Listening Habits 09-10.10

In the last couple of months we had the opportunity to listen to several exceptionally strong releases and I feel it’s time for a couple of nice lists that sum up our favorite albums and tracks for the fall season.

At the top of the pile of discs that weigh down the desk of Cool Music Central (yes, I still buy cds) we find "Everything In Between", the third and easily the best album by LA noise duo No Age. Over the past decade we had several examples that the two-member, guitarist-drummer, band line-up could work wonders. No Age is certainly a fine example of that, producing a wholesome, thoroughly satisfying racket using just the bare essentials.

With its latest work, No Age goes beyond its previous achievements by finally managing to master the fine art of balancing melody and noise. The drum beat that threatens to explode in the opening "Life Prowler" is kept under control, giving propulsion to the melancholic vocals and the restrained guitar melody instead of crushing them underfoot. The fury is gradually unleashed in the tracks that follow: "Glitter" is a perfect slab of noisy power-pop in the spirit of early ‘90s Sebadoh, while in "Fever Dreaming" and "Depletion" the amps are turned up to 11 and the punk-rock fireworks light the sky Husker Du-style.  "Common Heat" resets the album to melodic mode and the cycle that eventually leads to even more controlled noise explosions and spectacular sonic demolitions - reconstructions starts all over again. In short, No Age comes of age and delivers the noise-rock masterpiece it had promised all along.

Grinderman’s 2007 debut marked Nick Cave’s surprising return to the primitive blues-punk sound of his wild Birthday Party days. The mean, lean sound of Grinderman carried over to the next Bad Seeds record, making "Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!" one of the best in the group’s remarkable history. With "Grinderman 2" it seems that the two separate projects have sonically merged, making this album sound more like the follow up to "Lazarus", in places violently noisy and chaotic ("Mickey Mouse And The Goodbye Man", "Evil"), in others more subtle and broodingly melodic ("When My Baby Comes"). In other words, another exemplary work for Nick Cave and his crew, which may be a few men down in the Grinderman vessel but it’s no less willing and able to deliver the goods.

As I was saying in our Primavera Sound festival coverage here, a place in punk-rock Valhalla is already reserved for Les Savy Fav thanks to all their incredible shows and amazingly powerful records, with 2007’s "Let's Stay Friends" being their crowning achievement. "Root for Ruin" is its highly anticipated sequel and it’s finally here to provide further proof, if anyone still needed it, of the unique ability of this band to create killer punk-rock tunes. Of course a near perfect record like "Let's Stay Friends" is hard to be surpassed, but the new effort carries enough punch to come close to it and possesses plenty of new material ("Appetites", "Dirty Knails", "Let's Get Out Of Here") to add fuel to the band’s live extravaganza. Book your tickets now!

Speaking of killer punk-rock tunes, here comes Superchunk with its first record in 9 years. "Majesty Shredding", as the title suggests, provides shredding guitars and majestic shout-along noise anthems in the vein of the band’s early '90s best work. The long absence seems to have renewed the enthusiasm and reenergized the band who once again is able to admirably combine speedy, urgent punk with memorable melodies like no one else has done since the heyday of Buzzcocks.

Black Mountain goes for a different blend in "Wilderness Heart". The Canadian rockers mix heavy '70s psychedelic rock with serene folk and the end result is a wonderfully delightful concoction that should earn them a wider audience. "Let Spirits Ride" combines Black Sabbath with Hawkwind and is easily the best hard rock track of the year, while "Radiant Hearts" is a fine example of the tender folk that also occupies a special place in the band’s heart. The majestic title track and the powerful "Old Fangs" where Stephen McBean and Amber Webber trade vocals in perfect harmony are two further examples of the album’s many irresistible charms.

A different strain of folk resides in the electronic rhythms of Glasser’s excellent debut "Ring". Cameron Mesirow’s solo project turned band creates futuristic folk melodies based on tribal percussion and spooky synthesizers reminiscent of Fever Ray (with whom she shares the production team of Van Rivers and the Subliminal Kid) and Bat For Lashes. The end result sounds like the soundtrack to a magical trip through an enchanted forest where Cameron’s ethereal voice acts as your guide to safety.

