Hypocrite Listener 2010 Music Honors

Carlos D. Memorial Award for Sickest Bass Playing on a Rock Album:  Tame Impala, Innerspeaker

Runner Up:  Ariel Pink, Before Today

Sickest Bass Playing on a Non Rock Album: Cosmogramma

The Steven Ellison Genius Grant for Releasing Not One but Two Mindblowing Next Level Releases in One Year Because He’s Just Like That: Flying Lotus

Ice Cold


Award for Good Album Intractably Marred by Questionable Vocal Affectations:  Baths, Cerulean

Post-Dilla Postal Service
Runner up: Salem, King Knight

Most Rewarding Questionable Vocal Affectation:  Sam Herring, Future Islands

Ryan Adams Award for Free Download That Is Somehow Still a Waste of Money and Space: Girl Talk, All Day

This Asshole...

Best Apotheosis of Self Via Disjointed Paranoid Confessional Ramblings From an Artist Emerging from Self-Imposed Exile After a Previous Full Length’s Lukewarm Critical Reception and Amidst Talk of Said Artist Becoming a Parody of Himself:  Destroyer, Archer on the Beach

A cosmonaut in a breadline, etc.

Runner Up: Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Best Jump to Relative Hifi:  Beach House, Teen Dream

Deep blue pools of sexy melancholy

Worst Jump Back to Relative Lofi: Spoon, Transference

The less said the better

Best Production on a Lofi Release: Tie, Women, Public Strain and Ariel Pink, Before Today

The Wayne Coyne “If I was going to do shrooms, I’d want to do it with this guy” Award:  Dustin Wong

Best Chillwave Album Not Classified As or Affiliated With Chillwave:  Javelin, No Mas

Slept on

Stephen Malkmus Award for Best Song Imbued With a Humble Tossed-Off Perfection That’s Almost Infuriating Because You’re Pretty Sure It Was Written on the Spot:  Kurt Vile, I Got Religion

Best Moment to Be Justin Vernon, Or It Would Be if This Was All Recorded at Once: Monster

Nobody knew I was a muthafuckn monstah, nobody but Ye

Hello Internet, long time...

Jobs right? Either you can't get one, you hate the one you have and can't get anything else, or maybe you like your job but it isn't paying you shit. Or maybe it's just a control thing, the work's not that bad, they pay is more than enough but damn, will I ever have a say in how shit get's done around here?
So, I have several 'jobs.' I have my day job at the MCA. It's great, really can't complain. I love the museum, I really like my coworkers, the day to day responsibilities aren't very taxing, and I usually feel pretty good about life at work. The rub: it's three days a week and I make let's just call it not-a-whole-lot an hour. Then there's a paid gig with my alma matter doing sound design work for theatrical shows. Again, wow, what a great gig. I can work mostly off my laptop using some of my more technical and creative skills, I get paid, get to help put together a piece of collaborative art every semester. The rub: it's emotionally draining, and I don't know why. I get throw-shit-against-a-wall temperamental during the last two weeks of rehearsal no matter the show (usually not at rehearsal, although I'm afraid that one day I will just snap). And a career in sound design would probably mean a career in theatre, which is for better or worse, a world that still feels foreign to me. Long story.
Then there are two internships, one with Gallery 400 and one with Thrill Jockey. Again, wow, what the fuck right? Both are fantastic. At the Gallery, I'm learning and developing a skill set, I'm meeting so many incredibly talented people, I get to be intellectually engaged with work. Fucking fantastic, not getting paid. And Thrill Jockey, let's put it this way, if I was independently wealthy and never had to work again I would still come in on Monday to put records together at the office. The rub: neither pays, and at this point anything resembling a personal life has been obliterated. This has lead to some awkward over sharing, TMI, and just dicking around at my jobs because, well, I barely have any personal time.
Now, don't get me wrong, the last six months of my life have been incredible. I took on more than I could handle and I've handled it. Maybe not A+ handled it, but much better than my usual average. I feel much more capable than before, much more aware of myself and my limitations. But my schizophrenic schedule has left me with the same question, what do I actually want to do with my life. And my answer is still, well, everything.
Or be a musician. That's always the real answer, be a musician. I'm not going to get into the bloody details of why I am one but don't really consider myself one although I've always kinda been one no matter how hard I try to be one or not. It's really like saying to myself, I want to be a Christian. I am one, but I'm not really one you know, don't go to church enough, am too critical of the church at large, feel uneasy with how it makes others feel, etc. But like, I am one, sorta kinda. I just really don't feel good about calling myself one and then having to take on all the responsibilities of being one. With music, it's more like, I don't thing I'll ever be able to pull it off, like I'm staring down a series of failures and panic attacks and puzzled looks and yeah, not a whole lotta bread.
You know that slow moaning thing some people can do with their voice where it almost sounds like they're purring. Like a square wave slowed down so much that all you hear is clicks. I've caught myself making that sound a lot without realizing how long I've been at it. It's like the sound of an old hard drive when it was processing too fast. But I'm processing nothing, just making sound to soothe my own brain. I've started dancing and head bobbing a little too emphatically when listening to music in public lately. I'm doing that half assed literary speak thing where I pick up little idioms and poetic expressions that don't fit me at all and carelessly toss them around until they lose their intended effect. I wonder how far off I am from catching myself singing "Turtle Island" in a broken falsetto at work while staring blankly off into space. It's then when I think, man, I'm never gonna make it. Adults with responsibilities don't do that shit. Who am I trying to fool?

