I love Arthur Russell’s work, disco and avant-garde alike. Recorded during the years of 1985-1990, this material is culled from two albums, Corn, which was completed in 1985 but never released, and an abandoned Rough Trade album. I would describe the sound as avant pop with a serious disco sensibility. The album was released in 2004 so it’s actually kind of a new release, and even if the music itself is older it still sounds unique and contemporary. It’s the weirdest music to ever get stuck in your head, but music you’ll want to listen to over and over. The last song, “Calling All Kids,” is one of my personal favorites, if only for the refrain, “Grownups are crazy!” set to what Pitchfork describes as the noise from a digital keychain. You might dance, you might sway, or you might move in strange coordinated herky-jerky movements listening to this album. The whole thing is goofy, fresh, and kind of brilliant.

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New Years Eve, 2009. As always happens around the end of one year/start of another, I begin to sift through the leftover albums that I once loaded on my iPod but never got a chance to thoroughly experience.

Sometimes you need comedown music. Around five thirty, most of us had burned out and were ready to crash, and someone in the house put Level Live Wires on repeat. This was the perfect end to a seemingly endless night of surprising adventures and sleepless social encounters. The music recalls the soft ambiance of early Broken Social Scene (Feel Good Lost era) and warm textural sounds from Kiln. Throw in some slow, monotonous rapping and breakbeat or two for good measure and you’ve got something close to Daedalus on downers. Walking around listening to this on my headphones, I couldn’t help but think that no album has ever made me feel so cool to be listening to music alone in a cold dark city. This dude has worked on the indie hip-hop label anticon and has remixed the likes of Boards of Canada, Notwist, and Nosaj Thing.

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Hearing all the hype for the new Yeasayer album made me remember what little time I spent with their first album, All Hour Cymbals. Yeasayer is a psychedelic band from Brooklyn, and originally sounded like a much poppier version of Gang Gang Dance or a much more trippy version of TV On The Radio. All Hour Cymbals now reminds me (in the best parts) of 2009’s most under-appreciated act Here We Go Magic, which released their soft-spoken debut this year. It’s a well-executed and yet stubbornly unobjectionable psych rock album. Great for fans (and you may well become one!), but yesterday’s news for many others.

Now that the kids are going with the dance music, crossover success for an “experimental” band like Yeasayer means including electronic beats a la Animal Collective, which the lead single Ambling Alp does fairly well. The rest of the album follows in this vein by focusing on tight song structures that allow for experimental (and increasingly electronic) flourishes. If this album signals anything, it’s the arrival of post-Animal Collective indie music, which is at once accessible and experimental, sonically diverse yet technically focused on a pop aesthetic. It’s appropriate that it arrive at the beginning of 2010, as this firmly cements Animal Collective’s reputation as one of the most influential indie acts of the past decade, and decidedly thrusts the door open for a whole new generation of post-AC popsters. This is sure to hit big with the critics as did similar efforts from Dirty Projectors and the aforementioned Animal Collective this past year. And it should. It’s good. Above all, it’s a danceable freakshow, which is my favorite kind! Tracks like Ambling Alp, One, Mondegreen, and Rome will make you dance all jumpy-like and simply beg for remix treatment, while slower movers are lyrically interesting enough to keep you listening closely until the next beat kicks in. My bet is that 2010 will be a good year for Yeasayer.

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This video is so accurate. I want to grab a pair of kick-ass headphones and go dancing in the streets to this all day long. Too bad it’s so short!

Crystal Fighters - I Love London

This is the debut album by experimental sonic wunderkind Mica Levi, age 21. Hailing from England, where she studies at Guildhall School of Music, and counting musical deviant Harry Partch as an influence, Mica and her band of drummer + keyboardist create short, quirky pop songs that could just as easily have come out of a vacuum cleaner as a guitar. With such a boundless imagination and homemade instruments to match, it’s hard to believe Micachu was snubbed by the Mercury Music Prize mofos this year. Lotta spunk to make sounds like these. This is what I call junkyard pop, or ramshackle rock - where the instruments are as custom as the music they create. And the music makes no excuses for its exuberantly brash and occasionally atonal delivery, but it doesn’t need to. If you don’t listen fast enough, it’s gone, leaving you wanting more. And with an album that’s barely 30 minutes long, it’s hard to think you wouldn’t want to give it one more go. That’s how it went for me. Except after that “one more go”…

it was fifty.

Micachu and her Shapes are on tour throughout the US now, so check them out! They’re cute as fuck.

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“Lips” video:

Wow. It’s the best collaboration ever.

