Some Singles for 2011

There are a whole bunch of albums I listened to this year that I didn't review last post.  Either I didn't have a great handle on them, or I didn't like them enough, or they were EPs.  But they had some excellent tracks.  Here's A PLAYLIST I MADE so you can follow along, otherwise click the album art.

Ice Cube - "Ghetto Vet"

I know the crazy motherfucker named Ice Cube from Straight Outta Compton and the beleaguered Papa-bear named Ice Cube from Are We There Yet?, but always wondered what happened to him out there on the road to make him change.  Let's just say that the car right ahead of him was in a horrible crash, and he decided right then and there to drive the speed limit.  Metaphorically, of course.

Jens Lekman - "An Argument With Myself"

This is a song with a lot going on.  It has some catchy and intricate guitar work paired with a Paul Simon-style world-bounce for a rhythm track, a cheeky half-time reggae digression, and incidental accordion, among other things.  Lyrically, besides having a quite literal argument with himself, he manages to describe and critique his current home of Melbourne, examine his love life, and quote Marx.  All in a voice that alternates between mellifluous and converstional.  It's a fearlessly complex and playful song.

Pokey Lafarge and the South City Three - "La La Blues"

The first track off 2010's Riverboat Soul, it captures the tightness and energy of a band that cut their teeth trying to eke change out of passers-by.  This is Western swing music, that is, upright bass, guitar, and either harmonica or percussion (snare or washboard).  Wonderful shouted harmonies, tight vibrato on the vocals, and period apparel; shtick, yes, but as sincere and satisfying a shtick as you'll see.

The Coup - "Fat Cats, Bigga Fish" / "Pimps (Freestylin' at the Fortune 500 Club)

The first two real songs on Genocide & Juice are just about flawless.  Great storytelling with a political bent, wry, cynical humour: this is conscious hip hop.  Boots Riley is on the mic and behind the beats, which ooze funk like he goes by Bootsy instead.  He does a better job describing problems than prescribing solutions, and who can blame him?  They're systemic, not systematic.

Death Cab for Cutie - "Little Bribes"

The first track on last year's excellent The Open Door EP is everything you expect from Ben Gibbard: earnest, lean, and evocative.  Except he can't focus on his troubled romantic life under the tremendous neon lights of Las Vegas, so for once we get something more than solipsism.  Don't expect him to be any more optimistic about the American Dream, but enjoy the subject change.

Random Axe - "Random Call"

Guilty Simpson, Sean P, and Black Milk are clearly more than just random acts.  P sums it up effortlessly: "Me, Guilty, and Black is aggressive content / Don't loveletter-rhymes in raps about chicks / Just a whole lot of druggin' and thuggin', that's it."  After one of the finest track mutes I've ever heard, he comes back with "You can call me one dimensional / But ain't too much talkin' when this slug get into you."  Clearly, these guys understand the humour of being unreasonable men.  The piano hook is Milk's finest melodic touch on an otherwise dark album, the verses are on point.  It's an intimidatingly good song.

The Dismemberment Plan - "The Ice of Boston"

At first blush, this could be a Weird Al tune, but then you realize Travis Morrison isn't blushing.  Sure, there are some things he'd rather not admit to right now, but that's because he's drunk and depressed and desolate. Cut him some slack.  Besides, all this is poured over the catchiest, slinkiest tune on a brilliantly weird album.  Some of these post-hardcore/art-punk/whatever songs are so odd you can't blame casual fans for doing 'the standing still' out of sheer fear, but when "The Ice of Boston" comes on, you better believe they all head for the stage.

Drake - "HYFR (Hell Ya Fuckin' Right)"

On his second album, fellow Torontonian K'naan says most mainstream rap is "yapping about yapping," and most underground rap is "rapping about rapping."  Drake claims to be underground turned mainstream, and on his second album, if I wanted to be snarky, whining about whining.  But that's worst case.  Here, he's rhyming in bizarrely-timed bursts of triplets, clichés are minimal, and he stays off the hook and the autotune (well, almost).  Because the hook is Lil' Wayne's, and it's a showstopper.  In other words, this is best case: Drake is winning about winning.

