DRIFT's Premature Top Ten Albums of the Year.

Well, it's about that time of year when, due to a certain holiday and it's traditions and "music", I like to put on a metaphorical blindfold and pretend that none of it is happening. As far as I'm concerned, 2010 is already here, so I might as well share with you what I feel have been the best albums of 2009.

Sure, you could just wade through Pitchfork's top 5 gazillion albums of the millenium, and my ten would probably be floating around in there somewhere, but here at DRIFT, I skip over all of the albums that are merely pretty damn good just to share with you the ones I felt were exceptional.  SPOILER ALERT! The top 4 blew my mind.

As a qualifier, I selected these albums from the 70 or so I have listened to this year and enjoyed enough to keep on my increasingly cramped iPod.

If you live in Chicago, and we're friends, and you ask nicely, I might just burn a copy of some of these albums for you, if you're in need of said copies. So, one could almost think of this seemingly pointless and psychologically predictable list as "useful", in a sense, if one were so inclined.

#10:
St. Vincent, "Actor"

Annie Clark, late of The Polyphonic Spree (unfortunately) and Sufjan Stevens' touring band (impressively), released this mostly solo album in May. In June, she performed a stunning set for Austin City Limits, the producers of which chose to air her set in the same hour as the notoriously awe-inspiring comfort food music of Andrew Bird and his newly formed "band".  This is arguably the best hour of ACL ever aired--I would even put it above the Arcade Fire's barn-burner taping from last year. St. Vincent's music ranges from breathing fresh life into the oft-strained cliche of violin-weeping-through-electronic-fuzz indie rock ballad to the simultaneously beautiful and nerve-wracking anxiety of rhythm-driven songs like "Marrow".

#9:
Dan Deacon, "Bromst"

It would have been easier just to dismiss Dan Deacon as a sonic nutcase back in 2007, when several years of toil in the Baltimore electronic music scene birthed "Spiderman of the Rings", a cacophony of synthesized instrumentation, beeps, warbles, and an endless stream of seemingly misplaced triplets, with the occasional confusing and unintelligible vocal track thrown in for good measure.  Sure, it would've been easier just to call it a noisy, confusing mess and have done with it.  But then I would've missed out on the artful tapestry which Deacon manages to fabricate from that mess--swirling, vibrating compositions that more than hold up to repeated plays and reward the patient listener with a new musical lexicon. I also would've missed "Bromst", the album which somehow manages to do "Spiderman" one better.

#8:
Future of the Left, "Travels With Myself and Another"

"I've been here once or twice before with better hair, and let me tell you/ Only the good die young, except for when they don't, it's not exactly fair."  So ends the highly amusing quasi-existentialist track "Stand By Your Manatee" from the new-ish project of former McLusky frontman Andy "Falco" Falkous. Those familiar with the punk-ish stylings of the now defunct Welsh outfit will recognize humorous existentialism as Falco's stock-in-trade.  He delivers maniacal faux-egotism with an expertise that would make Rasputin proud. The music on "Travels" is a welcome departure from the moody and under-fleshed compositions of FOTL's debut offering, "Curses".  It's okay to sound more like McLusky, Falco--don't forget, everyone loved McLusky. And by "everyone", of course, I mean "critics", since the American public wasn't really paying attention. And on the billion-to-one chance you end up reading this, you scare the living shit out of me, and I apologize for saying bad things about "Curses". Please don't hurt me.

#7:
Various Artists, "Dark Was The Night"

The latest offering from the folks at Red Hot (of "No Alternative" fame) contains 2 discs worth of brooding, drawn-out art rock, as the title implies. Proceeds from the sale of every Red Hot album go directly to help fund AIDS research, outreach, and awareness campaigns.  If that isn't enough to convince you to buy the album, you should know that this is a compilation which contains: collaboratory songs by The Dirty Projectors & David Byrne, Feist & Ben Gibbard (NOT the "Mushaboom" remix), Feist & Grizzly Bear, Cat Power & The Dirty Delta Blues, and Andrew Bird & The Handsome Family. You will also find:  The darkest Sufjan Stevens song ever ("You Are The Blood"), a hip-hop remake of the darkest Sufjan Stevens song ever (Blood, pt. 2), an upbeat Arcade Fire song ("Lenin"), a Nick Drake cover by The Books & Jose Gonzalez ("Cello Song"), and a song by Kevin Drew titled "Love vs. Porn". If you're anything like me, you reflexively purchased this album halfway through that list.  Congrats to you, it's the best compilation of the year.

