It's nearly impossible for me to listen to Tame Impala without thinking of the Beatles and getting a bit nostalgic about classic rock. On Innerspeaker, there's no shortage of psychedelic jams; Zeppelin, Hendrix are all invoked here. And surely some of the credit for this big "classic" sound is due to Flaming Lips producer David Fridmann. Remember that supposed garage rock revival in the early 00s? Tame Impala's high octane riffs and melodic vocals wouldn't have sounded out of place during this retro revival, but their Aussie rivals (i.e., the Vines) would have fled for the hills.
"Solitude is Bliss"
9. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs (Merge)
This record provided part of the soundtrack for my relocation to Edmonton. It was especially appropriate for the drive through Calgary (shudder). The Suburbs isn't perfect, but it has the kind of emotional energy that only Arcade Fire can provide. Thematically, it's also the group's most sophisticated record; sure, the ideas are big and obvious (that's kind of a given in pop music), but the Arcade Fire handle them with delicacy and nuance. (Read my initial review.)
"Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)"
8. Joanna Newsom - Have One on Me (Drag City)
With every release, Joanna Newsom becomes more surprising and less compromising. That being said, Have One on Me is more relaxed and refined than both Ys and The Milk-Eyed Mender. When the drums kick in on the effortless, swaggering "Soft as Chalk," for example, Newsom seems unsurpassable in her coolness. She steals a few octave jumps from Joni Mitchell, clumsily pounding the ivory like every great folk artist before her. By now, it seems inappropriate to even question her place among the finest of folk-singers.
"81"
7. Future Islands - In Evening Air (Thrill Jockey)
Over the last six months Sam Herring has become one of my favourite vocalists. Channelling Frank Black, Carey Mercer, and Ian Curtis, Herring's ecstatic growl cuts against up-tempo beats and new wave ornaments. Amounting to nine tracks in under forty mintues, In Evening Air is a punchy record, as affective as it is economical. (It also doesn't hurt that In Evening Air boasts some of the best album artwork of the year.) Musically, Herring & co. demonstrate plenty of range (from the angsty "Tin Man" to the hopeful, introspective "Swept Inside"), and the emotional drive that sustains this album (which rests heavily on Herring's vocal maneuvers and the chugging basslines) never feels forced or contrived.
"Tin Man"
6. Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest (4AD)
2008's Microcastle seemed like a big leap for Deerhunter (a leap that ended up being my favourite of the year); on Halcyon Digest, the band's feet are firmly planted. The ambient diversions and transitions have all but disappeared. Instead, we get a more diverse display of Deerhunter's best qualities. At times it's a pretty heavy record: mortality, aging, and transcendence are, as usual, heavily mined themes. Bradford Cox still seems preoccupied with obscure stories of religious affectation ("Revival" and "Helicopter"), while secondary songwriter Lockett Pundt aims for arena-rock with "Desire Lines." Cox & co. have yet to disappoint with their songwriting, but it's the stylistic moves and the instrumental additions (like the wicked saxophone solo on "Coronado") that make Halcyon Digest a great record.
"Desire Lines"
5. Beach House - Teen Dream (Sub Pop)
Sometimes its a good thing that music puts you to sleep. On Teen Dream, Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally practically pull open the covers and crawl into bed with you. When this album leaked early last spring, I made sure to keep it circulating through my stereo. Nearly every song could be a single and nearly every song could make for a great cover by a children's choir (please do yourself a favour and check out "Zebra," sung by the P22 Chorus). No record this year was as soft around the edges, as warm or as comforting. Teen dreams make for the best kind of nostalgia; Beach House present them with all of emotion and none of the regret.
"Norway"
4. The National - High Violet (4AD)
I like to imagine that The National's frontman Matt Beringer is the Don Draper of the indie rock world. It works on a few levels. Both dudes manage to embody a sadness that's not only believable, but attractive; they're both solitary figures with family problems (see, for example, the heart-wrenching "Lemonworld") and neither one is shy about his dependence on certain substances to make it through the day (and night). But the parallel breaks down just as easily. Beringer comes by his confessions honestly. Not only that, he's a sad dude you can actually relate to. I've given up wondering whether High Violet improves on 2007's Boxer, or even 2005's underrated Alligator. It may take less time to warm up to the National's new material than it used to be, but songs like "Anyone's Ghost," "Bloodbuzz Ohio," and the unbelievably epic "England," have serious staying power. And how can you not love I guy who confesses, "I was afraid I'd eat your brains"? I want to see this song ("Conversation 16") on The Walking Dead. I love albums that finish strong. High Violet ends as strongly as it begins. (Read my initial review.)
