Out the Other

Father John Misty - Fear Fun

Tuesday marked the release of my favorite-so-far album of 2012, Father John Misty's Fear Fun. It's certainly the album that I've listened to the most this year - though "listened to" isn't really the phrase I'd use. I feel like I've cocooned myself in this record for the last month - wrapped myself in it, buried myself in it, woke up to it and gone to sleep to it and had dreams where its songs were stuck in my head. This sounds a bit like obsession and maybe it is, but sometimes albums sync up with your life just perfectly, and for a month or two they're almost the only thing you want to hear.

Father John Misty is Joshua Tillman, who I had been in love with for quite some time even before Fear Fun cast its spell over me. A former Fleet Fox with an already impressive solo catalog under the moniker J. Tillman, the singer first whistled his way into my heart about five years ago with "My Waking Days," a hushed and captivating tune from Long May You Run, J. Tillman that I included on my Whistle While You Work mix. The more heard, the more I wished I could swap out every Ray LaMontagne CD and mp3 and record in the world for something by J. Tillman - here was a talent ten times as large making music ten times as beautiful, that would appeal to the same fans, but that deserved one hundred times the fame of LaMontagne.

Today is actually Tillman's 31st birthday, and in very hobbit-like fashion, we are the ones who are receiving the gift. In fact, it's as if Father John Misty is the birthday party version of J. Tillman - the musician I fell in love with in "My Waking Days" is still there, but he's been doing birthday whiskey shots. Now that he's tipsy, he's a little bit bolder, a little bit braver, confessional and sentimental in all the right ways but clearly having as much fun as anyone else in the room. Tillman's voice still has that touch of haunting fragility, but he sounds uninhibited now - like the slightly-soused birthday boy is standing on his chair to sing his heart out, and if he falls - well, that's the Fear Fun of it.

"Fun Times In Babylon"
"Misty's Nightmares 1 & 2"

Fear Fun is out now on Sub Pop Records. Stream it on Spotify then get it on vinyl, and by all means follow @FATHERJOHNMISTY on Twitter - he is a delight.

AOTW: Miracle Fortress - Was I The Wave?

If you tuned in to yesterday's show (or if you checked out the playlist/archive) you know that the Featured Album of the Week was the new Miracle Fortress, Was I The Wave?, which came out yesterday on Secret City Records.

I've been in love with Miracle Fortress (aka Montreal's Graham Van Pelt) since 2007's dreamy Five Roses, which was one of my favorite releases that year. To me it that album was starting to kick off chill wave before that was even a term - lush melodies and cresting waves of Beach Boys harmonies wrapped up in one totally gorgeous hypnotic package. It was such a beautiful record that even my musician friend was a fan - despite the fact that he had a thing for a girl who had a thing for Van Pelt, he told me "I love the music but I have bitterness in my heart."

Miracle Fortress disappeared off my radar, like most bands who don't come through town inevitably do for the most part, so I was delighted when I heard about Was I The Wave? and got my hands on a promo copy of the album the very same day. AND then I heard the delightful news that they're coming to Nashville, FINALLY, to play at Mercy Lounge on Tuesday, June 21 with JUNIOR BOYS, of all touring partners.

Listening to WITW, the pairing begins to make sense. This album has a backbone of beats - rhythmic ribs beneath the same seawater skin of Five Roses. It's instantly recognizable but an impressive step in a new direction - progressive in a way most acts fail to... progress. The kind of album that makes you nod and think "yeah, that's about right."

"Everything's Right"

And a tune I couldn't spin on the air - "Miscaculations"

Was I The Wave? is out now on Secret City Records.

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.

Heavy Rotation: Electric President - The Violent Blue

Surprisingly enough, even though I find myself becoming wildly jealous every time someone tweets about something exciting that I'm missing in Austin, I really don't regret skipping SXSW this year.  I did it three years in a row, and I thought a year off was appropriate for a number of reasons.  There ARE a few bands that I'm super bummed I won't have a chance to see this week though, and one of them is Electric President.

It's pretty much a given at this point that I will love anything Ben Cooper is involved with - from Electric President (his recording project with Alex Kane) to OtO favorite Radical Face, to random b-side-ish project Patients.  Cooper has a knack for melody and mood and atmosphere that always seems to put his music a head and shoulders above whatever else I seem to be listening to at the time, and the new Electric President album, The Violent Blue, is no exception.  Somehow I missed its release back at the end of February, but promptly downloaded a digital copy when I heard about it through the grapevine, and it seems like I've listened to it at least forty times since.  I'm not kidding - I can listen to this album over and over, and last night I even listened to just the track "Safe and Sound" on repeat for my entire drive home from work.

