Top 25 Albums of 2015 (ToddS List)

25. Leggy – Nice Try EP [self]

24. Library Voices – Lovish [nevado]

23. Faith No More – Sol Invictus [reclamation]

22. Say Hi – Bleeders Digest [barsuk]

21. Giggly Boys – Bastards of Young [self]

20. The Diamond Center – Crystals of the Brass Empire [funny / not funny]

19. Gun Outfit – Dream All Over [paradise of bachelors]

18. Woolen Men – Temporary Monument [woodsist]

17. Expert Alterations – You Can’t Always Be Liked [kanine]

15. Albino Father – II [self]

14. Mikal Cronin – MCIII [merge]

13. Kurt Vile – b’lieve i’m goin down… [matador]

12. King Gizzard and the Lizzard Wizard – Paper Mâché Dream Balloon [ato]

11. L’Orange & Kool Keith – Time? Astonishing! [mello music]

10. Ultimate Painting – Green Lanes [trouble in mind]

9. Wand – Golem [in the red]

8. Young Guv – Ripe 4 Luv [slumberland]

7. Moon Duo – Shadow of the Sun [sacred bones]

6. Lazy Knuckles – Bucolic [gold robot]

5. Thee Oh Sees – Mutilator Defeted At Last [castle face]

4. Danny James Etc. – Pear [burger]

3. Father John Misty – I Love You, Honeybear [sub pop]

2. Destroyer – Poison Season [merge]

1. The Butterscotch Cathedral – S/T [trouble in mind]

Best of 2013 (Todd’s List)

2013 was a great year for music. Below are my top 20 albums of 2013 and mix of my favorite songs from those albums. Happy new year!

20. BOOM! – Get A Grip (Burger)
19. Dim Peaks – Time of Joy (Gold Robot)
18. The Limiñanas – Costa Blanca (Trouble In Mind)
17. Lloyd Cole – Standards (Tapete)
16. Bill Callahan – Dream River (Drag City)
15. RUMTUM – Mystic Wonders (1320)
14. Crocodiles – Crimes of Passion (Frenchkiss)
13. The Go – Fiesta (Burger)
12. Johnny Marr – The Messenger (Sire)
11. Mikal Cronin – MCII (Merge)

10. Gap Dream – Shine Your Light (Burger)
9. Veronica Falls – Waiting For Something To Happen (Slumberland)
8. Eleanor Friedberger – Personal Record (Merge)
7. Jacco Gardner – Cabinet of Curiosities (Trouble In Mind)
6. Kurt Vile – Wakin On A Pretty Daze (Matador)
5. Yo La Tengo – Fade (Matador)
4. Wooden Shjips – Back To Land (Thrill Jockey)
3. Monster Rally – Return To Paradise (Gold Robot)
2. Thee Oh Sees – Floating Coffin (Castle Face)
1. Foxygen – We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic (Jagjaguwar)

Best of 2013 from simco1974 on 8tracks Radio.

Cat Power

Sun is the first album of original material Cat Power has released in six years. According to Matador, Chan performed and produced the album all on her own. The album’s release date is set for September 4th, with pre-order options available soon. Below is a track from the new album. Enjoy.

Cat Power – Ruin from Sun (2012)

Cat Power

Matador

Here’s Sean’s original post from 11.6.2005

Cat Power’s been napping. By the time her new album, The Greatest (not a greatest hits record — boy I’m sure her label friends will tire quickly of repeating that mantra), hits stores in January three years will have passed since her last album. Not bad really. The space between her last albums lasted about four years. I should cut her some slack. The wait is always worth it. This time around she taps the Memphis soul scene for her backing musicians, with, among others, Al Green’s boys, Teenie Hodges (who co-wrote “Take Me to the River” with Green) on guitar, and Leroy “Flick” Hodges on bass. Judging from the small sample offered, Chan Marshall may be on her way to creating a timeless work of art.

