Here are my top ten favorite albums of the year in no particular order.

1. Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavilion

I’ve already said enough about this album.  It’s awesome. Go buy it if you haven’t already.

2. Megafaun: Gather, Form & Fly

I still don’t know a lot about this band, but I really love this album.  It sort of has a Fleet Foxes feel (and by that I mean it’s kinda folksy and there are lots of male vocal harmonies) but also has pretty weird production work.  It sort of sounds in parts like they’ve been listening to a bunch of John Cage.

3. Neko Case: Middle Cyclone

Neko Case’s albums keep getting better and better.  She’s becoming less country all the time.  Plus, she does a Sparks cover!

4. Grizzly Bear: Veckatimest

It took me a really long time to be able to appreciate Grizzly Bear.  In fact, I had to learn to like Department of Eagle before I could learn to like Grizzly Bear.  Everyone I know seems to think that “Cheerleader” is the best song on the album.  But they’re wrong, it’s “Two Weeks.”  Even better is Grizzly Bear’s cover of The Crystals “He Hit Me,” but that one didn’t even make it on the album.

5. St. Vincent: Actor

I didn’t like St. Vincents first album at all, and if it wasn’t for the fact that his album got stuck in my head longer than probably any other album this past year (although not as much as the new Vampire Weekend is stuck in my head now) I probably wouldn’t have given this one a chance.  I don’t think I really liked this one at first either, but it really grew on me.  The production work is pretty awesome and I seem to be constantly discovering something new every time I listen to it.

6. Bat for Lashes: Two Suns

Bat for Lashes (whose real name is Natasha Kahn) is a weird girl.  While preparing to record this album she apparently ran around New York as some sort of alter ego, which is pretty cool.  This album sounds like both the future and the 80’s at the same time but without ever feeling retro.  People keep comparing her to Kate Bush, but I don’t really get that at all.  Her videos also tend to be pretty awesome…the the one for “Daniel” where she pretends to be Elisabeth Shue’s character in The Karate Kid and gives Daniel a big hug.

7. Dirty Projectors: Bitte Orca

Still one of my favorite bands, now with even more insane vocal hocketing than on their last record.  Everyone loves “Stillness is the Move” which is a great song but still might be the least interesting track on the album.

8. Phoenix: Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

I think this is one of the worst album titles I’ve ever heard, so I really didn’t want to like this album.  I tried to ignore it completely, but those songs kept getting so much damn airplay.  Then they started popping up in commercials.  At some point it became impossible to ignore this album.

9. The Flaming Lips: Embryonic

This album seems weird even for the Flaming Lips.  It’s pretty dark, and full of strange keyboard sounds and it seems like all the songs are more or less build on one chord (lots of drones with a beat).  This album is a million times better than their last album (At War With the Mystics).

10. Volcano Choir: Unmap

Volcano Choir is made of of Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) and Collections of Colonies of Bees, and that exactly what it sounds like.  Apparently this album was started years ago, but then Bon Iver got famous and so it took several more years to complete it. The best track on the album, “Still,” is really the Bon Iver track “Woods” only with a bunch of additional instrumentation.

In no particular order, here are my favorite 18 tracks that came out this past year. Why 18? Because that’s how many came to mind when I sat down to think about it.

1. Lady Gaga: Paparazzi
I don’t know if I’ve totally jumped on the Lady Gaga bandwagon, but this song is pretty awesome. The verse is essentially one big five chord and the chorus is amazingly catchy (and sounds exactly like the chorus from Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away” only sped up and better).

2. Metric: Help I’m Alive
There are two versions of this song floating around: a full band version and a piano and vocal version. Both are really great. I’ve listened to it over and over and I’m still not tired of it.

3 and 4. Taylor Swift: You Belong to Me and Love Story
If you are going to ever listen to Taylor Swift ever, you should listen to these two songs. They are both equally awesome, and this is because they are essentially the same song. The chord progressions between the two are nearly identical and they both have killer production work. Also, on “Love Story” she manages to turn the word “real” into two syllables which for some reason I find completely charming.

5. Beyonce: Single Ladies
I don’t want to like this song, but I do.

6. Mexican Institute of Sound: Sinfonia Agridulce
I just heard this song a couple weeks ago. It’s a cover of the Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony” sung in Spanish and with mariachi trumpets. Plus the song begins mid-way through the chord progression which is completely disorienting and awesome.

