Album of the Quarter : Fever Ray - Fever Ray
Runners up: Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion, Antony & the Johnsons - The Crying Light, Dark Was the Night compilation

Two weeks late, yes, but the first quarter podcast is delivered. At this point, with a sneak peek into what's in store for quarter two and beyond, it seems fairly uncontroversial to go ahead and call 2009 a better year for records than 2008. There's just too much inspired work on the racks and in the pipeline, to deny it. Here, a CD-R length sampler of the evidence we've amassed so far. The uptick in high-profile releases has cut down on the ratio of 7" tracks that were common in 08s reports, but there's still a healthy handful represented. I/We hope you enjoy...

* A note: I fully intended to include Lotus Plaza's "Quicksand" in this tracklist, and I somehow plum forgot. Sorry, Lockett. Those who are interested in hearing the objectively good song, which would have provided me with an even number, and a more pleasing rectangular symmetry to the above cover montage, can do so here.

"Merry Swankster First Quarter Podcast 2009"

Tracklisting :

01: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - "Young Adult Friction" (from The Pains of Being Pure at Heart)

I've seen POPBAH play quite a few times at this point, (a number padded by me booking them for multiple shows in 08-09), and this track has been the highlight of every set I've caught. They are exceptionally good at brainy, week-kneed twee, but this is easily their most convincingly transcendent rock-out moment. It's the continues blurring of the lines between the two that will serve them best in the end. For now, a well-earned victory lap for a few years of hard work, suddenly, wildly paying off.

02: Golden Triangle - "Night Brigade" (from Golden Triangle 12")

These Brooklyn scuzz bombs seem to have a pretty limited skill set at this point, but the post-punk genre has never demanded airtight chops. You just have to rumble and coo in a relatively convincing fashion. And remember: When in doubt, gang shout!

03: The Joy Formidable - "Cradle" (from A Balloon Called Moaning)

Is there enough nostalgia for 90s alt-rock radio present to give these Brits a healthy stateside following? Beats me. On the list of things to be nostalgic about, crunchy guitars and strong, self-possessed female vocals are a bit more substantial than slap bracelets, anyway.

04: Dum Dum Girls - "Baby Don't Go" (Sonny & Cher cover, which I believe was circulated directly to the Internet...)

A haunted house version of an ancient Sonny & Cher standard could easily be too cute by half, but this is all lovely, need to shake my life up resignation. That the whole lyric sheet is sung in the same milkshake-with-bourbon-and-a-quaalude voice makes it awfully conflicted though. Who's begging her to stay? Who's she defending her choice to leave to? It's like a narcissist deciding she's too good for herself.

05: Woods - "The Dark" (b-side to "Sunlit" 7")

I don't know if it's the muppet voices or the nondescript name that's caused Woods to lag behind their Brooklyn DIY peers in terms of attention and acclaim, but the hype ship seems to be righting as I type. It's hard to reckon that this is a natural singing voice, but I do like picturing Fraggles at a folkie open mic night in a coffee shop somewhere. I'm thinking that one with the scarf, specifically.

06: Dirty Projectors & David Byrne - "Knotty Pine" (from Dark Was the Night compilation)

The harbinger for Dirty Projectors' 09 sustained charm offensive. The spindly guitars and pulsing bass line could plausibly be sourced to the head Head, though. Sometimes things make as much sense in the real world as they do on paper.

07: Swan Lake - "Paper Lace" (from Enemy Mine)

Spencer Krug's only real star turn on the latest Swan Lake record is pretty modest by his occasionally bat-shit standards. But it's sweet and pretty and founded on long-standing, traditional values. The nobility of home-ownership is suddenly a big indie rock preoccupation, it seems. Why is that? The standards for luxury eroding quickly in lean times?

08: Neko Case - "People Got a Lotta Nerve" (from Middle Cyclone)

Neko's belting sounds so nicely rounded here, which explains why a string of suitors might be willing to venture past the yard sign that says "Man man man man man eater." The best, and certainly the most graphically violent, killer whale metaphor in recent memory, also.

09: The National - "So Far Around the Bend" (from Dark Was the Night compilation)

There are plenty of standout tracks on the sprawling Dark Was the Night compilation, but it seems at least a little rude not to give its second allotted podcast slot to the gents who put the whole thing together, no? Beyond credit where credit's due, twilight bar-piano odes to reclusive girls who smoke dope out of apples and sit around in exile pining for a Pavement reunion are my type indeed.

10: The Mayfair Set - "Desert Sun" (b-side, "Already Warm" 7")

Dum Dum Girls' "Dee Dee" makes her second appearance on the pod, by opening the curtains on Blank Dogs' musty basement and dragging him to the beach. Or, you know, the middle of the desert. Snow cones and bodysurfing might have been too much to reasonably expect. Gila monsters and cow skulls can be sort of romantic too, I suppose.

11: Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Hysteric" (from It's Blitz!)

If I was king of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, this would have been their second SNL number for sure. Karen O has much less to work with lyrically here than she did on "Maps," but she wrings even more emotion out of some pretty forgettable lines. It's one of the year's more impressive performances so far.

12: Animal Collective - "Summertime Clothes" (from Merriweather Post Pavillion)

One more disorienting element in an overly discussed record full of them: Isn't it kind of perverse to put perhaps the definitive song about New York City summer humidity out on a mid-January record?

13: Jeremy Jay - "Gallop" (from Slow Dance)

It's a saunter at most, and the giddyup horseplay lyrics are seriously silly. Neither gripe takes away from some sly and satisfying mid-tempo guitar work in the end.

14: Wavves - "No Hope Kids" (from Wavvves)

I struggled mightily over whether I should include this. I think the praise for the triple-v'ed LP is wishful thinking based on thin evidence, and that quality control is not nearly a big enough consideration on the whole. But, then again, liberating gems from bad albums is at least partly the point here. So, we get one more, "teen suburbia is boring and dreadful, so I'll be saved rock n' roll" moment. There can only be a few drops of juice left in that old-standard rock formula at this point, but shit, I have to admit that in this single-serving, it still sort of works.

15: Handsome Furs - "I'm Confused" (from Face Control)

Bored and horny doesn't necessarily = confused, Dan. Sounds like our man knows what he's after...

16: These Are Powers - "Double Double Yolk" (from All Aboard Future)

It seems very strange to me that Pat Noecker couldn't reconcile his creative vision with the rest of Liars. I mean, rhythmic oddity, designed to unsettle more than entice, but providing footholds for non-sadists to enjoy. You guys were on the same page!

17: Fever Ray - "Now's the Only Time I Know" (from Fever Ray)

In which Karin Dreijer is revealed to be the primary creative force of the Knife. Seriously, what a record. It's hard to extract exact meaning from the gorgeous, lonely "Now's the Only Time I Know," but while listening closely and reading along to the lyric sheet, it sounds like a 21st-century "Eleanor Rigby" sans the slightly condescending omniscient narrator.

18: Bat For Lashes - "Daniel" (single)

I'm close to a personal saturation point for vaguely electronic songs with Kate Bush-inspired vocals, but the sub-genre has such a siren song quality, that I doubt we've even nearly hit bottom. Pop culture has worse problems, of course.

19: Antony & the Johnsons - "Epilepsy is Dancing" (from The Crying Light)

I wouldn't have predicted that 10 percent less vocal hystrionics on an Antony record would make me like it about 75 percent more. There are too many lovely phrases here to recount, but the grace in the song's central seizures=dancing metaphor, is surprising, weird, and beautiful all at once.

Posted by Jeff Klingman at 06:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Though we've passed the fairly arbitrary point where everyone abruptly stops trying to figure out what just happened and does a 180 flip into boldly predicting what will happen, allow me to dwell for one last second, as is our tri-monthly tradition. Since we've just gone through a top songs countdown in exhausting specificity, I've mainly tried to steer clear of its inhabitants. Suitable alternates from the quarter's best records have been chosen for variety when possible (we've still got standards to uphold, after all). I think this is a pretty appealing mix to play when casting the coffin of the passed year into the sea. 2008 certainly wasn't the best consecutive 12 months of new music on recent record, but as always, if you couldn't find enough interesting music in any 90 day stretch of it to fill a mix CD to the brim, you weren't trying awfully hard.

Album of the Quarter : Deerhunter - Microcastle
Runners up: Love Is All - A Hundred Things Keep Me Up At Night, Of Montreal - Skeletal Lamping, Jay Reatard - Matador Singles '08

"Merry Swankster Fourth Quarter Podcast 2008"

Tracklisting :

01: Jonathan Richman - "When We Refuse to Suffer (Third Version)" (b-side to "You Can Have a Cell Phone That's OK, But Not Me" 7 " single)

The title of that staunchly un-modern lover, Jonathan Richman's single is listed above and it's as pitch perfect an 08 update of the pleasure denying character from his original band's lone immortal record as its sentence-length suggests. Its b-side (which is Mark III in an ongoing tweak apparently) is a bit less funny on first blush but otherwise musically superior. After opening with a snaky but solid guitar solo, Jonathan tells it straight and sets his sights on our nation's most salient problem, man's continued defeat at the invisible hand of Big AC: "When we refuse to suffer/ When we refuse to feel/ That's when the air-conditioning wins/ and the real winds are left out in the cold." Like his lecturing hippies about weed in the early seventies, I question the long term viability of his crusade, but honor his individual grit.

02: Women - "Black Rice" (From Women)

Canadian band Women are obviously anti-Google, but the low-tech feel of their best track, "Black Rice" is just a happy coincidence following Richman's Luddite love. Most of their debut record inches into noisy deconstruction. With a better melodic starting point than the rest, the rough edges here just make them sound like the Zombies on the verge of losing a major label record deal.

03: Deerhunter - "Agoraphobia" (from Microcastle)

While we gave the nod in our year-end rundown to the strutting "Saved By Old Times," there's at least a half-dozen tracks from Deerhunter's stellar year that could have been similarly honored. So, to avoid repetition, we choose the lovely "Agoraphobia," the origin of Matt Perpetua's hilarious CD cover Spin pull quote and hopefully a strong indicator for the impending quality of its singer Lockett Pundt's Lotus Plaza solo debut, due out this March.

04: Sexy Kids - "Sisters are Forever" (7" single)

The one song that I wish had stuck a week or so earlier, as it definitely deserves to be mentioned among the year's best tracks. Slumberland Records had a banner 2008 (in its nineteenth calendar year of existence) with buzzed about releases from the Crystal Stilts and the Pains of Being Pure at Heart. For my money, this is their best bit of the last 12 months, a stutter/swoon HIT(!) from the UK that demands shelf space among the Stereolab and Velocity Girl singles that seeded the label's longevity.

05: Twin Lion - "Safest in Bearhugs"

Alright, you've got me, this one is a bit of a fudge towards the future. "Safest in Bearhugs" by California's (not L.A.'s) Twin Lion won't likely see daylight until next quarter. In my defense, I am becoming vaguely schizophrenic trying to distinguish intent when something reaches the 'net ahead of a store display. In researching music I may have missed, this very much December post delivered this gift to me, and it seemed so perfectly representative to the currents that were creeping in to '08's discussion that I couldn't help myself. Prepare for another year arguing about "lo-fi" and "musicianship v. authenticity," everybody. Hopefully, all of the new upstarts can be as sweet and strange as this track. Spoiler: They won't be.

