FaveSongs2009 is coming! In the meantime.... a Teiam Player mix

I'll be finally finishing up my FaveSongs2009 list over the weekend, so check back soon. But in the meantime, enjoy another part in my series of mixes which is sort of a Best of 2009 series anyway.

Below, both streamable and downloadable from my SoundCloud [listen at work! put it on your iPod!] is Taking Off Heads vol 3 [vol two exists and will be along shortly; I like being unpredictable].

This one starts off in about the same vein, with some chill MillionYoung [you'll hear more of the Floridian in 2010], works through some good chill tunes before eventually picking up pace with some Dan Deacon, finally rounding out with some Major Lazer and melodic but grimy dubstep of a Doorly remix.

Tracklist:

MillionYoung - Chlorophyl

Beach House - Lover of Mine

Toro Y Moi - Blessa

Tune-Yards - Hatari

Animal Collective - I Think I Can

White Denim - Regina Holding Hands

Gold Panda - Quitter's Raga

Dan Deacon - Surprise Stefani

Yeasayer - Tightrope

Major Lazer feat Santigold - Hold the Line [LehtMoJoe remix]

Calvin Harris - Not Alone [Doorly remix]

Taking Off Heads vol 3 by Teiam Player

If you missed the first one, you need to check it out. I'm egotistical and like all the work I do, but vol 1 was one of my favorites. Lots of good chill music there.

OHWNT FaveAlbums2009 part 1: #1 and 50-26

Well hello there.. welcome back.

In 2007, the first year of this here blog, I think I neglected to come up with a list of my favorite albums of that year. But it was no secret that my favorite, from about July of that year, was Yeasayer's All Hour Cymbals. Animal Collective's strong Strawberry Jam and Menomena's Friend or Foe were up there, too, but Yeasayer was above and beyond anything I had listened to that year.

In 2008 I also neglected to come up with a proper list, but I was very vocal about Department of Eagles' In Ear Park-- I was a fan of [Grizzly Bear member] Daniel Rossen's band before I had ever heard of Grizzly Bear [something which I'm obviously sort of proud of]. Fleet Foxes' self-titled album was near the top last year, as was Ratatat's LP3.

So there's a theme.. and there should be: no big surprises. If it's a contender for my favorite album of the year, chances are I've been listening to it for a good part of the year. Also, I'm not trying to like weird stuff other people don't like. Well, ok perhaps I actually am. But in the end, I'm usually not actually liking it anymore than everyone else.

Sure, I joke about still liking buttrockers Clutch and stoners Monster Magnet sometimes [which not too many indie blog readers will attest to these days] but when it comes to noisemakers like Wavves, catcallers like Joanna Newsom, pimple-faced teens Smith & Westerns, or bleep-and-blooping Neon Indian, no matter how much hype anyone gives them, if I don't like it after several attempts to see what the big deal is, then I just don't like it.

While I'm on that thought.... earlier this year I deleted all of the Neon Indian songs I had, and re-downloaded them all again, because I kept wondering to myself "am I listening to the same stuff that everyone else is? This can't be what everyone's raving about. Maybe I got some corrupt files. Maybe I got some mp3s that were improperly tagged." No, it was indeed the real [crappy] deal. What can I say? I gave it a try. And another. And still another. I just don't see the big fucking deal.

So anyway.... the two trends: no surprises and I like what's good. Pretty simple, huh? So in the spirit of this obvious statement, I'm doing my first ever [can't believe it's happening, myself] FaveAlbums list. And I'm going to do something slightly different than most blogs: I'm giving you my #1 favorite up front, because it's not really worth the suspense. It's not a big surprise. 99% of blogs and magazines and newspapers out there are all saying the same damn thing, and it's hard to refute the obvious. Trust me, I tried.

1 - Animal Collective Merriweather Post Pavilion

I tried to will this away from the top of my list. I've never been much of a conformist [except when I'm paid to be in uniform]. I don't like being like everyone else. Ask my mom. I stopped listening to the album for days, maybe even weeks. But then the harmonies and drums and ghostly soundscapes began haunting me. Avey Tare's yelps. "In the Flowers"'s handclaps. The grinding and dodging of "Summertime Clothes". Synthstabs of "Daily Routine". The "Brother Sport" breakdown at 3:01. And, of course, the "My Girls" chorus.

