December 2011
3 posts
LL's favorite albums of 2011: Part 1
I’m titling this “favorite” albums for a reason. Generally, as a rule, I hate “best of” lists because as any critic of critics will argue, the idea of what’s better and best is entirely subjective, no matter how pretty one’s words can paint an object. As someone that prides myself on knowing a healthy bit about music (without being a very proficient...
3 tags
She's Got the Radioactive - December Edition →
Just wrapped up the holiday edition of my radio show on http://WTNRradio.com . If you missed it, the show can be downloaded in it’s entirety for a limited time via soundcloud. I use the word “holiday” pretty loosely as there are only about 4 festive songs peppered in throughout the hour, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the show is lacking. You can see for yourself since...
10 songs in 2011 that did not wear out their...
Going through my last.fm stats, I’m kind of startled by just how LONG this year has been. Many songs and albums that I was floored by at the beginning of the year ended up collecting some cobwebs while being buried in my brain and I began to think of them as “so 2010” at some point, which doesn’t really bode well for me speaking positively about them at the end of the year....
September 2011
1 post
August 2011
1 post
"Tom from NST mentioned this book...."
“Becca,
Tom from NST mentioned this book and I immediately thought of our little music curriculum. I envy the way the author describes their relationship, how much he loved her and how she put a hitch in his git-along. I am really enjoying the hitch you’ve put in my git-along recently.
Happy Birthday!
Dan 3/7/08”
I’ve been having some awful boughts with my agoraphobia...
July 2011
3 posts
She's Got the Radioactive/Episode 3 (July 2011) →
You can stream or download my internet radio show if you follow the above link. Here’s the playlist:
1. close lobsters - “sewer pipe dream” (from foxheads stalk this land)
2. iceage - “total drench” (from new brigade)
3. the fire engines - “discord” (from lubricate your living room)
4. arthur russell - “goodbye old paint” (from love is...
mixtape = love (pt. 1)
I have been thinking...
when you're 10, your old man's records are not...
I was raised listening to light rock, pure FM radio for thirtysomethings that didn’t make it to Woodstock in the 60’s. Phil Collins was probably the King of the radio when I was a child. I can still remember all of the words to “I Can’t Dance” and “In the Air Tonight.” I have performed “Sussudio” at karaoke while tequila drunk. When I...
May 2011
1 post
05/29/11
Tracklist after the cut…
1. Slowdive - Dagger
2. Kings of Convenience - The Passenger
3. Red House Painters - New Jersey
4. Bedhead/Macha - You and New Plastic
5. Joan of Arc - If it Feels / Good, Do It
6. Built to Spill - Randy Described Eternity
7. Bedhead - Bedside Table
8. Fuck - Le Serpent
9. Silkworm - Don’t Make Plans This Friday
10. Palace Music - Little Blue...
February 2011
4 posts
Pere Ubu - Heaven (from Apocalypse Now)
The...
The Halo Benders - Snowfall (from the album God...
January 2011
7 posts
MIX : best of january
January always feels like a slow month for music, but there were actually a good handful of albums released this month that deserve some recognition. I’ve made an 8tracks mix for your sampling pleasure. Playlist after the jump…
1. Thank You - 1-2-3 Bad (from Golden Worry) (Thrill Jockey)
2. Iceage - Collapse (from New Brigade) (Tambourhinoceros)
3. fergus & geronimo -...
......
Saddened by the death of Trish Keenan of Broadcast but grateful for the music she has left behind. You can read more about her over at NPR.
MIX : "i was born with something missing.."
1. Margo Guryan - Sun 2. Brian Sands - Orangutango 3. the Tapes - Blue Thighs 4. Big Star - Back of a Car 5. the Replacements - Can’t Hardly Wait 6. the Soft Boys - Human Music 7. the Shangri-Las - I’m Blue 8. Lee Hazlewood - Ten or 11 Towns Ago 9. Abner Jay - Cleo 10. Gene Clark - True One 11. Dusty Springfield - Anyone Who Had a Heart 12. Television Personalities - Diary of a...
April 2010
3 posts
4 tags
Joint Review: MORNING BENDERS "Big Echo"
I’m too tired to bend stuff so early! But these guys seem pretty happy and able to do it.
Leilani: I know I said this already, but this album really flows well. It’s totally speaking to the mixtaper inside of me. Chris: This hits that perfect level of inoffensiveness but I feel like that’s where it wants to be, you know? It’s succeeding in exactly what it sets out to do....
