.

But I don't think that the charm of their debut is absent as a result. It's a much easier listen, I think, with a clearer underlying rhythm (by way of more actual drums), but it's still got guitarist Chris Cohen's unusual rhythmic sense driving it. That, of course, is my favorite part of this band - Cohen's totally unique and refreshing playing style and tone. Even if I'm totally familiar with it now from his tenure in Deerhoof and various other side projects of his that I've tracked down, it's still a joy every time I hear his wonderful sense of dynamics, like on the title track and, well, all over this record. The high points for me are in the latter half, "One Block Wonders" followed by "The Cage", probably the two punchiest and catchiest songs. This whole thing is pretty great, though, and it's really a shame that very few people seem to really be into this band. I think they're one of the best things going.

Rating: 8.5/10

Here are a couple of weird videos:





And an awkward but good live studio performance:



Nedelle is pretty easy on the eyes, at the very least.

i will check out cryptacize later when i have a better connection.

Cool. I don't know if it'll be your thing, but the chick is cute, at least. The videos aren't very good, and it's probably better to start with that live clip that I posted at the bottom.




I don't think I trashed Josephine because it was a departure but rather because it was just the opposite. It's continuing along his unimaginative journey into country/bar rock. And it had some of his worst lyrics. It's sort of like a distillation of all of Molina's weaknesses into a single record. I hope it was the worst thing he's capable of making.

i got to see a little bit of the first video. i was all set to hate it when i first heard the music but it seemed to come together well when she started singing.

and yeah, she cute.

Feel like I've heard of these guys being all over SXSW. I know daytrotter just did a sesh with them.

Vetiver - Tight Knit (CD purchased 4/26/09)

I feel like Vetiver will forever be doomed to mostly-overlooked, underrated band status, but it's mostly their own fault. Their debut got mostly lost in the shuffle of the 2004 freak folk deluge, but people began to take note of it as the fad wore off. It was one of the least gimmicky records of that whole period with some of the most solid songwriting and some wonderfully understated performances (a nice contrast to, say, Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom, who both contributed to the record), but it also seemed a little on the polite and unambitious side. With the follow-up Vetiver album, Andy Cabic had jettisoned the "freak" portion of his folk - what little there ever was - completely and went for a far more conventional/classic style of folk-rock, again with solid songwriting and performances. It was a wise move to remove his music from a passing trend, and it probably helped grow his audience just a little. Still, I feel like Vetiver is mostly getting lost in the shuffle of contemporary folk music, and it's hard to say what really distinguishes them, other than that they're just consistently, reliably very good.

The first half of this album might just be the greatest thing they've ever put out. Opener "Rolling Sea" is absolutely sublime, quite possibly their best single track. "Through the Front Door" comes pretty damn close, though, and the cavernous, atmospheric track that follows, "Down from Above", is absolutely beautiful. It's in the pluckier second half that I begin to have some problems with this album, particularly the three song run from "On the Other Side" to "Another Reason to Go". I just don't think "bouncy" is something they do particularly well, or at least not as well as some of the quieter, slower stuff. Thankfully things improve with the last two tracks, but unfortunately neither is as good as most of that excellent first half. All in all, it's a solid, rewarding album, but I still think they're capable of doing better, provided Cabic can hone in on the right parts of his songcraft.

Rating: 7.5/10

M. Ward - Hold Time (emusic download 4/27/09)

I don't know what happened. I'm afraid I'm kind of at a loss for why this album does absolutely nothing for me, and I'm kind of questioning whether or not any previous M. Ward was really as good as I once thought. I mean, I'm pretty damn sure that "Helicopter" was an awesome song. In fact, I feel pretty confident that pretty much all of Transfiguration of Vincent was solid, but looking over the tracklisting of his last couple of albums, I can't really recall which songs I really liked off of them. But I know - I just know there was something different about them, something that's almost totally absent here. Did that whole She & Him collaboration ruin M. Ward? It was pretty watered-down and middle-of-the-road, and uncomfortably close to soulless adult contemporary coffee shop music. This seems to go all the way in that direction.

What else can I say? I don't really like a single one of these songs. Not one. I mean it's all very pleasant and nice-sounding, and no, it's not that isn't "innovative" or all crazy and dissonant or weird like "all that other shit I like". There just aren't any good songs here, and the production and arrangements and guest stars try to compensate but only make it all worse. "Fisher of Men" kind of gets close, but it's just such a pale facsimile of something I'm sure he did way better several times before. The best track is easily the Neil Young cover, but only because "Oh Lonesome Me" is a great song, not because M. Ward does more than a passable rendition (with Lucinda Williams' syrupy performance not really helping). Not only will this be the last M. Ward album I'll ever reach for, but it makes me feel like I won't ever want to hear M. Ward again for a really long time.

