Review Round-Up: May 2015

Hot Chip
Why Make Sense?

In Our Heads, Hot Chip’s last album, was a masterpiece, and a clear culmination of their career to date: an ecstatic, heart-surging testament to the intertwined power of music, positivity and love.  Why Make Sense? picks up essentially the same emotional and musical threads; its best tracks – at least half the record – continue Heads’ potent, playful synthesis of R&B, house and electronic pop, full of surprises and multiple moving (in every sense) parts.  That’s more than enough to make this probably the finest dance party record this summer will have to offer, even if it features two (lovely, if relatively undistinguished) ballads and lacks its predecessor’s decisive spiritual coherence.  The clearest throughline here is the band’s fondness for dance music’s long, illustrious history, which is on full display: there are samples of Philly soul and boogie classics, Planet Rockin’ electro and luscious disco strings, a sharp hip-house turn (courtesy of De La Soul’s Posdnuos), nods to acid, deep house and jacking swing, even some chiptune-y bleeps on the stark overloaded title track, which closes the album on its most urgent, restlessly strange and, yes, not-quite-sensical note.

Robert Pollard
Faulty Superheroes

Faulty Superheroes – for those keeping score – is Robert Pollard’s first album (under his own name, that is) since Guided By Voices’ September’s re-dissolution, and its title feels like a fitting send-off/summation/epithet for those storied, glorious strivers.  As for Bob himself, look no further than the name of this batch’s opening knock: “What A Man.”  Indeed.  The tune, a righteous, self-anthemizing salvo (“He’s back!”) that slips in on a bed of churning, steely riffs, notches approximatelyIsolation Drills levels of stadium crunch, setting the tone for the high-octane half-hour that follows.  Save the slightly teary ninety-second trudge of “The Real Wilderness,” it’s a rollicking pummel throughout, efficiently stocked with timeless/tossed-off highlights (stomp-pop sandblaster “Faster the Great”; the improbably epic and yearning “Take Me To Yolita”) until we’re set down with the haunting, dreamily profound acoustic curio “Perikeet Vista.”  Catnip for the faithful; nectar for strayed sheep; ample safe grazing for the uninitiated.  What a man.

originally published in Magnet Magazine

Mandolin Orange
[Folk/Roots]
concert preview

As sweet, familiar and refreshing as the juice of their groanably punning namesake, this North Carolina folk-pop duo’s close harmonies, mournful fiddling and, yes, frequent mandolin use evoke the still-chugging bluegrass revival – but only loosely, with more interest in resonant, heart-tugging expressiveness than musical virtuosity.  Their second Yep Roc release, Such Jubilee, is several shades more wistful than its title might suggest: dusty and downbeat, but warmly comforting all the same.

San Fermin
[Art-Rock/Chamber Pop]
concert preview

Ellis Ludwig-Leone’s post-collegiate composition project-turned-unlikely touring juggernaut return with a sophomore record, Jackrabbit (Downtown), which streamlines some of their artier impulses and hones in on melody and groove, yielding results that are more immediate but certainly no less dramatic (bombastic, even – it’s the second indie opus of 2015 to offer a delicately-wrought reminder that “we’re all gonna die”) and beautifully orchestrated.

Fred Thomas
[Indie Pop/Singer Songwriter]
concert preview

Michigander DIY die-hard Fred Thomas has made plenty of records in his time – scruffy-edged pop with Saturday Looks Good To Me, emo-punk with Lovesick, rootsy folk rock under his own name, electronic forays as City Center – but there’s a fresh immediacy to All Are Saved (Polyvinyl), whose vividly impressionistic spoken-sung confessionals are close cousins to both The Hold Steady’s Midwestern scenester narratives and the radically candid diarism of Yoni Wolf and Mark Kozelek.

Föllakzoid
[Psych/Space Rock]
concert preview

These guys may be Chilean, but they are unabashed Germanophiles, a fixation which, in the case of the four lengthy, lysergic meanders comprising their third album, III (Sacred Bones), extends beyond the umlaut and their well-honed handle on the rigidly rubbery rhythms of vintage ‘70s Krautrock to their enlisting of wily Frankfurt knob-twiddler Uwe Schmidt (aka Atom™ and, in his more Latin-leaning moments, Señor Coconut), who used one of Kraftwerk’s old Korgs to further woozy up the trio’s creepy-yet-comforting swamp-dub grooves.

Bitchin Bajas
[Kosmiche/New Age]
concert preview

This Chicago duo fashion zone-out music par excellence, but there’s a little too much going on – too much personality, perhaps – in their gently cosmic drone-voyages for them to compute as ambient in the simple, minimalist sense we’ve come to expect.  At any given point across the eighty-minute sprawl of last year’s self-titled, Asian-tinged magnum opus (Drag City), we might be dealing with flutes, harps, organs or birdsong, gauzily bowed strings or burbling synthesizers, gamelan bell-tones or glistening electric guitar leads.

East India Youth
[Art-Pop/Indie Electronic]
concert preview

Fledgling electronic art-pop auteur William Doyle wears his influences and his ambition on his sleeve, making plain his veneration for the greats – Eno, Wyatt, Bowie, Tennant & Lowe, etc. – and casting himself in their impeccably tasteful, exultantly English lineage.  His heart’s a cagier matter however.  Culture of Volume (XL) follows last year’s Mercury Prize-nominated debut with a more song-oriented approach, but still veers from industrial technoise workouts to shimmery dance-pop to lush, darkly Romantic OMD-ish synth balladry – all of it tantalizingly close to convincing.

Holly Herndon
[Electronic/Experimental]
concert preview

Glitch, as a genre, doesn’t get much play these days – if only because, as a technique, it has become so fully pervasive – but what this eerily doll-like electronic composer does on her new Platform (RVNG Intl) isn’t so far removed from turn-of-the-century conceptualists like Oval and Akufen.  It’s bewildering but engrossing; abstract but never purely clinical, comprised of sputtering malfunctions that seem cyborgian rather than simply digital.  If you squint hard enough these things could almost be pop songs.  Or possibly infomercials.

Hudson Mohawke
[Electronic]
concert preview

Ross Birchard, the antic Glaswegian producer who named himself after two New Yorke rivers, is best known as one-half of trap-rave catalysts TNGHT, though the gloopy plasticine electro-funk of his solo work casts a wider, wilder and (very occasionally) more nuanced net.  Lantern (Warp), a typically giddy set of maximalist miniatures that’s his first full-length in six years, enlists a bevy of distinctive vocalists (Miguel, Antony, Jhene Aiko) but it sings loudest when he lets his gallumphing, blinding-neon synths lead the way.

