Yes, I have been absent for much too long and there is no way to excuse my sloth.

But I have largely kept up with my listening of new music in 2011 and Cornershop’s Double-O Groove has been one of just a couple of CD’s that has captured my fancy for more than just a few spins this year.  Cornershop, that lovely vehicle of  Tjinder Singh, was unfairly assigned one-hit wonder status after 1997′s “Brimful of Asha.” 

Certainly Tjinder is not prolific.  It took Cornershop another five years to release Handcream for a Generation and then in 2009 came Judy sucks a Lemon for Breakfast.  Both albums merited more attention than they received.  But scarcely two years since Judy we have an album recorded entirely in Punjabi with the charming Indian vocalist Bubbley Kaur. 

Nearly every track is gold but for your sampling pleasure I attach what may be the most infectious hook of 2011 in “The 911 Curry.”  If the groove does not immediately catch you, give it a scant 30 seconds for the impossibly catchy horn sample.  For whatever reason were you not then already in love, Cornershop layers a winsome blooping organ after about two minutes.  If that doesn’t do it, you are dead inside. 

“The 911 Curry” by Cornershop

“Brimful of Asha” by Cornershop

Hey kids guess who released their 4th record Tuesday?  BOAT, that’s who.  The band who made it cool to sing about your mom and seemingly invent lyrics on the fly have another fantastic outing with Dress Like Your Idols.  The first single, although BOAT is a band of nothing but singles, is ”(I’ll Beat My Chest Like) King Kong.”  

Guess what else?  The owner of a certain Salt Lake record store whose name rhymes with banana told me one time that she knows a publicist at BOAT’s label, Magic Marker, and promised (or at least that’s the way I choose to remember it) to make the call and get a Utah show booked.  So stop by Slowtrain Records this weekend to buy a copy and badger the proprietors into pulling some strings!

“(I’ll Beat My Chest) Like King Kong”

 

Quite unintentionally, I’ve compiled a bit of a Dad Rock list here.  

A few noisier bands (cf: Weekend, Deerhunter) could just as easily have made the short list but it seems this is just the way it turned out this year, particularly at the top of the list.  And for that I make no apologies so stop interrogating me like a common criminal.

As always, my only criterion for what ended up on my list was, simply, ”Did I Like It?”  This is distinct from “Was It Important or Influential?”  I listened to a lot of music that was way out there…and a little bit of AAA radio-ready stuff…and this is what stuck.  I liked it.  And because of my fondness for the complete album, these tend to represent whole statements, internally threaded and consistent.  And look, it’s January 31st.  I’ve posted a 2010 “Best of” list that is culturally irrelevant by any standard but 1-2 weeks earlier than the last two years.  I Have a Dream that my 2011 list will be posted by MLK Day. 

Because 10 (or as it turned out, 11) is a pretty small number for what was frankly an extraordinary year in music, I listed a few other great albums at the end which either arbitrarily did not make the cut or which I sampled extensively but didn’t yet have the money to buy.  For all my faults, I buy all my music…every last CD…and I hope you do too.  Listing the additional albums also helps create the false impression that I am more broad than I really am and cultivates my false sense of supriority.

Now the Top 10 Albums of 2010:

1. The National - High Violet

Of Alexander Payne’s movie “Sideways,” a friend remarked that he identified with the aimless 40-something characters.  Not me.  But I felt intimately attached to The National’s masterwork High Violet, filled with miniature epics about the muted anxieties of parenthood, career, and other banes of middle age.  As close to a perfect album since Elbow’s 2005 Leaders of the Free World.

“England” by The National

2. Foals – Total Life Forever 

Rhythmically exhilarating and dense…Foals adroitly cram more musical ideas into each song than most bands do in ten…Total Life Forever catapults the band far beyond dance-funk.  TLF Marries David Byrne’s international beats (and, at times, his yelp), impossibly angular, mathy hooks, and…on songs like ”Spanish Sahara” and “After Glow”…the brutal melancholy of Catherine Wheel.

“Spanish Sahara” by Foals 

It is impossible to refer to Kristian Matsson as a modern day Bob Dylan without feeling cliched and really a bit lazy; the comparison is both apt and insufficient.  In The Wild Hunt, the Swedish Matsson continues to elevate the American folk tradition with stunners like “Burden of Tomorrow,” his mastery of the guitar on “Troubles Will be Gone,” and the inimitable TTMOE vocal stylings on “Love is All.”