Rating: 4/10

Woods - Songs of Shame (emusic download 4/29/09)

Something about this Woods album reminds me of early Mercury Rev, minus David Baker, or at least minus his voice. It's sort of like if Jonathan Donahue were singing Baker's weird songs, with a generally folkier, uh, woodsier vibe. And maybe that's just because they're a lo-fi band of sorts with falsetto vocals, but I don't think the comparison is too tenuous. There's a similar sort of spirit, I think, especially on the more electric guitar-driven (and album highlight) "Gypsy Hand". Woods are also kindred spirits somewhat to contemporaries Ganglians and Real Estate, in the sense that they're sort of an ambling, outdoorsy, tuneful type of lo-fi band, rather than a more punk, garage, or generally dischordant/abrasive type. They've also got a little bit of a hippie/communal-sounding thing going on, but aside from the overlong "September with Pete", the jamming doesn't really get in the way of the songs.

The album starts out strong with three pretty solid tracks, but then it hits a pretty big snag with the aforementioned 9-minute song and doesn't really improve much until near the end. Things get a tad too hippie-dippy on "Military Madness" (kind of stereotypically peacenik-y) and drag a little on the following (thankfully brief) dirge "Born to Lose" and middling instrumental "Echo Lake". "Rain On" is a significant recovery, though (with a nicely memorable refrain at the end) and is then bested by the wonderfully buoyant "Gypsy Hand" which features some refreshingly sprightly, fleet guitar work and a pretty killer breakdown in the middle. It's like all of a sudden the band just comes alive and starts to tear shit up. Then the brief, sparsely accompanied closer ends things nicely, and it leaves me hoping that this band could actually be capable a thoroughly solid - even great - record if they can learn to focus on their strengths, and, you know, try harder.

Rating: 7.5/10

Cymbals Eat Guitars - Why There Are Mountains (emusic download 4/29/09)

And then we have earnestness incarnate. These guys are certainly trying hard; they sound like they're really giving it all they've got. So the Pavement comparisons thrown at them may feel a little misleading, but they do kind of end up sounding like a hybrid of Pavement and Modest Mouse. I feel like there's a lot of other '90s and early '00s indie rock sounds mixed in their as well, and while the result is something that might seem a little out of step with a lot of newer acts, it seems pretty clear that these guys are pretty serious about just playing the kind of music they like. The compositions are fairly complex (or they're not just verse-chorus-verse anyway), and each song is it's own mini-epic. It's in that sense that I really think they set themselves apart.

There's a lot of emotion on display here, a lot of drama and theatricality, loud-quiet dynamics. It could make for kind of an exhausting listen, except that they do what they do so well that it never really gets old. Each breakdown and tempo shift and build-up is thrilling and interesting. The vocals are a tad on the emo-generic side, which can be a little distracting at first, but once you start to let the music sink in, they matter less and less. (And they work pretty well, really, as dramatic vocals go.) In fact, this album as a whole has continually grown on me to a degree that I never expected given this band's general sound and approach. It's just really damn good.

Rating: 8/10

I do like this thread, but for the life of me I cannot wrap my head around the concept of someone having enough time to not only listen to all of the albums in this thread, but digest them fully and write reviews of all of them.

Well it's taken about a year to do.

Only two albums left!

Oh, and I forgot - these are great:





Second one takes a couple minutes to really get going, but both are good performances and good sound quality, especially the first one.

Sparklehorse + Fennesz - In the Fishtank 15 (emusic/Amazon download 1/13/10)

This was released sometime late last year to seemingly little fanfare, and I suppose I can see why. Sparklehorse's collaboration with Danger Mouse, Dark Night of the Soul, was bigger news with David Lynch creating the album artwork and threats of litigation from EMI forcing them to ultimately just release that artwork alone with a blank CD-R on which to burn the leaked album (which I don't have and haven't heard). Also, this In the Fishtank collaboration is about as low-key as it gets, and if you're pretty familiar with Sparklehorse and Fennesz, this will probably seem like the logical intersection between their musical styles. For the most part.

There aren't much in the way of songs here, so if you're clamoring to get your hands on Mark Linkous's final release (as opposed to approaching it as an equal collaboration), you may be a little disappointed. Instead this is mostly a collection of ethereal atmospherics, and while on paper that may make it seem like it's a little more in Fennesz's ballpark, there's a distinctly Sparklehorse sound to most of it. There are a few vocals, but they are very minimal and repetitive. There are also some really glitchy, atonal moments that may seem completely alien to Sparklehorse fans but aren't dissimilar to Fennesz's early work, but who knows, Linkous could have been just as involved in constructing those tracks as Fennesz. He had always used the studio as a prominent instrument in all of the Sparklehorse releases so his fascination with these kinds of layered, moody sounds shouldn't be too surprising. It's a fairly predictable meet-in-the-middle kind of collaboration between these two artists, but given who they are, I don't really find that to be a bad thing. It's a good pairing, and I would absolutely recommend it to anyone who's a fan of both.