Purity Ring
[Pop/Electronic]
concert preview

Another Eternity (4AD) may lack the scintillating strangeness of the singles which first introduced us, back in 2011, to Purity Ring’s peculiar prism on electronic pop – Corin Roddick’s side-chained, syncopated synths and Megan James’ fluidly expressive body poetry now feel warmly familiar instead of alluringly alien – but that lens has since been buffed and polished to a high gleam, and their finest moments remain a potent nexus of gritty, fleshy and celestial.

Seinabo Sey
[Pop]
concert preview

With only a handful of singles to her name – collected on last year’s For Madeleine EP, which was dedicated to her mother – this twenty-five year old pop singer and songwriter was already enough of a force to appear on a postage stamp in her native Sweden this January.  The four-track For Maudo (named, respectively, for her Gambian musician father) continues to develop her blend of electronic club-pop, gritty R&B and moody, broad-sweeping anthemics, clinched by her bluesy powerhouse of a voice.

originally published in Philadelphia City Paper

get the lowdown on my hoedown

[hey, did you ("you"?) notice how i haven't been making any references to last.fm in any of my 2010 year-end hoo-hah? ha!]

the magnetic fields were one of my very top last.fm artists in 2010 (#3 in fact, behind joanna newsom and hot chip, – isn't it nice when lists line up with reality like that?), and they're probably going to become my overall most-played artist in a matter of days, due to my preparations for the upcoming 69 love songs cover party (which will be amazing) [and which was also part of the reason they scored so many listens last year, along with needing to bring my girlfriend up to speed, getting excited about the movie, and an autumnal obsession with "100000 fireflies"] however i didn't even really listen to, or like, their 2010 album, realism, all that much. but, there was that one very (overly?) catchy song [hm, they're very tiny there] about scientology, which is sort of like the title track for this mix, except that it's not actually on it (cuz i ran out of space, but maybe it's better that way anyway):

title: H'010NANNY! [SONGS of 2010]
date: december 2010. the 22nd-ish? format: cd-r,+blogpost
packaged: with 2010isLove, at least most of the time, together in a devious white foldy.

come and take our personality quizzzzzzzz:
1. "When I Still Have Thee" – Teenage Fanclub
2. "Zorbing" – Stornoway
3. "Ain't That The Way" – Devon Sproule
4. "I Heart NY" – Samuel
5. "Heaven, Sittin' Down" – Phosphorescent
6. "Gloria" – Jonny
7. "'81" – Joanna Newsom
8. "Free Translator" – The Books
9. "Hang With Me (Acoustic)" – Robyn
10. "You Better Mind" – Sam Amidon (with Beth Orton)
11. "You Are Not Alone" – Mavis Staples
12. "My Heart Is A Drummer" – Allo Darlin'
13. "I Didn't See It Coming" – Belle & Sebastian
14. "Horchata" – Vampire Weekend
15. "All Yr Songs" – Diamond Rings
16. "Hormones" – Tracey Thorn
17. "Love And Do What You Will" – ceo
18. "Indeed" – Georgia Anne Muldrow
19. "Whole New Way" – Scissor Sisters
20. "All Matter" – Bilal
21. "I Can Change" – LCD Soundsystem
22. "Alley Cats" – Hot Chip

i didn't make a "favorite songs of 2010" list, not really. i made this mix, which has already been much acclaimed ("massive," somebody said, or maybe it was "major"), and which i am enjoying (still) surprisingly much (unlike last year's songs mix [scroll down, scroll down] which i was kind of already sick of by the time i made it, and have barely listened since.) and now, so that you'll have something to listen to, and look at, while i ramble on about the songs/artists/albums(?), it's now also a video playlist:


1. "When I Still Have Thee" – Teenage Fanclub

wow, what a glorious song! pretty close to perfect, i think. simple structure, simple chords that somehow sound fantastically fresh. i love the gradually expanding arrangement: first just clean, eternal, Byrdsian jangle guitar (and a bit of piano for emphasis), sounding like a fanfare, then the drums (and full band) crashing in (with "the rolling stones") for verse two, and then, surprise, even more!: warm, glowy churchy organ, (right on the word "hymn"!) for verse three. and a few more crafty details: sweet lil guitar solo that builds right up to and wraps around the penultimate refrain, then a nifty little cadence to bring it back around one last time. hard to believe it's well over three minutes; it feels so much like an elemental 2:30.

tremendous lyric too: again, quite simple but also wholly unexpected. yes, i enjoy mocking it for the preposterous pronoun in the refrain (which feels mostly like a blatant reach for a rhyme...though i suppose you could make an argument that it fits in with the "modern hymn" bit?) but it really just makes it all the more endearing(ly earnest.) elsa heard it as being about religion or god. it seems to be about several things at once which are really all the same thing: love, the goodness of life, and, most especially, music. specifically, [indie] pop, or rock and roll i guess; from the western isles to the tasman sea, i.e. scotland to new zealand, the heartlands of this particular strain of p!o!p!, incl. the name-checked go-betweens (who are australian) [and apparently this cornish band i have never heard of.] who knows what rolling stones song they're talking about [any wild guesses?], but i love that the singer describes it as being written "for him"...also, "a minor song in a major key" is reminiscent of erstwhile new world janglers the gigolo aunts but even better executed i'd say.

i never really paid too much attention to teenage fanclub, at least post-bandwagonesque (which i've liked but never loved), even though i always figured i should. and now, probably, i shall [also, see jonny, below.] i was surprised by how much their new 'un, shadows, sounded like the clientele (okay, a slightly more awake version of the clientele.) the whole album is pretty lovely, with lots of nice string bits and so on, but this one is far and away the standout for me...it's the kind of song, i knew right away, that will never lose its power to make me smile through any little heartbreak, and that is something to cherish. ok, on we go...