“The Wild Hunt” by The Tallest Man on Earth

 “Home” by LCD Soundsystem

5.  Abe Vigoda – Crush

It’s tempting to compare Abe Vigoda to The Horrors, both wildly successful marrying shoegaze and goth.  Crush brings more of a darkwave beat to the party and the vocals are, by turns, more derivative of Robert Smith (“Dream of My Love”) and Peter Murphy (“Repeating Angel”).  The rich songcraft on Crush feels raw, uncontrolled, even live-to-tape at times, which it certainly is not.

“November” by Abe Vigoda 

6. Phantogram – Eyelid Movies

Phantogram has several things going for it, not least among them Sarah Barthel’s captivating and sensual voice, the very best of 2010, which is saying a lot in a year that included Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino.  The Massive Attack atmospherics and songs are fab, highlighted by the trippy soul of “You Are the Ocean” and single “When I’m Small” which recently cropped up on MTV’s “Skins.”

“All Dried Up” by Phantogram

An observation missing from much of the acclaim about Lisbon is the New Orleans and Old World influence, so much so that it seems like the Big Album Elvis Perkins could have written after Ash Wednesday.  Hamilton Leithauser’s vocals, if occasionally reminiscent of Rod Stewart, are brazen and earn every climactic, arena-sized chorus from “Angela Surf City” to “Victory.”

“Angela Surf City” by The Walkmen

8. Idle Times - Idle Times

I’ll buy about anything from a couple of labels, including Idle Times’ Hozac Records.  This lo-fi morsel has an amazing ear…not just for gauzy deconstruction…but fist-pumping choruses on songs like “Every Time I Talk” mingled with switchups like the rockabilly “Prison Mind.”  And riffs?  You can practically hear Paul Westerburg fronting “Hey Little Girl” for the Crocodiles.

“I Don’t Believe It/X-Tina” by Idle Times

No album was ever less in need of a concept than The Monitor, so I encourage you to enjoy it strictly for its Jersey RAWK! aesthetic and ignore the Civil War non sequitors.  At times Bruce Springsteen idolatry mockery, at times an out-of-control FUBAR performance reminiscent of The Pogues.  Stick with this one…The Monitor rocks your face off. 

“The Battle of Hampton Roads” by Titus Andronicus

10. Wounded Lion – Wounded Lion

Covered by The Intelligence but sounding more like BOAT, Wounded Lion feels like a nearly effortless pop expression.  Like the band picked up their instruments on an LA back porch and crafted these gems extemporaneously.  ”Pony People” and “Hunan Province” are relentlessly catchy and stripped clean like a juiced up Marquee Moon.  They also make a lot of funny sounds with their mouths.

“Pony People” by Wounded Lion

  
Here are some of the other albums I was really digging in 2010 that I recommend you check out:

Blank Dogs – Land and Fixed
Deerhunter – Halycon Digest
Destroyer – Kaputt
El Guincho – Pop Negro
Grovesnor – Soft Return
Jaill – That’s How We Burn
Nice Face – Immer Etwas
Secret Cities – Pink Graffiti
The Soft Pack – The Soft Pack
The Tallest Man on Earth – Sometimes the Blues EP
Teenage Fanclub – Shadows
Ty Segall – Melted
The Vaselines – Sex with an “X”
Violens – Amoral
Weekend – Sports
Woods – At Echo Lake

Installment #2 of tunes from the past year that I really enjoyed. 

Most, not all, are from CDs that are NOT on my list of top albums, or are culled from an EP, or simply represent the occasional one-off download.  Roughly in the chronological order in which I discovered them.  So supplement your listening of full-length releases with these nuggets. 

“Double Knot” by Living Sisters - from Love to Live.  Don’t be fooled by the innocent 50′s poses and Frankie Lymon harmonies.  Several Love to Live songs are a bit filthy.  But it’s not all stagecraft…the Living Sisters included alot of great songwriting on their CD for anyone who pines for the Eisenhower era.

“I Can Try” by Sambassadeur – from European.  To start with, I am a sucker for this kind of string arrangement.  Add to that Anna Persson’s uncanny vocal resemblance to one of my all-time favorite singers Kirsty MacColl.

“Imagine Hearts” by Ringo Deathstarr – from Colour Trip.  Hate to wait until March for this one but there is a 5-song EP from 2008 if you really like your JATMC seasoned with sparkling guitar effects. 

