Brother Ali Truth Is Here (EP) & Us (LP) To me, Brother Ali is the best thing happening in hip-hop by a huge margin. His technical skill, his lyrical content, the production on his albums, and his live performances are all amazing. Also, I love how he releases an EP between each full length that is [...]
Tune-Yards Bird-Brains Come for the amazing syncopated percussion and jangling ukulele, stay for the double-tracked yodeling! From the first track, I knew that not only was I going to really like and jam on this album all year, but that it was going to be a critically important piece of work to me as a [...]
nite jewel good evening (human ear) a strangely divisive album– lurved by the likes of gorilla v. bear, but kinda shunned by the likes of pitchfork. for me, this album gave a warm, human heartbeat to the neu italo-disco jams i had mostly avoided for an overall off-putting coldness. i’ve heard complaints about ramona’s voice, [...]
It would be easy for me to tell you that I loved Neko Case’s Middle Cyclone or that I think The Empyrean was one of the most overlooked albums of the year….and I just did. There is something to be said for a beautifully executed, thoughtful year-end best/worst albums list. However, I’m really not the [...]
(These aren’t in any sort of hierarchical ordering, but numbers comfort me.)
1 She’s not quite everything I want from a balls-out-weirdo-pop-star, but Lady Gaga comes terribly close. ”I want to take a ride on your disco stick”? Disco stick.
2 Dan Bodah’s Dronecast podcast has managed to fit into my neurosis rather nicely. I imagine (well, [...]
From now through 1/1/10, I’ll be posting some year-end thoughts from some pals of mine. I do it every year (08, 07, 06), they’re always good, and this year promises to be no exception.
Me? Glad you asked. I’m busier than ever before right now, doing three things I’ve never done (preparing a syllabus on a [...]
I don’t know if anyone out there remembers this song, but I distinctly recall jamming the fuck out whenever it came on X103 circa 1993 and/or 1994. I had the initial grunge fallout (now in phase 12) to thank for “Kenny and Cleo”, part of a surfeit of bands filling the airwaves with a guy [...]