I certainly feel that with the most recent release of “Staircase”, Radiohead is beginning to create a story of rhythms. A sort of “new sound” that I don’t think we all caught onto given the brevity of The King of Limbs. After its 40 minutes, I think we all read just a few pages out of their entire book. But now, I like playing “Staircase” back to back with “Butcher” and creating an almost Animal Collective-like musical trance. Some “thing” is emerging.

Who knows? Radiohead may be making it about the experience… handing out sequels to the trilogy rather than dumping everything on us at once. Or maybe, Thom is simply playing around; take a look at the video below, he certainly looks like he’s having fun.

I was in Baltimore’s record store, Sound Garden, on Tuesday night. I was mad because I had clearly missed Wye Oak’s free performance celebrating the release of their album. When I ran into the record store they were cleaning up. I didn’t have a chance to let my head explode by my luck before I asked them,”Did you guys finish?” Jenn turned around gave me her hand and said “Yeah, we started at 7:30. I’m Jenn.”

“Hi, I’m Larissa. Yeah I had a meeting and I was really trying to make it,” I said. She had no idea that inside my head I was screaming, “Oh my god! I was just reading about you on NPR?! and like.. your photo was there! And now here you are in front of me, talking to me!” I have this problem where I get really star struck.

Anyway, I totally got a signed free poster and shook their hands and even talked to Andy about how we’re neighbors. He lives in Hampden which is less than 2 min away from me. I even pulled out some of our sweet Aphera business cards and told them I’m a fan!

Then, I bought their CD and left. Just crazy! At the same time, so completely normal. In fact I wish I had been a little more effusive! It was all happening inside my mind. I think I was outwardly a little too nonchalant.

However, the point of this post is that I bought the CD(shown above). Music in hard copy form. I have so little of that. In December George and I purchased Kanye’s Dark Twisted Fantasy on CD and played it the whole drive home from Philadelphia. The piano trill in the opener was so much crisper, the beats were crisper – the sound was awesome. Since then, I’ve made a few purchases of some of my favorite albums: Merriweather Post Pavilion, Civilian, Psyence Fiction and Radiohead’s Newspaper album, whatever that may be.

CD purchases, I encourage that. Don’t have a great argument for it but it feels good to have something to show for the music you’re listening to. And it sounds good and maybe, like in The King of Limb’s case, there is artwork included.

Usually, when I’m distracted, I can write down my grievances in this giant legal pad I store next to my bed and be done with them (at least for the night)!

But I must have written 5 pages worth of analytical jumble without any mental relief. So my next strategy usually involves changing the mood with some music. Unfortunately, King of Limbs is not cutting it. The only mistake Radiohead may have made was releasing King of Limbs in the middle of February doldrums. Something about the perpetuating mystery behind its release, the incessant rhythms behind Mr. Magpie and Thom’s foreboding lyrics iced on top “You took my melody” – can make one question one’s sanity. At least it has me in an agitated and unsatisfied condition.

Thus, I am going for the usual contenders for “mood fixers” and they have the following qualities: Grunge-I-don’t-give-a-shit 90s guitar riffs, empowering lyrics and a relatively positive sentiment.

Lyrics are the most important. This is probably the only time I pay any attention to song lyrics because I look for soothing reassurance. They become my spiritual gospel. And when I say soothing, I mean something like this…

“We have the power now mother fuckers” !!

The Flaming Lips had it right in “The W.A.N.D”. The title stands for The Will Always Negates Defeat. I think the hard thing is remembering what you have control over and what you don’t have control over. The Flaming Lips are here to remind us to focus on ourselves.

Here are some other magical lyrics/spiritual guidance

“I won’t stop till I’ve given you up…I thought you should know, you don’t move me anymore, and I’m glad that you don’t because I can’t have you anymore” – Yeasayer

“She’s three miles of bad road… She’s her own invention” – R.E.M.

“The present now will later be past, the order is rapidly fadin. The first one now will later be last for the times they are a changin’” – Dylan

In preparation for our 2010 top ten list, I’ve been revisiting some of the most epic songs of this past year – just to make sure they didn’t lose their charm after the 50^th listen or so. I hope at least our top 5 picks represent albums that don’t lose their charm after 50 years or so.

Sooo I’m in the mood to scrutinize music more than ever right now – that’s why  I’ve also been really picky about anything that George has sent me recently (he often sends me music he’s working on). I really ragged on his most recent rap beat that contains a juxtaposing acoustic guitar finale. After expressing to him that it just sounds “messy”, we got in a debate about what it means to be an artist. And in some ways, this debate helped us define good music and explain our top ten choices… so here’s a preview of our thought process.