Fruit Bats - "You're Too Weird"

The lead single from this year's Tripper, and it sure sounds like it.  It has a heavy, sweet hook that really cashes in on the falsetto vocal octaves and pairs well with the sensual groove laid down by the bass and drums.  The meandering guitar solo connects the verses, which give way to a languid refrain that carries the song into fade out.  Cause really, how did you think it was going to end?

The Henry Clay People - "This Ain't a Scene"

Another case of a clear-cut single, this rocker is sandwiched between a ballad in waltz time and the sort of punker that got Japandroids famous.  It grabs your attention by omission, letting the bass and snare wander in after a few measures, and keeps it by building in intensity as it progresses. Great gee-tar work, simple but effective drums, and energetic vocals; if indie rock and roll has lost its teeth, the Henry Clay People are giving them dentures at least.

Favourite Albums of 2011

I break headphones a lot, and I'm no audiophile, so this year I found that you sometimes get pretty decent headphones packaged with little $20 mp3 players.  With such limited storage capacity, I've been putting 3 or 4 albums on them at a time, so I can't say that I've been listening to any of these albums all year long.  But these were ones which stuck in my mind even if I couldn't listen to them, and for my money, that's better.

Click on the album art to listen.

1. Withered Hand - Good News (2011)

Slight but sturdy, spare but spacious, shy but sure, Dan Willson's debut album is wonderful.  It's a folky, thoughtful record where the melodies still manage to take over.  His brittle voice and articulate guitar are instantly affecting, the sound of someone who has recognized his limitations and turned them into his greatest strengths.  The lyrics are profound and profane, as likely to provoke a thoughtful frown as a goofy smile.  His band are culled from various Edinburgh folk outfits, and they add depth to his tunes with rare delicacy.  "I took a minor role in my life / behind two kids, a cat and my wife," he sings on 'I Am Nothing,' "you can keep your blood, you can keep your glory / I'm just looking for my voice."  Safe to say that on Good News, he's found it.

2. Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy (2005)

This is an unsettling, hateful, and unparalleled album.  Will Sheff expands on the eponymous Tim Hardin folk song with eleven of his own compositions.  These build upon each other almost like a musical would, winding from one memorable tune to the next.  Weaving and wrecking his way through this world is the Black Sheep Boy, a mythical entity possibly based on the heroin addict Hardin became.  The arrangements are elegant and raw, atmospherically enhancing the beautifully crafted acoustic tunes and Sheff's hoarse croon.  The characters in this picaresque are all seething masses of memories and murderous impulses, and their "black diapason" is a tour de force.

3. Serengeti - Family and Friends (2011)

Serengeti trades the "Bears, Hawks, Sox, Bulls" of Chicago for the Lakers, Clippers, Dodgers and Kings of L.A., teaming up with producers Yoni Wolf (of Why?) and Owen Ashworth (formerly Casiotone for the Painfully Alone).  Geti is a master craftsman: song structure is innovative throughout, and the rhymes are playful even when the story is serious, from the same-old-story corniness of "Long Ears" ("Guess who's back, your old broken down dad / came back to say he loves you and that he feels bad") to the enjambed-instead-of-obvious "California" ("Just get it over with / that blog post got viewed the most" vs. "That blog post got the most hits").  And the stories on Family and Friends are plenty serious, even dystopic: illicit and licit drugs, abandonment, bigamy, delusion, and injury abound.  It's a downright depressing record, come to think of it, but it's the expertly and lovingly observed minutia of eleven evocative situations where "things aren't going quite as planned" that pulls me through.