#6:
The Flaming Lips, "Embryonic"

Even if you are familiar with the freak-psychedelia of The Flaming Lips, you may find this album (and it's cover art) somewhat unsettling.  The Lips played a fairly predictable set at this year's Pitchfork Festival, cramming their Carnival Cruise Lines-meets-Cirque Du Soliel stage show into the measly 60 minutes afforded to each and every act at the 3-day event.  Add in Wayne Coyne's lengthy paeans to brotherly love, repeated chants of "C'mon, motherfuckers!", and the 10 minutes it took him to climb triumphantly out of a giant LCD vagina, and the most packed Pitchfork concert ever was treated to about 7 songs, plus a lot of giant balloons.  Everyone seemed happy about the giant balloons. What I noticed most, however, were the two new songs the Lips played from their as-yet unreleased album.  "Convinced Of The Hex" was rattling around in my brain for weeks before "Embryonic" was even leaked online--I could only rub my hands together in devilish anticipation of an album that might preserve the Lips musical maturtity while bringing back the edgy, frayed, electronic stylings from days of yore.  I was not disappointed, and if you're as big of a fan of "Transmissions From The Satellite Heart" as you are of "Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots", you won't be disappointed, either.

#5
Animal Collective, "Merriweather Post Pavillion"

If you move your eyes back and forth across that album cover, you will see an effect that is roughly analogous to what I imagine Animal Collective is trying to do to your ears with their music. They're not for everyone--indeed, it took the passage of months and repeated listens of earlier albums "Feels" and "Sung Tongs" for me to even get a hold of AC's sonic thread.  The melodies are disjointed, the rhythms spastic at the best of times.  Like Dan Deacon, patience rewards the agile listener--"Feels" is easily one of the best albums of the decade.  "Merriweather" is a bit of a departure from form for the psuedonymed Baltimore trio (the members call themselves Panda Bear, Geologist, and Avery Tare), merging more easily accessible, pop-ier melodies with their trademark hyper-layered instrumentation.  It's an addictive formula, resulting in the undeniably catchy, snap-your-fingers-along track "My Girls", the didgeridoo-laced "Lion In A Coma", and the dream-like, lush ballad "Also Frightened".  It would be remiss for me not to mention that 2 of my close musical familiars (Hi Nate and Justin!) who introduced me to AC in the first place have roundly rejected this album as being either "frustrating" or "too pop-y".  Eh, what do they know?

#4:
Tune-Yards, "Bird-Brains"

Regular readers of this blog will not be surprised to see this album in my list--indeed perhaps you are right now stunned that I have not made it #1, as I have been ranting about it for weeks.  What's more inspiring than New England native Merrill Garbus recording these songs on a hand-held digital recorder over the course of two years, playing all of the instruments (drums, ukelele, keyboards) herself, mixing them on an open-source computer program, and then self-releasing, promoting, and booking the album before finally being signed by London indie-impresarios 4AD?  Well, how about the fantastic songs? Garbus loops her incredible, yodle-capable voice over itself to comprise the backing tracks for many of the songs, loops in an african rhythym-heavy drum track, and then plays equatorial/tropical melodies on her uke while belting out wise, knowing poetry ("What if my own skin makes my skin crawl?") with the enthusiasm of a child (she pulls all of this off live, too--quite a spectacle). The ebullient/funky track "Hatari" is the best example of this, injecting Swahili proverbs into an appropriately African-tinged, dance-'round-the-fire invocation to the indomitable human spirit.  As an added bonus, Garbus allows her emotion to carry her to melodic shouting at the song's climax of "Did you listen? Did you listen?" resulting in a level of visceral pleasure which this fan has not experienced since the Arcade Fire's "Funeral" (2004), which, as we all know, is tattooed on my freakin' forearm.

