My Favorite Music of 2013

It is time once again, fair blog readers, for the last remaining “year-end” list that I still do: music.  I’ve been making these lists since 2007, but the first few were on my MySpace blog, which has been destroyed, but you can see past Notes From the Fire music lists here:

Favorite Music of 2009

Favorite Music of 2010

Favorite Music of 2011

Favorite Music of 2012

If you are a person who regularly receives CDs from me in the mail, you’ll be getting a mix disc representing this list.  Don’t get discs from me and want one?  Drop me an e-mail/ text/ blog comment and I’ll send you one.  Oh, and just to be clear, this is my favorite music that was released in 2013, not just the music I loved the most during the year.  That list would look a bit different.

I had to make it a top 11 list, I was unable to take any of these artists off the list.  So, without further ado, in order, the albums I liked most in 2013:

11.  Elvis Costello and The Roots, “Wise Up Ghost”

What seems like an unlikely pairing when you first hear about it turns out to be something that seems like it should have happened all along.  All snarl, no filler.

10.  Editors, “The Weight of Your Love”

These British whiners just keep finding ways to whine that feel like they’re punching you in the goddamn throat.  And they keep building on previous albums and boldly evolving.

9.  Kings of Leon, “Mechanical Bull”

We’re obviously never going back to the shit-kicking jambalaya balling rock of the band’s youth, but this new, outsized punching bag swing will do just fine.

8.  Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, “Push the Sky Away”

An album a little short on excitement, but 100% dripping in atmosphere, as well as what this band does best: the saddest sex songs on Earth.

7.  Deerhunter, “Monomania”

The creepy indie shoegazers are back, and NOT weirder than ever! Bradford Cox and company get a little more structured on this disc, which suits them just fine.  Have four minutes?  Watch this.  All the way through.

6.  Kinski, “Cosy Moments”

The little-known drone-rockers (I just made up that term) get all vocal-y on their best album yet.  Unlike anything you’ve ever heard.

5. “Oblivion” soundtrack by M83

The French electronica duo M83 have here crafted the most jarring, emotionally resonant film score since Hans Zimmer’s “Inception”.

4.  Willis Earl Beal, “Nobody Knows”

Willis Earl Beal

Probably the most thrilling, humbling, disquieting debut from a solo artist that I have ever been witness to.  Please get on the Willis Earl Beal train.  His music is soulful, disturbing, beautiful, and pummeling.  In addition, he’s a personality with clear potential to ascend to the next level in the cultural zeitgeist.  Get on the train early, you heard it here first.  Plus, watch this.

 

3.  Arcade Fire, “Reflektor”

 

Perennially one of my favorite bands, most years this album would have taken my #1 spot, but the competition was stiff this year.  Like their previous outings, “Reflektor” is a true work of artistic genius, both analytical and guttural, not afraid to come at modern topics through academic approaches, and canvassing world music and deep rock history for influences, resulting in a rounded, eclectic-sounding collection of contemplative ass-kickers.

2.   The National, “Trouble Will Find Me”

 

If I were to, right this moment, make a list of my favorite bands, The National would almost certainly be #1.  Matt Berninger’s wickedly free-associative lyrics uncover profound things within me, and the band’s perfectly balanced approach to squeezing life through a hole in a tomato aligns precisely with my temperament.  This album (the first new one to come out since I became a fan of the band) was no disappointment.  I’ve listened to its melancholy bathtub bleedout tunes hundreds of times this year.  Click here to watch the lyric video I made of my favorite song on the album, “Don’t Swallow the Cap”.  It references the Beatles and Nirvana’s “Nevermind”.  You’ll like it, but listen to it twice in a row.

1.  Man Man, “On Oni Pond”

 

Man Man are a band like no other.  They are most often termed “experimental”, but some of the more memorable labels that have been adhered to them are “Viking swing”, “carnival rock” and “voodoo funk”.  They must be experienced to be understood.

