Mixtape 26: January 2006

1. Akron/Family – Raising the Sparks
2. Devendra Banhart – Quedate Luna
3. TV on the Radio – Satellite
4. The Flaming Lips – The W.A.N.D.
5. Jana Hunter – A Bright-Ass Light
6. Wolf Parade – I’ll Believe in Anything
7. The Pharcyde – Ya Mama
8. Liars – Let’s Not Wrestle Mt. Heart Attack
9. Belle and Sebastian – Funny Little Frog
10. Clinic – Tusk

* * * * *

Slowly but surely, I'm learning to never say "never." Never say "best" either, and for Christ's sake, stay away from "definitive." Of course, I've got no one to blame but myself; I wrote, after all, that "what was never and cannot ever be up for debate is that "The Purple Bottle" is the best song of the year. I didn't hear every song on every album released in 2005, and yet I can personally guarantee this statement's veracity. It's not so much an opinion as a provable fact. Nothing came close."
What a dumbass.
I mean, of course "The Purple Bottle" is a great song. At times, I've found it utterly transcendent. But why did I have to be so goddamn certain? Was I trying to be cute, feign arrogance? I can't say--the me who wrote that is utterly different from the one typing this. I can't hope to understand his intentions. But someone's got to take responsibility and I suppose I'd have a hard time convincing anyone else to do so. It was my statement, and the blame lies with me. We'll see if I can avoid repeating my mistake, and it occurs to me at this point that referring to Akron/Family's "Raising the Sparks" as "the REAL best song of 2005" (as I planned to do) would probably fall under that heading.
Still, it's how I feel, at least right now. It's how I felt when on the morning of January 2, 2006 I gently considered my future, a park bench at the edge of Madison Square, the cold somehow acting as a conductor of electricity. I don't like to think about music in these terms--it tends to sound, I don't know--no, I do know: lame. But the truth of the matter is I gave "Raising the Sparks" a shot and decided then and there that transcendence or symbiosis, whatever you want to call that Click where everything falls into place, was as valuable an ally as I could ask for. Whether achieved through music, drugs, meditation, prayer... but the revelation wouldn't stick. I felt stupid even thinking it.
"Raising the Sparks" closes Akron/Family's portion of the Akron/Family / Angels of Light split LP, acting as a recap and summation of the effort so far.* It begins with approaching drums, faint but growing, gathering steam and foreboding power like a harbinger of civil war. It explodes into a complex but rollicking guitar melody, a verse which itself undergoes a slow and steady build until it disintegrates into drunken stomping singalong, an iridescent chorus of blending harmonies and inhuman caterwauling, finally blending with the returning guitars and then emptying back out into nothing, leaving you to consider only the band's insistent plea to "Raise the, raise the, RAISE THE SPARKS."

* I love writing about music. I think it's useful, both for me as a writer and for whoever reads this (though no one does). That said, some songs cannot begin to be summarized in words, and demand to be heard. A download of "Raising the Sparks" can be found here.

Mixtape 25: Scraps

1. The Decemberists – Sixteen Military Wives
2. Kelly Clarkson – Since U Been Gone
3. Robbers on High Street – Price and Style
4. M.I.A. – Hombre
5. Why? – Miss Ohio’s Nameless
6. Guided by Voices – A Good Flying Bird
7. The Double – Up All Night
8. The Fiery Furnaces – Straight Street
9. Buck 65 – Bandits
10. Man Man – Feathers
    

* * * * *

These are the ones that didn't make it. Whether because of rules or because they simply fell through the cracks, these songs should have been included on a playlist but weren't. They're listed in roughly chronological order, and are included pretty much solely to up the total number of songs involved in the project to an even 250.
It's now 2006 (we're actually way in there), but I've been continuing a variation of my 2005 project. Because of the ridiculous workload involved in creating two playlists a month, I've cut it down to one. At least for the foreseeable future, I'm going for ten songs a month. I'll post my first four here to bring this thing up to the present day, and then we'll see what happens from there in real time.

Mixtape 24: Late December 2005

1. Panda Bear – I’m Not
2. Man Man – Engwish Bwudd
3. Liars – The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack
4. Mogwai – Acid Food
5. Animal Collective – Fickle Cycle
6. Pink Mountaintops – New Drug Queens
7. Akron/Family – Dylan Pt. 2
8. My Morning Jacket – Off the Record
9. Black Dice – Wastered
10. Circulatory System – Symbols and Maps