4. The Drones - Havilah (2008)

My favourite Australian garage rockers have always taken a dim view of humanity, which I approved of insofar as they seemed to prefer guitars.  On Havilah they've finally taken their misanthropy to its logical conclusion and gotten apocalyptic.  "People are a waste of food," Gareth Liddiard barks in "Oh My," and on an album he made on diesel generators in his remote mud-brick home, you've got to take him seriously.  The guitars are muscular and beautifully sloppy, the band a tightly-wound ramshackle in support.  The end of the world has never seemed like so much fun.

5. The Streets - Computers and Blues (2011)

The last-but-not-last Streets album is some of Mike Skinner's best work.  It could be seen as a middle ground between The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living and Everything is Borrowed: the lyrics manage to marry some of the former's cleverness to the latter's attempt at depth.  It's also fearlessly topical, from a song about a facebook status update to the (cringeworthy?) hook "you can't google the solution to people's feelings."  The production mirrors this topicality, the inimitable collage-like beats littered with digital squeaks and squelches of crashing computers.  It's an album that makes me think, and one where even the missteps require relistening.

6. Beauty Pill - The Unsustainable Lifestyle (2004)

I've been intrigued by the only LP from this somewhat enigmatic D.C. band since it was reviewed in the Transworld skate mag, my main source of music as a 15 year old.  But for years all I could find was the title track from the first EP, "The Cigarette Girl from the Future."  Its puttering keyboards and sinuous horns only deepened my curiosity.  Finally I found it on Grooveshark, and it lived up every bit to the seven-year wait.  It's an off-kilter, cinematic record whose prototypical indie rhythmic core is augmented by an understated but innovative corps of keyboards and auxiliary percussion.  The songs paint a bleak picture of Western society, somewhere between poetically oblique and openly political.  For Beauty Pill, this album is both a critique and a call to arms.  "Terrible things, they are going to happen," Chad Clark intones on the last track, but "this record's over, so why not go outside and stop them?"

7. Mutemath - Odd Soul (2011)

I saw these vaguely Christian rockers from New Orleans in 2007, when they were touring their debut album.  Listening to this, their third, I was impressed, especially with Danger Mouse's production.  BUT WAIT, he had nothing to do with this record.  Odd Soul is self-produced, but equal parts The Odd Couple, Attack & Release, and Modern Guilt.  It has a cohesive sound despite the genre-hopping, or maybe because of it;  either way, you get the sense these guys would rather play than worry about it.  Their guitarist left before this album was recorded, and bassist/producer Roy Mitchell-Cardenas fills in pithily, effectively shrinking the band's rhythm section to just two minds.  And rhythm is a strong suit for this band, who employ bouncy Danger Mouse-style beats, complex syncopation and changing time signatures to great effect while melodically keeping the songs to their hooky/bluesy cores. Flattery to this, the sincerest form of imitation.

8. Atmosphere - You Can't Imagine How Much Fun We're Having (2005)

I'm riding my infatuation with Minnesota hip hop into 2012, and You Can't Imagine is as trusty a steed as I can imagine.  Slug is confident, shouting less and sneering more.  He alternates between navel-gazing and puffing out his chest until he can't see it any more as naturally as breathing.  Ant is inspired, making melodic, piano-driven beats which complement Slug's delivery perfectly, so much so that you can't be sure that it's not the other way around.  "Atmosphere, that's people in the background sitting around, drinking your beer, looking like you belong there," as a Cheers sound bite on the album goes.  This is not a mainstream album, but it is a solid one, like two extras having a meaningful conversation while the actors rehash the same old dialogue for the cameras.  Listen in, and like Paul you'll soon be asking "can I be atmosphere too?"

9. Deer Tick - Divine Providence (2011)

The boys from Deer Tick are back in their hometown of Providence, Rhode Island, and if they want to fight, you'd better let 'em.  They get good and lickered up through the first three songs, and then let John McCauley catch his ragged breath as drummer Dennis Ryan warbles through a ditty about a clown that would probably terrify Sufjan Stevens.  This is an album where the slow songs are hooky enough to keep pace with the barnburners (bar-burners?), and they cover a wide range of styles; Divine Providence is a strikingly pleasing agglomerate.  In this age of digital piracy, successful albums are ones that get fans out to the show, and this one makes me want to go just so I can try to match them drink for drink.

