Favorite albums of 2009 & 1/2, part 2

5. St. Vincent – Actor (4AD) – I had heard on XMU that in composing the songs for Actor, Annie Clark had been watching a lot of Disney movies and that the music from those movies influenced her on this album. I can maybe hear that influence on the music, though perhaps through a filter of quirk and darkness. Don’t let the intricate, mostly pretty instrumentation fool you, there are some dark lyrical moments on this great album.

4. Bat for Lashes - Two Suns (Astralwerks) – This is really not my kind of music. But Natasha Khan on this album is just so damn seductive. Seriously, listen to the lyrics on “Daniel” (Daniel when I first saw you/ I knew you had a flame in your heart) and try not to swoon.

3. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest (Warp) – You get pulled in by the immediacy of “Two Weeks” but stick around for the immaculately produced pop songs the rest of the album has to offer. “While You Wait for the Others” may be even better than “Two Weeks” because of its haunting breakdown.

2. Animal Collective – Merriwether Post Pavilion (Domino) – A culmination of what the band has been building to ever since dropping straight up experimentation in favor of experimental pop on Sung Tongs: a beautiful, nearly flawless experimental pop album. And “My Girls” still kicks so much ass, 6 months later. Why oh why didn’t they have a night set at Bonnaroo?

1. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (Glassnote) – It’s one of those albums where you have a favorite song right off the bat (”1901″) and then you realize the first song they played on SNL (”Lisztomania”) also kicks ass before really listening to the second half of the album and realizing there’s gold there too (”Lasso,” “Rome,” “Big Sun,” “Armistice”). Then they drop the next single (”Fences”) and you realize just how good that song is too. And finally, the two largely instrumental songs you tended to skip at first (”Love Like a Sunset, Pts 1 and 2″) you really start digging. Then finally it hits you: you love the entire damn album.

Others receiving votes: Passion Pit – Manners, Cymbals Eat Guitars – Why There Are Mountains, The Field – Yesterday and Today, Telekinesis! – s/t, Japandroids – Post-Nothing, Vetiver – Tight Knight, The Kingsbury Manx – Ascenseur Overt

 

Favorite albums of 2009 & 1/2, part 1

Last year I did it too early (end of May, only 5/12 through the year) but not this year baby!

10. Miike Snow – s/t (Downtown) – Bloodshy and Avant, Swedish mega producers and members of the Miike Snow, are best known at this point for producing slick pop tracks for Madonna, Britney Spears and Kylie Minogue. However, while their self-titled debut is still very slickly produced, it is more a brand of downbeat, bedroom pop. “Animal,” “Sylvia” and “A Horse is Not a Home” are all great.

9. Dinosaur Jr. – Farm (Jagjaguwar) – Their previous album (and first after reuniting) Beyond made a great initial impression on me but ultimately had no staying power. Farm still has the searing guitar solos, but they are evenly balanced by noise and melody. Check out the great video for “Over It.”

8. Wilco – Wilco (the album) (Nonesuch) – Ok, I’ll admit it: I was off the Wilco bandwagon after the disappointing Sky Blue Sky. Which is odd since Wilco was probably top 2 band for me in college. Wilco (the album) is a step in the right direction because it finds a nice balance between the MOR guitar-based rock (or “dad rock” if you are wont to call it that) and the noisy experimentation the band has been playing with since Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Seeing them live at Bonnaroo certainly didn’t hurt since they are always great live.

7. Future of the Left – Travels with Myself and Another (4AD) – Noise rock trio Future of the Left don’t stray too far from the Mclusky blueprint on their follow up to Curses, but that will never be a bad thing to my ears. This time around they add a more playful vibe as well as a song about *gasp* love.

6. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – s/t (Slumberland) – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are a indie pop band from Brooklyn that play pop songs with a shoegaze sensibility. Look for “Young Adult Friction” on my forthcoming summer mix Seersucker Porn sometime next week.

 

Thursday Music Videos: 7/9/09 summer mix preview edition

Major Lazer – “Hold The Line” ft. Mr. Lexx and Santigold – According to Wikipedia, Major Lazer “fought as a Jamaican commando who lost his arm in a secret zombie war in 1984. He fights vampires and various monsters, parties hard, and has a rocket powered skateboard.” Diplo and Switch produced the album Guns Don’t Kill People…Lazers Do! which is out now.

We Were Promised Jetpacks – “Quiet Little Voices” – The latest scottish band on FatCat, following Frightened Rabbit and The Twilight Sad. Kind of an awful name though.

