Listening • Diamonds From the Trough, Part 3

Enguarde! Ole! Here here! In the second part of our end-of-year mini-series searching for forgotten gems in the best-of-list, Erik got down dirty with year-end lists and caught some tasty morsels that almost slipped through our nets. Let’s continue wrestling with the lists—there’s a lot of good stuff still out there that we will not allow to be forgotten.

The Catbird Seat’s monthly mix tapes continue to be a thing to behold, especially with the Guardian declaring 2008 “The Year of the Mixtape.” Mr Ryan Catbird’s December mix-tapes are especially worthy when held up next to people indiscriminately uploading almost 1GB of Pitchfork’s Top 100 songs; no context, no voice, just treasure and complete submission. Instead we yearn for the more esoteric, idiosyncratic lists that make the internet a warm place of soul, not just booty.

The Catbird Seat and Gorilla Vs Bear both rounded the year off by applauding Karl Blau’s slow and steady desert-drift. They shared “Mockingbird Diet;” it has lasting appeal but with thousands of tracks and albums called “best,” you’ve really got to go for the quick easy option. Sean from Said The Gramophone succeeds by going for Blau’s “Before telling dragons,” currently at 32 listens. You’ll whistle it through your dreams, skip up the curb, share your best stories, and wonder whether this is the Holy Grail that Weezer will discover after the floods subside.

Bon Iver had everyone’s heart this year, including mine; singing proudly with no apologies—all good. But then there’s Karl Blau; he knocks first, telling grizzly stories in the corner as Bon Iver stands on the table in the next room. Both are good hometown woodsmen but Blau will furnish the soundscape of my mind’s eye with so many more monuments, great forest characters that Bon Iver couldn’t carve or summoun in a decade of winters.

So many sound like Deerhoof, Broken Social Scene, or the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s when they try to do this. Gang Gang Dance either worked hard or got really lucky. They drown you in rain dances and have you reborn and remade from a fiery cauldron in the middle of the jungle. These arty Brooklynites jam through all hues, with little hesitation and complete disregard for compass points and magnetic fields, disorienting listeners and light with a sound so difficult to tune out from. This must sing of pre-rapture parties, in caves painted psychedelic, where we party to lights in the sky, to the end. The Grime MC breakdown at the midway point brings the dance to peak. The whole album is a mirage of LCD Soundsystem running beats, Burial’s Gothic bass busting, and the more hip-tropical Animal Collective beats, a feast for those left lacking in the holiday season.

Listen to Gang Gang Dance at This Recording’s end-of-year run-down. This Recording is “a blog dedicated to the enjoyment of audio and visual stimuli,” and another great discovery this year. The editors at This Recording have you covered for pop-culture reminiscences, and the writers keep spinning words, keep loving, keep finding things and people to love—it’s random, and shuffling, but I’ll read every word while I work out exactly what the deal is, when I hit January. I’ll keep reading as I look and see the door to 2008 is shut, and that there is a whole year to be had: a fresh, clean slate, new tunes, new people, new places. No resolutions for me though, I want my year remembered by lists, not restricted, tied up, and held hostage by something that December Me thought would be smart.

 —Mike Smith, Dec. 19, 2008

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Listening • Diamonds From the Trough, Part 1

Heaving in another year’s haul, diamonds gradually reveal themselves as I trawl through lists and lists of the year’s best music—people distilling a year of high energy and much distraction. It’s being summed up with usual swish, swash, and style by Said the Gramophone right now. They and their kin do more than wave dimmed torches across now crackly and over-played records. The diamond filled troughs they fill this time of year set us up well for thrills and spills in 2009, bidding us Good Hunting!

