Blogs
WVAU Top Music of 2011: #2
#2 Album: St. Vincent – Strange Mercy It is more than understandable that Annie Clark is perhaps the most lusted-after woman in indie-rock today (she tops the list of Stereogum's top indie crushes of 2011), but for slightly less obvious reasons than one might...
WVAU Top Music of 2011: #3
#3 Album: Bon Iver – Bon Iver “This is not a place,” Justin Vernon coos on the album’s glacial introduction, “Perth.” Bon Iver’s first album (2008’s haunting For Emma, Forever Ago) is largely associated with its creation during his...
Overlooked Records of 2011: The Front Bottoms
The Front Bottoms – The Front Bottoms Did your 2011 lack the dark comedy lyrics of folk punk, the danceable melodies of your favorite 2009 synth-pop band, the belting choruses of your emotional middle school years, and the DIY New Jersey attitude? Have no fear,...
Overlooked Albums of 2011: Frank Ocean
Frank Ocean – Nostalgia, Ultra. With his first major release, Frank Ocean emerges as a broken-hearted sensitive crooner (a.k.a. an oddball) in the OFWGKTA crew, the angry youth-driven group that the public has deemed to be the worst thing since unsliced bread....
WVAU Top Music of 2011: #4
#4 Album: EMA – Past Life Martyred Saints Past Life Martyred Saints is an album that encompasses the feelings of disappointment and creeping failure that singer EMA experienced after moving to California to become an artist; her own account being that of...
Overlooked Songs of 2011: "Countdown" by Beyonc̩
In 2011, one DJ’s guilty pleasure was another's song of the year. At some point, your favorite embarrassing Top 40 jam probably earned a spot among some publication's best tracks of the year, from the overwrought (“Someone Like YouÛ) to the nonsensical...
Overlooked Records of 2011: The Drums
The Drums – Portamento The Italian word “portamento” means a transition musically from one pitch to another, and it’s a fitting title for the Drums’ grim, somber second album. The Drums as we knew them were the lighthearded buzzband (see:...
WVAU Top Music of 2011: #5
#5 Album: M83 – Hurry Up, We're Dreaming M83 takes its name from Messier 83, a galaxy 15 million light years away, and that's precisely where Hurry Up, We're Dreaming inhabits. From its dreamlike interludes to its expansive synth melodies to Anthony...
Overlooked Records of 2011: Afuche
Afuche – Highly Publicized Digital Boxing Match Afuche dances. And I don't only mean musically. I mean that if you look at videos of them they're just boogying away. But that's not what makes Highly Publicized Digital Boxing Match a great album. There's far...
Overlooked Records of 2011: Portugal. the Man
Portugal. the Man – In The Mountain In The Cloud Portugal. the Man always releases albums that almost feel like a single giant song. Everything on the album has one overlaying tone that ties the whole thing together, which also seems the case even with their...
WVAU Top Music of 2011: #6
#6 Album: tUnE-yArDs – w h o k i l l This year’s lists of best songs and albums feature a fair amount of work from solo musicians, or at least bands with a strong leading presence (your M83s and your Girls, for example). The bedroom-recording boom of the...
Overlooked Records of 2011: Vusi Mahlasela
Vusi Mahlasela – Say Africa South African singer-songwriter Vusi Mahlasela achieved a certain level of global exposure when he became one of the featured musicians for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, an event which was (much to my delight) just as much an...
WVAU Top Music of 2011: #7
#7 Album: Yuck – Yuck The main complaint against Yuck, as written by bloggers or lamented by WVAU executive board members (past and present), goes something like this: “I don't know man, if I wanted to listen to music from the nineties, I'd listen to (insert...
Overlooked Records of 2011: A$AP Rocky
A$AP Rocky – LIVELOVEA$AP As 2011 comes to an end, 2012 should be ushered in with the clanking of wine bottles, half-witted New Year's Resolutions and a long overdue moratorium on the word “swag.” If not for the word's blatant overuse, the moratorium should...
WVAU Top Music of 2011: #8
#8 Album: Fucked Up – David Comes to Life There is hardly any aspect about the band Fucked Up that isn't in some way polarizing or complicatedly multifaceted. Citing dysfunction as a source of their namesake, you can understand how seemingly self-contradictory...
Overlooked Records of 2011: Colin Stetson
Colin Stetson – New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges Think of everything you believe a saxophone to be capable of. Over the course of the 45-minute New History Warface Vol. 2: Judges, Bon Iver/Arcade Fire associate Colin Stetson burns those notions to the ground...
Overlooked Records of 2011: Real Estate
Real Estate – Days For a genre teeming with pale, skinny, upper-middle-class dudes, its surprising that an indie group didn’t deliver The Suburbs much earlier. But while Arcade Fire drenched its Grammy award-winning semi-autobiographical album in weirdly...
WVAU Top Music of 2011: #9
#9 Album: Dum Dum Girls – Only In Dreams Churning out beach-washed riot girl anthems, the Dum Dum Girls have given 2011 Only In Dreams, an album that isn’t afraid to express innermost female laments while simultaneously becoming a gut-punching rock gem....
WVAU Top Music of 2011: #10
#10 Album: Future Islands – On the Water Future Islands' On the Water isn't particularly long, but it still manages to takes its time. Like the best break-up records, it knows you don't have anything better to do with your day than sit around listening to...
A Young Gypsy: Metals
You know that time of year when you just stop caring? You visit your friends less because maybe it's snowing and you have too much homework then all of a sudden your dog has the runs all while your mom is calling to tell you that bitch across the street has the same...
CMJ 2011: Twin Shadow @ Santos Party Haus
A new wave prince of the 2010s, George Lewis Jr. is the captivating lead singer and musical intellect behind current Brooklyn-based band Twin Shadow. Closing the last hour and a half of a Wednesday night with soft, sparkly melodies at the Santos Party House, Twin...
From the Outside: ??????????
Chelsea Wolfe is truly something demonic. In her follow up to her 2010 debut The Grime and the Glow, ?????????? (pronounced ‘Apokalypsis’), Wolfe engages in a forlorn study of absolute darkness in all of its many aspects. The result is a gripping, deep,...
Spin of the Week: Undun
The Roots- Undun After seeing the Roots live this summer and watching them perform mischievously on Jimmy Fallon's show, I'd expect their new album to be a big showy, brassy affair. Instead, it's scaled down, condensed, distilled. At 39 minutes it's their shortest...
Mixtape: Italy Playlist
As I near my final weeks in Florence, Italy, the cradle of the Renaissance, studying art conservation and art history, I pause to write for you, dear DJ, a playlist that conveys for your some sense of my experiences in a foreign land. Though I could go on and on about...
Best of Rack 2011: Jesse Paller’s Playlist
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Label Fables: Jagjaguwar
The role of the independent record label in the 21st century is to curate and to catalog music, even through the great multitude of pressures and distractions of society. Their mission is to represent a group of bands that set themselves apart and share an interest in...
Best of Rack 2011: Camilia Alavi’s Playlist
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Spin of the Week: King Krule
King Krule- King Krule EP This EP is awfully hard to pin down, for many reasons. First of all, blatant Brit Archy “King Krule” Marshall is only 17, but he has the voice of a 40-year old. Perhaps I’m biased, but it seems like he's got a lot more on his mind...
London Calling: Johnny Foreigner @ Relentless Garage
English indie punk rock trio Johnny Foreigner played Islington venue Relentless Garage earlier this month to a mixed crowd with demographics ranging from Warped Tour teenagers to normal twenty-somethings to a significantly older couple who I'm pretty sure weren't...
Best of Rack 2011: Cameron Meindl’s Playlist
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