tankt

I have a great and lasting fondness for compiling these lists, making these mixes, and writing these posts. In years past, I spent nearly 16 hours doing a simple ten track list+mix+post, and then quietly resolved to never spend that much time again, but chances are I won’t be all that far from it once this particular effort is done. Fact is, this is a painful process, but still something I find much joy in doing.

↓ Download all 20 songs I had no intention of compiling such a lengthy retrospective on the music of the naughties, but once I saw that others were doing it, and then combed through my list, I found a bunch of albums that deserved recognition. However small and insignificant my words may be, these 20 songs from my favorite 20 albums of the 2000s meant so much to me.

So here they are, mixed to perfection. Enjoy!

Jamie Lidell · “Yougotmeup” · Multiply · 2005

I bought this album the moment it came out — without bothering to preview it or read the reviews — even though his previous efforts left me scratching my head as often as waggin’ my booty. “Yougotmeup” is completely out of this world, and not only sets the tone for the rest of the album, it set me on a five year journey to see him live as many times as I could. No one else even comes close to the creativity and ingenuity of Jamie Lidell, especially in front of a crowd.

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Vampire Weekend · “A-Punk” · Vampire Weekend · 2008

Had my friend Maroney not passed along this album, and had Abby not fallen in love with it, I doubt I would have ever listened to it. I’m not even sure it belongs on this list — I have seen countless arguments for The Strokes over anyone else of their type — but there’s something so pure and simple about Vampire Weekend. On top of that, this album speaks to me much like the Violent Femmes self-titled debut did some 27 years ago. No small feat there.

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Clap Your Hands Say Yeah · “The Skin of my Yellow Country Teeth” · Clap Your Hands Say Yeah · 2005

This song and this album (really, everything about CYHSY) just scream New York City for me. I even lost $300 trying to see them play on NYE in NYC (and I always thought I was street-smart) but eventually saw them twice. I credit them with bringing the feel of a dj set to the typical rock show, stringing each and every song together with some sort of whimsical musical transition. Now (almost) everyone does it, but they were the first.

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Radiohead · “Bodysnatchers” · In Rainbows · 2007

I was waaay late to the game with Radiohead, so much so that the first album I purchased was Hail to the Thief. Sure, I complained about the 160kbps thing when they first released In Rainbows, but paid for it anyway and then paid again when the cd version came out so I could have higher fidelity copies. I raved about Bodysnatchers in my list of favorites from 2007, so please go read about it there if you care. Chances are you already feel the same way about this song, it’s an absolute masterpiece.

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Thom Yorke · “Black Swan” · The Eraser · 2006

As I wrote about The Eraser in general and “Black Swans” in particular in 2007:

It’s quirky and downright weird at times, but songs like this one are so completely infectious that I can’t stop listening to them over and over again. There’s that innocence again, and a rawness that runs counter to the polish of Radiohead. This is a definite favorite of 2006.

I still find myself drawn to this album, and finding new twists and turns with each and every listen. It seems wholly unfair that one man should have such impeccable taste and immense talent, but at least Thom Yorke sees fit to share his gifts with the rest of us.

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Plaid · “Masato Shuffle” · Heaven’s Door · 2008

Whereas most of the more traditional bands on this list have an electronic(a) edge, Plaid is the purest expression of that sound. I spent all of 2009 anticipating their still unreleased album entitled Scintilli, and almost slept on Heaven’s Door (the soundtrack for a Japanese film) in the process, but I am eternally grateful I found it. I have no fewer than seven favorites on this album, but “Masato Shuffle” is at the top of my list. It’s the most exquisitely delicate song, so seemingly effortless you might be tempted to ignore it. Take a minute or two and let it pull you in — I can and have listened to this song on repeat for hours on end — you’ll soon go back for more.

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Ulrich Schnauss · “Blumenwiese Neben Autobahn” · Far Away Trains Passing By · 2001

Many, many moons ago, I coined a phrase to describe music not at all unlike Ulrich’s: “a motion with emotion.” Far Away Trains Passing By first appeared to me in the form of what seemed to be hundreds of messages on the idm list-serv I once followed, all of which raved about his enchantingly melodic and indelibly rhapsodic sound. Still to this day I remain in awe that so many loops can be so perfectly placed, never crowded, always balanced. “Blumenwiese Neben Autobahn” — roughly translates to “flower meadow beside the freeway” — is the most pristine gem on an album full of them, one I can’t recommend enough.