Our Top 8 for September-October also includes the self-titled Interpol LP (more about it here) and Blonde Redhead’s eighth full-length, "Penny Sparkle", where the former no-wavers abandon the intricate guitar work of their past in favor of icy electronica. In this transformation we once again find the fingerprints of Swedish production duo Van Rivers and the Subliminal Kid who have co-produced the album with the band. The synth-wizards have helped Blonde Redhead to brilliantly execute the magic trick of making the guitar, the foundation of their sound so far, disappear from sight while managing to retain intact the elaborate and fragile sound sculptures that they construct around it. The end result is as breathtaking and achingly beautiful as ever.

Top 15 Albums

1.  Everything In Between - NO AGE
2.  Ring - GLASSER
3.  Grinderman 2 - GRINDERMAN
4.  Wilderness Heart - BLACK MOUNTAIN
5.  Root For Ruin - LES SAVY FAV
6.  Majesty Shredding - SUPERCHUNK
7.  Penny Sparkle - BLONDE REDHEAD
8.  Interpol - INTERPOL
9.  Phosphene Dream - THE BLACK ANGELS
10. The Hundred In The Hands - THE HUNDRED IN THE HANDS
11. Transit Transit - AUTOLUX
12. Absolute Dissent - KILLING JOKE
13. How I Got Over - THE ROOTS
14. Rough Trade Shops Psych Folk 10 - VARIOUS ARTISTS
15. Surfing The Void - KLAXONS

Top 20 Tracks

1. Mirrorage - GLASSER
2. Barricade - INTERPOL
3. Everybody's under your spell - THE DUKE SPIRIT
4. Glitter - NO AGE
5. Worm tamer - GRINDERMAN
6. Let spirits ride - BLACK MOUNTAIN
7. Let’s get out of here - LES SAVY FAV
8. My gap feels weird - SUPERCHUNK
9. Not getting there - BLONDE REDHEAD
10. Ashes to ashes - WARPAINT
11. Pigeons - THE HUNDRED IN THE HANDS
12. How I got over - THE ROOTS
13. Bad vibrations - THE BLACK ANGELS
14. Census - AUTOLUX
15. Sleep forever - CROCODILES
16. Stiff little fingers - DUM DUM GIRLS
17. The great cull - KILLING JOKE
18. Seed, crop, harvest - PRINZHORN DANCE SCHOOL
19. Slow - TWIN SHADOW
20. Veronica Sawyer - SUMMER CAMP

Glasser - Mirrorage

Primavera Sound ’10: Day Two Review (May 28, 2010)

The plans to start the second day of the festival with Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions at the Auditorium were scuppered by the delayed start of the performance. After listening to just a couple of tracks, I left the darkness of the indoor venue to return to Barcelona’s sunshine and made my way to the San Miguel Stage where The New Pornographers were just starting their set with just the right track: “Sing Me Spanish Techno”.

The New Pornographers

Although both Neko Case and Dan Bejar didn’t make the trip to Barcelona, Carl Newman and the rest of the Canadian collective did a fine job on the festival’s main stage, presenting us with an hour-long upbeat collection of sunshine pop, that combined brand new tracks (“The Crash Years”, “Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk”, “Your Hands (Together)” - the latter dedicated to Dio) with old favorites (“Mass Romantic”, “The Slow Descent Into Alcoholism”, “Use It”, “The Laws Have Changed”, “All The Old Showstoppers”, “Testament To Youth In Verse”) - an ideal soundtrack for a sunny afternoon by the Mediterranean beach.

Bethany Cosentino of Best Coast

More sunny guitar pop with a twist of '60s girl-group sound was on offer at the nearby Pitchfork Stage, where Bethany Cosentino and her group, the hotly tipped Best Coast from California, were presenting their soon to come debut LP “Crazy For You” (out in July). Recent singles “When I'm With You» (see also this) and “Something In The Way” were the tracks that I enjoyed the most, while they cheekily closed their set with a cover of Wavves’ “So Bored”, the band who suffered an infamous meltdown at the same stage a year ago.

