Let me tell you about some of my favorite albums in rotation at the moment!
Drag the River - Bad at Breaking Up [Suburban Home] This alt-country band from Fort Collins has been around for quite awhile and it seems like they're always getting better. Definitely on par with other heart-crushing groups like Lucero. This is a collection of 20 rarities from the band including 7" tracks and B-sides. The packaging alone looks like reason enough to buy this one for yourself. The band "broke up" in 2007, but that hasn't seemed to have stopped them from playing shows. In fact, members Jon Snodgrass and Chad Price are releasing brand new solo records this year which will probably be popping up in rotation themselves sometime soon!
Julie Doiron - I Can Wonder What You Did With Your Day [Jagjaguwar] Julie has been around the independent music scene for quite awhile. In the 90s she was in the notable band Eric's Trip and last years she appeared on an album with Phil Elverum. (Our CD of the month from October!) This album has been bashed a bit for returning to the fuzzy distorted sounds of Eric's Trip, but that sound was so good I don't mind hearing it again. There are some cutesy happy songs that are pretty good, but the best ones are sad and lonely. All the songs sound so big and all are solid indie rock anthems. This record bears repeated listens.
Various - I Woke Up One Morning in May [Mississippi Records] Mississippi Records is one of my absolute favorite record labels around right now. They find the best music you've never, ever heard and put it out on affordable limited edition vinyl. And they're so hip they don't even have a website. Thurston Moore seems to have been involved with the label at some point, but I'll let wikipedia explain that better than I can. On this album we have a collection of blues from 1927-1934. These extra crackly tunes are refreshingly barebone, with just voice and guitar and simple lyrics. Maybe these unrelenting Depression-era songs are just what we need for our current situation.
In a dive urbanized java-stop I'm giving a first listen to Alela Diane's latest Rough Trade release, To Be Still. This CD is so deck it's killing me, the grayed out bohemian goofing my mind through ear-buds and window reflections, typing on a single-finger keyboard and getting off to the effortless melodies and seemingly overcast lyrics. All the while tapping my foot and abusing the free Wi-Fi, searching out exactly who is Alela Diane Menig?
Running up and around the west coast between Northern California, S.F., and Portland brewed up the smooth loathing Psych Folk style Alela is becoming known for. Her lyrics float and sink on cloudy mountains and snow-covered paths. Windy relationships pull at this child like a sedated kite over a rocky beach. The range of her voice spans the clarity of Arctic ice and the mellowness of a 56 year old whiskey I just dug out of my dead father's liquor stash.
Sniffing through the world-wideness does not give up much dirt on Alela's backing band, except it consists of her father Tom Menig (Deadbeats), hipster Michael Hurley (hepcat fiddler with Son Volt, Calexico and Lucinda Williams) and a host of musically adept friends she keeps in her kitchen by feeding them grilled cheese sandwiches and smoky lyrics.
This 11 track CD is a complete joy and I predict it to be my top pick for 2009... now I am committed. The vocals are right out front and the accompaniment includes a diversity of stringed instruments (cello, fiddle, mandolin, banjo), plenty of tribal beats and interesting effects. It all fits so perfectly with Alela Diane's vocals.
The eerie stillness of "Every Path" makes it my favorite track. Other joys of solace include the walking beat with steel guitar in "To Be Still" and the somewhat traditional folk sound of "The Alder Trees".
Alela Diane Menig is playing SXSW this week, then directly off to the UK for a European tour through April. She returns to the states in early May to play Seattle's Triple Door with Iron & Wine. I can only imagine the harmonic possibilities of a Sam Beam/Alela Diane duet.
Previous releases by Menig include The Pirate's Gospel [Holocene Music, 2006] and two self-released EP's, Forest Parade [2003] and The Pirate's Gospel, [2004].
-Jay Niemoth
"To Be Still" is Radio1190's CD of the month for March 2009. Read more reviews at Vitamin Fuzz. Read More......
Its been a little quiet on the 1190 blog lately... I blame SXSW. Therefore, no new RECORD REVISIT this week. But here's your chance to vote for the next record from my collection that I re-review!
VOTE FOR NEXT FRIDAY'S RECORD REVISIT:
1)The Busy Signals - Baby's First Beats 2)DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince - He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper 3)Papa M - Live in a Shark Cage VOTE BY LEAVING A COMMENT IN THE COMMENT SECTION BELOW!