06: Love Is All - "When Giants Fall" (from A Hundred Things Keep Me Up at Night)

Love Is All is so much fun when they are spastic and freewheeling that its easy to forget to mention the chills they can generate on slow-down. The guitar here keeps threatening to disintegrate entirely into yearning feedback. The sound of several goofy Swedes singing from the chest in the back of a giant warehouse serves as duct tape, keeping the ballad afloat.

07: Jay Reatard - "No Time" (7" single, compiled on Matador Singles '08)

Another uncharacteristically mellow number from an avowed spaz. Since we were forced to process Reatard's 08 singles progressively before their inevitable compilation, the acoustic gentility in this late in the cycle track seems like a monumental development on the timeline. If considered only as an album track, this burst of sweetness might not have had the weight.

08: Times New Viking - "No Sympathy" (from Stay Awake EP)

No, condolence cards for those aurally scarred by Rip It Off are not forthcoming.

09: Blank Dogs - "All Photographs" (from The Fields cassette)

More super-sub-radar tunes from Blank Dogs, who according to a fairly robust (by recluse standards) early 09 touring schedule, might be ready to take a big leap out of shadowy mystery. Not that this standout from The Fields is a nod towards slickness and light. It's great in its typically rough and tumble, pogo-bass bleakness though.

10: Fever Ray - "If I Had a Heart" (single)

The advance digital single from Karin Dreijer's non-Knife solo record sounds awfully Knife-ish actually. I mean I guess they were her vocal effects knobs to begin with. In "If I Had a Heart" you get the alien mystique without the dominating beat. It's not quite a meal, but a nice conversation piece as an ornate hors d'oeuvre.

11: Fennesz - "Glass Ceiling" (from Black Sea)

The still pool of crackling ambient frost, in which the podcast takes a moment to reflect upon its previous half an hour and steel itself for the forty minutes yet to elapse. A goosebump inducer in its own right.

12: Gang Gang Dance - "House Jam" (from Saint Dymphna)

I just couldn't allow myself to take a runner-up from Saint Dymphna. There's good stuff in there, and I encourage anyone waffling to give it a chance, but the fall off from brilliant to interesting is steep enough to turn an ankle at least. So right, one more time with the brilliance then.

13: Salem - "Whenusleep" (from Water EP)

The band that stole my hometown's name continues to creep me the what out. These beats sound like they came to the track just to start a fight, and not to legitimately add to the austere prettiness of everything else. One hand caresses your face, the other grips its knife tighter.

14: Heartsrevolution - "Switchblade" (from Switchblade EP)

When people do electro-clash well, I'm almost always a sucker for it. Someday in the next few years, someone will declare an official "revival," but people have been slyly passing the day-glo torch all along, sleekly redesigning it with every hand off until it will emerge at the other end or respectability, now a laser-pointer.

15: Max Tundra - "The Entertainment" (from Parallax Error Beheads You)

A sunny ode to the nuts and bolts of filmmaking, followed by a pleasantly throbbing rhythm workout. Ben Jacobs' inner-cranium leaps of pop logic sometimes leave me baffled, and more intrigued than actually satisfied. After claiming that he was "born to entertain" here, he had little choice but to follow it by amusing me completely.

16: Haunted Graffitti - "Can't Hear My Eyes" (7" single)

Most "new" music from Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti has typically been shoeboxed home-recording cassettes from a nebulous near past that he's fished out one at a time. This is actual fresh meat. A note from Ariel on the change:

"hello friend. My name is Ariel Pink. You've probably read my name online somewhere, maybe your best friend burned you some of my older records, or perhaps you even think we've met at some time in the past. Baloney! Everything you think you know is WRONG- DEAD WRONG. THIS is me, naked, without the buffer of awful tape noise drowning out any lack of vision..."

The self-deprecation towards his sometimes lackluster old work is appreciated, but it does sound basically like a highlight from one of those old hazy AM-aping records, only slightly clearer and more focused. I'll take that.

17: Nite Jewel - "What Did He Say" (12" single)

My beloved neo-disco label Italians Do It Better was fairly absent from this year's quartet of podcasts, mainly because they had a quiet year and not because they've recently entered my personal zones of scorn or neglect. Sign of life here at the end, though. Nite Jewel's casually decadent synth tone evokes an alternate universe LA that I might want visit. Much more than an legion of vegan punks do, anyway.

18: Of Montreal - "Women's Studies Victim" (from Skeletal Lamping)

I've jostled with the question for months, but I think this is the cut from Skeletal Lamping that best exists as a single serving unit. I remain slightly confused on who is the real victim of Women's Studies' wrath. Is it the vixen who beds (sinks?) Kevin Barnes' alter-ego G. Fruit, draping him in furs, only biding time before she'll come to realize that her book-gained libertine freedom is empty comfort? Or Mr. Fruit himself, a sheep who wasn't branded as such until ladies were given the theoretical underpinning to embrace their inner wolves? I actually suspect its the song's mentioned "vales voter" desperately trying to force some decidedly uninterested cats back into the cultural bag.

19: Franz Ferdinand - "Ulysses" (single)

I'm a little unsure how to take this advance single from 09's impending Franz record. With its gratuitous "let's get high" references and Alex Kapranos' vocals sounding like they've taken a nicotine bath for the past year, the band seems in danger of becoming a dodgy old man at a teenage party. But, it creeps and crawls in ways intriguing enough to warrant at least a bit of curiosity towards the band's new opus. They haven't made a bad record to this point, anyway.

20: Ladyhawke - "My Delirium" (from Ladyhawke)

The second inclusion to also feature in MS's top 52 list, and a prime reason why we couldn't end it on a round number. There HAD to be room for this cautionary tale of alluring mental illness. "I won't eat and I won't sleep for you, yeah," Pip Brown purrs. Um, I just asked if we could move lunch to tomorrow. Given a few more weeks to consider, this likely would have been much higher than a last second stuff in. Que sera, sera, we're on to another year, y'all.

Posted by Jeff Klingman at 01:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

During this quarter I was actually pretty bored and disaffected about the material rolling out to record stores in the sections of our fine country that actually still possess a bit of disposable income. Our blessed regular readers might note that I mentioned it from time to time. I've perked up a bit about the quality of 2008: A Year in Music since then, but mainly due to albums that won't officially bow until Q4. So what's a date specific compiler to do? Go further down the rabbit hole, it seems. This 'cast is dominated by 7" singles, digital only downloads, and other rarities that likely won't be accounted for come list season, and really it's a lot more interesting for the legwork. I'll let you decide yourselves, but it's one of the favorite entries in this series I've done in the going on 3 (!) years of its existence. If you've got an hour you'd like to soundtrack, I encourage you to give it a listen.

Album of the Quarter : TV on the Radio - Dear Science,
Runners up: High Places - High Places, Grouper - Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill, Passion Pit - Chunk of Change

"Merry Swankster Third Quarter Podcast 2008"

Tracklisting :

01: Blank Dogs - "Setting Fire to Your House" (7 " single)

When it comes to concrete knowledge known about them, Blank Dogs are a blank slate. Supposedly the work of a lone Brooklynite, the project keeps churning out 7" singles across a range of low end labels. "Setting Fire to Your House" on a Dutch imprint called 4:2:2 is the best thing I've heard from them. It starts with a great, romantic Cure-ish guitar lead/bassline/floating synth combo, and ratchets up the fuzz from there. Vocally, it's sort of like a gothic Ariel Pink, if he gave a shit, or was an arsonist.

02: Medio Mutante - "Uberbeast" (from Inestable EP)

Medio Mutante are not widely unknown as well, and the cold keyboard minimalism of their vinyl Inestable EP probably won't change that too much. But the tones here are a bit richer, more cosmically advanced, and even playful in turns, making it their disc's high point. That Brooklyn native Mariana's Spanish language vocals are merely dispassionate and not completely disdainful helps the relative "warmth."

03: Memory Cassette - "50mph" (From The Hiss We Missed EP)

My beloved enigma, Memory Cassette's smoothest bit of (say it with me) lo-fi disco enchants with CGI vocals and a breezy chug. Driving from Philly to Alpha Centauri via the interstate? This should probably begin, end, and pepper the guts of your mix.

04: Starfucker - "Rawnald Gregory Erickson the Second" (from Starfucker)

Portland is about as insular and self-reinforcing a hipster enclave as Brooklyn, so it's easy to see how the name "Starfucker" could have made it out of a gestation period still seeming like a good idea. This rose-tinted, bouncy pop song is tough to hate on, moniker aside.

05: Sic Alps - "United" (7" tour single, Throbbing Gristle cover)

I might be fudging the release date for eligibility here, as the San Fran band's tour I think started late in quarter 2. There was probably a lag time before it filtered out to record stores and online sellers, though. (Rationalization: successful) I couldn't leave it off though, as it still amazes me that they were able to recast an abrasive industrial fuck you as a winning Nuggets era stop-start garage rocker.

06: Jay Reatard - "Fluorescent Grey" (7" single, Deerhunter cover)

The real surprise here is not that Jay can ably handle Cox's song and play up its obsessive dementia, but that he so deftly inverts its quiet-loud structure, coming close to eclipsing the original.

07: A Sunny Day in Glasgow - "(cult of) The Cemetery Flowers" (7" single)

B. Daniels and co. are currently holed up in a New Jersey dance studio, recording the follow up to last year's Scribble Mural Comic Journal. This slaved over single, from the stylish new Geographic North label, gives hint that the band's lovely formlessness might take sharper shape.

08: High Places - "From Stardust to Sentience" (from High Places)

The line on Rob and Mary's early singles was that they embodied a childlike optimism. I wouldn't go so far as to call this gorgeous track "grown up," but it's definitely more collegiate navel-gazing than elementary school wonder. Also, it sounds like those great first two Mum albums, only with less of an otherworldly Icelandic accent.

09: Grouper - "Heavy Water / I'd Rather Be Sleeping" (from Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill)

Liz Harris' main vocal melody here is too lovely to be confined by her sleepy strumming. The song itself is curiously hypnotic, never really developing past it's early slow and echoed start and then over before you've even had the chance to exhale.

10: Fight Bite - "Swissex Lover" (from Emerald Eyes)

This miniature beauty sounds like the song playing inside a snow globe as the flakes fall on a couple begins their final dance, still frozen in love, forever.

11: The Ruby Suns - "Palmitos Park" (El Guincho cover, b-side to their Palmitos Park single)

We begin to thaw the mix slightly here, taking it to the Southern Hemisphere. The actual point of origin is New Zealand, though you'd be forgiven if that wasn't your first guess. El Guincho's tropical blog hit is slowed down and demystified with English lyrics, to pretty great effect.

12: Stereolab - "Cellulose Sunshine" (from Chemical Chords)

One of the last alt-titans, at this late date, own their aesthetic so completely, that a dash of 60s pop chart psychedelica and graceful string arrangements just fold in effortlessly, immediately disappearing in an innate Stereolab-ness. Which is not to say that its not pretty as fuck. It totally is.

14: Empire of the Sun - "Walking on a Dream" (advance single, Walking on a Dream)

This album from Aussie Luke Jackson technically just came out in October, but for all intensive purposes, this bit of smooth 80s radio pop was treated as an advance single whether it was physically pressed to single vinyl, and it'll be treated as such. This slickly produced video serves as exhibit A. The sort of fully formed track that will likely propel the album to a minor hit once an American release is secured.

