christmas time is here: a yuletide mix

I have always loved just about any music that can be considered Christmas music. Even this song gets me in the spirit. But I especially love some Christmas tunes that aren't the traditional ones. While this mix contains a few standards, it is (at least for me) a new way of experiencing the season.

All that to say, I've been spinning this thing non-stop for a couple of weeks. It's kind of like an Oreo cookie, with black music on the top and bottom and white music squeezed in the middle.

Click here to download the zip file.

Merry Christmas everyone!

1. Holy, Holy, etc. / Sufjan Stevens
2. Swingin' Them Jingle Bells / Fats Waller & His Rhythm
3. Santa Claus Go Straight To The Ghetto / James Brown
4. Ain't No Chimneys / Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
5. Black Christmas / The Harlem Childrens' Chorus
6. White Christmas / The Drifters
7. Happy X-Mas (War Is Over) / John Lennon
8. You're All I Want For Christmas / Jump, Little Children
9. The Man With All The Toys / The Beach Boys
10. Christmas Song / Vince Guaraldi Trio
11. Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! / Doris Day
12. Lo, How A Rose E're Blooming / Feist
13. Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel / Joshua James
14. Christmas Must Be Tonight / The Band
15. Christmas Time Is Here / Vince Guaraldi Trio
16. Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis / Tom Waits
17. River / Joni Mitchell
18. I Love NYE / Badly Drawn Boy
19. Christmas In New Orleans / Louis Armstrong
20. White Christmas / Otis Redding
21. Don't Believe In Christmas / The Sonics
22. Funky Funky Christmas / Electric Jungle
23. Soulful Christmas / James Brown
24. Santa's Got A Bag Of Soul / Soul Saints Orchestra
25. Boogaloo Santa Claus / J.D. McDonald
26. Auld Lang Syne / Black On White Affair

Top 11 of '11

Lists. Lists. Lists. I like lists. Here are my brief thoughts on some of the music from this past year. Long live Thom’s very Lazy Eye!

11. Panda Bear Tomboy

More Panda Bear deliciousness. I don’t own a great pair of headphones, but I listened to this album on my decent pair of headphones this past week and it was like a whole new album to me… if you own a good pair of headphones, do yourself a favor and experience this album anew with a good listen. There’s so much going on in every song.

10. Wilco The Whole Love

“Art of Almost” is awesome… I kind of wish that the rest of the album had as much to offer as this song (though, that may be asking a lot). I’m still really enjoying the remainder of the album (I really am… I think “Black Moon” is very moving, I think “Born Alone” is straight-ahead Wilco fun, I think “Whole Love” is great… and, this album was excellent live… as expected) but I feel like “Art of Almost” was a peek into the type of creativity that so many songs on Being There, Summerteeth and YHF had, which got me excited when I heard it as the opening track but it also left me with a wee bit of longing for something more.

9. Fleet Foxes Helplessness Blues

I felt like this album was a really good sophomore effort. I don’t mean that as an insult, it wasn’t a “Sophomore Slump” but it also wasn’t quite as good as their debut… nonetheless, I enjoyed it a lot. I will say that when I saw them at The Ryman this year I was surprised at how good they were live… for some reason I went in with pretty mediocre expectations and they were much better than I expected. Also, this is random, but they were actually really funny… the drummer made a handful of legitimately funny comments… not like, “Oh, you’re on stage, so we’re laughing because we want to be nice and we think you’re cooler than us”, but actually funny. I remember one time some Indie kid yelled, “We’re not worthy!” during the silence in between a couple of the songs (no comment on this kid yelling that). But the drummer just said, “Uhh, security, if you could please exit from the premises the young gentleman sitting in that section over there… he’s not worthy.” I enjoy some level of people not taking themselves too seriously (especially in the whole current Indie scene). I do wonder if Fleet Foxes are going to be able to change their sound up enough to still sound creative a handful of albums from now, I think they have an amazing sound but if they keep making the same type of album over and over again I don’t how long that will work, but I guess we’ll see.

8. My Morning Jacket Circuital

This was certainly a step up from Evil Urges. I’m still not sure about what Jim James (or, Yim Yames) is doing with his voice now… the Kermit the Frog delivery seems to be taking over more and more with each successive album. “Victory Dance” is absurd, and yet it works. “Circuital” is as strong as anything they’ve done (other than, of course, “Golden” which is in an entirely different category). “Outta My System” has that good early-60’s (cars and surfboards) Beach Boys tempo and feel. Good stuff.

