Monthly Archive for May, 2008

BOTM vol 08

Published
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billy
on May 31, 2008
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I’m actually committing to doing this month’s Best of the Month volume actually at the end of the month {volume 07 came out about five days after April was a bygone, so this is a change of pace}. Once again I present to you the best tracks that I heard during this month. This is my no means a completely exhaustive list of all the great music floating around on the interwebs, but it’s my personal slice of thirteen delicious tracks. Enjoy them on at a time or grab the entire volume in one convenient download. For all previous volumes of this series click here.

All the tracks in one zip file : here {zshare = left click} {link broken}

mp3 : Cloud Cult – Love You All
I’ve been listening to their latest album almost nonstop since I got it a few months back and I’m starting to think that this is my favorite track from the disc. Granted it has arguably the most simple lyrics on the album but the complexity of emotions portrayed through the arrangement is quite amazing.
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mp3 : Coldplay – Can’t Get You Out of My Head (Live Kylie Minogue Cover)
Although they might not be the biggest band of all time I would argue that they just might be the biggest band of this year. They’ve masterfully promoted their new album and somehow they’ve kept the lid on the leaky pipes which plague so many other big bands. This is a great cover.
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mp3 : Coldplay – Viva la Vida
Although Violet Hill was the first single dumped on the world, and the music video for that song is quite well done, I think it’s Viva la Vida which shows a nice maturity for these four boys fronted by Chris Martin. My only question is how they produce the strings in a live setting. Quite a brilliant start for their upcoming album which I am greatly anticipating.
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mp3 : Death Cab for Cutie – Girls Just Wanna Have Fun (Live Cyndi Lauper Cover)
With all the hype surrounding bigger, or at least more blogged about, acts I feel as if the launch date of the latest DCFC album passed by without much ado. In all actuality I guess I didn’t even post a review {although I love it}. Regardless I love Ben Gibbard’s special take on this classic song.
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mp3 : Emilie Simon – To The Dancers In The Rain (Live)
Sometime during this month I started listening to the more melancholy female singers on the market right now and I found myself falling in love with each of them in turn. Sometimes being sad is what you need to feel and sometimes listening to sad music is the right choice.
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mp3 : Eugene Francis Jr – Poor Me
Kind of like a mashup of Frou Frou with The Shins, Eugene Francis Jr seems like the golden reason to make a sequel to Garden State {if only for the soundtrack}. I love this song.
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mp3 : MSTRKRFT – VUVUVU
I haven’t really listened to this genre of music since the days of undergrad all nighters spent studying architecture. Energy drinks of tomorrow will still fall short of the punch packed into any MSTRKRFT song. Ever.
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mp3 : Regina Spektor – The Call
Although I’m not a big fan of The Chronicles of Narnia movies {they’re a bit childish and the CGI is almost as bad as that found in the new Indiana Jones} it’s quite a treat to hear Regina Spektor on the soundtrack. And I really like the lyrics in this song. Kudos to you Ms. Spektor.
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mp3 : Say Hi – We Lost The Albatross
After dropping the To Your Mom from his title and, arguably, dropping some of the silliness from his musical creations as well, Eric Elbogen’s music has grown up quite a bit. I love this song off his latest album and I hope it’s a sign of even greater ideas yet to come.
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mp3 : Sigur Ros – Gobbledigook
I’m officially a sucker for all things Sigur Ros {much to the chagrin of many of my friends}. I don’t know how I first heard of this band from Iceland {a land I’ve long wanted to visit}, but I’ve loved them from that first listen. This song hails from their upcoming album {hot on the heels of their last effort Hvarf/Heim} and they’re giving it away free from their website.
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mp3 : The Flaming Lips – Knives Out (Radiohead Cover)
The Flaming Lips caught my attention when they sang about robot killer Yoshimi {for an entire album} and it’s great to hear them cover another of my favorite bands. This performance hails from a 2002 set they played at the esteemed KCRW studios.
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mp3 : The Magnetic Fields – Too Drunk To Dream
I really hate the latest album by The Magnetic Fields. It was such a departure from the melodramatic beat and cello filled pop of their previous two efforts. Somehow songs from that album keep sneaking into my favorite lists though. It’s as if taken one at a time the songs are alright, but when put together for forty five minutes they’re simply too much to handle.
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mp3 : Weezer – Pink Triangle (Live Acoustic)
I love me some Weezer and I really love what I’ve heard so far from their upcoming album. Pink Triangle hails from what may be my favorite Weezer disc of all time, Pinkerton, and this is a solid live version of the song {even if the crowd gets picked up by the mics a bit much. Cut them some slack, obviously they’re drunk. Right?}
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Policy

Published
by
billy
on May 29, 2008
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Policy’s eponymous debut EP reminds me a lot of the long defunct band Dovetail Joint. For those of you who aren’t in the know Dovetail Joint owned the market on brooding quasi radio friendly rock during about three weeks of the late nineties. Think Muse meets Coldplay.

