I remember how when I heard Sigur Rós for the first time, I was astonished that music like this could exist. The band had constructed a startlingly beautiful and truly unique sound, creating gorgeous, ethereal soundscapes that were complemented by brilliant and memorable melodies. There was an ethereal and unearthly quality to their songs, and it was difficult to comprehend just how the band was able to craft these songs using standard musical instruments. This paradox is illustrated perfectly by “Svefn-G-Englar”, my introduction to the band, which sounds as if it was broadcast from under the sea, with its delicate keyboard melody accented by what seems to be the ping of a sonar, as a reverb and feedback-drenched guitar slowly begins to roar until it finally erupts. And all that is before Jónsi’s vocals kick in–his incredible range along with the fact that he sings mainly in Icelandic helped add to the exotic nature of their music. It was difficult to comprehend that humans actually created this music.
Over the years, I learned more about the methods the band employed to craft their singular sound, namely Jónsi’s use of a bow on his guitar for certain songs. Seeing the band live also helped clear up some of the mystery, as sounds that bled together before could now be delineated into distinct guitar, keyboard, bass, and drum parts. In some sense it was a bit disappointing to confirm that mere mortals were responsible for this music, much like how some of the allure is rubbed off when one finds out the secret behind the magician’s trick. On the other hand, one can find it inspiring to realize that when it comes to music that magic in fact does not exist.
But just when it seemed that all mysteries were solved, leave it to one of the unsung heroes of the band to figure out a way to surprise listeners. Georg Holm has been holding down the low end for the band for years with his basslines, but sometimes his contributions can get lost in the mix. However, his unusual bassline for Hafsól, a track that has evolved from the band’s earliest days, that stands out. The emphasis is purely on the rhythm, an unusual stuttering pattern that rarely strays from a single note. It seems the only way to get that precise pattern would be with the use of a pick, but live footage proves otherwise.
In fact, Holm is using a drumstick to create this particular rhythm! Considering that he is relying on a slight drum roll to create the figure, it is amazing that Holm is able to consistently recreate the same pattern over and over again. Then again, Holm considers himself a “drummer” and that his role is really “just to try to make the drums sound better.” The use of a drumstick with a stringed instrument is not unheard of, but usually it is for creating only a pure percussive effect and not for anything melodic, with cacophony being the usual goal. The band deserves a lot of credit for its creativity and its experimentation with tactics like this, and finding different ways to surprise their audience.
We left a ton of material on the table for today’s post, and with the flurry of news this morning our roundup is even more overstuffed than usual. So let’s dive right in with the surprise release of the music video for the Beastie Boys track “Too Many Rappers”, featuring Nas in both audio and visual form. While it’s sad to remember that Hot Sauce Committee Part Two will be the last album we ever hear from the Beasties, but it’s certainly great to have some more footage of the crew having fun together.
NPR has streams for two highly-anticipated new albums available this week. First, there’s the long-awaited return of critical darlings and Pacific Northwest favorites Sleater-Kinney, who are releasing their first album in ten years next week with No Cities to Love. Then there’s the self-titled debut of Viet Cong, who have garnered a ridiculous amount of buzz among various indie blogs in the past couple of months. I don’t yet have the same enthusiasm, though it may take a few more listens of their noisy guitar rock to convince me.
Ghostface Killah seemingly never stops working, because after releasing his solo album 36 Seasons last month (and appearing on The Wu-Tang Clan’s A Better Tomorrow), he’s set to release another album next month. This time it’s a collaboration with BADBADNOTGOOD, with their record Sour Soul set to be released February 17. Their latest track, “Ray Gun”, features a guest spot from DOOM and has a nice grimy funk feel, complemented by some gorgeous strings. Stereogum has more information, including links to previously released tracks, for your perusal.
