British Music in the Springtime

Ahhh…spring. No place comes alive in March like East Lansing. Students go out into the median of a boulevard and play frisbee! Or they go sit by the Red Cedar River to do some reading or watch the ducks bathe. St. Patrick’s Day marks the time to begin sitting on your porch and hosting barbecues for friends.

I don’t get that same feeling in Washtenaw County. The only change I noticed here was a much bigger afternoon crowd at the local coffee shop. Long-time readers of this blog will know that I pay a lot of attention to seasons — or at least, I used to. In a way I feel like people stop honoring seasonal shifts once they finish school. I think this contributes to (or is a reflection of) the zombie adult syndrome that’s widespread in modern society. Back around 2005 I started making seasonal mixtapes, and the tracks on my Spring Mix were arranged to come alive in much the same way that the season does. The first few songs are calm and darker (for cold, rainy days), and the last few are really spunky (for the sunny days that bridge into summer).

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Tags: blind pig, field music, measure, spring, the clientele

Put Some Meat Sauce In That Hip Hop

Phew, how does time pass so swiftly? Is it really the third month of 2010 already? Much of what I post on this blog lately reveals the connections I find between different kinds of music. I have a pretty wacky taste in music, which I attribute partly to the expansive forces of the Internet, and partly to my own multifarious personality. When I got to college in 2001, I really began to move away from the FM radio rock I was suckled on. That was thanks in part to the regular programming and evening shows on the Impact 89 FM, the college radio station at MSU.

My favorite show, “The Jazz Spectrum,” aired every Monday night from 8pm to midnight. Not only did it help me concentrate on homework, but it opened me up to the wonders of what some call America’s finest art form. But at some point after finishing my MA of journalism in 2008 (I went back to MSU after some time away), the Impact apparently canceled the show. Now their Monday evenings are occupied by “The Asian Invasion.” I only discovered this by accident, when attempting to listen to their online stream on a Monday not too long ago. I couldn’t find any explanation on their website, but I’m assuming that the host of the jazz program must have moved out of the area. To be honest, I was surprised at how long the show ran. I imagine the host might have started as a student, and then managed to stay in the Lansing area after graduation — which is a rare feat these days.

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Tags: doom, frank zappa, madvillain, madvillainy, uncle meat

The State of the Mash-Up, pt. 2

A couple weeks ago I began a short series looking at the current state of mash-up electronic music. Mash-up as a genre has probably existed since the beginning of the last decade. The earliest instance I’ve found was Soulwax, acting under their other name, 2 Many DJs. They released a ton of bootleg mixtapes that weren’t all that much different than what Girl Talk took so much credit for from 2006 on. In fact, some of the work Soulwax did was better, and they are commendable house producers aside from all that!

People used samples before Soulwax, but the mashing-up wasn’t the central focus before that. It was more to create a background track to rap over, or to add another layer of complexity to the instrumental portion of your music. And in 2010, four years after Girl Talk exploded, I’m wondering if it’s even a legitimate genre anymore. It all feels a bit cliché at this point. Even I tried it out in 2008, though I didn’t really have the training in the software department, nor did I have any necessary equipment like a sampling board. It was still fun, but I’ll get back to that later.

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Tags: 2 many djs, a-trak, aeroplane, bon iver, friendly fires, lump sum, mash-ups, mixtape volume 4, paris, soulwax, the hood internet

The New MusicEdge Concert Calendar!

Just a quick post tonight to let you know about the new MusicEdge Concert Calendar. For a few months I’ve been using Google Calendar to keep track of upcoming concerts. Then tonight I remembered that you can embed Google Calenders anywhere on the web, provided that you make them public so anyone can see the content. So I made a new page on this blog, with a new link that says “Concert Calendar” — LOOK UP AT THE TOP!

(click to enlarge)

It won’t contain every single upcoming show in Michigan, but it will definitely have every concert that I’m even remotely interested in. Most listings outside of Michigan will be music festivals, since people tend to drive up to 10 hours for those things. (Man, typing that reminds me that Rothbury isn’t happening in 2010. That still hasn’t fully hit me yet. What a sad thing though…)

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Tags: bleep.com, daedelus, dubstep, electronica, faltydl, flying lotus, headhunter, hudson mohawke, rustie, techno

The State of the Mash-Up, pt. 1

I’m thoroughly tired of all those year and decade lists, and I’m sure you are too. Now it’s time to move onto something else. Back in October 2009 I saw Neon Indian live at the Magic Stick. It was a decent show despite the relatively small audience. Luckily Alan Polomo’s debut under that name hasn’t gotten played out — especially now that I have a copy in lossless audio. With my new super-powered, sound-reducing headphones, it’s a transcendent listening experience!

I’ll include a few low-res videos from the show below, but that’s not what I intend to talk about here. I want to take a look at the current state of mash-ups. I think it’s still a viable way to make music, and it’s fitting for the ongoing proliferation of digitized culture. But most of the best mash-up artists get barely any attention. Girl Talk got so popular that it made the whole idea seem like a fad. Part of the problem is that there isn’t just one way to make a mash-up. Girl Talk’s Gregg Gillis claims he’s “playing his laptop,” as if it were an instrument in itself. What he’s really doing is picking and choosing bits of songs that he cuts up in advance, and the on-stage mixing is done with DJ software.