* * * * *

Now we're getting somewhere, by God. This is the kind of playlist that in January 2005 I could have only dreamed of creating. Too bad it was the last one of the year, and too bad it can only exist in my mind as the official soundtrack of the New York City transit strike. Still, it wasn't all bad; yeah, taxi zones and no subways kind of sucked, but I'll probably remember walking to school through the park with "Dylan Pt. 2" making me feel like the star of The Graduate or something (just not Garden State, please).
"I'm Not" comes off Panda Bear's I'm Not/Comfy in Nautica EP from UUAR. Ostensibly, it was released to whet the world's appetite for an upcoming full length from the Animal Collective alum, but all it really did is set up impossibly high expectations. "I'm Not" is gorgeous shimmery vocals one on top of the other, and gentle drumming in the background, impossibly delicate. The whole thing feels too wispy, with harmonies only sustainable for a fraction of a second, once a century. Listening to this song feels like seeing Halley's Comet.
But as it turns out I was just getting started. I remember listening to Liars' newly-leaked Drum's Not Dead on the subway (evidently this was before the strike commenced), hoping desperately to like it. Nothing really clicked that first time (though that would soon change). I almost gave up. On the way home, I decided to give the last song on the album a shot. A minute later, I was transfixed. There are songs that take multiple listens, there are songs that take single listens, and there's "The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack". A minute in, I knew I had a new song for the mixtape. There was never any doubt. This one, too, is delicate, but it builds momentum as it goes and turns into a quiet stunner. Empty space gives way to haphazard guitar plucks give way to breathed harmonies give way to "I won't run far / I can always be found," repeated over and over and building with forceful drum pounds and confident bass anchors and you don't want to open your eyes for fear you'll ruin the beauty of the moment. I've liked Liars. I've written about them. But Christ. Who ever thought they were capable of this?
Up in Vermont for New Year's, I thought about the year, what I had accomplished, and other manner of masturbatory back-patting. It's a coincidence that the last song on this playlist is composed primarily of the lyrics "I know you've come a long way / Such a long way...", but if it wasn't a coincidence it'd be just as well. 2005 was easily the best year of my life. Things clicked in profound ways, and while I'm not saying my playlists had anything to do with anything, they are inextricably linked in my mind nonetheless. I won't be able to think of summer 2005 without Stephen Malkmus' "Pencil Rot" playing in my head. That's a drop in the bucket; the associations I built up over the year, the songs I hear when I think of people, the depth of personal attachment is honestly immeasurable.
But goddamn, compiling 24 mixtapes was a bitch.

Mixtape 23: Early December 2005

1. Belle and Sebastian – The Blues are Still Blue
2. Sunburned Hand of the Man – Flying Colours
3. Akron/Family – I’ll Be on the Water
4. Sonic Youth – Disconnection Notice
5. Destroyer – Painter in Your Pocket
6. Mogwai – Travel is Dangerous
7. Fannypack – Seven One Eight
8. Nouvelle Vague – In a Manner of Speaking
9. A Band of Bees – Chicken Payback
10. Caribou – Bees

* * * * *

As 2005 wound down, I admit it, I started to celebrate a bit prematurely. The idea of a full year during which I lived and breathed bitchin' music had been a little overwhelming at the outset, and I was (and remain) pretty proud of myself for making it the whole way through. That said, I might have lost a little focus. I ended up padding the end of this playlist the day before it was due. It's still a good mix, I think, but I also know it could have been better.
"The Blues Are Still Blue" finds our friends in Belle and Sebastian back in the mood to cull through an era of popular music and select for themselves only the juiciest pieces. Here they've settled on a choice cut of T.Rex/Stones swagger rock and infused it with their own unique lyrical sensibility, composed of equal parts anachronistic references and misused hepcat koans ("teaching mamas and papas how to be a little cool", etc.), a child's idea of what's rad. The whole thing, unsurprisingly, ends up being damn fun.
I think in the last post I called Liars' "It Fit When I Was a Kid" scary-sounding, but I didn't know scary until Sunburned Hand of the Man came a-knockin'. These experimental funk crazies make music so unnerving that I had to select the tamest track from their album No Magic Man for fear that any other song, upon multiple listens, would transmit into my brain the coordinates for the welcoming celebration of the reborn spirit of Horus on the eve of the winter solstice or something. I have enough things about which I can legitimately freak out; I wasn't ready to subject myself to any more.
Akron/Family jump genres like it ain't no thang. They're ridiculously talented, sure, but they're also fearless. "I'll Be on the Water" is a hushed pastoral lullaby, simple and confident. But it's also something else: timeless. It's not only that the melody could have been heard floating on what must have been the smoke-filled air of the Newport Folk Festival (now the Dunkin' Donuts Folk Festival, if I'm not mistaken) in the early sixties, but rather a whole air of authenticity that the song embodies, bolstered no doubt by the lo-fi recording, just a guy and his guitar, takin' care of bizness, though what he's really doing is calling out to a lover, "If you have to stay / I'll be on the water / Catching the next wave / You can meet me where it breaks." There's a real joy in this song, an easy kind, where it's okay just being alive.

Mixtape 22: Late November 2005

1. The National – Lit Up
2. The Max Levine Ensemble – Curly Brown Hair Love Affair
3. Oneida – Privilege
4. The Happy Bullets – The Vice and Virtue Ministry
5. Liars – It Fit When I Was a Kid
6. Death from Above 1979 – Better Off Dead (Le Peste Cover)
7. Okkervil River – The Latest Toughs
8. Animal Collective – Banshee Beat
9. Telephone Jim Jesus – The Ouroboros Tongue
10. Akron/Family – Running, Returning