13: Annie - "I Know UR Girlfriend Hates Me" (advance single from Don't Stop)

Annie's comeback single is actually slower, more mellow, than the modern production might have you believe. It's pretty firmly midtempo by stompy current pop standards. But its got a decent little narrative to it, so lyrical details absorbed don't feel strictly like empty calories. She's cute, that Annie, I get the aforementioned girlfriend's apprehension.

15: Passion Pit - "Sleepyhead" (from Chunk of Change EP)

Kanye West day-glo crunk and 00s Quebec vocals together, for possibly the first time outside of the Hype Machine most blogged tracks list. Predictably, well-blogged.

16: YACHT - "the Summer Song" (12" single)

I've been soft in my support for Jana's YACHT work in the past, but this proper electro banner flat out earned him his new DFA roster spot, and stands admirably among their remarkable slate of singles this decade.

17: Ssion - "Credit in the Straight World" (Young Marble Giants cover posted online)

There's been enough from me about this today already, but I will point out that it further exalts the songwriting ability of YMG. This tune has thrived a a skittish post-punk classic, a dirty grunge rocker, and now as a sleek cabaret disco floor-filler.

18: Salem - "Dirt" (from Yes I Smoke Crack EP)

I've listened to this song dozens of times recently, and I still don't know quite what to make of it. It's super, super goth, but with a lilting melody and an addictive neon synth line embedded deep within. It's like the Ghost of Gothmas Future.

19: TV on the Radio - "Shout Me Out" (from Dear Science,)

TVOTR has little competition amid its jagged contemporaries when it comes to captivating lyrical poetry. Dear Science continues this exploitation successfully with a dark methodology, but none more anthemically bright and tonally fresh than this. M. Swankster

20: Handsome Furs - "Thy Will Be Done" (live on University of Minnesota's Radio K)

We end with a newbie from Dan Boeckner and wife. The opening line, "White lines on a kitchen table/white lines knocked down one by one..." explains how itchy and nervous the subsequent guitar squall sounds. One of the duo's better tracks, marching sweaty into the Autumn cool.

--

These last three months will likely be stronger for album tracks than this, though that doesn't necessarily guarantee a better conglomerate. We shall see...

Posted by Jeff Klingman at 12:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The year continues to turn out interesting diversions, though very few albums that engage from start to finish. For our compiling purposes, this is not much of a problem. If you can't find 20 intriguing tracks in any historical three month span, you're not looking very hard. It might, however, be a weird year for a critical consensus. Hopefully the "year end" landscape doesn't congeal around Nouns by No Age, a record snubbed here with purpose. Gratuitously dissing that disc is the subject for another post though, as the spirit of Spring '08 looms large below. The purchase of a record player meant the inclusion of many more 7" pockets of power, which I think has to be considered a net plus as the quarters trudge on towards infinity.

Album of the Quarter : Portishead - Third
Runners up: Ponytail - Ice Cream Spiritual, Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer, M83 - Saturdays = Youth

"Merry Swankster Second Quarter Podcast 2008"

Tracklisting :

01: M83 - "Graveyard Girl" (from Saturdays=Youth)

We start in France, where the legacy of 80s pop continues to enjoy a Jerry Lewis-esque perennial renaissance. But it's good that Anthony Gonzalez now has the courage to let his soaring/ever-so-slightly-cheesy teen goth epics stand alone without all that hip Kevin Shields haze to obscure them. It feels like a more honest performer to consumer relationship this way.

02: the Long Blondes - "Century" (from "Couples")

The Blondes developed chops, the blogosphere shrugged.

From our June interview:

Screech Louder: "That's us playing those instruments. It's not like Erol's just done some "banging techno beat" and Kate sang it and we just sat there twiddling our thumbs. I mean we did write it and play it."

03: Ladytron - "Ghosts" (From Velocifero)

Velocifero as a whole is no Witching Hour, clearly. It's too soggy and samey to be on the level with Ladytron's best. But the lead single succeeds precisely because it toys with new textures for the Liverpudlians. The opening swagger is nice and all but the vocal thaw, inching towards breezy warmth is more promising. Not sure it was entirely appropriate for the song's conclusion to ignore regret, but a nice new emotional arrow in the band's quill at least.

04: Air France - "June Evenings" (from No Way Down EP)

It's not something I necessarily consider when putting these time capsules together, but if you're hand delivered a song that perfectly romaticizes the season you're meaning to represent, there's really no way to deny it a spot. Also, the Swedish postmarks had handsome watercolors of small fish on them, which is just classy, really.

05: Cut Copy- "Far Away" (from In Ghost Colours)

This just sounds Australian somehow. Maybe in the way it takes British influences (particularly 80s synth moves) and renders them so much more fun and carefree than anything you'd currently find on that grey isle.

06: Sophie Ellis-Bextor - "Heartbreak Make Me a Dancer" (from MySpace)

Fun and carefree, this is not, though it's as slick a single as anything we've seen since, oh, "Catch You" from Sophie herself. This inclusion is a bit nebulous, posted on MySpace and slated for actual release with a forthcoming compilation of Ms. Bextor's hits. But I'm far too impatient to let such a vague timetable deprive us all. If there's a better artist working within the miniscule narrative frame of being emotionally devastated while dancing, I'm certainly not aware of them.

07: Santogold - "L.E.S. Artistes" (from Santogold)

In a few dusty corners of the internet former A & R girl Santogold took hits for being immediately ready to parcel off bits of her debut record to whichever ad man came calling. But the criticism assumes that Santi hasn't really thought out her career path with exacting care; a prognosis that this song pre-emptively diffuses. Obviously, on balance she thinks it's "worth what [she gave] up." And really, what did she even give up in the first place? Songs this well-crafted shouldn't be shuttered away in a cult cupboard, and radio is effectively broken.

08: Portishead - "We Carry On" (from Third)

And that's what you call a dark left turn. Considering the bleak place we left the band in over a decade ago, and you're looking at a room with a very high threat of severe toe stubbing. But with craft this immaculately distressed, it's nice to just stew in the dark motionless for a spell.

09: Ponytail - "Celebrate the Body Electric (It Came From an Angel)" (from Ice Cream Spiritual)

Mollie Siegel's vocal actually sound more like it came from a Tasmanian devil. But she forces her lips to form a few words here, on Ice Cream Spiritual's obvious centerpiece. "AWAY WE GO NOW!" she cries, to which her band lets their guitar licks run free.

10: High Places - "Namer" (b-side Vision's the First single)

What's great about this song is that it sees Mary Pearson beginning to shed the wide-eyed naif role she's perfected across the stellar singles and EPs the Brooklyn duo have so far released. There's some real soul, some real loss in her delivery here. The two tracks released as a UK single ahead of the band's full-length LP (if that's even the right term for a 10 song, 30 minute work) are easily that future record's most accessible. I'm still waiting for the rest to sink in, and as its scheduled for a September release anyway, that's a conversation for another date.

11: A Sunny Day in Glasgow - "Sometimes I Think About You" (from Slumberland Records' single series, Searching for the Now, vol. 3, Pastels cover)

Ben Daniels' asserts that there'll not be a new ASDIG record until next year, and having established the goal of recording 30 tracks for it, the timetable seems pretty ironclad. But new material has begun to trickle out, and it's promising indeed. This Pastels' cover comes from the worshipped-by-the-terminally-plugged-in label Slumberland Records' Searching for the Now series. Hint: "the now" is ace indie-pop.

12: Tickley Feather - "The Python" (from Tickley Feather)

I almost want to dismiss Annie Sachs songs as mere sketches, light impressions that are obviously unfinished. For much of her debut I think that's a fair criticism but "The Python" keeps squeezing me tighter. It feels perfectly haphazard, but slightly dangerous too. Like letting your fingers lightly skim over a lake's surface, without care for the potentially hungry souls beneath.

13: the Kills - "Last Day of Magic" (single)

Luckily a single release this month saves me from last quarter's grossest omission. I too had basically written off the Kills, even though I'd seen them play live enough times to know that they are more than an NME blip made possible by the band's make up in the White Stripes' wake. This is a dead sexy track, like usual, but much better crafted and easier to belt out vicariously than all of its predecessors. If this little canon-building farm system we've got going here in blog land fails to recognize a band not more than five years old writing their biggest, best, most accessible material because their new car smell has faded, well then maybe we should all reconsider our motives for a second.

14: Wolf Parade - "Fine Young Cannibals" (from At Mount Zoomer)

A record from an even newer buzz band, also swept quickly under the rug. In this case though, the diminished excitement level makes slightly more sense. The nerve endings on the new LP aren't so thrillingly exposed. Krug continues his piano scales towards an intensely personal oblivion. But Dan Boeckner's work here needs to be recognized. Not only has he lapped his song writing rival/collaborator for the first time on record, but the man really brought something to his guitar work here. Listen to that elegant, nagging riff that develops towards the end of this track. Let's focus people...

15: Vivian Girls - "Where Do You Run To?" (from Vivian Girls)

Brooklyn's Vivian Girls are currently playing gigs like mad all across our fair city and beyond. Enough legwork that their debut record sold out within two weeks, though its rough edges and short run time suggest that they are still crystallizing as a recording project as opposed to a live unit. This dreamy almost ballad brings it all together though, providing a golden ratio of tough-to-vulnerable.

16: the Pains of Being Pure at Heart - "Come Saturday" (from Slumberland Records' single series Searching for the Now vol. 4)

Another X on Slumberland's treasure map, another slice of rumbling cute from the POBPAH. Eventually, the New Yorkers should aim a bit higher than "C86 with sharper songcraft" but they haven't even recorded an album yet, so I'm not sure this is the time to gripe.

17: Diet Cola - "Sick Modern" (from the Diet Cola 7")

Deerhunter bassist Josh Fauver provides the rambunctious punk rock that his main band's stellar new album has left behind. Josh isn't the romantic goth Bradford Cox is though, and "Sick Modern" is never caught moping. With little fanfare for this vinyl EP, it's tough to pinpoint a firm release date, so the weeks in which it ambushed my consciousness will have to do...

18: Titus Andronicus - "Titus Andronicus" (from The Airing of Grievances)

I think the raw energy this young band radiates makes more sense in concert, which is, you know, why I booked them to play, more than once. Which is not to say that you can't have a hell of time rocking out with it on your own. Personally, I just think the overwhelming compulsion to scream "your life is over" to passersby could be dangerous in a crowded subway setting. Non-metropolitan car drivers, on the other hand, are encouraged to let 'er rip.

19: Jay Reatard - "An Ugly Death" (b-side to "Painted Shut," Matador single series)

Jay Reatard stops doing a Buzzcocks impression and starts doing a Clean impression. Things are looking up!

20: Love is All - "I Ran (So Far Away)"" (from "Wishing Well" + 5 Covers EP)

While the prospect of a properly unstoppable Love is All full length looms large on the horizon, we settle for a cover that works so much better in practice than it might on paper. Josephine Olausson and her Swedish supporters can breathe spastic life into any bit of inanity it seems. And it's always nice to lead in to the true summer offerings with a still sparking live wire.

--

3 to 6 tied with a fetching bow, on with the new now friends, on with the new...