Spoon

Back at the main stage, it was time for me to finally see Spoon live, one of my favorite bands of the last decade. Britt Daniel and his band have had considerable success in the States with “Transference” but their profile in Europe remains relatively low. Maybe this is starting to change as Spoon managed to pull quite a crowd at the San Miguel Stage, although not as large as Wilco did a bit later on (one of the performances I missed, as well as that of Japandroids due to the congested schedule of the day). Spoon have built up a remarkable repertoire over the years, so it was certain that for the next hour we were going to get an interesting mix of new (“Nobody Gets Me But You”, “Got Nuffin”, “Trouble Comes Running”, “Written in Reverse”) and older tracks (“Jonathon Fisk”, “Small Stakes”, “The Way We Get By”, “I Turn My Camera On”, “I Summon You”, “Don't Make Me a Target”, “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb”, “Don't You Evah”, “The Underdog”) while, inevitably, some favorites would be left out (“Everything Hits At Once”, “Sister Jack”, “Rhythm & Soul” for example). In any case, this was definitely one of my favorite performances of the festival and the start of a four hour period (from 8 pm till midnight) that had plenty of excitement in store for us.

Beach House

A little after half past 9, and after catching just the first song of CocoRosie’s set, I made my way to the packed ATP Stage where Beach House were about to begin. Climbing on the bleachers and finding a spot to watch the band proved to be a tough challenge, but I was rewarded with an enchanting 40-minute performance, dominated by Victoria Legrand’s imposing voice and brief fits of headbanging over her keyboards. Alex Scally, to her right, was more restrained, concentrating on his guitar and effects pedals, while the drummer had a relatively quiet evening. I usually prefer more tension and volume in live shows but on this occasion I must admit that the ethereal, magical sounds of Beach House won the day, captivating the audience for the duration of their show. Not surprisingly, the highlights of their set came from “Teen Dream”: “Norway”, “Zebra”, “Used To Be” and “10 Mile Stereo”.

Wire

The tension and volume I am usually after were on offer in generous doses at the nearby Vice Stage, my next destination, where I was able to catch the second half of Wire’s electrifying performance. The veteran post-punkers are preparing a new record for January 2011, and I’m guessing that they played some of the new material as I didn’t recognize several tracks of their set, a fact that didn’t lessen in any way my enjoyment of it. In stark contrast to bands like the Pixies, the headliners of the day, who seem to be stuck to their glorious past and, unable to move forward, have become nothing more than a touring nostalgia act, Wire are looking to the future and continue to create vital art.

Les Savy Fav

The absolute highlight of the day (and perhaps of the whole festival) for me, came at around 11 o’clock when Les Savy Fav started their deranged show at the ATP Stage. Tim Harrington made an impressive entrance dressed in a strange animal suit (I’m guessing an oversized wolf in honor of “What Would Wolves Do?”) and seconds later he was diving in the crowd and heading for the bleachers, as the guitars were catching fire. As soon as he was back on stage for the start of their second number (the magnificent “Patty Lee” - check it out here), he began his customary striptease, thankfully keeping his shorts on, and pretty soon he was back in the heaving mosh pit where madness reigned supreme. Impressively, among all this chaos, the band didn’t miss a beat, performing a note perfect set even when the guitarist was riding on the shoulders of some big fellow. For a blissful hour, Les Savy Fav was a well-oiled, firing on all pistons, punk rock machine on its way to music Valhalla!

Cold Cave

For the finale of the festival’s second day I checked out Cold Cave at the Pitchfork Stage, who were playing industrial-sized New Order melodies armed with no less than three synthesizers, and ended up at the Vice Stage for a taste of the mad garage rock of The King Khan & BBQ Show and for the dance party of Yeasayer. They kicked off their set at 2:30 am and somehow managed to keep us on our feet for another hour, until they signed off with the fine “Ampling Alp”, “Odd Blood”’s best track. The highlights of their performance, however, were “2080” and “Sunrise”, the two top tracks from their superior debut effort.

Yeasayer

Live action from Primavera Sound '10 - Day Two (May 28): The New Ponographers ("Your Hands (Together)"), Spoon ("Written In Reverse"), Beach House ("Norway"), Les Savy Fav ("The Sweat Descends"), Yeasayer ("2080") and Best Coast ("So Bored")

The Day One report is here. Our report from the third day of the festival is coming soon..

