Carl Sandburg Visits Me In A Dream

Terrible band name, yes, but they’ve got an  insanely catchy song “The Golden Age” featured in a Heineken commercial this past week. The song is actually a couple years old, but there’s no time limit on an awesome track.

Listen to “The Golden Age”

—–

So I’m staring at my TV the other day, and bam, another awesome Amazon Kindle commercial comes on.  I’ve got no crazy love for the Kindle, but I have to say that all their adverts are intriguing as they are simple. And what’s this distinctly retro vibe of a single guitar and a cowbell? Why yes of course it’s a track off of Stephen Wilkison’s (penname: Bibio) album Ambivalence Avenue from last year.

Bibio – “Lovers’ Carvings“

Bibio -  “Lover’s Carvings (Catz n Dogz Re-edit)”

Get a copy of Ambivalence Avenue.

It’s pretty crazy to think that The Weepies husband-and-wife duo of Deb Talan and Steven Tannen have already come out with their 4th LP Be My Thrill! What with a rather young child in tow, I would understand how a studio album and a 36-city tour would be arduous. I could wax more about the unexpected prolific nature of The Weepies, but I’d rather talk about other items. Like the fact that I don’t see The Weepies as just music artists. For some reason, there’s this very human, ‘unprofessional’ quality to their music. I get the sense that I am getting an unprecedented, unencumbered, unfiltered look into their lives as a married couple, as parents, as unqiue individuals on their own. I like the transparency, I relish it, I relate to it.

Take the song “Empty Your Hands”, at the end of which Deb Talan sweetly exclaims, ‘Our baby learned to run today / in circles on the grass / His joyful face it radiates / These moments go so fast / let them go.’ What a sweet insightful view on what it must be like to see your child growing up, and the only way to capture these fleeting moments are in your mind.  And The Weepies penchant for playing with words is as bright as ever on the whimsical, country-twinged “Hope Tomorrow”: ‘A windy fitful day in winter / charging toward the Ides of May / The climate now is cling to splinters’.

The Weepies have mastered the art of the delicate, achy ballad: From the waltzy “Please Speak Well of Me” to “They’re in Love, Where Am I?”, Talan and Tannen seem to express a certain confidence in their relationship — enough so to talk about past loves, their own love, and all that that entails.

The golden AM radio “I was Made for Sunny Days” is as bright and shiny and American as a Chevy Camaro, while album highlight “Hard to Please” is an edgier sound (for the Weepies, at least) that sees the duo expanding their horizons. I give credit to the Weepies for broadening their sound, with the B-52 bass heavy “Be My Thrill” that really propels the middle of the album forward. Tannen’s vocals are somewhat hidden on this record, but his solo work in “Be My Honeypie” and his harmonious stylings on “Hummingbird” are simply beautiful. If there’s one complaint, I’d like to see Tannen contribute more vocals.

Anyway, enough. Go get a copy of Be My Thrill.

HEY CHICAGOANS! The Weepies are coming to Space in Evanston, IL (just north of the city) on October 30th.

Listen to “I Was Made For Sunny Days”

Listen to “Hard to Please“

Things you may have noticed lately:

1. My RSS feed was hijacked for some reason. No worries, all is fine now. The RSS for CSVMAD can be accessed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/SandburgDreams. Or, you can just click on the link to the left in the sidebar.

2. Time has been a luxury these days, but I’m going to try to keep the posts coming as best I can. Your readership is always appreciated!!! Get ready for some great material coming your way.

3. While you’re at, follow @CSVMAD on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/CSVMAD.

Peace and Booty Grease,

Benji

Never back Sufjan into a corner. Never try to stereotype him. Don’t even think about creating a new genre so you can describe him and his music.

Why?

Because he’ll disappoint you. He’ll tell you that he’s going to play catch with you, and he stands you up. He’ll blow your mind and he’ll frustrate you beyond comprehension (I suppose you would comprehend the frustration). Either way, the point is, never back Sufjan into a corner.

Case in point: his new album The Age of Adz. This is Sufjan’s first full-length release since 2005′s magnum opus (yeah, it’s looking like that will be the peak of his career) Come on fell the Illinoise, Sufjan has lived in relative obscurity. He has seemed to enjoy all the press, all the assumptions, all the glitz and glamor. He’s opted for small, unsung projects such as The BQE and rereleasing The Year of the Rabbit. Perhaps that was foreshadowing for what was to come, as The Age of Adz is a return to the esoteric electronic idiosyncratic drones of his youth. Perhaps you can tell that I’m not entirely satisfied with The Age of Adz, and sadly my days as an unabashed Sufjan fan have abruptly come to an end.