Diamonds, an indie-pop band worthy of year-end honor-roll, sing of their namesake. “Diamonds” is carved by a whole generations’ heartbreak sighs, from lungs that were great celebrated church organs in their day. Heavy words are echoed by light appreciative voice, tempered by dragging feet. Six tracks follow with brisker pace, much spirit, and a cosmic restorative power: sharp and proud tones of drum, voice, and charged strings. It all builds to the stunned power-up of “The Waking.” But it all begins with “Diamonds” and that moment when the friends dozing in the backseats start to sing with you; by the end of the record they are right there, wrapping their arms around you and your journey, all watching the sun and the moon speed across the windshield. Get the record—It’s free!—and see for yourselves.

I began the year by finding a diamond in the dirt: The Rollercoaster Project’s electronica. Those diamonds were really made of ice, melting away as thaw came. A presidential election in a country I had just met and thoughts about climate crisis moved me in new directions.

Like the end of the Diamonds record, “The Waking” happened, and I got going. Arriving in December there’s a lot I missed, a lot of good stuff to hear, so many diamonds being shined up for their final viewing as new, just dug up, bright things with an inner light will soon compete with them.

Sasha Frere Jones keeps his best of list updated all through the year—a marvelous way of doing it. Also crucial are people like Eric Harvey, who runs the Marathonpacks blog, reviewing records all year long, calibrating our sense of speed, gush of positivity. Amongst great fanfare—oh the joy of only reviewing things I like—temperance is virtuous.

I really like these list-bearers, not just for their voices, but for their heart and promise. They are prologue and talisman to a new year prime for good hunting for good things and, most importantly, for good people to share these things with—the old media can’t match labor of love these independent voices sustain all through the year.

I’ll continue gorging on these lists and try to dig up some more small diamonds before the year is out. But for now, just one observation regarding Elliot Spitzer & the diamond rated escorts: NASA (NASA!) got there first. “Spitzer’s Eyes Perfect for Spotting Diamonds in the Sky.” —Mike Smith, Dec. 15, 2008

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Listening • Blood Bank

Man goes to the woods, builds fire, thinks, records album, wins huge, deserved praise in end-of-year list gatherings. Justin Vernon, Bon Iver, will soon be back with Blood Bank EP. Less snow, presumably less contemplation—he had all winter to record his previous work—though the layers continue to pile on as he burns folk down to its charcoaled, wind-bent, dark-blooded essence.

He does like Imogen Heap did on “Hide and Seek” in EP closer “Woods.” Vocoders don’t have a magic quality, they only give life to big voices. Inner fear echoes as outer noises of the woods howl, exposed, and demand the flesh. Or at least Bon Iver demands a live viewing, hearing the next 200 pages that will never be given justice on record, moments that would seem indulgent laid down on tracks. But, witnessed first person, the second half of every song, as it ascends and triples seasons’ lengths, is worthy. For Bon Iver, the physical tracks aren’t even half the story, it’s the ongoing process that lives and breathes. This starts to come close:



 —Mike Smith, Dec. 8, 2008

» Listen to "Woods" at The Hype Machine

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Listening • They All Got It Wrong

The supposed end of the world, the last amplifier. No great crescendo, just the open air, desert breeze, a bright white light. Or is this the end for us all? Like the Titanic’s unflappable violinists, the end of the world isn’t all post-rock—it can be dipping piano, climaxing if the world deserves it, and I think it does. TV On The Radio’s Kyp Malone moderates pre- to post-apocalypse transition in this side project named Iran. The band move from lo- to hi-fi sounds, keeping a bit of noise and experiments from their previous release but expanding their palette, dimensional awareness, and popular appeal. —Mike Smith, Dec. 5, 2008

» Listen to "Buddy" at Brooklyn Vegan

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Watching • Determining the Best Thing

This vs That. Lobsters vs Godfather II. In this video, some architects, as part of their work with the Counter-Intuitive Comparison Institute of North America, ask us to think about the relative advantages of McDonalds, seahorses, English people. They contend that thing-literacy is important to designing the places we live and understanding why things are as they are. They are utterly convincing. In terms of really getting down to the nitty-gritty, NCAA inspired brackets force you to choose the best quality, not by abstract criticism but by simple direct comparison! We do it everyday, these guys have just spent a lot of time thinking about it. Democracy or Heated Seats? What is the best thing? A thing that helps create or facilitate other things, or something that just works, everytime? Those crazy architects.  —Mike Smith, Dec. 1, 2008

