Missouri in Winter

This week on Friday Night Music we'll feature two bands with Zach Condon.

His main band is Beirut and its music combines Eastern European sounds with dark pop sensibilities that are akin to The Magnetic Fields. He recently released the outstanding The Flying Club Cup.

Beirut - Nantes

Condon also lends support in the way of trumpet and ukulele to Alaska in Winter, Brandon Bethencourt's project that was spawned during a cold winter in Alaska.

Alaska in Winter - Close your Eyes, We are Blind

Plus, you'll hear over seven minutes worth of awesome from Citay.

Citay - On the Wings

You can listen to Friday Night Music this Friday the 7th from 10:00pm-midnight on your old-timey radio, or here on the blog next week.

I Wanna Rock (Band)

Music rhythm games (or you can just say Guitar Hero and Rock Band) are huge right now and will no doubt make up a significant portion of holiday sales this year. They are a source of fun and an alternative to destructive activities for many, but others look at them with disdain and tell the guitar hero’s of the world to “go learn guitar.”

I don’t know if this says anything about guitar players in general, for I have never heard dancers complain about Dance Dance Revolution nor have I heard intergalactic news reporters complain about Space Channel 5.

Those of us that play these games know that they’re games and I don’t think any of us believe that we can play guitar because of them; no more than we’d think consuming certain flowers would give us the ability to throw fireballs or taking certain pills would allow us to eat ghosts.

For me, I think it’s a different way to experience music. Typically, I listen to music while hiking, driving , or crying by myself. The difference is when I’m playing Guitar Hero I attentively look at a monitor and as I listen I hit a sequence of colored buttons more or less in time to the music. That kind of tranced out concentration to a guitar line opens up places in the music that I’ve never experienced before.

Would it be preferable for me to listen to music, without the plastic controller? I’m not versed in music theory but I found that beating “Hanger 18” on hard was way more challenging than listening to it. Isn’t it ok for me to believe that a person who has 5-stared “One” on expert has more skills than someone who has simply listened to it? Even if the experience does not compare to actually playing guitar, surely there’s something there that goes beyond simply listening, and I think that I’m entitled to that experience.

Maybe guitar players feel that they deserve the accolades that a skilled GH player often receives. A recent concert I attended had a Guitar Hero 3 contest and the winner got to go on stage and play a song off of the game. It must have been an awesome experience for him, the sound was pumped through the concert speakers, as loud as any concert I've seen, and the crowd was cheering him on. I can only imagine how low his heart must have sank when the entire crowd went ohhhhhhhhhh when he finally missed a note. Or how hard it must have been pounding when the crown roared when he made it through that impossible solo.

I wish I could have talked to that guy because if he’s like all the other great Guitar Hero players I know, I think I know his secret behind his finger-melting skills. He’s probably a guitar player.

Jason

Video Killed the Video Star

It looks like Metallica may premiere their next single on rhythm game sensation Rock Band.

http://www.gigwise.com/news.asp?contentid=39080

Rock Band could very well be the next radio or music blog. eep.

SEPR's Favorite Indie Albums of 2007

Jason and Jacob, co-hosts of Southeast Public Radio's Friday Night Music, like to make lists. Jason often makes a list of nicknames for Jacob; Jacob often has a list of people that call him "Jason." Sadly, both noticed that recenlty they were pacing about listlessly. In need of lists, they decided to make a list of their favorite albums played on Friday Night Music from 2007.

Disclaimer: These are not the "Best of 2007." These are Jason and Jacob's favorites from 2007. It's all dependent upon personal taste. We're still working on a formula to determine a "Best of 2007" album. No doubt that formula will contain logarithms and inverse functions for f(x). If you have a personal favorite from 2007, please post it on this blog.

A second disclaimer: These favorites are very indie rock-centric. If you're looking for country, classical, or mainstream rock...you may not agree at all with these selections. Give 'em a try. You may find something new that you like.

Jacob's Favorites from 2007

10. Artist: Spoon
Album: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

If Spoon ranks as #10, then you know it’s been a good year for music. Britt Daniels and company returned to form in 2007 after the disappointing Gimme Fiction (to me, at least). Spoon maintains their signature minimalist composition and tight rhythm section, now augmented by a horn section and more production trickery. The result could be Spoon’s best album to date.

Listen to The Underdog

9. Artist: Feist
Album: The Reminder

Leslie Feist is the singer that you heard on that iPod Nano commercial. And that Verizon commercial. Turn on the TV, and you’ll doubtlessly find her music. The Reminder is her fourth album under the name “Feist” and was one of the most commercially successful indie CDs of 2007. A member of the Canadian collective Broken Social Scene, Feist composes some great pop gems such as “1234,” “My Moon, My Man,” and “I Feel It All,” and also does a great cover of Nina Simone’s “See-Line Woman,” renamed “Sea Lion Woman.”

