I still post.....?

The Official Video has embedding disabled, so this is all you get I'm still out here!

Cop This Sh**

I don't do enough product endorsements on this blog which might help us make some money if we actually had any real readers, but anyhow, you should check out this new instructional video box set on sound recording by Alan Parsons (yes, that Alan Parsons). And by 'should' I mean 'must'. $149 gets you 3 DVDs of in depth discussion on all aspects of production with some discursive wisdom from various studio legends thrown in. Drew's birthday is coming up, and he needs this, seriously! Somebody help him out.

http://artandscienceofsound.com/

Musical Depreciation: 2011 Edition

Your source for Drake, Weeknd, Merrill Garbus, James Blake, Kanye We$T, Bon Iver, Odd Future and geriatric-free criticism and analysis.

Finally, I've emerged from the prolonged lassitude that is the winter holiday season and arrived at a moment's peace. The mental fog has lifted and it's already 3 weeks into the year in which the world is supposed to end, and judging by the state of what passes for music, cinema, and art-in-general today, I'm almost inclined to believe it. LMFAO has taken over the world, and people everywhere are rioting in the streets. About 100 species are going extinct per day, and soon intelligent life itself will be threatened. The suburbs will transform into postapocalyptic badlands thanks to Borders, Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, Bed Bath & Beyond, Office Max, Office Depot, REI, DSW and every other big box retailer going out of business that held up the last, flimsy vestiges of the untenable promise of Futurama. The sun will set behind an abandoned Super Target - the grim but pleasant facade of cultural progress in the Atomic Age - will we transform it into lofts/communes/a raw performance space? Are there enough artists in all the world to inhabit all the soon-to-be deserted Super Targets/Big Kmarts/Walmart Supercenters? Make sure to buy an ultra large flat panel TV at the liquidation sale, because you're gonna wanna watch what happens next.

Even if I could write a Slate style comparative think-piece, I wouldn't want to. This year didn't deserve it. It's just that music, currently, is one of the least interesting aspects of our world. I mean, it's 2012, and I'm writing about my favorite records that I bought on vinyl (a format introduced before 1950) last year. Pathetic. Further evidence that we are now living in a timeless, futureless era is that PJ Harvey has ended up on every critics Year End List. PJ Harvey... are they gonna tell me Liz Phair is back too? Julianna Hatfield? KD Lang? Anyhow, even in a year of music listening that was on average less enjoyable than a rerun of Wings, I managed to hear a few things worth remembering/buying. Through all the excavation, the following albums represent, if not pure gold, then at least quality pyrite.

Here's a simple list of records that I guarantee you will like. These records I deemed worthy of a purchase on a physical format. I actually purchased quite a few new albums this year relative to recent years... must've either been bored or a higher proportion of good music was released, I can't really tell. The ones listed below are the only good ones, I promise. Most of them are super lim eds. and probably out of print already (the 'limited edition' bait-and-switch tactic is how they get suckers like me to buy the records before listening to them, hence why some did not make the cut).

No implied rating system here; let's leave that sort of dorkery for the pitchforks.

War on Drugs - Slave Ambient [Secretly Canadian]

Already posted about this one. I had what I thought was a really cool analogy for it, but I forgot what it was. Basically, you can understand everything about this record by imagining The Traveling Wilburys through a delay pedal.

Remember cool delay pedals? It's no surprise that Drew doesn't use these.

Or maybe Tom Petty's first record mixed with the Discreet Music tape loop system (weird those two were released the same year), as represented by the equation:

One skilled in the art of music depreciation will recognize this makes Slave Ambient one of the best driving/road trip albums released in recent memory. Still it didn't appear very high, if at all, on most critics' year end lists, which means traditional guitar based rock is most certainly not okay with tastemakers right now. Actually, it might not have appeared on my list either (unconscious trend pony that I am) if it wasn't on 45 RPM heavyweight, clear red vinyl, making it a joyous listen.

Here's a video where the lead singer does his Dave Pirner impression:

Sleep

∞

Over - Forever [Hippos in Tanks]

Also useful as wall art.

