#9: Alligator

The National: Alligator
From one NYC band to another (and tourmates, no less)... As I mentioned in a previous column, I will always associate Alligator with one of the more bizarre experiences of my life, which is reading Raymond Carver stories on a beach in Rincon, Puerto Rico after my last round of law school exams, having deciding to go there on a half-drunken whim and riding largely on the dime of a friend. I'm not sure, but i think it's fitting.

The National's work conjures what I would call, were I a bad community college professor, the "modern urban human condition." This consists of: (1) regular but unstimulating work, (2) intellectual pursuits outside of regular work that are satisfying but rarely pay, (3) being social and "going out," even if you don't want to, because that's how people here meet other people outside of the cubicle world, (3a) drinking, (4) the simultaneous over- and under-importance of the little things in day-to-day life, and (5) enough time to reflect on all of it. I can't believe I just wrote that. I'll stop now.

#10: Z

My Morning Jacket: Z

Dear My Morning Jacket,

In the recent past, like after It Still Moves came out, I referred to your band as "okay" and "pretty good" a lot. Thanks to Z, it won't happen again. Sorry about that.

Fondly,

Sound of Nonsense

#11: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah are fast becoming the seminal work on why it doesn't often pay, from a dollars-and-cents standpoint, to be involved with a music label today. Though I knew Clap Your Hands Say Yeah was driven by self-pressed records and self-distribution, I still felt like I was in the middle of a full-court promotion press, at least the likes of which Matador or Sub Pop can conjure up.

How so? Because so much of the so-called indie rock scene is driven by a handful of music review websites, good press is everything. And Clap Your Hands Say Yeah had plenty of that. Two other things to consider: First, in an age of internet downloads, could it be good to not, at least initially, be associated with any of them? (According to NPR, the band makes $4 on each album sold... unheard of). Second, as is mentioned in that article, having a goofy name that you have to think about to say correctly helps...

I've read that the band doesn't like to discuss nor point out any influences, but I think musically, an obvious comparison is to a staple of indie worship, those Talking Heads (Byrne's vox, especially). They aren't there yet, but this, their first real release, gets stronger as it goes along. So much so in fact that if I were the label exec accustomed to frontloading records with the "goods," I would have perhaps sequenced it completely backwards. I definitely wouldn't have started with "Clap Your Hands." Or should an album get better as it goes along? And in any case, in the DIY world, who can fault them for doing whatever they want? What a concept.

#12(a): Cripple Crow and #12(b): Lookaftering

Devendra Banhart: Cripple Crow
Vashti Bunyan: Lookaftering
I feel like I can cheat and make this a list of 26 in this instance, because without Vashti Bunyan, there may be no Devendra Banhart, and without Devendra Banhart, we may not have the return of Vashti Bunyan.

Devendra Banhart has been a busy man over the past couple years, cranking out two excellent acoustically-driven folk albums last year alone. Cripple Crow sees him expanding in all directions--packing songs into one long album, adding other instruments including an electric guitar, singing in Spanish, and generally hopping genres like a bizarro-folk version of Badly Drawn Boy's The Hour of Bewliderbeast. The cover suggests that another reference point is Sgt. Pepper's...

A frequent topic on Cripple Crow is childhood, and two of its poppiest tracks, "Long-Haired Child" and "I Feel Just Like a Child" are masterful and memorable. The mother of Banhart's children is certainly Bunyan, whose one album in the '70s, Just Another Diamond Day, went from obscure toidol of hipsterfolk. The prevailing sentiment of Lookaftering is time-honored wisdom, and Bunyan exists to me, fairly or unfairly, as a female version of Nick Drake that outsmarted death, and instead just went away for a while.

#13: Set Yourself on Fire

Stars: Set Yourself On Fire

Set Yourself on Fire Pre-Recording Checklist:

-Belle and Sebastian & Delgados records
-Pretty boy vocals, Prettier girl vocals
-Nearly every song "single-worthy" but one real standout ("Ageless Beauty")
-Oh, Canada! (How ye pop/rock us into oblivion!)
-Death Cab records from when they were good
-Lyrics of love scenes as if directed by Cameron Crowe
-Beautiful, if heavy-handed, production
-Indie credentials from other reputable bands
-Heart on sleeve*

Check. (*received bonus for both sleeves)


(Again: Don't tell me this album came out in 2004. I don't live in Canada. Yet. [looks in Amy Millan's/President Bush's direction])

#14: Anniemal

Annie: Anniemal
There was a time, everybody was around, and I was dancing with you. We all went down to the party Friday night and had a drink there or two. Oh what a hit of a loving heartbeat--that's electricity. Majestic sound, round and round and round, glad you're next to me.

