Laurie Anderson- Homeland (2010)

http://www.mediafire.com/?o81psbwqdxsozvd

As an artist and a violinist, I am unabashedly infatuated with Laurie Anderson. And if you are reading this, I don't need to talk about how awesome she is.

"Homeland" is interesting in that it is a document of a performance that she performed on tour for awhile. I love that idea--the "tour" first with the album later. And Homeland is also interesting because it's just weirdly dark, but also really accessible. It's clearly about the entire 9/11 paranoia.

Musically, it has songs that could allllmost end up on the radio, though most of it is pretty atmospheric. At times it feels like an "Americana" soundtrack, with lots of lonesome fiddles playing together and against each other. And the awesome voicebox is back, which makes at least one song in particular feel wonderfully creepy.

"In America, we like solutions. We like solutions to problems. Companies with experts ready to solve these problems. Only an expert can solve these problems."


Can you comprehend that she's married to Lou Reed? That still seems so strange to me. Also kind of funny that Art21 just featured her. Hey Laurie, thanks for being an amazing artist for 30 years. It's cool if we throw you a bone now, right?

Nina Simone- Wild is the Wind (1963)

http://www.mediafire.com/?ow7qbz9fqwrppu6

Nina Simone: a marketing nightmare.

Jazz/Soul/Blues/Broadway singer, both vulnerable and abrasive. Outspoken against discriminatory practices and against African-Americans who seemed to fall into stereotypes. Outspoken agains the white audiences that supported her career. A classically-trained pianist who could improvise with the best jazz trios and pound a piano like she was trying to kill it. Contradictory, brash, and powerful. Beautiful and ugly.

I was in love with Jeff Buckley before i ever heard Nina Simon's earlier version of Lilac Wine (neither of them wrote it). I far prefer her version. It's one thing for a person with a lilting, beautiful voice to make a lilting, beautiful song. But Simone--whose voice was deep, resonant, and brassy--sang this song with such vulnerability and tenderness that I don't think Buckley's version can touch it.

Also recommended: Nina Simone Sings the Blues.

R. Crumb- Hot Women: Women Singers from the Torrid Regions of the World (2003)

http://www.mediafire.com/?b54hzi52x8dshtr
or
http://www.mediafire.com/?nj3r6d9neneeq49

There have been a few times that I have purchased an album based on the sheer promise of the artwork and song names on the back cover. HOT WOMEN was a very memorable one.


It was compiled by illustrator R. Crumb (and his under-credited wife Aline Kominsky-Crumb) from an impressive group of 78s.


The music is all "traditional," as iTunes calls it. Women, sometimes with their children, all singing around the mic, hisses and all. After being bombarded by Rebecca Blacks and Lady Gagas, i love to hear the flawed crackle of outdated recording technology and the additional talent that performers had in order to adapte to the medium. As a result, the album is beautiful and diverse.


The main reason to purchase the cd is to hold the fantastic artwork in your hand. But the music is good, too.

Complaint: A few of the titles are listed as "Title in Hindustanese" or something similarly lazy. If you're going to put out a compilation, why not bother to ask someone who reads a language to translate it for you??
Big pet peeve. Crumb probably thinks it's part of the charm, but i call it lazy at best (and culturally arrogant at worst). Your call. 

Slowdive- Pygmalion (1995) and Pygmalon Demos (1994)

http://www.mediafire.com/?gzyknf2nmjy

While i listened to a lot of embarrassingly bad music in high school (inevitable, but especially so growing up in an isolated small town), i managed to make friends with a gal in--ironically--east Ohio who turned me on to brit pop, shoegazer, and noise rock.

One of my favorite high school bands, believe it or not, was Slowdive. I heard their UK-only final release Pygmaleon early on in college. I paid $18 for it on a whim  and it was one of the best musical finds of the year. Their signature album "Souvlaki" is pretty cool and it has that seminal shoegazer sound--dreamy, reverby, epic, melancholic. But Pygmaleon was different--sparse, uncomfortable, disjointed, and eerily pretty.

