[	Tags	|	music	]
[	Current Location	|	The Office	]
[	mood	|	good	]
[	music	|	COMPUTERLOVE by Kraftwerk	]

SATURDAYS = YOUTH
by
M83

M83’s SATURDAYS=YOUTH represents hard evidence that the cinema of John Hughes, with its seminal soundtracks, just may have permanently established “1980s USA” as the definitive teenage milieu on a global scale: Here is a CD by a 26-year-old in France who reminisces about his early-double-digits by transplanting them to the faraway hills of our far-off country’s far-out decade, fusing the sounds of the era with his own distinguished brand of cinematic, ambient electronic music.

The results are pretty staggering, and from time to time, sweetly familiar. SATURDAYS bounces into the musical ether now and then, landing on earth only for a few songs at a stretch before springing off into space again. But when its feet are firmly planted on the ground, the year is unquestionably 1985, and the place is Shermer High.

[	Tags	|	music	]
[	Current Location	|	The Office	]
[	mood	|	good	]
[	music	|	COMPUTERLOVE by Kraftwerk	]

PRETTY. ODD.
by
Panic at the Disco

Moving (mostly) beyond the snark of their debut, the surprisingly sunny PRETTY ODD proves that Panic at the Disco is actually wearing something under their smartypants. One of the first examples I can think of where a group has come to terms with its Beatles fetish without sounding like a mere tribute act, PRETTY ODD is a hearty stew of a CD filled with pop songwriting that entertains effortlessly, and lyrics that amuse even when stripped of their formerly-characteristic irony. Producer Rob Mathes is partly to thank for the successful sonic overhaul--even when fully orchestrated, the new melodies handily avoid bombast.

Nice to know that, in the Neverland of pop, some bands can “grow up” without getting boring. This might be one of the best of the year. 

[	Tags	|	music	]
[	Current Location	|	The Office	]
[	mood	|	good	]
[	music	|	NO SURPRISE (FOR WENDELA)/MIDNIGHT SURPRISE by Lightspeed Champion	]

MADE IN THE DARK
by
Hot Chip

Hot Chip has a knack for finding the perfect touch to tie a good electronica track together--the kitchenette clang that sets the rhythm for TOUCH TOO MUCH, the retro "human voice" synth effects on WE’RE LOOKING FOR A LOT OF LOVE. Best of all, they've layered so many of these strokes into their new album that the tracks still have the power to surprise after several dozen listens...hence instigating several dozen more listens.

MADE IN THE DARK is a dance-pop variety show: Textured, playful, and impossible to nail down.

FALLING OFF THE LAVENDER BRIDGE
by
Lightspeed Champion

Individual tracks of Lightspeed Champion's debut album work very well by their lonesome, but when they come together it’s like a folk-pop suite, each growing naturally out of the other, and kicking a little more ass than the last. Perpetually at odds with the world around him (and the one inside him) lead singer and songwriter Devonte Hynes has a talent for clueing us into his various befuddlements with songs that are sweetly disarming, and prickly as thorns. There’s petulance in buckets, too, but what do you expect from an album inspired by Hynes’ OC fandom? (True story.) A terrific CD to get lost in.

[	Tags	|	music	]
[	Current Location	|	The Office	]
[	mood	|	good	]
[	music	|	DRY LIPS by Lightspeed Champion	]

BEAST MOANS
by
Swan Lake

Canadian Indie powers, activate--form of Swan Lake!  BEAST MOANS brings the vocal hysterics of Frog Eyes' Carey Mercer, Destroyer's Dan Bejar and Wolf Parade/Sunset Rubdown's Spencer Krug together into a kind of quirk-rock supergroup--The New Pornographers for musical mutants. More accessible than it sounds, their song stylings are compelling and lush, even if their collective voices make David Byrne sound like David Cassidy. 

[	Tags	|	music	]
[	Current Location	|	The Office	]
[	mood	|	good	]
[	music	|	I COULD HAVE DONE THIS MYSELF by Lightspeed Champion	]

MEDUSA
by
Clan of Xymox

A high-point in the decadently dour goth-pop craze of the 1980s, Clan of Xymox's MEDUSA is a tragic, theatrical opus of mope--truly a forgotten classic of its kind. The band itself, who got their start back in ‘85 (appropriately enough, opening for Dead Can Dance) continue to offer their brand of drear elegance to a gaggle of die-hards even now, with a new album due this very year. If you like Joy Division and Dead or Alive in equal measure, this is the group for you, and MEDUSA is the place to start.

