the spirit of 2009 {picktography}

ok, 09.

once again, i trotted along my own little idiosyncratic musical path, which continued to resemble not much except for itself. the very best, my number one pick (for both album and song) seemed like a self-evident choice not so much for the usual musical reasons (or the even more obvious nomenclatural ones) as because they were the 2009 act that felt most like an event: one that happened multiple times (that first crazy-late, crazy-joyful show in nyc, then the hotly-anticipated arrival of the album itself, and then the hyped-up, hopped-up philly gig, which was a social highlight even if the show was a bit of a let-down), and that kept on happening again every time i cued up the title-track 7" for an impromptu dining-room dance-party. warm heart became a go-to album for several of my housemates as well, which meant it was on the stereo pretty constantly and i certainly soaked it in even more than its impressive last.fm showing would indicate [currently 326 overall listens, a nigh-untouchable first-place tally on the overall artists chart, although some of that is from last year's mixtape.]

in a more symbolic sense, the very best embody a lot of what was stirring to me about music this year; the joyously omnivorous global cross-pollinations (i feel like i've been overusing all of those words) that have proliferated increasingly over the last few years. if it felt slightly like an off-year for that trend on the larger scene (no m.i.a. or vampire weekend-style break-out to get the kids grooving), the variously ethno-flected sounds of buraka som sistema (#6), fool's gold (#28), nomo, major lazer (#27), hypnotic brass ensemble (#38) and amadou & mariam (#24) were all staples of my listening diet (i also saw all of the above in concert except for bss) and, more significantly, at feet active (one of my main musical playgrounds this year, where the two top anthems were by radioclit - a.k.a. the producers from the very best - and the inescapable animal collective.)

the biggest-deal actual musical events of the year were down to michael jackson (pretty incontrovertibly) and the beatles (a.k.a. the #2 best-selling artist of the decade - you could argue, but i'd say the long-awaited remasters/reissues got me and many others more excited than pretty much anything else this year), which sort of says it all. i remained thoroughly unenticed by the years big banner pop champs (black-eyed peas, lady gaga) as well as the ballyhooed likes of drake and the-dream (though i must say soulja boy has remained surprisingly likable. and i've still got love for taylor swift, of course, but she's a solid 2008 artist in my book, even if i rocked fearless a ton over the winter.) so basically chart-wise it was even more of a sleeper than '08 ("low" and "single ladies" seemed like middling fare at the time, but they feel practically classic from this vantage point), notwithstanding the welcome ascendancy of a few sasha fierce album tracks .

as far as the indie-sphere goes, there seemed to be an unusual degree of consensus on a small couple of bands (animal collective (my #40), phoenix (#37), grizzly bear, dirty projectors - apparently passion pit too, but i didn't really hear any of that chatter, let alone the album) all of which were fine enough in their way (and offered some very good singles), but it's hard to imagine them having generated this degree of excitement and near-universal acclaim amidst a more competitive field a few years back. i know, there's no such thing as a bad year in music – and i do really believe that – but the best of the stuff i was able to find in '09 really does seem a little meager by comparison.

well, it is what it is....
rounding out my top 5, some pretty unlikely-seeming picks: perhaps most unlikely, jonathan johansson's (#2) romantically lush, all-in-swedish retro-80s rock/pop, my fondness for which i'm at a loss to entirely explain (i compared him to u2 and the arcade fire in my amg bio, though i certainly like him more than either of those. the best i can do is point to the greatness of the melodies, the rhythms, and the sounds – all of which are sterling – and maybe mention the non-issue of the foreign-language lyrics and the always-helpful consideration that the album is seriously solid front-to-back.)

on the other hand, mayer hawthorne's (#3) appeal seems blindingly obvious, and i'm a little baffled that he hasn't gotten more notice than he has – hands-down, the best retro-soul album i've heard this decade, particularly in the songwriting department. (yeah i said it – not even sharon jones and nicole willis have swagga like mayer. naomi davis (#31) came close this year, but she's stuck singing decades-old gospel and recycled bosco mann fodder. i tried the lee fields disc too but it hasn't really stuck, i'm afraid.) plus, he's actually from mo-town.

elsewhere (well, in sweden - where else?), jj (#4) distilled the reliably perplexing sincerely yours aesthetic into a compulsively listenable album that, at under half an hour, is easily my favorite outing from the label to date despite being as baffling as anything they've released: the party line seems to be that it's a drug album, but outward trappings aside it sure feels like mainline of sweetly innocent indie-pop (my sis says they sound but exactly like camera obscura (#7) – i'd add st. etienne, but she's got a point.) speaking of indie-pop, the boy least likely to (#10) got to me early and often, managing to almost singlehandedly fulfill my allotted twee dosage for the year. (but not entirely: i feel only a slight shade more guilty for ranking the sound of arrows' creampuff of an alternate-universe summer single, "m.a.g.i.c.," among my top ten tunes.)

and at #5, wonder of wonders, an actual guitar-rock album, albeit one by a swedish female singer-songwriter. dunno whether anybody else even heard of adiam dymott (don't worry, she'll spell her name out for you if you ask nice), but something about her no-frills musical approach, throaty vox, and unassumingly witty mild-mannered cynicism really did it for me. [honorable mention shout-out to norwegian rock diva ida maria, who kinda fell in the cracks between the years, but also put out a bang-up album in '08/'09, and put on a hell of a show at the north star this summer.]

okay, what else? there really weren't any dominant themes to my musical year, at least records-wise. i did find myself listening to a lot of singer-songwriters; mostly old faves – there were (quasi-conceptual) career-high efforts from two of my favorite underdogs, darren hayman (#9) and jeff lewis (#14), and a subtle return-to-form-ish grower from the undismissable mr. goats (#17). (i wasn't quite so moved by new work from mssrs. vanderslice and newman (#42), though, and i must admit - shock and horror! - that i didn't even listen to the elvis costello record.)

even more on the female singer-songwriter fron – though neither mirah (#54) nor erin mckeown (#57) nor regina spektor nor even neko case (#34) made records that i loved nearly as much as their previous ones, they all contributed at least a song or two to the stack of '09 greatness (as you'll note from the songs list)... jill sobule (#43) was more of a borderline case, with an album that was about half-killer, half-filler but with one absolute gem, "palm springs," which is destined for future classic status, at my sing-alongs if nowhere else.

in the end, it was local focal birdie busch (#11), who's won me over slowly slowly but surely over the past few years (and whom i've spotted serving at world cafe while catching sets by several of the aforementioned), who scored probably my favorite folk-style record of the year with the west philly-style easy-groovin' of pattern of saturn. can't say too much about it, but it's the kind of record that just sounds right.

on a less folky, less american tip, i've noticed a lot of fairly mellow, "mature"-sounding albums on my decks by scandinavian females – the likes of anna ternheim (#29), a camp (#23), and el perro del mar (#36), and, i suppose, the utterly chilling fever ray (#12) – maybe the highest-placing entry on my list that earned a respectable amount of attention elsewhere. [aside: interest duly piqued for the forthcoming knife opera. mmmhmm.]
but a more notable and global mini-trend (to my ears) has been for a certain sort of retro-ish, faux-jazzy smiley-face piano-pop, as purveyed by the wispy norwegian sparkler sissy wish (at #13, the lone firecracker among that glum list of scandos), californian obi best (#49), aussie lenka (sort of between the cracks, again, but i did see her this year), and most satisfyingly, long-time #1 front-runners the bird and the bee (#15), whose album i probably enjoy listening to even more than i usually acknowledge. you could lump regina spektor into that category too, as well as lily allen (#33), and of course the ever-charming nelly mckay (#53) even if her doris day schtick didn't goose me quite as much on record as during her 92Ytribeca gig this summer.

