Another Stupid List: Best EPs of 2010

Harlowe and The Great North Woods - Harlowe and The Great North Woods 
Recorded in a Portland apartmment, Los Angeles home, and a woodshed studio amongst the orchards of Northern California, this debut's soaring vocal harmonies all drip with the resonance and reverberations of their recording spaces. It's a sound both intimate and wide open.
Sample: "Roses"

Twin Sister - Colour Your Life 
Buzz is the word and its in large part to the wholly unique voice of singer Andrea Estella whose husky whisper lends an otherworldly charm to the psychedelic funk and haze of songs like "Lady Daydream" and "All Around And Away We Go."
Sample: "All Around And Away We Go"

Laughing Man :: The Lovings (63-69)

The debut from the equal parts soulful and crazed Washington, DC rock outfit Laughing Man has finally arrived digitally.  The Lovings (63-69) is just a quick seven song jaunt, but these jagged, rough, and carefully deconstructed bits of potent rock and roll take several listens to digest. That's part of the beauty of the album, as the music actually matches with the character of the often lovesick and delirious narrator. There is one soft spot on the record though, the closer "Mood and Dress." A quietly plucked acoustic guitar and background vocal flourishes lend lead singer Brandon Moses an incredibly intimate and warm platform of tones to perform over, creating a rare moment of harmony and perhaps the records most accessible and subsequently brilliant moment.

Laughing Man - "Mood and Dress" (from The Lovings (63-69))

The Best Songs of 2010 :: 10-1

Menomena - "Queen Black Acid"
On "Queen Black Acid," Justin Harris sings easily the best line of the year: "You're five-foot-five not a hundred pounds / I'm scared to death of every single ounce." It's a simple lyric, but in this narrative it proves to be devastating, carrying with it a weight of emotion and regret further emphasized by the sparse soundscape of the song: a lone strummed guitar and the wandering inconsistent snap of the drums. 

Joanna Newsom - "Baby Birch"
"Baby Birch" is another heartbreaker—a nine-and-a-half-minute epic ballad that closes out the first of Have One On Me's three records. The song—about a path not taken and the consequences and regret that ensue—burns sparsely and slowly before kicking in the door around the six-minute mark with a drum, hand-clap and electric guitar climax dressed in the violent imagery of a butcher and barber “cutting away at my only joy.”


Cults - "Go Outside"
If you read music blogs, you've most likely heard this song in excess this year. But it's for good reason. The hooks are sharp, the lyrics are easy to remember, and the beat always swings and propels forward as if en route to a better place and time. Led by a simple xylophone riff, these young musicians have crafted one of the more memorable pop tunes of recent memory. And the message couldn't be more perfect, contrasting the opening "it's living that's treacherous" quote from cult figurehead Jim Jones with the bright sun-filled possibilities of going outside—in other words, living and enjoying life to its fullest.

Kisses - "Bermuda"
LA duo Kisses—comprised of Princeton's Jesse Kivel and girlfriend Zinzi Edmundson—have crafted and refined disco music for the new century. While remaining highly danceable and blissfully enjoyable, there's no sense of the Studio 54 excess or glitter falling from the ceiling that plagued the late 1970s genre. Rather, the band succeeds, especially with the lush "Bermuda," because of its dual nature—part intimate bedroom pop, part expansive synthesizer-fueled cinematic beauty. Kivel's casual and deep resonance finds the perfect home with "Bermuda," gliding effortlessly above the bright flashing tones and tap of the drum-machine.

LCD Soundsystem - "Dance Yrself Clean"
"Dance Yrself Clean" is James Murphy's magnum opus. Dirty and visceral dance music produced and infused with all of the craftsman's smarts and best tricks. Perhaps no maneuver is more important than the volume control: Murphey's bongo, clack and cow bell intro is purposely set to an extremely low level, which on first listen might lead the listener to pump the volume back up—and that's exactly what he wants. Because when those elephant-sized synths finally arrive at the three-minute mark, its speaker breaking time. Hello tinnitus.

