Leonard Cohen

"Jesus was a sailor when he walked along the water
and he spent a long time watching from his lonely wooden tower
and when he knew for certain, only drowning men could see him
he said 'all men will be sailors then until the sea shall free them'
but he himself was broken, long before the sky would open
forsaken,
almost human,
he sank beneath your wisdom like a stone"
- from "Suzanne"

Leonard Cohen is one of the few folky singer songwriters who stops me in my tracks and hang on every word he says. His distinctive monodrone voice and Spanish style finger-picking guitar perfectly suit his songs of love and hate. As far as songwriters go, Cohen is pretty much the penultimate truth (especially, his early stuff). His fixations are crazed women, sex, the Bible, the impoverished, the crazy, the lonely, the rich, the idle, the suicidal etc, and he spins a yarn unlike anyone else (he began as a poet and novelist before writing songs).

His early albums, 1968's The Songs Of Leonard Cohen and 69's Songs From A Room, are classics that have jewels like "Suzanne," "The Partisan" and "Stories From The Street" and are essential listening. HOWEVER, 1971's Songs Of Love and Hate, is the real business. Possibly the best A-side to an album ever with "Avalanche," "Last Year's Man," "Dress Rehearsal Rag," and "Diamonds In The Mine"- all visions of harrowing genius.
(To Download or Play, Left Click and Follow Instructions)

MP3- Suzanne

MP3- Avalanche

MP3- Dress Rehearsal Rag

MP3- Stories Of The Street

MP3- Diamonds In The Mine

MP3- The Partisan

MP3- Master Song

MP3- Stranger Song

MP3- Story Of Issac

Mr. Oizo

Mr. Oizo is a French electrodude who came onto the scene in 1999 with his song "Flat Beat" and it's video's classic headbanging puppet protagonist, Flat Eric. He expounded the song and character into a series of awesome French Levi's ads, but remained fairly underground on the music scene after, but he quietly amassed a quality body of work. Then came Justice. One of the group's first hits was their remix of Oizo's "Nazi's" and they took his distorted electro sound and made it their own. As Justice, Simian Mobile Disco, Soulwax all gained notoriety, so did Oizo, as they frequently included him in mixes and remixes.

Oizo's whole albums are a tad hard to get through from start to finish, so I'll give you the highlights. He's definitely one of those fleeting inspiration guys, and his glitchier stuff is too chopped-up for me. However, what I like, I LIKE. Love, even. Here's a selected discography to getcha goin. All these are winnars.

(To Download, Left Click and Follow Instructions)
MP3- Positif (2008)

MP3- $tunt (Flying Lotus Remix) (2008)

MP3- Flat Beat (1999)

MP3- Nazis (Justice Remix) (2006)

MP3- Trina 700 (2007)

MP3- Patrick 122 (2007)

MP3- Hun (2008)

MP3- Transexual (2007)

MP3- Analog Wormz Sequel (1999)

...and here's the CLASSIC vid for "Flat Beat"

Iggy & The Stooges

One of my sacred cows. The Stooges were BY FAR the rawest band of the late 60's "classic rock" era, projecting the dirt and squalor of late 60's Detroit where a burning building took the place of an organized "love in." The hellish din of the Stooges music, along with the MC5, juxtaposed the go-go-free-lovery of the trust fund hippies, with dirge and howl, with a handful of drugs and nowhere to go home to. Not that they didn't project love- Iggy's love was more ravenous, out of his mind and horny, he had to find that special one. If that meant some mud soaked flower child or a pill popper with a nice ass and a rotten tooth, it was all the same.

If you've never had your brain warped to The Stooges, here's to breaking yr. cherry. As essential as Dylan. The next logical step from the Stones. The precursor to shit and piss punk rock and metal, blah blah blah, just look and listen. 1969's self titled debut, 1970's Fun House and 1973's Raw Power are three of the most essential records in all of rock and roll.


(Click to listen, right click to download)

MP3- I Wanna Be Your Dog

MP3- Search And Destroy

MP3- Down On The Street

MP3- 1969

MP3- Real Cool Time

MP3- Not Right

Iggy's Solo Shit

MP3- The Passenger

MP3- Lust For Life

MP3- Repo Man Theme (sooo bomb)

MP3- Fun Time (Live With David Bowie 1977)

HERE's a link to the whole Iggy/Bowie live album, Mantra 1977

Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski is the fucking MAN. A writer, a poet, a genius, you know it, Bukowski is the slum god of the human soul. I've recently come across some of his spoken word set to classical music which works oh-so-well, because that's what he listened to as he drank and wrote. "The Genius Of the Crowd" and "Dinosauria, We" are absolutely bruising poems, the latter popping up in a recent MF Doom song ("Cellz"). All of these are seminal however, full of the haggard wisdom inherent in his novels. Speaking of which, I can't recommend you read Post Office, Women, and Hollywood, enough because all three of those are life changing, you'll reference them (at least cognitively) for the rest of your life.