“The Turned on Truth” by Cornershop – from Judy Sucked a Lemon for Breakfast.  Technically a 2009 release but not available in these United States until last April, Tjinder Singh has lost none of the charm of his britpop and desi fusion. 

“Madame Van Damme” by Lightspeed Champion – from Life is Sweet!  Nice to Meet You!  Devonte Hynes turns more towards art rock (shudder), but this song has one of the more traditional pop structures on Life is Sweet!  Hynes also sounds more like Murray Lightburn here, which I much prefer to his Freddy Mercury turns.

“Tell ‘Em” by Sleigh Bells – from Treats.  Galactic-sized hooks overcompressed to the point of self-caricature with white girl Go! Team urban styling.

“I Didn’t See It Coming” by Belle and Sebastian – from Write About Love.  OK so the album is a liiiiitle radio ready.  So sue them, this is still essentially the perfect pop song.  Really very nearly perfect.  Sarah Martin needs to take over not just singing responsibilities from the boys but dancing too as you can see from the painful video.

“Intil” by Menomena – from Mines.  Love pretty much anything with this much reverb and sensitive Coldplay keyboard.  But.  But but but.  Check out the wild little backbeat that kicks in halfway through Mines‘ closer, evocatively layered and gorgeous.

“Selina” by Pete & the Pirates – from Precious Tones EP.  The climactic chorus (“Selina you don’t smile when you break my heaaaaart!”) is a little bit of everything I love about PATP.

“Pogo” by Eternal Summers – from Silver.  All Hail Roanoke!  They didn’t make bands like this during the 5 years I lived under the shadow of Mill Mountain Star but this two-piece writes snappy pop songs with plenty of open space.  Instant street cred for all the up-and-comers at Hidden Valley High.

“Groove Me” by Theophilus London – from Maximum Balloon.  I guess I wasn’t as smitten as the rest of planet Earth by this TV on the Radio side project, possibly because of the insufferable band name, but it’s hard to deny that “Groove Me” will groove you.

“The Great White Ocean” by Antony and the Johnsons – from Swanlights.  Antony Hegarty is an acquired taste, a bit avante garde and of course he loves him some vibrato.  I did though really enjoy 2005′s I am a Bird Now and this song shows nice texture as a lyricist and songwriter.

“Until the Nipple’s Gone” by Atmosphere – from To All My Friends, Blood Makes the Blade Holy.  Slug’s narrative and cutting diction knock you down with their venom.

“Like the Wheel” by The Tallest Man on Earth – from Sometimes the Blues is Just a Passing Bird EP.  iTunes bonus track from The Wild Hunt which I have gushed over enough.  I played “Like the Wheel” approximately one billion times in 2010.

As I assemble a Best Albums of 2010 list, here is the first installment of individual tunes from the past year that I really enjoyed.  Most, not all, are from CDs that are NOT on my list of top albums, or are culled from an EP, or simply represent the occasional one-off download.  So supplement your listening of full-length releases with these nuggets. 

And look, Ma…no links! 

Consider it a small service:  Just click the media player on most songs and rock out without the aggravating and impossible distraction of opening a new window.  Actually there’s still a couple of links but for the most part I’ve done the work on your behalf because I love you.

“Odessa” by Caribou – from Swim.  Whereas 2007′s Andorra was total psychedelia, ”Odessa,” Caribou’s first release from the April LP Swim is a minimalist freakout more akin to Hot chip.

“The Hundredth Time” by Gigi – from Maintenant.  Canadians who oddly…and sweetly…interpret (pervert?) 60′s pop with a teary male chorus that just seems more appropriate for Mary Wells.

“Icarus” by White Hinterland – from Kairos.  Enchanting number that seems to belong more to Iceland more than Oregon.

“Girls FM” by Happy Birthday – from Happy Birthday.  Who’d have ever thought there would be a Sub Pop band from Vermont?

“Someone’s Missing” by MGMT – from Congratulations.  An otherwise unnotable sophomore album highlighted by a straight-up brilliant Jackson 5 payoff at 1:45 into the song.

“My Chariot” by The Depreciation Guild – from Spirit Youth.  Kind of digging The Depreciation Guild more than The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, if truth be told.

“Constellations” by Darwin Deez – from Darwin Deez.  Plays Kilby Court January 21 and you are mighty encouraged to attend!

