Number Eight: Jason Isbell - Southeastern (2013)

Southeastern Records ■ SER 9984

Released June 11, 2013

Produced by Dave Cobb

Side One:	Side Two:
Cover Me Up Stockholm Traveling Alone Elephant Flying Over Water Different Days	Live Oak Songs that She Sang in the Shower New South Wales Super 8 Yvette Relatively Easy

I suppose it's a given that I know Isbell from the Drive-By Truckers, but the truth is I got into them via 2008's Brighter Than Creation's Dark, which postdates both his final album with the band (2006's A Blessing and a Curse) and his debut solo record (2007's Sirens of the Ditch). This put me in the strange and seemingly unenviable position of liking a band in what was considered a reduced state; many felt they'd declined severely after his exit, even with the natural caveats for the remaining members. It made me--as such things do--wary of his solo work, as it doesn't give the greatest impression of anyone's fans to often couch that fandom in dismissal of something else.

Still, during a random bit of shopping in 2010, I ran into his second post-DBT album, the one which eponymously named his band the 400 Unit, and fell madly in love (after all, wariness is not cause for dismissal, either!) with it. Since then, of course, he has released, inbetween that and this, 2011's Here We Rest, still with the 400 Unit, and in post-or-mid-I'm-not-quite-sure start to sobriety. A lot of people prefer that record and this one, as I even found zero songs from that favourite four years ago in the last set I saw him play.

A lot of people called this one out around release as a pretty solid candidate for album of the year (the first I recall being someone I used to work with) and in principle I most definitely cannot disagree. Here We Rest felt a little more scattered to me than Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit--not weaker, mind you, just less focused. While Southeastern abandons a lot of the rock that drives that self-titled record (not all, though), it stays the course it chooses to perfectly to find any criticism in this.

Number Nine: Toro y Moi - Anything in Return (2013, of course)

Carpark Records ■ CAK77

Released January 16, 2013

Produced by Chaz Bundick

Engineered by Patrick Brown, Second Engineer Jorge Hernandez

Mixed by Patrick Brown and Chaz Bundick

Mastered by Joe Lambert

Side One:	Side Two:
Harm in Change Say That So Many Details	Rose Quartz Touch Cola

Side Three:	Side Four:
Studies High Living Grown Up Calls	Cake Day One Never Matter How's It Wrong

Toro y Moi came to me via the broadcast that is staff overhead selection at one of the music stores I frequent on longer trips--Lunchbox Records in Charlotte, NC. The album had been out for all of two months when I heard "Cake" playing there and decided to go with an instinct I'd previously experienced during my endless trips to CD Alley in Chapel Hill in years prior. I'd never heard of Toro y Moi, nothing new for me and my complete obliviousness to modern independent music, except as it filters in by chance or through the few friends who track it.

As it was the one I heard (a reasoning that also inspired the purchase of records like Tobacco's Maniac Meat and Youth Lagoon's The Year of Hibernation), it was the first one I purchased. Causers of This followed in April, and then it was the synchronicity of a work trip to Atlanta that led me to see Toro y Moi in concert in October last year. I picked up the rest of his albums, as well as a few odd singles and the 3x7" box set of bedroom recordings that was released as well. Still, Anything in Return is the one I return to most often.

At that show, Chaz was the closest thing I've seen to a superstar. Classixx opened for him (new to me, and worth checking out, as their Hanging Gardens could easily slip into an expanded top list for last year), but when he came out, it was unlike anything I'm used to in small venues or even large ones. There's a roar for bands, and everyone is often focused on vocalists, but the fact that Chaz does his albums "Prince-style" (in the impossible-to-read-in-the-LP notes, it mentions he performed the entire album alone) seemed to shift the tone, somehow. The crowd was larger, it was a different kind of music, a different kind of venue, but there was still something to it.

It's a bit strange, to be honest--not undeserved, but almost out of keeping with his music. He was first identified with the aptly-named "chillwave", one of those terms that seemed a flash-in-the-pan, but defiantly remains in use as many such things do, thanks to sheer bull-headedness. Unlike his earlier work, though, Anything is a lot more energetic. That said, the energy is of a subdued and extremely cool variety, in most slang senses of the world, and often even a bit of the metaphorical incarnation of the most "literal" use of the word.

