5dots (in brief)

  1. [Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

    This is a great EP - seriously, I’m really enthused about this. The Drums are doing a breed of that reverby lo-fi that’s big with the kids right now, but with a couple twists. Most notably and awesomely, there’s a clear oldies influence on their sound: at least one of the songs on this EP made me think of Ben E. King. Secondly, there’s a more subtle new wave shimmer in a few places that really makes things click.

    I put “Saddest Summer” as the streaming track, but ”Don’t Be a Jerk, Jonny” might actually be my favorite, so listen to both, eh?

    The Drums - Saddest Summer

    The Drums - Don’t Be a Jerk, Jonny

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  2. [Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

    Guys, I’m not going to lie: I am a fan of Abba. If you are too (especially the more rockish songs) you will probably like Music Go Music.

    I’ve been hearing a lot of people talk about these guys, and the word “disco” gets used a lot, but I barely hear it. I guess there’s a disco beat in there? Mostly, it’s those melodramatic 70s vocals. And sure, I’m pretty sure Abba never put out a nine minute song, so I guess it’s not exactly the same.

    Music Go Music - Light of Love

    Music Go Music - Just Me

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  3. [Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

    I wrote a bit about the Warp20 releases when they were announced; now they’re out and I’m listening to them. I was primarily interested in the new content: two discs of Warp artists covering other Warp artists, a disc of unreleased stuff. I was actually even more excited about the vinyl box’s disc of locked grooves, but those are a little disappointing - they’d be very easy to grab from the original songs myself.

    This song is an unexpected gem. I’ve never been too fond of Mira Calix, as her stuff is a little more abstract then I usually care for. But this cover of one of my favorite Boards of Canada songs is really lovely. The beat’s been mostly removed, and the synths replaced with somewhat plaintive strings. It’s even more low-key than the original, and really very pleasant. (I clearly have a weakness for strings like these).

    Mira Calix with Oliver Coates - In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country

    Similarly, I wasn’t too impressed by Leila’s output, but this piano version of Aphex Twin’s “Vordhosbn” is quite nice. The original is again a favorite of mine, but this version takes away all the aggression and frantic percussion, revealing a somber and moving melody.

    Leila - Vordhosbn

    4. comments

    1. Antipop Consortium (17)
    2. Vitalic (13)
    3. Islands (12)
    4. You Say Party! We Say Die! (10)
    5. Greg Davis (7)
    6. Boris (2)
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    Via Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

    Notes: I didn’t pick tracks from them to share, but I did want to note that the new Vitalic and Antipop Consortium records are both pretty great. If you like OK Cowboy (or Justice, or any other Daft-Punk-biting aggro-techno outfit), you’ll like Flashmob. And while I was prepared for Fluorescent Black to be a huge letdown (considering Arrhythmia might be my favorite rap record ever), it’s totally solid - not rehashing the same stuff they’ve done before, but staying enough in their mold that you still know who you’re listening to.

    5. comments

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    I’ve written before about Islands (and their previous incarnation, The Unicorns), so I won’t go into details here, but their new record Vapours is really solid. I think I’ve said before that they were a weird pop band that was gradually getting less weird, and while their last album didn’t really bear that out, this one does. The sound is a little more dancey, and the lyrics are still pretty oblique, but they’ve become a really solid pop group.

    And while everyone’s pretty much over autotune in rap and r&b, how do we feel about it in our indie-pop/rock?

    (Sidebar - I definitely feel that, no matter what you think of how it sounds, autotune pretty much has to be considered the sound of popular music right now. It’s no doubt going to sound dated quite soon - the way gated drums sound like the 80s - but in a way, I think it’s important in defining what this time period sounds like.)

    Anyway, autotune is used to really swell effect in this song - it’s not gaudy; it isn’t just there to cover up lousy singing. It does a thing like it did on Kanye’s last record, where the juxtaposition of human emotional themes with a digital/synthetic sound yields something worthwhile.

    Islands - Heartbeat

    And this other song is a little more indicative of what the album as a whole sounds like:

    Islands - No You Don’t

    6. comments

    1. Drakkar Sauna (13) 
    2. múm (12) 
    3. Mount Eerie (12) 
    4. Tigercity (11) 
    5. belladonnakillz (10) 
    6. Fuck Buttons (7) 
    7. No Age (4) 
    8. Sean Na Na (3) 
    9. Bright Eyes (3) 
    10. () 

    Via Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

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  7. [Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

    Having long been a fan of The Microphones/Mount Eerie, and recently become a fan of black metal, I’ve been really eager for a while to listen to Wind’s Poem, the new “black metal” Mount Eerie record.

    If you’re familiar with the noisier stuff Phil Elverum did as The Microphones (think “I Want to Be Cold” from The Glow, Pt. 2), a lot of this record will make sense to you. The black metal influence is pretty clear on several of the tracks, and they’re good, but the non-metal songs are a bit more interesting to me.

    Previous Mount Eerie releases have seemed, to me, a little unfocused and dashed off. One of the things I’ve always loved about The Glow, Pt. 2 is the way you can hear all the overdubbing - you can tell the songs were labored over, even when the playing sounds sloppy. The Mount Eerie releases haven’t had that feeling as much, but these songs do, a bit. Not the ramshackle overdubs of The Glow, Pt. 2, but more detailed arrangements which make the songs more memorable.

    Especially to my liking is this song, which samples “Laura Palmer’s Theme” from Twin Peaks (which is pretty awesome, and a very unexpected trick from Elverum):

    Between Two Mysteries

    8. comments

  8. [Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

    Magnolia Electric Co.’s new record, Josephine, does not hold too many surprises for you if you’ve heard their other records. On the whole, it maybe rocks a little less; the Neil Young comparison isn’t quite as obvious.