The highlights: The delicate but deceptive lullaby of “Futile Devices” has a melancholy tinge that is a perfect exercise in discretionary emotive folk.  The idiosyncratic mantra of “Vesuvius” is not only crazy catchy, but the introspective comparison between Sufjan and the destructive Mt. Vesuvius that laid waste to the great city of Pompeii are cryptic yet well-received. It combines 2 great things: (1) play on words (Vesuvius and Sufjan) and (2) random historical references. I get the sense that when he says “Sufjan, follow your heart”, The Age of Adz is exactly what he’s talking about. This is partially shot at both critics and lionizers alike. I know, I just blew your mind with that.

The lowlights: I’m all for experimentation and playing with sounds. But you know what? When the only adjective I can think of for a song is ‘grating’, that can’t possibly be a good thing. The listener of The Age of Adz is inundated with a hodgepodge of ridiculous juxtapositions of sounds, from the incoherent “Get Real Get Right” to the Frenchman-meets-twisted orchestra “All for Myself” to the impossibly long and insufferable “Impossible Soul” that clocks in at a measly 25 minutes.

I have to cleanse palate after this effort. I’m going to queue up The Avalanche, at least these are B-sides I can deal with.

That said, I’m going to hear Sufjan this week in concert, so here’s to hoping that his effusive stage presence changes things!

Take a listen to The Age of Adz for yourself.

Listen to “Futile Devices”

Listen to “Vesuvius“

Consider yourself saxrolled.

I mean, it’s just amazing to me. Fake playing the sax and gyrating. Awesome, Moldova, awesome.

Listen to Sunstoke Project & Olia Tira – “Run Away“

You feel that? Yeah, there’s a funky groove in the air and we got to let it percolate.

Tennishero – “Midnight Love”

Smooth as silk synths combined with a captivating riff, Tennishero knows how to do it right.

New Order – “Jetstream (Jacques Lu Cont 2nd Mix)”

Pretty pedestrian mix until you get to about the 1:40 mark, at which the track blossoms into an ethereal, bass-bumping kick ass mix.

Jimmy LaValle, the man behind the music of The Album Leaf, isn’t exactly what I’d call a storyteller. In fact, it wasn’t until a few years ago that LaValle and company actually sang on their records. The popular belief is that if you don’t have lyrics to your songs, then you’re either a jam band or you’re making eclectic ambience/lounge music. Now I’m not going to charge The Album Leaf with such generalizations, but I will write briefly about their latest EP A Chorus of Storytellers.

For me, this album typifies the ‘hit-or-miss’ genre of electronic music. Some songs immediately strike a chord with the listener, while others seem to languish and falter in their transmission. Take for example “Blank Pages”: it’s a melancholy day at some French cafe and the rain is beating down outside. I can see the appeal, but it’s not something I can queue up anytime. Contrast that with the next song on the album “There is a Wind”, a coherent electropop track that has a cheerful lightness that gives it volume. The erratic “Within Dreams” gets wrangled in by the strudel-sweet strings that enter in at about 1:50, while “Stand Still” starts the listener off at the top of a daunting set of stairs and slowly walks her down. The repetition of “Until the Last” drags the listener into a lull, only to be wonderfully awoken by the soft horns and triumphant pianos of a new day. “Almost There” has an unmistakable radio-friendly kitsch, from the skipping drums to the shoegaze vocals.

Get a copy of A Chorus of Storytellers.

Listen to “There is a Wind”

Listen to “Almost There“

Something just doesn’t add up.

Sure, it all starts out innocently enough. Husband and wife duo Patrick Riley and Alaina Moore form a band called Tennis. And they’re from Denver (seems exotic in the music industry). Their name? Riley used to be the No. 2 tennis player in the state. See, something just doesn’t make sense.

They make beautiful music together: Easy, breezy (beautiful, covergirl–anyone get this reference?) 60s pop that was conceived on the high seas (courtesy of Denver Westword):

Spurred by a seven-month sailing trip the two took together on the Eastern seaboard, the couple, started writing songs as “sort of a soundtrack for our experiences,” she explains. After meeting in college, the twosome pulled together money (“inspired by the fact that we had both grown up landlocked,” she notes) and bought an old sailboat in Florida, and then hit the high seas until the money ran out and they landed back in Denver

And I have a little gift for you, from Tennis. Well, kind of. It’s not really from them as so much as it is by them. If you like She & Him, if you like Candie Payne, then you’re going to enjoy the faux lo-fi sound of Tennis. “Marathon” is a doo-wop ditty that will make even the most brash a newborn dilettante. “South Carolina” begins delicately enough, but blossoms into a semi-breakbeat that belies the cute-as-a-button sound. Sure, it may not all add up, but I don’t really care. If it sounds good and rings true, I say keep it comin’.

Listen to “Marathon”

Listen to “South Carolina“

Just to keep you busy on this dreary (in Chicago) Monday:

The Radio Dept. – “Heaven’s on Fire”

From The Radio Dept.’s third album Clinging to a Scheme.