7. Dreamers of the Ghetto Enemy/Lovers

People just aren’t making a whole lot of large, arena-ready rock and roll anymore. This album is ready for a 40,000-seat venue and could easily fill up the sound of every seat in the house.

6. Kurt Vile Smoke Ring for My Halo

I was asking Will Farley if he had this album and he said, “Yeah… he’s totally rad. I love the modern, indie Tom Petty thing that’s going on”… well said, Farley.

5. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart Belong

This album is straight out of the 90’s (I mean that in the good sense of the term), but it’s more of a sound from the 90’s that I was never into during the 90’s. But, I’m loving this whole sound now and definitely digging this album.

4. Real Estate Days

The first three songs of this album are so solid. “Easy” is a great opener… that sweet, smooth guitar is so inviting alongside those vocals. And, “Green Aisles” is so open… not “open” in the sense of vulnerable lyrics or something like that, but the sound of it is so open, there’s room to spare in the song… there’s some air and some space to it where they weren’t overly concerned with jamming every corner of the song with some sound or noise or whatever… they just let the song breathe… it’s open. The chorus to “It’s Real” feels so good. The rest of the album doesn’t exactly fall off after these first three songs (“Municipality” is a very tasty treat), though I do feel that these first few songs are gold and on their own make for this being a really solid album.

3. The War On Drugs Slave Ambient

This is music made for driving across Middle America while there’s snow on the ground… it’s cold right outside the windows but it’s still warm inside the car. I keep loving this album more and more this year. It obviously fits very hand-in-hand with Kirk Vile’s album this year and yet I felt like it had even more to offer then Vile’s really strong album.

2. Smith Westerns Dye it Blonde

This album is sunshine, happy goodness. This was some of the best, sing-able melodies on an album this year. “All Die Young” is so, so good. That’s the happiest way to sing the depressing phrase “All die young”… it sounds like a hook from a 1970’s television sitcom, you just can’t help but sing along.

1. Girls Father, Son, Holy Ghost

So many albums the past handful of years (and, even albums that I have enjoyed a lot… like some albums on this list) kind of have one basic sound that carries throughout the whole album, where every song has a similar feel and approach and style to it. This album is not at all like that, this thing is all over the place (bouncy pop songs, rock your face off songs, darker whatever type of songs… just all over the place) and yet it all fits together as a single work (which is the kind of stuff that takes and album from “good” to “great” in my opinion). “Vomit” just washes over you. (Uhh… I should probably reword that last sentence.) But, the song “Vomit” is massive… it goes from this quiet, intimate delivery to this Pink Floyd explosion of sound and gravity and it truly is just pouring over you like a waterfall by the end of the song. At the end, when the lines “Come into my heart / Come into my heart / Come into my heart…” keep repeating it just keeps getting better and better. I’ve still got more layers to peel back on this album as I continue to enjoy it more, but this is the one true standout of the year for me.

And, here are my favorite songs by season from this past year (certain songs stick out during certain times of the year, and these are the songs that I was enjoying the most in each of these seasons)…

Winter: “Nothing Was Stolen (Love Me Foolishly)” by Phosphorescent

Spring: “Oh My Heart / It Happened Today” by R.E.M.

Summer: “Go Outside” by Cults

Fall: “Vomit” by Girls

Thom and Jonny

43 years ago on Friday, this blog's namesake was born into this world. 4 years ago tomorrow, thousands of people around the world were waking up early to download In Rainbows. And 11 years ago this past weekend, a little album called Kid A was released to the populace much like a grenade is released into a trench full of soldiers.

In light of these coincidences, and the name of the blog, I am going to celebrate by watching this absolutely fantastic set of tunes from Thom and Jonny at Le Resevoir in Paris, France. Taped July 3, 2003, this show came about a month after Hail to the Thief had come out.

Please enjoy by clicking here.



They also did this on Monday:

handsome furs, sound kapital

if you couldn't tell from the mix i posted a while back, i like the handsome furs. my obsession started some time after face control came out. i needed my wolf parade fix and spencer krug's numerous spin offs just weren't cutting it (i do really like sunset rubdown, but that's another story). but the handsome furs aren't just a wolf parade sound alike. the married couple is about making awesome music. i probably wore out face control several times over, but i kept going back. it was worth it.

atkins told me that their new album was out, and on emusic. no hesitation. i hoped for at least something on par with the previous album, but, ever the pessimist, prepared for something sub-par. what i got was sound kapital, an album inspired and written during the couples' trip abroad in southeast asia, and elsewhere (i believe the title refers to the beijing punk underground, but i'm too lazy to do real research). the album continues along the premise of the handsome furs' bare guitar, synth and drums construction, most of the songs are quick, ragged and immediately dance-able. it's a lot of fun.