“21@12″ by Hot Hot Heat – from Future Breeds.  Don’t know that HHH will ever return to the fighting strength of 2002′s Makeup the Breakdown but this song has crazy noodling synths I love.

“Them That Do Nothing” by Field Music – from Measure.  I have Prog issues.  I don’t like most of it, gives me bad dreams of junior high school.  But ”Them That Do Nothing” is a snappy little song that richochets between your ears.

“The Fight” by Sia – from We are Born.  Yes the annoying girl who insists on painting her face and formerly trafficked in unremarkable loungey R&B also writes pretty dancy bubblegum pop.

“Rocket” by Goldfrapp – from Head First.  Having already impugned my list of favorite songs with Sia, why not add this tasty number from Goldfrapp?   ELO spaceship atmospherics included at absolutely no charge.  #1 song of the year by far for my 6-year-old daughter Rose.

“On the Beat” by Jaill – from That’s How We Burn.  Milwaukee’s Jaill turns out an entire album of angular guitar pop.  Vinnie Kircher sounds a lot like the Hoodoo Guru’s Dave Faulkner here, which is fabulous.

It was tempting to presume yesterday’s EP-after-the-LP from The Tallest Man on Earth was simply a carrier for “Like the Wheel.”  But if pithy, Sometimes the Blues is Just a Passing Bird is equally as powerful and nuanced as both of Kristian Matsson’s tremendous full-lengths.

Following May’s The Wild Hunt, Passing Bird opens with archetypal Tallest Man ballad “Little River,” marked by intricate finger-picking and the now-signature vocal acrobatics of a man without much of a voice to tumble with.  “Tangle in This Trampled Wheat” likewise begins with a complex guitar line and the most pronounced undercurrent of woe on the EP.  It is hard to overstate Mattson’s mastery of the instrument, though it always supports rather than overwhelms the arrangemet.

Like, but also unlike, Highway 61 Revisited, TMOE marks this release with his first recorded use of electric guitar.  It is heady stuff.  “The Dreamer” is a considered, not grandstanding, escalation of Matsson’s sound, hearbroken but not effusive. 

“Like the Wheel,” the iTunes bonus track for The Wild Hunt,  is at the sequential and creative center of Passing Bird.  The song became a favorite encore for the Tallest Man on Earth, as memorably performed last May in absolute silence at Salt Lake City’s Kilby Court.  The lyrics, if born in Sweden, evoke American dystopia better than Paul Simon:

And on this Sunday someone’s sitting down to wonder
Where the hell among these mountains will I be?
There’s a cloud behind the cloud to which I’m yelling
I could hear you sneak around so easily

And I said oh my Lord why am I not strong
Like the branch that keeps hangman hanging on
Like the branch that will take me home

I am fully convinced that songs such as ”Like the Wheel” are so perfectly conceived and rendered that they spring from some Jungian race memory.  The Tallest Man on Earth has not so much written Sometimes the Blues is Just a Passing Bird as he has memorialized a portion of the human condition passed to him through some indefinable chromosomal essence that now marks a high-water mark of the American folk tradition.

Listen to ”Like the Wheel” at the Consequence of Sound.

Thanks to the nicest proprietors in the music business at Slowtrain Records, I stumbled onto a complimentary pass to the Election Night performance of Best Coast at the Urban Lounge.  This was, like most big political nights, an election I worked until after 11:30 so I didn’t pull into the venue on my way home from the station until after Midnight.  Despite her disappointment that California did not widen the legal use of marijuana,  Bethany Cosentino spared the crowd any political barbs and coasted through some of the bands biggest songs from debut Crazy For You.

You have approximately a billion bands to choose from at the moment writing boozy, beachy, kicked-back surf rock and a music fan can do a lot worse than Best Coast.  Still, the band’s real attraction isn’t the sometimes-too-similar songwriting and tempo, it is Cosentino’s voice which is as natural and lovely with her live three-piece band as it is in studio. 

Cosentino has an old soul.  A friend remarked that her crooning delivery reminded him of Patsy Cline which I think is apt.  More contemporaneously, there are moments when she reminds me of Kim Deal and Toni Halliday.  Her girl-group choruses are pitch-perfect, summery, and effortless.