as i said, i found it to be kind of a lackluster time for pop; i did find some r&b (amerie, #3o; ryan leslie, #60; maxwell, [needs more listens]; the sub-par but decent new rihanna), some country (miranda lambert, #34; maybe keith urban; and i really oughtta check out brad paisley and eric church), and some teen-pop/rock (kelly clarkson, paramore, cash cash, some demi lovato) to enjoy – hardly any hip-hop, sad to say – but i wasn't particularly excited about any of them as genres. uk funky seemed cool but i didn't really penetrate it, and i need to spend more time with shakira... currently digging: young money's "bedrock." ho-kay.

all that said, there were a brace of truly top-notch straight-up synth-pop full-lengths, some of which even got some chart action in some parts of the world: best of all la roux (#8), whose apparent divisiveness among the poptimist massive is utterly perplexing to me. upon reflection, annie's long-awaited return (#22) didn't disappoint either – honestly, it might even be the equal of her debut (only our expectations have certainly grown since 2004) and i think it just edges out little boots' also-anticipated, also-lovely debut (#25).

incidentally, nobody really pays much attention to electro-goofster tiga (#16) anymore, probably for good reason, but he called in some favors this year from buddies like soulwax, gonzales and mr. james murphy to come up with a stunningly solid and impressively nuanced electronic pop full-length, maybe the best "straight" dance album i heard this year, whatever that means. better than yacht, for sure, and also röyksopp, whom it seems like i ought to enjoy more than i do.

otherwise, electronica remained as confusing as ever... i tried to like dubstep, and made a bit of headway (okay to joker and zomby, surewhynot to benga and the hyperdub 5 comp in general, no thanks to caspa tho...) but still can't say i'm a head. that burial/four tet split wasn't much more than a tease; two fingers (#46) seemed exciting but then really weren't, and the field, juan maclean, gui boratto and gusgus (!) all caught my ear but couldn't quite hold it, while the whole hazy-summer "chill-wave" thing sounded like a great concept but failed to sink in for me beyond the truly stunning memory tapes record (#18). i did enjoy the maximalist intensity of fuck buttons (#26), the kitchen-sink-disco lunacy of mungolian jet set (#20), the retro-techno stylings of kikumoto allstars (#44) and etienne jaumet (#59), as well as eminently listenable label comps from permanent vacation (#48) and hervé records (#52), but these all felt like drips and drops from a distant ocean.

okay, that's about all i got. one more thing though: last year i reported that 2008 was a great year for weirdos. 2009 turned out to be an excellent one for funny music. and not just from such usual suspects as sub-genre teen-rappers (new boyz), novelty one-offs (das racist), self-lampooning cock-rockers (hot leg), inveterate r'n'b yuksters (r. kelly, soulja boy) and, y'know, actual comedy acts (the lonely island and), though all were in top form. seemed like everybody was approaching things with a sense of humor this year, from neko to shakira including most of my favorites from mayer to darren to adiam to jill, even if (pace lily allen) not all the jokes were necessarily funny. steve martin released a great 'serious' banjo album, but he couldn't keep a straight face the whole time. and even queen beyoncé, who not long ago seemed to be utterly humorless, compounded the gigglishness of her great "radio" with an unexpected deep-cut single release for what became my favorite comedy jam of the year – which also happen an addictively smooth and funky slow jam. although kanye's remix kind of ruins things by dumbing down the double-entendre, the humor does run deeper than that (note that she's also singing about her own ego), and almost every line is priceless the best part both comically and musically is the final moment when the argument turns literal: "i don't need no beat, i can sing it to piano"... and she proceeds to demonstrate that, obviously, she can and does.

here, i made a mix:

2k9 funnies
1. Ego - Beyoncé
2. I'm On A Boat - The Lonely Island ft. T-Pain
3. My Job - Cam'Ron
4. Cocktails - Hot Leg
5. Blue Jeans - Jessie James
6. Toe Jam - The BPA ft. David Byrne & Dizzee Rascal
7. Rabbit Hop (Version) - Hypnotic Brass Ensemble
8. Yes Boss - Hess is More
9. Snort Ur Drugz - Beardo
10. Faith - The Boy Least Likely To
11. You're A Jerk - New Boyz
12. How Are You? - Conor and Dierdre
13. I Don't Like Your Band - Annie
14. Could You Be Loved - Pizzy Yelliot vs. Mungolian Jetset
15. Periodically Double or Triple - Yo La Tengo
16. Mathematics - Little Boots
17. Shoes - Tiga
18. Mary Jane - Major Lazer ft. Mr. Evil & Mapei
19. Combination Pizza Hut & Taco Bell (Wallpaper Remix) - Das Racist
20. Big Schools - Baby Teeth
21. Late For School - Steve Martin
22. Whistle Past The Graveyard - Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard
23. Well Done You - The Chap

[note to self: must add "LOL :-)" to this mix]

i made a "straight" mix too (vol. 1 of the two, i suppose), cribbing off my singles list and trying to focus on "songs" (q.v. my recent project) but for some reason i'm not too thrilled with it. maybe i'm just tired of 2009 music at this point. anyhow:

2k9 favorites
1. Warm Heart of Africa - The Very Best ft. Ezra Koenig
2. When Live Gives Me Lemons I Make Lemonade - The Boy Least Likely To
3. Pizza - Adiam Dymott
4. Make It On My Own - Anna Ternheim
5. Bulletproof - La Roux
6. Alla Vil Ha Hela Världen - Jonathan Johansson
7. From Africa to Málaga - JJ
8. Palm Springs - Jill Sobule
9. Bugs & Flowers - Jeff Lewis
10. Bordertown (Song For Gabino) - Birdie Busch
11. Who Says - John Mayer
12. Datura - Or, The Whale
13. Me & Your Cigarettes - Miranda Lambert
14. Make Her Mine - Mayer Hawthorne
15. The Calculation - Regina Spektor
16. Book - Sissy Wish
17. Pram Town - Darren Hayman
18. Careless Love - Camera Obscura
19. The Fear - Lily Allen
20. Tune Into My Heart - Little Boots
21. M.A.G.I.C. - The Sound of Arrows
22. My Girls - Animal Collective
23. Deuteronomy 2:10 - The Mountain Goats

--
p.s. a round-up of the year in music feels remiss without mentioning several of my own personal biggest musical accomplishments of the year – none of which, incidentally, had very much at all to do with any recorded music that was released in 2009: acquiring a piano (!), [co-]establishing the regular [monthly] dj gig/party/musical happyland that is feet active (!!), and producing two of the most exciting and satisfying mix projects (from conception to research to execution to packaging) that i've done in a long time, maybe ever – seep wo and american tunes.

the spirit of 2009 {listomania}

lists first. all official-like:

The Mincetapes Top 40 Favorite Albums of 2009
1. Warm Heart of Africa / The Very Best
2. En Hand i Himelen / Jonathan Johansson
3. A Strange Arrangement / Mayer Hawthorne
4. JJ No. 2 / JJ
5. Adiam Dymott
6. Black Diamond / Buraka Som Sistema [2008 Europe]
7. My Maudlin Career / Camera Obscura
8. La Roux
9. Pram Town / Darren Hayman
10. The Law of the Playground / The Boy Least Likely To

11. Pattern of Saturn / Birdie Busch
12. Fever Ray
13. Beauties Never Die / Sissy Wish [2007 Norway]
14. 'Em Are I / Jeffrey Lewis
15. Ray Guns Are Not Just the Future / The Bird and the Bee
16. Ciao / Tiga
17. The Life of the World to Come / The Mountain Goats
18. Seek Magic / Memory Tapes
19. Kitty Daisy & Lewis
20. We Gave It All Away, Now We Are Taking It Back / The Mungolian Jet Set
21. Real Estate
22. Don't Stop / Annie
23. Colonia / A Camp [2008 Sweden]
24. Welcome to Mali / Amadou et Mariam [2008 Europe]
25. Hands / Little Boots [2010 US]
26. Tarot Sport / Fuck Buttons
27. Guns Don't Kill People...Lazers Do / Major Lazer
28. Fool's Gold
29. Leaving On A Mayday / Anna Ternheim [2008 Sweden]
30. In Love and War / Amerie
31. What Have You Done, My Brother? / Naomi Shelton & The Gospel Queens
32. Phrazes for the Young / Julian Casablancas
33. It's Not Me It's You / Lily Allen
34. Revolution / Miranda Lambert
35. Middle Cyclone / Neko Case
36. Love is Not Pop / El Perro Del Mar
37. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix / Phoenix
38. Hypnotic Brass Ensemble
39. Red Light Fever / Hot Leg
40. Meriweather Post Pavilion / Animal Collective

[see Best of 2009 sidebar for 41-60]

The Mincetapes Top 50 Favorite Songs of 2009
1. The Very Best ft. Ezra Koenig - "Warm Heart of Africa"
2. La Roux - "Bulletproof"
3. Beyonce - "Ego"
4. The Boy Least Likely To - "When Life Gives Me Lemons I Make Lemonade"
5. Adiam Dymott - "Pizza"
6. Das Racist - "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (Wallpaper Remix)"
7. The Sound of Arrows - "M.A.G.I.C."
8. John Mayer - "Who Says"
9. The Bird and the Bee - "My Love"
10. Jill Sobule - "Palm Springs"

11. Animal Collective - "My Girls"
12. JJ - "From Africa to Málaga"
13. A Camp - "Stronger Than Jesus"
14. Camera Obscura - "French Navy"
15. Birdie Busch - "Bordertown (Song For Gabino)"
16. Jeffrey Lewis - "Bugs & Flowers"
17. Ryan Leslie - "I.R.I.N.A."
18. Kelly Clarkson - "My Life Would Suck Without You"
19. The Lonely Island ft. T-Pain- "I'm On A Boat"
20. Lily Allen - "The Fear"
21. Rye Rye ft. M.I.A. - "Bang"
22. Regina Spektor - "The Calculation"
23. La Roux - "In For The Kill"
24. Fool's Gold - "Surprise Hotel"
25. Neko Case - "This Tornado Loves You"
26. New Boyz - "You're A Jerk"
27. Buraka Som Sistema - "IC19"
28. Phoenix - "Lisztomania"
29. Mayer Hawthorne - "Make Her Mine"
30. Yo La Tengo - "Periodically Double or Triple"
31. Annie - "My Love Is Better"
32. Amerie - "Why R U"
33. Fever Ray - "When I Grow Up"
34. Emiliana Torrini - "Jungle Drum"
35. Jonathan Johansson - "Alla Vill Ha Hela Världen"
36. Maino ft. Swizz Beatz - "Million Bucks"
37. Darren Hayman - "Compilation Cassette"
38. Cash Cash - "Party in Your Bedroom"
39. They Came From The Stars I Saw Them vs. Mungolian Jet Set - "Moon Song" (The Gospel According To Mung/2012 Live at the Hacienda Version)
40. Alphabeat - "What is Happening"
41. Meanderthals - "Kunst Or Ars"
42. Baby Teeth - "Big Schools"
43. Maxwell - "Pretty Wings"
44. The Boy Least Likely To - "Every Goliath Has His David"
45. Miranda Lambert - "Me & Your Cigarettes"
46. Sissy Wish - "Beauties Never Die"
47. Zomby - "The Lie"
48. Miley Cyrus - "Party in the USA"
49. Julian Casablancas - "11th Dimension"
50. The BPA (ft. David Byrne and Dizzee Rascal) - "Toejam"

[see sidebar for however many more i can think of]

coming soon: commentary, mixes, and album art ratings

interpretation theory (sing, sing, sing)

as usual, there were a couple of different ideas floating around.

i've been big on the communal experience of music lately. making strides...it's been a good year for it. living in a communal house now, we got a piano a few months ago, and we've been having sing-along parties. four weeks straight this summer i found myself in group-sings; singing with friends, housemates, family members, semi-strangers, co-religionists... yes yes yes.

great times, and it can be quite fascinating and (at times) challenging too, finding the right songs to sing, songs that enough folks know well enough to make it worth it. it's pretty interesting to find out who knows what. seems like there should be some reasonably dependable shared repertoire of familiar songs – and to some extent there is, but it's often smaller than you'd think, and it tends to shift around. i made this handy-dandy google-doc spreadsheet for (hopefully) easy reference during sings, the idea being to develop a common database that others can add to and expand and use for their own ends. (maybe i'll put the link on the sidebar to help facilitate that.)

meanwhile, i've continued along my musico-historical travels thru pop-ways past & present: picking up a bunch of louvin brothers and elvis presley records; checking out some goofy early hollies sides; happening into a brief but passionate richard thompson/fairport convention phase; going out tuesdays to dance to blues & swing (& jazz & pop & soul & r'n'b);
digging covers albums (and live shows!) by sid & susie & nellie mckay & neko case & kitty daisy & lewis. & maybe most notably, reading elijah wald's excellent book how the beatles destroyed rock'n'roll (which i reviewed for citypaper), which is about 20th century pop music up through the middle '60s or so and offers some fascinating new understandings. (of, among other things, the nature of the communal musical experiences, and how dramatically they've changed since fifty years ago.)

all of this has gotten me thinking about the notion of a canon of pop standards, analagous to the jazz standards and blues standards which are so neatly catalogued there on wikipedia. (and seemingly exhaustively too – year by year by year – i sure couldn't think of any standards they left out.) specifically, post-war pop – before that it's kinda coterminous with jazz standards ("the great american songbook") anyway. (or, better, at least alongside the chronological distinction, a stylistic one: the great american stewpot of folk, blues, country, western, gospel, r'n'b, r'n'r, race music, hillbilly music etc. etc. – the other, grittier side of the fence from "trad. vocal pop," not that the lines don't criss-cross any-which-anyway...)

songs that have been sung many times by many different singers, songs which are more familiar in themselves than any single performance of them, songs whose origins may have gotten somewhat muddled and dispersed along the way, at least enough to loosen them from strict association with one specific artist. often, songs which may have started out as country but found their way into soul, or vice versa, or into pop or folk or reggae or rock'n'roll. songs that in their day, when they were new, seem to have been on the lips of just about everyone in the country – sometimes yielding two, three, four recorded versions in a single year – and old songs that folks are still singing to this day. great songs. by great songwriters? sung by great singers? maybe, yes – but more importantly: songs that are great for singing.