Miike Snow – “Animal” – Not quite the track that I am using on the mix, but a good one nonetheless. Miike Snow are “a Swedish collective” composed of members Pontus Winnberg, Christian Karlsson and Andrew Wyatt and previously remixed Vampire Weekend’s “The Kid’s Don’t Stand a Chance.”

 

Update: 10 movies I have to watch before I buy again 7/8/09

It took a little over a month, but I have officially watched all 10 movies I had planned to watch. And I held true to my self-challenge and have not bought anything in that timeframe. Yay for me. Now if you will excuse me, I’m off to Best Buy to buy “Eastbound and Down”…

Love on the Run (1979) - 7/10 – The final chapter in the Antoine Doinel cycle goes out with kind of a whimper. It utilizes flashbacks from the previous four chapters, but inventiveness and playfullness is pushed aside in favor of a more traditional, linear storyline. In it, Doinel divorces Christine, reconnects with Collette (from “Antoine and Collette”) on a train, and eventually ends up with a younger woman named Sabine (oddly enough with some help from both Christine and Collette). Doinel stubbornly refused to grow up over the duration of the cycle, and emotionally doesn’t end up far from where he started as a 12 -year old kid in The 400 Blows. Kind of a let down after the excellent previous two chapters.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (BD, 2008) - 9/10 – I admit I haven’t seen a ton of David Fincher movies, but after Benjamin Button and Zodiac, I am starting to become a convert. Button parallels Forrest Gump in many ways, telling a story of a special boy/man who weaves his way in and out of his true love’s life while taking on different roles and jobs (including service during war) along the way to growing up (relatively speaking for Benjamin Button). A sprawling and epic film, I really enjoyed The Curious Case of Benjamin Button quite a bit.

That Obscure Object of Desire (1977) – 8/10 – This movie was the last film of spanish-born, surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel, and was nominated for an Oscar for both Best Foreign Language Film as well as Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium in 1979. It retains some surrealist elements by using two beautiful actresses (Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina) to alternately portray the different temperaments of Conchita (the titular object of desire). She tortures a middle-aged man named Mathieu (played by Buñuel regular Fernando Rey) who is enamored with her. She constantly plays hot and cold with him, always keeping sex at arm’s length before they ultimately appear to end up together shortly before a somewhat surprising ending. I don’t know if I would necessarily recommend this movie to any of my friends, but I found it to be certainly worth watching. Don’t know that I needed to buy it a couple years ago, however.

Have now watched (in order):
Salvatore Giuliano (1962)
A Skin, A Night (2008)
The Underneath (1995)
The Bad Sleep Well (1960)
Antoine and Collette (1962)
Stolen Kisses (1968)
Bed and Board (1970)
Love on the Run (1979)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (BD, 2008)
That Obscure Object of Desire (1977)

Previously: 6/24/09 update
Previously: 6/10/09 update
Previously: Original Post

 

Tuesday Trailers: 7/8/09 Wednesday edition

The Informant – Another movie from the ever-prolific Steven Soderbergh, this one on the heels of The Girlfriend Experience. This one looks to be significantly more farcical and whimsical, say in the veins of a Coen Brothers movies (Burn After Reading perhaps?). Should hopefully be a nice change of pace, though I still need to catch The Girlfriend Experience.

Big Fan – The directorial debut from Robert Siegel, who wrote The Wrestler. Based on the trailer, this appears to be just as bleak and/or depressing. It is a movie about an obsessive Giants fan, still living with his mother and working a thankless job as a tollbooth operator, who gets assaulted by one of his favorite Giants players. He then has to face whether he places his pride or fandom as a priority (I’m getting all of this based on the trailer). Could be interesting.

Couples Retreat – From the Jon Favreau/Vince Vaughn/Peter Billingsley team who recently brought us The Break-Up in 2006. Great cast that includes Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau, Jason Bateman, Kristin Bell, Kristin Davis, Faizon Love, Malin Akerman, Ken Jeong and Jean Reno. Hopefully it will be more than a basic romantic comedy.

