The Sabauteur Radio Hour

Remember when you used to make mix tapes to make friends and impress girls? So do I. And, I miss it. Therefore, I bring you the new endeavor from our humble little blog; The Sabauteur Radio Hour.

To kick off my excitement of all things musical in 2012, here is the very first episode of a new podcast type effort I'm calling The Sabauteur Radio Hour. The concept is pretty simple: There are songs I like and some stuff I want to say about those songs. So, that is primarily what happens here.

Along the way, I will attempt to uncover the new, revisit the old and aged and talk about what's going on in music that excites me. In the first installment we check out the new single from the forthcoming Shins LP. I wax poetic about the first LP from Youth Lagoon, wish a happy birthday to a soul legend, mention many times, many bands on the playlist that will also be playing at Coachella, and I'll explain why The Eagles are a far greater scourge on society than Marilyn Manson or Judas Priest.

You can listen or download the Sabauteur Radio Hour here.

The written down version looks a lot like this . . .

Sabauteur Radio Hour | Episode 001

Intro Music | Upside Down - Fela Kuti

Simple Song - The Shins
Options - Gomez
Honey Bunny - Girls
Agent Double-O-Soul - Edwin Starr
Holland, 1945 - Neutral Milk Hotel
It's Real - Real Estate
Santa Fe - Beirut
Daydream - Youth Lagoon
Come Back To Us - Release The Sunbird
Taking It Easy Too Long - Blitzen Trapper
Leave Me Alone - Destroyer (New Order Cover)

Outro Music | The Fool - Neutral Milk Hotel

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.