Heavy, moody vibes abound on this lovely record. I don't know much about Sleep ∞ Over except that I think it's now just one chick who pretends to like skateboarding. Her musical signature is becoming quite distinct, though, as if Hope Sandoval were abducted and forced to join a German synth group. Conjures the mood of a dark teenage sleep over. Perfect seance music. If this was out at the same time as The Craft it would've fit nicely on the soundtrack. Instead, some guy put it to 80s yearbook footage:

Yep, this record glows in the dark. Sorry.

Rangers - Pan Am Stories [Not Not Fun]

Despite the dumb '___s' format band moniker, Pan Am Stories is legit. More stretched out psych journeys than their last LP that everyone got their buzz on to (Suburban Tours). Their 'poppy' side doesn't really click with me, but they're certainly in their element with 7 minute jams, fuzz growing all over the place, burying the vocals, guitars, drums while A.M. gold hooks creep through the audio detritus. The gatefold double LP makes it feel like a classic from the 1970s. This is what The Grateful Dead should sound like. They should probably just ask the Jerry Garcia estate if they can have his old band name.

Apocalyptic visions:

Real Estate - Days [Domino]

Will be playing at your next kegger. Some bros will probably sing along to it.

Totally pleasant, not challenging at all, endlessly repeatable listening experience. Just the qualities needed to go indie mainstream and win contracts from Converse, Mountain Dew, and NPR. I liken this to be the Crooked Rain of 2011. Similar to Pavement's trajectory, they released some cryptic singles, a noisy, more challenging first record that 'everyone loved', and then cleaned up their act with their sophmore effort being a placid, well-written album that everyone really loved. The only difference is that where Pavement maligned suburbia, Real Estate seem resigned to it. What's strange is that there is absolutely nothing that suggests Days couldn't have been released in 1994. The sounds, the structures, the vocal style... everything was in place by the time Crooked Rain was released. These specific songs just hadn't been written yet. (They would've had some trouble securing the band name back then, though, with the other [Sunny Day] Real Estate being in their heyday).

An alternative thesis would be that Real Estate are the new Grandaddy, except wealthier looking and lacking a superficial obsession with robots.

Similar instruments.

Similar voice*.

Similar fat dude on bass.

*admittedly, a stretch.

James Ferraro - Far Side Virtual [Hippos in Tanks]

Did you see the face?

Probably the most innovative and genuinely fresh entry on the list. If I had to choose between Oneohtrix Point Never's new one and this, I would obviously choose Far Side as it's a riskier and more rewarding album. Ferraro's one of the earliest exponents of chillwave and its related offshoots that have completely rewritten the playbook of indie in the last 4 years. Now that all the bedroom goons have aped his lofi dreamworld aesthetic, he's flipped the script and gone digital and hyperreal; traded his cassettes in for SACDs, as it were. He's a true artist, and this is true New Age music. Hilarious satire, interesting Macbook production, disturbingly accurate impressionistic vision of the present, and oddly good to relax to and forget about. Avant and Ambient at the same time...

Post-Far Side 'mix tape', released under Ferraro's alias, BebeTunes:

