2009 Year-End

Listomania
Sorry, it's taken me longer than planned to get this stuff up here. I blame it on the holidays, general laziness, and genuine technical difficulties (notice the lack of pretty pictures). Hopefully, this is still fun and relevant.

It was a great year, all in all. Globalization, for all its downsides, gave us a nice blend of genre-bending music to savor in 2009 (and I do encourage savoring in this Internet age of micro-snacking). Let's review:

We saw new wave/no-wave wedded to soul/pop with records by the xx, Little Dragon, and remixers of the year by a long-shot, Classixx; lushly layered masterpieces in two of the year's most universally lauded albums - Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavillion and Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest; some highly original, balls-out rock by the likes of Franz Ferdinand and White Denim; only a couple (no sarcasm) good, solid hip-hop recordings - DOOM's Born Like This and Mos Def's the Ecstatic; latin-tinged output from some of the world-scene's brightest underground stars - Quantic (and his Combo Barbaro) and Ocote Soul Sounds (Adrien Quesada, Martin Perna, Chico Mann); and more electro goodies from more artistes than one could begin to reasonably list. Plenty of good indie/lo-fi/garage crap too, but many of those acts seem more like flavors of the week, in retrospect.

You've heard most of my favorite songs from the year in prior posts and I've listed some of the year's highlights in albums above, but here's a more exhaustive run-down, including the blog-requisite "Best Albums of the Decade" list. It's important to remind ourselves now, as always, that music, like all art, is subjective. So, please point out what I missed/failed to connect with and which favorites of mine flat-out suck. Happy Holidays and a blessed New Year.

10 Best Albums of 2009
1)Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
2) Franz Ferdinand - Tonight
3) White Denim - Fits (w/ bonus Exposion disc)
4) Chin Chin - The Flashing, the Fancing
5) Quantic and His Combo Barbaro - Tradition in Transition
6) Little Dragon - Machine Dreams
7) Ocote Soul Sounds and Adrian Quesada - Coconut Rock
8) NOMO - Invisible Cities
9) Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
10) Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix


15(ish) Best Albums of the Past Decade (in no order, except #1, which is indeed my favorite)

1) My Morning Jacket - Z
~Cat Power - The Greatest
~Blur - Think Tank
~Wilco - A Ghost is Born
~Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
~Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
~Arcade Fire - Funeral
~The Libertines - self/titled
~Whiskeytown - Pneumonia
~Radiohead - Hail to the Thief
~Radiohead - Kid A
~The Mars Volta - De-Loused in the Comatorium
~Kanye West - College Dropout
~The Shins - Oh Inverted World
~Dr. Dog - Fate
~Ryan Adams - Gold


15 Best Songs of 2009 (in no order except that which sounds good as a playlist)



1) Camera Obscura - French Navy
2) Royksopp - Vision One
3) Passion Pit - Sleepyhead
4) Major Lazer - Cash Flow (Classixx remix)
5) Quantic and His Combo Barbaro - Undelivered Letter
6) Dent May - Meet Me In The Garden
7) Peter, Bjorn & John - It Don't Move Me
8) Little Dragon - Feather
9) Animal Collective - My Girls

10) Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros - Home
11) Levon Helm - When I Go Away
12) Grizzly Bear - Two Weeks
13) Phoenix - Fences
14) Phoenix - Lisztomania (Classixx remix)
15) Girls - Lust For Life

December 2009

I wrote something a couple weeks ago to put up here, but it no longer seems relevant. It was something about listening to too many types of music and feeling unfocused and restless as a result. I've since contented myself with a lot of downbeat, electro, and jazz. A guy who epitomizes this sleepy cross-section of musical realms is electro composer Lusine, whose new full-length, A Certain Distance is a breath of fresh air for lounge fans. The album is at once glitchy and airy. Most hear the descriptor "glitchy" and think of dark, wacked-out shit. But there is a peaceful, night-time mellowness that coats this Lusine stuff. You can tell he finds beauty and possibility in the chirping away of technology, not paranoia like some of his contemporaries. If you like the idea of an ambient electro album, this is a great one to pick up.