[the album cover, edited for all audiences]

but it's album's heart-on-sleeve mentality that pushes it over the top in my mind. the songs are refreshingly forthright (i love the line, "a thousand lonely kids making noise in the basement" on "cheap music"). many artists seem content to exploit a trip abroad to "raise awareness" or fill stadiums to generate support that often seems more about the band than the people in need. this band took a trip and made really, really good music about it. this isn't about guilt, fixing people or romanticizing them. they're telling a story.

but it also serves as the band's statement on what they want/need to believe. one of my favorite songs, "repatriated" ends with a call to arms (or wish?):

I've seen the future
And its comin' in low
I've seen the future
I will never be repatriated

love it. there's something so honest about their entire approach to this album that is fantastic. even their maxims are filled with self-doubt.

typically, pitchfork (now 15) sums it up best:

With new wave confections like "Memories of the Future" and "What About Us", Sound Kapital effectively conjures an alternate 1980s where Bruce Springsteen didn't just tinker around with synths and drum machines on occasion, but actually tried to make a full-on Depeche Mode record.

hope you enjoy.

jason

also, let's give this new spotify thing a try, i believe clicking on this link should open up he album in spotify if you're a member. if you're not, you should be.

Reading the Aeroplane Over the Sea

I just posted about this book on GoodReads (for those of you who like to get your GoodReads on), but I realized that this post is also about an album (as well as being about a book), so I thought I’d add this post to Thom’s as well.

There is this series of books (which you can see here) and each book in the series is written about a specific album in music history (with one author assigned to each book). The series is called 33 1/3 (because of the speed of an LP album… hopefully that’s obvious). I’ve read a few books in this series, and (in general) I just wanted to mention the series because some of you may be interested in reading some of these books… they’re all pretty short books (somewhere between 120-200 pages each), but I just finished reading one on Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea and I thought I’d post my reflections here… this is kind of a mixture of my reflections on the album as well as my reflections on the book about the album.

Before reading Kim Cooper’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea I had previously read a couple of other books in the 33 1/3 series (one on REM’s Murmur and the other on The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds). Murmur and Pet Sounds were both albums that I loved before reading the books about them; they were albums that I had already memorized backwards and forwards and I already loved every single note on those albums, and reading a book about each one of them only made me love those albums even more. But, with In the Aeroplane Over the Sea I had a very different experience. This was an album that I had never gotten into. It came out while I was in college, which should have been a time when I would have been ripe for enjoying this album, but I just never got into it… and I had heard pieces of it every now and then over the years since then, but for some reason it just never clicked with me… the only real explanation for why I had never gotten into it was because I just didn’t “get it”. I guess the timing was wrong, but it just never hit me in such a way that I really cared about it. For whatever reason (maybe it’s some of the music I’ve been getting into recently… music, which I now see, was heavily influenced by this monumental album), but (whatever it was) I was finally ready for this album. The timing was finally right (which, in all honesty, is so critical for enjoying so much music… you can’t force that timing, you just have to wait until the time is right to get into some specific bands and when the time is right it just works for some reason and there really is no other way to explain it).

I’ve now had this CD playing in my car non-stop for the past six months (yes, I still listen to CD’s… and it’s been in the six-disc CD-changer in my car for half a year now and I haven’t ejected it once). I’ve previously had the experience with albums where I continue to peel back layer after layer after layer of the beauty of an album and I continue to appreciate the album more and more over time… uncovering new layers of beauty and appreciation that had completely escaped me on all of my previous listening experiences of the album. (Really, all of my favorite albums in music history have given me this experience… that would be a very short list of albums… but I have enjoyed this experience with a decent number of albums, and it’s one of the things that I just plain love about music.) With Aeroplane that experience just kept happening… it kept happening every single time I made another lap through the album (and, over the past six months I feel safe in assuming that I’ve heard this album around a hundred times), and I just keep enjoying it more and more. What is it about this album that does that? I mean, it’s “raw”… to use that over-used music descriptor… but, it’s raw-er than raw, it’s not trying to be “raw” in the sense of heavy-metal or some kind of music that is trying to prove to you that it is raw, like it’s saying, “Hey, look at me, I’m music and I’m loud and I’m raw! Rarrrr!!!”… it’s “raw” in the sense of just jamming right into your chest without any pretense… it’s like jamming a meaty sandwich into your face with no condiments on it. It’s just there and it’s real and you taste it and it’s good and you can’t believe how simple it is but also how excellent it is… and yet, the more you experience it, you realize that’s it’s not simple at all… it’s anything but simple… what at first seemed so simple now has so many complex layers to it.