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Animal Collective · “Graze” · Fall Be Kind · 2009

Animal Collective and its many permutations so thoroughly dominated the latter half of my musical decade that I have no choice but to dedicate 20% of these songs to them, and I easily could have added more. Fall Be Kind is the only EP on the list, but more than holds its own, even more so as it comes on the heels of the esteemed Merriweather Post Pavilion (found below). All five songs on FBK are instant classics, and light years beyond anything else out there, including MPP. I don’t know how they do it but I hope they never stop.

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Grizzly Bear · “Southern Point” · Veckatimest · 2009

Were it not for two back-to-back Animal Collective shows, including the one in the Big Sur fog with only 299 other lucky souls, Grizzly Bear would have been the show of the year for me, and “Southern Point” its absolute highlight. While the album comes across as soft and even somewhat delicate at times, their presence onstage was anything but and their sound was big, Big, BIG. This was the song they opened with, featuring Daniel Rossen on lead vocals and Ed Droste as his primary backup, and it instantly brought an already revved up Fillmore crowd to a fever pitch. I have a feeling this band is just hitting its stride, and will be back bigger and better than ever with their next album.

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Battles · “Atlas” · Mirrored · 2007

Battles delivered one of the most unexpected and absolutely epic albums of the decade, and two of the most spectacular videos too. I still get chills when I think about the show they played in San Francisco, and remember being somewhat disappointed that they looked like such normal guys — I half expected robots. Tortoise, aka TRTS, might be the only other band that can play as tightly through a subtle change in pace and as frenetically for such lengths of time as BTTLS. I always want to call John Stanier, John Stamos. Not even close.

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!!! · “Me and Guiliani Down by the School Yard (A True Story)” · Louden Up Now · 2004

Those ungoogleable bastards, !!!, completely won me over with 2004’s brilliant Louden Up Now, and then sealed the deal with their tour in support of 2007’s Myth Takes. Imagine a high school pep rally gone awry, with a bit of Richard Simmons’ Sweatin’ to the Oldies, some New York punk, and late 90’s rave culture thrown in for good measure. Oh, and some killer lyrics too:

People always ask me, “What’s so fucking great about dancing?”
How the fuck should I know? Yeah, even I can barely understand it
But when the music takes over, the music takes control

“Me and Guiliani” was one of my Songs of the Day in 2008, and I’m quite fond of that post if you’re interested in reading more. I love !!! and can’t wait to hear what they do next.

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Hudson Mohawke · “No One Could Ever” · Butter · 2009

Thus far, my list feels fairly conventional, even to me. Sure, there’s a handful of outliers, but nothing quite like Butter. In fact, I think it sticks out like a sore thumb, whatever that means, and “No One Could Ever” is the biggest red blister of all, pulsing with an insatiable beat and ridiculously hyperactive drums. I love, love, love everything on this album, and anything else I have heard from HudMo. To be sure, not all of his music sounds like chipmunks on crack, but his best stuff certainly does.

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Squarepusher · “Tetra Sync” · Ultravisitor · 2004

I can’t say that I ever really fell for Ultravisitor top to bottom quite like the way I fell for Hello Everything and Just a Souvenir, but every time I come back to it I find another gem. Squarepusher is undoubtedly one of my all-time favorites, top five in fact (on the active list at least), and “Tetra Sync” is one of his finest efforts. Tom Jenkinson has a way of making music that in which everything sounds like a remix of one or more of his earlier tracks, but this one sounds like his entire career rolled up in one. I can barely wrap my mind around what a killer track this is, and more often than not am reduced to dropping f-bombs to describe it — it’s *that* good. I have seven other songs posted if you want more: Love Will Tear Us Apart, Star Time 2, Port Rhombus, Iambic 5 Poetry, Iambic 9 Poetry, A Real Woman, and Star Time 1. All every bit as epic.

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Animal Collective · “Daily Routine” · Merriweather Post Pavilion · 2009

As I wrote about “Daily Routine” earlier this year:

Normally, I play a SOTD over and over while I write these posts. Not so with this amazing new song from Animal Collective, in fact I can’t do anything beyond marvel at its absolute perfection: so sparse yet so full, so chaotic yet so incredibly peaceful. And that bass, those drums, the claps, the carnivalesque keys, and that seemingly endless outro, I defy you to find a more spectacular song, at least one that isn’t on the very same album!

