Let's Dance About Art 2005 -- Part II

10. Dead Meadow – Feathers

Ever since Dead Meadow blew me against the back wall at one of their live shows, I’ve been a believer. Their records have gotten close to their accomplished live show, but never really showed the power they were capable of. Feathers, their fourth studio album, is just that remedy finally tapping the frequency they can tune into. This is some high-flying stuff, nipping from the trippiest Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd and Led Zep had to offer, but rather than pummel the listener into submission the tunes rise and fall gently like, yeah, feathers. They also continue their theme of rerecording their past works, but this time it works better than ever with their huge (and best work) “Sleepy Silver Door”. The one note verse drains my frontal lobe until the boogie gets the blood flow back at the chorus. Only be ready to be devastated every time the avalanche of guitar solos runs me down. Heavenly.

9. LCD Soundsystem – LCD Soundsystem

I recently heard “Daft Punk is Playing at My House” in my gym, a Bally’s Total Fitness. Hard to say what most of those meatstick guidos really think about Daft Punk or The Scene, but I saw more than one head nodding. See, that doesn’t really matter when you make music of this order. I expected this record to be pandering (ironic handclaps, cowbell and been-there-done that lyrics) to the critic crowd, but when music is this alive and forward thinking, you can’t help but eliminate past conceptions. Sure, everything probably been done here before, and will again, and maybe even better. And it’ll be awesome man, you should’ve been there.

Presently, this is some funky, badassss and hott music.

8. Akron/Family – Akron/Family

I’m not really sure what makes folk music “freaky”, but if there is a good example of it, I’m sure Akron/Family’s self-titled debut might fit the bill. Starting off with a simple plucked measure, nothing outrageous, the first-round knockout comes in when we hear words, strained and forced, trying to stay up, but undeniably pure and like nothing I heard all year, or ever. Now, just because music is new and innovative, it doesn’t immediately make it good, but when melodies this timeless accompany new and wildly interesting ways of putting them together, you might almost have yourself a masterpiece. Acoustic instruments accompany wily electronics, overdriven guitars come out of nowhere and scraps of weirdo found sounds sound more natural than their other accompaniments. This music isn’t freaky for its mixture of the traditional with the atypical, but for the capability of these mere men to create pristine vessels of sound.

7. Animal Collective - Feels

Yes the feeling (sic) is juvenile as ever, just as before, but a bit more psychopathic than I’d seen before. Songs are sung with abandon, loud in the sound, not enunciation, and more than ever the melodies are, gasp, understandable. It’s a less schitzo AC almost like they’re building these songs from the ground up rather than letting them grow and run their natural course. But so it goes, kids do become men.

6. Smog – A River Ain’t Too Much to Love

Rivers aren’t things that follow direct lines. They’re sneaky, winding, full of snakes, and wonderful on a hot summer day. They provide life, helping our trees grow, our farms grow. They can be deep, quick, rocky, placid.

I’d like to think that Bill Callahan, aka Smog, has simplified everything. The arrangements are basic – just acoustic guitar, bass and drums for most of the songs. I’d like to think that he’s just giving it to me straight for once. But as he says, “There is no love/In the one true path.”

I’ve never seen a river follow a straight line.

5. The Psychic Paramount – Gamelan Into the Mink Supernatural

Flip this disc in and start thinking yr in a time warp. Backwards everything, mixed way, way too hott, nothing making sense. Bass is locked in a groove, everything else pounds you like yr caught under a waterfall. But make it out alive…

From the start: “Megatherion” is like ginger to your ears, cleaning out the wax, dusting you off. Then, “Para5”. I mean SHIT. Starting off like a funky Yes, this junk steamrolls over your body, infecting your veins until yous just gots to have more. The song fades, becomes, like, part II or something, and just completely slays every guitar player ever to pick up an axe. Best solo of the year, hands down. So hott, in fact, that it breaks the tape into, uh, part III where the Chili Pepper guitar (In a good way, man) comes back and the bass is forced even louder, until, drop out. I’ve never been more disappointed by a song ending, my chest heaving, my body sore.

“Echoh Air” follows with bubble guitar, thudding bass and cymbal- and snare-heavy drums. It starts out at the bottom of the fret board, low but building, until it gets higher and higher and higher. The production’s still mixed so the needles are breaking off, making for a grainy, snuff film feel, but not half as drrty. Naw, this stuff’s a riot, not degenerate like most noise music.

Segue right into “X-Visitations”. At this point you start to realize that a word hasn’t been sung or spoken, but that’s ok. You get a chance to breathe before another onslaught, but, again, not the kind that noise would incapacitate you with. By then you start to realize, wait, I just listened to about 5 minutes of static. Isn’t that noise? At that point a godly, passionate and righteous guitar sweeps down from up top to deliver a sermon with accentuations from the chorus of bass and cymbals. It’s sad it’s only a fleeting moment, but afterwards we’re given a chance to reflect in the debris and dust following the proclamation.

And finally silence, only for a second, but feeling like a million years. Back to that bubbling guitar and bass for the title track, cymbals touched, things steadily rising, rising. Things are at a fever pitch, expert tension is built, but better yet, maintained. The tape captures this – can any physical entity sustain the pressure this force is generating? Can any set of ears or placement of microphones withstand the weight? Can the tape last in the wall of a hurricane? And it breaks.

4. Sufjan Stevens - Illinois

Nearly every review I’ve read of this album gestures toward the absolute grandiosity of this record and attempts to explain why it’s so big. Ironic then that it’s set within the confines of a state, something finite and in the case of Illinois, not that huge. Nearly every song here deals with the supernatural, notions bigger than most of us can hope to understand, and people bigger than life (ever seen the Lincoln monument?).

