Snowing -- Fuck Your Emotional Bullshit

If you know me in real life and have ever seen me at a show, you know that I love dancing. I'll dance to anything in whatever way I feel like. It's fun, it makes me happy, and I think it's a good way to experience the music. Thus, the reason I love Snowing's Fuck Your Emotional Bullshit is because it is 100% danceable. Although the cover kind of makes it look like a half-hearted attempt at a mall-emo facsimile, this album is full of mathy, spazzy guitars, really tight drumming, and vocals that are super fun to sing/scream/yell/yelp along to. Matter of fact, the song 'Kirk Cameron Crowe' might be my favorite dance track of the year, and 'Methuselah Rookie Card' has a really sweet At the Drive-In namedrop and lyrics that sound like a younger, pissed-off Jawbreaker. Although, what would you really expect from a band containing members of Street Smart Cyclist and Boy Problems? Hopefully though, these guys will keep putting out material and stay together longer than the previous two bands did. Let's hope these guys can make it to Ohio eventually (they're from Pennsylvania), because since they've played shows with Algernon Cadwallader, Band Name, Slingshot Dakota, Native, Best Friends, and Hightide Hotel, hopefully they'll bring some awesome company with them on tour.

Arkansas? -- Self-Titled

When I talked to Toby Foster at a show and asked his permission to upload this album, he told me that I could on the condition that I didn't talk shit about the band. Condition met.

At the time of this recording, Arkansas? was officially a two-piece consisting of Toby Foster and Victor Vieira-Branco. Both guys sing on this release, with Toby taking a bulk of the songs. The album opener is 'Facebook', a song about Facebook breakups that actually happened to my friend Zach. A few songs later, '45' provides the album with an awesome track that has never failed to make me smile. In fact, this album has never really failed to make me smile. The playful guitars, combined with the excellent drumming really give this album a solid pop-punk foundation to dance upon, and I'm not talking metaphorically about the music. This album is 100% danceable, no matter if you're dancing to forget the bruises these songs remind you of or if you're just dancing from the sheer optimism this album puts out. Songs like 'Hash Browns' give off great vibes while not sacrificing musical integrity or sounding too corny. I really almost feel like I'm doing this album a disservice by writing about it, because that probably means you, the reader, aren't listening to it and you don't feel happy as I do when I listen to it. If you want to buy it (which you really should do because it's awesome and so is the 1/3 of this band that I've met), you can go to Arkansas?'s MySpace. It's on there.

P.S. On the song 'Dance Moves', Toby mentions that he stole dance moves from a guy named Evan Gornik. Evan Gornik and Toby Foster recently put out a split 12" that will probably wind up being one of my favorite albums of 2009. There's not a bad song from either artist on there, seriously. You can get it here if there are any copies left, or from a show maybe. Trust me, it's great.

This is band solidarity.

Kill and Eat -- Green Bushes

A while ago, Caleb Vogel contacted me asking if I would review his album. When I got it, however, I didn't feel much like blogging, and ended up not blogging for a good part of last month. However, the album has had a pretty stable rotation in my listening habits since I received it.
Personally, I feel as though the formula of the album can be summed up in the vocals on the first track, 'Green Bushes'. When the album starts, a voice that sounds eerily similar to Jamie Stewart from Xiu Xiu bubbles up from the music. As the song progresses, however, Vogel's vocals change, slowly but surely, into a separate entity until the song begins to unfold and explore the world around it. The rest of the album follows a similar pattern, with the songs starting out nicely, if a bit repetitive, and then, eventually, a vocal flutter or piano flourish will appear like a ray of light. This flourish reappears again at regular intervals, and has a strange power over the listener, keeping them hooked until the next one. This is probably best demonstrated on the track 'Green Bushes (sketch)', a jazzy number that would work well in coffee shops or bookstores. The percussion on this album is also something to be noted. Solid, while not carrying the album, the percussion knows its place and it content with it, similar to the Velvet Underground. Altogether, while only three songs long, Green Bushes is a solid jazzy album, with enough ambient quality to put on as background music while you're working on a paper. In fact, the album info sent to me describes it as "droning pop-informed" music, and it really does sound like what would result if modern-day drone and minimalism had a baby with lounge jazz.

lolwut?