#3:
Grizzy Bear, "Veckatimest" 

Ah, Williamsburg.  Brooklyn, NYC, U.S.A.  Home of the American hispter, the art school snob, overpriced fad cuisine, and, for better or for worse, the creators of 2 of my top 3 albums of the year.  The boys of Grizzly Bear had already turned heads with their 2006 release "Yellow House", an album of dark, sparse indie-folk, squeezed through a filter of crumbling studio apartments and an aloof, ecstasy and alcohol-soaked aesthetic.  The internet word-of-mouth and possibly manufactured hype produced in the run-up to "Veckatimest" had most of the scenster prognosticators (Pitchfork, i'm looking at you!) surmising that it would never live up to the promise.  Oh boy, did they ever eat some crow.  Not only did "Veckatimest" manage to best it's predecessor, it did so by chucking out every hipster pretense of what great music is supposed to sound like--that is, by being compositionally meticulous, polished in production, and widely accessible.  I defy you to listen to "Two Weeks" and not be singing the wordless "ah-ah" refrain for the rest of the week--it simply can't be done.  Anyone approaching me to say that they did it gets a smack in the kisser.  See if I'm kidding.

#2:
Neko Case, "Middle Cyclone"

Who hasn't fallen completely head over heels for Neko Case in the last year?  Idiots, that's who. Her musical prowess is frankly too accomplished for me to comment on, and besides, it's very well documented.  Her lyrics slay anyone who hears them ("The next time you say 'forever'/ I will punch you in your face/ Just because you don't believe it/ Doesn't mean I didn't mean it." [!]), possibly with the aid of the frightening sword which she appears to be wielding so skillfully in that photo. And if you become enamored of her music and have the good fortune to see her perform in a venue seating no more than 1000 fans, you will melt, you will swoon, you may have a medical emergency.  Seriously, be careful. The storied and accomplished musicians who have hitched their wagons to her star have made a wise choice, indeed, and if you deny that she is anything less than a musical genius and benevolent enchantress of the first order, I will be forced to bash you over the head repeatedly with a copy of this album, like the drooling Neko zombie I have become.

#1:
Dirty Projectors, "Bitte Orca"

And, to no one's surprise, we find ourselves once again contemplating Williamsburg, where Dave Lonsgtreth and the myriad variations of his band Dirty Projectors have been toiling in semi-obscurity (which is to say, indie-rock superstardom) across 7 years, 6 studio albums, 5 labels, and 17 band members, past and present (the current incarnation involves 5 people other than Longstreth).  Call him hard to work with, call him a clinical perfectionist, call him stuck on difficult, experimental compositions--just don't call him boring, or he'll blast you with 4 bars of 5/4, each bar crammed with as many notes as can possibly be fit into the time signature.  Still, there is artfulness and beauty to be wrung out of these meticulously arranged rock acrobatics, and on "Bitte Orca", Longstreth et. al. have greased the wheels for popular enjoyment in a way that they never have before, and probably never will again. From the opening strains of the uber-catchy "Cannibal Resource", through the R&B-tinged "Stillness Is The Move", to the muzak-synth closing chords of "Flourescent Half-Dome",  and during the jaw-dropping vocal accomplishments of the female duo pictured on the album cover who round out everything in between, you will be entranced, tickled, and finally, amazed.  That is, if you ever manage to get over the initial cognitive impulse of "what the hell am I listening to?" which, unfortunately, may be your first response to a majority of the albums on this list.

Overused terms in this essay: "indie" (x4), "compostion" (x4), "accessible" (x3), "[genre] stylings of" (x2), "experimental" (x1).

Predictable concepts presented: "breathing fresh life into", "sonic tapestry", "hip-hop remake", "Williamsburg hipster".


UPDATE: I am proud to say that only 4 of my top ten fell in line with Pitchfork's.  Really? Bat For Lashes? Really? Whatevs, P4K.

Une Petite Videoblog au Paris.

Okay, bear with me.

By the time you read this, an album of photos from our trip to Paris is well on its way to being posted on Facebook.

Until then, check out a few videos I made--on my digital camera.

Yup, they're low quality, they're shaky, they're sub-amateur. But I want you to watch them, so there must be something to them, right?   RIGHT?

Well, at least they have audio.

First up, an exhibit at Musee des Arts et Metiers (Arts and Crafts), the kick-ass museum of imaginative technological advancement located about 1 Chicago block from our rented flat.  This is an animatronic clock (19th cent., I think) behind a pane of glass.  I pressed a glowing green button, and some imaginative technology projected a video onto the face of the clock, showing me (and now, you) how it would've moved.