10. Better Thank Ezra - Closer (2001)

Not every album that I love is critically lauded, but even so Better than Ezra probably counts as a guilty pleasure.  I picked this album up from the CD section of my local library two and a half years ago, which clearly had some cash to burn in the early Aughts as I also took out Weezer's Green Album and Broken Social Scene's You Forgot It in People.  For me, this New Orleans trio smokes them both, and it's something I have a hard time explaining.  I guess they've found a safe and sunny spot in the middle road where I can go when I want to see the cars go by.  If they had a boombox out there, I'd bring this CD.

11. The Argyles - Rage and Chill (2011)

Honourably mentioned is the first real album I've ever put together, with my band the Argyles.  It was a lot of fun, and I look forward to making another.  You can keep up with that on my other blog, if you're so inclined.

Favourite Albums of 2010

Very few of these actually came out in 2010.  But they were new to me.

1. The Rakes - Klang (2009)
Heard and loved Capture / Release when it came out in 2005.  Enjoyed it so much, in fact, that it took me until last November to move on to the other two albums.  Klang is short, sparse, and as melodic as it is dissonant; the definitive statement from these white-collar workers / weekend wasters.

2. Serengeti - Dennehy (Lights, Camera, Action) (2008)
Took me until this year to properly get to the third member of the "MF Grimm, MF Doom, Serengeti trinity."  This rerelease of 2006's Dennehy is a completely immersing, earnest and seriously funny record.

3. The Dudes - Brain Heart Guitar (2006)
This is one of the great Canadian rock records.  It has made me break into a weird sort of dance-run on my end of the night walk home more times than I can count.

4. Wire - Pink Flag (1977)
This is the only Wire album I have, and the oldest on this list.  You wouldn't know it to listen to it, though.  It's a breakneck album, leaving some of its best changes and lines unrepeated.  The only thing to do is to listen again.

5. tUnE-yArDs - BiRd BrAiNs (2010)
I have been kicking myself harder and harder for not seeing Merrill Garbus perform this summer.  She sings tribal lullabies over beats that owe more to J Dilla than to the coffeehouse circut I imagine she would still kill it playing.

6. Mekons - Fear And Whiskey (1985)
This album bounces along more than it rocks, and took me a while to get into.  It is a nearly flawless, semi-conceptual exploration of anarchic life on the British homefront.  But the best thing that can be said about it doesn't involve any of those words.  Did I mention there's violins?

7. P.O.S. - Never Better (2009)

A native Minnesotan and Rhymesayer fusing punk and hip hop.  This is a small album that sounds huge, with ideas to match.  His passion and swagger reminds me of his labelmate Brother Ali, except instead of an albino "raised by black men," he's a black man raised by white men with mohawks.

8. Vampire Weekend - Contra (2010)

I intentionally missed the first album in some sort of misguided protest of their name, but Contra is a continuation of its aesthetic except this time the majority of the songs are intended to be singles.  I don't care where they got those rhythms, as long as they keep playing them.  One thing that surprised me is that it's just as good on a rainy day.

9. The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow (2003)

I had a couple singles since high school, but this year I listened to the whole albums, and this is definitely my favourite, probably because it's the least dissembling and delicate.  And the melodies, oh, the melodies.

10. Hot Hot Heat - Make Up The Breakdown (2002)
An album which surprised me considerably.  Especially for a debut, it's full of tremendously inventive and well-executed musical ideas.  Great performances across the board, infectious energy.  Inspiring.

11. Lifter Puller - Fiestas and Fiascos (2000)
This one gets an honourable mention as I'd heard it before but only came to fully appreciate it this year, once I'd worked my way through the Hold Steady's catalogue.  I think it best exemplifies everything that I love about both bands.  In 2011: I check out Half Dead and Dynamite.