I'd like for this space to not always be about us specifically, but also a space for writing about music in general... We used to have a "Current Recommendations" section on our old site, and I've meant to resurrect that here for a while -- So finally, here you go: What's in my stereo. Ten new and ten old:
Recent releases:
Spoon Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Their best since Girls Can Tell, and already one of my favorite records of the past several years. I don't call many records "instant classics", but this is one. There is no better band in existence today.
John Vanderslice Emerald City
Haven't totally digested this yet, but it sounds weird and beautiful as expected.
Travis Morrison Hellfighters All Y'all
I heard many of these songs live a couple years ago before he kinda disappeared for a while, and they are every bit as good here as I remember them. People will probably hate on this anyway, but they will be wrong.
Monarch If Children
It's nice when some of your favorite music is made by some of your favorite people...
Clientele God Save the Clientele
Every Clientele record gets a little cleaner and sunnier, but no less beautiful.
Among Wolves Among Wolves & Seldon Plan The Collective Now
More fellow Baltimoreans/labelmates making quality records.
Dolorean You Can't Win
Third straight great record from this criminally underrated band... If you have any interest at all in countryish folk-pop, you need to hear them.
Sea Wolf Get to the River Before It Runs Too Low
St Vincent Marry Me
It's nice when an artist comes out of nowhere and impresses you -- It doesn't happen often enough to me anymore. Both of these did.
Older stuff:
Monkees Pisces Aquarius Capricorn & Jones Ltd.
Yep, the Monkees. Shut up, it's an awesome record.
Bill Fox Transit Byzantium
Apparently Bill Fox's records are now fetching nearly $100 on ebay, after the Believer article about him earlier this summer. I bought this for like $8... but I can't really blame the folks paying so much, because the records really are brilliant. Another piece of evidence for the argument that spinART was one of the best labels of the 90s.
Bill Fay Time of the Last Persecution
Finally picked this up after hearing about it from several people -- glad I did. The songs have this almost majestic quality to them, but the playing is so loose... Cool stuff.
The Jam Sound Affects
Not even a Cadillac commercial could ruin this.
Laura Veirs Year of Meteors
Thanks Mike for turning me on to this one.
Todd Rundgren Something/Anything?
This one too. (In the same night, no less!)
Clem Snide The Ghost of Fashion
One of my favorite bands at the moment. Funny and heartbreaking at once.
Camera Obscura Underacheivers Please Try Harder
Lovely, fun, buoyant stuff.
Let's Active Cypress/Afoot
Jack Rabid compared us to these guys in his Big Takeover review of our new record. I'm not really hearing it (unless it's the fact that there's a nasal-voiced singer with pretty girl backing vocals?) but I do like this a lot.
Neil Young Comes a Time
I guess he was trying to recapture the Harvest audience with this one, so it's necessarily a bit less interesting than his other albums of the time, but there's some great stuff, including the original version of soft-rock classic "Lotta Love", a song I never liked (and never knew was written by Neil) until now.
Lots more but I should stop. There will be more band news soon, probably, so check back.