A Calexico album is always good. I miss the more cinematic, sweeping, Cormac McCarthy-esque instrumentals of their first albums, but Algiers is solid. It is pristine and beautiful in its orchestration and production. Definitely my favorite Calexico record since Feast of Wire.
9. Mr. M, Lambchop
Just like Calexico, I will always have spot in my heart and in my year-end list for a Lambchop release. Kurt's voice has somehow softened even more than his usual breathy delivery (a Lambchop hallmark). There is a vunerability to each line that glows along with the delicate orchestration that sways with each song.
8. There's No Leaving Now, The Tallest Man on Earth
There seems to be a theme developing here. Another album that shines from the delicacy and tenderness it displays. This album deserves multiple plays. Easily this Swedish songwriter's best album.
7. In Our Heads, Hot Chip
Hot Chip is in full house-dance-mode here. These songs are densely electronic and processed. But in a good way.
6. Lonerism, Tame Impala
I admit it. At first, I was not slurping the Pitchfork Kool-Aid on this album. I listened to the first single "Elephant." Blah blah, meh. But later I heard the sublime "Feels Like We Only Go Backwards." Then I rushed out to hear this record, and I'm glad I did. "Elephant" is still weak though. Hipster stuff...
5. Tempest, Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is on a roll. He has made nothing but wonderful albums ever since Time Out of Mind. Subtract the last two songs from this album and it might have ranked even higher.
4. I Know What Love Isn't, Jens Lekman
Upon first listen, I admit I did miss the quirky samples Jens would spice his songs with. But on second and third and fourth listens, I am definitely attracted to the charming songwriting, arrangements and sentiments here.
3. Kill For Love, The Chromatics
Listen to this album and write. Listen to this album and paint. Listen to this album and make out. Listen to this album.
2. Celebration Rock, Japandroids
This album is everything that indie rock is supposed to be. Retreat away from the computer rock that has been dominating the indie scene the past three years. Travel back to the days when the kids were influenced by Husker-Du. This album rocks.
1. Attack on Memory, Cloud Nothings
Steve Albini produces masterpieces. This album ran the table for me in 2012. It was my favorite album the first time I listened to it. I'm sad to see that it hasn't been getting much love lately. They're overlooking you, Dylan Baldi.
Painting by frontman Kurt Wagner as an album cover? Yes, thank you. Like most Lambchop releases, Mr. M boasts a beautiful layout. This one features a small collection of this Wagner motif.
Charles Bukowski
was a real asshole. Or at least that is the impression I get when I read his
angry writing, gritty songs from the sewer. His voice always on the outside of
society and mired in a drunken misery. A poem of his has stood out to me for
sometime now, flashing in and out of my consciousness. It has the
quintessential Bukowski title – “To the Whore Who Took My Poems” and the quintessential
Bukowski scenario – a prostitute has made off with twelve of his poems (and his
best paintings!) leaving him to plead, alone (and drunk I presume), to cry out,
desperate and defeated, “Are you trying to crush me out like the rest of them?”
No girl ever stole
my poems. Or my paintings. I could hardly even give any of those away.
Sometimes when I did, they ended up coming back. I don’t even really want them
anymore, but what am I supposed to do, throw them away?
No girl ever stole
any of my books either. I just always lent them out, and they never ended up
coming back. I won’t cry alone about them like Bukowski in defeat. I don’t look
at the vacancies on my bookshelf as all-powerful cosmic forces that are
leveling themselves against me, as I imagine Chuck felt. Instead, whenever I
think of the Bukowski poem, I ponder about each of my missing books, where they
might have ended up, and that every girl I ever dated and lent a book to,
disappeared from my life. Just like the books.
First off, I lent
Summer my copy of On the Road. I was
deep in my wild Kerouac phase, back then all of seventeen years old with
“nothing to offer to anyone but my own confusion[1],”
and a copy of On the Road. She seemed
to love it as much as I did. We would go to our town’s only all-night diner and
order coffee and apple pies and talk late into the suburban night about those
wild beat characters, both of us envious of the maddening freedom painted in
words on each page. Eventually, we sought out other company and more exciting things
than apple pie and talking about Dean Moriarity and Sal Paradise. And I never
got my On the Road back.
