How Did It Start?

1. It started with burning out on everyone's end of year/end of decade lists, which began in August and are still going strong in some corners of my RSS reader. All that Radiohead, all that Animal Collective! Never mind the Arcade Fire and the LCD Soundsystem and the Dirty Projectors and the Grizzly Bear. God, even the stuff I liked in the first place I was beginning to dislike. It brought home in an acute way both how much and how little my tastes align with Pitchfork. It doubly brought home how redundant most blogs I read are—how much they echo Pitchfork, how much they hold their noses at Pitchfork, how much they watch Pitchfork like its ratings were horses rounding the track on Derby Day. That's partly how it started.

2. It started with that Bear in Heaven album, Beast Rest Forth Mouth, which is not a bad record but is also just frustrating enough to not be a great record, either. I knew nothing about Bear in Heaven before hearing one of their songs in a Cargo Culte mix and being knocked out by it. Then ten minutes later I came across another song by them—someone I follow on tumblr posted it, I can't remember who. Anyway I liked it and I was itchy for something new so I downloaded the album. First impression was a good one. I thought, "this guy who is clearly a solo artist making a rad record in his bedroom is doing some cool shit and has a lot of promise." But then I read that they're not a solo bedroom project but a full band, which made me revise my thought to "dude, these guys need to tell their singer he doesn't always need to be front and center. He could stand to take a piss break here and there and let the music stretch out a little." That doesn't exactly lessen the bottom line—Bear in Heaven has promise, yes—but nevertheless the more I listened to BRFM the more critical I became and the less imaginative it felt. The reverb'd vocals, the electroni-rock vibe, the moodiness of the whole thing. Bear in Heaven have some great tracks like "Deafening Love" and "You Do You," but they don't do enough to rise above their genre. Whatever genre that is; I didn't listen to anything in 2009, I don't think, that fell under this tag "glo-fi" or "chillwave" or whatever. I mean, I don't think I did. Did I? Listening to Bear in Heaven I started to think maybe I'd officially heard something in that genre but I can't be sure. You tell me. 

• Bear in Heaven: You Do You

3. It started when I was trying to make my own end of year list and couldn't come up with more than two albums from 2009 that I felt were worthy of shouting from the rooftops. It occurred to me that it couldn't be 2009's fault, or music's fault; it had to be mine.

4. It started with the For Carnation's 2000 self-titled album, which I've been listening to a lot in the last year. Though the album features an ex-Slint guy, and I did start listening to it again because of the book I'm writing, the For Carnation and its records factor into my book exactly not at all. I just started craving it. It's such a minimally played album—as in, the musicians play simple things, slowly and simply; not that it's under-heard and under-appreciated, though that's true too. The patience on display on that record, the restraint, is quite lovely. I used to get off on bands that did this kind of thing all the time, and in fact a band like the For Carnation was a real gateway drug for me; in the late 90s I segued pretty naturally from slowcore and post-rock acts to space rock and ambient artists—basically everything Kranky records put out, more or less. But somewhere a few years ago I stopped pursuing new bands or artists that were trading in that kind of music; and my turntable broke so a lot of those artists I loved became inaccessible. It's shameful, I know, that the turntable is still broken. But I digress: the point is, I had this epiphany: remember ambient? remember drone? remember space rock?

• The For Carnation: Moonbeams

5. It started with a couple end of year lists I read after all the genre fatigue had set in. Specifically, the lists at Coke Machine Glow and Swan Fungus. For some reason I paused at CMG's rundown on Mountains' album, Choral (released this year on Thrill Jockey—another label I once devoured but have not diligently kept track of for years). And Swan Fungus—well, that dude's list basically kept me buzzing for a whole afternoon.

• Mountains: Choral

So that's how it all started. What happened was, I've spent the last month basically turning my back on indie rock and a lot of blogs I'd previously kept an eye on (not all of them, and probably not yours) in exchange for immersing myself in ambient, drone, electronica, etc.—both new and old. I say this with full awareness of the fact that I played the crap out of the new Vampire Weekend last week and I look forward to hearing the new Spoon posthaste. But to my head these are feeling like the exceptions and not the rules. My listening habits have been diverted lately. Whether it's just a phase or not, I don't know. More on this subject soon.

Comments

[Brad Nelson]

For what its worth, my 2009 and decade lists include none of those artists (well, all right, the decade list has Radiohead in it, but they were formative in my shit), although I've mostly kept these lists to myself--I don't have the energy to write up the records as they deserve. If you're at all interested in expanding toward jazz from last year (I sort of reinserted myself into the genre after discovering the blog destination: OUT) and metal from the past ten years, I can recommend some stuff.

Also, genre fatigue simultaneously really excites me, because I know I am going to force myself toward some unfamiliar hills.

[Brad Nelson]

Oh, and also emo. I continue to follow that for some reason.

