Gpants Mix of the Year Award Goes To: Joel!

Hey there everyone, we made it! I’d love to stick around and chat, but it’s pretty cramped here in the men’s bath­room. I actu­ally had to run the eth­ernet cable into the women’s toilet sta­tion (they got ports under their sit-n-pees) and I’m afraid some stately man of cruel demeanor will stomp and smash my con­nec­tion out. I’ve been away, and no one needs to tell me how long the train’s been gone. With this many extracur­ric­u­lars you’d think I was run­ning some elab­o­rate DRM-violating Tai­wanese soap-opera dvd transfer scam (dvds are $5 and if you want your name engraved on them it’s $15 sorry). Frankly, I had to get away — away from the gut­tural tones of Sleep­y­time Gorilla Museum (Of Nat­ural His­tory is top on Niina’s “Pissed-Off Tues­days” playlist) and Ben’s yappy DJ Mehdi bull­shit (what is dance music even) — and find some qui­etude, friends. Plus I’m recording my own ambient album called Urinal Piss Crashing, Seven Sor­rows Removed under the name “Ephraemi Rescriptus”. I was just signed to Vic­tory Records and yes I will be touring with Sil­ver­stein. But really, I’m just busy with school. Mean­while, you’ve got Ben, Niina and Mike with your hip updates. I did take the time to com­pile a list of my favorite jams of 2006, though. And who knows what the year will bring. Hope­fully presents. Joel’s Best of 2006 and Never the Oppo­site of This: 01. Yo La Tengo — I Am Not Afraid Of You and I Will Beat Your Ass Try: “Black Flowers” [site][label] They may have mur­dered the clas­sics, but Yo La Tengo surely didn’t butcher this one. My second favorite Yo La Tengo album (next to the alarm­ingly quiet Painful) and favorite record of the year, I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass is pretty much per­fect. Be it Hem’s pas­toral Amer­i­cana on “I Feel Like Going Home,” synth-strolling with Quasi on “I Should Have Known Better,” genre-shuffling-‘n’-scuffling on “Watch Out For Me Ronnie” and “The Room Got Heavy,” the remote malaise of “Daphnia” and “The Weakest Part,” or 2006’s best pop tune “Beanbag Chair,” it’s absolutely every­thing I love about the Hobo­ken­ites. Ending with eleven min­utes and forty-eight sec­onds of three-piece rock-jam malarkey on “The Story of Yo La Tengo” couldn’t be any more fit­ting. [buy] 02. Horse Feathers — Words Are Dead Try: “Dust­bowl” Justin Ringle and Peter Brod­erick make beau­tiful music together. That’s about all I know of this record. Also, they’re from Port­land, Oregon. And they sound like Jans Duke de Grey opening for a young, depression-addled Tom Rapp, com­plete with rap­turous choir of angels and shoe­less, pre­pu­bes­cent girls crying soot. [buy] 03. Under Byen — Samme Stof Som Stof Try: “Palads” [site][label] At 2003’s annual Danish music fes­tival “SPOT,” Rolling Stone jour­nalist David Fricke intro­duced Under Byen as his favorite act of the year, stating “wel­come to the best band in Den­mark, prob­ably the best band in the world.” While I know little of this band out­side of their tidy home­page and new release, I can totally see where the praise would come in. Samme Stof Som Stof, (which I now know is Danish for “Same Fabric As Fabric”) sounds like some futur­istic cityscape set against Hen­ri­ette Sennenvaldt’s aurally hyp­notic voice. At great length, “Den her sang han­dler om at få det bedste ud af det” (phew) mirac­u­lously out­runs itself before the eight-minute mark, trag­i­cally crum­bling into its own covert melody, while tracks like noise-infused “Film og omvendt” and ever-braiding “Siame­sisk” could only be longer. And yes, they do sound like Sigur Ros having a power lunch with Bjork in a Turkish tex­tile fac­tory for Angora wool. [buy] 04. Grizzly Bear — Yellow House Try: “Cen­tral and Remote” [site][label] Grizzly Bear has received a lot of atten­tion this year for Yellow House, a record almost always described as a space. Like a less intim­i­dating and much cozier ver­sion of Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, Yellow House plays around with familiar inte­riors and the trap­pings of an enclosed yet ever-changing realm of memory, stretching infi­nitely into warmer cor­ners. As Edward Droste and com­pany con­jure aspiring songstress and aunt Marla Forbes on “Marla” and win hearts with “Lul­labye,” it’s easy to see why this has been a repeated play. Also try that rumored synch w/ The City of Lost Chil­dren, cuz shit’s hotter than watching Episode 24 of “Fraggle Rock” matched up with Teenage Fanclub’s Band­wag­onesque. [buy] 05. Shear­water — Palo Santo Try: “La Dame Et La Licorne” [site] I can’t think of any other record this year that has unfolded itself so unwill­ingly. While Shear­water isn’t Talk Talk (nor do they really aspire to be), I think the com­par­ison fits: grandiose yet humble, brave and