January, 2009:

Why not?

Once in a while I surprise myself by what I like. Granted, I have pretty eclectic tastes and am willing to listen to anything once, but certain genres have just never interested me as a whole. Pop country is one of them: I once liked Achy Breaky Heart but I was 14 at the time. I’m also not really getting a lot of the rock music on Muchmusic anymore, which makes me feel old but still thankful I’m not a teenager.

Why? (MySpace) at first made me think of all the new rock bands the kids are listening to, and I was going to dismiss them when I heard the chorus from “The Hollows”, their first single off Alopecia: “This goes out to all my underdone and undertongued, monk-lunged frontmen”. Hip hop artists are always singing or rapping “this goes out to so-and-so” and it took me a minute to realize that this version was satirical.

I’d describe them as a mix of hip hop, new wave and indie rock. The lyrics, though sung, at times remind me of what I like best about rap: descriptive metaphor, telling a story, and using the voice as a percussive instrument. They don’t sound like something I’d listen to, but I can’t seem to help myself.

Prodigal son

Benoît Pioulard (MySpace) is singer/songwriter/etc. Thomas Meluch. I first heard him in 2006 with his Précis album, but this year brought Temper. He writes and records his albums at home, performing all the parts himself: obviously he has problems with delegation.

He’s sort of a electronic/folk/experimental sort of artist. In other words, I’m not really sure how to describe him. His vocals are very subdued and overdubbed and are often on top of ambient musical layers. I find him relaxing to listen to, yet still interesting. Electronic music often bores me, but this guy doesn’t.

Canadian Content, kthxbye

The Coast (MySpace): A great Toronto band I think I first heard on CBC Radio 3, but unfortunately have some trouble googling (for obvious reasons). Youtube was pretty impossible, too: kept getting videos of ships.

I think of them as a sort of anthemic rock. Electric guitars heavy on the reverb hit me in the nostalgic centre of the brain, what can I say? Sometimes they remind me of Matthew Good, especially on the song “No Secret Why” off their full-length Expatriate. They’ve opened for Tokyo Police Club, another Canadian band I’d recommend.

Check out their MySpace page, because this video does not do justice to their studio recordings, but I couldn’t find anything else.

Yo mama so fat

Say Hi (formerly Say Hi To Your Mom) (MySpace) put out an album this year that I liked so much I overplayed it until I couldn’t stand it anymore, which is impressive given how much music I have.

I’d call then nerd pop, because you can’t have song titles like these and not be one:

• Your Brains vs. My Tractorbeam
• But She Beat My High Score
• Yes, I’m in Love With an Android

There are more, but I don’t want to scare you off, because it’s not all that they’re about. Their sound is electro-pop, but still sounds minimalist and very catchy, and the singer’s voice has a fragile quality and seems to emote better for it. This year’s full length The Wishes and the Glitch is full of great songs, this being the first:

(By the way, if you want hardcore nerd rock you should check out Sprites (MySpace), who have songs about sysops and overclocking and pac man.)

For weeks I’ve been thinking I should write a post reviewing music I’ve discovered and fallen in love with this year, and here is one such post. I pride myself in my talent for recommending music to my friends, but I haven’t done so here in ages, despite the fact that I’m listening to more music this year than in previous ones. Maybe it’s that there are too many bands I could mention; it was hard to decide on these listed, and I have to split my reviews into several blog posts already.

If you don’t know me personally and are wondering why you should read my opinions about musical recordings, you will hopefully be a tiny bit impressed that I have a BA in Music and buy at least a dozen albums a month (as well as sample many, many single tracks). My mp3 collection is increased by 500 to 1000 songs per month, and this year’s total (according to iTunes) is just under 7500 songs, which I realize is a bit ridiculous and perhaps I should seek counselling.

I can’t say I listen to everything more than once, sadly, because you gotta sleep sometime. What I do mention, then, is what floated to the top from this ocean of music as being meaningful to me and worth sharing with you.

I’m too lazy to put up mp3s on my webserver, so you’ll have to make do with the Youtube embedded videos and links to MySpace to listen to the bands.

Afro-fusion

African music makes me so happy. Extra Golden (MySpace) is a group of American and Kenyan musicians who combine Benga and rock to give me something I can really groove to. Sadly, I never studied African music in school, so I can’t say anything intelligent about it, other than I like to shake my booty to it, which isn’t an intelligent thing to say, really.

They formed in 2004, and Hera Ma Nono is their second album, which includes a song of praise they wrote to some unknown senator I can’t remember the name of from Illinois who helped them get visas to perform in the US:

Chillaxing 1, and Why Breakups are Good 1

After recovering from illness and breaking up with his band and girlfriend, Justin Vernon holes himself up in a cabin in northern Wisconsin for 3 months and records one of the most soft and beautiful albums I’ve heard in years: Bon Iver‘s For Emma, Forever Ago (MySpace).

Listening to it, I get a sense of isolation in the vocals and guitar. Maybe it’s the pure sound in the overdubbing of both, and the resulting reverb which suggests emptiness. My favourite song off the album is the last one, “Re: Stacks” (which also happens to be Vernon’s mother’s favourite, proving I remember totally useless trivia). If you’re a fan of the TV show House, you may recognize this song from the end of last year’s finale “Wilson’s Heart”.

Chillaxing 2, and Why Breakups are Good 2

Shearwater (MySpace) started out as a side project for two members of Okkervil River, but this year one of the guys left OR to focus solely on this band. This year brought their full album Rooks and the Snow Leopard EP.

I keep forgetting that Shearwater’s music isn’t as laid back as I think it is; maybe it’s Jonathan Meiburg’s smooth voice that I find so soothing, but otherwise their songs are quite layered and often have a strong rhythm section. Maybe it’s because they often start out soft, sometimes with just the vocal line, and build up from there, adding strings and woodwinds and percussion.

One thing that struck me about them was that I came upon a live recording of them and kept replaying it on my iPod, and I normally hate hate hate live recordings and refuse to listen to them. Check it out here from NPR: Shearwater in Concert.

Boys and girls sing well together

Anathallo (MySpace) is a US band I only discovered in November when they put out their second release, Canopy Glow.

It’s a bit silly to base their music solely on the fact that they have both male and female vocals, but I can’t but make comparisons in my head to Stars and Belle and Sebastian. Or even to Sufjan Stevens, because of the extensive instrumentation (especially with percussion). Whenever I listen to them I hear instruments and counter-melodies I hadn’t noticed before, and I can’t ask for much more from a band.