7 and 8. Animal Collective: My Girls and Brother Sport
So Animal Collective’s album seems to clearly be all the critics favorite of the year, and these are the two best songs on the album. I’ve already mentioned them here before so that’s all I have to say.

9. Flaming Lips: See the Leaves
The song is good, and the organ coda at the end is even better.

10. Bon Iver: Woods
It took me a long time to like Bon Iver, and this is the song that made it happen. It wasn’t until I heard this one that I could go back and appreciate his earlier album.

11. Vampire Weekend: White Sky
I guess this song wasn’t technically released in 2009, but it hit the internet at sometime in December and it is by far the best of the new Vampire Weekend songs that have been circulating in the last couple months. It sounds like Graceland era Paul Simon (even more than VW usually does).

12. Cursive: From the Hips
I’ve never really been a fan of Cursive. I don’t dislike them, but I’ve never been super excited by them either. Except for this song. I cannot figure out what it is about this song that makes me like it. Still, I think I would like it better if it was slow and mellow the whole way through rather than getting all intense half way through.

13. Jay Reatard: It Ain’t Gonna Save Me
The first song of his last full length album. Probably not as good as anything on Blood Visions, but way more up beat.

14. Charlotte Gainsbourg: Heaven Can Wait
The first single off of Gainsbourg’s new Beck produced album (and also features guest vocals from Beck). The song is good, but the last two bars of the chorus are fantastic. Also, they put out an amazingly cool video for the song.

Charlotte Gainsbourg – Heaven Can Wait from Charlotte Gainsbourg on Vimeo.

15 and 16. Dirty Projectors: Knotty Pine and Two Doves
Knotty Pine was the Projectors/David Byrne collaboration that came out on the Dark Was the Night compilation. Two Doves is the slow ballad off of Bitte Orca and sounds exactly like those Jackson Brown songs that Nico did only with a weirder melody.

17. Treasure Mammal: Bromance
Treasure Mammal is my friend Abe (who I just went into the studio with last week) and this might be my favorite song he’s ever done. It’s brilliant. You can hear it and see a video for it here.

18. Grizzly Bear: Two Weeks
Just like it took Bon Iver’s “Woods” to allow me to appreciate his earlier work, I needed to hear “Two Weeks” to be able to appreciate Grizzly Bear. This song has the best drums I heard all year long.

That’s it. Stay tuned for my favorite albums of the year.

Here’s an awesome video of my friend Corey Fogel covering Kanye West’s “Bad News.”

This weekend the Dirty Projectors played two shows (on Halloween!) in Los Angeles. I was fortunate enough to attend the early show, and while I was there I ran into a friend who (though his own secret insider knowledge) told me that the Dirty Projectors were in negotiations to do do a show at Disney Hall with the LA Phil. This has now been confirmed and the Dirty Projectors and the Los Angeles Philharmonic will play a co-headlining show this coming February 27th. So before I rant, let me first say that I’m really pleased that the Projectors are going to get to play at Disney Hall. They are a fantastic band and are totally worth going to hear. Now here’s the issue I have: while the idea of the LA Phil and the Dirty Projectors doing a show together has amazing potential in concept, I also know that whoever it is that makes these programming decisions for the LA Phil is going to screw it up. Here’s why: Rather than making the obvious and artistically interesting move to have the Dirty Projectors play with the LA Phil, they will simply both do separate sets. This is like taking a slice of bread and covering it with peanut butter and taking another piece of bread and covering it with jelly, and then not making a sandwich out of them. Now I’m sure that there are economic reasons and perhaps logistical reasons as to why the two groups will not play together, but it just seems like lazy attempt from the LA Phil to try and reach out to a young hip audience. This is not the first time the LA Phil has done something stupid like this. In 2008 the Phil did a split show with Grizzly Bear and then in 2009 they played with M83. Now it is my understanding that for at least a portion of the M83 show, the two groups actually collaborated together. This brief pairing is certainly a step in the right direction (although not a step they seem to be willing to take with the Projectors) but they still felt the need to split most of the show between the two ensembles with M83 performing their own works and the Phil performing works from the traditional repertoire. My overall dismay comes from the fact that a concert pairing between the Phil and the Dirty Projectors has so much potential to both bridge the gap between classical/rock music divide and allow for new and interesting art to take place and the fact that this potential will be completely unrealized. So if anyone from the L.A. Philharmonic is reading this (which I’m pretty certain you’re not) please think about these things in the future. Practice makes perfect so I’d like to think that after a few of these missed opportunities you might try a different tactic. Then again, practice is the way to get to Carnegie Hall not Disney Hall so maybe I’m asking for too much.

