Generationals - Spinoza

What's up, world?

Let's start off the day right with Generationals. I had a crazy fit of small worldness or coincidence when I found out recently that members of The Eames Era are now Generationals. The Eames Era was one of those bands that I used to play on my radio show in college all the time. Nobody ever really commented about them, and I'm convinced that probably only one or two people in the world ever bought their album because I don't remember reading anything about them anywhere. But they were big on my radio show. And I loved them and forgot them.

So now that pop glory is coming alive all over again in Generationals. Happily, I saw them open for Apples in Stereo a couple years ago in Cleveland. I've loved them ever since. And here's a track off their upcoming album, Heza, which will come out on Polyvinyl in April.

It's the same sort of joyful, gooey pop ditty that made Actor-Caster so much fun. It's making me long for nicer weather and car drives with the windows down. Soon enough. Actually, probably just in time for this album to see its proper release. Until then.

Father John Misty - Live at Headliners

Halfway through the show, J. Tillman looked to the back of the venue, where there’s a bar lined with mirrors. He gazed at his reflection, wondering out loud, “who is that anorexic homeless person dancing around in his long underwear?”

And although that was a harsh self-assessment, he scattered antics like this throughout the show, tackling everything from Kentucky’s stance on the Iraq war (neutral, he explained – like only one other state – his home state of Maryland) to how Kentucky must have had the most onstage silverware per capita (he found a spoon within the first two minutes of the set, and stopped the opening number, “Funtimes in Babylon,” midway to explain).

It was this attitude, this freeness, that set the tone for the show. With ease, Tillman belted out songs with a voice like caramel melted in the sun. It was as if he didn’t need to take breaths; sugary notes just fell out of his mouth miraculously.

The smooth ooh’s and laid back vibe of “Nancy From Now On” made you forget that he was actually singing “pour me another drink/and punch me in the face,” and instead concentrate on the way the guitars meshed beautifully with his voice in a blissed out melodic wonderland.

Four other people joined Tillman onstage, and though they sounded like integral, elaborate pieces of a beating heart, the frontman was one of those happy disasters that drew all the attention. While he played drums with Fleet Foxes for a while, Tillman got his start as a solo artist, and the man obviously belongs center stage.

His dance moves were reminiscent of elementary school girls coordinating a dance to the latest boy band song – complete with finger wagging “no’s,” shimmies, and some of the best booty shaking to ever come from a man’s body. Britney Spears couldn’t do what he did without lip-syncing. Some of the more dramatic moments seemed modeled on Elvis Presley’s moves.

Not everything was a dance party. The band freaked out on “This is Sally Hatchet,” a dark, moody song that broke them free of the mostly carefree-sounding set. The cathartic guitar breakdown begged you to close your eyes and let it take you places. Tillman fell to the ground, stretching his arms to the skies, reminding the crowd that these songs are more complex than they may appear on the surface.

“Now I’m Learning to Love the War” slowed things down, but Father John Misty bounced back up to speed with “Tee Pees 1-12.” The band made it through nearly their entire catalog, nailing almost all dozen songs on their debut, Fear Fun.

For Tillman to pack Headliners – after just releasing the first album under this moniker last May – is an unusual and surprising feat. But when the striking beat behind “Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings” echoed to the back of the room on the last song before the encore, and Tillman seemed near explosion with his jerking dance moves, it made sense. This was not only an entertaining show, but one with the kind of musical genius that doesn’t come around every day.

Youth Without Youth

So I was listening to all-request radio on WFPK this morning because my hands were too cold to plug in my phone to the auxilary jack in my car, and I was only going to the post office. The problem is: I hate all-request radio. Or whatever they call it. Because, let's face it. People have no taste. I mean, seriously? You're going to request a cover of U2's "Pride (In the Name of Love)" by Dierks Bentley? Are you even a real person? Was this a joke? If so, you win. But anyone listening to the radio is losing three minutes of life.