* * * * *

I didn't realize until recently that I had compiled two consecutive playlists containing a song titled "Better Off Dead". I swear. I probably wouldn't have done it if I'd realized.
I enjoyed Liars' 2002 debut record They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top. But not at first. I actually flip-flopped on it quite a bit. The album came just as I was growing disillusioned with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the so-called Brooklyn scene in general, and as such I was reluctant to accept a new inductee into what I felt was a trend at its tail end. But it was fun. I couldn't help myself. "Grown Men Don't Fall in the River, Just Like That" and "Mr. Your on Fire Mr." were not only tremendously bitchin', but unique. Still, I somehow managed to put it behind me. The album was shelved, unconsciously but nonetheless indefinitely. The last day I remember listening was the day George Bush announced that Saddam Hussein and his sons had 48 hours to leave Iraq, which would have made it March 17, 2003. I didn't revisit it for a good two years. When the follow-up, They Were Wrong So We Drowned, came out on my birthday in 2004, I couldn't really be bothered. But when I did return to the first Liars record (and selected excerpts from the second, such as the tremendous "There's Always Room on the Broom", which made the late January list), I didn't really miss a beat. I suddenly adored it. Maybe out of the context of the early-aughts hype it inspired, it could finally really shine for me. I don't know.
Needless to say, when "It Fit When I Was a Kid" leaked, I was excited. Not only because I counted myself this time among Liars fans, but because I genuinely didn't know what to expect. Liars had confounded expectations before, and here they would yet again. I won't mention the gay porn cover-art, cause it only distracts from the terrific song. The drums are devastating on this track, not too loud or processed but just relentless. There's a terrifying tribal quality at work here; if the last album was about witches, how did this track not make it? Lyrics like "We will leave you in the woods / tell your friends you slipped down the lumen tree" seal the scary-ass deal.
A couple of other notes on this playlist:

• It includes the only appearance of The National for the year. Sorry guys, I have no excuse. You fell through the cracks. Alligator's a great album but 2005 brought with it a great music overload.
• I've written enough about Animal Collective, but man alive, "Banshee Beat" is spectacular. A slow-burner, yeah, but it burns like a mofo.
• Akron/Family is unbelievable. More on them soon.
  

Mixtape 21: Early November 2005

1. Fatlip – Today’s Your Day (Featuring Chali 2na)
2. This Bike is a Pipe Bomb – Better Off Dead (Live)
3. World Leader Pretend – Bang Theory
4. Spoon – Sunday Morning Wednesday Night
5. Why? – Broken Crow
6. Stephen Malkmus – Post-Paint Boy
7. Alec Ounsworth – Wide Awake
8. Sonic Youth – Superstar (Carpenters cover)
9. Animal Collective – We Tigers
10. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy & Matt Sweeney – Death in the Sea

* * * * *

Compare (Frank) Black (Francis)'s vocals on Come on Pilgrim with those on Honeycomb. Compare Tom Waits' on Closing Time with those on Real Gone. Thurston Moore's on Confusion is Sex with his on Murray Street. Fatlip's on my leadoff song vs. those on, I don't know, "Ya Mama." Point is, there is a long history of singers/rappers' voices changing over the years, and Fatlip is part of that great tradition (I just remembered Bob Dylan). "Today's Your Day" is what I like about The Pharcyde and Jurassic 5 and all those groups. Fatlip's voice may have gotten a little gruffer (that's a word), but his flow remains effortless and his writing priceless: "Built the empire from the underground, then retire / Who said I was on crack? Youse a muthafuckin' liar!" That's just a taste.
"Superstar" is one of the best pop songs ever. The Carpenters' version is best known (and best), but Sonic Youth's (recorded for tribute album If I Were a Carpenter) kind of holds a candle to it. That's actually high praise. Better to be a good cover of an amazing song than an amazing cover of a horrible song. Whatever.
"We Tigers" is right up there with Clinic's "The Second Line" on my list of favorite gibberish songs. I've written enough about Animal Collective, but suffice to say that this song ranks up there with Sunburned Hand of the Man as some of the most frightening music in my library. It's also inspiring; oh, what can be done with a tambourine and an open mind. And mescaline.
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy and Matt Sweeney's "Death in the Sea" is probably my favorite song off of the astonishingly good Superwolf album. It's a little more triumphant than standard Oldham fare, but still sufficiently gloomy: "Someday I must die / It ain't for me to know why / And I want to die in the sea." Emotionally it's a step above "I hope that someday buddy... we can stop our whoring," but not by much.

Mixtape 20: Late October 2005

1. Animal Collective – The Purple Bottle
2. Pavement – Transport is Arranged
3. José Gonzáles – Heartbeats (Video)
4. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Me and You, Watson (Live)
5. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy & Matt Sweeney – Lift Us Up
6. Serena Maneesh – Un-Deux
7. The Double – Blanket on a Beach
8. The Mr. T Experience – Even Hitler Had a Girlfriend
9. Spoon – My First Time, Vol. 3
10. North American Halloween Prevention Initiative – Do They Know It’s Halloween?

* * * * *

Feels may or may not have been the best album of 2005. On my personal list, it swapped spots with Why?'s Elephant Eyelash and The Double's Loose in the Air too many times to count. It was a good year for music (anyone that says otherwise simply didn't know where to look), and it contained lots of fodder for spirited debate. However, what was never and cannot ever be up for debate is that "The Purple Bottle" is the best song of the year. I didn't hear every song on every album released in 2005, and yet I can personally guarantee this statement's veracity. It's not so much an opinion as a provable fact. Nothing came close. Animal Collective's "Did You See the Words" (a fantastic song in its own right) originally led off this mixtape, but halfway through my deadline period, I discovered this song. It starts off all poundy tribal been-there-done-that AC. Somewhere the guitar kicks in, soft but glittery with flourishes--they know what's in store. "Got a big big big heart beat yeah, I think you are the sweetest thing / I wear a coat of feelings and they are loud," but the lyrics don't even matter; by now everything is together--melded drums and guitar and Avey Tare's wailing and somewhere in between the following three (yes, three) crescendoes, everything kind of dissipates into something other than sound.
The Bonnie 'Prince' Billy and The Double songs are fantastic, and the Vice charity single ("Do They Know It's Halloween?") is pretty fun, but nothing compares to "The Purple Bottle," so what's the point?

