VAGUE SPACE

Heima

Last night I watched a little of Sigur Ros's DVD Heima, I don't know why, I just think I needed something peaceful and warm after the month I've had at work, working long hours and every Saturday in January and early mornings and caffeinated days and I know a lot of people live their whole lives with jobs like this so I shouldn't complain and I don't mean to complain but I'm fucking glad January is over.  I have one more week at the client -- this week -- and then I'm done there.  I don't know what the future holds for me and my career after this, I really feel at a crossroads after this experience, but I hope that I will be able to get back to regular blogging, or at least have a moment to breathe.  I apologize for the somewhat sporadic and perhaps not compelling postings here this month (and since October, really), but February marks the 5th year anniversary of Vague Space, a milestone I never planned to reach, but now that it's here, it's something to be proud of and I hope you'll keep reading if you've always been reading.  Tomorrow will at least have a New Music Tuesday, just like the old days, and hopefully by next week I can get back to regular posting.  What does any of this have to do with Sigur Ros?  I'm not sure.  I can't even remember why I started this post.  I can't even remember why I started this blog.  But something about the calm of this music and the beauty of Iceland helped me forget the stress of my last month of work for a moment and now that it's nearly the end, I am just trying to breathe again.

Top 100 Songs of 2009

While I professed in my albums post that perhaps this wasn't the greatest year for albums, or at least it didn't have too many true classics, 2009 has been an incredible year for songs.  I really had trouble culling this list down to only 100, which is definitely a lot of songs.  Of course, when Spencer Krug's various bands take up over a dozen slots, it leaves little room for other things, but this was a really wonderful year.   Even more shocking is the staggering list of great new albums expected out in 2010, but we'll save that for next week.  On to my final list of 2009.

1. "Silver Moons" Sunset Rubdown (173 plays)
2. "You Go On Ahead (Trumpet Trumpet II)" Sunset Rubdown (151 plays)
3. "Dragon's Lair" Sunset Rubdown (137 plays)

• Download Sunset Rubdown - "Silver Moons".mp3
  

Well we certainly start with a theme.  And for the second time in the past three years, Sunset Rubdown has the top 3 songs on my year-end chart.  There's not much else to say about my love for the band that I haven't already said, but I did struggle mightily to order these three songs.  They are so different -- really, staggeringly different -- and yet they all appear on the same incredible album by the same incredible band.  The first one, the lead track, is a midtempo ballad, or as close as Spencer gets to a ballad, while the second one is a classic Sunset Rubdown slow burner to fast explosion and the third one, the final track, well -- I could spend days just describing the sonic template that the band achieves on that song alone.  On simple merit, "Dragon's Lair" should be #1.  On excitement, "You Go On Ahead" is the best.  But in the quieter moments, in my final contemplation, nothing this year surpassed "Silver Moons".  Congratulations, Spencer. Again.

Indie Rock on NPR

Check out this link to a superb article with the following indie rock label luminaries:

Maggie Vail and Portia Sabin from Kill Rock Stars
Gerard Cosloy from Matador
Mac McCaughan from Merge
Robb Nansel from Saddle Creek
Chris Swanson and Darius Van Arman from Jagjaguwar/Secretly Canadian/Dead Oceans

That's Mac from Merge (my favorite label), plus representatives from Jagjaguwar (my second favorite I think, if I were ranking) and Matador and Kill Rock Stars and Saddle Creek.  That's freakin' awesome.  The article is an interview with the label leaders by an NPR reporter.

NPR article link

And here's some of the great quotes:

Portia Sabin: Dudes, we are in the era of "I like everything," which translates to whatever is on the radio/on the iPod, which has always been the majority of music fans, in my opinion.

(I totally agree, not sure if it's just because I'm a music snob, but I don't understand someone who says they like "everything" in music.  Personally, I hate "everything," or most things, or most everything mainstream, and that's because I love music so much, I think.  Or maybe I'm just a snob).

2009 Top 50 Albums

This has been another great year for music, but while I was compiling this list I found few truly wonderful albums, just a whole lot of very good ones.  So after my top 3, I was really struggling to differentiate one album from another.  I'm not sure if that's a sign of weakness or strength, but I think an EP would be hard-pressed in previous years to make the top 5, as happened this year, so it's probably a bit of a down year for great albums, which is hopefully not the start of a trend.  My song list (coming soon) seems just as strong, or stronger, than in previous years, so perhaps this is the result of my listening habits becoming more iPod/singles based than album-based.   Of course, at the top of the list was one of the best albums I've ever heard, so it's not like there wasn't true greatness out there, it was just a little harder to find.