The closest you'll come to genius in 2011.

~~~

And that does it. I kind of just mainlined hipster blog tracks last year, didn't I? The only justification for this state of affairs is that mainstream pop is now totally unconscionable and hip-hop was stuck in an arhythmic, crunky treadmill for the second or third year in a row. Moreover, the cultural currents seem to be in a rewind mode, where the past exerts a greater influence on thought than the future, sort of like a perpetual omni-nostalgia (omnistalgia?). This doesn't mean the near future won't be exciting - it will - but that's there nothing specifically to be excited about. Nothing to look forward to - a new iPhone? Apple TV? All media ever recorded accessible at your fingertips? What's a blogger to do? You pick the 5 or so marginally interesting records as a Best Of list and keep clicking, downloading your way into the future.

Preview: The Truth's Best Records of 2011

Very soon now the end of the year will be upon us and that means The Truth will be telling you about his favorite records he bought this year. The Myth probably won't drop a list b/c he doesn't post anymore b/c he doesn't do anything that doesn't immediately lead to drinking Michelob Ultras with some skanky ass. But that's okay, I accept the sole responsibility of delivering the Year End List that accepts no payola, that suffers no NPR/Big Media/Big Indie list gladly, that isn't afraid to not include a single fucking record if every record sucks (almost happened last year), that is generally in with the out crowd. Before that happens though, I'm gonna do a soft open with the year's Honorary Mention: Small Black's Moon Killer 'Mixtape'

If you ever wondered what Slowdive/Chapterhouse would've sounded like had they worked with r&B superproducer The Dream, well, now you can find out by downloading the album below. It has quite a few gems inside, including this one that accomplishes the impossible feat of making a Nicki Minaj/Drake vocal actually listenable

Love's Not Enough by Small Black

This song obviously walks a thin line, even in 2011, and I applaud them for it. Seems like hip-hop is finally finding a way to weave itself into 'rock' in way that doesn't involve rap metal or trailer parks. So yeah, a few skinny white dudes from Brooklyn made a 'mixtape' that kind of rips off an aesthetic I had planned, but the combination is a little clumsy/too-obvious in places and that lets me know these whipsters don't really vibe to black culture in a non-ironic way like I do. Now if they start switching out the Heems verses for Birdman I might be worried. We'll see if they get enough balls to stop 'testing the market' and release this on a genuine recorded artifact. Until then, stay tuned for the best actual records of the year! Who knows, it might even inspire Drew to go plagiarize the Rolling Stone list of boring old man music again.

Small Black - Moon Killer

I've been hanging out in The Future and...

... it looks a lot like Youtube's LeanBack. Prognostication time: this will be the biggest thing to happen to the Internet since the original Google search engine. Expect the cookies to come out of the oven in T minus ~ 2 years.

Also, see:

Cull.tv
Look FM
Music Video Genome

Kottke-esque infodrizzle for your mid-week ebb

Since roughly one quarter of all my posts involve Chairlift because I'm too lazy to compose original long-form content, and Drew's too lazy to even look at the blog... here we go with a C-lift b-side. The year has still got two solid months left in it but it doesn't look like much good shit is gonna get written, so if Chairlift EVER decides to release their album, it will surely appear on my best-of list.

Here's a jimmy jam with a sinuous new jack beat that sounds like Paula Abdul remixed the song beneath it. This will grow on you like 5 o'clock shadow...


Best played loud

Were they listening to this when they wrote the intro?



I'm not sure, I think I've heard those bells somewhere else. Like I fell asleep at the roller rink and hypnagogically recalled a Tony! Toni! Tone! song. That ever happen to you?

Is Drew gonna (Psycho)Kill It at Tijuana Flats?

Drew just obtained what I guess will be a paid 'residency' at Tijuana Flats, a whimsical taqueria in Cary. Their nachos are quite good, as were moments of the last Drutones performance. Is he gonna push the envelope this time, though? Will he challenge people while they eat their burrito supremes with their kids after soccer practice? Will he amaze with audacious histrionics in an 'essential' solo performance that will be covered by the Cary News?

Will he show off his technical chops and diverse collection of guitars?


Drew likely has one of these instruments

Will he play an inspired set of seldom-heard classics?


This is rock 'n' roll, in case you were wondering

Or will we get another unnecessary double encore of 'Psychokiller', even though I repeatedly ask him not to play it?


The anticlimax of the previous show at Tijuana Flats.

As you can see, Drew has A LOT to live up to (or live down). Tomorrow's performance may determine whether he will ever escape the chlorinated confines of the Aquatics Center and get on the accelerated track to blog coverage, music festival bookings, and groupies out the wazoo.

Deep down, I know he can do it. It's not a matter of if- but when? Find out tomorrow, by going here HERE around 7 p.m. (and don't forget to leave a tip).