Time Marches On

I threw five more albums onto the pod last month. All sorts of stuff, and all pretty new except the Ramona Falls album, but that's just cause I was preparing myself to listen to this year's record. Cutting edge over here on the blog, I tell you what. Here's the OBLIGATORY PLAYLIST to give you a taste of each. Cool, let's start.

1. Cloud Nothings - Attack on Memory (2012)

"I thought / I would / be more / than this," Dylan Baldi wails on the second track of this, their third LP. And after five-and-a-half minutes of half-assed post-rock jamming, it's a pretty dry joke. But then the rest of the band kicks into the melody he's been holding out on so long and I'm so glad because "I thought / I would / be bored / by this."

2. Django Django - Django Django (2012)

In which the little brother of the Beta Band's keyboard player finds himself a band with the same gift for reinventing familiar phrases and manufacturing magic moments. I can see a latter-day Cusack -- for argument's sake let's say Jesse Eisenberg -- selling at least four copies of this album during the intro to "Default" alone.

3. Doomtree - No Kings (2012)

Doomtree have been doing the indie rap thing for a decade at least, and they don't want to Watch The Throne just because a couple of big-city rappers said so. But they can't help kind of addressing this album to them, either, or admitting they want the same things. Hey, no one stays twenty-nine forever.

4. Cate Le Bon - Cyrk (2012)

I don't think anyone can do better than the Super Furry Animals' Gruff Rhys who described her music thusly: "Bobbie Gentry and Nico fight over a Casio keyboard; melody wins!"

5.  Ramona Falls- Intuit (2009)

That one dude from Menomena, who by himself still sounds like all of Menomena, fills out this record with dozens of guest appearances by friends from in and around Portland. The only rule: have fun! The other rule: no electric guitars. Is this possible? You decide.

The Casual DJ, Part 1: Set it and Forget It

The Hold Steady are right, most people are DJs. Pretty well any living room or bedroom has some sort of speaker system, and if you get a few people together, somebody's gonna have an iPod. So who controls the tunes? The Casual DJ does.

The main event in hangout sessions usually isn't music, and while the 30-seconds-left-quick-quick-it's-ending strategy is thrilling, it is time consuming and stressful. Presumably the Casual DJ is a normal, social person who enjoys conversation as much as gauging crowd reactions to the music they choose. Presumably. 

While prefabricated playlists can be useful, they sometimes feel contrived, especially on the second go-around with the same crew. Today is the only March 7th, 2012 that any of us will ever be alive for, so why turn the evening over to your friend's "Get Crunked Up" mix that you all listened to last week?

So what about just putting an album on? Sure! It's a classic, relaxing way to enjoy a cohesive artistic statement. But gauging the taste and mood of the room is crucial. A whole album is quite a commitment, and the Casual DJ must choose wisely to avoid the spine-chilling dagger to the soul that is "Do you have something more ______?"

So what kind of album is best in this role? First of all, it's got to be in a genre that will be accepted by the crowd you're dealing with. Then it's generally those with a strong aesthetic running through them, and a fairly consistent tempo and mood. People are concerned with conversation, or cards, or their chicken dinner, so the album shouldn't intrude too much or demand a lot of attention to appreciate. Above all, it should be fun and add flavour to your hangout by situating it in a definite sonic place and time.

I have an old 60GB iPod that I haven't updated since just after high school, and I like to use it like an old record collection in this very situation. Here are a few of my favourite Set It And Forget It albums:

(click the album name to bring it up in Grooveshark)

1. Fine Young Cannibals - The Raw and the Cooked (1988)

Front to back, this is a solid album with a unique sound, which is the difference between inedibly stale and deliciously dated. 

2. Sheryl Crow - The Very Best Of (2003)

All the hits: it's surprising how many of these songs everyone will know, if not like. And it's undeniably fun. Did you hear me? Undeniably!

3. The Killers - Hot Fuss (2004)

Specifically for people about my age, who were "impressionable" at the time this came out, some of whom hang on to these synth hooks to remember, others to forget.

4. Charlie Christian - The Original Guitar Genius (2005)

Mostly recordings of the Benny Goodman Sextet from 1939-41, the sort of three minute swing songs that make for fantastic mood music.

5. White Denim - Workout Holiday (2008)

Someone will ask you who this is by the third song. I promise.

6. The Dandy Warhols - Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia (2000)

A rare album that can be totally engrossing but makes for an equally enjoyable background listen. They even put transitions between the songs. It's like they knew.

7. Matt Costa - Songs We Sing (2006)

This is just so consistently good-natured it's hard to fault as a backing track to chill times. 

8. Kings of Leon - Aha Shake Heartbreak (2005)

Short, punchy rock songs that'll get you to the bar by the time it's over.

9. Les Dales Hawerchuck - Les Dales Hawerchuck (2005)

Perhaps a francophone analogue to the above. Will get you to a Quebecois bar? 

10. Nightmares On Wax - Smokers Delight (1995)

This one's for after the bar, the club, and that other club. When no one's ready to sleep, but when  you need something to fill the long, spacey pauses in conversation.

