Heavy Rotation - Week Of Feb 25th

In our weekly series, Heavy Rotation, I will write about the five records I have been spinning regularly over the last week. There is not an expiration date. The records included can be from any time period at all. All entries are eligible to appear for multiple weeks. In fact, repetition is likely due to the fact that while I listen to a fair amount of music, it's not as much as I'd like to make time for. Also, as some of you may know, we have a vinyl only policy around our house, so as expected, all entries on the list are being listened to via turntable.

Ladies and germs, presenting installment five of Heavy Rotation . . .

John Cale | Vintage Violence
Columbia Records | 1970

After leaving the Velvet Underground, John Cale wrote, what he referred to in his biography as "some very simple songs" and assembled a group of studio musicians to record Vintage Violence. The results are a wonderfully eclectic melange of styles from 60's pop (Cleo) to Nashville infused rock (Hello There) to smooth 70's rock (Gideon's Bible). While Cale would go on to make more assured records like Paris, 1919, the charming energy on this record is utterly infectious.

The Left Banke | Too
Smash Records | 1968

This second album from baroque popsters, The Left Banke would be their last for nearly twenty years. The 30 minutes of this record simply fly by as the listener is inundated with intricate arrangements and lovely harmonies populating deftly crafted pop songs. It's a wonder that The Left Banke were never a bigger hit, despite their lone charting single, "Dont Walk Away Renee". One interesting bit of trivia is that several songs on Too feature the backing vocals of a young man named Steven Tallrico who later changed his name to Steven Tyler and went on to start a band you may have heard of called Aerosmith.

Camera Obscura | My Maudlin Career
4AD | 2009

This week's theme of compact pop records continues with the fourth offering from the Scottish quintet, Camera Obscura, whose entire oeuvre is a nod to the great song craft, production and power of early and mid-sixties Motown and girl groups. Led by songwriter and frontwoman, Tracyanne Campbell,  Camera Obscura take their unabashed affection for retro-pop and create a new millennium version on that style. There are notes of orchestral pop, bright horn accompaniments and some wryly hilarious lyrics. Simply put, this record is a ton of fun and should be listened to loudly and with the windows open whenever possible.

Aretha Franklin | Aretha Now
Atlantic Records | 1968

Starting off with the iconic "Think" and rolling through a powerhouse half hour, Aretha Now is the sort of record that grabs you by the scruff of the neck in its opening bars and lets go when the needle rests at the end of side two. Aretha's pipes treat us to the best renditions of "I Say A Little Prayer" and "You Send Me" that are available to ears anywhere. There is a rollicking great time to be had with "See Saw" and of course she reminds us as only she can that "The Night Time Is The Right Time". Maybe you've heard "Respect" too often or just recently saw that video for "Pink Cadillac". If so, please just throw this LP on the deck and be reminded why Aretha Franklin is a national treasure.

Grandaddy | The Sophtware Slump
V2 | 2000

Grandaddy mastermind Jason Lytle has some pretty  obvious influences. Jeff Lynne of ELO and Neil Young seem in a way to almost coat the songwriting and production choices on The Sophtware Slump. And yet, Lytle manages to rise above this by writing about an anachronistic universe where man and technology and nature meld together in a dissolved land of confusion and blurred boundaries. This intermingling geography and a melancholy nostalgia create a canvas on which Lytle's influences seem brand new rather than rehashed. It's a bit like listening to a record made by the love child of Mr. Blue Sky, H.D. Thoreau and Steve Jobs.

Heavy Rotation - Week of Jan. 13th

In our new weekly series, I will write about the five records I have been spinning regularly over the last week. There is not an expiration date. The records included can be from any time period at all. All entries are eligible to appear for multiple weeks. In fact, repetition is likely due to the fact that while I listen to a fair amount of music, it's not as much as I'd like to make time for. Also, as some of you may know, we have a vinyl only policy around our house, so as expected, all entries on the list are being listened to via turntable.

Ladies and germs, I give week one of Heavy Rotation . . .

Real Estate | Days
Domino Records | 2011

A little gem of a jangly pop record from this New Jersey outfit. The songs are compact, catchy as hell and damned fun to listen to. The band also seem to have developed a pretty great sense of humor as evidenced by their new video for the forthcoming single for the album lead-off track, Easy.