The Best Songs of 2010 :: 20-11

Yeasayer - "O.N.E"
Who knew the world-music-inspired eccentricity of 2007's All Hour Cymbals would lead to such a straightforward and well-crafted pop single? That's what "O.N.E." is after all: pop music, albeit a style decorated with uniquely distinctive and creative instrumentation. Lead singer Chris Keating and a devestatingly fun syntheseizer motif take the reigns here and deliver this Brooklyn band's most accessible and re-playable song to date.

Walkmen - "Woe Is Me"
Despite singer Hamilton Leithauser's narrative of a failed relationship that left him "lost," "Woe Is Me" somehow proves to be one of the most upbeat and playful songs the Walkmen have ever recorded. The song's sprightly and bright tone is due in large part to the jazzy splash and thump of underrated drummer Matt Barrick and Paul Maroon's clean syncopated guitar riff.

Cut Copy - "Where I'm Going"
The band has reported a less poppy version of "Where I'm Going" will appear on their forthcoming highly-anticipated third album Zonoscope. That's fine, just make sure to keep this absurdist amalgamation of Gary Glitter hand-claps and "whooos" and The Who's "Who Are You"-era keyboards on hand for a rainy day pep talk or late night dance party.

The Love Language - "Heart To Tell"
The sound of the drum and hand-clap bridge in "Heart To Tell" is a thing of true Phil Spector-inspired beauty. Stuart McLamb moved out of his parent's basement and into a real studio for the recording of his band's second album and that upgrade is loud and clear on this infectious fireball of rhythmic hooks and one-liners. "I'm no sailor, I want to rock the boat," quips McLamb. Indeed.

Tennis - "Marathon"
"Marathon" doesn't sound like sailing music, but that's exactly what it is—a song by husband-and-wife duo Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley about pulling into a cove at night during high tide on their recent adventure along the Atlantic coast. Moore's cooing vocals and a dizzyingly fuzzy guitar crescendo and supplement each other perfectly in this chorus—perhaps especially potent because it's wordless.

Sonny & The Sandwitches - "Throw My Ashes Off The Pier When I Die"

San Francisco's Sonny Smith, the bright talent behind Sonny & The Sunsets and the vast 100 Records exhibition that's been traveling around the country, just announced that he will be releasing four songs from the latter project as a 7-inch. While many of the band's featured in Smith's 100 Records are fictional creations, Sonny & The Sandwitches is simply a collaboration with the fellow San Francisco band's Grace Cooper and Heidi Alexander. The record, due out on December 11th from Endless Nest, can be pre-ordered here. Grab the first of four tracks, "Throw My Ashes Off The Pier When I Die," below.

Sonny & The Sandwitches - "Throw My Ashes Off The Pier When I Die"

Here's another track from 100 Records: Earth Girl Helen Brown singing "Story of An Earth Girl"

The Best Songs of 2010 :: 30-21

Dead Models - "Tonight"
Straightforward, fuzzy and 1960s-tinged garage rock with a killer, repeatable guitar riff. Sometimes that's all you need.


Broken Social Scene - "Texico Bitches" 
Forget Cee Lo. The year's best "fuck you" belongs to a couple of Canadians who recorded a timely middle finger to the oil industry.

The New Pornographers - "Crash Years"
Melodically, the opening verse of "Crash Years" is so good it almost makes the rest of the song irrelevant. To put it in layman's terms, Neko Case owns it.

Magic Kids - "Summer"
The fact alone that singer Bennett Foster has the chutzpah to convincingly pull of a cutesy and cliched line like "summertime is for sweethearts" and then pull it off makes this one of the best songs of the year. But then Foster and company make you believe it too with a piano, strings and a Harry Belafonte-worthy choral conga line.

The Arcade Fire - "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)"
Régine Chassagne's five-and-a-half-minute love affair with Blondie is one of the more interesting musical turns of The Suburbs, taking the band into an unexpected territory that one can only hope they'll return to.

The Walkmen's "Torch Song" and its Fats Domino connection

I recently chatted with the Walkmen's Peter Bauer for an article I'm writing for Malibu Magazine. He had a couple of interesting notes about the excellent Lisbon track "Torch Song" which I wasn't able to fit in the article, so here it is:

“We weren’t talking about it at the time, but it sounds to me sort of like the Velvet Underground’s “I Found A Reason,” which we really love. That song is basically a 6/8 Fats Domino song. We’ve probably taken more things from Fats Domino than anyone else, weirdly enough.”

