As you probably know I’m no stranger to retro soul sounds, so when Soul Sides wrote (twice) about Little Jackie–a group made of Imani Coppola as songwriter and Adam Pallin as producer–I paid attention.

What I found when I listened to some songs and eventually the album, the Stoop, was catchy melodies over some retro soul music–akin to some of the girl group production from the 60s but undeniably updated. There re also some hip hopish vocals and some other quirks to it. Though this is undoubtedly a mainstream release, it is far from being generic or stamped out by a hit factory. It’s got a lot of style to it.

In a way, the Stoop overall reminds me a Sean Kingston ditty you may remember from last year. Both have retro charms. And both are extremely catchy and fun, and are suitable for light summertime listening. It’s yet to be seen but I feel like the Stoop has more depth than the Kingston song and will stand up to more listens.

“One Love” has got some great production and melodies at every turn. The part that I find really intriguing is the vocals in the 3rd verse, where Imani doesn’t really sing (but isn’t quite rapping in a conventional sense either). They have a heavy swing and lots of style to them.

Little Jackie - One Love (mp3)

For a few more days, you can stream the whole album at Spinner (update: you can still stream the album, but it’s been moved to here. You can pick the record up at insound.

Like a fair number of bands I write about these days, this may not come as a surprise, as I’ve been obsessed, twittered twice and put them on a mixtape, but I thought I should write a bit more about Toronto’s the Rural Alberta Advantage (myspace).

press photo by Vince Wong

The RAA is a trio lead by Paul Banwatt Nils Edenloff and employing his sometimes strained, sometimes relaxed vocals, along with drums, cello, guitars, keyboards and probably some other instruments. After hearing “Don’t Haunt this Place” and a few other songs, I quickly ordered their first full album, Hometowns. Since receiving it, it’s been heavy rotation.

That song is addictive and catchy and generally magnificent. Drums that are tight and interesting, cello, great melodies and harmonies.

the Rural Alberta Advantage - Don’t Haunt this Place (mp3)

But as great as that song is, I was surprised that the album is greater than the sum of the parts. It’s not often that I hear albums–as opposed to collections of songs–anymore, but here’s one. The songs range from subdued to agitated, the instrumentation and tone from folk to rock.

But I’m asking myself how does it get from that to an album, and a really good one at that? I’m not sure, to be honest. The eclectic feel makes the album pass quickly and suddenly it’s built up from a melancholy mess of song into one piece of art.

Banwatt’s Edenloff’s voice reminds me, at times, of Jeff Mangum’s. I hold Neutral Milk in the highest regard and I take any imitation, intentional or not, with a heavy dose of skepticism. As I said to some people when this album first really caught my ear, though, that this is the first time in a long time that I’ve considered liking a band with a vocals that sounds like Mangum. But this album is too good to discount for reasons like that. Or, really, what I should say is that this album shouldn’t be discounted or compared at all–and if it is compared, it should be to say that the vocals work for some of the same reasons Mangum’s do.

the Rural Alberta Advantage - the Dethbridge in Lethbridge (mp3)

the Rural Alberta Advantage - Sleep All Day (mp3)

You can buy Hometowns directly from the band.

As you’ve undoubtedly heard, Girl Talk released his latest album last week. Feed the Animals–yup, wikipedia pretty much has all the samples listed already–came out Thursday and like a lot of the bloggers, I imagine, I downloaded it that night. I’ve listened to it half a dozen or so times since then.

Like Night Ripper, it’s a wildly entertaining album. From start to finish, it’s really fun and I have a big grin on my face.

It’s not flawless–there are samples that annoy me and some good samples used in not the best ways (the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” is such is an amazing song and it’s use is so-so). And Lip Gloss with metalish music has been done before and better. But overall it’s great. I think his strength isn’t putting disparate elements together–there are so many good mash-up artists that can do that–but putting so many disparate samples together in a way that’s still good and musical.

You can pay what you want here.

Previously:

• interview
• show review: Girl Talk @ Stanford

It really seems like there’s a ridiculous amount of music out there for people to listen to these days. Perhaps the shift to this new business model people are talking about is well underway?

• Adele 19 (stream it here) Some good songs, a good voice and a nice overall sound but not as engaging as I wanted it to be.
• My Morning Jacket Evil Urges (stream it here) I don’t like classic rock.
• Beach Boys U.S. Singles Collection (stream it here) Some of the ol’ favorites on here but there’s also some really goofy gems and some so-so filler on here.
• James Hunter the Hard Way (stream it here) I love this guy and I love this album. I really recommend it if you’re into soul, the early R&B sound or oldies at all.
• the Hold Steady Stay Positive (stream it here) Hold Steady has always taken me a while to get into, mostly because the lyrics are what does it for me and I don’t find their music terribly enthralling overall. That said, I’m not sure if this album will grab me on later listens or not.
• Sigur Ros með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust (stream it here) I liked it from the get-go!

