Early in July Brad Roberts gave you his picks for the best music of the first half of 2012 and we promised you a Part II. Summer is lazy; there are lots of shows to see. After a little vacation, here are my album picks for January to June of this year. This is not a comprehensive list--there are far too many albums released for one person to absorb everything--but it's an opportunity to point out some of the best music we’ve heard this year with a focus on emerging acts and live music.
Rademacher - Baby Hawk (Part III of III)(Self released, 2012) Baby Hawk III is simply the record I’ve wanted to listen to more than any other this year. Malcolm Sosa’s songwriting is unparalleled, but it is his chemistry with his band (particularly Kim Haden) and effervescent production from Josiah Mazzaschi at the Cave Studio that lifts the Baby Hawk trilogy above all earlier Rademacher records. Impressively, Sosa's lyrics create expansive visual imagery with very few words. “We were all drunk and dreaming/popcorn on the ceiling” from “Who Knew Love” might be one of the most evocative turns of phrase I’ve heard this year. The instrumentation and production on Baby Hawk III percolate up through the songwriting, setting loose the tracks to be something that compels you to roll down your car window and sing out to the summer sky.
Auditorium - Nights Worth Living (EP) (Self released, 2012) There are so many good things going on here. Spencer Berger as a one-man show is an enormously talented songwriter and vocalist, but he’s also not afraid to be uncool, or more precisely, to be unhip. Free to geek out in both writing and arrangements, Berger fills these songs with tremendous heart and humor. “The Sex Offenders” could be the most wrong thing written in a song except that it rings true and very funny. “There's a bunch of sex offenders living down the street from me/ But I guess if they've found forgiveness in the law/ Then there's probably some hope for me.”
Japandroids - Celebration Rock (Polyvinyl, 2012) Sometimes music at its most essential is a physical thing. It’s the way guitar strings and vocal chords vibrate, sound waves push through the air. It’s the heavy weight of damp sweat in the air, bodies so close together at a show that someone else’s saturated t-shirt slides against your skin. It’s about raw release. Music like this doesn’t care about beautiful construction--just holding itself together enough to shout along, raise a first, and push toward the front of the stage. Go for broke sound, all guitars and exhilaration. Japandroids call it Celebration Rock.
The new album by TorchesHeads Full of Rust immediately strikes me as an album tailor made for long drives though the desert in the middle of the night with the stereo on high. From the first shimmering guitar line of the appropriately named “Out of the Desert” you feel the need to just get out of where ever you and find someplace where you can scream at the top of your lungs “someone let me out of here.” You can almost see the endless road stretching out before you as make the midnight run through the middle of the country.
The kinetic single of the album “I Want Something” is a perfect follow-up song to this. The song grabs you by the shirt, and the catchy chorus will have you screaming out the window. By the time you get to “Silver Haired Girl” the band starts to show a bit of its more mellow side. It seems that somehow they almost distilled all the best parts of another LA band, Film School, but instead of keeping the dreamy guitars up front they tend to keep the songwriting a little more grounded and the vocals to the foreground instead of buried which is the tactic most other dream pop bands seem to do.
The middle of the record tends to slow down a bit from the rush of the beginning of the album but this isn’t so much a bad thing as by the time you get there you don’t even notice that it has happened. It's one of those albums that you listen to and somehow start drifting off into your own thoughts only to be taken in by a great line, a well played tasteful drum beat, or harmonized boy/girl vocal part done in that classic California way. It’s almost as if you don’t listen to the record so much as drift or lilt though it.
The is book ended by great songs that almost like a tasty desert after eating the main course in the spacey instrumental track “Whine” and the dreamy rim shot staccato beat of the song “Six” which almost has a certain goodbye quality to it. I would say that Torches really have a well-put together album and stand poised to take the California dream pop title away from all comers.
I suppose of there was any case to be made against the record is the way a few of the songs bleed together in the middle of the album, but I suppose the same case can be made with most bands that have a distinctive sound. If you are like me though and enjoy shimmery guitars, driving staccato beats, dreamy vocals, and bass lines that don’t so much follow the song give it a sense of tension then I think you would enjoy this record thoroughly.
Genre-defying Little Red Lung came to us not through Zoë-Ruth Erwin, front and center of the project, but because of drummer Nathan Kondor who also plays with RFSL faves George Glass. George Glass is dyed-in-the-wool boy rock—the pleasure in the music is in seeing how far down and around the block a guy can take a guitar line. It’s like trading baseball cards, beauty in the detail and knowledge of minutiae, which on its own terms is an excellent, but quite distinct flavor.
