OK! Enough monologue - It's time to open up a forum!
To quote Yello's 3rd album, You Gotta Say Yes to Another Excess!Or, do you?
In these times of economic strife, it seems especially rich that record companies are flooding the market with mega box sets of your favourite albums lavishly packaged, flushed with gimmicky extras and all exorbitantly priced.
So much so, there's a site dedicated to just this.
Priceless treasuresornon-degradable landfill?
You be the judge. (Click on 0 comments to start...)
U2's Achtung Baby (20th Anniversary Über Deluxe Box Set)
Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon (Immersion Edition)
Björk's Biophilia (The Ultimate Edition Boxset)
The Smiths' Complete (Super Deluxe Collectors Box)
Tried Googling MusicIsOxygen and actually found there's others who beat me to the moniker!
So to avoid any confusion, mistaken identity or less likely litigation, MusicIsOxygen = Auralfood from now on...
Ever since For Emma, Forever Ago caught the public's affection and adulation in 2008 and achieved perfect scores 5/5 in both Uncut and Mojo mags, the frontman of Bon Iver (French pronunciation: [bɔn‿ivɛːʁ] meaning "good winter") has been involved in a myriad of cameos and production duties, working with the likes of Kanye West, Jay-Z, Aaron Dessner of The National, Volcano Choir, Gayngs, St. Vincent, Anaïs Mitchell and progressively confounding everyone along the way.
For Emma... was the birthchild of a self-imposed exile to his father's remote cabin in Northwestern Wisconsin while being bedridden with illness.
The album evolved from isolation and is essentially a solo effort of wafer-thin fragile love songs.
Everyone then pigeonholed him to be an indie folk singer.
Cover art by artist Gregory Euclide
Released on June 20, 2011, peaking at #2 and #4 in the US and UK respectively, it's comforting the band has achieved their due recognition instead of remaining indie also-rans.
Their second self-titled album, Bon Iver, has instead burst out and engaged the world with a rich pallette of hues and tones, and in Justin's own words "It's more colourful and inviting".
Sung mostly in an impossible helium register, Justin's vocals has a strangely melancholic and affecting quality-
At once earthy and otherworldly.
The songs (all named after places) rarely break a sweat, but possess a beauty overflowing from every intricate note. A melange of instruments were deployed, with bass saxophonist Colin Stetson and pedal-steel guitarist Greg Leisz brought in to flesh out the sound. The synth drum ambience on Beth / Rest recalls In the Air Tonight by Phil Collins. There's richly detailed atmospherics befitting a Brian Eno production; some kept so low in the mix, it literally seeps into your subconscious.
This is definitely an album best experienced on a good set of cans (headphones) or on a really good hifi system.
Try following the lyrics and "wtf??" comes to mind, not just because of the difficult scribble on the the accompanying CD booklet, or the much improved version here; but because the obtuse words are chosen rather more for their phoenetic than their literal significance.
A thing of beauty. 9.2/10
Lead single, the haunting Calgary (Clip directed by Andre Durand and Dan Huiting):
Follow-up single, Holocene:
Bonus Track, a medley of Bonnie Raitt's I Can’t Make You Love Me / Nick of Time (Written by Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin / Bonnie Raitt):
If panoramic instrumental epics is your "thing", then check out the Texan quartet's sixth & latest offering, Take Care, Take Care, Take Care.
(How's that for driving the message home?)
They have mined and mastered the expansive, soft-loud dynamics so popular in post-rock.
Most tracks here stretch into 8 minute plus mini-symphonies.
'Last Known Surroundings', which opens the album wastes little time with slow burn; instead jumps head first into a rousing widescreen ra-ra number. Appropriately-titled track two 'Human Qualities' slows the pace with a lilting guitar figure and tapping percussion, you are led along a beautiful journey which builds around the seven minute mark and culminates in cathartic crescendos. The onslaught continues with rapidfire drumming and urgent vocal accompaniment that is 'Trembling Hands'...
By which point, all bombast subsides and elaborate guitar work takes centre stage which, you guessed it, builds again - This time into a gentle mid-paced sunshiny stroll... Ah...
By now you should have the equivalent of windswept hair which a wild rollercoaster ride brings...
More journey than destination. 7.8/10.
The deluxe packaging:
While never a big fan of music videos, you decide if this does their music justice:
Portugal. The Man was formed in 2004, Wasilla, Alaska from the ashes of defunct band Anatomy of a Ghost and then relocated to Portland, Oregon.
In the Mountain in the Cloud, their sixth album and in as many years as a recording band, sees them fully embrace the romanticism of 70's radio-friendly pop-rock.
Cue the opening chimes and acoustic strums, the melodicism and lyricism instantly recalls the best years of Elton John / Bernie Taupin partnership...
In fact, throw into that same blender Supertramp, Electric Light Orchestra, David Bowie, Marc Bolan, Bee Gees, Santana, Scissor Sisters circa 2006's Tah-Dah and MGMT circa 2008's Oracular Spectacular.
It's a formula destined for disaster in less adroit hands.
But John Gourley (lead vocals, guitar), Zachary Carothers (bass guitar, backing vocals), Ryan Neighbors (keyboards, synthesizers, backing vocals) and Jason Sechrist (drums) have collectively pulled in the big guns to help realise their vision this time around.
Enlisting Santogold’s John Hill as the producer-of-choice and masterfully mixed by Andy Wallace (Grammy award winner behind Nirvana’s Nevermind and Jeff Buckley’s Grace), this has ambitionwrit large all over it but successfully sidesteps selling out their indie cred whilst debuting on major label Atlantic Records.
The story-driven songs are chorus and anthem heavy, suggesting lighters aloft sing-alongs at concerts.
The electric Bolan boogie-stomp swaggers perfectly on Got It All, Head Is a Flame channels MGMT, horn and synth embellishments on Everything You See feels as though filtered through psychedelic prisms and the panoramic Sleep Forever informs their Beatles' influence.
WARNING:
This arthouse videoclip spans 13 minutes and contains a shocking element not for the faint of heart.
It starts with Sleep Forever, ends with Got It All. Bravo.
Reclusive frontman, Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields, The 6ths, Gothic Archies and Future Bible Heroes takes centrestage in a revealing documentary, Strange Powers. Known as "the Cole Porter of his generation" for his lyrical wit, lovelorn melodies and dour-yet-humourous observations on affairs of the heart.
His inimitable style has captured the imagination and garnered praise from both music critics and peers alike.
The movie (Ten years in the making) was released in 2010 by Fix Films, and saw it's DVD release in May this year.
On August 23rd, Merge will be releasing "Obscurities", a collection of rare and unreleased songs which pre-dates his 1999's tome, 69 Love Songs.
OK! Enough monologue - It's time to open up a forum! 