    There’s also some organ on a few songs, which I don’t remember being part of the band before, and adds a nice extra. But this song, “The Rock of Ages”, has a great old-fashioned guitar lick, and a slower pace that reminds me a bit of some of the Songs: Ohia records. It almost plods a bit, but that’s what makes it good: the notes have space to stretch out and be heard.

    9. comments

  9. I really wish I wasn’t doing this, but with all the Beatles’ reissue talking I’ve got songs stuck in my head, and so I will put them here to get them out:

    Please Please Me

    Carry That Weight

    The thing is, I have come to appreciate the Beatles, but I can’t revere them the way my parents’ generation can. They made some really good records that have endured, and a lot of their songs I am happy to listen to and willing to defend. Not all of them, though. This song, however, is probably my favorite Beatles song (and I’m not sure it’s anyone else’s):

    Lovely Rita

    I have been considering for a few years now getting a pinup tattoo of Rita.

    10. comments

  10. [Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

    I found out about this song months ago, and seriously thought about putting it up here, but decided instead to hold onto it and put it in the next mix I put online. Now, of course, it’s months later and I still have no idea when the next time I’m going to do any mixing is.

    So: weird soul song with fantastic falsetto vocals. The voice is just weird enough to be really interesting without being off putting. Also, there’s a tempo change going into each chorus that kind of throws me off every time and would have been kind of a pain for DJing, but I like it anyways.

    Renaldo Domino - Not Too Cool to Cry

    11. comments

  11. Also, The Decemberists

    I forgot to mention also that I love this Decemberists song that did make it onto Pitchfork’s list:

    O Valencia

    … but I don’t think I love it more than this song which didn’t:

    The Crane Wife 3

    (and yes, I know I’ve put both of these up here before, shut up)

    12. comments

  12. Pitchfork's best of 2000s

    Some of you may have seen last week that Pitchfork was releasing a list of the top 500 songs of this decade (you can read this from the beginning here, if you like).

    I like making lists and seeing other people’s lists, and I also have a terrible soft spot for waxing nostalgic, so a list like this was bound to get me thinking. Then B decided we should make a playlist of all the songs on the list that we already had and listen to it in chronological order, so as to suss out the “narrative” of the decade. This has been both amusing and enlightening, and so I wanted to note a few things here.

    • Jay-Z can probably be fairly called the rapper of the decade. While the last ten years definitely have been about the rise of southern rap, who’s been more, well, important than Jay-Z? (Ignore of course that he hasn’t really done anything worthwhile since the Black Album, but come on, that record was massive)

    • I think I like the Arcade Fire more than I thought I did. I should probably relisten to their first record.

    • Daft Punk haven’t made a decent record since 2001, but the three standouts from Discovery are still totally phenomenal. To me, they don’t sound the least bit dated, and I could probably keep putting them in mixes for another ten years without anyone complaining.

    • One time I went to a Postal Service show primarily to see the opener - Cex - and left right after that. What the hell was I thinking? There’s an opportunity that’s probably never going to happen again.

    • Songs which I still totally love: The Microphones’ “The Glow”; Joanna Newsom’s “Peach, Plum, Pear”; Bright Eyes’ “First Day of My Life”; plenty of others.

    • There’s an odd thing about this list, which is that it tries to straddle the line between “best songs” and “songs of the decade”. In that the former is about quality irrespective of time, and the latter is about music which typifies its time.

    • As such, there are a lot of songs on the list which I hear and think “there is a much better song on this album that I would have chosen instead of this one.” E.G.: Songs: Ohia’s “Blue Factory Flame”, Comets on Fire’s “The Bee and the Cracking Egg”, David Byrne & Brian Eno’s “Life is Long”, Stars’ “Romantic Comedy“ or “Time Can Never Kill the True Heart”, Vitalic’s “Poney, pt. 1”, and others, I’m sure.

    Finally, I should note that I have absolutely no intention of producing any kind of end-of-decade material for this blog - I simply don’t have the time to do a proper job of going through every record I have from the last ten years. That said, you can expect the same year-end wrap-up I did last year, with plenty of downloadable goodies. But, uh, not until the year’s actually almost over.

    13. comments

  13. Lullatone

    Lullatone have been making consistent records for years now. They’re rarely exciting, but that’s sort of the point - they make tiny little songs for quiet/sleepy times. Their early stuff was all plinky sine waves, which was nice, if a little limited, but they’ve expanded their palette really pleasantly.

    They have a new record out which is quite nice, but I didn’t want to share anything from it, specifically. Instead, go play with this flash thing they made. From the style of it, I’m guessing it’s a few years old (maybe from 2004?), but it’s still a reasonable introduction to their sound, and it’s easy to make something pretty with it.

    14. comments

  14. Lightning Bolt

    You guys: can we all get stoked about a new Lightning Bolt album coming out this year or what? It’s been four years, apparently.

    They’ve leaked a song from the new album (“Earthly Delights”), and it’s, dare I say, reasonably accessible. The first half of the song features actually normal drumming (which isn’t necessarily a recommendation, just a comment), and on the whole, it’s quite rhythmic. Still spazzy at the end though, and how accessible is any song over seven minutes?

    Bodes well for the rest of the album, if you ask me.

    Colossus

    15. comments

    1. Kate Simko (16) 
    2. Pictureplane (13) 
    3. The Lucksmiths (12) 
    4. Nosaj Thing (12) 
    5. Clubroot (10) 
    6. Simian Mobile Disco (10) 
    7. Lullatone (10) 
    8. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (10) 
    9. Zomby (9) 
    10. Parts & Labor (8) 

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