so: i did some poking around (itunes, google, xtorrent, the piano...); i made a bunch of lists; i made a mix.^[*] it looks like this:



title: american tunes (volumes 1-3)
date: november 2009
format: 3 x cd (77 tracks!!!)
packaging: custom cardboard tri-fold pak with velcro-dot closure flap, jet-printed sticker-paper tracklists 'neath transparent rosette-hubs. discs white with printed sticker labellage.

contents:

American Tunes: Volume One

1. “Trouble in Mind” [R. Jones] as sung by Sister Rosetta Tharpe (1941)
2. “I Almost Lost My Mind” [I. Hunter] as sung by Ivory Joe Hunter (1949)
3. “Blue Moon” [Rodgers/Hart] as sung by Elvis Presley (1956)
4. “You Don't Know Me” [Arnold/Walker] as sung by Eddy Arnold (1956)
5. “He'll Have To Go” [Allison/Allison] as sung by Jim Reeves (1960)
6. “Please Stay” [Bacharach/Hilliard] as sung by The Drifters (1961)
7. “Bring It On Home To Me” [S. Cooke] as sung by Sam Cooke (1962)
8. “I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself” [Bacharach/David] as sung by Tommy Hunt (1962)
9. “The End Of The World” [Kent/Dee] as sung by Skeeter Davis (1963)
10. “Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood” [Caldwell/Marcus/Benjamin] as sung by Nina Simone (1964)
11. “To Love Somebody” [Gibb/Gibb] as sung by The Bee Gees (1967)
12. “The Dark End Of The Street” [Moman/Penn] as sung by James Carr (1967)
13. “Nobody Knows You (When You're Down and Out)” [J. Cox] as sung by Otis Redding (1968)
14. “Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye” [L. Cohen] as sung by Roberta Flack (1969)
15. “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man” [Moman/Penn] as sung by The Flying Burrito Brothers (1969)
16. “Pouring Water On A Drowning Man” [Baker/McCormick] as sung by Otis Clay (1970)
17. “Heart Like A Wheel” [A. McGarrigle] as sung by Linda Ronstadt (1974)
18. “You Keep Me Hanging On” [Holland/Dozier/Holland] as sung by Mike Dorane (1975)
19. “Always On My Mind” [Christopher/James/Thompson] as sung by Willie Nelson (1982)
20. “How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore?” [P. Nelson] as sung by Prince (1982)
21. “Sweet Jane” [L. Reed] as sung by Cowboy Junkies (1988)
22. “I Started A Joke” [Gibb/Gibb/Gibb] as sung by Low (1996)
23. “When You Were Mine” [P. Nelson] as sung by Crooked Fingers (2002)
24. “Hard Life” [W. Oldham] as sung by Bonnie "Prince" Billy (2003)
25. “A Change Is Gonna Come” [S. Cooke] as sung by Naomi Shelton & the Gospel Queens (2009)

American Tunes: Volume Two

1. “On The Sunny Side Of The Street” [McHugh/Fields] as sung by Benny Goodman & Peggy Lee (1941)
2. “Let The Good Times Roll” [Jordan/Theard] as sung by Louis Jordan (1946)
3. “This Little Light of Mine” [trad.] as sung by The Louvin Brothers (1957)
4. “Money Honey” [J. Stone] as sung by Wanda Jackson (1958)
5. “I've Told Every Little Star” [Kern/Hammerstein] as sung by Linda Scott (1961)
6. “See See Rider” [Rainey/Arent] as sung by LaVern Baker (1962)
7. “You Really Got A Hold On Me” [S. Robinson] as sung by The Beatles (1963)
8. “I Just Want To Make Love To You” [W. Dixon] as sung by The Rolling Stones (1964)
9. “All I Really Want To Do” [B. Dylan] as sung by The Byrds (1965)
10. “Let The Good Times Roll” [Goodman/Lee] as sung by The Animals (1965)
11. “The In Crowd” [B. Page] as sung by The Mamas & The Papas (1966)
12. “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” [Holland/Dozier/Holland] as sung by Jr. Walker & the All Stars (1966)
13. “I Got You Babe” [S. Bono] as sung by Etta James (1968)
14. “Me And Bobby McGee” [Kristofferson/Foster] as sung by Kenny Rogers (1970)
15. “I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight” [R. Thompson] as sung by Richard & Linda Thompson (1974)
16. “It's All Over Now” [Womack/Womack] as sung by Ry Cooder (1974)
17. “Soldier of Love” [Moon/Cason] as sung by Marshall Crenshaw (1982)
18. “I Got Loaded” [R. Camille] as sung by Los Lobos (1984)
19. “Don't Look Back” [Robinson/White] as sung by Peter Tosh with Mick Jagger (1987)
20. “Falling In Love” [R. Newman] as sung by Randy Newman (1988)
21. “Windfall” [J. Farrar] as sung by Son Volt (1995)
22. “Payday” [J. Winchester] as sung by Elvis Costello (1995)
23. “The Littlest Birds” [Parton/Holland] as sung by The Be Good Tanyas (2001)
24. “My Baby Just Cares For Me” [Donaldson/Kahn] as sung by Devon Sproule (2003)
25. “Wagon Wheel” [Dylan/Secor] as sung by Old Crow Medicine Show (2004)
26. “I've Got My Mojo Working” [P. Foster] as sung by Kitty Daisy & Lewis (2008)
27. “My Boys” as sung by Taken By Trees (2009)

American Tunes: Volume Three

1. “Gee Baby, Ain't I Good To You?” [Redman/Razaf] as sung by Nat King Cole (1946)
2. “Tennessee Waltz” [King/Stewart] as sung by Les Paul & Mary Ford (1950)
3. “Tonight You Belong To Me” [Rose/David] as sung by Patience & Prudence (1956)
4. “When Will I Be Loved?” [P. Everly] as sung by The Everly Brothers (1960)
5. “You're No Good” [C. Ballard] as sung by Dee Dee Warwick (1963)
6. “Runnin' Out of Fools” [Ahlert/Rogers] as sung by Aretha Franklin (1964)
7. “Hesitation Blues” [trad.] as sung by The Holy Modal Rounders (1964)
8. “Let It Be Me” [Bécaud/Curtis] as sung by Jerry Butler & Betty Everett (1964)
9. “The First Cut Is The Deepest” [C. Stevens] as sung by P. P. Arnold (1967)
10. “The Very Thought Of You” [R. Noble] as sung by Albert King (1967)
11. “The Long Black Veil” [Wilkin/Dill] as sung by Johnny Cash (1968)
12. “Walk On By” [Bacharach/David] as sung by Isaac Hayes (1969)
13. “Must You Throw Dirt In My Face?” [B. Anderson] as sung by Waylon Jennings (1970)
14. “Walk A Mile In My Shoes” [J. South] as sung by Willie Hightower (1970)
15. “San Francisco Bay Blues” [J. Fuller] as sung by Mungo Jerry (1970)
16. “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” [Goffin/King] as sung by Carole King (1971)
17. “Early In The Morning” [Jordan/Bartley/Hickman] as sung by Harry Nilsson (1971)
18. “The Tattler” [Phillips/Cooder/Titelman] as sung by Billy Bragg (1986)
19. “Have A Little Faith In Me” [J. Hiatt] as sung by John Hiatt (1987)
20. “The Sign” [Berggren/Berggren/Berggren/Ekberg] as sung by The Mountain Goats (1995)
21. “Thirteen” [Chilton/Bell] as sung by Elliott Smith (1998)
22. “Time After Time” [Hyman/Lauper] as sung by Cassandra Wilson (1999)
23. “None Of Us Are Free” [Russell/Mann/Weill] as sung by Solomon Burke (2002)
24. “I Wish I Was The Moon” [N. Case] as sung by Neko Case (2002)
25. “Don't Think Twice, It's All Right” [B. Dylan] as sung by Randy Travis (2008)

