Part 2 of the Essential Sounds of 2007 Mixtape: The Ethreal Sounds of 2007: Buried in the Planet. Enjoy!1. The Angels of Light: "Goodbye Mary Lou"
"Goodbye Mary Lou" may not be the best song on We Are Him and it may not be my favorite but I definitely feel that it is the most intriguing. The triple guitar/mandolin attack twists, turns, and intertwines an almost malevolent melody that is just as aggressive and angry sounding as Michael Gira's vocals and lyrics. The song is a kiss-off (or perhaps piss-off would be better) to a old lover that reaches it's peak as Gira, rather nonchalantly states exactly what he wants Mary Lou to do to herself. But after all the insults and anger, the song ends with "Mary Lou: I forgive you". What the story behind this song is an why he chose to end it this way is, like so many of Gira's other songs, a mystery. Even after 25 years of steadily releasing music (10 albums, 13 EPs with Swans, 9 solo albums, 7 albums with Angels of Light, talk about prolific!) Gira still finds a way to write good creative songs and reinvent himself stylistically with each release.2. Frog Eyes: "Idle Songs"
Let's face it: Carey Mercer and company's music is weird. Mercer's vocals are weird, his lyrics are weird, and the bands arrangements are weird. In this case though, weird also carries the subtexts of totally freaking awesome. Mercer's voice is delightfully bizarre as is bends and twists his vocal chords at some points while muttering and almost whispering some other parts. The band creates unhinged, almost prog (almost) keyboard and guitar mayhem that creates just the right amount of discord to suit Mercer's vocals. The combination of the two is so chaotic that it seems like the song, and the band members minds, are just on the very very edge of completely falling apart.
3. Beirut: "In the Mausoleum"
Beirut's debut Gulag Orkester had one big problem: Zach Condon's lack of experience in writing large-scale arrangements. His basic structures were better than ok, they were great but once the full band started to come in things got messy. Since then, Condon has grown and learned to the point that he can write grand, epic arrangements nearly perfectly. With the aide of the great violinist and arranger Owen Pallet (of Final Fantasy) doing the strings Condon has created a masterpiece of epic arrangements. The horns and strings layer upon each other and intertwine to create a dense and stirring soundscape that works perfectly with Condon's vague and often indecipherable lyrics. The whole listening experience truly is that: an experience. Just like the best story or movie, Condon's music transports you to another time and place.
4. Grails: "Dead Vine Blues"
Grails have, over the course of six albums have developed a style of psychedelic folk that burrows heavily not only from American folk music but from folk music around the world. The eastern influence has always been there, buried deep with the layers of acoustic guitars and violins. Finally the influence has been able to spring forth completely as the band fully embraces the sounds of the orient. Sometimes they do with sitar but other times they do it with their same basic setup of bass, acoustic guitar, drums, and percussion. It is in these moments that not only does the bands talent, skill, and creativity shine, but also their genius. Much in the way that Calexico uses the same instruments to summon forth pictures of the Mexico, Grails brings you straight to Arabia, or India, or China and they do it without the use of local instruments or musicians, a feat that shouldn't be passed over lightly. Imagine how much easier it would have been for them to perform this song on sitar to get an easier effect? Instead of taking this route they opted to take time and care to find the perfect guitar tones and notes to bring you this effect. It's a achievement that is easy to never think of but hard to forget.5. Le Loup: "To the Stars! To the Night!"
