band of the week

band of the week: animal collective – merriweather post pavilion

It seems like it’s sort of impossible to escape them now.   Merriweather Post Pavilion may very well end up being the best album of 2009.  This is what everyone is saying right now, and yes, I realize that the year is less than a month old, but this album is freaking awesome.  I’ve never really been a huge fan of Animal Collective, but I have thought that they’ve been getting progressively better with each album since I first heard them years ago.  They’ve put out a few individual songs that I thought were really great (“Bat You’ll Fly”, “Grass”, “Peacebone”)  however, it wasn’t until the release of Panda Bear’s Person Pitch (which I realize is just one person from Animal Collective but “whatever”) that I was really able to enjoy a whole album of theirs from beginning to end.  Merriweather takes all the really great elements of Panda Bear’s Person Pitch and then takes them a step further by making them poppy and accessible.  I’m sure some of the die hard fans will suddenly think they’ve sold out, but those people are just plain wrong.  Animal Collective has gone from being a sort of interesting art rock band with an occasional great song, to a really fantastic band with interesting compositional ideas that has created an album that’s brilliant from beginning to end.

Now I’d like to talk about a few of my favorite tracks and what I find interesting about them.

Track #2: “My Girls”

This song has proved to be the first “single” off the album.  I can’t hardly turn on the radio without hearing it.  I think KCRW plays it every hour, on the hour.  But that’s ok because this song is great. I’m still finding myself completely blown away by the beginning of this track every time I hear it.  Let me digress for a moment by talking about….Elliot Carter.  Now those of you who know me are probably aware that Mr. Carter is not my favorite composer.  Most the time I find it very difficult to sit there and listen to his music.  Elliot Carter is the kind of composer that I always thought was more interesting to talk about than to listen to.  And why is Carter interesting to talk about?  Because of METRIC MODULATION.  Whenever people talk about Carter in the academic sense, they always mention metric modulation.  This is because metric modulation is really awesome.  I love it.  But I never really thought Carter used it in the right way.  Now let me get back to Animal Collective, more specifically, the beginning of “My Girls”.  The piece starts out in a fast 4 time signature, but then a new pulse comes in over the top, with a relationship of 3 in the time of four.  Now isn’t this really just a big triplet over the bar.  Yes it is.  But then suddenly, that triplet becomes the beat, and we back in 4, only slower.  It’s a beautiful thing.  Mark my words…when someone finally decides that they should give me a job at a university and I am stuck with the job of teaching undergrad theory, I will use this song to demonstrate metric modulations.

Track 5: “Daily Routine”

Imagine what it would sound like if Brian Wilson and Bjork got together and wrote a song after listening to some early Philip Glass followed by some Erik Satie.  Thats kind of what this song sounds like.

Track 11: “Brother Sport”

I recently read an interview with Animal Collective which contained a long discussion over how they decided to close out the album.  Apparently there was a heated battle over whether or not this was the right choice to end things.  It’s a tough call.  It is arguably the best song on the album.  Now I’ve just spent the last 15 minutes searching the web to find out what this song is actually about.  Most of the lyrics are unintelligible, and there seems to be quite a bit of disagreement on the internet as to what they actually are (although most everyone agrees the song is about one of the members brothers). But that doesn’t really matter, even if you can’t understand what they’re saying, it’s obviously upbeat and positive.  It makes you feel good.  It makes my imaginary tail wag. Incidentally,  I would also like to point out that this song has a remarkable harmonic resemblance to Broadcast’s “Hawk” off of their Haha Sound album.  It’s one of my favorite Broadcast tunes.

I don’t have a rating system here on my blog.  I won’t give it two thumbs up or 5 stars, but I will say that I have not been able to stop listening to this album since I bought it on its release day.  If I was going to highly recommend anything, it would be this.

band of the week: beach house

I guess I was late to the game in discovering Beach House, which isn’t so bad because it means they’ve had time to put out two awesome albums (Beach House from 2006 and Devotion from 2008). They sound kinda like Mazzy Star only with drum machines and more keyboards. Most everything they do is down tempo and dreamy. Here’s the video for “Master of None” which is the first song of theirs I heard and totally got me hooked:

They’ll be coming to L.A. on Jan. 20th to open up for The Walkmen at The Henry Fonda Theater.

band of the week: daniel corral – cadential variations

My friend Daniel Corral has just released his first digital download from his website.  The piece is called Cadentail Variations and it’s a 17 minute plunderphonic piece made up entirely of endings.  Sources used come from a very wide range of artists.  From Bowie to Strauss to Bernard Herrmann to Patsy Cline to Naked City (I think).  There’s even an amazing 3 note cadence from The Breeders, which delights me to no end.  The piece is available in several different audio formats and is a 3 dollar purchase.  Totally worth it.  Be sure to listen close at 15:10 where there is an amazing (for lack of a better way to describe music) clashing chord subtractive modulation…it’s fantastic.

band of the week: josephine foster – a wolf in sheep’s clothing

Certain friends frequently like to ask me what I’m listening to every now and then and I’m happy to tell them.  The format in which this question is usually asked is “Hey Andrew, what’s your band of the week?”  My answer might not always change on a week to week basis.  Some times it changes every day, other times once a month….but it’s still just easier to refer to what I’m listening to as my “band of the week.”  So now I will start an ongoing series on this website in which I will tell you about my band of the week.  They will be archived in the pages section.

I was recently in New York playing a few concerts and after one of these concerts they happened to be playing music over the PA.  Suddenly there was music playing that was so interesting and had such a strong feeling of familiarity (even though I was certain I had never heard it before) that I immediately stopped the conversation I was having with a friend to find out what it was.  It turned out to be the second track off of Josephine Foster’s A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing.  I’d never heard of her but the next day I took the first chance I had to go pick up that album.  All the music on the album seems to be arrangements of German art songs by Schumann, Brahms, Schubert, etc… with text adapted from writers such as Goethe.  Musically it sort of sounds like a cross between early music and Cat Power-esque indie rock plus some distorted dirty electric guitars over the top of it.  The album is brillant and beautiful and is one of the best things I’ve heard in months.