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April 18, 2008
Quarterly Report: First Quarter of 2008 Podcast
I've had an extra two weeks to mull over the selections for this tardy podcast, as at the actual end of quarter one, my computer was in a deep and dramatic coma. The internet-less meditation crystalized a few things for me:
- No matter how epic the Juan Maclean's "Happy House" is, there was no way to shoehorn thirteen minutes of early 90's techno into the mix smoothly.
- If I couldn't remember a single song from an album well enough to not have to extensively review it before picking its stand-out track, it got the ax. Thus the fate of Black Mountain.
- And older neglected songs looking for redemption with a proper release actually seem worse in the context of wholly annoying full-length albums. So These New Puritans and Los Campesinos! continue to languish in neglect.
The remaining best tracks of the first three months of '08, in a CD-R length dose below...
Album of the Quarter : Times New Viking - Rip It Off
Runners up: Hercules & Love Affair - Hercules & Love Affair, Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend, Beach House - Devotion
"Merry Swankster First Quarter Podcast 2008"
Tracklisting :
01: the Magnetic Fields - "Too Drunk to Dream" (from Distortion)
Distortion may indeed rely on its titular affect to the point of monotony, but this marvel of rationalization is a stone classic.
02: Times New Viking - "Drop-Out" (from Rip It Off)
I don't just claim songs are my favorite of the year arbitrarily. Even in April, that's a solid music nerd covenant. I know that there are a number of people who just can't handle the physical effects of its woozy guitar and in-the-red clatter. I don't think they're wrong exactly, I'm just sad for them. If I could loan them my already dulled eardrums I would. In the song's language I think that counts as both "a bad idea" and "a fucking cure."
03: No Age - "It's Oh So Quiet" (From Stereogum's Enjoyed, Bjork cover)
Not a suck up in exchange for yesterday's link, we swear. Of all Enjoyed's tracks (and in the end it looked slightly better on paper) this was the only one where I had the classic great cover reaction metamorphosis: from "There's no way that's going to work" to "Oh man, this makes perfect sense."
04: Blood on the Wall - "Hibernation" (from Liferz)
I don't think Blood on the Wall is particularly outstanding at anything, except perhaps evoking a bygone smoky basement located somewhere in the early 90's. That can be enough occasionally.
05: Be Your Own Pet - "Becky" (from Get Awkward UK edition)
No one suffered more injustice this quarter than Be Your Own Pet. In truth they really are more of a rousing teen anthem band than a little underground noise machine to be stroked and coddled by Thurston Moore, so the move to a major label made some sense. But then said label randomly decrees that the killer songs that might have assured a die-hard following among the Hot Topic set are excised from their album due to "violence." Just nonsensical bullshit, no two ways about it. Do you think both participants need to be high schoolers, or is it still considered "teenage homicide" if your stabbing victim is a middle-aged record exec?
06: Atlas Sound - "Activation" (from Orange Ohms Glow digital EP)
This was the quarter that saw the release of Atlas Sound's proper debut Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel, so it almost feels perverse to go with a Deerhunter blog track over the proper record's high points. But it's also perverse to write maybe your best individual pop/rock ballad and then just hand it out with little fanfare from the flip-back neck of your personal song dispenser, so I'm not going to sweat it.
07: the Ruby Suns - "Kenya Dig It?" (from Sea Lion)
The rest of this record is kinda of a mess of fashionable and overly busy neo-tropicalia, but this one starts with playful whimsy and ends radiantly aglow.
08: Telepathe - "I Can't Stand It" (from Living Bridge compilation)
Affectingly spooky girl vocal song # 1 was first posted here in the summer of '07 and admired enough to earn slot # 41 on our 50 Best Songs of the Year List. It's a pleasure to finally be allowed by our bi-laws to include it in this forum.
09: Valet - "Kehaar" (from Naked Acid)
Affectingly spooky girl vocal song # 2 is a slow winder that's lovelier than it sets out to be.
10: Beach House - "Astronaut" (from Devotion)
Affectingly spooky girl vocal song # 3 was the prettiest by far. I hate to make some kind of hacky reference to a "sonic beach house" or some nonsense, but there's a sense of space in this new album's production that really does conjure drafty rooms with open screen doors.
11: Destroyer - "Foam Hands" (from Trouble in Dreams)
I continue to not know what Dan Bejar is singing about. The sublime melancholy of being a Knicks fan? I guess that'd be "Foam Fingers" though wouldn't it?
12: Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks - "Cold Son" (from Real Emotional Trash)
Listening to current Malkmus tracks is like begrudgingly hanging with a formerly dear friend from childhood who I've no longer got anything in common with, but can't bring myself to excommunicate due to intensely bonded memories. In this scenario "Cold Son" would be great ten minute conversation at a party that lets me guiltlessly duck calls for a few weeks.
13: Vampire Weekend - "Campus" (from Vampire Weekend)
Nick Thorburn's favorite new band rocketed to semi-stardom with nary the need for a place holding day job, found the cash to record lush string arrangements on their debut record, instantaneously materialized on Saturday Night Live, and still, somehow, managed to get sort of a raw deal. This is a good record, it truly is.
14: the Pains of Being Pure At Heart - "Teenager in Love" (digital download from RCRDLBL)
I was so sure that this song was a properly released single that I spent an unfortunately extended period of time scouring and rescouring the web to find its hypothetically very cute cover. But really, why wasn't it? Such a hazy John Hughes fantasy of a song deserves the chance to finally overcome the crippling influence of music scene cliques and just totally bond with that popular yet sensitive jock in its Civics class.
15: Palms - "Der Koenig" (from Living Bridge compilation)
A second Living Bridge inclusion originally posted by us almost a year ago. But this is the second coming of Malaria! and I don't care if anyone else cares. It belongs.
16: LCD Soundsystem - "Big Ideas" (from 21 original motion picture soundtrack)
I just can't imagine any scenario in which this 6 minutes of wiry creeping kick-ass isn't the best part of 21, and I will not be paying one red cent of Kevin Spacey's back-end to prove it. James Murphy could have phoned it in like KS does, but the man is a pro.
17: Hot Chip - "Out at the Pictures" (from Made in the Dark)
I had such high hopes for this album, and it ended up sort of weird and forgettable. Weren't you getting really excited during those first three songs though? I secretly think this one kind of sounds like Gorillaz, but it's fun anyway.
18: Hercules & Love Affair - "Blind" (from Hercules & Love Affair)
This song is a genetically engineered hit from its first seconds, and there must be something fundamentally wrong with our current time and place that it's so far from what passes for an actual one.
19: Mi Ami - "African Rhythms" (single)
The rhythms are indeed African, but everything else is good old American white noise. I do not want to fuck with the warrior tribe who's battle cry this is. Their weapons are made from the horns of lightning-struck rhinos! The podcast delay was needed to warm to this menacing late bloomer.
20: High Places - "Sandy Feat" (from 03/07 - 09/07)
From scary to adorable in one move! This e-music collection's name exposes the slightly fraudulent nature of this inclusion, but we're not going to see a High Places full-length until the end of summer, so in podcast terms that means we'd be waiting until September to include them, and forget that. This technicality is about a duck who flies to Mars, so just cool your jets people and say "awwww."
Posted by Jeff Klingman at April 18, 2008 08:30 AM
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