It’s a perfect encapsulation of ideas too big to be held in the boundaries of a jewel case, or one person’s head. But they’re ideas that need to be there, things that need to be remembered, reconsidered and thought about for future generations. But then again, they’re simple ideas at heart, really boiling down to a single question of goodness. But, thinking back, that idea is much too complex. And that’s what makes Illinois so good.

3. Kanye West – Late Registration

And so comes my first (and last) white-boy nomination for a hip-hop record. For me, it was a year where I finally started to understand hip-hop, even if I didn’t really listen to many albums. This one, something I didn’t really even want to get, was like a smack in the face. I thought it was hyped so much, and it was, but not because it good. It was great. It’s written like a book, every song a chapter in the ongoing saga of being a Black American. Not that I really know. No, honestly, I have zero idea.

The production is the first thing that hit me. The breath is compressed out of the beats on this thing, trimming the fat and moving everything forward. Samples are still used, and no matter how familiar I am with them (“Move On Up”? I’ve heard that like 50 times by itself.) they still sound brand new written in a push-things-forward context. And, to reconfirm my whiteness, Jon Brion’s coloring of the tracks is an impeccable choice, another checkmark for a man with the best style in entertainment.

Lest us forget Mr. West himself. Sure he’s loud, he’s proud, but this dude’s got breath control. He’s taken a large step from College Dropout as far as MCing goes. His strength is still in his control of recognizing the human condition, how we want to be untouchable but continually fall. Only this time he might be invulnerable. At least until next year.

2. My Morning Jacket - Z

Before I even begin to describe this, I must let you know that MMJ is one of my favorite bands. They were a band I’d never have enjoyed had I not spent 4 years of my life in North Carolina. Something about their calm, jammy rock and roll really fits perfect in between the peaks of the Western Carolina Appalachians, the I-85 and I-40’s. It’s easy music for a slow afternoon of drinking and sitting. I can still perfectly remember the first time I really listened them – driving up from Atlanta to Augusta, GA on a fall break from the uni, my now girlfriend of 3+ years asleep in the passengers seat as we drove into an immaculate fall sunset, “Bermuda Highway” playing softly out of the speakers. An idealistic idea I know, but really a moment that has stood still for me and romanticized the group’s music for me.

When I found out that My Morning Jacket were releasing Z, I was psyched. Having just finally put It Still Moves to rest after burning myself out on it, I was ready for their next move, something I knew was upward. The skill they showed on Moves is present here, but there’s an unprecedented explosiveness that I’ve never heard before.

The songs on Z are arena ready, meant to be played in front of millions of people. They’re short, but only because they’re going to be totally blown out live. This is also pop music, easy for anyone who likes the Dead, Allman Bros., or Skynyrd to enjoy. Every single song is great here perfects old-school rock for the hippy masses without losing the thread by being too improvisational (save “Into the Woods”, which is good, but should’ve been relegated to an EP like “Cobra”). They cover nearly every base, from the reggae-inflected, but-not-cheesy (“Wordless Chorus”, “Off the Record”) to midnight-boogie (“Anytime”) to Pink Floyd smoke-outs (“Dondante”).

And of course, there’s Mr. Jim James, the man with the golden voice. MMJ strip away the reverb that has been their trademark, and instead of soaking all the instruments in it, they just apply enough to James’ voice to make him sound, once again, divine. The man can’t hit a sour note and holds the single greatest instrument ever to appear on record. His tone can be echoed in the music they create – naturally beautiful yet angelic and dynamite hymns of praiseworthy rock n’ roll.

1. The New Pornographers – Twin Cinema

In all honesty, I never really cared for the New Pornographers, before this record. I never heard their first record, didn’t care for Electric Version, and really almost wrote them off. You hear a ton written about them, mostly every review listing how they’re a “Canadian Supergroup”. How can they be a supergroup if you’ve never heard any of them in their own right?

It’s certainly apparent on Twin Cinema. Every song is a tightly reigned-in package, a pop mini-masterpiece. And when I use “pop” here, I mean pop. It’s not that skewed spazzy stuff like Deerhoof or Unicorns that people are calling “pop” because they can’t think of anything else. No bro, this is the real deal. Pop like Rusted Root (end of “Bleeding Heart Show”?), pop like Kelly Clarkson, pop like Tom Petty, Joe Jackson, and anyone else on radio in the you can think of. Oh, uh, except for the Dan Bejar songs – sorry. Exceptions to everything.

I’ve never been a huge power-pop fan, but after hearing this, the Yellow Pills album on Numero and the Exploding Hearts, I’m fully sold. Each song seems to be composed with the idea of a crescendo in mind. That is, start with a small yet attractive idea, work in more and more details until the song becomes a huge sing-along blast. By the end, you’ll have people swinging back and forth, hands in the air, girls and boys making out, etc. Actuality: you’ll have me screaming along in my car on the NJ Turnpike, looking like a teenybopper.

The New Pornos do this power-pop thing the best. They’ve got the vixen (Neko Case), the genius (AC Newman) and the quality control dude (Dan Bejar) making sure everything is sufficiently twisted so we keep ‘em interested. Hooks are immediate, but not over-sweet – diabetics are welcome. They’re expounded upon until they reach their logical climax, either a third chorus conclusion or a coda of bittersweet ooh-ing and aah-ing that just makes my heart break all over again for music. It’s a beautiful moment, a fantasic voyage throughout and yet another perfection of the art form. Where else can you get this feeling? Where else can you find this joy, this uplifting moment? And when will it happen again? Because I can’t wait.