So, how do you get out of your head? Isn’t that what we all desperately need as respite, a way to escape the incessant weight of being under your own ceaseless observation? Perhaps, as the Handsome Family put it:
“This is why people OD on pills/and jump from the/Golden Gate Bridge
Anything to feel weightless again”
Let’s go to a concert.
Albums added in February: 17,821
Featured Selections
Apoptygma Berzerk, You and Me Against the World (14)
Apoptygma’s Stephan Groth met stiff scene resistance in shifting from earlier, harsh attack EBM to the kind of epic synth rock exhibited here to great effect. Naturally, cries of ’sellout’ and fan rebellion were followed by the album achieving runaway success, particularly in Tokio Hotel-loving Germany. Anthemic, crashing chords tear the roof off with tracks like “In This Together” and the gripping “Cambodia.”
Asobi Seksu, Hush (12)
Asobi Seksu return with more immaculate, Lush-esque twee dreampop.
Autechre, Amber (11)
-, Incunabula (11)
Before they got self-consciously experimental to the point of becoming ‘difficult’ music, Autechre put out some wonderfully melodic IDM in Incunabula and Amber, which would be followed shortly after by Tri Repetae.
Scooter, Jumping All Over the World (24)
It’s Scooter. Jumping All Over the Place is pretty much self-descriptive.
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Craft has been said to be the art of doing more with less. Part of the appeal of famous adaptationalists like MacGyver and The Swiss Family Robinson is how they take everyday objects and minimal materials and create sophisticated solutions through inventiveness and a deep command of basic principles. So it should perhaps not be such a delightful surprise that the Black Cab Sessions reconnect with a primal experience of musical performance, stripped down as they are to musicians stuffed in the back of London’s famous cabs and making the most of a limited space. Yet within that basic premise – “One song, one take, one cab” – some truly wonderful, understated experiences develop.
Albums added in January: 14,007
eMusic Feature
Saddle Creek Essentials
Featured Selections
Andrew Bird, Noble Beast (12)
Andrew Bird continues to veer further away from his swing jazz roots with the Bowl of Fire while continuing to produce consistently pleasing pop/folk concoctions, with trademark violin, whistling, and lyrical flourishes to challenge The Decemberists’ Colin Meloy.
Client, Heartland (12)
-, Untitled Remix (12)
-, Xerox Machine (6)
Not as immediately infectious as preceding albums Client and City, Heartland takes a few listens to gell, but ultimately still delivers the retro synthpop with a bit more Gary Glitter stamp and stomp, particularly the Alice Cooper-esque “Lights Go Out” and their cover of Adam Ant’s “Xerox Machine.” The Untitled Remix includes primarily mixes from Heartland plus collaborations with Douglas McCarthy and fellow synthetes Replica.
Stoa, Silmand (13)
More silky-swoopy neoclassical darkwave from ex-Hyperium act Stoa.
Maria Taylor, Lynn Tweeter Flower (11)
Both Taylor and fellow Azure Ray bandmate Orenda Fink get several older solo releases added (below), while Lynn Tweeter Flower represents the latest output of AR’s more straightforward half.
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Albums added in December: 16,452
Major additions this month from the Metropolis Records back catalog, featuring Darkwave/EBM/Industrial acts like Clan of Xymox, Combichrist, Covenant, Haujobb, KMFDM, Suicide Commando, Velvet Acid Christ, VNV Nation, and Wumpscut.
Featured Selections
Cranes, Cranes (11)
Cranes choose their eighth album to go eponymous, four years after Particles and Waves. Alison Shaw’s child plaint remains a constant in their dream pop repertoire, backed with the familiar strumming of Jim Shaw, and accompanied by the bell-like tones from their more recent outings.
Gotan Project, Live (24)
As it says on the tin, live renditions of Gotan Project’s electronic-flecked nuevo tango add spice and uncertainty to their more battened-down studio versions. The album covers material from their tours supporting La Revancha del Tango and Lunático, plus two orchestral reworkings.