2. "Zorbing" – Stornoway

wow, what a glorious song! speaking of the western isles, stornoway is on one of them, though stornoway are not from there, they're from cowley, a part of oxford, which is mentioned in this song ["zorbing through the streets of cowley."] zorbing is highly fascinating, and i would love to learn more about it, but that's not really what this song's about. it's about love, of course, new love more specifically, and though zorbing is a pretty brilliant metaphor for the feeling (floating, tumbling, disoriented, inside a bubble), but wisely i think, they don't force it or make it fit too neatly, but find various other more and less outlandish ways (thunderstorms, sensory dissociation) to describe the same thing which are just as compelling.

this is one of those songs (like "when i still have thee," i suppose) that manages to express almost exactly the same feeling musically as it does lyrically; in this case an irresistible, barely controlled giddiness (the short eruptive trumpet breaks are almost too much – isolated from context they might be unbearably twee – but they provide exactly the release that the song needs.) another slowly building arrangement with wonderfully crisp details all arranged just so (love that slightly subliminal jaunty piano and of course the low laddish harmonies and bouncy bass.) and i haven't even mentioned the melody, which is a marvel unto itself.

this is the kind of song that, as i think rae said about hefner's "i took her love for granted" [which i wrote about at length here, and which it could probably argued is the solitary reason i am still a devoted darren hayman listener], makes me remember why i love indie-pop.

actually, for some reason [because this was technically first released in '09?] i'd intended to include "i saw you blink" instead, which is almost equally wonderful (the rest of beachcomber's windowsill, very very good as it is, is trying for something somewhat different and can't quite match these two pinnacles) but this fit better for some reason.



3. "Ain't That The Way" – Devon Sproule

wow, what a – well, actually this is a slightly different situation here. of course, it is glorious, like most everything the dazzling ms. devon does, plays or is. (even if the album this kickstarts, ¡don't hurry for heaven!, was a bit of a let down for me after her untouchably great last one.) this is a pretty astonishing piece of songcraft, right up there with "keep yr silver shined" and "plea for a good night's rest," which really could not have been written by anybody else. this one might actually be more immediately captivating and endearing than either of those. i don't know anybody else who does this thing, intricate and breezily poetic but homespun and humble at the same time, nearly the way dev can. actually, her poetics are less high-flown than usual here, and her virginny drawl (which feels maybe just slightly exaggerated on this one) makes it more feel even down-home.

not to get into too many of the little details, i'll just point out maybe my favorite lyric, in the surprise cyclical sorta-canon coda (which is all great), she hears on the way home "new ry cooder on the radio." then there are the little twinklies which lead us nicely into...



4. "I Heart NY" – Samuel
...a rather different vision of home. (hey, there's that word again...) a total out-of-nowhere hit for me (i have basically no sense of who or how many other people are even aware of it; i know next to nothing of this samuel, except that i think he's got a major label contract now. and i haven't heard any of his other songs, but i'm suspecting that maybe we all will in the near future?) an uncannily enchanting piece of candyfloss pop – unusually for this style [q.v. lenka, marit, etc.] sung by a male, which maybe tempers the candyflossness of it a bit (?) and partially explains why i hear a surprising degree of swag alongside the disney twinkles... could also be the zip-a-dee-doo-dah hip-hop beat (reminds me of "hard knock life" a bit) and the subject matter, not just that it's about new york (and a much more touching and cogent ode than, for instance "ny state of mind"), an unabashed celebration in spite of broken bicycles, pot paranoia, boredom and alienation. [also cf. hip-hop,] i like that "what makes [him] real" is the inexplicable queasiness he feels in his stomach.

p.s. i might have a soft spot for songs that mention coney island: "from out here," "strange powers," what else, lou reed of course, and that gybe! thing... (also, i was on coney island during a blackout!)



5. "Heaven, Sittin' Down" – Phosphorescent

aw sooky. another sweet groover. [nb. album version is better, but for some reason not on the yootoob...] the first time i heard this (on the train back from nj, as elsa was on her way moving up to boston) i was sure it was a trad. cover (partly because of the r.l. burnside album of the similar title, which i've not heard), but evidently no, it's a phosphy original, albeit based around a nicked line (cuz it is the title of a gospel oldie or sumpin.) well, add this one to the instant new sing-along standards pile, right on top of "wagon wheel" (and similarly, could easily see people just writing their own verses for this. i never even notice the verses anyway.)

i 'specially love the slightly loose, rushed scansion of that crucial, wrenching third line of the chorus ("i wish those nights of pleasure and those days of pain weren't so tightly bound.") never really thought about this, but the song sounds so jaunty yet is about utter exhaustion, so that's neat.



6. "Gloria" – Jonny

jonny = norman blake from teenage fanclub + euros childs from gorkys zygotic mynci, welshy goofball (though, as it turns out, maybe not quite as much of a goofy welshball as gruff rhys, cwwddyhthythgd.) seems likely he provided much of the goofiness of this song, but who knows. it's the first song from their free downloadable first ep (album coming soon, on merge!?) this is, awesomely, about gloria estefan, and if you hadn't noticed it's the third song on this mix so far to mention other musical artists by name, an appropriate unintentional theme for me. [i think there's two others still to come, unless james murphy slipped something by me.]

anyway, jonny, "gloria," short (!!) and sweet, couldn't resist. will probably be teaching this one at sing-alongs too.



7. "'81" – Joanna Newsom

sort of the obvious "single" from have one on me, i guess, in that it's short (but longer than the micro-sized "on a good day") and has a simple-ish, very catchy melody. "good intentions paving company" seems to be the consensus de facto standout, and it's also my favorite, in part because i love singing it and playing it on the piano. [but it's too long, natch, plus was already on the original (and frankly preferable) version of t-shirt weather. they're both spring songs, btw, unless this is summer.]

i love singing this one too – even though her phrasing is maddeningly difficult to pin down (slippery as a naked trout) – and i can almost imagine other people learning how to sing it as well, something i'd be hard pressed to say about any of her other songs (well honestly it's not true about this one either.) maybe it's more that i just want to sing it to other people, and have them hear it, and be comforted: "the unending amends you've made are enough for one life: be done. i believe in innocence, little darlin', start again; i believe in everyone."



8. "Free Translator" – The Books
equally as much comfort, utterly negligible sense. the story of this song is here. "Machines are dumb, but sometimes they do brilliant things because they can’t help themselves."

(also, the sufficient clues to the mystery of its palimpsestuous source material, which has had me curious for a while now, are in the comments to that tumbl. oddly enough – or not – this song does a surprisingly decent job of preserving the existential, open-ended feel of the unnamed original song which it "translates"; not unlike the semi-surrealist charlie king parody of said song i heard him sing years ago.)

i'd like to hear a bedtime story (a la "the story of hip-hop") or maybe a superhero comic about the instantly distinctive entities listed at the end of the song: the adventures of meteorological man and whirlwind girl, with their sidekicks, a careful goat and a talking plant. and a squid in a bag. etc.