There’s also a trio of album releases that were announced this morning. Death Cab For Cutie is releasing Kintsugi on March 31st and will be their first album “without” founding guitarist Chris Walla, who while no longer a member of the band still has a presence on the album. Sufjan Stevens is releasing Carrie & Lowell on the same day, which we can take as further proof that the “50 States” project is dead. And Waxahatchee will be releasing Ivy Tripp on April 7th, and you should probably click the link because Pitchfork has helpfully included the new track “Air”. We were big fans of her previous album Cerulean Salt, and while this sounds a bit more polished than that lo-fi classic, sounding like a stripped-down Joy Formidable is something we can support.
It’s disappointing that a once-vibrant genre as Country has become just a bunch of homogenized pablum, and worse yet is the fact that every year it continues to get worse. The genre has just become Nickelback with a half-assed over-enunciated Southern accent, and that’s a damn shame. The thing is, consumers are at least partly to blame, since as The Atlantic points out, uniformity is what sells.
Last week featured some great musical guests on the Late Night shows, including performances from such RIJR favorites The War On Drugs (who performed the epic “An Ocean In Between The Waves” on The Tonight Show) and Parquet Courts delivering a dynamite version of “Bodies Made of” on Letterman, a song that initially sounds like a poor choice for the national stage until it gets to its epic breakdown. But the standout of the week was Foxygen and Star Power performing “How Can You Really” on The Late Show, which prompted an enthusiastic response from Dave himself.
We here at Rust Is Just Right are always down for hearing more from Spoon, so we are pleased to share their appearance on Austin City Limits over the weekend as well as their guest spot on Sound Opinions. We’ll see if we can go the rest of the week without mentioning them, but don’t bet on it.
And finally, a couple of fun lists that can either be used as a discovery tool or merely as argument fodder. Stereogum has a list of “30 Essential Post-Rock” songs which along with usual suspects Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Sigur Rós, and Explosions in the Sky includes several other bands that may not be as well known, though this may partially be due to a broad definition of “post-rock”. You can have an argument about that specific topic as well as the following list from Complex, which goes through each year since 1979 to anoint “The Best Rapper Alive”.
Today is April 15, and while the rest of the nation celebrates Tax Day, we here at Rust Is Just Right choose this occasion to release our Best Albums of the Year list. To be technical, this is our first such list since the site was launched only a few months ago, but this is a practice that I’ve personally done for a few years now. There are a few of reasons for this: 1) It allows some of the albums that are released at the end of the calendar year to get some recognition, since they usually get swallowed up in the attention of the flurry of year-end lists; 2) I get the chance to analyze other lists to pick up on albums that somehow escaped my attention during the course of the year; and 3) It provides a handy consumer guide for people to focus where to spend their tax refund.
The process that is used to determine this list is highly rigorous and hardly scientific. That said, it is in the process of being patented and trademarked, so I can say that it’s not simply a look at my iTunes playcount for the year. Actually, that is what it is exactly, but I’ll choose to believe in your good faith that you won’t steal The Process. On to the list!
Note: Though the list is a Top 10, there are more albums than slots, because I don’t like breaking ties for the same play count. If you’re really intent on focusing on only 10, I guess take the 10 highest performing albums from the list, but you really shouldn’t limit yourself like that if you can help it.
We already have a surprise courtesy of The Process, as I didn’t think that Mosquito would perform so well. The first single “Sacrilege” had me really excited for the album, but there was no other song that really matched its heights. It was a bit of a letdown after the great It’s Blitz!, so my response to it may be harsher than it should be. The Terror on the other hand was a new high point for The Flaming Lips; with the band involved in so many projects and gimmicks, there were legitimate fears that the creative well may have been running a bit dry, but the Lips responded with an album that showed that even after 30 years the band still has new directions to explore. Long known for their happy outlook on life, the band channeled inner turmoil (Steve Drozd’s relapse, Wayne Coyne’s separation from his partner) and created a dark, disturbing album that often plays like an hour-long version of the horrifying “Frankie Teardrop”, incorporating new elements like krautrock influences and drum machines. The only reason it’s not higher on the list is you really need to prepare yourself to handle the despair that is prevalent throughout the album (though there are moments of pure beauty). With Th!!!er, !!! may have won Album Name of the Year, but they also back it up with some of the best songs of their career. I’m a sucker for their dance-punk style, and I highly recommend seeing these guys live. It’s fun to see a bunch of people who normally don’t dance groove to songs like “One Girl/One Boy”.