Songs:
Beach House-Gila


Gives me the shivers, that little two note guitar line just kills me. My Beach House obsession is not waning.

Round and Round-Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti


So, I never was really into Ariel Pink. I saw a disastrous set at U of C years ago where we dubbed his band Tears for Suck. But hey, he's still going isn't he, and apparently improving. I guess it's a sin to diss his earlier material now that his aesthetic has taken off in certain circles, but fuck that aesthetic. I like the self assured production values Arthur Russel cribbing way more.

Flying Lotus-Robo Tussin/A Milli Remix


This has been around for a while, but I felt like posting after seeing Flylo at the Double Door, which was absolutely amazing. He's a consumate performer who knows how to get a crowd moving with sheer enthusiasm. He dropped this one and everyone went crazy.

Sorry for the mixed up embed formats, the internet is being a pain in my ass, and I'm too lazy to find a solution.

Effusive Praise for Beach House

"I'm going to warn everyone right now, I'm not going to shut up about this band"
    If there is one reason that music is always near the top of my list of priorities, it's because of the specific intangible feeling I get when I first fall in love with an album.  I say album here because as much as falling for a song is worthwhile and even at times transcendent, there is nothing on this earth like falling hard for a set of songs and listening to them ad nauseam just to extract (strangle) every bit of excitement out of it.  It's comparable to every rotten cliche about falling in love I know, and though it falls short of the excitement of a new relationship, falling in love with an album is rarely a regrettable decision. 
    Let it be said that I have unequivocally fallen like, deeply in love with Teen Dream.  From the first morning I listened to it on a blustery train ride to work to just the other night when Victoria Legrand sang me to a deep and satisfying sleep, it's been hard to tear myself away from these songs.  This isn't like falling for the cute girl in the sweater sitting alone at the cafe, this is like meeting someone you feel like you've always known and feeling a little scared about how comfortable you feel around them.  This is talking about the meaning of life at 4am while trying to fight back sleep so you can watch the sun come up.  This is looking back at the loves in your life and still not having all of the answers, still not being able to draw simple conclusions from them.  Why am I telling you this?  Because I have a hunch that if you're not into falling in love, you're probably not gonna be too into this album.  And that's kind of a damned shame.
    Let me make this clear before I continue to blush, Teen Dream is coherent, it's chalk full of surprising melodies as well as deft and tasteful instrumentation.  It builds off the strengths of their previous work while striking out into new territory.  The critics agree, this is a good album.  It isn't a reinvention of the form, it isn't going to contain too many sounds you've never heard, and I really don't think anyone's going to laud the complexity or virtuosity of the band (with exception to Legrand's golden set of pipes).  CMG even went so far as to call the instrumentation "staggeringly uninventive" in an otherwise positive review.  And there's nothing much resembling an extra-textual/conceptual/meta gesture anywhere on the album, so let's agree that it's sincere, that what you're hearing can be judged prima facie.  Now, I think this is interesting.  A band who's work is not just more interesting than the halo of discussion surrounding it, but a band that is almost devoid of the kind of baggage that initiates the rite of instant backlash.  I can't imagine being embarrassed about my love for this record in say three weeks when they have a meltdown in Spain.  The band has proven it's worth quietly for years now.  Sure, there's always the chance for hipster hatred, though Baltimorons don't seem to suffer the same ire as their Brooklyn counterparts.  And there will be those who dismiss anything this pretty as trite, but they're not really worth arguing with.  So what we have here is a rare record that stands to be judged without the noise of hip politics or the tiresome cockfights of who's more avant-garde.  Hopefully. 
    So for me, the only question left for to ask is this: are you or aren't you in love with this album?  If not, whatever, we'll talk later.  I'm not going to waste time trying to convince you.  This isn't like my love for Women or The Dirty Projectors where I feel like I'm defending my favorite sports team, always discussing the finer details of what makes them unarguably great.  This time I just feel bad if you can't get with this.
    And for now, why not leave it there?  You can be sure this band is going to pop up on this site in the future and be forewarned not to mention this album around me if you don't have some serious free time on your hands.  But please, give this a serious listen.  I don't think you'll regret it.