With the end of the year approaching we've seen Best of 2009 lists popping up all over the place (don't worry, I'll have one next month). But where's the love for 2008?? Oh, right... they got the love last year. But what's held up since then? That is, what are we still listening to that was the hot 'ish last year? Or maybe it wasn't even the hotness last year, somehow slipping our radar.

Dr. Dog's 2008 LP, Fate, dominated
my iPod this year. Equal parts Grateful Dead, the Band, and the Beatles (and my Dad says Supertramp), the Philadelphia fivesome perfected their craft on this their third full-length. With comparisons to all the aforementioned classic bands, it's easy to think Dr. Dog's sound would probably be quite derivative - it's not. The songs and the band are original - blue collar, but immensely thoughtful and caring. Some big themes seem to be life, history, and family. They went with a more polished sound on this release, over the lo-fi aesthetic of their previous recordings, but the grainy authenticity remains. Here's Fate's final two, "The Beach" and "My Friend."





Fleet Foxes' self-titled album from last year is, like Dr. Dog's, a modern classic. It's unadulterated, pristine, backwoods bliss. If you've been wondering where all the extremely smart, tasteful, and talented folk musicians have been hiding out for the past couple years, the answer is the state of Washington. These boys call Seattle home, but you get the feeling this music was created deeper in the recesses of a Pacific Northwest forest. With production value that rivals the Beach Boys and vocal harmonies that do the same, this is an album that keeps on giving. Here's a link to one of the "Take Away Shows" Fleet Foxes did for the French blog, La Blogotheque... pretty amazing.

the magic starts around 2:30... http://www.blogotheque.net/Fleet-Foxes,4532

I also planned to write here about the fantastic funkfest that is Chin Chin's
The Flashing, The Fancing, but in doing some checking I realized the album came out this year, and not last. So, more on that next month. So, what 2008 albums have continued to keep you interested and entertained in 2009?

With no further ado, this month's listening selections...



Track List
1) Atlas Sound - Quick Canal (featuring Laetitia Sadier)
2) Grooms - Acid King of Hell (Guitar Feelings)
3) Lindstrom & Christabelle - Baby Can't Stop (Aeroplane remix)
4) Yo La Tengo - Periodically Double or Triple
5) Javelin - Tell Me, What Will It Be?
6) Monsters of Folk - Dear God (Sincerely, M.O.F.)
7) Grant Green - Go Down Moses
8) Warpaint - Billie Holiday
9) Neil Young - Winterlong
10) Future Islands - Little Dreamer (Jones remix)
11) Beach House - Norway
12) Wilco - Magazine Called Sunset

November 2009

Eclectic Head Check (continuous mix)
Mostly filthy songs spawned by a slew of filthy new releases from the past couple months – Thom Yorke, BLK JKS, White Denim, Little Dragon, Devendra Banhart, Lusine…. And then some other filthy songs that sort of complement the hitherto amassed filthiness.

But here’s the twist – this month’s jams are assembled in a one-track continuous mix designed for your listening/lounging/partying pleasure. It is my hope that you’ll get lost in it, emerging 68 minutes later with a clear, astounded head.

Download it if you’d like and throw it on a CD. Let me know what you think of the format and thanks for tuning in.




Download: http://www.divshare.com/download/9204025-8dc


Track List
1) Devendra Banhart - Rats
2) Jack Penate - Pull My Heart Away (Jamie XX Remix)
3) Little Dragon - Feather
4) Diplo and Laid Back Luke - Hey (Nadastrom Hot Latin Dub)
5) Thom Yorke - Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses
6) Jack Penate - Everything is New
7) White Denim - Start to Run
8) the Soft Pack - Fences (Phoenix cover)
9) Fever Ray - When I Grow Up (Bassnectar Remix)
10) Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs - Heads Will Roll (A-Trak Remix)
11) Clipse ft. Cam'ron - Popular Demand (Popeye's)
12) Lusine - Gravity
13) BLK JKS - Cursor
14) Diplo - Sarah (excerpt)
15) Bobby Hutcherson - Ghetto Lights


cool vid:

October 2009

Halloween-y
Even ignoring the occasion of Halloween, there’s something about the onset of fall that brings a spooky, whimsical feeling to the air. Maybe it hearkens back to America’s first colonists and their concerns about the bleak winter that lie ahead; and their fabled worries of witches amongst them and wild animals without, lurking at the edge of the treeline. Uncertainty, disquiet, and loneliness – all the same dull sensations the season’s breezes carry today. The dusk before the dark of winter.