Thurston Moore

Thurston Moore

Thurston Moore needs no introduction, being the lead singer for Sonic Youth and releasing solo albums for the past 20+ years. However, in his long musical career, this is the first time that he has collaborated with Beck and the results are quite spectacular. Both songs below (and the entire album) are full of depth, and quite different from his last, more straight-forward indie rock effort. Thanks in part to Beck’s production skills, great use of strings, and of course Thurston’s incredible talent at songwriting and guitar playing. Enjoy.

Thurston Moore – Benediction

Thurston Moore – Circulation

Times New Viking

Times New Viking sure make a whole lotta racket for only three people. The fuzz, the pounding, the screeching organ; it’s like The Velvets on speed, the Velvets how they sounded in the earphones of the young, impressionable future members of Times New Viking.

Continue reading “Times New Viking”

Jay Reatard

Jay Reatard is a crazy man from Memphis. He’s prolific, playing with seemingly a dozen bands over the years, notably the Reatards and the Lost Sounds, with even more releases. He’s even got his own Wikipedia page. “Sea Saw” is a single from March of this year. Matador, his new home, is releasing a collection of six of his singles from this year on October 7th.

Continue reading “Jay Reatard”

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks

There used to be a bunch of MP3’s available for Stephen Malkmus so that you could get a great sense of what the erstwhile Pavement frontman has been up to for most of the last decade — and if you haven’t been keeping up, you’re missing out. We’re down to one: the sprawling, guitarilicious Randy Newman cover (!) “Baltimore,” all 6 minutes and 37 seconds of it. The new album is called Real Emotional Trash and as far as I can tell there is no release date yet, so don’t wear out this stocking stuffer too soon because it may be all you get for Christmas.

Continue reading “Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks”

Dead Meadow

Somehow, this holiday season snuck up on me. No more pigs in blankets! No more cheap red wine! I revolt. I can’t listen to DJ’s play the greatest hits of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s anymore! I revolt! I am deeply desirous of a comfortable pair of pajamas, a cup of tea, some only-me-and-no-one-else time and the piece de resistance… new Dead Meadow playing on repeat. Shan called it way back in ’05—“blissful rock and roll melancholy”. I couldn’t agree more. What better place to escape to in the midst of small talk, velvet dresses, candles and fake snow? These guys had it right when they took their fifth-album making selves to rural Indiana to create these tunes—there is something deliciously escapist about them.

What Needs [MP3, 5.9MB, 192kbps]

Continue reading “Dead Meadow”

The New Pornographers

The New Pornographers were one of the earliest posts on 3hive, back three and a half years ago when Sam and I tossed up a handful of MP3s from some of our favorite albums from the year previous. We didn’t offer much in the way of commentary back then (not that we do presently either), so for those who’ve been hiding under a rock for the last three years, and have missed out on The New Pornographers, here’s a bit more to chew on. The sequence to their new album Challengers threw me off on first listen. It starts off with “My Rights Versus Yours” a familiar, subdued type of Carl Newman tune, complete with a french horn (used, surprisingly, for the first time in a New Pornographers’ song). It builds like a rock opera opener and sets up me up to bounce around to a frantic track like “All The Things That Go To Make Heaven And Earth” or “Mutiny, I Promise You.” But my patience is tried and I have to wait through three more songs, including Dan Bejar’s “Myriad Harbor,” before my expectations are rewarded. Dont’ get me wrong, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Each song is great! It’s just going to take repeated listens before I can appreciate the album as a whole, unlike the first listen ecstacy I experienced hearing Electric Version. Considering today’s song-based attention span, I must sound like an old man, talking about spending time with a whole album! Well, this codger appreciates the fact that Newman, Case, Bejar & Co. continue to create whole albums worth those repeated listens.

Continue reading “The New Pornographers”

Lavender Diamond

Where’s the “Easy Listening” genre when you need one? I remember seeing Lavender Diamond once on The Lawrence Welk Show in 1977, when I snuck out of bed to hide behind the couch and see what my parents were watching. Then again, Becky Stark almost certainly wasn’t alive in ’77, so maybe it’s just the big yellow smiley-face sound that’s taking me back. These tracks are from the band’s 2005 EP The Cavalry of Light; a full-length album, Imagine Our Love, was released by Matador in May of this year.

Continue reading “Lavender Diamond”