Nikki said she wanted to read a book. It
seemed like this might have been something novel for her. I didn’t want to
overwhelm her so I lent her something easy to digest but was also one of my
all-time favorites, Skipped Parts, by
Tim Sandlin. Anyone would love Sandlin’s straightforward story-telling and
laugh-out-loud humor. Nikki said she didn’t get it. I think she lent it to a
friend. I never saw that copy again.
I lent The Picture of Dorian Grey to some girl
in a college class of mine to try to impress her. It didn’t work. And I can’t
remember her name or why I never got my book back.
Heather wanted to
borrow Love in the Time of Cholera,
and I was pleased to lend it out. In some strange sense of the symmetry of
life, I had read this book because another girl had suggested it a few years
before. Or maybe there’s actually no symmetry there at all. Not long after
Heather finished the book, we were finished too.
Lauren asked me
what my favorite book of all-time was. I told her One Hundred Years of Solitude. She asked to borrow it. I knew as
soon as I handed it to her that I was never going to see that book again.
The last book I
ever lent to a girl I was dating was to Kimberly. She wanted something to read
and so I recommended Highwire Moon, by
Susan Straight. Kimberly loved the book and the way Straight could weave
beautiful scenes together with words. She ended up taking the book with her on
a trip for work to San Francisco. Kimberly called me from Frisco, upset, and
said that she left the book in the backseat of a cab. I told her not to worry
about it. She ordered another hardcover copy of Highwire Moon for me, and later became my wife.
There are songs that swell up inside of me with their simple graceful beauty and melodious majesty and I listen and I listen and when it reaches their brilliant conclusion, I'm left to declare, I must write about this song. Such is the case with Them's gorgeous version of Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue."
I was a junior in high school, 1996, the first time I heard the ringing interplay of organ and guitar notes that form the hallmark of this version of the classic Dylan song. Only, it wasn't Them I was listening to. It was a song by Beck. Jackass, off of his seminal album, Odelay (possibly one of the greatest albums of the 1990s). I became instantly infatuated with this sound. A sample, I learned from investigating the tiny congested liner notes inside of Odelay. It read something to point that Jackass contained a sample from "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," by Bob Dylan. I did not yet know of this Dylan song. I was not the Dylanphile I am now. But the sample, used so prominently and effectively throughout "Jackass" sent me to the record store to buy Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home. I had to hear his original. I had to hear this sample in its natural form.
I arrived at the album's ultimate song, track 11, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" but there were no organ notes, no delicately plucked electric guitar. It was sparse, classic acoustic Dylan (I would fully realize a few year's later)with his perfect annunciation of each devastatingly beautiful line like, "Yonder stands your orphan with his gun/Crying like a fire in the sun," which all lead to his somber, repeated, declaration - that it is indeed all over now, Baby Blue. As heavenly as the original is, is it blasphemous to say that I like the cover more?* I mean, just listen to the Them version. The aforementioned organ, the guitar, the waltzing bass line, and the power of Van Morrison's voice, the way he plays those vocal chords like Coltrane played the tenor sax. He's got a vocal range that frolics from raspy desperation to howling back to tender resignation.
No. I did not find the delicious sample from "Jackass" on the Dylan original. I was left to wonder, back in those days before every answer was just a Google search away, where did this sample come from?!
Years later, much after I had forgotten about this silly quest, I was watching Julian Schnabel's biopic of Basquiat. In a scene with the actor-version Basquita and his girlfriend, played by one of all-time favorite actress crushes, Claire Forlani, are in her apartment painting, THERE IT WAS!. The organ and guitar sample I had been waiting to discover. In its original version.
White Whale! Dr. Livingston, I have found you!
