My 2016 Listening Habits

2016, where did you go? It was the year I had a hard time getting heavily invested in any one new record. I spend a fair amount of time with the following records: Bowie's masterful departure note Blackstar gave us the jazz record we never knew we needed. Bon Iver's 22, A Million took Justin Veron's experimental and voice-as-an-instrument experiments to the max, leaving those who still think of him as folk singer in the woods far behind. Car Seat Headrest's Teens of Denial embodied many of the things I still love about guitar based rock music. Verbose songs, with elements of Built to Spill and Pavement, memorable obtuse choruses and songs that grow. 

The majority was spend listened to Radiohead's beautiful A Moon Shaped Pool. It was the first Radiohead record completely missing at least one song with distorted guitar, and most closely related to 2007's lush In Rainbows. Depending about how you feel about bands progressing from their initial sound and beauty in music, the record was sleeper or a tonic to the senses. Amazing string arrangements from Jonny Greenwood spattered across many of the songs, where "the guitars sound like pianos, the pianos sound like guitars." With ties to songs that have been the band's repertoire for quite some time, we finally get a studio version of True Love Waits at it's most abstract. Stand out tracks for me included the dreamy Decks Dark, and the soulful Identikit. Broken hearts truly do make it rain.

My 2015 Listening Habits

Late again, I know; Let's go!

Some past favorites released excellent rerecords this year. Björk with Vulnicura and Sufjan Stevens with Carrie & Lowell were both revealing, soul barring records, mining the depths of human emotion over broken relationships and dead loved ones. Both use mostly non-rock style instrumentation, with Carrie & Lowell avoiding drums almost completely. Haunting to listen to, but not for sunny afternoons. 

TV on Radio with Seeds and Interpol on El Pintor were both in rotation. TVOR has moved farther from there clattering post-punk sound and funk-style deviations to crystal clear synth-rock. Although I am often left wanting the sounds of Return to Cookie Mountain, I am glad the band continues to evolve it sound. Interpol released the record everyone wanted with El Pintor harking back to Turn On the Bright Lights. A good choice and a solid non-reinvention.

2014 material I caught up with this year included  Aphex Twin's excellent Syro (listenable glitch IDM; always different but recognizable all these years later), The War on Drugs' Lost in the Dream (hazy guitar rock of yore),  and Caribou's Our Love (dreamy dance music done right). 

My Favorites Records of 2015:

Wilco :: Star Wars

An excellent surprise record. Hints of Television and A Ghost is Born. Kraut-y jams abound with a in studio/live feel to the entire record. Makes me smile.

Alabama Shakes :: Sound & Color

Surprising if you expected retreat of roots-soul-rock. The Shakes decide instead to expand their sound to be electric, modern, and unexpected in the best ways possible. 

Joanna Newsom :: Divers

On her most accessible record yet, Joanna still manages to make you ant to follow her down the rabbit hole. Beautiful avant-folk for the modern age.

Blur :: The Magic Whip

Hard to believe they finally released this after a supposed failed recording session in Hong Kong in 2014. Although Albarn has many side projects to keep him busy, the boys from London remind us of why we feel in love with them in the first place with a record that does not disappoint.

Beach House :: Depression Cherry // Thank Your Lucky Stars

In the age of fast attention spans, Beach House releases two record in a year. A further trip along the fuzzy, dream pop trail.

Your Options As A Two Piece Band

Look at you! You formed a band! Who's in it? Oh, you and that other guy/girl. I see. Well, your options are clearly laid out before you based on other power duo or two piece rock bands of the last 30 years. Let's dig in:

The White Stripes / The Kills: Believe in the power of two to your own detriment. Harness those limitations to become even more powerful than you could have even if you recruited as many members as Broken Social Scene.

The Black Keys / Flat Duo Jets: Stick with the two piece until you get sick of it. It stops you from getting boring.

Japandroids: Split you guitar signal between two amps, one for clean and one for effects. This allow for a lead and rhythm guitar sound without an additional guitarist.

Sleigh Bells / Crystal Castles: Use a sampler to your benefit.

Beach House: Skip the drummer, at least for a while.

Wye Oak: Have your drummer play one handed on a keyboard. Make it ethereal.

Lightning Bolt: Play your music on the floor, not on a stage. What would a third band member be doing anyway? You can't get any louder than you already are.

My 2014 Listening Habits

So, I am really late on this one. But for posterity...I didn't "get" as many new records this year as I typically have. I think I spent more time listening to This American Life, Radio Diaries, and other podcasts than falling in love with new music. But, here is what I did listen to:

From last year, I finally got my teeth into Bowie's The Next Day. It is the most solid record from the Thin White Duke in (maybe) 20 years. Althought self-referential to his 70s Berlin period, those records have stood the test of time and still sound fresh today.

Here are my 2014 top records:

Jack White :: Lazzaretto

The man is unstoppable. Yes, things are glossier than the White Stripes days, but Lazzaretto is diverse, classic, and innovative all in the same breath. I picked up my copy on vinyl in Nashville at Third Man Records.

Spoon :: They Want MySoul

Eight records in, Spoon continue to release essential records. Britt's voice never gets old, and the boys add more keyboards and other fx without sounding unlike themselves. Just excellent from front to back.

Sharon van Etten :: Are We There Yet?

