Music of April

April was, for my money, the best month of music so far this year. A remarkable amount of good and great albums came out last month. To add to that, it’s been hard to pin down one real theme or genre that took center stage this month. The hallmark of this spring has been that there isn’t a hallmark.

And bands have started to take their tours northwards which means that I’ve been on a live-music run as well. This April, I saw three excellent concerts in particular, two smaller affairs with Shearwater and The Antlers, and an amazing show from Jónsi (more on this after the jump).

If there was one theme I could take from this month however, it’s of celebration. We saw a little of this in March, but the awkward tapping of feet gave way to a full blown party in April. There was touching music, fast music, slow music, loud music, and soft music, but in the end, everything seemed to give off hope and excitement. This month made me say; I can’t wait for the rest of this year.

***

Go by Jónsi.

I can’t start this review with anyone else. For all of the great music released recently, Go stands above anything else I’ve heard this year. The orchestrations are pure magic, an upbeat adaptation of the mystical Sigur Ros sound. (Jónsi is the lead singer of that band.) The lyrics are there if you want them, in English, Icelandic, and Hopelandic (Sigur Ros’s made up language.) but Jónsi’s delicate voice is enough. This is music to live your life to, as the range of emotions Jónsi reaches in this record seem to span the whole breadth of human experience.

Now, I knew this album was going to show up in one of my blogs, ever since I heard the wondrous ‘Boy Lilikoi’ and wrote about it for January. Last month, I plugged the NPR-live stream of the album, and was eagerly planning what I would write, something similar to the paragraph above. Yet, even after listening to the album time and time again, and buying ticket’s to Jónsi’s Minneapolis show, I never quite expected I would write the following paragraph.

But a couple songs into Jónsi’s live-show, I knew I would never again listen to or write about the album in the same mindset ever again. I toss around quite a few adjectives, but I reserve the word ‘sublime’ for show’s like Jónsi’s. The artist and his band played in front of an immersive set, designed after a French taxidermy shop that had burned down. Upon the backdrop, and in several large panels on the stage a series of stunningly beautiful animations were projected, telling various stories, primarily of animals, but also of woods, and of weather. The stand-out song was unexpected, Kolnidur, which had not been among the most memorable moments of the album. Yet that song, and the animation into which we were plunged worked so splendidly, that Jónsi drew at least a minute of clapping, near the beginning of the show. To end it all, the song Grow Till Tall, which uses a slow build reminiscent of Sigur Ros’ best songs, was set off by a torrential downpour on the backdrop with a roaring wind and strobe-light flashes of thunder. The effect was so comprehensive that I remember thinking “This is what the apocalypse would sound like” and I remember shivering, and feeling as though I was soaking wet. I have never seen anything like that.

I immediately left the theater after the show, and bought tickets to see the concert again the next night. Even now, I feel so excited to have been there for that show. Sublime.
+ Show Spoiler +

I recommend every single song on the album. The song I’ll link however, is the first song in Jónsi’s live show, Stars In Still Water, and it’s not actually on the album. It’s a beautiful thing though.

Thistled Spring by Horse Feathers
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Alright, not every album in April fits my celebratory theme. So sue me.

But Thistled Spring has too many beautiful moments to throw under the bus for thematic consistency. The album does well to temper the loneliness and depression of some of it’s songs, including the opener and title track, (lovingly orchestrated) but it lingers just enough in the quiet moments for them to be effective. It’s a sad album, but quiet. It doesn’t grab you by the shoulder and force you to listen, but it waits, patiently for you to notice. And when you do, it’s worth it.

The Outsiders are Back by Kings Go Forth
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Kings Go Forth have made a reputation as a fantastic live band, (and they’d better come to the Twin Cities soon.) but thankfully this 10-piece outfit from Milwaukee has managed to put the energy and the fun of their live performance onto their first full album.

And that’s what this album is, really. It’s fun. It takes all of two seconds on the album’s opening track to get the album into gear, and it never really goes down from that opening track. There’s a palpable energy to this record and it’s infectious, I can’t stop smiling when I listen.
+ Show Spoiler +

I’ll go with the album’s 7th track, Don’t Take My Shadow

There is Love in You by Four Tet
Subiza by Delorean
Swim by Caribou
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Last year, it was Discovery’s EP and Delorean’s Ayrton Senna EP that led the pack when it came to your easy-to-listen-to, pretty-danceable-but-not-CASCADA electronic summer music. This year, we have three contenders so far, each with the requisite pretty album cover and copious helpings of random background noises.

Only the Caribou album came out in April, (the others were released in January and March respectively) but they’re all albums I’ll be listening to more and more as the weather gets nicer and nicer. Of the three, I enjoyed Four Tet the most musically, as it weaves a background of chimes beautifully throughout, while Delorean is the easiest to tap your feet, nod your head, and hit the dashboard too. Caribou is somewhere in the middle, but it has a very blatant summer vibe (It’s got a huge sun on the cover…) that the others don’t work quite as much.

No doubt there’ll be a few other albums that come out in the coming months, each competing for airtime in your car on the way to the beach. But with these three, we’re off to a great start.
+ Show Spoiler +

The first songs from each album.
Four Tet - Angel Echoes

Delorean - Stay Close

Caribou - Odessa

B.o.B Presents: The Adventures of Bobby Ray by B.o.B. (aka Bobby Ray)
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Bobby Ray is the next in a line of rap artists like Lupe Fiasco and KiD CuDi, who are very good at mixing the art and the pop elements of the genre. That’s very hard to do, because getting your music on radio stations is pretty important for up-and-coming artists. But for every obvious hit like ‘Nothing on You’ (you’ve probably already heard this song if you live in the US, even if you don’t know it) this album has wonderful work like ‘Ghost in the Machine’ which betrays a sensitivity that makes this type of work so appealing.

Now, this is not a cohesive album, which is often a code word for saying an album makes absolutely no sense, and sucks terribly. But B.o.B. makes a lot of different looks work for him, mostly with sheer charisma and enthusiasm. There’s a hook to most of these songs, mostly in the featured work, and that keeps you listening, but there’s a depth here that keeps you really listening. And that’s just fine.
+ Show Spoiler +

The last song on the album, Airplanes Part II isn’t the catchiest, but I keep coming back to it. I think it hits closer than most other songs to a emotional core. It’s a great closer for a reason.

***

A look ahead:
Here’s an album that’ll be on my list next month. NPR music is streaming the whole upcoming album Together from the New Pornographers, and I love it. The New Pornographers are great because they have such versatility on vocals, and such a simple formula, that it’s hard to go wrong. It’s a fun album.

Then there’s The National, which is also putting out a record in the next month. They were streaming High Violet on the New York Times website, apparently, but I missed that. I’m fine with the album’s excellent first single, however, Bloodbuzz Ohio.

And finally, the new LCD Soundsystem album, This is Happening, leaked, despite impassioned pleas from James Murphy, and so the band put up the whole album for listening.

Enjoy!

Past music blogs:
Music of March
Music of February
Music of January
(Treehugger's) Best Music of 2009

Music of April

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