My Records of the Summer

Tomorrow I leave for my second year of college. I'm taking a two-day train across the country to Chicago, and most likely will be without internet access. In my final hours at home for the summer, I'm going to write a bit about the albums I spun the most this summer. As with most of the lists I do, they don't represent what I think are the "best" albums, just the ones I personally favored the most.


Ratatat - LP3

Ever since their first album (which I loved immediately), it's taken a while for their newest material to grow on me. There have been a lot of times where I just wanted some instrumental to fill in the silence, and that's given me a lot of time to absorb this album, and I've come to find a place for this album just as I have for their other two. "Mirando" always packs a twittering punch, and "Dura" got a lot of spins as well. From the sound of the album and the song titles, this somehow has tinges of Spanish and Eastern influences, which is experimentation enough on the great electronic formula Ratatat have for me. I remember a lot of critics wondering if the "gimmick" of their first album could spawn others, and I really admire their ability to keep finding new ways to make electronic instrumentals interesting.



Girl Talk - Feed the Animals

I was really not impressed when I saw Girl Talk perform at Northwestern in the winter, so this album really came out of left field for me. I didn't pay anything for it, as Gregg Gillis offered it up for free (you can kind of see why, considering all the songs he samples freely and with complete reckless abandon). For some reason this album rang differently to me. Where on other albums I'd feel frustrated by how fast the samples were burned up to move through a song, I felt that they lingered just long enough to capture our attention, and then moved onto something else at the right time. I danced many times to this entire record at parties and in the car over the course of the summer, and I was really taken aback at how much I like what he did on this record. I love being able to laugh at what he's sampling (the moment "Steal My Sunshine" comes on for 10 seconds is the best shout out on the entire CD to me, though "In A Big Country" is a close second). I had so much fun listening to this album in the past couple months; it'll always be linked to anything I remember from this summer, and that's the best praise I can give it.



The Hold Steady - Stay Positive

I remembering reading about The Hold Steady for the first time the summer before my senior year of high school when a RollingStone writer called them the best band of the decade. Since I'd never heard of them I picked up their debut and have been hooked ever since. Boys and Girls in America is a really hard album to top, but Stay Positive is another in a line of very consistent, very strong records for the band. They deserve all the critical praise they get, and while there's no song here to match my favorite from the last "Hot Soft Light" there are some great barn burners. "Constructive Summer" was an early song of the summer favorite for me, and "Sequestered in Memphis" was played many a time as I drove the highways with my windows down. I really dig the earthy feel of the album art and how it fits the Americana storytelling of the record. I just really like seeing a good band put out something deserving of their name.



Black Kids - Partie Traumatic

I never did get around to commenting on the ridiculousness surrounding the debut album of the much-buzzed about Jacksonville, FL band, so I guess now comes my compressed and delayed reaction. Pitchfork gave their debut EP an 8.4, and then inexplicably gave their full-length debut a non-review of 3.3 just nine short months later. I've seen a lot of internet reviewers trying to build and break down hype with their writing alone, but this case got out of hand quickly. The review smelled terribly of Pitchfork drumming up an audience for itself rather than making good on its intended purpose of reviewing and reacting to music in a helpful and informative fashion. It was more in tune with this Onion article than any well-written review they've ever posted.

Buzz and backlash aside, they did release four tracks from their debut EP re-recorded along with only six other tracks, but I still really like the album. I think the best four tracks close out the record, beginning with their awesome single "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You" and continuing through "Love Me Already", "I Want To Be Your Limosine", and "Look At Me (When I Rock Wichoo)." It's some nice dance-rock, and if people could focus on the music instead of the cloud of internet whining trying to grab at people's attention, everyone could see the strong record underneath it all.



Conor Oberst - Conor Oberst

A song that overstays its welcome and lasts too long for its own good is painfully bad. Conversely, a fantastic song that ends too soon is a masterful achievement. Clocking in at just 1:12, "NYC - Gone,Gone" was my favorite song of the summer, and ever since first hearing songs from the record I've been absolutely hooked on it. Aside from the fifty second interlude that is "Valley Mistico (Ruben's Song)", there is not a single weak song on this record. Somehow Oberst found himself using his own name and freeing himself of his longtime producer down in Mexico. From the opening notes of "Cape Canaveral" to the closing of "Milk Thistle" I was stunned. I've liked a lot from his past three records, but this album rang out a "return to form" vibe, and never gave it up. "Eagle On a Pole" is a standout, as are "Danny Callahan" and "Moab." Like I said, it's hard to pick a bad song from the bunch, and it's one of those rare albums that I can listen straight through without skipping a single track.