9). (7 plays) Foals – Holy Fire; The Joy Formidable – Wolf’s Law; Low – The Invisible Way; Nine Inch Nails – Hesitation Marks; Parquet Courts – Light Up Gold; Pearl Jam – Lightning Bolt; Run the Jewels – Run the Jewels.
Normally, I would say that Pearl Jam exists outside the scope of “lists”, but one cannot argue with The Process. I haven’t delved deep into my love of the band since starting this site, so for those of you unfamiliar with my passion for the band, I’ll try to sum it up like this: I’ve been to hundreds of shows over the years, and when people ask me for my all-time greatest concerts, I tell them there’s a Pearl Jam list and a non-Pearl Jam list.
As for the others, I’ll offer a few quick thoughts. Foals have been underrated for a while now, and by my calculations “My Number” should have been as big a summer hit as “Get Lucky”. The Joy Formidable put on one of the best shows I saw last year, and I’m a big fan of how the sweetness of the vocals contrast with the heaviness of the music, but all done in a very melodic way. There wasn’t a big hit like “Whirring” on this album, but “This Ladder Is Ours” should have been. Nine Inch Nails returned with a very good comeback album–I loved the incorporation of more minimalist ideas, which made it an exceedingly interesting dance record. And it’s amazing that Low once again produced an amazing album, and I hardly saw any mention of it on the year-end lists. Invisible Way saw the band returning to the more delicate sounds pre-Drums and Guns, but it was definitely not a simple rehash.
Light Up Gold is a perfect example of reason number two up above, as I heard nothing about this album before I saw it on a few year-end lists. This catchy and too-smart-for-probably-its-own-good soon became a go-to in my car stereo. You have to love a band that makes the point that “Socrates died in the fucking gutter.”
As for Run The Jewels, I’ll say this: it’s hard to believe that one of the best albums of the year was given away for free earlier this year. And it received a small fraction of the attention of Magna Carta Holy Grail.
8). (8 plays) Franz Ferdinand – Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action; Kanye West – Yeezus; The Thermals – Desperate Ground.
I was glad to see Franz Ferdinand return from hiatus alive and kicking. After some experimentation with Tonight, the band decided to go back to their old sound and play to their own strengths–a lot of good, hook-filled rock songs (for the record, I was a fan of Tonight, but hey, I understand the calculus). The Thermals made a similar return to their roots: after the reflective Personal Life, the band decided to keep the songs short and the tempos fast, with the furious Desperate Ground.
I’m sure Yeezus was the most analyzed album of the year, so my opinion shouldn’t add much to the conversation. I think Lou Reed did an excellent job in explaining its genius, so you should probably take his word for it. I will say that one of the things I enjoy most about Kanye records is that it always seems like we’re listening in on a therapy session, because he seems free to let his thoughts roam unfiltered. I also love a person that embraces the dichotomy of the sacred and the profane; who else would follow a great line “close your eyes and let the word paint a thousand pictures” with “one good girl is worth a thousand bitches”? The man knows exactly what he’s doing: “After all these long-ass verses, I’m tired, you’re tired. Jesus wept.“
7). (9 plays) The Men – New Moon; Sigur Rós – Kveikur; Vampire Weekend – Modern Vampires of the City; Volcano Choir – Repave; Yuck – Glow & Behold.
We had an extensive piece already on Yuck, so we won’t rehash it here. Volcano Choir is proof that Justin Vernon knows what he’s doing and that he doesn’t need the “Bon Iver” name to make great music. The Men will continue to put great, solid rock albums from now until eternity it seems like; throwing in some classic rock and Americana touches like they did on New Moon just helps expand their sound.
