The Knife - You Take My Breath Away

Consider this your moment of zen. 2003 must have been a very confusing year in Sweden. How else to explain this thoroughly bizarre video? Powerful psychotropic drugs? Perhaps. I love the Knife, but this is easily one of the top ten worst videos of all time. It's got it all: Bad lighting. Terrible graphics. Jazzercise. Vinyl clothing. A mysterious, masked man (most likely Knife principal, Olof Dreijer) dancing badly (or, at the very least, European-ly) in very low light. A satin jacket. It's almost hard to determine if this is some sort of joke or an unflinching and frighteningly accurate depiction of Swedish hipster culture circa the early Aughts (if this is in fact the case, it seems oddly similar to the imminently regrettable British "chav" scene)?

Over the past few years, the Knife have become one of the world's most mysterious bands, and, these days, it's exceedingly rare to see them unmasked. What must it be like to interview the Dreijer siblings? The press photos for their 2007 breakthrough Silent Shout featured pictures of the band in Venetian masks (see above). When they toured the world in support of this album (the first time they'd ever played live), they wore masks and dark bodysuits, and, if the accompanying DVD is to be believed, performed a great many songs in near darkness or very dim light.

I guess the amazing thing about the video for "You Take My Breath Away" is that Karin Dreijer-Andersson (the other half of The Knife and the young woman dancing on the left) is so obvious. To actually see the band in such a recognizable way, in light of their recent and considerable efforts at obfuscation, is jarring. It's almost hard to believe it's the same band. It's a bit like viewing those early clips of Daft Punk before they donned their robot helmets. The Knife were a very different band in 2003, and perhaps the palpable tension between these two wholly distinct identities/incarnations is tellingly reflective of what the Knife were and what they've become. Or maybe it's just further evidence of what they've always been. At the very least, it's another great example of what makes the Knife so compelling. You just never know what they might do next.

I have been listening to the Knife a lot as of late. This nascent interest is likely the result of my recent fascination with all things Fever Ray, all this talk about the Aughties and my sincere love of "Heartbeats" (my #3 track of the decade, P4K's #15 - ahead of even R. Kel's "Ignition (Remix)" - Amazing). After listening to both Deep Cuts and Silent Shout many times in the past week, I have become convinced of two things:

1) Silent Shout (P4K's #1 album of 2006) is in no way as terrifying as I initially thought. I couldn't even listen to this thing when I first bought it. It was just too scary. I blame Pitchfork, their "Haunted House" tag and the power of suggestion. While it's entirely possible I've become hardened in the years since I last listened to this album, it's also arguable that Silent Shout is less "out there" than it seemed upon initial release. It has been three years, and the past few years have been a pretty good time for countless, once fringe-worthy forms of electronic music. Two words: fidget-house. I rest my case.

Nevertheless, this album is unsettling. There's a strange tension in most of The Knife's songs, and this, in addition to their shapeshifting and creativity, is likely why critics find them so fascinating. They make a music that engenders simultaneous, seemingly diametrically-opposed reactions (terms like "icy warmth" or "human automaton" come to mind) Perhaps it's all the vocal tricks. Or their cold, windswept sound. Or maybe it's Ms. Dreijer-Andersson's witchy, metallic vocal tone. Or the relentless precision of their nocturnal soundtrack. Perhaps it's simply the creepiness of the lyrics. Nevertheless, this is music from a very dark, deep and forgotten well, and, while it appears the Dreijers sincerely enjoy frightening the listening public (at least for now - Fever Ray's (Ms. Dreijer-Andersson's solo project) recent album and companion videos are nothing if not terrifying), it's safe to say their next release (they are currently working on an opera about Charles Darwin - you know, no big whoop) will sound nothing like this.

2) I love The Knife's "You Take My Breath Away". Forget the video. This song is great. To be perfectly honest, I first heard this tune two weeks ago. I bought it on a lark and at the behest of some anonymous reviewer on iTunes. As with "Heartbeats" and their Robyn collaboration "Who's That Girl", the strength of this song lies in the empathetic, almost hip-hop-ish interplay between the vocals and the synthesizer. Dated as it may sound and incomprehensible as its lyrical allusions may be ("We raise our heads for the color red"?), "You Take My Breath Away" is smart, meticulous, so retro it must be futuristic, pop music. While it is totally different than Silent Shout, this song (and the best moments Deep Cuts for that matter) offers a brief and early glimpse of the incomparable genius of a band that would go on compose the definitive electronic album of the past ten years. Ghoulish and impish as they may now be, the Knife is one of the most compelling pop groups of the past decade.

Taken By Trees - How to Record an Album in Pakistan

It's Taken By Trees week here at One Man in a Small Room productions. Get excited. Today, Victoria Bergsman's National Geographic feature, tomorrow the world. Or maybe just a Dan Lissvik profile.

Editor's note: Admittedly, this video has already been posted on a number of other blogs, and, yes, I realize that this is hardly groundbreaking stuff. However, it's not intended to be. This is simply my way of counting down the days (seven and a half, to be exact) until the release of East of Eden, a release I believe will be counted among the year's best. Between this album, The Very Best's excellent Warm Heart of Africa and Fool's Gold's self-titled debut, it's shaping up to be a very global fall. Who knew?

Admittedly, as a blogger in this post-9/11/Operation Enduring Freedom age, you feel a certain hesitancy when typing the word "Pakistan". Perhaps it's all the Fareed Zakaria GPS I've been watching as of late. Or perhaps it's simply the apparent incongruity of mentioning this country on a blog about independent music (perhaps Pakistan has a big "noise" scene of which I am unaware). Nevertheless, as I've previously noted, for this new Taken By Trees album (East of Eden out 9/8) and, really any Swedish artist, I will endure any amount of heightened government scrutiny. Bring it (please note, gentle government observer, that I don't really mean this - I am merely posturing for my loyal readers who likely assume me to be far more insouciant about these kinds of things than I really am).

Admittedly, I would have been interested in this project even if it had not taken form/flight in "the world's most dangerous nation." As I've previously noted, I am a huge Dan Lissvik fan and have pretty much enjoyed everything he's ever done (from Studio, to his excellent remix work, to his eponymous solo project, to The Crepes (his recent band with The Embassy's Fredrik Linson)). However, there is something I find so endlessly fascinating about the notion of recording an "indie" (whatever that means) album in a place as wild and seemingly hinterlandish as Pakistan. Who does this sort of stuff? Apparently two Swedes with a love of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and nary an interest in recording in a cold, clinical studio space.

The whole story of the making of this album is so completely transfixing, so singularly exceptional, but not in that typical rock 'n roll, Behind the Music, "we were so smacked out (insert drug-specific dazedly confused-related derivative here), we had no idea what we'd recorded" sort of way. This record seems to be as much about place as its principals (perhaps the inspiration for the title), or perhaps, more specifically, the effect of place upon its principals. These days, given the rise and proliferation of increasingly convenient, portable recording technologies, it's rare to hear an artist make a big deal about where an album was recorded. Perhaps this is what I find so fascinating about East of Eden. In a world full of records that could have been recorded literally anywhere, it's refreshing to hear an album that truly sounds like it was recorded somewhere (and somewhere very specific, at that).

From the sound of everything I've heard, East of Eden is a gigantic step forward from Victoria Bergsman's (ex-Concretes/"Young Folks") spare, monochromatic and, frankly, pretty dull debut, Open Field. Seriously. When's the last time National Geographic interviewed anyone, let alone a largely unknown artist, about the recording of her forthcoming album? I suppose this is what happens when you stop being polite and choose to record in Pakistan. Behold. Music without borders:

Taken By Trees - My Boys

Guess what? More Swedes. I suppose it's a mostly Swedish Friday here at One Man in a Small Room productions. Behold: Taken By Trees/Victoria Bergsman (ex-Concretes/"Young Folks") cover of P4K's #9 song of the Aughts, Animal Collective's "My Girls" (the gender-balanced "My Boys"). There's been a lot of chatter about this version on the interwebs for some time now, and, admittedly, covering a song that is so obviously an instant classic is a tall order.

Ms. Bergsman's reading is a little more jaunty (good call Stereogum) and compact than the original, and, while it's certainly pleasant, it hardly improves upon Noah Lennox's all but definitive reading. In fact, it seems to further the notion that Animal Collective are nothing if not un-coverable. Upon hearing Ms. Bergsman's treatment I couldn't help but think "Why?". Some things just can't be improved, bettered, bested. More than likely, it's intended to be something of an encomium, but, even so, of the songs I've heard from her forthcoming Dan Lissvik-produced album, East of Eden (out 9/8 via Beggars Group/Rough Trade), "My Boys" is my least favorite. Interesting side note: Noah Lennox actually appears on Eden track "Anna".

If nothing else, you've got to admire Ms. Bergsman's courage, and this cover hardly dims my already chronicled anticipation for this album's release. In fact, I'll go out on a very short limb and say that 1) East of Eden will be my favorite album ever recorded in Pakistan and 2) In two weeks everyone will be talking about this record. Download "Watch the Waves" here.