*On a similar note, could anyone say that Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower is superior to the Jimi Hendrix Experience's cover? Nay.
Dylan welcomed the world into his song with the ancient archetypical greeting laid down by minstrels and folksters and voices of protest that had echoed down the wind for years and years.
The anthem begins. If there ever was a song to capture the moment of the early 1960s, it would be this song. Dylan's "The Times They Are-A Changin'" is a song that can both fit perfect into a spot, say 1964, and then transcend beyond that spot so that when some teenager in 1998 stumbles across it, it still sounds present.
It's the opening track for Dylan's third album, also called The Times They Are-A Changin'. Released in January of 1964, this collection would be the both the climax and the conclusion of his protest song period. His next albums would find him experimenting with ever-encrytping personal symbolist poetry, and soon sonically with electric instruments (with infamous and world shattering results). This is the last album where Dylan would wear they storyteller of society hat. His last Woody Guthrie pose. By 1963, Dylan was the undisputed king of protest music. One mask he would soon tear off and set into the fire.
Come gather 'round... The storyteller has a message for you. One last time. Admit that things are changing, and that you should change too. An anthem call to get on board the train of change or else by left behind in its coal-burning dust.
But I'm no child of the 1960s. I came of age in the 1990s. I cannot relate to those who staged sit-ins amidst the fists and spit of centuries of hatred. I can try and protest, but I usually stay home instead and read. or listen to Dylan. For me, as with anyone with memories of being a rebellious teenager, I can still relate to one specific golden line aimed at parents, "Don't criticize what you can't understand, your sons and daughters are beyond your command, your old road is rapidly aging..."
Why does this song still grab me? I am a history teacher. It might be the history teacher in me that has always been drawn to this song. I see with ease the context this song sits in. The Civil Rights movement. The bifrth of the anti-war movement. The free speech college protests. The transformational years before 1968 exploded.
Is this song about the inevitability of change happening on it sown, or is it an invitation to ride a wave and join the movement? To affect change?
When did Dylan record it? October 1963. One month later, John F. Kennedy would be assassinated in Texas. What does that do to the dreamer? To the agent of change. Dylan would say that "they are trying to tell you Don't even hope to change things."
Could JFK's assassination have killed the change agent in Dylan? Could it be what pushed Dylan out of protest and into poetry? Something I've been wondering lately...
The first sound that bombards you on the new Japandroids album, Celebration Rock, is the far off explosions of high up fireworks. It sounded odd at first listen - when do you ever hear fireworks without seeing them? When you can only hear fireworks, what then do you see? I see fourths of July from years past, gone, burned all up. Running around with the sparklers of serene childhood and tossing into the air the Budweiser cans of wild youth. Of celebration. Not in a patriotic, God bless America sense. More of a Let's Celebrate Today! Tonight! This Summer! Celebrate surrounded by friends because this surely cannot last forever.
"We down our drinks in a funnel of friends, We burn our plans down to the end!" from "Days of Wine and Roses"
The Japandroids album is perfectly named. Each song rings and rocks as celebrations themselves. Fist shaking, wild dancing celebrations. And even though it is a 2012 album that fits well in 2012, the songs, just like the fireworks, make me nostalgic.
The music. The songs explode in their own colors and patterns just like each singular firework that makes up the collective show. There are no subtle, sleeping songs here, just as there are no quiet fireworks. The tone is set from the booming opening song "Days of Wine and Roses", through standout tracks "Fire's Highway," "Younger Us," and "The House That Heaven Built," right up to the closer, "Continuous Thunder." It is rare to hear a band of just two people rocking so fucking loud. And you want to rock along with them. Sing along with each "WHOAH-OH-OH-OHHHHHH!"
The attack of their songs, shredding distortion, riffs and chord changes remind me of Husker-Du, with the hooks of Superchunk. The choruses remind me in the best way of the post-punk of mid to late 1980s American Underground bands, meeting the harder, louder indie rock of the 1990s. All of this combines to create one of my favorite albums of 2012.