Okay, so the whole SXSW thing. I've gotten exciting texts from friends over the last week about who they're seeing on the streets, how much bbq they can eat, what shows they've liked and its made me kind of wish that I was in Austin myself.
But since I can't be there this year, I'll just pull out my old VHS tapes of the tv show "Austin Stories." Did you ever see this show? There's only 12 episodes and it was on MTV back in the 90s.
I don't believe its out on dvd, but you can watch pretty much all episodes on youtube.
The unsuitably named genre free-folk has gained enough praise and attention in the past couple of years to raise its leading artists to rock star status; specifically Devendra Banhart, Coco Rosie and Joanna Newsome. In doing so the music has practically wilted away, becoming stale and formulaic. The name ‘free-folk’ implies a devotion to free-improvisation and unconventional structures; yet few artists have followed these obvious implications. Apart from Sunburned Hand of Man, Jeweled Antler Collective, No-Neck Blues Band and a few other intrepid souls, most artists choose the formula to success rather than the more uncharted path of exploration. Marissa Nadler on the other hand is a bit of an enigma. She too doesn’t employ free-improvisation and although she is stylistically connected to some of the more famed names of the so-called free-folk scene, her traditional style is somehow distinct, a mirror of the past with a haunting ghost-like presence. Perhaps her uniqueness is because she’s managed to stay under the radar, which has enabled her from selling-out. However, I don’t think her distance from mediocrity is as dogmatic as fame equals unauthentic art, but rather because the honesty of her songwriting is unwavering.
In the same desolate vein of Songs III: Bird on the Water, Nadler’s latest offering winds through a decaying forest of isolation, heartbreak and longing. But it would be foolish to expect an album called Little Hells to be a strict joie de vivre. But unlike her sorrow filled contemporaries, namely Jason Molina and Mark Kozelek, Nadler’s delivery offers an unspoken sense of hope, like on “Ghosts & Lovers” as she gorgeously utters, “I’m more than blue, I’m violet.”
Little Hells utilizes the dramatic change of seasons as an allegory for the unpredictably of love. Change shapes more then the lyricism of Little Hells; Nadler leaves behind the barren instrumentation of her usual guitar and voice for a beautiful warmth of organs, strings, percussion and steel-guitar, which together with lyrics like, “I know we had a beautiful life, but things change like the leaves on the vine” and “the flowers died a long time ago”, craft a poignant impression. When Nadler sings, “cob webs and rose pedals define her,” on the albums title track, although she is speaking of “a dark cloud of little hells”, it is also a fitting line for Nadler herself: an emblem of her dusty sound, sincere soul and austere charm.
-Bardos Freedoom (Chicago correspondent)
Little Hells is currently featured in Radio1190's new rotation. Read more reviews at Vitamin Fuzz.Read More......
Perhaps the most underappreciated element in popular music is women’s immense contribution to hip-hop. An impact that has been suppressed by prearranged mainstream strategies to enforce hip-hop through ridiculous notions of hypermasculinty and chauvinism. Telling the true tale of hip-hop is long overdue and fortunately Soul Jazz Records has once again stepped up the task with the celebratory compilation: Fly Girls! B-Boys Beware: Revenge of the Super Female Rappers. A fitting title, for revenge is best served cold on two turntables and a microphone.
Fly Girls commemorates thirty years of women MC’s on record. Sugar Hill Records entrepreneur Sylvia Robinson produced the first commercial hip-hop album in 1979 with “Rappers Delight”. Nevertheless, women in hip hop follow a lineation further back than Sugar Hill Records and can be traced to the funky-sassy-attitude of Millie Jackson “The Grandmother of Rap” and depending on how flexible your definition is, to Nina Simon’s “Funkier than a Mosquitoes Tweeter”. But Soul Jazz’s timetable on Fly Girls is appropriate for the sound we’ve come to identify as hip-hop today.
Soul Jazz has done a bang-up job blending legendary names from the Golden Age, with the likes of Queen Latifah, MC Lyte and Roxanne Shante, with forgotten artists like JJ Fad and Cookie Crew, while also mixing in contemporary names such as Missy Elliott. From the old school to the new, from boom-boom-bap, club bangers and G-funk to dope jazzy beats, with so much diversity, Fly Girls is sewn together with the flow of empowerment.
