Tag: kurt vile

Holiday-sized rundown of my favorite albums of 2015

This year saw an incredible slate of releases from a ton of different genres.

So, instead of a typical five or 10 item list, I’m naming an album of the year, and then giving some shine to the glut of great tunes from this year.

My anticlimactic pick for album of the year is:

I Love You, Honeybear by Father John Misty.

I gushed about this album when it came out, and I sung its praises when I did my half-year roundup. Unsurprisingly, I still hold this album in high regards. It’s a collection of excellent ’70s troubadour love songs performed  with a bitingly sarcastic viewpoint. The acerbic observation often turns inward, as Josh Tillman demonstrates he’s not above a world he largely sees as vapid and ridiculous.

 

 

 

Despite all the vitriol and bile evident on songs such as “Ideal Husband” and “The Night Josh Tillman Came To Our Apartmet” the album’s hardly bleak, as the title track, gentle closing ballad and super funny “Nothing Good Ever Happens at the Goddamn Thirsty Cow” underscore the central theme of the album, which is Tillman’s incredulity that a thoroughly modern jackass could find a classically happy love.

On to the other albums I loved this year:

Rose Mountain by Screaming Females

Sore by Dilly Dally

Painted Shut by Hop Along

Feels Like by Bully

Art Angels by Grimes

Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit by Courtney Barnett

Depression Cherry and Thank Your Lucky Stars by Beach House.

This year was an awesome year for female-fronted rock bands, and that’s without  mentioning  the Waxahatchee album or  the Sleater-Kinney release. I liked both albums, but didn’t particularly love either one.

Also, I know Claire Boucher is sort of a genre-hopping, singer-songwriter-producer, but listen to “Scream” and tell me Deafheaven wouldn’t be proud to have provided the instrumentation for that beat. Therefore, based on that stylistic choice and attitude, I’m lumping her in with the rockers.

I recommend just making one really long Beach House playlist using both their albums from this year, getting real cozy, maybe a little drunk, or maybe just taking some over the counter sleep aids and sitting in the undulating, shimmering swells of this music.

Bully, Screaming Females and Dilly Dally all mined similar ’90s alternative rock veins. If you like Hole, you’ll like Bully. If you like The Pixies’ Kim Deal songs you’ll like Dilly Dally and if you like The Smashing Pumpkins but wish anyone but Billy Corgan was in charge, so you didn’t have to hear his voice and songs would be less meandering, Screaming Females are the platonic ideal. Dilly Dally absolutely have a loud-quiet-loud dynamic going on, and their music tends to move in surprising direction.  Alicia Bognanno’s vocals pretty much ensured every review of Bully’s great album included a comp to Hole,but Hole never released an album quite this even, and Screaming Females branched out to some new sonic territory without abandoning punchy, crunchy guitar noises on a characteristically strong album.

Painted Shut came damn close to getting my album of the year nod. The incredible third album by Hop Along is the simple, jangle rock music I love, and Frances Quinlan’s singing is unlike anything else released this year or really any other year. Painted Shut and Art Angels  remind me of each other because both feature wildly fluctuating points of view, focus and scope presented by gutsy singers using their voices in almost every imaginable way.

Courtney Barnett’s debut album paints detailed scenes with lyrics and rocks in a very straight-forward way that belies the sophistication of Barnett’s insightful, funny songwriting. It’s a great paring and an incredibly confident first LP.

The Agent Intellect by Protomartyr

The Most Lamentable Tragedy by Titus Andronicus

Know America by Obnox

b’lieve i’m going down by Kurt Vile

Teens of Style by Car Seat Headrest

Protomartyr continue to make post-punk music that sounds vital and interesting, which is no easy feat. The Agent Intellect also contains the super personal, super sad “Why Does it Shake?” which derives its name from a real question about tremors caused by aging.

Titus Andronicus swung for the fences with a sprawling double-album and mostly connected. The Most Lamentable Tragedy contained some of the best songs in the band’s oeuvre and some really fascinating takes on what it’s like to battle mental afflictions.

I haven’t seen a ton of love for Obnox’s newest album, but it’s weird blend of hip-hop, blues and scuzzy rock with commentary on race relations made it sort of a lofi To Pimp a Butterfly and a totally captivating listen.

