Year of Record

Ironically, in doing this whole project, I know have access to more legal MP3s than ever before. Since I’m not using them, I figured I’d pass it along to you. I forget what the Kemado and bwscd ones are for, so those are surprise bonus bags! I only ask if you use one, let me know in the comments, and suggest an album for me to buy (check out which ones I have already).

Since this is posted, I can’t guarantee any of these are still active, but give ‘em a shot!

When I was starting this project, I went through my MP3 library and made a list of all the albums I would want to own physically. From that, I filtered down a few that were must-haves-at-any-cost to be part of my starter set, or priorities to buy early on. These included the (previously posted) Neutral Milk Hotel record, Junior Senior, Phoenix, and a few others. High on that list, however was the Notwist’s 2002 album, Neon Golden.

One thing I haven’t really talked about on here is the price of music and buying physical objects: how it changes your relationship with an item, and forces you to actually assign value and make choices. When things are digital / pirated / free, it’s easy: do you have space on your hard drive? If so, the new Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em has the same value/expenditure of effort and money as the Pixies or Mozart. With physical media, you have to decide: do I want this album enough to pay money for it, and if so, do I want to spend as much as someone may be asking for it?

Some records, I’d pay any amount for. Neutral Milk Hotel is one. Weezer’s blue album is one. And this is one. I tried to bid on a few copies on eBay, with a ceiling of around 50 dollars, but even that wasn’t high enough. I gave up, thinking that I may just have to hold off, or buy it on CD and be content with that, but eventually I found a copy spring up on Amazon UK. With shipping, it was around 35 bucks, but it’s so incredibly gorgeous, and worth every cent. Matte red sleeve, with a 10″ booklet inside, more art project than lyrics pamphlet.

And, the music. Like a blues-making robot with a blown fuse, it’s glitchy, heartfelt pop songs, with all the sad-eyed soul Owl Postal City Service can’t quite grasp. These are songs for belting out while embracing a friend and for dancing while crying. These songs sound like a breakup and first love and birth and life and death all at once, forever.

I have a copy of the Notwist’s first record on vinyl, in storage, in Austin. They used to be a metal band. I’m glad they’re not.

I’ve tried to stay away from Best Of comps while I’ve been doing this. It’s too easy, and sort of antithetical to the whole point of paying attention to these albums. That being said, Tribe’s Anthology is solid gold. It’s so perfectly sequenced, and the content of such consistently quality that it flows like a classic, amazing album. Yeah, I should pick up Midnight Marauders and Low End, but this condenses my favorite parts of those records into one manageable nugget of hip hop goodness.

Plus, it’s got Vivrant Thing, and that shit’s the jam.

Growing up, my parents never were really “into” music. The things I remember my Dad ever listening to were some Hammered Dulcimer records, a Carly Simon tape, and whatever Weird Al cassette I had at the time. Not to say that music wasn’t a part of my life, but for the most part, it came from the radio and self-discovery.

When CDs were first introduced, my parents, who are big ole nerds like their son, decided they needed to get a player. It was right around christmas, and I remember we go a 5 disc carousel deck with a Choral Holiday disc, Elvis Presley’s Christmas, Bing Crosby’s Christmas, some Mozart disc, and this: James Taylor’s 1968 debut.

Living in Dallas, I grew up listening to 98.7 KLUV Your Oldies and 94.5 THE EDGE, so most of my music consumption was either Pre-1960s doo wop or angsty early 90s alternative rock. This record was the first thing I heard that gave music more meaning than “Baby, I [love/hate] you”. My dad told me Taylor’s story of struggling with mental illness and his stint in a mental hospital before writing the songs on this album. Tracks like “Knocking’ Round the Zoo” and “Carolina In my Mind” gave my young mind more to think about than what was on the face of the lyrics or the sound. That music could say something outside of what was explicitly laid out blew my young little mind. These sweet, folksy, songs became descriptions of pain and torment and conflict and it was incredible.

The record sleeve is gatefold, with the album coming out of the inside, like an envelope or a letter. With the handwritten lyrics spanning the interior, corrections and flubs intact, and Taylor’s full frame extended on the outer, there’s really a sense of seeing a whole man’s mind when you hold this in your hands.

My Dad used to be a lifeguard in Martha’s Vineyard, and one summer he hitchhiked around the area, checking out the sights, taking his time. He got picked up by a young man with a guitar and they talked for a few hours as they drove around. He had been writing some songs, and seemed to be pretty pleased with his life, according to my Dad. His name was James.

1. Danie Lindlöf – Lower My Head
Electro beats and dreamy synths, a naptime love song for the lonely.

2. Anna Frödeburg – But Hey Even Though Your Horse Went Away
A campfire singalong, where somehow a robot got into the scout troop.

3. Tina Gardestrand – Baby Let’s Go
This is the song from the preview video I posted a little while ago. Sounds like leaving town, packing bags, and hitting the road with a smile.

4. David Ljung – Silence
A dark orchestra of guitar feedback, almost a lost Secret Machines track. A song for drinking, a song for a fight.

5. Mathias Alriksson – Return of the Ape
Despite it’s name, it’s not a Planet of the Apes cover of Return of the Mack. It is, however an Elliot Smith aping (ha!) story of coming back to love.

6. Johan Mårtensson – What Should I Do
YELLING! SHOEGAZING! Like early U2, with the Edge’s arpeggios and Bono yelling his heart out into the sky.

7. Cornelia Norgren – Pet Duet
Electro beats with some off kilter vocals, like a mix of Girogio Moroder, Looper and Jan Hammer.