Mixtape 19: Early October 2005

1. Serena Maneesh – Drain Cosmetics
2. Pavement – Date with Ikea
3. Devendra Banhart – I Do Dig a Certain Girl
4. Wolf Parade – Shine a Light
5. Frances – It
6. Why? – Early Whitney
7. Sonic Youth – Dirty Boots
8. Sole – Theme
9. Rogue Wave – 10:1
10. Belle and Sebastian – Another Sunny Day

* * * * *

I like Brighten the Corners best. Slanted and Enchanted and Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain have their moments (which I realize is quite the understatement--just go with me), as do Wowee Zowee and Terror Twilight (less of an understatement), but this one has got everything you could ever want from a band like Pavement. Every conceivable facet of the band's music is covered in these 12 songs. Plus, it's just really, really good. I came to Pavement late in the game, by way of Spoon. I myself don't lend much credence to the "Spoon stole Pavement's sound" camp, mostly because they didn't. There are, however, exceptions. "Date with Ikea" sounds quite a bit like the band's "Anything You Want" off Girls Can Tell. Ain't no denying it. It doesn't really diminish either song's effect, though.
Devendra Banhart's first single off Cripple Crow, "I Feel Just Like a Child," might be one of the worst songs of the year. If there was ever an argument against freak-folk, this is it. Animal Collective may drop the occasionally flat couplet, but I've never heard anything quite like "From being my daddy's sperm to being packed in an urn / I'm a child." That's why I wasn't too psyched about Cripple Crow's release, not, that is, until I previewed this track. "I Do Dig a Certain Girl" is all shiny "Blue Moon" doowop disguised as rainy Nick Drake folk, closer to Elvis than to Joanna Newsom. I love my 50s and 60s throwback tracks (more on that in December), especially when they come out of the clear blue sky like this.
"Early Whitney" is probably the Why? track that I'll be giving to neophytes. It's certainly more complex and less immediately poppy than anything off of the Sanddollars EP or Elephant Eyelash, but it's still got an instant classic melody and Yoni's trademarked wordplay and lyrical prowess (although I suppose "Don't encourage the wind / the candles will retire" is kind of unfortunate).
"Another Sunny Day" was originally a leaked live version, but I've decided to replace it with the album version, since it's, as far as I am concerned, a future classic. Belle and Sebastian simply can't stop, won't stop writing their little magic melodies. I can't believe they didn't rip this song off of someone else. They're unstoppable.

Mixtape 18: Late September 2005

1. Okkervil River – For Real
2. Why? – Fall Saddles
3. The Occasion – Cannery Hours
4. Grizzly Bear – Shift
5. Yo La Tengo – Sugarcube (Mind-Blowingly Amazing Video)
6. Radiohead – I Want None of This
7. Franz Ferdinand – The Fallen
8. Metallic Falcons – Berry Metal
9. The Arcade Fire – In the Backseat
10. Wolf Parade – Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts

* * * * *

There's not a lot that's remarkable about this playlist. The songs are all good, but the list lacks a real centerpiece and it meanders from tracks 3 to 6. Nevertheless, it has a couple of little gems if you know where to look.
Okkervil River's "For Real" is pounding, emotional (not emo, don't say emo) rock music. If Spoon insists on regressing, they could at least regress to something like this.
The Occasion came to my attention when it was namedropped by a member of The Double in a KEXP interview. I gave the band's free mp3s a shot and was impressed. Brooklyn/NYC bands tend to fall under a few categories that, for the most part, are pretty much mutually exclusive.* There are the post-punk revivalists, the DFA types, the so-called "freak" folk bands, and a few more that I don't really feel like thinking of. I'm not really sure if dancepunk's still making the rounds. Anyway, the point of all this retardedness is that The Occasion defy all that stuff. They're basically making classic rock, all epic and poundy and slow-building. Yet they manage to interest me. Fancy stuff, that Occasion.
Franz Ferdinand's "The Fallen" is the Franz Ferdinand concept stretched to its logical conclusion. It's what I think is a pretty silly superficial band making the swaggery, flashy music that such a band must make. I like it a lot, and for the first time I'm not ashamed for Clinic on account of they're both on Domino Records. I should clarify: I really like Clinic.
Metallic Falcons is CocoRosie member Sierra Casady's "baby metal" side project. It's real pretty stuff. "Berry Metal" is part of The Enlightened Family: A Collection of Lost Songs, the inaugural release of VoodooEROS records, the new label run by the other half of CocoRosie, Bianca Casady. The compilation also includes recordings of Devendra Banhart at 15 years old or something.
"In the Backseat" was originally going to be the triumphant theatrical playlist closer, much as it is on Funeral. I decided, however, that that whole triumphant closer thing was played out, and decided to give "Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts" its rightful position at the pinnacle. Now, I've liked Wolf Parade okay (need I remind you that I was on top of that shit back in June?), but I never found them to be quite as mind-blowing or transcendent as their hype would suggest. They had great songs, I said, but they were no Arcade Fire. Heck, they were no Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. This song though, hot damn, this is one of the best songs of the year. It's so gloriously constructed, and when the verse swings back around 2:30 and twists and contorts with the bridge chords and the screams of "yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah," it's one of those musical moments where the stargate or whatever opens up, you see the face of God a teensy bit, you take off your socks cause you're Above that shit now, etc. It's enthralling.