"England"
3. Menomena - Mines (Barsuk)
No one sounds quite like Menomena; but somehow Menomena manage to sound like almost everyone. Paradox! Well, it might be if I didn't have qualify it so much. But the point still stands. Menomena dwell in contradiction, and it appears they're quite suited for it. Brent Knopf's slight vocals appear pinned against massive walls of sound, while the rich baritones of Danny Seim and Justin Harris are just as often laid bare. If this is music for the end of the world, why do these guys insist fighting the forces of darkness with the weapon's of a bygone era? Why do they keep singing about religion when it's just as dead as everything else? Those familiar tropes keep popping up, and just as often, Menomena go for boldly sentimental choruses, with equal parts squealing guitar rawk and booming choral chant. With three brilliant multi-instrumentalist songwriters working together, Menomena's music is always more than the sum of its parts, and the songs on Mines move around so much you never know quite where you'll end up. (Read my initial review.)
"Lunchmeat"
2. Balmorhea - Constellations (Western Vinyl)
Thank God for this album. For most of the semester it was the only music I could study to. But classifying it as "study music" sells it short. Constellations is an achingly beautiful hybrid of southern folk and classical arrangements; imagine a cross between dust-bowl sounds of Gillian Welch and the careful precision of the French pianist, Debussy. It's the only instrumental album on my list, but the fourth album by this band from Austin, Texas seemed like a special discovery this past year and I'm grateful for the composure it offered during the long autumn months. There's nothing immediately jawdropping here; instead Balmorhea strive for slow-building understatement while staying true to their southern beginnings. Perhaps this strange fusion explains why these carefully arranged Constellations sound so warm and inviting.
"Bowspirit"
1. Women - Public Strain (Flemish Eye / Jagjaguwar)
Women had a mixed year. After releasing their second album to critical acclaim, the band made headlines for self-destructing on stage at show in Victoria, BC. I had tickets for their show in Edmonton the following weekend. I've never had to return tickets and I never expected that I'd have to do so because a band broke up the week before I was supposed to see them. By this point in November, I knew Public Strain was my favourite album of the year. It may be odd to say for an album this noise-y, but this was my go-to album when I felt stressed out during the past semester. Like the snow storm featured on their album cover (totally surrounding its victims, making for poor visibility), Women smother their surf-guitar pop in dissonant feedback. That might have been too obvious, but I'd add that Women's musical blizzard is the kind of storm you take comfort in. At times Public Strain feels like the musical equivalent of wearing beer-goggles: disorienting, disconcerting, and kind of fun. Like the best experimental art-rockers (seriously, Sonic Youth, just quit and pass the torch to these guys; the same goes for No Age), Women make you work for those melodies; there's some digging to do here, but when you find that golden chord it feels new every time. I'm looking forward to their reunion tour. (Read my initial review.)
You can say what you want about Pitchfork, but they've got that whole "end of the year" thing down to a science and their off-shoot for music videos, Pitchfork TV, continues to showcase new ways for fans to approach their favourite artists. One of their best features, "Cemetery Gates," places musicians in the empty sanctuary of a gothic cathedral. For the well-behaved choir boys like Grizzly Bear and Jonsi it seems like a perfect fit, while bands like Of Montreal are forced to rethink their over the top stage presence. The video below finds Deerhunter's Bradford Cox performing material from Atlas Sound's 2009 release, Logos. One of the best songs on the album, "Attic Lights" sounds like it was meant to be played in this sort of context and it's all the better for it.
Although I regularly enjoy paging throughExclaim, Canada's monthly music rag, it's rare that I'll actually read anything in it. This month I had to make an exception and it paid off. The October issue features a substantial interview with Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox. There are a number of particularly great moments and I can't resist posting a few of them here.
