Project 250: Prepping 2002

http://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/2002

There’s probably more items on the familiarity list here than 2003-2009 combined. 3 or 4 are on my top 100, and 2 of those on my top 20. Great batch of 10 there… wish I could discover them all for the first time again.

Familiarity rating (listed after each album below):
5 - Currently own the album
4 - Familiar with the album
3 - Very familiar with the artist
2 - Somewhat familiar with the artist
1 - Have not heard the artist

Albums eliminated from consideration due to availability:

8 – Broken Social Scene – You Forgot It in People – Indie Rock – 1
30 – Carissa’s Wierd [sic] – Songs About Leaving – Slowcore – 1 
35 – The Notwist – Neon Golden – Indie Electronic – 1
40 – Reverend Bizarre – In the Rectory of the Bizarre Reverend – Doom Metal – 1
50 – Tenhi – Väre  - Dark Folk – 1

Albums eliminated from consideration due to familiarity:
4 – Queens of the Stone Age – Songs for the Deaf – Stoner Rock – 4  
6 – Porcupine Tree – In Absentia – Progressive Rock – 5 
7 – Agalloch – The Mantle – Folk Metal – 5
10 – Boards of Canada – Geogaddi – IDM – 5
11 – Isis – Oceanic - Atmospheric Sludge Metal – 5
12 - Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Yanqui U.X.O. – Post-Rock – 5
21 – Opeth – Deliverance – Progressive Metal – 5
27 – Immolation – Unholy Cult – Death Metal – 5
33 – Nile – In Their Darkened Shrines – Death Metal – 5
45 – ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - Source Tags & Codes – Indie Rock – 5

Leading contenders:               
2 – Interpol – Turn On the Bright Lights – Post-Punk – 1
Supposedly the spirit of Joy Division lives on in them. A much-celebrated release.

3 – Sigur Rós – () – Post-Rock – 1
Still expecting to dislike this band, but I think they deserve to be picked once.

5 – The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots – Neo-Psychedelia – 3
Skipped right over their most famous release… this should be more to my liking

13 – Bohren & der Club of Gore – Black Earth – Dark Ambient – 1
Normally would avoid more in this genre… but the second genre tag is Jazz!

37 – The Mountain Goats – All Hail West Texas – Lo-Fi – 1 
These guys better not be from Austin!

Another 5 I could be talked into [or not]:                
1 – Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot – Alternative Rock – 1
Only here so that a particular reader of mine doesn’t think I overlooked it.

18 – Pain of Salvation – Remedy Lane – Progressive Metal – 1 
Uh, whatever. Unlikely to get promoted.

23 – Max Richter – Memoryhouse – Modern Classical – 1
Uh, whatever. Unlikely to get promoted.

24 – Alison Krauss – Alison Krauss + Union Station Live – Progressive Bluegrass – 2
Only because my wife would enjoy it.

32 – Jay Munly – Jimmy Carter Syndrome – Gothic Country – 1  
Supposedly comparable to 16  Horsepower… and I don’t need more of that.

Feel free to talk me into or out of anything from the RYM Top 50.

Project 250: Reviewing 1999

I really, really, really enjoyed this set. Only a couple of tracks slightly tainted the random shuffle, and the variety was good. I just listened to it all non-stop for weeks straight, and even now I long to return to the batch…

Taake – Nattestid ser porten vid... Like

Black Magic
Black Mystery
Black Majesty
Black Metal

Taake’s debut shares all of the ingredients with most of my Norwegian black metal favorites – soaring arpeggios by buzzsaw guitars; barely audible blastbeats; otherworldly vocals; shifting compositions that surprise with each listen – but something is missing, and I think it’s the ability to craft truly memorable riffs. Doesn’t stop me from wanting to run through the winter forests naked, though.

Favorite tracks: “II”, “I”, “VII”

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The Olivia Tremor Control – Black Foliage Like

In the first 25 seconds, you get trampled by a herd of Theremins… and then things get much stranger from there: the spirit of 60’s psychedelic pop filtered thru two decades of The Residents and dropped off at an indie rock studio for the gang to throw every damn instrument at it. The first half of the double album has the more accessible hooks; much of the second half consists of collages of processed fragments from other tracks, with some lesser but warped pop songs rounding out side 4 (“Looking for Quiet Seeds” and “Another Set of Bees in the Museum” are particularly potent mindfucks).

