Matt and Kim x 2!

So this is going up WAY late, and will probably soon be followed by the Sufjan review.  Guess I got carried away with other things! Sorry guys...


October was quite the whirlwind, what with the whole running a marathon thing.  But it was also quite the Matt-and-Kim-heavy, too.  Monica, Emily and I caught their concert at Webster Hall on October 27th, and their new album Sidewalks came out on November 2nd, which means that a post devoted entirely to them is completely appropriate.  


The concert itself lived up to everything I'd hoped it would be--Matt and Kim play energetic music, and definitely ramped it up a few notches for their live show.  Before the show started, they played the entirety of Sidewalks, and because of that, they didn't play any material from the new album.  But, it turned into a good way to brush up on some of their older songs, including 5K, Silver Tiles (ok, so they redid this on Sidewalks, so I guess that counts?), Good Ol Fashioned Nightmare, and of course, Daylight (for a CRACKED OUT version from my camera, try this. Good idea of how the concert went in general. Except add some circle pits). 


Looking at the differences between their last album, Grand, and their latest, Sidewalks, you can tell almost immediately that Sidewalks is more polished--while Grand seems raw and sometimes disjointed in the characteristics of the songs (and is therefore personally the album that's harder to get behind), Sidewalks just feels more cohesive and provides a smoother full-album listen.  


The album's first single, Cameras, moves closer to hip hop and gives a bit of a preview of the feel of the album, but I think a few more tracks are necessary to fully appreciate it.  Well, technically listening to the entire album is required to fully appreciate it, but I do that so you don't have to (unless you want to!). After Cameras, head to Block After Block, Good for Great, and wrap it up with the new version of Silver Tiles.  I love that they redid this song--it helps show their development excellently.  The live edition is also excellent because as they explained to the NYC crowd, it's their song for their fans.  Although when I went to double check that, Matt apparently also said it's about knocking his brother's teeth out.  Same difference.  (I also like "Where You're Coming From", but unfortunately YouTube has failed me on that one.)


Anyhow-tons of Matt and Kim made it onto my running playlist because all of their music is so high-energy.  So next time you need a pick-me-up, pop on something from Sidewalks or Grand, and just let the music work its magic.  

It's been a while...

Contrary to what it seems like, I've been pretty prolific in playlist making over on GS lately.  I've got a post on Matt and Kim in the works for both the concert we went to (awesome) and their new album (also awesome?).  For now, figured I'd throw this one up for consideration:

Concert Reviews: Tallest Man on Earth

So, one of my goals upon moving to this lovely city was to go to as many concerts as possible given multiple opportunities and a whole lot of people to drag along with me. The first concert that I went to ended up being The Tallest Man on Earth at Webster Hall, along with Christina, Jared, and Jared's friend Betsy. 

The Tallest Man on Earth is actually Kristian Matsson, of Dalarna, Sweden (he wore a shirt from there which sparked a very long conversation about where he's from and he got really excited about it).  You wouldn't be able to tell that English is his second language from his voice, though; if anything, it's got a bit of a twang to it.  

The concert opened with S. Carey, of Bon Iver fame, and from what I've heard and what Jared and Betsy told me, their live set was much more energetic than than the album.  The highlight of their set was definitely "Action" in the middle of the set, which morphed from a 2ish minute song on the album to an 8-9 minute breakdown including building percussion parts which could have made the night worth it by themselves.  

TMOE's set was also wonderful--the set was minimal, with just a chair, multiple guitars, and a background full of lights meant to look like stars.  He's just as enthusiastic as I've heard, throwing himself completely into everything.  I came away with the impression that he might be slightly crazy, but it's all the right types of crazy for someone who performs for a living.  I took a video of The Gardner to have something I could share.  Unfortunately, I took it sideways and couldn't figure out how to fix that, so you might have to turn your head sideways? 

In any case, next concert on the horizon is Matt and Kim at the end of the month.  I'll try to have that writeup a bit earlier than this one.  

Florence and the Machine

So thanks to a friend from high school, I've stumbled on the album that is currently getting me through hours of credit analysis training-Lungs, by Florence and the Machine.  Give it a listen when you get a chance; the driving beats are good for mid-morning motivation, and a lot of these will definitely be transitioning onto my marathon playlist. 

City and Colour

It's not very often that I'll write about an artist literally the day after I first heard them, but I've got a good feeling about this guy.  And by this guy, I mean Dallas Green, who goes under the alias City and Colour for his recordings.  Why the extra   u? Well, because he's Canadian, of course.  Looking a bit into how long he's been around leads me to inevitably being slightly ashamed, since he's been active and winning Juno awards (au Canada) for about five years at this point.  


In any case, better late than never?  The album I'm currently working my way through, Bring Me Your Love, falls pretty lock-step in with my default taste in music-acoustic guitar, folksy sound, and as Green puts it himself, music to sort of escape to.  I will personally be using it to escape from the banality of filing away my entire last year of work between now and tomorrow, my last day working in Philly before The Move, Part Deux, to NYC and the day I officially consider myself a resident of New York.  


Try these to get started: 


Sleeping Sickness-sounds pretty close to live, which I like
Sensible Heart

Waiting

What Makes A Man

And in almost definitive proof of the fact that people can be fans of both folk and metal-ish (? not sure how to define this) without severe cognitive dissonance, Dallas Green is ALSO the singer for a band called Alexisonfire.  It's pretty funny to see the difference between the two....

Freelance Whales

So the album of the week, as evidenced by both mine and Monica's GChat statuses (and really, what better way to decide the album of the week?) is most definitely Weathervanes by Freelance Whales.  Those of you keeping track will notice that once again, the instrumentation is replete with banjos and leaning towards the folksy side, while the lyrics have been a treasure trove of quotables.  These are obviously two of the most serious criteria I use when evaluating music.  While the banjo initially led me to a vague connection with a slightly poppier Sufjan, Jared has led me to revise that initial thought after comparing them to Owl City (this made me sad).  So let's go with something on the level of Death Cab in terms of tone, with slightly more complex arrangements.  

For some easy listens, check out Location (slightly shorter than the album, but you get the idea) or Kilojoules (they were all live versions, I couldn't find one I was happy with!); Generator ^ First Floor is also one of my favorites.  To slow things down, try The Great Estates or Broken Horses.

In unrelated news, Sufjan released details for his first completely new album-length CD, The Age of Adz! This comes on the heels of his new LP, All Delighted People, released last week and streaming here. On top of this, I finally have tickets to see Sufjan on Nov. 14th in NYC! My excitement cannot be contained in words.

In any case, that's it for now! Back to the stress of apartment hunting...

Playlist Hiatus?

So it seems I've managed to fall off even that most simple of updating ploys, creating a new playlist at least once a week. I blame this on infinite repetitions of The Suburbs (excellent), Contra, and general craziness associated with business travel, leaving the country, and family stress.

But, here's a new one:

Another week, another playlist

Mumford & Sons-Sigh No More

First up in a rundown of my favorite recent album acquisitions: Mumford and Sons' debut, "Sigh No More".

The band's been around since 2007, but this is their first full-length album (they have 3 EPs that I'm aware of, and tour pretty regularly).  The group is from London and full of multi-instrumentalists--a great way to ensure I'll be interested.  The best way to describe their music would be folk with heavy bluegrass influences, which can be picked up from their instrumentation (banjo, upright bass, mandolin, guitar, drums).

Their most well known song is probably Little Lion Man, which I've actually heard on the radio in Philly (gasp!).  It was their debut single, and also a good place to start off.  From there, I'd head over to Winter Winds, The Cave, and of course the title track Sigh No More.  But seriously? Just listen to the whole thing.  It's pretty powerful. Like, catch me singing in the car powerful.

For a more in-depth listen, check out their live set from Bonnaroo-it goes through most of the best songs from the album. It's also great to hear a band that plays complex music be able to pull it off live.

Time to change it up

This one is definitely much different than previous playlists. It's not cooperating as much as they normally do in terms of letting me preview them, so hopefully it worked out ok...  I'll also have a real post about the latest albums I absolutely love soon.

Deluge

So, everyone's good friends over at NPR have been fighting the good fight to get new music to as wide an audience as possible, and are currently taking a poll on the best albums released so far this year.  This has resulted in a gigantic list of albums found here. I used it as a jumping point to start listening to everything I'd been meaning to check out, and as a result, have thrown together a huge full-album playlist of the ones I'm giving a first listen.  So, if you somehow find yourself locked at work for the next consecutive 5 days, you'll definitely have enough music to get through it with this:

Ready, set, summer!

