even med students skip class for history

actually, that's a misleading headline, because med students skip class all the time. for anything, but especially to study. but here's a picture of some med students who skipped class specifically for history.

top albums of 2008, part 2

here continues the list of album joy and fun! scroll down for more info about 10-6, but to recap without spoiling everything if you're just joining us:

10: emiliana torrini, armani and me
09: the dodos, visiter
08: q-tip, the renaissance
07: deerhunter, microcastle
06: sigur rós, Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust

and now, for the conclusion:

05 girl talk, feed the animals

lots has been written about this album, about what it means for Big Important Issues like Music and Art and...Copyright Law. (i assume this is how the editors of time and rolling stone think about and enjoy music). but while i'm not sure how stitching musical sources across 50 years, sometimes one second at a time, is any less original that writing a song that goes G-C-D and then...wait for it...Em-Am for the bridge!, i honestly don't care about the implications and what it all means for The Future of the Industry. (i like how the logical extension of my not using caps for my own thoughts is to use caps excessively for ideas i want to make fun of. makes sense to me!). what i do care about is the way this album is a party on my hard drive, or the way the guitar solo from "bohemian rhapsody" comes on over the jackson 5, combining two of my favorite songs into something not just interesting, and not just danceable, but truly moving. if you haven't heard this yet, forget everything you've read, and just enjoy the ridiculous rush you'll get.

highlights: play your part (pt. 1), what it's all about, play your part (pt. 2)

04 mgmt, oracluar spectacular

an interesting quirk the internet age of easy music acquisition has brought about for me personally is that, since it's so easy to get music, i usually only read about 2 paragraphs about a band or hear one solid recommendation from a friend before i check it out. so (despite the fact that i also read an awful lot of internet news and information about bands) i often hear bands out of their particular context, and for example in this instance i hear a band without the knowledge that these guys are probably kind of tools. because these guys are probably tools, everybody. but this album--dang! this album has a couple of my favorite songs from this past year (regardless of release year), and hearing them helped me through a particularly crappy stretch of life last year wherein my grandpa died in the middle of what my classmates and i will probably remember as the worst 3 weeks of medical school, and i didn't have much besides the first 30 seconds of "time to pretend" to be happy about. as a whole, i feel like the album's a little uneven and gets a little light on the back half (for which reason it's not higher), but half of this album is an incredible debut, regardless of how much makeup these guys wear, or how much stupid stuff they manage to cram into an interview.

highlights: time to pretend, electric feel, kids

03 tv on the radio, dear science

track 1 isn't the same total mindjob that "i was a lover" brought last time out, but it is a completely engaging opener that had my headphones stuck in my ears until the last song faded out. in fact, i think it's safe to say this whole album isn't as good as cookie mountain. most people say this album is their best at approximating their live experience, but since i've only seen them play once, when their young liars EP had just come out (i think it's safe to say they've evolved a bit since), i can't really comment on that. but i DO know that this album feels packed tight with ideas, styles, and energy, and most notably and importantly, a total confidence and assurance while playing and developing a completely unique sound and voice. that's the thing about these guys--they have an identity that is solid, distinct, and they aren't afraid to throw it around a little--they can play a prince-y kind of song and not sound like someone trying to do prince, because they still sound like tv on the radio. even the ballads, which should have made this sort of uneven and a bummer, are some of my favorites, and one of the album's biggest surprises for me was how they could still sound so big and powerful and so...like them, while playing such subdued and quiet stuff. ok, it's true--i'm a fan, and even when i admit an album's not as good as the last one, it's still a favorite. i admit it, and i can't wait to hear what's next.

02 frightened rabbit, the midnight organ fight

where would art be without love? the english language would probably not be where it is today were it not for shakespeare's sonnets, and spain wouldn't have had an edad de oro if it weren't for bécquer's "rimas" (well, and a host of other incredible pieces about lovers' eyes and arms and fingers and etc), and needless to say there wouldn't have been any of that without lovers, and therefore without love. but pop music has found an even more fertile ground than being in love: not being in love anymore. sure, the beatles wrote "and i love her", but they also wrote "for no one", and is there really any debate which song is better? (no, there is not). and so we come to this album, a broken-hearted, defiant, grieving, love-lorn, blood-and-guts-honest break-up record. while i really enjoy some of the lyrics here (ex: "should look through some old photos/i adored you in every one of those/if someone took a picture of us now/they'd need to be told that we had ever clung on tight/and maybe not with arms at night/'i'd say she was his sister but she doesn't have his nose.'"), i can't say that what he's saying brings me back to painful breakups in my past or anything like that. but on a level of meaning and understanding that doesn't have anything to do with words, i feel the loss and grief and bitterness and healing, and beyond that the need to feel life and humanity, and to be human.

