Vetiver - Tight Knit

[copied from Amazon.com]
"[Tight Knit] represents a summation of the different styles and directions heard on past Vetiver releases while introducing some unexpected twists. Their tunes have been described as "dreamy, gentle songs that George Harrison would have written in some sunny country garden." This is a layered and rich record, with subtleties and nuances that reveal themselves with repeated listening."

It is hard to believe that Vetiver is only now signing with a larger and more respectable label [Sub Pop]. It's not, however, hard to believe that this is the album to do it, as Tight Knit fits in easily with the rest of the "Best of 2009 [so far...]" list.

Sounding as though Devendra Banhart sang for a band comprised of memebers of Spoon and Okkervil River, Vetiver is a wonderful new find.

MYSPACE

Tracklisting:
1. Rolling Sea
2. Sister
3. Everyday
4. Through The Front Door
5. Down From Above
6. On The Other Side
7. More Of This
8. Another Reason To Go
9. Strictly Rule
10. At Forest Edge

Dark Was The Night

[copied from the Dark Was The Night website]
Dark Was The Night is a compilation album that will be released on February 16th (Worldwide) and 17th (North America) 2009. Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National produced the album, with John Carlin (founder of the Red Hot Organization) its executive producer. A total of thirty-two exclusive tracks have been recorded for the compilation, which will be available as a double cd, triple vinyl and download album, with profits benefitting the Red Hot Organization - an international charity dedicated to raising funds and awareness for HIV and AIDS.

Red Hot was founded on the premise that even without a cure, AIDS remains a preventable disease - using music as a great vehicle to raise both money and awareness for it. This is also the twentieth year of Red Hot as well as their twentieth compilation.

The complete track listing:

THIS DISC (DISC ONE):
1. "Knotty Pine" - Dirty Projectors + David Byrne
2. "Cello Song" - The Books featuring Jose Gonzalez
3. "Train Song" - Feist and Ben Gibbard
4. "Brackett, WI" - Bon Iver
5. "Deep Blue Sea" - Grizzly Bear
6. "So Far Around The Bend" - The National
7. "Tightrope" - Yeasayer
8. "Feeling Good" - My Brightest Diamond
9. "Dark Was The Night" - Kronos Quartet
10. "I Was Young When I Left Home" - Antony with Bryce Dessner
11. "Big Red Machine" - Justin Vernon + Aaron Dessner
12. "Sleepless" - The Decemberists
13. "Stolen Houses (Die)" - Iron & Wine
14. "Service Bell" - Grizzly Bear + Feist
15. "You Are The Blood" - Sufjan Stevens

THAT DISC (DISC TWO):
1. "Well-Alright" - Spoon
2. "Lenin" - Arcade Fire
3. "Mimizan" - Beirut
4. "El Caporal" - My Morning Jacket
5. "Inspiration Information" - Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings
6. "With A Girl Like You" - Dave Sitek
7. "Blood Pt. 2" - Buck 65 Remix (featuring Sufjan Stevens and Serengeti)
8. "Hey, Snow White" - The New Pornographers
9. "Gentle Hour" - Yo La Tengo
10. "Amazing Grace" - Cat Power
11. "Happiness" - Riceboy Sleeps
12. "Another Saturday" - Stuart Murdoch
13. "The Giant Of Illinois" - Andrew Bird
14. "Lua" - Conor Oberst with Gillian Welch
15. "When The Road Runs Out" - Blonde Redhead & Devastations
16. "Love Vs. Porn" - Kevin Drew



While links have surfaced online, I will NOT be posting this compilation for download, as it benefits a good cause. I already have a copy, but I plan to purchase one once it releases in February.

What I will say about the compilation itself, though, is that it is one of the best compilations I have ever heard. Tracks like The National's "So Far Around The Bend", "Train Song" which is a collaboration between Feist and Death Cab For Cutie's Benjamin Gibbard, and the amazing track "Sleepless" by The Decemberists make this album very much worthwhile.

If you're like me and can't wait until February to hear it, then you're more than welcome to search Google, but I feel it's my responsibility to not facilitate the downloading of this album. It's not often that you'll hear me say this, but go buy this one.

Brand New - The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me

In late 2002/early 2003, Brand New was another in a long list of New Jersey/New York area "emo" bands. Songs like "The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows" and "Sic Transit Gloria...Glory Fades" had rocketed the young band to certified gold, as well as a deal with Dreamworks Records [which was absorbed by Interscope shortly thereafter]. Suffice it to say, they were in a position that only few others in their genre had reached at that time. Then, they seemingly fell off the face of the earth. No tours, no interviews, and just rumors of a new album that wouldn't see the light of day for nearly 3 years. That album was The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me.