[Todd]

Great thoughts, Scott. I've been going through some of the same issues myself, and while I recognize that some of my current disillusion with indie rock is definitely with "me" -- some of the postures and elements of rock that seemed very relevant when I was 18 or 19 don't seem to hold as much water as I approach 30 -- a lot of it has to do with how I gain information about new music. Blogs have so much pressure to post something new every day in order to retain regular readers, and then to be overly enthusiastic about their recommendations so that the readers have reason to check up on whatever new band -- because, hey, you want to be in on what's happening, and you don't want to miss out on what could be your favorite new band. But the problem is, as a fan, chasing down all these daily recommendations time and again starts to bring in diminishing returns, and you begin to realize life will go on just fine without picking up the self-released debut of whatever band of the moment. As a sometimes blogger, I know I'm guilty of participating in this echo chamber, but it can be especially discouraging when you try to follow local music blogs only to realize they get approx. 90% of their content straight from MBV or Stereogum. Sometimes you just need to pull away from all the same old just to remind yourself what you liked about music in the first place.

Btw, I picked up the Mountains album on your recommendation - it's very nice! Definitely ambient, but with the arc and pull of more structured music.

[scott pgwp]

Brad - I too had plans for end of decade stuff--have two posts fully written but eight more languishing--but yeah, I became so exhausted by everyone else that I couldn't imagine finishing mine. I doubt I'll go too far into metal or emo, but maybe jazz... it's always sort of an outlier in my world.

Todd, I hear you on the blog fatigue; it's a phenomenon of the era, I guess, that blog fatigue and music fatigue go hand in hand. I think I've mostly weeded out from my reader the blogs that seem purely geared toward posting for hits, though that doesn't stop certain bands from dominating the blogs I do read anyway. There's no escaping it. (Why you'd want to fully escape it, or not, is a post for another day.)

[Richard]

Ah, so it begins. It's so liberating!

For me, my love of jazz dovetailed quite nicely with my interest in post-rock and ambient... I'll have to check out this Mountain. (On a related note, per an earlier conversation we had, I downloaded the first Pan*American album recently. It's good! Given the topic of this post, I think you owe it to yourself to check out 360 Business/360 Bypass.)

(No love for my Bastro comment/questions?)

[scott pgwp]

Oops - I didn't see that comment! I'll go back and answer. I have heard 360/360, I think... though it's been a while. If eMusic has it I'll save it. I also have his most recent album saved too.

And make sure you pluralize Mountains--otherwise it's a 70s rock band.

[Richard]

"And make sure you pluralize Mountains--otherwise it's a 70s rock band."

Oops. Thanks for the correction. Not that that one Mountain song isn't awesome.

[Gregory Schaffer]

Best post in a while, boots. Sometimes it's easy to get caught up in consuming more and more music instead of really listening to the favorites that we forgot about because they aren't in the new area of the itunes collection. I was thinking about deleting the entirety of my itunes library since at times it feels more about acquisition and attachment than something that's of actual importance.

Lately I listen mostly to CDs and have given up on the ipod. I love browsing CDs whether mine or in the records store. It's much more surprising than the scroll feature of the computer. Don't you find that plowing through the CDs at the public library is infinitely more fun than the equivalent time visiting music sites?

Here is the current stack sitting on the CD player.

Radiohead-Airbag EP
Burial-Untrue
Neil Young-Harvest
White Magic-Dark Stars
Leyland Kirby-Sadly the Future...
Choir of Young Believers-This Is for...
The XX-eponymous
Saint Etienne-Good Humor
Mojave 3-Excuses for Travellers

[scott pgwp]

Nice to hear from you Gregory. I can't say I've stemmed my urge to consume consume consume new-to-me music, more that I changed WHICH new-to-me music I consume. And I hear you on the CD vs iTunes thing, though I admit I have mixed feelings about that. Last weekend I bought 5 new (vinyl) records, despite not owning a functioning turntable; then I bought 3 new CDs, despite only being able to play CDs in my car; then I downloaded an album, and that's the one I listen to all the time. Technology is winning and I'm an idiot when it comes to consuming music. I'm like a bird fascinated by shiny things.

[cam]

a somewhat related post, in case you haven't already read it:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-01-19/music/the-year-of-too-much-consensus/1

[jill - aka wifey]

gregory, i often feel similarly flummoxed by choice: like i can't even imagine what to choose from the 32 days worth of songs in our itunes, it's just too much and i don't have anything but a cold, computerized list? i need pictures and imagery and objects to inspire me. so when i am at home i make scott choose. and when i am in the car, i listen to the cd's we have bought but are unable to upload into our old-ass computer. i think this is an indicator that we are getting old, stuck in the mud, etc. or is it that we are of the visual sort of people, and we need the full package? hmm, yeah, that's what i'm gonna tell myself.

but still: i could never delete it all. hoarding, here.