As Record Store Day continues to grow, so does the list of limited edition vinyl, CDs, DVDs, etc. associated with the yearly event. Sorting through the pages of releases is quite a task, and remembering what to look for amidst all the live music, free food, and adult beverages could turn out to be daunting.
I'll be at Euclid for live music by Art Majors and others. Here's what I'll be looking for:
Yeasayer - "O.N.E."
This has probably been my jam of the year so far. This 12" features four versions of the song.
Deftones - "Rocketskates"
I'm a bit dubious about a new release from this act, but they've consistently been the only listenable band of the 90s Nu Metal wave. The m83 remix solidifies this as a must-have.
The Cribs / The Thermals split 7"
It's not clear if these are exclusive tracks, but anything involving Kill Rock Stars and these two bands is worth a look.
Tom Waits - Mule Variations 11th Anniversary Edition
I've been waiting for a deluxe release of this classic, and here it is.
Flaming Lips and Stardeath and White Dwarfs - Dark Side of the Moon Band covers the classic Pink Floyd album
Since this was announced, I've been curious. Even if it's rubbish, it'll surely fetch a pretty penny on eBay.
White Rabbits / Antlers - Live from Daytrotter Sessions 7"
I'm not really interested in the White Rabbits track, but any version of Antlers' "Shiva" is worth the asking price. If that asking price is about $5.
Various Artists - Fragments from a Work in Progress
New tracks from The Big Pink and Gang Gang Dance? Yes, please.
A futuristic techno train lurches from the station, slowly clacking and building electrosteam, its synthetic beat increasing with each turn of the virtual wheel. The whistle screams as it careens downhill, the sounds peeking into the playful clattering and hooks of "Out at the Pictures," the first track on 2008's Made in the Dark from the dancepop group Hot Chip.
The bridge of "Out at the Pictures" features yelping, and is followed by the similar-in-structure "Shake a Fist." The track builds more quickly, anchored by a fat bass sweep and dense drumbeat before it pauses for some narration and explodes into 360 degrees of clicks and blips, followed by samples of more yelling and a return to the original sound.
Made in the Dark is a diverse album in three forms. Although the first two tracks predict what might be the electropop equivalent of Crunk, "Ready for the Floor" transitions towards the album's softer side. Alexis Taylor's soft-spoken vocal style has always been the warm, sincere center of Hot Chip's sound, and he's never sounded so vulnerable as when he sings "I am ready for a fall." Unsuprisingly, the track is Hot Chip's biggest hit to date, although the narrative gem "And I Was a Boy from School" from 2006 may be their magnum opus.
"Bendable Poseable" and "Don't Dance" return to the opening sound with lots of low end, but the remainder of the album's tracks are airy ballads, like ""We're Looking for a Lot of Love," or poppy dance numbers, e.g. "Touch Too Much." The relatively brief disco epic, "Hold On," a loose revision of their club banger "Over and Over," is the best of the latter. The strong use of Taylor and Joe Goddard's differing vocal styles provides a perfect example of the band's dance-inspiring potential and lyrical prowess. Take the hook, "I'm only going to heaven if it feels like hell. / I'm only going to heaven if it tastes like caramel," and the couplet "My only lesson was in my head, / but I traded if for my hand," and mix well with an overused phrase in a fresh context, like, "Sir, I have a good mind to take you outside." Pop genius.
As one of the best breakup songs in recent years, the title track frames Hot Chip as Phil Collins-level emoters. But the witty heart of Made in the Dark is "Wrestlers." The song is a simultaneously tongue-in-cheek and earnest exploration of professional wrestling as a metaphor for fighting of other kinds. The two poles of this experience are best represented by the "half nelson, full nelson, Willie Nelson" pun and the refrain of Taylor almost whispering "I think you think I'm about to throw the towel in."
This ability to balance humor with intellect and love is exactly what makes Made in the Dark one of the decade's best albums. The closing piano-and-bleeps ballad "In the Privacy of Our Love" proves that Hot Chip very well may be our current Genesis, and with One Life Stand coming early next year, they seem posed to maintain that position.
A handful of movies (Monster, Boys Don’t Cry, Grave of the Fireflies) have ranked among the best of the last couple decades while ensuring that anyone would never want to see them a second time. These films are so emotionally raw and effective that only the most dedicated of cinephiles and drama junkies would willingly experience the journey again.
“Support Our Troops OH! (Black Angels OH!),” the Generation Kill-inspired avant-jazz, spoken-word protest document at the center of Xiu Xiu’s Fabulous Muscles is a similar work, painting images of grizzly acts and the still oddly disquieting indifference they inspire. While the mess-cum-art is mesmerizing, it’s a harrowing experience that never loses its edge. The success (relative to the above-mentioned films) of “Support Our Troops” as a work worthy of return trips is that it’s a merciful 5 minutes.
One could easily imagine Jamie Stewart, the Larry Clark-like genius behind Xiu Xiu, developing “Support Our Troops,” or any of the emotionally filthy tone poems that comprise 2004’s Fabulous Muscles into a sonic opera of tear-pouring proportions. Instead, Fabulous Muscles is condensed into one of the darkest 40-minute pop-music masterpieces ever composed.
Take, for example, the last minute of “Nieces Pieces (Boat Knife Version)” and the intro of “Clowne Towne”: a guitar riff that feels like cold water down a warm back, a slowly crescendoing organ, undersea techno blips, T.S. Eliot’s “ragged claws” as percussion, a string arrangement as whirlpool, a staticy guitar lazily rowing into the gorgeous quatrain “Up and down through what you thought would be your future / became the dark reminder of / what a rash and inconsistent faith you’ve had / in loving your true self and your true love.” In two-and-half minutes, Xiu Xiu takes listeners through an entire galaxy of sound and emotion, something that most artists can’t do in an entire career.
While “Clowne Towne” and “Support Our Troops” represent the extremes of FM (and Xiu Xiu in general), “I Luv The Valley OH!” is the hit, the club banger for arts and crafty hipsters. The simple bass line, impossibly compressed beat, and barely-there guitar riff take the most cacophonous moments of Joy Division and turn it into an anthem that’s somehow fun in the midst of buckets of dreariness. This is the 00’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” and you will slow dance in your socks to it before you drift off into your valium-aided unconsciousness.
With the better-than-chiptune “Bunny Gamer” and the title track, the only surreal homoerotic love/hate ballad you’ll ever hear or need to, Fabulous Muscles lies directly in the middle of Xiu Xiu catalog, between the most challenging and dark of their work and their most consciously pop efforts. This median is where so many of the greats have produced their best works. In the spirit of walking that thin line, Stewart and Cory McCulloch find a fine balance between heart attack and orgasm, but hold back just enough to make repeat listens a desirable conclusion.
While many are beginning their participation in National Novel Writing Month, Stoplight Sleep is beginning a project of its own. Over the next few months, I'll be writing about 100 of the greatest albums of the 2000s. Each album will get approximately 500 words, adding up to the 50,000 authors pen for NaNo. I'd call it Local Music Criticism Quarter, but it doesn't have quite the same ring to it, so you'll see "The Double Aughts" label instead.
The first post is coming very soon, so be on the look out.
While I've been busy writing about other things in other places, I've also been thinking a lot about the best of the decade. I'll be doing individual posts on some of the albums I think are the best over the next couple months.
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