Words cannot express how excited I am for it to be summer.  Even though I'm a working real person at this point, the summer is going to involve taking a step back and calming down in terms of scheduling for me--I'm going from 5 days of class a week down to 1 by July, and I plan to be in a different city almost every week (hooray business travel, races, and visiting friends!).  And as of 10 this morning, I've survived my wisdom teeth coming out AND the LSAT.  We'll see how the LSAT turns out, but it looks like even though I'm going to be incredibly sick of applesauce by the time my antibiotics and vicodin run out, I'm done the hard part of the wisdom teeth. 


Of course, summer also made me want to put together a new playlist full of happiness and songs to get you through the workday when you'd rather be outside lying by a pool (see previous post).  The two bands that I've been relying most heavily on for mood-bosting music (which it seems like several people could use lately) are Matt and Kim and Passion Pit. I challenge you to listen to Daylight or Little Secrets without smiling.  


When you're ready to expand off of those, here are a few to check out from each: 


Matt and Kim
Yea Yeah
Good Ol Fashioned Nightmare
Lessons Learned


Pasison Pit
Sleepyhead
Make Light
Swimming in the Flood


The best part? Both are on tour! Let's go!

Summer playlist, version 1

Love how music can make me feel better no matter what. 

New playlist, new widget

Not sure if this can live up to the last one, and it's still in progress, but worth posting for a change of pace.

I also cater to Christina's whims, as well...

New work playlist

Here's the latest work playlist--pretty short for now, but I'm working on it.  Can you tell I found a couple new bands/am getting reobsessed with The New Pornographers?

Impending LSAT doom is moderating my ability to write right now; hopefully that will let up soon after I ace this thing.

Iron & Wine

Oh, the joys of Iron & Wine.  Otherwise known as Sam Beam, Iron & Wine is another act that ranks up there in my all-time favorites (if we're keeping track, so far Sufjan and The National are the other two that qualify).  


Iron & Wine would most definitely fall under the definition of folk music: all acoustic, mainly quiet melodies backed by simple guitar, and lyrics about life that almost always have an innate ability to calm.  


For the amount of TV shows and movies that Iron & Wine has been included in, I'm pretty surprised at how few people I know have actually heard of it.  So first, let's do a quick rundown of the songs that you might have heard, loved, and not known where to find: 


TV: 
Passing Afternoon-probably most recognizable as the song playing in the last Amber episode of House; one of my favorites.  I actually don't find it sad, as the House association has forever done for a bunch of people
Naked As We Came-this has apparently been on approximately 203497958 shows, including Grey's Anatomy and Ugly Betty
He Lays in the Reins-with Calexico, included in One Tree Hill


Movies: 
Such Great Heights-actually a Postal Service cover, but included on the Garden State soundtrack
The Trapeze Swinger-ending credits for In Good Company
Flightless Bird, American Mouth-I had to try way too hard to find a link that wasn't full of Twilight. 


So, now that you've realized that you actually DO know Iron & Wine, love them, and want more, what next?  I've got a few suggestions cutting across the slightly-narrow spectrum of Iron & Wine music for you to check out, of course: 


Off The Shepherd's Dog: 


Boy With a Coin-not only is the song great, the video is full of awesome flamenco dancing
House By the Sea

Resurrection Fern
Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car



Off The Creek Drank the Cradle: 
Faded From the Winter
Weary Memory


Off Our Endless Numbered Days: 
Sodom, South Georgia
Fever Dream
Love and Some Verses


In general, Our Endless Numbered Days is my favorite album, with Shepherd's Dog a close second.  Iron & Wine released Around the Well, which is technically a B-Sides album, in 2009.  There are some good songs on it, but unfortunately my copy got lost when my computer got stolen.  


So go! Take Iron & Wine, and make it yours--I definitely have some serious associations with almost all of these songs (they pretty much made it possible for me to leave Georgetown the weekend I visited before going abroad, haha). 

Early listening for High Violet!

NPR is streaming The National's new album, High Violet, a full week before it's coming out (mark your calendars for May 11).  Improve your work day and check it out here!

As Becca pointed out, NPR is actually a very unexpectedly good source for streams.  Be sure to check out their concert archive sometime-great stuff across all genres.