i can't promise that all or even most of the songs on here fit the above list of criteria for "pop standards," in fact there are deliberately plenty that don't. some of them definitely overlap with the lists of jazz and blues standards (indeed, some of them are jazz and/or blues.) not all of them were necessarily ever big hits (though most of them were, to some extent, in some form) and i'll admit it, they're not even all particularly good to sing. but: all of them are songs that i like a lot.

so categories are loose here, and bets are off, but one thing to note is that the majority of these are cover versions (or, in some cases, originals that aren't necessarily the best-known versions of the song) – hence their inclusion in the extremely nifty cover songs database secondhandsongs.com, which i am surprised that i never discovered before i started working on this project. (almost all of the song titles above, and a few of the more notable writers and interpreters, have links to their respective entries – check it out, there's a lot to learn.)

oh man, there's so much that could be said about these songs. many are old favorites of mine, some i've only come to recently, or recently rediscovered. (thanks to nava for suggesting "tennessee waltz"; cara for requesting "s.f. bay blues" – good to get some geographical specificity in there.) admittedly my long love affair with elvis costello was highly influential here: he has sung no fewer than ten of these, most of which i first heard from him (many on the imperishable kojak variety – oddly, all in a row on side 2). and there could easily have been more... he really does have incredible taste. sigh. love that ry cooder too – he's done five or more. (that "tattler" – which has been sung by linda ronstadt as well as billy bragg, as has "heart like a wheel" – is something else – wait'll you hear the 1928 washington phillips recording it's based on.) both of them are true students of americana, and i am only too happy to play their disciple.

a handful of other names kept cropping up again and again in my searches, most of them singers who've made their more to a greater or lesser extent as interpretive artists – nina simone, linda ronstadt, willie nelson, aretha franklin, cyndi lauper (she sang a bunch of these on her recent 'standards' record) – and they became something like emblematic guideposts to what should be included here.

i did set a few ground rules for myself. i tried to stick with lesser-known renditions, both to keep myself entertained and, per usual, so as to share something new. it wasn't originally going to be limited to one performance per artist, but that ended up being a helpful restraint. obviously, each disc is in chronological sequence (a restriction which got to be quite a nuisance sometimes.) i didn't set specific start or end years (though 1941-2009 works out to a nice span i think) but i did try to keep the historical distribution from disc to disc and across each disc. (inevitably, the golden '60s get the lion's share of love, but it's hard to complain about that.) the first two volumes each occupy a particular mood-range, which should be fairly apparent from listening, while volume three is a bit more of a grab-bag (though almost all of the songs are about relationships, except a couple are about social justice.)

i went back and forth a bit but decided to include a smattering of newer songs which have not, admittedly, entered into any kind of a canon. they're my proposals for new additions, songs that i hope will continue to be covered and sung, and that more or less fit in with the broad stylistic parameters of the mix. plus i just want to share them and sing them. (there will be a whole disc of songs in this category, coming up before too long – made a draft already: clutch jawn to sing along) i want to single out "my boys," which is one of the odder inclusions here. true, neither it nor "my girls" (of which it is a cover) quite fits in with the overarching style, but i'm excited by the fact that it's a cover which came out the same year as the original – just like they used to do back in 1956 – and the expansive future it suggests for the (already fairly well established) song.

i didn't pay too much attention to songwriters, though i did follow a few down some interesting paths. not too surprising that bacharach shows up a few times. and dylan, natch – i had to work hard (and scrap the hollies' scrappy "i shall be released") to keep it down to only three dylan tunes (and that "wagon wheel" is sneaky one – i must say, i'm amazed at the speed with which it has entered the canon, and it has unquestionably arrived: at the last sing-along it was one of the few that seemingly everybody knew.) i'm glad i got l. cohen in (most of his stuff is still pretty new to me, but i've really been loving that one in particular.) i wish there were more carole king songs, and i'm sad that the only randy newman song is one that nobody else seems to have sung (yet), since he's definitely written some oft-sung tunes that probably would have been better fits.

a note about the title: it's a reference to a paul simon song (nava's favorite), which i wanted to include – probably would have except the versions that i found, by willie nelson and 'songbird' eva cassidy, were not very good. (apparently there's a version in italian? that is...ridiculous.) i would have liked to include some simon, as he's one of my favorite writers, but among other things i find it hard to dissocciate any of his songs from his versions of them. but the note i meant to make about the title is that "american" wasn't originally a specific part of the concept for this project, and it still isn't, necessarily. it is true that almost every song was either written or performed by americans, though not necessarily both; however, "to love somebody" is by australians, "i want to see the bright lights tonight" by brits, and oh yeah "i wish i was the moon" by a canuck (in all three cases sung here by their authors). but i think it's not too far of a stretch to say that they're in a specifically american style, or stylistic milieu.

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^[*] Ideally, this would have taken the form of a home-recorded compilation featuring me singing all of these songs along with group accompaniment by ry cooder, arlo guthrie, stevie wonder, levon helm, hank williams, little richard, tom waits, tina turner, kanye west, ringo starr, sheryl crow, b.b. king, charles mingus, emmylou harris, dave grohl, scarlett johanson and bono. but i decided to use other peoples' recordings instead.

AMG review round-up, volume XIV: erm, lovably scruffy indie blokes

ye gods, my output around here has slowed to about one post per month lately, but that don't mean i haven't been writing about music. not hardly. got a lotta rounding up to do. so: apropos of the mountain goats (who, onstage the other night, described himself as "a purist of the '90s indie pure"), here are some writings, spanning from nearly a year ago until last night, on a bunch of indie rock guys, singly and in groups, most of whom offer conspicuously 90s roots.

first up, four-ish records by darren "ex-hefner" hayman, who's made great strides in the past twelvemonth towards becoming one of my absolute fave indie songwriter guys, alongside mr. goats, and particularly in terms of my last.fm playcount. then two more i like a lot (even if one put out his best album this year and the other his worst.) then, while we're on the subject, 90s-indie-pure-weirdo julian koster, who otter have called his band weird tapes, but hey at least that singing saw record is seasonable (again). and finally a couple of mediocre indie rock records by bands. oh, ok, the records are fine, it's indie rock itself that's mediocre. why do they still have indie rock bands again? ugh. (except, and there always seems to be an exception, i am really digging on that real estate jawn.) and, oh yeah, i still think the dandy warhols rule ok, plus i got to include some fun topical nerdiness in the intro there. i guess this is as good a place to mention that i wasn't all that jazzed about the lou barlow record, although he seems like a really nice person.