I believe artists have a burden – it’s their job to make an adequate presentation to an audience. By adequate I mean that if they’re going to highlight something really abstract or even ugly, it’s their job to make it beautiful.  I personally feel this burden every time I learn a new prokofiev piece on the piano. He’s my favorite composer but his music isn’t always people friendly – it’s kind of psychedelic and even messy – for classical music that is. But, my favorite thing about playing prokofiev is finding ways to highlight the beauty in his music. It’s there I just gotta make you hear it. However, our debate centered around George’s belief that it’s sometimes the artist’s job to challenge his audience. My response is, if you’re going to choose a challenging subject (something inherently disturbing or ugly aka prokofiev) it’s your job to turn it around. Do the harder thing. It’s just lazy to make your audience ‘figure it out’.

Another job of an artist is to make us see things like we’ve never seen them before. You know like take something really simple or ordinary and present it in a completely different light – “Treachery of Images” style “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” like. My favorite artist of this kind is Tolstoy who takes love, death, war, peace and presents it to his audience in every form except for the way we usually think about it.

Then, there are artists that just turn your world upside-down and those are the artists that we chose for our top ten artists of 2010. So get ready for em. Here’s something else that turns your world upside-down.

If you’re going to pay attention to one top ten list this season, it should be Bob Boilen’s from NPR’s All Songs Considered. At first glance it looks esoteric. Infuriated by the choices Boilen, my hero of music dissemination, had made, I was really about to cast his list aside (actually I was about to criticize it in this post). He left out some of the greatest shapers of music the year– LCD Soundsystem, Kanye – and did he do it purposely just to prove that he knows something we don’t?

So I sat down to analyze his list and find all the reasons why his no name bands have no place on any top ten 2010 list.  But after listening to every one of his selections, I have to say Bob Boilen’s choices had me asking, “How had I missed these this year?”.  Most importantly of all, his list isn’t just a permutation of all the albums we already know are going to appear on every top ten list, and despite this he still manages to pick unbelievable albums. However, Boilen does have one of the “knowns” on his list and it is Sufjan’s Age of Adz. Dare I give this away, but I whole-heartedly agree with his choice and placement. I continued down the line to his #2 pick, Jonsi. Alright, this was also an ambitious album and, as Boilen points out, a mix of electronics and strings similar to Sufjan. Additionally, it’s always impressive when a soloist can leave a band and make music that’s even better – like Jonsi did without Sigur Ros behind him (we can’t even say the same for the love of our lives, Thom Yorke).

By his fourth choice, I was in awe at the list Boilen had put together. Buke & Gass are the artists of Boilen’s #4 choice and he describes their album as, ”the freshest sound I’ve heard this year.” I’d also have to agree – and I wondered why hadn’t I heard these guys? This is great! I continued down the list and was turned onto everyone of Boilen’s picks. I can’t honestly say that these choices are any worse than some of the big guys and proving Boilen wrong was what I had initially set out to do. Many of these albums are difficult listens, super complex and layered, but each of them has a distinct reason for appearing on Boilen’s top ten list and Boilen convincingly gives you those reasons in his few sentence write-up.

Finally, Stereogum’s “Album’s We Are Most Excited About in 2011” made me really happy. I’m a Wye Oak fangirl. And they include a song preview!

I had no idea who Boards of Canada were until Alex made his post. And coincidentally enough, as I was combing through P4K’s 5-10-15-20 interviews yesterday, I came a across, well, Boards of Canada. They were specifically mentioned by German electronic producer, Apparat, who talked about his experience with them during his 20s. This was a time of his life during which he became disenchanted with his previous life-style laden with dance-floor techno, raves, and drugs. Apparently the album, Music has the Right to Children, was his breath of fresh air…kind of…

We already listened to stuff like that– to early Autechre and stuff. We listened to this when we did after-parties, after the rave, when I was 18. I don’t remember exactly the first time when I listened to Boards of Canada, but I definitely remember that my best friend used to have a basement flat without windows and all of us were sitting there, smoking weed like crazy. We started in the morning, and this stuff was our soundtrack. It’s kind of hard to imagine if you listen to this music these days. But every time we listened, it it was totally mindblowing. I miss the feeling; it never really happened to me again. I think that was the last time when I didn’t understand how stuff like that could happen at all.

Despite (or because of) this maybe biased association I make between BoC and raves, drugs, and techno – I decided to give them a listen. I downloaded the album both Alexander and Apparat suggested, Music has the Right to Children, and as I brought it up on my itunes I found another little song I already had by BoC – a remix they did of Beck’s “Broken Drum”. And after giving this a listen, I realized they even made Beck sound good. And so I was hooked.