The 2001 film, Donnie Darko, captured the spirit of this season well, and the playlist that follows could almost be an alternative soundtrack to the film. I say “almost” because there are a couple fun tunes below, because hey, Halloween is fun! I don’t think there are any fun songs on the Donnie Darko soundtrack…. There are, however, some great, touching works; two of which are included below (“Mad World” and “Killing Moon”).

I gotta give a shout to my sister, Danielle, who was all over Animal Collective way before me and most of the hip world. She included AC’s “Leaf House” on a Halloween-themed compilation last year and it’s perfect.

And a heads-up: next month’s playlist is shaping up to be pretty crazy – make sure to get on board for that in a couple weeks. Thanks!




Track Listing
1) Songs: Ohia - Farewell Transmission
2) Sonic Youth - Halloween
3) Animal Collective - Leaf House
4) Ryan Adams - I See Monsters
5) Echo & the Bunnymen - The Killing Moon
6) Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown - Swamp Ghost
7) Edgar Winter Group - Frankenstein
8) Delta Spirit - Steetwalker
9) Gary Jules - Mad World
10) Dave Matthews Band - Halloween
11) Dave Matthews Band - The Stone


bonus footage...

September 2009

Part 2 - Dubbed out edition...
Ahh, dub... is there a music genre chiller than thee? Most people know dub as a close relative of reggae - it is, in fact, often called dub-reggae. It's true that dub, in essence, is just slowed down, spaced out reggae, anchored by a deep, stuttering, simple bassline. But really, dub was born before reggae was reggae. In its infancy reggae was just Jamaican-inflected soul/pop - in the vein of Motown - and early dub producers played a large part in shaping the artform as we know it today.

One such producer was King Tubby, widely regarded as the patriarch of dub. Tubby, a Jamaican electronics engineer, learned to remix popular R&B tunes using primitive, but then-innovative, EQ equipment. He would often remove vocals and employ a range of filter effects like echo and reverb to the recordings. “Tubby was able to 'play' the mixing desk like an instrument, bringing instruments and vocals in and out of the mix (literally 'dubbing' them) to create an entirely new genre known as dub music” [thanks, Wiki].

Tubby’s dubs, which favored spaciousness and minimalism, were used by DJs at sound system parties – essentially ghetto block parties emceed by a local dude with a slew of speakers and audio equipment.

Dub has always been producers’ music. This is evidenced by the fact that just about any song can be mixed into a dub rendition at the hands of a capable producer. DC’s downbeat super-duo, DJs/producers Thievery Corporation, have cited dub, along with Brazilian samba, as their biggest influence. Today, electro producers call some of their spacier, extended remixes “dubs,” despite their usual lack of Jamaican/Caribbean flavor (see Classixx’s take on the Major Lazer track below). Really, this labeling makes sense since these guys are employing the basic ideas of dub, just with electro instrumentation.

It’s not all dub this time though. If you’ve never listened purposefully to Neil Young’s shredding, here’s your chance. His guitar work on “Like a Hurricane” is some of the best he’s laid down in the studio. Emotional, emotive, and inventive… pure Neil.



Track List
1) the Beatles - She's So Heavy (I Want You)
2) Chin Chin - Peterdactyl
3) Feist - One Evening
4) Little Dragon - Looking Glass
5) Major Lazer - Cash Flow (Classixx Glass Bottom Dub)
6) Major Lazer - Cash Flow
7) Ryan Shaw - Do the 45
8) Ryan Adams - Shakedown on 9th Street
9) Neil Young - Like a Hurricane
10) the Dynamics - Seven Nation Army
11) Fat Freddy's Drop - the Camel
12) DOOM - Gazillion Ear
13) DOOM - Lightworks
14) Das Rascist - Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (Wallpaper remix)
15) Augustus Pablo and King Tubby - Corner Crew Dub
16) Iron & Wine - Wolves (Song of the Shepherd's Dog)
17) Wilco - Theologians


Part 1
Say what you will about the San Francisco duo Girls (they're fucked up, drug-addled, androgynous dreamers... there, that about does it), these guys make some beautiful, affected songs. Their full-length debut, simply titled Album, drops the 22nd of this month. Recommended for fans of Beach House, the Beach Boys, and the Libertines. Check the song and video below.