It has often been said that there is beauty in simplicity and it is very true that if an artist can create a work that is all the artists intended and is aesthetically pleasing, but also remains uncluttered and simple then it truly is a thing of beauty. Le Loup creates a gorgeous musical landscape by using essentially some banjo and a collection of human voices. The banjo is divine, intertwining with itself before opening up into the songs beautiful melody. The group vocals work so perfectly with the banjo, they sing is unison “To the stars/to the silver scars that mark the night” and it sounds like ancient Greeks singing praises to their Gods in the sky in some stone circle on a dark midnight thousands of years ago. Le Loup's music fits into many different genres, sometimes they're folk, sometimes they're indie rock, sometimes their noise, sometimes their abstract experimenting, sometimes they sound like a solo project for Sam Simkoff, and sometimes they sound like the octet that they are. Regardless of their variations, they always sound beautiful and creative. Their music inspires anyone discouraged with the state of music today the somewhere out there there are a new generations of artist who can create a new movement of creativity and wonder in music.6. Thee, Stranded Horse: "Swaying Eel"
For a genre that was essential founded and perfected by an incredible guitarist, indie folk is certainly full of crappy and/or really lazy guitarists. Sam Beam, though I love him to death (sometimes...) is unfortunatly one of those of which I speak, I mean sure we know it's about the lyrics and your way-too-hushed vocals but could you please play more than the same couple of notes over and over? If you wish to hear a acoustic guitarist with massive amounts of talent but who doesn't fall into the instrumental genre ala Jack Rose, John Fayey etc then you must travel to France. Yahn Encre is sort of what everyone says Jose Gonzalez is. He plays nylon guitar and kora at lightning quick speeds near the end of this song, some of them to the point that you have trouble believing that it's just him, but it is. Besides the obvious difference in their skills, two other things that seperates Encre from Gonzalez is his lyrics and vocals. While Gonzalez's lyrics range from average to embarrassing and his vocals are nothing special, falling into the completely average pile of "hushed" vocalist who really just use this technique as a disguise for their lack of vocal talent. Encre on the other hand has a voice that in some points sounds almost evil. It sounds slippery and smooth, like the devil might have sounded as he convinced Eve to sin. His lyrics also follow this type of abstract existentialism and at some points go from trippy to twisted without missing a beat. 7. The National: "Slow Show"
There's something magical about a song that shifts everything: tempo, mood, style, rhythm, everything effortlessly and perfectly with no problem what so ever. The change about three-fourths of the way through "Slow Show" is one of those changes. The music changes completely and the lyrical content ("Looking for somewhere to stand and stare/I leaned on the wall and the wall leaned away/Can I get a minute and not be nervous?" to " You know I dreamed about you for twenty-nine years before I found you") changes aptly with the mood from dark to semi-hopeful. Matt Berninger is one of the best lyricists writing today and with this song he has really struck a very personal chord with me. So personal in fact that I wouldn't hesitate to say the the first couple lines of the song could have been written about me. I leave you with them, for lyrics like this speak for themselves far better than I ever could attempt to do: "Standing at the punch table swallowing punch/can't pay attention to the sound of anyone/I made a mistake in my life today/everything I love is lost in drawers/I want to start over/I want to be winning/way out of sync from the beginning".8. David Thomas Broughton: "Weight of My Love"
David Thomas Broughton's voice just reeks of epic grandness, but he'd never quite utilized it to it's fullest on past albums, sticking to quiet folk arrangements accented with jagged noise stylings, but with his collaboration with fellow British musicians 7 Hertz. 7 Hertz's bring a large scale string section into the mix to turn Broughton's acoustic guitar tracks into huge ten-plus minute chamber-folk epics. But no matter how much the music has improved, the songs greatness begins and ends with Broughton's vocals. He has a truly unique, it's not at all easy to describe at all except that it bares a slight resemblance to an extremely melodramatic, operatic-trained David Byrne. But even that barely scratches the surface.9. Michael Cashmore & Antony Hegarty: "How God Moved At Twilight"
It's an interesting and totally unplanned coincidence that two of the most unique vocalist ever are right after another on this mix. Antony Hegarty's voice is perhaps a little more normal that David Thomas Broughton but Antony Hegarty's silky delivery and sandpaper-smooth vocals are every bit as grand and fantastic as Broughton's. Although Hegarty is usual making music with his normal band Antony and the Johnsons, he found some time this year to collaborate with the man behind classical/electro/folk project Nature and Organization, Michael Cashmore. On this song, gentle piano and glossy strings provide a stunningly simple yet beautiful background of music. The interesting thing on this track is that instead of being just a vehicle for Hegarty's vocals it instead focuses just as much on the music, almost all the latter half of the track is instrumental.10. Islaja: "Laulu Jo Menneesta"
Islaja, or as I like to call her the Scandinavian goddess, makes some of the most shocking and abrasive freak-folk you'll ever hear that also happens to be some of the most beautiful. Finland's greatest export's music isn't loud or distorted of even sharp sounding, it's just abrasive but it's impossible to describe why. Now it's not abrasive in that it hurts your ears but that it is hard to penetrate it at first. It takes time for the true genius of the music to show itself. The first time through you'll hear a variety of instrument, including ones you don't recognize, all played gently and off-kilter, nothing sound right at first. Once you penetrate the dense sounds and odd structures you'll find a genius in abstract construction and arrangement. One thing that will never be disputed about Islaja is that her voice is fantastic, she is possibly my favorite female vocalist, mainly because she gives me the sensation that I'm being lead through a woodland by a fairy in a Finnish folk-tale.11. Pamela Wyn Shannon: "O Bittersweet Dear Madeline"