The other day a friend of mine, knowing my predilection for African music, gave me a great Smithsonian Folkways disc called Por Por: Honk Horn Music from Ghana by a group called the La Drivers Union Por Por Group.

Using squeeze bulb horns–like car and bicycle horns you’d see in old-time movies–tire rims, drums, other percussion and their voices, the La Drivers Union makes por por music, a type apparently unique to them and perform it almost solely at funerals of drivers in that union (which, I learned from the comprehensive liner notes, often feature caskets that are made to look like the trotros these drivers drive).

George Gershwin, in an American in Paris, used a horn to indicate the traffic and hustle. The way he used it is almost cute, though: a couple honks within a significant piece. One could imagine that it was appropriate to 1930s Paris, though.

In the same way, one can imagine that the constant and overlapping use of horn in this por por music could be appropriate to current day Accra. It’s a din of horns, rhythmic and overlapping with some lines constant and some weaving in and out. Add in to that call-and-response vocals, percussion on all sorts of things like tire rims and traditional drums and you have music that’s both melodic and heavily polyrhythmic.

The LA Drivers Union Por Por Group - Otsokobila (mp3s)

When I heard about this CD, I thought, “Wow, that’ll be cool.” I feel like one could just let the idea of the music trump the actual music. Having listened to it a few times, though, I have to say that listening to this music is just as cool as the idea of it.

You can get this album from Smithsonian Folkway.

Neutral Milk Hotel’s (wikipedia) 2nd and final album, In the Aeroplane over the Sea was released on February 10, 1998 making it 10 years old as of today. I can now officially say it’s the best album in those ten years and that it’s probably my most personally significant single album.

[I’m not the only one who noticed the anniversary, but I will note I started this post about a week before the ‘gum post was up.]

At just under forty minutes, eleven tracks and between seven and thirteen songs (depending on what you want to count) and consisting of psychedelic fuzz pop, one wouldn’t think it is the epic and meaningful album that it is. But it is epic and for me it has been extraordinarily meaningful and important.

It has been written about eloquently (by Will Sheff, of Okkervil River, no less) and with (mounting) and glowing praise, probably better than I can do it, but I can write something about its effect on me personally.

In late February 1998, Superchunk played at the Graffiti in Pittsburgh. I’d been listening to that band, Seam, Sebadoh, Coctails, Moxy Fruvous and a bunch of oldies music. I seriously considered going but passed. My friend Colin, who was a few years ahead of me and was in college at the time ended up going to the show. A few weeks later he was back in the neighborhood for spring break and my high school band had a rehearsal; Colin drummed for us some of the time. I don’t remember actually practicing that day, but I remember Colin putting on an album by the band that opened for Superchunk and regaling us of stories of bowed banjos, guitars with pickups taped onto them, trumpets, broken cymbals, concertinas and all sorts of musical odds and ends this crazy band played.

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This is my second in a series of “best of” lists for 2007. You can see my picks for best concerts. I also made “best of” lists for the following years: 2006, 2005, 2004.

For more “best of” lists, check out largeheartedboy’s master list of 2007 lists (meta!).

I call this my best releases of 2007 but that’s not quite true for a number of reasons [1] including that it’s a bit ridiculous to define my rather arbitrary taste as the one that matters. See below for a full explanation. In short, I try to balance how good I think it is (which is swayed by my expectations), an “objective” rating of goodness, and how much I wanted to listen to it (translating into how many plays it got).

If you want to see what albums I seriously considered for this list, look here.

Best dozen releases of 2007

1. Or, the Whale - Light Poles and Pines (original post)
   This wasn’t supposed to be this good. It’s a debut indie country rock album from a San Francisco band. From the first listen, I knew I liked this album: it had great singing and orchestration, catchy songs and a certain energy about it. and I was alternately obsessed with “Call and Response” and “Fight Song” (and “Prayer for the Road” and…). But I say that it wasn’t supposed to be this good because while I was surprised by it, it’s not life-changing or transcendental; it’s just a really consistent set of really good songs. This year I’ve played this album (according to last.fm and that doesn’t count the repeated plays in my car) almost twice as much as any than any other single album.