9. "Hang With Me (Acoustic)" – Robyn

the best song of robyn's (aptly called) "magic 2010," i'm pretty sure. and, in this version, one of the few pieces of that output which comes close to matching the breathtaking, honest emotional nuance she achieved at the emotive peak (i.e. robyn's heart-stoppingly clear-eyed closing suite) of her magic 2005. [which isn't necessarily to say i like the disco single version any less.]

a subtly key moment: "i know what's on your mind/there will be time for that too": slyly, ambiguously supplementing her touchy-feely with some touchy-touchy, in a way that lets you know this couldn't have been written by anyone else (except maybe prince.)

oh, and just one little amendment i'd make, for my own selfish purposes: fall recklessly, headlessly in love with me; it won't all be heartbreak blissfully painful insanity.




10. "You Better Mind" – Sam Amidon with Beth Orton

awesome. [in the original, literal sense, even.] sam amidon was essentially new to me this year (though, turned out e's known him since they were at folksinging summer camp together), but this was maybe the most tragically overlooked alb of the year in my book. (even more than allo darlin', yes, because i recognize their somewhat more limited appeal, and because this is the more distinctive, original accomplishment.) this is both possibly my favorite cut (tho the sweetly sneaky r. kelly reenvisioning "relief" is close) and a good representation of the album as a whole. heard right, i think this song and this rendition just might be capable of putting the fear of god into ya. (also: nice to hear beth's voice again.)



11. "You Are Not Alone" – Mavis Staples

from old gospel sung by a young folkie to a song written by a young folkster for an old gospeller to sing. (and with moderately oppositional messages, to boot.) jeff tweedy wrote this for mavis staples' same-titled album, which he also produced, and much as you can absolutely hear the tweedy in it (the writing that is), staples and the song fit one another comfortably and completely. it's such an immediate standout (and instant classic) that it's a shame he didn't write more for the album.

message-wise, this isn't terribly far off from what joanna newsom tries to convey in "'81," and it's easily at least as powerful, probably more, particularly in the truly striking forcefulness the lyric adopts – taking on overtones of police aggression – in conveying its intent to get that message across: "open up this is a raid/i want to get it through to you: you're not alone." how fundamental that is, yet how hard to hear. by now we've seen quite a handful of old, faded (in terms of their visibility, at the very least) soul titans attempting to recapture some glory by basking in the genre's recent reflourescence, but this is one moment that really rises above the pack and manages to feel unambiguously vital.



12. "My Heart Is A Drummer" – Allo Darlin'

"deep down in the place where music makes you happiest," – i've said it before and i'll say it again: it's a place allo darlin' know well – do you really have life to waste on music that's less vibrant and direct and upfront than this song is? ok ok. it's not actually as good as graceland, and it doesn't have the carefully calibrated perfect-pop detailing of, for instance, the first two songs on this mix. (even the impressively convincing faux-afrique highlife outro, which in context doubles as a sly graceland nod, and which is the song's best showcase for bassman bill, the allo's greatest secret weapon – is more a triumph of feeling than of composition.)

no, this song's unabashed strength is in its personality, which, happily, is way more than enough to carry it. it's in the music, which positively bursts; it's in elizabeth morris' adorably accented vocal (notably, in the way she sings "telephieone"), and most of all, actually, it's in what she's singing. [also, it's in the fittingly handmade, albeit possibly too goofy, cankerblossom-esque video, which i hadn't seen until now – i've mostly avoided looking at the videos whilst writing these blurbs, probably for the best in the interests of ever getting this finished.]

"do i have to say i'm sorry for my happiness?" – she asks it almost weakly, as though it's actually a question. but there's more to the story than that: one of the things i love about this song is that it's about the comforting, satisfied self-knowledge of subtle, hidden depths of fortitude and resilience: the singer might seem all gushy and gooey as she slides her feet up and down the wall, but she's knows that she's actually stronger than you are. "baby, you don't know, but my heart is as strong as a drummer." (never mind that heart cancer might not be precisely what asthmatic smokers need to be mindful about.) some folks have pointed out the chorus' melodic similarities to cyndi lauper's breakout hit, which never really stuck out to me, but coincidental as that connection may be the two songs do have something similar to teach us: there is power in just wanting to have fun.



13. "I Didn't See It Coming" – Belle & Sebastian

polychrome in the 2010's
you go disco and i'll go my way

still not entirely sure how i feel about write about love as a whole (that is, whether i love-love it or merely like-like it) but this, track one, which just jumped out of the speakers from the first time i plopped it in, the day after it came out, at my birthday listening party, this just might be the best thing belle & seb have done since... well? waitress at least, though that's only two albums back. and this has a maturity and confidence that the closest parallels of that era ("your cover's blown"; "cuckoo," maybe; the excellent and overlooked "stay loose") don't quite.

eh, it doesn't really feel right to compare: in its stylistic freedom, formal adventurousness, impressionistic style, and fluid, unrepentant musicality, this consolidates many of the strengths of b+s mark 2; but then again, it also feels like something totally new. even if something about it (the lyric?) vaguely calls to mind "electronic renaissance." ["make me dance/i want to surrender" – what a dizzyingly potent little fragment.] anyway, it stands with the band's very best, of any era.

even if it flattens out a bit when it opens up (in the late-middle, before launching into the maddeningly beautiful tail-section that less-classically-versed music writers would probably describe as a "fugue"), and even though, when i'm listening to it, i wish it didn't fade out like that. or so fast. or ever. anybody can write about love: this song sounds like it. and the title makes it self-fulfilling prophecy.



14. "Horchata" – Vampire Weekend

my favorite songs from contra – an album that i adore for no real reason other than that i love listening to it, which sounds like a trivial statement but strangely doesn't feel that way [maybe it actually is as good as graceland?] – my favorite songs are all right at the end: "giving up the gun" (evidently my SotY), righteous banger "diplomat's son," and the momentously ineffable quasi-title track. but with the former well and adequately repped on both 2010islove and feet active vol. 1 (hm, i really ought to get that mix up here), and the latter on t-shirt weather, it was tricky to know what to rep contra with here, as few of the album's other great songs particularly stand out to me as being more great than the great rest. (according to my blog, the evidently-popular "white sky" was an early favorite of mine too, but i don't entirely remember that.)

i chose "horchata," even though it seemed a bit obvious, even though i initially thought it was overly goofy, because i really have continued to sing it, and it remains singularly playful and delightful, and also i liked the way it fit in to the belle&seb fade-out. at one point this song felt a bit like a hold-over from the sound of first album, but although it probably does work as a stylistic bridge to some extent it also definitely fits in, and works well as an opening statement.

my favorite things about this song are: the xylophones, the clattery offbeat rhythms, the full wistful singing on the chorus/bridge ("here's a feeling..."), the wormy, wiggly melody, the periodic mix-n-match drop-out-and-build-back-up that happens at the end, the all-over-the-place kitchen-sink arrangement, the sudden stop at the end. pretty much everything except for the lyrics, which are fun too.