Little Red Lung, who release their self-titled EP at The Satellite tonight, is something else entirely. It’s about the broad epic sweep of sound, aural space not as a small soundproofed practice space, but a sweeping cloud-churned landscape that requires a wide horizontal expanse. The self-titled EP is dramatic and orchestral in its breadth and ambitious in its construction. Credits include strings, brass and a percussion section of marimba, glockenspiel, vibraphone and woodblocks in addition to drums. These arrangements evoke a deep dark velvety chocolate night, a gypsy feel with a nod to Devotchka, the 7”, 45 rpm operas of Roy Orbison, and the windblown moors of Kate Bush.
You’d swear that Erwin has the kind of voice you’d have if yours would only cooperate. Her vocals play as an instrument, their power to convey emotion in restraint--to connect with the listener by holding back, rather than through a struggle against the body to get a sound and a feeling out. On songs like “Ink Blot” and “Into a Landfill” lyrics are ambiguous, yet rich with imagery that suggests misinterpretations, miscommunication and love gone wrong, and in “Into a Landfill” a wish that the narrator could have identified deal breaking flaws a bit earlier in the story. This is an outstanding record from a band that is not afraid to be itself, ambitious and unreserved.
For those who have long been endearing devotees of Eastside darlings RACES, the day has come for the release of their highly anticipated full-length Year of the Witch. The six-member outfit originating from what was supposed to be a one-time jam sesh among musical pals that unexpectedly turned into a collaborative wunderkind of fortutious songmaking has created an album that does not disappoint.
A follow-up to their 2011 EP, Big Broom, YOTW is the band’s first album under Brooklyn’s Frenchkiss Records and offer s a handful of fresh tracks and there’s a bit of room to breathe, and space to experiment and toy around with.
Highlights include “Year of the Child,” a brief opener and gentle prequel of sorts to the title track, a sampling of sorts crescendoing harmonies and lush string patches. Lead singer and guitarist Wade Ryff and the bright vocal stylings of Breanna Wood complement one another magically. “Song of Birds” is rooted in more traditional sensibility of a modern rock ballad, with a playful sound patch that resembles the mimicry of birds. “Lies,” threaded with an expansive, lush guitar melody, is one of my favorites. There’s also a sterling recording of “Big Broom,” their signature hit and one that was on steady rotation on local airwaves and music clouds alike. The one they made that memorable music video of. You know, the one where they’re all smushed up and cozy in a sea of colorful balloons.
The 12-track record highlights the dense textures, organic writing, and seamless harmonies that make up the band's signature sound. There's a bit of wistfulness and an understated lyrical quality to their music, without reeking of oversentimentality. And as accomplished as the album is for RACES, there's really nowhere to go but up.
Year of the Witch is out and is available for purchase at Insound, Amazon, and your local friendly neighborhood music shop. A few tracks are available for streaming on their bandcamp page.
RACES will be celebrating their album release with a show this Friday, March 30th at The Echo with Living Things and Incan Abraham, followed by a handful of shows on the West Coast.
I first got wind of Echo Park denizens NO when they opened for RACES at The Bootleg a few months back. The place was scattered with regulars and perfect nobodies such as myself with the usual yearnings for some solid live music on a weekday night. Enter NO, a cadre of lanky bearded fellows who took to the stage in the form of a tangle of slender arms swaddling guitars. The short set they played that evening was tremendous, and their expansive sound seemed to occupy each inch of the venue with a somber, moody tenderness.
NO's EP, Don’t Worry, You’ll Be Here Forever, released last November, is a fistful of tracks that are both intricate, brooding, and elegalic. Fronted by New Zealand native Bradley Hanan Carter and his bandmates Sean Daniel Stentz, Joseph Sumner, Reese Richardson, and Mike Walker, the five-piece has written sophisticated musical compositions like only veterans of indie rock can.
While some debut EPs feel like iffy experiments and unformed songs, with the band seeming to struggle to come up with a specific sound or intent, NO’s EP could comprise the first half of a full-length album and almost under-reaching, as if they have yet to fully showcase their capabilities. With its enigmatic lyrics, delicate textures, and morose, temporal quality is a not-too-far-off nod to The National, but has its own stylistic flourishes.