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Joint Review: LIARS "Sisterworld"
Our allegiances lie in all of Liars previous output but we couldn’t lie about how we’d have rather lied down towards the end of this album.
Summary:
Chris: Aesthetics aside though, are you moved much musically? I don’t really feel like much is happening. Leilani: Honestly, not really. But even when Liars aren’t doing much, I tend to enjoy it more than I do w/other...
6 tags
Albums We Like: Fang Island, Mudy on the Sakuban,...
Fang Island - S/T This is an album that is bookended by the lively popping of firecrackers. Within the first five seconds, the band is setting the bar high in terms of what they must achieve. First, they need to maintain that sense of outright jubilance that they are attempting to connect to in an inherently non-musical way. Second, the album needs to stay consistent enough to justify using...
March 2010
5 posts
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Concert Review: South by Southwest 2010
Just over a week ago, I experienced SXSW for the first time. It’s hard to describe the festival if you haven’t seen it. I stereotypically expected meeting drunk industry people who would hold a hand behind my ear to help me fully understand their attempts to namedrop musicians they know and projects they work on while I’m trying to watch good bands. But if that’s at all...
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(This is part 2 of our pre-South by Southwest/SXSW 2010 coverage, listing the bands Leilani wants to see. You can find part 1/Chris’s choices here. We will be adding rushed photos and slurred articles during our visit from Thurs-Mon so stay tuned or browsed or whatever.)
I feel like I’ve been planning for SXSW 2010 since I decided to move back to Texas. At first, the trip was...
11 tags
Long time no speak. We’re still planning on continuing this blog just so you know! We’ve just been preparing for South By Southwest (SXSW) and it’s a daunting task. I’ve been going through the ten zillion lists of random bands slated to play, trying to unearth cool stuff to see. With the fact that there are tons of covert 2009 lineups still hidden online alongside the...
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Joint Review: YEASAYER "Odd Blood"
Yeasayer, huh? Only if you’re offering to turn it off. Summary:
Chris: It seems like wacky song patterns are becoming so commonplace that it’s starting to drive me crazy. Now I really gotta dissect the quality of all this esoteric pop songwriting to see if it actually took talent or not. Leilani: Well, I mean, the pattern is neat…but when you play it over and over and over...
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Albums We Like: Cast of Cheers, Laura Gibson &...
Untied States - Instant Everything, Constant Nothing If this album came out ten years ago, it sounds like something I would’ve spun alongside Drive Like Jehu and Jawbox as loud as possible in my basement growing up, annoying my parents for hours at a time trying to play along on the drums with the hopes of being part of something similar one day. It’s just one of those rock records...
February 2010
8 posts
4 tags
Joint Review: JOANNA NEWSOM "Have One On Me"
This harpist/songwriter/giiiirrl gave us a fun review. The album cover was harder to draw though.
Summary:
Chris: It’s great. If you like this stuff, it’s all really beautiful. I can’t parse this on a musical level because I just don’t know how to. Leilani: I suppose this listening exercise is making me wish I kinda understood what goes on in your head a little better...
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Joint Review: SOFT PACK "S/T"
We debated critically about this young group from San Diego. Summary:
Chris: Well, if you just want something easy, this works. Leilani: That last song is still kinda stuck in my head, though. Chris: It’s mostly just me being stubborn because I’m so critically adjusted to wanting to hear musicians take a chance. I feel like I’ve lost my sense of gauging when a band can write a...
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Joint Review: FIELD MUSIC "Measure"
Music for large swarths of grass, baseball diamonds and areas with magnetic properties? No, thanks! Summary:
Chris: This is total Dad music. Haha, i’m laughing so hard. Leilani: Well, at least I now know what to get my father for his birthday. I bet writing this song took little effort. :( Actually, that’s not true. These guys obviously have a good grasp on their musicianship but...
8 tags
Concert Review: FMLY Ride, Los Angeles, February...
Last Saturday, I took part in a musical experience called the FMLY Ride. FMLY is a relatively new and vaguely-defined collective of social event planners that is gaining a lot of popularity in LA mostly but also a few other cities in the US. You can tell they are hip because they don’t use vwls (except “y” in its accepted vowel state). The FMLY Ride, of which I took part in the...
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Albums We Like: Jaga Jazzist, These New Puritans,...
