na: holiday ketchup
Sometimes two weeks can feel like a lifetime, and in the time I’ve been gone, it seems quite a few great records have hit the site. I want to look at a handful of them today, but first, let me share where my time away took me:
Me, my girlfriend and two friends of ours went to Reykjavik, Iceland, for five days over New Year’s Eve. Above is a completely nuts video of the fireworks celebration, which easily ranks as my most memorable New Year’s ever. I also managed to meet some of Sprengjuhollin, our Icelandic eMusic Selects band whose excellent new album, Bestu Kveðjur, was displayed prominently in the record stores there. Good for them!
I also bought loads of records. I visited a store called 12 Tonar — which is also the label that puts out Olof Arnalds, among others — and just asked the clerk to suggest some stuff. I walked out of the door with about 15 records, and later in the week I’ll try to go through some of the better ones for you. None are currently available on eMusic.
Other than that, it was time spent relaxing — something sorely needed, and I was fortunate to get it. I did not, however, spend a ton of time listening to music, and today that’s already changed quite a bit as I spin through the Animal Collective (I’m not sold), Antony (nice!) and Delorean (very nice!) records. As well as a top-secret project involving eMusic Selects that will hopefully be unveiled in February. Fingers crossed!
Anyway, let’s talk records.
The Faint, Blank-Wave Arcade: The first big topic to discuss is Saddle Creek, which arrived just before the holidays. The rest of the catalogue will go live this week. Of the Saddle Creek roster, there is no record better than this one, a 1000% perfect new wave album that easily anticipated the electro and dance-punk scenes of the ’00s (the album came out in 1999). It still hasn’t gotten its due, but it seems that over time more folks have discovered its charms.
Mogwai, The Hawk Is Howling: Even as an enormous math-rock fan in the ’90s, I never ever liked Mogwai. And I don’t think I ever will.
Glass Candy, Deep Gems: A collection of Singles, B-Sides & Rarities: I can count on one hand — before my Iceland trip, anyway — the number of physical CDs I have bought in the past two years. And this is one of them. That’s not an endorsement of this record so much as it is of Glass Candy, a group who I have loved deeply ever since their Troubleman no-wave days. There is nothing revelatory on Deep Gems, but there are some extremely nice moments, and it’s a great companion to Beat Box.
Land of Talk, Some Are Lakes: Land of Talk are on the newer side of the Saddle Creek story, and I had long assumed that they would be some dull, middle of the road indie band without a whole lot else going for them. And while I still don’t love this album, the title track is just insanely good. It’s an incredible ’90s alt-rock song, very straightforward but just so well executed with a great melody and a nice, breezy charm to it. Don’t skip it.
Cursive, Domestica: Such a great record. It’s a funny thing when bands don’t couch their ambition and are foolish enough to embrace all of their grandiosities. That’s exactly what Cursive did here with this record, a moving and enveloping album all around domesticity. I can’t claim it to be in any way accurate — if it was, no one would ever marry — but it is heartfelt.
Breathe Owl Breathe, Ghost Glacier: It’s the Breathe Owl Breathe album! This is their first proper post-Selects release; the band was actually recording this while the Selects thing was going on. I still prefer the EP to the LP just for sentimental reasons, but the charm of this record is undeniable, and for the uninitiated, this might be the best place to start.
I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my DLs this month and this should help. I’ll have to listen to the BOB since i already have the superb EP but I’m excited for the new stuff at the very least.
I figured I’d get into Cursive with “The Ugly Organ”; is Domestica a better starting point?
Welcome back!
And no fair teasing eMusic Selects; I haven’t gone with every one (or even most of them), but I always look forward to seeing what you folks have plucked up to deliver to us “members”.
“The Ugly Organ” is obscenely bombastic and borderline dopey, but it’s also one of my favorite records of the era. I prefer it over “Domestica.”