[	Tags	|	music	]
[	Current Location	|	The Office	]
[	mood	|	good	]
[	music	|	DEVIL TRICKS FOR A BITCH by Lightspeed Champion	]

NEW MOON
by
Elliott Smith

Most of the rarities collections released in the wake of a major artist’s passing are strictly for completists and ghouls, but this one is so strong that someone unfamiliar with Elliott Smith could actually start learning about him with NEW MOON. Consisting of rarities and tracks that otherwise didn’t make their respective albums during his too-brief career, Smith’s throwaways can truly make the claim to outclassing many artists’ bests. The only drawback is, if you miss Smith already, NEW MOON will make you miss him even more.

[	Tags	|	music	]
[	Current Location	|	The Office	]
[	mood	|	good	]
[	music	|	MIGNIGHT SURPRISE by Lightspeed Champion	]

SEVENTH TREE
by
Goldfrapp

Chill-out music was already on its way off the radar screen when Goldfrapp debuted in 2000 with FELT MOUNTAIN, an album that gradually wound its way into hipsters’ headphones and became a kind of retroactive classic. Having since explored sounds as diverse as dance and straight-up glam rock, the duo returns to their days of erstwhile electronica with SEVENTH TREE, providing more tunes for the space-station winebar in your mind. If you’ve strayed from Goldfrapp, or feel they’ve strayed from you, this album is reason enough to kiss and make up—but get it quick, before they start making punk records. 

[	Tags	|	music	]
[	Current Location	|	The Office	]
[	mood	|	good	]
[	music	|	MIDNIGHT SURPRISE by Lightspeed Champion	]

2112
by
Rush

Even die-hard Rush fans are willing to concede that the five tracks on “the other side” of this album don’t hold a candle to the eponymous mini-rock-opera that opens it. But how could anything? In a single twenty-minute song cycle, everyone’s favorite Canadian progsters lovingly fuse every dystopian science fiction stereotype of the ‘60s and ‘70s with every Ayn Rand book ever published…and somehow manage to make the whole thing rock out. It’s LOGAN’S RUN meets JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR--and like both of those daredevil narrative oddities, everything that makes it campy somehow also makes it work.

[	Tags	|	music	]
[	Current Location	|	The Office	]
[	mood	|	pleased	]
[	music	|	NAUSEA by Beck	]

THE RED ALBUM
by
Baroness

[	Tags	|	music	]
[	Current Location	|	The Office	]
[	mood	|	curious	]
[	music	|	IN THE PRIVACY OF OUR LOVE by Hot Chip	]

VAMPIRE WEEKEND
by
Vampire Weekend

[	Tags	|	music	]
[	Current Location	|	The Office	]
[	mood	|	curious	]
[	music	|	A SONG FOR THE LOVERS by Richard Ashcroft	]

MADE OF BRICKS
by
Kate Nash

For Kate Nash, MADE OF BRICKS is as much a brilliant acting performance as a brilliant musical one, complex in a way that's more person than persona.  She may have a cutting wit and chutzpah to spare, but Nash is also keen on highlighting the moments of self-doubt and insecurity that come with the territory.  Her personality is catchy, to say nothing of her hooks.

[	Tags	|	music	]
[	Current Location	|	The Office	]
[	mood	|	curious	]
[	music	|	COURTESANS by The Magnetic Fields	]

SOUND OF SILVER
By
LCD Soundsystem

[	Tags	|	music	]
[	Current Location	|	The Office	]
[	mood	|	curious	]
[	music	|	ELECTRIC BIRD by Sia	]

DISTORTION
By
The Magnetic Fields

There are a few more albums from 2007 (and one from 1991) that really made a big dent in my headspace this year, so I thought I'd fess up, before I enter 2008 without giving credit where it's due...