This is the kind of album that happens as a band breaks up. Some members want to go in a new direction, the others don't like it, so you get an incomplete band making a record in pieces without the same commercial enthusiasm or backing of the label. Sometimes great things happen in that space (see Big Star: 3rd).

Fifteen years later, and it still stands out as an interesting listen. Might i also add that i would take this CD over any Mojave 3 record. 

If you find yourself especially smitten, or a bigger-than-average Slowdive fan, listen to the Pygmalion Demos:
http://www.mediafire.com/?um1ms1lcuri

jj- No.3 (2010)

http://www.mediafire.com/?1qqbr1dtjghb48n

jj are a Swedish pop group, and if you can mentally squish together your notions of the singer Lykki Li with the stellar vampire movie Let the Right One In, you could come up with something like jj.

I know, right? What the f*** kind of band name is jj, in lowercase letters? Grr. Those swedes (writes the guy named after a viking).

No.3 is their third (!!!) album that sounds shimmery and perfect. It's cheeky and cheesy and classy and catchy. Sometimes high schoolers can really nail that "heartbreak" thing right on the head.

If you're up for something poppy and youthful, but somehow tasteful, give it a try.

Thao and Mirah (2011)

http://www.mediafire.com/?t3beltd62y1onp3

Estrogen overload? or TALENT MADNESS!!!

I was greatly looking forward to Thao & Mirah, a collaboration of two totally talented, quirky, innovative, experimental, and versatile singer/ songwriters who defy that categorization. Gone are the days--at least I hope so--of the Sarah McLaughlan/Sheryl Crow Lillith Fair aesthetic. *shudder* Welcome to the new generation of women who make great music. In fact, how about this slogan-- GIRLS DON'T JUST MAKE MUSIC FOR GIRLS ANYMORE.TM .

The album is pretty all over the place. Ended up being a bit dancier than I would have expected, which maybe came from their ridiculously wild producer Tuneyards. I'm not sure yet if it's an instant classic, but I'll say it's one of the coolest records I've heard in the last month or two. 
Besides the range of styles, my absolute favorite part is how Thao and Mirah trade off the lead in the middle of the song. I love LOVE LOVE groups that do this. It's not exactly a new trick (See the Beach Boys, circa 1960) but it's so effective when it's employed well. Also love how the songs really defy any easy categorization. Not only is it hard to tell what genre each song is, but it's hard to tell who is writing which song. Not a lot of ego involved.

My one critique: The only Tuneyards-written piece, Eleven, appears first and it KILLS. The rest of the cd doesn't quite reach that level of sheer adrenaline.

Listening to this album makes me feel that young indie women are finding a great niche in music--some kind of a dance/indie/quirky/songwriter space that was blazed by weirdo alt-divas like Bjork Sinead O'Connor decades ago. When I was younger, women were always either the singers, the keyboard players, or the bassists. And they were either sexy and quiet or sexy and brash. It's so nice now to see more women stepping forward who are much more complex, diverse, and physically "honest." It makes me so elated to watch someone perform with weird makeup and flowers in their hair, or cowboy boots. Why the hell not!

I wonder if this last generation's work didn't directly allow this new wave of subtle and interesting female artists, whose music i generally prefer to their male counterparts (Andrew Bird, Bon Iver). ? I also wonder if the ladies don't feel a little more freedom to be as bizarre, eccentric, and wild as they want to be?

Shut the f*ck up, men! I'm awesome!

tune yards: Bird Brains (2009)

http://www.mediafire.com/?z16ee0eeu42mwvn

When you have a woman singing really well, playing ukulele, and looping things like nobody's business and recording the entire cd into a one-track digital player... well, what's not to love?

Since signing onto 4AD, she is poised to be the next quirky-female-singer-songwriter-producer, to tour the world with St. Vincent and Dirty Projectors.