Drive-By Truckers - Go-Go Boots (2011)

ATO Records ■ ATO 0093

Released February 15, 2011

Produced, Engineered, and Mixed by David Barbe

Mastered by Greg Calbi

Side One: Side Two: I Do Believe Go-Go Boots Dancin' Ricky Cartoon Gold Ray's Automatic Weapon Everybody Needs Love Assholes The Weakest Man Side Three: Side Four: Used to Be a Cop I Hear You Hummin' The Fireplace Poker Where's Eddie The Thanksgiving Filter Pulaski Mercy Buckets

I came in to the Drive-By Truckers at a curious time: I was still working at Borders, and participated in the (extremely limited--about five stores) testing for vinyl sales. It was around 2008-2009, and the selection was largely limited, leaving me unsure of what actually led to titles appearing there. Certainly, it was a store in the Southeast (although a unique town within the state and region), and the Truckers do not suffer the absence of a following there. It did lead to my very mild introduction to Ryan Adams, which has served me well, though I didn't actually do anything with it for years. I saw our copy of DBT's 2008 album Brighter Than Creation's Dark. The art by Wes Freed was intriguing, and the title, too--I was reluctant, as I was still overcoming a lot of my resistance to "twang" in music, and the band's name was a dead giveaway for containing just that. At some point, I gave in and did pick up a CD copy of that same album, and found myself falling for it rapidly.

It wasn't long before I was going to see the band and buy all their albums--indeed, in 2010 I saw them play two shows on two concurrent nights, which was quite an experience. But the curious time is something that involves knowing about the band's history--initially responsible for a pair of interesting but often thought to be somewhat "slight" early albums (Gangstabilly and Pizza Deliverance), they really broke through and into their own with 2001's Southern Rock Opera, which addressed some of the issues that would in some way typify the band as both people and a musical entity--the "holy three" of frontman Patterson Hood's childhood in Alabama: football, via Bear Bryant, race politics in George Wallace, and music in Lynyrd Skynyrd. Some overlap, some confusion, some mixed signals and messages, all adding up to "the duality of the Southern Thing" as Hood wrote on that album. After its release, Jason Isbell joined the band and they released their most acclaimed pair of albums: 2003's Decoration Day and 2004's The Dirty South. To this day, many clamour for Isbell (now solo and successful at it, as I will prove here later on) to rejoin, even if only in brief or for a tour, or what have you, but he left after A Blessing and a Curse in 2006--and that's where 2008's Brighter Than Creation's Dark came in.

Dr. John - Locked Down (2012)

Nonesuch Records ■ 530395-1

Released April 3, 2012

Produced by Dan Auerbach

Engineered by Collin Dupuis

Mixed by Dan Auerbach and Collin Dupuis

Mastered by Brian Lucey (Magic Garden Mastering)

Side One:	Side Two:
Locked Down Revolution Big Shot Ice Age Getaway	Kingdom of Izzness You Lie Eleggua My Children, My Angels God's Sure Good

I always end up with mixed feelings about projects like this. Are people going to only buy it because of Auerbach, not knowing the good Doctor? Is the Night Tripper going to be lost behind the black fuzz of Auerbach, despite playing his very own keys? Does any of that matter at all?

I don't have an answer to any of those, especially the last question. I, myself, bought the album because of both of them. I've been into the works of Mac "Dr. John" Rebennack for years now--somewhere around college I piled him in with Leon Russell and Todd Rundgren--the solo artists from (approximately) the 70s who had hits, but ended up enjoying more "visibility" (audibility and not visibility, I should say...) in the works of others--Rundgren as a producer, Russell as songwriter and session man, and Dr. John as a muppet¹. More to the point, their sounds were unusual--but not so unusual as to be in the range of post-punk's occasional peculiarities or any similarly "extreme" experimentation. Nice home-brews of sound, reflecting personal musical pasts, cultural and regional ones, or some mix of both.