Folks who thought the Beatles went “too far” are well-advised to stay away; otherwise, this is a highly recommended stop for those taking the magical mystery tour of what psychedelic music has to offer. For me, this lands easily above The Flaming Lips, but a notch below the space-jams of Mercury Rev’s debut.

Favorite tracks: “A Sleepy Company”, “Hideaway”, “I Have Been Floated”

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Built to Spill – Keep It Like a Secret Love

My complaint in my review of their last album about too much mid-range noise in the mix still stands, but, wow, what a special band. Compared to their previous album, this has more songs with a much shorter average track length; it strips out the proggy instrumentation and composition, sticking to one main idea per song, decorating them with pretty guitar fragments. I think the more epic approach used in Perfect From Know On brought out the best in the band, but something about this one is just even more fun to listen to. This album accomplishes the rare feat of having no tracks rated less than four stars, with a really great variety of styles (I particularly enjoy the subtle ska rhythms, especially in “Bad Light”, a song that I could wish I could hear Kurt Cobain cover) with a strong core unifying identity.

In general, I like my indie rock a bit dirtier (read: 90’s style), and Built to Spill clearly falls into the clean, cutesy end of the spectrum (read: 00’s style), but their avoidance of studio wizardry and inclusion of classic rock chestnuts – oh, that glorious layered jam that ends “Broken Chairs” – puts them way ahead of their peers for me.

Favorite tracks: “Else”, “Bad Light”, “Temporarily Blind”

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Summoning – Stronghold Lukewarm

The “symphonic” (i.e., approximations of orchestral and medieval instruments using cheap keyboards) aspect is pretty cheesy, but the drumming, guitars, and eerie vocals – pumped through so many filters and echoes – are so powerful and effective that the album still works. Lyrically, they adapt actual lines from various poems, most often from Tolkien, but the effects distort the vocals so much that, not only can you barely discern the occasional word, but you don’t recognize that the same chorus is being repeated over and over without careful listening.

It worked best for me when they incorporated some industrial aspects (a couple of tracks sound a lot like Front Line Assembly), or let ride some epic chord changes. But I’m keeping the rating down to a Lukewarm due to my nagging objective self which insists that, really, this kinda sucks hard.

Favorite tracks: “A Distant Flame Before the Sun”, “The Glory Disappears”, “The Shadow Lies Frozen on the Hills”

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Bonnie "Prince" Billy – I See a Darkness Like

Wow, the title track – a song that perfectly combines the topics of fraternal love and depression – is something else. Much of the rest of the album reads like college poetry put to music, but I love the quiet instrumentation throughout. When he steps on the pedal, as in the jammin’ “Nomadic Revelry” and the sea shanty “Madeline-Mary”, the contrast gives that power all the more emphasis. This is a exquisitely constructed album, although, as with Neutral Milk Hotel, I found some of the best moments to be when it was just Will Oldham and his guitar, especially the powerful modern classic folk ballad “Black”*:

Black, you are my enemy
And I cannot get close to thee
Our life is ruled by enmity
And I can't weaken that
The only way that I can see
Is to hold you close to me
To love you for it's meant to be
I weaken your attack

Word.

(*Ha, did you see how I came full circle in this post there?)

Favorite tracks: “I See a Darkness”, “Black”, “Madeleine-Mary”

A Book for All Seasons: Separate Flights

http://www.amazon.com/Separate-Flights-Andre-Dubus/dp/0879231238/

  Winter entry for “Andre Dubus”

In some ways, it seems like this time was never real: afternoon cocktails w/ endless refills, chain-smoking, adulterating, men with beards, women in sundresses, professors and students having affairs, parents drinking in front of their children, children dragging on cigarettes in front of their parents… It must’ve been that half-generation between my parents’ and my own.

Anyways, based on a real world or not, this is a fantastic collection of short stories about marriage, religion,  and maintaining one’s sanity – or not – in the suburbs. Short fiction remains my favorite form of literature, and this is the perfect example of what draws me to it.