Goosebumps

I grew up playing classical violin, and not listening to music. I had to play it all the time, so what did I care? Vivaldi, Lully, and Bach weren't heroes to me; I knew that Lully had died after hitting himself in the foot with a baton while conducting (badass!), but their music flowed through me without sinking in. I understood the musical tricks I had to use to make it emotive: dynamics, vibrato, tempo, etc., but they were just that to me, tricks. There was nothing in classical music to grab me by the throat and shake me. There was nothing for my throat to do at all; if I tried to talk while practising, my arms would simply shut down. But I could read, I discovered, and so kept myself occupied during my (interminably long) half-hour practise sessions by reading whatever was close at hand.

So lyrics were a shock to me. One that I couldn't even understand at first; I could listen to the same CD a hundred times and know every note of every melody but not a single word. My first CD was Sum 41's All Killer No Filler and that was in seventh grade. I burnt a copy from Chris Kyle, who was already totally into music. When my mom found it I disowned it immediately. I'd found it on the street, or something. No one I know would listen to music with such profanity (okay, maybe I heard a few of the words). But I listened to it every night, lying in bed in the dark, trying now to pick out the words and realizing how they complemented the song, and how these could build into moments of absolute magic. I listened to any other CDs I could find lying around: Amanda Marshall's self titled, Matchbox 20's Yourself Or Someone Like You, Pearl Jam's Vs. And I laughed. Or cried. Got angry. Got anxious. But mostly, I got goosebumps.

It wasn't long before I realized that this wasn't a random occurrence. This was a repeatable, scientific process that, after a sufficient refractory period, was as regular as clockwork. So I kept a little unmarked list of them on my Facebook page's "About Me" section. Recently I found them and remembered what they were. So, as I'd like to expand my study, please listen to these and take note of your physiological reaction at the track times indicated. LISTEN TO THIS PLAYLIST, it has 'em all in order. If the first few don't work for ya, turn it up, and maybe open a window?

1. Radiohead - 2+2=5 (1:55)

The guitar plugging in at the start of the track probably also counts, but you've really got to crank it in the headphones.

2. Les Cowboys Fringants - Ruelle Laurier (2:27)

Dude's going to kill his father in an alley, maybe with a hockey skate? Bright red blood on dirty grey snow. 

3. Archers of Loaf - You and Me (0:59)

Listen to the rhythm guitar fade in and feel your heart rise with it until it's in your mouth and you need to scream it out.

4. Sebastien Grainger - American Names (1:51)

Those immigrants really, really want a better life for their children. Trite maybe, but that drumbeat ain't trite! (Incidentally, this is an effective way to defend any gangsta rap song you like)

5. The Mountain Goats - No Children (2:00)

Something about those two other John Darnielles that drop in for that tag at the end really puts a bow on that whole painfully honest, honestly painful thing he does so well.

6. Wilco - Say You Miss Me (2:48)

This one's like getting hit in the gut with a sack of oranges, you're winded and doubled over and where did that come from and why isn't there a mark?

7. The Format - On Your Porch (2:18)

For someone who's just moved across the country and is missing his family and eating lunch alone on the hill by the McGill Education building, well, that lyric might make the person in that hypothetical situation bawl real tears.

8. The Dudes - Do The Right Thing (1:45)

This is energy and adolescence and awkwardness and also sounds really good on a car stereo.

9. The Rakes - Shackleton (1:50)

The Rakes are really good at falling apart only to come back tighter than before, but the breakdown's always more fun.

10. Dismemberment Plan - You Are Invited (2:22)

Lopes along all song behind a drum machine, and suddenly he's a rock god with a golden ticket. 'Cause that's what the song's all about, get it?

January / February

Another day, another dime, another nickel's worth of albums on the MP3 player. And some weird ones at that. Here are some words about them, CLICK HERE for some songs from them.

1. Dessa - A Badly Broken Code (2010)

She said it best on her False Hopes EP: underrated writer, overrated rapper. Thing is, she's still a good rapper. And a great singer as well, as we find out on the LP. But it's the rhymes and the lines that'll keep me coming back; it's underrating her to say that anyone in rap writes better. "Snow falls fast and thin / angels ash Virginia slims." I mean, c'mon.

2. Glasvegas - Euphoric Heartbreak (2011)

So apparently they released a second album; no one told me. Not sure who they told, either, since I had to upload it to Grooveshark myself. Because you should hear it. Autotune, 80's keys, homosexuality, Scottish mothers: it all comes together on this disc. It's a bit of a slog, but so were the three years since the debut, and by their sophomore release they've gotten somewhere familiar, but new; still slogging, but not slumping.

3. Canibus - C of Tranquility (2010)

I didn't know anything about Canibus' rap career going into this album, but that didn't turn out to be a problem. I gotta say, for a man "looking forward to not looking back," he sure spends a lot of time looking back. The lyrics and production both remind me of Non Phixion's The Future Is Now. That is, they're so solid they have a certain timelessness. And Canibus has to speak about the future, because the past is haunting him and the present is ignoring him.