Regardless of awkward and random associations made by my fractured mind this EP is a solid rock debut for a band who seems to have struggled to stay, and play, together. Below I’ve included my favorite track off the EP. I hope you enjoy it.

mp3 : Policy – North

Although I do enjoy the entire five song effort I’m curious as to what a proper full length would sound like. Sometimes a band doesn’t really find their stride until they’ve been forced to record a solid forty minute effort.

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Alan Wilkis

Published
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billy
on May 28, 2008
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At times the self produced solo debut from Alan Wilkis, Babies Dream Big (amazon) (itunes), gets caught up a bit too much in paying homage to the eighties pop and R&B classics. At times he sounds too much like Motown meets synthpop and it’s not the most flattering of mashings. At other times on this debut album Alan finds a way to take the soul of those musical histories and weave them into something that is both contemporary and progressive. It is on these tracks, where he breaks from the trappings of simply emulating the past, that he finds his true voice and reveals a depth of talent and a glimpse at greater things yet to come from this talented Brooklynite.

mp3 : Alan Wilkis – I Wanna Know
mp3 : Alan Wilkis – Astronaut (Would You Be One)

Both of these tracks are good, but I must say that Astronaut is my favorite track on the album by far.

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Jose Gonzalez

Published
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billy
on May 27, 2008
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Jose Gonzalez’s latest album, last September’s In Our Nature (amazon) (itunes), is phenomenal from start to finish. It seems as if each week of 2008 brings me another excellent album whose launch date I missed during the last calendar year. Regardless of punctuality issues, this album is quite amazing. Jose is Argetinian by birth, now lives in Sweden, and yet he styles a type of modern brooding folk music isn’t necessarily anything but the pure channeled brilliance of Jose Gonzalez.

The album builds upon itsef throughout the thirty five minute run time as tracks become more complex and refined from the opener, How Low, to the magnificent and fitting closing track, Cycling Trivialities. Although any track from the entire disc would easily have proved the genius of Jose, I thought it was best to include the last track in all its eight minute glory.

mp3 : Jose Gonzalez – Cycling Triviality

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Flobots

Published
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billy
on May 23, 2008
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I’d never heard of their album until Droll Stevan recommended their video of Handlebars to me. At first listen I loved it and that prompted me to take a trip through their 2007 release, Fight With Tools (amazon) (iTunes). Their sound reminds me of a lot of different and equally diverse influences and for the first hour or so I found myself unable to accurately put into words what I was hearing. They remind me of a band that mixes Eminem’s rhymes with the Gorillaz smooth pop rock. They remind me of Rage Against the Machine without the searing guitar solos or the searing angst filled screams {although the political mindedness of their lyrics is spot on}. At times they obliquely remind me of Mighty Mighty Bosstones mashed up with Linkin Park.

I guess you could say this a serious example of the new wave of genre blurring musical acts {and really, what’s a genre today? Everything is fractured in fractal patterns. Even myspace has you list the three, yes three, genres your band fits into}.

mp3 : Flobots – Stand Up
mp3 : Flobots – Handlebars

If you didn’t watch their video for Handlebars from the above link make sure you click here to watch it over at YouTube. It’s my favorite song on the album, by far, and the lyrics are amazing. It’s nice to hear hip hop {hip pop?} with this many political and pop culture references.

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The Interiors

Published
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billy
on May 22, 2008
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The Interiors is a three piece band out of the closest big city to me, Chicago. I was unsure what to expect when I started listening to the eponymous debut, which will be released in June of this year, but I was quickly caught up in the album and quite taken with their sound. At times they sway close to a musical style reminiscent of The Strokes mixed with The Dodos and at other times I feel they’re part of the leading edge in modern rock.  That they’re part of the paradigm changing set {akin to the genre spawning movements started by acts such as The White Stripes, The Strokes, The Killers, and the most contemporary benchmark, Vampire Weekend}.