A Book for All Seasons: Dark Delicacies

http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Delicacies-Del-Howison/dp/0441015301/

  Winter entry for “Bram Stoker Award winners for Anthology”

All-in-all, a less satisfying read than any title in my 2011 category “Bram Stoker Award winners for Collection”, or even the creepier sets in my 2010 category “AVClub’s Top Short Story Collections of the 2000’s”. I’ve never had much luck before with short horror anthologies where the stories are commissioned for the collection itself; while the lack of coherent, accumulative theme is fairly exchanged for the whiplash of variety (a positive for a genre where the element of surprise is so key), I usually feel like the writers must be saving their best stuff for their own collections of original material. The last I dabbled in such collections was the Bordlerlands series published in the mid-90’s, and, while the results were hit-and-miss, the editors were pushing their authors to test the boundaries.

The book started out well enough – the one-two punch of Ray Bradury’s quirky zombie tale and Lisa Morton’s slasher tale were memorable – but it started to sag in the middle, with some of the stores being quite embarrassing, others feeling horribly dated, and everything feeling generally safe and somewhat predictable. Fortunately, Clive Barker (of course) shows up and delivers the walk-off grand slam. So, gotta credit the editors with recognizing the best stuff for their bookends…

A Book for All Seasons: Rockbound

http://www.amazon.com/Rockbound-Frank-Parker-Day/dp/0802067239/

  Winter entry for “Nova Scotia”

An instant top 10 read for me. This tale of work and romantic life in a remote fishing village reads like a mashup of the Shakespeare-in-the-country narrative of Thomas Hardy and Hemingway’s blunt descriptions of man vs. nature. The sense of time and place (albeit largely fictional; the natives of the area that this was loosely based on rejected the novel for making them less refined) is as good as I’ve read, whether sailing, in the lighthouse, or cleaning fish. Sure, the protagonist is a bit too perfect, but it is after all a parable about what can be gained from hard work and neighborly harmony.

Fun fact: When this was published, the author was starting a five-year stint as Union College’s president. This school in Schenectady is the closest to where I grew up. 

Project 250: Prepping 2001

http://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/2001

I don’t feel strongly for or against any title among the 10 listed here (however, a couple of those unavailable ones are really big bummers), and the same goes for probably another dozen on that top 50. Gotta say, the 5 under the “familiarity” listing below would’ve made an awesome batch for this project!

Familiarity rating (listed after each album below):
5 - Currently own the album
4 - Familiar with the album
3 - Very familiar with the artist
2 - Somewhat familiar with the artist
1 - Have not heard the artist

Albums eliminated from consideration due to availability:

10 – The Microphones – The Glow Pt. 2 – Lo-Fi – 1
19 – Cannibal Ox – The Cold Vein – Abstract Hip Hop – 1
25 – maudlin of the Well – Bath – Progressive Metal – 1
25 – maudlin of the Well – Leaving Your Body Map – Progressive Metal – 1

Albums eliminated from consideration due to familiarity:
2 – Tool – Lateralus – Alternative Metal – 5 
3 – Opeth – Blackwater Park – Progressive Metal – 5 
5 – Yann Tiersen – Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain – Film Soundtrack – 5 
14 – Neurosis – A Sun That Never Sets – Atmospheric Sludge Metal – 5 
41 – Various Artists – Mulholland Dr. – Film Soundtrack – 5

Leading contenders:              
4 – The Strokes – This Is It – Indie Rock – 1
Fully expect to hate it, but I do know that it’s a very popular release from this time.

6 – Björk – Vespertine – Art Pop – 2
I’m not a fan of the little exposure I’ve had, but I feel the need to leave the comfort zone after the 2000 batch.

9 – Unwound – Leaves Turn Inside You – Post-Hardcore – 1
This hasn’t been the most rewarding genre, but it’s certainly capable of a home run.

24 – System of a Down – Toxicity – Alternative Metal – 2
That “2” is generous… it being so low is proof of my age, I think.

36 – Moonpower – Voimasta ja kunniasta – Folk Metal – 1 
Gotta include some Viking Metal to ensure at least one hit in this batch.

Another 5 I could be talked into:               
7 – Converge – Jane Doe – Metalcore – 2
This one is iconic, but I downloaded some MP3s from their label years ago, and it didn’t do much for me at all.

11 – Fugazi – The Argument – Post-Hardcode – 3
I liked 1990’s Repeater, but can they really still deliver 11 years later?

16 – Stars of the Lid – The Tired Sounds of – Ambient – 1
Some of my favorite albums are Ambient/Drone, but if this is a miss, then those several mandatory listens are gonna be painful.