Listen to Sea Lion Woman


8. Artist: Mocean Worker
Album: Cinco de Mowo!

Many of the albums on this list are rather grim affairs. Not Cinco de Mowo!, the fifth album by Adam Dorn under the moniker Mocean Worker. Dorn cuts and splices samples and adds live instruments to create an exciting jazz sound that gets even the most rhythmically-impaired dancing. Herb Alpert brings his trumpet to the party, and singer Alana Da Fonseca adds vocals on the Portuguese-sung “Que Bom.” Que bom, indeed.

Listen to Shake Ya Boogie

7. Artist: The New Pornographers
Album: Challengers

Challengers, the latest release from The New Pornographers was criticized for being a slower, less exciting album than previous albums by the Canadian supergroup. If one disregards the band’s earlier work, and listens to Challengers as its own entity, it is a delicate work of beautifully orchestrated pop. A.C. Newman still composes the best hooks in modern popular music, they’re just not as straightforward as on Mass Romantic, Electric Version, or Twin Cinema.

Listen to Adventures in Solitude

6. Artist: Maps
Album: We Can Create

Maps is James Chapman, a native of Northampton, UK. We Can Create is a bedroom project recorded on 16-track recorder without the help of computers. The layers of synthesizers and guitars, under Chapman’s understated vocals, are reminiscent of My Bloody Valentine. We Can Create is at times majestic; at times so quiet it is barely audible. All in all, it is one of the best debut albums of the year.

Listen to So Low, So High

5. Artist: Josh Ritter
Album: The Historical Conquests of...

A few years ago, Conor Oberst was supposed to be the new Bob Dylan. Now the “new Dylan” is supposed to be 31-year-old Idahoan Josh Ritter and there could be something to that.

Ritter is often labeled as a singer/songwriter or folk artist, but The Historical Conquests of… is a rock album. From the Dylanesque opener “To the Dogs or Whoever”, to the squeals of feedback on “Real Long Distance” or the swagger and horn blasts of “Right Moves,” this is rock n’ roll through and through, on the same level as Springsteen or Spoon.

Listen to The Dogs or Whoever

4. Artist: Jesca Hoop
Album: Kismet

From the simple guitar plucking of “Enemy” to the almost-pop of “Intelligentactile 101,” all of Hoop’s arrangements are just slightly different, and distinctly her own. Like Radiohead’s In Rainbows, Jesca Hoop has a good backstory to accompany her album. Raised in a strict Mormon family, Hoop had limited access to popular music growing up. Her family was musical, though, and she grew up singing with her siblings. For a while she was Tom Waits’ nanny, and he helped her land her recording contract. As with In Rainbows, hopefully the backstory will not obfuscate the majesty of the music.

Listen to Havoc in Heaven

3. Artist: Radiohead
Album: In Rainbows

The return of Thom Yorke, Johnny Greenwood, et al, was once again revolutionary. They released In Rainbows without a record label through downloads from their website and by naming your own price. Where OK Computer challenged traditional rock n’ roll song structure and Kid A and Amnesiac made guitar-based music look obsolete, In Rainbows takes the music business to task.

But what about the music itself? In Rainbows could be Radiohead’s finest collection of songs since OK Computer. It’s the first album since that seminal CD that Radiohead has found a comfortable balance between Yorke’s fascination with IDM and laptop music and Greenwood’s incomparable skills as a composer. Pieces such as “Reckoner” and “Jigsaw Falling Into Place” showcase both musician’s combined strengths.

Listen to Jigsaw Falling Into Place

2. Artist: Of Montreal
Album: Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?

Kevin Barnes, Of Montreal’s lead circus-master, produced his most artistically complete album in 2007, the cumbersomely titled Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? During the process of writing Hissing Fauna, Barnes was temporarily separated from his wife, and his inner anguish comes through in his intensely personal lyrics.

If that all sounds pretty depressing, it’s really not. Of Montreal coat this bitter pill in a sugary chocolate coating of electro-pop candy that’s as bouncy and carefree as the lollipop guild. Along with his lush arrangements, Barnes sews together hummable hook after hummable hook on each track. The result is a juxtaposition of personal crisis with fairy tale arrangements that make our own personal difficulties seem all the more surreal.

We Were Born Mutants Again With Leafling

1. Artist: The National
Album: Boxer

The National use a simple recipe: a whiskey-drenched baritone, muscular drumming brought to the front of the mix, and melodic guitars chiming in the background.

It takes repeated listening to really cull the beauty out of this collection of songs. Boxer does not rock. It paces itself slowly, never getting ahead of itself. Whereas on lesser rock albums, distortion pedals and wailing vocals would mark each song’s culmination, The National prefers to take its time and let each song unfold on its own.