Posted by Jeff Klingman at 01:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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 08:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In reviewing the contenders for the cream of the last three months, I was afraid that I'd be pulverizing the same ex-horse that our year end lists have been gang kicking for weeks now. So, I was surprised and relieved to find almost zero overlap with the songs that we chose as 2007's defining pick-a-mix. Perhaps these 20 odd treats just haven't sunk in? So feast on these succulent children of neglect, you monsters, and digest just how good 2007 was for new music when taken in a few messy heaps at a time.

Album of the Quarter : Sunset Rubdown - Random Spirit Lover
Runners up: Radiohead - In Rainbows, Glass Candy - Beatbox, the Fiery Furnaces - Widow City

"Merry Swankster Fourth Quarter Podcast 2007"

Tracklisting :

01: Chromatics - "I'm on Fire" (from Studio Sketches, Bruce Springsteen cover)

It's only fitting that this year capping set, of a very Boss colored 365, should start with a Springsteen tune. Ruth Radalet sighs some sensuality back into Bruce's humid lust fest, and Johnny Jewel's restrained synth swells go down way too easy to ever earn the ol' "anthemic" epithet. Quite an impressive little gaggle of hip female singers (Electrelane and Bat for Lashes among them) have tried to appropriate this tune, but this feels definitively slinky.

02: Glass Candy - "Digital Versicolor" (from Beatbox)

But even better are Jewel's euro disco floodlights at full beam, able to daze even the strongest doe or buck.

03: Holy Ghost! - "Hold On" (DFA single)

More disco but in a different flavor. Less Italian sex club than Manhattan loft party. So a bit less erotically charged and attractive maybe, but it compensates with a slightly more cerebral touch.

04: Die Regenbogen Jugend - "Frosted Cupcake" (from Mit Schlag)

You can claim nepotism if you like, but my Portland pals' synth-sprinkled confection still hasn't gone stale for me yet. I hide my defensiveness in abominable puns, you see, as I'd hate to let DRJ's long-standing chum status to yours truly, or their song's inherent Germanic goofiness, discount what an intrinsically swell little krautpop gem it is.

05: Future of the Left - "Manchasm" (from Curses)

I've spilled a well of digital ink on this track already, so I'll just take a quick moment to brand those who dislike a bunch of Colins.

06: Old Time Relijun - "Indestructible Life!" (from Catharsis in Crisis)

There are still wonders to be found in obsessively parsing year end lists after all. This Pitchfork acknowledged wrecking ball escaped my attention all year before transfixing me with wild abandon before that belated first spin was even half over. The K Records veterans' No Wave saxophone and gusto drenched delivery moves them past primal and straight on to elemental.

07: Arcade Fire - "Poupee de Cire, Poupee de Son" (France Gall/Serge Gainsbourg cover, from tour only split 7" with LCD Soundsystem)

God, why can't they just sound this recklessly exciting and enchantingly nuanced all the time and not just when dusting off an old francophone classic?

08: Sunset Rubdown - "The Taming of the Hands That Came Back to Life" (from Random Spirit Lover)

Maybe my favorite single bit of Random Spirit Lover is in this track when Krug seems to poke fun at his own gift of making the oddest non sequitur sound deeply earnest and autobiographically important. "It's the taming of the hands that came back to life/ when she synchronize swam on the ice in '03/ Oh, but enough about me..." I just love that.

09: Sonic Youth - "I'm Not There" (from I'm Not There Original Soundtrack, Bob Dylan cover)

I feel like Thurston couldn't have covered this track with such conviction in his early career; there would have been too much irony leaking from his sideways grin. In the mid tempo waltz mode that's provided so many late period Youth highlights, these old lyrics take on a kind of magic grace.

10: Grizzly Bear - "Alligator (Choir Version)" (from Friend EP)

Beirut's Zach Condon and a mess of Dirty Projectors pitch in to turn an old song sketch into the sort of amorphous melody cloud that the band's growing rep was founded on. There's a bit of welcome thunder in this cumulonimbus as well.

11: Deerhunter - "Calvary Scars" (Daytrotter Session)

Bradford Cox is to 2007 as Spencer Krug was to 2006, i.e, the only man who spanned all four 'casts. With the Atlas Sound LP looming, Deerhunter's Cryptograms follow up in the works, and the blog posted tracks never ending, an '08 repeat isn't at all out of the question. In the present, this probable Microcastle inclusion bodes well for a Deerhunter pivot towards quietly spooked from their sweetly fuzzed or darkly distorted poles.

12: Of Montreal- "Feminine Effects" (from Minnesota Public Radio session)

I'll go on record as saying that I wouldn't want Kevin Barnes and Co. to completely transition into the sexually cocky funk band hinted at by his live show. This October track, recorded on Minnesota Public radio, gives me confidence that the 2008 scheduled Skeletal Lamping album will still be full of the guts splayed lyrical vulnerability that made Hissing Fauna... the year's best. Plus it kind of sounds like a song from Goodbye Yellowbrick Road, in an awesome way.

13: Radiohead - "Nude" (from In Rainbows)

The only one of these songs to crack or '07 top fifty, with good reason. When Radiohead spends a decade trying to perfect a song, that song gets perfected.

14: the Fiery Furnaces - "Restorative Beer" (from Widow City)

As always it took some attentive decoding for me to de-thorn the Furnaces' newest so it could be safely stowed in my chest, but this track was always easily lovable. Even if Eleanor's deadpan doesn't move you (and your opinion is objectively wrong there, by the way) listen to the way the synth tones and guitar slides practically weep in unison. Also, it's about the medicinal qualities of beer, which is some dorm room logic you can't ignore.

15: David Byrne - "For You" (from Worried Noodles compilation)

As with all lengthy multiple artist compilations the two disc Worried Noodles set, based on the lyrics and drawings of sardonic artist David Shrigley, is a hit or miss affair. But head Heads man David Byrne has too strong a sense of self for his interpretation to sound like anything but his own laid back, slightly tropical steez. I admit to being less than up on his present day doings, but this sounds surprisingly swell.

16: High Places - "New Grace" (from Mistletonia X-Mas compilation)

My frequent evangelism for the Brooklyn duo has begun to pay dividends in annoyed comments, so I'll just reservedly note that this Carribean indie pop banger is the best they've yet sounded.

17: Fuck Buttons - "Bright Tomorrow" (Single, edit)

For a noise band with such a middle finger of a monicker, it's weird how blissed out this sounds. Even that pterodactyl screech comes in towards the end can't swing it to the wrong side of abrasive.

18: Kylie Minogue - "2 Hearts" (Single)

Sometimes, when you look back at footage of Roxy Music just completely freaking out on the BBC airwaves, it can seeming baffling that glam rock ever had such strong popular support. But listening to the universal kicks drawn from Kylie's stomping drums and vamping piano, it seems astounding that the genre isn't dominant still.

19: YACHT - "I Saw You" (from Worried Noodles compilation)

Another worried noodle that loses none of Shrigley's humor in it's propulsive chug.

20: Cass McCombs - "That's That" (from Dropping the Writ)

It's title is a nice summation of a year's track sifting toil, but Cass McCombs modest little pop number isn't even very concerned with giving a comprehensive account of the ill-fated relationship it details. But it's sweet, funny, and self deprecating to boot. Traits to admire no matter the calendar digit.

On with the newness now, promise.

Posted by Jeff Klingman at 11:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Looking up to realize that we could have brought new life to term in the weeks and months we've already left behind in 2007 was slightly depressing, but in terms of strict musical appreciation, this continues to be a banner year. Due to bi-laws of our own choosing, only songs given an actual commercial release in the last three months were eligible for out latest CD-R length mega-mix, once again. Imports are handled carefully, digital offerings considered in context, and well reasoned exceptions noted. No acknowledgment of sweet, sweet leaks are permitted, so pre-digested songs from Sunset Rubdown, the Fiery Furnaces, and, oh yeah, Radiohead, will wait for the next edition, when we'll all be really mourning the fallen year.

Despite the eroding sand castle that is the music industry at large, signs of creative life continue to pour in.

Album of the Quarter : M.I.A - Kala
Runners up: Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam

"Merry Swankster Third Quarter Podcast 2007"

Tracklisting :

01: Prinzhorn Dance School - "Crackerjack Docker" (from Prinzhorn Dance School)

All of Prinzhorn Dance School’s songs are a minimalist high wire act, where one awkward note can completely derail a song, because that song is only going to contain, like 10 notes. But when it all lines up flawlessly, as in this instant classic, the end result is all the more thrilling for the feeling that absolutely nothing is wasted and even considering something so gauche as a second guitarist should result in immediate scorn and derision.

02: Magik Markers - "Taste" (from Boss)

Magik Markers fare better when they shoehorn their wild experimental impulses into a more conventional song structure. That’s only ever been true for like, every other outré noise band, for the last few decades, so who was to guess? Seemingly, Elisa Ambrogio is a bit of an indie rock fascist, but when her authoritative Grace Slick warble spits out gems like, “he shook her little bobby socks until the thrill was gone,” the jackboot becomes her.

03: Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Down Boy" (from the Is Is EP)

Weird putting this on a list of songs released in late 2007, as embryonic versions of the old live favorite have been gestating online for at least three years. The gathered dust stops the track from feeling as revelatory as it once might have, but the band's 04 top form was too sexy to stay shelved forever.

04: Chromatics - "Running Up That Hill" (from Night Drive, Kate Bush cover)

Chromatics were easily the class of the rightly loved, After Dark compilation, and their follow up LP Night Drive is a real star turn. The sleek disco groove was always apparent in Kate Bush’s original, but the time stamped bluster of that track is really no match for this aloof, streamlined charm. Ruth Radelet sounds blissfully medicated, like she came up with this romantic hypothesis ten minutes before taking a Percoset to calm her down. Since she gave it all the thought earlier, she feels the need to explain it to you now that you’re home, but she’s actually sort of over it. This somehow makes her all the more devastating.

05: M.I.A. - "Paper Planes" (from Kala)

Much of Kala is devoted to Maya empathically fleshing out the non western characters, or as she says, “putting people on the map who’ve never seen a map.” In contrast, the album’s best track allows itself to wallow in broad cartoon malevolence. A mob of faceless children just want to shoot you four times and take your money, and all you want to do is sing along. The chorus denies you even that.

06: Hot Chip - "Shake a Fist" (single)

I always appreciate it when a band does something counterproductive like releasing their best song on the sly as a limited vinyl single. It's like they’re saving their A game for the people whose minds are most likely to comprehensively and attentively blown by it. Of course, in this digital day and age, a cake can be had and eaten as well. I’m sure it’ll find its way to a proper release eventually, despite its physical scarcity now.

07: Late of the Pier - "Bathroom Gurgle" (single)

So this “new rave” nonsense might have a silver lining after all. I’m not saying that this restless brew of Gary Numan, Devo, and, shit I dunno, Zeppelin (?) could be called “rave” by anyone who isn’t an idiot, but if a misnomer helps market such spastic music to unsuspecting Brit teens, I guess it can’t be all bad.

08: A Place to Bury Strangers - "To Fix the Gash in Your Head" (from A Place to Bury Strangers)

For some reason its hard to homage the Jesus and Mary Chain without coming across as a complete tribute band. A Place to Bury Strangers avoid this pitfall by adding a hyperactive industrial beat, and simultaneously ratcheting up both the noise and the melodic vocal clarity in service of some gleefullly nasty lyrics. In a word: tough. Fans who come out to see them at After the Jump’s CMJ showcase should bring back up ear plugs in case your first set explodes.