*I'd like to mention that I find this type of broad labelling pretty stupid and lazy and inaccurate, but it works for the purposes of this paragraph.

Mixtape 17: Early September 2005

1. The Fiery Furnaces – Mason City
2. The Double – Icy
3. The Silver Jews – Animal Shapes
4. Jonathan Fire*Eater – The Shape of Things That Never Came
5. The Max Levine Ensemble – Fuck You I’m Not PC?
6. TV on the Radio – Dry Drunk Emperor
7. Spoon – He Was Soon to Undergo an Experience
8. Fatlip – What’s Up Fatlip? (Video)
9. A.C. Newman – Homemade Bombs in the Afternoon
10. Why? – Yo Yo Bye Bye

* * * * *

I try to allow myself at least one opportunity every year to scoff at hype--to ignore critical darlings, and further to deride them and their success. It allows me to stay free of critical groupthink, so I can avoid following the herd and saying ridiculous and untrue shit like "Interpol sounds like Joy Division." I like to be able, every now and then, to listen to a band and say "Fuck the hype." In 2004, that band was The Fiery Furnaces (well, them and Joanna Newsom). I gave them a shot back somewhere around the time when Rob Mitchum of Pitchfork said that Blueberry Boat changed the way he thought about music forever, or something like that. I was unimpressed, to put it kindly. If the Broadway-style melodies weren't enough to turn me off, I wasn't loving Eleanor Friedberger's nonchalant, half-spoken vocal delivery. The instrumentation was interesting, but the arrangement seemed deliberately bizarre, and unnecessarily overproduced. The verdict was in: Blueberry Boat stayed on my iPod, but not in my heart.
Well, perhaps I just needed time. I came back to Blueberry Boat on September 7th, on the recommendation of a homie. Doing a little preliminary investigation, I noticed that "Mason City" was the most downloaded Furnaces track on iTunes. I gave it a shot and, wait a second, it was glorious. I saw through the hype. I suppose I could finally appreciate the music now it was out of the context of endless buzz. The complex and beautiful melodies, the wonderfully bitchy lyrics, even the vocals--I appreciated these and more in a way that I could not have in the fall of 2004. "Mason City" is probably the most accessible track on Blueberry Boat. It's got three relatively straightforward sections, the first and last sung by Eleanor and the second brought to us by Matt, the unsung Jonny Greenwood of the group. The two-person group. The band is redeemed in my eyes, and so is Rob Mitchum.
But I still don't like Joanna Newsom.
A final note on this list: TV on the Radio's "Dry Drunk Emperor" was released online for free download on September 8 in response to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. It's one of the great songs of 2005, and its lyrics can be found here.

Mixtape 16: Late August 2005

1. Animal Collective – Grass (Video)
2. Xiu Xiu – I Luv the Valley OH!
3. Wolf Parade – You are a Runner and I Am My Father’s Son
4. The Double – On Our Way
5. Kanye West – Gold Digger (Featuring Jamie Foxx)
6. Thom Yorke – Last Flowers
7. Silver Jews – K-Hole
8. Sufjan Stevens – John Wayne Gacy, Jr.
9. Franz Ferdinand – Do You Want To (Video)
10. Sia – Breathe Me

* * * * *

Animal Collective's Sung Tongs had several breathtaking moments (and "We Tigers" towering above them all like a Mayan pyramid), but ultimately it always frustrated me. There was enormous potential in the layered guitar samples, but I just wish every song wasn't produced this way. The effect wears off (and indeed, becomes grating) when it's replicated on nearly every track. Still, I awaited their followup with relatively baited breath, and when Feels leaked I might have clicked on "Grass" first, at random. If Brian Wilson had continued on his insane (no pun intended) upward trajectory, we might have had a song like this in 1975, but as it is we get it now. The background is populated with bird chirps and cricket buzz and the guitars blend in like natural elements. The vocal melody is sweet and gentle on the verses, waltzing along the edge of the woods, but the chorus takes us into the trees, where we lose sight of our surroundings. The animal noises are turning darker, primal, and the chorus ends with 16 drum slams synchronized with Avey Tare's howls and what sound like glockenspiel flourishes. Get some headphones, get the mood right, get your spirit somehow to the forefront, and it's downright mind expanding.
"I Luv the Valley OH!" used to be the only Xiu Xiu track I could stand. I couldn't help it--Jamie Stewart's ultra-whiney vocals just didn't work for me, even if he didn't just sing about middle school or MySpace, like some other bands I could name. Around August I started to investigate the band's 2005 release La Forêt and somehow came back to this track. It's pretty great. I love some loud, distorted percussion, and as I write this, I realize that this mixtape is full of it.
The Double's "On Our Way" couldn't be less Interpol-like if it tried, and it flirts with noise in ways that their labelmates would never attempt. Its chorus crescendoes like bombs.
Kanye West is not the greatest rapper working today, but he is, I suppose, a positive force in mainstream hip hop. I've often made the same complaint about Kanye as I have about Sung Tongs (and Elliott Smith, now that I think about it), which is that he depends far too much on the same production techniques. I guess Jon Brion switched things up a little on other tracks with mandolins or whatever, but it still pisses me off a little. Still, ain't no denying that "Gold Digger" is a great song.
The Sufjan album is, I think, a little too kitschy. I miss the straightforward folk of Michigan. I'm hoping he drops the band (and the dumb song titles) for the next state, which I submit should be New York.
The Sia track is kind of saccharine, but I added it in some kind of weird tribute to Six Feet Under, which ended its five season run in August with a beautiful montage choreographed around this song.
I should also say that I love Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl", and I wasn't sure when to mention it, so I'll do it here.