As an album, this is the most complete release of 2007. Each track moves effortlessly to the next, with no filler or one song that stands apart from the rest. Instead, the album as a whole transports you to a rainy New York night, walking home unnoticed by friends under the silvery Citibank lights.

Listen to Mistaken for Strangers

Other really good albums from 2007: Manu Chao - La Radiolina ; Cloud Cult - The Meaning of 8 ; Iron & Wine - The Shepard's Dog ; Band of Horses - Cease to Begin ; Caribou - Andorra ; The Sea & Cake - Everybody.

Jason's Favorites of 2007

10. Artist: Freezepop
Album: Future Future Future Perfect

I discovered this band first through Karaoke Revolution, the video game that combines singing with the harsh criticism of a sober machine. Band member Kasson Crooker is the audio director for the music game company Harmonix, who developed said game. Freezepop has made the cut for a number of Harmonix games including Frequency, Guitar Hero, and Rock Band. The music is hip and nerdy and the 80s could only wish that it had it.

Listen to Ninja of Love

9. Artist: Sunset Rubdown
Album: Random Spirit Lover

This one definitely takes some time to get into. It’s weird. And epic. And I think there’s a definite payoff when you give it a chance. The lyrics are almost impossible to make out and reading them doesn’t provide me with any clarity. However, the music alone makes this strange journey a worthwhile one.

Listen to The Mending of the Gown



8. Artist: Okkervil River
Album: The Stage Names

This is what a Bright Eyes album could sound like without the filler (oh yes, I went there). It’s Americana but it also rocks and the literary lyrics are delivered by Will Sheff in a manner that conveys emotion without being overbearing. This is the ideal soundtrack for cold days and horizons with bare trees.

Listen to Our Life is not a Movie or Maybe

7. Artist: White Rabbits
Album: Fort Nightly

Every time a song of off this album hit on my shuffle I had to stop what I was doing and find out what was playing. It’s like an updated version of the saloon music that you hear in old Westerns.

Listen to Kid on My Shoulders





6. Artist: Arcade Fire
Album: Neon Golden

This is a really good album, and I know that it’s probably going to be a lot higher on other lists. If this was their first album, Funeral, it would be number one on mine. As Jacob and I were saying, it probably has individual songs that are better than anything off of Funeral (“Black Mirror,” “Intervention”), but as a whole it just doesn’t make the cut.

Listen to Black Mirror

5. Artist: Devin Townsend
Album: Devin Townsend Presents Ziltoid the Omniscient

I used to be kind of a metalhead and still exhibit some symptoms of that particular condition. Devin Townsend is the mad scientist behind Strapping Young Lad, which achieved becoming the heaviest band ever by turning heaviness into a joke. His solo work is a bit mellower but still rocks and his latest project, Devin Townsend Presents Ziltoid the Omniscient is a concept album about an alien who comes to earth seeking out the perfect cup of coffee. The album meanders from the heavy to the hypnotic and if you find a better album sharing this concept, please post to the comments.

Listen to Hyperdrive

4. Artist: The National Lights
Album: The Dead will Walk, Dear

This album is like listening to someone whisper an awful secret. These are soft country murder-ballads that conjure up vivid imagery unparalleled by anything else I’ve heard this year. You have to pay attention, though, or it will sound like nothing more than a slight breeze and you’ll miss everything.

Listen to Swimming in the Swamp



3. Artist: Rock Plaza Central
Album: Are We Not Horses?

Jacob pointed this record out because he knows that I really dig Neutral Milk Hotel and the similarities in style are certainly there. This is a concept album about robot war-horses who think that they are ensouled biological horses who are entitled admission to Heaven. If you find a better album sharing this concept, please post to the comments.

Listen to How Shall I to Heaven Aspire?


2. Artist: Fall Out Boy
Album: Infinity on High

This is something that you might think falls under the category of “guilty pleasure” but I don’t feel guilty about liking it. Patrick Stump’s voice was made to leap out of earbuds, and Pete Wentz’s lyrics are staggeringly clever. If this is what kids are listening to these days then I’m optimistic about the future, or the future of music, anyway.

Listen to The Take Over, The Break's Over

1. Artist: Of Montreal
Album: Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?

I really dig this album. It is simultaneously weird and accessible. Kevin Barnes lyrics are very personal and it’s no secret that he was separating from his wife at the time (in fact, she’s called out by name). I think this makes for a much more compelling record than your typical vague “oh, it’s 100 different songs to 100 different people” approach.

Listen to Cato as a Pun


Other really good albums from 2007: Minus the Bear - Planet of Ice ; Maritime - Heresy & the Hotel Choir.