Jaga Jazzist - One-Armed Bandit I wish that I hadn’t always assumed this was some frat-boy reggae band based on their band name because I was way off. It’s not that easy to describe this band, but they have over a decade of experience playing an instrumental style of music that falls somewhere between jazz, prog and electronic music. I’ll have to dive into their daunting back...
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Joint Review: MAGNETIC FIELDS "Realism"
Magnetic Fields. They did 69 Love Songs. Leilani liked it and Chris never got it. What about Realism? It’s a departure, to put it lightly. Summary:
Chris: This is pretty and well-executed but this evokes the wrong feeling. There’s very little edge or anything. I guess that’s not the point of EVERYTHING in music but I’m not sure I wanna see this live or admit I enjoy...
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Joint Review: HOME BLITZ "Out of Phase"
This was a pleasant surprise. Go buy this album.
Summary:
Chris: THANK THANK THANK YOU home blitz. I’m just surprised this doesn’t happen MORE. This was a great time. Leilani: It happens, but it’s rarely this good. Seriously. That’s one of the best things I’ve heard in a long time. I’m not even bummed that it was so short. Chris: It felt long enough...
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Joint Review: LOS CAMPESINOS! "Romance is Boring"
Yo, this septet from Wales made us both bipolar the entire time. There’s a lot good and a lot not so good and I think we both ended up ambivalent about it. Summary:
Leilani: I have a hard time just wanting to throw this in the same pile as your usual pop-punk stuff. And I enjoyed it and feel like I should keep an eye on them to see how they evolve as a band… Chris: …To...
6 tags
Albums We Like: Wetdog, Surfer Blood, Owen Pallett
Surfer Blood - Astrocoast “Forget the second coming/I need you in the here and now…” (from “Floating Vibes”) Yes, Surfer Blood, let’s forget about all of that. Let’s forget about the mega saturation of bands that greeted our ears during ‘09, all striving to be the second coming of the Beach Boys. Let’s simply concentrate on the “here and...
January 2010
8 posts
4 tags
Joint Review: PIT ER PAT "The Flexible...
Neither of us knows this band well but we heard good things. We couldn’t really convince ourselves that we wanted to say good things afterwards. It is streaming at their record label’s website.
Summary:
Chris: I think this song is okay but I still feel this hesitation to really get into it. It’s something I can’t put my finger on. Like it’s a pretty basic song...
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Joint Review: OH NO ONO "Eggs"
Yo, here’s some magical music from Denmark. Chris became a big fan of this album a week before this review so we both decided to listen together because he wanted to see if he was just crazy. We decided that he was not. Pshew. Summary:
Chris: I want to describe these songs but it’s hard, because there’s so much going on. In a good way. You can just tell they spend a lot...
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Joint Review: BEACH HOUSE "Teen Dream"
We went back over to NPR to enjoy the new album by Beach House, which appears to gaining traction in the music world. Leilani likes their previous albums and Chris just pretty much lives in a house half a mile from the beach. Let’s see how it fared.
Summary:
Leilani: Their self-titled [album] is still my favorite though. I never really get tired of it. But it’s a bit…less...
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Click below for the last half of our selection of albums from last year that we felt were underappreciated.
Karl Blau - Zebras Admittedly, I was very wary of this record from the get-go, but that was before I even knew who Karl Blau was and had only come across a short blurb on another blog about Zebra. All it took were the words “inspired by Africa” and I thought to myself,...
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Joint Review: VAMPIRE WEEKEND "Contra"
I’m sure you’ve heard of these dudes. Neither of us figured we’d like it but we gave it a shot anyway. It didn’t change our opinion.
Summary:
Chris: It’s just so fast. Why does every song slowly trudge along or direly need to take a breath or two? Leilani: …I agree. There’s not a lot of room to pause on this album. Even if you did enjoy this kind...
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Joint Review: SPOON "Transference"
Spoon has been pretty big news for a long time now. Leilani shares their Texan roots and has enjoyed their work so far but Chris never really got into it. So we streamed their new album on the NPR website and neither of us were very impressed.
Summary:
Leilani: Like, it’s painful how it promises something that makes you want to jump around and then just sighs and goes back to boring. I...
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Chris: Remember way back at the beginning of last decade when we were just starting to figure out how to distribute music on the internet? Everyone thought the bloated record industry would be going away and we would have this utopian musical business model where artists and fans would be able to connect on a more profound level than “Hey, I can make easy music for the radio…Oh hey,...