Winter Is Coming

Game of Thrones may have made this phrase vogue but we've been saying it here for years.  Winter is here but, so far, it doesn't hurt anything like last year's.
The shear force of amazing musical releases this year has been sonically, creatively, (and financially) draining.  Here's a few of my favorite releases from this year...

1)  Helms Alee - Sleepwalking Sailors

First off, by the end of the last time I saw Helms Alee, everyone in the room was crushing hard on the drummer, Hozoji Matheson-Margullis...she's beautiful - smiling and laughing as she pounded away - and she's devastating on the kit...the perfect storm of a drummer.  This is metal for those of us who love Low...atmospheric, nuanced, heavy, and filled with gorgeous harmonies.  Probably my Album of the Year...

2)  Grouper - Ruins
This is late night music at it's most haunting and honed.  The sounds of crickets and thunderclouds suffuse the recording which is close-mic'ed piano and filled with wiltingly lovely vocals from Liz Harris ne' Grouper.  She wears her Dead Moon shirt better than anyone I've seen which counts for something too...

3)  Boris - Noise
This video feels like a joke/riff on some fake Japanese 80's band, but yep, it's Boris...as awesome as ever, Noise runs thru a pile of different genres at the same time and Boris does them each perfectly...all layered together on some songs, plus, that guitar tone.  Always amazing, soaring, and friggin' heavy.

4)  Circle (ex-Falcon) - Leviaton
The weird get weirder...Finland's Circle are a bit, um, different.  On this album, they pretend to create a new band to explore their pagan folk-y-ness and end up doing it better than everyone else...The closest anyone else ever gets to this unique sound is probably Sun City Girls though Circle continue their signature motorik base of galloping bass and looping guitar while building a dark acoustic folk vibe over all of that.  A truly unique and outstanding album.


5) Earth - Primitive and Deadly
Joined by vocalists Mark Lanegan and Rabia Shaheen Qazi for mostly good results, I think Brett Netson's contributions are even more cathartic for the Earth sound here.  The 2nd guitarist for Built To Spill, Netson plays his signature liquid-y arpeggios as foil to the dense drawn-out drone of Dylan Carlson's burnt-desert opus sound.  It allows the band to rock in a way they haven't been for the past few albums and enlivens the slower moments in a way that I'm diggin'.


6) Anonymous Choir - Sings Neil Young's After The Goldrush
http://anonymouschoir.com/album/anonymous-choir-sings-neil-youngs-after-the-gold-rush
Listen at the link to this Minneapolis project of Nona Marie (of Dark Dark Dark)...a room full of women singing Neil's entire album with  a haunting, and refreshingly irreverent commitment to his original material.  I'm surprised how often I've been choosing to put this on over the original lately...

7)  Mono - The Last Dawn/Rays of Darkness
Purveyors of heavy Japanese cinematic music...They jettisoned the orchestrals for this release and got heavy and post-rockin'.  A nice release from them in a gorgeous vinyl package...


8)  Nothing - Guilty of Everything
Shoegaze Metal?!..yes, that's a thing.  And this album pushes these guys towards the top of the heap...NPR writes better about them than I'm able to ( HERE ), including comments about how lead singer, Dominic Palermo, drove around Philadelphia with large amounts of guns and cocaine while listening to  My Bloody Valentine's Loveless.  A bit scandalous maybe, but listening?  It's all in there...


9)  Shellac - Dude Incredible
The mighty trio explore the theme of Surveying for this release - their first in seven years.  The songs are all good and the sound on vinyl is excellent.  On the theme of surveying, Albini said, "we noticed that quite a few of the founding fathers of our country, the United States of America — your neighbour to the South — were in fact, surveyors. Meaning that they took a chain and a pole and paced off the physical dimensions of our new country. They physically measured the place they were living in and that was part of their definition of where they were living. How much more could the borders of that place mean to you and its identity as a nation than that you had physically measured it? " 

Dude.

10) Swans - To Be Kind
I've been a Swans fan for 20 years but really only able to stomach them for the past 5.  The earlier albums that Michael Gira and team were hewing together were too intense for me to appreciate at the time of their conception. It seems he's now acknowledging and transcending the human tragedy rather than challenging and wallowing in it like the old days of the Swans.  The music is still taxing and tiring to listen to but I leave the experience feeling cleansed and elated more than dirty and crushed.  I'm ready for that, and I guess Gira is too...

11) Ty Segall - Manipulator
The ever prolific Segall kicks out another winner, one of his stronger releases imo.  Just the right mix of ragged garage rock and churning psychedelia with a healthy dose of Marc Bolan glammy swagger.  Holy Shit, the 4 minutes below is a taste of his epic-ness.


12) The War On Drugs - Lost In the Dream
A bit Dad-Rock, but one of those solid albums I see still spinning years down the line...they remind me of Dire Straits that way - amazing musicians, always nice to listen to, but doesn't really stand out too strongly.  If I filed this one sonically instead of alphabetically, it would fit nicely between Spiritualized and Springsteen.


Reissues:
Sleater-Kinney - Start Together // 1994-2006 boxset
No doubt, the best music thing I bought this year.  A gorgeous box of all seven of the lp's, remastered, pressed at RTI on different colored vinyl, with a hardback photo book.  I wasn't a huge fan in the day but I find myself listening to S-K a ton these days, a real testament to them because their sound is so unique, from their s/t lp in '94 thru The Woods in 2006.  Staying true to their sound, each album manages to forge a distinctive stylistic nuance that holds it's own for the duration of the album.  Hearing them discover, and then revel in the two diverse singing styles of Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein is revelatory and exciting still.  An awesome release.