As far as the book is concerned, I really enjoyed the way Kim Cooper wrote… she took you back into the season that Jeff and the band were making this album and made you feel like you were living with them and riding around in the van with them and just getting to know them. I also appreciated the way she described the In the Aeroplace Over the Sea recording sessions… there have been other times when I have read articles or books where the writer talks about the recording process of an album and unless you have a Masters Degree in Engineering and Production you can’t understand a word they’re saying (that was actually one of the weaknesses to the book on Murmur in this series… the technical jargon was just too technical). But, at the same time, I love hearing how things were recorded and how certain sounds were captured in the studio, and when some bit of technical expertise during the recording process makes for a deeper understanding of the music, I think that’s awesome and I think Cooper was able to explain that really well and not make me feel completely lost. I also appreciated the way she talked through each song… she wasn’t trying to give some sort of word-for-word explanation of the lyrics, and thereby taking away from the individual enjoyment that each listener experiences with this album but at the same time she was able to add a lot of insight to songs that I never would have had a chance to uncover on my own. I have a very odd experience with the lyrics to songs. I memorize words to songs absurdly easy… and I’ll remember word-for-word songs that I haven’t heard in over ten years… but yet, I don’t really pay attention to lyrics very often (I’ll know every word in a song, but I’ll have absolutely no clue what that song is about). So, I have to confess my complete and utter ignorance in not realizing that Anne Frank was the main character (for lack of better term) of this album… how in the world I listened to (and sang along with) “Holland, 1945” and didn’t catch this (I mean the song is called “Holland, 1945!” Hello! World War II!), but nonetheless I was very grateful to read about a lot of the themes and inspirations behind a lot of the writing. I had absolutely no clue how to interpret the lyric “I love you, Jesus Christ” the first time I heard that line… I mean, even I (in all of my I-don’t-pay-attention-to-the-meaning-of-lyrics ignorance) at least caught that line and thought, “Uhh… I wonder why he’s saying that… is that sarcasm, or is this a bold and unapologetic profession of faith, or is this something totally different?” I appreciated her addressing some of the more overt lines like that as well as uncovering some other themes while also not trying to explain everything for the reader at the same time.

As the book progresses, once she gets to the point in the “story” when the album is actually released, the book picks up with a speed that the band must have also experienced once the album began to take off and receive critical acclaim as well as pretty decent sells. This book was really well written and helped me to peel back even more layers of enjoyment on an album that I continue to enjoy more and more. Now, who wants to go pick some Carrot Flowers?

All I Want Is You

I'm sure most of you have heard about this amazing moment already, but I thought it was worth a post anyway. It is just that awesome.

And an interview with the lucky man himself:

The Sky Above the Port Was the Color of Television, Tuned to a Dead Channel

I've been loving the mixes being posted, so I've decided to throw one into the lot. Here is a dreampop/shoegaze mix, mainly focused on Cocteau Twins, Wild Nothing, Asobi Seksu, and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. Other gems are included as well.

The title and picture for the post (first line of Neuromancer and artwork from Akira) are in line with the glossy, technological sheen of the mix while also pointing to some of its melancholy overtones. You can download the mix here, which includes the .m3u playlist. Enjoy.

Tracklist:

Slowdive - Alison
Wild Nothing - Golden Haze
A Sunny Day In Glasgow - The white witch
California Wives - Tokyo
Best Coast - Wish He Was You
My Bloody Valentine - Sometimes -
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – Contender
Memory Cassette - Asleep At a Party
Cocteau Twins - Cherry-Colored Funk
Wild Nothing - Chinatown
Asobi Seksu - New Years
Sun Airway - Infinity
The Pains of Being Pure At Heart - Belong
California Wives - Purple
Lush - Etheriel
A Sunny Day In Glasgow - Failure
Cocteau Twins - Bluebeard
The Radio Dept. - Heaven’s on Fire
The Jesus and Mary Chain - Some Candy Talking
Asobi Seksu - Transparence
Cocteau Twins - Heaven or Las Vegas
Wild Nothing - Vultures Like Lovers
Memory Tapes - Swimming Field
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Gentle Sons
Asobi Seksu - Exotic Animal Parade

A Good Man Is Hard To Find

not to post over bens' latest mix, but i've beed inspired.

for your listening pleasure: a good man is hard to find. it started out with some slower songs that i really liked and morphed into basically a list of a lot of music that shuffles through my most played list.

also, i'm not really good at saying 'no'--consider this a two-disc set.

but again, similar to ben--this mix is probably more for myself. i hope you enjoy.

you can download the tracks here, with cover art and the .m3u list as well.

track list

.....................................................................................................