   Or, the Whale - Call and Response (mp3)
   

2. Magnolia Electric Co. - Sojourner (box set) (original post)
   This is a pretty stunning collection of three album-length CDs, one EP and various other things (DVD, medallion). My love is mostly concentrated in the gliding full band sounds of Nashville Moon and the often-breathtaking, stark and solo Shohola. The Sun Sessions EP and Black Ram are also not without their merits. “Shiloh Temple Bell” off of Shohola–a song that has broken me with its beauty more than any other this year–is practically enough to get this box set into this list, but there are many other strong efforts and each disc presents a new and consistently good sound.

   Magnolia Electric Co. - Shiloh Temple Bell (mp3)
   

3. the National - Boxer (original post)
   This is the first National album I really listened to and after hearing it and becoming obsessed with it, I listened to Alligator and Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers quite a lot. This is their best yet and what sets it apart is the orchestration. “Fake Empire” is a brilliantly arranged song, for instance, with the slow build of layers after the vocals end. It’s not just anyone who thing to write brass parts like that. The album works well from front-to-back as well. It has stand-out songs, but they never break the mood and neither do the weaker songs–though, wait, are there any weaker songs? I’m not remembering any…

   The National - Fake Empires (mp3)
   

4. Candie Payne - I Wish I Could Have Loved You More (original post)
   I’m still surprised when I hear this album. Somehow someone found a brilliant, unreleased gem of a 1966 album (uncommon, as most of the albums in those days were a couple singles and a fair share of filler), added some heavier drums and released it in 2007 (only the U.K. so far). Okay, that’s not the real story, but, as a person that loves and grew up on much of the music that’s called “oldies”, it’s nice to hear something that give me that kind of joy in production and pop songwriting. Candie’s voice gradually reveals itself to be a strength of the songs as well. I know of no other album this year or ever that when I heard some of it, made me buy the import copy and when I realized that what I’d bought was the import single of the same name, go out and buy another import copy, this time of the full album.

   Candie Payne - By Tomorrow (mp3)
   

5. Morning Benders - Boarded Doors (EP)
   This band has been showing quite a bit of growth. (Having heard some of their yet-to-be-recorded songs surely is some influence as well.) Their brand of heartfelt-but-not-too-wimpy indie pop is informed by decades of pop–they’ve covered Phil Spector (the Ronettes) and Roy Orbinson and sound great next to such acts in a mix tape. Frontman Chris Chu’s voice in uncommon in it’s effortless range and purity. This, their second EP, is a good step up from their previous Loose Change in terms of recording quality and songwriting. I’m really looking forward to their full-length.

   Morning Benders - Boarded Doors (mp3s)
   

6. Kanye West - Graduation (original post)
   While this isn’t my favorite Kanye album so far (that would be Late Registration), this album is a mostly really good combination of good production and sometimes meaningful lyrics, save the annoying two-fer of “Barry Bonds” and “Drunk and Hot Girls”. To all the hip hop purists, I’d like to note I’m not saying this is the best hip hop album of the year. It’s probably better categorized in my rather-indie-centric world as a good pop record that happens to have rapping and big beats.

   Kanye West - Everything I Am (mp3)
   

7. Jens Lekman - Night Falls over Kortedala
   I realized I hadn’t even posted about this album probably because of course Jens will put together a great album. I’m a Jens fan. I’ve liked his quirky but thoroughly catchy and over-the-top pop pretty much from the beginning. When I got Night Falls I emailed a friend to say something like “Yup, Jens is still the king of over-the-top Swedish pop.” I’d already heard the album’s best effort, “Opposite of Hallelujah”, so I unfortunately didn’t have the surprise of hearing that song for the first time in the album’s context.

   Jens Lekman - Your Arms Around Me (mp3)
   

8. Kings of Leon - Because of the Times (original post)
   I’m not going to be able to issue a big list of why this album is good intellectually or why this is good art (though, that’s not to say someone else couldn’t), but I just like listening to this album. It spent a huge portion of the year–months–in my car’s 6-disc CD changer and despite a rotating cast of other albums to choose from, I kept coming back to this one anyhow.

   Kings of Leon - Knocked Up (mp3)
   

9. On No! Oh My! - Between the Devil and the Sea (EP)
   With just 5 songs, just over 15 minutes of music, this EP was a dark horse. I was doing my last listens-through of various 2007 releases and I had a “wait, this is really good!” moment. I liked their debut album (buying the pre-order CD-r version, in fact) but it was inconsistent. This is a step up in both consistency of songwriting and loveliness of melodies. The end result is just a really fun EP of quirky pop songs.