While I am always excited for a new Man Man album, they have always been more about the live experience for me.  I do believe this is even the first time one of their albums has made one of my year-end lists, let alone topped it.  I was never expecting “On Oni Pond” to blow me away the way it did.

Here the band actually attempts to “mature” while maintaining their signature quirkiness.  It works in ways I wouldn’t have thought possible.  Honus Honus (the moniker lead singer Ryan Kattner goes by) sings in turns about seemingly silly things like “pink wontons” or Wolf Blitzer (in the song “End Boss”) and then turns around and gently reminds us “nobody knows/ where the time goes./  nobody knows” (in “Fangs”).  The combination of calculated buffoonery and genuine affectation left me wanting more, dancing around my living room.

 

Seth’s Favorites of 2010: Music

It’s that time of year again: time for my much-anticipated (by me) year-end favorites lists!  However, I won’t be going whole-hog like I did last year; this year there will only be two lists: music and movies, and of course the movies list has to wait till the very end of the year, as most of the best movies get released right at the tail end of the year for top-of-mind Oscar consideration.  But I’ve looked at a bunch of upcoming CD release schedules and it seems safe to compile my music list at this point.

It’s been a huge year in my world for new music.  As such, I was simply unable to limit my list to a top ten list.  So what follows is my top 15 list of albums released in the calendar year 2010.  As always, a bangin’ mix CD has been made featuring all of the entries, and it can be yours simply for the asking.  So ask.  It’ll change your life!  Anyway, here’s the list:

15.  We Are Scientists, Barbara

I’ve been resisting We Are Scientists for a few years–liking them but not loving them–finding their sound just a little too “poppy” for my tastes.  And this year’s Barbara maintains that pop bent while getting a bit bristlier, brasher, brazen.  Head-bobbing fun with a slight smell of incense.

14.  Menomena, Mines

These Portland experimental indie rockers jumped out at me very recently after a kickass performance on “Last Call with Carson Daly” (people make fun of this show, but it is hands-down the best showcase for fringe music on broadcast television).  You can see that performance here.  Yes, the whole album is that good.  Plus you can learn from Carson how to pronounce the band’s name.

13.  Kings of Leon, Come Around Sundown

The Kings’ unique blend of Southern rock with Eastern indie aesthetic and teenage-boy wet-dream lyrics are, unfortunately, gone for good it seems, after this album and it’s predecessor, Only By the Night, have proven.  However neutered their new shiny studio-sheen may be, these are still good songs that haven’t quite veered from the band’s main mission of honesty in a dishonest world.

12.  Cold War Kids, Behave Yourself

I’d have charted the latest Kids’ album higher if it weren’t just a 5-song EP.  Of the 5 songs, 3 are great and 2 are useless; I figured that’s a pretty good ratio.  The slow-rolling opening track, “Audience” sounds very boring, and on the tenth listen becomes a pressure cooker of awesomeness that almost makes my head explode.  A gem of hidden nuance.  Here’s hoping for a full-length album in 2011.

11.  Black Mountain, Wilderness Heart

These hard-rocking Canadians usually rock a little too hard for me.  I’ve been a fan for awhile, but most albums have 5 songs for me and 5 songs for a demographic of slightly “headbangerish” types.  And while Wilderness Heart is a heavy album, they’ve incorporated a bit of “Americana” sound into the mix; think Huey Lewis and John Mellancamp sitting in with Black Sabbath.  Me likes.

10.  Spoon, Transference

  These guys are basically some of the grandaddys of what we might flippantly call “indie rock”, and a new Spoon album is nothing to ignore.  What amazed me the most is how they came at us with more snarl and venom (both lyrically and musically) than they had in the past; unlike most musicians, they are not aging into happy, content men.  The dissonance and dejection of standout track “Written in Reverse” is an especially tasty treat; vocalist Britt Daniel’s lyrics take on the quality of a maniacal Shel Silverstein.  Few rock lyricist bother with such intricacies.

