Give Me Take You

Portishead Third (Island)

This most closely qualifies as my very favorite album of the year for having the best packaging (2 x 45rpm LPs), best production quality, and some totally unexpectedly great material. Portishead has always been something in other people’s tastes that I would abide just fine, but never bothered to take for my own. It once was a group with a sophisticated brand of trip-hop, and well that’s not for everyone, especially not me. In this current incarnation, however, Portishead has been transformed into a leaner, more confrontational outfit. Krautrock elements, electronic industrial, and good olde fashion rock organ work of the purest variety (see the amazing, standout track “Small”) make up a surprising and welcome shift of focus for the band. Portishead is likable for how much integrity they exude as a group and yet the sound of the record is just plain cold and mean (and not at all stupid), which for a rock band is more or less what you want to hear exactly.

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Sunset The Glowing City & Bright Blue Dream (Autobus)

Bill Baird’s Sunset released two albums in 2008 of fairly massive, genre-busting material. Bright Blue Dream has a more immediate draw to it with the on-repeat-inducing, emotionally charged four track suite that begins the album. It is an album for people who like both pure pop and pure ambience, as the record is most easily conceived as split into these two sides, but it’s probably even more for the people who like when these lines are blurred from every direction. Neither of these albums are slack on songwriting, either. Both contain some great, moving lyrics that would do well to stand on their own outside of any production. The Glowing City is the more song based, album, however, both for the fact that nearly all of its eighteen tracks have lyrics and that it’s got a definite lyrical arc. It’s that fact, actually, that might make people overlook the fact that it’s also the more musically diverse of the two. Nearly all the tracks could be seen individually as a different style, and yet all together they have a shared identity.

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Beach House Devotion (Carpark)

Beach House did something amazing with this record, which is release a more subdued, single-free album than their first self-titled effort, revealing it not only as a success but as a potentially even-better album.  This ranks very high on my list for its endless listening pleasure.  This and Bright Blue Dream turned out to be the 2008 albums with the most back-to-back repeat listens.  Devotion‘s charms reveal themselves slowly.  Sometimes the most impressive thing about wanting to listen to an album is being more in touch with the impulse of wanting to listen to it than knowing why.  Like a good love affair, you discover and appreciate the details as time passes.

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Dungen 4 (Kemado)

Dugen is a brave man for eschewing the path towards being the biggest pop rock star he can possibly be.  After the still-amazing Ta De Lungt the world was basically begging him to learn English and step forward as the savior of popular rock and roll. His production skills carry a distinctly 60s /70s edge, but the association’s ultimately just a trademark of their quality.  Dungen’s music still has the ability to sound completely contemporary and new, as Ta De Lungt demonstrated.  Yet, he hasn’t helped the vintage associations by sending his records further and further down the path that records from that era went.  4 is, down to its cover art even, essentially a pyschedelic, hi-fi-lounge rock record of the highest order.  That’s totally great, too.  I’m really pleased to have a new record that sounds this great and delivers on those specific promises. Yet, Dungen’s not going to win over new fans outside of the progressive set with this record, likely, as it’s a very, very good album but not exactly a breakout album for this particular type of record.

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Department of Eagles In Ear Park (4AD)

While I was a little disappointed with this effort from Department of Eagles, it still delivered on quite a bit of the promise I’d come to expect from it. I read something before its release that Ear Park was a park than Daniel Rossen used to visit with his father. It’s a fitting title, then, as the songs on this album do seem to stem from formative memories. For me, it’s also the album’s weakness. Listening to the album I too often feel more pointed towards a nostalgic feeling than the music, and I had the unfortunate circumstance to not connect with those feelings when listening. Someone else may get a huge payoff, and potentially I will later. It’s definitely a record I will be curious to revisit down the line, and I still hold a candle for Daniel Rossen becoming a great second-generation pop-Jim O’Rourke figure. “No One Does It Like You” and “Teenagers” are clear standouts for embracing nostalgic goodness for all its worth and then some.

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Robert Haigh Written on Water (Crouton)

This is a really stellar disc of ensemble minimalism that appeals to the heart-of-hearts of the genre, knowing all the right tricks to use and all those to leave behind. The production edge is almost too sweet at times, but never uncomfortably so. Robert Haigh took a long break from releasing this kind of music. His Robert Haigh and Silent Storm was a fine disc that hinted at a Written on Water type effort, but still carried with it a lot of other musical influences that made it ultimately a less satisfying album than this one. I don’t think we’ll be hearing of Haigh reconnecting with Downtown music scenes, but an album this excellent makes the case that he still could.

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Hercules and Love Affair Hercules and Love Affair (DFA)

It took me seeing video of Hercules and Love Affair playing live as a band to appreciate that this was not just the showcasing of a producer but a genuine song-smith’s delight.  Disco is a very good thing when it’s this pop-bright and and bursting with good keyboard work.

