Out the Other

Menomenamenamenamenamena

 

Being laid off from a regular ol 8-5 kinda jobby job TOTALLY changes the way you listen to music, FYI.  Before, my days were filled with spreadsheets and cubicles and computer speakers and new records.  Now, my days are spent here, there and everywhere, so consumption is more intermittent and only the really really good stuff really really sticks.

That said, Menomena's new album Mines, which is out tomorrow on the wonderful Barsuk records, is some of the really really good stuff.  It's obviously been a while since I've been inspired to write about a new record that I'm loving, but this is totally one of them - the perfect follow-up to 2007's Friend & Foe, which served as my head-over-heels-in-love introduction to the band.  Like a carefully constructed web of intricately interlaced instrumentation, with sticky passages of percussion and pianos like dewdrops and the spider's melodic siren call at the center of it all, I feel like I'm still unraveling the album three years later, but I have to set it aside for the moment to turn my attention to Mines. 

The other day, the boyfriend said that he thinks Mines is a better album than Friend & Foe, but I'll argue that the former is just the latter's perfect complement.  More of what I fell for the first time, but maybe the web is a bit bigger this time around, a bit stronger, a bit more dappled with spots of sunshine and shade.  It certainly makes me want to discover a way to clone my ears so that I can listen to Mines again and again WHILE I also give Friend & Foe another spin.  Actually, while we're at it, I'd like to lend a third pair of ears to last year's Intuit by Ramona Falls, a side project of Menomena's Brent Knopf.  Intuit was one of my favorite releases of 2009, but while it was exceptional, and certainly and obviously Menomena's sonic cousin, Mines is making me appreciate the extra note of urgency - and saxophone! - that appears in Menomena's work. 

As always, regardless of what I think, check out Menomena's Mines for yourself. Just know that: (a) it's one of my favorite albums so far this year, (b) in the new landscape of unemployment it's soundtracking my days more than anything but LCD Soundsystem at the moment, and (c) were it not for the Summer of Guest DJs on Out the Other, I would be playing as many songs as possible from the album on the show tonight.

"TAOS"
"Five Little Rooms"

Mines is out tomorrow on Barsuk, and Menomena will be at the Mercy Lounge on Saturday, October 9. Pencil that one in, kids.

Bonnaroo Preview: The Dodos

 

This post is from Out the Other's 2010 Bonnaroo Artist Previews, where I will be posting previews of all the musical acts playing the 2010 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. Please check out and subscribe to the full site to learn more about all of this year's performers.

I am quite, quite excited about seeing The Dodos at Bonnaroo this week - yes, I've seen the band before, but that was at SXSW in 2008, before I had time to properly fall in love with their Frenchkiss debut Visiter.  That album was a dark horse that year - pleasant on first listen, still pleasant on second, but with more and more appearances on shuffle and repeats at work and I found the record systematically engraved itself on my ears and brain and heart. There's a kind of consistent goodness there in their gentle but percussive indie folk, the acoustic guitar is soothing and the drums are hypnotizing, and above it all floats melodies that get stuck in your head without your even noticing. Still, two years later, it's a go-to album when I need something low-key but melodic to listen to, and I know I'm going to continue keep Visiter in rotation for years to come.

Bonnaroo Preview: Kings of Leon

This post is from Out the Other's 2010 Bonnaroo Artist Previews, where I will be posting previews of all the musical acts playing the 2010 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. Please check out and subscribe to the full site to learn more about all of this year's performers.

Nashville has a strange relationship with hometown boys Kings of Leon - there's a lot of antipathy around town for the band, pretty much ever since they started gaining popularity.  The skinny jeans, the lack of local love, their seeming ability to skip straight to stardom without paying their dues in our neighborhood dives - or maybe it's just that the Nashville rock scene hates a popular band.  Whatever it is, it's gotten even weirder since the Followill boys reached blockbuster, superstar status.  On one hand, it's bringing our town a shitload of attention.  On the other hand, it's all "woah, who knew there were rockers in Nashville?" kind of attention, from the likes of the British and big city press who think Nashville still equals Music Row.  But love 'em or hate 'em, Kings of Leon are still Nashville, and they're doing some good things with their fame, like taking Nashville's The Features (one of the best bands in town) under their wing, bringing them on tour and releasing their album.  And you've gotta respect that.

Bonnaroo Preview: Miike Snow

This post is from Out the Other's 2010 Bonnaroo Artist Previews, where I will be posting previews of all the musical acts playing the 2010 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. Please check out and subscribe to the full site to learn more about all of this year's performers.

It seems appropriate that I preview Miike Snow next because I just saw the band on MTV - apparently they're playing the MTV Movie Awards after party right now.  Which means I really hope that Sandra Bullock and Marky Mark and Betty White are dancing their asses off to "Animal," the way I will be this Thursday night.

Bonnaroo Preview: Dr. Dog

This post is from Out the Other's 2010 Bonnaroo Artist Previews, where I will be posting previews of all the musical acts playing the 2010 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. Please check out and subscribe to the full site to learn more about all of this year's performers.

I'm trying to restrict myself to only listening to Bonnaroo acts these days, just to keep me on track with this previewing business, which means when I'm out of the range of my laptop, I keep turning on the new Dr. Dog album.  I can't help it - Shame, Shame is proving to be one of the most repeat listen-friendly records of 2010, and it's even joining the ranks of 2007's We All Belong in my mind. Which is, you know, saying a lot, cause that album was my introduction to the band and I'm freaking in love with it.

Bonnaroo Preview: Dave Matthews Band

This post is from Out the Other's 2010 Bonnaroo Artist Previews, where I will be posting previews of all the musical acts playing the 2010 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. Please check out and subscribe to the full site to learn more about all of this year's performers.

I was a teenage DMB fan.

It's true, and I'm not afraid to admit it, because lord knows I've written things on Out the Other that should have lost me my indie cred card long, long ago.  But yes, I was a Dave Matthews Band fan for quite some years, and while I never joined the fan club, or really adored them as much as a huge number of my friends, or even continued to pay attention to their albums circa Everyday and later, I loved them thoroughly enough to go to a handful of shows, own a shitload of their live albums, and memorize a number of lyrics that shockingly seem still to be implanted in my brain.

Take a walk with me down memory lane and see it through my eyes: 1994. Under the Table and Dreaming.  Thirteen year-old me hearing "Ants Marching" on the radio, putting "Satellite" on mixtapes, swooning at the gentle guitar/sax combo of "Lover Lay Down," singing along to "Dancing Nancies" and thinking about how super intense the beginning of "Warehouse" was.  At first I resisted, because Dave Matthews was just a little too popular with the girls in class that annoyed me, but I was like a puppy, like a newborn baby duckling. My ears were new to top 40 and I imprinted, just like that. I couldn't help it, it was science.

Bonnaroo Preview: Boy Crisis

This post is from Out the Other's 2010 Bonnaroo Artist Previews, where I will be posting previews of all the musical acts playing the 2010 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. Please check out and subscribe to the full site to learn more about all of this year's performers.

I don't know what's more impressive - the fact that Brooklyn's Boy Crisis have slipped their dancey post-disco electro-rock past my radar, or the fact that they manage to name drop Woodrow Wilson in their track "Dressed to Digress" while keeping a straight face.  Then again, judging by their fun-loving sound and goofy style (pictured above), I doubt there's such a thing as a straight face when it comes to Boy Crisis.