You know, in typing all this, i realize how much people rely heavily on myth that surrounds records. You know what? It sounds really bizarre and fresh and the homemade quality really hits the spot after reading about Beyonce and Lady Gaga. I love to hear someone make music that actually sounds like they were making music live. And when people only make music with loops (aka Juana Molina, Imogene Heap, Andrew Bird) i get really excited because of the limitations as well as the possibilities.

So there! I like it.

L0W- Come on (2O11) / The Internet Police Strike

The administrators at Cosmonaut Farm had their first official Cease and Desist order from Blogger. Apparently, it came straight from a larger record label which used to be known as a small record company (whose name rhymes with Subb P0pp). This record label used to be "indie" but now apparently likes to bully blogs like this one.

Fine. Sorry to say that anyone looking for L0w's C'M0n (2011) will have to look elsewhere. Or, just get it here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?z3xo3qq4iky3jv0

In the future, i'm afraid that i will have to consider brand new main label cds differently, or just omit them entirely. I'm more inclined to do the latter and let others take the hit. It's not a giant deal, but at the end of the day, i don't want to have to deal with some tight-assed record execs who can't deal with the fact that the internet is basically Napster version 5.0, and that file sharing will only become MORE pervasive.

L(y)kke Li- W(o)unded Rhymes

http://www.mediafire.com/myfiles.php

*Note: Hooray! My second file removed due to copyright infringement! I'm on a roll! Notice the creative misspelling. Thanks, record execs-- keeping us all safe from pirates.

I hate it when I agree with Pitchfork.

I can't stand their ideal of "Let's-record-it-on-a-Fischer-Price-tape-Deck-and-add-a-photo-of-me-with-bad-sunglasses-with-Photoshop-lens-flare-effect" because it's so dumb that it's ironically cool. And that being hip is unhip, and that makes it cool.

And yet, crap: I love L(y)kke Li, the snaggle-toothed sorta shy Swedish pop singer. W(o)unded Rhymes doesn't feel as vulnerable as Youth Novels did, but i'll take it as a great follow up.

Wounded Rhymes is both simultaneously confident and vulnerable. I don't know how someone can make dance music that feels so confessional. When i think of popular American dance music, it seems to fall into one of two categories: either "You broke my heart and now i'm gonna dance" or "My man is so awesome and now i'm gonna dance".

By contrast, this is sort of a dance album that David Lynch would produce. And for that reason, i really love it. Don't believe me? Watch her music video for "Get Some" and tell me that you don't somehow feel totally creeped out, and perhaps a little smidge turned on. Mostly, though, just REALLY creeped out.

Also, she played on the Jimmy Fallon show in a ridiculous outfit with the most amazing tambourine display I've seen in years.

Petra Haden Sings: The Who Sell Out

http://www.mediafire.com/?lk1raxo7q9du9w7

Best known for playing in The Rentals and That Dog., singer/violinist Petra Haden recorded an acapella version of The Who Sells Out on an eight track recorded (borrowed from Mike Watt). ...Um... I don't know if i really need to describe any further.

I love how she removes a lot of the Who's theatrics to reveal this tender counterpoint to the original version. It's definitely goofy, but also really pretty in parts. I recommend alternating listens of this version with the original just to get an idea of her sense of humor.

The best part might be her interpretations of all the commercials, though i still prefer her version of "Tattoo You," which makes it sound eternal and gorgeous. I love that shift in thought from "How gorgeous" to "How ridiculous!" Bravo, Petra.

Watch Petra (plus nine other women) sing "I Can See For Miles:"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNFoNBz9Dbs

Blue Hawaii- Blue Gowns

http://www.mediafire.com/?wjsbe4fbnmjldww

The downside of having an awful band name (besides having an awful band name) is having would-be fans slew through dead-end internet searches to find information on your band. Let that be a lesson to you, future bands "Total Recall," "Barak Obama," and "Santorum."

