Every December or January, in a yearly ritual that somehow became more and more of a chore, I do a roundup of my favorite albums I heard throughout the year. Last year’s sorry excuse for a list was the result of writing exhaustion: what else could I really write about Boxer or Sound of Silver that hadn’t already been written?

Unlike the real critics, though, I included everything, old and new, in my year-end list — for the simple reason that musical excavation was a lot easier (and many times a lot more rewarding) than trying to keep up with new releases. I don’t get free advance CDs, after all. 2008 was the year I plunged deeply into irrationally different discographies: Led Zeppelin, Wilco, Ricardo Villalobos, Broken Social Scene, Arab Strap, and almost every compilation of ’70s African music (especially the wonderful Nigeria Special: Modern Highlife, Afro-Sounds & Nigerian Blues 1970-6) I could get my hands on.

This year it seemed even harder to write up a list because my musical consumption, and perhaps my attention span as well, had been downsized. I had caught up, finally, with the iPod Generation, and succumbed to the sonic implications of the shuffle function, my beloved MusicIP Mixer, the Genius Playlist, Last.fm, and downloadable tracks from iTunes and Amazon — all features designed, it seems, to be at cross-purposes with the overarching framework of an album.

Such features make it easier to subvert and/or disrespect the artist’s intentions somehow. Surely Radiohead, for instance, wanted you to hear “All I Need”, a total stunner of a track, between “Weird Fishes / Arpeggi” and “Faust Arp”. But random playlists and shuffles also work in the service of a song. One might say that the shuffle liberates a song from the confines of the album, recontextualizes it, and makes it new. Stateless’ “Bloodstream” popped up that way (on a Last.fm Radio station based on Clara Hill), and Captain Audio’s “Lemon” came bubbling out of the speakers on an Austin radio station like some long-lost Liz Phair track.

Hearing songs in different contexts played a huge part of my musical listening in 2008. My iTunes statistics tell a different story from the list later below: my most-played songs were the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Maps”, OK Go’s “Here It Goes Again” (really — with 42 and a half million views on YouTube, you don’t even have to click the link), and Weezer’s “Say It Ain’t So” — and you players of Rock Band know why. Jill Scott’s “Golden”, a total declaration of independence, was one of my favorite songs this year since I saw strippers ironically dancing to it… in Grand Theft Auto IV.

So was Antony and the Johnsons’ “Hope There’s Someone”, from an album that didn’t make much of an impression on me until I heard the song at the conclusion of Wayne Wang’s The Princess of Nebraska. (Here’s my review, by the way.) Casiotone for the Painfully Alone’s “New Year’s Kiss” plays during the opening credits of Barry Jenkins’ Medicine for Melancholy (another quick review here). And yes, also Neil Young’s “Unknown Legend”, from “Harvest Moon” — an album I always thought of as being all about the gorgeous title track — because Tunde Adebimpe sings it a cappella in Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married.

Which is not to say that there weren’t any albums I played all the way through until I wore out the grooves — oh wait, I haven’t done that since “Dark Side of the Moon”. Little Dragon‘s 2007 debut album was, hands down, my favorite album of the year (you all need to watch the video for “Test”), as were a couple albums noted below, and two older albums — Houses of the Holy and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot — which I had listened to back in the day, but only really clicked this year.

But here, nonetheless, is a sweet surrender to the joys of song, all released in 2008 for real (with the exception of the Vampire Weekend track, which Pitchfork cognoscenti probably found out about in 2007). They’re actually ranked in order, too, which is something I’ve never attempted before. As it is, the order will probably change (as I type this, Point Juncture WA‘s “Melon Bird” is threatening to crack the top 15).

Enjoy!

Continue Reading »

Popularity: 2% [?]

Image swiped without permission from MTV Philippines.

This is my third Taken By Cars-related blog post — the first was about a June 2007 concert of theirs, the second was a review of their superb debut album, Endings of a New Kind, my favorite album released in 2008 so far — and this third post, I am thrilled to write, is an actual e-mail interview with the band!

The “interview” — I’m hoping to actually see them in the flesh this summer — took place over email in March 2008. The questions were answered collaboratively by all the members of the band.

And here we go:

1. Where does the name come from?

We wanted to use a name that will stick with us for the long term. So we were thinking of mixing and matching some terms, then Kong came up with ‘Taken by Cars’. According to him, this was simply based on the fact that we all spend most of our time listening to music in our cars. We all thought that the name connotes movement and a certain sense of mystery so it was a perfect fit for the sound that we play.