   Oh No! Oh My! - The Party Punch (mp3)
   

10. Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha (original post)
    Andrew Bird is extremely talented but–I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again–talent doesn’t necessarily make good music. Talent certainly helps the live show a ton, but in an album it’s just one part along with songwriting, production, orchestration and so on. I’m going to state this simply: I don’t think this is a complete album. “Plasticities”, “Simple X”, “Scythian Empires”, “Yawny At The Apocalypse” are four great songs that hold this album up among three other good songs (”Fiery Crash”, “Heretics”, “Dark Matter”) and a handful of average-to-boring ones. Still, those four songs are great and make this album well-worth the listen and deserving of its place on this list.

    Andrew Bird - Plasticities (mp3)
    

11. Benni Hemm Hemm - Kajak (original post)
    Benni Hemm Hemm somehow does the beautiful instrumentation and dynamic builds of post rock while still having concrete, and often soft, songs in there, like a Sigur Ros that has Reindeer Section sharing the stage some of the time. The end result is beautiful songs that pulls on you in many different ways.

    Benni Hemm Hemm - Brekkan (mp3)
    

12. John Vanderslice - Emerald City
    John Vanderslice is the man. But besides that point, he also writes really good songs and is one of the best working producers today. Recorded with a full band for the first time, this album has the most cohesive feel of any of his. JV has set a really high standard with his last two albums, Pixel Revolt and Cellar Door (both in my best-of lists for their years) and while I feel this isn’t quite up to that standard, if I take a wider view, this is still a very solid album.

    John Vanderslice - Numbered Lithograph (mp3)
    

(There are more releases that I wanted to include here. I might need to do an “honorable mentions” post later in the week!)

Four releases that would have made the list but were included in previous lists (in alphabetical order):

• David Bazan Fewer Moving Parts
• Bishop Allen Month EPs/ the Broken String[2]
• Elvis Perkins Ash Wednesday
• Fionn Regan End of History

Voted most likely to have me kicking myself for not putting it on this best list once I have enough time to sit down and really listen to it:

• The Lightning Bug Situation - A Leaf; a Stream (original post)
  This is a soft, tender, affecting and gorgeous album, but with all the found-sound and field-recording-type spoken sampled, I don’t think it has really had a chance to fully sink in. I’m sure there are a few albums from this year that will grow in my estimation after in the next weeks, months, years, decades, but if I had to pick one that I was most sure would, I’d say it’s this one.

  the Lightning Bug Situation - Message to Myself After Franny was Born (mp3)
  

[1] This list isn’t the best albums on a global level, just on my personal level. I say “of 2007″ but really it’s “of 2007 when considered in mid-December” and I’m sure if I’d made the same list a month (or even a week) ago or a month (/week) from now, it’d be different. While I try to consider albums fairly subjectively, “best” is also not really on an absolute scale as my expectations of an album effect how I rank them. If I thought an album would be amazing and it’s merely really good it might rank much lower than an album that I thought would be mediocre or bad or didn’t have any expectations of at all and is equivalently really good.

[2] Let’s be honest with ourselves, two new songs doesn’t really make it that much different. And, while we’re really being honest with ourselves, the Month recordings are as good or better than the Broken String ones.

Last week I saw Sigur Ros’ Heima (official site; another official site) documentary/ concert film as part of the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival. It’s a spectacular film. I highly recommend seeing it in a theater if you can as it’ll lose some of its magnificence on DVD.

After many tours encompassing the globe, Sigur Ros came home to Iceland (Heima means “at home” or “homeland”) and decided to put on a series of free and often unconventional shows. The took recording equipment and cameras along and produced this movie. You can read more about the tour itself in their tour diary.

In short, what you get is Sigur Ros playing in an abandoned fish factory or in a statue park between two houses sitting in ruins. They play in a social club and at a protest camp (for a dam being built). Sometimes they play to no one and sometimes they play to tens of thousands. There are also section of the band talking about the door, their music and their relationship with Iceland.

If you find Sigur Ros’ music emotional, then I’m sure you’ll find this film emotional as well, possibly more so. I haven’t seen them live and it seems my chance has passed to see them in any sort of space that could possibly be called intimate. But I was trying to explain to a friend that I think this movie might be better than a live performance could be–these are pretty amazing musical and visual settings together, each working each other in a way I don’t think you can get in the live venue.

The sound is good throughout. Whether playing indoor or out, it seems that the sound is pretty consistent and good through, with the possible exception being, I believe, “Vaka” (”Untitled #1″ from () ) in the protest camp scene. Having difficulties with their equipment and realizing the point of the protest camp, the band goes for a no-mic set up, playing only to the camera’s mics which are buffeted by wind. The music, of course, is pretty amazing–it’s Sigur Ros playing in their normal set up or acoustically and playing well throughout. The power of the music is such that I had chills within about five minutes of the beginning of the film during the “Glosoli”.

