John Darnielle is the poster child for do-it-yourself recording; he started out in 1991 with just a boom box, a guitar, an aptitude for songwriting, and a stage name--the Mountain Goats. His latest album, The Sunset Tree, has slightly broader instrumentation, and his lyrical talents are shining are brightly as ever. Darnielle is confessional these days as he chronicles his childhood with an abusive stepfather, but this sobering topic does nothing to dampen the wit of his highly literate, musical poetry.
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Gorgeous presentation of impossibly gorgeous music: a selection from the remarkable work of a 12th-century German abbess who saw visions and wrote them down. This is "early music": no instruments, just transcendent, otherworldly voices singing utterly hypnotic melodies.
My favorite metal album so far this year. Sort of huge-canvas action-painting metal like Aeternus, but science fiction vs. Aeternus's sword-and-sorcery stuff; it's "metalcore," whatever that means, but it's also really thoughtful and richly textured. Also has the most pretentious song-titles I've ever seen.
One of my favorite metal bands is Aeternus, who walk their own path; there's really no-one like them. Grand-scale songs about battles & fire & so on, written and played with real conviction: you can disappear into this music and spend time in a totally different world. Sort of "progressive death" metal, if you like.
This one's from just shortly before the Cabs hit what most people think of as their prime period, but I prefer my Cabaret Voltaire a little more raw. In the middle period, the band sounds like they're at war with themselves over something obscure. This album starts off a little weak but once you lock into its bleak dystopian groove there's no stopping it. Music for machines to sing to their android babies.
Inside this totally cool spot-high-gloss booklet lies some really lost-in-the-forest crazy Finnish dance-naked-around-the-fire proggy stuff, which wouldn't normally be my thing, but this is special: kinda like seventies psycho-prog dudes Magma but jazzier and more playful and more loose to my ears. Way, way, way out there.
I listen to these two maybe more than anything else in my whole ginormous collection right now. "Girl in New Orleans," "Moving," "No-Handed," "The New Carissa"--these songs nail me to the floor every time and they never get old.
A singles-and-compilation-tracks collection that's incredibly coherent as a whole; the song "Fly South" is so haunting and mournful and very slightly frightening.
Houston has a corner on the rap market right now as far as I'm concerned, and I'd rather hear people rap about kicking everybody's ass than about how rich they are, so this album rules the school for me. It's a remarkably emotional record, too; you get the sense that Scarface, Bushwick & Willie Dee are willing to show more of themselves and dig a little deeper. Incredibly strong album from back-to-front, with the album-closing number being one of the angriest, saddest songs I've ever heard.
This album stays in the iPod even when everything else gets purged; massively underrated record in the Kristin Hersh catalog! The guitars are really pretty, all chorus'd and flange'd out, and the lyrics are cutting, hard, hermetic, great.
Grabbed this reissue the other night; in high school I was completely in love with this record. Wasn't sure how I'd feel about it now but oh my God this is one of the greatest Iggy albums ever. It's got James Williamsonfrom the Stooges on it for the first time since Raw Power! But they're doin' art-pop sorta like a grimier Roxy Music! So, so good.
Heart-on-sleeve cards-on-the-table confessional pop-folk that's catchy, deeply felt, beautifully sung, and addictive as candy. Really good for listening to & crying your eyes out when you're far from home and miss the people you love.
Such great lyrics, such subtle melodies, such canny musicianship. The drumming on "Pet Politics" is especially subtle and great. But every song's got little lyrical gems to be dug up & wondered-at.
Anybody who can hear "I'm Naked" and not grin like an idiot is probably a bad person who hates babies, sunsets, cake, and their grandparents. I love this record's bouncy, ludic, human heart.
Another confessional folk record. Years ago I ran from confessional stuff like a villager fleeing the Visigoths but how can anybody resist Mia's voice and how close to the bone she's willing to go? I love the world when I listen to this record.
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