It’s really, really stacking up again

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! Time to make sense of the new stack of music sitting in my bedroom.

Animal Collective, Fall Be Kind EP. Careful guys, nobody wants another nerdy jam band. Nobody. SUCK+

Smog, Dongs of Sevotion. Bill Callahan…….takes………his………….time here. And the result the result the result is so unlike anything else. OH GOD. Nine of the eleven songs are five minutes or more and most are almost seven. You don’t really notice though, but you kind of do. The record––and Callahan’s measured, timed, slow repetition––calms and amazes at the same time. OH GOD. And the songs. The songs make the absolute most of their length and mostly sparse instrumentation. Nothing goes on too long because everything goes on too long. OH GOD. Lyrically, too, the record is brilliant. Modern, real-life lines mix with bizarre, grand ones to make up an eerie semi-normal world. OH GOD. In “Strayed,” the way Callahan sings “I have taken you for a ride,” it sounds like he means “ride” as in, like, the entire relationship was a sham, that kind of ride, like a lie; but then, just as you think that, he makes it totally normal: “Left you waiting in the car.” Or does he? Immediately, he puts the whole gorgeous slowness up to a ledge and dangles it over with the profound and almost impossible addition of “While I played death games inside.” OH GOD. Elsewhere lines like “She washed her cut in the sink,” “Dress sexy at my funeral,” and “I can hold a woman down on a hardwood floor” work similarly, operating in the real but becoming almost instantly profound. The last song, “Permanent Smile,” too: OH GOD. GREAT

Discovery, LP. Realllly wrote this record off when it came out. LP? That Jackson 5 cover? Ra Ra Riot? Discovery? Heh. Now, though, I know I was kind of wrong. “Orange Shirt” is enough to make the record required listening. To prove this I am going to transcribe the lyrics below, with the most crucial bits highlighted:

I’m walking past your house
But I’m never gonna stop there
Just to look at my clock and think how
You love talking cats
And every sound that I hear from you mouth is so deliberate
So maybe I can but maybe you will know
Never nice at all but we can work it out
Always sexy when you chew that straw
Especially when you wear Lacoste

All this lust that you’re keeping
And me I’ve got a crush
Can I sleep inside I know you’re nervous though
So I promise to leave before your mother wakes up in the morning

We’re sleeping head to toe
And everything that I wanna know
Is on a local train outside of Tokyo
Living in a tiny, overcrowded town

Still you won’t call me back
And every text that I get from you is so so serious
But I’m sitting at home sipping this miso
Ticking raindrops upon my window pane
You’re texting too fast for me to reply
Never looking when you type T9

All this love that you’re keeping
And me I’ve got a crush
Can I sleep inside I know you’re nervous though
So I promise to leave before your mother wakes up in the morning

Sleep on the train to Tokyo
Google yourself when you get home
Sleep on the train to Tokyo
Google yourself when you get home

All this love that you’re keeping
And me I’ve got a crush, and me I’ve got a crush
All this love, this love
All this love
All this love that you’re keeping
And me I’ve got a crush
And me I’ve got a crush

Got all that? SUCK+

El Perro Del Mar, Love Is Not Pop. Blonde? Has a sense of humor? Does Lou Reed covers? I think I’m in love. Oh and by the way, I did a little research and it turns out that love is, in fact, pop. GOOD

Silk Flowers, Silk Flowers. Last year, Pitchfork’s Joshua Love wrote that listening to Portishead’s “Machine Gun” “was one of the most purely satisfying physical experiences of 2008.” (And how!) This year, I thought that honor would go to one of Sleigh Bells’s tracks. However, I think Silk Flowers may actually get it. As far as “physical experiences” go, it doesn’t get much more “purely satisfying.” The record is a feeling more than it is a collection of songs. And not a feeling like melancholy or something, no, it’s a feeling more like nervousness and horror and worry. It’s terrifying, it’s relentless. Just try listening to Silk Flowers for the first time while driving fast through the dark and not getting scared. Remember to play it loudly and don’t turn it down no matter what. The first song is deceptively normal (though still nerve-racking with it’s deep deep deep vocals and smoggy lo-fi production and piercing drum machines), poppy even, in some circles. But then: track two, “Night Shades,” is just OUT OF CONTROL. It slices your ears off and then it totals your car. Afterwards, you’re gonna wanna park somewhere, drink some water, maybe take a nap, and definitely just try to relax. SUCK+

Cold Cave, Love Comes Close. Love might not tear us apart, but it comes close. GOOD

Leona Lewis, Echo. The production sparkles like new and each track here has a completely unique attitude yet they all fit together  to create and occupy this epic emotional space, it’s like this sort of sweetly perfumed haze that rises to the ceiling and hovers over everyone who is really listening. It feels good and it smells like women. GOOD

Buzzcocks, Singles Going Steady. Singles comps are great, and Singles Going Steady is no exception (it’s a great name, too). The Buzzcocks are punks, yes, but they are so much more. Why? Because of a crazy little thing called love. (Mostly. Also: they basically invented pauses.) Their appeal lies in their brilliant proper-punk-styled love songs. Titles like “Love You More,” “Promises,” “Ever Fallen In Love” don’t sound like “punk” songs but that’s only because they’re great. GOOD+

Bonnie “Prince” Billie, Lie Down in the Light. This little masterpiece breathes and creaks like an old (but not too old) cabin somewhere out in the woods (but not too far from the city). Despite Will Oldham’s characteristic gentlemanly sadness, Lie Down in the Light is a fairly happy record. On “So Everyone” he and some female vocals cheer about how much they love each other: “Show you want want me and do it so everyone sees me.” On “Keep Eye on Other’s Gain,” Oldham gorgeously, simply, heartbreakingly reminds you to “Keep your loved ones near/ And let them know just where you be/ ‘Cause others need you right nearby.” The hooks, too, do not stop: they grow and grow and then break and start all over again. “You Want that Picture” is a mass of growing, groaning choruses that seem to teeter with each additional line: “Well it’s true that I cried/ But then I went outside/ And I stood very still in the night/ And I looked at the sky/ And knew someday I’d die/And then everything would be all right/It’s all right/ And everything comes down to this/ That everything there ever was/ Or will be/ Is all there is.” GREAT

The Clientele, God Save the Clientele. This is great stuff. It’s orchestral and poppy and catchy and wistful and sad. The singer sounds a little bit like Dylan if he was British and whispered everything. The amount of control the Clientele has over its aesthetic is incredible. The songs practically smell like old leather and lovely sweaters. “The Queen of Seville”: “It’s going to be a lonely, lonely day.” “Bookshop Casanova”: “You got my name, pick up my number.” “Here Comes the Phantom”: “Happiness just comes and goes”. “Winter on Victoria Street”: “When I get home, I’ll get you alone.” “From Brighton to Santa Monica”: “Autumn’s coming in the air.” “These Days Nothing But Sunshine”: “I guess this sounds just like goodbye.” “Somebody Changed”: “Girls in the trees have the faces of angels.” “No Dreams Last Night”: “No dreams last night.” Mmm. GOOD+