Mixtape 15: Early August 2005

1. The Double – Idiocy
2. Panthers – Thank Me with Your Hands
3. Radiohead – Big Boots (Live)
4. Pixies – Rock a My Soul
5. Pavement – Shady Lane
6. Sigur Rós – Glósóli
7. Silver Jews – How Can I Love You (If You Won’t Lie Down) (Video)
8. Belle and Sebastian – The Stars of Track and Field
9. Sleater-Kinney – Modern Girl
10. The Olivia Tremor Control – California Demise 3 (Live)

* * * * *

In August I trekked through the length of Cape Cod and Boston, freed myself of the shackles of hazy big city society and possibly suffered brain damage as a result. Before stepping into what I was pretty sure would be my last car ride (or one that would at least change the way I thought about car rides), I loaded up the old iPod with a whole bunch of free mp3s, most of which I've since forgotten. One that "Idiocy" came from the Matador website, to promote The Double's then-forthcoming Matador debut, Loose in the Air. At first, I thought it was alright, good enough maybe to be #7 on a playlist (no offense, Mr. Berman), but little more than that. But gradually, I found, this song's radness sneaks up on you. Most reviewers have inexplicably written The Double off as an Interpol soundalike, completely ignoring the fact that they lack their labelmates' trademark indy swagger and showmanship. I love Antics (and Bright Lights, albeit to a slightly lesser extent), but Loose in the Air is more cerebral, less eager to make friends. It sounds alternately like And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out-era Yo La Tengo and early Geffen era Sonic Youth. I guess "Idiocy," the most accessible and mainstream-friendly track, could be described as Matadory, I'm really surprised that Interpol is the best that everyone can do. "Thank Me with Your Hands" piles more guitar lines on top of each other than I ever thought possible. It can get quite intense, you listen under the right circumstance. "California Demise 3" is a great summer song. That's really all I can say.

Mixtape 14: Late July 2005

1. Secret Machines – Nowhere Again
2. Frank Black – Space is Gonna Do Me Good
3. Wilderness – End of Freedom
4. My Bloody Valentine – When You Sleep
5. Gorillaz – DARE (Video)
6. This Bike is a Pipe Bomb – Selma
7. Pixies – Allison
8. Silver Jews – Punks in the Beerlight (Video)
9. Death from Above 1979 – Blood on Our Hands (Justice Remix)
10. The Geraldine Fibbers – Yoo Doo Right (Can cover)

* * * * *

Sometime around here is when I began to read Richard Fariña's brilliant novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me. It had been recommended to me by a trusted friend as "the darkest, funniest book ever," an understatement. I can't describe the connection I felt with the text, the author (who died in a motorcycle accident the night of a party celebrating the book's release), and the friend, when it comes down to it. I won't get all the way into it--suffice to say that the book is brilliant, and, what's more, it's inextricably linked in my mind with this playlist.
The Secret Machines track is yet another one of those songs that had been hanging around my iPod for some time just waiting to come up on shuffle. "Nowhere Again" is probably the closest my mixes have ever come to straightforward rock. It's got a hook like a Jackson Five song or something, where you don't even need more than one listen for it to sink in. Or a New Edition song. Or a Backstreet Boys song. I like it, though, really. "End of Freedom" falls on the other end of the spectrum. It builds slow, with a hypnotic layered drum riff that soon is accompanied by a single feedback-strained guitar, not unlike Sigur Rós in its gradual build, and the fact that it sounds like a bow is doing most of the work. When Wilderness' frontman Jason Johnson's bizarre, almost atonal vocals are added to the mix, the effect is kind of eerie. The new Silver Jews record started floating about around this time, and "Punks in the Beerlight" is a pretty good representative of the entire Tanglewood Numbers aesthetic: first of all, even though Daniel Berman has gone electric, he hasn't abandoned the usual cast of fringe of society characters that populate his songs. The Dylan comparisons don't end there, but I'll leave them and focus instead on the lyrics. On paper, or screen or whatever, they may seem kind of purposefully dumb or, at best, somewhat maudlin. The delivery, though, will have you believing otherwise. It's kind of refreshing to hear a love song that's completely free of irony (especially one on which Stephen Malkmus plays). Namedropping Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, of all people, may seem like something Pavement might have done. I can see Malkmus in the video with all the hair in his eyes (maybe he's even winking underneath, but who can tell). But Berman means it. He even means "I'll always love you to the max."