S-K boxset vinyl

Unwound - Rat Conspiracy box
Like Sleater-Kinney, Unwound have been criminally underrated in the grand canon of rock n' roll, both hailed from the Northwest and had amazing drummers who were instrumental in the sound and success of the band's output (plus they were both women...).  This is another beautiful release by the Numero Group with great packaging and remastered lp's.  I'm anxiously awaiting the Leaves Turn Inside You boxset that is coming down the pike soon, Unwound's final Swansong album that Numero should be putting out in the next year or so...

Mark Lanegan - Has God Seen My Shadow, 1989-2011
Everyone should just get it out of the way and buy this...3 lp's of Lanegan's best songs, all remastered on pretty creamy yellow vinyl, $30.  In Japan, he'd be declared a National Treasure by now but here, he's probably still touring in a beat-up van and drinking whiskey in roadside dives between shows. God bless that dark, gravel-voiced shadow.

Thanks for visiting

Thawing out 2014, throw another burner on the turntable.

                                 

Winter is finally behind us, Record Store Day is over, and grilling season is upon us - but not the mosquitoes yet.  Things are looking pretty good in Minnesota.  Besides the occasional picture of my cute kids, I pretty much talk about my art and music here on pftjschute.  Since I haven't made much art in the past year, what's new on the turntable?!

Record Store Day is one of my favorite annual events, a holiday really, with its own traditions and rituals celebrated by an ever-growing band of believers.  I was queued up by 7am, 5th person in line, outside Extreme Noise - Mpls's volunteer-run punk record store.  We hit up 6 stores, skipping at least 6 others that I can think of.  Really amazing that the Twin Cities can support that many businesses catering to a single industry, especially one facing the behemoth challenges of online stores and downloadable music.  Makes me proud...makes me want to open a store to bring vinyl shopping back to NE!

My RSD breakdown :
Velvet Underground - Loaded
Totally beautiful splatter color. The vocals are a little tinny or sibilant but it sounds good to me...sure better than the Maxell cassette I have this on otherwise.  I kind of wish this would've been included in the VU mono box set from last year.  Everything in there sounds incredible...of course, none of those are on purdy pink and purple splatter I guess.
Nothing - Guilty of Everything
This was sort of a pre-RSD pickup for me, ordered earlier and arrived on Saturday...Emily was pleased to see even more records showing up on this already vinyl-heavy day...ahem...  A friend played this recently and I dug it but haven't had a chance to revisit it this week.  Again, pretty tri-color vinyl and  /500 for this 2nd edition (with reversed artwork colors).
True Widow - s/t
StonerGaze?  I've heard this descriptor used, and they do sort of hybridize shoegaze atmospherics with some more stomping, shambolic stoner rock. I was hooked by the male/female harmonies, though I expect the hook will increase as this feels like one of those 'grower' albums.  Plus I was really happy to find this one due to the  /300 pressing number.
Torche - s/t
A non-RSD release but my favorite purchase of the day.  After I initially wrote them off as too classic rock-sounding or something, I've come to really love Torche.  Heavy and melodic, they bury great pop hooks just under the surface of some seething metal riffs - friendly metal?... This is pressed on some great tri-colored vinyl and just fun! to listen to.
Broadcast - Berberian Sound Studio
 RIP Trish Keenan.  This was one of the last recordings she made before her passing in 2011 and one of those things I've vacillated on picking up for years...seeing this used at St. Paul's new Barely Brothers store made it an easy buy.  I'll have to be in the right mood for this odd soundtrack to a horror movie that Broadcast was commissioned to do, but it seems a cool thing after the one listen I've had. More atmospheric and abstract than other Broadcast music I know but very much their sound still.
A Minor Forest - Flemish Altruism / InIndependence
 Both their long out-of-print albums remastered and bundled together for this release. They really are excellent and I'm glad I gave in and bought them after hesitating and passing on my first sighting (found it at another store later in the morning for ten bucks cheaper, ok!).  Maybe like a cross between Slint and Don Caballero but with a refreshing sense of humor and sarcasm tossed in - song titles set the stage, Jacking Off George Lucas, It's Salmon!!..., Bill's Mom Likes To Fuck...while the supreme musicianship and recording/mastering done by Bob Westin and Steve Albini seal the deal.
Dinosaur Jr. - Visitors box set
Numero Records putting this out certainly put this on my radar.  They've done consistently beautiful releases, making wise choices musically and aesthetically (Codeine box?, sweet!).  This lil' guy has five 7" singles from their SST and Homestead-era plus one of them covering I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better (The Byrds) and Show Me The Way (Peter Frampton). One of my favorite bands from this era being given a nice treatment.  Glad to have this.

My most unfortunate miss?  I'd have really loved to find the Songs:Ohia 7" box set.  By far the most coveted and lovely thing I've seen of late. Oh well, that's part of the thrill that makes RSD so special I guess.  The chase, the early morning, the tension.  As we settle into our lives and find, or create,  meaningful moments that sometimes feel sacred, holy, or at least restorative, we have to recognize that this is important to us...Music, nature, church, whatever it is.  Happy Record Store Day people, until next time.

2013 - Wrapping up a helluva year!

2013 was a celebration of the first year of August's life, born one year ago last week. A very full, fun, and, by turns, difficult year in the Hamilton home. This post is about the music that soundtracked the year, some of these albums have been spinning incessantly, a few only when a certain mood demands it.  These are the lps that I've wanted to hear again and again though.  I hope you take a few minutes to take a listen too, there's some nice songs here...
My top thirteen albums of 2013:

1. Hiss Golden Messenger - Haw
Emily says this sounds like Prince, which surprised me but I get it too. Gospel and laid-back funk are the backbone of this pop folk opus. Easy to listen to, yet rich, complicated, and rewarding.