On the timeliness of his releases:
Every fall I want to put out a record because I like listening to records in the fall . . . I remember in high school and college, when records came out in the fall and I was really interested in checking them out. If someone in the band was having a baby or something [Halcyon Digest] would have been an Atlas Sound album, though I would have approached it a bit differently. The difference between Deerhunter and Atlas Sound has more to do with scheduling than anything else. There are songs that are just Atlas Sound songs and there are songs that are just Deerhunter songs, but Logos could have been a Deerhunter album. If I had to say this album was most like anything I'd say Weird Era Cont.
On the rising prominence of the saxophone in indie music:
I wanted that sax on there because I was listening to the Stones' Exile On Main Street reissue a lot . . . I began to see a pattern forming. Saxophones are becoming this thing. That's why we did it early. Next year everyone's gonna have a saxophone on their record because saxophones are just cool. This is gonna sound random and cutesy, but I've always had this fantasy of having a dog named Saxophone. Saxophone is one of my favourite words.
I can't help agreeing with Cox's point about the saxophone (all of TV on the Radio's albums are fine examples of this; and then, of course, there's Menomena), but I think it's growing popularity also has something to do with the fact that everyone's (finally!) re-embracing the early nineties. For me, this is a cause for celebration; indeed, it's not difficult to see why I'm such a fan of Deerhunter. The song Cox is referrencing (from Deerhunter's new album, Halcyon Digest), "Coronado," features a totally gratuitous sax solo that could have been lifted from just about any 90s sit-com (see below). Awesome.
Below, you'll find two tracks from Deerhunter's forthcoming LP, Halcyon Digest, out September 28th on 4AD. The word "halycon" refers to an idyllic period that's long past, a time of peace and happiness forever out of reach. Both songs stay true to this theme, but they do so via religious tropes. Deerhunter seems strangley at home in this sort of territory. Even with this kind of potential for easy irony (which is what becomes of most guitar-based indie music), they manage to create a beautiful but ambiguous synthesis between form and content. Whether or not these tropes are used in earnest, something profound gets across. And it probably has something to do with way Bradford Cox's introspective, androgynous vocals complement and blend into his band's enchanting walls of sound. AsMicrocastle proved for me over and over again, the music of Deerhunter is best thought of as a liminal experience.
The first is the official video for the band's second single, "Helicopter." In this song Cox laments his "cage," waits in vain for escape, and begins flirting with prayer. The saccharine harpsichord tthat opens the song provides a nice foil for the lush feedback of the chorus, and makes Cox's persona seem as tortured as ever.
Their first single, "Revival," (featured below) is a psych rock throwback sees Cox narrating a fairly straightforward religious conversion: "I'm saved, I'm saved / And oh, would you believe it? / On the third day / I felt his presence near me." The song allows for a comfortable beginning, but but before long it threatens "freedom," "lonliness," and "darkness always." Kierkegaard anyone?
I'm running out of time, so my musical navel-gazing won't be as drawn out as it has been in every other "albums of the decade" entry. I haven't even gotten to my top five yet! Stay tuned.
Deerhunter - Microcastle (Kranky, 2008)
I can understand how Deerhunter aren't the easiest band to like. Their albums are cumbersome and at times sound half-baked: you usually have to wade through several tracks of disconnected noise before getting to something really exciting. Fair enough.
Microcastle was my favourite album of last year. In my mind, nothing came close to the ambition and execution of Deerhunter's second album of shoegazey guitar rock. It's a beautiful and engrossing listen start to finish; the soundscapes are perfect for a walk in the snow. This album came out in the fall of last year and it was my album of choice for those long walks to work, snow crunching underfoot, flakes falling from the sky. It reminded me a lot of early Smashing Pumpkins (moments on Gish, but particulalry Pisces Iscariot), so of course I was immediately obsessed.
It isn't enough to say that Microcastle rewards dedicated listening. It's a sprawling piece of guitar rock revelation, where everything seems to fit together. Seamlessly paced, Microcastle is driven by a nostalgic love affair with feedback and melody. Beginning with the soothing "Cover Me (Slowly)," Deerhunter’s lazy euphoria finally stumbles into the broken chords of "Activa." But just when Bradford Cox appears to lose his steam, Deerhunter launch into "Nothing Ever Happened," an impossible epic about drugs that explodes into an all-out prog-jam.