2. How did you folks meet? Were you in high school bands, were you classically trained, that sort of thing?

The boys all went to the same high school and were in a band ever since. Back then we were covering 90′s alternative rock and even classic rock. Then we met Sarah along the way and continued our stint as a cover band. None of us thought of breaking out really, we were just side entertainment in friends’ parties or school events and such. Then by mid-2006, we decided to start writing our own stuff and taking the next step.

3. I really like these lines from “Logistical Nightmare”: “Hands to the sky / We’re gods tonight / A million songs to listen to / Thank the letters / I thank you.” I’m thinking they’re about the music writing process, or the act of performing on stage — but what *is* the song about?

It’s actually one of the happier songs in the album. It’s dedicated to the promise that life should be about being grateful (thus the words “thank the letters, i thank you”), about making mistakes and learning from them (thus the words “kiss the ground where I fall”), about not taking yourself or other people too seriously and acknowledging that life is about the little things that move us sometimes (“out of breath, whispering a letdown, moving smile, signaling a turnaround, candid shot, a face to launch a thousand pieces of a dream”).

4. What were you listening to while composing / recording the tracks? (I’m hearing Bloc Party, Interpol — maybe some early-80s stuff?) Was there a particular sound you were shooting for on the record? (I’m thinking as well of the lead vocals, and the synthesizer riff on “Uh Oh”.)

We were listening to a lot of Bloc Party and Interpol prior to making the album and during recording also..but we were listening to a lot of other things as well. The energy and the vibe of those two bands inspired us no doubt. But then we all have our individual influences too. The things we listen to change constantly. We never really want to rely on a fixed peg for the sound we’re trying to achieve.

5. I’ve always been interested in musical histories, in formative listening experiences — what were yours? Were you folks listening to Nirvana and Pearl Jam like everyone else back in the ’90s, or did you have different musical backgrounds? Were there bands you wanted to emulate?

Ya, we were definitely listening to Nirvana and Pearl Jam back in the 90′s. But, I think there was more to the 90′s than grunge..it was also the era of ethereal, dream pop, and shoegaze. Bands like Lush, My Bloody Valentine, Cocteau Twins, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Chapterhouse, and Slowdive, among many others, were around at that time. Other than that there’s always been the 80′s – new wave, dark wave stuff like Depeche Mode and Tears for Fears and Duran Duran. There’s so much more to that too though. There were bands like The Ocean Blue, The Bible, The Railway Children… Presently we like the dance rock, electro stuff..that of bands like CSS, Digitalism, LCD Soundsystem and many other things. Some pop ( Madonna) and trance (Tiesto, ATB) and house as well. We could go on and on!

6. What’s the next project? Are you working on any new songs and trying them out in concert yet?

We’re looking to come up with new songs very soon and hopefully be able to play them at gigs already.

7. And finally, the proverbial desert island disc question: If you had to be stuck on a desert island with just one album / CD, what would that be?

If you put a gun to my head and asked me that question I still would not be able to give an answer. A compilation maybe! A cd containing one song from all the bands/singers I just mentioned! haha

Popularity: 1% [?]

My friend Ruthie, who’s all the way in Manila, and I (over here in Oakland) have this ongoing exchange over IM: she envies my being able to watch, say, Explosions in the Sky, and I’m envious of her being able to see, for instance, Up Dharma Down, pretty much any evening of the week. She’s probably right, of course, but I would love to be able to catch my new favorite Filipino band discovery, Taken by Cars, in concert again.

I do like championing music I hear on this blog, even if everyone already knows who they are, but it’s especially cooler to me if they happen to be Filipino (for obvious reasons). I saw Taken by Cars live at saGuijo in June of 2007, and I realize now, looking at my old entry, that I didn’t really write anything about them. This was probably because I was being the uber-fanboy with the two other bands, but I do remember asking their lead singer (Was it her, drinking outside? How could I have forgotten that? How much did I have to drink?) about when their debut album was going to be released.

Well, it’s finally out. The name Taken by Cars suggests a soundtrack to an abduction. Or escape. Either way (and those contradictions are present in the music), their debut album Endings of a New Kind is a driving record, no question about it. The propulsive rhythms suggest a restless urban energy, speeding metal vehicles, dangerous sideswipes in the dark, streetlights reflected off kilter in windshields, shards of glass twinkling dully on the pavement. In Manila that kind of driving happens anytime, but this is an evening record for sure. There’s a chill to this music, but it’s great for dancing to: imagine a sweaty tangle of brown limbs on the dance floor, if people weren’t so shy at saGuijo (and the place wasn’t so small). Cold and hot: those contradictions again.

