Musically disconnected: help needed!

Jan 2, 2007 at 4:13 PM
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I wrote about music for many years. But somehow, it started fading and now, I'm clueless. I don't know who anyone is anymore. I don't know what's good. I need some recommendations. What should I have been listening to this year that I didn't?

It's so embarrassing. Can you help? What were your favorites?

Bonus if you can actually share the music with me in some way, uh, legally of course. Send me a private message.

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I spent a lot of 2006 with Justin Timberlake's "FutureSex/LoveSounds" and Gnarls Barkley's "St. Elsewhere," but geez, who didn't? :-)

Some of the albums I really enjoyed last year were Herbert's "Scale," Neko Case's "Fox Confessor Brings the Flood," Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins' "Rabbit Fur Coat," Donald Fagen's "Morph the Cat," Thom Yorke's "The Eraser," Scritti Politti's "White Bread Black Beer," T-Bone Burnett's "The True False Identity" and Cassandra Wilson's "Thunderbird."

The only new music I've acquired this year is Gnarls Barkley's St Elsewhere (which I recommend very highly) because I essentially spent a whole year on internet radio (premium subscription to DI.fm -- rocks!)

So yeah, I can relate to the fuddy-duddy feeling.

Fiona's "Extraordinary Machine" is my pick for the year.

Midlake's "Trials of Van Occupanther" and "Return to Cookie Mountain" by TV on The Radio were recent purchases but have gone into heavy rotation. "Cansei De Ser Sexy" by CSS has about 4 great tracks. Tuung's "Mother's Daughter and other songs", We Are Scientists "With Love and Squalor", Gruff Rhys' "Yr Atal Genhedlaeth" and "Coles Corner" by Richard Hawley

Check out:

Sunrise Projector by Tycho
The Electricity in Your House Wants to Sing by I am Robot and Proud
The Audience's Listening by Cut Chemist

These have been in perpetual rotation at my house over the last year.

Band of Horses. I love bands. I love horses. Kelley Stoltz's Antique Glow & Below the Branches. Polly Jean Harvey's Peel Sessions. Howard Tate, greatest soul singer alive, Portrait of Howard Tate. And the young sassypants Brit Lily Allen.

I like Camera Obscura, Primal Scream's last record (esp the single and the raunchy video, lots of barfing and peeing), Richard Buckner's latest which is his best since, uh, "Since," and of course i have to mention Jesse DeNatale and Tom Heyman's records but that's because i put them out...

http://www.marathonpacks.com/2006/12/marathonpacks-2006-year-end-mixes-vols.html

BE QUICK!

Do you listen to 89.3 on your trips to Minneapolis? If you like it they have a streaming audio service.
The link is on here:
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/services/the_current/

It's how I find out about a lot of great music.

That was my soundtrack in the car, edging out 91.1 and Radio K in the evenings when I was driving. Many of my Minnesota friends on this coast listen to The Current as well.

[this is good]

Hey, happy new year....

You know I'm a big fan of The Current, and it is my main source of new discoveries.

Some current favorites:

Archie Bronson Outfit - Derdang Derdang (xmas present from How)

Low - Great Destroyer (not so new)

Sufjan Stevens - Come on Feel the Illinoise

Lloyd Cole - Antidepressant

The Decemberists - The Crane Wife

The Hold Steady - Boys & Girls in America

TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain

Rob Dickinson - Fresh Wine for the Horses (ex Catherine Wheel)

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones

Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out of This Country

People in Planes - As Far as the Eye Can See

Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped

Kings of Convenience - Riot on an Empty Street (not so new)

Bossacucanova - Uma Batida Diferenta

British Sea Power - Open Season (not so new)

Also, The Big Takeover (www.bigtakeover.com) has long been a source of reliable picks from Jack Rabid

Malajube from Montreal sing in French and despite that have gotten a release here in the U.S. for their second album, Trompe l'oeil. They're pretty amazing; check out the videos on their site. Another Montreal band I like a lot is Pony Up!, four women teaching themselves how to play music (I say that only because the playing on their first EP was pretty inept, and all the more charming for it; their album Make Love to the Judges With Your Eyes shows they've been woodshedding and is wonderful too). The Boss Martians from Seattle are a great garage rock band; "I Am Your Radio" was all over the Underground Garage channel on Sirius in 2006. The great German pop band Wir Sind Helden got an American release of sorts; their first and second albums are available through the iTunes Music Store, if not on CD here in the U.S. That makes it new here at least, even if Von hier an blind was released in Germany in 2005. Sleater-Kinney's original drummer, Laura MacFarlane, has a great band back home in her native Australia called Ninetynine that sounds a lot poppier than S-K. I really like their new album, Worlds Of Space, Worlds Of Population, Worlds Of Robots.

Hallo Molly,

schon mal mit 16 Horsepower, Woven Hand oder Hyacinth House aus Schweden probiert ?? Wie wäre es mit den Levellers ( ...Live sehr Druckvoll...)

See ya on MySpace ??!

Musically disconnected: help needed!

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