I find the YouTube player works best if you let the video load completely before playing it:

Hopefully, you have a fast computer, and that video was "quirky".  If not, it was "choppy" and "unwatchable". Sorry.

Next up is a video from that same great museum of an object I've been wanting to see for years now, ever since reading a book by Umberto Eco called "Foucault's Pendulum". 

It's Foucault's Pendulum.

Yes, true, there are a handful of these scattered around the globe, I've already seen the one hanging next to the staircase--in some or other American museum. Christa, where was that again?

Anyhow, this is THE pendulum, the one Leon Foucault himself set up in 1851 to prove to the plebian naysayers of Paris that the Earth does indeed spin around an axis.  It was the first (!) empirical evidence of what everyone but Scientologists now know to be the truth about planetary rotation.  For those who don't know, here's how it works:

The (huge) pendulum is attached to a very long cable, which cable is drilled into a fixed point on the ceiling.  The pendulum is set swinging, while a huge glass compass just underneath it demonstrates to the observer that pendulum's angle of swing is changing very slowly, due to the rotation of the earth--that is to say, you are watching the Earth revolve around the swinging pendulum, which I think is fucking brilliant. (Click here for a more apt description of how this works).

In this video, Christa and I are waiting for the pendulum to hit a tiny metal target, which impact demonsrates the barely perceptible change in the pendulum's arc.  That's Christa talking to me near the end of the video:

Wow. So cool.

Okay, and finally, something that will totally seem pointless unless the video runs smoothly, in which case, IT'LL ROCK YOU.

Or not.  We took this great bike tour of much of Paris on Monday morning.  It was run by Fat Tire bike tours, which is an American company which conducts english-language bike tours.  We had some apprehension about an expensive guided tour, but it turned out to be so awesome that we took them up on their half-price offer for a NIGHT TOUR of Ile-de-la-Cite, in the heart of Paris.  This we did on the last night we were in town, and there were many amazing things about it, but the best part was when we jumped off of the bikes and got on a Seine river boat.  We got to chill on a boat for an hour, our tour guide was passing out vin rouge like it was going out of style (which will never, ever happen in Paris), and our wine-loosened tongues made for interesting chatter with some other english-speaking visitors.

Christa was watching the banks of Seine--I was too busy talking.  I did however, manage to get this video of the Eiffel Tower, an obvious landmark which we deliberately avoided for most of our trip. In 1999, the gov't of Paris decked out Le Tour for a top-secret unveiling on the eve of Y2K.  Everyone was so dazzled by this display that Paris decided to keep it, and now, after sundown, the Tower "sparkles" every hour, on the hour, for 5 minutes.

Again, I cannot stress strongly enough how important it is to let the video finish "buffering" before playing, or this won't seem so impressive. The chatter is a combo of the automated "tour guide voice" on the boat, the other tourists, and me talking to myself, apparently:

The rest of the details from this trip will be hinted at in the (soon to be posted) photo captions, and related verbally in great detail when next I see the 6 of you who read this blog.

A bientot!

Diagram 2.

I am in the grip of an obsession with Venn diagrams. They're so useful!

Diagram 1.

Questions I Have Been Asked About Cycling.

10 children's BMX bikes welded together to form one standard Portland adult bike.

Part One--"Yes.":

"Do you bike everywhere?"

"Do you ride in the rain?"

"Do you ride in the snow?"

"Isn't it dangerous?"

"Aren't you scared?"

"Do you ever get cold?"

"Don't you get hot?"

"Has anything been stolen from your bike?"

"Have you ever wiped out?"

"Do you ride in the street?"

"Do you ever take the lane?"

"Do you shout at drivers?"

"Are taxis worse than regular traffic?" (I'd rather ride next to a CTA bus.)

"Are there lots of potholes?" (#2)

"Do you ride on the Lakefront Trail?"

"Have you ever ridden downtown?"

"Do you wear a helmet?"

"Do you have lights on your bike?"

"Do you ride really fast?"

"Do you have brakes on your bike?"

"Is that a good workout?"

"Do you do Critical Mass?"

"Do you save a lot of money?"