Postcards from Primavera Sound 10: Day 2 & 3 highlights

Mobile phone-quality photos and videos from some of the best performances of the second and third day of the Primavera Sound 10 festival in Barcelona featuring Les Savy Fav, Spoon, The New Pornographers, Best Coast, Built To Spill, Dum Dum Girls and The Drums. We're keeping the good stuff for the detailed reports that we're going to bring you both here and in mixgrill.gr as soon as we're back home and make a full recovery from this three day music-marathon!

Day 2 - May 28, 2010

Les Savy Fav, live @ Primavera Sound 10

Les Savy Fav - Patty Lee, live @ Primavera Sound 10

Spoon, live @ Primavera Sound 10

Spoon - Trouble Comes Running, live @ Primavera Sound 10

The New Pornographers, live @ Primavera Sound 10

 Best Coast, live @ Primavera Sound 10

Day 3, May 29, 2010

Built To Spill, live @ Primavera Sound 10

 Dum Dum Girls, live @ Primavera Sound 10

The Drums, live @ Primavera Sound 10

The Top 20 Albums of the '00s: Number 11

Les Savy Fav - Let's Stay Friends (2007, Frenchkiss)

The album that revealed to a wider audience New York rock's best kept secret. Les Savy Fav's fourth LP achieves the perfect balance between aggressive punk-rock intensity and upbeat, pop-friendly melody. For more about "Let's Stay Friends" you can check out our 2007 review or read here AllMusic's opinion.

Les Savy Fav - What Would Wolves Do?

Counting Down The '00s: The Best Of 2007

In 2007 we had no less than four records that equally deserved the number one spot of our "Albums of the Year" list. In the end the honor went to Les Savy Fav who made their spectacular comeback with a work of amazing variety and impressive punk-rock dynamics. This is what we had to say about the album in our end of the year review: "It was certainly the most impressive comeback of 2007. A decade since their debut and six years since their last full-length, Les Savy Fav resurfaced with the magnificent “Let’s Stay Friends”. It is their fourth and best album so far, a stylistically diverse, powerful record that achieves that rare, perfect balance between aggressive, pedal-to-the-metal punk rock intensity and melodic, even danceable, pop tunes. “Patty Lee” is perhaps the best example of this precarious balancing act, followed closely by “The Equestrian”, “The Year Before the Year 2000” and the single “What Would Wolves Do?”".

Equally impressive was Blonde Redhead’s “23”, the definitive album of their continuously evolving career. Here’s a quote from our review: "The New York based Japanese-Italian trio started in the mid-90s making glorious noise under the mighty shadow of Sonic Youth. They kept experimenting, continuously evolving their sound, and by the turn of the century, with album number five “Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons”, they had developed their own, unique voice. “23”, their seventh LP, is their masterpiece. A majestic dream-pop landscape where new wave and no wave meet and live happily ever after!".

The other two top releases of the year came from The White Stripes and Grinderman. Jack and Meg returned to form with the classic rock powerhouse that was “Icky Thump”, in my opinion their best album of the decade along with “Elephant”, while Nick Cave returned to the wild sound of his frenzied Birthday Party days with the first Grinderman album.

Modest Mouse delivered another excellent work, this time with the help of '80s guitar legend Johnny Marr, and successfully claimed a place in our end of the year Top 10 list for the third time in this decade. Equally successful was Interpol’s third release, Spoon continued full speed ahead with their sixth LP, while we also had four very important sophomore releases from Arctic Monkeys, Bloc Party, Arcade Fire and LCD Soundsystem.

Dinosaur Jr. proved that there was a very good reason for their reformation by delivering “Beyond”, an astonishing album that picked up exactly where the original line-up had left off 19 years ago with “Bug”. Mark E. Smith surprisingly offered his best work for the year not with The Fall but with Von Sudenfed, the product of his collaboration with German electronic experimentalists Mouse On Mars.

The particularly strong Top 20 of the year also included albums from El-P (“I’ll Sleep When You're Dead” was our favorite hip hop album of 2007), The Go! Team, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Bright Eyes, Kings Of Leon, The Shins and Radiohead who questioned the established way of distributing music by trying out a pay-what-you-like model. Personally, I decided to download the mp3s for free to decide if I liked the album and then, after approving of what I had heard, I paid for the cd. Call me old-fashioned, but paying for low quality digital music files makes no sense to me. Having something tangible in my hands and, more importantly, of high sound quality is what deserves my money, in my opinion.