I remember this one more than any other song that they played at both of my shows earlier this summer, especially since they extended the doodling at the beginning and let Panda take the outro even further. Merriweather Post Pavilion may very well be the album of the decade, and this song is a big reason why. Is is still sacrilegious to say that Animal Collective is my generation’s Beatles?

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o9 · “Terminal Silver” · Church of the Ghetto PC · 2004

Much like Ultravisitor, I initially found a couple of songs I instantly loved, and more or less stopped listening to the rest of Church of the Ghetto PC. I don’t know what prompted another listen in the past year or so, but ever since then I have been hooked on o9. As best I can tell he dropped off the face of the earth, so if you’re out there, Jesse Legg, and still making music, I want to hear it! If nothing else, please see to it that some 45rpm mp3s of No Delay for Days are added, I can’t stand it so slow.

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Burial · “Ghost Hardware” · Untrue · 2007

It never really mattered whether it was called dubstep, grime, or wonky, I simply didn’t care for it. The entire genre always felt too contrived, too of the moment without any regard for the one prior or post. Somehow Burial came out of the very same movement, only to rise above all else with an album so perfectly situated not in the present, past, or future, but simultaneously in all three. Abby put it best when she said:

It sounds like Jamie Lidell meets Boyz II Men meets Autechre.

Yep, classic.

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Flying Lotus · “Roberta Flack (feat Dolly)” · Los Angeles · 2008

FlyLo burst on the scene as quickly and vividly in 2006 as HudMo did in 2008, and like Butter I could point to any number of songs on Los Angeles that deserve special mention here:

[B]ut for me the one that truly stands above and beyond all others is “RobertaFlack (feat. Dolly).” The sparsely spaced rhythm track shines on its own, but that gives Ellison plenty of room to add Dolly’s beautiful voice for color and depth. And then he tops it off with the most unexpected breakdown at the end, so ridiculously sultry and seductive I could listen to those last 52 seconds on repeat for the rest of my life and die a very happy man

It’s totally and completely unfair to call it easy listening, but whenever I need to find a groove to get something done, I always reach for Los Angeles. The entire album flows so well, and the music itself is neither in my face nor so distant that I don’t notice it. It’s full of songs as eloquent as “Roberta Flack,” one masterpiece after the next.

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Panda Bear · “Take Pills” · Person Pitch · 2007

Person Pitch was my first Animal Collective experience, and at the time it seemed like I was the last to find out about it or them, but it didn’t take me long to want much more. From there I jumped into Strawberry Jam and my first show at The Fillmore, then a deep dive into their back catalog. There’s something so raw and immature about this solo effort from Noah Lennox, it’s such a scattered amalgamation of sounds and themes, but there’s a knowing wisdom about it too, like this is the way music is meant to be. I always imagined that the creatures on the cover lent the music its eclecticism, especially that gigantic sea lion. I bet he plays a mean bass.

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Avey Tare and Kria Brekkan · “Lay Lay Off Faselam” · Pullhair Rubeye · 2007

Believe it or not, this is the only album on my list that I did not personally pay for, and as far as I know it’s not even commercially available in its reversed form. My brother Kevin sent this to me, and it instantly became one of my most cherished possessions, for lack of a better word. The music is flimsy and gauzy, Kria Brekkan’s voice is dainty and wispy, and the lyrics are dreamy and distant. What it lacks in mass is more than made up in mettle, for this is a deeply heartfelt album, one-of-a-kind, and not likely to be duplicated ever again.

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Bjork · “I See Who You Are” · Volta · 2007

Speaking of the heart, I can think of no greater love song than “I See Who You Are” from Bjork and Mark Bell. This is such an intensely beautiful piece — the underlying music itself is perfectly restrained whereas Bjork’s voice is anything but — and each element embodies the message so well:

Let’s celebrate now all this flesh on our bones
Let me push you up against me tightly
And enjoy every bit of you

Do not miss that crescendo at the end with the horns and the pipa (a traditional Chinese string instrument, much like a sitar) played by Min Xiao-Fen. It all adds up to one phenomenal track, and a perfect end to this mix and post.