As far as comparisons can take us there is one way to sum up their album. It is great. As I was listening to the entire album I was immediately struck by how catchy each and every successive track is. Honestly, the hardest part of listening to this album was picking my favorite two songs to put in this post. After each track ended my head would mentally tick off and say “ok, that’s going online,” but as soon as the next track would start I would find myself in a quandary because each and every track is just as good as the one before it.  This is easily one of the best debut albums I have heard in a long time.

mp3 : The Interiors – A Crooked Line
mp3 : The Interiors – Shooting Off

I told you they were good. And there is a least half a dozen other songs on this debut album that I could have put here on TWF. I’ll shut up now so you can listen more closely to the wonders of The Interiors.

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Nancy

Published
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billy
on May 21, 2008
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Despite their misleading moniker Nancy is in fact a five piece band hailing from Brazil and supported/distributed by RCRD LBL. {For those of you who aren’t in the know RCRD LBL is an online record label that distributes and promotes music on a strict download for free basis. quite amazing}. I received this track via email and if you can go to their page on RCRD LBL, their myspace, or their own site to hear more of this delicious quintet.

mp3 : Nancy – Keep Cooler

For some reason I’ve been very fond of female vocals lately. I’m sure there’s a multitude of subliminal reasons behind this, but who cares, it’s good music in the end.

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Neil Diamond

Published
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billy
on May 20, 2008
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Gone are the days when Neil Diamond was simply another joke preforming a charade of a show out in Vegas. His fall from grace left him seeming locked into sequins and shows packed with an ever gentrifying audience {or the younger set crowding in like so many children catching a glimpse of the bearded lady}. Fortunately, as the story goes, along came Rick Rubin. Rubin put his trademark stripped down on Neil Diamond’s previous effort, 12 Songs, encouraging the aging trobadour to pick up a guitar and actually write and preform his own music again. I loved that album and I love Neil’s latest effort, Home Before Dark (amazon) (iTunes), even more.

Where 12 Songs stripped Neil down to his most basic instincts Home Before Dark gives him room to play. The sounds found here are bigger and speak more of the cannon of Neil’s career. It reminds me a lot of the later work of Johnny Cash, also produced by Rick Rubin, in that it at times is intensely autobiographical while at the same time there seems to be an overarching sense of age infused into every lyric. This album is a bit less restrained than 12 Songs, and although some of the songs found here are simple, there are times when the full flavor of Neil Diamond, from folk hero to Vegas burnout, shines through and shines through gloriously.

mp3 : Neil Diamond – One More Bite of The Apple
mp3 : Neil Diamond – The Power of Two

It feels like the perfect album to listen to around the campfire, on a rainy road, or in the basement with some friends, drinking some cold ones and talking about remember when. From start to finish it’s another solid effort. {And I must add, of all the aging rockers, Neil Diamond is the most senatorial in appearance. He’s simply aged with grace, despite the shenanigans.}

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Sybris

Published
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billy
on May 19, 2008
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I have but one forlorn track sitting on my hard drive from this little quartet called Sybris. Upon first listen there are definite parallels to a band I talked about awhile ago, Hot Springs, and along with that comes the allusion to Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Although I liken Sybris to the best of Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The side that slants more towards pop and rock and less towards harsh vocals and angst. This track hails from their album Into the Trees (amazon) and I dig what I’ve heard of it thus far.

mp3 : Sybris – Oh Man!

I love this song for the sense of controlled chaos embodied in the last forty five seconds. Well that and the plaintive and repeated line “oh man I want some shade.” {As an afterthought, is there a hint of Nada Surf apparent to anyone else?}

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This Is Ivy League

Published
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billy
on May 16, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 3 Comments

What terrible dank rock have I been hiding under the past month or so. I’m only two songs into the debut album by this duo and I think I’m in love. To be honest I began writing this post {and began the love infatuation} approximately three minutes before beginning my first listen to the album. This love affair began at the first guitar string plucked in this spot on rendition of Arcade Fire’s song Crown of Love.

mp3 : This Is Ivy League – Crown of Love (Arcade Fire Cover)

I’ll have more on this band later, hopefully after an honest three listens to their album, but for now this song will tide you over. It is quite simply the best Arcade Fire cover I have heard to date. A sort of modern day Simon and Garfunkel by way of Kings of Convenience. Simple brilliance.

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