Ignoring the pure brilliance of albums as wholes, I looked at ranking favorites quantitatively: giving numerical ratings to the standout tracks of each one, and then tallying up the scores. Even by looking at the stars I give each song in iTunes, I didn't need to do any counting. MPP is easily way ahead—dammit if 82% of the songs don’t have at least three stars by their names [yes, that’s 9 of 11 tracks; can you guess which two weren’t my favorites?].

Howabout the album's play count? Well, because I have two computers and got a new laptop halfway through the year, those numbers are inconclusive [and because I often leave my apartment forgetting a playlist is on repeat, the numbers are a little skewed]. However, I know like hell I listened to MPP more than anything else [even Teiam Player tracks/mixes!].

So there it is. I hopped on the bandwagon. So what? Now on with the rest.

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Below are 50-26, which definitely deserve, at the very least, to be mentioned. Rankings are admittedly a little more loose here than they are on the top 25.

50 - Surfer Blood - Astrocast

49 - Universal Studios Florida Ocean Sunbirds

48 - Múm Sing Along to Songs You Don’t Know

47 - Le Loup Family

46 - Yppah They Know What Ghost Know

45 - Here We Go Magic Here We Go Magic

44 - Nosaj Thing Drift

43 - PhaseOne Thanks But No Thanks

42 - Mountain Goats The Life of the World to Come

41 - Taken By Trees East of Eden

40 - The Isbells The Isbells

39 - The Moore Brothers Aptos

38 - Washed Out High Times

37 - No and the Maybes No and the Maybes

36 - Deastro Moondagger

35 - Major Lazer Guns Don’t Kill People… Lazers Do

34 - Simian Mobile Disco Temporary Pleasure

33 - The Kills Keep On Your Mean Side

32 - Junior Boys Begone Dull Care

31 - Bombay Bicycle Club I Had the Blues But I Shook Them Loose

30 - Fires of Rome You Kingdom You

29 - Magic Arms Make Lists Do Something

28 - Mumford & Sons Sigh No More

27 - Freelance Whales Weathervanes

26 - Fool’s Gold Fool’s Gold

Places 25-2 will be coming along very very shortly, don't you worry.

Thanks for reading thus far.

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Decemberists, Grizzly Bear

The new Decemberists album The Hazards of Love fell from the skies last night and into my ipod. Anyone see them when they came to Madison's Barrymore and rocked us with a rare live encore performance of The Tain in its entirety? That was wicked. 

It seems to this snooty blogger that each full album since The Tain has become more and more conceptual, and more and more sonically like that 20+ minute rock symphony, seemingly inspired equally by Jethro Tull, Black Sabbath, creepy nursery rhymes and seafaring deckhands.

In any event, this album rocks and is just as creative as any of their other masterpieces. I don't care if you hate that they sound like pirate music. I love these guys and can't wait til they come to Wisconsin.

The Wanting Comes in Waves / Repaid

The Queen's Rebuke / The Crossing

Annan Water

The Hazards of Love 3 (Revenge!)

Go preorder the album from InSound right here

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This Grizzly Bear album has to be the most highyl anticipated album since tight-jeaned hipsters queued up online to download fake leaks of Animal Collective's album in January. Well, a 'ok-quality' rip of the album Veckatimest leaked recently, and I had to be all over it. Department of Eagles's In Ear Park was by far my favorite album of last year [you'd know that if you've been around these parts much, or if I ever got around to publishing a favorite albums list].

Anyway, it'll happen that this album will hit Pitchfork's end of year top 10, whereas DoEagles's beauty insultingly barely made their honorable mention. And the crazy part of that is that this sounds more like Department of Eagles than GBear's last album, Yellow House. 

The cover art is beautiful, too.

Told ya.

Go preorder the album directly from the band via GB // Ed Droste's blog right here

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See, I haven't totally abandoned y'all.

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Eek! New Animal Collective!

This has got to be the most bad-ass picture of these boys.

If you just want the music and not my blathering, all MP3 links are at the end.

The band behind one of my top three favorite albums of last year has a new EP. It will be awesome. Water Curses is out in May. I had no idea it was really in the making. I guess I shoulda known because every live performance they do, they play some new unreleased track. Just go search the YouTube. But thanks to fellow Madison blogster Remove Your Teeth, who I just recently discovered and should probably get to know, I was made aware. A taste is below. I'll perhaps post more when I have a chance to attentively listen to the rest.

