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.

TV on The R(a)dio- Nine Types of L(i)ght (2012)

http://www.mediafire.com/?li1bbefvpzzbvc1

I've been a big TVOTR fan since i first heard Young Liars, and it's been great to watch the band expand, change, and grow since.

NTOL might be my favorite, if for no other reason than the full length movie that was created alongside the album by singer Tunde Adebimpe, my man crush and ridiculously cool person. Do yourself a favor: find an hour, and watch this. Then feel awesome.

One of my favorite things of this cd is the feeling of letting go for the band, of enjoying themselves and letting the music be much looser. Love, love, LOVE hearing the meaty baritone on some songs! It's like James Earl Jones stepped in to croon. Plus, did anyone else notice what an awful guitarist David Sitek is??? The term "Robbie Robertson" comes to mind... Just saying.

Following my previous post, I love seeing black folks playing rock music, not because it seems like a crossing over boundaries, but that it is a resituation of black presence within a black medium (rock music) that was taken by white people from black folk musicians and early rockers like Chuck Berry. People forget that Elvis was playing the "Devil's Music" (meaning, black music). It's a reminder that rock, like so much else in this country, was early stolen and rebranded by white people as white culture.

Anyway, kudos to you fellas. You go, boys. Way to rock.

Leif Fairfield- Facts of War

Leif Fairfield- Facts of War (2011)

http://www.mediafire.com/?m4mqviii9hj1fsa

Troubadour musician Leif Fairfield first cut his teeth with the 2005 "Delaware Sessions," a Berkeley-birthed cd that made pop music really tiny, basing songs around plucked violin and tentative vocals. Facts of War is his first full length offering since (with a smattering of EPs scattered throughout) and finds the emotional attachment cranked up a few notches, with some improved musical chops. An audio chronicling of his relocations from San Francisco to Knoxville to Cincinnati, this cd is full of screechy noise, darker lyrics, and pop sensibilities.

This cd squishes the devotional with the confessional, blurring the personal with the projected. And like all of Fairfield's cds, it has at least one song about suicide and/or dying. Go figure.

Think of it as a sound lasagna, with layers of violin and effects, filled with vocal harmonies, and drizzled with a small sprinkling of acoustic string instruments. Recommended for fans of Andrew Bird, Grizzly Bear, and Brian Eno.

Featuring Peralta Pirates Bryan Maurer and Matt Kronbach, plus Cincinnati staple Sonic Elf.