 

Linkdown: 7/7/09

- AV Club’s Better Late then Never: Do the Right Thing

- 14 movies to see before you die, according to Adam McKay and Will Ferrell (via PopWatch)

- “Friday Night Lights” to possibly end after two more seasons in 2011

- NY Mag examines HBO’s summer trio of programming of “True Blood,” “Hung” and “Entourage”

- A live set from Animal Collective from last year’s Pitchfork Music Festival

- Download a song from the Sigur Rós sideproject, Riceboy Sleeps

- Interview with Ed Droste of Grizzly Bear

- New Air song “Do the Joy”

- Vulture speculates on how “Lost” is going to end

- Speaking of “Lost,” Brian K. Vaughn has left the show which I am not exactly happy about

 

Netflix Rundown: June 09

A bit of a slow month for me. Three of the four were watched instantly…

Zach Galifianakis: Live at the Purple Onion (2006) – 8/10 – After watching Galifanakis kill it in The Hangover, I was pleased to see that he had a stand up special available to watch instantly on Netflix. Part stand up special, part travel documentary and part interview with Zach’s twin brother “Seth” (played by Zach himself), the stand up is the main attraction with Zach and a piano at a comedy club, berating guests and delivering his hilarious one-liners and characters. Highly recommended if you enjoyed his character Alan in The Hangover.

Cocaine Cowboys 2: Hustlin’ with the Godmother (2008) – 3/10 – Awful, awful, awful. And from the same creative team that brought us the excellent Cocaine Cowboys doc, which makes it that more disappointing. This tells the story of Charles Cosby, who became the premier drug dealer in the California bay area by becoming a f***-buddy of Griselda Blanco (aka The Godmother from the first film) while she was in prison in California. Would have been interesting as a much shorter special feature on the first dvd (as it was intended) instead of a boring, drawn out 2 hour documentary.

The Wackness (2008) -  6/10 – Josh Peck mumbles his way through early 90’s slang in this film about a weed dealer striking up a friendship with a shrink while wooing his daughte- in-law the summer after high school graduation. Sir Ben Kingsley is that shrink (and is awesome) and Olivia Thirlby plays the daughter/object of affection. The best thing about this was the soundtrack of early 90’s rap and hip hop – think Biggie, Tribe, Craig Mack, Nas, and Biz Markie. However, after this movie, I am officially calling a moratorium on the use of Mott the Hoople’s “All the Young Dudes” in indie movies for 2 years.

Bottle Shock (2008) – 6/10 – Great premise, but the movie itself did not deliver. Based on the true story of how Napa Valley wines got on the map by winning a blind taste test outside of Paris in 1976 (known as the “Judgment of Paris). Pretty decent cast, but overall the movie was a bit boring.

Currently have out:
United 93 (2006)
The Good German (2006)
Spaced: The Complete Series: Disc 1 (1999)

 

Thursday Music Videos: 7/2/09

Dirty Projectors – “Stillness Is The Move” – I’m still deciding if I like Dirty Projectors. Not sure I like this video, though, with the chick singing directly into the camera and the synchronized dancing and the fact that the YouTube description states that the video “features siberian huskies and rare llamas.”

Chairlift – “Bruises” – Their US television debut, on Craig Ferguson. Caroline looks as hot as I remember her from Bonnaroo. Sweet hoodie, too.

Dinosaur Jr. – “Over It” – Great, great video with the band members skating and biking (and sometimes falling down) their way all through town. It should put a smile on your face.

 

Bookdown: No.9

9. Naked by David Sedaris (1998, 224pp) – Another set of memoir-style essays from humorist David Sedaris, this time focusing on his childhood and family growing up in Raleigh, NC through his graduation from college. The book is similar in style to both Me Talk Pretty One Day or When We Were Engulfed in Flames.

The only misstep for me was the chapter “c.o.g.” relating to his time spent in Oregon picking apples and eventually apprenticing with a jade clockmaker. As opposed to the final, similarly lengthy chapter “naked” that focused on his week spent at a nudist colony, “c.o.g.” seemed to drag on. Besides those two chapters, the others were mostly easily-digestible, with several laugh out loud moments you are accustomed to from reading books by David Sedaris.

It took me a little longer to read this than it should have, partly because I was focusing on other pursuits in June. I hope to be able to sit down more often with my next few books and get through them much quicker. At the halfway point of 2009, I have read 9 books which is unofficially far more than I have read in any other year of my life. And this is something I feel pretty good about.

Next up: Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby

 

Tuesday Trailers: 6/30/09

The Limits of Control – Jim Jarmusch’s latest film. I haven’t heard great things about it.

Food, Inc. – An interesting documentary that examines the current state of food in the U.S. From the YouTube description:

In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that’s been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment.

“Mad Men” season 3 – This is a “comedy trailer” for the upcoming season. While the show is clearly not a comedy, it does have its moments (especially by John Slattery, who is almost always awesome in every scene).