Luckily, a real person called the station. I know because I heard this gem from Metric's latest album, which I thought I was sick of after listening to it 14 times to review it. But I'm not. Apparently only the song "Artificial Noctourne" makes me want to hurl things at my speaker -- not the rest of the album. Phew. I was starting to worry my girlcrush on Emily Haines was facing some lovers woes or something.

"Youth Without Youth" is the only jam (today) that makes me involuntarily swing my arms around and feel cool while doing so. (Don't worry, it's not cool.)

Sky Ferreira

I don't make new years resolutions. But if I did, it might be to post more frequently, on a whim, when I hear something that wakes me up or when I revisit an older album that blows my brains out. Another non-resolution is to maybe listen to more of the emails I get from publicists instead of letting them sit in my inbox and eventually archive them when I get overwhelmed by the sheer volume.

So I opened this email today about a girl named Sky Ferreira, and she's a little too skimpy black tank top for me. She's a little too early Fiona Apple, crawling on the floor to be sexy, for me.

But the heavy rumble of this song is a little too much for me to avoid, and it's got enough pep and atmosphere to warrant repeated plays. The beginning starts a little bit Muse-y, and it grows and flowers from there.

I think, if you're like me, you'll like it.

My Favorite Albums of 2012

 1. Tame Impala - Lonerism - Modular Recordings

This album feels like a familiar coat that I want to put on day after day, no matter how many other people are sick of seeing it. It’s incredibly warm, and to me, I feel good in it every day. Lonerism is incredibly multicolored and the psychedelic wanderings let my brain go in five different directions at once, giving me the perfect distraction from everyday life, and an endless, luminous zone of hazy pleasure. It is always an escape, and although every song could have been simply contrived late Beatles shit, every song is its own. Plus, the lyric “whoopsie daisy/I thought I was happy” in “Why Won’t They Talk to Me” and the buzzy guitar line in “Elephant” are two perfect entities that I just want to hug forever.

2. Django Django - S/T - Because Music

A primal rush of what sounds like pure spontaneity but feels like meticulously, brainily planned artwork, this album came out of nowhere and swept me off my feet into the jungle. I don’t know why I suddenly feel like I joined a Native American tribe when I listen, but, oh, wait, it’s because the percussion is skittery and the vocals are poppy (not like popular, but actually, they pop – like the corn) and my body starts convulsing into something that probably resembles some traditional dance requires a full headdress and some kind of body paint. “Default” is hands down the most enjoyable song of the year.

3. Grizzly Bear – Shields – Warp

I’ve been saying this same stupid phrase over and over again, but I’m serious: Grizzly Bear has been making languid a good thing since 2004. And I can’t get over how they get more and more interesting with every album, seeming to get more insular but also more relatable at every turn. These are gorgeous shimmering ballads and drawn-out guitar squalls that really make you listen and think and concentrate on the music. I rarely get stuck on a song that moves at the speed of quicksand, but “The Hunt” is entirely too beautiful for me to comprehend. How do you even invent choruses that convey such raw sadness that I can strangely feel the pit in my stomach growing by the second? Ugh. It hurts so good.

4. Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel... - Epic

I was one of those kids who found Fiona Apple disgusting. All I knew was that music video where she crawled around the floor (Did that happen? Was it a figment of my imagination? I fear youtube will reveal another truth.) and I thought she was a terrible role model. I was, like, 13. And then came Extraordinary Machine, changing my mind. I was also in college at that point, old enough to sort of understand. Now, this brilliant album. Nobody is doing what Apple is doing. Strange chimes and even weirder chord progressions, it’s uncomfortable and oddly appealing for reasons unbeknownst to me.