Top 30 Albums of 2007

1. Let’s stay friends - LES SAVY FAV
2. 23 - BLONDE REDHEAD
3. Icky thump - THE WHITE STRIPES
4. Grinderman - GRINDERMAN
5. We were dead before the ship even sank - MODEST MOUSE
6. Favourite worst nightmare - ARCTIC MONKEYS
7. A weekend in the city - BLOC PARTY
8. Neon bible - ARCADE FIRE
9. Our love to admire - INTERPOL
10. Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga - SPOON
11. Tromatic reflexxions - VON SUDENFED
12. Baby 81 - BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB
13. Beyond - DINOSAUR JR.
14. I’ll sleep when you're dead - EL-P
15. Sound of silver - LCD SOUNDSYSTEM
16. Proof of youth - THE GO! TEAM
17. Cassadaga - BRIGHT EYES
18. Because of the times - KINGS OF LEON
19. Wincing the night away - THE SHINS
20. In rainbows - RADIOHEAD
21. Boxer - THE NATIONAL
22. Under the blacklight - RILO KILEY
23. Boss - MAGIK MARKERS
24. Curses - FUTURE OF THE LEFT
25. LP - HOLY FUCK
26. Myth takes - !!!
27. Spirit if… - BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE PRESENTS: KEVIN DREW
28. Mosaic - LOVE OF DIAGRAMS
29. Lose all time - YOU SAY PARTY! WE SAY DIE!
30. A Place To Bury Strangers - A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS

Top 30 Singles of 2007

1. The prayer - BLOC PARTY
2. Four winds - BRIGHT EYES
3. Is Is EP- YEAH YEAH YEAHS
4. Reformation - THE FALL
5. Icky thump - THE WHITE STRIPES
6. No cars go - ARCADE FIRE
7. The Heinrich maneuver - INTERPOL
8. Hang me up to dry - COLD WAR KIDS
9. Dashboard - MODEST MOUSE
10. Fledermaus can't get it - VON SUDENFED
11. No pussy blues - GRINDERMAN
12. Brianstorm - ARCTIC MONKEYS
13. It's getting boring by the sea - BLOOD RED SHOES
14. 23 - BLONDE REDHEAD
15. Mistaken for strangers - THE NATIONAL
16. Weapon of choice - BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE
17. Chips ahoy - THE HOLD STEADY
18. What would wolves do? - LES SAVY FAV
19. What's a girl to do? - BAT FOR LASHES
20. Grip like a vice - THE GO! TEAM
21. North American scum - LCD SOUNDSYSTEM
22. Golden skans - KLAXONS
23. Men’s needs - THE CRIBS
24. Charmer - KINGS OF LEON
25. Threshold apprehension - BLACK FRANCIS
26. Been there all the time - DINOSAUR JR.
27. 3's & 7's - QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE
28. 2080 - YEASAYER
29. To the east - ELECTRELANE
30. I’m not gonna teach your boyfriend how to dance with you - BLACK KIDS

The Best Albums of 2007 - Final Cut

Making a music album seems to be a dying art. Sales are plummeting as downloads are taking over but here, in Cool Music Central, we still have a lot of love for them and we try to do our part to keep them alive. Going to the record shop and searching for that elusive album has been an important part of our upbringing and there's no hard-drive or cool portable device full of mp3s that's going to replace the joy of holding a vinyl album or even a small plastic cd in our hands. Another pleasure of the album format is making the yearly list of your favorites. This is a task that we take so seriously, that the list we have ready every year by December 31st is never the final one, because there's always so many more albums to listen to. The final version of the 2007 list has been 20 months in the making and it's finally done! It includes more than 200 albums released last year and, as always, singles out our top 50 selections. You can see the final list here, and you can watch the video for "Patty Lee", one of the many killer tracks on our Album of the Year, Les Savy Fav's "Let's stay friends", below:

Les Savy Fav - Patty Lee