2. Arcade Fire - Reflektor
It's too mainstream for me, I say.
I love it! I say.
I tend to be a bit of a contrarian with music, if everyone loves it, I don't.  This is partly my obstinate way but often just a function of my tastes. Even if they win another Grammy for this one, I'll still love it.
I still love Funeral too, though since then, they've left me a bit cold. This is my favorite thing Arcade Fire's done so far. The production finally suits the songs and sound. To me, the anti-guitar solo on Joan Of Arc sums it all up, perfectly spaced and timed, unexpected and just right.


 3. Low - The Invisible Way
One of their best. More Mimi is part of what makes this the only Low I've wanted to hear in months, plus, the hope and transcendence they've always hidden under the desolation shines through a little more brightly here.  As she sings on Holy Ghost, it "feeds my passion for transcendance."



4. Bill Callahan - Dream River
"The only words I said today are Beer. and Thank You. Beer. Thank You. Beer." It's not just the words you say Bill, its how you say them and
all
that
space
around them.  Thank you.




5. Deafheaven - Sunbather
((( Heavy and atmospheric )))  They achieve a gorgeous balance on this album and have hit a level of acclaim - and radio play - that I never would've expected from a scream-y black metal band. But, damn, it is good!



6. Waxahatchee - Cerulean Salt
Writing songs and delivering them in ways that belie her 22 years, Katie Crutchfield is Waxahatchee.  I'm really not sure why I keep wanting to hear this but I do — honest, sad, lovely songs about growing up.  For a point of reference, think Throwing Muses or Juned mixing in a healthy dash of country.



7. Golden Gunn - s/t
A collaboration between guitarist Steve Gunn and Hiss Golden Messenger. Driving late at night and flipping through AM radio, scanning the horizon for the next roadhouse dive bar and a beer.  Golden Gunn soundtracks this scene.  It's kind of a perfect place to be if you think about it, and this album can take you there...

8. Kurt Vile - Wakin' On A Pretty Daze
Kurt's honed his chops over the past few years. This is his strongest release in a string of good ones.  The songs are stretched out a bit, some clocking in at 8 or 9 minutes. Plus they're really, really good songs.  I think Gold Tone is the best thing he's written.  He's a real sidewalk-shambling dude, this guy.  A Mellow-rific album!



9. The Body - Master, We Perish
((((((  They also released Christ, Redeemers this year but it hasn't stuck as much as this fantastic ep.  All their signature moves ~ the disarmingly gorgeous female choir building and then dropping out to make room for the aural onslaught, the screaming vocals, and the caterwauling drums. Heavier than Deafheaven but traversing similar dark territory.  ))))))



10. My Bloody Valentine - mbv
A long time coming, this album is the only one on the list that made me giddy waiting for it to arrive on my doorstep (22 years of waiting...). It ended up being about 85% awesome, with a couple songs that don't ever really take off.  Seeing them live was fun too and added a bit to the aura of this album.  The second half  is just stellar, and when Bilinda sings it totally floats my guaze-y, gaze-y boat.


 11. Juliana Barwick - Nepenthe
Recorded in Iceland by Sigur Ros guys, it out-Ros's anything they've put out in the past couple years. Just a gorgeous album that was written as an ode to Juliana's grandmother passing recently.  It does have an elegiac quality that really serves the music well.  This and the Low album are my go-to's for pure, unadulterated sonic beauty this year.



12. Jim James - Regions of Light and Sound of God
A few hits and a few misses on this one but mostly a surprising and surprisingly good release from the My Morning Jacket front man. The hits are the Krautrock organ and processed sax jams sprinkled throughout, ala' Soft Machine. The misses are the John Lennon sound-alike sing-alongs that he tries to pull off.  Haven't heard the cd but the lp is rich, warm and beautifully mastered.



13. Savages - Silence Yourself
Mining a sound that I'm a huge fan of... I'll hop on that band-wagon. Sure, they're a bit derivative of Souixsie or The Raincoats but that's an era that should be celebrated Way more than it is...



plus,  3 Great Reissues from '13:

Grateful Dead - One From The Vault, August 13, 1975. The Great American Music Hall.
One of the premiere Dead shows that exists imo. Nice to hear it on vinyl and amazingly, beautifully mastered/pressed to boot.  Thank you Light In the Attic!

Arthur Russell - Another Thought
Such a great album! The vinyl is nicely done and sounds great but seems to be a digitally-sourced press.    This is one of his best releases in a too-short career of beauty-full music making.

Nirvana - In Utero
45rpm remastered over 3 LPs with outtakes and the Steve Albini remix?  ok!

thanks for reading.

