1. Dirty Work, All Time Low
2. 21, Adele
3. Watch the Throne, Kanye West and Jay-Z
4. Young Love, Mat Kearney
5. Any Man in America, Blue October
6. Torches, Foster the People
7. Codes and Keys, Death Cab for Cutie
8. The King of Limbs, Radiohead
9. Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns, John Hiatt
10. Live at Red Rocks, John Butler Trio
11. Rome, Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi
12. The Foundation, Zac Brown Band
13. Paper Airplane, Alison Krauss and Union Station
14. Oracular Spectacular, MGMT
15. Frank, Amy Winehouse
16. Passive Me, Aggressive You, Naked and Famous
17. Up From Below, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros
18. Jeff Bridges, Jeff Bridges
19. Sigh No More, Mumford and Sons
20. On the Ocean, Guster
THE VINYL WORD: ANIMAL COLLECTIVE’S ‘SUNG TONGS’ GETS REISSUED ON WAX!
BUY THE VINYL HERE
[Animal Collective‘s 2004 album] Sung Tongs opts for folky ambience and late-night, summer camp sing-alongs to carry the weight (or weightlessness) of its strains. Campfire Songs, which followed Here Comes the Indian, suggested a similar kind of sprawling, communal minstrel-craft, but without much of Sung Tongs‘ flair for soaring melody and delicate, buoyant pace. As it happens, the last third of the new record does return to more of an open-ended, exploratory rote, but there it seems less a part of an endless ballad than the come-down from scenes of a jungle almost too fantastic to imagine. And despite its eclecticism and relatively Dadaist leanings, Sung Tongs is a romantic album; romantic in its celebration of innocence and nonsensical shared knowledge, and the sweet, trusted idea that everything will be fine — as if it hadn’t always been.
Musically, Animal Collective sound more “pop” here than they ever have, which is to say most of the songs have clear melodies that beg to be doubled and tripled by you or anyone else who cares to join. In songs like “Leaf House”, “Winters Love” and “College”, the duo stake a direct claim to the ideal American folk of the Beach Boys and Simon & Garfunkel, as their harmonies are pure, without suggesting perfection. As Tare and Bear leap over each other in wordless, sparkler-trail counterpoint, I think about the already-gone ambitions of “Cabinessence” and Smiley Smile. However, as Brian Wilson’s visions were damaged symphonies to god, Animal Collective don’t stop down long enough to mire in the dust left behind. — Pitchfork
OTHER NEW VINYL RELEASES:
Mister Heavenly Out of Love
John Hiatt Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns
Quicksilver Message Service Live at the Avalon Ballroom
Various Artists Street Music of Yogyakarta
Wood Brothers Smoke Ring Halo
Dead Moon Defiance
Dead Moon In the Graveyard
Dead Moon Unknown Passage
Fred McDowell/Alan Lomax Field Recordings
Ellwood Lost in Transition
AT ALIVE AFTER FIVE: GO HONKY-TONKIN’ WITH WHITEY MORGAN AND THE 78’S
This week’s Alive After Five headliner: Whitey Morgan and the 78’s
Go Listen Boise local opener: Matt Hopper and the Roman Candles
ABOUT WHITEY MORGAN AND THE 78’S
“My job is to show you how much fun drinking is.” — Whitey Morgan
“In a world of soft rock-driven country music, there’s little place of the kind of outlaw country pioneered by Willie Nelson (pre-iconic status), Waylon Jennings and Johnny Paycheck. Bullshit, says Whitey Morgan … the band’s barroom country sound – instrumentally full, but naked-sounding compared to the crap on country radio – isn’t retro. It’s classic.” — the Big Takeover
Whitey Morgan and the 78’s (whiteymorgan.com) are a Honky Tonk band from Flint, Michigan. They haven’t re-invented the wheel. They just picked it up and started it rolling all over again.
In Flint, most of the factories are closed, jobs are scarce and the people are bitter. Whitey sings songs these people can relate to. In much the same way his grandfather and mentor did over 3 decades ago, to a whole generation of southern transplants who came up US-23 to Flint looking for the good life. Whitey sings it straight, with a “gawd, I wanna keep this guy on my side in a bar fight” urgency that’ll help people forget their problems for a few hours and serve as the guideline for drinking the sorrows away. The 78’s halftime groove brings out everyone’s dancing shoes and while Whitey and the 78’s play, the world is a better place.
Since the release of their first album Honky Tonks and Cheap Motels, Whitey and the band have revived a forgotten genre with a fierce dedication and determination. They’ve toured the country spreading their sound and real deal vibe everywhere they go. They play honky-tonk tunes in any club in any town without apology and with a purpose. Look out, this bad news sounds real good.
Around 200 shows a year you can count on Whitey Morgan and the 78’s to deliver. Whitey’s whiskey tinged vocals, the 78’s foot stomping beats, all relentlessly stirring up dance floors everywhere they go. The bottle turns up, spirits elevate and in this world, there isn’t a person who couldn’t use Whitey Morgan and the 78’s.
BUZZED-ABOUT BLUES BADASS GARY CLARK JR. AND OTHER NEW RECORD EXCHANGE CD RECOMMENDATIONS
BUY THE CD HERE
When was the last time a young blues guitarist really blew your mind? Sure, there’s the Allman Brothers’ Derek Trucks, who comes at the form in a jam-band context. Jack White filters the blues through garage rock and punk; the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach through those and other pop styles; Ben Harper takes more of a folky singer-songwriter tack. But a genuine 21st-century bluesman, raised on the form in all its roughneck roadhouse glory but marked by the present day? That’s been as hard to find as a 21st-century clockmaker.
No longer. The first thing you hear on Gary Clark Jr.‘s four-song calling-card EP is a nasty, fat-assed electric-guitar tone, which the 27-year-old honed as a Texas teen playing clubs like Antone’s, Austin’s blues church. On the title track, Clark stretches that tone like taffy, swings it like a bullwhip, spits it out in bursts of distortion. It’s the blues, no doubt: Clark sings, “Ended up with the bottle/Taking shots, waiting on tomorrow/Trying to fill up what’s hollow,” over a snarling groove, confessing his intoxication with “bright lights, big city” like Jimmy Reed and Mick Jagger did before him. But the music is noise-soaked, psychedelic and shape-shifting, the guitar as much Kurt Cobain as Buddy Guy and Albert Collins, the drums smacking and slipping with hip-hop break-beat muscle. — Rolling Stone
OTHER NEW CD RECOMMENDATIONS:
Blue October Any Man in America
Bottle Rockets Not So Loud: An Acoustic Evening
Breaking Benjamin Shallow Bay: The Best of Breaking Benjamin (deluxe edition also available)
Guy Clark Songs and Stories
Dead Man Winter Bright Lights
Hercules and Love Affair Blue Songs
Ollabelle Neon Blue Bird
Psychostick Space Vampires Vs. Zombie Dinosaurs in 3D
Revocation Chaos of Forms
Victorian Halls Charlatan
NEW RELEASE OF THE WEEK: THE DUDE ABIDES ON DEBUT SOLO ALBUM
BUY THE CD HERE
Crazy Heart reminded us that the Oscar-winning actor could sing, so the surprise here isn’t Jeff Bridges‘ worn-denim vocals, which producer T Bone Burnett surrounds with his trademark chamber-country atmospherics. Rather, it’s Bridges’ songwriting on appealingly idiosyncratic cuts like the philosophical ”Tumbling Vine” and ”Falling Short,” on which he wonders if God put him here to ”bushwhack a path.” Spoken like the Dude himself. — Entertainment Weekly