15. "All Yr Songs" – Diamond Rings

i mighta overrated this album (i really wanted it to be reminiscent of warren zevon..), but this song is supa dope, any way. it's got a peppy fun cheap/sloppy bedroom fi steez but secretly it is really neatly and snazzily arranged. lots of subtle stuff going on. it has acoustic guitar breakdowns! it has beach boy "oohs"! it has (synth) bass come in on the second verse! it has bongos, mixed low on the chorus! and: it has a vibraslap! (like free energy's "something in common," absolutely one of my favorite songs of 2010 that didn't come out in 2010 because it was only on the ep and not the album for some crazy reason, but otherwise should totally be here. i want to keep a running tally of vibraslap songs but it's hard to remember, as they're best when used sparingly.)

this song is also totally sweet in the lyrics/sentiment department too. the sunscreen part always makes me think about best coast, but i don't like any best coast songs nearly this much. she should be more sing-songy. oh-woah-oh-oh-oh-woah-oh-oh-oh. i guess this was viral-ish in '09 but whatevs i didn't catch it until the album this year. woot!



16. "Hormones" – Tracey Thorn

hard to get past the attention-getting (and admirably non-traditional) subject matter [her menopause coinciding with her daughter's puberty], which tracey treats in typically frank, affecting, non-sensationalized fashion, but the music of this is pretty great too; nicely groovy, handclaps, neat piano riff, nice guitar punch-ups. it's probably the best song on love and its opposite for both reasons – though "oh the divorces" is also something pretty special. it's an album i can certainly appreciate and respect plenty, tho (and i don't think it's just b/c of my age) it didn't quite floor me like out of the woods did (and does.) but that's an unusually special recording. anyhow, tracey is still one of my favorite voices, and i'm happy to spread the love.



17. "Love And Do What You Will" – ceo

there is something so befuddlingly other about the tough alliance and, now, ceo – having spent plenty of time with their albums, and writing about them, and digesting white magic in particular (and it's not a long album), i still feel like; for instance, out of the albums in my top ten for 2010, ceo's is by far the one i'm least able to comprehend, or feel like i connect with, on a human level. which can make it hard to say exactly how much, or even whether, and certainly why, i like it.

but it's equally hard to deny that they/he make some pretty fantastic music, phenomenal both on its own terms and in its utter singularity. i'm also pretty sure that white magic is even better, and even more sui generis, than the tough alliance output to date. and it's great both as an album and as individual pieces. this song is great, for instance. i can't really tell you what's going on – there are tons of interesting sounds, an interesting, syncopated beat, a catchy melody, a catchy riff or two, some enthusiastic singing – but if we can "love and do what love and do what we want we will," [as someone once said of prince's equally inscrutable "7": if "together we'll love through all space and time,"] it can't be all that bad, can it?



18. "Indeed" – Georgia Anne Muldrow

though i sort of half forgot about her for a while – after i missed her show and left my copy of king's ballad in matt's cd player (which i should try harder to recover) – i was rocking the GAM jams pretty hard in the early part of the year, and this is definitely one of the sweetest and the fonkiest. it's an entirely touching, heartfelt, if not a little quirky, celebration of kids: "i love the mess out the children..." who can't get down with that?



19. "Whole New Way" – Scissor Sisters

i feel a little bad that i didn't find better ways to express my love for scissor sisters in 2010. night work is a pretty terrific piece of work from end to end, definitely a surprise and a step up for a group i'd all but written off – much as i loved their debut (and it's probably only gotten better with time), it somehow never seemed like they were fully able to live up to their potential. but this one is a total treat, chock-full of pop thrills, and i don't really understand why it was so overlooked.

for some reason it's a little tricky to take individual songs out of the context of the album, maybe because they have such a strong shared stylized aesthetic. this song (which is also shoehorned in at the end of 2010islove, paired up with "rude boy" for a deviant little quickie) isn't necessarily my favorite thing from the album (i think i like "skin tight" and "running out" slightly more, though it's a hard call), but it might be the best stand-alone cut. it's pretty delightful, either way. "subtext"-wise, the entendré-filled lyrics are winking pretty impossibly hard (ana matronic's overly labored live introduction/"apology" for this song, both times i saw them this summer [on the same day] was almost wince-inducing), but that's obviously a lot of the point, and the fun.



20. "All Matter" – Bilal

by contrast, i have pretty much no idea what this song is about. (apart than love, of course.) didn't know what to make of this cat when i saw him open for erykah badu this summer, and after a bunch of listens through the in any event staggering airtight's revenge, i still don't really know, but i think it's a good kind of making. as intriguing and often enjoyable as it is, there's been precious little in the recent wave of loose, clunky, atmospheric, post-dilla "broken-beat" electro-funk, whether instrumental or vocal (erykah, quadron, flying lotus, sa-ra – stuff that, for instance, andy kellman loves) that's really grabbed me. this one did it with just one little ineffable snatch of liquid vocal soul magic, which feels like i could listen to it forever. "you ain't even gotta try/all you've gotta do is realize..."



21. "I Can Change" – LCD Soundsystem

the new lsd screensaver album is bookended by towering standouts ("dance yrself clean", "home") or else the singles are the towering standouts ("drunk girls", "pow pow") or maybe it's all standouts (well, except, sorry, "somebody's calling me") or, i dunno, but this is the slyly crucial centerpiece after all, a quintessential "album cut" only in that it is fully and undeniably in and of its album, not that it can't work outside of it, and in any case it's the best solution to the quandary that "all i want" doesn't measure up to "all my friends" (quite), and nothing here touches "someone great" (even if "you wanted a hit" has the right feel for it), and yet this is happening is somehow a more complete and cohesive and consummate work than sound of silver, half of which now almost feels like throwaways in retrospect (actually, it felt that way at the time, tho i still loved it, and i still love it.)

"i can change" has only a few changes, but plenty of good lines (bad poetry my foot), if maybe not as many quotables as some others. but more than that its string of casual, lucid observations about relationships (which might or might not add up to a narrative sketch i've never bothered to really trace) add up to a vaguely wry, witty, alternately (or simultaneously?) cynical and hopeful meditation on modern (always modern) love that doesn't need much coherence to be curiously moving. and failing that, the bleeps and the beats – which, perhaps tellingly, barely change at all over the course of the track – offer some motion of their own.