2013...helluva year...

       here it is, June 2013. A halfway mark kinda thing. There have been things that instantly glommed onto my pleasure zones over the past 6 months. My son's smile for one, August turns 6 months old today. His smile is a thing of utter glorious beauty. Anyone...everyone, would agree on this fact. It's heart-melting. There are other things too, but this one is the cream that rises to the top. The thing that coalesces and bubbles up to the top of each day and must be skimmed off with a butter knife and put in a porcelain tea cup and drank each morning at dawn, sun rising and son yawning. Adding a layer of fat to my bones, a layer of sweet, smiling goodness to cushion me from the bludgeoning blows of the day, from anything at all. It's a damn great smile!
      There are a few other things that bubble up and that I've found worthy of repeated revisits. Mostly music and art and moments spent with friends and my family... A few sonic signatures of 2013 so far:

DeafHeaven - Sunbather I'm not a scream-y metal guy, I guess. But I do love me some Opeth and, lately, I've been utterly blown away by DeafHeaven...I recommend to highest degree that you check it out and, maybe add it to your best friggin' albums of 2013 list. It's certainly on mine..  
Peter Jefferies - The Last Great Challenge in a Dull World vinyl reissue via De Stijl.
Rediscovering Guided By Voices...
the sound of our new neighborhood...three blocks away but quieter street and slightly new geography have given us a distinctively new set of sounds to listen to thru the day, and night.
Baroness reissue of First/Second ep's. Orange opaque vinyl, 2003-2005 recordings.

more new art

'503 ft. below'  (detail)

                                     installation view                                                '60 knots'  (detail of wall drawing)

 'Sunrise'   24"x38"   mixed on canvas

                                                                 'Scudding Clouds'   3"x29"x 3"

       'Left of Center'  8"x11"  mixed media on shaped wood

'Dark Beloved Cloud'  5"x8"  

'Two Ships at Night'  10"x10"  oil, collage on bark

'Triangulation'   11"x4"  oil, thread on metal

oh, Hi 2012...

Two Ships At Night - Lake Superior   2011

Here's a series of 5 paintings I did recently for an exhibit about the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald.  They are done in oil paint, spray paint, oil stick and gouache on tar paper and they riff off of the underwater photographs that were first taken when the wreckage of the ship was discovered just over 500 ft. below the surface of  Lake Superior in 1976.

all images © Jonathan Hamilton 2012

2011 Cream of the Crop

I'm a bit dismayed when people say that they really didn't like any music that came out over the past year...that's never happened to me.  Even when I look back at years like 1985 (Howard Jones Dream Into Action, Jefferson Starship's We Built This City - which, I'm happy to say, I hated even then, Bryan Adams - Summer of '69 - my first rock concert, followed shortly after, fortunately for my continued interest in music, by a Husker Du show at the 'Cat's Arena in Bozeman, as they toured for New Day Rising), I liked a lot of that '85 music then and some of it, I still do.  This year of 2011 was no slouch either.  As usual, I spent a lot of time in the archives but there was no dirth of good, provocative, truly new music that's been created over the past 12 months.  Here are a handfull of some that have been most loved, respected, or re-visited for me...

>  PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
If I had to put down coin, this would be my record of the year.  It's a totally English album - one that acknowledges all of PJ's back-catalogue, everything that the Mekons have put to tape, everything in the catalogue of Anne Briggs, Fairport Convention, the Pogues, and all of the folk and punk music that has been wrenched out of the British Isles over the past 50 years - wrenched  because there's a real pain in many of these songs.  PJ explores war, politics, social and financial blights that have eviscerated the queen's island over the years.  It's got the stuff that made some of her first few albums some of my favorite albums ever, but it also does a brilliant job of bringing it all to the here and now - recorded in an ancient church in the nowheres of the English countryside, it is all about the here-and-now of All of our country's shakings and quake'ings.  

>  Richmond Fontaine - The High Country 
This is a brutal listen, totally beautiful, but heart-breakingly brutal.  Willy Vlautin writes songs that attain a southern gothic sense of deep dark nepotistic pain that even few novels can reach.  The High Country is a series of vignettes that build on the story of 'the Girl' and 'the Boy' who fall into a forbidden love, in a run-down, rain-sodden dead end of the Pacific Northwest.  Things don't go well - not at all - but the music veers from desultory day-in-the-life moments to life-changing non-decisions that just seem to happen, when high and drunk on muddy roads.  The musicianship is top-notch and the production and attention to sonic nuance is flat-out gorgeous on the vinyl version of this release (on the British-pressed Diverse Records rendition and, from what I hear, the well-recorded hi-rez state-side cd version too).  This is an under-the-radar gem that deserves many more ears to be raised to attention.  The last few releases by these guys have hit a lovely, cinematic, dark stride of Pacific-Northwest-Redneck-Noir that this one takes even a lil' step further....highly recommended.

great live studio rendition courtesy of the Line Best Of Best Fit Sessions 
>  Destroyer - Kaputt

LOVE IT!  This is one of my favorite releases of the past year, and one of the better and most unique ones of the past handfull of years.  Dan Bejar takes all of his scorn and bitter observations of the American Way (and, yes, that includes ALL of N. America with his Canadian lineage and his semi-removed/askance perspectives on our USA-ism's in general), and channels them through the musical canon of the past 20 years, with special attention paid to the late eighties/early nineties.  Horns are brilliantly deployed in late night jams that stretch almost all the way back to Steely Dan-era cool.  Just the right amount of synth. and eighties pseudo-funk liven the tracks that, in the end, in true Destroyer style, are most informed by the atmospheric moments of mid-70's Bowie.  And that ain't a bad thing at all.

worth it just for sec. 41 - 60... a great song too...seeing this album, along with Painter in Your Pocket performed live with full horn section was a big time Best Of 2011-Moment for me... 

 >  iceage - New Brigade
My faith in punk restored - incarnate.  A few teenagers from Denmark channel their record collections and no small dose of Ian Curtis in a skate-punk smash-shit-fest that is heavily colored by the wearing of  Nordic winter goggles gazing at a far-off So-Cal dream of surf and sun.  The drums are propulsive, the breaks are insane, and the fuzzy guitars are heavy, what's not to love?

(so, shitty s.q. on this video but it captures the live vibe better than most other YouTubes I saw...great live show, the most real punkin' and moshin' I've seen in a long while.)