Another thing I appreciate about Deerhunter is that they always leave enough room on their albums for the "come down;" although their biggest moments are inspiring, it's the way they handle the aftermath that's a real testament to their artistry. Following the massive climax of "Nothing Ever Happened," the psych throwbacks "Saved By Old Times" and "These Hands" are comfy matresses on which to land: the first is an ode to the past, while the latter describes the dangers of inaction, on growing old and becoming ineffective. Deerhunter offer a world of to get lost in. Yeah there's drugs, but one thing is certain: once Microcastle draws you inside, there’s no getting out.
Menomena - Friend and Foe (Barsuk, 2007)
Friend and Foe is a deceptive straighforward album; at first, it sounds like inventive indie-rock, but sooner or later one begins to notice the careful composition, the openings for new sounds and rhythms, the way each song flows into the next, the thoughtful lyrics, the confusion of sacred and profane and the quality of production. Destined to be overlooked, this was an album that kept revealing something new with each listen. I love bands that use the saxophone well (see TV on the Radio) and are this conscious of different rythmic sounds and patterns; I love Menomena.
The brilliant "Rotten Hell" has become a darkly satisfying sing along for my friends and I, while a song like "The Pelican," which again brings to mind TV on the Radio for its carefully exposed aggression (the wild vocals), and the way it nearly spins out of control, has only become more interesting because I've recently learned that the pelican is part of a symbolic tradition in Christian art. It's meant to represent Christ's sacrifice: there is a myth that, in order to feed its young, the mother bird turns her head inward to pierce her own breast; the blood spills and the young are fed. I'm pretty sure, this isn't what the songs supposed to be about, but with that explanation in mind, that screamed line, which recurrs through out the song ("Take it!") seems strangely appropriate.
The songs on Friend and Foe seem divinely inspired and then beautfully and blasphemously deconstructed. It's only three guys! How do they do it?
Grizzly Bear - Yellow House (Warp, 2006)
Unlike this year's Veckatimest (see my "Top 20 Albums of 2009"), Yellow House isn't really a pop album. It has moments, sure, but the songs that do emerge from these folkey soundscapes have more in common with prog-rock than pop music. I'm probably overstating the case. Yellow House is, like all their work, full of choirboy vocals, instrumental sophistication and haunting atmospheres. Their sound is all that unique anymore, but no one does it better than Grizzly Bear and I, for one, am glad they're finally getting the attention they deserve, whether it comes from some anonymous blogger or from Jay-Z.
I first encountered Grizzly Bear through a mix my sister sent me while I was out treeplanting in B.C. "On a Neck, On a Spit" was the song she included and it blew me away: epic and uplifting, it finally erupts into a tight acoustic love song ("each day spend it with you, all my time spend it with you..."). From that moment on I held a lot of anticipation for the release of their second album, Yellow House, scheduled to arrive that autumn. On first listen, I was a bit let down; this wasn't like the song I'd spent my summer listening to: it was slow, brooding, eerie and depressing (see the mid-album waltz "Maria," which seems like it was meant for a Paul Thomas Anderson movie). Suffice it to say, it wasn't long till I had completely immersed myself in songs like "Colorado" (another waltz built around a grand piano) and "Lullaby."
Seeing them open for TV on the Radio in Fargo, ND solidified my love for this band. Not only were they studio wizards, they know their instruments like experts and sing together like intimates. Veckatimest may have been overhyped but it continues their winning streak. It's still safe to say, "No One Does it Better."
There's a slew of albums coming out this year are clothed in unmistakably religious symbolism and I'm not quite sure how to take it. Following last year's Heretic Pride (a shout out to Prostestants? Anabaptists?) and their Satanic Messiah EP (I guess not), the Mountain Goats have recently revealed their new album, Life of the World to Come, set to come out later this summer. I'm starting to see a progression here and frankly, the concepts behind this new release sound a lot more interesting than last year's admirable but heavy-handed records. What are the Mountain Goats doing reading the Bible? Life's first single, "Genesis 3:23," is a finely tuned folk ballad with a chorus that, quite appropriately repeats the line "I used to live here." Each track is named after a different verse from the Bible and will, I expect, feature the same sort of bittersweetness. I'm interested to see how ambiguous they allow this album to be (which should correlate to its overall quality). My hope is that it will be something comparable in tone to last year's City of Refuge by the Castanets.