Check out the differences for yourself:
The Walkmen - "Torch Song" 


The Velvet Underground - "I Found A Reason" 


Fats Domino - "Nothing New (Same Old Thing)"


If you've been digging on Lisbon like I have you'll enjoy Riff Raff's interview with one of their producer's Chris Zane, who spills the beans on the band's recording techniques.

Video: Twin Sister - "All Around and Away We Go"

Some serious creativity and finesse (not to mention hand shadow choreography) went into Twin Sister's fantastically low-budget first video. You can glimpse at some of the hard work that went into making it over at singer Andrea Estella's Tumblr.

Twin Sister - "All Around and Away We Go"

The Best Songs of 2010 :: 50-41

Miami Horror - "Holidays (Feat. Alan Palomo)"
Whether it's VEGA, Ghosthustler or Neon Indian, anything Alan Palomo touches seems to turn to a vintage sparkling disco ball of gold. Here, guesting on Ben Plant's Miami Horror project, Palomo does his best neo-hipster-Michael Jackson over the subwoofer blast of "Holidays."

The xx - "VCR (Matthew Dear remix)"
Matthew Dear's remix of "VCR" and its colossally bone-jarring bass groove somehow further elevate the intimacy and interchangeability of these two young narrators—both impossible not to adore.

Small Black - "Camouflage"
Small Black's New Chain is an otherworldly blanket of synthetic textures and sounds represented equally well by the warm and approachable glow of tracks like "Photo Journalist," "Search Party" and "Camouflage." "Camouflage" though with its waves of melody and hushed choruses is the one I find myself continually coming back to.

El Guincho - "Bombay"
The song that inspired this year's best and most bizarre music video is an overwhelmingly modern synergy of pop, world, and dance music based around the hook of a steel drum and the existential lyricism of the Canary Islands-born Pablo Díaz-Reixa.

Wild Nothing - "Chinatown"
Despite the fact that Jack Tatum ripped off the song's hook from Chantal Goya's "La Pluie Du Ciel," there is nevertheless something striking and contagious about the vocal haze and rattling drum stick percussion that makes Wild Nothing's first big moment one nearly impossible to resist.

Breathe Owl Breathe - "Swimming"

Magic Central—the new album from Michigan's Breathe Owl Breathe—takes the band's folksy sound into interesting new sonic spaces, most compellingly with the churning water sound of the alliterative and onomatopoetic "wish-a-wish-a-was" elementary school sing-along "Swimming."

Breathe Owl Breathe - "Swimming" (from Magic Central)

Murder Mystery -"Problems"

Quite simply, I love Murder Mystery. They write clever, intelligent, and super catchy pop songs that have become some of my all-time favorites, including 2007's "Love Astronaut" and this year's previously posted Madonna-meets-Depeche Mode summer jam "I Am (If You Are)." Today, Murder Mystery are offering up their third new song of the year sung again by drummer Laura Summer—the synth-driven ballad "Problems." Also, make sure to watch the amazing fan-made stop-motion video for "Love Astronaut" above.

Murder Mystery - "Problems"

Previously:
Murder Mystery - "I Am (If You Are)"
Murder Mystery - "Change My Mind"

Mississippi Records Tape Series: Vol. 37 - Ghost Dance

Portland's finest record shop Mississippi Records has an ongoing Tape Series that serves as a treasure trove of forgotten gems for music enthusiasts. Over the past two years the RootStrata blog has been collecting these cassette tapes and digitizing them for folks. I highly recommend downloading shop owner and Mississippi label head Eric Isaacson's wonderfully curated collections while the good times last. Just type "Mississippi" into the blog's search bar and you'll be inundated with choices, from early blues and soul music to themed selection's like "Satan Is Real." Personally, I've fallen head over heels for "Ghost Dance: Early years of Americana and Jamaican soul music." And if you live in Portland, go pick up a cassette yourself!