8. Rikard Ljung – Nothin Like the Mornin
Early Flaming Lips.

9. Henrik Olofsson – Make Me a Cowboy Again For a Day
Iron and Wine.

10. Mattias Johansson – Be the Same
The first time I listened to this, I thought it was boring and sounded like an afternoon learning Logic Pro. Coming back to it, it’s got a delicate vocal quality over plunky synths that makes it pretty dang endearing.

11. Marcus Carlholt – Tour De France
A cover of the Kraftwerk track, done almost entirely spot on. Could have used some spice to differentiate from the original, but the driving electro beat is enough to make this a fun time. .

12. Emma Öhnell – Hej Hej Ivar
Hej Ivar! Kazzoo! One of the few tracks in their native Swedish, it’s got a kid’s show feel, coupled with a male/female call and response that makes me wonder if it’s as funny as I think it sounds.

13. Erik Ottosson – Zapatista
One afternoon, a tuba and a conga fall down the stairs. The end.

14. Johan Aineland – Best Days are to Come
I thought this was Rivers singing for a bit, like the sweetest ballads from Pinkerton.

15. Frida Öhnell – Morning Again
Bird noises and a Fender Rhodes and names of things you see outside.

16. Jonas Tjäder – Göteborg
A quick tourism guide to the city of Göteborg with it’s northern lights, fields of snow, drunk fights and sleepovers.

17. Christofer Olofsson – Alice in Wonderland
Like a cross between Ryuichi Sakamoto and the Vince Guaraldi Trio, so pretty, feels like a mug of mulled wine through a light dusting.

18. Olof Gardestrand – My BPM Might Be Off, But My Heart is Running Like a Clock
A teenage diary of angst poured into three chords and one of those 8″ Peavey amps. Also includes a bonus cover of total eclipse of the heart, before transitioning into an awkward death-metal and dirgey growl.

19. Kristoffer Ekstrand – UH! OH!
Really amazing fart of an intro, and more swedes swinging about kissing and the world being good for both of us and how great things are and xylophones and casios. Epic Journey-style vocal layering outro with a little Junior Senior breakin’ down.

20. Tobias Granstrand – Troublemaking
Candlebox-esque guitars and early 90’s bass drive this ballad about raising ruckus for love.

21. Micke Larsson – to the Clouds
Short, but more heartaching than sweet.

22. David Ottosson – the Wave
The Devil and the marimba lead you in a campfire dance on a moonless night before you crawl back to your bed, soaked in blood, smelling of soot.

23. Jacob Sollenberg – Sick of Love
Sipping buds at the waterin’ hole, Sollenberg channels the Magnetic Fields’ lament of love, and all its pains.

24. Martin Alfredsson – Kosmonaut
New Order synths and a vocoder chanting outer spacey things, this comes out a little overlong, but gets you in the mood for the moon.

25. Emanuel Lundgren – Hang On
The leader of this whole gang, whose voice we’re most familar with, plays a tender piano, sounding not unlike David Bowie, urging us with the typical I’m From Barcelona spirit to Hang On, for life, until there’s nothing left to hang to.

26. Jakob Jonsson – Matilda
Close mic’d acoustic ala Jose Gonzalez, we get yet another song about love lost and longing, with some lovely harmonies from an unnamed female vocalist giving it an almost Sergio Mendes air.

27. Julie Witwicki Carlsson – Dreaming My Dreams
If Björk and Ruby recorded together in a bathroom, it would sound something like this when you remembered it, years later, alone in a bathroom.

Here are some songs from some albums I was listening to this past month. Recorded from the wax to the computer for you.

Year of Record – January 2010

Year of Record – January 2010 Mix

The gatefold interior of Dan Deacon’s second record is an arcade-like tunnel of human hands, held high in the afternoon sun, faces nothing but shadows and sunglasses. On the face of things, this record is more of the same of his Spiderman of the Rings, a collection of twee-distorted vocals, and ritalin-inspired rhythms that left me feeling like I ate a big mac: it was something, but I’m not sure if it was good, or good for me.

Bromst has that same heavy hand on the ring filter pedal, but is much more reserved and careful, almost gentle in its songwriting. “Build Voice” starts off the record with, as expected, a building surge of synthesized choir, pulsing with the rhythm of a toothache as Dan’s own voice comes through chanting a triumphant LARPer folk tale of gleaming stones and beasts unknown and untold. Piano lilts in, swirling arpeggios of magic, and finally, as if to signify what’s to come, a brassy sax section fanfares as the beat drops, driving, pushing us over the edge of a cliff into Deacon’s muddy tangle of a mind.

“Snookered” may be my favorite song of last year. The additional instrumentation Deacon’s used on this record gives it a depth and emotional dimension that wasn’t present for me on his previous release. The bookends of xylophone add a gentleness to the  meows and whines of Deacon’s self-made gang of 20. By the time you get to the lyrics, it’s heartbreaking, like Daniel Johnston with a Korg.

“Been wrong so many times before, but never quite like this.”

A stranger with open arms, offering a free hug, Deacon’s not the guy you want to be close to. But his earnestness is so disarming, it’s hard not to be consumed.

Triple vinyl release with awesome artwork and handmade stuff from people in the band. Great release of one song from each of the 27 (!!!) members.  Hoping to find it as a domestic, as 25eur + shipping gets real steep, real fast. They’re also releasing each of the 27 songs, one at  a time, on their website.

Ah, screw it. Ordered.