Favorite albums!

Because lists disguise the fact that I barely update this thing. Or at least not enough for my liking.

1. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea - Neutral Milk Hotel
A rumination on life, death, the afterlife, God, Anne Frank, love, alienation and who knows what else. This is my favorite album. As a whole it sounds like nothing I've ever heard while each individual piece sounds familiar (except the zanzithophone and singing saw, those were both new to me). There's your standard guitar, bass and drums and added onto that are an assortment of horns, organs, and the afformentioned singing saw and zanzithophone. All of it sounds pretty bad the first time you hear it, especially Jeff Mangum's singing. The lyrics are incomprehensible on first glance as well. If you do what I do and stick with it, hopefully you'll grow to love this as much as I have.
2. The Moon and Antarctica - Modest Mouse
Yet another rumination on life, death, the afterlife and God. This one stops at Anne Frank, though, and goes onto dehumanization and solitude. Isaac Brock's voice takes some getting used to, but it really carries across the desperation he tries to convey. My favorite part of Modest Mouse is their thematic dichotomy (I love that word): trailer trash and poetic musings. They break down when the trailer trash aspects take full force, but thankfully that doesn't happen here.
3. Agaetis Byrjun - Sigur Ros
A third musing on life, de- forget it. I've got no clue what this Icelandic band is singing about, but man is the singing good. These are really slow moving, ethereal sounding songs that, again, take a while to get used to. Sparse drums, simplistic basslines, cool piano and a guitar played with a cello bow, plus a string quartet and an awesome male falsetto.
4. Kid A - Radiohead
Paranoia reigns supreme with Radiohead! Also, good experimental rock music. These dudes are the innovators of rock. There's one truly ambient piece here, but the rest are mostly electronic/rock songs. They're the most accessible so far on this list.
5. Picaresque - The Decemberists
In order... a song about a child monarch, a double suicide by star-crossed lovers, the tragic death of a barrowboy, a song about a second-rate sports player, a love story about a secret agent and a government bureaucrat, a song about an old person waiting for a letter from their long lost love, an anti-war song, one about a novelist, child prostitutes, vengeful sailors in a whales belly and finally a plain old poetic song. All with big and archaic words and folk-rock instruments. Seriously good stuff if you're into that sort of thing.
6. The Runners Four - Deerhoof
Deerhoof! The best Deerhoof! An hour of it! They rock, rock and rock. Their drummer is awesome, their guitarists are awesome, even their high pitched Japanese singer is awesome (especially now that she can sing well)! Either you'll love Deerhoof or hate them.
7. If You're Feeling Sinister - Belle and Sebastian
Bluesy, folksy, rocksy songs. Sexuality, religion and love are covered here. The coolest thing about these songs is that they cover specific characters who are vividly drawn within a few minutes. "Judy and the Dream of Horses" is a definite favorite.
8. F# A# (infinity) - Godspeed You Black Emperor!
Pretentious, long songs that start slow, get fast, climax and then dissolve into ethereal sounding sounds, with rants and monologues put in for good measure. There are three songs on here, but that's still a good hour on the CD. A really good piece of music, if you ask me, but I wouldn't recommend it to most people.
9. The Lemon of Pink - The Books
I bought this on the title alone and I'm really glad I got it. The Lemon of Pink takes acoustic guitars, cello and "foundsound" which is basically voices from movies, TV, video games and wherever else they dug it up and mashes it together into really easy to like songs. As strange as it sounds, this is the kind of music I can relax to.
10. The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place - Explosions in the Sky
Guitar, guitar, bass and drums, all instrumental. More slow build ups to big climaxes. Instrumental music is tough for me to describe, it seems. They follow a pretty set pattern of the intro, build up, climax and rest but they do it so damn well!

So, that's the list of music I like! I think my descriptions petered out at the end. Ah well.

Music and catharsis

Today was a long, miserable day. I get home and the first thing I do is put a CD on, turn the volume up and lie in bed. Forty five minutes, I'm feeling a thousand times better and ready to continue with life. Why? How does a piece of music cause me to feel rejuvenated? For that matter, why do I have such a strong emotional attachment to this album? There doesn't seem to be any rational basis for these things. Frankly, I don't have any good theories on this.

Book review!

As terrible as it sounds, I just finished reading my first book this year. I've got to start finding more time to read.

Review time: "Only Revolutions" by Mark Z. Danielewski is a novel written in free-verse. The story is about two teenagers named Haley and Sam who are perpetually sixteen years old. The novel consists of two monologues, one by Haley and one by Sam, about their seriously deranged road trip across the United States. The book is a love story between Haley and Sam, a metaphor on the decline of the American Dream. The main theme comes across in the different ways that Haley and Sam view the same events. When they are confronted by The Creep, one of the two antagonists in the book, Haley sees Sam fighting him off while she cowers in the corner while Sam sees the exact opposite. This continues right up until the tragic end, even when it is physically impossible for the two characters to see opposite things happen. There is a lot of figurative language and wordplay in this book and whether or not you should read it largely depends on how much you enjoy figuring out just what the heck is going on. Personally, I enjoyed the poetic language, but I know it isn't for everyone. Overall, this is one of the best books I've read. It has strong themes, good pacing, good character development and a plot that still manages to come through despite the fact that you get conflicting information from both monologues.