highlights: good arms vs. bad arms, the twist, poke

01 department of eagles, in ear park

there are lots of ways to enjoy music, and lots of responses to its enjoyment. list-making, and/or attempts to objectively evaluate music relative to other albums or on its own, is one small part of that world of music enjoyment/appreciation that maybe gets too much emphasis, especially when compared to purely visceral responses that the right song (or words, or melody, or just 2 seconds of sound) can at times elicit. (this is, by the way, more or less the idea mitchell and i were trying to get at with this year's PSA). this album, for whatever reason, made all kinds of moments just like that for me--the first notes feel to me like being immersed in some new wonderworld where everything's simultaneously old and incredibly new, like the first sounds you've ever heard. it feels like i always imagined lucy felt, emerging from the back of the wardrobe--it's all mystical and strange but somehow also familiar. it's just a snowy wood, but it's a snowy wood that you found in the back of a closet. and then there's a talking animal, and even though it seems like you're dreaming, it also feels super...real. i suppose i ought to talk about what about the production makes me feel that way, or how the lyrics evoke such fanciful things, but here instead: my mouth-gaped response to a really fine album.

highlights: no one does it like you, teenagers, herringbone

so that's my list. it was a tough task this year, and one i did with less certainty than in previous years: if i'd made this 2 weeks ago, it would have been very different--half of these might not have been here, and i have no idea what would have been #1. but here it is, for all internet eternity: my favorites of 2008.

top albums of 2008, part 1

i've never been much for these kinds of statements, but i have to say that in the 8 years i've been making a year-end list, this is the least excited i've been about a year's albums, and the first year i didn't really feel like any particular album was my favorite favorite favorite of the last 12 months. i'm not sure if that's music's fault or mine, but in any case, it took me a fair amount of work to pick my favorites this year, not because there were so many vying for my attention, but because i just wasn't that crazy about most of the stuff i heard this year. that's not to say there wasn't any good music--i DO consistently enjoy these albums and a few others that came out this year. anyway, without further ado, here's 10-6 of 2008:

10 emiliana torrini, me and armini

my medical school friend and dyad ernesto told me i needed to hear this album, and i'm really glad he did. her voice is so smokey, laid-back, and downright sexy that i guess a comparison to norah jones is unavoidable, but this is ms. jones if she wasn't...well, mostly so boring. the songs here feel unpredictable and never feel like recycled sounds, and are much better for it. torrini writes pretty straightforward pop songs, but she's got the voice and pop sensibilities to do it and do it well ("big jumps" is the sort of song industry types probably say will "make her a star" in press junkets or at meetings), and the lyrics and melody to give you something to remember when it's over. light and fluffy like desert, but substantial and filling like dinner. ah, food similes for music--they're never wrong.

highlights: fireheads, big jumps, jungle drum

09 the dodos, visiter

here's to minimalism, and here's to unadorned, unembellished, no-frills music. what i heard the first time through this album, and what was underscored seeing them live this summer, is the way this group's nearly simplistic approach to music (two guys bang the crap out of everything within reach, usually including guitars) allows them a complexity and intensity a 10-piece blog-hype band with strings and an accordion can't create. in his triumphant return to blogging, my buddy aaron wrote that it's the percussion, and not the melodies he usually loves music for, that keeps him coming back to this album, but i'd say it's the musicality and melodic nature of the percussion that makes it so special. sometimes all the banging and clanging seems to give depth and, well, complexity to what would otherwise be a pretty thin outing, despite some very good songwriting, which by the way is why i'll be looking forward to what these guys do next.

highlights: walking, fools, winter


08 q-tip, the renaissance

"sometimes i phase out
when i look at the screen
when i think about my chance for me to intervene
and it’s up to me to bring back the hope-
feeling in the music that you could quote
not saying that I hate it cause here
i kinda dig it
but what good is a ear
if a q-tip isn’t in it?"