Doomtree - No Kings (2011)

Doomtree Records ■ DTR033

Released November 22, 2011

Produced by Cecil Otter, Dessa, Lazerbeak, Mike Mictlan, P.O.S., Paper Tiger, Sims
Engineered by Joe Mabbott
Mastered by Bruce Templeton
Beats by Cecil Otter (A1-B1, B3, C1, D1-D3), Lazerbeak (A1-A3, B2, C2-D3), P.O.S. (A1, A2, D1, D3), Paper Tiger (D3)

Side One:	Side Two:
No Way Sims, Cecil Otter, Mike Mictlan, P.O.S. Bolt Cutter P.O.S., Sims, Dessa, Mike Mictlan Bangarang P.O.S., Cecil Otter, Mike Mictlan, Sims	Beacon Dessa, P.O.S., Cecil Otter, Sims Punch-Out Mike Mictlan, Sims Little Mercy Cecil Otter, Dessa

Side Three:	Side Four:
The Grand Experiment Dessa, Sims, P.O.S., Cecil Otter, Mike Mictlan String Theory Dessa, Sims, Cecil Otter Team the Best Team P.O.S., Sims, Cecil Otter, Dessa, Mike Mictlan	Gimme the Go Cecil Otter, Sims Own Yours P.O.S., Sims, Mike Mictlan, Cecil Otter Fresh New Trash Sims, Cecil Otter, P.O.S., Dessa, Mike Mictlan

Maybe it's just the Dessa show I was at two weeks ago, but I feel like I've relayed the story of how I found Doomtree enough times already--I was asked at that show by just about everyone, including associates and one of the opening acts. There's no stranger experience for me than going to those shows. I don't know why it is, exactly, but I end up with people asking me how long I've known them, or when I left Minneapolis, or how on earth, if neither of those is true (there's nothing true in either--I've never even been to Minnesota in general, and the friends I have there have only lived there since I discovered Doomtree, basically). I'd chalk it all up to the general positivity they all exude in person, the down-to-earth appreciation and gratitude they express openly and consistently to seemingly everyone, but then you would think everyone would get asked those questions, or no one would ask them at all.

Dear Lions - Dear Lions (2011)

Arctic Rodeo Recordings ■ ARR 033

Released May 25, 2011

Produced by Joe Philips, Adam Rubinstein & Dear Lions

Engineered by Mickey Alexander

Mixed by Daniel Mendez

Mastered by Ed Brooks / RFI

Side One:	Side Two:
Katherine Space Sister	For the Kill Darling Gun

Not long after I picked up the Burning Airlines reissues of Identikit and Mission: Control!, I unsurprisingly found myself on the rather calmly scheduled electronic newsletter for the label responsible for those: Arctic Rodeo Recordings. Early this year, they sent those of us on it notice of a sale on some of the last remaining copies of some of their releases, in bundled and discounted form. I didn't know most of the artists in question--maybe not any, actually. Still, the bundles were attractive, and I had been thoroughly impressed with how ARR did the two releases I owned, so it seemed worthwhile. Eventually, I was left with a massive order from Germany sitting in my arms, straight from my regular mail carrier. While it was largely composed of 12"s, it also contained a handful of 7"s, and one 10": this record.

It was actually pressed in two different colours, mixed yellow and white and mixed blue and white. Each had a contrasting cover (yellow with blue or blue with yellow, as seen above), but I discovered on opening that the cover is actually similar to a number of 7" packages: a single folded sheet with blue on one side and yellow on the other, held together by the clear sleeve it's sitting in. It's a clever idea, and appeals to my sensibility with the option to make it match if I want to (but I like colours, so I kept the contrast). But you can see the white and yellow mix makes for a rather lovely pastel yellow. But I know we're not that interested in the colours (are we?).¹

Davenport Cabinet - Our Machine (2013)

Evil Ink Records ■ 

Released January 15, 2013

Produced by Travis Stever and Mike Major

Mixed and Mastered by Mike Major

Side One:	Side Two:
Night Climb (Intro) Deterioration Road Simple Worlds Sister Servant These Bodies Our Machine	Black Dirt Burden Drown It All New Savior Dancing on Remains At Sea Father

NOTE: There are two obvious points here I could gloss over, or choose to address, and I've decided on the latter. First: It has been quite a while. I'm working two jobs now, so in the interest of not just rushing through listening, writing, or both, I've been simply letting things slide, and instead working out a schedule that works for the jobs and for my own sanity. I apologize all the same--I'm obviously not even close to succeeding at my original goal of "a record a day," which has effectively become impossible without becoming Robert Christgau in writing style. And Christgau is often too acerbic for my tastes anyway.