If you like The Shins, The Fruit Bats or The Byrds, this is probably for you.



Real Estate - It's Real by DominoRecordCo

Youth Lagoon | The Year Of Hibernation
Fat Possum Records | 2011

I just recently posted a review of this terrific debut from 22 year old Boise, Idaho native Trevor Powers. Yet, even after listening to the album multiple times for the review I was still happy to slap it on the deck again the following day. A record that gets more interesting with each successive listen.





Youth Lagoon - Bobby by overmuziek

David Bowie | Low
RCA | 1977

My favorite record of the David Bowie/Brian Eno collaboration. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this LP is its ability to simultaneously be of its time and still somehow timeless. There is a warmth about the recordings that feel like an old blankey you could just crawl right inside. But leave it to Eno and Bowie to also make it seem incredibly pioneering and just plain awesome. It remains one of the very best records of the 1970s. If Blade Runner were a David Bowie record, it would be this one.

Les Paul and Mary Ford | Hits Of Les And Mary
Capitol Records | 1960

What is not to love? There are great songs like The World Is Waiting For A Sunrise, I'm A Fool To Care and How High The Moon. Les Paul (you know the guy that invented the prototypical rock guitar, multi-tracking and about a thousand other awesome musical things you take for granted) is a staggeringly beautiful player. His style isn't just unique or impressive, it's amazing, in that you are amazed by it. You hear it and stop in your tracks even when you've heard the record a dozen times. Mary Ford's vocals are just sweetly heartbreaking. If you think that standards aren't for you, drop the needle on this and listen to yourself start to feel stupid.

Grandaddy | Sumday
V2 Records | 2003

Over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, the vinyl reissue of Grandaddy's Sumday arrived in my mailbox. Since then, it has been subject to myriad revolutions on the turntable. I have always had a soft spot for this album, but the vinyl reissue was done in all the right ways, and throwing it on the turntable now brings on the sense of sitting down for a beer with an old friend. Jason Lytle's hummable melodies, junkyard production techniques and anachronistic narratives weave together in an album that begs repeated listens.

ALBUM REVIEW: Youth Lagoon | The Year Of Hibernation

Youth Lagoon  | The Year Of Hibernation (2011) - Fat Possum Records

The Year Of Hibernation, the debut album from Youth Lagoon is an album that seems like an auditory oxymoron. On the one hand, there is a simple, honest and humble appeal to it. The songs sound very much like you'd expect from a record made by one young man, Trevor Powers, in the bedroom of his Boise, Idaho home. On the other hand, the arrangements are epic. The songs are mature and self-assured and the narrator through muffled voice and reverb drench often sounds wiser than his years would belie.

It is within these contradictions that the greatest appeal of this record lies. It would be easy for a 22 year old kid to make a bedroom record with a few twee instruments and a laptop. Yet, that would make these songs seem cute or cloying. Youth Lagoon never elicit any of those emotions. Instead, the simple melodies are repeated in almost Reichian fashion and are built upon so as to elevate the songs to ethereal planes.

In the title of the record, and throughout mush of the lyrical material, Powers writes about his own sense of loneliness and anxiety. But it almost always seems smarter than the songs we should expect from someone who is just entering his adulthood. The production value and subject matter evoke a sense of nostalgia that this young man has created for a dream world that never really existed.

The potpourri of influences here are part of what make the record so interesting too. In quieter moments, there is a sense of a piano style 70s solo act. Yet, at the moment that aesthetic becomes clear gears shift and a synth loop chimes to throw the listener off track. The guitar riffs owe a large debt to early New Order with their melodic repetition and simplicity. Yet they never feel forced or out of place.

Powerful moments are common on this record, but none is more evident than in the coda that ends the penultimate track, "Montana". As the a slow melodic whistle builds with a smacking, metallic anvil sound to the songs crescendo. It is haunting and beautiful and very much original. This is a melody you will have in your head for days.

The best compliment I can give this record is that when it's over, you'll want to flip it over and start again from the beginning.

Rating: 8/10

The haunting beauty and melodic charm of Youth Lagoon
are even further displayed in the marvelous video
for "Montana", which can be found below.