5. Father John Misty - Fear Fun - Sub Pop

I want someone to mash-up “Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings” and Neutral Milk Hotel’s “King of Carrot Flowers Part 2 & 3” because they are the only two songs that makes this Jewish girl want to belt out “JEEEEESUS CHRIST.” Moving on, I was blasted right out of my car when I popped this album in my stereo (thanks Sub Pop!) and heard this collection of songs. It wasn’t til later I found out this was the man responsible for making me laugh at his silly jokes at the Fleet Foxes concert I saw a few years ago. From the ultimate cool simplicity of “Hollywood Forever” to the country twang of “Tee Pees 1-12,” every song is pretty much an experiment in another genre. The prose here is really thoughtful, too. Oh, and the haunting “This is Sally Hatchet.” Love you J.

 

6. Beach House - Bloom - Sub Pop

When will Beach House mess something up? Because I just don’t understand how it is possible to make dream pop that is just its own perfect paradise, and do it at the same time as never being boring. Isn’t that an oxymoron or something? These songs are just lush pillows filled with gummy bears and velvet coats and unicorns and the scent of double chocolate brownies. Beach House is integrating more texture and interesting beat-oriented fun into their music, and it’s hitting the pleasure spots in my brain. And Victoria Legrand is the woman I want to be when I fall asleep and become a rock star.

7. Patrick Watson - Adventures In Your Own Backyard - Domino

I’m starting to sense a trend here in my top ten, and it involves lots of bedtime music. But seriously, “Morning Sheets” is one of the more perfectly composed songs I’ve heard in my day. Like, I could listen to it probably three dozen times before actually wanting to leave my bed. PEOPLE. I’m going caps lock on you because WHY DOES NOBODY EVER LISTEN TO PATRICK WATSON WHEN I TELL YOU TO? This album is incredibly adventurous (pun intended, but not really) because it goes Spanish troubadour  (in a non-tacky way) with “Lighthouse” and then pitter-patters you straight to the actual definition of crescendo in “Blackwind,” and those are only the first two songs. This album is quietly epic. Yes, another hyperbole/oxymoron and I’m only at #7.

8. Alt-J - An Awesome Wave - Infectious Music

I credit my writing for Under the Radar for helping me discover a good amount of new music this year that I may have never listened to otherwise. But this is the best thing it led me to all year. Whoever thought of the name of that record label is genius, because yes. This is one of the truly stranger vocals of the year (Tom Petty’s nasal-ness, Marcus Mumford’s scrunchyness, an alien’s personality), and it’s loveable. So is the strange way in which these songs seem to tumble from start to end, with time signatures that mess with your head. So much of this album is hollow-feeling, but never empty. Oh, and I’m so pissed that they put a hidden track on the end of “Taro” because I would have put that song on every single mix I should have made this year. I have been pretending that I’m in elementary school because that’s when I used to wear belly shirts and lots of scarves to perform in an Indian dance group. And that groove is so freakin Indian dance it’s not funny.

 

9. Spiritualized - Sweet Heart Sweet Light - Double Six

I was going to ask the rhetorical question, “is this what drugs sound like?” Because if so, they need to be legalized. But it turns out that Jason Pierce was actually going through experimental chemotherapy while putting this album together, so I’m going to actually thank his incredible human spirit for putting together such a masterpiece under terrible conditions. If you were to tell me that I was about to love the shit out of something that might be considered modern gospel music, I might dunk my head in some water and wonder if I was dreaming. But yeah, this is kind of uncategorizable, a hazy work of art that stretches genre limits and goes balls out, all the time. “Hey Jane” is a chaotic piece of glory, but “Little Girl” makes me feel so insignificant as a human/writer that I really could die. He sings, “Sometimes I wish that I was dead/cuz only the living can feel the pain/Sometimes I wish that I could fly/you get so grounded, that life will pass you by.” It’s actually the best lyric I think I’ve heard all year. And when you put it together with what he must have actually been feeling when he wrote this album, ugh, I can’t even.