Sigur Rós, Med sud I eyrum vid spilum endalaust (11)
Translating as “With a Buzz in Our Ears We Play Endlessly,” the fifth release by Icelandic post-rockers Sigur Rós adds more upbeat whimsy than earlier Hopelandic laments and includes their first song in English, “All Alright.”
Hector Zazou, L’Absence (11)
A companion album to Strong Currents, featuring some of the same featured female vocalists (Nicola Hitchcock of Mandalay, Caroline Lavelle, Emma Stow) plus others including actress Asia Argento, and a rare male voice by the French singer Edo. Sadly, among the last of Zazou’s collaborative efforts before his untimely death late last year.
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[No album count this month; I didn't check in time.]
Featured Selections
Au Revoir Simone, Reverse Migration (13)
Remix collection of the entirety of 2007’s The Bird of Music, with “Sad Song” and “The Lucky One” both earning double dips. Some tracks are actually more stripped down rather than built up, such as the spare Slow Club mix of “The Lucky One” which concludes in a rousingly messy chorus round.
Lisa Hannigan, Sea Sew (10)
Longtime musical partner of Damien Rice, Irish sweetheart Hannigan was set free amid some untoward drama, but confidently breaks out on her own on Sea Sew. The album enjoyed early success with the leadoff single “Lille.”
Ladyhawke, Ladyhawke (12)
Kiwi Pip Brown plunders the dusty chest of 80s pop and pulls off the new-new wave secret soundtrack to a John Hughes film that never was.
Ulrich Schnauss, Goodbye (10)
Schnauss moves on from his homage to 70s space rock like Tangerine Dream to epic 90s shoegaze like Slowdive and SoulWhirlingSomewhere, right from the aching swell of opener “Never Be the Same” with its crashing synth waves under blissed out vocals. Music for dreams to ascend into.
Albums added in October: 24,319
eMusic Features
Featured Selections
Queen of independent alternative folk, Ani DiFranco makes her eMusic debut with a whole mess of albums – from the earliest on her own label Righteous Babe up through recent studio releases.
Lush, Topolino (12)
Along with the sunny change in style Lush showed on Lovelife, they also put out a blizzard of quality B-sides. This Topolino is one of two regional collections of those (the Japanese version having a slightly different track listing), featuring a number of summery gems. Others are included on the singles also added this month.
Scooter, The Age Of Love (11)
-, And the Beat Goes On (11)
-, Back To The Heavyweight Jam (12)
-, Mind The Gap (14)
-, No Time To Chill (12)
-, Our Happy Hardcore (10)
-, Sheffield (12)
-, The Stadium Techno Experience (12)
-, We Bring The Noise (12)
-, Who’s Got The Last Laugh Now? (12)
-, Wicked! (11)
Along with Dune and Blümchen, I spent a lot of time and even more money tracking down these import albums of happy hardcore mainstay Scooter, many of which never made it far out of Germany despite being in English (although they have had significant success in the UK). In addition to the albums above, numerous singles and compilations were also added.
t.A.T.u., Happy Smiles (12)
Despite losing the tabloid allure of their faux teen-lesbian act, t.A.T.u. continues to turn out enjoyable pop albums. And like their prior releases, this saw dual release – first in Russia as Vesyolye Ulybki (Happy Smiles) and then repackaged as Waste Management.
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Albums added in September:14,769
Featured Selections
Handsome Family, Through the Trees (13)
Funny story – my friend TNG played this alt-country couple’s album essentially non-stop for six months in an office we shared, and I hated it. Now I can’t live without it. I have since sampled the rest of their catalog, and while still quality all, they never top the lyrical genius and sublime modesty of tracks like “Weightless Again”, “My Sister’s Tiny Hands”, “Giant of Illinois” and “The Woman Downstairs.”
The Notwist, Neon Golden (13)
Glitch acoustic-inflected marginal pop, of the Ms. John Soda vein. “Consequence” will remind you of something you can never quite pin down.