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If you made it this far, I thank you for reading and listening. I am truly honored.

I would love to hear which ones resonated with you, and please let me know about anything I might have missed from your best of the decade list.

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed making it. Happy new year!

Absolutely epic rant on the ills of AT&T and business in general from an old favorite, Fake Steve Jobs:

While I’m ranting, let me ask you something, Randall. At the risk of sounding like Glenn Beck Jr. — what the fuck has gone wrong with our country? Used to be, we were innovators. We were leaders. We were builders. We were engineers. We were the best and brightest. We were the kind of guys who, if they were running the biggest mobile network in the U.S., would say it’s not enough to be the biggest, we also want to be the best, and once they got to be the best, they’d say, How can we get even better? What can we do to be the best in the whole fucking world? What can we do that would blow people’s fucking minds? They wouldn’t have sat around wondering about ways to fuck over people who loved their product. But then something happened. Guys like you took over the phone company and all you cared about was milking profit and paying off assholes in Congress to fuck over anyone who came along with a better idea, because even though it might be great for consumers it would mean you and your lazy pals would have to get off your asses and start working again in order to keep up.

And not just you. Look at Big Three automakers. Same deal. Lazy, fat, slow, stupid, from the top to the bottom — everyone focused on just getting what they can in the short run and who cares what kind of piece of shit product we’re putting out. Then somehow along the way the evil motherfuckers on Wall Street got involved and became everyone’s enabler, devoting all their energy and brainpower to breaking things up and parceling them out and selling them off in pieces and then putting them back together again, and it was all about taking all this great shit that our predecessors had built and “unlocking value” which really meant finding ways to leech out whatever bit of money they could get in the short run and let the future be damned. It was all just one big swindle, and the only kind of engineering that matters anymore is financial engineering.

The original sin here is that the “real” news comes from “fake” personalities. America has no check on the rich and powerful in business, because both the media and the political structure in Washington are wholly owned subsidiaries. It fails by design because it’s more profitable than making it work.

More gems from FSJ.

Let me first say, I absolutely love Bibio’s Warp debut, Ambivalence Avenue. “Lovers’ Carvings” was an instant favorite, guaranteed to light up even the gloomiest day, a trick Abby used more than once when we never listened to anything else in the car. “dwrcan” came to be the brightest one of all, a song that sounds like several well-known epic anthems, Boards of Canada’s “Pete Standing Alone” (the quintessential BoC song of its era) and The Postal Service’s “Natural Anthem” (the only song of theirs I can stomach now), yet more than stands on its own.

That said, I was somewhat ambivalent about buying The Apple and the Tooth. I usually pass on things that are mostly remixes, and with only four new Bibio songs I thought my $9.99 might be better spent elsewhere. But in the end I bought it and the new Warp20 (Unheard) release at the same time. One week later and I still can’t get enough of “Bones and Skulls.”

There’s a then and now in this song. It feels like an old friend on first listen, and yet it just as easily comes across as a fresh memory found in the not so distant past. It builds beautifully, flows effortlessly, and ends ever so delicately. And it’s even better now that I finally figured out the lyrics:

shortened stones
and weathered broken glass
i’ll never trace their path
the reason for their form

it’s like the hairless brush
or the broken little things
in the kitchen drawer
full of forgotten memories
that are gonna be gone
like the people who made them
and the people who broke them
and the people who found them

and the people who put them in drawers
or the children who let them out
with the pottery
and the bones and skulls of birds

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I always listen to my Songs of the Day on repeat while I write these posts, and even after ten or so listens I never fail to lose myself in this song. That is perhaps the highest compliment I can pay, to know what’s coming next, to expect and anticipate it, and still be every bit as surprised by it time and time again. And now I am even more disappointed that I missed out on the limited edition vinyl.

Bravo, Bibio, bravo. I will never doubt you again.

A mere five months after my unofficial retirement from my beloved tankt and I’m already back for more. Is this the start of something new? Only time will tell…

I can think of about a fifty new songs worth playing for you all, and maybe ten or so in need of a deeper discussion, but none is more worthy than this unconventional beauty from John Callaghan. I have followed John since his debut on Warp in 1998, and that incredible little 7" entitled I’m Not Comfortable In My Mind remains one of my most cherished possessions, not only for it’s rarity, but for it’s intensity and ingenuity and individuality. Truly, no one else in the world can make music quite like John.