Another, perhaps less suprising release is the new album by Om, entitled God is Good, which follows 2007's Pilgrimage. Now I'm aware that a lot of black metal subverts religious concepts, but it seems like Om is going another route (or maybe I'm just really naive) - either they're making an attempt to parody and ultimately subvert religious imagery, or perhaps their interest is an aesthetic one? Are they following Sun 0)))'s devastating Monoliths and Dimensions, a very strong candidate for 2009's best album, whose album centrepiece "Big Church" fuses a macabre metal with droning walls of sound? It's an album about death and the void; and what better entry point than that hollowed-out ghost-town called religious tradition?
One of my most anticipated albums of the year, Atlas Sound's Logos, sees Bradford Cox returning to the kind of spiritual concepts that have infused Deerhunter's best material. The Flourescent Grey EP, whose title track seems to me like a meditation on Christ's flesh (attentive to the strangeness or humanness of the "logos"), is probably the best example of this bizarre interest in transcendence - which is ultimately what Deerhunter's sound is all about. Logos sounds like it could be another winner. If you haven't heard the first single, "Walkabout" featuring Panda Bear (!), I suggest you do soRIGHT NOW!Cox has alwayts taken himself way too seriously, but calling his new album Logos takes the cake. Seriously, would anyone have had the gall to use that title ten years ago? Is this evidence of an increasing secularization (where religious ideas are put into service of a higher aesthetic or artistic truth), or are people realizing that there's something worthwhile about revisiting religious traditions. Perhaps we haven't left them behind after all. Perhaps we can't.
Scrolling through other stuff, I found this decent send-off of 2008. If anything, it's worth reading for the Lester Bangs quote, and I'm not sure whether I can disagree about Deerhunter because, well, I am a "completist," I guess and well, see for yourself.
The greatest problem posed by the nanosecond hype-cycle of online crit isn't bloody-minded trailblazing as an end unto itself. It's the cliquish fractalisation of subcultures so that the context for enjoyment of a given band or music is so narrow that it's damn near inaccessible. What am I talking about? Okay, Deerhunter are a band that I kinda like. I think their production is half-assed, their melodies predictable, and I can almost see Bradford's bullshit hippy swimmy arm movements when I listen to his self-conscious delivery. But the obvious points of reference are all bands that I really dig, so I can't categorically dislike Deerhunter. Ergo I often ask myself what I'm missing about the band that sends so many listeners over the moon. Well, according to Matthew Perpetua...
It helps to have the context of other Deerhunter records, and probably also Atlas Sound and seeing them live, to get the bigger picture of who Bradford Cox is and what he’s doing, and why it’s special and good, especially in the current context of indie rock circa ‘08.
In other words, only completists need apply to the fanclub. What the fuck good does that do anyone not immediately enthralled with their music? A band needn't be popular to be "special and good," but for them to be important, something needs to resonate beyond a certain navel-gazing blogipelago.
Sure Microcastle has a slow arc and it's uber self-conscious and you have to spend time with it to appreciate it, etc. But why not try last year's Flourescent Grey EP for some immediate enthrallment? And there I go again: way in over my head. I should have worked today.
Either more inspired thanks to the usual flurry of year-end blog activity, or empowered by the presence of my top ten list in Stylus magazine's year end feature, I couldn't resist starting things off with the albums that have driven me into seclusion over the last 12 months. Why anyone cares at this point, I'd love to know.
1. Deerhunter - Microcastle/Weird Era Cont
No album this year has absorbed me like Microcastle, Deerhunter’s follow-up to the one-two punch of 2007’s Cryptograms and Fluorescent Grey EP. Seamlessly paced, Microcastle is driven by a nostalgic love affair with feedback and melody. Beginning with the soothing “Cover Me (Slowly),” Deerhunter’s lazy euphoria finally stumbles into the broken chords of “Activa.” But just when they appear to lose his steam, Deerhunter launch into “Nothing Ever Happened,” an impossible epic that explodes into an all-out prog-jam. Once Microcastle draws you inside, there’s no getting out.