The Devil and God seems to mark a transition in the mindset of singer and primary songwriter Jesse Lacey. Up until this point, the songs relational in nature, but still remained a little tongue-in-cheek [not all, but some]. It is rumored, though, that the reason for the 3 year hiatus was because Lacey was dissatisfied with the songs that were being written because they didn't resonate with him the same way that the U2 song "Where The Streets Have No Names" did; he had a vision that was yet unrealized.

The album itself, though, eventually saw the light of day and became the band's most profound work to date, with songs like "Jesus Christ" which asks "Jesus Christ, I'm alone again, so what did you do those three days you were dead, cause this problem's gonna last more than the weekend...", as well as many others that ask questions of faith and religion.

I am inclined to think that these questions are in no way intended to be anything other than questions. In the same way that former Bright Eyes singer Conor Oberst would wonder exactly where his beliefs and faith should lie, I feel that Lacey was asking the same questions. He didn't know what to think, and seeing as how you "write what you know", it would appear that these questions haunted him daily. Maybe that is the reason for the tentative title that the album originally had, Fight Off Your Demons.

Regardless, The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me is easily one of the best albums released in the last 5 years, from a band that refuses to be satisfied with fame or acclaim. They are simply wanting to make music that speaks.

Tracklisting:
1. Sowing Season
2. Millstone
3. Jesus Christ
4. Degausser
5. Limousine (MS Rebridge)
6. You Won't Know
7. Welcome To Bangkok
8. Not The Sun
9. Luca
10. Untitled
11. The Archers Bows Have Broken
12. Handcuffs

>

Coconut Records - Davy

Coconut Records is Jason Schwartzman of such fame as The Darjeeling Limited, Rushmore, I [Heart] Huckabee's, and his original musical endeavor, Phantom Planet [I'm sure you all know that they wrote that infectiously catchy song that became the theme song to The O.C.].

Davy is Coconut Record's sophomore effort and while I wasn't super impressed with his debut Nighttiming, I find Davy to be a great and fun album, full of pop songs in the same vein as Weezer and bands of the like.

Tracklisting:
1. Microphone
2. Drummer
3. Any Fun
4. Saint Jerome
5. Courtyard
6. Wandering Around
7. The Summer
8. I Am Young
9. Wires
10. Is This Sound Okay?

M. Ward - Hold Time

I'm going to be honest, I am just now listening to Hold Time for the very first time, and first impressions are very good [though it would take a great effort for Mr. Ward to release anything less than amazing]. It isn't very often that I purchase a vinyl, and if that tells you anything, then it should indicate the caliber of an album like Post-War, being that I bought the vinyl [I don't even have a working turntable].

Thus far, I can tell that Hold Time is going to be near the top of my Best Of 2009 list. Give it a try.

Tracklisting:
1. For Beginners (AKA Mt. Zion)
2. Never Had Anybody Like You
3. Jailbird
4. Hold Time
5. Rave On
6. To Save Me
7. One Hundred Million Years
8. Stars Of Leo
9. Fisher Of Men
10. Oh, Lonesome Me
11. Epistemology
12. Blake's View
13. Shangri-La
14. Outro (AKA I'm A Fool To Want You)

A.A. Bondy - American Hearts

"American Hearts is dark and sardonic but it's not a claustrophobic, tortured not troubled as you'd expect. The record is actually quite beautifully stark and stripped-down and well played, filled with great melodies and warm production. The songs are wonderfully influenced by an amalgam of folk and blues, filtered through the mind of someone who knows what makes a great rock song breathe." [copied from amazon.com]

A.A. Bondy is a lesser known folk singer-songwriter that I stumbled upon fairly recently, and fell in love with from the beginning of the opening track, "How Will You Meet Your End?". The songs are of heartbreak and sound like they would be far more comfortable being played through the speakers of a dirty barroom jukebox, than through the earbuds of an ipod. If you like bands like Bon Iver, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and the one and only Bob Dylan, then do yourself a huge favor and download this gem of an album.