1. The Antlers - Kettering
2. The War On Drugs - Baby Missiles
3. Tom Waits - A Good Man Is Hard To Find
4. Okkervil River - Piratess
5. Bright Eyes - At The Bottom Of Everything (jj edit)
6. The Arcade Fire - Half Light II (No Celebration)
7. LCD Soundsystem - All I Want
8. Roky Erickson With Okkervil River - For You
9. Destroyer - Savage Night At The Opera
10. Handsome Furs - All We Want, Baby, Is Everything
11. Future Islands - An Apology
12. Danger Mouse, Sparklehorse - Star Eyes / I Can’t Catch It
13. Local Natives - Airplanes
14. The Mountain Goats - Never Quite Free
15. Titus Andronicus - To Old Friends And New
16. Neko Case - This Tornado Loves You
17. Okkervil River - No Key, No Plan
18. Future Islands - Long Flight
19. The War On Drugs - Brothers
20. The National - Ada
21. Beach House - 10 Mile Stereo
22. Lcd Soundsystem - Someone Great
23. Handsome Furs - Radio Kalininbrad
24. Radiohead - Codex
25. Tom Waits - Hold On
26. The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
27. The War On Drugs - Taking The Farm
28. TV On The Radio - Killer Crane
29. The National - Geese Of Beverly Road, The
30. Dolorean - 33-53.9 Degrees N/118-38.8 Degrees W
31. The Mountain Goats - High Hawk Season
32. Tom Waits - Come On Up To The House
33. Roky Erickson With Okkervil River - True Love Cast Out All Evil
34. Titus Andronicus - Albert Camus
35. Beach House - Real Love
36. Radiohead - Separator
37. The Antlers - Epilogue
38. Tom Waits - Picture In A Frame

wild ox moan: a beat-the-heat mix

I promise, I'm not trying to take over this blog! I make these things for myself anyway, and I'll just keep copying them here as long as you guys don't care. I just hope they are up someone's alley...


Finding a lovely tune in a stack of all-too-easily forgotten old records is something fantastic. It is also overwhelming when you realize that you could probably spend the rest of your life completely ignoring new musical output, and use all of your free time mining the past for hidden gems. Even then, there will always be some out-of-print vinyl tucked away in a thrift store in Milwaukee that you won't ever hear.

And since I don't spend much of my free time scouring record stores for these rarities, I rely on people like Wes Anderson, Andy Cabic, Robin Pecknold, Matt Morelock, Amanda Petrusich, and the wonderfully eclectic Justin Gage over at Aquarium Drunkard to do some of the scouring for me.

For this mix, I stuck with tunes from 1975 or before. Most of them fit the bill of the rare obscurity or obscure rarity - some more than others. And a few just fit that sound of a hot afternoon full of kamikaze cicadas turning into an evening full of fireflies as you daydream of an old European countryside. I can already hear the vinyl crackle... Cheers!
_________________________________

1. Sally Goodin (Long Version) / Heron [1970]
2. Katie Cruel / Karen Dalton [1971]
3. Sunlight Shadow / Linda Rich [1969]
4. The Hills Of Isle Au Haut / Gordon Bok [1970]
5. Iris's Song For Us / Vashti Bunyan [1970]
6. The Tall Tall Grass / John Hartford [1967]
7. Buckeye Jim / Burl Ives [1944]
8. Kings And Queens / Loudon Wainwright III [1975]
9. Take It From A Friend / Janey & Dennis [1970]
10. Cast The First Stone / Tom Fogerty [1972]
11. Play With Fire / The Rolling Stones [1965]
12. Don't Forget Me / Harry Nilsson [1974]
13. So Long, Marianne / Leonard Cohen [1967]
14. The Way I Feel Inside / The Zombies [1965]
15. I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire / The Ink Spots [1941]
16. You Always Hurt The One You Love / The Mills Brothers [1944]
17. Love / Nancy Adams [1972]
18. As We Go Along / The Monkees [1968]
19. Wild Ox Moan / Taj Mahal [1969]
20. Houses / Elyse Weinberg [1968]
21. Where Is My Wild Rose? / Chris Thompson [1972]
22. I've Been My Own Worst Friend / Sandy Denny & The Strawbs [1967]
23. Lopin' Along Thru The Cosmos / Judee Sill [1971]
24. The Lady With The Braid / Dory Previn [1971]
25. If I Knew You Were The One / Richard Twice [1970]
26. Lon Chaney / Garland Jeffreys [1973]
27. The Good Book / Melanie [1971]

