Listening Assignments 11.10.09

1. The Elephants – Take It! – Exhuberantly encouraging, beautifully constructed, and abruptly ended. There’s a pie in the sky and it’s yours if you want it.  Take it! [from Take It!|buy]
2. Jookabox – You Cried Me – It’s important you know that we are going to dance naked around a fire and howl at the moon. This is a fact. [from Dead Zone Boys|buy]
3. Decibully – Prom Jam – It’s a shame when bands this good get dropped from awesome labels like Polyvinyl and even worse when albums this good (and anticipated) get shelved for well over a year [read about it @ the Onion AV Club]. This is masterfully paced, a lullaby-into-crescendo, a young love’s swansong.  [from World Travels Fast (out TBA)|myspace]
4. Will Stratton – Vermont – I’d be a lot more upset about this sounding too much like Red House Painters if it weren’t so damned good. A really enjoyable little EP, raw and echoed and radiant. [from Vile Bodies EP|free download|No Wonder LP|buy]

Them Freelancin’ Whales

Freelance Whales

You thought this was a few things. Emo, electronic, cute. Then it became something else. Banjo, xylophone, deep. Then the things became one. And then you were helplessly pleased.

Listen:
Starring
The Great Estates
[from Weathervanes|buy on iTunes]

A Wheat-Based Diet

I’m feeling healthy, now that I’ve gotten back to the basics. Today, I’m feasting on nothing but Wheat and I couldn’t be happier. I just needed to be inspired by something. I needed a soaring chorus or two. I needed just the right chord change. I needed a lyric like “if it’s more you want then you’re out of luck/ cuz ONE love is better than a million bucks.” I required a band like Wheat, a band I’ve loved since the moment I heard “Don’t I Hold You” eight years ago, to put out a new record, for its whole grain goodness to filter through my recently unclogged ears (sinus infections suck big time) and work its magic. It’s a magic this band has always had, through equally polarizing forays into straight up pop and experimental lamentations.  It’s a magic I’m compelled to share with you thusly.

Listen:
I Want Less
El Sincero
[from White Ink Black Ink|buy]
Don’t I Hold You
[from Hope and Adams|buy]