22. "Alley Cats" – Hot Chip

one life stand is my favorite album of 2010. what is my favorite song from one life stand? "brothers"? the title track? "thieves in the night"? ["happiness is what we all want/may it be that we don't always want"...pretty hard to argue with that] earlier mixtape inclusions "hand me down your love" (on t-shirt weather) or "i feel better" (on 2010islove)? i'd almost be tempted to say the utterly sublime osborne remix of "take it in," although of course that's not on the album.

the truth is, i don't have one. this is about as close to a perfect album – not just in the sense of having no weak tracks, but having no tracks that are even notably weaker than any of the others – as i can think of in recent memory (a strange arrangement, my post-facto #1 of 2009, fits this bill too.) which isn't to say to say that all of the tracks are perfect: indeed, i could probably point to distinct, frequently lovable imperfections in just about every one. (that's called idiosyncrasy, and it's a large part of the appeal...though admittedly it's not nearly on the level of, say, kanye west.)

just at the moment, though, i'm having trouble coming up with anything that's particularly imperfect about "alley cats." it's not especially good for dancing to. joe isn't a technically brilliant singer. the words are quizzical and often hard to make linear sense of... but in this context, that last is actually a decidedly good thing (and probably the previous one too) – the lyrics feel warm and thoughtful and personal and as full of odd inscrutable private codes and pet references as an intimate chat between two lovers.)

one life stand, from its title on down, is overflowing with fresh, simple, unexpected and economical figurative yet immediate ways of talking about love, and this song has several: "we wear each others heads like hats"; "you painted a song...and now it is in my lungs"; the wonderfully succinct list of why people are like unhappy cats ("restless, needs attention, loses patience, seeks affection.") also, this song, like the album in general, recognizes that love is not only about two people: there are also pets, and parents, and plants, and even pop bands ("do you dig germs?"), and a whole lifetime full of those things together, even when the things you love want to kill one another, all of that, all together, is what makes up a life of love. that's all.

tracks of my ears

some more of my favorite 2010 musics, as featured in the occasional citypaper tidbit "one track mind," which is not too bad a pun. including my holy trinity -of-the-year (-so-far): j. newsom, v. weekend, h. chip, [l. system are angling for that coveted tier too, but it's not happening, not quite yet], none of which i have written about in album-review format, so i slip a bit of that in too, not all of which made the print edition. meanwhile i've softened (just a bit) on jj's new album since i reviewed it for amg, but that's probably because i haven't been listening to Nº 2 very much:

JJ, “My Life”

It’s hardly the most representative moment on JJ Nº 3 – the downshifted but still worthy sophomore outing (Nº 1 was a single, cotton on?) from these often sophomorically inscrutable Swedes – but there’s something hauntingly resonant about this cover (of a 2008 single by The Game) that makes it more than just a jokey album-opening WTF keeping us from the typically blissy electronic indie-pop that rounds out the disc. Continuing with their well-established Lil’ Wayne fascination (exhibit A: the “Lollipop”-sampling Nº 2 standout “Ecstasy”), JJ strip Weezy’s auto-tuned chorus down to nothing but sparse, brooding piano and Elin Kastlander’s laconic, heavily reverbed dream of an alto, zeroing in on the bluesy pathos at its death-obsessed core – and it’s startlingly, legitimately chilling. Of course, in the track’s final seconds, they just had to throw in a tease of ATC’s c. 2000 bubble-house hit “Around the World (La La La La La)” (which happens to have the same chord progression), and trick us into thinking it was an impishly ironic bastard-pop gag all along. Spoilsports.

Joanna Newsom, "On A Good Day"

Have One on Me, Joanna Newsom's tremendous third, is unambiguously big business: a lavish triple-set brimming with multi-minute epics; a breathtaking and idiosyncratic monument to her ever-mounting ambition. But it's also big-hearted and bountiful enough to be more than a simple extension of (its predecessor) Ys' fancifully lofty, esoteric myth-making – it glances back at least as frequently to the humbler, human scale and (relative) simplicity Newsom first wooed us with on The Milk-Eyed Mender. "On A Good Day," just shy of two minutes, is the shortest song in her catalog and easily the simplest thing here (just that inimitable voice – which has matured and mellowed marvelously in three years – and her utterly glorious harp playing) but none of that makes it any slighter a work than, say, the daunting nine-minute "Baby Birch." In four brief stanzas, sharing a single, unspeakably sweet melody, Newsom nimbly but lucidly sketches the emotional arc of her whole two-hour opus – essentially, a tender resignation to love's loss coupled with a recognition of its ultimate perseverance – complete with a characteristically striking nature metaphor and an ever-so-subtly snide sign-off line. Oh Jo, we missed you so.


Vampire Weekend, "I Think Ur A Contra"

One of the surest clues to Vampire Weekend's staying power, to my mind, is that they really know how to end an album. Much as the elegantly restrained "Kids Don't Stand a Chance" wound down their debut on its most invitingly leisurely (and arguably most tuneful) moment, Contra's semi-titular closer wafts in like the gentlest of breezes, a seductively soothing respite after nine frolicsome tracks of restlessly inventive kitchen-sink pep. For the first time in half an hour, "Contra" (which they should totally release as, like, the seventh single) feels in no hurry to get anywhere in particular, letting that initial cotton-candy shimmer linger as a wispy tropical lilt emerges gradually through the haze. Meanwhile, our boy Ezra sets his memory and his melody adrift over a bygone love affair, linking romance and revolution (with a vague Clash nod) in one of his more lucid lyrics, sung as pretty as you please.

funny story: none of the three songs above were actually performed in the concerts by the respective artists which these blurbs were ostensibly promoting. not too big a surprise in the case of jj, who were possibly even more befuddling in person than i would have predicted (though i should have thought more about what their bosses the tough alliance were like live.)

joanna only had time for a "reduced version" of her album – though the setlists of her two-day stand could definitely have included more variety – but surely she could have squeezed this one in? not that i minded hearing most of the set again the second day...would happily have continued for many days more.

as for the v-dubs, kind of amazingly, they played every single song on both albums (plus one obscurity) except for the respective last track on each album. of course, the hot chippy chippers broke the spell...damn straight they played "brothers." and with a trumpet too! other than that, total dance party!

Hot Chip, "Brothers"

Hot Chip's glorious new album is full of unassumingly simple, earnest, starry-eyed songs about the primacy and profundity of love and human connection; songs about monogamous commitment and domestic contentment and taking care of stray cats. It's a total sudser, in the best possible way. But the part that really makes me well up, every time, is when Joe Goddard sings about playing video games with his friends. Despite its thumping synth-house underpinnings, "Brothers" has the austerity and hushed intimacy of a hymn. Melody-wise (and especially harmonically), the song could hardly be more trivial, but that just makes its statement of wild, death-defying brotherly love (likely written about his bandmates – even if there are five of them, not, as he sings, four – but instantly, obviously, universal regardless) ring all the more sweetly, heartbreakingly true.

saw these guys last night, alongside true o.n.e.-track o.n.e.ders yeasayer. my concert-going buddy complained that she couldn't tell from reading this whether or not i like the song. that's a good point: that isn't really what i'm talking about here, is it.