Kleerup - "On My Own Again"

Yes. That's right. Another song from Sweden. Is that really such a bad thing? Would you prefer breathless coverage of the Creed reunion tour? That's what I thought. Admittedly, I've been meaning to talk about this song for nearly two weeks, and after yesterday's Lake Heartbeat shout-out, I figured today was as good a day as any to mention this perfect slice of electro-pop from Sweden's Andreas Kleerup, "On My Own Again". Plus, it's Friday, and, as a far as I'm concerned, it's not the freakin' weekend until you've heard at least one song prominently featuring a synthesizer.

Kleerup is a pretty big deal in the world of producers. For example, he was the mind behind Robyn's unlikely #1 UK hit, the unconventional, shimmering "With Every Heartbeat". Unfortunately, his much-anticipated, self-titled debut is a workmanlike, but mostly unexceptional collection of songs you've heard a million times before ("With Every Heartbeat" and "Until We Bleed" - They still sound great, btw), instrumentals (most notably "Thank You For Nothing" originally written for Cyndi Lauper's 2008 release Bring Ya To the Brink ("Lay Me Down") - She refused to license her version for inclusion on Kleerup), club-ready (at least in Europe) tunes featuring guest vocalists and the occasional vocal turn from Mr. Kleerup himself.

"On My Own Again" is one of the few songs Kleerup sings, and it is arguably the best moment on the album. At the very least, it's the most surprising. It doesn't really sound like anything else here (perhaps unsurprisingly, most of these tracks have a nocturnal, dance vibe). In fact, I'm a little surprised more people aren't talking about this song.

Over a ringing, repetitive synth pattern, flanged drums and acoustic guitars, Kleerup locks a deft, vocodered flow that is easily one of the most beautifully understated melodies of the year. There's even a guitar solo that's vaguely reminiscent of the solo from Daft Punk's "Digital Love" (never a bad thing). I really don't have any idea what this song is about (I believe it's a break-up song - thus the title), but "On My Own Again" is another profound example of the Swedes' considerable facility with the pop form. A great many of the past decade's best pop songs have been written by Swedish writers/producers, most notably Max Martin ("Since U Been Gone", Pink's "So What", "Hot N Cold") and Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg aka Bloodshy & Avant ("Toxic", "Piece of Me"), and, in a more perfect world, "On My Own Again" would command similar attention from American Top 40 radio. At any rate, it is a stellar, wholly serendipitous moment synth-driven pop tucked deep on an album that I really wish was better.

Listen here (via Popjustice). Hear more Kleerup here (via Rcrdlbl).

My Favorite 100 Songs of the Aughts - #97

Phoenix - "Too Young"

United, 2000

If you were one of the millions of people who saw 2001's Lost in Translation (my favorite movie), you likely remember the scene in which a drunken Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson and a bunch of Japanese "surfers" are dancing to this song. He later calls his wife to tell her all about the "really great music" he heard, but she only wants to talk about carpet samples (or something like that - I've seen this movie over thirty times, but it's been a couple years since my last viewing). It's one of the few moments levity, and arguably the last truly happy scene, in an otherwise claustrophobic, cinematic fugue of disappointment, hope, escapism, (fleeting) connection and stultifying reality.

But how great is the soundtrack? Produced by Air-collaborator and longtime Sofia Coppola associate, Brian Reitzell, it boasts a host of beautifully atmospheric selections from Jesus and Mary Chain, Air, Squarepusher, Death in Vegas, Sebastian Tellier and Kevin Shields that serve to underscore and advance the film's overcast mood. This is cloudy music for rainy days or the slow creep and sudden pounce of a life crisis.

However, the one song on the record that initially seems out of place is Phoenix's "Too Young". At first blush, it appears to have very little in common with its peers. Where the other songs are spacey and gray, all late night or very early morning, "Too Young" is a lean burst of neon, a party-ready jam rippling with the infinite possibility of Friday night. It's a great song and the perfect soundtrack to the aforementioned scene (although Thomas Mars' (Phoenix's lead vocalist) relationship with director Sofia Coppola likely also had something to do with its use - Nepotism is so retro).

Sonically, from the chunky, buoyant synths, to the stuttering, syncopated guitar line to the galloping chorus, "Too Young" teems with a youthful ebullience. However, it's not quite that simple. Upon closer scrutiny, the lyrics betray a palpable regret ("I can't lie on my bed without thinking I was wrong"), and there's an unease you invariably feel when that minor chorus swoops in. I've always thought, in this song, you can hear the full sensory and sentimental gamut of a night out. The excitement of the first few drinks, the clamorous haze of the strange middle hours, the creeping, penumbral regret you feel upon realizing you're drunk and alone. Perhaps this is why Sofia Coppola found this song so attractive. In the inherent tension of this one tune, she had the perfect foil for the trajectory of Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson's relationship. Sure, things fall apart, but for a few fleeting moments...

This scene is the very moment when Phoenix first appeared on many peoples' musical radars (although Erlend Oye's inclusion of the excellent, dancefloor ready "If I Ever Feel Better" on his much lauded 2004 !K7 DJ-Kicks mix was a similar sort of moment for the band). In "Too Young" you can hear the considerable promise of a band that has since become one of the biggest groups in independent music. It took three more albums and a bunch of great songs, but they've definitely arrived. However, even so, when someone mentions this band, I will always think of Bill Murray "dancing". As they say, you always remember your first time.

Listen here (easily one of the most unlikely music videos for a song of this stripe ever).

Next up - #96 - Mylo's "In My Arms"

August 18th Broadcast - The Sound of One Man in Small Room

Behold: The playlist from last Tuesday's One Man in a Small Room radio broadcast (from 5:00 - 8:00 p.m. every Tuesday on WLUR 91.5). New jams were profiled, favorite songs of the Aughts were featured and I somehow managed to avoid playing Broken Social Scene's regrettable cover of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" - Two weeks later and this "song" still sounds horrible). Three hours is a very long time to spend in less than spacious quarters, but, for you, gentle listener, we're happy to endure mild physical discomfort, undoubted social ostracism and intermittent feelings of profound loneliness. Links to mp3 downloads provided for your listening enjoyment. Rock 'n roll ain't noise pollution:

The Very Best - Yalira

The Very Best - Dinosaur on the Ark

Sigur Ros - Inni Mer Syngur Vitleysingur

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Higher Than The Stars

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

Throw Me the Statue - Ancestors

Phoenix - 1901 (The Tremulance Remix)

Empire of the Sun - Walking on a Dream (The Tremulance Remix)

Cut Copy - Out There on the Ice

The Strokes - Hard to Explain

Broken West - Perfect Games

Kleerup - On My Own Again

Free Energy - Free Energy

Memory Cassette - Surfin

jj - From Africa to Malaga

Sun Airway - Oh Naoko

Ra Ra Riot - Oh, La

Stars - Elevator Love Letter

Passion Pit - To Kingdom Come

The Knife - Heartbeats

Grizzly Bear - Two Weeks

Kurt Vile - Freeway

Deerhunter - Never Stops

Wolf Parade - I'll Believe in Anything

Little Joy - The Next Time Around

Atlas Sound - Walkabout (feat. Noah Lennox)

Yeasayer - Tightrope

Yeasayer - Wait for the Summer

Animal Collective - Grass

Panda Bear - Bros

Wilco - War on War

Wilco - I'm Always in Love

Cymbals Eat Guitars - Indiana

The Antlers - Sylvia

Japandroids - Young Hearts Spark Fire

Washed Out - New Theory

The Avalanches - Frontier Psychiatrist

Apoplectic about missing last week's broadcast? Beginning to believe that your life has no meaning? Fret not. We will resume our futile yet dogged struggle against Clear Channel and their computers next Tuesday from 5:00 - 8:00 p.m.. Stream it here.

Lake Heartbeat - "Blue Planet"

More Dan Lissvik-produced electro-pop from Sweden. What's not too like about that? Admittedly, I am very excited about Lake Heartbeat's debut release (Trust in Numbers, out 9/16 via the always excellent Service label). This semi-mysterious group is the brainchild of Swedish indie pop icon Janne Kaske of Brainpool fame. Of course, I find it very difficult to be truly objective when it comes to Swedish artists, but, then again, I didn't really care for Peter Bjorn and John's Living Thing. That's got to count for something. Anyhow, lack of critical distance aside, if previously leaked tracks "Mystery", "Golden Chain" and "Between Dreams" are any indication, Trust in Numbers will have a vice-like hold upon my iPod come September.

"Blue Planet" falls somewhere between "Mystery" and "Between Dreams", but, like both those songs, it is an immaculately constructed, imminently tasteful slice of breezy pop noir. I think I even hear a tympani. Despite it's nocturnal vibe, "Blue Planet" still feels strangely beach-y, but perhaps a considerably darker and more desolate strip of sand than those previously charted by Mr. Kaske's sun-soaked countrymen.

