Catch up!

Now I won't normally be doing straight-forward reviews like this, but when I made this blog, I was already a TON of albums in, so I figured it would be easier to just group them and review them to catch you up on the project than to write witty essays on all of them. Enjoy!


What a way to begin: Clicking 'album' in my iTunes library yielded a familiar smile and a "hell yeah" head nod, as I discovered what my first album would be: Santana's masterpiece psychedelic-latin-jazz-rock album, Abraxas. What can I say? It's still completely brilliant, and I still know a ton of people in bands that are chasing after a sound that Santana perfected 40 years ago. If you don't have it, get it. You will dance. You will rock. You will trip. You will sing. You will fall in love. You will love it.
//SANTANA - ABRAXAS//GREAT TUNE: "Oye Como Va" //

Next up was one of my favorites from the teenage years, The Smashing Pumpkins' totally direction-changing Adore. Now, a lot of amazing rock bands have made dramatic, sweeping stylistic changes mid-career. But when Billy Corgan did it, he changed the formula a bit by writing the best songs of his career. Some of these tunes are so good you literally can't believe he wrote them. It's almost completely devoid of distortion, instead favoring an approach based almost entirely on three relatively untapped components of the Pumpkins' sound: electronics, piano, and acoustic guitar. This album is dark and haunting, while still adhering to bright, sweet melody. The artwork, which is completely black and white, perfectly describes the record. This is the sound of someone completely swallowed by loss (which, for Corgan, meant his wife to divorce, his drummer to drug addiction, his touring keyboardist to death by overdose, and his mother to cancer), but without the chaos and dissonance one might anticipate. This is the record Paul McCartney would've made in Corgan's situation. Like, exactly. Corgan seldom touched this proficiency in composition before, and never did it again. So catch him on Adore, while he was hot.
//THE SMASHING PUMPKINS - ADORE//GREAT TUNE: "Blank Page"//

The next day, I got very driven and listened to a big chunk of records while playing video games (one of the best ways, I find, for me to focus on music). First up was Advisory Committee by Mirah, a record which I first discovered on a car ride with my pal Micaela. Mirah's an interesting artist, kind of a female Bright Eyes in a way: very expressive, but lyrically similar from song to song; brilliantly diverse in sound. This isn't my favorite record, because I have always felt that the songs sounded underdeveloped and hurried out. The intense orchestral opener "Cold Cold Water" blasts out of the gate, but the album largely descends in dynamic from there. You'll probably find yourself drifting in and out of interest and inattention as the album progresses, and despite a few years of listening, I still can't tell the tunes in the string of 3-minutes-or-less tracks towards the middle apart. But that's okay: for her wide reach, Mirah doesn't aspire to take over your ears. She just wants to be there with you for a moment, speak her mind gently, and disappear.
//MIRAH - ADVISORY COMMITTEE// GREAT TUNE - "Mt. St. Helens"//

After that, I tackled Neil Young's most accessible record as a folkie, "After The Goldrush". What can you say? It's a really solid group of songs. I mean, Neil did better folk on Harvest, but this is his most consistent record for sure. Acoustic guitar, Drums, bass, piano, lots of harmonies, Neil's in distress here, but it's such an amazingly reliable record to listen to at any age, in any era, that it's evident that the dude tapped into something really important and special. A classic.
//NEIL YOUNG - AFTER THE GOLDRUSH//GREAT TUNE - "Don't Let It Bring You Down"//

Next was Sigur Ros' Agaetis Byrjun, which I'll cop to having never heard all the way through. I just haven't been able to get in to Sigur Ros lately, which made this the perfect record for the project.That said, it was totally their best. I got a little weary from the epicness about 3/4 of the way through, but it is still a remarkable accomplishment.
//SIGUR ROS - AGAETIS BYRJUN//GREAT TUNE - "Vidrar Vel Til Loftarasa"//

