Archive for July, 2010

Record of the Week: Christopher Willits – Tiger Flower Circle Sun (Ghostly International)

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

Another great week for music as we have quite a few releases to talk about. When Mark Olson puts out a record and we can still gush about three more records on top of that, you know it’s going to be a good week.

First and foremost though is an album that I have been anticipating for quite awhile right now. Christopher Willits put out his last “proper” full length 4 years ago titled, Surf Boundaries. The follow-up, Tiger Flower Circle Sun, continues his brand of incredibly intelligent compositions that manages to be hard to pinpoint into a genre. Glitchy ambient pop? While Willits continues to explore and experiment, he manages to keep his songs and ideas succinct, with most of them clocking in around 3 and a half minutes and the longest being only 5 and a half minutes. For people working in the context of anything remotely ambient, that’s nearly unheard of.

What really will amaze you about this album is that Christopher Willits is a guitarist, first and foremost. He does a lot of computer processing, being a software engineer with a master’s degree in electronic composition from Mills College, that turns his guitar into an instrument of endless possibilities. There are moments where the guitar is just the guitar though, as evidenced on the very folk based, “Light Into Branches.”

All in all, Christopher Willits has turned in an absolutely fantastic album that rates up there amongst this year’s finest.

Listen to “Light Into Branches” from Christopher Willits’ Tiger Flower Circle Sun

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Listen to “Sun Body” from Christopher Willits’ Tiger Flower Circle Sun

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Honorable Mentions

Best Coast – Crazy For You (Mexican Summer)

What could have very easily have been Record of the Week itself, Best Coast’s debut full length is 20 something odd minutes of throwback girl group, garage pop that is going to be just about everyone’s Summer record of 2010 and at the top of most people’s album of the year as we creep closer to 2011.

Listen to “Goodbye” from Best Coast’s Crazy For You

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Jaill – That’s How We Burn (Sub Pop)

Sub Pop have seriously been firing on all cylinders lately, with nothing but killer records this year with the likes of Beach House, Male Bonding, Wolf Parade, Dum Dum Girls, Avi Buffalo, and far too many others to remember. They continue it with the new album by Jaill, that is an excellent jangly summer indie-pop record, sharing some similarities to the Girls album that came out last year.

Listen to “Everyone’s Hip” from Jaill’s That’s How We Burn

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Record of the Week: The Books – The Way Out (Temporary Residence)

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

A busy week this week with lots of good releases and some great shows as well happening in the area! Still recovering from last night’s Kurt Vile / Real Estate show up in Detroit, we’re ready and raring to go see the Heartless Bastards with Peter Wolf Crier(May 25th’s Record of the Week!) at Mickey Finns in town tonight. Two store favorites playing here in town doesn’t happen too often! After that we have Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti(June 8th’s Record of the Week!) on Wednesday in Pontiac, new favorites in Toledo’s own Fangs Out playing at the Ottawa Tavern on Friday and then more store favorites in the Black Atlantic playing at the Ottawa Tavern in town on Sunday!

So with all of this driving around, it’s a good time to get a couple great new albums ready for the car rides! This week definitely provided us with a couple. First and foremost is a brand new album from the Books! It’s only been, oh, five years since they graced us with their brand of indescribable folktronica, if we can even call it that.

The Way Out is fourteen tracks of a sample-laden euphoria. The album begins with nearly new age meditation speech samples before going into the shuffle of “I Didn’t Know That” which has a chorus that almost sounds like it could replace the theme of In the Heat of the Night. Quickly the band displays why they are who they are with “A Cold Freezin’ Night”. Filled with some absolutely hilarious samples from children, the song runs the gamut of some of the absolutely bizarre things that kids can say.

There are a couple songs in which the Books come to rely on their own singing instead of samples, which proves to be rather enjoyable as well. All in all, this was one of my most anticipated albums this year and it’s done nothing but impress with every listen. Totally essential.

Listen to “A Cold Freezin’ Night” from the Books’ The Way Out

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Grizzly Bear’s Daniel Rossen,alongside Fred Nicolaus, returns with side project, Department of Eagles. This time around, we’re treated to sketches of what ultimately became their debut album, In Ear Park. There are songs on here that you aren’t exactly sure why they weren’t used as they sound like they would have been right at home on a Grizzly Bear album. All in all, it’s a great snapshot of a band that we unfortunately won’t hear much from as Grizzly Bear is full steam ahead for the time being.

Listen to “While We’re Young” from Department of Eagles’ Archive 2003 – 2006

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Record of the Week: Sun Kil Moon – Admiral Fell Promises (Caldo Verde)

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

A couple real good new releases this week with the new M.I.A., School of Seven Bells, Love Language and plenty more. But in the end only one album could be Record of the Week…but there are always honorable mentions as well!

Sun Kil Moon, or just Mark Kozelek as he is on this release, is one of those guys that I think the entire store can agree on. Having honed his craft for years in the great slowcore band Red House Painters, Kozelek went solo with his Sun Kil Moon project in 2003. Despite being around for over 7 years now though, his new album, Admiral Fell Promises, is just his third full length of original material. After having a full band on the previous two full lengths, Kozelek decided to go this album alone, armed with nothing but his voice and a nylon stringed acoustic guitar.

For a lot of artists, that might be a pretty daunting task. For Kozelek though, it’s his voice and guitar that have always been at the forefront of any band he’s been a part of. The ten tracks clock in around 60 minutes and is some of the most intimate Sun Kil Moon songs ever put to tape. Absolutely essential.

Listen to “Admiral Fell Promises” from Sun Kil Moon’s Admiral Fell Promises

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Honorable Mentions


Even though it maybe technically came out a couple weeks ago, the debut full length of Toledo’s own Fangs Out just came into the store this past week so it’s new to us! Having said that, we can’t express how excited we are about this record. Two-piece post punk that sounds like they are straight from D.C., these Toledoans have put out a record that isn’t just a “good local record” but is a great album, no matter where they’re from.

Listen to “Omerta” from Fangs Out’s Speech Shadowing

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Record of the Week: Baths – Cerulean (Anticon)

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

Last Summer we were graced with an absolute killer glitch-hop album in Bibio’s Ambivalence Avenue, which was our Record of the Week as well for June 23rd, 2009. We still listen to that album consistently in here and odds are, if you’ve been in here in the past year, you might have even been suggested it!

Well it looks like we have found our glitch-hop album of Summer 2010 with Baths’ Cerulean. Not looking to fall into the oft-maligned “chillwave” label, Will Weisenfeld, brainchild of Baths, layers rhythms on top of complex rhythms with plenty of melody in between to create an album that certainly isn’t for chilling.

Baths takes a little bit of a lot of good things. The similarities to Bibio are certainly there, in that both take an almost folktronica approach. The singing on top of the tracks also bears a striking similarity. There is definitely a little bit of Prefuse 73 as well but it’s not too overly complex, leaving plenty of room for the song itself to shine.

All in all, an absolutely essential purchase right now and a completely surprising debut album from Baths.

Listen to “Maximalist” from Baths’ Cerulean

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Brad Rose has been performing under the North Sea moniker for some time now and his sound has evolved with each release. And he certainly puts out releases as I think this is his 26th full length. He has ventured into the darker realm of music the past year, calling to mind Throbbing Gristle or Whitehouse. Certainly not a noise record, this dark ambient record is one of the most disorienting and frightening albums you’ll hear in some time and is damn near perfect.

Listen to “Reunion” from the North Sea’s Bloodlines

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