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Darren Hayman: bio; Secondary Modern, Great British Holiday EPs, and Pram Town reviews

Between 2005 and 2007, Darren Hayman issued a series of four limited-run four-song 7"s written and recorded at various English seaside vacation spots. Initiated as a small-scale, one-off project to distract him from the stress and creative constraints of a protracted legal battle with his former label, the results of the undertaking, collected here in a handsome edition with bonus tracks and a DVD of videos, stand not only as a touching tribute to the fading institution of the Great British Holiday, but as a testament to Hayman's status as one of pop's finest chroniclers of quintessential Englishness, in the tradition of Davies, Partridge, Haines, and Albarn. The whole package has a refreshingly off-the-cuff, homemade charm, from the rudimentary (though perfectly adequate) recordings, which rely primarily on ukuleles, drum machines, and the occasional cheap keyboard, to the simply shot videos, which offer a handy visual complement to the world evoked so touchingly in the songs. And the songs here are some of Hayman's best: most of them engaged with his familiar lyrical themes of the tenderly bittersweet love affairs of ordinary folks, but with a distinctly personal touch notable even in his idiosyncratic oeuvre, and shaded with a particular sense of poignancy and nostalgia. Several of the standouts focus specifically on the bygone era of Hayman's boyhood, including the technological regressionism of the peppy "8-Bit World," the wistful longing of "1976" (which rhymes "turquoise Formica" with "Twiggy or someone just like her"), and "Future Song"'s wry lament that "the future's not what they said it would be in the Sunday papers in the '70s/Where's my monorail, where's my hovercar, where's my robot slave?" For some tastes, the trio of covers added to the collection (of holiday-themed numbers by Connie Francis, Lindsey Buckingham, and Chas & Dave) may perhaps push things too far over the line into whimsy, though they capture a certain legitimate quaintness that's undeniably fitting. On the whole, though, it's hard not to be won over by the sweetness and intimacy of this project, which was clearly a labor of great love for its creator, and is one of the most delightful and illuminating ways to encounter his work.

Pram Town feels, in many ways, like the logical culmination of all that has come before in Darren Hayman's career. He considers it to be his tenth album, which means he's counting the four he made with Hefner, one each with the synth-pop duo the French and the bluegrass outfit Hayman, Watkins, Trout and Lee, and the compiled Great British Holiday EPs, in addition to the two "proper" full-lengths under his own name. That's only fitting, since this album has stylistic echoes of all of those projects, and features musicians from most of them. Lyrically, it's also very much an extension of his past work, which has frequently focused on specific British locales (most notably London, as for instance on Hefner's We Love the City, but also the seaside vacation towns depicted on the Holiday EPs), and typically involves sentimental character vignettes and keenly observed meditations on love and nostalgia, youth and maturity, ambition and ambivalence, and disillusionment in the everyday lives of ordinary people. Those themes are at the heart of this modest concept album, a song cycle set in the "New Town" of Harlow, Essex, which was established in 1947 and affectionately nicknamed "Pram Town" due to the influx of young postwar families. Neither an outright condemnation of this type of now-obsolescent planned community nor a rose-tinted eulogy for a bygone heyday, the album presents a nuanced, bittersweet view of the town (located not far from Hayman's native Brentwood) through the eyes of a narrator who is at times sarcastic, and even scornful (as on "High Rise Towers in Medium-Sized Town"), but at other times genuinely proud (the title track; "Our Favorite Motorway").

The central narrative played out against this backdrop of suburban contradictions is, naturally enough, a love story: boy meets girl (in the utterly delightful, ukulele-led "Compilation Cassette," destined to be a meta-mixtape favorite) and dreams of romantic bliss (the jaunty, bluegrass-based "Losing My Glue"), but grows resentful of the class differences straining their relationship ("Out of My League"), leading to his inevitable heartbreak (the sweetly resigned "Leaves on the Line") and departure. It's a familiar story rich enough to let Hayman explore a decent range of timeless romantic themes, but not so complex that following it ever becomes a chore: crucially, any of these songs could stand perfectly well on its own. Indeed, Pram Town feels, if anything, less specifically character-driven than the majority of Hayman's work. Apart from the lovers, who remain nameless and archetypal, the only other significant characters listeners meet are (typically enough) a couple of musicians: going-nowhere local heros Amy and Rachel, who "mix R&B and death metal," though needless to say their ode here doesn't sound anything like that. Clearly, the character that Hayman is most interested in is Harlow itself; his treatment of the town, and its inhabitants' generalized love/hate relationship toward their home, is genuine, well thought-out, and entirely compelling. And while the album may not strike much new ground musically, the songs are uniformly strong and intriguingly diverse, featuring lush and varied folk-pop arrangements with an abundance of brass, banjo, and burbling vintage electronics. This is easily Hayman's most consistent and cohesive solo effort to date, and one of the most successful and satisfying records of his entire career.

Hayman, Watkins, Trout and Lee: bio and Hayman, Watkins, Trout & Lee review

Hayman, Watkins, Trout & Lee describe their music as East London bluegrass -- not to be confused, perhaps, with the North London variety pioneered by the Kinks on Muswell Hillbillies -- and while they might not pass muster for strict traditionalists, they do make an impressive showing for a ragtag band of Anglo amateurs. Actually, although the most noteworthy names in this laid-back supergroup are a couple of indie rockers (Hefner's Darren Hayman and the Wave Pictures' Dave Tattersall), they've got an ace in the hole in "proper folky" Dan Mayfield, whose fiddle work adds some assured authenticity to instrumental breakdowns like the traditional "Buckdancer's Choice" and passable original "Beulah Crossing the Marshes." Dave Watkins' banjo playing's not bad either, but virtuosity clearly isn't nearly as relevant here as energy and enthusiasm, which this gang have got in spades. The group's chief priority to date has been nothing more ambitious than playing around Hayman's kitchen table, and the album has the light-hearted, infectious feel of an impromptu jam session. That low-stakes looseness can also make it feel fairly dispensable, although it's hard to imagine not enjoying it at least somewhat. Certainly, your patience for these affable but slight renditions of "Hesitation Blues," and especially Huey Smith's goofy "High Blood Pressure," will depend a good deal on your tolerance for Hayman's scruffy, less-than-mellifluous vocals (or Tattersall's -- they're tough to tell apart.) The pay-off, though, is in the originals which make up about half the record, particularly Tattersall's sweet waltz-time come-on "Fine Young Cannibals" (nothing to do with Roland Gift), and several of Hayman's contributions, including the sprightly, saucy "Dirty Tube Train" and the superb low-rent love song "Sly & the Family Stone" (nothing to do with Sylvester Stewart), which should gratify his fans considerably. The countrified cover of the Mountain Goats obscurity "Jam-Eater Blues" is also an inspired performance and an inspired choice, featuring a lyrical mantra -- "life is too short to refrain from eating out of the jar" -- which aptly sums up the kind of gusto that Hayman et al. bring to this singular, endearing little record.