Rating: 7/10

OK, last one...


The-Dream - Love Vs. Money (free CD received 1/14/10)

Obviously out of my element here, but I'll give it a shot. Basically, I really enjoy this, much more than I thought I would. Mostly I think it's the production, which is just wall to wall ear candy. It's really sunny, light, catchy, and for the most part it never manages to become grating or overly bubblegum-y. Some of the lyrics are actually pretty funny, too, and while he doesn't have a great voice, I like how the vocals aren't really showy like a lot of R&B, probably due to The-Dream's admitted limitations. If there's Auto-Tune at work here, it's subtle enough that I don't notice it. It also doesn't hurt that this guy's from Atlanta, I guess.

"Walkin' on the Moon" is probably the best Michael Jackson send-up I've ever heard. "My Love", the duet with Mariah Carey is... well, I mean, Thriller had that awful duet with McCartney, and we can forgive it for that, right? Fortunately right after that track the album hits a great streak, starting with "Put It Down" and continuing all the way through "Love Vs. Money, Pt. 2". And I guess there's nothing really wrong with "Fancy", but it's just not really my thing - slow, airy R&B - and seems a little overlong at six minutes. "Right Side of My Brain" and "Mr. Yeah" are better, but then the album's "official" closer (there's a "bonus" track right after on the version I have) "Kelly's 12 Play" is kinda weak. Again, could be that it's just not my bag, but I feel like it lacks the kind of driving melody and bright, refreshing quality that so much of this album has. As I mentioned, the version I have has a "bonus" track, "Let Me See the Booty" which, as you could imagine, is just kind of a fun, innocuous toss-off, again not quite up to the level of the album's stronger tracks.

As far as why I ended up listening to this when I don't really bother with any pop or R&B or really even any hip-hop anymore, I guess it was the same sort of thing as Lady Gaga. Lots of praise from "reliable" sources, kids on indie rock message boards proclaiming this as their Album of the Year. And unlike Lady Gaga, I have to admit that the music here is actually really good. It's still not what I would consider a favorite, but there's a lot going on with this album that has me wondering what else might be out there in the mainstream pop/hip-hop/R&B world that I'm missing out on. I mean, I know from experience that I typically enjoy very little of what people praise in that realm, and I'm typically very skeptical of message board types who claim to really be into mainstream pop and are always extolling its virtues. (I never really liked Timbaland, for example.) To me this seems like the genuine article, though. Some imaginative, refreshing pop music.

Rating: 7.5/10

OK, that's it. I do have another 2009 album that I just acquired (Jon Hassell - Last Night the Moon Came...), but it would be another month or so before I was ready to do a blurb for it, and I've been ready to wrap this up since January.

So here are my final lists. First, EPs, 7"s, and singles:

01. Times New Viking - Stay Awake EP - 8/10
02. Deerhunter - Rainwater Cassette Exchange EP - 8/10
03. Abe Vigoda - Reviver EP - 8/10
04. No Age - Losing Feeling EP - 8/10
05. Animal Collective - Fall Be Kind EP - 8/10
06. Real Estate - Reality EP - 7.5/10
07. Crystal Stilts - Love Is a Wave 7" - 7.5/10
08. Ganglians - s/t EP - 7.5/10
09. Washed Out - Life of Leisure EP - 7.5/10
10. Suckers - s/t EP - 7.5/10

11. Julianna Barwick - Florine EP - 7/10
12. Black Dice - Chocolate Cherry 7" - 7/10
13. Spoon - Got Nuffin EP - 6.5/10
14. Magnolia Electric Co. - It's Made Me Cry 7" - 6.5/10
15. Radiohead - "Harry Patch (In Memory Of)"/"These Are My Twisted Words" - 6.5/10

16. JJ - JJ N° 1 - 6/10
17. Blank Dogs - The Fields EP - 5.5/10
18. Delorean - Ayrton Senna EP - 2/10

And:

01. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion - 9.5/10
02. Times New Viking - Born Again Revisited - 9/10
03. Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca - 8.5/10
04. Dan Deacon - Bromst - 8.5/10
05. Cryptacize - Mythomania - 8.5/10
06. Jim O'Rourke - The Visitor - 8.5/10
07. Ganglians - Monster Head Room - 8.5/10
08. Thee Oh Sees - HELP - 8.5/10
09. Califone - All My Friends Are Funeral Singers - 8/10
10. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix - 8/10