>  Bon Iver - Bon Iver

This is a pretty obvious pick but totally necessary...it's one of the best things to be done, musically, in a long time.  We were lucky enough to see them perform at the State Theater in Mpls. this summer, just an awesome show that showcased how great these new songs are.  The arrangements are excellent, the vocals and lyrics perfect, the production is a bit weird but works well for the album - the guitars and some of the instruments are buried with the vocals put Way up front.  While his debut album was intimate and 'late-night', this one is painted in broader strokes - indicated right off the bat with the geographic city and state song-titles.  A great document of the evolution of an artist and album that is approaching a perfect 10. 

>  Shabazz Palaces - Black Up 
I always feel like a bit of a white-boy schmuck when I get psyched about hip hop albums in my year-end lists...as usual though, there're a few unignore-able thumping and, ahem, black,  albums to mention.  Black Up is, if nothing else, a hands-in-the-air celebration of everything the Digible Planets ever did back in 'the day'.  This was the era of guys like me to listen to, love, and actually be ok, listening and loving some honest-to-god hip hop.  NWA was cool, good - but not mine.  Beastie Boys were awesome.  And fer real.  But they were, and are, white boys.  Digible Planets sang some outrageously surreal, and real, lyrics.  Rapping and rhyming in a way that made Everyone feel good.  And laying down true beats that bridged a gap that was real in a music/social/racial/political way...they were game-changing, and friggin' awesome, and for just about everybody.  
Shabazz Palaces takes up this helm, 20 years later.  Ishmael "Butterfly" Butler, now aka 'Palaceer Lazaro' is the primary guy here and the album shows that Butterfly's been Listening to music and has his finger on the pulse of current dub and the atmospheric raw-rubbed sound environments that have been explored in recent years by Burial, Ohneotrix Point, and a bunch of stuff that I just don't know... this album reeks of being nostalgic (and good weed) but I'm so happy that it's transcended that.  Butterfly is always cool like that.




>  Helm's Alee - WeatherHead
Brad Verellen from the one-off-wonder's Harkonen, and a master guitar amp builder, has put out two full lengths under the name of Helm's Alee.   It's a lineup configuration I love, two chicks - playing drums and bass - and singing, with Brad playing guitar and making sure it all sounds Awe-Full.  At the end of the day, I think I like their first full-length, Night Terrors, better, but this is an amazingly strong release considering the amount of (non) attention it got...part of it's fun is that it takes the total love of three people making a melodic, cool-sounding rock n'roll record, and makes it palpable...you can taste the fun they're having.   


>  Meg Baird - Seasons On Earth
A lot of music made over the past year or two has harkened back to another day and age - reverbed folk with banjo as a lead instrument is - against all odds - cool right now.  No complaints from me - in theory - but the level of earnestness and dumb-down'ed-ness seems especially high (see Dawes, Mumford and Sons, and to a lesser degree, Fleet Foxes).  This is where Espers and, the lovely/incredible lead singer Meg Baird, come into play to save the day.  Espers continues to put out absolutely amazing neo-folk-psychedelic tapestries in the form of music but their sound is streamlined and coelesced in the form of Meg Baird's solo albums, and specifically, in her new release.  The pedal steel of Marc Orleans is in and of itself, worthy of a Grammy.  It's nuanced, poetic, technically perfect, and mind-fuckingly soaring as good pedal-steel should be.  The way Meg's guitar harmonizes with her vocals is reminiscent of the first Joni Mitchell album and her voice, though similarly lovely, is more a nod to the British folk chanteuse-highest bar of Sandy Denny.  All this, yet unique and, somehow, contemporary enough to never be mistaken for anything but a voice of our new and confused millenia.


>  Jesus Lizard - Club
This was recorded in 2009, the first show on their reunion tour, in Nashville - in other words - their first live show together in over a decade.  Doesn't show.  It is blistering, sweaty, virile as fuck, tight and loud.  The sonics are lush and honest...live but not blurred or bloated.  All the 'hits' are here and sound spot-on.  This is an awesome release by one of the better bands that's graced our collective rock n' roll ears in the past 25 years.  Yow!

>  Grails - Deep Politics

What's in the water in Portland, OR?...(it's the killer weed!)...something's going on.  And only getting better. Earth put out a great album of desert-drenched instrumental explorations this year.  Agalloch has only continued to hone their heady stew of death metal wintery folk to a fine, baleful blade over the past few releases.  And Grails just put out an outstanding lp, their most refined and concise yet, if not achieving the ragged raw truth that the Black Tar releases revealed, Deep Politics is a precise showcase of all the aspects that have made them the purveyor of eastern-tinged psychedelia drone metal for the past handfull of years.  Buy it, Turn it up!

>  M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
Epic and anthemic.  Less My Bloody Valentine, more Depeche Mode on this one but strikes a great balance between atmosphere and luscious, crescendo-ing pop songs.  Wasn't sure of this one at first but I keep wanting to listen to it.  So I do.  

>  Key Losers - California Lite
I have a friend who has five or six cassette tapes and cds - stuff that's continued to be put in boxes as she's moved from dorms to apartments to mortgage-world.  She just doesn't listen to music as an activity.  Weird.   I get the feeling that Katy Davidson, who is the Key Loser - backed by a stellar band culled from the Mount Eerie stable, doesn't listen to music very much either.  That her go-to stuff is mid-eighties Joni Mitchell, maybe an Arthur Russell mix tape or two, stuff a few quirky friends have recorded themselves.  She takes these dubious influences and has crafted them into a totally unique, but so refreshing and comfortable album that's a bit ineffable in it's appeal.  Kind of Lite rock, kind of Laurel Canyon rock, kind of timeless and not like anything else.  
>  Wye Oak - Civilian 
Not sure why this stands out so much because it doesn't do anything too unique -  Jenn Wasner singing and playing guitar, Andy Stack on drums, keyboards.  Sort of folk-leaning indie rock with a bit of crunchy noise and moments of shoegaze drifting here and there.  It's just good music.  