 

10. Dirty Projectors – Swing Lo Magellan - Domino

When gauging my favorite music, I sometimes laugh because I put it on a ranking of just how weird my Top 40-loving sister would think it is. I don’t think dear Nicole would make it past the first twenty of seconds of this album without deeming it inappropriate. This is wholly unique and so beautiful in that sense. When I saw them live, and I heard some of the harmonies in real life, I was thankful to be alive. I mean that in the most obnoxious, cliché, life-affirming sense. Plus, the title track is just the only song I want to listen to while making pancakes on a Sunday morning. Jack Johnson, you have been banished from my kitchen.

11. Poor Moon – Illusion EP – Sub Pop

12. Damien Jurado – Maraqopa – Secretly Canadian

13. Japandroids – Celebration Rock - Polyvinyl

14. Husky – Tidal Wave – Sub Pop

15. Cloud Nothings – Attack on Memory – Carpark Records

16. Frank Ocean – Channel Orange – Def Jam

17. Violens – True – Slumberland

18. The Tallest Man on Earth – There’s No Leaving Now – Dead Oceans

19. Yeasayer – Fragrant World – Secretly Canadian

20. Bowerbirds – The Clearing – Dead Oceans

Honorable Mentions

Divine Fits – A Thing Called Divine Fits - Merge

Metric - Synthetica – Metric Music International

Opossom – Electric Hawaii - Fire

The Shins – Port of Morrow – Columbia

Grimes - Visions - Arbutus

Lower Dens – Nootropics – Ribbon Music

Atlas Genius – Through the Glass EP – Warner Bros.

Bro. Stephen – Baptist Girls - Crossroads of America Records

Gomez Addams – Summer Viking – Self-released

Ty Segall – Twins – Self-released

Sharon Van Etten – Tramp - Jagjaguwar

Rufus Wainwright – Out of the Game – Decca/Polydor

Dent May – Do Things – Paw Tracks

Woods – Bend Beyond – Woodsist

Jessica Lea Mayfield & David Mayfield in Louisville

Sibling rivalry can be the fiercest of competitions, more vicious than political infighting. It’s love and hate, there’s the protective instinct, and of course, a desire to one-up that pesky brother or sister. A sibling can somehow get closer to pinpointing your strengths and weaknesses than anyone else in this world. It’s an indescribable, unparalleled connection between two human beings.

So when Jessica Lea Mayfield and David Mayfield decided to go on tour together, they thought The Sibling Rivalry Tour would be a good name. But luckily for us, these siblings are the type that gets along. Perhaps a better name would be Sibling Bonding. The two haven’t spent much time together lately – with both of them leading their own bands – so they chose the dates because it allowed them to travel together around the holiday season.

It’s not like they haven’t shared the spotlight with each other. They started performing together when they were young. In fact, it was a family affair. They traveled with their parents in the bluegrass band, One Way Rider. Jessica was only eight.

“When I was old enough to have rational thought, about six years old, I knew I wanted to play music for my whole life. I wasn’t one of those kids who was like, ‘oh I’m going to be an astronaut and a guitar player and a priest and a Mormon and a nurse,’” says Mayfield.

And music is what both have done ever since. While she admits that the lifestyle of a traveling musician is less glamorous than she initially imagined, Mayfield says she’s never taken her eyes off this path.

Fortunately, working with her brother and her husband has helped keep her comfortable during her creative process. Both have played in her band and toured with her at some point since her debut full-length in 2008. Mayfield has also enlisted the help of The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, who produced both her debut and 2011’s Tell Me, both of which express a sort of quiet turmoil.

Mayfield says she only writes about personal experiences, but she’s mostly driven to create when she’s angry or tense. And even though she’s still in the honeymoon period of her new marriage, she’s inspired to write her contemplative folk tunes in the worst moments.

“I’ve noticed that I’ve been writing about things like anger and sex and all other different aspects of my marriage that aren’t the good ones. Because when I’m having good experiences I’m going to go have fun. If I’m having bad experiences, I’m going to slam the door and do my own thing and be creative. It’s hard to be creative, at least for me, when I’m in a good mood. Because I’m just like, ‘Ok! Let’s go get ice cream and go see a movie.’ I almost need a little bit of turmoil.”