9.  Interpol, Interpol

  The post-punkers’ fourth album (self-titled) is also their best to date; scorching, intricate rhythms and time signatures and pleading, near-death-experience vocals.  Few bands know how to leave empty spaces in their music with such expertise as Interpol.  You’ll be just as impressed with the wall of sound they don’t create as with the one they do.

8.  Stars, The Five Ghosts

Watch:

7.  Deerhunter, Halcyon Digest

Deerhunter can be seen as a freak-show band, at times, veering from a populist mainstream sensibility all the way to unlistenable experimentation.  But 2010’s Halcyon Digest boils away most of the band’s stylistic pretenses and finds the heart at the song’s cores.  Sure, sometimes I still think This band is not comprised of folks I’d want to hang out with, but they made an album that is, above all, compelling.

6.  Drive-By Truckers, The Big To-Do

 One of the few bands I legitimately call “alt-country”–with an emphasis on the alt—the Truckers have always specialized in telling tales about the bizarro nature of American culture, usually with twists involving tragedy, redemption, and the sad and glorious nature of everything in between.  But the stories have never been as vivid as they are on The Big To-Do; lead track “Daddy Learned to Fly” is a study in lyrical simplicity and inference that I’m tempted to call it Faulknerian.  Other standouts, like “The Wig He Made her Wear” and “Drag the Lake Charlie” may sometimes try too hard, but no track on this album fails to try hard enough.

5. Mumford and Sons, Sigh No More

The new-ish country/ shoegaze/ psychedelia/ bluegrass fusion group isn’t nearly as complicated as it sounds, but there is definitely plenty of fiddle and banjo to go with the bass and guitars as they swell and wane through this bombastic album’s wild ride.  Not re-inventing the light bulb, but still pretty unlike anything I’ve heard before.

4.  The National, High Violet

 It’s hard to describe The National.  At first listen they might seem boring, unfocused, even untalented.  But listen a few times and grand schemes reveal themselves, and crescendoes fall into place where you hadn’t even heard them.  Suddenly it’s as if you were translating a book in a language you had not even known before, and now the language on the page simply snaps into focus.  On High Violet, lyricist Matt Berninger’s words have become cryptic tomes of modern art worthy of a Thomas Pynchon novel.  “I gave my heart to the Army./ The only sentimental thing I could think of. / With colors and cousins and somewhere overseas/  But it’ll take a better war to kill a college man like me. / You and your sister live in a lemonworld. / I want to sit in and die.”

3. Band of Horses, Infinite Arms

2. Arcade Fire, The Suburbs

There can be little doubt that Arcade Fire is the most important rock band of our time.  Their intent is serious but not pretentious, artistic but not demeaning.  Their songs are meant to sound really good but also make you think.  It’s no accident that their most vocal fan is David Bowie; their music harkens back to a time when heady, serious material could fill stadiums and make people dance to songs about the disintegration of the modern family unit, or the trappings of fame, or plain old death.  Not everything, they claim, is about sex.

The Suburbs is their most ambitious album yet.  It’s an old-fashioned concept album about—you guessed it–the suburbs.  (it’s a subject more ripe from examination than you may imagine)  Ultimately, the band doesn’t pass much judgement on the rise of the suburbs, but they do pass judgement on human nature (seems it’s usually bad, sometimes good), because it seems even in the paradise of the suburbs, human nature is still in charge.  Most music critics love the album but charge it with being overlong; I, too, will raise that charge.  There are at least 4 and as many as 6 unnecessary songs that are only tangentially related to suburbs, bringing the album dangerously close to 2 hours long.  But what do we expect from greatness?  Sometimes I think David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” is actually half an hour long!  The Suburbs would certainly be my album of the year if this had not been released:

1.  Grinderman, Grinderman 2

 Grinderman is a side project of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.  NOT a side project of Nick Cave, but the band in general.  You take the Bad Seeds (generally a large band of 6 or 7 members, depending what year it is), strip away all but the four core members, and erase any of the tender, thoughtful, delicate lyrics and themes in Cave’s words, and you’ve got Grinderman, a band of 50-60 year old men wailing away on instruments with a rascal intensity and Cave rasping about sex, violence, loss and being a badass in the most poetic, virulent, bold fashion imaginable.  Their debut album of 2 years ago thrilled me, but this one takes a huge motherfucking cake.  Cave is, aside from a musician, a highly respected poet and screenwriter, and when he lets loose what some might call his id, there are very few things more pleasurable to this fan.  Buy the CD; there’s an incredibly packaged deluxe edition for a very reasonable price. 

So, there you have it folks!  Another year’s worth of my favorite music.  What a satisfying year it’s been!  Remember to send me a text, e-mail, or leave a comment of you want a copy of this kickass mix disc!

“I haunted a basketweaver’s shop.” Deerhunter in Cleveland, 10/21/10

Setlist for Deerhunter, 10/21/10 at Beachland Ballroom, Cleveland, OH

1.  Desire Lines
2.  Hazel St.
3.  Don’t Cry
4.  Revival
5.  Never Stops
6.  Little Kids
7.  Memory Boy
8.  Fountain Stairs
9.  Nothing Ever Happened

Encore

1.  Helicopter
2.  He Would Have Laughed

Deerhunter, “Vox Humana”

I don’t wanna beat you over the head with Deerhunter, it’s just that I’ve suddenly become ENTHRALLED with this song and I really wish I’d have made it Monday’s song…

Monday’s Song: Deerhunter, “Twilight at Carbon Lake”

There’s a nice tempo change for those with patience.  Read the lyrics.  So good.

Go to the shore and pray for the sea.
Go towards the mirror and pray that you’ll see
someone else.
Downtown–
go downtown.
Go to the waves of grain in the center of the state.
Go away.
Go to a parking lot, sit on the ground, and cry.
You’ll never know why.
Start over.
Go to the ocean on a ship.
Wave goodbye to the waves and the frozen shit
that was in your heart.
So long.
Time slows when it goes away.
Go away.
Time Slows.
So long.

Nothing Ever Happened to Me

I’m going to see the band Deerhunter on Thursday!!!!  This is super exciting to me, but not to any of you. Not only do none of you know them, I think it’s a fair wager that not a single person I know in the whole world could even be swayed to like this band. Hence, I’m not even going to really write up a pre-show blog about the band, but trust me, this band is incredibly interesting, and here’s just a few reasons why (aside from their music):

1.  Active since only 2001, they have about twice as many ex-members as current members.  They are, to put it lightly, a band with much drama within the ranks.

2.  Lead singer/ founder/ songwriter/ bossman Bradford Cox suffers from Marfan Syndrome,  describes himself as asexual,  claims to write all of his lyrics improvised in the studio (there’s no way this is true) and fires just about everyone he convinces to join his band.

3.  For a brief time, they had a smokin-hot female guitar player who could play the shit out of her guitar (Whitney Petty).  Unfortunately, she got fired before I could ever see them live.  I do not mention this out of an entitled sense of patriarchy; but rather, simply because at this level of rock, the only women you usually find are singers in gimmick bands; a legitimately awesome guitar player of THIS kind of rock is a notable rarity (especially when she’s hot).

I could go on and on, and I haven’t even started with talking about the music yet!  (also, I will be seeing two very interesting opening acts:  Casino vs. Japan and Real Estate, two noteworthy indie acts in themselves.) 

I’ll just post two links on the outside chance that you are interested.  First, here is my personal favorite song off their brand new album.  The song is “Desire Lines”, the album is Halcyon Digest: 

And here is a live performance (featuring now-fired sexy guitarist Whitney Petty) of my favorite song off their last album.  The song is “Nothing Ever Happened” off their album Microcastles.  Some of you may know this song, as it was the lead track on my “Best of 2008” CD that I sent some of you: