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• 11/13/09

  Cold Cave - Love Comes Close We've been devouring Cold Cave's releases for the past year or so, impatiently waiting for each release. Now, they've finally released their first LP, a dark, brooding synth-pop gem. They've cleaned up their sound significantly for this record, but the clarity only highlights how great their songs are, rather than exposing weaknesses. We still stand behind our love for the anthemic "The Trees Grew Emotions and Died" but we're also into the title track, which sounds like The Tough Alliance covering that Q Lazzarus song from the Silence of the Lambs soundtrack.
  
  
  
  

  Dam-Funk - Toeachizown Vol. 1: LAtrikDam-Funk is a producer with a refined and unique musical vision that is steeped in the black music of the early 1980's. In the post-disco era, the individual strains of electro and funk began to converge, making for a wonderful musical offshoot known as boogie (considering the danceability of this music, it's a fitting title). Like other L.A. producers before him (notably Dr. Dre), Dam-Funk mines this sound to create offbeat funk music, keeping it synthesized and slow. If you have a car, this record is essential.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Memory Tapes - Seek MagicThis debut record from Memory Tapes really plays with dynamics very well. The songs move effortlessly from hypnotic synths to huge stadium choruses. Throughout the record is the spirit of great dance music, if not the actual sound. The drumbeats are steady but the music is far too song-oriented to ever give itself fully over to the dance floor. This tension makes for a wonderful little album.

  
  

  
  

• 10/21/09

  Flaming Lips - Embryonic Rather than rest on their laurels, their beloved stage show, and their classic records, Flaming Lips have released perhaps the most ambitious record of their career. The record explores similar rhythmic psych soundspaces as Portishead's last album, another Refinery favorite. Similar to that record, Embryonic covers tons of ground moving from spacy and gentle songs to oversaturated and rocking numbers. Each song is ambitious and out there but nothing on the record sounds like a throwaway track. Highly recommended.
  
  
  
  

  Big Star - Keep an Eye on the Sky Big Star languished in semi-obscurity for much of their short career in the 70s before inspiring countless more popular bands like Cheap Trick and the Replacements. With the amount of accolades they have collected over the years, it is surprising that they never received a proper career-spanning box set until now. Turns out that it was worth the wait. All of the three classic albums are included but we're mainly in love with the demos and live tracks. It best shows the genius of the band: introspective and folky while also rocking and soulful.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Mount Eerie - Wind's Poem Supposedly influenced by black metal, Mount Eerie (well, it's just Phil Elverum after all) release an emotionally direct album of quiet songs soundscapes. The sound of the record is rich and echoey, the kind of album that you just want to live inside. It also features a track largely built of samples from the Twin Peaks soundtrack, a seeming novelty that works surprisingly well. The way we have been playing this record all month long, we're getting close to declaring this the record of the fall.

  
  

  
  

• 10/07/09

  Kurt Vile - Childish Prodigy It's the "Basement Tapes" for 2009: on his third album Kurt Vile (his real name) continues to refine a style that takes an intimate, homemade production sound, made of lo-fi clatter and a hazy, psychedelic air, and splices Americana-heavy roots rock onto it, invoking the spirits of truck-stop anthems by forefathers like the Boss, Dylan, Petty, Seeger and Neil Young. But even as "Childish Prodigy" so much invokes the sounds of yesteryear, the strength of Kurt's songwriting, by turns sneering, confessional, drunken, and heartfelt, keeps his retro styles far away from mere imitation. Album standout "Freak Train" sounds like synth-punk legends Suicide left Gotham for Asbury Park, jamming on fuzzed-out  drum machines while Bruce belts "ride the freak train! train! train! train!" Ready made for your next turnpike tour.
  
  
  

  Mulatu Astatke - New York-Addis-London Thanks be to the music industry gods for allowing Strut Records to resurface, as no one can flex nearly as much heavy reissue muscle as they can. To whit: now they're offering the definitive career retrospective of recordings by Ethiopian jazz legend Mulatu Astatke, titled "New York-Addis-London," which showcases Astatke's pioneering work for the first time. Astatke gained a whole new international audience when his snakewinding "Yegelle Tezeta" appeared on the soundtrack to Jim Jarmusch's Broken Flowers, and it's high time that this audience get exposed to the compelling fusion of Western jazz rhythms and Ethiopian melodies that Astatke has been expertly crafting since the mid-sixties.

  
  

  
  

  Matias Aguayo - Ay Ay Ay As one-half of Kompakt's influential Closer Musik outfit, the Chilean-born, German-raised Aguayo developed a deep-seated reputation as a lively savant of electronic dance music. Unlike most of his anonymous, withdrawn contemporaries, Aguayo comes across as goofy and fun-loving. After the careful restraint of his previous outing, "Are You Really Lost," "Ay Ay Ay" shows Aguayo running amok on tunes that brim with tropicalic flourish, favela-booty bounce and an irrepressibly off-kilter pop-melody sensibility. Highly recommended for fans of El Guincho, Diplo, Animal Collective, and playful outsider dance music in general.

• 09/10/09

  Jay-Z--The Blueprint 3 Every new Jay-Z album is an event. In the era of mp3s and internet leaks, few artists can make that claim. We still remember buying the first Blueprint album, rushing home to tear of the packaging, and repeatedly listening to it and thinking to ourselves, "Who's this guy Kanye West"? This album does not have the same power as that previous classic, but what it lacks in lyrical intensity, it makes up for in terrific beats and confidence for days. With Jay-Z it's not just the music, it's the whole package. We're still buying it.
  
  
  
  
  

  Mayer Hawthorne--A Strange Arrangement What could be a gimmick--a sharp-dressed white twentysomething singing classic 70s soul in a perfect falsetto--turns out to be quite good. While Sharon Jones and the rest of the Daptone record label is able to nail the sound and feel of this classic period better, Mayer Hawthorne's songs and subtle sense of humor set him apart. Bonus points for releasing a single on a piece of red heart-shaped vinyl.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  The xx--xx These four British youngsters have been getting quite a bit of press in a very short amount of time (gotta love that British music press). We usually approach these situations with skepticism, but something about the first single we heard from the group, "Crystalized," caught our attention. Most young bands try to do too much on their first record, pouring everything they have into it. This band shows remarkable restraint and makes subdued, sophisticated pop music.

  
  
  
  
  

• 08/19/09

  

  jj -- jj no 2 Since we have previously covered The Tough Alliance and Air France in previous reviews, you should know by now that the Swedes make exceptional beach music. The group known as jj are no different, their blood-spattered pot leaf album art telling the whole story--this is blissed out music with something a little transgressive and sinister beneath the surface. But don't let that get you down. From the Ibiza grooves to the psychedelic Lil Wayne covers, this is a joyous listen.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Saint Etienne -- Foxbase Alpha And since so many of the aforementioned Swedish groups have been stealing moves from the Saint Etienne playbook, the recent reissue of the great Foxbase Alpha is a perfect time for a reassessment of this group. Well, not really that much of a reassessment because we used to think they were great and we still do. Still, we're happy to report that all of the sampled movie dialogue and familiar drum loops have aged well (particularly since we have since forgotten how cliched that sound was in the 90's). Buy the reissue and fall in love all over again.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  

  Yacht -- See Mystery Lights Jona Bechtolt's indie dance project Yacht is not the type of music you would want to put in a time capsule or engrave on a disc to send into space to show other galaxies an example of our culture. This is not music for posterity. This is fun music for dancefloors right now. Like, this summer. As that, it's more than adequate. It gets the job done.

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