What sets the movie apart, though, are the visuals. Iceland is beautiful, just absolutely gorgeous. If there’s one drawback of seeing this movie–if you’re not super rich, at least–is that you can’t go to Iceland immediately after seeing it. You’ll probably want to go if you don’t already. The combined visuals and sound first really hit you during the “Heysatan” sequence, in that sculpture area between two houses that sit in ruins and surrounded by dark, lush green mountains with black volcanic rock outcroppings. The band is huddled quite closely together in the cold and “Heysatan” is so fragile and tense that I thought it would burst at any moment.

The peak of the movie is that protest camp scene with “Vaka”. They band members talk of this dam that’s being built before the start of that scene and then they just show the band and their immediate surroundings. In one of many examples of good editing, right with the Big Moment of the song hits, they show the dam itself for the first time: big, monstrous and jarring in the context of the beautiful landscape. That moment hit me hard with emotion and I had to blink my eyes to keep things from getting blurry.

The only negative I can think of is that the interviews sometimes overlap instrumental parts of the music. I’d rather the music just be left alone most of the time. I feel like should temper this review somehow, saying my experience–like those in weight loss commercials on TV–may not be typical, but I really do think this is a pretty amazing film and I’m not going to make excuses for that.

It’s available now from insound.

Unfortunately there aren’t any SF screenings coming up–Amoeba showed it a few weeks ago, but that’s it on the current schedule. You can check here for future screenings–U.S. residents in Cincinnati, Tulsa and Madison get lucky, while the U.K. and other places have more showings. Check them out below the break.

Hvarf-Heim is the double-disc CD version to accompany the movie. The first disc is new, mostly unreleased electric (regular) Sigur Ros recordings. Three are new songs and two are rerecorded versions of older songs. The second disc is six acoustic versions of songs from their four albums as seen in the film.

I was immediately drawn to the second disc more. I like stripped down versions of songs and Sigur Ros’ stripped down versions are pretty spectacular. The one exception on this disc is the version of “Agaetis Byrjun”, the instrumentation of which I felt came across as sort of cheesy.

I like the recordings–the “Heysatan” version here is quite a bit better than the Takk version, for instance–but the overall album isn’t as can’t-miss as the film.

It’s available at insound.

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Last Friday I saw Sugar Plum Ferry at the Wall in Taipei.

The Taiwan indie scene seems to be dominated by two camps at opposite ends of a spectrum: post-rock and bubblegum indie pop/ twee. In the former camp, one of the most well respected bands is Sugar Plum Ferry. I recently picked up their long awaited sophomore release, Thank You for Reminding Me, put out by my favorite Taipei indie record store/ label White Wabbit Records, and decided that I’d try to catch them the next time they played in town, which was conveniently soon.

Their sound reminds me other guitar-based post rock bands, Mogwai for example, but also of the instrumental moments of Seam (who I like quite a lot). In fact Sun Protection Factor (SPF! get it??) lists both of these bands among their influences. (Interesting, they also list Steve Reich, my favorite minimalist composer. Listen to Tehilim II or III some time–good stuff.)

Sugar Plum Ferry - (Unknown) (mp3)

They put on a solid hour-long performance. Solid both as in good and as in without breaks. After trailing off or ending one song, they’d go right into the next song. Nothing really detracted from the set and it built nicely upon itself. Overall a good set.

There was a lot about this show that seemed quite odd to me, coming from a scene laced with politeness. Whether or not people like a particular song, there will be applause after each one. Whether or not the audience is attentive or claps, the band will thank them after each song. Whether or not the headlining act played a great set, if people are there to see them and there isn’t some strange mitigating circumstance (club curfew, artist specifically not doing encores) there will be enough applause to bring out a band for an encore. It’s pretty ridiculous.

However this show was just as ridiculous in the opposite direction. The three band members came on spaced apart by a few minutes (it was one of those slow-building songs, where each band member adds in slowly). The first guy on stage (guitarist) came on to either zero applause or next-to-none. Between songs, there would be the dying decaying notes of the last song or sustained, purposeful feedback, leaving a gap in which the audience could definitely applaud, but they didn’t. None of the band had mics, so no one said “Xie xie” (thank you) between songs. After the band’s last song there was perhaps 20 seconds of strong applause which then stopped. The guitarist eventually returned to the stage, found a microphone and delivered a minute long monologue to which the crowd did not react. The club lights came on; that was it.

As for the record, Thanks for Reminding Me, I still think I need more time to let it sink in, but, on the surface at least, it’s a enjoyable listen.

White Wabbit Records is primarily a record label, but they also have a record store with records from other indie labels. As soon as I got there I knew I was somewhere I wanted to be. They had a indie good selection even by American standards, which compared to everything else I’d seen in my travels was an amazing selection. There were two Taiwanese hipsters girls working behind the counter. (I may have a crush on one or both now). Most of their prices were decent, but not great. They also exclusively license some foreign releases from their primarily labels/ the artists. Things like Giardini di Miro, Mum, Mice Parade and Explosions in the Sky are now produced for WWR in Taiwan. On these discs and on records by bands singed to WWR, their prices were great–a little under $12 new. They even had signed records from Saxon Shore and American Analog Set on the wall. I’m definitely going back there; I’d highly recommend it.

IMPO records is a small place on the 8th floor in the Ximen district. You couldn’t find this place unless you knew exactly where to look. Between that and their 2-6pm hours (closed Wednesdays and Sundays) and their out-of-the-way location, I’m not sure how they make money. They don’t have the newest stuff either and their prices are closer to the import prices in America for the most part, with a few deals. I liked the store and the owner, though. I got the Morr Music Japan Tour 2005 EP and an album by the Lodger out of the UK. This is a lot quirkier and while it doesn’t have the selection of new stuff that WWR has, it probably has more surprises in store (pun intended).

A few weeks ago, I bought two very different albums with different purchasing methods within a couple days of each other.

Feist (myspace) the Reminder (amazon mp3) I’d heard “1 2 3 4″ just like everyone. It’s a brilliant and addictive song. That sort of, unfortunately, dominated my early listenings to the album. I’d skip ahead to hear it or sort of tune out until it came on. Once I started listening to the whole album, I started liking it. I’m not usually a fan of people who sing in an ornamented manner, but Lesley Feist has a charming way of doing this. In fact, there’s a lot of charm to this album; even songs like “Honey Honey”, on which I find the instrumentation annoying, manage to be charming. This is a really eclectic album with pure acoustic pop masterpieces like “1 2 3 4″ and “Feel it All” (which may actually be a better song than “1 2 3 4″) standing out; other favorites include the slow ballad “The Park”, the modern pop + vintage gospel of “Sea Lion Woman” and the slow-and-sparse-with-slight-bluesy-turns “Brandy Alexander”. Overall I’d recommend it.

Feist - I Feel it All (mp3)

Jose Gonzalez (myspace) In Our Nature (amazon mp3) As opposed to Feist, this is a very consistent album and I knew more or less what to expect from it. Jose Gonzalez plays classical guitar inventively and has a nice voice. This album does have a few touches that Veneer lacked, more percussion and extra voices. He still develops guitar lines with beautiful sonorities; the thumb line on the guitar of “the Next” is a particularly good example. He also has some really nice guitar rhythms. “Down the Line” is this year’s “Crosses” in that respect and is also one of the stand-outs of the album. He, of course, also has a cover that people like, putting live favorite “Teardrop” (originally by Massive Attack) down on record finally. Is this album better than Veneer? It’s hard to say; I’m coming at this album from a different perspective, knowing Jose’s style and sound much better coming into this record. This album isn’t surprisingly good or even overwhelmingly good; it’s just plain good and that’s fine with me.

Jose Gonzalez - Down the Line (mp3s)

I found the Feist at a local record chain. I’d only heard “1 2 3 4″ but I still bought it, even though I don’t make many risk-buys [1] these days. Jose Gonzalez wasn’t available there, so after some mulling and thinking about it for a few days, I gave the Amazon mp3 store a try.

I find this about as noteworthy as the albums involved: that I am still more willing to purchase a CD that I don’t know if I will like for more money (about $13) than an mp3 album of an artist I like quite a lot for less money ($8.99). I was a little surprised at this. I like mp3s, I use my ipod or my laptop for almost all of my music playing [2] but in the end I still want a physical copy. I’m not sure if I’m a typical consumer–in fact, I’m largely convinced that I’m not in my age demographic–but it seems there still is a perceived difference between physical and virtual media and the gap may be large.

That said, I think the Amazon MP3 Store is really, definitely a step up from other options: easy to use, fairly cheap, pretty good selection, DRM-free and high quality MP3s. Emusic (which I have a subscription to) fails in the selection department. iTunes fails in the DRM department (mostly) and it’s more expensive than Amazon.