I was able to stick around for about six songs before nearing the point of exhaustion for the day.  It doesn’t take long to plow through a half dozen songs at 1:30 to 2:00 long, including “Crazy For You,” “Our Deal,” and ”When I’m With You.”  Each of them, if not a showcase of dynamic arrangement, showed off Cosentino’s infatuating delivery.

Hopelessly dated perhaps for no other reason than I live in Salt Lake City, nonetheless I’ve tried not to make this blog the subject for outright ridicule by posting about music in November that is, you know, so late-March, early-April.  Tonight I fail outright by writing about 2009 blog darling Surfer Blood…and fully a month after I caught their October 8 show. 

The Florida Atlantic University kids did just play a triumphant set at New York’s Webster Hall that earned them a fawning writeup at vanityfair.com.  Nevertheless, I pray for a bit of a pass by pleading “massive computer failure” in the interceding month since the Urban Lounge show.  It’s been long enough in fact that I only recall a few vivid impressions to pass along and otherwise just wanted to post some images from the night.

First, JP Pitts may have all the riffs, but still looks to be about 14 years old.  Second, debut album Astrocoast definitely holds up live.  Third, my only disappointment, I was really hoping things would get a little crunched-up from the studio polish but it felt pretty by-the-numbers to me.  I certainly thought “Floating Vibes” or the titanic hook of original single “Swim” would put the show over the top but they really didn’t.  I even remember thinking, “I really need ‘Over The Top’ tonight.”  If anything, it was somewhat restrained and bloodless.  At 14 (or 24 actually…I believe it was the day after Mr. Pitts’ birthday) he has plenty of time to put a rougher edge on things.

Opener Drums were just a visual feast.  Jonathon Pierce strutted, danced, and sensually mussed the hair of an audience member as he crooned a moment from the band’s self-titled debut.  The reverb was great and all but Pierce’s vocals disappeared in the mix.  

It took me a few listens to really appreciate The Monitor by Titus Andronicus.  Loosely, and I think needlessly, constructed as a concept album around Civil War themes, The Monitor stands completely on its own as a New Jersey RAWK triump without the need for conceit.  Riffs barrel at breakneck speed in double- and then triple-time to slurred and half-shouted vocals that frequently evoke early Replacements or The Pogues from Europe’s New Jersey, Ireland.

Tuesday night they played at Kilby Court, which seemed an acoustic impossibility. 

It is, what, 800 feet square?  Tin siding is buffered by the barest of carpet to absorb sound.  The only other reason I can judge that it works is the decades-old exposed joices above.  But as I watched lead singer Patrick Stickle setup, I knew the venue would be pretty well maxed-out sonically.

Titus Andronicus wasted no time, opening with double-barrels in “A More Perfect Union” and “Richard II.”  The band rolled though most of the rest of The Monitor along with several tunes from debut The Airing of Grievances.  Occasionally Titus simply overwhelmed the space.  The guitars, pedals, and shrieking vocals would at times reverberate inside the tiny venue and swallow the song.

Too, Stickles made the unfortunate call to engage a babling and clearly delusional teenage girl who yelled over his stage banter and created repeated cringe-worthy moments.  That aside, Stickle’s conversation with the audience between songs was generally awkward and several times took me out of the moment.

Titus Andronicus was at its best rocking like they didn’t care.  The musical and emotional climax of the night was “No Future Part Three” as the band sang-shouted, “You will always be a loser/You will always be a loser and that’s OK.”

The night’s performance opened with Philadelphia’s Free Energy.  Performing with youthful brio and all the rock moves, Free Energy specialized in galactic-sized hooks for your ultimate party pleasure.  Stickles joined the band for a romping version of “Bang Pop” to close their opening set.  It was power pop joy. 

And there was much fist-pumping.

Today is the  insufferably self-amused Talk Like a Pirate Day.  What better way to avoid criminally not funny imitations of Johnny Depp than by downloading a free EP by Pete and the Pirates.

 
One of my favorite labels, UK’s Stolen Recordings is offering a free EP of Pete and the Pirates demos called Precious Tones.  The short-player is full of angular, super-catchy audience sing-a-longs like “Selina.”  The band also steps down to smoother compositions like “My Sun Hat” that resemble PATP side project Tap Tap.
 

It’s been more than two years since Little Death, one of 2008′s best records.  Until the band finishes its new CD, treat yourself to Pete and the Pirates’ free download for the cost of your e-mail address.  We can also hope they tour more broadly, having only stopped ashore for brief appearances in New York and Austin.