"Give me every bike you've got on you, NOW."

Part 2-- "No.":

"Do you ride with a fixed gear?"

"Have you ever been doored / hit by a car?"

"Do you ride on the sidewalk?"

"Do you ride on the ice?" (see above in "Yes" category: "Have you ever wiped out?")

"Doesn't it ever get old?"

"Don't you ever wish you could just drive somewhere?"

"Do you hit cars with your bike lock?"

"Have you ever hit a pedestrian?"

"Do you have a lot of gears?"

"Do you have a lot of gear?"

"Do you have a speedometer/odometer?" (but I want one!)

"Do Chicago cops enforce bike traffic laws (which protect pedestrians from cyclists)?"

"Do Chicago cops enforce bike traffic laws (which protect cyclists from motorists)?"

"Do you ride while listening to your iPod?"

"Do you ride while using a cell phone?"

"Can you do any bike tricks?"

"Do you follow the Tour De France?"


Part 3-- "Only if there's traffic around.":

"Do you obey traffic signals/signs?"

He meant to do that.

Too Soon!

Well, it's been a terrible month. First Farrah, then M.J., Then Ed McMahon, and, just this morning, Logan.

Before you while away the minutes flipping through your mental TMZ rolodex to figure out which Logan I'm speaking of, let me just tell you. It's my buddy, Logan. Maybe he hasn't quite reached the fame level of a Fawcett or a Jackson. Here's a photo hint:


That's right. He was a rat. A hooded rat, to be (semi-) precise. And he was at least as important to me as The King of Pop, and certainly more important than Farah Fawcett (sorry, Lee Majors).

He wasn't quite as funny as Ed McMahon. But he was close.

You know what happens to rats? They squeak and beg and wriggle their way into your heart. They act like tiny dogs (the vet groups them in the category of "pocket pets"), learning silly tricks that you teach them inadvertently, and then, long before you are ready for it, they die.

They don't moonwalk, become sex symbols, or pithily one-up your favorite late-night host. On the plus side, they also don't act weird with your children, embarrass themselves on Letterman, or sell magazine subscriptions.

Speaking of emabrassing one's self on Letterman, I always thought I could send this photo in and get us on "Stupid Pet Tricks":


It's a great photo, but it doesn't do justice to the extent of the trick. Logan would actually put his entire head in there. He was looking for a raisin.

Since falling in love with rats, it has become my personal mission to prove to the world that they are not the disgusting sewer-dwellers that everyone thinks they are. Come over to our apartment for a beer and a game of "Celebrity" and you will see what I am talking about. Also, you may get frustrated while playing "Celebrity".

Our rats, like most pet rats, are undeniably cute, and waaaaaay smarter than you think they are. Recently, a labratory study proved that rats posess metacognition, whch means they can think about their own thought processes.

This means that they are fucking geniuses.

No, no-- don't argue.

Yes, your dog is very cute, and very friendly. Do you think he knows whether or not he knows stuff? Yeah, me neither.

In my opinion, capacity for metacognition also makes rats smarter than Farah Fawcett (sorry again, Lee Majors).

As if you needed it, I have one final piece of evidence to help me testify that Logan was as cute, or possibly cuter, than whatever the hell you're passing around photos of at work. Exhibit 'A', your honor:


"You can't HANDLE the truth!!!"

In short, Logan was more than just a source of endless entertainment and a bright little cagemate for Lawrence, who survives him (clumsily). He was a member of our family, and he'll be missed.

They are Rat. Hear them sneeze.

The Show (a short story)

No one remembers anymore what the Show was about. We’re pretty sure it’s a reality program; when the Show was first aired, reality tv was the only kind of programming that achieved consistent ratings. This is just before the networks dumped all other kinds of programming, including news, in favor of an all-reality format. There's still some paid programming on in the wee hours of the morning, but 30-minute advertisements for kitchen detritus are really their own special kind of reality programming.

And so no one remembers anymore what the Show was about. The last original producer died years ago, and he refused to divulge the Show's content because he thought it was poetically just that America had hypnotized itself rapt over a Show that had become completely devoid of substance. He, the last living original producer, believed that America would not come out of its trance until a few viewers woke up and realized that the program they had been wasting their lives glued to was the artistic equivalent of watching static, listening to white noise, for an hour every evening, 7 days a week.