(Left Click To Download VIA Box.com)
MP3- The Genius Of The Crowd

MP3- Dinosauria, We

MP3- A Radio With Guts

MP3- The Strongest Of The Strange

MP3- The Soldier, His Wife and The Bum

MP3- MF Doom- "Cellz"

Slick Rick

Rick the rulaa! The best storyteller in the biz, England-born Slick Rick had a hugely influential style that enlightened Snoop Dog, Tupac, Biggie, Nas, etc. He had a career de-railed by a trip to prison for shooting a innocent bystander in a crazy gunfight, was released, and took a while to collect his thoughts. The difference between 1998's classic The Great Adventures of Slick Rick and 1999's true sequel, The Art of Storytelling in terms of quality is nothing. They're both awesome. He's got a few scattershot albums out there, but on these he's just about the best there is in terms of flows, lyrics, hooks, and his cool, calm delivery.

Songs like "Children's Story" and "Mona Lisa" are two of the best songs in...aw hell, the entire pantheon of Western music. The Art of Storytelling has some classics too like "I Own America Pt. 1," "Street Talk (W/OutKast)," "Who Rotten 'Em," "2 Way Street" and "Unify (W/Snoop)." Thus making them both essential. Go buy/steal them. Just absorb them and compare all wack Mc's to Ricky D.

P.S. Slick Rick is now a landlord in the Bronx.

P.P.S. Slick Rick is probably a weird landlord.

(Left Click All Of These To Download)
MP3- Mona Lisa

MP3- I Own America

MP3- 2 Way Street

MP3- Children's Story

MP3- Unify (W/ Snoop Dogg)

MP3- Who Rotten 'Em?

MP3- Street Talkin' (W/ OutKast)

HEALTH- Get Color

To all good artists and albums in 2009- it ain't over yet. A challenger approaches. HEALTH's Get Color is a droning, percussive beast reminiscent of only a handful of other stuff I've heard (the Liars' Drum's Not Dead is it's closest sonic neighbor). The insularity of HEALTH's early work was allowed becasue they're avant gardists who have a safe scene in LA's the Smell, yet touring with Nine Inch Nails probably showed the dudes that they need to get some "bigger" sounding songs that don't devolve into a clusterfuck of noise every other 16 bars. The batch they've concocted here is easily their best work and one of the best you'll hear all year. "Die Slow" will most likely floor you, assuming you have a soul. It's rockin' and danceable and (thank God) too weird to get on the radio. Happily, I can now report, the rest of the album follows suit.

HEALTH have not so much toned down the din of their noisy parts, but tempered it to work within songs better (aka no songs that are just creepy noise passages like on the Wavves album). Get Color is pretty accessible thanks to the amount of melody in the vocals and geets and the fat tribal stomp of the drums. It's rough but often beautiful. Seriously can't say enough good about this album, yet another reason 2009 owns as far as music is concerned.

P.S. As in the case of "Crimewave" with Crystal Castles, I'm sure these songs will be the basis for a fuck ton of good remixes and other songs.

MP3- Die Slow

MP3- We Are Water

MP3- Eat Flesh

HEALTH "DIE SLOW" from Lovepump United on Vimeo.

Clipse

Clipse, for those who don't know, are brothers Pusha T and Malice, two Virginian ex-crack dealers who hooked up with the Neptunes in 2001 and have cranked out a pretty impressive body of work since. Fully utilizing Pharell's clout in the record business, the group has made two modern classics in hip hop- 2002's Lord Willin' and 2006's Hell Hath No Fury. Both have the two MC's waxing existential about the drug pushing lifestyle- the good and the bad. The dark subject matter of their lyrics are matched by the production which is really top notch. It's easy to forget just how good the Neptunes can be when they have quality stuff to work with, but Hell Hath No Fury is as convincing an argument as they've made. The beats bump but are sparse and have an almost industrial feel, that match the cold reality of the lyrics. That said, this shit is danceable and is meant to be cranked on a good system.

As much as haters will point to their subject matter being repetitive and glorifying of the lifestyle, the duo really are more about the pusher lifestyle as background and context to the situations their put in, much like Biggie did. Their lyrics are often riddled with guilt, pathos and a feeling of being trapped like on "We Got It For Cheap":

"The walls removed and now I see,

My leg was pulled the jokes on me,

So heartbreakin' like lovin' a whore

Might hurt you once but never no more

Like tryin' to fly but they clippin your wings

and that's exactly why the caged bird sings"

They're readying a new album, due later this year that has Def Jam founder Rick Rubin at the helm. The first single, "All Eyes On Me" is dope and hopefully is an indication of how good the rest of the album is going to be.