Tracklisting:
1. How Will You Meet Your End?
2. There's A Reason
3. Black Rain, Black Rain
4. Rapture (Sweet Rapture)
5. American Hearts
6. No Man Shall
7. World Without End
8. Lover's Waltz
9. Vice Rag
10. Killed Myself When I Was Young
11. Witness Blues
12. Of The Sea

Ólafur Arnalds - Eulogy For Evolution

Aside from a Sigur Rós concert [or a Heaven Shall Burn album] you may never have heard of Ólafur Arnalds. It was only recently that I had heard the name, and I downloaded his debut album Eulogy For Evolution on a whim once I read that he spent some time opening for fellow Iceland export Sigur Rós [one of my favorites]. Don't, however, expect Sigur Rós to be found anywhere on this brilliant debut album. The only thing that the two bands share is a common home; musically they are as different as night and day.

Arnalds [now in his very early 20s] is less a musician and more a composer, his compositions belonging to the soundtrack of some yet-unmade film. The music focuses on the piano, and then branches out to include swelling and at times boisterous strings; it is full of passion and moves and shifts in the same unpredictable way as smoke from a flame. With the exception of the soundtrack from the film The Fountain, I have not heard such beautiful classically-based music created in the last 10 years. Clocking in at just under 40 minutes, Eulogy For Evolution is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful and moving pieces of music I have ever heard, never losing its edge and never becoming anything other than awe-inspiring, from the opening notes of "0040" to the abrasive and progressive guitars in the final track "3704/3837". Truely a thing to behold.

Tracklisting:
1. 0040
2. 0048/0729
3. 0952
4. 1440
5. 1953
6. 3055
7. 3326
8. 3704/3837

Highlight Tracks: "1440", "1953", "3055", "3704/3837"


I deleted the rapidshare link and replaced it with megaupload. let me know if it craps out at any time

Andrew Bird - Noble Beast

Noble Beast is the fifth and newest studio album in Mr. Bird's catalog, similar in size and stature to recent works The Mysterious Production of Eggs and Armchair Apocrypha, but somehow more cohesive and better overall.

As far as creativity goes, many could easily liken Andrew Bird to his fellow midwest contemporary, Sufjan Stevens. Both create sonic landscapes, shifting effortlessly from one style to the next, all the while incorporating lesser-known and underrated musical instruments. Sufjan's instrument of choice is the banjo; Bird's is the violin. This, however, is where the similarities end; they sound nothing alike.

On Noble Beast, Bird harkens back to sounds of old, never limiting himself, layering orchestral strings over latin beats, creating abrasive yet beautiful songs that you find yourself singing long after they end. Noble Beast is a gem.

Tracklisting:
1. Oh No
2. Masterswarm
3. Fitz & Dizzyspells
4. Effigy
5. Tenuousness
6. Nomenclature
7. Ouo
8. Not A Robot, But A Ghost
9. Unfolding Fans
10. Anoanimal
11. Natural Disaster
12. The Privateers
13. Souverian
14. On Ho!


Part 1
Part 2

Antony and the Johnsons - The Crying Light

To say that Antony and the Johnsons is an acquired taste is simply an understatement. Musically, the band crafts sweeping and beautiful piano-driven and burlesque songs of agony and self-realization. Vocally, however, many would find Antony and his Johnsons to be distasteful, for lack of a better word. Chalk one up to generational gaps, singer Antony Hegarty's intense vibrato belongs with the likes of Fred Astaire and Ryan Gosling [in his rendition of L.O.V.E. in his film Lars and the Real Girl].

You won't find radio-friendly pop songs on this record, but instead the soundtrack to some beautiful film that has yet to be made.

Tracklisting:
1. Her Eyes Are Underneath The Ground
2. Epilepsy Is Dancing
3. One Dove
4. Kiss My Name
5. The Crying Light
6. Another World
7. Daylight and The Sun
8. Aeon
9. Dust And Water
10. Everglade

Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin IV

Lately [and I'm sure I can thank Freaks and Geeks for this] it would seem as though I have this thirst for everything Led Zeppelin and their fourth sudio album Led Zeppelin IV is the exact thing to quench that thirst. It's dirty and it's rock and roll at its best. Soaring riffs and screaching falsetto vocals drive this exceptional record, making it the best in a very long catalog. Don't take my word for it; ask anyone who lived during the 70's and 80's.

Ask your parents if you need convincing.

Tracklisting:
1. Black Dog
2. Rock and Roll
3. The Battle Of Evermore
4. Stairway To Heaven
5. Misty Mountain Hop
6. Four Sticks
7. Going To California
8. When The Levee Breaks