Tonight Andrew McIntosh will premiere a new piece of mine for solo violin called. I think it’s called “you take your path, i’ll take mine”  but I only know that because someone reminded me.  It was written a few months ago (I guess) while waiting for a rehearsal to begin in San Diego.  In the span of about 45 minutes I wrote a piece for McIntosh and he wrote a piece for me.  I handed it to him as soon as I finished it and I haven’t seen it since.  In fact, he has the only copy of it.

I have absolutely no memory of the content of this piece.  I remember the act of writing it, and I remember where I was when I wrote it, but I have no idea what I actually wrote.

Two days ago McIntosh called me up an told me he would be performing this piece of mine tonight at Cafe Muse.  There was a discussion as to if we should get together for him to play though the piece for me to make sure he’s doing everything I intended, but it was decided that it probably wouldn’t make a difference since I don’t remember what I intended in the first place.  I have never been in this position of not remembering my own music.  It’s very strange, but also very interesting.  Tonight I will hear a piece for the first time, just like everyone else in the audience.  I wonder if I’ll even like my own music.

When I was about 17, my uncle gave me a mix tape of a whole bunch of surf and garage rock stuff, and somewhere on that tape (towards the beginning of side 2 as I recall) there were two songs that completely blew me away.  I couldn’t get enough of them and I listed to them over and over and over again.  Now musically speaking, they weren’t very good.  The playing was really sloppy and the recording was lo-fi to say the least.  But the songs were amazing and full of youthful energy.  Now this mix tape didn’t come with any track listing, so eventually I asked my uncle who it was…he wasn’t sure at first and couldn’t really remember what he had put on there, but after describing the songs he informed me that it must be The Donnas.  I think the very next day I went to Eastside Records in Tempe and asked about them.  They had released almost no material, just a few 7 inches, but I bought them all.  At this point in their career, The Donnas sounded like a young, all female version of The Ramones.  What I think I found amazing at the time was that they were like, 17 years old and here they were putting out records.  I began paying attention to them, always looking to see if they had put out anything new.  Finally, after obsessing over them for a year, they released a full length album.  This first album is still today one of my favorite albums ever.  The sad news is that after recording this album, The Donnas started getting serious about their musical careers and began to learn how to actually play their instruments.  While this career move has certainly made them more listener friendly and they have certainly grown in popularity over they years, it is my opinion that as their skill level and playing proficiency has gone up, the quality of their music has gone down.

So I just read this morning that The Donnas are celebrating their 16th year together as a band by releasing a greatest hits album.  This made me excited because I thought at the very least there would be the inclusion of some of their early material and that some people unfamiliar with their early career might discover what they used to sound like and be as thrilled by it as I was.  However, I am shocked to discover that while there are several songs from their early period on the album, they have been re-recorded for this new release.  Why Donnas?  Why would you go and mess with what was perfect.  Sloppy yes, but perfect.  Now I have admittedly not been able to hear the whole album yet (it’s being released on the 7th of July) but I was able to stream 30 seconds of each song on amazon.  These new versions are slow and dull.  They’re entirely too clean and it makes me want to cry.

The one bit of exciting news associated with this album is that it looks like there are two unreleased songs from early in their career that will make it on to the new album – “Teenage Rules” and “I Don’t Wanna Break  Your Head”.  Based on the samples on the amazon page they sound great.  If they Donnas are really smart they will release those two tracks on a 7in to go with the other 3 early singles they put out.

And as a special bonus, here’s a recording of a certain mystery band doing a cover of one of those amazing songs off their first album.  This recording is just slightly less sloppy than the original version. Enjoy.

Dear Mr. Rhymes,

I am writing to request that you please send me the $200 that you owe me for the recording session that I played on for your new album, Back On My B.S.  Now I realize that you are a busy man, and that you might have forgotten to send it to me because you were dealing with all the details of your albums release (congratulations by the way) and for that reason I have waited patiently, thinking that it might come in the mail any day now.  The album is out now and I’ve still received nothing.  Now I know I only recorded like 40 seconds of music, and it was completely stolen from Beethoven, and that you can really only hear me play on the very last chord because of all the midi strings in the mix, but I did come record it for you, and I did show up at 11:00 p.m. for the session, and I then waited for another hour and a half while you were still finishing up recording the choir.  All and all, I think I probably deserve the money.   It is my hope that you might manage to send a check out before you leave on tour.  It would be nice if you sent me a copy of the album too, but I know you might not have enough of them to give to everyone that played on it so I understand if that’s asking too much.  Perhaps you’ve sent it all ready and the check is in the mail as I write this (and if that’s the case, sorry and please disregard this letter).  Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerly,