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Jeffrey Lewis [& The Junkyard]: 'Em Are I review [City & Eastern Songs review forthcoming]

The bandaged-head cover cartoon and cutesy title wordplay of Jeffrey Lewis' fifth album provide a decent indication, for the uninitiated, of the N.Y.C. songwriter/illustrator's goofiness and droll wit, qualities that are evident in many of the songs contained within. But they also hint, cleverly and somewhat obliquely, at the album's surprisingly weighty subject matter: though not specifically medical in focus, most of these songs are concerned with death, existential pain, and the otherwise more corporeal aspects of the human experience. Actually, "concerned" may be the wrong word -- far from morbid, Lewis often sounds insouciant and practically gleeful in his perspectives on mortality, especially on the screwy bluegrass stomper "Whistle Past the Graveyard" and the jaunty "Good Old Pig, Gone to Avalon," a fond eulogy to a beloved porker (with some suitably unhinged soloing courtesy of J Mascis). The tone-setting two-chord talking blues "If Life Exists(?)" and the wistful "To Be Objectified," with its hippie-dippie philosophizing, are more pensive and brooding, but they maintain a generous and optimistic outlook, with Lewis' affably nasal delivery dotted with jokey self-reference and the occasional groan-worthy one-liner. Best of all is "Bugs and Flowers," a mellow ramble that finds Lewis out walking along the tracks, ruminating on growth, decay, and universal oneness, in a touchingly quirky and unaffected fashion. It's not all mortality and metaphysics: "Roll Bus Roll" is a sweet if world-weary ode to bus travel; scrappy opener "Slogans" offers a series of motivational affirmations, more or less literalizing the album's titular pun along the way ("Everyone you meet is you/Divided by what they've been through"); and the self-castigating "Broken Broken Broken Heart" is an endearingly honest take on good old-fashioned lovesickness (complete with a bouncy singalong chorus). All of these are very good tunes, but it's the heartfelt content at the album's thematic core that makes 'Em Are I not just Lewis' most consistent album, but also his most truly affecting and easily his most successful outing to date.

John Vanderslice: Romanian Names review

John Vanderslice is nothing if not consistent. He's never made a bad record, and although his idiosyncratic songwriting and production have only grown more confident and compelling with his last several releases, neither has he made one that is truly, unabashedly great. Romanian Names does little to change any of that, news that should be at once heartening, slightly disappointing, and ultimately entirely unsurprising to his followers. A couple of minor, outward things are different this time around. After six albums on Barsuk, Vanderslice has jumped ship to the increasingly eminent Dead Oceans imprint. He's also decided to shake up his writing process by hammering the songs out in a new basement studio at home before fleshing them out at Tiny Telephone, his usual HQ. Songwise, the results are subtle and few: save perhaps the sprightly, hummable "C&O Canal" and a pair of lovely ballads, "Too Much Time" and "Hard Times," these numbers aren't discernibly more direct or immediate than prior efforts. The album's sound is a typically Vanderslicean mix of inventive chamber orchestration, dappled electronic overtones, and scruffy acoustic indie pop guitars, a step back from the mildly more organic orientation of Emerald City to the variegated textures of Pixel Revolt, though in keeping with both of those albums' gentle, accessible veneer. In terms of the lyrics -- always a crucial factor with Vanderslice -- this may rank as his most oblique work, and not merely because the liners, atypically, lack a lyric sheet (although that could be taken as a clue to his intent). His familiar character-driven approach is largely intact, but the details are sketchier than usual, with few clear narratives emerging despite recurrent references to fraught romantic exploits, loss, violence, memories of summertime, and isolation in wilderness settings. The lack of specificity can be refreshing, with simple chorus phrases and potent, isolated images (notably, of fetal horses galloping in the womb) taking the place of involved story lines. Too often, though, the songs just feel enigmatic and empty. Aside from "Fetal Horses" and the several standouts mentioned earlier, there's strangely little here to hold on to, lyrically or otherwise, making Names an oddly evasive, impenetrable listen. Not great then, though not bad, Romanian Names holds the unfortunate and surprising distinction of being the very first John Vanderslice album to feel like just another John Vanderslice album.

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The Music Tapes: Music Tapes For Clouds and Tornadoes review

From the sound of things, not all that much has changed for Julian Koster in the nine years since his Music Tapes project made its somewhat perplexing initial appearance with First Imaginary Symphony for Nomad. Music Tapes for Clouds and Tornadoes finds the elusive, eccentric Koster still fixated on homemade and otherwise unconventional instruments (including such creations as a "fun machine" and "the Seven Foot Tall Metronome," along with his trusty banjos and otherworldly singing saws); still futzing around with archaic recording methods (no Edison cylinders this time around, but the credits do list a record lathe, a wire recorder and ribbon microphone from the 1930s, and several pieces of equipment from the '50s and '60s); and still warbling dreamily to, for, and about insentient entities and natural forces (in this case, as the title suggests, mainly meteorological phenomena, and also reindeer). There are some definite musical developments here, most notably a shift away from the jumbled sound collage aesthetic to a more direct and melodic song-based approach, but the most striking change may be one of context. Whereas Nomad was released at the height of the Elephant 6 Recording Company's prolificacy and success, and got somewhat overlooked in the shuffle, the intervening years have seen the E6 collective's output dwindle and then essentially halt altogether, while its stature and the cult fascination with its works (most prominently Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, to which Koster was a significant contributor) have continued to increase; the upshot being that considerable attention was paid to this new offering.

That attention turns out to be absolutely warranted, for Clouds and Tornadoes is a fascinating and often compelling creation that effectively constitutes a vigorous and unexpected resuscitation of the long-dormant Elephant 6 spirit -- particularly when taken in conjunction with the Apples in Stereo's entirely different New Magnetic Wonder (the only other major record since 2002 to bear the E6 insignia, and in some ways this album's polar opposite, although both feature an extensive list of contributions from many of the collective's musicians). Specifically, Clouds marks the return of E6's more idiosyncratic and less directly pop-oriented tendencies -- it does, indeed, evoke the sepia-toned antiquarianism and fragile intimacy of NMH, and to a lesser extent the fractured, surrealist fuzzy warbles of the Olivia Tremor Control axis. All that said, this is incontrovertibly Koster's record, the product of his singular vision, which can only really be taken on its own unique terms. Many listeners are likely to be put off by his unapologetically wailing bleat of a voice, which he strains to the point of maximum expressive poignancy (or vexation, depending on your take); similarly, his quaintly whimsical lyrics are liable to come off to less charitable listeners as hokey, insipid babble. But those either charmed by or willing to indulge these excesses enough to engage with the strange music contained here will find much to marvel at, both in the album's songs -- which gesture intriguingly at fusty folk forms, bygone back-porch balladry, golden-age silver-screen pop, marching band music, and more without really coming close to anything recognizable, or certainly anything remotely like conventional indie rock -- and in its sounds themselves, which are at least equally important in conveying you off to its curious, self-contained little world.

Julian Koster: The Singing Saw at Christmastime review

Julian Koster, quirky frontman of the Music Tapes, Neutral Milk Hotel member, and go-to singing sawman for the Elephant 6 collective in general, steps out on his own here with a holiday album that makes a stunning showcase for his prodigious saw-playing talents. Or rather -- as his whimsical liner notes would have it -- his talent for encouraging saws to sing, which they actually do all by themselves. ("Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," the only selection hear to feature a sound -- copious clanging bells -- other than saws, purports to be a field recording from a traditional Christmas Eve saw gathering.) The saws here, singing both alone and in gloriously harmonized duos and groups, offer up renditions of a dozen well-known Christmas songs and carols, and the results are entirely magical; at once wonderfully eerie and strangely comforting. Rendered in the high, lonesome, otherworldly wobble of the saws' voices, even the most frolicsome of holiday tunes ("Frosty the Snowman," "Jingle Bells") become haunting and solemn, but Koster wisely devotes much of the album to the season's more poignant, plaintive melodies ("Silent Night," "O Little Town of Bethlehem") which here feel utterly serene and angelic. As evocative as it is impressive, The Singing Saw at Christmastime is a refreshingly different and eminently listenable offering that should easily become a yuletide favorite.