The opening track, “Another Life,” lead vocalist Hanan Carter’s low, expressive tenor bears is grounded in a gentle rhythmic current. Highlights include “Big Waves,” one of my favorites on the album, briefly starts with a field recording of shouting children at play, and is saturated in faded brightness. “Stay with Me,” the last track, is a man recounting his faults amiss in deep pool of reflection and regret, trying to hold on to what remains precious to him. "Coming Down" is awash in a swirl of dream-inspired lyrics and is tethered by a recurring pipe-organ melody.
Listening to these tracks is like coming across a long-forgotten diary in an abandoned basement. A vivid tapestry of aural vignettes, in which each song seamlessly carries a narrative arch and is tangible and emotive. What pervades throughout Don't Worry, You'll Be Here Forever is the lingering notion of hope and promise.
NO has a Monday night residency at The Echo for the entire month of March. The entire EP is available for streaming on their BandCamp page. A limited run (only 500 copies were made) of vinyl copies are available for purchase at Origami Records.
Jordan Hudock was one of the first people to approach me when I started going to local shows back around '06 and '07. He and Vivien Cao helped me fish my wallet out of the fountain at Boardner's one night back at a "Let's Independent!" event in early 2008. Vivien posted a short blurb on her blog at the time, Nineteen Thousand Pages, about "Superfan Brad: He's Someone To Know" (March 2008) and we formed a bond. I'd been toying with the notion of starting a blog, but that convinced me and shortly thereafter I began Feed Your Head.
Even then I didn't know that Jordan was a musician with a band called Marvelous Toy, he was just someone I met in clubs and chatted with, as happened with many others who I later learned were in bands. Had the same experience with Matthew Teardropand Rob Danson, who I got to know long before I'd even heard of Manhattan Murder Mystery or Death To Anders.
It was a completely new experience for me to come to a band "ass-backwards" so-to-speak and know the musicians before I'd heard a note of their music. Thank god their bands were so good I never had to avoid anyone to keep from saying "Your band sucks". (And everyone knows how hideously cynical and nasty I can be.) I remember going to Crane's Hollywood Tavern (now gone) one night to hear Marvelous Toy and the relief I felt when they turned out to be, not just good, but incredibly good.
By Staff Here's the second part of RFSL staff's report on favorite records and live shows of 2011, picks from editors Brad Roberts and Kathryn Pinto.
Brad Roberts, Senior Editor
Favorite Albums of the Year 1. Rob Crow - He Thinks He's People I know people will say, "Oh he's crazy about Pinback anyway..." and it will be of little surprise, but my favorite album of the year popped up unannounced and unexpectedly near the end of the year in October, and it caught me off guard. Rob Crow is such an amazing musician, but I wonder if his greatest talent is in songwriting. Virtuoso guitar and wonderful singing are to be expected, but this is such a varied collection of unforgettable, melodious and structurally complex compositions, subtitled 13 Depressing Pop Hits!, that I don't know where to begin. So I won't. Just go buy it, listen to it and be seduced by it. It hits so many sweet spots it's nearly orgasmic I long to see it in concert.
2. Okkervil River - I Am Very Far This one came across like a ton of bricks from the first listen.
By Staff Earlier Silver Lake and LA bands told us about their favorite records and live shows. This week, in two parts (Part 2 later this week), the staff of Radio Free Silver Lake wraps up 2011 with our take on the best of the year.
Seamus Simpson, Contributor 10. Danger Mouse & Daniel Luppi – Rome & Javelin – Canyon Candy (tie) These are two of the greatest instrumental albums I have heard in forever. One the fake soundtrack to a spaghetti western and the other the old west re-told through the eyes of a robot
9. Raphael Sadiq – Stone Rollin’ Awesome new-style old school R&B
8. Rademacher - Babyhawk (Pt. I & II) Umm, a little close to the bone Silver Lake, and that’s why it’s an amazing inside joke as well as a great album
Last week brought you our staff picks for favorite albums of the year. We also asked Silver Lake and local bands for their word on the year’s best releases: albums, EPs and songs. So here is what we heard from: the Californian, Geronimo Getty, Geoff Geis, George Glass, Death to Anders, Seasons, the Spires, Wendy Wang and WALK. (Photo of Manhattan Murder Mystery from DirtyHippieRadio.com)
John Graney - The Californian
Albums: St. Vincent: Strange Mercy For me this is the first time in my life where the perfect album came out at exactly the perfect time. It's impossible for me to explain how much I love this album. I feel like to talk about it and dissect it too much is to take away from its strongest point, which to me is that it's just fucking rad any way you slice it. "I make a living telling people what they want to hear, and I gotta tell ya - it's gonna be a champagne year".
Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble: Mr. Machine I really do love getting my mind blown out the back of my head. This shit is too cool. It has long been my opinion that the best dance music comes from outside the dance music world. I love how these guys just put together a rag tag chamber orchestra and had them churn out awesome dark dance beats and disjointed counterpoint madness.
Timber Timbre: Creep On Creeping' On No need to explain why this album is amazing. All the things that make a good album? They did all of those things. Did them all very very well. It's freaking haunting and beautiful.
The Black Keys: El Camino I feel like every time I listen to The Black Keys my ass gets fatter. And I appreciate that. This record is super duper solid. Pop music is really in a bad way right now. If it is ever going to recover it needs good bands like this killing it real hard.
Aaron Kyle - Geronimo Getty
Songs: Bill Callahan “Riding for The Feeling” My favorite record of the year.
We all wear our hearts on our sleeves here at Radio Free Silver Lake, so it's easy to guess that our favorite albums of the year were the ones we spared little or no hyperbole for in 2011.
But to save you time digging back through earlier posts, we’ve compiled a list of what we consider the best releases by LA bands over the last twelve months.
We’re still listening to post punk act Manhattan Murder Mystery’s self-titled release like it came out just yesterday. If we could only convince people to check out one album from an LA act in 2011, this would be it.
"Smoky Mountain" is probably the album's brightest gem, full of lyrics that are smart, funny, and catchy and equal parts art and completely punk rock at once -- but lines from "Trailer Trash," "I Always Think About Dyin'," and "Ambulance" get stuck in your head for weeks or months.
The members of Red Cortez emerged from several months of woodshedding with a new sound and a new project rechristening themselves Just An Animal. Already a force to be reckoned with as a live band the foursome closed out 2011 with danceable upbeat record that is catchy as hell.
With this new album, “dynamic mope rock” groupOne Trick Pony delivered a recorded release as impressive and varied as their fantastic live performances. Opening tracks "Knives so Sharp" and "Get Over Yourself" hook from the start, while songs "Diagonal Waves" and "Crepe Hangers" break your heart in the most upbeat possible way and "Andrew Jackson" is worth the trip for its chorus alone.
This band gave some of the best live performances we saw all of this year and this album of five songs shows off their range and uncanny abilities as indie-pop songwriters. What's even more encouraging is that in concert they perform more songs that aren't here and they are every bit as good as these five. Their superb vocal work is beautifully recorded here.
5) RademacherBabyhawk, Part I of III (Self-Released)
This tale of a fictitious rock band almost “making it” in the Silver Lake scene and beyond quickly became habit-forming... The rich detail in the lyrics has a real ring of authenticity and wonderful melodies reveal a deep appreciation of classic rock styles. When we think "summer of 2011,” we think of this album.
Indie act The Californian makes music that combines crooning, Sergio Leone-style western film soundtracks, and Dick Dale surf rock with decidedly crush-worthy results. You’d be hard pressed to find a song on their debut that’s anything less than absolutely charming.
WSM lead Carl Jordan is a virtual maestro at weaving surprisingly complex arrangements with just a handful of tools. Evoking a strong American Southwestern atmosphere, the tales of life on the road offer more plain-spoken, unpretentious observations aided by the lilting and very catchy melodies. And seeing the songs brought to life by a full band at their November On The Rox residency showed off the material's durability.
If more music critics listened to albums three or five or twenty times before writing, this album would be on everyone's Best Of list. Poplar Avenue is about things revealed slowly, the sweetness hidden by bluster, the strength of the ensemble behind a frontman.
Angela Correa lives on top of a steep hill in Mt. Washington that has a panoramic view (metaphorically at least) of the musical landscape of all of Los Angeles. From this vantage point Correatown takes in everything and recombines these styles with Correa's own perspective as a songwriter to create a brilliant amalgam. There are songs on this record more playful pop than anything coming out of Silver Lake in a long time.
10) A Tie for:
One AM RadioHeaven Is Attached by a Slender Thread (Dangerbird)
Every track on electronic pop group One AM Radio’s latest release sounds like a single. There’s no filler whatsoever. The songs are widely varied, but are catchy as hell to a man and either hummable or danceable. Synth pop that melts the mopeyist heart.
The sniff test on this EP (a sneak peek of their next album due next in January) was when it was go-to getting ready in the morning music every day of a particularly tough work week. If you say that Jordan Hudock is one of the best front men in LA, while true, it shortchanges the rest of his band. Seemingly without effort they create the musical structure that lets loose their band leader.
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