Best of 2011 (First Half)

"Best of" lists have always been contentious, so here goes anyway...

1. Destroyer – Kaputt

2. elbow – build a rocket boys!
3. White Denim – D
4. My Morning Jacket – Circuital
5. I’m from Barcelona – Forever Today
6. Radiohead – The King of Limbs
7. Bon Iver, Bon Iver
8. Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
9. Iron & Wine – Kiss Each Other Clean
10. Bright Eyes – The People’s Keys
11. The Antlers – Burst Apart
12. Nicolas Jaar – Space Is Only Noise
13. Battles – Gloss Drop
14. tUnE-yArDs - WHOKILL
15. TV on the Radio – Nine Types of Light
16. PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
17. Lykke Li – Wounded Rhymes
18. Gang Gang Dance – Eye Contact
19. Black Lips – Arabia Mountain
20. Explosions in the Sky – Take Care, Take Care, Take Care
21. Wire - Red Barked Tree
22. Thurston Moore - Demolished Thoughts
23. Digitalism – I Love You Dude
24. James Blake - James Blake
25. The Strokes – Angles
25. The Kills – Blood Pressures
Bubbling under...
The Vaccines - What Did You Expect from the Vaccines?
R.E.M. - Collapse into Now
Arctic Monkeys - Suck It and See
Gruff Rhys – Hotel Shampoo
Toro y Moi – Underneath the Pine

Let's see how this changes at the end of this year...

Some upcoming releases:
Wilco - The Whole Love, Bjork - Biophilia, Beirut - The Rip Tide, Red Hot Chilli Peppers - I'm with You, Modest Mouse - TBA, Jim O'Rourke - Unreleased?, Brian Eno - Drums Between the Bells and U2's yet to be released Songs of Ascent

Radiohead - The King of Limbs "Live" - From the Basement

Pencil this in! 

Come 1st July, website From the Basement will host Radiohead's "live" performance of the entire TKOL.  http://www.fromthebasement.tv/

Read up here & here.

  Sullen taster "Staircase"

Update:
Apparently the above show is being hawked to TV stations across the globe. 
So start petitioning your TV station to air it!
For Australian audiences, I've started petitioning on ABC's Facebook page.
http://www.facebook.com/ABCTV.au?sk=wall

Update 2:
http://stereogum.com/764691/king-of-limbs-from-the-basement-gets-us-broadcast/photo/

More White Denim!

Discovered more White Denim virtuoso and these clips are even better!!

I hope they're touring here!  Especially love "It's Him" above!

Upcoming Concerts: Jul/Aug 2011

WooHoo!
Looks like the end of July is going to be busy...

25th July 2011 Modest Mouse
Hope they play material from their yet-to-be named new album produced by Outkast's Big Boi!
Now @ Enmore Theatre!

http://musicfeeds.com.au/news/modest-mouse-recording-new-album-with-big-boi/

27th July 2011 Devendra Banhart
Hope it's new material. Squeal!

"Are those grapes..?!?" 

26 July 2011 The Kills

Hope they skip the ballads...

29th July 2011 elbow
Hope they keep the ballads &
Waiting for ticket...!!

... and on 20th August, Gotye @ Sydney Opera House looks a definite:

Art Center Stage
Animated Album Extravaganza

http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/whatson/gotye.aspx?start=yes


... and Battles Dec/Jan

How diisttturbbiingg

 Phew!

Album Review: White Denim - D

Contender for one of 2011 finest.

Depending on your view of music from the seventies, you might like to banish this away in some dusty dungeon or champion it as a modern classic.

The fourth album (Counting last year's donation/freebie "Last Day of Summer") sees the Austin, Texas band expanded to a four-piece to include guitarist Austin Jenkins. Incidentally, D is also the fourth alphabet...

The music instantly harks back to the glory days of Cream and also conjures up the ghosts of a chugging Grateful Dead.   There's guitar noodling extending into jams just shy of a drum solo.   There's twin guitar attacks, muscular riffs, complex rapidfire polyrhythmic drumming, James Petralli's bluesy, sweet yet strong tonsils, occasional kooky lyrics and even breathy fluttering flute (Courtesy of Alex Coke) set to a Samba marimba-flecked melody on River to Consider.

But what really stupefies is just how tight this band is.  They've developed a synergy or sixth sense which can only come from hours and hours of playing together.  No amount of studio wizardry could mimic the interplay this band has mastered.  Some veteran musicians should hang their heads in shame.  They are that good.

I had this album on high rotation but have yet to tire of it and this review took that much longer because I wanted to do it justice.  This is a quantum leap for the band; and if all goes well should catapult them into Rock's A-listers.

Give them time and watch them explode.  9.3/10

Album Review: Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues

It's incomprehensible that some city person like me has an ear for country music, let alone folk music.

Still, there is no denying there's something in Fleet Foxes' music which evokes backwoods sentiments; that of warmth, humility, earnestness and of a time uncomplicated and unhurried.  Perhaps the best antidote for this 21st Century city-living burnout?

This, their difficult second, has much to live up to.  Their eponymous debut won them both critical and commercial success and was a mainstay in many 'Best of 2008' lists.

Robin Pecknold, chief lyricist and vocalist has admitted the two year gestation took a toll on his personal life and the band's coffers.

A plethora of obscure instruments has been employed to imbue each track a sepia'd bygone feel.  Gorgeous chamber melodies and lush earthy harmonies abound; and was only curiously punctuated by track 10's "An Argument" - An excursion into jarring jazz territory.

Big-hearted campfire reveries.  8.6/10

...and long attention span not necessary:

Album Review: Bright Eyes - The People's Key

I knew I had a challenge ahead of me when I tried to introduce Bright Eyes' latest (and hopefully not last*) album to a friend of mine.

You see, the album starts with some fervent proselytising from a religious nut and I had to explain that said nut was not part of the band but merely some found library snippet intended only as an atmospheric setting...
(Insert disclaimer sticker here...)
It's quite possible this particular hurdle proved too much for my friend and I suspect, a bigger majority of listeners which accounts for the album's totally undeserved mixed reception.
Or perhaps it's the band's departure from rootsy Americana which alienated some fans?

Connor Oberst was voted Best Songwriter by Rolling Stone in 2008. Being the consummate storyteller, his bittersweet yet insightful lyrics observes the gamut of the human condition.

While the album may toy with some Rastafarian concept, Oberst himself has personally expressed disappointment in the narrow-mindedness of major religions, and is fascinated and frustrated by "eternal" concepts.

* Connor considered retiring the Bright Eyes moniker with this album, which is an absolute shame since his solo venture and his stint in supergroup Monsters of Folk only saw the potency of his lyrics diluted.

Listen up, People!  8.8/10