BSC
1. Fiona Apple. The Idler Wheel…
2. David Byrne & St. Vincent. Love This Giant
3. Point Reyes. Golden
4. Sharon Van Etten. Tramp
5. Bill Fay. Life is People
6. Matt Elliott. The Broken Man
7. Swans. The Seer
8. Neil Young & Crazy Horse. Psychedelic Pill
9. Hundred Waters. Hundred Waters
10. Spiritualized. Sweet Heart Sweet Light
—
Check this out, a best of 2012 list that actually wasn’t posted until the year ended! A typical characteristic of a list like this – composed of the individual lists of some people whose music tastes I enjoy enough to ask them to contribute to the blog – is a certain conservatism (although there are some newcomers ranking pretty high, like Hundred Waters, Purity Ring, alt-J or Point Reyes) with some albums that manage to sneak into the top 10 despite not being the artists’ top moments (GY!BE, Spiritualized, Andrew Bird). Was 2012 that boring or are we the boring ones who only listen to boring music? Have your say in the comments section and post your own lists. Enough with the small talk…
I’ve despised most of Matthew Houck, AKA Phosphorescent’s output before his great 2010 album, Taking It Easy Too Long. If it wasn’t for that record – which I didn’t listen immediately after the release date because I thought I’d hate it as much as I hated Bon Iver’s debut (hey look, another city dweller, bearded guy locked up in a cabin somewhere pretending he’s countrier than thou), but a friend shoved me one of his songs down my throat until I loved it – I wouldn’t be so keen on listening to “Song for Zula”, the first song off his next album, Muchacho, coming up in March. I’m glad I did. Again, I could live without him saying he recorded the album in a “little hut” on some beach down in the Mexican southern peninsula of Yucatán, but at least he acknowledges that story is cheesy as fuck. I think I like you even more after you said that, Matt. I’m sure you’re nice folk and you wrote my first favorite song of 2013. I haven’t listened to anything else to be released in the next year, but hey, I gotta start somewhere.
DSS
Plane Ticket has put a new song online for y’all to enjoy to commemorate their 1000th Facebook follower. I don’t think there’s a reason why you wouldn’t listen to this nice piece of classic indie rock right away.
DSS
<a href=“http://planeticket.bandcamp.com/track/blank-map” data-mce-href=“http://planeticket.bandcamp.com/track/blank-map”>Blank Map by Plane Ticket</a>
I feel somewhat attracted by bands with the word ‘ghost’ in their names. Ghost Lights, the musical project of the Canadian songwriter Noah Cebuliak is no exception. The music on his debut EP, Saltwater, reminds me of another Montréal-based notorious songwriter, Patrick Watson. I’ll let you decide if that’s something worth acheving, but let’s say it is. Saltwater, through its luxurious instrumentation and arrangementscomplemented by Cebuliak’s clear, nice-sounding voice channels images of late winter nights spent in expensive cafés downtown we all wish we could afford. Well, you can now.
DSS
