Monday Music Roundup

As excited as I am to bust out my near-expert turkey skillz this week, I kinda hate late November. Around this time of year I suffer from unrelenting twinges of anxiety every time I listen to part of a new album, because great is my worry about excluding a late-year release for consideration as one of my favorites of the year. What if I just don't know it yet, and mistake that for not loving it? Will I adore it come February? What kind of a huckster am I?!

I'm reprising my talking head role (like Max Headroom) on NPR's World Cafe this year, and I am so aware of all the wonderful music this year held, and the inverse proportion to my amount of listening time. Sigh. I think I have 8 of the 10 favorites nailed down with two dark horse spots left to be filled. Wish me luck. What are your favorites of the year?


A few more tunes from 2008 that are very good:

City of Electric Light
Chad VanGaalen
The opening lines of this song are among my favorite this month: "And I thought you were the moon in the sky, but it turned out you were just a streetlight, you were burning like a hole in the night." Ah, the old story of mistaken identity; an error that many of us make. This track traces the journey from infatuation to disillusionment, and uses what sounds like xylophones. You cannot go wrong. Calgary's Chad VanGaalen makes shiny, multi-instrumental homespun recordings, with his newest release Soft Airplane out now on Sub Pop.

Not The One
Francois Virot
My NYC friend Cara posted this track from Francois Virot out of Lyon, France, saying that he had a "sort of shambolic happiness, a violent acoustic guitar player type. he's got the right kind of crazy going on in his voice." I love the torrent of strumming acoustic guitar as percussion, and the way he flirts with an untamed edge throughout this song. As he repeats, "It's over now; I'm not the one, not the one, not the one..." it's as if he is primarily trying to convince himself. Virot has a bunch of tour dates coming up, but mostly all in France. My brother is teaching English in Calais for the year, so maybe he can scrape together the funds to see this guy -- this kind of passion would be amazing live. Yes or No is out now through Red Eye Distro.


To Ohio
The Low Anthem
Hailing from Providence, Rhode Island, The Low Anthem has made a fantastic album that friend Bruce says sounds like a night ride home in Joni Mitchell's car. That's the best way I've heard yet to capture what this song feels like, from a band who hand silk-screens their CDs with love and says their ethos is "not entirely jaded yet: music that really is music, not an advertisement. Imagine that." Citing influences in the vein of Dylan, The Band, Tom Waits and Neil Young, they vacillate between stripped-down acoustic arrangements and a more rollicking jam that echoes modern contemporaries like The Felice Brothers. The female vocal harmonies on this song also add such a warm and bittersweet undertone. The band is currently unsigned, and their album Oh My God, Charlie Darwin is out now.


The State I Am In (live on BBC)
Belle and Sebastian
From 1996-2001, Glasgow's twee extraordinaires Belle & Sebastian recorded five sessions at the BBC for folks like John Peel, Mark Radcliffe, and Steve Lamacq, and they are now releasing this look into their early years as a band. If it's possible for the songs to take on an even more vulnerable timbre, they do here. I enjoy hearing the intimacy of these sessions, the acoustic takes on favorites, and the four previously unreleased songs. The BBC Sessions is out now as double-disc on Matador (second disc is a live gig from Belfast in 2001).


GMF
The Features
In 2005, I fell in love with the awkward indie pop of Nashville's The Features, with their song "Blow It Out" (celebrating sitting between a pair of speakers and playing vinyl very loud) making it onto pretty much every mixtape I created that year. This first single from their new album Some Kind of Salvation pulses with darker textures, and surprisingly reminds me more of The Killers. How did that happen? It's an interesting development for this ebullient band.

Monday Music Roundup

A crystalline and lovely dream last night involving me slow-waltzing with Ryan Adams in a high school gym with paper streamers all about (yeah, have no idea where that one came from but I ain't complainin') reminded me of an interesting effort I read about called The Dream Project.

It involves people calling in and leaving scratchy, half-coherent messages on a dedicated voicemail line (often right after waking), and then a cadre of artists works to visually represent those dreams as part of a larger project. The only catch is that they ask for dreams with "a strong narrative flow and clear landmarks so that others may follow the trail." So that summarily eliminates me, unfortunately. My midnight brain is too random to make most of my sojourns followable by anyone else except me.

And actually, this project also reminds me of one of my favorite Dilbert comic strips.


. . . Here are five songs on my playlists this week that you may enjoy.

Deep Water
Ryan Auffenberg
This new demo song from San Francisco's Ryan Auffenberg ("One To Watch") is first in the lineup this week because it reminds me of a soundtrack to a dream, from the opening lyrics about some moments staying with you, to the soporific feel of the chorus, "deep water grows cold the further down you swim." Perfect. Ryan's put this new song up on his MySpace page, he's got a few tour dates this month on the West coast and was recently picked up for a little featurette on San Francisco's KFOG. I still recommend checking out all of his work, and think we'll be hearing good things from him in the future.


Is That The Thanks I Get
(live on Conan)
Wilco
Ahhh, Wilco. You Tweedy fans are a passionate bunch, and trying so hard to convert me. I am only not a hardcore fan yet because of benign neglect. Reader Chuck recently sent me a 10-song "Wilco Starter Kit" to try, once again, to transform me into a rabid fan, and so far he has been fairly successful. I recently came across this new song, a fantastic soulful Memphis piano romp performed several months ago on Conan. This (and other new songs) are potential inclusions on the upcoming Wilco album (May 2007, Nonesuch Records), and I like what I hear so far.


I Will Wander
The Features
Tennessee's The Features are guys that I love to root for; you may recall a mention a few months back on this blog about how they were dropped from their label for refusing to cover a Beatles song for a credit card commercial? Well, the same sound that drew me to madly adore their 2004 track "Blow It Out" is still alive and kicking on their recent Contrast EP. I am digging the marching cadence of this song -- the feel reminds me of a sort of Modest-Mouse-meets-Devo.


Children of December
The SLIP
Been listening to The SLIP's Eisenhower CD (on Bar/None Records) for a few months now and always meant to write something but somehow it kept getting passed over -- but no longer. This is simply a fantastic song from the opening vibrating notes. I think the first thing I read about Boston's The SLIP came from a quote I read from Jim James of My Morning Jacket who raved about them, saying, "'Children of December' is the song that hit me hardest - the way the guitar and the melody interlace, it's incredible...It could even appeal to some kid who really likes punk rock. It's really challenging.” Their Eisenhower album sounds fresh to these ears, and was co-produced by the band and Matthew Ellard (Elliott Smith, Billy Bragg & Wilco, Morphine).


After The War
Sleep Station
Here's a random tune that popped into my inbox after my recent Cotton Mather post. Reader Barry from NYC writes, "I suspect you're a big power pop fan who loves those pronounced Beatles influences with jangly guitars, close harmonies, all the good stuff. Seeing that's the case, I thought I would attach a song by a band you may not know called Sleep Station. I love this song, and the album it comes from, After the War (their strongest record), generally sounds like a cross between the Beatles and Pink Floyd. Good stuff." I agree and think I am going to get this CD for further listening (an $8 bargain!). I find this particular tune to be a pleasant modern-day update on "Golden Slumbers." Thanks, Barry!


Oh, and if perchance you are looking for some good books for 2007, Scatter O' Light is doing a great series on music-related reading, and yours truly just scribbled together a few suggestions off the top of my head for her part 3 (part 1 on U2-related tomes is here and part 2 on best rock bios is here). Happy reading!