Vampire Weekend got a lot of credit for their show of maturity on their third album, and a lot of it is deserved–Modern Vampires is an excellent rumination on love and faith. That said, it wasn’t as great a leap as some critics made it out to be; I thought that Contra showed that the band was creative enough to find a way to connect their niche sound with other genres and still remain true to their identity. So while this is a very good album, it’s not quite the “Album of the Year”.
I’m much more surprised about the latest album from Sigur Rós. I found Valtari to be a real low point, an album that often struggled to find any semblance of creativity or inspiration, and it just seemed like an ambient mess. So when the band released Kveikur so quickly after Valtari, I was pretty skeptical. But holy shit, this sounds like a band reborn. It’s a much more aggressive album, an adjective that is rarely associated with the band, and bears some (dare I say?) metal influences.
5). (11 plays) Arctic Monkeys – AM; The Besnard Lakes – Until in Excess, Imperceptible UFO.
The instant I heard “Do I Wanna Know?”, I knew I would love this album; I just didn’t know that it would turn out to revive their career here in the States. It’s a huge improvement over the good-but-unmemorable Suck It And See and the completely forgettable Humbug, and it wins my coveted award of “Night Driver of the Year”.
I’ve been a longtime fan of The Besnard Lakes, a band far more deserving of some of the plaudits that another Canadian band whose absence you may notice from this list. If there were actual justice in this world, they’d be headlining arenas, but I’m glad I get to see them perform spellbinding sets in tiny venues like the Doug Fir. I initially was not impressed with the new album, mainly because I had been hoping that they could use some of the huge hooks from Roaring Night and hopefully catapult into the mainstream; but once I accepted the album for what it was, I was able to appreciate the subtle melodies and beautiful atmosphere.
4). (12 plays) Deafheaven – Sunbather; My Bloody Valentine – m b v.
My Bloody Valentine shocked the world when they announced that they were immediately releasing their long-awaited follow-up to Loveless. Servers were in a constant state of crashing as music buffs around the world rushed to download the album, but eventually we all got our copy. Was it worth the over two-decade wait? If you based it on trash like “Nothing Is”, then you would say no, but then you hear the gorgeous “Only Tomorrow” with its monumental guitar solo, and all is forgiven, because you are reminded that while there are thousands of bands that were inspired by them, there is truly only one My Bloody Valentine.
Sunbather might be the most surprising album on my list, because while there is a lot of heavy metal that I do enjoy, it’s usually not of the black metal variety. However, Deafheaven uses the banshee wail-type vocals to their advantage, as they blend in with the walls of guitar. If I had my preference, it wouldn’t be the style I choose, if only because it becomes hard to distinguish what are actually some pretty decent lyrics (an exchange like “‘I’m dying.’ ‘Is it blissful?’ ‘It’s like a dream.’ ‘I want to dream.'” read great on the page, but impossible to pick out when sung). That said, the actual music is pretty goddamn brilliant. I’m going to explore them in a future Feats of Strength, but I’ll say that the last half of “The Pecan Tree” was probably the best music I heard all year, but to understand its full brilliance you need to hear the 55 minutes of brutality that came before it.
3. (16 plays) Wavves – Afraid of Heights.
Wavves received the best press and sales of their career with King of the Beach, and to follow it up they release an album filled with cynicism and paranoia and plain old depression. But they made it fun as hell. I have to give a lot of respect who released a single that got actual radio airplay whose chorus is “Holding a gun to my head, so send me an angel; or bury me deeply instead, with demons to lean on”. And they played it on Letterman.
2. (17 plays) Queens of the Stone Age – ...LikeClockwork.
This one of the best albums of QOTSA’s career, and that’s saying something since they’ve released several classic albums already. It’s a brilliant mix of their desert rock with gothic horror. It’s hard for me to think of much more to say than that, because I’m still bitter thinking how not one person on the AV Club staff gave this album a single vote.
1. (20 plays) The National – Trouble Will Find Me.