For as much as I love and still relentlessly collect Warp’s releases, there are few songs on the new Recreated double CD that rise above the novelty of it all. Certainly the Born Ruffians’ cover of Aphex Twin’s “Milkman / To Cure a Weakling Child” ranks near the top, but after that I find the rest to be wholly disappointing. Fortunately, John takes on my least favorite song off of Autechre’s flawless Cichli Suite EP and turns it into one for the ages. Here’s the original for reference:

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“Tilapia” pales in comparison only because the other four songs define the pinnacle of Autechre’s classic 90s sound. Yes, it’s a fine song, but it feels a bit out of place in the context of the others. Quibbles aside, John’s remix is more of an homage, finding inspiration in the click track, square-wave baseline, and that same sense of the song withdrawing into itself. It’s masterful:

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The instrumental track alone shines brightly enough, but it’s even better with the vocals, which in turn are made even more meaningful by that strange and unfamiliar word in the title. If I understand it correctly, a phylactery is an object used to contain a soul. What else is music if not the same?

So I’ll keep on talking
for as long as I can
warm you with my embers
hoping you’ll remember
as I leave my debris
like temporal graffiti
audition for your memory
oh please don’t forget me

And these souvenirs
are fragile and small
so mark where they fall
I need them to prove that I was here at all

Like a stone makes ripples
like a stone I’m sinking
create a puppet of me
to occupy your thinking
I leave a thousand footprints
and a million echoes
a million flawed impressions
in the people I know

And these souvenirs
reflections of John
I will be gone
I need you to carry them so I live on

And these souvenirs
momentos I make
forming my wake
you were my phylactery so keep me safe

As I continue to uncover what it means to be me, and unravel what it is I am put here on earth to do, I find comfort and encouragement in those who also hunger for meaning and a deeper connection to all that is. There’s a certain futility in living to be remembered, but as best I can tell there’s nothing wrong with creating something of lasting value. I should be so fortunate that my work touches another soul, that someone else chooses to carry it forward, that what I have accomplished with my life lives on in some small way.

I was one of the lucky few to see Animal Collective play before 300 people at the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur two nights ago. I’ll have much more to say about the show in the days to come, and a ton of pictures and video to share too, but I can’t get the memory tied to “Lay Low” out of my mind.

Words fail to express the love I have for this stretch of the California coast. So many of my happiest moments have their roots here, and I know of no other place that so thoroughly calms my restless soul.

I proposed to Abby in China Cove, a secluded beach in the Point Lobos State Reserve made just for us, but totally unknown to me before we arrived:

And shared the first of many Carmel sunsets that night:

And celebrated her birthday the next day at Nepenthe, perched high above the Pacific Ocean in Big Sur:

And were married in the Carmel Highlands, with our families in attendance, on a day when the fog to burned off just in time to give us our moment in the sun:

And I love the drive from Carmel to Big Sur. If I stopped every time I saw an astonishingly beautiful scene like the one below, the 35 mile drive would take a lifetime:

So you can imagine my delight to find out about the show in Big Sur, and my sheer joy at getting four of the most precious tickets on earth, in my humble opinion of course. Abby, Sawyer, my brother Kevin, and I arrived to find the Library tucked in between towering trees and completely enveloped in the densest fog. The entire scene was magical, and only made more so by the song that plays in the background of this quick video:

I only wish I would have moved the camera more slowly, in spite of the speed it reminds of how time stood still that night. The entire hour plus before Animal Collective played was filled for much of the same ethereal sounds, none of which I recognized, but this one stood above all else.

I spent the better part of tonight with that video looped, trying in vain to decipher the lyrics with the hope of identifying the song, when at last I remembered seeing an app for my iPhone called Shazam. Sure enough, a ten second sample identified it, and after scouring the internet again I finally had my song (it seems to be a live version from SxSW, the album is all but impossible to find). Here it is:

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The show itself was almost an afterthought given the majesty of the setting, the crisp and cool air ever so slightly misty from the fog, the history of the land on which we stood, and the band that brought each one of us there. But my most cherished memory is the few hours I was able to share with my family in such a magnificent place, and now I have a song to take me there in an instant.