My most memorable New Year involved the Flaming Lips (in Chicago, at The Metro), and nearly as much confetti as there were fireworks in that video. Generally, I don’t remember much of New Year’s Eve, though. I’ve also never just popped over to Reykjavik for a few (near continuous) nights. Nice, Yancey. Very nice.
Random Notes:
1) “I never ever liked Mogwai. And I don’t think I ever will.” Happy New Year!
2) I’m not sure why, but I prefer the BOB LP to the EP. Always interesting to see how things change between releases, but the one that jumps out is that the FIRST song on the EP is now the LAST song on LP. Before I noticed that, I found myself thinking, hmmm, really like this record, but think I can skip that last track.” So there you go.
3) I’ve always wanted to do the “long weekend in Reykjavic” thing. Very cool. I want to be just like you when I grow…uhm, 20 years younger. But hey, something to aspire to.
4) ONLY bought music from emu in 2008, and I did in 07. The only 2 CDs in 06 were The Beatles Love, and the reissue of My Aim is True.
5) My wife and I apartment sat for a really, really rich friends of friends for the holidays in 2000. (They swapped apartments with us in Florida.) They had a loft in Nolita on Prince near Mulberry, easily 3000 square feet.
During the day of Dec. 31, a beautiful silent snowfall fell, with flakes the size of your open hand. We went to see a matinee of Lily Tomlin’s revival of “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe.” The snow kept two-thirds of the audience home, but she played like it was a sell-out crowd at Shea.
We stumbled into tickets for MTV’s party at The World in Times Square, which featured the first reunion of Public Enemy, in bizarrely close quarters. I don’t even remember a stage. I was close enough to touch Flavor Flav back when you might still want to do such a thing.
Around 11:40, a bunch of us noticed that there wasn’t a window in the joint – no way to see the ball drop! I did my best Gene Hackman as I led them up the stairs to the street-level gift shop like it was the last reel of The Poseidon Adventure: “We can get out this way!”
What?! Security was blocking the door!!! They wouldn’t even let us get close enough to the doors to see outside! Doing my best Gene Hackman again I yelled, “You can’t block us in! It’s illegal!” (So maybe it was my best Sally Field in Norma Rae.) I don’t know why the security guys were so mad, but they were furious. I thought they were going to stomp me. The rest of the group trying to leave started yelling too.
It was 5 minutes before midnight by now, so I started yelling, “We don’t want to come back in! Just get out of the way!” That seemed to actually make them madder, but they opened the doors anyway…and we wound up inside the barricade, literally at the foot of the building with The Ball on top, maybe two dozen people between us and it.
Turns out that you can’t really see the ball from that close, so we turned our backs to it, and faced uptown to see a million people down Broadway and 7th Avenue, filling the streets and leaning out every window, the confetti drifting down with the still-silent snow. I’ve never felt more human, in love with every human. We hugged a cop as we headed back, and smiled and smiled and smiled.
6) I’ll never say anything bad about a band that’s been emu Selected, but when I listen to Breathe Owl Breathe, I can’t escape the image of an accident in Jeff Goldblum’s basement with the guy from The National and Andrew Bird in the teleporter.
“Even as an enormous math-rock fan in the ’90s, I never ever liked Mogwai. And I don’t think I ever will.”
Well, here’s your problem: I’ve never heard anyone call Mogwai “math rock.” Or maybe that’s my problem.
it would be a shame to not point out the appearance of several long out of print/unavailable releases from Flipper!
duh! of course! and there will be more on flipper next week!
(that duh directed at me, not daddy-o, btw)
i just wanted to add that the new breathe owl breathe stuff is awesome. combined with most of the best from the EP, it’s got a bit more bite and a bit less of the morose to it. i recommend getting every unique track they have on emusic, though. i’ve listened to several indie folk works over the past year since bon iver made me think i might like it more, and these folks really are the best. this would’ve been my #2 album of 2008 if it had been a full-fledged release i’d known about prior to my vote.