33 – Green Carnation – Light of Day, Day of Darkness – Progressive Metal – 1 
The temptation for the blind pick is negated by the 7-13 day shipping wait for this one.

35 – The Shins – Oh, Inverted World – Indie Pop – 1 
00’s Indie Pop is a dangerous genre to take a blind stab at.

Feel free to talk me into or out of anything from the RYM Top 50.

Project 250: Reviewing 1998

Neutral Milk Hotel – In the Aeroplane Over the Sea Love

In the first few listens, so many things about this album conspired to keep it at Loathe: the precocious song titles and lyrics; the frustratingly nonsensical concept of the album (something about Anne Frank) that never comes close to pulling together; the strained vocals; the need to add various “real” acoustic instruments – poorly played at that – to the arrangements (this last one is a late 90’s trend that’s been making me go ugh).

But I kept at it. I don’t know what got to me first, but it was almost certainly either the eerie saw solo at the end of the galloping “Ghost”, or my realization that “Oh Comely” was a better slab of 8-minute old-timey folk than I heard from Bert Jansch. All I know is that there isn’t a minute of the album that doesn’t work for me now, and it all works most perfectly when it’s just Jeff Mangum singin’ & strummin’, and if he sounds no better than you or I doin’ the same on the back porch, I think that’s ultimately what makes it so effective.

Favorite tracks: “Oh Comely”, “Two-Headed Boy”, “Holland, 1945”

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Refused – The Shape of Punk to Come Lukewarm

Rather be forgotten than remembered for giving in.

We’ll no longer believe working for you can set us free!

A tough rating here; I ultimately used Manic Street Preachers as the reference point and had to dock this accordingly. I loved the metal-ish syncopated riffing sections (think Helmet) and the couple of bouncy pop-punk songs, and I’m a sucker for lines like the ones cited above. But I’m not so much a fan of the experimental parts of side 2, the high screamo voice in general, and the  techno pieces (years ago, Pitchshifter integrated these two elements better; here, only “New Noise” does so effectively).

Favorite tracks: “Deadly Rhythm”, “Worms of the Senses/Faculties of the Skull”, “New Noise”

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John Zorn – The Circle Maker Like

First album: Chamber string trio playing Jewish freak-folk jazz.  The instrumentalists are truly virtuoso, and there’s not as much Zorn craziness that you would expect if your previous exposure to him was the likes of Naked City and Painkiller. I’ll be listening to this for years – most likely on winter nights, when the heavy Jewish vibe feels most poignant – but I still wouldn’t recommend it immediately to someone who doesn’t yet have the string quartet cycles of Shostakovich or Bartok in their collection.

Favorite tracks: “Yatzah”, “Hadasha”, “Tahah”

Second album: Adds electric guitar, drums, and percussion to the trio, giving it a feel of Arabian surf music. More accessible than the first album, but less rewarding. Still, it’s just great, listenable background music, even if you aren’t crusin’ down the streets of Dubai.

Favorite tracks: “Lilin”, “Kisofim”, “Gevurah”

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Boredoms – Super æ Like

The spirit of Krautrock lives on, and while the Super Cute song titles and Super Hyper noise arrangements leave no doubt that this is a modern Japenese act, the essence is all 70’s German. With 68 minutes spread over only 7 tracks, and many songs consisting primarily of trance-like extended repetitions, this is probably best served as background music. However, there’s so much positive energy here that it’s impossible for me not to get all blissed out listening to it, with or without my direct attention.

Favorite tracks: “Super Shine”, “Super Going”, “Super Good”

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Dirty Three – Ocean Songs Loathe

The folksy maritime vibe should have made it the perfect background to a book I’m currently reading (and a jigsaw I’m working on). It’s a purely instrumental trio (with the occasional piano mixed in); the brushwork is great, and the fiddle-like violin playing is tasteful, so I’ve got to pin it on that electric guitar which just creates a bunch of midrange noise that makes the album hard to listen to. Also not helping is that all 10 tracks have a similar sound and – more fatally – pace, that being as low as 30 BPM. As high as a Like on paper, but a Loathe when I have to sit and listen to it, and maybe not much higher than that even as background music.

Favorite tracks: “Backwards Voyager”, “Sirena”, “The Restless Waves”