Thankfully, I have a wonderful, understanding wife, a fantastic best friend, and a great group of guys at the chapel that I was able to spend some time with, and I got through it. I'm feeling pretty incredible right now, so that's a definite improvement.
However, that's not why I'm writing today. As I stated before, I was going to share my new music with you. I have a couple of new albums to talk about.
Fragrant World
by Yeasayer
Yeasayer are like that band that the cool, art-y kids were listening to in the 80s while you were trying to decide if Boy George would ever top "Karma Chameleon". Sounding like a cross between Art Of Noise and Gary Numan, Yeasayer brings a deliciously retro sound to a modern audience.
Their music is predominantly electronic, but the band eschews the trappings of most modern electronic music. You will not find droning, repetetive beats here. Instead, this is almost pure pop sensibility, but with so much experimentation and lush density that it feels more like prog than something you'd hear on the Top 40. The music shifts and swirls, creating a new soundscape every few bars. By relying on that pop sensibility, though, they keep the music accessible, never making it difficult to listen to. In fact, the entire album is so utterly listenable that I find myself toe-tapping and head-bobbing right along with it.
Lyrically, the band hits familiar tropes like relationships, etc, but with an artistic flair that makes them more about mood than literal interpretation. The only exception is the surprisingly mean-spirited "Folk Hero Schtick", which seems to be a diss track, specifically aimed at someone (I don't know who). It's a step backward and takes away from the positive vibes that you'd expect from a band called Yeasayer (presumably, the opposite of a naysayer).
Overall, Yeasayer have crafted a fine album. Perhaps it's not quite so memorable as their last effort, Odd Blood, but definitely worth a listen if you enjoy some 80s-sounding synth pop.
I also picked up (you gotta love Amazon's $5 mp3 album sales):
Break It Yourself
by Andrew Bird
I was introduced to the music of Andrew Bird through my previously-mentioned fantastic best friend. Said friend and I don't have a lot in common, music-wise, except for a general love of classic rock and, apparently, intelligent folk-pop.
Break It Yourself is comprised of beautifully arranged, folksy tracks. Seriously, I can't even tell you how much I dig the arrangements on his songs. They are warm and earthy-sounding, and sonically dense - built in layers of instrumentation. You can enjoy these tracks as background music and just sort of hear them on a surface level, but the real reward comes in bumping up the volume a bit and really, actively listening to all the parts that are working together. The fundamentals of drums, warm, fuzzy bass, and jangly guitars are there, along with lots of disparate elements, like violin and I swear I hear a steel drum on at least one track.
The lyrics here are quite intelligent and, thankfully, easily decipherable. On the first album of his that I purchased, Armchair Apocrypha, the vocals were a bit...mumble-y. Here, though I can catch every word. It's interesting to me, that, in this day of emotional openness, Bird's lyrics seem to be rather impersonal. It just sort of makes him a little more different from a lot of what's out there today. That's not to say that he sings without emotion. To the contrary, he infuses a lot of life into his songs, blending beautifully with the music, whether with his singing or with his trademark whistle.
Overall, I find this album a touch more listenable than Armchair Apocrypha, and the addition of a duet with Annie Clark (St. Vincent) really puts it over the top. If you're into mellow, folksy music, this is a great album to pick up.
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