You can stream four new songs and download "Blue Planet" here (via lakeheartbeat.com).

My Favorite 100 Songs of the Aughts - #98

Yeasayer - 2080

All Hour Cymbals, 2007

Brooklyn. That's right, Brooklyn. Among independent music fans, no single locale is more divisive, inspires more eye-rolling, begets more teeth gnashing than this borough. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, I suppose.

Brooklyn is the hottest music scene in the world right now and appears to be (at least according to my less than empirical indices) awash with artists and musicians (or perhaps more precisely artists/musicians). Even Pitchfork, that once stubborn champion of all things Chicago, has a Brooklyn office.

In a recent review of Suckers, I wrote that the world needed another band from Brooklyn like I needed a hole in my head, but perhaps I spoke too soon. What the world doesn't need now is a Creed reunion tour (Who asked for this? Who is the market for this so-called reunion? The millions of people trying very hard to forget they ever owned a copy of My Own Prison?). Another band from Brooklyn? Well, in light of the alternative (enormo-domes awash with the nu-metal squall of leather-clad, coke-fueled, pseudo-Christian onanists), that sounds fine to me.

Unlike Manhattan in the early Aughts, Brooklyn doesn't have a defining sound so much as an overarching ethic/philosophy; more a confederation of similarly-minded auteurs than any sort of sonically-linked scene. There seem to be no rules save that there are no rules. Nope. Just a restless, wanton creativity empowering almost any mode, medium and manner of musical expression. This, of course, is both a good thing and a very bad thing. After all, one fan's inventive is another hater's atavistic, and at times, it seems "Brooklyn", at least among its detractors, is merely a derisive, convenient shibboleth for indulgent, inscrutable art-rock. Assuredly, more than a few of these bands take themselves way too seriously, and unapologetic experimentalism is often the last bastion of the less than talented, but, occasional solipsism aside, some of the most inspiring and exciting music of the past five years has been fashioned by bands calling this borough home.

Yeasayer is such a band, and their global/indie fusion is a fair reflection of the kaleidoscopic, free-wheeling nature of many of Brooklyn's best bands. Nevertheless, this group remains somewhat singular even among a musical cohort noted for its boundless creativity. I recently saw Yeasayer at the Pitchfork Festival, and while the songs were a little uneven, I was amazed by the quality of the musicianship. It's sad to say, but contemporary indie rock is hardly known for its technical proficiency. It is a genre much more concerned with expression than dexterity. Standing in a light rain in a crowded field somewhere in Chicago, it occurred to me that Yeasayer is a band with the unique potential to appeal to indie fans and jam band devotees in equal measure. A strange and rather expansive demographic divide to straddle to be sure.

I love "Wait for the Summer" but there is a certain magic about "2080". It is about as pleasant and infinitely listenable as an armageddon document/renaissance pronouncement/carpe diem declaration can be. Did you know that our extant geopolitical turmoil was largely the result of the absence of the Berlin Wall? Well, consider yourself served.

"2080" has all the emotional urgency and immediacy of an anthem, but it's the music, not the message, that really makes this song. The deft, empathetic interplay between the guitar and the bass. Chris Keating's percussive cadence. The shimmering, stuttering high-hat. The loping, polyrhythmic gait. It's a little strange to dance to a song boasting the line, "I can't sleep when I think about the times we're living in/I can't sleep when I think about the future I was born into" or "In 2080, I'll probably be dead, so never look ahead, never look ahead", but such is the talismanic nature of Yeasayer's charm. It may be the end of the world as we know it, but you know what? As long as this song is playing, I feel fine.

Watch the video here (via Takeaway Shows).

Up next - #97 - Phoenix's "Too Young"

My Favorite 100 Songs of the Aughts - #99

The Klaxons - "Golden Skans"

Myths of the Near Future, 2007

The Klaxons (and the salivating superlatives attending their meteoric rise) remain one of the better examples of the hyperbolic tendencies of the contemporary British music press. Hailed as the "next big thing" and among the first wave of a nascent "new rave" scene (a largely figmentary resurrection of Hacienda-inspired, MDMA-addled, technicolor sonics), The Klaxons were seemingly everywhere in 2007. However, as someone once noted, one band does not a movement make, and, "new rave" proved to be neither "new" nor exceptionally rave-worthy.

These days, it seems every emergent English band of promise is all but destined to be, at least in the eyes of the British music press, the "greatest band of all time". Frankly, it's a little hard to take any of these pronouncements seriously. How many times can one cry "the next Coldplay" before such claims begin to ring hollow?

Maybe these enraptured, misguided prognostications are the inevitable byproduct of nearly five years of artistic disappointment. The endless procession of thoroughly forgettable, definite article-wielding groups all but destined to combust faster than you can say "Razorlight" has certainly made for an utterly banal and tired domestic music scene. This generation's "great" band, The Libertines, imploded in a very public maelstrom of heroin/crack-fueled hedonism. The musical power balance has once again shifted to the United States. Long gone are the days when American bands needed English approval before they could be fully embraced by U.S. listeners. How did it come to this? Does anyone remember 2003?

The Klaxons may prove to be just another also-ran in a ever-growing list of decidedly evanescent British bands, but the strength of their songs seems to suggest a permanence and longevity not found among a great many their countrymen peers. While their debut (Myths of the Near Future) was a little uneven, when it was good, it was great, and "Golden Skans" was my favorite moment on this record. The Klaxons don't sound like many other bands (which is more than enough to set them apart in a national scene teeming with all the originality of a system of interchangeable parts). It could be the myriad sci-fi references, the boundless, polyglot creativity, or it could simply be the ready incorporation of electronic textures at a time in British music when it was more fashionable to sound like The Clash, The Specials or The Jam (or at least a very pale imitation of these seminal bands). Or maybe it's simply that they are energetic and original at a time when, at least among English bands, such traits are exceedingly precious and few.

NME's Single of the Year in 2007 (perhaps a reason why I shouldn't really like this song) and apparently inspired by a lighting display, "Golden Skans" is a brilliant slice of infinitely catchy, polyphonic pop veritably teeming with hooks. It whizzes by at a staggering clip (it's over in less than three minutes) and all but demands to be replayed. Who knows what will become of this band, but, for now, they remain one of the very few points of light at a very dim time for British music. At the very least, whenever they release their next album, it's safe to say, there will be a long line of English critics celebrating its arrival, and, for once, they might not be wrong.

Watch the video here.

Up next: #98 - Yeasayer - "2080"

My Favorite 100 Songs of the Aughts - #100

Starting today, I will begin breaking down my favorite 100 songs of the past decade. One song a day, for the next 100 days. Geez. That sounds like a lot. Anyhow, before I begin, I would like add a few "honorable mentions" to my previous list. After all, what's more Aught-ish than a relativistic "restriction" honored only when it's convenient for me? "100" was more of a suggestion anyway.

Honorable Mention:

Christian Falk, Robyn, Ola Salo - "Dream On"

The Shivers - "Beauty"

Junior Boys - "In the Morning"

Josh Rouse - "Rise"

Jamie Lidell - "Multiply"

High Places - "From Stardust to Sentience"

Fujiya & Miyagi - "Collarbone"

Cut Copy - "Strangers in the Wind"

Broken Social Scene "Cause=Time"

Friendly Fires - "Paris (Aeroplane Remix)"

Here goes nothing.

The Doves - "Pounding"

The Last Broadcast (2002)

Within this song's first twenty seconds, it's easy to grasp what Messrs. Williams and Goodwin might have been thinking (or hearing) when they settled on its title. With "Pounding", the beat is everything. It's just so insistent. Like a heart in a state of profound excitement, it just pounds and pounds and pounds and pounds.

2002's The Last Broadcast is the sound of a band swinging for the transatlantic fences. Even in these modern times, breaking the American market continues to be the principal metric by which British bands (and critics) gauge success and commercial cachet in the United States remains an all too palpable Maginot line separating the arrived from the still in transit. Despite the nascent, Coldplay/Radiohead-fueled anglophilia sweeping the American listening public in the early Aughts and their considerable stature in their native land, Doves somehow failed to break through.

While some likely feel the "O.C."-approved "Caught By the River" the more likely/appropriate candidate for the retrospective treatment, "Pounding" has always captivated me. As far as I'm concerned, this song has it all. Joshua Tree atmospherics. An anthemic chorus. A Springsteen-esque lyric teeming with the fierce, almost teenage, urgency of now ("Cause it's now or never" - A notion further reinforced by the stubborn, driving persistence of the beat). A beautifully understated melody. One of the greatest outros of the past ten years (when that arpeggiated guitar line and falsetto harmony burst forth at the four minute mark, the song veritably explodes like a million fireworks over Asbury Park). "Pounding" is meant to be heard in a speeding car on a very lonely highway preferably late at night, and, whether you drive on the left or the right hand side of the road, that's a sensation you can likely understand.

Watch the video here.