And thus, “Impossible Soul”, is full of enough absurdities (autotune, 25 min long, a really cheesy interlude…) that it functions like the joining of hands between the Sharks and the Jets. These idiosyncrasies break your engagement with the fictional production. Yet, just as the finale of a musical runs through every leitmotif and theme, “Impossible Soul” repeats enough lyrics and melodies from throughout the album that you are ultimately called back into the emotional roller coaster that is Age of Adz.

“No one needs me,” said an exchange student staying with us this summer, as she stared at her foreign equivalent of facebook.

“What do you mean? You have five unread messages!”

That’s how I replied to her absurd comment. Her response: “Well, when that one specific person you want doesn’t message you, it’s like no one is messaging you.”

Fair enough… Well, this seems to be the summer sentiment and I’ve noticed that pining over someone makes us in to genuine messes. We return from programs abroad and obsess over the foreign loves we left behind. Our college friends go away (sometimes overseas) and we think it’s over forever. Old flames – well sometimes they just burn out. Or literally, they’re sitting next to you smoking pot and you’re like, “What the hell happened to you?”

What’s the cure? Well I’ve heard several, but they involve running away, staring at emails and convincing yourself you don’t want to answer and pretending everything is okay.  Don’t do this. Instead, admit that you are, as R.E.M. sings, “A sad tomato… three miles of bad road.”

In their song, “Crush With Eyeliner”, Michael Stipe sings that he’s “smitten” with someone who is an absolute mess. “I know you’ve seen her…she’s three miles of bad road …I am smitten, I’m the real thing.” God, just make these lyrics your anthem. What’s more empowering than being three miles of bad road and having someone imbibed, infatuated and smitten with you? My solution? … Embrace your hott mess status and move the hell on.

photo by ravi bhalla

Last summer my family and I took a trip to India with our family friends and their son, Ravi. Our car trip to Leh, in northern India, brought us closer together. We helped each other find rocks to squat behind and shared rolls of toilet paper that we carried in our bags.

Once we reached Leh, we were surrounded by the mantra, “Om Mani Padme Hum” that was carved into stones and prayer wheels all around Leh. We replaced the word “Mani” with our friend’s name, “Ravi.” And now when we feel nostalgic for the journey we traveled together, we text each other “Om Ravi Padme Hum.”

Saying mantras out loud is supposed to be – well, I’d call it therapeutic. Even the way the words vibrate on your lips and the way the air escapes from your mouth is supposed to affect you spiritually.

This graduation may be about remembering or even forgetting people you’ve grown close to. Imbibe a mantra to create the strength you need to move on.

I think we all feel that lyrics – sung words – can affect the way we feel. Here is a song to forget and another to remember. As Dave Matthews sings, “One drink to remember, then another to forget”.

To Forget: If you listen to Yeasayer’s “O.N.E.”, the emphasis of certain words and the echoes of others create a sense of empowerment. The words, “No, you don’t move me anymore, and I’m glad that you don’t” are exactly what we need to tell ourselves if we want to move on.

To Remember: Listen to Radiohead’s “A Reminder.” The song itself if supposed to function as a reminder of past love. It begins with haunting echo of someone announcing flights over an airport speaker. The last couple lines are,

Whatever happens

If we’re still speaking

Pick up the phone

Play me this song.

That was Lily Allen’s opinion of Radiohead’s release of In Rainbows. She saw it as a promotion of music pirating and had a whole blog post dedicated to its condemnation. Eh, it’s more like she’s just jealous but I do get how it can seem wrong when someone can pull off that business plan.

But Allen had it all wrong. Radiohead was not promoting music pirating, but bypassing it. And they did it by giving us what we want for free.

And that’s what Lefsetz of LefsetzLetter is saying, “In other words, the solution to the file-trading problem is not legislative, it requires business innovation.  Which I don’t expect to come from Ms. Allen, I’ve never heard she was a good programmer.”

And now everybody is doing it. They’re giving us music for free. Grooveshark, Lala, and every artist releases a free single as a preview before their album -The National giving away “Bloodbuzz Ohio” before High Violet, Yeasayer giving away “O.N.E.” before Odd Blood - just to name a few.

But illegal activity will continue. Yeah, such is life. The newest craze, Dropbox, uses cloud computing to enable users to store and share files. It’s cool because folders are shared through email,and you kind of become a member of that shared folder. There is a feed that shows all recent activity so you can tell who is uploading new material. The space for free use is limited but deleted files can be restored. It’s illegal to upload copyrighted stuff, but it’s going to happen anyway.