ini­tially chal­lenging, Palo Santo rep­re­sents a defin­i­tive step into great­ness for Shear­water. Each song is care­fully placed and excru­ci­at­ingly detailed — “Sev­enty Four, Sev­enty Five” and “Johnny Viola” each come to mind — and not a single searing moment wasted. [buy] 06. The Brother Kite — Waiting For The Time To Be Right Try: “Get On Me” [site] Y’know, I never thought I’d be writing a blurb for this album. I asked Ben if I could just draw a pic­ture about the album, but he said “no that’d be stupid”. I went ahead and drew the pic­ture anyway (it’s a small kid riding on a smiling kite in a sunny day), but then Ben said “no that’s stupid,” so here I am, no kite, no blurb. And this is a great album too — pure sugar, plays all bright and pretty, kinda like Throwing Muses fronted by Sice from The Boo Radleys — which deserves more than I could give it. Sigh. [buy] 07. mewith­outyou — brother, sister Try: “The Dry­ness and the Rain” [site][label] God makes humankind, humankind pro­ceeds to make small cyber­netic dogs that don’t really poop and also vacuum the carpet. While the name is some­what cringe-worthy and Aaron Weiss’s lyrics occa­sion­ally fringe on pre­cocity, behind the fanaticism/façade/reverence is some pretty heart­felt music. From mwY’s frantic and uneven ferocity on “Wolf Am I! (and Shadow),” the rumi­nating guitar and med­i­ta­tive bass on “A Glass Can Only Spill What it Con­tains,” to the bliss­fully con­joined “In a Market Dimly Lit” and “In a Sweater Poorly Knit,” Brother, Sister is an out­standing listen. Not since The Gloria Record’s Start Here or SDRE’s How It Feels to Be Some­thing On (frontman Enigk is actu­ally fea­tured here on sev­eral tracks) has a record prin­ci­pally con­cerning Chris­tianity come across as this gen­uine, engaging, and enjoy­able. [buy] 08. French Kicks — Two Thou­sand Try: “Knee High” [site][label] On Two Thou­sand, french kicks move past their fellow garage-rock shoe-shufflers (The Walkmen, The Strokes, et all), deliv­ering a record that out­shines A Hun­dred Miles Off and First Impres­sions of Earth alike with brazen con­fi­dence and orig­i­nality. As far as third albums go, this one sounds just as fresh and upbeat as their 2001 debut “One Time Bells” — “So Far”’s break­beat shift into a ringing, har­mo­nious chorus is the first indi­ca­tion that things are off to a great start, come the mel­lowing panache of “Cloche” and Spoon-channeling “Keep It Amazed”. It’s all fast, pretty, and good golly, is it good. [buy] 09. Band of Horses — Every­thing All The Time Try: “The Funeral” [site][label] AT ANY MOMMMEEENT I’LL BE READY FOR A FUNERAL [buy] 10. Anoice — Rem­mings Try: “The Three-Days Blow” [site][label] While Ben has pretty much placed Helios’ breezy Eingya at the top of his 2006 (and it’s a good record and deserves being liked), I can’t help but think of sev­eral other instru­mental records this year that have “got-me-all” excited. Tops on the list (and just barely beating out Pallin’s “Bright Moments”) is Japanese six-piece Anoice; dab­bling in elec­tronica and all-too-maligned post-rock, Anoice’s Rem­mings is first for the (unfor­tu­nately titled) Impor­tant Records label, home to (for­tu­nately titled) acts like Merzbow, Piano Magic, Angels of Light, and Mus­lim­gauze. Sand­wiched between five unti­tled ses­sions, the four songs high­lighted here present an excel­lent sense of pro­duc­tion dynamics and com­pli­ment an inno­v­a­tive “suite” struc­ture — on “Aspirin Music,” for example, per­cus­sion alter­nates between organic and elec­tronic com­po­si­tion, strings pierce the leaden drone of elec­tric guitar, all over an embossed piano land­scape. Just gor­geous. [buy] Close Hits of 2006: Camera Obscura — Let’s Get Out of This Country [site][label] The “other” great Scot­land pop­smiths of 2006 – over­looked, under­played, and just so adorable. [buy] Aloha — Some Echoes [site][label] Blissed-out, self-cannibalizing pseudo-psych pop from the arsty Cleve­land four­some (Tony Cav­al­lario is part-angel and Cale Parks is my homeboy). [buy] Balun — Some­thing Comes Our Way [site][label] Elec­tronica trio from San Juan, Puerto Rico finding all the best ways to tuck pretty half-songs in snug woolen blan­kets. [buy] Mar­itime — We The Vehi­cles [site][label] Ex-Promise Ring pun­dits (sans D-Plan’s Axelson) get it right on their first great album since 1999. [buy] Nina Nas­tasia — On Leaving [label] Sparse full-length from our favorite twi­light belle, accom­pa­nied by Dirty Three drummer Jim White. [buy] I gotta jet gang. Ireland’s Depart­ment of Metafic­tion was tipped off that some­body around here has been pho­to­copying pages from Flann O’Brien’s At Swim-Two-Birds for use as band flyers. Good thing I ate my copy of Sartor Resartus. Have a good one, readers, and see you all some­time in 2007.