Next up? #99 - The Klaxons' "Golden Skans"

My Favorite 100 songs of the Aughts

Well, here goes nothing. I believe my mom may have forewarned me about this moment. To paraphrase her sage admonition: "If everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you?" Well, apparently, yes. Fearing that I was the only blogger not presently offering my take on the music of the last decade, I thought I would attempt to capture and catalog the 100 songs released during the Aughts I've found most captivating. I'm sure such list-making is a lot easier with the fiscal and emotional support of the good people at Haagen-Dazs, but, corporate sponsorship excepting, the following compilation is my best effort to present not a "best of" but rather a compendium of favorites. These are simply songs I love, and to which I believe I will be listening for many years to come.

As I compiled this list, I was struck by the sheer breadth of the artists and songs. While this decade has been a truly great time for music, I'm sure it has been nothing if not confounding for the music industry (for a host of reasons, to be sure). What must it feel like to watch the categorical delineations you worked so hard to define effortlessly eroded by the ceaseless tread of a thousand polyglot artists willing to steal from seemingly every genre and a listening public with a nascent penchant for an ever-expanding array of sounds?

While a great many of this decade's artists will likely be derided (and dismissed) for their considerable debt to prior forms and fads, it's entirely possible that the Aughts' great gift to future music (and musicians) will be its steady dismantling of artificial, corporate genre constructs. Perhaps we've finally arrived at a "post-genre" moment in popular music. After all, it is the age of Obama.

Admittedly, this conclusion seems almost paradoxical in light of the exceedingly derivative nature of a great many of the bands and songs presently polluting the airwaves. However, in my opinion, artistic innovation during this decade has sprung from two primary fonts: 1) Technology and 2) The singular combination of often disparate, antecedent influences in a wholly unfamiliar and heretofore unimagined form.

The impact of technological innovation is perhaps obvious. For better or for worse, we live in a moment when any fool with a laptop can record an album, and every breakfast nook is now a world class studio. Furthermore, countless democratic software applications have made the once painstaking art of the remix, the mash-up and the re-version matters of mere moments. While these are certainly giant leaps, I believe the nearly nuclear impact of the seamless melding of once diametrically opposed music denominations into coherent (not to mention riveting) compositions will ultimately prove the lasting sonic and cultural legacy of this decade. After all, it is the impulse that explains the categorical consternation many critics experience when attempting to briefly describe certain current artists. How do you tell someone what Grizzly Bear, or M.I.A., or Dirty Projectors, or Arcade Fire, or Sigur Ros, or Radiohead, or Outkast, or Broken Social Scene (to name a few) sound like in twenty words or less?

It seems to be increasingly the case that no song really fits comfortably in any one broad category. The most obvious evidence of this discomfiture is the endless proliferation of perfunctory, fragmentary sub-genres all but destined to fail in their attempt to wittily capture the essential sound of so many indie rock bands. How else can one explain the rise of "glo-fi" and the utterly inane vocabulary of the blogosphere? Shit-gaze? Dreamwave? Fidget House? Please, make it stop. These terms increasingly seem to be just words that say very little about the band or its songs. Just look at what's become of the term "indie rock." Once a shibboleth for Pavement-sounding slacker bands, it's been rendered all but meaningless (and, at the very least, imprecise) as a sonic descriptor (at best its in an increasingly inaccurate economic category).

In defense of glo-fi advocates everywhere, genre categories have always been inexact. However, these days, there seems to be an endless stream of computer-wielding audiophiles in a perpetual race for fleeting cultural relevance through the timely coining of clever, catchy terms speciously describing some new group or scene (solipsistic labels that will assuredly say more about the blogger than band). As long as there is a blogosphere, this atavistic impulse will remain, but nevertheless, its continual frustration is one more indication of the continued emergence of kaleidoscopic musical acts and the resultant evisceration of the convenient and largely binary musical landscape of previous decades. I believe we've moved beyond this black/white bimodality into a wholly technicolor realm, and one only need to turn on pop radio to hear it.

Furthermore, the Aughts have been a time (thanks to the rise of egalitarian technologies like the mp3 and increasingly unobtrusive portable music players) when seemingly more people have spent seemingly more hours than ever listening to music. Music is once again a central (and perhaps defining) element in many peoples' days. We live in the age of the Playlist, quite possibly the most perfect invention for a generation of listeners saddled with a staggering attention deficit, and a great many of us have soundtracked nearly every picayune and pedestrian moment of our lives. Everyone is a deejay. Everyone is an expert. Everyone is a critic. And everyone can hear (almost) everything.

There are certain songs that anyone who lived through this decade will find hard to ignore: "Mr. Brightside", "Paper Planes", "Umbrella", "B.O.B", "Since U Been Gone", "Toxic", Flo-Rida's "Low", just to name a few, and these are the tunes by which VH1 will likely choose to remember these halcyon days. However, if there was ever a decade when seemingly reasonable people could vehemently disagree on its definitive soundtrack, the Aughts are it.

While there are unquestionably tunes from these years that could be considered universal (see above), the considerable amount of time each person presently spends exploring new music seems to suggest that the making, sharing and dissection of such retrospective and superlative lists is all but destined to be increasingly personal, fractious and contentious (a reality perhaps further underscored by the rise and seemingly ceaseless expansion of the blogosphere). And maybe that's a great thing. Sure, the music industry may be crumbling before our very ears, but people really seem to care about music again. We may not be buying songs, but we are at least tuning in. It's difficult to say just where music might go from here, but, at the very least, there will be plenty of people listening.

Without further ado, my 100 favorite songs of the past ten years:

100. Doves - "Pounding"

99. The Klaxons - "Golden Skans"

98. Yeasayer - "2080"

97. Phoenix - "Too Young"

96. Mylo - "In My Arms"

95. Van She - "Kelly"

94. Chromatics - "Running Up That Hill"

93. The Raveonettes - "That Great Love Sound"

92. Feist - "1234"

91. Midlake - "Young Bride"

90. Rilo Kiley - "Portions for Foxes"

89. The Broken West - "Perfect Games"

88. Empire of the Sun - "Walking on a Dream"

87. Fever Ray - "Keep The Streets Empty for Me"

86. Royksopp - "What Else Is There?"

85. Spoon - "Anything You Want"

84. Radiohead - "Idioteque"

83. Kelly Clarkson - "Since U Been Gone"

82. Vampire Weekend - "Oxford Comma"

81. Gang Gang Dance - "House Jam"

80. Stars - "Elevator Love Letter"

79. Justin Timberlake - "My Love"

78. Land of Talk - "It's Okay"

77. The White Stripes - "Seven Nation Army"

76. Kings of Convenience - "Misread"

75. Band of Horses - "No One's Gonna Love You"

74. M83 - "Kim & Jessie"

73. Grouper - "Heavy Water/I'd Rather Be Sleeping"

72. Antony and the Johnsons - "Fistful of Love"

71. Animal Collective - "Grass"

70. PJ Harvey - "This Mess We're In"

69. The Strokes - "Under Control"

68. The National - "Baby, We'll Be Fine"

67. Wolf Parade - "I'll Believe in Anything"

66. Wilco - "War on War"

65. Cornelius - "Drop"

64. Robyn - "Be Mine"

63. Air France - "Collapsing at Your Doorstep"

62. Studio - "No Comply"

61. Sun Kil Moon - "Carry Me Ohio"

60. Holy Ghost! - "Hold On"

59. The Clientele - "I Can't Seem To Make You Mine"

58. Celebration - "Heartbreak"

57. Beach House - "Astronaut"

56. Radio Dept. - "Pulling Our Weight"

55. No Age - "Here Should Be My Home"

54. Wilco - "I'm Always in Love"

53. Sufjan Stevens - "For the Widows in Paradise, For the Fatherless in Ypsilanti"

52. Tapes 'n Tapes - "Just Drums"

51. Menomena - "Wet and Rusting"

50. Iron & Wine - "Upward Over the Mountain"

49. Jens Lekman - "I Saw Her at the Anti-War Demonstration"

48. The Shins - "Turn on Me"

47. Regina Spektor - "Us"

46. Nada Surf - "Blonde on Blonde"

45. Midlake - "Roscoe"

44. Stars - "Ageless Beauty"

43. Coldplay - "Spies"

42. Max Richter - "On the Nature of Daylight"

41. M83 - "Don't Save Us From the Flames"

40. TV on the Radio - "Staring at the Sun"

39. The Libertines - "Up the Bracket"

38. Liars - "The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack"

37. Phoenix - "One Time Too Many"

36. Futureheads - "Hounds of Love"

35. LCD Soundsystem - "All My Friends"

34. Franz Ferdinand - "Take Me Out"

33. The Killers - "Read My Mind"

32. Sigur Ros - "Staralfur"

31. Broken Social Scene - "7/4 (Shoreline)"

30. The National - "Mistaken For Strangers"

29. Fleet Foxes - "Blue Ridge Mountains"

28. Three 6 Mafia - "Stay Fly"

27. Animal Collective - "My Girls"

26. Grizzly Bear - "Two Weeks"

25. Lil Wayne - "Got Money"

24. Bon Iver - "Re: Stacks"

23. Hercules & Love Affair - "Blind"

22. Kurt Vile - "Freeway"

21. Hot Chip - "And I Was a Boy From School"

20. Beach House - "Master of None"

19. LCD Soundsystem - "Losing My Edge"

18. M.I.A. - "Paper Planes (Diplo Street Remix)"

17. My Morning Jacket - "At Dawn"

16. Ryan Adams - "Come Pick Me Up"

15. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - "The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth"

14. Arcade Fire - "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)"

13. Cut Copy - "Saturdays"

12. Avalanches - "Frontier Psychiatrist"

11. Panda Bear - "Bros"

10. UGK - "Int'l Players Anthem"

9. TV on the Radio - "Wolf Like Me"

8. The Walkmen - "The Rat"

7. Grizzly Bear "Knife"

6. The Rapture - "House of Jealous Lovers"

5. The Strokes - "Hard to Explain"

4. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Maps"

3. The Knife - "Heartbeats"

2. Outkast - "B.O.B."

1. Daft Punk - "Digital Love"

Favorites of the 2K9 - So Far...