Also, Australia's Gameboy/Gamegirl recently nabbed my attention via a recent iheartcomix promo mixtape. I'm not going to try and tell you what they sound like. Just listen to "Fruit Salad".

Why?'s album Alopecia hits the stores soon as well. I'm not totally convinced that it's a masterpiece, or that anything matches last year's "The Hollows", but the opening track "The Vowels Pt 2" is a pretty good start. The rest of the album finds lead man Yoni Wolf sounding like Buck 65 half the time and one of the They Might Be Giants guys the other half. Ok, I should mention that Wolf does in fact normally sound like that. Still.. a weird mix on one album, especially considering Why?'s diverse sound, somewhere between the quirky/weird hip hop of Busdriver or Subtle and.. something else entirely.

Tell me the Islands track below doesn't remind you of OHWNT fave and Madison local Pale Young Gentlemen.

Bon Iver still dominates the airwaves wherever I am. If you missed the tracks I posted last week, go get them. If you want more, one follows below. Again, Madisonites have a chance to see him in the flesh at the Orpheum Stage Door in April.

And last.. I recently went looking for songs with the phrase "team player" in it, for what should be obvious reasons, and it turns out that the ol' bandaid bandit from East St Louis once spat it in a tune. And I can't stop listening to it, either.

Animal Collective "Street Flash"
Gameboy/Gamegirl "Fruit Salad"
Why? "The Vowels Pt 2"
Islands "The Arm" [right-click]
Bon Iver "re: stacks"
Nelly "Another One"

Purchase released material at InSound or through iTunes.

It's 44' and sunny here in Madison, so I'm going outside because here after a long winter 44 is almost t-shirt and shorts weather.

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Animal Collective: New Favorite Band?

I've always been an Animal Collective fan. Yes, I was born one, alright? No, actually I don't remember exactly when I became one, or how I found out about them, but I'm sure it had to do something with Pitchfork or a blog. And then an old roommate [you know who you are] bought me Feels on vinyl for my birthday [because I'm sometimes a jerk, she thought I didn't appreciate it very much but I really did].

Anyway, this year's Strawberry Jam has, as recently reported, become one of my favorites of the year. And so I went around looking for all the AC stuff I didn't already have. What I found was something I remember seeing but never listened to. It's a 2005 EP they did with Londonese 70s folk sonsgtress Vashti Bunyan, who recently became cool with indie kids as they re-discovered her album. The EP is called Prospect Hummer and is worth getting if you like the song below.

Animal Collective with Vashti Bunyan - "I Remember Learning How To Drive"
From previous FaveSongs2007 post: "Chores"
More AC from The Hype Machine.

Here's the official video for Strawberry Jam cut "Peacebone".




If the video isn't working, which for some reason it wasn't for me, click here.

Purchase Animal Collective shiz here.

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Also, head on over to Pop Headwound to check out some chill covers of some of your favorite pop songs by Wakey!Wakey!. Just don't go by the band name because yes, I too find it obnoxious. Some signs point to this being a band but all the signs from the covers offered at PHW point to A Guy, His Piano And His Voice. My favorite is definitely "Say It Ain't So".

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Favorite Songs of 2007, Part Cuatro

An almost wordless post; only the necessary ones [ie, no fun].

Some more of my favorite songs of 2007 and the albums to purchase them from [with links to do just that].

Pela - "Cavalry", from Anytown Graffiti; 88%
Modest Mouse - "Spitting Venom", from We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank; 60%
Jose Gonzalez - "Down the Line", from In Our Nature; 62%
Animal Collective - "Chores", from Strawberry Jam; 90%
M.I.A feat Timbaland - "Come Around", from Kala; 64%
Decibully - "If I Don't Work", unreleased
Ghostface - "Chunky", from J-Love's Street Savior Part 5 [bootleg mixtape]; 23%
Reina Boone - "Beauty of It", from her self-released sampler EP; 24%
White Denim - "Mess Your Hair Up", from Let's Talk About It; 31%

All truckers roll.

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Other news: I kinda can't wait for The Cool.

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