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Listening • Feeling for Iceland

I feel for Iceland. They’ve got supermarket flags flying over their parliament, they’ve spent way too much money. It’s economic meltdown for real. You wouldn’t blame them hibernating til spring, emerging with hope that the glacial movements of recession have retreated back up the mountain. Compatriots Sigur Ros and Bjork are good for soundtracking the crash of waves, ships sinking, and bank-Execs being fed to the fishes. But Sin Fang Bous’s “Sinkership,” sounds more like forgotten dreams, electro-poptimism, and collective folk-choices to renew. It’s reflected through the crowds, the haze, the innovation, and second-hand machinery of this sweet song, a side project to band Seabear.

Dear Iceland, I would like to visit. I don’t know where your musicians begin, but I would like to see it. You should listen to this record through the winter, the album will emerge from its chrysalis, fully formed, next spring. Get it now from that popular online music store if they are still accepting your currency. —Mike Smith, Dec. 1, 2008

» Listen to "Sinkership" at Bunnynico

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Listening • Larkin Grimm

Before, Larkin Grimm sung folk for the forests—see her myspace for country chanting, etc. Now, she rides out of the trees on great magical horses—like a Tolkienian spaghetti western. Years back, Larkin Grimm persuaded a crowd and I to lie on the floor and engage in some astro-traveling. She walked amongst us as we lay in that room above the pub, still wrapped in scarfs, warmed by candlelight. Most would have thought of ice palaces burning to the ground, thinking of the winter outside and the increasing heat inside. Now though, in “Ride the Cyclone,” I imagine a spiritual journey to get back to civilization, following the songlines, eager to destroy, rebuild, summon wild voices, and warm the blood of the next generation. —Mike Smith, Nov. 24, 2008

» Listen to "Ride that Cyclone" at Stereogum

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Watching • Cube! Defender of the Polyverse!

As much as I like video-games, it’s always better to be outside. This trailer for video game CUBE offers the technology that “makes calculators look like the cotton gin.” It makes a compelling case to avoid the computer, and instead, as I do, try to beat the 50 mph barrier on my racing bike. It’s worth thinking whether video games are broken; CUBE tries to do this.

You are now CUBE, Defender of the polyverse! Collect the diamonds & reach the goal! Every goal leads to another color level… the fun cannot be halted.

Games are fun, but this video may be their essence boiled right down.

This review of Outside from a gamer’s perspective notes, “Outside is remarkably high in sex, violence and challenges to traditional values, despite the strong child-focused marketing it receives,” but ultimately, “Outside is overrated, and many gamers will find themselves forced by friends and family to play it against their will, but it still deserves a high rating.” Yes, it’s of a coherent and critical review of the world—something philosophers have been struggling to do for millennia; it’s the sort of perspective that’s only possible after months of immersion in a fantasy world.  —Mike Smith, Oct. 31, 2008

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Listening • Beach House Take a Break

Beach House’s spooky and warm lo-fi pop music continues to breeze past. Beach House pause for thought and take a literal, not musical, break from woozy synths and a steady heartbeat drum-machine pace. I’m inclined to sit, drift and reconsider their dark and spiritual sounds. I listen a little more carefully to two albums that don’t spark, but have always burnt right through me.

I just heard “Used To Be,” a song released in the gap between touring and recording an album next year. “Used To Be” indicates the duo are far from washed-out; in this pit-stop the duo take their time, sit in dunes far from any road, and stare at the ocean. As they do, and before they move on, I want to be ready to follow. I’m reacquainting myself with albums that I flew through—wobbling harmonies that conjure faded memories of crisp and bright days—the sort of days when you need to slow right down and take a look around to really understand what’s happening, what’s happened. —Mike Smith, Oct. 29, 2008

» Listen to "Used To Be" at 8/5

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