It’s not necessarily groundbreaking music, but if the idea of, say, Bloc Party, fronted by a woman vocalist sounds appealing to you, then Taken By Cars should be worth checking out. Endings of a New Kind is full of a nervous, postpunk energy — maybe a little too clean to sound like the bruised guitars of Gang of Four, but it’s certainly from the same musical gene pool. And it’s simply great stuff.

The second track, “Uh Oh” (the album’s real beginning) has a perfect opening, as instruments fall rapidly into formation: drum heartbeat, stabbing guitar riff, and suddenly, best of all, a synth refrain parachuted in from 1982. “Here I am in full battle gear,” sings Sarah Marco. “Here I am wanting you,” she adds, and it’s a tribute to her voice — of limited range, maybe, but perfect for communicating this hovering between desire and defense, between languor and tension. It’s slurry and drugged for one song (as on “Colourway”), breathy and poppy on another (as on “The Afterhours”, with its swirl of crunchy electronic squiggles). (Her phrasings are from the same era, too — Anja Huwe? Siouxsie? I can’t tell.)

The guitar introduction to “All for a Tuesday” seems to steal a bit from Franz Ferdinand’s “Take Me Out” — there’s no hiding their musical influences, which is okay — but this track showcases the twin guitar attack from Bryce Zialcita and Siopao Chua: chug and jangle on the left, soar and swoop on the right. “Logistical Nightmare” rests on a spiky foundation of driving rhythms and piercing guitar chimes, then positively levitates when it gets to the chorus. “Sexy confrontation” indeed.

If I have one small complaint, it has to do with the sequencing: all the fast songs are in a cramped queue on the first half of the album, with the second half being noticeably brighter and club-oriented than the first. (“Stereolove” is probably the weakest track in the collection, as if some DJ simply took the vocal track and plopped it onto a lackluster techno remix.) But we are at least rewarded with the concluding “Shapeshifter”, though it does nothing of the sort, except that it builds into an uncoiling, multivocal crescendo that ends the album on a high note.

p.s. to Ruthie: Go get the album!

p.s.2. While the CD can be purchased at their gigs, mp3s can be downloaded at splintr.com, though I haven’t tried it yet.

Popularity: 1% [?]

I’ve only been dreaming about this for two years: to see Up dharma Down in concert. (First it was waiting for their first album to be released.) And my wish finally came true last night after seeing them at SaGuijo after travelling almost 7,000 miles. (There were about five bands who played — Ruthie had warned me that club gigs usually didn’t have headliners, but had bands play short sets one after the other — but for me the evening was all about Up Dharma Down.)

Our group (earlier it included my brother and most of Eloise‘s siblings and their partners) arrived at saGuijo an hour after the concert was supposed to start (key locked inside the ignition, then driving up and down trying to find the venue, then the folks at the door had no change). But we made it in, thank goodness — and there they were, the best goddamn band in the entire archipelago playing only a few feet in front of me. We may have missed the first or second song, but came in just before they started playing my favorite UdD song (“We Give In Sometimes”). Totally. Freaking. Awesome. Then they played a fantastic “Sleepwalk,” and another song for an (unreleased?) movie soundtrack (Armi said she couldn’t even find it on LimeWire or Soulseek). But just hearing them play “We Give In Sometimes” was enough. I was done for the year.

The Dawn played next — perfect, in a way, because they were the very first band I’ve ever seen play live. (The late Teddy Diaz was still the lead guitarist at that point.) They were in excellent form, with Jett (in a Misfits T-shirt) sounding much like he did back in 1986, and the obligatory Carlos drum solo. Plus they played songs I hadn’t heard in probably two decades: “Love Will Set Us Free” and “Living Seed.”

(Taken By Cars and Paramita are going to blow up soon; keep an eye out for their albums. Taken By Cars‘ debut album will be out in July or August.)

I should also put in a good word for saGuijo: the place is tiny — it’s literally the living room of a house — and so the musicians are always only a few feet away from you. There isn’t a bad seat in the place, unless you’re by the bar — even if you’re outside you can see them through the window — and you can sit on the floor up front, which is fine too. Beers are P50 (the first one is P10), and the sisig was outstanding. If I lived nearby I’d be here every night.

Blurry pictures here.

Popularity: 1% [?]