Bloc Party - Intimacy

It's taken a couple weeks, but just like I thought, the new Bloc Party album is already growing on me. I spin "Halo" a couple times a day, and "Trojan Horse", first single "Mercury" and "Biko" get frequent plays as well. I didn't like the places Bloc Party was growing towards, but now I've accepted the direction and enjoy the sounds. There's less angular, typical guitar work here and much more of Okereke's ideas at play here, but the other members do fill in the bits in fantastic ways. The bells in "Signs" shimmer nicely, and there are still a few walls to be broken down in "One Month Off." They do sound a bit like they didn't their ideas air out to a public reaction before settling on a final draft, but it's still a really enjoyable record, especially for a rabid Bloc Party fan like myself.


There you have it, my records of the summer. Hopefully some of the big profile fall releases will prove to be worth their salt, and maybe this year I'll actually get around to posting a list of my favorite records of the entire year.

Live: Conor Oberst & the Mystic Valley Band @ Amoeba Records

Bright Eyes is one of those bands that I feel most of its fans don't understand. If you looked at the fanbase for the Conor Oberst moniker, it's mostly teen girls, but if was to describe Oberst's song writing, the one phrase that always comes to mind is "beyond his years." The music never really fit the age that followed it; I always figured that the girls were locked onto his appearance and hadn't really understood his music. Critics maligned Oberst for his youth following, and for never following through on his "next Bob Dylan" tag they stuck on him when he emerged from Saddle Creek at 13.


In 2005 Obherst released two albums of material on the same day, offering two directions his career could go. Down one road was Digital Ash in a Digital Urn, featuring collaborations with Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist Nick Zinner, electronic meddling, and a more youthful record. Essentially it was the album-length equivalent of the experimenting Oberst did on "Lover I Don't Have to Love" from his previous record, which had earned him legions of young, lovelorn fans just beginning to grip the "emo" label. Down the other road was the Emmylou Harris backed I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning, a folksy, mature record that just felt right for Oberst. Not to say Digital Ash didn't have it moments, but it was clear that Oberst had finally found the clear direction he needed on IWAIM. Tracks like "Train Under Water," "We Are Nowhere and It's Now," and my personal favorite "Road To Joy" sounded like a contemporary of Harris, not a twenty-something.


On his follow-up Cassadaga Oberst attempted the growing up he needed, and fell just a bit short. He had shifted to more folk-rock, but the youth-courting hit "Four Winds" hung on the album like "First Day of My Life" did on Wide Awake, both good songs, but both carrying the lingering tag of young singer/songwriter.

Now Oberst is on the verge of the release of his first "solo" album in years (technically Bright Eyes is a solo band, but the shift from moniker to his actual name carries some weight). He's gone soft, gone quiet, retained the midwestern sensibilities, and hopefully has completed the shift to being seen as an adult songwriter. He may be embracing the Dylan comparisons a little bit, but it was an unfair connection to draw from the start - Oberst does the electric rock and acoustic folk in about equal numbers, but he has a more personal and less universal aura about him. That's just my opinion though.

For the album Oberst went down to Mexico, recording with the Mystic Valley Band, and that's exactly who showed up with him when he played an in-store gig at Ameoba Records in downtown San Francisco this past weekend. They tore through an 8-song set of exclusively solo material (with one Dylan cover, but come on, its Conor Oberst), and it was satisfying to see so many multi-ear-piercing-and-dye-job kids looking disappointed with the adult direction he's taken as a musician and a songwriter. I really hope this is the record to give him recognition as the almost 30-year-old man he is, and not stuck permanently stick him as a teenager who refused to grow up in his songs.

Take a look at the last song of his set, and check out the setlist below.



Setlist:
Moab
Cape Canaveral
NYC - Gone, Gone
Souled Out!!!
Get-Well-Cards
Smoke Signals (Non-album track)
Corrina, Corrina (Bob Dylan cover)
Lenders in the Temple