-Bardos Freedoom (Chicago correspondent) Fly Girls! is currently featured in Radio1190's new rotation. Read more reviews at Vitamin Fuzz.Read More......
Its Friday and that means that its time for DJ Alisha's Record Revisit.
If you don't know what that means, check out my previous blog here about this new segment I've started.
So you voted and this week's Record Revisit winner is Ween's album Pure Guava.
VITAL STATS-
Artist: Ween Album: Pure Guava
Label: Elektra Year: 1992
I must have bought this album after hearing Ween on Beavis and Butt-head. You remember the "Push th' Little Daisies" skit? Well I loved their voices and needed to own their music.
Nowadays when I play Ween on the radio, I find myself wanting to play songs from Mollusk,12 Golden Country Greats or their latest album La Cucaracha. I remember for a while "Freedom of '76" from Chocolate and Cheese would get requested ALL the time, to the point it was annoying that I never play songs from that anymore, even though I really like that album (and I know guys like the cover of that album).
So I'm listening to Pure Guava and I'm drugged up now on cold medicine and all I can think right now is this is a really great stoner record. I don't smoke "the pot," however, its kind of transforming me into the mindset as if I was. I feel all noodle-y and I realize I don't play songs off this record on the radio because there's a lot of curse words.
"Push th' Little Daisies" is still a cool quirky song, but I'm liking "Touch My Tooter," "Don't Get 2 Close (2 My Fantasy)," "Tender Situation," "The Stallion Pt. 3" and "Poop Ship Destroyer" better. A song that killed my "noodle-y" buzz is "Pumpin' 4 the Man" ...its a little too cloying for me in my snot-nosed, flu-like state. But then the album redeems itself with the next song, a slow song, "Sarah" with female vocals. "Big Jilm" is pretty kooky cute too.
I don't know about you, but I group Ween together with the group The Frogs and out of the two bands, I listen to The Frogs more, so I'm glad I'm revisiting this album again today. All in all, I like this album (actually a lot), but I don't see myself putting this on as "my album" again anytime soon. Its definitely one of those albums that complimented a different time in my life.
I really like the Ween brothers (BTW: they're not really brothers by birth, but they might as well be), they have a great sense of humor and are great songwriters even if their music many sound "weird" to some.
I saw them at Red Rocks a while back and they have such devoted fans. My brother is a huge fan. At one of their Red Rocks shows he was doing a cookout in the parking lot handing out "weeners" to people and making friends who love Ween just as much as him. I like them a lot, but I wouldn't consider myself a "Ween-hard" or whatever the fans call themselves. A few years ago I remember reading this great A.V. Club interview with Dean Ween where he said that fans come to the town in Pennsylvania where they live all the time to find them. Dean said that while he used to love hanging out with fans, he doesn't want to be bothered much anymore (I need to find that article, it gave me a fresh perspective to the band at that time).
Ween has been making records for about 25 years and I appreciate all of them, even if they're not "culturally important" on a mass scale, I think they at least deserve a listen. I'm glad I revisited Pure Guava for you today.
Rock out with me, won't you:
NOW FOR NEXT WEEK, VOTE FOR THE NEXT RECORD REVISIT:
1)Galaxie 500 - Copenhagen
2)Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Good Son
3)Destroyer - City of Daughters
VOTE BY LEAVING A COMMENT IN THE COMMENT SECTION BELOW (you don't need a login and you can vote anonymously if you want to).
Merzbow is the king of dense Japanese noise-scapes, and Richard Pinhas is one of the most innovative French electronic pioneers, founding Heldon in the mid-seventies and continuing to explore his layered guitar and sequencer based walls of sound. This disc is surprisingly good, showing why both of these artists have longevity and interest today. The melding of each's individual styles is seamless. The only beats are the propellant hum of the machines. The trick that many current experimental-noise projects miss is that density of sound is not the only criteria! This release exhibits swells and levels of drones and melodies panning across the frequency spectrum. The clarity of the recording results in a shimmering mesmerizing dose of sound.