Yes, I know. August is hardly the midpoint of the year, but, nevertheless, it feels like the right time to reflect upon the songs and albums that have captured my attention in these first eight months of 2009.

As previously noted, it's been a great year for music, and, assuredly, this will make for some excruciatingly difficult end of the year "best of" retrospectives. In a year with so many great albums and songs, how can one possibly pick just ten favorite albums or fifty favorite songs? Furthermore, with highly anticipated releases from The Very Best, Kings of Convenience, Taken By Trees, Neon Indian and maybe Beach House (? - rumor has it they've just finished recording their third album) forthcoming, the allocation of these superlatives is hardly going to get easier. All I can say is, thank goodness it's not December. Anyhow, without further ado, here are my favorite albums (in no particular order) and my favorite 25 songs (from 25 to 1) of this still very young calendar year:

Japandroids - Post-Nothing

Chunky, noisy guitar riffage just in time for summer. Not quite as artsy as No Age and often more tuneful, Japandroids are more than just another clattering punk duo in an independent music world increasingly overrun by clattering punk duos. When the White Stripes burst on the scene in the early aughts, the duo seemed a fairly novel configuration. Now? Please make it stop. It is undoubtedly, outside of the singer-songwriter act, the easiest band to form, but the duo is often a shibboleth for talentless, confrontational, "artistic" self-indulgent caterwauling. Perhaps this is all some unanticipated and many years too late backlash to the Polyphonic Spree. Nevertheless, Post-Nothing makes me forget this nascent and increasingly intense aversion, if only for a moment. A what a sweet moment it is.

The Antlers - Hospice

A complete surprise. No one, and I mean, no one, saw this album coming. And Hospice is very much an "album." A beautiful, haunting, intermittently spare and, at times, gigantic, widescreen investigation of grief, loss and love, Hospice is this year's best indie rock success story, and a record that is meant to be felt as much as heard. Recorded over the course of two years in a bedroom as Antlers principal Peter Silberman was emerging from a period of "social isolation," this album is a devastating investigation of the complex swirl of emotions associated with the terminal illness of a child. People just don't make albums like this anymore. And that's a shame.

Suckers - Suckers EP

Just when you thought the world couldn't stand another band from Brooklyn, along come these guys. This EP, produced by Yeasayer's Anand Wilder (any Yeasayer involvement in anything is a good thing as far as I'm concerned) and Chris Moore (TVOTR, YYYs) is a succinct slice of smart, savvy, worldly pop music that, like Yeasayer, feels like indie rock played by a group of guys who happen to really love world music.

jj - No. 2

A mystery wrapped in an enigma. This album is arguably my favorite disc of 2009. It's beach-y, transglobal, ambient indie electronic folk made by two Swedes with a staggering and expressed penchant for controlled substances. In light of this rather unwieldy description, maybe I'll just put this album in the Other/Miscellaneous category. Whatever it is or whoever/whatever JJ might be, No 2 is an endlessly fascinating record that, at less than 30 minutes, begs to be replayed. The perfect soundtrack to a late summer evening or an early August morning. Tune in, turn on, drop out.

Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest

A well-deserved victory lap for one of today's best indie bands (so I'm a little biased). Hailed as something of a pop record, Veckatimest is Grizzly Bear at its most focused and succinct. Gone are the rambling, moody, at times formless, almost ambient explorations of Yellow House. The first five songs are arguably Grizzly Bear's best yet, and the album itself is almost a near perfect execution of the band's trademark sound and style. It's all here: the close harmonies, the deft musicianship, the detailed production, the unique melodic sensibility. This is smart, thinking man's pop, and an album that largely delivers upon the considerable promise of 2006's "Knife".

Bowerbirds - Upper Air

Some bands just don't get any respect. Bowerbirds have now released two excellent albums (2007's Hymns for a Dark Horse and 2009's Upper Air) of tasteful, accordion-inflected folk, and, yet, they remain just some band from Raleigh. Oddly catchy and seemingly timeless, Upper Air is hardly a giant creative step forward for the band. Nope. This is just a band doing what it does best and better than anyone else. As someone once said, "If it ain't broke...."

Smith Westerns - S/T

Another pleasant surprise. Admittedly, I am something of a lo-fi fan. As I previously noted, you don't listen to this music for the virtuosity of its players, but with all things lo-fi, it seems the more you listen, the more you hear. Perhaps this explains the nascent interest in its many purveyors. In a musical landscape rife with obvious, lowest common denominator jams, these murky, layered songs are difficult, and they reward the patient and perseverant listener. What first sounds like hiss, mumbling and clatter, after a few spins, begins to bear striking resemblance to a song. By the tenth or fifteenth rotation, through some strange auditory alchemy, the noise seemingly subsides, and you actually just hear the melody. Like the sonic equivalent of a Seurat painting, what initially seems like a bunch of dots slowly comes into focus until you actually see (or hear, as the case may be) the full picture. In this world of cacophonous, squalling, deconstructed pop, Smith Westerns sounds fairly straightforward. Touching upon glam, garage, punk and other rock sonics the 50s and 60s, this album begs to play loud on a very sunny day. These amps go to 11.

Woods - Songs of Shame

To paraphrase Ryan Adams, "We started a country band because punk rock was too hard to sing." If only he would have known about lo-fi. As Woods proves, you don't have to be able to sing to play shaggy, shambolic indie rock. But, vocal limitations aside, Woods, like Hospice and Smith Westerns, is one of the surprise releases of this year (noticing a theme?). Seemingly reminiscent of Neil Young & Crazy Horse heard on a very bad radio playing in another room, Songs of Shame plots the very same gloriously ragged sound as Neil Young and his famed backing band. A further testament to the eternal promise that rust, in fact, never sleeps.

Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Is it possible to be too consistent? Too good? Admittedly, sometimes Phoenix makes it sound too easy, and, two months after this album's release, it felt like people were fabricating reasons not to like it. "All the songs sound the same." "What kind of band plays on Saturday Night Live without even having so much as a radio hit?" "Just a Strokes rip-off." Really? What a shame. Much like Grizzly Bear with Veckatimest, Wolfgang is the record that Phoenix has been threatening to make for the past five years. Great as 2006's It's Never Been Like That was, it was an uneven exploration of a novel and distinctly European fusion of The Strokes' Room on Fire sonics and The Smiths/Johnny Marr guitar wizardry. Wolfgang is a succinct, buoyant, infinitely listenable pop record by the best French import since Daft Punk. The guitar-playing alone is reason enough to listen to this album. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix: Harder, better, faster, stronger.

Passion Pit - Manners

Then there are those records that swing for the fences. Every song on this album feels like it could be THE single. You've got to hand it to these guys. Just when you began to think they just might go the way of so many other over-hyped, MTV-profiled bands, Passion Pit make one of the catchiest records of the year. It's quite possible that Manners will be penalized during the end of the year superlative sweepstakes for its lack of inscrutability. It's just so obvious and catchy. Anyone can understand the appeal of this record. It certainly ain't no thinking thing. Do you have a pulse? Do you like good music? Well, do Passion Pit have a record for you.

Pains of Being Pure at Heart - S/T

Just when you thought our generation might succumb to disco fever, the eighties come storming back. Don't call it a comeback. They've been here for years. What's past is prologue, and modern independent music is nothing if not derivative. In fact, Pains of Being Pure at Heart owes such a considerable sonic debt to its alternative pop forebears, it sometimes feels like you may very well be listening to some great if entirely unfamiliar New Order B-Side. However, this staggering similarity is a testament to the skill, facility, enthusiasm and aplomb with which Pains of Being Pure at Heart mines this particular past. Assuredly, this "eighties recycle" act is anything but novel. It has been done a million times before, but rarely has it ever been done this well.