Second: This is also why I've chosen to omit the "day numbering" in the title of the entry. I should hope it was not exactly something people looked forward to (at least, as compared to actual content), so I also hope it will not be missed too severely.

I'll admit that part of the reason I ended up delaying at first was that I'd originally hoped to work this album in to its "logical" place, though that has long since passed. I knew it was coming, but could not nail it down in all senses, and I knew quickly it could not arrive in an alphabetically correct place (indeed, we've already seen three records that come after it in the alphabet). It's such a good record though, and I wanted to give it a spot here. Of course, I say that and did not, at the time, have it on vinyl--heck, it wasn't available on vinyl--as it was only announced then to be coming.

Day Forty-Nine - Needle-Scratch: Dan Friel - Total Folkore

Thrill Jockey Records ■ THRILL 324

Released February 19, 2013

Recorded by Dan Friel

Side One:	Side Two:
Ulysses Windmills Valedictorian Intermission #1 Velocipede	Scavengers Intermission #2 Thumper Landslide Intermission #3 Swarm Badlands

My last blog was actually named for a song by the band Parts & Labor, about whom I eventually wrote there,  and this was partly in the interest of a title that implied the aim I had, and partly as a result of my overriding love of the band, particularly the album Mapmaker. After they released the follow-up to that one, though (Receivers) I actually caught them live with my friend (and former manager) Gerald who had introduced me to them with that lasting and evocative phrase, "Music to melt your brain". At that show, I expanded my awareness of their work by picking up BJ Warshaw's Shooting Spires album (by his side/solo project, Shooting Spires, of course) as well as Dan Friel's then-exclusive release (barring an extremely limited EP I am FAR too late for), Sunburn. Sunburn was a quick little release, 7 tracks and less than 20 minutes, and released on what could've been a 3" CD but was instead a neat little partially clear one. It was the noisiest, strangest, most experimental side of Parts & Labor distilled, devoid of vocals, yet still imbued with hooks.

Day Forty-Three: Communist Daughter - Soundtrack to the End

Grain Belt Records ■ GBR013

Released June 7, 2011

Mixed by Brad Kern

Mastered by Greg Reierson at Rare Form Mastering

Side One:	Side Two:
Oceans Soundtrack to the End Not the Kid Speed of Sound Northern Lights	Fortunate Son Coal Miner In the Park Tumbleweed The Lady Is an Arsonist Minnesota Girls

Since I moved a few months ago, there has been a serious decline in my concert attendance. Of course, that's the inevitable difference between living twenty minutes from a venue where you can see independent artists to your heart's content, eventually catching a small French band that was told repeatedly that they would have a great time playing there--and a place where an hour's drive would risk reckless driving-level speeding tickets to manage for any kind of established show. As a result, I've been to two shows since moving, one at the suggestion of my father (to see Tom Russell in a tiny bar), and one of my own accord, intended to put my foot down on seeing an artist I'd let slip by a number of times. The latter was Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, touring on the back of a live album that will work its way in here eventually.

Day Forty-Two: Coheed and Cambria - Year of the Black Rainbow

Columbia Records ■ 88697 52995 1

Released April 13, 2010

Produced by Atticus Ross and Joe Barresi

Recorded and Mixed by Joe Barresi and Atticus Ross

"Here We Are Juggernaut" Mixed by Alan Moulder

"If Man should decide to dabble in my affairs, then guardians must intervene. But, should I come forth to change the face of Man with you there to challenge me, then I shall return with the stars to destroy all I have made. Whether Man or I present that danger will not be told in the coming."

Side One:	Side Two:
One The Broken Guns of Summer Here We Are Juggernaut	Far This Shattered Symphony World of Lines

Side Three:	Side Four:
Made Out of Nothing (All That I Am) Pearl of the Stars	In the Flame of Error When Skeletons Live The Black Rainbow

I intended, in my previous blog, to cover a lot of things over the course of time. It was ambitious in one sense, and completely directionless in another; I had a slew of ideas, a mess of bands, albums, genres, and thoughts to address, and no order to them, no way to encourage readership as I hoped. I suppose anyone writing publicly in this fashion wants someone to read it, but the idea for me was to try and convey and express the passion I feel for music as a listener first, and my writing was only the means to that end. A large part of the inspiration for that drive is the fact that it's difficult for me to quickly or easily express anything so broad as my taste in music, and because there are so many factors that affect the process of evangelizing almost anything--particularly the preconceptions of intended audiences. I've always made an attempt--however rough, however futilely--to frame my own notions under the overarching guidelines of acclimation to the tastes, thoughts and feelings of others. But that requires both a willing ear and a sense of trust, and it's difficult for the less devoted to concern themselves with a willing ear for something like this, and easy to lose a sense of trust with those who share any musical devotion.