Anyway, Electric President - Cooper and Kane - will be performing at SXSW this week, plus Cooper will be doing a solo Radical Face set while he's in Austin as well.  Sigh.  Part of the life of a music lover means knowing you're always going to be missing something.  Always.  Perhaps we can one day get Cooper to stop in Nashville?  In the meantime, at least we can listen to The Violent Blue.

"Safe and Sound"
"Mr. Gone"

The Violent Blue is out now on Fake Four Inc. You can also pick up their self-titled first album, their 2008 release Sleep Well, or the Radical Face album Ghost, which was one of my favorite releases of 2007.

I also encourage you to spend some time on the Radical Face website, which is Cooper's online home for all of his musical projects (and other projects as well).  The music stands quite well on its own, of course, but part of what makes Cooper's output so fascinating to me is the stories behind it.  He just wrapped up recording the first of a trilogy of new Radical Face albums, all centered around the story of a fictitious family, and his most recent update details his reasons for embarking on this project, as well as outlining the other challenges he keeps issuing to himself.  I love that there's a project-y, experimental aspect to what Cooper does (I mean, bands are called "recording projects" all the time - but something like Mother's Basement? That's a real project, assignments and all.), and I particularly, selfishly love the fact that the output isn't just self-indulgent and academic - it's actual, enjoyable, emotionally connecting and usually gorgeous music. 

For example, the Patients track "Body Song" began as a Mother's Basement assignment - use your body as the soul sound source for a piece.  Tell me this isn't as good as anything you've heard recently (in fact you may recognize the song, because it appeared on an episode of Weeds last season):

"Body Song"

And one more Patients track, since clearly this has turned into a post about more than just Electric President:

"Mind Ur Manners"

Lucky for you, the Patients album is available for free on MusicFloss.  Check it out and check out Electric President, and then feel free to come back here and thank me profusely.

Terry Reid - River

Now on my.... oh, seventh spin of the day through Terry Reid's 1973 forgotten gem River, I think it's safe to say that I love this record. 

Ever since I started bringing guest DJs onto the show - and they started bringing their extensive record collections onto the show - I've been growing more and more interested in the great and personally uncharted expanses of the musical past.  I had a respectably musical upbringing, but the Donny Hathaways and the Harry Nilssons and the Emitt Rhodes-es of the world all eluded me until recent years (what did I say yesterday about door-opening influences?), and being introduced to a few of them in a basement on-air studio over dusty-smelling sleeves and shiny new turntables has made me want to meet all of their friends.

Last week, Paige at Flux-Rad shared a link to the DK Presents list of "The 20 Most Overlooked Albums Of All-Time."  "Ooh," I thought. "Seems like a lovely way to spend the day." So I did.  And while I didn't make it through all twenty, I stopped for a very good reason - I got stuck on River.

It was the back story that caught my attention - promising young singer is tapped by Jimmy Page to be the lead vocalist of a new band, The New Yardbirds, but said promising young singer is in the midst of his own career pursuits, and has committed to touring with the Rolling Stones, so he turns down the offer.  He recommends another promising young singer, Robert Plant, instead - and you can figure out the rest.  Sadly, you can't read a thing about Terry Reid without hearing about the fact that he turned down the opportunity to be in Led Zepplin, and who he is became Who He Wasn't - capital letters across the board.  He became a trivia fact, a footnote, and everyone forgot about what he actually did, which at the very least includes releasing a brilliant album in 1973.

The only record Reid recorded for Atlantic, River is best described in a PopMatters review written at the time of its re-release in 2003.  It's worth hopping over there to read in its entirety, but the part that stuck out to me was the description of the album's spontaneity - it does, in fact sound "as if Reid was making up the songs on the spot." The sense of improvisation, the vocal risks, the warmth and organic feel of the production (until I read that review, I hadn't noticed the two coughs left in the album opener "Dean"), the blend of folk and blues with more world-ly sounds of samba and bossa nova (on my first run through I thought it sounded an awful lot like Stevie Wonder) - it falls on your ears like an old friend, and there's a very good reason it's the only thing I've listened to today.  It's the kind of album you expect your music-loving buddy to place reverently on the turntable before sitting down next to you on the couch and saying, "shhhhhhh - you have to listen to this."

Listen I will.  For the rest of this afternoon, at the very least.