Ulrich Schnauss, A Strangely Isolated Place (8)
-, Far Away Trains Passing By (6+6)
-, Passing By (4)
Ulrich Schnauss started out in homage to early Tangerine Dream and gradually evolves over multiple releases into warm 90s shoegazer ambience, sounding like instrumentals left off Slowdive’s Souvlaki.
Hector Zazou & Swara, In the House of Mirrors (10)
It came as a shock to discover that Hector Zazou had died, which I found out simply by reading a user review of this, his final collaboration.
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Albums added in August: 12,936
Featured Selections
Blümchen, Best Of (33)
A fantastic double-album collecting Blümchen’s hits from the happy hardcore of Herzfrequenz to the sophisticated dance-pop of Die Welt Gehört Dir, plus numerous remixes.
[ed. note: Under the revised album credits system, this is an even better bargain - 33 tracks as a 12-credit album.]
Nina Deli, Bricolage (6)
A MySpace discovery, Nina produces hushed post-triphop atmospheric balladry.
Hybrid, Soundsystem 01 (15+12)
Despite being a mix collection featuring numerous high-profile electronic beat artists (Trentemøller, Sasha, Spooky) the composition and prevailing mood frame a much quieter, downtempo, emotive experience anchored by film composers like Harry Gregson-Williams (Kingdom of Heaven, Man on Fire) and John Murphy (28 Days Later, Sunshine).
Ra Ra Riot, The Rhumb Line (10)
Debut album by act often described as a cross between Arcade Fire’s majestic scoring and Vampire Weekend’s jittery pop. Includes their cover of Kate Bush’s “Suspended in Gaffa.”
Albums added in July: 13,106
eMusic has (finally?) garnered a Web 2.0 makeover, adding in the obligatory design elements: large type treatments, pastels, glassy controls, AJAX motion, and of course gradients. Each album is also now festooned with related content from YouTube, Flickr, Wikipedia, and 17 other ’social networking’ sites. Fortunately many of these are collapsable so you can avoid them if you’re not doing more than just grabbing an album.
What I find most exciting, in suitably pedantic fashion, is the inclusion of much higher resolution album artwork. eMusic still features a lot of releases that are difficult to source elsewhere, which also includes finding quality cover art. Their prior thumbnails were even smaller than the iTunes default badge, let alone suitable for environments like CoverFlow or the iPod Touch. If you’re appreciably obsessive, you may want to go back into your download library and upgrade some of your album art, although it should be noted that some albums still have only the smaller original image and patchwork default images reminscent of Sierpinski triangles.
Featured Selections
Einstürzende Neubauten, The Jewels (15)
Collection of tracks originally offered to band supporters via the band’s site at neubauten.org. A step back from the more-conventional songcraft of previous works (e.g. Alles Wider Offen) to earlier experimental flair. Doubtless this is due to the origin of the tracks, which were constructed based on idea cards similar to Eno’s “Oblique Strategies” and taking lyrical cues from dreams.
Head Like A Kite, There Is Loud Laughter Everywhere (13)
I originally discovered Head Like A Kite via Pandora suggestion based on a playlist derived from the Cranes, though they sound very little alike. Loud Laughter, HLAK’s second album, takes more chances, covers a wider range of influences, and includes the irrepressive “No Ordinary Caveman.”
Nine Inch Nails, The Slip (10)
Trent Reznor’s online promotion experimentwas to distribute the album digitally for free as a reward to fans (still available on the band’s site). Along with Ghosts I-IV, the album restored my faith that Reznor &co. could still put out quality material that wasn’t generated by the same algorithm and sound blender combination that composed much of The Fragile on. Since you can download the album for free elsewhere, the main motivation to purchase here is to support NIN as you might buying the physical copy.
Ratatat, LP3 (13)
Jubilant rock carnival instrumentals make for infectious playground listening.
The Secret Meeting, Ultrashiver (10)
Collaboration between Curve’s noisemaker Dean Garcia and Collide’s vocalist kaRIN. With Collide already being among the most Curve-esque of the darkwave contingent, the crunch-clash result is the kind of beautiful noise you would expect.
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