Afterlives -- A Ticking Clock I Couldn't Stop

(Sorry I've been sketchy at updating lately. Busy week.)
Afterlives is the musical project of Will Barrett, and a new force on the Enemies List Home Recordings roster. Barrett compiled this release entirely in a home studio, leading it to be called a pinnacle of "outsider art". Full of emotion, reverb, fuzz, and effects pedals, this release is also a pretty good example of modern shoegaze. Similar to the Philip James release I posted, this album has poppy sounding vocals covered with thick layers of instruments and effects. Songs like 'Ever The Optimist' and 'Sunderban Tigers' are prime examples of this formula.

EDIT: Will just wrote on my last.fm page thanking me for the kind words, and as a result, I feel that I need to include this link to buy the album. I definitely recommend it, Enemies List is one of the best labels out there right now, and there's only 72 copies of the album left in stock. And we all know the only good edition of an album is the first edition.

Philip James -- Hazy Helicopter Fuck

This is the very first album I am posting on here that was sent to me directly by an artist who wanted their album on here (expect the second one, an album by Kill & Eat, to be posted within the next two days). I'm really excited to post this, because the album is a diverse mixture of a lot of good stuff. Some tracks, such as 'Hazy, An Icicle Filled for Millions', push the boundaries of my sanity. I was listening to the song with headphones on in my dark bedroom last night, and it scared me. I feel like it's the kind of music that should be played when you visit a really creepy carnival in your nightmares. Other tracks such as 'Aint So Bad' step onto trails blazed by bands such as Afterlives. 'Helicopter Pilot' even invokes faint strains of Strawberry Jam-era Animal Collective. A large wall of noise is permeated by pop-influenced, smooth, repetitive vocals and becomes the standout track on the album. While some noise groups try and mash their vocals into the noise they produce, James sets it apart. These poppier tracks, when combined with the more ambient or noise tracks, create an album that sounds like the lineup of Enemies List Home Recordings thrown into a blender. All in all, this is a solid experimental noise album by a young artist who will (hopefully) continue making strong material.
MySpace
last.fm

Rilo Kiley -- The Execution of All Things

I mentioned this album in my review of The Appleseed Cast's show about a week ago, and I'm not kidding when I say that it is one of my favorite albums. Call me lame all you want, but this album is definitely the standard that I hold all female vocalists to. Jenny Lewis has a great voice, and I think it really shines on this album, more than her solo work or other Rilo Kiley albums, because she offers such a varied range. She fits the slower acoustic songs while still being able to shout her way above the din in the louder songs. This brings me to another bit I love about this record. The instruments work. The drums work. The guitars work. The bass works. Every instrument knows its place and is perfectly happy to be there and not steal the show. This causes the album to, quite simply, work. Sing-along songs like 'With Arms Outstretched' (this song is one of my favorite songs ever, by the way) contrast well with the moments in songs like 'Spectacular Views' where the band goes into full rock-out mode. All in all, while not a perfect album (the sequences about Jenny's childhood in Alaska at the end of some tracks can be annoying), The Execution of All Things comes pretty close and provides a good standard for female vocalists, instrumental cohesion, and indie-alt-country-rock hyphenated genre albums in general.

Record Player Help

So, right now, I just have a Jensen JTA-220 turntable for my vinyls. I was wondering if any of you readers out there could contribute the best possible ideas for transferring my vinyl records to my computer through the turntable. Once I'm able to do that, I'll be able to get you guys a lot of rare releases and splits by artists like Mouth of the Architect, Jonah Matranga, Appleseed Cast, and Tigershark. The turntable has one headphone jack and external speaker terminals. If you have any ideas or help, just leave a comment! It would be really helpful, because I don't want to spend a lot of money on something that gives a poor sound quality.