This was my grower for 2015. I loved Tramp, and on first listen I didn't "get" this one. Haunting melodies and some additional instrumentation round out Sharon's sound. A great soundtrack for late night drives into the woods.

Future Islands :: Singles

If one band dominated my headspace during 2015, it was Future Islands. Yes, I was late to the party here, but I dug into their back catalog and came back with many favorites. The appeal of Future Islands is hard to describe without at least seeing a performance. They bring the soul to dark synth pop. Fans of New Order will hear those Peter Hook bass lines, but Sam Cooke pops up in the vocal delivery at times, along with enigmatic lead singers like Morrissey and other elements of 80s pop music. It may not work on paper, but Singles is just that, a collection of songs that stand on their own by a road tested band who found a sound all their own. 

My 2013 Listening Habits

At one point during the year, my car battery died. After the battery was replaced, the head unit in the car needed an access code to be unlocked. Unfortunately, I did not have the access code on hand. To get it working again I would need to get the serial number off the unit itself along with the car's VIN to get the security code. Interestingly, the manufacture only makes this website available during certain hours of the day. So, I have yet to get the radio and cd player working. And that sums up my year in some ways. With so much to do, if something required too much time and wasn't essential, it didn't get done. Not to say there were not many great listening experiences and otherwise during 2013, but I did little to no listening in my car. Instead, cds were ripped and mp3s cataloged but sometimes never listened to. So, I think in the coming year I will go back and listen to a lot of music I acquired in 2013 but just never got around to hearing. And in some ways that is the great thing about music. There will always be more to listen than you will have time in the day, and if something is that good, it can be heard years from it's initial release date and still make in impact.

Because of not listening much in the car, my list this year is light on older material which i usually seem to spin  more while traveling. One band I had overlooked that I did enjoy catching up with this year was  Low. I had the opportunity to see them perform at Solid Sound Festival this summer in the middle of a hot, sunny day. This did little to impact the somber mood with the stage and band members bathed in black.  Some dismiss Low as too depressing, but listening to 2001's Things We Lost in the Fire did a good job of introducing me to their sound. I look forward to hearing their other releases as they continue to examine how much emotional weight can be wrought from a slow song.

Another set of bands that I hadn't got around to was JEFF the Brotherhood and Screaming Females. Both have toured and released split together. Screaming Females reminds me of a younger Dinosaur Jr fronted by a female J Mascis with a larger vocal presence, and 2012's Ugly is a testament to their chops. JEFF the Brotherhood calls to mind what Weezer used to be, fun power-pop with a sense of humor. Hypnotic Nights was a great summer time record of fun tunes for the open road.

As for records of 2013, some of favorites came back with solid releases. The National continued to fine tune there unique sound with Trouble Will Find Me. If you weren't a fan of previous releases, it's hard to imagine jumping at this late date with a different opinion. If anything, The National continue to distill their sound. Not as epic as previous releases, I found Trouble a grower that I returned to throughout the year.

Sigur Rós came back from the land of ambient via 2012 Valtari with 2013's epic Kveikur. Fire and brimstone reign down from the sky as the boys from the land of ice get loud. If you thought the band lost their noise after ( ), Kveikur reminds us that was not the case.

The Strokes had fallen off my radar after Angles, which although enjoyable, didn't get much repeated listens. I found Countdown Machine to be different. The band continues to mine the 1982 sound, with synth flourishes beside their typical guitar work. I found it a return to form that held more than I expected.

Thom Yorke's side project band Atoms for Peace released the excellent Amok to well-deserved acclaim. Hypnotic in sound, with electronics pushed to the front, the record's basis in African bass and drum rhythms and further reliance on live instrumentation than The Eraser made it funkier then expected. It's no surprise that the record was born from late night Fela Kuti listening sessions. Traditionalists may not hear through the electronics, but the basis is deeply rooted in something real.

My favorite three records of the year were:

Foxygen / We are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic
Certain records go over my head. The uber-fan will say "You had to be there, man" and it seems that, yes, you really did to understand the impact or how different this music was then everything else around it at the time. Once it's been spun 50 zillion times on the "classic rock" station, even the best songs lose their potency. Foxoygen came to remind us how it felt. Thoroughly mining the best of the 60s and 70s, We are... incorporates much of a vintage rock sound, at times in full on homages, and others with a wink and a nod. This is another band I was privileged to see at Solid Sound, and there live antics did not disappoint. You really had to be there.

Arcade Fire / Reflkector
So what else could Arcade Fire do that they already haven't? It seems that they are not content to rest, with each album seeing a further spin on their sound. It comes to us fully formed, guided by the loving hand of James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem fame (R.I.P.) Some have decried the ostentatiousness of a double record, but nothing here is a time waster. Does Arcade Fire sound suffer from going down the mutant dance rabbit hole? No, if anything, it enhancing my belief they these guys can do anything.

Daft Punk / Random Access Memories
How does a cult electronic dance duo from France become a household name? It doesn't happen overnight. Daft Punk have slowly been building their reputation over their career, but in many senses this is a very different record for them. Instead of relying on samplers, the robots used more live studio instrumentation and a variety of guest vocalist to augment their ambitious vision. After one of the largest album rollouts of all time (yes, even bigger than Arcade Fire), these guys move away from their own followers and brostep boys by releasing their most backwards looking record. Interesting, it stands as a cohesive document of musical memories of a time gone by.