4. Rural Alberta Advantage - Departing (2011)

Their advantage is time, in case you were wondering. Because this is their second album, and it still drips with potential. It's pleasantly, inspiringly raw, and bookended by two truly arresting tracks. They have more energy than Said the Whale and better breakbeats than Broken Social Scene, and they're still just departing. When they come to a fork in the road, will they go left or right? Or will they have the good sense to take it, because it might be useful later?

5. Bear in Heaven - Red Bloom of the Boom (2007)

I felt out of my element on this one, but have a difficult time imagining who wouldn't. The first couple songs took me through Silversun Pickups, Menomena, and Phoenix before I gave up completely and just let it be. Because its lack of cohesion is what holds it together, or something. Actually, I don't know if anything holds it together. Maybe that's not the point. But what is the point? I've probably listened to it a dozen times but couldn't give you a single lyric. That it can make me think about it so hard anyway, maybe that's the point.

Winter Listening

It's winter, and it's cold in Montreal.  I have a new crop of albums on the .mp3 box that I've been listening to on my bike rides to and from work.  They all turned out to be good, but like the biking, they weren't all easy.  LISTEN TO THIS AS YOU READ or click the album art to listen to each record individually.

1. Superchunk - Majesty Shredding (2010)

Nine years off and this record makes it feel like it was just a kink in the hose; in fact Majesty Shredding reminds me of Green Day's Dookie more than current Green Day does. Because Green Day attempt to ignore that they're growing ever older than the kids at the shows; Billie Joe wears it like "there's not enough eyeliner in this world" and keeps his "hair black and in [his] face," whereas Superchunk's Mac McCaughan can't pretend his gap doesn't feel weird. But he and the band have energy and guitars to burn, and like Green Day's "Basket Case" they know the kids still want songs about 'nothing and everything at once'.

2. King Creosote and John Hopkins - Diamond Mine (2011)

In which Scotland's most prolific singer-songwriter re-cuts some old gems with the help of one of England's foremost producers of electronica. The intimate arrangements and lilting vocals are transported to the East Neuk of Fife thanks to Hopkins' absorbing field recordings.  He may be "growing silver in [his] sideburns" and "starting to unravel," but King Creosote's forty-second (?) record in thirteen (!) years is, perhaps most amazingly, well worth unravelling.

3. Yuck - Yuck (2011)

This is a band that wears their iPod on their sleeve. You know, the Shuffle. With the clip? Anyway, they only put their favourite 90s rock on it, and made an album with the weird blend of diversity and homogeneity that they heard. At least that's the most plausible explanation I have made up. This might just be the first rock record for the Pandora generation.

4. Shabazz Palaces - Black Up (2011)

When I put on Black Up, it's like power suddenly goes out.  As in: everything's black, what's up?  Sometimes it takes me until track seven ("Recollections of the Wraith") before my eyes adjust. In the meantime I'm stumbling around, disoriented, looking for something solid to hold onto.  Okay, not the beat, as it changes mid-song. Not the vocal, either, it's mixed so low I sometimes have trouble hearing it. Who ever heard of rap like this? But then track seven comes on with the Roots-esque vocal hook which, instead of turning into a funky jam stays strangely empty as Ishmael Butler raps: "clear some space out, so we can space out." And suddenly it makes sense and I'm at home in this chilly, ethereal place, still not able to make out much more than shapes in the darkness, but cool with that.

5. Chapel Club - Palace (2011)

Since I like the Rakes' Klang so much I figured I would see what else producer Chris Zane has worked on. Turns out, a lot of pop. Dream pop, synth pop, electropop, etceterapop. So I figured I'd check out the one rock band he worked with this year. London's Chapel Club combine the chugging and soaring rhythm sound of their countrymen Glasvegas and White Lies with the ardent apathy (read: loud restraint?) of Hard-Fi's vocals. So you can let the lyrics slide by if you want to, but don't ignore that they've worked the chorus of "Dream a Little Dream of Me" into the second track on their album. This is a neat trick that beats the outro to "Flowers and Football Tops" any day. But given the choice, I'd still listen to Glasvegas. Why, you say? In the form of a fishing metaphor, you say? Okay. Chapel Club uses big hooks and sharp ones too, but they're ultimately barbless. So I get the feeling that if I let the line go slack for a bit, they'll slide right out again.

6. Pistol Annies - Hell on Heels (2011)

This girl country supergroup has all of the unabashed swag of a rap supergroup. Case in point: "Takin' Pills," where they introduce each other individually along with their favourite vice. There's Angaleena Presley, the foul-mouthed chain smoker from Kentucky; Ashley Monroe, the pill-popper from Tennessee; and of course Miranda Lambert, the hard-drinking Texan.  Songwriting is stellar throughout and divided evenly among the group, and lead vocals are mostly split between Lambert and Presley although Monroe sings the excellent "Beige." Whether it's men, or money, or the family at momma's funeral, they make it clear that they don't take nothing from nobody, and use their "aw, shucks" country expressions with the same self-confidence and playfulness with which rappers throw out urban neologisms. The real question is who uses more autotune, and I couldn't bet confidently either way.