Suggestions

Last night in a pang of boredom I asked my followers via tumblr and twitter to name the last album they heard that truly knocked their socks off, new or old. I was fishing for suggestions for something to download. Happily I was inundated with suggestions! Of all of them, only four suggestions were for albums I already knew (Can's Future Days, the National's Alligator, Chavez's Ride the Fader, and PJ Harvey's newest). Like a good little boy scout I've now dutifully collected samples of everything that was recommended to me. I present them below, without comment (because I've actually not yet listened to them all the way through myself!). Maybe there's something in here that will really speak to me; maybe there's something that will really speak to you.

Moon Duo: Mazes (track: "Mazes")

Master Musicians of Bukkake (track: "Tainted Phenomena")

 
Sic Alps: Napa Asylum (track: "The First White Man to Touch California Soil)

 
Tom Verlaine: Dream Time (track: "Always")

Cold Cave: Love Comes Close (track: "Life Magazine")

Xeno & Oaklander: Sentinelle (track: "Sentinelle")

 
Fang Island: s/t (track: "Life Coach")

Oscar & Martin: For You (track: "Do the Right Thing")

Thursday: No Devolucion (track: "Magnets Caught in a Metal Heart")

Loop: A Gilded Eternity (track: "Afterglow")

Broadcast: Future Crayon (track: "Still Feel Like Tears")

Alex and Jonsi: Riceboy Sleeps (track: "Indian Summer")

 
Women: Public Strain (track: "Locust Valley")

Boredoms: Vision Creation Newsun (track: "Vision Creation Newsun")

The Lonely Forest: Arrows (track: "We Sing in Time")

Tune-Yards: Whokill (track: "Bizness")

One Hundred Dollars: Songs of Man (preview video)

Krallice: Dimensional Bleedthrough (track: "Dimensional Bleedthrough")

Comments

[Richard]

ah, I missed the call for recs!

I'd say Circle's Miljard

...and Charalambides' A Vintage Burden

the latter I was going to mention to you anyway because it sort of reminds me of Low, or parts of it do, vibewise, though none of their other stuff ever did.

And speaking of Low, I was curious about the sense of dread you reported upon viewing the documentary. Do you care to elaborate on what you meant by that? (I haven't seen the doc.)

[scott pgwp]

Thanks for the recs. That reminds me I still need to check out Jackie-O-Motherfucker based on your rec.

The Low doc is good but sad. It captures Alan at a clearly low point in his life--clearly just on the other side of an even lower period, when he had a mental breakdown. He is quite affected by the war, by the economy, by his own manic depression, and by drugs. (what kind of drugs, he doesn't elaborate). He also seems ready, literally, for the end of the world to come any day now.

The whole doc makes Drums and Guns a more powerful album, though also in some ways harder to listen to.

[Richard]

Thanks for the explanation. I admit that I'd forgotten about his troubles. (And your recent Low experiences have made me want to check in on the stuff I've missed since being initially lukewarm on Trust and The Great Destroyer.)

[scott pgwp]

You can watch the whole doc on YouTube, albeit in 10-minute increments.

I can't say whether you'll like Drums and Guns - it's grown on me by now, but it's still flawed in places. That said, I am in love with the new album. Hoping to get a post up about it in the next day or two.