Since the tracks are long, the best way to play some of this in 1190's mix would be to cross-fade in at some of the times noted. Merzbow now has hundreds of releases, driving noise collectors nuts. Richard Pinhas was heavily influenced by Robert Fripp & Eno's experimentation with Revox tape-loops in the early '70s (No Pussyfooting and Evening Star), and even titled an early Heldon track "In the Wake of King Fripp". Building on the sound developed across Electronique Guerilla and the Chronolyse LPs released on obscure French labels, Pinhas's looped methodology has advanced with technology. Merzbow's anchoring pulses in the mix are reminiscent of Germany's Klaus Schulze, making this release both a referential and contemporary polyglot of global electronic experimentation.
Swirly super-melodic post shoegazing yummy-ness from the man behind Swervedriver.This is Adam Franklin's second release under his own name, following on the heels of 2007's wonderful "Bolts of Melody" disc.Here we have the distillation of Hendrix-y psychedelic whirly-whammy and a truely English sensibility of what a surf and art damaged pop song should sound like. Folks who were at the Marquis in Denver at the Swervedriver reunion show last year know what that amazing and under-rated band can do.Adam Franklin's solo efforts have expanded on the trippy production values and stellar hooks, while making futuristic sounds.Records in your collection it sounds like: Syd Barrett, Early Who, The Creation and Mark Kozelek/Red House Painters.Track 6 quotes "Crimson In Clover"...
-Uncle Jeff (Route 78, Sundays 10-12)
"Spent Bullets" is currently featured in 1190's new rotation.
I'm gonna start a weekly exercise on here... a project if you will, and I need your help.
Here's what I'm doing- Picking a record I own that I haven't listened to in years and re-review it!
How you can help- Comment on what album you think I should review next. I'll leave you three choices and whichever gets the most votes, I'll revisit for the following Friday.
My personal rules laid out for myself- No google, you don't want to hear me try and sound "super smart" by "regurging" other peoples' thoughts on the album. I will only write about what I remember about the record/artist and how the songs make me feel. I can read the liner notes in the cd to get album info. Also, I want to post a song so you can hear what the album sounds like, so I may use youtube or another source to post audio. I might also use google images to add a little pizzazz to the entry.
One last thing- Beware, I may accidentally post "incorrect" info about a band members name or somethin', so if I do, feel free to correct me in the comments area on this blog entry. I'm trying to use the filofax of musical information in my head and not rely on the internetzzzz.
<3
Sound good? Okay, let's begin!
VITAL STATS-
Artist: Land of the Loops
Album: Bundle of Joy Label: Up Records Year: 1996
What I remember about Land of the Loops... I think Alan Sutherland is the guy behind this project and if I remember correctly, he has a Denver connection. Maybe with Robert from The Apples in Stereo?! His albums are weaved together by using "found" audio like cassettes from thrift stores which help to tell a story/ compliment a song.
I found out about them via an old roommate who owned this record. When I heard him play it over dinner one night, I knew I needed it too. Why I own this album... the song "Multi-Family Garage Sale (Bargain Bin Mix)." I have played this song so much over the last ten years. It has even landed on many a mixtape that I've made.
Now, its time to listen to the record. I can see why I liked it back then, but now I feel like there's too many audio clips that its a little distracting for me. I find myself just wanting pop songs without the added recording that takes away from the songs. It still holds up with a few good/great songs and the clips are are cleverly put together.
As I listen to this, I'm making connections in my head. Its starting to sound very "late-90s" to me. In a great way. Its putting me back where I was musically at this time in my teens and reminding me why I liked and still like this genre. I liked it because its lo-fi, but well produced enough to be listen-able. It honored the Casio keyboard, it used samples of clips from filmstrips 'n stuff that you would never encounter otherwise. It has cute girl vocals. This album actually really reminds me of Bran Van 3000 and their album Glee. I used to LOVE that album too.
I liked this music because it was a quirky and poppy retreat away from the rock and crybaby stuff I loved equally as much back then like Modest Mouse and Radiohead. Looking back, I think it was good for me to not be immersed into the rock all the time... Land of the Loops was like listening to Erasure, but I didn't need to get up and dance to it if I didn't want to. It was enough to put me in a happy place, but I could do my homework to this album.
Overall, this isn't a 5-star record on a mass scale, but at the time it was for me. I would say that if there were mp3s for download ten years ago (a la iTunes Store), I maybe would have just bought the "Multi-Family Garage Sale..." song, but I'm glad I own the whole album, because I was able to discover a cool concept album with more than one great song on it.