09: Shocking Pinks - "End of the World" (from Singles)

Technically, these songs are a fair bit older than the last three months. But a quick show of hands from those who totally tracked them down on New Zealand export upon original release. Yeah. A D.I.Y. New Order; what more could you want? It’s O.K. to admit that the DFA is basically your impossibly cool older brother right now, mockingly handing you a mix tape and then grinning in secret as it radiates from you room on repeat for weeks later.

10: Caribou - "She's the One" (from Andorra)

Most of Andorra is flatly gorgeous, but this one, co-crafted by Dan Snaith and Junior Boys front man Jeremy Greenspan, is especially sharp and buoyant. Whether JG whipped Dan’s 60’s melody into modern fighting shape, or Dan held back his A-game for the collaboration with his successful childhood chum is unknowable for now.

11: High Places - "Head Spins" (from the High Places EP)

Since my Neon Lights recaps are always ridiculously slow in coming, I’ve not yet had a chance to articulate the joy of a High Places live show. The charms of the recorded work are basically the same. Namely, the experimental sounds married to catchy vocals that could never sound academic, the confidence to cut a song short rather than risk being repetitive, and the underlying sunny goodness of it most of all.

12: A Sunny Day in Glasgow - "Hugs & Kisses (Theme From A Sunny Day in Glasgow)" (from the Tout New Age EP )

Finally, for a song, the intriguing production fog lifts, and it's all stunning melody all the time. Ma Daniels even sits in on the piano for maximum adorable. It’s relative clarity would have been the prime talking point for discussing an eventual sophomore record if it hadn’t been tucked away in this low profile digital EP. The point, perhaps?

13: Atlas Sound - "So Sad (To Watch Good Love Go Bad)" (from the Deerhunter blog, Everly Brothers cover)

When the do a post mordem of the careers of Deerhunter the band and Bradford Cox the performer (aka Atlas Sound), the band’s blog may very well by the loose screw that finally unleashed a rising backlash flood. Hopefully, it’ll get some credit for the sheer quality of its free songs, such as this creepy fifties baby carelessly tossed out with the bath.

14: NO AGE - "My Life's Alright Without You" (from Weirdo Rippers)

Despite their defiantly scratchy D.I.Y. nostalgia, NO AGE has hit on something different. Their short songs meander, dealing with ambient washes or fuzzy distractions before bursting with life. As a result there’s a sense of urgency and suspense that shouldn’t be possible in such small boxes. Conceptually interesting, though just enjoying the bratty surf guitar is a valid option.

15: Liars - "Protection" (from Liars)

Though it’s easy to admire autobiographical song writers when they finally weird out and inch towards surrealism, it’s always more startling when it happen the other way. To shift from metaphorical battles between musical instruments and chest pain mountains to tender remembrances of adolescent summers, seems an almost unbearably intimate gesture. Like if the ranting lunatic on your street corner suddenly segued into a heartfelt monologue about his long departed puppy. How are you supposedly to feel about that?

16: Animal Collective - "For Reverend Green" (from Strawberry Jam)

It’s more of a tribute to / motivational speech for its lyrics' “wasted Brooklyners all depressed” than a discernible ode to Big Al. It makes you wonder if they are actually channeling the good Reverend at all, or if they aren’t alluding to the illegal self-medication that borrows his name in moments of cliched paranoia. Confused and giggling is a perfectly good way to describe the effects of the band’s best song to date.

17: the New Pornographers - "Myriad Harbour" (from Challengers)

Or, a Canadian in New York. After the decidedly shaggy Dan Bejar of Destroyer’s Rubies and Beast Moans, this is a bit of catchy bliss. The (likely minority) opinion that Dan is easily the New Pornos finest writer gains some strong supporting evidence.

18: Deer Tick - "Diamond Rings (2007)" (from War Elephant)

The last song to make this quarter’s cut, narrowly edging PJ Harvey’s “When Under Ether.” PJ’s track is braver and maybe more artistically admirable. But there’s something about the guitar tone here in concert with the rich vocals. It has a mid-career Kinks sound to it that has always been a personal security blanket. Polly Jean’s brainy chill couldn’t achieve the same base pleasure level.

19: Okkervil River - "Plus Ones" (from The Stage Names)

How could we continue to profess our love for musical Numerology, and spurn the field of study’s uncrowned theme song? Our heads would implode from the contradiction.

20: Spoon - "the Underdog" (from Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga)

Spoon’s been evolving as a band so steadily and that this brassy pop bomb is both a bit of a shock and a completely natural progression, somehow. As universal as they've ever been, without sacrificing any sharpness.

FIN.

Posted by Jeff Klingman at 08:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The first quarter of 2007 boasted a string of great records that the subsequent three month span really couldn't follow. You'll note that half of the inclusions in this mix are drawn from singles or EPs. Not that the distinction made for a worse blend, mind you. The music in consideration was too bountiful for everything to fit in a neat little CD-R size package. Battles' brawny "Atlas," Los Campensinos giddy "You! Me! Dancing!," and Of Montreal's harrowing "No Conclusion" were axed due to their bulky length in a pool of notabe bulk (along with standard mix chemistry considerations). Stuff from the National's Boxer was excluded because that album's nobility is due to the sum of its parts. The Clientele's "Bookshop Casanova" eliminated because the boring album around it made it seem cooler than it was.

We're left with a schizophrenic little mutant beast to tide us over until the onset of Fall, where currently ineligible releases from Animal Collective, Liars, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Sunset Rubdown, Fiery Furnaces, and more will likely dominate.

Enjoy.

Album of the Quarter : Electrelane - No Shouts, No Calls

Runners up: Frog Eyes - Tears of the Valedictorian, Handsome Furs - Plague Park

the Merry Swankster Podcast - Second Quarter, 2007

Tracklisting :

01: Vampire Weekend - "Oxford Comma" (from Vampire Weekend EP)

Hilariously appropriate that a blog smash should start with a declaration of indifference toward punctuation. This song sounds so preppy that it almost makes you want to pierce your ear with a safety pin, but damn if it isn't a perfectly breezy spring time pop hit.

02: Electrelane - "To the East" (from No Shouts, No Calls)

Speaking of spring time pop hits, this one should go down as an all time great. Despite the continually escalating energy level, the song maintains a fragile intimacy that makes all the difference.

03: These New Puritans - "Navigate, Navigate" (single)

I went back and forth about whether or not I should subject the 'cast loving masses to the Southend, UK teens' quantum leap of a 12 minute second single. But you've already committed to an uninterrupted rock block, right, so why not? "Navigate, Navigate" is frequently muddled but continually engaging. It doesn't go the ten movements crammed into one giant run time route of many mammoth songs, favoring gradual permutations. A slightly pretentious, yet staggeringly constructed song for a bunch of newbies. Weirdly, this is a modified version of an even longer composition commissioned for a Dior Homme fashion show. Feel free to strut around with a shitty look on your face.

04: the Muggabears - "Dead Kid Kicks" (from Night Choreography EP)

On the off chance that you hate art and found your mind wandering during the TNP marathon, the opening lick of "Dead Kid Kicks" should snap you back to attention. The 'bears just sound mean here, antisocially threatening, "when I give the word just leave me alone." The former Neon Lights stars are actually quite nice, but on this character evidence alone there isn't a jury in New York that wouldn't convict.

05: Dinosaur Jr. - "Almost Ready" (from Beyond)

The Dinosaur Jr. comeback record is strange for not being strange at all. It's almost suspicious. If some enterprising investigative reporter carbon dated the tapes to reveal that Lou Barlow had been hiding them out of spite for 20 years, waiting to be re-admitted to the band, I think everyone would consider that a pretty reasonable explanation.

06: Handsome Furs - "Sing! Captain" (from Plague Park)

Dan Boeckner makes his play to escape the shadow of Krug, and does quite well, thanks. More fractured and synth oriented than you'd have thought. Of course the next Sunset Rubdown disc could destroy the world, but we'll let Danny have his moment in the (radio's hot) sun.

07: Dan Deacon - "the Crystal Cat" (from the Spiderman of the Rings)

Until the squealing cartoon voices kick in, this track seems to be working in the fat man with phat beats template of J. Murphy. But then it becomes something much more abrasive. Dan Deacon is crafty in his construction though, knocking the energy down a touch in advance of the loony eruptions, so that the listener finds himself anticipating the most annoying parts, which is a neat trick.

08: Sissy Wish - "Float" (from Beauties Never Die)

I'll cop to the fact that the Norwegian release of this pop delicacy came at the end of quarter one. Some lag time is to be expected when Scandi songs have practically zero Stateside press, and there was no way I was going to exclude this entirely.

09: LCD Soundsystem - "Starry Eyes" (b-side, All My Friends single)

I feel like taking an editor's pen to an LCD song is some sort of music nerd sacrilege, but since the original version was obviously a Frankenstein monster collision between two distinct songs (and I've got no room for that drum solo) I felt a little better about it. This is band member Nancy Whang's turn to shine, playing it deadpan like Tina in the Tom Tom Club, while laser beams bounce off the mirrored room around her.

10: Justice - "D.A.N.C.E." (single)

I could have waited for the next quarter to reflect the July release of the French duo's † album, but another three months is probably the point where the undeniable song will have finally reached 100% saturation and we'll have to put it in deep freeze for a year just to be able to listen to it again. So the single release sneaks in. Even though we hear it seeping from every corner of Hipsterville, USA this earnest defense of Michael Jackson, in the style of golden age Michael Jackson, still sounds just about perfect.

11: Ssion - "Clown" (from Fool's Gold)

The videos from Fool's Gold make Ssion seem even more bizarre than they already are, but this is a pretty classic sounding 80's pop song. The fact that the singer is a mustachioed deviant and not a big haired lady only makes for a difference of perception.

12: Franz Ferdinand - "All My Friends" (LCD Soundsystem cover, b-side All My Friends single )

Franz Ferdinand became sort of a snob's punching bag at some point, though I think their act has more legs than a one noter like Interpol, and they certainly outclass almost all of the similar bands that sprung up in their wake. Here they bring out the New Order undertones of the original before signing off distinctively, keeping it from being a pure imitation. I realize that two b-sides from the same single is overkill, but this is good stuff.

13: Prinzhorn Dance School - "Up! Up! Up!" (single)

As a band, PDS are practically anorexic. Just when you think they can't strip down the sound any further, they're calling themselves "cows" and inventing more ways to cut weight. The end result is a little disturbing, but fun and exciting more so.

14: Deerhunter - "Fluorescent Grey" (from Fluorescent Grey EP)

The reaction to Bradford Cox's recent blog homage to Dennis Cooper shows that people weren't listening very closely to his lyrics. I mean this song is basically about the Cooperian themes of death and homo-eroticism, no? Maybe that got lost in the gorgeous, mysterious sonics, but it was upfront all along.

15: Frog Eyes - "Bushels" (from Tears of the Valedictorian)

I've murdered enough pixels already describing Carey Mercer's career highpoint, so I'll keep it short here. It's utterly brilliant.