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Iannis Xenakis Electronic Music 2 (Mode)

Jim O’Rourke Despite the Water Supply 7″ (Touch)

I’ll review the Xenakis and O”Rourke discs jointly. It’s not really fair to Xenakis to be grouped with O’Rourke, but to be fair to O’Rourke’s talent he does strike a similar nerve. The electronic pieces on Electronic Music 2 are nothing short of superhuman, which is perfectly fitting and exciting for electronic music to be. The musicality of the pieces is intensely contrived yet somehow extraordinarily direct. It’s closest comparison, and very likely its origin, might be a combination of beautifully proofed, relational mathematical formulas. While we don’t all speak the language of mathematics, the language of music is much easier for someone with tools as basic as ears and patience to interpret. O’Rourke strikes a similar nerve in that his electronic music is excellent at elegant relations of the form. The sound of the music is deeply and efficiently communicative of the medium, and, while the process seems based more in alchemical reduction than mathematical proofing, the effect on those of us with equipped with just eardrums and spare time are appreciably wondrous.

Worthy of note:  The DVD edition of Xenakis Electronic Music 2 is preferable not only for its better-quality sound but also for the inclusion of the truly inspired film “Vasarely,” which Xenakis scored.

Reissues:

Scott Walker ‘Til the Band Comes In (Water)

Perhaps my most favorite Scott Walker album, so no surprise it’s a favorite reissue of the past year. Previously Beat Goes On had put out a CD edition, but it demanded a minimum of 50 dollars if you could even find one. This album collects a lot of flack for its b-side, even from Water who reissued it and felt the need to kindly apologize for it in their press release. I see no need. Excellent from start to finish, its strengths do lie in original numbers like the opening trio “Prologue” > “Little Things (That Keep Us Together)” > “Joe”, there’s no reason to buy into the critic gang-bangs against this record’s merit.

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Blue Gene Tyranny The Intermediary (Lovely)

This record puts to shame most electroacoustic improvisational records. Tyranny’s ear and chops are in prime form here and Joel Ryan’s processing is an inspired match. Give me this record over most any improvised duo recording. This record doesn’t officially hold that place amongst enthusiasts, unfortunately. Sometimes when you get it right you just really get it right and people have no reason to say anything contrary, or anything.

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Emmanuel Parrenin Maison Rose (Lion)

With Joanna Newsom’s Ys, this is definitely far and away the best harp based folk album I know. The harp being such an exquisite instrument when used right, it naturally brings this record high upon the placement of folk records at large, for me. Lion Production’s job of reproducing this LP is absolutely magnificent, too, feeling genuinely as if it were spawned from the heyday of vinyl. Vintage heavyweight style sleeve, beautifully cut viny, bright and crisp labels, all around a delight. It’s in very limited quantities, 500 or less, so if you think you need it you most likely need it sooner rather than later.

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Et Cetera Et Cetera (Long Hair)

I actually still need to get a hold of this disc, but being familiar with the album somewhat I know it belongs here, being its first time on CD. A legendary krautrock album that features not only Wolfgang Dauner, but also Eberhard Weber, Siegfried (Sigi) Schwab, and Fred Braceful, the players footing may be in jazz but they in no way hold it there. I suspect it will remain one of the more focused (can you say that about this kind of record?) exercises in fucking-up music (there you go…) from their generation of true players.

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Arthur Russell Love Is Overtaking Me (Audika)

When this record was released I was not among those anxiously awaiting to hear Arthur Russell’s take on folk music. While Russell is an endearing and accomplished songwriter, he’s not exactly the best or even among my favorites in a purely lyrical sense. Russell’s words really only start to take on a beautiful life of their own when conjoined with their imaginatively produced musical counterparts. Stripping away production and miking Arthur on a plinking guitar or a rough sounding, all acoustic cello does not work miracles for the man. Also, the cover is atrociously unflattering in all regards and I suspect he would be embarrassed to see it were he alive.  The album is brimming with material, some very interesting, though it’s length and messy arrangement make for difficult listening to the already unenthused.  Still, I’ll return to it later I’m sure and find something worthwhile.

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Plush Fed (Broken Horse)

After being overproduced to the confusing point where it could only be released in Japan, the initial release was something more like a small scale reissue than an album premier. Still, there’s no way to make up for lost time and I’m still going to file this as a reissue. This album’s not a total favorite on its own but it’s interesting enough to warrant inclusion. Liam Hayes does a good job of trying to blend together an absurd amount of musical influence and moments of the record are fairly stunning. The best composite of influences and soundalikes to compare this album’s pastiche too would be: Crazy-Horse era Neil Young, Harry Nilsson circa “Nilsson sings Newman” and “Harry,” John Barry soundtrack music, Laura Nyro’s more idiosyncratic recordings, and awkward enthusiast-blue-eyed-soul a la Jaime Lidell (or Todd Rundgren if you have to reach back in time for an influence, though Hayes doesn’t sound much like Rundren). With all this influence and more making its way into this Van Dyke Parks attention span style recording, its not surprising that the songs themselves have a difficult task of sticking out above the arrangements. I think the job is made all the harder by Hayes’ writing style. More often than not you get the feeling that Hayes is a addressing one very specific person in his songs. The experience is more like overhearing a sensitive conversation rather than participating in the grand shared experience. With such extroverted arrangements, it’s an interesting but not entirely successful juxtaposition to have borderline nonsensical lyrical turns abounding. Overall, Fed is a fine piece of work that ignores its limitations in favor of fully realizing its desired result. For that, it’s worth recognizing.