For now, it's best to focus on just how nice this cassette is (CASSETTE!!!). You can think of it as a dreamy, blippy, poppy beach record, but it still has that shimmery sound to it that i associate with Scandinavian sonics, or 4AD records from the late 80s. It's Raphaelle Standell-Preston (Braids' vocalist, who is quickly becoming one of my new favorites) plus a boy playing instruments, and it has all the great aspects of a folk guitar duo without any of the painfulness. Does anyone else notice this great and weird keyboards/effects-becoming-the-new-guitar-of-folk phenomenon? I like guitar and all, but it's nice hearing the same aesthetic with a different sonic palette.

The lyrics get confessional/awkward ("when i picture you thrusting into her"), but they always come across as being comfortable and inviting. This whole cassette is start-to-finish very solid. Warm, spacey, bright, faraway, and just nice. 


Maybe it is more like the beach after all.

Shields Down- Powdered Sugar Avalanche

http://www.mediafire.com/?5uc3gdwbpym5hwh

Powdered Sugar Avalanche combines the Everything But the Kitchen Sink Brian Eno brand of pop music with the whirled sonics of My Bloody Valentine and the instrumentation of Magnetic Fields. It's ultimately a group of pop songs, but sounds a bit like Alan Lomax engineered a group of pop musicians that Brian Eno arranged and Kevin Shields produced. It's all over the place, in a nice way, i think.

The 'band' consists of brothers Ben and Leif Fairfield, who both make their own cds, and Lisa Chuang. Ben Fairfield tends to make poppy songs in the vein of Jack Johnson or Elliot Smith while Leif prefers the overall sound and feeling of songs, more akin to Brian Eno or Andrew Bird.

The songs here are shrouded in imagery and feel a bit like reading a book on a remote ocean shoreline. It has a song in Thai, a Chinese boys choir, and lyrics about Japanese history. It's familiar-enough as a pop cd, but even at its most intimate, it still feels pretty far off and abstract.

"Any Kind of Day" feels a bit like Sarah McLachlan-meets-Cush and "SwanDive" nearly sounds like Jeremy Enigk with a looser backing band. I have always appreciated bands that rotate lead singers, and i especially like the three part harmonies.



* If you ever get a chance to pick up a physical copy, it's printed letterpress! Woo ha!

Braids- Native Speaker

http://www.mediafire.com/?ztf5zuxaem3skhg

BRAIDS are:
a) one part early 90s classic 4AD sound (already recipe for greatness),
b) one part Gang Gang Dance,
c) one part Siouxie and the Banshees, and
d) one part Lars Ulrich.

Imagine really tasteful synth textures (i know--oxymoron, right?), female vocals with lots of personality and strength, super huge pop sensibility, soul, and the feeling of being seventeen years old on a spring break camping trip. Braids is really my thing this week.

Wearing a truly terrible band name on their sleeves, Braids are a four piece from Montreal, Canada. They could fit anywhere in a bill with Cocteau Twins, an aggressive version of Slowdive, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Animal Collective. Really, really great stuff that can fill your heart on the cloudiest day or brightest summer day.

Singer Raphaelle Standell-Preston is part of another poorly named group (Blue Hawaii), who sound basically like Braids, but less polished. Standell-Preston is interesting: she gets comparisons to Jenny Lewis and Bjork (which--C'MON!--has to be the laziest comparison someone could ever draw); however, she sounds to me like Joanna Newsome singing electronic music.

Love 'em.

Baden Powell & Vinícius de Moraes- Os Afro Sambas (1966)

http://www.mediafire.com/?n27a8bd4tbzs35i

Against my better judgment, I'm going to share with you a record that I searched five years for. But let first explain.

I used to be crazy into a fringe hip-hop/keyboard/j-pop/sci-fi duo called Cibo Matto. They rapped about sending pet chickens to college, comparing your ass to a that of a horse, and eating white pepper ice cream, but would make them sound weirdly aggressive or sexual.