11. The Dodos - Time to Die - 8/10
12. Real Estate - s/t - 8/10
13. Jackie-O Motherfucker - Ballads of the Revolution - 8/10
14. Cymbals Eat Guitars - Why There Are Mountains - 8/10
15. Built to Spill - There Is No Enemy - 8/10
16. Oneida - Rated O - 8/10
17. Mount Eerie - Wind's Poem - 8/10
18. Super Furry Animals - Dark Days/Light Years - 8/10
19. Neon Indian - Psychic Chasms - 8/10
20. Bear in Heaven - Beast Rest Forth Mouth - 7.5/10


21. HEALTH - Get Color - 7.5/10
22. Vivian Girls - Everything Goes Wrong - 7.5/10
23. Bill Callahan - Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle - 7.5/10
24. Vetiver - Tight Knit - 7.5/10
25. The Flaming Lips - Embryonic - 7.5/10
26. Atlas Sound - Logos - 7.5/10
27. Circulatory System - Signal Morning - 7.5/10
28. Akron/Family - Set 'Em Wild, Set 'Em Free - 7.5/10
29. Kitchen's Floor - Loneliness Is a Dirty Mattress - 7.5/10
30. Lightning Bolt - Earthly Delights - 7.5/10

31. Tim Hecker - An Imaginary Country - 7.5/10
32. Wild Beasts - Two Dancers - 7.5/10
33. Woods - Songs of Shame - 7.5/10
34. William Fowler Collins - Perdition Hill Radio - 7.5/10
35. Tortoise - Beacons of Ancestorship - 7.5/10
36. Yo La Tengo - Popular Songs - 7.5/10
37. Here We Go Magic - s/t - 7.5/10
38. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest - 7.5/10
39. Wolf Eyes - Always Wrong - 7.5/10
40. Memory Tapes - Seek Magic - 7.5/10


41. White Rainbow - New Clouds - 7.5/10
42. Tyvek - s/t - 7.5/10
43. NOMO - Invisible Cities - 7.5/10
44. The-Dream - Love vs. Money - 7.5/10
45. Emeralds - What Happened - 7/10
46. Lhasa - s/t - 7/10
47. DOOM - Born Like This - 7/10
48. Sparklehorse + Fennesz - In the Fishtank 15 - 7/10
49. Barn Owl - From Our Mouths a Perpetual Light - 7/10
50. Sufjan Stevens - The BQE - 7/10

51. Bibio - Ambivalence Avenue - 7/10
52. Condo Fucks - Fuckbook - 7/10
53. Wilco - Wilco (The Album) - 7/10
54. Emeralds - s/t - 7/10
55. Sunn O))) - Monoliths & Dimensions - 7/10
56. Molina & Johnson - s/t - 7/10
57. Black Dice - Repo - 6.5/10
58. Lotus Plaza - The Floodlight Collective - 6.5/10
59. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz! - 6.5/10
60. Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport - 6.5/10


61. The xx - xx - 6.5/10
62. Japandroids - Post-Nothing - 6.5/10
63. Sonic Youth - The Eternal - 6.5/10
64. Wavves - Wavvves - 6.5/10
65. The Very Best - Warm Heart of Africa - 6.5/10
66. Mi Ami - Watersports - 6.5/10
67. Volcano Choir - Unmap - 6.5/10
68. Polvo - In Prism - 6.5/10
69. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Beware - 6.5/10
70. Mika Miko - We Be Xuxa - 6.5/10

71. Blank Dogs - Under and Under - 6.5/10
72. JJ - JJ N° 2 - 6/10
73. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - s/t - 6/10
74. Various Artists - Dark Was the Night - 6/10
75. Busdriver - Jhelli Beam - 6/10
76. Cass McCombs - Catacombs - 6/10
77. Melvins - Chicken Switch - 6/10
78. UUVVWWZ - s/t - 6/10
79. Bat for Lashes - Two Suns - 6/10
80. Marissa Nadler - Little Hells - 6/10


81. Passion Pit - Manners - 5.5/10
82. Mastodon - Crack the Skye - 5.5/10
83. Magnolia Electric Co. - Josephine - 5/10
84. Girls - Album - 5/10
85. Antony and the Johnsons - The Crying Light - 4.5/10
86. M. Ward - Hold Time - 4/10
87. Themselves - theFREEhoudini Deluxe - 3.5/10
88. Lady Gaga - The Fame Monster - 3/10