"Avenue"
"River"

Amazon has River on 180g vinyl, though you can also grab the CD or mp3s.

Spoon - Transference

If you trace the trajectory of your taste, map the peaks and valleys and the meandering path of interest, you'll find that what you listen to and what you love is the sum of its tributaries - all the introductions and obsessions and adorations of others. That is, if you're me. I believe this is true of everyone in some way, but because of my particular blend of enthusiasm and malleability, I can trace all these branches to their sources, and attribute this chunk of my record collection to that boy with the pretty eyes, and this fleeting flirtation with whatever genre to the badass best friend I had for a week in college, and this square centimeter of my heart devoted solely to one specific song to the boy who formerly occupied that space.

In the end, they all just opened doors and no one is responsible for what came through but me, because music has always been mine, and I'm not the kind of girl to delete a band from my playlist because I went to their show with a boy who later broke my heart.  But it's curious, really, like watching a chemical reaction and remembering all the specific ingredients that made those flames such a vivid shade of blue.  And it's also the reason that the things I come to by myself - the things I fall in love with on my own, without initiation or guidance - become the things I absolutely love the most.

It happened first with Toad the Wet Sprocket - they were the first band I came to independently, without my parents or my sister to guide me.  They were the first band that I loved alone, and I loved them fiercely and selfishly because of that, and even after they faded the way old favorites do, it was enough to bring me to tears years later when I saw them in college, and enough to bring me to "you changed my life" speechlessness years even later when I drunkenly shook Glen Phillips' hand in the half-empty Basement.

It happened again a few weeks into my first year of college, when I did my first truly independent thing after moving to Boston and went to see Gomez by myself at the Paradise Rock Club.

And it happened a third time a year after moving to Nashville, still sans show-going friends in 2004, when I ventured to 12th and Porter alone to see an Austin band I was vaguely familiar with called Spoon.  I bought two of their albums at the merch table that night, but what I really went home with was a new favorite band.  And they were that much shinier and exciting because they had the glow of personal discovery.

Today Spoon releases their seventh studio album, Transference, which is their third new release since I've counted them amongst my favorites.  Any review I could possibly offer wouldn't be a review at all, so you're getting this instead.  Suffice it to say I don't think they're a favorite that will fade any time soon.

"Who Makes Your Money"
"I Saw the Light"

Meet: Generationals

The comic (can I call it a comic?) above is from one of my fave websites, A Softer World, which alternately cracks me up and depresses the shit out of me (which I guess is something all good websites should do). I saw this one a month ago but didn't actually realize what it means to me until right now. Being a music fan means I'm going to keep falling in love forever.  And the latest object of my affection is the New Orleans band Generationals, who I caught after my radio show this past Monday night.

Yim Yames - Tribute To

I haven't been particularly on top of newness this summer - not only do I have musical ADD to begin with, but the Summer of Guest DJs tends to send me off on tangents.  I'll check out something particularly great that a guest DJ played, or something that a friend recommended, and then I'll wander off down side streets and tributaries until I have absolutely no idea what's been released in the past three months.

But I'm only a week behind the release of the Yim Yames EP Tribute To, which is carrying on what seems to be a 2009 trend of tribute albums (Phosphorescent's To Willie is one of my favorite releases this year, and I just stumbled upon an Aquarium Drunkard-curated tribute to Paul McCartney's Ram, which I'm not letting myself listen to until I post this, but which I'm super thrilled to find since I only heard Ram in its entirety after Jon Rogers guest DJed on OtO earlier this summer). 

Yim Yames is, if you haven't heard, the solo moniker of Mr. Jim James of My Morning Jacket.  And his George Harrison tribute, which contains four tracks taken from the 1970 masterpiece All Things Must Pass in addition to two Beatles-released Harrison songs, is nothing short of beautiful.  A friend recently wrote that Tribute To sounds exactly like what you think it would sound like - and that's true, it holds no surprises for anyone familiar with Jim James' vocals or early MMJ material.  But that's okay in cases like this, where unsurprising means exquisite.  James' almost delicate interpretations of songs like "Long Long Long" and "Sir Frankie Crisp (Let It Roll)" re-infuse the melodies with the haunting beauty inherent in the singer's otherworldly voice, and while the covers will never surpass the classic versions, Tribute To will certainly have you digging out your copy of All Things Must Pass. And sometimes that's the greatest possible effect a tribute album can have.

Yim Yames - "My Sweet Lord"

And a completely unrelated tune from All Things Must Pass, because I'm inevitably going to head off on that tangent now.