none, q-tip. no good. no good at all without a q-tip in it. look, i'm not a hip-hop expert by any means, but a tribe called quest's first two albums are by far two of my favorites of the genre, so i was really looking forward to q-tip's first solo album in 8 years for several months before it came out. and i wasn't disappointed at all--i love his voice, his flow, and he's a great producer, both for the way his beats match his lyrics, and also for the great instrumental performances all over the album. too many mc's get locked into a particular musical sound and rarely venture elsewhere, but this album stays fresh and interesting and all over the map until the end. also, that's a slick cover.

highlights: johnny is dead, won't trade, shaka

07 deerhunter, microcastle

in the past several years, i've really grown to love a fair amount of electronic, experimental, kinda off the wall stuff. i really like the feeling that i'm hearing something i've never heard before, and i suppose as someone who enjoys the discovery of new music, it makes sense that that's a high value for me. but my greatest weakness will always be the guitar--for example a nice, crunchy, overdriven sound, like the chord that opens this album. there's just nothing like it, and those tones and that emphasis on the guitar, both to play both straightforward rock and also some more sprawling, reverb-drenched classic bradford cox music, is all over this album. and so, here it is on my end of year list. this album is deceptively and very subtly intricate, and i was pleasantly surprised on my 5th time or so through the album to still be noticing so much happening behind the curtain for the first time--a definite grower for me, and one i expect i will continue to enjoy in the future.

highlights: agoraphobia, little kids, nothing ever happened

06 sigur ros, Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust

the album didn't turn out to be the huge stylistic shift "gobbledigook" seemed to herald, but looking back over their recorded output, it makes sense to interpret sigur ros' artistic development as one of their 9:00 slow burning songs, slowly building and beautifully unfolding along the way. this album is one more slow movement toward something new, and once again the journey is as rewarding as whatever i can hope the destination will be. when i think about sigur ros' albums, i tend to think of moments more than songs or movements, and this album is bursting with enough moments of pure, bombastic, joyful release and twinkling, jittery, blissed out sugar-highs to more than make up for the few spots where things drag a little. i can't wait to see where they're headed next!

highlights: Inní mér syngur vitleysingur, Við spilum endalaust, Festival

ok, that's all i have time to write tonight--stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion tomorrow!

kim's great adventure, in photographs, part 2

when kim left california, she flew up the coast to seattle, where (of course) she took more pictures. and i (of course) am showing you, because (of course) they are AWESOME! enjoy:

albums of the year not of the year, 2008

last year i started a new list-making tradition: i list my favorite albums i discovered in the year that weren't actually released that year. i really liked going through itunes and finding the stuff i really liked--since music often serves as a placemarker for events and phases in life, it was an interesting way to review the year. so i'm doing it again this year, although i'm already bending the rules a bit (this year i've got a discography on there, AND an album i heard several years ago). let the fun begin:

once OST, glen hansard et al (2006)

i heard "falling slowly" the year it came out, and i thought it was a tremendous song. i saw their oscar performance and was touched by their humility and the way they called marketa irglova back on stage. and i'd heard the movie was really, truly good. but for some reason i never saw the movie or heard the soundtrack...i just missed it, and that song sounded to me exactly like the one awesome song an okay artist makes. and besides, i hate musicals, and movies about music almost always disappoint for either having bad music or bad...movieness (usually it's the music). but at some point this year kim and i watched the movie, and for once (lol) there's a movie about a musician who wants to write good music where...(wait for it) the musician actually writes good music! the scene where they play "falling slowly" for the first time is great because of the way it contributes to the story, and to the development of the relationship, and because it so inspired me to go and create something. and it turns out that not only is that not the only good song on the album, it might not even be the best--"lies" and "say it to me" would also compete for that title in my book. i'm talking a fair amount about the movie, but while the movie augments the music, the soundtrack stands on its own as a really fine collection of songs.

fela kuti's entire discography (1970-onward)

i saw "the visitor" this summer, and if you were sitting next to me at the movie, when the african guy says to the white guy, "victor! you've never heard fela?!?" you would have seen me get my pen and my trusty booklet out and, by light of iphone, write "fela kuti!!". these albums were so influential that you've heard their influence 20 times this week in songs not written by fela kuti. the music is so much more than a reference point, though--it's funky, tight, danceable, groovy, and it sounds like an incredible party is happening whenever you hear it, but it's also kind of...beautiful, and moving. i can't really summarize a music legend's entire recorded output in this paragraph, so...i don't know. take that guy in the movie's advice and check it out!

the motorcycle diaries OST, various artists (2004)

this is turning out to be a pretty movie-centric list this year, which seems decidedly un-music snob of me, but given that i'm here writing a year-end list of albums that weren't from the year, i guess either my snobbery is not in danger or it cannot be escaped. it wasn't that long ago that i talked about this movie here, so i won't again. and i would say it's possible that this music wouldn't be very enjoyable for me without the movie, but i would also say i don't really care--when i realized that the movie, like every other movie, probably had a soundtrack, and then i got the soundtrack, i was pretty happy. and then i listened to it, and that made me happy, too. so i listened to it some more and i still listen to it, and it makes me happy.

in an aeroplane over the sea, neutral milk hotel (1998)

i'm cheating here because i heard this album for the first time quite awhile ago. and it seemed like an ok album, and i guess i got why people thought it was a classic--i figured it was one of the first really indie records to sort of have that bookish-sounding kind of whiney singer, and it had that lo-fi sound and raw playing style that made it sound like an indie rock cornerstone, and there was the anne frank connection, etc etc...and i guess my curiosity was satisfied after one listen.

but some press about this album's 10th anniversary got me to check it out again, and i was BLOWN AWAY. this is the sort of album that begs essays to be written about each song, to have every word turned over and discussed in long, intense conversations that last way longer than the album does, so you put it on repeat while you talk about it because you want to hear it while you discuss it. it seems like every measure of every song was carefully constructed and considered--the musicality and sounds of the words are flawlessly matched to the melody and rhythm of the music.

but it's not just the sounds: the lyrics are brutally honest and clear, devastating in their ability to depict, in specific scenes and stories, what feels like the breadth of humanity--conception, birth, innocence, growth, love, learning, losing innocence, remembering, death, forgetting or being forgotten. aaron and i were having one of those intense, long conversations about the album, and we talked about how opener "king of carrot flowers, part 1" acts as a thesis for the whole album, from the opening line's "when you were young..." to describing the rich world of imagination of youth and the possibilities and horrors it begins, and then the ruthless, wrenching loss of growing up. the album can't be summed up with one song, but i'm going to try anyway by showing a snippet of "holland, 1945", which begins with "the only girl i ever loved was born with roses on her eyes" and concludes:

"And here's where your mother sleeps
And here is the room where your brothers were born
Indentions in the sheets
Where their bodies once moved but don't move anymore
And it's so sad to see the world agree
That they'd rather see their faces fill with flies
All when I'd want to keep white roses in their eyes"

actually, that didn't do it. you should just go listen to it.

kim is a super photographer (pictures from our trip)

kim got a new camera for christmas, and that ought to mean more quality (non image search result) pictures around here. she spent quite a lot of time getting used to all the dials and whatsits and thingamabobs, and took a lot of pictures along the way. here's some of those pictures! click "fullscreen" if you only see blackness. because she figured out enough to take more than just blackness.

california!

nebraska!

no, seriously--we made tunnels! TUNNELS!!!

if you read the last post and thought "those tunnels are the coolest things i've ever heard about anyone doing in the history of people doing things!", you're in luck, because this post is also about those same tunnels. if you had any reaction even a tiny bit smaller than that, you might find this a little boring. unless you enjoy watching people awkwardly falling over, or the sound of people laughing at people awkwardly falling over, in which case i might have a little something for you. because this is going to be all about that:



here's kim going in and then coming out of two of the tunnels. the third entrance is in the foreground. you can tell by how big it is and how long it takes kim to come out that the tunnels are really cool.


but don't just take my word for it! here's some footage of kim going through the tunnels with the camera. you're looking at some fine craftsmanship there, believe me.


and finally, here's kim destroying the tunnels at the end of our trip. i'm not sure what, exactly, about this is so funny, but as you can hear from michael's uproarious laughter in the background and my snickering behind the camera, it definitely is. maybe it's kim's extra layers of clothing and the way they make her sort of flop out onto the snow, or the sound she makes when she hits the ground, or the way the ground seems to suck her in after a second...whatever it is, it's the good times.

today kim and i go our separate ways: i'm leaving california to go back to chicago so i can start school again on monday, and kim heads up to seattle to visit the piestch's (they of the creative ways to play baseball with food) for a few days. travel!