2. Chad VanGaalen - Soft Airplane
Chad VanGaalen sounds joyfully at ease on Soft Airplane, his third album since debuting in 2005 with Infiniheart, a wonderfully dysfunctional collection of self-produced experimental folk-rock. The Calgary native dipped into the same pool of material for his 2006 follow-up, the Polaris Prize nominated Skelliconnection. Soft Airplane marks a new stage in VanGaalen’s catalogue: it’s his first offering of newly written material, recorded with an album in mind, and it shows. Amidst the garage crunch of “Inside the Molecules,” VanGaalen sounds truly content, while the sublime catchiness of “City of Electric Light” and the ecstatic electro-pop of “TMNT Mask” display VanGaalen in top form. With lyrics that fascinate and puzzle, VanGaalen’s chilling voice is unmistakable; as with his other albums, the artwork, like the music, is all his own, always twisted but eerily familiar.
3. Portishead - Third
What more could be said about this chilling assualt on the senses? Everyone makes mention of the long gap between Third and its predecessor and the fact that it sounds nothing like the smooth trip-hop Portishead helped define in the late 90s. Still, I think we all underestimated them and their ability to evolve and adapt. There's word of a Fourth on the way. I can't wait to see what Portishead does next.
4. Constantines - Kensington Heights One of the few popular Canadian bands that still wears its punk politics on its sleeve, Constantines didn't release their best album this year, but they managed to open up their sound with an added urgency and made some intriguing theological statements in the process. Springsteen eat your heart out.
5. Times New Viking - Rip It Off
Some can't get past the audible feedback "hiss" that carries each track, but this pastiche of 90s DIY indie-rock is an indispensible testament to the incestuous nature of popular music. Loaded with melody, this helps make up for years of disgraceful major-label "punk-pop" sludge.
6. Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks - Real Emotional Trash Post-Pavement (sigh), but engaging and surefooted - maybe a little too smooth. I don't care. Malkmus doesn't scare me off when he gets proggy and just having Janet Weiss pounding out beats is enough to make this a satisfying "prog rock" album, entact with Malkmus' usual drugged out self-reflexive jibberish - something I'll never get tired of.
7. NOMO - Ghost Rock
With their third album, NOMO had the sound I'd been waiting to hear all year. Always promised, never delivered. Ghost Rock had legs, a jazz record running through post-punk, treading lightly through the afrobeat revivalism that seemed to define this year's releases.
8. The Magnetic Fields - Distortion First of all, its a brilliant pop album that should be recognized as such -with one of the best female vocalists around. Second, its soaked in feedback and sustains the novelty (the irony?) straight through songs that treat sex and alcohol like sacramental fixations.
9. Wild Beasts - Limbo, Panto Chris Talbot, possesses a tight falsetto that can soar like Morrissey and a cathartic growl that brings to mind Carey Mercer of Frog Eyes. Talbot croons overtop waltzing guitars and tribal drums that never cease to sound like a death-rattle on repeat. Exhibitionists to the bitter end, Wild Beasts have discovered a cabaret in a cemetery, or in the final words of “Cheerio Chaps, Cheerio Goodbye,” they have created “a requiem in a circus tent.”
10. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazuras, Dig!!!
Quite honestly, this is the first Nick Cave album I've really stuck with. It's worth its weight in critical acclaim, not least for the twisted nature of its concept, the gall of Cave's wordplay, or the uncanny work of the Bad Seeds.
It's nearly impossible for me to listen to Tame Impala without thinking of the Beatles and getting a bit nostalgic about classic rock. On Innerspeaker, there's no shortage of psychedelic jams; Zeppelin, Hendrix are all invoked here. And surely some of the credit for this big "classic" sound is due to Flaming Lips producer David Fridmann. Remember that supposed garage rock revival in the early 00s? Tame Impala's high octane riffs and melodic vocals wouldn't have sounded out of place during this retro revival, but their Aussie rivals (i.e., the Vines) would have fled for the hills. 
1. Deerhunter - Microcastle/Weird Era Cont
2. Chad VanGaalen - Soft Airplane 
3. Portishead - Third
4. Constantines - Kensington Heights
5. Times New Viking - Rip It Off
6. Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks - Real Emotional Trash
7. NOMO - Ghost Rock 
8. The Magnetic Fields - Distortion
9. Wild Beasts - Limbo, Panto
10. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazuras, Dig!!!