A few weeks ago a friend, Dave, introduced me to an album I can't believe I've slept on for so long - Diplo's Florida. The Major Lazer co-conspirator's 2004 LP provides a hazy glimpse into his musical future, certainly in terms of talent, thought not necessarily style-wise. The trashy Tampa/Miami club drums (think Hit Stix) that have become synonymous with his dubstep movement are still there. Other than that, the album's sound is - like its titular state - drugged out and swampy, more a tribute to his homeland than the Afro-dub world explorations that occupy his time and talent today.

Also on board this month is Washed Out, aka Ernest Greene, a young synth wizard from Georgia who specializes in warm, midtempo beats. If Vice-era Miami had sedatives slipped in its water supply it might have sounded something like this (I guess this month's theme is drugs?).

Tobacco could be Washed Out's jaded godfather. You might know him as the bandleader of psychedelic freaks Black Moth Super Rainbow... or maybe not. In any case, this guy has been going all Timothy Leary on the avant music scene, spiking the punch with his vintage analog synth sounds and signature Vocoder vocals. Anything he touches turns instantly creepy and groovy, and I think he's influencing a lot of people right now. Good news. Here he puts his touch on a HEALTH song.

You'll notice a couple repeat artists from last month (Quantic, Ocote Soul Sounds) and that's because I still can't get enough of the Latin jazz-funk that's been popping off this summer.

If I'm not the only person who feels these posts are beginning to run together a bit, please suggest some themes or ideas for future posts - there's a seldom used Comments function at the bottom of each post.

As always, just click play and enjoy. And if you didn't know, you can download the featured mp3's by clicking on the DivShare logo in the player.



Track List
1) Girls - Hellhole Ratrace
2) Radiohead - These Are My Twisited Words
3) Diplo - Way More
4) Ocote Soul Sounds & Adrian Quesada - Coconut Rock
5) Ocote Soul Sounds & Adrian Quesada - Pan, Chamba y Techo
6) Paul Simon - I Know What I Know
7) Washed Out - Hold Out
8) Sebastian Tellier - Kilometer (A-Trak Remix)
9) Dave Matthews Band - Dancing Nancies
10) Dr. Dog - the Breeze
11) Levon Helm - When I Go Away
12) Buraka Som Sistema - New Africas 2
13) Juan MacLean - Accusations
14) HEALTH - Die Slow (Tobacco Remix)
15) Diplo - Money Power Respect
16) Quantic and His Combo Barbaro - Arianita

Vids...



12 years ago? crazy

July/August 2009

It's all jazz....





Track List
1) Tenderly - Anita O'Day (Mocky Remix)
2) Vendende Suade Y Fe - Ocote Soul Sounds & Adrian Quesada
3) 24 Carat Black Theme - 24 Carat Black
4) Talk Show Host - Radiohead
5) Gold Splatter - Black Moth Super Rainbow
6) Circulation - Deerhunter
7) Lisztomania - Phoenix (Classixx Remix)
8) French Navy - Camera Obscura
9) Undelivered Letter - Quantic and His Combo Barbaro
10) Auditorium - Mos Def ft. Slick Rick
11) Can't Stop Now - Major Lazer
12) D.O.A. (Death of the AutoTune) - Jay-Z
13) Bull Black Nova - Wilco
14) Convinced of the Hex - the Flaming Lips
15) Here To Fall - Yo La Tengo
16) I'll Fight - Wilco

Awesome video:



Also cool:



And in case you've been sleeping on Ponytail and this unbelievable video of theirs... brace your head, both for banging and a possible epileptic fit:

June 2009

I’m going to use this month’s entry to share a bunch of new music, because I realize I haven’t done that in a while, if ever. Accordingly, I wish I could post the entire new NOMO album, Invisible Cities, but that would be messed up – just buy it! It’s mind-blowing in the most subtle of ways, with layers of brilliant flute and sax interplay meandering through the twilight streets and corridors of the locales suggested in the album’s title. A more thoughtful record than their previous efforts, this one’s meant less for the dancehall and more for just lying and listening.