Next up was a duet from Brian Eno's famous Ambient series. Eno invented ambient, and these records are utterly perfect distillations of the medium. Whereas Ambient 4: On Land is much darker, with a lot more sounds, including a lot of samples from nature. To be frank, it's a lot more difficult listening. I can't really see why anyone would recreationally listen to this, because its pretty unsettling. But still awesome for the statement it made. The real treat Is Ambient One: Music For Airports. This is in the running for my favorite album of all time, and still would be on the basis of its first track alone. Pure blissed out tape loop minimalist soundscape, I would recommend this for anyone with ears.
//BRIAN ENO - AMBIENT 4: ON LAND|AMBIENT ONE: MUSIC FOR AIRPORTS//GREAT TUNE - "A Clearing"|"1-1"//

Don Caballero's American Don record is absolutely fantastic musically, but you can't really expect anything else from them: this was the height of their creativity, and the guitars are so intensely novel, precise, and downright brilliant from front to back that you will not believe your ears. Literally. These guys have a penchant for harmony that is absolutely unparalleled in the "post-rock" world. It's a shame that the overly-roomy way in which the drums were recorded makes it so I cant fucking STAND listening to this album for more than 2 minutes. Ugh. Steve Albini really knows how to fuck up a record sometimes.
//DON CABALLERO - AMERICAN DON//GREAT TUNE - "You Drink A Lot Of Coffee For A Teenager"//

Johnny Cash's American V: A Hundred Highways is pure fucking brilliance. Johnny Cash managed to STILL be at the top of his game at age 345345, and Rick Rubin recreates his charm so faithfully that you can't help but be sucked in. Johnny does a ton of incredible covers, nailing all of them, and a few originals that will blow any conception you had of songwriting being a young man's game completely out of the water.
//JOHNNY CASH - AMERICAN V: A HUNDRED HIGHWAYS//GREAT TUNE - "Like The 309"//

Amnesiac is probably my least favorite Radiohead record, which means that it's still pretty damn good. "Pyramid Song" is the best thing the band ever made, and the other tracks are real nice too. A bunch of them admittedly sound like filler, but at least Radiohead filler is still persistently interesting. Like you need me to talk about this album anyway.
//RADIOHEAD - AMNESIAC//GREAT TUNE - "Pyramid Song"//

Next I tackled Ananda Shankar's self titled record, which is a cool blend of sitar-laden classic rock covers and standard raga stuff with a bit of a western edge. I liked it.
//ANANDA SHANKAR - S/T//GREAT TUNE - "Light My Fire"//

I only have disc one of Stars Of The Lid And Their Refinement Of The Decline, but I loved it. This is an hour or so of super solid ambient drone. I'll definitely be getting disc two ASAP.
//STARS OF THE LID - AND THEIR REFINEMENT OF THE DECLINE//GREAT TUNE: All of them.//

The Kinks' Arthur or The Decline Of The British Empire, from '69, when a lot of bands published their super watershed records, was not a watershed record. There are a couple good tracks, but it's definitely not their best. Probably okay to skip when perusing their amazingly large catalog.
//THE KINKS - ARTHUR or THE DECLINE OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE//GREAT TUNE - "Victoria"//

As Performed By.....Aerial M was the first solo record David Pajo ever made (So far back that he hadn't even adopted the monicker of Papa M yet, and he's gone through 3 more since then), and he already just went for it creatively. You can see him doing the classic Pajo thing which is to pull from everything around him and just have fun making a solo record. This is by far the lightest touch he ever gave a record, as it's (I believe) completely devoid of distortion. Just guitar, drums and bass. Beautiful melodies give way to even more beautiful ones. Oh, also some of the most brilliant use of tritones and dissonance in general that I've ever heard. Somehow he makes dissonance sound completely consonant. The first track on here, "Dazed And Awake" is one of my most favorite "post-rock" tunes of all time. Nobody knows this album exists, but everybody should.
//AERIAL M - AS PERFORMED BY....//GREAT TUNE - "Dazed And Awake"//

So we've only got a couple more albums until A is over, and I'll be one twenty-sixth of the way finished. Holy smokes.