PS: after my first listen, I have to say...this is a wonderful album.

New playlist

New playlist, probably slightly more like what you'd guess is stereotypically on one of my playlists (lots of Sufjan and Iron & Wine):

http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/playlist/Quieter/28268419

Updating throughout the rest of the work week!

Cop-out post

Things have continued to be very busy; spent a week in DC for training and then came home to deal with my wisdom teeth (which all have to come out, terrified).  So, I'm going to go with a cop-out post for the moment.  Thanks to my dear friend Kathy, I now know about Grooveshark.  Grooveshark allows you to search for any song, play it as many times as you want, put it into a playlist, and share your playlists with the world.

This is a very exciting concept to me because once you create a link to the playlist in order to share with someone, it seems like Grooveshark actually updates the playlist when you do, without the need for another new link.  At least, this is what happened when I tested it with Tash (thanks!).

What does this mean for you?  It means that if you want, you can now have a direct link (haha Internet pun...my coworker is rubbing off on me) to playlists! And since I make playlists almost obsessively, I can have the option of passing them along as a quicker method of getting great music out to you.  Let's face it, it would take a really long time for me to even finish the list of artists I have saved in my draft posts, and by the time I get to all of them, I'll probably have about 10 more to add.

So yeah, if you're looking for a good site to turn to when your free Pandora hours for the month run out, check out Grooveshark.  And if you're interested, here's my work playlist of the week. 

Yeasayer

Welcome back, and sorry for the bit of a break there.  Things are continuing along their busy/hectic way, with a case presentation, major FAS statement implementation, and tons of LSAT and Japanese homework over the past two weeks slowing me down.  I don't want this to turn into another abandoned attempt at writing, so time to get back into the swing of things!


Looking at my iTunes most played list (a good way to get to know any person, in my opinion), it's immediately obvious that I've been listening to Yeasayer just about nonstop recently.  The first time I ran into any of their music was last year on Dark Was the Night, a compilation of songs by a fan-freaking-tastic lineup of indie artists to raise money for AIDS research.  I'll probably devote an entire post just to that album, so stay tuned for highlights, and I'll avoid getting sidetracked now.  

Yeasayer definitely may take more than one listen to grow on you; Tightrope didn't immediately shoot to my top played after DWtN, but has steadily risen ever since.  The band itself is comprised of three core members: Chris Keating, Ira Wolf Tuton, and Anand Wilder.  Take a look at any of their live performances (such as the Take Away Show I posted a while back), and you'll see that they're pretty much crazy, in a good way.  Huge amounts of energy, a total connection to their music, and creative improvisation convinced the TAS crew that the night they spent filming was one of the best ones they'd had, for a "band I didn't like, no less".  Best use of musical beer bottles I've ever seen, in any case.  


The group describes their music as "Middle Eastern-psych-snap-gospel".  Not sure exactly what that would entail, but their tracks have driving beats, complex instrumentation, and relatable lyrics ("so you're wishing that you never did all the embarrassing things you've done"? check.) Their latest album, Odd Blood, is different from their first album All Hour Cymbals, but I think both have some pretty great highlights. Here goes: 


All Hour Cymbals: 
Sunrise-great drum beat, definitely part of my running playlist EDIT: This live version is fantastic.
2080
Red Cave-i could see the "middle eastern" bit in this song
Wait for the Summer-another middle eastern/psychish song, but still intriguing


Odd Blood: 
Ambling Alp-not the official video, because it is the strangest thing I've ever seen, and I don't want to scare you off from a great song. 
O.N.E.-you can download this by going to Yeasayer's site and entering your e-mail, but again you've been warned...it's a bizarre site.  This is probably my favorite song on the album right now.  
Madder Red

I Remember, which Monica claims was on some embarrassing TV show. I wouldn't know. :)

  

[Photo by Alexander Wagner; L to R: Ira Wolf Tuton, Anand Wilder, Chris Keating, Luke Fasano]

Hello Seahorse!

Quick story of how I found Hello Seahorse and started using the forces of musical imperialism to make other start listening as well: Their song Bestia was on one of iTunes free indie playlists, which for me have normally been hit or miss in terms of finding something I like or recognize.  Luckily, 8 hours of work a day necessitates that ultimate hit-or-miss experience, putting the iPod on shuffle (seriously, you forget how much music you have until you hear something from high school randomly).  Bestia comes up, is listened to on repeat ad nauseum, and the world continues on.  