Memory Cassette - Call & Response EP

More beautiful, blissed-out, dream pop from one of Dayve Hawk's many side projects. Listening to this EP, I just wish it was longer. Between his remixes and the countless tracks strewn across the internet, Mr. Hawk can seemingly do no wrong. Given the unfailing quality of a great many of these releases, it's easy to believe a lot of these songs were ten years in the making. With an LP out this September via Acephale (Memory Tapes' Seek Magic), 2009 promises to be a very big year for the Memory Cassette/Weird Tapes/Memory Tapes camp. As far as I'm concerned, that's a great thing. After all, what the world needs now is more tasteful, electro-pop. We definitely don't need another mountain.

Fever Ray - S/T

You've got to hand it to those crazy Dreijer kids. Just when you thought theatricality in music was kaput (or only existed as nauseating, overwrought camp), along they come with their Venetian masks, concepts, cinematic soundscapes and high-production value live show. They sound like no one. They don't do anything like anyone else. Not exactly beloved by all but almost universally respected, The Knife are so wholly unique and original, you can't help but listen (at least once). I am a great lover of mood records, and there is something so chilling about this stuff. Fever Ray picks up where The Knife's Silent Shout left off, and takes that album's gothic, horror-house dystopia in a slightly more intimate, but no less frightening direction. It's almost hard to explain just what this music sounds like. The hermetic production, the vocal modulation, the nocturnal feel and the spectral atmosphere all lend a decidedly singular sonic profile to this collection (it sort of sounds like The Knife, but some weird unexpected fusion of Silent Shoutand their 2005 "pop" album Deep Cuts (of "Heartbeats" fame)).

I must admit, when I first listened to this album back in March, I couldn't really hear what all the fuss was about. It was okay, but I didn't really like any of the songs. It was just too bleak. Too dark. The lyrics too weird (how many pedestrian things can one possibly catalog - bike riding, plant tending, dishwasher tablets (!?!)). Too boring (or at least I thought). Then I heard Dan Lissvik's remix of "When I Grow Up", and I started to think I might have missed something.

Over the past few months, I have become increasingly fascinated by this record. Every few weeks or so, I'll put it on, and each time, I'll hear something new. It's just so strangely intoxicating. There have been some really wonderful records released this year, but not a one sounds anything like Fever Ray. I like The Knife, but I was way more into Deep Cuts than Silent Shout ("Heartbeats" is, in my opinion, one of the most perfect pop songs ever written). I'm even a little surprised I like this album as much as I do, but, for all its bewitching, nocturnal garb, it's really just a pop record.

In a somewhat recent P4K interview, Ms. Dreijer-Andersson cited Phil Collins' "In The Air Tonight" and Paul Wall (and the chopped and screwed scene generally) as influences and claimed to have been going for a certain "Miami Vice" feel with this record: "One thing about 'Miami Vice' which I really try to capture in music is the feeling of - that feeling when you see those guys go away on a very fast boat with big engines in the night. It's like a music video in the episode, as they play loud music and drive the boat. That looks fantastic."

I guess Fever Ray really is the soundtrack to your summer. Just a really dark summer night on a speeding boat with Don Johnson. Terrifying.

Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca

Perhaps we will come to consider 2009 the year when so many beloved indie rock bands finally delivered on the promise of their finer, albeit scattered, glimpses of early genius. I'm a huge Grizzly Bear fan, but Dirty Projectors are, without a doubt, the most creative and gifted group in independent rock today. From Bitte Orca's very first moments, it's hard not to be completely blown away by the sheer musicality and seemingly boundless inventiveness of this music. Rise Above was okay and certainly an interesting concept, but it wasn't without its filler. Bitte Orca is a lean burst of the unique brand of sophisticated, left field pop that makes the Dirty Projectors so captivating. While this album feels like Dirty Projectors most direct and accessible effort to date, that is certainly a relative standard, and Bitte Orca is certainly not everyone's taste (after all, they make very few concessions to accepted rock conventions or forms). But it's hard not to think that the world wouldn't be a more perfect place if everyone listened to this stuff.

My 25 favorite songs:

Honorable Mention:

Dirty Projectors - "Two Doves"

Javelin - "Vibrationz"

Lake Hearbeat - "Golden Chain"

Neon Indian - "Deadbeat Summer"

25. Woods - "Rain On"

24. Yeasayer - "Tightrope"

23. Korallreven - "Loved Up"

22. Taken By Trees - "Watch the Waves"

21. Washed Out - "Feel It All Around"

20. Beirut - "My Night with the Prostitute from Marseilles"

19. Toro Y Moi - "Talamak"

18. Memory Cassette - "Surfin"

17. Sun Airway - "Oh Naoko"

16. Washed Out - "New Theory"

15. The Antlers - "The Bear"

14. Suckers - "Beach Queen"

13. Animal Collective - "My Girls"

12. Grizzly Bear - "Ready, Able"

11. Atlas Sound - "Walkabout"

10. Girls - "Lust for Life"

9. Japandroids - "Young Hearts Spark Fire"

8. Bat for Lashes - "Daniel"

7. Jonathan Johansson - "Aldrig Ensam"

6. Fever Ray - "Keep the Streets Empty for Me"

5. The Very Best - "Warm Heart of Africa"

4. Free Energy - "Free Energy"

3. Grizzly Bear - "Two Weeks"

2. jj - "Things Will Never Be The Same Again"

1. Kurt Vile - "Freeway"

Infinite Summer Playlist - Beatin' Down Yo' Block

As previously noted, summer is having the best summer ever. I'm not really sure the reason for this season's love-in, but it's certainly made for some pretty sweet listening. In celebration/recognition of all the great music out there these days, I've assembled a mix of songs that have been in rather heavy rotation on my iPod/laptop for the past three months.

Admittedly, this is a fairly eclectic compilation (Lo-Fi, Garage, Electro-Pop, Laptop, Balearic, even a Michael Jackson cover) but, as this collection attests, 2009 has been a great (and surprisingly diverse) year for music. The fragmentation and blurring of independent music's categorical landscape continues apace (this hardly bodes well for the permanence of a great many of these bands or trends (or really any band or trend for that matter)), but, when the music is this good, I doubt anyone really minds.

With releases from Neon Indian, Kings of Convenience, Girls, The Very Best, Lake Heartbeat and El Perro Del Mar forthcoming, 2K9 only stands to get better. But in the sage and ever cautious words of Levar Burton, "Don't take my word for it."

Behold: a mix of the songs that, at least for me, have made this summer just a little more bearable. Copies available upon request. To request a copy, simply email onemaninasmallroom@gmail.com with your name and mailing address.

Mayfair Set - Already Warm

Best Coast - Sun Was High (So Was I)

Toro Y Moi - 109

Eat Skull - Stick to the Formula

Smith Westerns - Gimme Some Time

Atlas Sound - Walkabout (feat. Noah Lennox)

Free Energy - Free Energy

Kurt Vile - Freeway

Girls - Lust for Life

Beach Fossils - Daydream

Neon Indian - Deadbeat Summer

Washed Out - New Theory

Memory Cassette - Surfin

Javelin - Vibrationz

Neon Indian - Terminally Chill

Taken By Trees - Watch the Waves

Korallreven - Loved Up

Real Estate - Beach Comber

Javelin - Tell Me, What Will It Be?

Washed Out - Feel It All Around

Pearl Harbour - Lost at Sea

Best Coast - Something in the Way

JJ - Things Will Never Be The Same Again

Toro Y Moi - Human Nature (MJ Cover)

And for those of you shocked by the complete absence of The Very Best on this mix, fret not. Rather than pick just one song from this soon to be gigantic group (which I really couldn't do), I thought it would be better to provide a link to one of my favorite albums of last year, the completely surprising, genre-crushing, intoxicatingly joyous, The Very Best mixtape. Download it here (totally free, totally legal - via Green Owl). Based upon the few songs I've heard (the title track, "Chalo", "Julia", "Mfumu", "Ntende Uli" "Rain Dance"), the mixtape still has a slight edge on the album (Warm Heart of Africa, out 10/6), but, either way, these guys are going to be huge.

In a related note, the music of Malawi (The Very Best's Esau Mwamwaya's native land) is starting to garner some serious international attention. Check out this excellent BBC piece on the oft overlooked, but no less essential sounds of this tiny yet influential African nation. Watch/read it here.