Runner's Up ...aka: Good Stuff /but doesn't/hasn't gotten as many spins:


Fucked Up - David's Town (and the awesome accompanying David's Town)
Laura Marling - A Creature I Don't Know
BruteHeart - Lonely Hunter
War On Drugs - Ambient Slave

Tinariwen - Tassili

Lee Noble - Horrorism
Low Anthem - Smart Flesh
Tom Waits - Bad As Me
Ty Segall - Goodbye Bread
+ Great Reissues from 2011:
Beach Boys - SMiLE
Neutral Milk Hotel - complete discography box set (this is luscious!)

looking Minnesota, feeling California

There has been a fantastic spate of good albums coming out lately featuring artwork by Minnesota artists.  Of course, much of that music has been locally grown, and in our thriving lil' artworld, like supports like.  Many MN musicians either know, or are themselves, practicing artists/designers.  Due to the awesomeness of some of this music and probably, the geographically-obliterating tendencies of social media and internet marketing presences, Minnesota is really rockin' it in the rock n' roll design world.

Bon Iver - Bon Iver   cover by Gregory Euclide

I first saw Gregory Euclide's art at the Urban Bean coffee shop in Uptown about 12 years ago.  While there was a nodding resemblance to his current work - soft blues and greens, almost pastels, and layers of imagery that slide deftly between abstracted landscapes and well-rendered moments of realism - he has since drastically refined his drawing skills and expanded his approach to creating more sculptural paintings and installations.  I'm happy to have this gorgeous new Bon Iver on vinyl for the obvious sonic reasons, but it also offers a drastically  better viewing vantage on the surreal landscape that Euclide created for this cover art.  Reading like a Japanese scroll, the painting brings you up into the background space rather than creating a receding sense of deep perspective.  It's also somewhat easier to see, with the larger format of the lp,  that the paper Euclide created the painting/drawing on, has actually been ripped and crumpled, toying with the relative lack of pictorial depth by creating a literal depth of 3-D-ness with the piece.  There's a nice synergy between the artwork and the music here too.  The expanded palate of instruments Justin Vernon  uses on his new compositions create denser layers than on previous work, with banjos and staccato drum brushes standing sharp against the guitar and his wavering voice, both of which were recorded with a guazed layer of reverb and auto-tune. Overall it is, as they say, a nice package.

Japanese landscape painting - artist unknown

I was fortunate enough to be at the Bombay Sweets record release show at the Turf Club this past Saturday night.  Brute Heart, Birthday Suits, Bombay Sweets, and Blind Shake - that's an amazing line-up already before you add in Michael Yonkers showing up late night to join the Blind Shake for 5 or 6 crazy-a*#! songs that would've been worth the price of admission alone...though the Birthday Suits set had already taken care of that.  Besides the sheer energy and great music that each of these sonically diverse bands brought to the stage, they also each boast excellent recent releases that showcase MN artists/designers as the aesthetic arbiters of our consumption of their products.  And how yummy it is!

Brute Heart has released 2 full lengths in the last couple years, 2009's Brass Beads and this year's Lonely Hunter.   The Brass Beads cover featured a painting by local duo Tynan Kerr & Andie Mazorol and the even better 2011 lp, Lonely Hunter, features artwork by local phenom Crystal Quinn.  

Brute Heart - Lonely Hunter    art by Crystal Quinn

Birthday Suits destroyed the Turf this night, as they do really everywhere they play.  Calm and incredibly mellow in person,  they   tear. shit. up.   on stage and they do it with aplomb. 

Birthday Suits - The Minnesota: Mouth to Mouth

Bombay Sweets were the new kids on the block tonight.  I didn't know them so much as the other bands and they stepped into their rock star spotlight with a bit more trepidation - seen through their overdramatized stage presence and apparent hesitancy to really stretch it out musically.   When they did stray from the page a bit and stretch things out, they were at their best and were a band I'd like to see some more of.

Artwork by Aesthetic Apparatus

The Blind Shake!  Shit...I guess I really had no idea who these guys were.  I'd heard the name enough but hadn't seen a show yet.  It seemed like they had emerged from a Navy Seals stake-out of Devo's house via a 1985 punk portal - channeling some revved-up version of Wire...then, about 1:30am, Michael Yonkers came out to join them...Minneapolis's wild-card-up-the-sleeve for the past 20+ years.  They truly kicked out the jams and put out another 40 minutes of amazing rock n' roll.   epic.  The artwork for their newest release features a painting by The Blind Shake's own Jim Blaha. 

art by Jim Blaha

It was a couple years ago already that POS put out his kick-ass Never Better album.  Artwork by Eric Carlson (also of Hardland/Heartland).  Carlson is a fantastic draftsman who balances a tight technical proficiency with defiant drips, smudges, and off-kilter decisions all created with a whip-smart graphic designer eye.

POS - Never Better   cover art by Eric Carlson

An aside:

Sooo, who cares.  the album is dead right?  The thumbnailed album art is just a marker of on the screen - not art anymore but just a blip of information to click on?  I'm certainly a bit old fashioned when it comes to this but I really think that album art is an amazing reflection, and sometimes even an arbiter, of contemporary pop-culture consumer's tastes.  Music is still the most broadly consumed artform out there...nevermind how 'artsy' your tastes are, music is being written, recorded, played, listened to, danced to, etc. by pretty much every demographic and right or left-leaning yahoo out there.