MP3- All Eyes On Me (Left Click to download)

MP3- Trill (Left Click to Download)

MP3- Wamp Wamp

MP3- Keys Open Doors

Blur: Midlife

Blur is one of those bands that largely passed me by in their heyday. "Song 2" was rediculously awesome when I was a kid and I loved singer Damon Albarn's other project, the Gorillaz, but Blur was a little too mature for me when I got Parklife, their supposed best album. I just kinda of discarded it, and didnt think about the band much after. Big mistake. This compilation has shown me I'm an idiot and missed out on something I would have been obsessed with on the level of Radiohead, their mid-90's Brit-pop rivals. "Coffee and TV" is one of the best songs I've ever heard, and has revealed the side of them I hadn't seen- the rhythmic chord strummin' beast of a band that writes brilliant, wry pop songs the way the Kinks did.

I've found a slew of songs I love on this collection, and am now legitamately into their albums. Parklife has kinda of turned around for me in the context of their career, but it's not their best. I like their fat, three or four chord droning rockers the best like the aforementioned "Coffee and TV," "Pop Scene" and "Bugman" and most of the songs on this collection. Shit's rad. Re-issue of the year for sure. Enjoy.

MP3- Coffee And TV

MP3- Pop Scene

MP3- Girls and Boys

MP3- Parklife

MP3- For Tomorrow

Dan Deacon- "Padding Ghost" video

Dan Deacon's video for my favorite song off this year's Bromst, "Padding Ghost," is RAD. Props to it's creator Natalie Van Den Dungen! Note to other prospective film-makers: puppets are underutilized.

MP3- Padding Ghost

Other Deacon choice nuggz:

MP3- The Crystal Cat

MP3- Snookered

MP3- Wham City

MP3- Pink Batman

Wire- Pink Flag

Lemme tell ya a little story about Wire. What began as an art school final project, became one of the lasting legacies of post-punk and birthed one of the greatest albums of all time, 1977's Pink Flag. Wire came out of the post punk movement in Britain that spawned Joy Division, Gang of Four, The Fall, Siouxie Sioux and others, but Wire was it's own beast. Their fractured songs tore up rock cliches and started anew, embracing a more minimalist sound from the epic jerk off sessions of late 70' classic rock, and did away with all the posture and fashion of punk rock. The result- a sound and style all their own. Sparse, rhythmic and full of fleeting ideas, Wire were radical for their time, but history has smiled on them, and their records sound better now than ever. Pink Flag is the best, but 1978's Chairs Missing and 1979's 154 are champs as well. Seriously some of my favorite music ever and a serious diamond in the rough. Some of my favorite lyrics ever: 

"Time is too short, 

but never too long,

To reach ahead, 

to project the image,

Which will in time,

become a concrete dream.

Another cigarette,

another day,

From A to B,

again avoiding C,D, and E,

'cause E is where you play the blues,

Drowning in the big swell,

rising to the surface,

the smell of you,

that's the lowdown"

(From "Lowdown")

MP3- Three Girl Rhumba

MP3- Ex-Lion Tamer

MP3- Lowdown

MP3- 106 Beats That...

MP3- Strange (Live)

Flying Lotus- The Blackfist Mix

Sometimes a mix comes along, and it's the mix that summarizes the time and place surrounding the creator. Sometimes a mix comes around that completely transcends that time and place and terraforms the minds of those exposed to it. Sometimes there's a mix...sometimes...huh...lost my train of thought. Suffice it to say, this is the dopest dope, one of the best mixes I've ever heard by a wide margin. Very glad to share it with you. Flying Lotus is the fucking man, plain and simple. A mix of hip hop, jazz, reggae, electro, and dubstep that will warp your brain forever for the better.

(Left-Click the link and follow instructions)

MP3- Flying Lotus: The Blackfist Mix (via Uploaded.to)

More of the Warp Records wunderkind/grandson of Alice Coltrane for yr aural pleasure:

(Right Click to Download, Left Click to play)

MP3- Parisian Goldfish

MP3- Mr. Oizo: $tunt (Flying Lotus Remix)

MP3- Camel (Nosaj Thing Remix)

P.S. No I don't have a tracklist for the mix. If anyone finds it, post it as a comment. Kthxbye