Andrew Tholl

I just saw the new video for the Department of Eagles “No One Does It Like You” and it’s freaking awesome.  It was directed by Patrick Daughters and Marcel Dzama (who’s one of my favorite artists).  The video also premiered at MOMA, which is the first time I ever recall a music video ever having it’s debut at an art museum.  I guess MTV really is dead.

Check out the video here

For those of you who know me really well, you know that there’s pretty much nothing I like doing more than going record shopping. Also, people are always asking me what I’ve heard recently and what I’m listening to, so I’ve decided to chronicle my record shopping adventures. Today I went to pretty much my favorite place on earth…Amoeba Records.

1. Nels Cline – Coward    Nels is one of my favorite guitarists ever. EVER. This is his brand new release on Cryptogramophone. He’ll be playing soon at REDCAT in conjunction with the two evenings they are presenting of Cryptogramophone artists at the end of March.

2. Daniel Johnston – Welcome to My World…the Music of Daniel Johnston   This a sort of “best of” album of Daniel Johnston’s work. It has pretty much everything of his that I would want to listen to. Except for “She Called Pest Control” and “I’ll Never Marry”, which are two of his most amazing songs ever.

3. The Spinto Band – Moonwink    This is the Spinto Band’s most recent release. I saw them play a few months ago at the Echoplex and they were unbelievably amazing live.

4. Steven Mackey – Interior Design    A whole CD featuring violinst Curtis Macomber play works by composer Steve Mackey. Includes his Sonata for Violin and Piano, Interior Design for solo violin, and Humble Rover for violin, viola, cello and flute.

5. Pernice Brothers – Live a Little    I’m not terribly familiar with the Pernice Brothers’ output, but everytime I’ve heard a song by them I’ve thought it was pretty fantastic and figured it was time i owned an album of theirs.

6. Immaculate Machine -Fables    Not too long ago I heard the song “Dear Confessor” and became completely obsessed with it so I then did some research on the band and found out that one of the members spends the rest of her time playing in the New Pornographers, so suddenly everything made sense.

7. Imitation Electric Piano – Blow it up, Burn it down, Kick it ‘Til it Bleeds    Side project from the bass player of Stereolab. Plus, really awesome album title.

8.William Brittelle – Mohair Time Warp    Part of the whole New Amsterdam Records scene, this album crosses absurdist lyrics with Brian Wilson soundscapes and Zappaesque song structures.

9. Brokeback – Morse Code in the Modern Age: Across the Americas    The first album from a band featuring many members of Tortoise. I have their second and third albums…I don’t know why it took me so long to pick up this one.

10. The Vinny Golia Quintet – Against the Grain    A Vinny album from 1993 with Nels Cline as part of the band. I haven’t heard it yet, but I tend to love all things Vinny.

Happy March Everyone.

I’m really excited about this month because I have not one, not two, but three new brass pieces being premiered between now and the beginning of April.

March 4th: My friend Chris Kallmyer will give a performance of i’ll stop when i take my last breath which is my new solo trumpet piece.  The program also includes music by Scelsi and Chris Kallmyer plus a performance by SCRIBBLE.

March 6th: Matt Barbier and Philippe Brunet will premiere poke and tickle, my new duo for trombone and trumpet, on Matt’s MFA recital.  The program will also include music by Michael Finnesy, Kurtag, Wolfgang von Schweinitz, Alvin Lucier, and Ben Johnston.

March 14th:  Philippe and Matt will give a second performance of poke and tickle on Philippe’s recital.  The program also includes works by Berio, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, and Roger Reynolds.

March 30th:  Luke Storm will give a performance of my still untitiled quasi-solo tuba piece. The program also includes works by Wolfgang von Schweinitz, Ulrich Kreiger, Luigi Nono, and Nick Didkovsky.

All these shows are going to be awesome, and they will all start at 8:00p.m. and they will all be held in Roy O. Disney Concert Hall on the CalArts campus in Valencia, CA.

For anyone who can’t come to the shows but would like to see what’s going on you can check out the live webcast here: http://music.calarts.edu/ROD.html