Doris Troy - "What'cha Gonna Do About It" 

Ghost Dance - Side A
Ghost Dance - Side B

Jenny O. - "Well, Okay Honey"

A few months back I posted about Los Angeles musician Jenny O. and the Kickstarter campaign to get her debut Home EP released. Thanks to 208 music fans she exceeded her $9,000 goal and is now set to release the EP digitally November 30th on Manimal Vinyl Records. A pretty impressive Kickstarter-fueled success story, right? If you missed the opportunity to snag the EP from Jenny herself, you can now hear its playful lead track "Well, Okay Honey"—a funky and folksy bass-led tale of a skewed relationship between an older man and Jenny's young strapped-for-cash hippie narrator.

Jenny O. - "Well, Okay Honey" (from Home EP)

Lord Huron - "Mighty"

Lord Huron's Into The Sun EP was a fantastically hazy and psychedelic take on tropicalia music, where buzzing drone instruments and quickly picked guitar lines drifted in and out of the listener's ears like a traveling ocean breeze. Lord Huron is the project of Los Angeles-based musician Benji Schneider, inspired by his time spent on the shore of Michigan's Lake Huron. With his Mighty EP—Lord Huron's second release this year—Schneider has further mastered his sound, creating epic and dynamic journeys into the heart of weight and lightness and all that lives in between.

Purchase the EPs digitally via Bandcamp or grab the "Into The Sun" vinyl via Hit City USA.

Lord Huron - "Mighty" (from Mighty EP)

Hosannas - Together

Portland's Hosannas—known as Church up until a threatening lawsuit by the "Under The Milky Way" guys— recently released their first official studio album, Together—a mesmerizing tapestry of experimental bass thumps, swirling synthesized organ loops and countless other waves and beeps of esoteric instrumentation. But what's most captivating about the group is brothers' Brandon and Richard Laws' ability to craft a ballad. That skill is perfected here with "People I Know"—a slow burner, that after an initial splash at the surface, digs down deep into a well of soulful mourning and pop-fueled ecstasy.  Fans of the recent output by Twin Shadow and Small Black will find kindred spirits here with the Laws.

Hosannas - "When We Were Young" (from Together)

Stream: Hosannas - "People I Know" (from Together)

The Generationals - Trust EP

Independent rock bands from the South don't get the kind of national attention and press burgeoning bands from Brooklyn and Los Angeles do. But the music, most often, is just as good. Bands like North Carolina's Floating Action and Love Language and Louisiana's Generationals are creating intelligent and sophisticated contemporary pop music that bends genres and expectations just as it simply and blissfully pleases. The Generationals, after breaking out last year with their debut Con Law and its deliriously catchy single "When They Fight, They Fight," should now be poised to catch on fire. Their new Trust EP returns with the same fiercely catchy vocal melodies, hooks and adoration for Phil Spector's "wall of sound" that made Con Law so addictive—and then it takes that formula a step further. Giant pulsing synthesizers, dynamic and fascinating drumming that circles the recording space, and perfectly executed bass lines that pop and dance with a subtle and timely funk are added here to create a detailed and personally curated sound wholly unique and devastatingly catchy. The Trust EP will be one of the more fun experiences you'll have listening to a record this year.

The Generationals - "Trust" (from Trust EP)

Stream: The Generationals - "Carrying The Torch" (from Trust EP)

The Recoys - "Shake Off Your Nerve"

When talking about the origins of The Walkmen, people often mention Paul Maroon, Walter Martin and Matt Barrick's previous group Jonathan Fire*Eater as an important source of musical style and sensibility. But Hamilton Leithauser and Peter Bauer were also in a band together, The Recoys, and while they didn't garner the major label attention lavished on Jonathan Fire*Eater, they did record a small but saavy collection of swinging and inspired rock and roll tunes. The group's out of print EP and a collection of songs destined for a future unfinished LP were released together for the Rekoys—a must have for serious Walkmen fans. You'll notice three Recoys' songs—"That's the Punchline," "The Blizzard of '93," and "Look Out Your Window"—were adapted and rerecorded by The Walkmen for Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone and the Calla/Walkmen split EP. Leithauser's distinct vocal posturing and rasp is certainly present on the harmonica blazing "Shake Off Your Nerve," another song that (sans harmonica) would fit neatly into The Walkmen catalogue.

The Recoys - "Shake Off Your Nerve" (from Rekoys)