I am of course suitably psyched for the release of Wilco’s forthcoming self-titled LP, stealing only auditory morsels from the full-album streams that have been popping up on the web. I’ll get a full listen when the disc comes out June 30th. I’ve been hearing great things about the Grizzly Bear’s new Veckatimest and the couple singles I’ve heard do nothing to contradict the reviews. Tracks from all of the above are featured below, plus relatively new stuff from PJ Harvey & John Parish, Miike Snow, and the mysterious project Dark Night of the Soul, helmed by Danger Mouse and Sparkle Horse.

Still, with all this talk of new tunes, we’ll begin with a late 70's cover of the Neil Young classic "Down by the River," performed by the super obscure, super funky Dutch Rhythm Steel & Show Band. Gotta give Aquarium Drunkard credit for uncovering this gem.



Track List
1) Dutch Rhythm Steel & Show Band - Down by the River (Neil Young cover)
2) PJ Harvey & John Parish - Black Hearted Love
3) Dark Night of the Soul - Everytime I'm With You (w/ Jason Lytle)
4) MadVillian - Great Day Today
5) Hugh Masekela - Mace and Grenades
6) NOMO - Crescent
7) Q-Tip - Life is Better (ft. Norah Jones)
8) Q-Tip - We Fight We Love (remix ft. Kanye West and Consequence)
9) Third Eye Blind - Graduate
10) Dark Night of the Soul - Pain (w/ Iggy Pop)
11) Grizzly Bear - While You Wait for the Others (live @ Morning Becomes Eclectic)
12) the Shins - Caring is Creepy
13) the Extraordinaires - The Arsonist
14) Wilco - Wilco (the Song)
15) NOMO - Patterns
16) Miike Snow - Sylvia

*All songs are copyrighted to their respective owners, and are posted here for listening purposes only. We are willing to remove music if the copyright owner objects. Please email NewAgeTurnstiles@gmail.com

May 2009

Here's a playlist loosely based on the idea that good music has the ability to take you on a vacation. I think that we, as modern, civilized, and driven humans, are usually not living in the way that each of us would consider ideal. It's mostly the constraints of responsibility holding us back. But a great song or a great album is transcendent and transportive, offering an instant trip to whereever it is you long to be - the Beach, the Mountains, a Party, a Romance, flying, whatever...



Track List
1) John Scofield - A Go Go
2) Brazilian Girls - Long
3) Franz Ferdinand - No You Girls
4) Franz Ferdinand - Send Him Away
5) Desmond Decker - Israelites
6) Greyboy Allstars - Doin' Time
7) Roy Ayers - Everybody Loves the Sunshine (9th Wonder Remix)
8) Common - Sixth Sense
9) Chin Chin - Kings
10) the Klaxons - Golden Skans
11) the Whitest Boy Alive - Courage
12) Phoenix - 1901
13) Shuggie Otis - Inspiration Information
14) Grant Green - Lazy Afternoon
15) Dent May - Meet Me in the Garden
16) Robert Palmer - Through it All There's You

April 2009

The rock n roll lifestyle runs deep. In fact, its madness preceded the rock era altogether, becoming manifest in the earliest of jazz performers. I couldn't sleep last night and found myself watching the first installment of the Ken Burns Jazz documentary at 3 am on PBS. I learned that two of jazz's foremost pioneers, Buddy Bolden and Jelly Roll Morton (New Orleans men, of course), had a penchant for the party. Each became victims of the scene, but not before helping to deliver a new artform.

In turn-of-the-century New Orleans, the red light district known as Storyville doubled at night as the musical arts district. Bolden, a cornetist, and his band were among the first to showcase a new brand of mostly improvised, swinging ragtime to the sweaty throngs that turned out at Storyville's fledgling dance clubs. He was dubbed King Bolden by the district's denizens, and in the King's country the party raged all night, every night. Sadly, after a reign of about seven years, he was driven to insanity by alcohol and was institutionalized for the rest of his life.