Kurt Vile scaled back from his last effort, but Vile is thoroughly hilarious when pontificates on a largely mundane existence and “Pretty Pimpin'” might be his best single ever.

If you like Julian Casablancas, you’ll love Car seat Headrest, who make a fun brand of garage rock I can’t not endorse.

I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside by Earl Sweatshirt

Mr.Wonderful by Action Bronson

Summertime ’06 by Vince Staples

To Pimp A Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar

For me, this was a year that saw a lot of rap releases I liked, but not a ton I loved. Donnie Trumpet was interesting, but really didn’t do much for me. Drake sold a million albums and still, as always, sucked.

Earl Sweatshirt got even darker and more insular, and it really worked. If you want to feel super bleak, look no further than his album from this year.

Action Bronson revealed he apparently listens to more blues and Billy Joel than I would have expected on a super fun, well-made album.

Vince Staples continues to be almost uncomfortably real about his upbringing and proximity to gang violence, but he’s always clever and fairly catchy.

Kendrick Lamar turned out what most people consider to be the album of the year with his politically minded, not particularly commercial release. I actually liked it more than his last album, but I’m still not a huge fan of the re-heated G-funk and Flying Louts aping. Still, the album was pleasantly weird and grappled with some big-picture topics and is definitely worth a spin.

Some albums that just missed the cut: Before the World Was Big by Girlpool, Ratchet by Shamir, Untethered Moon by Built to Spill, Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper by Panda Bear, The Things We Do to Find People Like Us by Beach Slang and StarWars by Wilco.

 

 

 

 

Kurt Style: b’lieve i’m goin down is genre experimentation through a familiar prism.

At this point, Kurt Vile is a known entity. He has put out four albums with the help from his regular backing band, the Violators. Vile’s fifth studio album, b’lieve i’m going down, is slated for a late September release, and it’s unsurprisingly excellent.

However, b’lieve‘s content is mildly surprising in places–especially considering Vile’s recent trajectory.

His last release, 2013’s Wakin on a Pretty Daze was a wonderful, warm slice of meandering dad rock, which is fitful, because several songs, including one of my favorites of ’13, meditated upon fatherhood.

However, Wakin… was slightly more shambolic and zonked out than usual, and as much as I enjoyed it, a concern that future endeavors might be too mellow crept into the back of my mind.

Vile doesn’t necessarily tear the roof off, but opening track, “Pretty Pimpin” is a fairly immediate alert things are going to be different. The song approaches something resembling a stomping rhythm and builds steam as it progresses. It’s also a funny depiction of difficulty identifying self, which is a departure from Wakin‘s gentle self-assurance. Oh, and, of course, there’s gratuitous use of the word pimping as an adjective.

The next track, “I’m an Outlaw” continues the change of pace. It’s a twangy country tune complete with banjo. Repetitious, rhythmic twang and a drum beat probably haven’t existed in as much harmony since Beck’s earliest glories.

“Dust Bunnies” is a laid-back lamentation from an aging rocker, who bemoans the mild nature of an increasingly domestic life, while still preferring playing homemaker to an early drug-fueled death. Fitting the retrospective rock theme, Vile seamlessly slips in a fun paradoxical reference to The Band and Sam Cooke “Don’t know much about history/Don’t know much about the shape I’m in.”

The next four songs are all much more typical of Vile, which is to say, they’re excellent, gentle folk-rock-country hybrids, but as the album winds down some wrinkles creep back in.

“Lost My Head There” and the instrumental”Bad Omens” both feature enjoyable interplay between piano, simmering guitar drone and spacy sound effects.  “Kidding Around” actually ends with some electronic bloops.

However, album-closer “Wild Imagination” is a prototypical Kurt Vile song. It’s nearly six-minutes long, it’s very pleasant, and the lyrics are a bit goofy, while capturing a perfectly ordinary moment, “I’m looking at you, but it’s only a picture, so I take that back, but it ain’t really a picture, it’s just an image on a screen/you can imagine if I was though, right?/Just like I can imagine you can imagine it, can’t ya?/I got a wild imagination.”

b’lieve i’m goin down doesn’t totally deviate from what one expects from a Kurt Vile record, but it does explore some fun relatively novel terrain in addition to expertly traveling old ground. Plus, at this point, people expect Kurt Vile records to be pretty darn good, and b’lieve definitely doesn’t subvert that expectation.