Flash forward to NYC visiting some Hoya loves, and gorging on Mexican food at La Lucha (words can't describe the delicious cheesy melty goodness...although their website is still kinda getting the hang of existing).  Music playing is lovely, comments are made to that effect, and then I realize that it is, in fact, a band I know.  Hooray! I've found another band I can start telling people to listen to, and do.  

Hello Seahorse! is about as cutesy as they sound.  Another good indication would be their album covers, one of which is included in this post.  Seriously? How can you say no to that? My Spanish is not yet good enough to be able to comment much about the songs in Spanish, but this Mexican group sings in a mix of Spanish and English, and both are equally enjoyable.  Their latest album, Bestia, is entirely in Spanish, but even if you don't have a clue about what they're saying, it's worth a listen.  


And after a bit of digging on the internet, here's a way to get a remix of Bestia for FREE. I downloaded the entire sampler from Nacional, which is HS!'s record label to see what this whole Mexican music scene is about.  We'll see what happens; if something good comes out of it, it'll definitely end up here eventually.  


In any case, here's a quick roundup of some mentionable songs to check out (besides Bestia, of course): 


Won't Say Anything
Oso Polar
Criminal
Después

Concerts à Emporter

This post isn't about an artist; it's about another blog site.  But it's probably my favorite blog site ever: Concerts à Emporter.  The site is known as Take Away Shows in English, and is a dual language French/English site.  Now here's the even cooler part:  the guys that run the site record great artists giving mini-concerts all over the world, with a large portion of them being taped in Paris.  Each show comes with an explanation of where it was shot, what event it was at, and something about the artist. 

 Over the years that they've been doing it (the numbering system has lost me a bit, as not all clips are numbered anymore--I think that means that the clips weren't part of a "Take Away Show" specifically for them--but they're about to hit 100 shows!), they've managed to hit up some of my favorite artists.  Most of the videos are rough, hand-camera recordings, leading to the occasional bit that is harder to watch if you're not great with shaky visuals.  The music more than makes up for this, in my opinion.  The shows are usually shot in public, leading to great acoustic versions of songs and intimate performances.  The Arcade Fire show comes to mind immediately as one that wasn't exactly a small show; it's amazing what these people can get all of these artists to agree to do.  In short, I wish I thought of this and had that kind of access to so many great groups.

If you're looking for new music, I'd suggest you head over and click around a bit.  There are a few must-sees in my opinion, so here they are: 

The National 

Sufjan Stevens-The second song on the roof is actually an Innocence Mission cover. 

Bon Iver -Great versions of all of the songs, but the video of For Emma, Forever Ago gives you a good idea of how these shows come together (they end up singing an a cappella version of a great song in a stairwell for an apt building, dogs and confused residents included-then do it all again outside!)

José Gonzalés-who is actually Swedish.  Another great song of his to check out is Heartbeats. Monica and Emily may recognize it as The Song I Play On My Phone At 2 AM. 

Beirut-Zach Condon may be a bit crazy (see Nantes), but entertaining. 

Yeasayer-Beer bottle/floor slapping rendition of Tightrope? Priceless. 

There are other names you'd all recognize as well...I definitely can't recommend les Concerts à Emporter enough!

So now that I have officially started to be Very Busy, I doubt I'm going to get to a post a day/every other day/what I've managed so far.  This is inevitable with three classes going on, but oh well.  Hopefully I/you won't be deterred!

Trio Töykeät

And in the true spirit of broad musical taste, I'm going to take a short break for some laudable Finnish jazz, which I was introduced to by a friend while abroad.  Trio Töykeät produces songs heavy on piano and strings, with a great mix of melody and improvisation.  I don't know much about formal structure in jazz, so I won't comment to the specific style. I will say that their songs are catchy, come in a wide range of tempos, and have proven to me that pizzicato can be feasibly used in mainstream music (not just Jazz Pizzicato, if you've ever played that...but what string player hasn't? guh).  I personally own their album Sisu, which unfortunately doesn't include one of my favorites from them, Perfect Make Out Music.  I can't make any claims to the validity of the title, but the song is good! 