When that band split up, one half did her own strange jazz/dance cd and a collaboration with Yoshimi from the Boredoms/OOIOO that they recorded on a mountain in Nara. That's Yuka Honda, and she's as awesome as she is hard to totally "get." She was maybe the brains of the outfit (she is also on again off again with Sean Lennon). The other half (the soul?) of Cibo Matto was Miho Hatori, who went on to make her own equally strange jazz/pop cd that was a concept album about insects in the future carrying secrets between machines and humans. (This is getting way off topic... are you still with me?) Before that, though, Hatori teamed up with Smokey Hormel (who played with Beck and Tom Waits) to release a collection of Brazillian songs (some covers, some self-penned). They followed up with a cd of Baden Powell covers, which really blew me out of the water. Hatori said they were songs that she listened to as a kid so many times that her tape melted in her tape player. Who was this Baden Powell, and what were the Afro Sambas?

Smokey and Miho live, 2005.

I ended up purchasing THIS cd of Os Afros Sambas, which Powell re-recorded in the '90s. Just how bad is the re-recording? Think of how awful Brian Wilson's version of SMiLE feels compared to the original 1967 Beach Boys bootlegs. Now multiply it by 5. Blech. At the time, cds and LPs of the original recording of Os Afro Sambas were selling on eBay for upwards of $100. Way too much for me to spend, and before people like me were "sharing" files like this.

So years later, i was in Tower Records in Japan when I saw this cd. The best part-- in a store where the average cd costs $35 (!!! and Americans think our cds are expensive!!!), this one was selling for 800yen (US $8). After i cleaned up my pants (after sh*tting in them), I promptly purchased it.

Powell and de Moraes

The original Afro Sambas was recorded (apparently) on a TWO track, and it definitely shows in parts. It's rough in spots, not completely balanced. But it has so much soul, the sexiest saxes you've ever heard, enough percussion to light a church on fire, at least four people singing at all times, and this total pagan jubilation. It's absolutely amazing. It contrasts Vinicius' deeper, aged voice with Baden's youthful eagerness, and the playing is dead-on.

Unlike a lot of Samba and Bossa Nova music being churned out in 1966, Os Afro Sambas had lyrics and music that connected to the Afro religion and beats in Brazil. It was very much out of Africa, very pagan, very sensual, and deeply spiritual to listen to (Apparently, Powell changed some of the words on a later recording to be less Afro as he became more of a devout Catholic, which seems like another nail in the coffin for the re-recording). At times, it is jubilant, funky, and dance-able. At others, it is slow, meditative, and pulsating. It still stands as being truly special in a sea of Jobim/Gilberto clones.

Powell had an upbringing in classical guitar training, and he liked to crank out the Bach. This cd is amazing since it combines that reverence for the musical with a reverence for the spiritual, which is much easier said than done.

Easily in my top 10 of all time.

Ho Lan- Echo From Deep Valley

http://www.mediafire.com/?yp3mr2ox4oi3n21

Okay, so picture this: a female singer-songwriter from Taiwan in the 1970s who has a penchant to classic Spanish and Mariachi songs, a "thing" for yodeling, and a super-husky voice (one that she strengthened by learning to sing over the roar of a waterfall in her native hometown).

Meet Ho Lan:
part Zhou Xuan, part Nina Simone, and part Lucha Reyes.

The songs are split into solo guitar accompaniment (with multi-tracked vocal harmonies) and big band orchestrations, but Lan's voice always stands out. In addition to some really striking tunes, she sings some songs that could normally strike a very cheesy note with many listeners-- "Palmoa," "Hawaiian Wedding Song," and even {ick} "Home On the Range"-- but I can nearly guarantee that you won't mind.

This is my idea of folk music at its most bare and most satisfying: pure talent, no pretense, engaging voice, wonderful simplicity, versatility of styles, and MASSIVE TALENT. My friend Eric, who has immaculate taste in music, said that this is his favorite recording I have shared with him. That might mean something?