16: Ola Podrida - "Photo Booth" (from Ola Podrida)

After the exhausting maelstrom of "Bushels" anything more than tranquil might be too much. This outro has a perfect comfort level, like a summer night that achieves a magical Goldilocks temperature where you can leave your coat at home and not waste a worry on sweating through.

Note: It was brought up during the last go round, that our little endeavor was not a technical podcast due to the fact that we're not hooked up with a subscription service. Since this is only a four times a year feature of the site we've been a bit lax about setting that up, it's true. While this is a podcast in the looser sense that we're providing our version of a college radio type broadcast, primarily designed to be listened to on the headphones of a portable mp3 player device, the nitpickers are technically correct. So if you feel the need to throw up some air quotes when you tell everybody how awesome it is, we'll try not roll our eyes.

Posted by Jeff Klingman at 05:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Well, I have no real excuse for the week's delay in bringing you the first of 2007's CD-R length quarterly podcasts, except to say that there was a ton of material to sift through this time around. Blockbuster follow ups and surprise career high points were practically falling from the trees. It's not often that you could field a completely respectable top 5 for the year just from the first few months of recorded work.

So take a bow, Q1 '07, we'll not see your likes again...

Album of the Quarter : Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, are You the Destroyer?

Runners up: LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver, Deerhunter - Cryptograms

the Merry Swankster Podcast - First Quarter, 2007

Tracklisting :

01: Deerhunter - "Heatherwood" (from Cryptograms)

For Sonic Youth fans who aren't interested in graceful aging, you could hardly do better. A promising start for the year.

02: Black Lips - "Not a Problem" (from Los Valientes del Mundo Neuvo)

I'm not sure that Atlantans the Black Lips will ever write enough good songs for them to be known as anything other than "the band that peed in its own mouth." Here, they convince you that they might be up to it, momentarily equaling the Nuggets groups that they obviously worship.

03: Handsome Furs - "the Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack" (Liars cover, live in Ottawa)

Although I kind of think this track was actually recorded at a concert from the end of last year, this was the quarter in which the internet delivered it to our clutches, and that's good enough for me. We know now that the loose cascading backing track and free style lyrical rambling from this Liars cover are actually the building blocks of Plague Park's "Dead + Rural." I guess that means that a full blown studio take of Boeckner belting out "I Can Always Beeeeee Found" is out of the question. Shame.

04: the Besnard Lakes - "Devastation" (from ...Are the Dark Horse)

This track reaches for huge, religious reverence. I'm not quite sure if it's the Rapture or the Ragnarok that we're dealing with, however.

05: Menomena- "Air Aid" (from Friend and Foe)

What good is a computer program that generates songs if it won't cough up a mean, ball swinging, Zeppelin stomper now and again? I guess it's a little politer than that, despite the black magic vibe. These are be-sweatered Oregonians and not mackerel wielding degenerates after all.

06: Marnie Stern - "Every Single Line Means Something" (from In Advance of the Broken Arm)

By sheer riff power, Marnie Stern made the New York Times realize, "Hey, girls can play guitar!" That's true, you know.

07: Apache Beat - "Tropics" (from the Tropics 12")

Okay, this one is a slight cheat. I had penciled in this rhythm monster back when Apache Beat were still in the loving glow of our Neon Lights. Now, it turns out the single release on Summer Lovers Unlimited is pushed back until May. It's still too personally associated with the Winter of '07 for me to slate it anywhere else. Consider this some dramatic foreshadowing.

08: Times New Viking - "Love Your Daughters" (from the Paisley Reich)

I know this sounds like a bunch of trashy old noise to some, but I really can't relate. To me, it's this proud tune that struggled to find its way home from war overseas, battling shipwrecks and sea monsters, stumbling to the door tattered and torn. But underneath the wind damage and scabby knees, it's still the brave strong melody we admired so long ago.

09: Deerhoof - "Matchbook Seeks Maniac" (from Friend Opportunity)

It's unfair to say that Deerhoof have been too art damaged to connect on an emotional level before this, as they've had their moments, but this is definitely their best ever slow dance.

10: Panda Bear - "Comfy in Nautica" (from Person Pitch)

It's easy for kids who listen to and read about music constantly to get smug in our conventional wisdom. I was so sure of the obvious link to Brian Wilson's vocal harmonies that I decided Person PItch would be great, innocuous car ride soundtrack material on a recent parental visit. Dad reaction 1: "Is this CD skipping?" Dad reaction 2: "This sounds like some kind of religious chanting. This is brutal." So I guess we shouldn't understate how Noah Lennox takes familiar influences and makes them sound bizarre. It's also nice to know that music I consider pretty accessible can still freak out my parents.

11: A Sunny Day in Glasgow - "5:15 Train" (from Scribble Mural Comic Journal)

Our pals from Philly make good, keeping the submerged singing intact, but stretching their structure even further into oddsville, with unique and thrilling results.

12: Gui Boratto- "Beautiful Life" (from Chromophobia )

Brazilian techno torch song par excellence. A spring in your step, a breeze on your back.

13: LCD Soundsystem- "Someone Great" (from the Sound of Silver)

Specific about the small things and vague about the big ones. James Murphy, top crank, manages heartbreak, which I'm not sure anyone saw coming. Some of the most sublime synth tones since New Order doesn't hurt.

14: Sophie Ellis-Bextor- "Catch You" (single)

The lyrics here are fluffy bordering on surreal. How exactly are you going to be in my coffee spoon, Sophie? But that's beside the point, which is that this song is superficial with a capital super.

15: Patrick Wolf - "the Magic Position" (from the Magic Position)

While precocious was the descriptor of choice for Mr. Wolf's early material, I leaned towards full of shit. He's much better now.

16: Of Montreal - "She's a Rejecter" (from Hissing Fauna, are You the Destroyer?)

The song hasn't gotten old, even though it feels like it leaked about five years ago. But the little touches ("robo-cop" instead of plain cop) now delight as much as the screaming crack up (Ican'tIcan'tIcan'tI-CAN'T!) that was the initial draw. The one thing that still confuses me is its timeline in Hissing Fauna's narrative, falling after he's regained his lady love and his self confidence. So who was the rejecter? Guess I'll have to listen again, for like the rest of my life...

17: Arcade Fire - "Ocean of Noise" (from Neon Bible)

I know the swells to catharsis are what leads to Craigslist sex trade, but the "stuck inside on a stormy night" restraint here is probably my favorite moment of Neon Bible.

18: Beirut - "Elephant Gun" (from Lon Gisland EP)

I didn't really set out to end with its gentlest track, but it was kind of a ragged, charging few months, and nowhere else seemed to fit. It's a lovely song, though.

Fin. Let us ease into our beloved Spring.

Posted by Jeff Klingman at 07:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Thanks to a plucky mutt, and an unexpected wi-fi connection in the Oregon suburbs, the 'cast is here!

Unlike some other blogs that have been itching to put the year to bed for months now, we're still sifting through the best tracks right up until the bitter end. As it turns out, the final quarter of the year was home to some of its very best material. Thus, it deserves a bit of our patented microfocus before we switch to backwards looking, sweeping generalization mode (which will be next week).

For now, let's bask in the Fall for a few more seconds, pretending that the year isn't headed for its imminent demise.

Album of the Quarter : the Long Blondes - Someone to Drive You Home
Runners up: the Blow - Paper Television, Swan Lake - Beast Moans

"Merry Swankster Fourth Quarter Podcast"

Tracklisting :

01: the Blow - "True Affection" (from the Paper Television album)

I was originally going to put this sparse, almost funky stunner second, but that unstoppable, “Bum, Bum, click, Bum, Bum, Click” just sort of destroyed anything it was supposed to segue in from, so first it is.

02: Under Byen - "Palads " (from the Samme Stof Som Stof album)

The Danish art rockers vamp over slinky Bjork-esque future pop here, before the bottom end drops out and a gorgeous stream of whispered sweet nothings takes over.

03: Swan Lake - "Are You Swimming in Her Pools?" (from the Beast Moans album)

There’s alot to appreciate among the cluttered wreckage of Beast Moans, but the entries where Krug mainly goes it alone, waxing vague and philosophical over a bare bones strum, are the only ones I can really bring myself to love. Congrats, Spence, you’re the sole artist to make all four quarters, one way or another.

04: the Long Blondes - "You Could Have Both" (from the Someone to Drive You Home album)

I don’t know what else to even say about the Long Blondes at this point, given how exhaustive our obsession has been all year. But, I guess the best complement I can offer is that I’m still not tired of the old singles, and this new material is on another level still.

05: Art Brut- "Nag Nag Nag Nag" (from the Nag Nag Nag Nag EP)

If the UK rock scene was a John Hughes movie, Eddie Argos would be the perfect match for Kate Jackson, unnoticed in plain sight. They share interests like referencing Cabaret Voltaire, being unhealthily obsessed with music, and pathologically disturbed by getting older. Plus he’s not going to leave her for some other girl like all those jerks she dates. They should perform a duet about everyone else’s stupidity and realize they're in love. Sadly, in the real world, I think that mustache is going to be a real obstacle.

06: Jarvis Cocker - "Black Magic" (from the Jarvis album)

In which Jarvis Cocker goes to a karaoke bar, gets drunk for a few hours, cues up “Crimson & Clover”, realizes the speed is off and he can’t read the words without his specs, makes up some quasi inspirational lyrics off the top of his head, and goes home with four waitresses half his age.

07: Beach House - "Apple Orchard" (from the Beach House album)

The finest moment of an entire album's worth of gorgeous sighing over days gone by.

08: Of Montreal - "Eagle Shaped Mirror" (from the Daytrotter.com session)

The as of yet unreleased new Of Montreal album has been dominating my stereo for months now, so its again a relief when Daytrotter gives us an excuse to actually reflect some of our current listening habits while they are still current. To be ultra specific here, this reminds me of the Bowie demo tracks they used to stick on the old RYKO disc re-issues. Just something thrilling about hearing such weirdo, pristine pop songs in a setting that lets you know there’s a real guy behind it, after all.

09: Born Ruffians - "the Knife" (Live @ KEXP, Grizzly Bear cover)

I know this will be considered blogsphemy by most, but I actually prefer this to Grizzly Bear's original. That one is hushed and beautiful, sure, but this brings the song back to its harmonic sixties roots, sounding like a Northwestern garage band making the prom circuit. I can smell the pomade and picture the matching two tone suits.

10: Malajube - "Montreal 40 C" (from the Trompe L'Oeil album)

Bouncy Quebeckers keep it real en Francais, and refuse to let something so simple as an attention span stop them from having a good time.

11: Prinzhorn Dance School - "Eat, Sleep" (b-side to the "You are the Space Invader" single)

New DFA Records kids could never be mistaken for a dance band, but their are certain elements here that make the signing less than baffling. The minimalism most of all. Just a few repeated phrases, some beats, some strum. Oh, and the late lapse into lyrical German probably didn't hurt.

12: Subtle (f/ Dan Boeckner) - "Middleclass Haunt" (b-side to "the Mercury Craze" single )

So I guess the non-Krug Wolf Parader hasn't been completely idle after all. Here he lends his gravel, "old before his time" voice, and world weary guitar strum to the spastic weirdness of non traditiojnal rap collective, Subtle. There’s not enough of anything you would call “hip-hop” to be a truly cross genre piece, but its bizarre enough to sound new, and familiar enough to get you through the listens it’ll take to figure out what’s actually going on.