Yeasayer

With all the good bands hailing from Brooklyn, Yeasayer have been pretty overlooked and underrated since their debut in 2007 with their LP All Hours Cymbals, but I've come back to them a lot more than bands that critics have pushed on me in the time since. They've steadily gained my respect and other followers the old fashioned way: by writing good songs and outperforming the over-hyped bands they've played with (MGMT, namely). Their psychedelic sound takes as much from world music as it does from traditional rock/reggae/R&B/etc, and their album benefits greatly from the dynamic, never stagnating. They have chanting melodies, polyrhythmic drumming and and overall tribal feel, and they can bust out on a wide variety of instruments. Their lyrics are well sung and well written as well:

"It's a fresh spring, so let's sing

And the moon shines bright on the water tonight

So we won't drown in the summer sound

Yeah, yeah, we can all grab at the chance to be handsome farmers

Yeah you can have twenty-one sons and be blood when they marry my daughters"

( From "2080")

So check out All Hours Cymbals, see them live, and cop their new album when it comes out.


MP3- Sunrise

MP3- 2080

MP3- Tightrope

MP3- Wait For The Summer

MP3- Forgiveness

MP3- Wait For The Wintertime

MP3- No Need To Worry

MP3- Simian Mobile Disco w/Yeasayer: The Audacity Of Huge

#87.2 - YEASAYER - 2080
Uploaded by lablogotheque. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

Department Of Eagles- The Cold Nose

Somewhere amidst my non-homo love affair with Grizzly Bear, I found out that their guitarist Daniel Rossen has a side project called the Department of Eagles. I got their more recent album, 2008's In Ear Park, first and it's pretty rad. It's sounds like Grizzly Bear because it's basically Grizzly Bear without Ed Droste which is still a very good thing. 

Yet 2003's The Cold Nose LP is my focus here, because it's just so goddamn creative and awesome. Though it probably wont reach that many ears on it's own merits because it's a bit inaccessible and is now a few years old, it's a goldmine for the open-minded listener. Danny and bandmate Fred Nicolaus met as assigned roommates at NYU and started fucking around with samples and recording guitars and vocals. The result, The Cold Nose (originally called The Whitey on the Moon LP), is a diverse collection of hip hop beats, string section swells, and Radiohead-esque rock songs, all arranged in a trippy, psychedelic way. 

Highlights of the album are "Romo Goth" a unique rollicker, the trip hoppy "Gravity's Greatest Victory/Rex Snorted Coke," and the cluserfuck pieces "The Origin of Love" and "The Curious Butterfly Realizes He's Beautiful." The quality of the rest of the album is just as good as those highlights, but those are the one's that caught my ear first. The whole thing is a meandering stoner treat that was pretty much just meant to please them and their friends so don't blame it for seeming a little insular. I'm sure if you give it a little time, you'll dig it a lot. 

MP3- The Curious Butterfly Realizes He's Beautiful

MP3- Deadly Disclosure

Video For "Romo Goth"

And, not to undermine the greatness of In Ear Park, here are some samples of that, too. It's really great but it speaks for itself, whereas the Cold Nose requires a little explaining. 

MP3- No One Does It Like You

MP3- Teenagers

MP3- Phantom Other

MP3- In Ear Park

MP3- Balmy Night

MP3- Not For Long (From KRCW's "Morning Becomes Eclectic" radio show)

MP3- Deep Blue Sea (From The Dark Was The Night compilation)

Video For "No One Does It Like You"

ZOMBY

Zomby is dubstep's mystery man in that his/her/it's identity is kept a secret. "Helter Skelter" sounds like a dancable solution to the electronic soundtracks to old Italian horror films or an easy upgrade from John Carpenter's electronic muzak from his 80's films. The video mashes the song up with George Romero's films and the Italian B-horror classic, "Zomby 2" as well as a melodramatic makeout scene and more. All good stuff. 

MP3- Helter Skelter

Surf Zombies Must Chill from The Publics on Vimeo.

For more Zomby, check out his 2008 debut Where Were You In '92?.

The Waning Days Of Summer

Rather than wax wistfully about how great summer was/is-for-a-few-more-days, I'd rather let others speak for me. So, here are some ripping summer songs to to wet yr. whistle before the autumn void of dark skies and dead leaves makes you break out your "Wristcutter Jams '08" mixtape. 

MP3- Deerhunter & Panda Bear: "Walkabout"

MP3- Danger Mouse, Sparklehorse & Julian Casablancas: "Little Girl"

MP3- The Pixies: "The Happening"

MP3- Animal Collective: "Fireworks"

MP3- Major Lazer (Diplo & Switch): Hold The Line

MP3- Nosaj Thing: "1685/Bach"

MP3- Ananda Shankar: "Dancing Drums"

MP3- Galaxie 500: "Fourth Of July"

MP3- M83: "Run Into Flowers" (Jackson's Midnight Fuck Remix)

MP3- Wavves: "Cool Jumper"

MP3- Black Lips: "Bad Kids"