Jelly Roll Morton honed his piano craft in the district's brothels, providing a lighthearted soundtrack to all the evening's affairs. According to Jazz, Morton had the best seat in the house as he monitored peepholes into each of the rooms and simultaneously customized his piano's flourishes to every twist and turn of the ladies at work in the bedrooms. This not only earned him great tips from the working girls, but also made him an excellent improviser - improvisation being an absolutely essential element of the jazz ethic that would emerge. Morton fared slightly better in his fate than Bolden. He died in his mid-fifties a few months after being wounded in a knife fight at the D.C. nightclub he was playing.

To imply that the legacy of these men lies in their raucous ways would be an injustice. For they were among the first true crafters of jazz. Bolden invented the "big four" variation on the straight timing of popular marches. The result was a looser realm within which to "jazz up" and personalize traditional melodies. Morton was the first to put jazz tunes to paper and the first to play them in cities outside New Orleans. He and his Red Hot Peppers band played venues in D.C., New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

Anyway... there seems to be no shortage of hot jams for the warmer seasons. New releases from Royksopp, Franz Ferdinand, and Peter Bjorn & John are heating up indie airwaves and discos across the world. It's like 2006 all over again, just more dancy. The lines defining the borders of rock, electro, world music, etc. are disintegrating. Really, the world's music scene resembles New Orleans circa 1900; and it sounds great. Here's a dope playlist... Enjoy.



Track List
1) the Beatles - I'm So Tired
2) Peter Bjorn & John - It Don't Move Me
3) Royksopp - Vision One
4) Marlena Shaw - California Soul (Diplo/Mad Decent Remix)
5) Bob Marley - Easy Skanking
6) Dr. Dog - The Ark
7) Dr. Dog - My Old Ways
8) Born Ruffians - In a Mirror
9) Ra Ra Riot - Can You Tell
10) Laughing Light of Plenty - The Rose
11) Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - How Long... (Ticklah Remix)
12) Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - My Man is a Mean Man (DJ Spinna Remix)
13) Animal Collective - Bluish
14) NOMO - My Dear
15) Pavement - Embassy Row
16) MSTRKRFT - Vuvuvu
17) TV On The Radio - Love Dog

*April Supplement
Here's a quick jam recently unearthed by my former roomate and beatmaster extraordinaire Leon Marx. We laid this down sometime around '06-'07. Just raw, fun stuff...

MARCH 2009

We have entered a psychedelic renaissance. In the past year or so, a proliferation of artists – whose only common factor in terms of classification is their ability to get far out (and to take listeners there with them) – have broken into the mainstream. Some of the most recognizable of these acts are Animal Collective, MGMT, and Yeasayer. This kind of music is not instructional, but encourages listeners to explore independently using its surreal, enveloping, and disorienting textures as a blurry, pulsating map. NOMO, an eight-piece Michigan ensemble, under-classified as Afrobeat, is an exciting example of the journey-inducing capabilities inherent in this neo-psychedelica; a genre that, unlike its aged parent, is no longer confined to electric guitar noodling. Not that there is anything wrong with electric guitar noodling.

So, it’s no surprise that I’ve been of an abstract and mellow mind lately. Listening to a lot of jazz and electronica. My catalogue is a bit weak in those departments, so I’ve been relying on some good internet radio and streams to get my desired dosage. I will try to recreate the state of musical affairs entailed above in the compilation below. And just try to provide an enjoyable listening experience in general.

As always, listen from the beginning for best results.



PART 1
1) Hot Chip - the Warning
2) the National - Murder Me Rachel
3) Neil Young - the Loner
4) Sam Roberts - Them Kids
5) Animal Collective - My Girls
6) NOMO - Three Shades
7) Medeski, Scofield, Martin & Wood - Hanuman
8) Dawn Landes - Bodyguard
9) Shemekia Copeland - Never Going Back to Memphis
10) Wilco - Impossible Germany
11) MGMT - Kids
12) Kid Cudi - Day N Nite (Crookers Remix)
13) N.A.S.A. (ft. David Byrne and Chuck D) - Money
14) Hot Chip - Shake a Fist
15) Neil Young - For the Turnstiles


*All songs are copyrighted to their respective owners, and are posted here for listening purposes only. We are willing to remove music if the copyright owner objects.
Email NewAgeTurnstiles@gmail.com