Mixtape 13: Early July 2005

1. Stephen Malkmus – Pencil Rot
2. Name Withheld
3. Le Tigre – Deceptacon
4. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – In This Home on Ice
5. The New Pornographers – The Jessica Numbers
6. Sufjan Stevens – The Lord God Bird
7. The Mountain Goats – Dance Music
8. Jeff Mangum – Engine (Stream)
9. Pavement – Major Leagues
10. Destroyer – It’s Gonna Take an Airplane (Stream)

* * * * *

Summer, in the city, is the best thing in the world. I didn't really get that until this year, for some reason--I always said that I couldn't stand the weather, that there was no good TV on, etc. I guess all this is still mostly true, but there's also a real joy to life in the summer. Or maybe I just loved this playlist that much. "Pencil Rot" is an opening track if I've ever heard one. Not since Radiohead's "Optimistic" has a song burst out of the gate with the same kind of confident rock swagger. Whenever sports stars tell reporters that their favorite song is "In Da Club" or "Eye of the Tiger" because it "pumps them up," I wonder why they don't just try a song like this. "In This Home on Ice" is glorious, one of those songs where you wonder how it was only just produced now for the first time; it seems so obvious in retrospect. "The Jessica Numbers" starts off with gunfire-like staccato strums, and then explodes into the frenzied Canadian superpop we all know and love. It has the time signature tweaks we've all come to expect from The New Pornographers, along with poppy, almost Motown-sounding harmonies. "The Lord God Bird" is from NPR's All Things Considered, which hired Stevens to write a song about Brinkley, Arkansas (read all about it here). It's pretty good, but a little frightening now that I know that Stevens is hella Christian. My mp3 of "Engine" is from Mangum's most recent known show (excluding his appearances with The Olivia Tremor Control and Elf Power), on February 4th, 2001 in New Zealand. He introduces it as "a children's song," and proceeds to drop a melody worthy of Francis Scott motherfucking Key. The Destroyer song is my way of almost cheating (I don't use more than one track by the same artist on any given playlist) but then, the New Pornographers and Destroyer play tremendously different music, and "The Jessica Numbers" isn't a Bejar song anyway. "It's Gonna Take an Airplane" is kind of theatrical, I guess, and maybe even a little melodramatic. But it's pretty, and there are handclaps.

Mixtape 12: Late June 2005

1. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth
2. LCD Soundsystem – Tribulations (Video)
3. The New Pornographers – Jackie, Dressed in Cobras
4. Spoon – Decora (Yo La Tengo cover)
5. Ugly Casanova – Hotcha Girls
6. The Mountain Goats – Dilaudid
7. R. Kelly – Ignition (Remix)
8. Ghost Mice – The Pines
9. The Arcade Fire – Cold Wind
10. Wolf Parade – Claxxon’s Lament (Frog Eyes cover)

* * * * *

Could it really have been anything else? I'm as much a slave to hype as anyone, when it's warranted (which is why I've been able, for the most part, to leave The Strokes and Bloc Party well enough alone). When I listened to "The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth" for the first time, it was one of those indescribable moments of excitement. It wasn't even that I was enjoying the music--rather, I was looking forward to listening to it, to discovering its idiosyncracies, to memorizing its lyrics. It's the feeling that there's something worthwhile in your future. LCD Soundsystem's inclusion was prompted by seeing this song performed live. I hadn't been digging the album as much, but something about the frenetic live show made me understand what James Murphy was doing a little more. I remember that I came around, specifically, sometime during the closing seconds of "Losing My Edge". A few days after Clap Your Hands Say Yeah found its way onto the web and into our hearts, the new New Pornographers record leaked in its entirety. I don't know why I naturally gravitate to the Dan Bejar songs imediately-- they're probably the least accessible, with the most ridiculous structures and time signatures, but they've got more emotion behind them than Carl's stuff. Sometimes a little too much more emotion (Bejar could have chilled a little at some points on Your Blues). But "Jackie, Dressed in Cobras", the sequel to "Jackie" off of Mass Romantic remains, for me, the most exciting song on the record. While we're on the subject of emotional vocals, I give you "Dilaudid". John Darnielle's voice has always kind of freaked me out. I've compared him to Neko Case in that both sing so loudly that sometimes it sounds as though they're just yelling at you. Even though I've never heard a single person agree with this comparison, I'm still pretty proud of it. Here, though, Darnielle starts out calmer, and when he starts yelling (and yell he does) it makes sense. The last line ("And take the foot off of the break / for Christ's sake!") is basically a gasp, the effect no longer lying in the melody but in the nuances of his cadence (not unlike, say, "Hollaback Girl"). I kind of wish the song would cut out right there, but instead there's one last cello riff. Can't expect everything to go my way, I suppose. The R. Kelly song is on here because it's better than The Beatles. And again, while I may not have been there for the first show in Montreal, I would like to draw some attention to the fact that I got on the Wolf Parade train pretty quick.