13: Casiotone for the Painfully Alone- "Graceland" (from the Graceland EP)

At the end of last year, at their first New York City show, the Islands covered this Paul Simon classic in a completely earnest and faithful manner, sort of an affirmation that "no, that whole African Pop thing we’ve been talking about was NOT a joke." This is better. It doesn’t take an ironic tact either, smartly, because the lyrics still shine through as Simon's strength. The real key is Casiotone substituting a dark stutter where the sunny shuffle would normally be, and highlighting what a sad song this actually is.

14: Fujiya & Miyagi - "Ankle Injuries" (from the Transparent Things album)

Uses the trappings of krautrock, but with a much lighter touch, making it more lullaby than drone.

15: LCD Soundsystem - "2:58 to 10:00" (from 45:33 "Original Run")

The only times I'm gonna run is for a subway, or away from a cougar, so the utilitarian worth of James Murphy's Nike project is beyond me. A prime 7 minute slab of ZE Records space disco doesn't need a distinct purpose though.

16: Klaxons - "Atlantis to Interzone" (from the Xan Valleys EP)

We all know that "new rave" is profoundly NOT a genre, but the aid raid sirens, and female siren calls of this one make the description semi-understandable for one-time use. The best part is that the dance throwback is only a head fake, completely overshadowed when the punks slam through the club door and start barking at the kids rubbing Vapo-rub on each other.

17: Matt & Kim - "Yea Yeah" (from the Matt & Kim album)

Amateurism saved by non-stop enthusiasm. Charming to the point of undeniability.

18: Love is All - "Kiss Kiss Kiss" (bonus track from the Nine Times That Same Song re-release, Yoko Ono cover)

Proving that even skronking Yoko Ono no wave can sound like a hell of alot of fun coming from Josephine Olaussson’s excitable throat.

19: Animal Collective - "People" (from the People EP)

From Australia comes this Feels outtake, which is rather warm and inviting despite having not a single intelligible lyric, and very few structural changes over a lollygagging six minutes. Here's hoping that 2007 produces many more moments this likeable in spite of their oddity.

So that's it for the first year of Merry Swankster podcasts. As all the evil (but very stylish) music pirates out there know, the first quarter of '07 is going to be a doozy, so the next one may well surpass even the towering heights of this installment.

For now, we'll leave you to digest...

Posted by Jeff Klingman at 10:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

MS fanatics have been circling their rooms in frenzy, distraught that our latest podcast has been held up for a couple weeks. For that I apologize. I will not, however, apologize for quality! Or sucker punches. Kid should've been paying attention.

As anticipated, in all its CD-R length magnificence, is a not-so random sampling of the music that shaped the now departed summer. As always, the best albums are represented, the best tracks of sketchy records are liberated, and this time we've taken more pains to represent the changing music delivery landscape with more singles, remixes, and digital exclusives. There's even a touch of R & B, of all things. It's all over the place, really. But that's how we like it, here. You're welcome to join us by the fire...

Album of the Quarter : TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
Runners up: Yo La Tengo - I am Not Afraid of You, and I Will Beat Your Ass, the Ballet - Mattachine!

Merry Swankster, Q3 2006 Podcast (69.1 MB)

Tracklisting :

01: the Rapture - "Pieces of the People We Love" (from Pieces of the People We Love album)

The 00's "most likely to get swallowed up by hype and backlash" come back with a surprisingly strong DFA-less album. Their lyrics are still beyond vapid, but the foot tap meter on this Gary Glitter-ball is deep into the red.

02: Oneida - "History's Great Navigators " (from Happy New Year album)

Sweaty and manic rock from Brooklyn. Trucker's speed + piano = bloody fingers.

03: Peter Bjorn & John - "Young Folks" (from Writer's Block album)

Sweet and whistle-y pop from Sweden. The big beat lifts the touchy feely man-lady romance lyrics onto the dancefloor, where they shake instinctively without breaking eye contact. Feel good hit of the summer?

04: Thieves Like Us - "Drugs in My Body" (from Drugs in My Body 12")

This globe-hopping mystery band splits the difference between NYC and Stockholm and delivers this pale, thin disco ode to getting where you're going before the shit kicks in.

05: the Ballet - "Personal" (from Mattachine! album)

At turns lustful and naive, it's pretty much the best song about internet man cruising that I've ever sung along to compulsively.

06: Yo La Tengo - "Beanbag Chair" (from I am Not Afraid of You, and I Will Beat Your Ass album)

If it were twenty years in the future, this joyous horn blower would make for one hell of a Wes Anderson retro soundtrack selection. During the scene when the brilliant Hungarian psychotherapist and his twin brother the pirate compete for the affections of the lovely but sad rocket technician, but they all take a break from the rivalry to ride on the world's most whimsical ferris wheel, maybe?

07: Okkervil River - "the President's Dead" (from Overboard & Down Australian Tour EP)

A moving behavioral study of big historical events more than any kind of political statement, and much less likely to feel prematurely dated as a result.

08: Colourmusic - "Put in a Little Gas" (from Red EP)

From fun loops of big-beat choruses to a scary twee-pop monster voice. This sarcastic tale of pricey petrol becomes a frighteningly catchy number of bigness and over the top instrumentation. Perhaps they remind you of that other band from Oklahoma City. For Okie bands starting off in the shadow of that other band, "the show" can be an immense burden. Colourmusic is up to the challenge with bombastic aplomb. -Merry Swankster

09: Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Diamond Sea" (from iTunes exclusive session)

I suspect alot of folks completely deserted YYY's after Show Your Bones was kind of a let down, but this soft and pretty condensation of Sonic Youth's 20 minute opus suggests that the kids still have it in them to be pretty and surprising, if not brutal and awesome.

10: Jarvis Cocker - "Cunts are Still Running the World" (digital single )

Classic class warfare from the ex-Pulp man, arriving at the only logical conclusion to be made from the current state of events.

11: Jeffrey & Jack Lewis - "Williamsburg Will Oldham Horror" (from City and Eastern Songs album)

Man can't sing, and the Williamsburg in jokes might lose some outlanders, but songs as smart as this descent into hipster hell are hard to shrug off as just a joke. Although it is much funnier and more neurotic than 'Bonnie' Prince Billy, at the very least.

12: Grizzly Bear - "the Knife" (from Yellow House album)

The hushed church feel of Yellow House only really connects for me here when it picks up the pace ever so slightly and blossoms into Beach Boys harmonics.

13: Asobi Seksu - "Strawberries" (Cassettes Won't Listen remix) (single)

Jason Drake's beat (re)making slosh with chums Asobi Seksu for a chunktakulous remix of Citrus stand out. Keeping Yuki's soft falsetto and messing with the rest, Drake's big beat touches and clean bigness add dance floor shrink wrap to what was already a devastatingly catchy pop song. - MS

14: Junior Boys - "In the Morning" (from So This is Goodbye Album album)

When poeple heap praise on Timberlake (which happens all the God damn time these days) they usually describe it to sound like this track actually does. Next level elctronic burbles, with a beat for the dancefloor, punctuated by percussive sex breathing. Then you listen to JT and it blows, whereas this is pretty guiltless in its quality.

15: Beyonce - "Ring the Alarm" (from B'Day album)

In the weeks and months leading up to this 'cast, this girl pop spot was penciled in for the Pipettes. Beyonce would eat those girls for lunch. Uber materialistic lovesick punk R & B is a genre now apparently...

16: TV on the Radio - "Wolf Like Me " (from Return to Cookie Mountain album)

Buzzsaw guitars and expelled noise propel this lusty werewolf tale with the rush of a high speed chase through the city. Heavily seasoned with lycanthropic metaphors, the era of wolves continues to reap excitement. High scoring in exit polling for song of year. - MS

17: Ladyhawk - "War" (from Mushroom Sessions)

The track from recordings dubbed the Mushroom Sessions makes for a delightful Wolf Parade knockoff. The comparison is not meant to be disparaging because for a Ladyhawk song this isn't a very representative track. Ladyhawk pulls off a great song without making their trademark guitars the main attraction. -MS

18: Xiu Xiu - "Hello From Eau Claire" (from the Air Force album)

The proper vocal debut of Jamie Stewart sidekick Caralee, is typically gender confused and atypically sweet sounding.

19: Frog Eyes - "Caravan Breakers" (from the Daytrotter Sessions)

Left for last, because I know Carey's a divider, and wanted to make it easy for timid folks to jump ship. Also saved for last becasue it's the best. A staggering, bleeding hulk of a song. I implore you to stick it out at least until the rumination on whether to prey on or for the weak and the old, even if the intital flailing yelps aren't to your liking. In the very tip top percentage of song released this year (next year on record, but it exists now via Daytrotter and I refuse to play pretend). Also, it slips a little Krug in the backdoor, and it wouldn't be an '06 podcast without him.

So that's it. We put our 'cast compiler hat back on the shelf until 2006 is breathing its last. We got a new one with some ear flaps, so it'll all be very exciting.

Tags: the Rapture, Oneida, Peter Bjorn & John, Thieves Like Us, the Ballet, Yo La Tengo, Okkervil River, Colourmusic, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Jarvis Cocker, Jeffrey Lewis, Grizzly Bear, Asobi Seksu, Cassettes Won't Listen, Junior Boys, Beyonce, TV on the Radio, Ladyhawk, Xiu Xiu, Frog Eyes,Music Podcasts

Posted by Jeff Klingman at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Once again MS.com seeks to mine tracks from the best albums, and rescue tracks from questionable ones, in service of creating an unstoppable time capsule of a season's worth of music. Spring time had its hits and its misses, but there was good to be had, friends. Let's take a second, as rainclouds and crippling humidity ruin our lives to remember the beautiful days we once loved and the soundtrack filling our ear buds as we loved them.

We're taking a few days off to enjoy the extended weekend, celebrate our break up from England, and blow some shit up for Uncle Sam. To make your heart grow fonder in our brief absense, a neatly CD-R length megamix. Not only for you, but for America.

Album of the Quarter : Sunset Rubdown - Shut Up I am Dreaming
Runners up: Danielson - Ships, Fiery Furnaces - Bitter Tea

Merry Swankster, Q2 2006 Podcast [62.7 MB]

Tracklisting :

01: Camera Obscura- "I Need All the Friends I Can Get" (from Let's Get Out of This Country album)

Scots lasses take the super fey lead off track position from countrymen Belle and Sebastian in this go-round. I've now fulfilled my obligation (under rock journo ordinance #257864) to mention B & S within the first sentence of any Cam Obscura write-up. Stomps, handclaps, hipster chastising are highlights.

02: Fiery Furnaces - "Benton Harbor Blues (again)" (from Bitter Tea album)

Folks who claim the Friedbergers don't have it in them to write straightforward stunners just aren't listening. Beautiful melancholy over a slowed down Motown bounce, graciously provided in an extra, non wacky mix.

03: Holy Shit - "Written All Over Your Face" (from Stranded At Two Harbors album)

The most effective song Ariel Pink's yet been involved in, and non-coincidentally one of the most straightforward. He concentrates on trash can rhythm and lets pal Matt Fishbeck handle the dreamy vocal. Smooth, like driving down the coast on a slightly breezy day.