Feel my heartbeat. Trembling to the beat like a symphony.
Feel my heartbeat. Trembling to the beat like a melody, come see.

Time after time, everybody came around, and I was dancing with you. Don't know your name, making me ashamed to feel the way that I do. The lights went out, couldn't be without, it was a place to be. I won't forget, greatest times ahead, when I was dancing with you.

Feel my heartbeat. Trembling to the beat like a symphony.
Feel my heartbeat. Trembling to the beat like a melody, come see.
Feel my heartbeat. Feel my heartbeat. Feel my heartbeat. Now.

(Read: "Heartbeat" changed my life. And don't tell me this CD came out in 2004... I don't live in Europe. Yet. [looks in Annie's direction])

#15: Tournament of Hearts

The Constantines: Tournament of Hearts
Work. It comprises at least 40 hours of most of our weeks. There really aren't that many songs about work though, and that's where Tournament of Hearts comes in. I have been without work for a few months, so maybe that's why this album has really gotten inside my head lately. The Constantines sound like they have been told to find "real" jobs by friends and family so many times that they will kill the next person who tells them to do the same. Voicing another, Bry Webb sings "Soon enough, work and love will make a man out of you," and follows that up with a song called "Working Full-time." That's right, you've got yourself a full-blown blue-collar record. (I recently discovered that the album cover is a rip from a Youngbloods LP...)

So, work and love are all we've got, both in U.S. and Canada, it seems. And maybe fear. "Love in Fear," a great track with Webb's gravely leads and its organ flourishes, comes close to the greatest moments of Shine a Light, the band's 2003 release that is always in heavy rotation for me. I can honestly say that the Constantines are one of my favorite bands because they have no rockstar qualities, just a reverence for Crazy Horse and a hard-drinking, hard-earned sound for which I am always in the mood.

(Also: decent interview with The Constantines here.)

#16: Some Cities

Doves: Some Cities
Here's the deal: Doves are a good, not great, rock band. They do nothing particularly well; much has been made elsewhere of frontman Jimi Goodwin's gruff vocal stylings, and I also personally don't exactly like their live shows, which usually feature videos playing behind the band. Then why have I been to see them twice, and would go again? Why did I listen to Some Cities just as much, if not more, as any other disc this year?

Doves are nothing if not hardworking and consistent. I thought Some Cities was below the standards of The Last Broadcast, but I was way wrong. It has the the same requisite anthems and ballads of their previous work, and their sound, in my opinion, keeps getting more polished. My favorite moment on the album is the noisy, siren-esque guitar solo on "Sky Starts Falling," (see Last Broadcast parallel "Pounding"), which is a beautiful energetic release to close the album. Some Cities confirms that, for anyone studying for any major exams right about now, you cant go wrong with Music-->Artists-->Doves-->All.

#17: Akron/Family

Akron/Family: Akron/Family
Magical stuff, this. I liken these neo-hippies to a more rurally-inclined Animal Collective (though I have no idea where they are from, except that it's not Akron) , and their first self-titled album is worthy of that comparison. The album starts out with a set of pastoral interludes, but then gets into more traditional song structures. "Running/Returning" is definitely one of the best songs of the year, and "Lumen" and "Shoes" are gems as well. I have yet to get a copy of their recent disc with Angels of Light, but am certainly looking forward to it, and much bigger things from Akron/Family...

#18: The Runners Four

Deerhoof: The Runners Four
Crazy, spastic band makes most accessible record to date. Singer is like Inuyasha or something. Rest of band sounds like what the White Stripes would sound like if they weren't regurgitating '70s riffs--dirty, funky, sometimes spacy, but always incredibly catchy. "Wrong Time Capsule" is my favorite Deerhoof song, perhaps followed by its follower, "Spirit Ditties of No Tone." No offense to "O'Malley, Former Underdog" either. I was not a big Milk Man fan, but when I'm in the mood, The Runners Four is sublime.