Back in the day, when the transition was being made from hand-cranked 78's and 45's to long-play 33rpm's, jazz was the primary music being pressed on vinyl.  From the very get-go, the graphic design of the album art was integral to the package being marketed and sold.  The Blue Note imprint quickly found their signature look in the graphic work of Reid Miles.

Bold shadows on dynamically posed musicians - most not yet household names, often with a vibrant monochromatic tinted filter, and precisely modern and graphic font and text choices - designed with "a splendid sense of certainty"* and a new, for the time, importance placed on space - negative and positive - in the layout.  These were some of the first 'long play' albums (not 78rpm singles) being sold in the world ever! and the first introduction, on this scale, of black artists creating such phenomenally proficient and groundbreaking performances.  They were being packaged as such - iconic individuals, thoughtful and in charge of the proceedings contained within, and - just to slightly placate the biases of the times - not entirely black skinned, just a filtered touch of red, white or blue over the nicely sleeved package.


* from Robin Kinross, Eye Magazine, 2001

The Best of It

Now that Summer's finally established itself and the spectre of Autumn has already begun to creep onto my horizon, I'm looking back over music that's come out in the last 8 months and adding yet another list to my already teetering pile.  There's also a bunch of releases that are probably excellent that I just haven't heard -- some glaring holes such as the new Grails - Deep Politics, Radiohead - King of Limbs, Fucked Up - David's Town, Richard Buckner - Our Blood, and others that just haven't made the listen/purchase list yet.

So what have I been digging this year?

Bon Iver - s/t

A flat-out gorgeous album that was a bit of a 'grower' for me.  Much more fleshed out than For Emma, Forever Ago but still retaining a sense of the personal and intimate that infused that lovely debut.  Some of the production buries certain instruments too much, esp. guitars, but a great album as a whole.

PJ Harvey - Let England Shake

Sadly, I lost touch with PJ after her first 2 releases and missed out on a few of her stronger albums (To Bring You My Love and Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea, esp.).  Though her new one is touted as a companion piece to 2007's White Chalk, I find it drastically more interesting and engaging.  She sings of war, collusion among nations, loss of faith in her country, all with an anger that can only come from a deep engagement and love of her muse.  She sounds more like her fellow angry countrymen, The Mekons, than I've noticed before - making use, like them, of non-rock n' roll instruments, esp. the Autoharp that is so prevalent on this album.  She was just nominated for England's Mercury Prize again - now tied with Radiohead for the most nominations for the prestigious award.  Go Polly Jean!

iceage - New Brigade

Straying away from the Dad Rock that somehow has seeped onto my turntable over the past couple years, iceage are a blast of teen hormone angst from 2011 via 1981.  The opening track(s) - Intro. into White Rune, literally make me laugh with their awesome-ness.  A swirly atmosphere kicks around for 30-some seconds, grinding industrial clatter that could be a song segue from early Sonic Youth before we're thrown head-first into the monstrous speeding riffs of White Rune which sputters a minute or so in as a breakdown tempo shift drops your jaw - as cool as any since Sebadoh's Gimmie Indie Rock - before throwing you back into the mosh pit to close it out.  This awesome-ness continues, with out letting up or retreading anything they've clearly been listening to on their parent's turntables for the duration of the album.  For 34 minutes, I'm 18 again.

Destroyer - Kaputt

Chasing cocaine, through the back rooms of the world, all right...

This is sung, deadpanned, with absolutely no irony or sense of sensation by Dan Bejar (aka Destroyer, always in the room with an amazing band, be it the New Pornographers or his current line up of the Destroyer band).  Well, maybe some irony...the video to Kaputt is awash in irony, flying whales, desert dance scenes, and other cerebral wankery.  On many of his releases, Bejar has been accused/applauded for sounding so much like Bowie.  Here he mines the 70's lite rock heavily but makes an album that is truly unique and fully his own.  His nod to Bowie is a brilliant one - side three (of the vinyl version) is a song series that basically updates what Bowie was doing with the latter half of Low.  It's a gorgeous wash of atmosphere and just-below-the-surface paranoia that is steeped with 1970's-era studio session brilliance but, listening through headphones at night, it's absolutely time-less.

Brute Heart - Lonely Hunter

The mighty Brute Heart.  I think of those who shambled out to watch Husker Du and the Replacements in the early '80s as they gigged around the Twin Cities and beyond - sometimes not even knowing about the ripples of influence that were spiralling outward from their plop into the collective consciousness (ie.  I heard a 90 min. Husker Du set on Bozeman's KGLT college radio in 1987 that turned my head around - I still have it on Maxell 90 min. Chromo.(no Dolby) cassette tape -  and then I saw them at Bozeman's MSU basketball court/stadium in 1988!...what venues were they playing in Mpls. in these days I wonder?..).  Anyways, will we look back on seeing Brute Heart in a similar way?  Those who saw the Raincoats in the early 80's or still talk about Throwing Muses shows as shambolic rituals where they played Pearl with an acoustic guitar intro...yep, Brute Heart is this type of experience...a great band that has put out yet another great album capturing this moment of their ascendance.

City of Music: Brute Heart from MPLS.TV on Vimeo.

Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring For My Halo

Bedroom Garage Rock.  That's what I said the opening band for Thurston Moore was like as Emily and I headed out on a Hot date night (hot like 100+ deg. hot).  That is, picture garage rock being raucaus noisy guitar rock made by snotty teenagers drinking cheap beer in their parent's garage...Bedroom Garage Rock is made by older dude - singular, dude - in his bedroom, drinking good beer/pot on acoustic guitar but holding tight to that virile inner punk-ass 17 year old.  Add a great band and awesome producer (John Agnello of Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr. fame) and you've got the best album Vile's done yet.  Lots of melodic folk-y rockers buried under a psychedelic warm haze with a few tunes that border on Tom Petty-style classic rock.  

Jessie Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter - Marble Son

I love Jessie Sykes and she loves me...so she wrote on the lp I bought from her when she opened up for the late Mark Linkous nee' Sparklehorse a few years ago at 1st Ave.  Though her last album wasn't great imo, it featured some laid back but still fiery guitar work from Phil Wandscher (ex. Whiskeytown guitarist) and, of course, Jessie's smoky voice.  The new one has limited spins for me so far but it definitely sits high on the year's best-of list already.  Way heavier and full of life than the last release, some of the songs veer towards psych-rock work-outs with dark, slow passages that erupt into heavy riffage and then soar off in guitar jam wonkery that mashes bits of Black Sabbath with Jefferson Airplane.  The production is beautiful - capturing the surprisingly loud and boisterous songs with as much finesse and detail as the softer subtle moments.  Her voice is still awesome too.

The title of this post, of course, refers to the best music of the year so far - from a totally objective viewpoint (ahem)...it is also a line from one of my favorite poets of late - one I keep coming back to and gleaning new tidbits and tiny revelations from :

However carved up
or pared down we get,
we keep on making
the best of it as though
it doesn’t matter that
our acre’s down to
a square foot. As
though our garden
could be one bean
and we’d rejoice if
it flourishes, as
though one bean
could nourish us.

~ Kay Ryan (from The Niagara River)

A few honorable mentions that are no slouches:
Wye Oak - Civilian
James Blake - s/t
Earth - A Beaurocratic Desire For Extra-Capsular Extraction (a 2010 reissue I know but...awesome!)
J Mascis - Several Shades of Why

Skull Defekts @ the Turf Club

Opting to see the 'other band playing their first US show in Minneapolis this week'  (cc: The Volcano Choir), I walked into the Turf Club this past Sunday night with few expectations.  I knew some Lungfish - Daniel Higgs' band from many years ago that boasted solid post-punk rock credentials from the Dischord label ala' Fugazi/June of '44/ Rites of Spring -era DC scene - but don't know too much of the Skull Defekts, the Swedish psych./garage-rockers that Higgs is fronting for this tour and their most recent release.
A fairly mellow scene percolated as locals whitesands/badlands set up on the new side stage of the Turf Club.  The ambient, wall-of-noise sound-scapers, w-sands/b-lands, quietly boiled up a churning stew of emo-tethered atmosphere.  Squalling then quiet noisy dissonance with a constant battering of percussion - I found them a little too tied to the vocals of Casey Holmgren who brought the otherwise ambiguously (in a good way) soaring and engaging aural explorations to a flattened level of indie-rock been-there-ism.  Overall though, a good band that I'll be excited to see again and hope they can attain some of the nuance and mystery their excellent vinyl release - Seeding The Clouds - displayed in spades last year. 

2nd Opener - Zomes (interesting for a couple songs, then, yawn...it was midnight on a Sunday...)

Daniel Higgs, first of all, seems to be a charismatic dude.  On the new Skull Defekts lp (Peer Amid on Thrill Jockey) - his first outing with them, he is an extremely competent front man for the band -  his vocals and "lyrics" carry the show (not to knock the blistering and beautiful musicality of the band).  Walking around the Turf, drinking tea and allaying any hopes of anyone else having an even slightly cool beard, he turned heads and owned the space that he occupied.  This turned out to be important because one of the roles Daniel Higgs plays for the Skull Defekts is that of shambolic shaman.  From the moment he stepped on the stage, he grasped a small wooden drum under one arm and alternatively busied his arms with loosely robotic dance undulations or the rapid beating of this hand-held Balinese percussive instrument Daniel translated the name as being 'Waves of Joy'.  He played the shit out of that thing.  His hand flicking upon it faster than I could follow - though, even when the rest of the band was totally silent, I couldn't hear a peep out of his 'Waves of Joy'...he seemed to enjoy it.
A keyboardist, guitar, bass, two drummers - one on a kit, one playing three empty 5 gallon plastic gasoline drums with mallets, and then Daniel Higgs incanting over it all.  Despite a strong kinship with bands such as The Fall, the Ex, and early Sonic Youth, a significant discerning difference is the sense The Skull Defekts are making their music and Higgs exists separately - filling in the spaces that he deems need filling - sometimes with poetic ramblings, recountings of his dreams, or with lyrics he wrote to actually fit over the music.  When he forgot the lyrics to one of the songs, he told us so and resumed beating his 'Waves of Joy' and shouting out hoots and moans over the 3 punishing chords the Defekts pounded out.  It was as if the band could play their angular, repetitive, mandalas of garage rock over and over with totally different incarnations of Higgs' contributions each time.  To the benefit of all, each rendition I heard - in concert and, even more, on lp, was unique and stood up as a testimony to both the entity of the band Skull Defekts and to the vocal/lyrical/ shamanic contributions of Daniel Higgs.

PS.  Those who dared to look, saw a scantily-clad dude in a white tank-top and brown fedora breakdancing the shit out of the 'mosh pit', replete with some boss hat-brim swipes and wind-up robot moves.  At first, I admit I scoffed at his moves, but by the end of the evening, he was poppin' and lockin' in a way that I haven't seen since I was 17...color me jealous...