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

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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.