ABORT
by
Tribe 

I used to know a guy who was forever lamenting the breakup of Tribe.  An under-appreciated nineties band from Boston, they only managed two albums (this one and 1993's SLEEPER) before heading off into the wild blue yonder.  What's left are two CDs of solid rock, with a lead singer whose powerful vocals (and sense of drama) recall Siouxsie Sioux, backed by a "wall of sound" of ceiling-to-floor guitar growl.  Think Curve, or even My Bloody Valentine.  Though SLEEPER contains a few of the band's best songs, ABORT (their debut) is definitely Tribe's signature album.

MENTOR TORMENTOR
by
Earlimart

MENTOR TORMENTOR is a sprawling cycle of gentle, melodic songs with lush production.  It would verge on "easy listening" if it weren't for its experimental hues and forlorn edge.  Aaron Espinoza and Ariana Murray's voices blend so beautifully, it's kinda ironic that they capture loneliness so well.  To be played over the final-reel montage of the bittersweet indie film in your mind. 

LEAVES IN THE RIVER
by
Sea Wolf

Tender and warm one minute, moody and foreboding the next.  Singer/songwriter Alex Brown Church, like Jason Molina, makes vivid use of imagery, such that his songs begin to feel like imagined visits to the same place.  (In the case of Church, I'd say a charming small town in the Northeast...that's haunted.)

DEATH IS THIS COMMUNION
by
High On Fire

The sexiest album of 2007!  Old-school metal without the aftertaste, DEATH IS THIS COMMUNION is fierce and thunderous without being remotely ironic.  (No mean feat in the era of Lordi and THE METALOCALYPSE.)  Jack Endino's production further tightens the sound that Steve Albini helped drag out of the fog.  Now, you can even tell the other instruments from the drums!  A must for fans of metal from "back in the day". 

100 DAYS, 100 NIGHTS
by
Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings

Yikes, this is amazing. Jones is carrying the torch for classic soul singing, and The Dap Kings offer her the kind of big-band backup you've been craving since the days of The Godfather.  (And I don't mean Don Corleone.)

[	Tags	|	music	]
[	Current Location	|	Victorian Splendor, 11215	]
[	mood	|	crazy	]
[	music	|	TRANQUILIZE by The Killers	]

WHEN THE DEER WORE BLUE
by
Figurines 

[	Tags	|	music	]
[	Current Location	|	Victorian Splendor, 11215	]
[	mood	|	crazy	]
[	music	|	Air Conditioner	]

ROCK SWINGS
by
Paul Anka

[	Tags	|	music	]
[	Current Location	|	Victorian Splendor, 11215	]
[	mood	|	okay	]
[	music	|	INNOCENT BONES by Iron & Wine	]

NIGHT FALLS OVER KORTEDALA
by
Jens Lekman

With bittersweet lyrics and a gently mopey drone, Sweden's Jens Lekman has slouched his way into first place as the pretender to the "poor me" troubador throne. His tone is a touch extravagant, wallowing in loneliness the way Scrooge McDuck once swam in coinage--all this against a "wall" of sound that's more like a patchwork quilt, stitched of samples as dense and cohesive as a brass band.

But the real star is Lekman, who has, in a surprisingly short amount of time, built himself into a kind of recurring character within his own songs--his anecdotes and recollections become tiny musical 'episodes', and we can't resist tuning in again and again.

[	Tags	|	music	]
[	Current Location	|	The Office	]
[	mood	|	good	]
[	music	|	Editor Talking	]

WIDOW CITY
by
The Fiery Furnaces

WIDOW CITY is another key-tinkle operetta by the prolific sib duo, marrying Residents Casiocentricism with the quaint and dizzy logic of a grade school play. Once all sixteen of its faintly Mad-Libian set-pieces slip well into your skull, it’s useless trying to exorcise them.

[	Tags	|	music	]
[	Current Location	|	The Office	]
[	mood	|	content	]
[	music	|	People Talking	]

ONGIARA
by
Great Lake Swimmers

A supremely evocative new-folk album, ONGIARA is a picture of rolling forest hills and sprawling mountain valleys, crystallized in song and sound. Do not operate heavy machinery while listening to its dulcet tones—it’s been my lullabye album for months.  And don't take that as a dig, either: It means I trust these folks with my unconscious.