But you knew that when you saw the artists. What you didn’t know is how exquisitely original the final product would be. I say original because both the music of Four Tet and Burial rivals close to none in their respective styles, perhaps because those styles are so amorphous. Four Tet typically flits between IDM and experimental post rock, with influences ranging from jazz, lounge, dub, hip hop, and ambient music all thrown in. The seemingly endless array of inspirations are wonderfully filtered through the unique and hauntingly dark, echoing percussion of Burial’s bass-clicky dubstep. Two pioneers in their field create two tracks that fans of either will immediately recognize as a perfectly organic extension of their sounds. Staccato electronic sounds meet the ghostly remnants of thick dubby bass lines. It’s almost as if the album was written before they met.

But I’m glad they did.

The album/ep/single/project was limited to 500 copies and sold out fairly quickly after the pre-release info, despite no cover art or track samples. It’s almost like a black vinyl slab that came out of nowhere to change our world.

NO space (this is a one-time only affair)

CAN’T buy (because there were only 500 copies)

but you still MUST listen.

This, Bitte Orca, is Dirty Projectors’ first release on Domino. Dirty Projectors is the continually evolving experimental music group masterminded by Yale dropout Dave Longstreth, located in Brooklyn with ties to Portland music scene via several consistent collaborators. At first glance this oddly sexual cover (maybe I just need to get my head outta the gutter) reflects the typically eclectic jumble of sounds and harmonies that burst out of a Dirty Projectors album. There is something simple and refined about the absent gazes of the covers’ two models (and bandmates), however, which speaks volumes about the changes within. This album marks the beginning of a more constant, firm (touring) lineup, and the ability of Dave Longstreth to package his esoteric, conceptual aesthetics for mass consumption, while retaining the integrity of his original vision. Still, though, you can’t label or define this music. It is experimental because it is whatever the fuck he wants it to be and serves whatever purpose or message he desires of it. There is an abundance of musicians and sounds on the record, many only appearing once or twice and then fading into the harmonious cacophony. Most impressive is the meticulous placement of this sort of instrumentation throughout the album. The change has come all over, with Longstreth discovering his ability to reduce sprawling experimental tendencies to fit into a conventional song structure with more understandable lyrics. Complex, layered vocal harmonies paired with electronic experimentation are wonderfully synthesized with the ramshackle instrumental samples apparently plucked from jam sessions that gleefully use a myriad of bell-and-whistle aural technology. It appears that it has taken Longstreth several albums to discover himself artistically, as interpreted musically. This album is how he communicates those years of tumultuous self-discovery to a large audience, bringing lessons and innovations that are sure to be applied by contemporaries and predecessors for years to come.

Dirty Projectors made a pop album to end all pop albums.

Favorite Tracks: Useful Chamber (!!!!), Stillness Is The Move, No Intention, Fluorescent Half-Dome, Cannibal Resource

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LINK REMOVED PER LABEL/WEB SHERIFF REQUEST

4 new songs from the self-proclaimed “Olsen twins of blissed-out drone” (explanation: “one of us looks like a fancy and one of us looks like a crazy, and we drink a lot of tea and talk a lot of shit and hang out together”). Super slow-moving, hypnotic, yet somewhat sinister songs (you almost feel as if the music is keeping a secret from you). They combine droning guitar melodies with sparse drums and chant-like, echoing vocals to create their haunting sound. Listening to this, I get the image of someone floating down a river in a rainforest in a canoe at night, wondering what is just around the riverbend (HA, get it?), so if you ever get a chance to do that, let this be your soundtrack. I’m also reminded of one of those old movies where some explorer is wandering through the Amazon on an expedition, and he hears this tribal chanting in the distance, and he is torn between satisfying his curiosity and protecting his own safety, but he continues on and the chanting gets louder, and eventually he stumbles into this tribal ritual and gets captured. Maybe I’m the only one who thinks this…Listen and make your own story.

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Newest album by the semi-reclusive, vocoder-worshipping experimental band from Pittsburgh (I wonder if they are part of the Western Pennsylvania Mushroom Club?). This one is a lot mellower than most of their stuff, including the solo album by lead “singer” Tobacco released last year. A lot of the songs sound like BMSR’s take on Stereolab- cool stuff. All the familiar elements are here: bubblegum synths, 70s inspired Rhodes riffs, and looooots of vocoder. Nothing too new or groundbreaking here, but a solid album nonetheless.

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Also: on their myspace they have a cover of Shugo Tokumaru (a personal favorite)! Listen now.