Mixtape 11: Early June 2005

1. Why? – Pantone Cyan

2. The White Stripes – My Doorbell
3. The Mountain Goats – Palmcorder Yajna
4. Animal Collective featuring Vashti Bunyan – I Remember Learning How to Dive
5. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – Black
6. The Fucking Champs – Never Enough Neck 1
7. Lotion – Sandra
8. We Are Wolves – Little Birds
9. Sonic Youth – Unmade Bed
10. The Jam – Away From the Numbers

* * * * *

For much of the time since June, I've considered this my absolute worst playlist. I felt that several of the songs were weak, that the mix didn't form anything cohesive, that each song was added just for the sake of doing so. Recently, I've begun to reconsider. While there are a couple of missteps (the Animal Collective track, blasphemy or no, is pretty boring), there are also some gems. "Palmcorder Yajna" is an immensely satisfying rock song, the kind that could have been written 30 years ago, if not for some weird lyrical non sequiturs the likes of which didn't really rear their head in the '70s. "Black" finds Will Oldham churning out another quietly devastating folk dirge. Here, as on just about all of I See a Darkness, it comes down to Oldham's voice, his guitar, and to a lesser extent his beard. The lyrics, though somewhat detached and concerned with wordplay, have a real beating heart: "And as a friend, and as a comrade / and all the things that these implied / I made him leave what it was that he had / used to keep us unallied." I became interested in Lotion's 1996 album Nobody's Cool initially for the same reason many did: the Thomas Pynchon-penned liner notes. The music is not too shabby either--"Sandra" is a classic love song, except all the things that were only hinted at in the old standards and ballads of the 50s are explicitly stated here. It kind of goes as far as one can go. "Unmade Bed" is Sonic Youth as Murray Street's Radical Adults, a little older, a little wiser, unafraid to take their time, let the melody repeat, build on itself, form intricate patterns. Now that I write it, though, I realize that that's what they've always done, so maybe they haven't really matured at all.
Also, while I'm not one for tooting my own horn, I would like to mention that now that We Are Wolves is getting so much press and is riding the kind of hype wave previously reserved for a certain other lupine band of Canadians, I was there six months ago. That's all.

Mixtape 10: Late May 2005

1. Frank Black – White Noise Maker
2. Belle and Sebastian – Me and the Major
3. Name Withheld
4. Johnny Cash – I See a Darkness
5. Guided by Voices – My Valuable Hunting Knife
6. Stephen Malkmus – It Kills
7. Boom Bip & Dose One – Directions to California
8. The White Stripes – I’m Lonely (But I Ain’t That Lonely Yet)
9. Spoon – Is This the Last Time
10. Ghost Mice – The Devil and My Family

* * * * *

I guess I ran out of steam. While every song on this list is worthy of inclusion, somehow it didn't add up to anything to write home about. It lacks a certain spark. I don't know. Maybe it has to do with the way I'd been feeling at the time. The inclusion of "White Noise Maker" is a manifestation of my aforementioned desire for a return to the Frank of old. "Me and the Major" is a classic that I tended to skip over when listening to If You're Feeling Sinister. Why, I do not know, but it's great. I left the name out for #3 because it's part of an unreleased album sent to me by the artist that I don't really have permission to talk about, in a nutshell. Johnny Cash's Bonnie 'Prince' Billy cover, while not nearly as good as the original, is pretty cool in that it instantly legitimizes everything. It must be pretty rad to have your song covered by Johnny Cash. In April, I posted Stephen Malkmus' "Baby C'mon" because it wasn't a standard Malkmus track. "It Kills," however, could've come off of Brighten the Corners. Still, it's as welcome as flowers in spring. The White Stripes' then-upcoming Get Behind Me Satan had only just leaked, and for some reason I picked the song that most closely resembles "Mercedes Benz" by Janis Joplin. It's pleasant, but I would've been happier with a song that doesn't have one of the most recognizable melodies in popular music history.

Mixtape 9: Early May 2005

1. Why? – Sanddollars
2. The New Pornographers – Twin Cinema
3. Guided by Voices – Echos Myron
4. Adam Green – Jessica
5. Belle and Sebastian – Seeing Other People
6. Pavement – Starlings of the Slipstream
7. Frank Black – Selkie Bride
8. Ludacris – The Potion
9. Sufjan Stevens – Flint (For the Unemployed and Underpaid)
10. Silver Jews – Send in the Clouds

* * * * *

This was a kind of turning point. I've documented my growing love for the Anticon collective previously, and Why? had always been my favorite alumnus of said collective. Some background: Why? has teamed up with fellow Anticonner Doseone on multiple projects, most notable among them cLOUDDEAD (with Odd Nosdam). With the 2003 release of his full-length solo debut Oaklandazulasylum, he made his first attempts at blending rap with folk/pop/rock/everything else. While a great album (a track made my Late March playlist), many found it too inaccessible and perplexing (a ridiculous complaint, considering Why?'s far more difficult early work with Reaching Quiet and Greenthink). But now there are no excuses: the Sanddollars EP is practically pure pop bliss. Why?'s unique style comes across as particularly effortless on this title track, with its layered jangly guitars and forward driving melody. Elements of rap remain, however, and make themselves heard in the lyrical wordplay: "These are selfish times / I've got shellfish dimes / and sanddollars."
"Twin Cinema" is The New Pornographers doing their New Pornographers thing. Adam Green shows up here again. I've still got no idea why. Frank Black's "Selkie Bride" is a good example of the new Frank, the older, wiser Frank, the Frank that I like but am kind of hesitant about. While I love that he's finally singing like he means it, I wouldn't mind a good old fashioned Black Francis scream now and then. Some of the fun is gone. But it's still a beautiful song.