Daniel's 2013 in Review

My Very Favorite Albums of A.D. 2013

20. Mikal Cronin - MCII

MCII is a starkly straightforward guitar album. It won’t make you think. It won’t make you wince. It’s not going to rearrange your definition of rock and roll. It won’t change you. But it will make you want to take a walk. It might get you looking out a window for longer than you even realize. I woke up the other day with a tune in my head. It was early in the morning, earlier than I normally get up at least. It killed me for about 20 minutes (including a failed attempt at googling fragments of lyrics). Then, I realized it was “Weight,” the first track from this record. I sat down in a chair with some headphones and put it on. 40 minutes later the album was over, and I had barely moved at all. It’s been a while since I’ve started a day so fresh. Mikal Cronin’s music is so god-damned everyday, but it’s the most spectacular kind of everyday I can picture, a no-holds barred assault of perfectly timed pop-music cheap shots that will wind you (the crowd goes wild!) and make you feel proud to be everyday human you are. 

Artist of the Day: Julia Holter

When I heard Julia Holter’s “Horns Surrounding Me” on the radio (yes, I’m privileged enough to have a local indie station) a month or so ago, I felt sure I’d heard it before. That’s kind of strange, considering that song sounds like almost nothing else. The hook was brave, the song jarring and intense. It wasn’t just hinting at envelope-pushing like so much exciting new music, it was pushing with full force. The track is high point of tension Holter’s new album, Loud City Song, if tension is measured traditionally, with eerie note choices and discord. The rest of the record is... well, actually, it’s pretty difficult to make any kind of general statement about the rest of the record, except that it’s great. It’s riveting from start to finish, even if it starts slow and finishes with a formless 7 minute number. It’s defiant in form, but also classically excellent; there’s so much variation packed into this little bundle of sound, it feels like a feature film, with emotional highs and lows to boot. 

Strange Choices: New Muzik Monday (3/19/12)

Mondays are for new music, so here're 6 new, good releases that I've been sitting back to this past week. Clicking on the subheadings will take you to bandcamp pages, facebook, streams or wherever else is most convenient for the internet.

Thrupence - Voyages EP

I have a large segment of my heart devoted to the kind souls that allow me to download their music for any price I want or, as the majority immediately think, for free. This segment is especially big when they make beautifully saturated, downtempo electronic music that works equally as well as something to lose yourself in and as an album to dip into it. There are loads of little twists and turns to fall in love with, and it's spaced out optimism is nothing if not just a little captivating.