George Harrison - "What Is Life"

Phosphorescent - A Hundred Times Or More

One of my favorite releases of 2009 so far is Phosphorescent's wonderful and beautiful To Willie, a collection of the band's takes on a number of Willie Nelson songs. I got to hear it (almost) in its entirety live when I saw the band perform at SXSW earlier this year, another show that helped solidify my complete adoration of anything Matthew Houck touches. (OtO fun fact - did you know that my Yewknee-created banner above is actually a shot of Phosphorescent that I took at SXSW in 2008?)

Phosphorescent's first album, A Hundred Times or More, is no exception to my adoration rule.  After my love affair with Phosphorescent began immediately upon hearing Pride two years ago (the only album I've loved so much I've bought it three times in three different formats), I promptly tracked down the first few releases - the full-lengths A Hundred Times or More and Aw Come Aw Wry, and the EP The Weight of Flight. For the past two days I've been in a Phosphorescent-y mood, so I've been looping those three releases, but I keep coming back to Hundred Times.

Anyone who knows me well (in person or even via my blog and show) is familiar with my penchant for the epic, the breathtaking, the kind of music that seems to physically shift my heart in my chest and alter my ability to breathe.  Pride was exactly that type of album - every time I try to describe it to someone I'm reduced to rambling and evocative sighs. A Hundred Time or More, on the other hand, dials down the ethereal choruses and epic swellings of sound to a more subdued level, into something more folky and terrestrial. But it still feels steeped in emotion and intensely personal, like all of Phosphorescent's music, maybe more so this time around because I find some of the songs reminding me of one of my long-time favorite bands, Toad the Wet Sprocket, oddly enough.  Tracks like "Salt & Blues," "Bullet," and "Last of the Hand-Me-Downs" stretch beyond six minutes but manage to transfix me for the duration, and listening to them repeatedly makes me wish both for a Nashville tour stop in the near future (cross your fingers - it could happen soon) as well as a new album of original Phosphorescent material.

"Bullet"
"Last of the Hand-Me-Downs"

You can nab a digital copy of A Hundred Times Or More via Amazon, or pick up the CD over on Insound.

Vetiver - Tight Knit

I was up early yesterday morning being all domestic and making a sausage casserole for brunch, and instead of turning on the TV to keep me company while I browned two pounds of sausage, I turned on the stereo instead.  I'm still pretty bummed that I missed Monday's show because I was without a voice, because there was so much great music released last week, and I've been so busy I haven't had time to write about it yet.

One of the fantastic records that was released last Tuesday was Vetiver's Tight Knit, which I'm listening to right now. For some reason I've never paid much attention to this band, despite the fact that this is their fourth release since 2004.  I even remember that they came through Nashville about two years ago, because there was an amazing poster for their show hanging up in the radio station for ages.  But for some reason their music never made much of an impression on me; or, more likely, I never really listened to it, because I can't imagine that I wouldn't have fallen in love earlier if their other albums are anywhere near as amazing as Tight Knit.

My first introduction to the album was the freely-released promotional mp3 for "Everyday," which is a happy, springy, smile of a song that I could listen to over and over again.  A few weeks after that, I finally listened to the whole album, and it was one of those amazing moments that are few and far between when you listen to a record and the entire thing just sounds like perfection.  I'm serious, I love the entire thing from top to bottom and I knew that the very first time I ran through its ten tracks.  It's hard to even choose which songs are my favorites - from the gentle introduction of "Rolling Sea" to the upbeat "More of This," which made me boogie around the kitchen yesterday to the cats' alarm. "Another Reason to Go" has a casual swagger, while "Strictly Rule" falls into a Santana-esque groove. Every song is wonderful, and relatively distinct as well.

Overall, I think it's the underlying tone of the whole album which is what makes me love Tight Knit so much - for some reason listening to it makes me incredibly happy.  There's an element of optimism that seems laced through the whole thing; that and the one word I would use to describe Tight Knit is peaceful. I'm not exactly sure why, but the whole album has the ability to relax me and put me in a good mood, which is why that word comes to mind.  For example, I think this would be my current go-to calm-me-down album if I were stuck in horrible traffic with a bunch of terrible drivers.

But don't take my rambling word for it, check the album out for yourself.  It's out now on Sub Pop, and you can pick it up online or in person at your friendly neighborhood indie retailer.  Here are two examples of why I love Tight Knit so much:

"More of This"
"Another Reason to Go"