Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring for My Halo

This was the best album of last year.

I like this bit from the AllMusic review:

In an age where angst is delivered with the subtlety of a laser light show, it’s nice to hear some good, old-fashioned, smokin’-and-drinkin’-cheap-beers-on-the-porch-with-your-friends-style pessimism.

Edith Frost - Calling Over Time

I came to this one when trying to find other albums produced by Jim O'Rourke. I had never heard of Edith Frost before. Calling Over Time is her debut, released in 1997 on Drag City. It's pretty sparse, usually just a guitar and/or piano, sometimes with another instrument or two low in the mix. Chicago being an incestuous pit of musicians, some other members of Gastr del Sol were involved in the recording, but this doesn't really have the feel of something like Camoufleur.

This normally isn't something I would seek out, but I'm glad I found this one. It's a fantastic winter album, incidentally. Maybe I'll try some other Drag City stuff I haven't tried before, like Palace Brothers, and/or revisit some more Smog and Will Oldham / Bonnie Prince Billy / whatever albums. As for Edith Frost, she only has three other albums, I might as well check them out, too.

The Wedding Present - Seamonsters / Watusi

I've had The Wedding Present on my computer for years; I probably came to them from a thread on albums produced by Steve Albini, and maybe I found the cover art enticing. I'm relatively sure I had tried these albums before but nothing really stuck. So upon revisiting these and giving them dedicated, relatively focused listens, well, I arrived at the same conclusion: nothing really sticks here.

Seamonsters is the one produced by Albini, and I don't think he did the band any favors. Sure, by placing the guitars and drums at the front of the mix, you get a pretty amazing sound, but since there's not really much range to their sound, the songs tend to get samey. The vocals are mumbled anyway, so Albini relegating them to the background doesn't help. The opening track is impressive for it's slow build; don't expect this much action on the rest of the album, though.



Watusi is a bit more varied and the production is a bit more balanced, bringing some definition to the vocals. Still, I don't expect to really return to this band. It's not that their sound is bad--I just don't find interesting enough for multiple listens.

Pure X - Pleasure

I want to aim for new music to be about 10% of the albums I'm exploring here. Finding new music is not an easy task, and I find Pitchfork to be unreliable and too scene-happy. So when Pure X's debut album Pleasure was mentioned in a thread about how Pitchfork's Best New Music category seems to skip over the, um, best new music, I thought this might be a good one to start with.

At first glance, there's a lot to like about this album: a swirling, pedal-heavy guitar sound, peaceful vocals that might as well be Sigur Ros, and simple, clean songs. In reviews you'll see mentions of 'beach album' and 'rainy day', two seemingly contradictory moods that nonetheless are simultaneously conjured up here. On repeat listens though, that swirly sound blurs to the point where it's tough to distinguish tracks. It's strange--for an album that rewards headphone use, it still never seems to emerge from the background when played through speakers.

Overall I think favorably of the album and expect it will end up on several year-end lists, but I hope they can expand their palette, as Pleasure is proof that guitar pedals do not an album make.

Directions in Music - Directions in Music

I'm not sure how I came across this one, but Directions in Music was a one-off album from three guys in the Chicago post-rock crowd, done in 1996. They got together just long enough to make an album of eight instrumental, untitled tracks. Imagine a post-rock impromptu jam session after hours at the Grand Ole Opry, and you'd be close...and perhaps disappointed. Much of the album sounded like a less interesting version of Gastr del Sol's Camofleur, or early Tortoise, which makes sense given the people involved. Overall, a nonchalant pass.

Here's Directions in Music


Compare that with Gastr Del Sol's "Black Horse"

Clouddead - Clouddead

Culled from a series of limited 10" releases, Clouddead's eponymous debut isn't so much a fully formed album as it is a well-executed exercise in seasick, proggist psychedelia. With background textures that rival Boards of Canada in pastoral, tree-lined opacity and an obvious predilection for boggy atmospherics, Clouddead handily distances themselves from the rest of their hip-hop brethren. Indeed, this is something more considered and sinister -- less about wayward braggadocio than it is about keeping your doors deadbolted at all hours of the night. Even their less-is-more approach to vocalism eventually starts playing tricks on your mind; when lyricists Dose and Why? emerge, it's usually to puncture the pleasant fog of some dulcet, wavering sample. The whole album reads like that; the sonic equivalent of your first legitimate drug trip as narrated by two jittery but triumphant kids who can't bear to keep their choice hiding place a secret any longer. While it's perhaps a tad overlong, Clouddead doesn't suffer from any shortage of great ideas. It's menacing, it's enthralling, and it's one of few modern-day records (hip-hop or otherwise) that honestly doesn't sound like anything -- or anyone -- else.