[1] I call CDs that I’m not sure if I’ll like or haven’t been able to preview much risk-buys. On the other end of the spectrum, I’ll often buy CDs that I already have previewed extensively (in mp3 form) due to connections or friends and I’ll buy it to show that I think the album’s good enough to pay money for. (I’ll often do this at concerts by the artist as it’s often cheaper for me and the artist get’s a bigger cut of the money.) Sure-bets I guess you could call these. Of course there are many possibilities in between.

[2] I should note that as radio DJ it is easier to play off of CDs (both in set up and in timing transitions) and I feel a commitment to playing the highest quality music available, especially now that we have a gorgeous sounding 192 kps AAC stream.

I got Kanye West’s (wikipedia, myspace) newest, Graduation a while ago. Sure, I wanted to be one vote against 50 cent but I also liked his previous albums and the tracks that I’d heard before the release.

Overall, it’s more of the same, but still different from Kanye. Good samples, interesting musically and good lyrics[1] overall. It has it’s pitfalls, but it has a few excellent tracks and a bunch of good ones. Also, I’m really glad he decided to give the skits a skip. I found them very annoying on his previous albums and I’d just end up deleting them from iTunes so I can listen to the album unencumbered [2].

The album starts out well with “Good Morning [Intro]”, which is one of my favorites in fact. It’s a med-slow jam with a simple beat, but the music and lyrics just work for me.

“Champion” and “Stronger” are both good and don’t break the rhythm of the album at all. The Daft Punk sample is a bit odd at first but it makes sense eventually. “I Wonder” seems mostly a sample and just a little bit of Kanye. Am I wrong? “Good Life” is sort of a classic “throw your hands up” sort of hip hop track. The super-sped up vocals (very high pitched) are off-putting if I listen for them.

Whenever I hear “Can’t Tell Me Nothing”, all I can see is Zach Galifianakis and Will Oldham rapping and hip thrusting along to this song. Great video, but it sort of separates it for me from seeing it as a song.

The album has it’s major missteps here. “Barry Bonds” is subpar and “Drunk and Hot Girls” is just bad. On Late Registration I initially didn’t like “Crack Music” but eventually the lyrics won me over. Here, I don’t think anything will redeem “Drunk and Hot Girls”.

“Flashing Lights” helps me recover from the previous two. Nice strings and strong beat. It leads into my favorite track, “Everything I Am”. It’s another slow jam. It’s got a great soulful piano part and the lyrics about materialism and gangerstism are good and meaningful.

Kanye West - Everything I Am (mp3)

The rest of the album goes out smoothly. “The Glory” is the strings-and-soul-big-beat song of this album (the “Golddigger” of this album, if you will). Initially I was annoyed by the Chris Martin-featuring “Homecoming” but I found it going around in my head after a few listens. I guess it’s catchy. “Big Brother” is the track about Jay-Z. It’s a bit vengeful/ bragging. The music is good, but the boastful lyrics can be a bit much if I　really pay attention to them.

Check out more tracks at hype machine. You can buy it at insound.

[1] I hear lyrics about last after music, production and most other elements of the music, so for me lyrics only become really important on repeated listens.

[2] Also, I end up retitling/ reartisting all the tracks with “featuring so-and-so” to putting that in the song title. For example artist: “Kanye West feat T-Pain”, song: “Good Life” to artist: “Kanye West” song: “Good Life ft. T-Pain” because I like sorting by artist in iTunes and the “featuring” always screws that up, putting parts of the album after the rest of the album.

I don’t usually don’t do record store reviews (but maybe I should start). Deprived of indie record stores for a while, I finally visited visited one in Monitor Records in Hong Kong.[1]

It’s a small shop, Aquarius Records-sized. They have things divided into categories like “alternative” (which includes some indie rock), “post-rock” (which somehow also includes bands like Aqueduct and Damien Jurado), “spanish pop” and “goth metal” (or something like that, I didn’t look at that section too carefully). They have a wide variety of music there. I don’t want to come off sounding like an indie music snob, but a lot of record stores I go to, I know a pretty wide range of the music they’re selling. Here, I knew some bands, sure, but it seemed like a lot of the music I didn’t know.

The clerk [and owner, I presume] was nice and gave me some good recommendations on what local stuff I should check out.

Anyway, I liked this place. It’s a bit hard to look through everything and the categories don’t quite sense to me, but the selection is good, if a bit out there, and having a knowledgeable clerk is a necessity in a good record store.

[1] Note: Lonely Planet lists Monitor Records but their current address is wrong. Check here for the current address. The current address I have as of this post is:
Monitor Records
5/F, Po Cheong Commerical Building,
29 Prat Avenue,
Tsim Sha Tsui,
Kolwoon, Hong Kong

Magnolia Electric Co. is Jason Molina. Of course there’s other people in the band, but the “creative force”/ songwriter/ singer/ whatever else is Molina. Similarly, previously Songs: Ohia was Molina.