A friend of mine from Belgium, someone I’ve never met but know from following her pictures on flickr, called lamazone had this to say about of one of her pictures:

Dunno why, but I’m thinking about getting older. It’s not a midlife crisis, maybe it’s because my grandpa seems to be one of the last survivors in his family. He buried a good friend of his last week and is not getting any younger himself. He told me about his youth and his years in the US. He doesn’t have any pictures of those years (the twenties) whereas I take pictures of my breakfast. The times they are a-changing.

The line “He doesn’t have any pictures of those years whereas I take pictures of my breakfast.” stopped me in my tracks. Not only does my generation take those same silly pictures and videos too, we do so to share them with the world. I look at the variety and sheer volume of memories Abby and I have already archived for Sawyer and only wish I had the same for me.

Fortunately on my last trip home I had a chance to rekindle some wonderful memories of my youth, and what I lack in volume is more than made up in the singularity of these images. Take this one of me in 1985, just 12 years old, holding David Lee Roth’s Just a Gigilo / I Ain’t Got Nobody in one hand and Run DMC’s King of Rock in the other. I’m pretty sure that was illegal in most states at the time:

I have no idea how I convinced my parents to buy me those albums, for Easter no less, but I guess the precedent was set nearly two years prior when they bought me my first walkman and Def Leopard’s Pyromania for my tenth birthday. Take note of the following: a walkman as big as my head, air-traffic controller headphones, my crossing guard sash with a badge over my heart, and a belt buckle embossed with my name. I am too cool for school:

Lest you think this was some sort of aberration, my friend and I lip-synched a Def Leopard song for music class in fourth grade around the same time. (I just remembered how we made guitars and speakers out of cardboard, painted them with Tempera paints, and connected them with string.) I’m not sure how that was acceptable, but when the guy on the left is dressed as a box of camels I guess anything goes. Ah, public schools:

And yes, that is a bandana around my left leg just above my knee.

The point of sharing this is more for me than you. It’s an affirmation of the role of music in my life, the way it then expanded my horizons and marked my milestones, and the fact that it still does in every way today.

This past month has been a blur, but as I exit April and enter the month of May I do so with a newfound strength and unexpected support from these pictures. Music is most definitely my calling, and the clarity I have around what comes next would be alarming if it weren’t so well-aligned with everything in my past.

So yes, the times they are a-changing, but who I am at the core remains the same. My love for music makes me want to give something meaningful and lasting back, and my passion for the internet and its ability to connect and coalesce gives me the way to do it. I truly have lived my life for this opportunity, and I can’t wait to devote my life to making it happen.

It has been a while since I last posted, but a lack of activity here is a result of some pretty heavy lifting everywhere else in my life. All of that takes a back seat for the next five days as Abby and I head home with Sawyer to be with family.

I could write volumes on my love for Ultramarine, dissecting each and every song, marveling at their ability to both embrace and transcend the sounds of their day, and raving about their uncanny thematic coherence across albums (artwork and all). It is safe to say that their music called into question everything I once listened to and demanded that anything new be of a similarly lasting and outstanding quality.

As for “Citizen,” from 1995 no less, I have had this song in near constant rotation for most of the month, and now with the clock winding down on March I finally have the time and space to share it with you. I even transcribed the lyrics too:

I know that you
you are scared
of your own shadow

It’s your little voice inside you
and it makes your every move

People are always questions about you
why can’t you just tell them the truth
When your hands are tied and your hanging from a string
why don’t you swing and set yourself free

Let go of your ego
and I’ll let go of mine
for though your eyes are cloudy
i know that they should shine

Go hang from a string
why don’t you swing and set yourself free
You say that if you jump, gravity will pull you under
but gravity knows nothing over love for you

Let go of your ego
and I’ll let go of mine
for though your legs are stumbling
I know that they should climb

It might just be the most sensual and spiritual song I know, and those lyrics reverberate throughout my soul unlike any other, especially as of late. Listen:

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This post most likely marks the end of an era for me and my beloved tankt. What was once my personal playground may very well become my professional pursuit. I would not be able to even contemplate this next phase without the explorations I have done here, and I am very grateful for those of you who have shared this experience with me. Thank you all.

And it’s about time someone said it:

This is brilliant and beautifully done. See This is Reality for more.