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31 Oct 2009 16:52

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Music: Our Saturday Mixtape’s decade-in-review lands in 2005

  • 1. Between this and The Walkmen’s “The Rat,” you have two of the three best songs of the decade right here. (The third is coming in the next few weeks.) A surreal, beautiful, simple song, Antony deserves the high praise this song (and album) earned.
    2. The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn is a walking Wikipedia entry on the city of Minneapolis, something that straight-up defines the sound of “Your Little Hoodrat Friend,” a four-minute explanation of why this band is so awesome to people not in the know.
    3. Sort of a ying to The Hold Steady’s yang, Art Brut’s Eddie Argos is nearly as self-referential as Finn is. On “Emily Kane,” Argos counts down to the second when his first relationship ended. And not surprisingly, the whole album is this clever.
    4. People seem to give Conor Oberst crap for being too pretentious for his own good, but for one shining moment this decade, he was able to get past all that and create a truly shining piece of work, “I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning.” “Land Locked Blues” is our favorite highlight.
    5. Perhaps the best story to come out of 2005 was the long-gestating return of Vashti Bunyan, a former Andrew Loog Oldham protégé who released a spectacular, unheard album, “Just Another Diamond Day,” in 1970, only to disappear for 35 years. Thanks to Devendra Banhart, Animal Collective and other hipster fans, she returned with “Lookaftering,” an amazingly assured victory lap. “Wayward Hum” doesn’t even need words to be a highlight.source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 4 Comments • Permalink

25 Apr 2009 00:05

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Music: ShortFormBlog Saturday Mixtape: Late-’60s dusty grooves

  • 1. Fun fact about Barry & the Remains: They once were the opening act for The Beatles. And “Don’t Look Back,” to this day, still kills.

    2. Thanks to “American Idol” and a well-received tour, Leonard Cohen is becoming popular again. Start with his first three albums, along with early touchstone “Bird on the Wire.”

    3. Vashti Bunyan was saved from obscurity a few years back after the re-release of her album “Just Another Diamond Day.” Early unreleased single “Winter is Blue” shows why.

    4. Silver Apples is an intriguing early attempt at electronic music, with a weird, rhythmic mix of noisy electronics and big drums, exemplified by “Oscillations.”

    5. The late-’60s psych-folk of Pearls Before Swine clearly plays forefather to today’s oddball indie rock; the swoon of “The Surrealist Waltz” feels at home in today’s climate. source

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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