This post can also be used to request albums and stuff, also in the comments!

Thanks again!
Maxwell

(Music posts will return tomorrow)

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone -- Twinkle Echo

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone wins my award for Band Name That Best Captures The Band's Sound. While this may not seems like a very honorable title, rest assured that it still fits perfectly. Owen Ashworth, the main driving force behind CftPA, crafts melancholy lyrics that totally oppose everything set forth in the lo-fi, catchy, driving rhythms that eminate from his Casiotone keyboard and back up his songs. Even though these two forces seem to be going in opposite directions, they actually combine, highlight each other, and make for some really awesome songs. Superficially, these songs really are stories about people that are Painfully Alone ('Roberta C.', 'Calloused Fingers Won't Make You Strong, Edith Wong', 'Half Ghost'), but under the layers of wit and Casiotone beats, Ashworth explores many facets of human nature and the vicious circles we trap ourselves in. In all honesty, however, this is exactly what the short story writer should set out to do, and that's what Owen Ashworth does well. Really, his songs are short stories set against a soundtrack in a book-on-tape fashion. Sure, these stories may rhyme and flow, but that doesn't take anything away from their beauty or their significance. On a related note, Owen Ashworth is tied with John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats for the Biggest Asshole To Their Respective Invented Characters award. Sorry Owen, if you're going to make your characters trudge through the lives they lead without at least letting them get hit by a bus or something, it's bound to happen.

Jawbreaker -- Bivouac

Over the years, many scholars (read: Internet dudes) have debated long and hard over what Jawbreaker's best album was. Being a 90s punk band, this question is of the utmost importance. After all the debates have raged for years, after all the evidence has been presented, after all the little intricacies have been listened to, these scholars were ready to present their pick for Best Jawbreaker Album. Right before they were about to announce the decision, I decided that I simply didn't care (this being the internet and all) and picked, for myself, Bivouac. Bivouac is Jawbreaker's second album, and it's the album that took me the longest to get into. This proved to be well worth the effort, however. Starting out listening to the pop-punk-flavored 'Chesterfield King', I eventually moved onto 'Shield Your Eyes'. I was fully content listening to these two songs for a while, but then I heard talk of 'Tour Song'. Eager to check it out for myself, I listened, and fell in love with the song. After 'Tour Song', the band launches into another high-energy song ('You Don't Know...', a Joan Jett cover). 'You Don't Know...' is followed by 'Pack It Up', a song that deals with the band's back catalog, and 'Parabola', which the band called their "angry song". The final song on the album is what I consider to be one of the best songs ever written. 'Bivouac' doesn't start out seeming like much, but over the course of the song, it builds on itself, eventually reaching the climax where singer and guitarist Blake Schwarzenbach screams 'BIVOUAC!' and the band launches into what can almost be described as a dirge. Powerful blasts of noise attack the listener from all sides, and the band pours everything they have into these last few minutes. However, everything I've said is moot if you remember what I said earlier ("this being the internet and all"), and the only way to really experience the glory of this album for yourself is to download it.

Sicko -- You Can Feel the Love in This Room

I just stumbled upon this album recently myself, but it's good. Formed in early 90s Seattle, this band really took the West Coast punk sound and ran with it. Think a popper Jawbreaker with irreverent lyrics that involve Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch, Carl Sagan, and "gettin' drunk offa sunshine". This doesn't mean you should like it any less, however. This music is carefree and fun. It's totally danceable and just has a genuine feel to it. Some songs are good music for riding bikes, while some songs are good music for skateboarding. This album kind of epitomises the "nerd rock" side of punk at the time. It's a shame these guys didn't get bigger, because many of their contemporaries did and Sicko opened for some pretty big bands at the time. Basically, I feel like this album is the album my teenage soul would write if my teenage soul lived in Seattle in the early 90s. Plus, the guy in the middle of the picture totally kind of looks like Bradford Cox of Deerhunter.