1. Sunset Rubdown - Dragonslayer

    From the moment this album was released there was no doubt that it was going to be my album of the year.  What was surprising is that it ended up in my top 5 of the decade, but the album is really that good.  Spencer's latest effort is more immediately accessible than Random Spirit Lover (my favorite album of the decade) and while it seems more a collection of near-perfect songs than a true cohesive album at first glance, there are so many themes running through the collection that it does work perfectly on full listens as well.  But I've said a million words about this album already and there's not much more to say.  Except thank you, Spencer, for making my year.

Nana Grizol

As a blogger writing primarily about indie rock music, I get a ton of email requests for reviews of records from bands I've never heard of.  OK, "ton" may be a slight exaggeration, but it's probably at least twenty a day, either reviews or release news or concert news, and the majority of the requests are for bands I don't know.  I don't mind it, and I wish I had time to actually listen to these bands' records that are being given to me for review.  I'm sure there's a ton of wonderful gems that I'm missing and could be among the first to review.  But unfortunately, I barely have enough time in my day to keep the blog running let alone listen to a bunch of new bands, so for 99% of these emails they go right into my trash bin unread.  I'm sorry, I really am.  As someone trying to get his writing published in various outlets, I can definitely appreciate the unsolicited bid for exposure of your creative work.  But I just don't have time.  So how did Nana Grizol get my attention, enough attention for me to download the album, actually listen to it, and love it so much that I'm reviewing it?  Two words:  Elephant 6.

More Mangum

Inspired by the news that there's a new Jeff Mangum song (a cover of The Tall Dwarfs' "Sign the Dotted Line", which I've listened to at least 30 times in the past 10 hours), which is available on the Chris Knox tribute album Stroke on Merge Records, I found a couple Mangum videos released by Merge in November to coincide with the release of Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea on 180g vinyl.  And the videos are awesome, pretty high quality recordings (FWIW), especially this performance of "Two-Headed Boy" from 1998, a song that would go on to become my 2nd favorite song ever recorded by any artist ever.

Jeff Mangum Returns

The reclusive Jeff Mangum hasn't released anything since the Neutral Milk Hotel masterpiece In the Aeroplane over the Sea, in 1998.  Well there was the "field recordings of musicians in Bulgaria" album -- but I wouldn't think that counts for NMH fans like me who have waited, anticipated, hoped, through his seclusion, re-emergence, and then retreat into the wilderness of his life that he would somehow find a way to release music again.  Well my friends, that day is here.  Available, right now, right this second, at the Merge Records store is a digital download of a new Jeff Mangum song. 

Unfortunately, it's not a time to celebrate.  Not because the song isn't great, but because of the circumstances of the release.  Mangum is appearing on a tribute album to New Zealand indie forefather Chris Knox, who suffered a stroke back in June, and this album is a benefit to help with his recovery.  The album includes both original tracks and covers from a collection of indie rock and Merge legends like Stephen Merritt, Lou Barlow, Yo La Tengo, Bill Callahan, Will Oldham (Bonnie "Prince" Billy), AC Newman, Portastatic (Mac!), and Lambchop.  And of course, it includes a cover of a Knox song by the long silent genius that is Mr. Mangum.  So check out the Merge website, buy the album, and believe that some wonderful happiness can come out of such a sad thing, because in this case it has.

• Merge Records store
• Chris Knox website

Tracklisting:

Spencer to Release More New Material in January

On January 26, indie rock god Spencer Krug will release the Dreamland EP: Marimba and Shit-Drums on Jagjaguwar, under his solo/alter ego name Moonface, which I really hate, but hey, if Spencer wants to call himself that, he's earned the right.  I could go through the litany of albums and projects he's been a part of since 2005, but it's so staggeringly long and filled with such utter brilliance that it's not even worth rehashing right now.  Let's just say he was a part of four of the Vague Space top 12 albums of the decade and he released 2 albums for 2 separate bands just in 2009, along with his first foray into his Moonface persona, a two-song single that came out in the spring.  Those songs were awesome, and he played "Coming to at Dawn" both times I saw him with Sunset Rubdown this year, and it's really good live.  I'd attached a gorgeous live version of "Insane Love is Awakening" below, and both songs will find their place in my top songs of 2009, along with almost all the songs on Dragonslayer by Sunset Rubdown and several songs on Swan Lake's Enemy Mine, which he of course is a part of.  No word on when Wolf Parade is getting back together, but I can't imagine when Spencer would ever have time to write for them anyway.  I'm just happy to get something new in January (or earlier, leak away, please!).  The EP will only be available digitally and on a one-sided vinyl 12". And according to a press release, the vinyl version, as well as some digital ones, will come with "a dream journal, on which the music is based."  Awesome. 

• Download Sunset Rubdown - "Insane Love is Awakening (live on KEXP, 6/09)".mp3
  

Dragonslayer Lyrics

It's going to be my album of the year, at least based on its placing in my top 5 of all albums released this decade, but I still didn't know for certain every lyric to every song on the album, which was mildly annoying.  Sunset Rubdown hadn't included a lyric sheet with the album's release and although I'd waded through the threads on the Wolf Parade forums and on songmeanings.net at various times this year, there were enough discrepancies to throw me off on more than one lyric in more than one song.  But somehow today I was tooling around Sunset Rubdown's website and there they were, in all their glory, the lyrics to the entirety of Dragonslayer.  So I've reprinted them below, for your convenience.  Enjoy the beauty and the brilliance of the poetry that is Spencer Krug...

Silver Moons

Confetti floats away like dead leaves in the wagon's wake. There were parties here in my honor until you sent me away. Now silver moons belong to you. Passing the baton from the old mare to the fawn - it was out of line but it was fun - and didn't you love the part right before the dawn? But now silver moons belong to you. I'm off to the ballet, and to practice all these ancient ways. Tell the new kids where I hid the wine, tell their fathers that I'm on my way, and say "Hey, maybe these days are over now..." And I loved it better than anyone else, you know. And I believe in growing old with grace. I believe she only loved my face. I believe I acted like a child making faces at acquired tastes. And now silver moons belong to you...

Gone are the days bonfires make me think of you. Looks like the prophecy came true: You are a fallen tree. He is a fallen tree. "How old are you?" "No, how old are you?"

Under all the folds of the dresses that you wear there's an ocean and a tide and a riot in the square. Over are the days that the congas made your hair sway around to the cadence of your 'hey-oh-hey-oh' cheer... Under all the folds of the dresses that you wear you sway around to the cadence of your voice when you sang there.

• Download Sunset Rubdown - "Silver Moons".mp3
  

Sunset Rubdown Live at the Sonar

It's been an interesting and travel-laden week for me, and I won't bore you with all the details, but since Wednesday, I've driven to Baltimore, flown to Kansas City through Detroit and then back to Baltimore through Chicago, arriving from beautiful weather in the midwest to miserable, near-winter wet weather conditions on the east coast, all to see Sunset Rubdown live.  Well, not entirely, but due to a work conference that I couldn't miss (but did cut out early from, and got in trouble for), I missed SR in Manhattan Friday night, so I re-arranged my schedule to leave and return from Baltimore (a 5-hour round trip drive from my house) in order to catch the band's appearance at the Sonar on Saturday.  Was it worth it?  Absolutely.

As usual, the band was stunningly great.  This was their first time at the venue (and presumably in Baltimore, although that was less clear) and while the crowd of mostly young fans didn't know all their music as well as someone like me, they were very energetic, receptive, and into the show that Sunset Rubdown put on.  And it was a wonderful show.  I saw them in Philly earlier this summer playing a very similar set, and while I wish they would have varied their tracks a little more from the first leg of their tour, I really can't complain about any of the song choices, and some were surprisingly brilliant.  The big opener, which they apparently played in Manhattan the night before, was a combined version of "Empty Threats of Little Lord" melding into "Idiot Heart," which is just a great way to start a show.  By the time Spencer belted out "so move around" in the second song, I'd already belted down several Magic Hat #9s (great selection of beers at the Sonar, by the way), and after traveling since noon to see a show that didn't start until 10:30, that was the kind of release I needed, and along with the rest of the crowd, it was time to "move around" and celebrate Spencer's brand of brilliance.