Download the full mix HERE.

yankee hotel foxtrot demos

This post is aimed at Wade, but is definitely worth looking at even if your name is something other than Wade!

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is my favorite 52 minutes of sound ever recorded to tape. And after watching I Am Trying To Break Your Heart 1,000 times during my freshman year of college, I began looking for ways to get my hands on some of the demos and other recordings that didn't make the record. A few years ago, these files circulated the interwebs and my itch was scratched. One is a collection called the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot Demos, and the other is called the Engineer Demos.

So, if you haven't heard them and you are a fan of Wilco, then you definitely need to download them by clicking below.
--YHF DEMOS
--ENGINEER DEMOS

I Swear I Can Hear The Sea: a spring/summer mix

This mix tells a story. Indulge me, if you will, by imagining that this story is true...
________________________

The sun rises out of the void once again. The morning rays slide down over the glass and concrete and land on tar and gasoline. All the people walk out of their homes and climb into cars. They converge on the highways and sit together in traffic. You wonder how it all happens - the fellowship of the commuters, the coffee-fueled consciousness, the voices on the radio, even your final destination - none of it feels like a decision you made.

Suddenly, but subtly, you feel a pull in your stomach. You notice how striking the sun is in the early eastern sky. Images of the distant places where the sun is directly overhead flood your mind. The sound of waves rushing through piles of rocks and sand begin to echo inside your little sedan.

But these images are different from the ones that you have set as your desktop wallpaper on your work computer. Those are just crappy pictures from your last vacation. They are Corona commercials. But this pull in your stomach is something else. It is the feeling that life is passing away and all the things you fill your time with are worthless. The work you do is so that you will have money, but what does money get you? Instead, there are boulders to climb, trails to hike, oceans to swim, food to eat, and roads to drive. Roads that aren't filled with exhaust and screeching tires, but ones that are open and filled with wind.

So you keep driving. Past your exit. Past your office. Out of the city. Toward that ocean that you crave.

You drive for hours and each passing mile brings fleeting feelings of freedom. Your white button-down is thrown in the passenger seat, the starched collar is finally starting to wiggle in the wind. The seat belt is irritating your bare shoulder, but you ignore it. Midday and afternoon pass by as you drink in the freedom. You don't have to answer to anybody. You are your own man.

The white lines whiz by like a constant echo for hours until you reach the end of the road. And there it is. The ocean sits ahead like eternity. You think the blue is the most beautiful color you've ever seen.

Once you've parked the car and taken off your shoes, you make your way toward the tide. You think you must be in a good place now. You dive in the water and feel all the sweat wash off. Surely this is what Tennyson meant when he said he would drink life to the lees. Surely this is what Thoreau had in mind when he commanded you to suck out all the marrow of life.

But just as quickly as the sweat washed off, a hesitation creeps in. You realize that you are alone. You realize the green in her eyes is the most beautiful color, not the blue of the water. You miss your dog. And who will water your tomato plants at home?

So you make your way back to your car. You brush the sand off your feet and turn back toward the rolling hills. You decide to let your dreams be your escape. At least for a while. And you hope that she lets you come home.
________________________

1. Go Outside / Cults
2. Legal Man / Belle & Sebastian
3. Grown Ocean / Fleet Foxes
4. Sweet Thing / Van Morrison
5. Golden / My Morning Jacket
6. Louisiana / The Walkmen
7. Sometimes / James
8. Paint The Silence / South
9. Gentle, Polite / Eric & Magill
10. Victoria's Secret / Quiet Village
11. Feel It All Around / Washed Out
12. Zadie Bobo / Ernesto Djédjé
13. Round And Round / Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti
14. Sun Hands / Local Natives
15. Modern Girl / Sleater-Kinney
16. Kanske Ar Jag Kar I Dig / Jens Lekman
17. The Swimming Song / Loudon Wainwright III
18. California Sunrise / Dirty Gold
19. I Must Be In A Good Place Now / Bobby Charles
20. Let Me Come Home / Wilco

Download the full mix here.

Best Albums of 2009!

Well, now that 2011 is upon us, and the memories of 2010 are already melting into the ether, I figure it's a good time for me to share my "Best Albums of 2009." Please be aware that I can barely remember one thing that happened to me in 2009. I mean, I can remember lots of things from the past decade of my life, but I couldn't tell you what year they happened in. That's what being over 30 is like, I guess. So this list may be a little off. Here goes. . . .

11. Coldplay - LeftRightLeftRightLeft [live]
This is the free album that they gave out at their concerts, and eventually made available on their web site. I can be picky about the sound of live albums, and this one gets it right. It's a good mix, a good selection of material and performances, and a nice representation of what their live show feels & sounds like. I had a great time seeing them at the Bridgestone (was it Sommet then?), it was the best I'd ever heard them sound (I admit I missed that supposedly legendary show at Starwood back in '05). I'm particularly a fan of "42," Fix You," and "Death And All His Friends" on this live collection.

10. The Dead Weather - Horehound
I have been in love with The Dead Weather ever since being rollicked by Alison Mosshart and wooed by Jack White's drumming at ACL Fest in 2009. I bought the album afterwards and while I don't feel like it's as good as they are on stage, it still captures something deep, dark, swampy, and with a punch that will rattle your gut.

9. Monsters of Folk - Monsters of Folk
This is a satisfying amalgamation of Jim James, Conor Oberst, Mike Mogis, and M Ward. As their name describes, it's folksy in song style and instrumentation. James, Oberst, and Ward each bring songs to the table, and while the entire album is nice to listen to, it's Jim James' songs that stand out the most. His lovely "Magic Marker" is the gem of the bunch, but I also give a nod to Ward's "Say Please," which is the albums most energetic moment.

8. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Here is another album that won me over live, before I'd ever heard it on record. Okay okay since you asked, it was 10th row center at the Greek Theater in LA (Jason Schwartzman was in the row behind me) with Metric as the opening act. I cannot brag enough on how good Phoenix is live - I would not have predicted it, based on the composed, precise and mannered style of their studio albums. But their sound comes out and over you with a force that lifts and carries your spirit on a 2 hour high. This is a great summer album, so I am annoyed that I purchased it in late September, but I think I got some mileage out of it all through the following summer months. It glows from start to finish, but standouts are the exuberant "Fences" and the shimmering "Rome."

7. Various Artists - Dark Was The Night
A four album set on vinyl, each song here is wonderful, by artists ranging from David Byrne to Arcade Fire to Cat Power to Grizzly Bear. It was produced and overseen by The National's Dessner brothers. You get a lot of variety but a cohesive atmosphere throughout. My favorite track, and one of my favorite recordings of the entire year, is Sufjan Stevens' "You Are The Blood" - 10+ minutes of whacked out, electronica'd up, folk-tinged, melodic wunder-pop like only Soof can provide. It provided the first clue of what his 2010 output would sound like, and perhaps because it came first, it strikes me as more breathtaking than this past year's records (which I love).

6. The Flaming Lips - Embryonic
Now, I have to be in a very specific mood for this album (I guess that would be the mood to go sunbathing off the southern coast of St. Bart's to trip with the spider monkeys). But I am a huge fan of it. I think it was a wonderful directional shift after their last few (great) albums. Like a palette cleanser after several delicious courses of food. I see the Flaming Lips as a band who have taken and honed a free-spirited psychedelic sound, and used those tools and aesthetics to craft, not psychedelic music, but wonderfully constructed pop masterpieces. Now they have taken those psych-pop aesthetics of their own creation, and used them as tools to create a truly psychedelic record. And that's how I see Embryonic. The soundscape is enthralling! If the mood strikes you in the near future, start it spinning from the beginning, buckle up, and enjoy the tasty ride.

5. Yo La Tengo - Popular Songs
This was probably my biggest surprise of the year. Not that it should have been; apparently Yo La Tengo have been making solidly fantastic albums consistently since the mid-80s. On two vinyl discs, this first disc is filled on both sides with catchy, well-tempered creative pop songs (hence the title) played with the understated tastefulness of veteran indie rockers. There is mellow synth, textured guitar licks, elegant beats both real and electronic, and subdued orchestration adding to the album's rich palette. Disc 2 contains two long shoegazey compositions on side 1, and an even longer Krautrock burner on side 2. Each are full of lush sounds and hypnotic atmospheres. My favorite song is the wistful "When It's Dark," with its warm acoustic guitar and wispy harmonies.

4. Wilco - Wilco (the album)
Biased because they're just about my favorite band? Perhaps. But while it's certainly not my favorite Wilco album, I think this is another beautiful piece in a career of remarkable albums. I know some have fretted that this band, which found its feet in early days with bold experimentalism and genre bending, is making what could be described more and more as "dad rock." I, too, am not a fan of this directional veering, should it continue much further. But as Tweedy said himself of previous album Sky Blue Sky, he wanted to make music that his wife would enjoy listening to - something that people with less adventurous tastes in music could appreciate. That album was a success in its restrained beauty. And I think the band was still operating somewhat in that headspace when making Wilco (the album). Though this is a different album for sure - louder, less somber in tone, and yet safer in some respects. Here you don't find anything like the wild guitar solo explorations of "Impossible Germany" from the last record. To me this album is, more than ever, about how all of Wilco sound as a whole... the meshing of each instrument and part rather than the individuality of its members. Like the album title suggests, this is Wilco, nameless & faceless, more than it is Tweedy, Stirratt, Kotche, Cline, Jorgensen & Sansone. To some, this might sound a little less colorful than previous material, and I might agree. But they can achieve moments of thrilling power with seemingly little effort. Like the sudden crescendo in the final 20 seconds of "One Wing;" or the joyous chorus of "You Never Know," with its "ooohaaah" harmonies and subtle ride cymbal "bell" hits in the gaps (listen close!); or the lead-in to the bridge in "Wilco (the song)" at 1:40 that ever so slightly kicks it up a notch for that part of the song. I am hoping for a turn back towards the daring for their next release. But this still remains one of my favorite albums of 2009. Wilco will love you baby.

3. U2 - No Line On The Horizon
What can I say - I think U2 have made yet another truly great album. Again a slightly different sound than other albums. At first I was not sure about it, but quickly over repeated listens I fell in love. I like the enchanting atmospherics created by Eno & Lanios. I like the way this sounds in some ways like classic 80s U2, and yet in some ways like a U2 we haven't heard yet at all. I think Bono does a fantastic job with melody on this record. (I guess he always does doesn't he?) I like the synth used throughout the album. For me the standout on the album is "Moment of Surrender" with its gospel-like chorus and trance bassline.

2. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
I guess everyone had this on their list and I too fell powerless before the fun, creative mix of sounds that pour out of this record from beginning to end. My first favorite moment is the opening track, as it gently teases you with soft washes of vocals and colorful synth strokes before crashing like a wave at 2:30... "if I can just leave my body for the night" -- and the rest of the song hits with an urgency that sets the stage for the rest of the record. My other highlight is the strange and pulsating "Bluish," which channels the ghosts of Cocteau Twins.

1. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
This is my number one, because it surprised & delighted me the most! I am perfectly satisfied by the aesthetic of this album, from the imaginative song structures, the unusual instrumentation, the ear-candy harmonies, the wonderfully clear and open and echoey recording technique, and not least the most infectious song of the year, the sumptuous "Two Weeks." Other songs that stand out to me are - well, none of them. This isn't one of those albums with a bunch of highlights for me. Other than the one already mentioned, I don't know songs by name. I just get lost in one after another perfectly executed chamber-pop gem. Perhaps it's all the more unexpected for me because while I liked their last album, Yellow House, it never really stood out to me. (Maybe I need to go back and listen to that again.) But I love when bands sort of hit a peak, or hit their stride, out of nowhere - like when Genesis lost Peter Gabriel, moved Phil Collins to lead vocals and unleashed Invisible Touch. I guess that's what I'm trying to say: Veckatimest is this generation's Invisible Touch. Happy New Year!

Honorable Mentions:

The Walkmen - Live Session (iTunes exclusive) - Best iTunes Release
Deerhunter - Rainwater Cassette Exchange - Best EP
Thom Yorke - "Hearing Damage" - Best Single Release
Super Furry Animals - "Helium Hearts" - Best Album Track
Radiohead - "15 Step w/ USC Trojan Marching Band @ Grammys" - Best Live TV Musical Moment

Here's looking forward to another great musical year. Stay tuned for my top albums of 2010 - coming in January 2012.

Clay Headden
Bus Salesman