There is something very antiquated about Pamela Wyn Shannon's music. Her take on folk is very medieval and earthy and Shannon is sort of a bardess, if such a thing ever existed. Just take the first five seconds of the song, already you hear a high, citern sounding guitar and a pan-pipe like instrument that together sound very much like classical and medieval folk. Her vocals are so elastic that she can stretch from high notes to low accents within a half-second without breaking voice. The lyrics too have an air of the olde about them, she creates characters and scenes that sound something like a tale of King Arthur's court, telling a story about a naiad or some ancient fairy.12. Promise and the Monster: "Killing Fields"
If you're anything like me, you've probably at some point in your life sat around thinking "what kind of a serial killer would Joanna Newsom be?". For those of you have wonder this, I have something to share with you that may, just may shed some light on these deliberations: Promise and the Monster aka Billie Lindhal, a Swedish folk princess who shares similar ground with Newsom without being a plagiarists of her style. Even though Lindhal's weapon of choice is an acoustic guitar, not a harp like Newsom, they both still share the same babyish cooing vocal style. Unlike Newsom, who sticks to fairy tales and tricky word play, Lindhal's lyrics are much darker and malevolent. Although this particular tune doesn't carry some of the homicidal energy of some of her other songs, the dark themes and ideas of death. In this case it's the death of nature and of a home, but dark ideas are still there. "Killing Fields" is a dark and twisting path through enclenched woodlands of macabre sentiments. Your guide on this journey may seem ill-suited for the trip, but rest assured she is an able companion.13. Emily Haines: "Rowboat"
There is nothing more revealing into the life of a band-bound musician than the aesthetic qualities of their solo projects. The way in which an artist presents themselves when they are the only factor to take into account tells the listener more about the artist than they usually consider. For example, Dustin Kensrue's solo work is a down-home folk-country offering full of spirituality, much like Kensrue himself. Emily Haines solo work is a far cry from the sweat soaked new wave of Metric, it's is a gentle, tame, almost sedated affair that at many points contains just Haines and a piano. On "Rowboat" a leftover from Haines Knives Don't Have Your Back Haines sings sweetly over a piano line that bares a distinct resemblance to drifting down a river. The addition of swaying brass aides this sensation and the melody of it is one of the treasures of 2007. It is a beautiful, subtle melody the lulls you into a stupor with it's shear gorgeousness.14. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy: "I've Seen Everything"
Will Oldham is, to put it plainly, one of if not the most admired musician that I listen to. His career is nearing two decades and fourteen full-length album (plus several dozen EPs and singles) in length and he's only 37. He's released some of the best albums of the last twenty years, including one of the 5 best albums of the 90s I See a Darkness. By his third album he had perfected his lyrical and musical craft yet he somehow, with each successive release he has improved and expanded his skills. But with the release of a covers EP this year, Oldham has proved that he is not only the master of his own craft, but that of others too. It is rare that a cover of a great song surpasses the original, but Oldham has done it seven times, and none more dynamically than with "I've Seen It All". The song, originally written by Bjork and performed as a duet with Thom Yorke (talk about a dream team) for the soundtrack of "Dance in the Dark" an arthouse flick. The song is a lesser known gem in both musicians repertoires which are both plentifully supplied with gems. This cover however, strips the song of the big beats and strings down to simple essentials, leaving Oldham's worn and ragged vocals to tell a tale that fells so real coming from someone like Oldham. You truly get the feeling that Oldham has written the song about himself, although nothing could be further from the truth. Maybe Oldham realized how much this song would resonate with himself, maybe not, but the fact remains that the song sounds like it is coming from Oldham heart and soul. His approach to the song has the realism the the Bjork/Yorke version lacks, it rings true where the other does not.15. Okkervil River: "(Shannon Wilsey On The) Starry Stairs"
There are some artists I simply cannot get enough of, I'll get all their albums and listen to them constantly, but eventually I'll get to the point that I want more than the albums can provide, it is at the point that I proceed to get my hands on as many b-sides and left-overs as I can find. There are a few artists I do this to, Patrick Wolf, James Yorkston, Bjork, and the Mountain Goats among them, but I strangely never tried to get a complete collection of my favorite band, Okkervil River's songs. Until this year that is, and while investigating these b-sides I came across and true treasure: "(Shannon Wilsey On The) Starry Stairs". As Will Sheff puts it, it's a sequel to "Savannah Smiles" and a cousin of "John Allyn Smith Sails". The relation to the former is that both songs are about porn star Shannon Wilsey (aka Savannah) and the relation to the latter is that both songs are suicide notes from their respective subjects. Sheff's brilliant songwriting has never been better, he pries into the mind of his subject, pulling out their troubles and feelings and weaving them into a pattern of not only the how of the suicide but the why as well. Lines like "I'm alive, but a different kind of alive then the way I used to be" and "What a hot half-life I half-lived" tell of a troubled and depraved lifestyle that is enough to drive someone to take their own life. Sheff also details the slippery path of pornography: "they wanted more" "they dreamt of a low long line to be crossed, and I crossed it". Sheff describe things to clearly that, for a moment at least, we embody Wilsey and we feel what she feels, see what she see, experiences what she experiences, but this feeling last only as long as Wilsey does in the song "so here's goodbye from the part that staying behind to the part that has to leave".