The first I ever heard of Hot Chip was back in 2005 in a Myspace message (remember those?) from Devin. It read:
Here is what I am listening to right now - Hot Chip, Cut Copy and Quantic Soul Orchestra.
That was the entirety of the message and I appreciated it s brevity. It allowed me to more quickly fire up my music downloading service and do some suggestion-inspired, new music investigation. I started with Hot Chip, and while I do like Cut Copy, Hot Chip was the prize in this trio recommendation (Quantic Soul Orchestra issome nice background music. Nothing life-changing).
I downloaded "The Beach Party" off their first full-length Comin' On Strong (2005). It was a nice sample of the soft electronic grooves, laptop funk and silly lyrics ("I'm like Stevie Wonder but I can see things") that constituted, I would later learn, the entire Hot Chip debut album. I did purchase it. One of the greatest surprises in buying an album is when you realize that the rest of the record is better than the the song that compelled you to make the purchase. My three standout tracks are "Shiny Escalade," "You Ride, We Ride. In My Ride," and "Crap Kraft Dinner." They may also be the most understated tracks on the album. They're soft. Less funky. Less electro-party groove. They are electronic beds to lie upon, close your eyes and float away. Smiling. There was a week in the spring of 2006 when I played "Crap Kraft Dinner" everyday. Seriously. It still stands as my favorite track by Hot Chip, despite all of their sonic and tonal evolutions. The velvet keyboards and saxophones underneath the fragile voice of Alexis Taylor always remind me of those sunny spring days, me lounging outside my Redondo beach apartment, surrounded by the high fence and Hot Chip.
"Crap Kraft Dinner":
Then in 2006, The Warning was released. I was hooked on the Hot Chip. It was a no-brainer purchase. And I wasn't disappointed. The Warning was everything I could have hoped for in a follow-up album. Hot Chip developed their sound, pushed new electronic boundaries and noises and fabricated even more catchy hooks. It's one of those albums that when you listen to it for the first time, you cannot wait to hear what the next track will sound like. An exciting whirlwind of sonic pleasures. The songs are faster, louder, and denser than those from the debut album. But no matter how loud Hot Chip gets, the tenderness in their songwriting, the moments when you almost feel a tear forming in your eye, still shine. This is abundantly present in the standout track, "And I Was A Boy From School" - "We tried but we didn't have long/We tried but we don't belong." This album formed a soundtrack for my wild, exciting, self-destructive party summer of 2006. Each night as Esther, Phil and I got ready to head out to some Hollywood party we would blast and dance to The Warning. And each hard, hungover morning, as I wallowed in a bit of self-loathing I would play the closing track "No Fit State." (I'm in no fit state/I'm in no fit shape.)
"The Warning" (I have no idea who these kids are making this video. They're not Hot Chip. Cool video anyways.
Hot Chip hit its highest point musically with their third record, Made in the Dark (2008). As with any great band that manages to captivate my attention while they are still recording, hot Chip managed to grow in their song-writing, production, and the overall, indescribable feel in their music. Made in the Dark sounds like it is a greatest hits record. But it's not. It is the summation of everything Hot Chip could do, would do, and should do. It is rare to hear such magnificent actual song-writing in electronic music (maybe I need to study more electronic music). Make these songs acoustic, strip the sonic layers (a Hot Chip Unplugged!), and the songs would still simply be wonderful. When the deeper, soulful voice of Joe Goddard appears pleasantly (always pleasantly) in songs like "Ready for the Floor", you have to just smile and say Yes, this IS Hot Chip ("You're my number one guy!"). This album also has the special distinction of being the first Hot Chip record to be released while my wife and I were together (weird sentence, and still together!) - not even yet engaged.