This is the experimental ambient album from Ohad Benchetrit, someone I’ve long thought to be the brains behind the brilliance of Do Make Say Think, Broken Social Scene, and other BSS-related projects. Of course it is always a team effort, but there’s something about his instrumentation (listen to Winter Hymn Country Hymn Secret Hymn to hear what I mean) which makes me think he is one of the most incredible musical geniuses of our time. And he’s got an awesome name too. You can tell that he has matured into genre-less music with this album, which in parts can be defined as ambient, acoustic guitar, found-sound, experimental, IDM, what have you. The point is that he has explored so many styles that he is now able to sit down and create his own, and he does so beautifully. Every song I hear someone stitching together a sonic blanket, where melodic sound textures are held together by the daily rhythm of his thread. I hope you will enjoy this as much as I have.

Here’s what Arts-Crafts (the label) had to say of the new release:

“Arts & Crafts announces the signing and debut release from Years, a beautiful and inspired self-titled album due for release May 5. A true visionary of compositional soundscaping, Ohad Benchetrit, provides an immense soundtrack and illustration of his accomplished production and guitar proficiencies.”

For fans of: first BSS album Feel Good Lost, DMST (especially the acoustics on You, You’re A History In Rust), BSS, any sunny, hopeful and down-to-earth ambient IDM that inspires you.

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My friend Gaff sent me this one. It’s a group of female MCs from Brooklyn aged 12 to 14. Their songs are about sticking true to the game against problems with boys, problems in the industry, and problems on the tough streets. Plus, the album’s produced by Nathan Corbin aka ZEBRABLOOD aka one of the guys from that mad-creepy/out-of-their-minds bands Excepter, so you’ve got preteen rap backed by sinister beatz, static-y tones.

Ch-ch-czech it out, yall

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Link down per request of label-like people. Sorry for the late response, y’all (forgot we had an email account)

This Japanese guy (DUH) creates some really cool experimental/folk stuff that reminds me of High Places and Gang Gang Dance (two personal favs). Lots of layers and interesting noises and percussion swirling around. It’s a psychedelic day in Osaka! At some parts its like I’m listening to some crazy (crazier, I mean) version of the Katamari Damacy soundtrack. It’s so weird and cheery and fun and quirky, just like Japan! Never been, want to go…this brings me a little closer.

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PS I don’t know if this is him performing or his grandmother singing karaoke:

K.C. Accidental was a two-person band comprising Kevin Drew and Charles Spearin, and it formed the base for the band now known as Broken Social Scene (up there in my top 10 all-time obligatory favorite bands). To be honest, I wish they’d never broken up. For those familiar with both Drew and Spearin’s work, this will play as a beautiful synthesis of the two’s different approaches to music. Spearin’s instrumental post rock leanings (he’s in Do Make Say Think, again an all-time favorite band for me) combined with Drew’s ambient electronic experiments (you should see him playing with synths live, it’s awesome) create an album so perfect that it has defined more than one period of my life (and that’s saying a lot). Boy do I like parentheses today. Anyways, the first album is Captured, and the second is Anthems, but each have 6 blank tracks, at the end of the first and the beginning of the second. To me, this implies that both comprise one continuous work, with a silent pause between each act. Truly, it is really beautiful, there’s no other word than that. It is very hard to express in words how incredible this album is (it’s my emotional attachment which is making it difficult), but few others who have heard it experience different reactions.

Also, it’s uploaded (both of the albums are zipped together) in 320 kbs, so there’s NO excuse for you to not have it. NO EXCUSE.

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OK, so since Panda Bear’s Person Pitch hit big last year and convinced the rest of the Animal Collective to make their new album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, sound like a poppier, slightly brasher Panda Bear album, I decided to dig deep into the honey comb and find some old Panda Bear material that, is just as good if not better than his recent output. He has certainly expanded a folk sound to give it open space - it sounds like the hot breath (of a panda bear) on my neck in the middle of a snowy winter.

oh, i should probably also mention that yes, all of the tracks are untitled. I kind of agree with one person on last.fm who commented, “When was the last time you wrote a song so good you couldn’t name it? Even worse: an entire album!” but to each hir own. even though the tracks are sequenced correctly, if it still bothers you you can always re-title them Untitled 01, 02, etc… for the sake of scrobbling (if you use last.fm) or if you just need it that way.

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here we go magic - here we go magic

I didn’t think I’d like this, but I really do. I really really do. I can’t get over how surprised i am. It’s psychedelic pop, essentially..but really well done to the point where it’s experimental ambient drone in parts and jangle pop in others. I like the cover art too. I didn’t put that first in the description because people think you shouldn’t judge something by its cover first, even though I think it’s a perfectly valid comment to make, even if it doesn’t qualify the content of the music. So yeah. Get it, because it’s funky. Funkytrippysmoothsparkle. That’s what I call it. What’s your genre? Put in in the comments.

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