Here are a few others worth a listen (unfortunately there weren't many links available, and the titles can get a bit confusing for non-Finnish speakers): 


End of the First Set
Vanhojapoikia Viiksekkäitä-Couldn't find a link; on Sisu
Pizzitaxi-aforementioned proof of pizzicato; also generally wonderful violin
Gadd A Tee?


In any case, I've found them to be great for study music, since I can't get anything done if I'm singing along to songs in my head.  I'd especially appreciate comments on this post to get an idea of whether I should post random things like this more often. I already love all this stuff, I want to know what you guys think!

The National

So following Sufjan with the National seemed like the most logical thing to do, because as I mentioned at the end of the Sufjan post, he played piano on two tracks on The National's most recent full album, Boxer: Racing Like A Pro and Ada.  


Now, I've primarily run across two reactions when talking to people about The National.  People seem to either love them, or not see what all the fuss is about.  I'd like to go out on a limb and suggest that this might be because of the rather unique voice of lead singer Matt Berninger-a deep baritone that definitely doesn't sound like most other voices out there that I've heard.  I did a quick scan of how people have tried to describe it, and found some pretty entertaining ones, including "dark chocolate richness", "chocolate and wool", and multiple types of whiskey.  I think he sums it up best himself when he characterizes his voice as "anthemically sad".  


This certainly seems to be the case throughout Boxer, which was the first album of theirs I listened to on the recommendation of a friend (who is too busy with med school/globetrotting to have a blog to link to).  It actually took around two years for me to give the album a serious listening; luckily a not-so-fortunate sequence of events one late spring gave way to a summer full of redoubling efforts to find new music.  Boxer also runs quite the gambit of angsty emotions, which fit my general mood perfectly: from Fake Empire ("turn the light off/say goodnight/no thinking for a little while/let's not try to figure out everything at once") to Slow Show ("I leaned on the wall/the wall leaned away"), to Start A War, which I might have allowed to shape my thinking on real life a bit too much ("walk away now, and you're going to start a war").  


In terms of instrumentation, The National sticks to a basic piano/guitar/bass, with the occasional horn section on Fake Empire or strings on About Today, another one of my favorites (you'll start to pick up a theme: use of string instruments increases the probability that I will like a song about 3x).  Most of the songs on later albums trend towards the mellow side, although Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers includes a couple tracks worth of Berninger yelling (Slipping Husband), something that sounds odd to me since I picked them up relatively late in the game.  


The National is popular enough to have been on TV and soundtracks on multiple occasions, including a spot on Jimmy Fallon's show the other night to debut a song from their new album High Violet, set to be released in May.  It's called Terrible Love, and I like what I hear so far.  Definitely an album I'll be picking up once it comes out.  


Still haven't heard enough? Check out Apartment Story, Daughters of the Soho Riots, and Mistaken for Strangers. 


Later!

Running Playlist, Week of March 21st

Another idea for this little blog of mine:  post my running playlists for the week with links to songs.  I have a feeling that this will add a bit of variety into the types of music covered without my having to write an analysis of the musicality of a given Lady Gaga or Lil Wayne song (although I have to admit, that beat IS sick).  My running playlists tend to gain and lose about a quarter of their songs after a week because I get sick of listening to the same music over and over again.  So, after this initial post, the updates to the running playlist will be much shorter, but whatever.  Like I said when I started...if a song sounds good to me, its worthy of a mention.

Without further ado, here's my running playlist for the week of March 21:

Bulletproof-La Roux-British singer, French name (nickname for a redhead)
La Tortura (Shaketon Remix)-I'm a sucker for reggaeton beats, what can I say
Bad Romance-DUH
Stacked Crooked-The New Pornographers
Sleepyhead-The Passion Pit-SWITCH
There There-Radiohead-One of the only Radiohead songs I like, and it matches my stride well
Say Aah-Trey Songz-The video out there with Jeff Green and Kevin Durant dancing around to this is probably funnier, but harder to find at the moment
Alejandro-Lady Gaga
Bleeding Heart Show-The New Pornographers
Troublemaker-Akon
Sweet Disposition-The Temper Trap
So Happy I Could Die-Lady Gaga
Ambling Alp-Yeasayer-The official video for this is truly bizarre.
Love Lockdown-LMFAO Remix
Longest Road-Morgan Page
Black and Gold-Sam Sparro
Young Folks (Diplo Remix)
Break Your Heart-Taio Cruz
Going Wrong-Armin van Buuren
Now You're Gone-Basshunter
I Made It-Kevin Rudolph

OK, time to actually run if I'm ever going to be able to keep up with Monica!