#19: Wilderness

Archer Prewitt: Wilderness
There’s a line between John Mayer or James Blunt (who is this guy? He needs to be beaten with a crowbar) on the one hand, and Ron Sexsmith or Elliott Smith on the other. I’d say it’s a fine line, because that’s the cliché and it’s often hard to explain the differences between the two, but it’s not “fine” at all. It is instead usually painfully obvious, and of course, all-important.

Archer Prewitt, formerly of The Sea and Cake, had me on board with his fourth and best solo album at “We can survive on the canned goods / We can survive if we rationed it right,” a line a few minutes into the opener “Way of the Sun.” The first three songs on Wilderness, culminating with the lovely “O, Ky,” each draw on Prewitt’s prowess—writing songs with familiar, beautiful melodies but with unconventional elements of form. The Pitchfork review hit the nail on the head here--the codas and "bridges to nowhere" so common in classical music are usually nowhere to be found in indie rock. Prewitt uses these devices to create original acoustic ballads. It's not that hard, Johnny boy.

The second half of the album becomes darker in lyrical content and tone (“Think Again,” “Cheap Rhyme,” “Wilderness”), yet the songs continue to build and evolve, often changing from major to minor and back again. Prewitt's authentic-sounding songs don't merely repeat themselves, they actually each become something unique. The beauty and complexity of Wilderness suggests I'll be listening to it long after 2005.

#20: Push Barman...

Belle and Sebastian: Push Barman To Open Old Wounds
Now, let me get one thing straight. There is no "new" material on this disc, just a bunch of the greatest quiet-epic-pop songs ever recorded. Yes, it's tough for me to put it on this list, let alone over new stuff. But it's a list of my favorites of the year and I hadn't heard it all before, so, while it doesn't do much for me as an album per se, it is still an collection of Scottish band's best. How many bands can put out some of their best stuff on an EP compendium? As a B&S fan, I am thankful for Push Barman. But then again, I am thankful for any album that includes "Lazy Line Painter Jane." It's the classic B&S song--boy/girl harmonies, handclaps, etc. Dreamy. The demo version of "The State I Am In" shimmers, just as it did on Tigermilk.

I would also like to take this time to personally attack anyone who has ever personally attacked The Boy With the Arab Strap. Recognize. Arab Strap rules. They have done nothing bad. Belle and Sebastian is indie rock.

#21: Let It Die

Feist: Let It Die
Especially in comparison to some of the albums on this list, Feist's Let It Die is the 2005 release you could comfortably listen to with your mother. It's beautiful, it's radio-friendly, it has a great BeeGees cover. It could conceivably be filed under "adult contemporary." You say all of that like it's a bad thing.

The drop-dead gorgeous Leslie Feist is an indie rocker at heart--she's now officially in Broken Social Scene (and sang "Almost Crimes," kids) among other projects. But every song here is so incredibly catchy that stuff like "Mushaboom" and the Ron Sexsmith cover "Secret Heart" should eventually land her on mainstream radio. Let's hope it's not "lite favorites," because a lot of this disc is make-out music of the highest order. She gives more soul to the BeeGees' "Inside and Out" than the brothers Gibb ever could, and somewhere in her croon of "Now I know what I don't want / I learned that with you..." on the title track, she seems to be pleading with the world to make her the pop star that she deserves to be.

#22: Broken Social Scene

Broken Social Scene: Broken Social Scene
I’ll be the first to admit that after 2003’s You Forgot It In People, I eagerly anticipated this record only to have it be a mild disappointment. Sure, it was full of more fuzzed-out guitars than I could possibly count, but seeing these songs live didn't drive me crazy either. "I should like this," I thought to myself, "but there's something about it I can’t quite fall in love with." It was a nice good-looking girl, but something's just wasn't quite right.

Turns out she was underage. Eventually, this album turned itself onto me, and legally. The first rocker, "Ibi Dreams of Pavement" is not their best work, and I judged a lot of the record by its not-so-subtle approach--the polar opposite of You Forgot It In People. But other driving anthems like "7/4 (Shoreline)" and "Fire Eye'd Boy" are among their best work, and I really hadn't listened to the album all the way through to reach the closer "It's All Gonna Break." Despite clocking in at almost ten minutes, that track's Replacements-meets-Dinosaur Jr. appeal leaves the album, and my opinion of BSS going forward, on a high note. As they say in the ads, some things are worth waiting for.