Sleigh Bells, "A/B Machines"

Talk about boom boom pow. This week's Rolling Stone features Will.i.am blathering about the hidden avant-garde qualities of his group's world-conquering one-note-wonder: "Fool, it's the most complex s--t you could even fathom." I doubt you'd catch Brooklyn duo Sleigh Bells – one former hardcore punker, one erstwhile girl-group pop tart – claiming anything of the sort about their own equally giddy, bombastic racket, which is just as pea-brained, if a good deal more black-eyed. Beyond its bruising, preposterous levels of overdrive, "A/B Machines" actually has three notes (at least some of the time), though it only has one lyric: Alexis Krauss, on that next-level digital spit, explaining the locations of her machines. Actually, it's a bit stupefying to think that there could be any more than one (barely functioning) set of machines involved here. Must be complex.

bonus One Track [exclusive!]:

La Roux, "Bulletproof"

La Roux sure do lead a thrilling, treacherous life. Well, so the titles of their singles would have you believe: the well-coiffed dance-pop duo debuted with "Quicksand" and assailed the UK charts with the ferocious "In For The Kill." Even if it's all metaphorical (yeah, they're pretty much just love songs), there's enough real menace and fierceness in their tracks for the violent conceits to hit home. Nowhere is that more true than on "Bulletproof," their finest achievement and the most urgent, insistent, and utterly invincible sliver of synth-pop from a decade of unabashed retro-wonkery. Call it an '80s-retread if you must; you can’t shoot it down. Ben Langmaid's gritty keyboards pierce like tiny neon shards, and Elly Jackson's spitfire vocal delivery (she of the Tilda Swinton-esque androgyny and opinionated, dubiously-reasoned public statements) offer nothing but glisteningly sharp edges. That is, until the song's gleaming chorus – the sort that's simply one line repeated four times, because that's all it needs to be. "This time I'll be bulletproof," Jackson wails, betraying the slightest hint of vulnerability. More likely, we're the ones who need protection.

say yea! to 2!0!10!

it's a new year! i'm glad to be here! definite 2010 jam thus far (though "white sky" is close) is this song (click to listen, or download from the band here), "o.n.e." (annoyingly meaningless title - as far as i can tell - though it does align it fittingly with last year's spelling-jams trend, as spearheaded by "m.a.g.i.c") by yeasayer,

whom i have previously paid not too much attention... but i think i'm not alone in the internet (for once?!) when i say that this new album (coming out next week) is pretty pretty pretty good! i first listened to it when i was working on a jigsaw puzzle, by myself, too late at night. the album as a whole struck me as likably sprightly with a nice positive message, and this song stuck out right away. but it was only about a week ago that it really started hitting me, and now i have decided that is the "my girls" of 2010.



by which i mean, i guess, an indie-rock dance jam of supreme hookiness and mega-crossover potential that shall become quasi-ubiquitous. with a pair of distinct and equally strong vocal hooks. though, the subject matter is rather different, and it doesn't have that distinctive, elemental bifurcated structure. but: it's better than "my girls." for one, it's actually an electro-pop song (with a tricky but stomping beat and a sweet'n'bouncy synth riff) instead of just playing at being one. and the lyrics (at least the lyrics to the refrain - haven't fully parsed the rest) are not only sensical and non-mock-worthy, but actually good:

hold me like before
hold me like you used to
control me like you used to

kinda kills. a bit. not sure how i feel about the juxtaposition with "no/you don't move me anymore/and i'm glad that you don't" - puts a curiously smiley/cynical spin on the sentiment, but it's a bit sharp, and undercuts the sublimely subtle pathos of the "control me" line. anyway, interesting. anyway, it's a total JAM. get in.

this is already looking like a boom year for indie dance, after something of a downtick in '09... between this and the spunky new vampire weekend (and maybe four tet?), and a promised lcd soundsystem newbie among other things upcoming. and, the other one i've been jamming lately, hot new hot chip chip.

which is innarestin, too. it's surprisingly serious. basically none of joe goddard's goofy interjections. it's pretty silky-smooth throughout – a bunch of their marvelous moody slow jams, with a handful of swoony, streamlined house bangers – with their familiar playfulness coming through most notably in a few quirkily chromatic musical bits (the post-chorus blips on the "one life stand," the mildly dissonant ostinato of "take it in.") in essence, it's an extremely romantic album, never more so than on the aforementioned title track, "one life stand," which is a clear highlight. great video, too:



a departure from their title songs being relatively minor tracks on their albums (i do love "made in the dark" and "the warning," but they're not exactly standouts.) i really like that hot chip are a band with title tracks. this one gets a lot of its charm and potency out of its just-so-clever (and slightly dorky) but truly sweet and touching notion contained in the title phrase, delivered with alexis taylor's perfectly understated sincerity. (followed by a tammy wynette reference that seems too corny to work but does, anyway.) i'm curious to see how this album grows as i get to know it; for now i'm kind of loving its quiet, tender, heartfelt simplicity.

colors and colours and cullers . . .

dan 'flava' flavin, marfa-style: hot like neon fucking neon. photo credits: c. hoffman, g. bear, d. byrne.

sigh - another post of 'prefatory remarks' that ended up getting unintentionally entangled and, er, long. well, the point of bringing all that up was mostly just to say:

1.) i saw hot chip last week. it was pretty great. the best part was the crowd, who were way into it, dancing more enthusiastically from the get-go than any audience i've seen in a while. it was a concert, but it felt as much like a party. (my friends and i were up front for the first third or so, then split to the back where there was more room to move.)

i was especially amused by joe goddard, the keyboards/electronics guy off to the side. he looked just slightly out of place - a bit portly, and dressed in a goofy colorful t-shirt unlike his bandmates more 'tasteful' attire (though two of them eventually took their shirts off, in frontman alexis taylor's case to reveal a wendy's wifebeater) - a jovial average joe in a band of twerpy hipster nerds - although he's actually one of the two main songwriters. he does the spoken-ish bits of the vocals ("i'm in no fit state..."; "bendable, poseable..."; the list of moves in "wrestlers") and he delivered them so gleefully and emphatically, and deliberately off-rhythm, that i had to laugh. ("bend away...bend a-fucking-way.")

