[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/1309452[/vimeo]
Another cool music video featuring some awesome animation. You get to watch the band age backwards (though not like Benjamin Button). The director of this video, Sean Pecknold has done some other cool videos, also involving the music of Fleet Foxes. Check out the rest of the director’s work here.
Fleet Foxes (2008)
Looks like a pretty good lineup with big acts like Paul McCartney, The Cure, My Bloody Valentine, Leonard Cohen, Amy Winehouse, and the Killers and some up and coming indies like Fleet Foxes, Vivian Girls, Peter Bjorn and John, Band of Horses, Blitzen Trapper and No Age. Anybody planning on going after seeing the list?
(mp3) Fleet Foxes – Blue Ridge Mountains
(mp3) No Age – Eraser
(mp3) My Bloody Valentine – Only Shallow
(mp3) Band of Horses – Ode to Irc
Check out the new video for Animal Collective’s “My Girls”. This band always seems to be on the cutting edge of awesome sounds and images. The video just consists of the band performing their song, but with crazy effects going on throughout the entire video. I’d say it accurately portrays how the music makes me feel sometimes.
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/2616231[/vimeo]
Merriweather Post Pavilion (2009):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcLMH8pwusw[/youtube]
I had trouble keeping up with the music scene this year so many of my favorite albums of 2008 didn’t become my favorite albums until very last minute. I went around to different blogs and looked up all their top albums and listened to a whole bunch of music from this year. I plan on being more on top of things in 2009, but here is my top ten albums of 2008 in alphabetical order:
Beach House – Devotion
Beach House – Some Things Last a Long Time (Daniel Johnston Cover)
Bon Iver – For Emma Forever Ago
Deerhoof – Offend Maggie
Deerhoof – Chadelier Searchlight
Deerhunter – Microcastles
Deerhunter – Nothing Ever Happened
Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes
Fleet Foxes – Blue Ridge Mountains
Grouper – Dragging a Dead Deer Up A Hill
Grouper – Heavy Water/I’d Rather Be Sleeping
Mount Eerie (with Julie Doiron and Fred Squire) – Lost Wisdom
Sigur Rós – Með suð iÌ eyrum við spilum endalaust
Sigur Rós – Vi spilum endalaust
Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks – Real Emotional Trash
Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks – Baltimore
Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks – Gardenia
Sun Kil Moon – April
The end of the year is a great time to discover music that came out in that year. Every blog and magazine comes out with their lists of the best albums, singles, new artists of the year. I usually go around to each and every site trying to find commonalities between lists to see which are the most popular and critically acclaimed and try to listen to as much as I can. Though 2009 is looking up to be another great year for music with albums by Animal Collective, Andrew Bird, Built to Spill, M. Ward, Wilco and many more, let’s take a look at what made 2008 a great year for music. Most of these have more than 10 album on their lists, we’ve just provided their top 10 because it’s a much more manageable that way. Which list do you agree with the most? Do you think these are the best albums, or just favorite albums? Please discuss in the comments!
It is not very often that you get to hear a band that features the singing saw and bouncing ping pong balls as percussion. Julian Koster (a former member of Neutral Milk Hotel) brings a bunch of unusual instrumentaiton to his latest release as The Music Tapes. I would recommend this band for any fan of Neutral Milk Hotel if you don’t mind more lo-fi recordings and lots of banjo strumming. The Music Tapes is part of the Elephant 6 Recording Company (one of the founding members being Jeff Mangum) whose bands include Apples in Stereo, Beuluah, Elf Power, and of course Neutral Milk Hotel.
The new album spotlights Julian Koster’s songcraft and distinctive vocals, his almost religious devotion to the singing saw, and numerous contributions from other musicians in the Elephant 6 orbit. As on previous efforts, recording was done using an array of antique hardware, giving Music Tapes for Clouds and Tornadoes a timeless, texturally rich sonic palette. It is the sound of Julian’s world poking through the curtain surrounding objective reality.
Also, you might want to check out his new album that is fully streaming at the Merge Records Website that is a singing saw album full of Christmas classics, but I’ve got Jingle Bells as an MP3 for you too.
MP3: The Music Tapes – Cumulonimbus (Magnetic Tape for Clouds)
MP3: The Music Tapes – Nimbus Stratus Cirrus (Mr. Piano’s Majestic Haircut)
MP3: Belle and Sebastien – Christmas Time is Here
MP3: Blitzen Trapper – Christmas is Coming Soon
MP3: Daniel Johnston – Rock Around the Christmas Tree
MP3: Sufjan Stevens – We Wish You A Merry Christmas
MP3: Deerhoof – Little Drummer Boy
MP3: The Flaming Lips – A Change At Christmas (Say It Isn’t So)
MP3: The Walkmen – The Christmas Party
MP3: The Kinks – Father Christmas
The Welcome Wagon are Reverend Thomas Vito Aiuto and his wife Monique (and a lot of help from Sufjan Stevens who acts as producer, arranger, and backup musician). Their music is a very listenable addition to the tradition of liturgical music: a blend of folk, pop, and a hint of gospel.
The Welcome Wagon began as husband and wife singing in the privacy of their home. Having little to no previous musical experience or training, Vito purchased a guitar with the desire to sing hymns with his family. With Monique accompanying on toy glockenspiel or harmonica, the two would amble through old hymnals, psalters and prayerbooks.
The similarities between The Welcome Wagon and Sufjan are hard to deny because he was so instrumental (pun intended) in making this album happen. As fellow Christians from Michigan living in Brooklyn, it just makes sense that this collaboration happened. For many this will hold Sufjan fans over until his next album, but the Reverend and his wife are able to distinguish themselves enough to hold their own. I cannot say I follow any specific religion, but I can appreciate their commitment and their own personal tribute to God and I accept their invitation to the Welcome Wagon.
Sure, there are showy guitar riffs and piano codas and harmonica solos, a rowdy chorus, an imposing flourish of brass instruments like wartime canons. But at the heart of it—if you really listen carefully—there’s just a pastor and his wife tentatively singing in the quiet privacy of their own home.
MP3: The Welcome Wagon – Sold! To The Nice Rich Man
Little Joy is a side project from The Stroke’s drummer Fabrizio Moretti, singer Rodrigo Amarante of Los Hermanos, and singer Bikini Shapiro. This is a great little pop album; there’s not a lot of lyrical substance, but it’s very pleasant to listen to and it has a great production value. It sounds like an amalgamation of different pop music from the 50s to 60s that wants to be played in the sunshine.
From Rough Trade:
It’s a tastefully executed cocktail of calypso-garage-folk that’s reminiscent of both trashy lounge bars and tropical coast lines. Our favourite tracks include the scratchy and glorious sunshine pop of ‘No Ones Better Sake’, and the heart breaking acoustic number ‘With Strangers’ which sounds like it was taken direct from a 40’s acetate.
One of the samples, “Keep Me in Mind”, sounds like it could have easily been a Strokes song; some of the vocal melodies are very similar to Julian Casablancas style of singing. I’m probably going to break this album for out late spring of 2009 because I feel it might be a more appropriate context, but right now it’ll be a little reminder of future and past warmer times.
MP3: Little Joy – The Next Time Around