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Tags: amanda blank, deadbeat summer, magic stick, mash-ups, neon indian, no reason, psychic chasms, terminally chill, the hood internet

2008 Albums Still On Heavy Rotation

Despite being so connected that I often feel like Neo when he wakes up in his Matrix-pod all submerged in pink goo and attached to a dozen different wires, many of my favorite albums from any given year don’t make their way into my iTunes playlist until the the year after they’re released.

It amazes me how much effort I still put into finding new music. I don’t necessarily spend as much time as back in… say… ‘06 or ‘07. But that’s partly because web technology keeps improving, and it’s now easier for me to track various sources that announce new releases. Just to name a few, I get a weekly email from Allmusic.com, I’ve got Pitchfork and Metacritic in Google Reader, and I listen to Last.fm almost as much as my MP3 collection.

So in the interest of not leaving out those who should have been included in the first place, here are ten albums from 2008 that came to me too late to make that year’s wrap-up. The point is, I’m still listening to these, and you should too!

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Tags: 2009 wrap-up, albums

2009 Honorable Mentions and Favorite EPs

In the interest in getting all these wrap-ups over with, I’m going to try and make this really speedy. Don’t blink…

2009 Albums – Honorable Mentions

I couldn’t narrow it down to 10. Think of it as a game of Blackjack if that helps (as in, top 10 plus 11 honorable mentions).

21. Nosaj Thing – Drift: While not nearly as captivating as his 2006 EP Octopus Views, this is still a noteworthy release when viewed from the perspective of the budding electronic/instrumental hip hop scene in Los Angeles. The dark, futuristic sounds and L.A. stamp always make me think of Blade Runner.
20. Wild Beasts – Two Dancers: I’m no fan of Antony (Antony and the Johnsons, Hercules and Love Affair) and his sexually ambiguous cooing, and I was quick to group Wild Beasts in that same general category. However, I was also quick to admit my folly. This album offers operatic vocals and humid atmospherics, along with hushed guitars and keyboards that fit within the general New York indie rock style of the last decade (though this group is actually from England).

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Tags: 2009 wrap-up, albums, EPs, honorable mentions

The Most Underrated Bands of the Decade

Wow, I have 17 unpublished drafts on this blog — and this is a new one on top of that. Apparently I’ve been totally overwhelmed lately (say, for the past five months straight). A boring winter might be just what I need!

To make this intro brief, I’m going to try and get through two or three more post of decade wrap-up before returning to the regular rotation of music news, concert reviews, and the like. With that said, here is a run-down of some of the bands that I feel didn’t get enough attention from either audiences or music critics. They weren’t invited to big festivals, nor did they ever sell many records. But they all recorded great music, and some — I can say from first-hand experience — are (or were) incredible performers. Here they are, in no particular order.

1. Doves – This British band released three amazing records in the 2000s before putting out the lackluster Kingdom of Rust in 2009. Like many bands emerging under the Brit-pop umbrella at the beginning of the decade, they were completely eclipsed by the major labor monster that Coldplay became. These fellows should be ranked among the U.K. greats in their genre: Badly Drawn Boy, Supergrass, even Radiohead (in their earlier, less godly existence).
2. Aloha – One of the many bands I found on the Xbox snowboarding classic Amped, I’ve found something to appreciate in every stage of their band development. 2000’s That’s Your Fire was a sprawling work with an abstract jazz flavor, mostly thanks to the prominent use of vibraphone. The middle phase of Here Comes Everyone and Some Echoes showed their growing confidence and pop sensibilities. Then the glistening, majestic Light Works appeared suddenly in December 2007 — and that’s the last I’ve heard from them. It’s a shame that they couldn’t garner the attention that other Polyvinyl artists (like of Montreal) have managed to. Oh well…

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Tags: 2000s decade wrap-up

My Favorite Music of 2009: The Top Ten Albums

Hello, hello! I’ve been very inconsistent on this blog lately, and for that I apologize. For the next month or so, you’ll see a mix of posts about the decade 2000-2009 (look in the tag list for “2000s Decade Wrap-Up”), the year 2009 (look for “2009 wrap-up”), and regular updates and analysis. I’ve already started on the decade posts with my 50 albums slideshow and the list of my favorite 200 albums. Now I’m going to set that stuff aside and discuss my favorite music of 2009.

First of all, you can use this player to scan some of my favorite songs of the year. Keep in mind that Project Playlist doesn’t have access to everything, so some are just songs from albums I enjoyed — not necessarily my absolute favorite tracks.

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Tags: 2009 wrap-up

The Long List: My 200 Favorite Albums

In case you were wondering what some of the albums were in that audio slideshow, or you just want to see what albums and artists mattered most to me in the past decade, here is THE LONG LIST! These are 200 of my favorite albums of the decade, years 2000-2009.

I feel like I should explain some of these, but there are stories behind all of them! It would take me days — I mean entire days, to do that. So a part of me doesn’t want to even try. I will definitely be writing essays about some of the choices in the top 50. I may even break this list of 200 into genres or styles, or put them all on a time line based on when they were released. I’d much rather provide some context and analysis than just spurt out the trite little blurbs that populate so many music publications today.

Evidently you can expect an outpouring of posts in the next couple months. Aside from the individual album essays, there should be discussions of my favorite concerts of the decade, notable EPs, music formats (as in vinyl and MP3), MP3 players, P2P networking, music festivals, and more.

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Tags: 2000s decade wrap-up, albums