(Clouddead - Clouddead)

XTC - Skylarking

Working with producer Todd Rundgren didn't necessarily bring XTC a sense of sonic cohesion -- after all, every record since English Settlement followed its own interior logic -- but it did help the group sharpen its focus, making Skylarking its tightest record since Drums and Wires. Ironically, Skylarking had little to do with new wave and everything to do with the lush, post-psychedelic pop of the Beatles and Beach Boys. Combining the charming pastoral feel of Mummer with the classicist English pop of The Big Express, XTC expand their signature sound by enhancing their intelligently melodic pop with graceful, lyrical arrangements and sweeping, detailed instrumentation. Rundgren may have devised the sequencing, helping the record feel like a song cycle even if it doesn't play like one, but what really impresses is the consistency and depth of Andy Partridge's and Colin Moulding's songs. Each song is a small gem, marrying sweet, catchy melodies to decidedly adult lyrical themes, from celebrations of love ("Grass") and marriage ("Big Day") to skepticism about maturation ("Earn Enough for Us") and religion ("Dear God"). Moulding's songs complement Partridge's songs better than before, and each writer is at a melodic and lyrical peak, which Rundgren helps convey with his supple production. The result is a pop masterpiece -- an album that has great ambitions and fulfills them with ease.

(XTC - Skylarking)

Life Without Buildings - Any Other City

The numerous comparisons drawn by Life Without Buildings are across-the-board positive. Through the music and sleeve design, they come across as refugees from Rough Trade's class of 1979. Liliput, the Fall, Delta 5, and even the Slits occasionally come to mind. These female-fronted groups have certainly inspired LWB, but this quartet -- simply a drummer, a bassist, a guitarist, and a vocalist -- offers much more than nostalgia and post-punk plundering. They're more of a pop band, which is just fine. The jagged, economical rhythms of late-'70s and early-'80s post-punk are prominent. Robert Johnston's guitar playing is melodic and pleasant, differing from the cut-and-scrape methods of his forebears: think of Talking Heads' or Throwing Muses' first albums. Unlike many post-punk rhythm sections, the bass of Chris Evans and the drums of Will Bradley aren't reggae-influenced. They provide a plaintive, professional surface for firecracker Sue Tompkins to glide atop, throwing in the occasional, non-jutting shift in tempo that also avoids predictability. Tompkins' scat-speak singing is the band's main attraction, a youthful chirp that never pierces. Her repet-pet-petitive repetitive style might be at odds with the ears of some listeners, but it's just as unique as the exuberant vocals featured on records by any of the bands mentioned above. The set is remarkably cohesive, with the differences in each song taking a few listens to sink in. Only six of Any Other City's ten songs will be new to those who purchased the band's trio of 2000-issued singles. The overlap is reworked, usually with slight improvements made over the original. Only "The Leanover" suffers, losing some of the raw thrill of the single version. If there's a gripe to be had with the record, that's it. An ex-excite-exciting, phenom-enom-phenomenal debut.

(Life Without Buildings - Any Other City)

Solex - Solex vs. The Hitmeister

Solex, aka Dutch record shop owner Elisabeth Esselink, creates a pure, offbeat musical world on the 1998 debut, Solex vs. the Hitmeister. All of the songs contain the band's name; Esselink delivers her English-sung vocals with dreamlike, rhythmic phrasing, and the album's cavernous production makes it sound as though it were recorded deep inside her head -- it all adds up to an abstract, alien collection of songs that owes very little to electronica or indie rock as the outside world knows it. Instead, each song on Hitmeister flows to its own musical logic, built on samples of discounted, long-forgotten records and Esselink's expressive, sweetly foreign voice, supported here and there by touches of guitar and keyboards. "When Solex Just Stood There" suggests industrial dance with its relentless beat, one-note vocals, and screeching sound effects, while "Solex All Licketysplit" bounds around the room on a rubbery bassline and sparkly keyboards. "Some Solex" marries a somewhat ominous bass drum to a warm guitar line, while spaceship sound effects hover in the background. "One Louder Solex" and "Solex in a Slipshod Style" have a fluid, stream-of-consciousness style that recalls daydreams, adding to Hitmeister's overall surreal quality. A completely unique combination of beats, samples, and voice, Solex is insular and inventive, revealing an artist with a very personal kind of creativity.

(Solex - Solex vs. The Hitmeister)

Jim O'Rourke - The Visitor

If there are more interesting albums that have come out this year, I haven't heard them. As intended, this is not available for download. The link takes you to Drag City, where you can have this delivered to your doorstep for $16 or $12 (LP/CD). AMG hasn't reviewed it, so I have excerpted another review.


O’Rourke wrote all the music, performed all of the instrumental parts, and recorded The Visitor in his home studio in Tokyo—and the finished product is a mile wide and several miles deep. Drums, bass, guitars (electric and acoustic), piano, organ, clarinet, banjo, and more steer one montage into the next, via slow transition or direct segue (important side note: according to O’Rourke, there are over 200 tracks on this record).

If your first reaction to the notion of an all-instrumental "pop" album is confusion, you have every right to be apprehensive. Prior experiments by lesser artists have produced results that usually splattered on the "dreadful" and "self-indulgent" parts of the spectrum. But O’Rourke is not a lesser artist: his awareness of minute details and the trump card known as "form" are in perfect balance, and it is because of this that The Visitor becomes more intriguing with every listen. Although it may be indexed as one continuous track, this album harbors variety in spades.

If you aren’t sold on this record yet, I would like to make a bold statement: you should buy it solely because Jim O’Rourke engineered it. The Visitor is sonically divine, a fact that should come as no surprise to fans of earlier O’Rourke recordings. Each individual instrument is allowed to breathe, and each layer provides the right support for every other one. If there must be one recent album to serve as an example of how glorious recorded instruments can be, The Visitor gets my vote.

--Jeremy Podgursky, NewMusicBox

(Jim O'Rourke - The Visitor)