It all started shortly after Great Depression II set in, when the government offered huge cash incentives for any prime-time programming aimed at creating feelings of comfort and community within the viewer. There was a direct correlation, aided by a complex proprietary algorithm, between the broadness of a program's calculated target demographic and the percentage of the program's budget that would then be sponsored by the U.S. government.

Program ‘A’, for example, might only be calculated to target men aged 25 - 45, and after that demo is plugged in to the algorithm, yield an assistance package of 25% of the show's budget. If however, after your initial assessment, you could find some way to convince the auditors that you have expanded the demo to men and women across races, aged 18 - 50, then you might get an allocation for more than 70% of your budget.

This system produced results that were predicted by every tv critic's farewell column for 3 consecutive years; namely, that tv would become a nightmare landscape of pleasant white propaganda, possibly ruined forever as an artistic canvas. And then there were no more tv critics.

A lucky few filled open film critic spots, and most of the rest took pay cuts and ended up in their publications' editing rooms.

But there's still the matter of a certain Show, whose producers decided they had enough money to ignore the government's subsidies (and therefore, their programming guidelines), but not enough money to step outside the sphere of reality programming, reality programming being the only thing a perversely single-minded public would accept.

The producers put together a reality show that would indeed draw criticism, and probably not inspire too many happy feelings, but, they were hoping, would capture the taste preferences of the large-ish flock of bored American viewers that must certainly exist by now.

Maybe the Show was something simple, like a first-person perspective of on-the-job fireman. Or maybe it was something more seamy, like following real swinging married couples through an average day (though not into the bedroom). Either way, there were phone calls placed, and though the new "permissive" FCC of the Obama administration would not penalize the network based on caller complaints, it most definitely demanded certain kinds of censoring if the network wanted to avoid heavy "capital donations", or what used to be called "fines".

The first thing to get blurred by the censors was the steady stream of upsetting hand gestures being used by the Show's principals, from the occasional flipped bird to the extraordinarily disturbing (for an over-pacified public) threats of physical violence.

The producers thought they were out of the woods when a previously sated viewership began calling the FCC en gros masse to whine about the aggressive language. There had been no "cursing", as it is traditionally thought of, but words like "hate", "screw", and "shoot!" began to get bleeped. The timid versions of those words given to the reality cast for common use also got bleeped, once FCC callers started saying, "you can still tell they're angry."

Next, the censors determined a decibel level, above which any direct speech or ambient background sounds would be bleeped. In one notorious episode, two of the reality cast attempted to have a conversation by yelling because they were standing in front of an operational oil derrick. The whole 3-minute scene was presented as one long bleep with moving images, whose faces and necks were blurred, so that no one could tell they were yelling.

Just when the producers were about to give up all hope and cancel their endeavor (though their ratings made small, steady progress with each incline in censorship), they had a windfall. The Nielsen returns for the episode immediately following the notorious oil derrick incident set a new plateau for their ratings, comfortably above the highest previous point in the life of their 2-year-old Show.

In a last, desperate attempt to capitalize on their unsubsidized gamble, they began to bleep sound that did not require bleeping, and to blur images which required no blurring. They bleeped a conversation about fruit. They blurred the face of a baby. Every instance of the word “breakfast”. An empty billboard. An unadorned t-shirt. Laughter.

Another direct correlation developed: the less of the Show that the viewer could actually perceive or understand, the higher the ratings got. This amounted to proof, in the minds of the producers, that a certain grim truth about the American psyche had taken hold of the medium. However disturbed the producers were by this confrontation, they were not disgusted enough to turn their backs on a windfall, especially not one that was clearly so deserved by such a catastrophically sensitive public.

Eventually, the Show topped out at 90 share and stayed there, and the original producers obtained a perpetual contract for the Show from their network, and then sold the Show for untold billions of dollars and retired to a life of decadent playboy-ishness (presumably).

And eventually, they both died, taking the secret of the Show's content to their graves, and leaving behind a confidentiality clause for the Show's constantly rotating reality cast that promised harsh financial penalties if broken.

An now 90% of the American viewing public watches a Show for an hour every evening, 7 days a week, whose only audible dialogue is conjunctions, and whose only decipherable faces are smiling.