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.