My favorite albums of 2013 so far

It’s already 6 months into 2013, and in those months a lot of notable albums released.  My Bloody Valentine, Daft Punk and David Bowie, all legends in their respective genres put out quality music in the first half of this year, and less well-known artists such as Kurt Vile, Youth Lagoon, The Men and Iceage all followed up acclaimed albums with more strong work. Of course, many excellent albums have yet to be released, but it’s time to take a look at the best music released this year so far.

1.My Bloody Valentine- “M B V”

It took 12 years for the Dublin quartet to release its third album, but the wait was rewarded with another shoegaze master piece.sound. Layers of reverb, bestial howling of guitars, energetic drumming  and the ethereal voices of Kevin Shields and Bilinda Butcher create a sound that is simultaneously ambient and urgent. “M B V” is an ocean of sound bigger than any wall Phil Specter imagined.It seemed unlikely after waiting for more than a decade, but “Loveless” finally has a proper follow-up, and it is as loud, as strange and as beautiful as you would hope. This album will make your head swirl and toes tap, and it is the best thing released in 2013 so far.

2.Chance the Rapper- “Acid Rap”

The most inventive rap album of the year so far is a mixtape by a 20-year-old Chicago native, Chance the Rapper. Samples are lush, brush and approximate actual instruments. The word play is almost always clever and there is no shortage of ear worm hooks. An excellent guest list including Action Bronson, Childish Gambino, BJ the Chicago Kid, Twista and a show stealing turn by No Name Gypsy add another dimension to Chance the Rapper’s already quixotic and occasionally introspective rhymes.

3. Daft Punk- “Random Access Memories”

The rise of Electronic Dance Music can be easily attributed to the iconic French duo; apparently to Daft Punk’s chagrin. “Random Access Memories” is essentially a pulsating, gyrating lesson on dance music. This purpose is made particularly clear on the track “Georgio by Moroder” as a legend discusses inventing a click track over click tracks. Excellent studio musicians and guests including Niles Rogers and Pharell help create a Disco homage that never resorts to navel-gazing and manages to feel perfectly contemporary. By borrowing from the past with their latest release Daft Punk have put the human element back into a genre which they helped pioneer.

4. The National- “Trouble Will Find Me”

The National have created a trilogy of excellent, brooding, hyper-literate albums starting with 2005’s “Alligator.” Their newest release continues to mine the same vein, and it continues the trend of excellence. “Trouble Will Find Me” consists of about 10 mid tempo songs that rely on heavily on Matt Berninger’s baritone voice and two songs that rock in the way “Blood Buzz Ohio” rocked.  All in all it’s just more of the same from one modern music’s most consistent bands.

5. Ex Cops- “True Hallucinations” ;

This is an excellent jangle-pop debut. Loud guitar, gripping melodies and sweet but not saccharine vocals are all over this album. It seems entirely fitting that “True Hallucinations” would come out the same year as a  new Pastels album, a group to which Ex Cops are obviously indebted. Although, a touch of aggression keeps and audio fuzz keeps this album from being a Pains of Being Pure at Heart retread. Overall while “True Hallucinations” may not be a groundbreaking album it is a thoroughly enjoyable debut and a great listen.

Honorable Mentions: Savages-“Silence Yourself”; Kylesa-“Ultraviolet”; Youth Lagoon-“Wondrous Bughouse”; Pissed Jeans- “Honeys”; The Knife- “Shaking the Habitual”

Kurt Vile- “Wakin on a Pretty Day”

Normally, the songs that I compulsively listen to are short bursts with big hooks. Kurt Vile’s “Wakin on a Pretty Day” could not be much further from that description.

The song ambles on for 9 minutes and 24 seconds. It is the sonic equivalent of s lazy morning stretch in sunlight. Blissful acoustic strumming keeps the song moving forward while Kurt Vile offers a subdued meditation about being immersed in his pleasant surroundings. A spacey electric guitar noodles its way into the mix at both the beginning and end of the song like an abstract auditory doodle.

Lazy, hazy, amorphous and somehow completely captivating.