August 4th Radio Broadcast - The Sound of One Man in a Small Room

Behold: The playlist from last night's One Man in a Small Room radio broadcast (from 5:00 - 8:00 p.m. every Tuesday on WLUR 91.5). As promised, the music of Sweden was celebrated (again), new favorite bands were profiled, Tuesday was commemorated and we successfully yet inexplicably resisted the temptation to play a single song prominently featuring a synthesizer (amazing, we know). Three hours is a very long time to spend in less than spacious quarters, but, for you, gentle listener, we're happy to endure mild physical discomfort, undoubted social ostracism and intermittent feelings of profound loneliness. Links to streaming content and mp3 downloads provided for your listening enjoyment. Rock 'n roll ain't noise pollution:

Peter Bjorn and John - Teen Love

The Concretes - Say Something New

Lake Heartbeat - Golden Chain

Lake Heartbeat - Between Dreams

Deportees - When They Come

Deportees - Under the Pavement, The Beach

Loveninjas - Care

Loveninjas - Earl Grey with Honey

The Embassy - It Pays to Belong

The Embassy - Stage Persona

Le Sport - It's Not the End of the World

Radio Dept. - Freddie & The Trojan Horse

Radio Dept. - Closing Scene

The Honeydrips - It Was a Sunny Summer Day

Jonathan Johannson - Sent for Oss

Jonathan Johannson - Aldrig Ensam

El Perro Del Mar - Change of Heart

El Perro Del Mar - I Gotta Get Smart

Studio - No Comply

The Tough Alliance - A New Chance

The Tough Alliance - 1981

JJ - My Life, My Swag

JJ - Things Will Never Be The Same Again

Air France - June Evenings

Air France - GBG Belongs to Us

Taken By Trees - Sweetness

Lykke Li - Breaking It Up

Joel Alme - Always on My Mind

Joel Alme - The Seven Islands

Marching Band - For Your Love

Shout Out Louds - Normandie

Jens Lekman - Maple Leaves

Jens Lekman - Postcard to Nina

Kings of Convenience - Mrs. Cold

Whitest Boy Alive - 1517

Rubies - Diamonds on Fire (Pyramid Dub Version by Sorcerer)

Blue Roses - I Am Leaving

Free Energy - Free Energy

Throw Me The Statue - Ancestors

Dinosaur Jr. - See You

Cymbals Eat Guitars - Indiana

Japandroids - Young Hearts Spark Fire

The Antlers - Two

Apoplectic about missing last night's broadcast? Beginning to believe that your life has no meaning? Fret not. We will resume our futile yet dogged struggle against Clear Channel and their computers next Tuesday from 5:00 - 8:00 p.m.. Stream it here.

My Favorite Summer Song

Yes, incredulous foreign national reader. Your eyes do not deceive. This blog has yet again changed format. I suppose beneath this shiny, endlessly malleable exterior beats the restless heart of an aspiring polyglot. Who knew? Long the unrivaled source for all things German, mathematical and/or dance-related, this blog has since become the unfailing chronicle of my incipient nostalgia for the likely misremembered moments of my halcyon youth. Oh well. A thousand apologies to my faithful, slide-rule-wielding, dancefloor-seeking, Bavarian readership. It's not you. It's me.

And why not gaze rearward? I'm not getting any younger, and, frankly, I can already feel my mind starting to go. Case in point: As a way of gauging my assured mental atrophy, I often ask myself little questions of trivia or fact to which I believe I once knew the answer. This may seem an odd practice to some, but, as far as I'm concerned, I would rather know my mind has been irretrievably lost long before I ever have to hear this brutal diagnosis from the lips of a medical professional. It's my sincere hope that such advance notice will dull the invariable shock of this news and provide me some succor in this dark hour. After all, no matter how crazy I may seem, I'm still smarter than this doctor. This man is a hack. Crazy? Tell me something I don't know. I suppose they'll let any old fool into medical school these days.

Anyhow, these are not difficult questions, but I assume they are the kinds of queries to which really sharp people in full possession of their faculties can quickly and correctly respond. In fact, I'm fairly certain I could answer a great many of them with considerable ease and rapidity during my middle school years, although, I can't really remember. They're mostly things like "What's the capital of Iowa?" "Name four Canadian provinces." "What's the smallest country in the world?" "Who starred in the title role of the hit NBC series, Blossom?" I have missed a number of these questions as of late, and I'm beginning to fear this is but the first harbinger of a rather steep and rapid descent into nodding stupefaction. I'm hoping regular reference to my increasingly redolent posts will prove useful as I attempt to thwart this creeping tide of confusion. At the very least, medical officials will undoubtedly find it a revealing and handy public record as they attempt to chart the severe declination of my mental health.

But really. Why? Why this change? Why now? Well, to be perfectly candid, about four days ago, I began to suspect that this blog, in light of of its unique content and broad, interdisciplinary appeal, was becoming much too big, much too fast. This impression principally resulted from a rather disconcerting email I received from an excitable German named Jan, a young man likely bewildered by a thousand sleepless nights spent in fashionable, frenetic gyration beneath the hot lights of the disco parlors of the lower Rhine. Behold the offending missive:

Hallo!

Please do receive this text. It gives me many pleasure to be received for it is the receiving of the giving that we often have much hard times. I am good. How is you? It is my much hope that you are well. My is name is Jan. I am German. I love math. I am an serviceable dancer. I am a fan of your blog. In my country you have millions of such readers. I know now not what to attribute popularity such as to this, but it is probably resulting of your unique content nature and broad appeal of interdisciplines.

We also such dances as we love. The only thing we now love more than math is now dancing. We noticed you mention Londonbeat. We have all their records. My cousin date the keyboardist. Such relationship is occasionally many complicated. Please do forgive such complications. It gives us many pleasure to be received.

You have millions of readership in Germany. We do not have much to live for, but your blog has brought many meanings to much lives. You are celebrity big like Londonbeat. Will you visits? It is nice to visit. We make much space for you on the such as floor. Unfortunately, you can not date my cousin. Such relationship is many complicated. Please do forgive such complications. It gives us many pleasure to be received.

Tchuss,

Jan (and millions of loyal German readers).

This level of devotion struck me as far more than this tender blog could bear. I do not have the requisite bone structure to support, endure or even tolerate fanaticism of this singularly teutonic stripe. I write for the flitting interweb itinerant and strive for a certain unremarkableness common to house plants, brick walls and beige fabrics. I shudder at the mere mention of the words "loyal" and "reader". Furthermore, it is my personal belief that such a catastrophic, zephyr-like groundswell of attention is anathema to this blog and should be avoided at all costs. In fact, it is my greatest fear (well, it's at least a close fourth, right behind Lyme disease, canoe fire in shallow, shark-infested waters and venomous snake attack while lounging in sleepy repose upon an under-inflated water bed in a sub-tropical clime).

As I've previously mentioned, I've long hoped my readership would flower in a decidedly organic fashion. One friend would tell another friend who would tell another friend who would tell another who had already told that other friend about the blog and what kind of jerk doesn't mention that he heard about the blog from me? and next thing you know, you have three very loyal readers, a fast-fraying friendship (after all, to make an omelet, one must break a few eggs, and transglobal social progress is nothing if not brutal. Change is a cruel and indiscriminate handmaiden, and I suppose there will always be casualties), and a seeming universe of infinitely limited possibilities. As I've long contended, you should blog like no one's reading, and, in my two weeks of blogging, I've found this creative chimera is more easily achieved if no one's actually reading. At the very least, it's much easier on the conscience, what, without all that pesky lying and all.

Still not satisfied? I know you're crestfallen, but increasingly difficult gentle reader, take a brief moment to dream with me. Imagine: It's a prosaic Tuesday morning in October. You awake to find six copies of untranslated German serials outside your door. Unfortunately, you don't speak German. In fact, wholly unbeknownst to your fiercely loyal readers in Baden-Baden, you find its cacophonous clashing of consonants offensive to the ear. Moreover, you secretly suspect that it is virtually impossible to pitch woo in such a discordant tongue, but, as you do not speak German, you have never endeavored to test this hypothesis. Nevertheless, you believe it a rather plausible premise.

You open your email to find you have 574 new messages, a great many of them from an overzealous, mathematically-inclined, dance instructor from Heidelberg (Benni) with a rather shocking jealous streak and an apparent predisposition for indiscriminate violence (a condition perhaps only exacerbated by his expressed penchant for restrictive, highly-flammable synthetic fabrics). Over the past two months, his correspondence has become increasingly and disconcertingly erratic. You open his most recent missive only to discover the following terse message:

Felicitations -

Please do receive this text. I have set the loveseat in your breakfast nook on fire.

Tchuss -

Benni

You rush downstairs only to remember 1) you do not have a breakfast nook and 2) you have never owned a loveseat. You wonder just whose furniture Benni has terrorized, and what did an innocent loveseat have to do with any of this? You imagine that somewhere in the world a breakfast nook is aflame and a homeowner is very surprised.

For the next three weeks, Benni's campaign of terror continues without abatement. You regularly receive laconic emails charting the considerable toll of his wanton malevolence: "thrown all the books from your rather voluminous library in the river", "sunk your car in your moat", "your telescopes are kaput!", "filled your dishwasher with concrete", "looks like you won't be breeding greyhounds anymore!", and "guess whose computer lab is now covered in tar!?!" One morning while picking up one of the German serials leaning against your door, you glimpse a picture of a slender, shirtless, spandex-clad man thrust upon the hood of a Fiat and surrounded by no less than nine police officers. Above the photo is a caption which you believe, loosely translated, reads, "Citizens of Heidelberg rest easy. Breakfast nook bandit caught. Police fear backlash against dancing, internet, synthetic fabrics."