A couple weeks ago they released the Sojourner box set, consisting of 4 CDs (3 album-lengths and 1 EP), 1 DVD, a medallion, a nice wooden box and various other things and I picked it up at my first chance. It’s not quite the six albums we were promised, but it’s pretty impressive.

Let’s get the non-music out of the way: the medallion is just silly. Who needs a medallion? But as far as gimmicks go, it’s a pretty good one. The DVD is a fairly interesting tour documentary, though there are many good tour docs out there (the Beulah and Death Cab ones being among the best).

Now for the music. Each disc has its own title. Nashville Moon is the most straight-forward one and it’s a full-band record. Sound-wise, it’s fairly similar to the last few Magnolia Electric Co albums. Shohola is solo, acoustic and pretty sparse. Sun Session is an EP-length disc worth of full band, but pretty subdued material. The Black Ram is possibly the most varied disc, mostly full band but with some pretty sparse material in there. The closer is even noisey, sparse and piano-based. It should also be noted that this isn’t all new material, with tracks like “Hammer Down” and “What Comes after the Blues” being released previously; it should also be noted the versions of these songs that appear here are quite different than the previously-released versions.

Overall, there’s some really great material in here. Shohola is immediately the centerpiece for me. I really like Molina’s solo, sparse stuff and even among that, this is a pretty amazing disc. Nashville Moon took a while longer to sink in but there’s some great songs on this disc and the material on the disc that I don’t love is still good. The Sun Session is short but really lovely. Black Ram is perhaps the only disc that I haven’t absorbed yet. I’m not sure what to make of it yet. There’s some pretty good and straightforward stuff but there’s some more out-there stuff too. The jury’s still out on that disc.

I raved previously about “Shiloh Temple Bell” and I was holding back. I really think this is one of the best songs Molina’s recorded and he’s both prolific and very good at songwriting. Perhaps if you don’t like the spare acoustic stuff, you won’t hear the genius in this, but if you don’t like the spare acoustic stuff what are you doing reading this blog? Here’s some of what I said about it last week:

When I first heard this track I almost forgot where I was, that I was driving–I needed to hear this song more and I wanted to hear it without interruption at all: just go home, shut my door, shut my eyes and listen to it on repeat. Jason Molina has written some really amazing songs, but there’s something about this one–every note, every word, every warble in his voice builds and makes it better. The melody during the chorus and the lyrics throughout are so perfectly melancholy.

Magnolia Electric Co - Shiloh Temple Bell (mp3 removed at request of label)

“No Moon on the Water” is one of about a thousand songs on the set that mentions the moon, as others have noted. This is an dark, aggressive rocker; it almost feels out of control in parts. I love simmering aggression underneath Molina’s warbling vocals about depression. (I just found out that probably a different version of this song came out as a promo 7″ a few years back.

Magnolia Electric Co - No Moon on the Water (mp3 removed at request of label)

“Texas 71″ starts and continues slowly, with a very slow fade in. With a organ leading the way and really nice pedal steel floating all over the place, there’s still plenty of space for Molina’s great vocals and melody.

Magnolia Electric Co - Texas 71 (mp3 removed at request of label)

You can buy the set from insound (link removed). Also be sure to check out their extensive free live archive in their site.

The almost continuous Magnolia Electric Co tour stops in the City in a couple weeks:

9/5 Magnolia Electric Co. w/ Golden Boots, The Dying Californian @ Bottom of the Hill, 9pm, $12, a/a

Check out full tour dates after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

I really liked the Stars’ last album, Set Yourself on Fire. When I heard that they were releasing their new album digitally months before it’s slated to hit the store shelves, I thought they’d made a smart move.

I heard “The Night Starts Here” on some of the music blogs and I thought it was okay, but decided to pick up the whole album (In Our Bedroom After the War) from eMusic the other day anyway.

Set Yourself on Fire has compelling and interesting orchestration, nice use of dynamics and this sort of male-female tension that helps the album. Not every song on the album’s a winner, but I enjoyed listening to it. The whole album is greater than the sum of the parts.

In Our Bedroom After the War, on the other hand, seems to have none of these positive attributes. It’s just not compelling at all; this music is not taking me anywhere. The overall feel I get while listening to it is a desire to stop listening to it. I know some people are listening to this and hearing something amazing and some are even saying best of 2007. I’m not hearing it.

Just putting in my two cents.