Sea of Bees – “Wizbot”
How much do I love Sea of Bees Julie Baenziger and her debut, Songs for the Ravens? |<————————-This much—————————————————>| Please buy this album. It’s one of my favs for 2010. Such a lovely and talented singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. NPR dubbed her a female Sparklehorse and it’s the best description I’ve heard yet. Sophomore album to be recorded soon!
It’s 10:10 AM on 10/10/10. A perfect 10. These tri-numeral dates come around once a year and this year it falls on the number 10. Is it an auspicious day or a bunch of hullaballoo? There is a certain completeness of order with the number 10. For the Chinese the number is lucky, representing perfection or completion. We’re born with 10 fingers and 10 toes after all. Perfect beauty is measured on its scale. Top 10 lists are ubiquitous. And any respectable album contains at least 10 songs.
If you’re technologically-inclined, today is a “binary” day. The ones-and-zeros representing the binary code or the mathematical language “spoken” by computers to create all things digital. Converting the date 10/10/10 to binary code gives us 101010. And in the binary counting system, that number translates to 42, which means…absolutely nothing.
But hey, it’s a nice theme for a post isn’t it? And everyone loves a top 10 list. So, here’s mine. The 10 albums I’m obsessed with on this month, this day, this year. The albums I have on heavy rotation right now and keep coming back to again and again. Ten, in a long list, of albums you should most definitely own. Listed in no particular order, they are:
Artist: Royal Baths
Album: Litanies
Track: “Nikki Don’t”
Artist: Deerhunter
Album: Halcyon Digest
Track: “Desire Lines”
Artist: Sea of Bees
Album: Songs for the Raven
Track: “Marmalade”
Artist: Sonny & The Sunsets
Album: Tomorrow is Alright
Track: “Lovin’ on an Older Gal”
Artist: Lower Dens
Album: Twin Hand Movement
Track: “A Dog’s Dick”
Artist: Tame Impala
Album: Innerspeaker
Track: “Vital Signs”
Artist: Future Islands
Album: In the Evening Air
Track: “As I Fall”
Artist: Ty Segall
Album: Melted
Track: “Cesar”
Artist: Tamaryn
Album: The Waves
Track: “Mild Confusion”
Tame Impala – Innerspeaker
“Vital Signs”
Future Islands – In The Evening Air
“As I Fall”
The Dig – Electric Toys
“You’re Already Gone”
Phantogram – Eyelid Movies
“When I’m Small”
The Joy Formidable – A Balloon Called Moaning
“Austere”
Local Natives – Gorilla Manor
“Sun Hands”
Twin Tigers – Gray Waves
“Everyday”
The National – High Violet
“Afraid of Everyone”
Broken Bells – Broken Bells
“The High Road”
Artist: Broken Bells
Album: Broken Bells
Featured Track: “The High Road”
Danger Mouse strikes again. This time with The Shins’ James Mercer in the self-titled debut, Broken Bells. Do I really need to say any more? Okay, the two met at a Danish music festival way back in 2004 and began secretly working on the album late 2008. The pair released “The High Road”as the debut single late December to promote the album that’s due out March 9. But the full album leaked that same month anyway. Are these things really accidental? Hmmm, I wonder. Regardless, it’s fantastic and I love it. Experimental and melodic, chalk it up to another Danger Mouse masterpiece. He truly is the man with the Midas touch.
Artist: Charlotte Gainsbourg
Album: IRM
Featured Track: “IRM”
The minimalist album title, IRM, (French for MRI) was inspired by Gainsbourg’s frequent MRI’s she endured after suffering a brain hemorrhage from a water-skiing accident in 2007. ”I had to do so many [MRIs] and every time I was in that tube I was thinking it would make great music,” she’s quoted as saying. And great music it did make. Her lyrics on the album’s single, “IRM”, offer a detailed, psychedelic journey into her experience and sets the tone for the album. Which, you can hear, is amazing.
Artist: Local Natives
Album: Gorilla Manor
Featured Track: Sun Hands
Take the locomotive tempo and percussion of The Dodos and add the layered harmonies of The Fleet Foxes with some rapturous chorus outbursts a la Arcade Fire and you pretty much have the sound of Local Natives, an LA-based group whose debut album is an absolute gem from start to finish. Get to know this band.
Artist: Pavement
Album: Quarantine The Past- The Best of Pavement
Featured Track: “Stereo”
Should I even have to explain this one? No, I shouldn’t. You should understand, however, that this is it for me – the foundation of my lo-fi love, the source. All roads lead to Pavement. And they are finally reuniting this year. So get this remastered best of collection. Learn it, love it, live it.
Artist: Phantogram
Album: Eyelid Movies
Featured Track: “When I’m Small”
Let me just say that I’ve been drowning myself in this album since it was released. Drowning, rolling, wallowing, surrendering myself to all of it. I just love it. The first LP from the Saratoga Springs, NY-based duo, it’s the perfect combination of electronic beeps and boops, hazy guitars and spacey synths. Give me more, please. Take a listen yourself and you’ll be begging for it.
Artist: Twin Tigers
Album: Gray Waves
Featured Track: Everyday
There are times when you hear a new band and just know they are going to be huge. Athens-based, Twin Tigers is one of them. Their debut LP, Gray Waves, is an epic assault of psychedelic, shoegaze rock. Jaw dropping good. The kinda stuff that’ll make you swoon. The kinda band that “could dismantle The Silversun Pickups from their perch.” The kinda sound that will keep you coming back for more. Get into this band is all I have left to say.
Alberta Cross – Broken Side of Time
“Rise from the Shadows”
Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
“Ready Able”
Tape Deck Mountain – Ghost
“Scantron”
Atlas Sound – Logos
“Quick Canal”
Flaming Lips – Embryonic
“The Ego’s Last Stand”
Woods – Songs of Shame
“Rain On”
Bear In Heaven – Beast Rest Forth Mouth
“You Do You “
Amazing Baby – Rewild
“The Narwhal”
Band of Skulls – Baby Darlin Doll Face Honey
“Death by Diamonds and Pearls”
Cymbals Eat Guitars – Why There Are Mountains
“And The Hazy Sea”
The XX – The XX
“Crystalised”
She Keeps Bees – Nests
“Gimme”
Girls – Album
“Lust for Life”
Dan Auerbach – Keep It Hid
“The Prowl”
Fever Ray – Fever Ray
“If I Had A Heart”
Foreign Born – Person to Person
“Vacationing People”
J. Tillman – Vacilando Territory Blues
“First Born”
Leopold and His Fiction – Ain’t No Surprise
“Broke”
Papercuts – You Can Have What You Want
“Future Primitive”
Speck Mountain – Some Sweet Relief
“I Feel Eternal”
Shadows on a River – Shadows on a River
“In Business”
The Veils – Sun Gangs
“The Letter”
The Big Pink – A Brief History of Love
“Velvet”
Jeff the Brotherhood – Heavy Days
“U Got The Look”
Electric Tickle Machine – Blew It Again
“Blew It Again”
Who: Shawn, Editor in Chief, Photographer
Blog: Kata Rokkar
Location: San Rafael, CA
Twitter: @katarokkar
The OCMD Best of 2009 Questionnaire
Artist: Vivian Girls
Album: Everything Goes Wrong
Featured Track: “When I’m Gone”
Artist: The Strange Boys
Album: The Strange Boys will now forever be known as the Martin Luther Kings
Feature Track: “Nothing”
Artist: Various Artists
Album: Bollywood Steel Guitar
Featured Track: “Aao Twist Karen”
This is not actually a 2009 release, but I sure enjoyed it this year. I must also salute the amazing Sublime Frequencies record label out of Seattle. They continue to sift the globe for amazing musical treasures. This collection features 21 swinging tracks from 1962-86. Enjoy with goat curry (Berkeley’s Kabana does it right), onion naan and a cold Taj Mahal.
Artist: Love
Album: Love Lost
Featured Track: “Love Jumped Through My Window”
2009 marks a historic year for fans of the genius 60’s band Love. For the first time ever, the lost recordings from 1971 are available on one cohesive collection from Sundazed Music. Although we know the credit is really due to the good people at Delmore Recordings (my bro!). The title was originally rumored to be “Dear You”, and in a way this recording feels like a personal handwritten letter from Arthur Lee to me (and You). We can spend all day arguing that Love’s 3rd record, Forever Changes, is the greatest album of all time, but let’s not argue. It is the greatest record of all time. This recording would have been their 7th album and has little to do with Forever Changes. Arthur had long since parted ways with the original band. No more horns or violins. He was rocking harder, partying harder and quite loose. Like records 4 through 6 (Four Sail, Out Here, False Start), Love Lost sounds more like a Jimi Hendrix record, and this is really no surprise. Arthur and Jimi worked together and influenced each other. As it states so eloquently in the liner notes “Arthur and Jimi were the two psychedelic black guys around period”. Given the recent resurgence of garage rock, and psychedelia it seems prudent at this time to spread the gospel that is Love. If you haven’t yet, check out the first 3 Love records (Love, da Capo, and Forever Changes), I am pretty sure that you will crave more, and now there is yet one more Love record to savor! Enjoy with Night Train and nutmeggy cakes.
Things That I Would Like To See Disappear Forever in 2010: Any band listing Animal Collective as an influence.
Genre With The Least Staying Power: Chillwave, Glo-fi, et al.
What I Have High Hopes For in 2010: 1) Bands who remember that the guitar is indeed an instrument. 2) LIARS LIARS LIARS!!!
Who: Jay, Editor in Chief
Blog: Stranger Dance
Location: San Francisco
Twitter: @strangerdance
The OCMD Best of 2009 Questionnaire
the OCMD 