Here is Ms. Lan yodeling on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap6MKABAKoA

Rachel's- Systems/Layers

http://www.mediafire.com/?hzjyj3zvlkm

Rachel's has to be one of my favorite bands ever, and Systems/Layers is probably their finest record. Most of their albums could be classified as concept albums, but this one works the best. Start to finish, it has an uncanny cohesion, and it bounces between classical, ambient, trip-hop, spoken word, indie rock, found recordings, and low budget movie soundtrack.

It works well as active and passive listening, and as a result, Rachel's proudly boasted of being as popular with grandparents as they were to young hipsters. If that sounds at all weird, please listen to this and see what I mean.

This cd has a tenuous beauty and sadness to it-- both frail and rough. Probably one of my top 10 records of all time. I played the hell out of this the year it came out.

Also great by Rachel's: Selenography, Music for Egon Schiele, and The Sea and the Bells.

Broadcast and the Focus Group- Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age

http://www.mediafire.com/?gzgejyzbx4z

This starts off sounding like Os Mutantes in the 1960s, but by the time you reach the end of this cd, you'll feel like you're listening to Cut Chemist's paranoid doppleganger on acid. 

This entire cd was probably made without touching a musical instrument, and as always, sounds best through a pair of headphones. The first track will make your mom happy, and the last track will make your mom want to send you to a therapist.

Grouper- Dragging a Dead Deer up a Hill

http://www.mediafire.com/?4okmxp57rcvmxoy

Grouper is apparently the work of one woman, Liz Harris, who has made a few other albums. This is my introduction to her. The songs are disarmingly quiet, reverb-y, and slow. But they don't necessarily feel sad or disdainful as you might expect. They tend to feel warmer, maybe even indifferent, and always pretty far off. It's a great soundtrack for feeling a bit introspective or kind of "off."

Recommended for a good mid day nap with the windows open and a good breeze. 

Oumou Sangare- Moussolou

http://www.mediafire.com/?ntnmnt5q88hgxz5

I don't know how to pronounce Oumou Sangare's name. I don't know where she's from, I don't know what she's singing about, I have no idea how old she is, and I have no idea who is on this record.

But let me say this: Holy cow. What a voice.

Listen to this cd if you want to hear one of warmest, most infectious, powerful, most passionate voices you have ever listened to. Whatever she is singing, she really means. The music is amazing, but she could sing against the clanging of 14 dish washers and I'd still listen. Her voice stands out against anything.

My friend Isaac passed this on to me, and is probably somewhat sad that I am not passing on a better bio. Sorry, Oumou. But damn, do i love your cd!

Animal Collective & Vashti Bunyan: Prospect Hummer

http://www.mediafire.com/?xclu1cs51ekw5sy

Okay, Animal Collective? Now, they're cool, but can we be honest and say they're pretty overrated?

Vashti Bunyan, on the other hand, is SOOO legit that she eats Panda Bears and Avey Tares for breakfast on her farm out in the woods where she gathers mushrooms and smokes wild "ragweed" and howls at the moon while shearing her own sheep with a razor that she sharpened on her own teeth. She's the real deal-- put out one kick ass album in the '60s titled "Just Another Diamond Day" and called it quits.

So, let's all give almighty thanks to AC for bringing Bunyan out of retirement, but shame on them for not extending credit to her and naming the album after themselves. No worries-- i will correct their arrogance by co-crediting this short EP, which is a real gem. It's pretty stripped down by AC standards, but still holds a kernel of their weirdness. And Bunyan's voice blends really well, and actually fares well against all this. Not all singers could be featured on an AC album and still shine through with a lot of personality. Kudos, Vashti.

Think: ethereal, strummy, reverb, delicate, kind. This is a fantastic cd for a summer day at your table, eating a vegan meatloaf with a tall wheat beer.