That's pronounced "Soof-yahn"

When I sat down to figure out what I'd write about in my inaugural post, it didn't really take long to settle on my favorite artist of all time, Sufjan Stevens.  My love affair with Sufjan's music started in summer of 2005, when a friend from home gave me his album Seven Swans as a graduation gift.  It took some time for Seven Swans to grow on me, though, so I'll start off with the one that immediately caught my attention: Come On, Feel the Illinoise.  This album epitomizes the complex, multi-instrumental arrangements that characterize Sufjan's music (fun fact: he plays most of the instruments heard on his albums, including the oboe and banjo), which can range in character from light and lackadaisical (Come on Feel the Illinoise! Pt. 1: The World's Columbian Exposition/Carl Sandburg Visits Me In A Dream) to heart-wrenching (John Wayne Gacy, Jr.; after a(n in)famous serial killer) to symphonic (better examples on other albums, but for now, check out Chicago, one of his most widely-known songs, for some seriously orchestral arrangements).  

Scanning through the list of tracks for Illinoise, it's also pretty obvious that there is a serious level of creativity being put into the song titles, from A Conjunction Of Drones Simulating The Way In Which Sufjan Stevens Has An Existential Crisis In The Great Godfrey Maze, which takes longer to scroll through on iTunes than the entire length of the song, to one of my personal favorites, A Short Reprise For Mary Todd, Who Went Insane, But For Very Good Reasons. Fun fact number 2: Sufjan enrolled in a writing program at The New School for Social Research, which might explain both the long titles, and the stories contained within songs.  

Sufjan tends to be a master of the concept album, and there's no greater proof of that than the (possibly exaggerated?) 50 States project.  Sufjan's stated goal is to make an album for each state, although to date only two exist: Greetings from Michigan, and Come on Feel the Illinoise.  Sufjan also released a collection of outtakes/B-sides for Illinoise called The Avalanche, but as I can't do every single album justice in one post, I'll save that one for later.  It's been quite a few years since an album for a new state has come out, although Sufjan did premiere the BQE, an audio/visual monument to the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, in November 2007 (just another demonstration of the symphonic quality of his music).  I've given up following the guesses on the next state, as I've heard NY, OR, RI, and New Jersey! The Musical! all as potential next subjects.  I'll believe it when I hear it, so to speak.  

Luckily, unreleased Sufjan tracks show up moderately frequently, either on compilation discs for his record label (that he co-founded with his stepfather), Asthmatic Kitty, or through internet links to performances (thanks, YouTube!).  Some of these non-album tracks are my favorites, so I'll leave you with a couple more before signing off on the inaugural post.

Damascus-Showcase of one of the more frequently used instruments in Sufjan's music, the banjo.  Don't let it dissuade you; the song is calming, full of complex, broken chord progressions (one of the surefire ways to ensure I like a song), and one of the favorites of almost every Sufjan fan I know.  

Opie's Funeral Song-mellow, heartbreaking storytelling.  Acoustic guitar and piano. 

Jupiter Bad June-if you guessed that I'm biased towards this one because of the string quartet it contains, you are correct! Beautiful, beautiful song.  Lost the file for it when my laptop was stolen; this makes me sad.  

So there you have it--my inaugural post, an homage to a small part of the prolific songwriting of Sufjan Stevens (he's adorable, too!).  While this would definitely fall under my definition of indie music, fret not, other people! This will eventually degenerate into whatever random songs I happen to be listening to on repeat at work (as in...there will be an ode to Led Zeppelin at some point, I assume, plus a couple Euroclubbing playlists).  Hope this is interesting to someone besides me, and catch you on the next post.  Still deciding who to use; could segue into The National (Sufjan played piano on their album Boxer, and they have a new album coming out in a few months...but that's a while away), or some of the Scottish bands I've been obsessing over lately (e.g. The Fratellis, or Frightened Rabbit, c/o Helen). 

じゃ、またね〜！