Mayfield plans to self-produce for the first time on her third release. She’s working with her brother and husband at home in Kent, Ohio on some of the new material. While it’s been nice to leave the grind of constant touring behind to work on new ideas, Mayfield is ready to get back on the road.

 “You can only appreciate watching Netflix naked so much. If it’s just one day a week, it’s alright, but if it’s every night, it’s like, ‘aw man.’ I need to get back out there.”

(I wrote this for LEO Weekly. You can see this show Tuesday, December 11th at Zanzabar. See ya there.)

Sandpaper Dolls Only Need Voices

I wrote this for LEO Weekly. Their album release show is tomorrow night at Meat!

Lugging heavy equipment from venue to venue, many bands only dream of leaving all of that hassle behind. Suki Anderson, Amber Estes, and Rebecca Dennison never had to worry about that. Ever since they formed Sandpaper Dolls, instruments were just memories they left in the past.

After playing in several different bands, the trio decided to form their own powerhouse. And this time, their vocal chords alone were enough.

Rather than carrying on like a chipper barbershop quartet, they’ve found their niche in more haunting harmonies. That doesn’t mean they’re leaving behind the fundamentals they learned in previous bands. Each song – although a cappella – has percussive elements, a bassline, and a melody.

That percussion is reflected in various shapes and forms on their forthcoming debut studio album, Swallow Them Whole. “Colors” uses breathing techniques to establish a subtle beat, and a tongue clicks pepper “Cast Your Love” with a certain jazz.

“No matter what culture you’re in, everyone connects with the human voice. And they also connect with percussion in a lot of ways,” explains Dennison.

“Tesla Bossa” showcases some of the innovative ways they’ve been able to transform their voices into multi-dimensional instruments. Between chorus and verse, what sounds like a rousing horn solo overtakes the shuffle.

“We’re good at doing unusual things,” says Anderson, “But not to the point it’s a gimmick. You can push the envelope without pushing things too far.”

That applies to some new ideas they’ve added to their bag of tricks. One that took practice was learning how to sing while breathing in. They tried it because every breath is crucial in music so intimate that a pin drop would be jarring.

Estes laughs when recalling the first time she tried it. “I’m like, okay. I have to hit a note while I’m inhaling.”

Capturing those tiny moments on tape is another challenge. The trio spent three years recording Swallow Them Whole, catching the natural reverb of a church, the creepy vibes in a studio above a funeral home in West Louisville, and some classy moments inside a cave on Lexington Road.

“It was rough,” Anderson jokes, “There was an old mattress in the corner. It was like mud everywhere. It was just this slippery mud fest. It was really fun. It was like being in a hobbit hole almost. Actually a hobbit hole probably would have been nicer.”

To keep dry in the dripping cave, they all held umbrellas over them the entire time. And that was the easy part. Producer Kevin Ratterman (also known for helping My Morning Jacket record Circuital) carried a gigantic tape machine into the cave and covered it and all the cords with plastic.

All that legwork was worth it. The warmth and clarity of the recording is enough to make you feel like you’re standing a foot away from Anderson, Estes and Dennison. The occasional echo gives the three-part harmonies an otherworldy, timeless quality.

Their album release show aims to match that closeness. Sandpaper Dolls will take the stage at Meat, surrounded by candles and as many people as can fit inside the small bar. The night is bittersweet, though. After five years together, this landmark night also marks the Dennison’s departure from the band.

She’s leaving after what she calls a dry creative season and a need to refresh. The parting is amicable, and Estes and Anderson are already rehearsing with a new member.

So just as these three walked into one another’s lives, leaving the clutter of instruments behind, they continue their journey. They’re walking away from a longtime partnership, but headed toward a bright future.