they did the bulk of the new album (11/13, omitting a couple of ballads), one oldie ("crap kraft dinner" - pretty nice), and only three from the warning, which was a little disappointing, since i've only grown to adore that album in the last year or so. serves me right, though, maybe, for dismissing them when i first saw them (fall '05, opening for four tet.) i remember they played "colours" and i'm like "what is this dopey crap? colors and colors and colors and colors? right..." then it took me a year or something to get around to their album, which i now feel that stylus was apt in ranking as #2 of the year, and this time i was disappointed that they didn't play "colours." but it's okay. (at least they did "no fit state," the album's semi-secret best song.)


my initial response to made in the dark was that it's essentially a very similar album to its predecessor, right down to the curiously jerky opener and rather blah ballad closer, (with plenty of better stuff in between), but that it pales substantially in comparison. having taken more time to process and reflect, i recognize that the last album did have a couple of somewhat lesser songs (well, at least two: "arrest yourself" and "won't wash"), while the new one has has plenty of highlights, if nothing to compete with the run of obvious singles that is tracks 2-5 on the warning ("ready for the floor" is the only no-brainer, with its two neighboring tracks probably the closest behind.)

most of the other dance tracks don't really do it for me (yet?) - not quite sure why; "touch too much" for instance seems like it should be great, but the melody and phrasing kind of annoy me. "one pure thought" is the big exception, the closest this album comes to a "no fit state" and maybe the best song on here. "wrestlers," which is reminiscent of "the warning" both lyrically and musically, is a great, quirky, catchy album track. then there are the ballads, none of which i've found as affecting as the gorgeous "look after me" and "so glad to see you," though the title track is certainly pretty.

hot chip's best songs tend not to feature just a single arresting hook or an extended melody line, but rather several fairly simple and repetitive melodic motifs, alternating and interspersed throughout, modularly, over shifting sections of the groove, and sometimes eventually layered together, in an expansion beyond straight verse/chorus structure. ("colors" is maybe the clearest example.) my sense is that a lot of new album's songs are more straightforward in their construction, and hence not as colorful and satisfying. i'll keep listening though.

2.) i been listening to neon neon. specifically their debut album stainless style.

it's a collaboration between gruff rhys of super furry animals - once one of my favorite bands, in whom i have lost a substantial amount of interest (though i'm curious to hear their latest, eventually...the last two albums were pleasant enough but ultimately pretty watered-down, save the transcendent "slow life") - and quasi-hip-hop (right?) producer boom bip, whom i've liked scattered tracks by, but never really delved into. it's something of a surprise, and total treat.

a surprise because i wouldn't have expected a full-length collaboration from these two, i wouldn't have expected it to sound like this (gleaming neo-80s electronic disco-pop, with occasional sleaze-rap interjections), and i wouldn't have expected to be this into it. on the other hand, it's not so surprising that it's pretty great. the leftfield nature of the duo had me fearing a strained, pointedly eclectic mish-mash of a collabo record by a self-consciously oddball pairing, plus novelty rap guests (like gorillaz but with a less-infallible britpop-ringleader, or - worse - the rudderless gnarls barkley), but this is pretty straight up: a synth-pop record made by a dependably tuneful '60s-loving indie pop songwriter and an accomplished, musically savvy electronic producer, which sounds more like the postal service (a good thing.) (although stainless style doesn't, really - it's much richer-sounding, dancier, sillier and more poignant at the same time. if anything, a lot of it recalls some of the more inventive tracks from the great rings around the world, a path not taken by SFA in 2000s.)

the album's wikipedia article explains a lot: it's an intentional break from the artists' previous work, and its channeling of the 1980s on multiple levels, which is much deeper and more integral to the proceedings than your average '00s '80s throwback, is very deliberate and was carefully developed from a production standpoint and otherwise. it's also a concept album, about "playboy engineer" and '80s archetype john delorean, though that's loose enough notto get in the way of the songs. but it's also just a really fun, upbeat, and paradoxically modern-sounding (see!) pop record.

the biggest standouts (for me, so far) are "raquel" (a funky, melodic ode to ms. welch, whom i'll always associate with the rather perverted, sex-obsessed forrest gump - the book, not the movie - whose melodic hook bears some similarity to lennon's "oh yoko"), the slightly dark, twitchy italo-style duet "i lust u," and "belfast," an epic-sounding new wave disco jam (which, in keeping with the album concept, is probably not really an ode to the city per se, though it is addressed to it - i was trying to make a list: mirah's "jerusalem," lcd's "new york i love you," the pogues' "london you're a lady." of montreal's "little rock.") but it's really pretty consistent in quality, with a handful of other songs that could work equally well as singles. even the three or four rap tracks, featuring the jokey likes of spank rock, yo majesty, har mar superstar, and fatlip, aren't as obnoxious as they seem like they should be. superficial on the surface but deeper underneath, this could easily make my top ten for the year.

3.) i got the new cut copy record, on semi-impulse.

my first listen was through headphones, walking to the subway for a gig, as the sun was setting on one of the first gloriously summery april days, and not surprisingly i was mesmerized and swooning. "instant album of the year (?) (!)" i thought, as the caribou-style psychedelic swirls of "feel the love" gave way to crystal-clear indie-pop acoustic strums, bouncing italo synths, an immediately hummable melody, vocoded background vocals, and a laid-back but distinctly dancy electro-organic groove, all in the same song... i also thought, how the hell does he have all of this stuff going on without this sounding like a total mess? and: can the rest of the album possibly keep delivering the goods at this level?

yes, as it turns out, the whole album is pretty damn seamless, and indeed remarkably consistent in both quality and quality, er i mean in terms of both sonics and goodness. and it remains a befuddling mystery of alchemy. it's hazy but it's bright. it's languid, but it's propulsive. it's indie pop/rock, but it's electronic/dance. it's unabashedly derivative, but it's uncannily fresh. it sounds like the '60s and the '80s, and, okay, it really sounds like the '00s. it sounds like new order, but i like it.

a lot. or maybe i just like it pretty well. i'm still having a hard time figuring that part out, because i could see myself going either way - continuing to listen and finding more to enjoy and bring me back, or setting it aside as a pleasurable trifle with diminishing returns. in some ways it is a very surfacey record; sounding great, nay awesome, and with some solid hooks to be sure ("far away," and the singles "lights and music" and "hearts on fire" - that's as far as i've got), but possibly somewhat lacking in truly durable songwriting, and also somewhat formulaic. of course, a good formula is worth milking, and i've definitely got nothing against surface pleasures. so we shall see.