"One Pure Thought"
So if Made in the Dark was Hot Chip's highest point, my description implies that their latest two releases fall short of the zenith it established. It's not that bad, I mean come on, Made in the Dark is fucking fabulous. 2010's One Life Stand is still a good album. But it's different. And again, it's not a bad thing. Bands do need to try new things on each subsequent album to hold my attention. On this album, Hot Chip put on full display their house music influences. The soulful, laptop-Stevie-Wonder-fun is missing, though. It is replaced by a danceable, engaging, though somber set of songs. Obviously highlights are the two singles, the title track "One Life Stand" and the superb Depeche Mode reminiscent "Take It In." I just feel that the rest of this somber album does not extend much further.
Take It In (PS. I made this video)
A new Hot Chip album is still an automatic purchase for me. This year the London boys released In Our Heads, another Casio (think a bit of Chromeo somewhere in the track "Night and Day") and house-inspired set of songs. All touched with still a taste of somber love. I hate when I become one of those music snobs who says that a band's new album cannot compare to their previous output. So I won't. I was not as impressed with it upon my first listen. But In Our Heads deserves several listens to appreciate its feel. Every time I hit play on this album I find more to appreciate. "Flutes" is simply sublime. All seven minutes of it. I'm going to hold off on saying any more about In Our Heads. I need to listen to it for the rest of the year to get a better grasp of what Hot Chip has done here. I wonder where this album will end up on my year end list...
My
eyes strained, bleached as the Arizona ground around me, following the stretch
of highway out to the horizon, where the top of the blacktop met the bottom of
the rose dusk sky. I knew it was time to pull over and find a place to sleep for
the night, to rest my weary eyes, and to ease my clenched fingers that had
gripped the steering wheel of the rented beige Impala (with the key surprise,
discovered in the desert, a faulty air conditioner). These tight vices grasped
the molded vinyl wheel ever since I had left Santa Monica that morning.
Priority number one was to find some way to escape the oppression of July’s
desert heat, still tyrannizing even though the sun was making its last call,
dipping behind the mountains.
I
exited Interstate 40, and found my way back to Route 66, the mother road. There
I found a stretch of generic motorist hotels, familiar cousins of any stretch
of motels off any interstate. Super 8. Motel 6. Comfort Inn. I coasted past
these until there appeared exactly what I had set out to see – the soft,
humming, bright like a circus smile, neon sign of the old Route 66. It read: Motel Arizona. Vacancy. Pool. Perfect.
I
pulled into the near empty parking lot and found the t-shirt in the back seat I
had abandoned somewhere around Barstow. I procured the room for the night from
an elderly woman in the tiny, outdated clerk’s office. $20. Quality. I could
tell she wanted me to respond with more than one word answers to her colloquial
questions, but I didn’t have the verbal strength. I had not spoken one word
since embarking on my trip ten hours earlier, now was not the time to start. Instead,
I set myself on cruise control. Destination – the swimming pool.
The
pool was silent, the whole area empty. It was after 10:00 pm. The pool had been
closed for over an hour, according to the stained sign hanging from the gate. From
above, moonlight reflected off the surface of the water. From below, dim pool
lights lined the aqua-blue plaster walls. Dotting the water top were hundreds
of tiny black dots, the remains of flies, poisoned by the chemicals meant to
clean, floating. I dove in from the pool’s edge, headfirst, piercing past the
flies, touching the bottom and let buoyancy slowly bring me back up. Night
swimming deserves a quiet night, alone. The cool caress of the water was the
rush of pure refreshment I had craved throughout the day spent in the
sweat-soaked driver’s seat. There are few things in life as simple and
wonderful as a swimming pool. Floating on my back across the water. Tiny waves produced
from my feet treading, staring up at the low moon. I let the stress of driving
nonstop sink away into the chlorine-scented water.
At some point, I crossed
the street to the 24-hour AMPM and bought an imitation pork-rib sandwich (a
guilty pleasure) and a six-pack of Heineken and took them back to the pool
area. With my feet dangling into the water from the pool’s edge, I devoured my
gas station dinner and contemplated what the next day of driving held for me
and if I would be lucky enough to find myself ending the day, solitary and
swimming.