Notable songs/tracks: -I Confess -Growing Concern -Burning Clutch (Five-Speed Dub) -Heidi Cakes ...and here's my jam, "Multi-Family Garage Sale (Bargain Bin Mix)." But wait! Before you press play, I just want to ask you not to watch the video. Close your eyes or have another window open. Its clearly a fan video as it doesn't appear that there was an official music video and it may ruin the listening experience.
EDIT: I'm now on my second listen of the record and I like it even better than the first listen. I kind of want to listen to Bran Van now.
This concludes my first Record Revisit, what'd you think? Will you help me sustain this segment by voting for next week's record?
VOTE FOR NEXT WEEK'S RECORD REVISIT- 1)Jurassic 5 - Quality Control 2)Sixteen Horsepower - Low Estate 3)Ween - Pure Guava
BTW: I chose these records at random by looking up at a lonely pile of cds on a really tall shelf in my office. I can't even tell you the last time I've listened to any of these as a whole.
MAKE SURE TO ADD A COMMENT BELOW AND VOTE FOR NEXT WEEK'S RECORD REVISIT!
Grouper, the moniker of Portland’s experimental song crafter Liz Harris, showed up on numerous best-of lists last year with her debut for Type Records, Dragging a Dead Dear up a Hill. The moody landscapes and darkly delicate vocals parallel the title in its resemblance of a wistful forest, at times howling only to be followed by faint whispers. For Harris’s first release of 2009, she’s self-released a split 7-inch with City Center, the latest lo-fi project of Fred Thomas, of Saturday Looks Good to Me and His Name Is Alive.
The A-side, “False Horizon,” harbors the familiar sound of Grouper’s previous release, yet the vinyl gives her murky strums and croons added warmth. City Center’s “This Is How We See in the Dark” utilizes backward masking and vocals hidden behind the haze of the instrumentation to create a lovely odd-pop number to finish the split. All that on limited-edition clear vinyl.
The desert is often romanticized in modern music. From Josh Homes’Desert Sessions and Six Organs of Admittance’s “The Desert Is a Circle” to Magic Lantern’s “Cactus Raga,” the desert's vast desolate landscape and its encompassing mystery is revered for its ability to inspire. As a Southwesterner, I've often fallen pray to this admiration, and I generally flock to music associated with the desert in any way. The Sublime Frequencies label hails from Seattle (a lush location for the home of so many arid sounds), but it has found a more authentic desert sound than most of the American underground. Group Bombino's Guitars From Agadez Vol. 2 is a further exploration into the Saharan guitar culture, and the music doesn’t merely rely on desert themes or use the desert as a muse; it is entirely a product of the desert.
Sublime Frequencies has proven that Saharan guitar culture is flourishing. The label introduced the scene to Western audiences through the auditory documentary Folk Music of the Sahara: Among the Tuareg of Libya and the group Tinariwen, which translates to "many deserts" (after the Tuereg belief that the Sahara is a region of numerous deserts). Since its initial Tuereg guitar release, the label has put out Group Doueh’s Guitar Music from the Western Sahara and Group Inerane’s Guitars from Agadez.
It's the second in the Guitars from Agadez series, but it's a perfect introduction to the Tuereg guitar sound because it features the two fundamental styles. The first side displays what Sublime Frequencies calls “dry guitar,” a stripped-down acoustic style, whereas the second side boosts the vigor with the Tuereg electric sound. Propelled by the innovative guitarist Omara Mochtar, Group Bombino offers a vivid glimpse into one of the most hidden regions and ethnic groups on the planet.
The Tuereg, a suppressed minority group in the Western Sahara (primarily in Mali and Niger), have struggled for autonomy for nearly a century: Group Bombino’s revolutionary sound parallels this struggle. The area of Agadez, where Group Bombino resides, has been shut off from the rest of the region. Although the political turmoil in Agadez is as dismal as the harsh environment that encompasses the region, Bombino’s reverberations are hopeful, optimistic and fertile.
-Bardos Freedoom
Guitars from Agadez is currently featured in 1190's new rotation.
Drag the River - Bad at Breaking Up [Suburban Home]
Various - I Woke Up One Morning in May [Mississippi Records]
But since I can't be there this year, I'll just pull out my old VHS tapes of the tv show 
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