In the end, the list was topped off by what I would have predicted at the beginning of the year, but when I first listened to Trouble Will Find Me this was not a foregone conclusion. But like other albums from The National before it, what initially sounded like a shapeless bore gradually revealed its subtle strength and beauty. Melodies become more apparent, and dynamics become more evident; often it’s not drastic loud-soft contrast, but a gradual intensity that builds throughout in a song. Each listen brings about a new favorite; first it was “Sea of Love”, then it was “Pink Rabbits” followed by “Don’t Swallow the Cap”. Lately, it’s been “Graceless”, a powerful look at attempts to shake the melancholy stemming from a past relationship, filled with great lines like “God loves everybody–don’t remind me” and “all of my thoughts of you: bullets through rotten fruit.” After a few listens, you notice things like the shift halfway between “graceless” and “grace” that occurs in the lyrics, and the gradual buildup of intensity in Matt Berninger’s voice as he powers through the song. It’s perfect that an album that rewards multiple listens takes the top spot.
Tomorrow is a big day for Rust Is Just Right, because we’ll be releasing our long-awaited list of the Best Albums of 2013. We’ll explain why we chose that particular day for the big reveal tomorrow, but just be content knowing that the day will finally be here. Meanwhile we have a selection of videos to help you ease into the week.
Last week, Queens of the Stone Age released a music video of their latest single, “Smooth Sailing”, featuring Josh Homme on a wild night of partying with a group of businessmen. As the old saying goes, beware of what karaoke may bring. Now’s a good time to familiarize yourself with the song and the rest of …Like Clockwork, because we’ll have a review of their live show later this week, and QOTSA will certainly make an appearance in tomorrow’s Best Of list. You could check out their performance at Coachella from this past weekend as well; Pitchfork has their performance as well as many others, so they’re worth checking out.
Eels also released a music video last week for “Mistakes of My Youth”, the lead single from the upcoming album The Cautionary Tales of Mark Oliver Everett. The full album is also available for streaming on YouTube, ahead of its release date next week on the 22nd. It seems the band has stepped back from the happier, livelier sound of Wonderful, Glorious to a more delicate, winsome sound that E has favored on recent albums, but long-time fans of the band should be pleased.
Atmosphere just released a music video for “Kanye West”, their latest single from their upcoming album Southsiders. It’s a fun Bonnie & Clyde story, with an unexpected couple, with a cameo from Slug as a cashier.
Yesterday saw an unexpected release from the Deftones, as they released a track from the Eros sessions in memory of their departed bassist, Chi Cheng, who died a year ago on Sunday. “Smile” was the first song we’ve heard from the sessions, which were put on hold after Cheng had gone into a coma after a car accident. Though Chino Moreno had himself posted the song, the record label took it down because of copyright issues; we’ll see how long the link I’ve posted lasts.
We also got a brand new track today from The Black Keys, who posted the title track to their upcoming release Turn Blue today. It’s a groovy ballad, reminiscent in my mind of their cover of “Never Gonna Give You Up” and featuring that trademark Danger Mouse bass.
And finally we have Sigur Rós performing a cover of the song “The Rains of Castamere” for the Game of Thrones soundtrack. While the song is nice, I get a bigger kick out of the band dressed up in costume for the show itself. I can’t wait to catch that scene when it airs.
We usually don’t get much snow in the Pacific Northwest, and as a result we’re generally unprepared to deal with such unpleasantness. This means outside of a couple of hours of shoveling the driveway and taking a quick trip to the grocery store (and then getting the car stuck in the snow before making it up the last hill to my house), it’s been a stay-indoors-the-whole-weekend kind of time here.
This will not get plowed for days.
At least I’m taking advantage of the opportunity to watch one of my many music DVDs, and what better time to watch the documentary of Sigur Rós’s tour of their homeland of Iceland. The visuals of their countryside are stunning, and as one would expect with the majestic music of the band, so are the songs. The band comes up with many novel arrangements of their songs, ranging from their stunning light shows in Reykjavik to acoustic performances in the middle of nowhere. In addition, I also love seeing just how some of the most unreal sounds that the band makes on record are reproduced live.
I highly recommend buying it, but here’s at least the first disc.
Rust Is Just Right 