04: Sonic Youth - "Do You Believe in Rapture" (from Rather Ripped album)

Praised for an album of conventionally efficient rockers, I still get off on the one that creeps. Extra points for the Velvet Underground tease on the bridge that refuses to fully take over.

05: First Nation - "Female Trance" (from First Nation album)

Sometimes I'll say something reminds me of the Raincoats, and I'll mean that it's surprisingly cohesive for somehting so ragged. This time I mean it actually sound like the Raincoats did on record, specifically Odyshape when they lost their punk edge and went for less obvious rythym. Strong femininity that doesn't fall back on the dueling cliches of something to prove snarl or brazen sexpottery.

06: Asobi Seksu - "Strawberries" (from Citrus album)

Shoegaze touchmarks sure, but this one moves around too much to bore with an endless drone as genre purists might demand.

07: Juana Molina - "Rio Seco" (from Son album)

Lovely Spanish language folk livened up by Buddha Box electronic wallpaper.

08: Beirut - "Postcards From Italy" (from Gulag Orkestar album)

Ubiquitous for a reason, this sounds more convicted and world weary than any 19 year old has a right to be.

09: Sunset Rubdown - "Us Ones in Between" (from Shut Up I am Dreaming album)

The finest lyrical moment on the strongest album for lyrics we've yet seen in '06. The band's live majesty gave me new appreciation for the "wedding ring" coda.

10: Islands - "Rough Gem" (from Return to Sea album)

The best (only?) piece of evidence that disbanding the Unicorns and embracing Paul Simon's solo career was the way to go.

11: Voxtrot - "Mothers, Sisters, Daughters And Wives" (from Mothers, Sisters, Daughters And Wives album)

The token entry for blog propped up indie pop of questionable originality. They beat the seemingly unending flow of like bands by finding a more distinctive, muscular sound and moving away from their previous forays into Smiths karaoke.

12: the Raconteurs - "Steady as She Goes" (from Broken Boy Soldiers EP)

I've got nothing against Jack White (except maybe the moustache), but for an impassioned case I defer to superfan, M. Swankster himself: "Banding individual talents together does not a super-group mortar make, nor are synergies assumed or assured. The unionized strengths of Broken Boy Soldiers can surely be debated, but Brendan Benson’s clichéd lyrical sweetness integrated with the plump Greenhornes rhythm and garage crunch of Jack White reach a new success and keep the pessimistic cynics at bay."

13: Coin Op - "Hey Uri!" (single)

I'm probably breaking my own podcast bi-laws on this one, but it's due at least in part to the lack of info available on the group outside of a cryptic MySpace page. But if lack of a proper release keeps a poppier Mark E. Smith/ McLusky hybrid with bile directed at the title's fraudulent spoonbender off of the podcast on a techicality, then maybe the rules are meant to be broken. (Tip to Matt Fluxblog)

14: the Long Blondes - "Fulwood Babylon" (b-side, Weekend Without Makeup single)

The Blondes first Rough Trade single is nice enough in a new wave by the numbers sort of a way, but the b-side gives us the compositional twists and turns that seperate a great LB's track from a merely good one.

15: El Perro Del Mar - "God Knows (You Gotta Give To Get)" (from El Perro Del Mar (Woodwork) album)

I'm cool with the glut of old style girl group records being put out these days as long as they don't feel like insightless pastiche. This is too pretty and well crafted (in the Swedish style) to be written off as only a jump in the way back machine.

16: Danielson - "Did I Step on Your Trumpet?" (from Ships album)

The best rock song I'd heard as of April maintains its crown (of thorns) at the halfway mark.

17: White Flight - "Pastora Divine" (from White Flight album)

Animal Collective style, screaming organic pop, streamlined and reigned in (which is what I'm rooting for AC to do 60% of the time anyway). Before you claim copycat, let me point out that the second half of their debut record seeks to reconcile the Brooklyn aesthetic with laid back West Coast Snoop Dogg rap. Shockingly, they sort of pull it off.

18: Franz Ferdinand & Jane Birkin - "A Song For Sorry Angel" (from Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited compilation)

I'm as surprised to find Franz on here as you are, but hey Serge Gainsbourg did write it. I'm not sure what his presumably very understanding lady love Jane Birkin looks like these days, but her breathy coo hasn't aged a day.

19: Gnarls Barkley - "Gone Daddy Gone" (from St. Elsewhere album)

Gnarls devotees would probably have picked a different track, but it's near impossible to argue that anything other than this electrified Violent Femmes cover would have nestled as easily into the mix. Plus I don't like R & B, so there's that.

20: Annie - "the Crush (Richard X mix)" (b-side, the Crush single)

As much as I wanted to like the grunge rock crunch of the single mix, the vapid lyrics and Deb Harry delivery work better as a hedonistic summer prelude.

Sweatbath, straight ahead.

Tags: Camera Obscura, Fiery Furnaces, Holy Shit, Sonic Youth, First Nation, Asobi Seksu, Juana Molina, Beirut, Sunset Rubdown, Isalnds, Voxtrot, the Raconteurs, Coin Op, the Long Blondes, El Perro del Mar, Danielson, White Flight, Franz Ferdinand, Gnarls Barkley, Annie,Music Podcasts

Posted by Jeff Klingman at 03:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

We at MS.com are pleased to bring the first in a long line of podcasts, beginning with tracks released in the first three months of two-thousand aught six. As distasteful as it is for us ultra enlightened types to define art with something so bourgeois as it's commercial release date, it's kind of the only way to do things in this internet age music free for all. Long leaked but untimely releases from artists like Islands, the Fiery Furnaces, Voxtrot, and TV on the Radio will have to wait for the next 'cast for their moment in the sun. Released singles (digital and physical) will count, but tracks posted on blogs such as this one, or only on artists' MySpace page were for our purposes disallowed. Also imports count. We don't want to be the Ugly Americans here.

The end result seeks to mine tracks from the best albums, and rescue tracks from questionable ones, in service of creating an unstoppable time capsule of a season's worth of music. Music in my personal sweet spot of indie rock, pop, and electronica that is. Sorry Ghostface.

Album of the Quarter : Liars - Drum's Not Dead
Runners up: Belle and Sebastian - the Life Pursuit, Love is All - Nine Times That Same Song

Merry Swankster, Q1 2006 Podcast [66.46 MB]

Tracklisting :

01: Belle and Sebastian - "Dress Up in You" (from the Life Pursuit album)

Most convincing narrative from B & S comeback record just happens to be the traditionally sad twee one among the sunny pop workouts.

02: Liars - "the Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack" (from Drum's Not Dead album)

The first time Belle and Sebastian could easily transition into a Liars song. Surprise emotion and empathy from the art brutes.

03: Sunset Rubdown - "Three Colours II" (from Sunset Rubdown EP)

Wind ravaged EP standout is a dorsal fin ominously foreshadowing '06 Spencer Krug feeding frenzy.

04: Figurines - "the Wonder" (from Skeleton album)

Built to Spill left on the stove long enough for the guitar solos to cook off, from Denmark.

05: Television Personalities - "I Hope You're Happy Now" (from My Dark Places album)

TVP mastermind Dan Treacy, after getting released from boat prison, turns in a really weird album. Really weird. This ballad though, has all the hallmarks of his old time-y classics.

06: Danielson - "When it Comes to You I'm Lazy" (7" single, upcoming Ships album)

Ships placeholder sneaks in due to 7" single release. Sweet, slow, and only occasionally spastic.

07: Destroyer - "European Oils" (from Destroyer's Rubies album)

A bloated album full of digressions, it makes sense to go with the track that contains my favorite Rubies moment. For the record, that would be the aside about the Hangman's daughter, followed by one of Bejar's vaunted "monster riffs."

08: Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - "Ramblin' Man" (from Ballad of the Broken Seas album)

While the ex B & S belle's album evokes classic duets like Nancy & Lee and Serge & Jane, the rebel country twang on this Hank Williams cover comes closest to Johnny & June. When Isobel's kitten whisper twists around Mark's gravel growl it's pretty sexy to boot.

09: Les Savy Fav - "When You Wake Up a Snake" (eMusic exclusive single)

Pensive piano driven digital single from usually freak out centric Rhode Island castaways. Not mentioned is what happens when you wake up a snake...on a plane. I wouldn't suggest it, even if he has an aisle seat and you need to use the restroom.

10: Pink Mountaintops - "New Drug Queens" (from Axis of Evol album)

Black Mountain's fraternal twin with psych rock in the Hobbes mode; Nasty, brutish, and short.

11: Stereolab - "Interlock" (from Fab Four Suture compilation)

Signs of life in the otherwise redundant Fab Four Suture compilation.

12: A Sunny Day in Glasgow - "the Best Summer Ever" (from the Sunniest Day Ever EP)

Densely layered are strangely ethereal cut and paste indie pop from Philadelphia, PA.

13: the Pipettes - "Your Kisses are Wasted on Me" (single)

Girl group devotees avoid one note status with help from cartoony Go! Team production.

14: Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - "Young Shields" (from Etiquette album)

Confused depressive lyrics paired with clear headed dance party background.

15: the Knife - "Neverland" (from Silent Shout album)

Dark Scand-y electro pop that would have been a better follow up to Homogenic than that throat singing bullshit.

16: Shogun Kunitoki - "Daniel" (from Tasankokaiku album)

Finns wring new electronic ideas out of ancient analog equipment, live playing, and old psychedelic records.

17: Liars - "the Wrong Coat for You Mt. Heart Attack" (from Drum's Not Dead album)

Double dip not so gratuitous since its icy heart is closer to the rest of the record than the previous, out of left field ballad. Plus, Liars totally owned it this quarter, so there.

18: Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Cheated Hearts" (from Show Your Bones album)

Pretenders pop gold from the mixed bag that is Show Your Bones

19: Giant Drag - "Wicked Game" (bonus track for UK release of Hearts and Unicorns album)

No matter how tempting they make it with their middle school song title wit and their "ironic" cover choices, it's really hard to write this stuff off as a joke when it sounds so good.

20: Love is All - "Felt Tip" (from Nine Times That Same Song album)

Brilliant slow burner from the Swedish sweethearts, and a fine end note.

Enjoy.

Tags: Belle and Sebastian, Liars, Sunset Rubdown, Figurines, Televison Personalities, Danielson, Destroyer, Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan, Les Savy Fav, Pink Mountaintops, Stereolab, A Sunny Day in Glasgow, the Pipettes, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, the Knife, Shogun Kunitoki, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Giant Drag, Love is All, Music Podcasts

Posted by Jeff Klingman at 07:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I apologize for the shock tactics, but something big is afoot at Merry Swankster and I wanted to make sure I had your attention. If it makes you feel any better, that kitten is a total racist.

The next few days will see the debut of a brand new feature, namely, the Quarterly Report Podcast.

Four times a year, we'll take a step back from this ever accelerating culture of ours to present a 'cast for every season. The initial offering will feature tracks from previously profiled faves such as Liars, Sunset Rubdown, Love is All, Danielson, Giant Drag, and many, many more. Our tech squad is currently fumigating the hell out of the few remaining bugs, so an exact date/ time would be a bit premature, but trust me, the hour is soon upon us.

Watch this space friends...

Tags: Music Podcasts, Winter 2006, Racist Kittens

Posted by Jeff Klingman at 03:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)