Throw Me The Statue: Creaturesque review

In the two years or so since their debut's initial self-release, Throw Me the Statue have grown from a one-man home-recording project to a full-fledged rock band. But don't expect a radically revamped sound with album number two: Creaturesque might be slightly more assured and fuller-sounding than the amiably scrappy Moonbeams (credit in part the contributions of Northwest indie rock super-producer Phil Ek), but TMTS have hardly lost their meandering mid-fi charms. Their sunny, lushly layered off-kilter pop songs still boast plenty of tinny drum machines, synth organs, jangly acoustic strumming, occasional bits of trumpet and glockenspiel, and of course Scott Reitherman's blithely casual singing and obliquely evocative lyrics. So it's essentially more of very welcome same. That said, the pop thrills aren't nearly as immediate this time out -- there's nothing here to rival the instantly grabby hooks of first album standouts like "About to Walk," "Yucatan Gold," and (especially) "Lolita." The closest thing might be "Hi-Fi Goon," a somewhat uncharacteristic rocker that recalls prime Built to Spill (with shades of Weezer's "Sweater Song"), though the bouncy "Dizzy from the Fall" and mellower "Noises" scratch that indie pop itch reasonably well, too. Elsewhere, the brief "Baby You're Bored" (is that an Evan Dando reference?) is nearly hummable and inscrutable enough to pass for a Guided by Voices cut, albeit far too well recorded, while "Tag"'s dense rhythms and falsetto harmonies are undeniably Shins-ish. In general, the brightest spots here come through fleeting individual moments -- like the sudden influx of barreling gospel-style backups toward the end of the gradually cresting opener, "Waving at the Shore" -- and more subdued numbers like the shambling, gently glowing closer, "The Outer Folds." Creaturesque's subtler pleasures may require more time to sink in than the impulsive skinny-dip plunge of its predecessor, but fans of classic-styled melodic indie rock will find it every bit as summery and inviting as the backyard swimming pool on the cover, and well worth the wade.

Fanfarlo: Reservoir review

For anyone who's paid the least attention to the tasteful, tuneful, nebulously rootsy strain of indie rock that was in ascendance throughout the mid-to-late 2000s, Fanfarlo's debut album will sound instantly and inescapably familiar. The London-based quintet favor a genial affect, moderate tempos and blend of orchestral (violin, trumpet) and folksy (mandolin, accordion, harmonica, saw) instrumentation akin to acts such as The National and Grizzly Bear, while vocalist Simon Balthazar's broad, heartfelt crooning invites immediate comparisons to Beirut's Zach Condon. Most of all, it must be said, the band display an undeniable similarity to The Arcade Fire, with whom they share all of the above-mentioned qualities as well as a distinctly earnest, quietly dramatic emotional fervor. If anything, the imitation is a slightly pale one – even at its most impassioned, their brand of chamber-pop bombast is never as potent and unrestrained as that Montreal outfit – but if they're unlikely to inspire unbridled passion in most listeners, the familiarity of their sound should breed plenty of contentment. Fanfarlo are at their best when their lush but occasionally dreary instrumental efforts are focused around a strong, simple melody, as is frequently the case here – on slightly pop-leaning cuts like "Fire Escape," "The Walls Are Coming Down" and "Harold T. Wilkins," and particularly on the sweet piano-led ballad "If It Is Growing." That said, the most striking thing here may be the opener, "I'm A Pilot," which impresses as much with its hypnotically slow, chugging rhythm (provided by footstomps and sleigh bells) as with Balthazar's typically wailed (and particularly Win Butler-ish) vocal turn.

The Dandy Warhols: The Dandy Warhols Are Sound review

The Dandy Warhols opened their 2003 album, Welcome to the Monkey House, with a brief, snide dig at record industry greed and illogic that ran, in part: "When Michael Jackson dies, we're covering 'Blackbird.'" The line was obviously intended as a flip reference to Jacko's control of the Beatles' publishing rights -- of course, "Blackbird" is a rather fitting song to record as a eulogy, though it's doubtful that the Dandys considered that at the time. But fate had some amusingly ironic, if insignificant, tricks in store when, six years later, Jackson's unexpected death occurred mere weeks before the release of an alternate version of that same album -- a version whose initial release had been prevented by the Dandys' own industry woes, and which featured all of the same songs except for the sadly newly relevant titular ditty. The story is that the bandmembers took the tracks (which they had co-produced with Duran Duran's Nick Rhodes) to be mixed in New York by Russell Elavedo (D'Angelo, Common, the Roots), but the results were rejected by Capitol Records and shelved in favor of a new version mixed (apparently without the band's involvement) by British pop engineer Peter Wheatley (Sugababes, Girls Aloud, Sophie Ellis-Bextor), which was released to mild but vaguely disappointing success and ended up as their second to last album for the label. The differences between the two versions, as fans heard once the Elavedo mix (dubbed The Dandy Warhols Are Sound) was self-released by the band in 2009, are roughly what one would expect after comparing the two engineers' prior clientele rosters. Not that these mixes make the Dandys sound like a grittily organic hip-hop/soul outfit on the one hand, or a glistening chart-pop act on the other -- this is essentially a rock & roll album either way -- but Sound is notably more stripped-down and spacious, with fewer of the synthesizers and electronic underpinnings that gave several Monkey House tracks their noted (and arguably prescient) new wave/synth pop vibe.

This helps to bring the songs closer to the rootsier, dirtier, and somewhat dubby approach of their previous albums, although it's hardly comparable to the gloriously noisy dronefests of their first two -- even if shifting "(You Come In) Burned" up, to open the album with a slow-building epic, is a nice nod to Dandys tradition. But yes, in a word, Elavedo's version is less poppy, even if in some ways it actually feels cleaner and more direct, since fewer layers of sound allow the songs to stand more fully on their own merits. (This is particularly true of easily overlooked numbers like "Heavenly" and "Rock Bottom," though it's not always necessarily to their benefit.) The big pop numbers -- which are now mostly slotted in a clump at the beginning of the record -- lose almost none of their tight, hooky appeal. Listening to both mixes side by side, song for song, the differences are readily evident and fairly striking -- though there are no substantive changes to the actual songs themselves. Oddly, though, listening to either version in full makes it much harder to notice any prominent differences, perhaps because of how well the tracks are incorporated into each version's distinct sound-world. Ultimately, the differences between the two are not all that great. Sound may have a slight edge over the originally released version of this material, if only because it's truer to the band's initial intentions, and Dandy diehards will certainly find it worth checking out, but more casual fans who already own Monkey House can probably skip it unless they're looking for an intriguing lesson in the nuances of mixing. (The "new song," "Pete Int'l Spaceport," is merely four minutes of ambient effects washes, and should hardly be considered a selling point.)