#23: In Case We Die

Architecture in Helsinki: In Case We Die.
Seeing a band live when you like them, but don't love them, can be a real deal-breaker. Such is the case with my Architecture in Helsinki experience. After seeing them live, I'm convinced that they know how to rock and are destined for some sort of goofy greatness.

They aren't there just yet. They make a challenging brand of pop music that has the occasional grating section, but with more than enough moments of brilliance and exuberance to make up for the misses. Like the band at #22, with their extremely large contingent of players, the possibilities of what AiH can do intrigue me the most.

In Case We Die is first and foremost a pop record, complete with singles like "It'5!," "Wishbone," and "Maybe You Can Owe Me." But it feels like a cohesive pop opera, a gingerbread-house saturday-morning-cartoon musical. I can't recommend In Case We Die for everyone, but this mess of a record, by a whole mess of crazy Aussies, has grown on me like a fungus. A psychedelic multi-colored mushroom, perhaps.

#24: Ruby Blue

Roisin Murphy, Ruby Blue.
I like to think I was on to Roisin Murphy from the beginning. Moloko's "The Time is Now" seemed to be playing as soon as I stepped off the plane at Heathrow in the fall of 2000. Even their second and more straight-ahead single "Sing it Back" did it for me. That voice... so seductive.

So Murphy's now out on her own, but not alone. Electro-guru Matthew Herbert provides the diverse beats, stripped down and, rare in the dance-music world, delicate. "Sow Into You" and "If We're In Love" are the clubby anthems (and contenders for single of the year), but most tracks here showcase Murphy's lyrical lovey-dovey, making it a very hot hookup album for you twenty-somethings out there. "Through Time" is one of many to kick Norah Jones' sweet ass.

But unexplainably, this disc became a big part of my experience taking (and passing--yay) the bar this past year. Like watching Blind Date or Aqua Teen before bed (both of which I often did) this took me away from what I was doing and where I was, which was holed up in my apartment in NoVa or in lovely Ontario, CA for five days... so Roisin, I thank you for that, if nothing else. That and intelligent female electro-dance music that makes self-conscious white men dance.

#25: In the Reins

Iron and Wine/Calexico, In the Reins.
You've got to start somewhere, so I'll start small with an EP. As if the guy needed a stage name (Iron and Wine) and as if his previous work suggested he needed a backup band (the excellent-in-their-own-right Calexico), Sam Beam has moved ahead and knitted another timeless set. Though only seven songs long, each track on In the Reins is a slight embellishment on Iron and Wine's recipe, made possible by Calexico's instrumentation. The muted trumpet in "Burn That Broken Bed" for example creates Beam's first urban-sounding folk tune. Pedal steels, horns, banjos, harmonica all play prominent roles throughout the album. It's really just more of a good thing. But the best instrument, Beam's hushed voice, is still rightly the centerpiece.

The EP's creamy filling--tracks 3-5--is worth the price of In the Reins alone. "History of Lovers" is a most straightforward rocker, complete with full horn section to carry it home. "Red Dust" is the evolving Southern-revival stomp (with some Don Henley-sounding keys), and "16, Maybe Less" is the tearjerking ballad. A pristine sequence.

Really, for all I know, Beam has a stash of long-lost recordings from some 1940s would-be folk-blues legend that he is slowly ripping off. But I doubt it.

Sea Change

So... the last few weeks have been tumultuous for yours truly, to say the least. Erin and I packed up our apartment and moved and cleaned and moved and cleaned... But a cross-country relocation to San Diego with her was put on hold for a job interview in NoVa... I moved in with two brubbers of mine from college for the time being... I am undertaking a side outlet as a music reviewer on Stylus... in all, I essentially left Erin to the sea-wolves and Sound of Nonsense got ignored like cleaning behind the refrigerator. Yes, my priorities are all messed up.

But I am back and hope to have some time to do what I promised--a run down of my favorite 25 albums from this past year. Music is very important to me... and I want to highlight those moments in certain songs from this year where I get goosebumps, teary-eyed, or considering throwing up the sign of the beast until my better judgment kicks in.
And a post a day! more bang for your cyberbuck. Such grand ambition the world has rarely seen. Especially used for good instead of evil.

XOXO, Pete