Day Twenty-Nine: Brother Ali - Mourning in America and Dreaming in Color

Rhymesayers Entertainment ■ RSE0152-1

Released September 18, 2012

Produced by Jake One

Side One:	Side Two:
Letter to My Countrymen Only Life I Know Stop the Press	Mourning in America Gather Round Work Everyday

Side Three:	Side Four:
Need a Knot Won More Hit Say Amen Fajr	Namesake All You Need My Beloved Singing This Song

While the big names like the Beach Boys and the Beatles inspired the conversation my father and I had about "alphabetical imbalance" in music collections, I have no good explanation for the imbalance in my rap. I know it's something less than a favourite genre for a number of people I know (including the above person), but this is almost it for quite a while--and then almost it for good. Electronic music is "worse"--I've got three more of those in my entire collection. In any case, we've had a semi-glut of late, and I'm not going to apologize for any of those, but I do understand the fact that for many that's not going to be the most interesting part of all of this. Still, this is my collection, and I went with alphabetical order to avoid any deliberate weight being placed on any genre, artists, or anything else. I feel like this still sounds vaguely apologetic, which I guess it still is, in a way, but the reality is, this shouldn't be taken as yet another album to skip for the unfamiliar or those who feel they do not like rap (to whom I always say, as I do with comic books, metal, electronic music, silent movies and various other niche genres--"You haven't read/heard/seen all of them. It's a medium, and a style, and there's a lot of variation within, and a lot to take out of them").

Day Seventeen: Baroness - Yellow and Green

 

Relapse Records ■  RR1793

Released July 17, 2012
Produced by Baroness and John Congleton

Engineered and Mixed by John Congleton

Having just addressed an acknowledged classic, I'm getting a few days of brief reprieve before I have to return to more of that kind of pressure. That this album has been calling out to me since it arrived a few weeks back, left unlistened because it's the beginning of the alphabet and I knew it would have its place here, only helps to ease that transition and make it a happy one. Now, I was worried enough about the person I purchased it from that I crossed my fingers and gave them a great rating as a seller, but it appears I was not wrong (it was carefully slit but otherwise still in shrinkwrap, as it was described). Of course, when it did arrive, I fell down the stairs of my apartment running to catch the postal worker who had mistakenly gathered I was not home. That was a bad week in general.

Day Thirteen: Atmosphere - The Family Sign

Rhymesayers Entertainment ■ RSE0130-1

Released: April 12, 2011

Produced by Anthony "Ant" Davis

Side One:	Side Two:
My Key The Last to Say Became	Just for Show She's Enough Bad Bad Daddy Millennium Dodo

Side Three:	Side Four:
Who I'll Never Be I Don't Need Brighter Days Ain't Nobody	Your Name Here If You Can Save Me Now Something So My Notes

And now we hit on a genre that splits a lot of the people I know distinctly: rap/hip-hop. For the pedants--the genre is most accurately referred to as "rap music" or "hip-hop music", as "hip-hop" technically refers to the entire subculture (identified by the four primary components: graffiti, rapping, DJing, and breaking). I don't specify too much here, because there should be no confusion about the fact that I'm referring to music in the context of a blog about records that has "vinyl" in its title and pictures of records all over it. All that established, I know a fair number of people who carry the allergy that I usually see wandering the web in far more vitriolic forms. Admittedly, I cover most of the genres that you see appear under "I listen to all kinds of music, except..." with the possible exception of modern strains of popular country music. I come from the kind of background personally, musically, and so on that doesn't as often place me in contact with other listeners of rap music. I'm by no means alone, I know at least a few people who listen as I do, but we all tend to shy more toward the "indie" side of hip-hop, of which Atmosphere may well be the godfathers to some extent.