Reeling from the shock of this news, you look outside your window to spy what appear to be four graduate students encamped in your front yard. You conclude that these are the people who emailed you last week (in English) seeking "a few quotes" on the manifestation of uniquely germanic neuroses in American popular culture in the post-Nixon era as evidenced by the ascendancy of rule-driven social dances (see Electric Slide). You decline to comment.

Late one night, unable to sleep, you decide to surf the internet only to discover that your blog has been added to the online version of the German social dictionary. Your entry reads, "Definitive internet source for all things German, mathematical and/or dancing-related. Best blog in the history of the world, but likely a well-organized fraud perpetrated by someone with almost no familiarity with the folkways of the German people. Also, author is probably not very good at Math, and, we suspect, a very poor dancer."

NPR calls seeking a quote on a fairly obscure 19th century German mathematician thought to have popularized flash cards, and all you can think to say is, "Flash cards constitute Germany's richest contribution to modern pedagogical practice. They are exceedingly German, and they are very much like something a German, especially a German interested in mathematics, would invent. I would say the advent of the flash card is probably the proudest moment in a vast history of fairly proud moments involving Germans and the discovery of new and novel uses for small pieces of paper. They are a headstrong people with an intense and decidedly visceral aversion to detritus.

"For example, I have found that is rare to witness a ticker tape parade in Germany. It is even rarer for Germans to use wrapping paper. Instead, they surprise the people to whom they are giving a gift by first making a show of physical force or, on special occasions, administering an effective but usually harmless dose of chloroform. I would also not rule out the limited application of horse tranquilizers for more obstinate friends, colleagues and associates. Once the recipient is subdued, the gift is then "presented." This often means that the item is simply dumped on the unconscious individual who will soon awake to find himself wholly alone, somewhat weary but literally covered in trinkets, baubles and assorted knickknacks. According to our empirical research, the recipient is often very surprised."

As you can see, such an unavoidable series of unfortunate events would hardly be good for this blog. As far as I'm concerned, I would much prefer a long and meaningless online existence to a brief, tempestuous fit of interweb relevance. Plus, how long can one pass off Wikipedia entries as original works before some integrity-loving denizen of the interweb blows the e-whistle?

But I digress...

After recently hearing Counting Crows frontman, Adam Duritz, catalog his favorite summertime soundtrack on NPR (the English Beat's excellent, "Save It For Later"), I began thinking about what makes a great summer song, and, by extension, just what my definitive summer anthem would be? Tis the season. Furthermore, given that global warming is apparently very real, I suppose it's high time I commence cataloging the songs that will pair well with the palm trees, dolphins and air brushed t-shirt emporia destined to become common sights in this formerly temperate clime. After all, Virginia is for pina colada lovers.

Admittedly, this is a question I find fascinating. Like a great many music fans, I am a compulsive maker of mixes. I spend a lot of time looking for the perfect soundtrack to the quotidian and picayune moments of my life. What's the perfect song to listen to while vacuuming? While driving to the grocery store? While looking for something under the couch? While walking a distance of a few blocks? Upon realizing I no longer have full possession of my mental faculties? Nic Hornby posited that the incessant cataloging of musical hierarchies is a uniquely male urge, and this may very well still be the case. I am a rapidly aging man whose self-awareness and understanding of critical gender differences wane with each passing day.

To a certain extent, this long extant impulse has been exacerbated by the advent of less cumbersome, portable musical technologies that allow listeners to imagine every waking moment of their day as music videos in search of an empathetic soundtrack. Moreover, software applications permitting the easy cataloging, organization and retrieval of songs has made the once lovingly laborious "mixtape" a matter of mere moments. But just one song? Any music lover likely finds the asceticism of this enterprise uniquely confounding (not to mention, torturous), and this is undoubtedly what makes this exercise so compelling. It's like some savage, sonic corollary to Lay's' once and former gastronomic gauntlet: Betcha can't pick just one.

Music has different values and meanings at different times in our lives, but, without a doubt, there are certain songs that have a decidedly transcendent resonance. Such tunes are utterly unstuck; both of a moment and a lifetime. Such a song has the singular capacity to instantly transport you back to that crystalline juncture (attendant sentiment and all) when you first truly heard it. But the perfect summer song? That is something very special indeed.

For me, summer will always and forever be the golden province of youth. It is a time of joy, freedom, excitement and possibility, a sublimely perfect season completely free from the fetters and frustrations of the adult world. School is out (forever, as some 70s auteurs would have you believe), it's hot, there's really not much to do, but who cares? It's summer.

My perfect summer song is The Rolling Stones' "Tumbling Dice" from the band's epic, sprawling 1972 double LP release, Exile on Main Street. This is, hands down, my favorite song from my favorite record by one of my favorite bands. It might be an obvious choice from an obvious album (and throughout the years, I certainly claimed to love other deeper cuts more), but there is something so undeniably magical about this tune. Mick Jagger may insist that the mix was never right or that the tempo's too slow, but, as far as I'm concerned, this song has it all: an undeniable groove, great guitar work, an infinitely catchy chorus, completely incomprehensible lyrics, and a flawless outro that is easily one of the most exuberant moments ever captured on tape.

When you love a band as popular as the Stones, you always feel your favorite songs need to be those rare, erudite B-sides the average lay listener has likely never heard and will assuredly never hear (lest you be confused for one of those uninitiated types drunkenly clamoring for "Start Me Up" at their concerts): "Well, you see, Keith 'accidentally' wrote this song in the spring of 1977 while on holiday in Jamaica. It's global themes and biting social commentaries were thought to be too much for the average western consumer to grasp, so it was only released in Lebanon where it peaked at #34 on the urban dance charts. It's working title was 'Woman - Your Love Has Got Me By the Changepurse'. Most people have never heard it." But no matter how hard I try and heedless of the opprobrium I may suffer, I always return to "Tumbling Dice". What can I say? It has two drummers (Charlie Watts and Producer, Jimmy Miller) playing simultaneously. Who could possibly dislike a song with two drummers playing simultaneously?

Within five seconds of hearing that signature, declining guitar line, there is little doubt as to what tune has just burst from the radio. Peaking at #7 and backed with B-Side "Sweet Black Angel" (a song about Civil Rights-activist, Angela Davis (then facing murder charges)), "Tumbling Dice" certainly wasn't the Stones' biggest hit, but, since its inception, it has been a staple of their live sets (they performed the song at every date for a period of seventeen years (from 1982 until 1999)). Previously recorded during the Sticky Fingers sessions under the working title, "Good-Time Women", it wasn't until the band set about re-recording the tune in the south of France that the song acquired its celebrated groove.

Admittedly, the near mythological story of the making of Exile is almost as famous as the album itself (which, although widely panned upon its release, is now almost universally regarded as the last great album in one of the greatest runs in rock history, a streak that included the undisputed classics, Beggar's Banquet, Let It Bleed, and Sticky Fingers). In the summer of 1971, broke and exiled in the South of France to avoid paying British income tax, the Stones set about recording the follow-up to 1970's Sticky Fingers in and around Keith Richards' large chateau (Nellcote) in Villefranche-sur-mer. Due to copious drug use by almost all parties involved, there are a million different versions of the making of this record, and no two people seem to agree on much save that the Stones were in France when they probably recorded most of this album.

Exile feels like a series of wonderfully ragged moments captured over one very long and muggy summer night. It is a great record by a great band succeeding in spite of itself (and its demons). This album is the quintessential distillation of all that once made the Stones so compelling. It is the definitive statement of drugged-out, sexed-up excess by the most excessive band in the history of a genre noted (and celebrated) for the public and unapologetic excesses of its principals. But it's more than an atavistic ode to hedonism or some solipsistic soundtrack to a bacchanal. Exile is a near perfect, exquisitely diverse and decidedly expert exploration of the disparate and varied genres (blues, country-blues, rock and country) that formed the roiling nucleus of the Rolling Stones' classic sound.

"Tumbling Dice" will always remind me of the summer after my sophomore year of college. During these three months, I spent a lot of time driving between various jobs in my father's Chevy Malibu in the hottest place on earth, otherwise known as Columbia, South Carolina. This record made those drives bearable. After a long day of work, there was nothing better than climbing in the car, rolling down the windows, and hearing "Tumbling Dice" pour out of the speakers. No matter how bad the day or how tired I felt, it was impossible not to feel better when this song came on. In fact, just hearing this song now makes me want to get in my car and drive around. After all, what says summertime in America more iconically, more vividly than a car, a song and no particular place to go?

And when you get tired of "Tumbling Dice" might I also recommend Toots and the Maytals' "Pressure Drop", Billy Stewart's "Summertime", The Lovin' Spoonful's "Do You Believe in Magic?" and Soul Survivors' "Expressway to Your Heart". I never claimed to be good at this whole one song thing. Plus, it's my blog. I can lie if I want to.