Music: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth - Self Titled
Mood: Lonesome
So here's the pitch: for the next few weeks, I am going to give you a biased, albeit short-sighted, yet comprehensive review of the 50 greatest albums I have ever heard. They will be ranked, and should culminate with what I deem to be the greatest album in the short-history of music that I am privy to. Without much ado:
No. 50 - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Self Titled
This really should be much higher on the list, but given that it is a relativley new addition to my library, it rightly deserves its place as the loser among the greats. Clap Your Hands are a five-piece from Brooklyn, NY, and currently the object of worship among David Bowie and his 8 foot tall Nubian wifey. Still, there's hardly anything that can be said to detract from the album's stellar qualities.
The record is consistently, remarkably strong, but "The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth" in particular stands out, with its richly buzzing synth phrases, textbook Modest Mouse guitar lead (a trebly, gliding string bend skimming over the rhythm like a flat stone over a pond), contrapuntal bass, and shuffling drums. The song also features one of vocalist Alec Ounsworth's most memorable performances: He ramps up the urgency as the heavier chords kick in, his voice cracking and shifting in cascading waves as if someone were pressing his vocal cords to a fret board and bending them. "Is This Love?", with its clean, galloping guitars and fruit loop synth trills is the song most blatantly redolent of Neutral Milk Hotel (especially of the unhinged pop and careening vocals Mangum favored on On Avery Island), and its dizzily wowing vocal harmonies carry over to "Heavy Metal", where fuzzed-out bass and wheezing harmonica punch smart shapes into the fizzy guitars.
To be fair, there are some pieces to the album that need to be reconsidered, but, for the most part, its an excellent demonstration that indie music has not completley dissapeared. If anything, this album is a testament to the notwithstanding assumption that the 'scene' is dead, and in its wake we bear the onslaught of artists whom lack pre-packaged images for us consumer to swallow. But you know, I think I like the new system more than the old.
Mood: Lonesome
So here's the pitch: for the next few weeks, I am going to give you a biased, albeit short-sighted, yet comprehensive review of the 50 greatest albums I have ever heard. They will be ranked, and should culminate with what I deem to be the greatest album in the short-history of music that I am privy to. Without much ado:
No. 50 - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Self Titled
This really should be much higher on the list, but given that it is a relativley new addition to my library, it rightly deserves its place as the loser among the greats. Clap Your Hands are a five-piece from Brooklyn, NY, and currently the object of worship among David Bowie and his 8 foot tall Nubian wifey. Still, there's hardly anything that can be said to detract from the album's stellar qualities.
The record is consistently, remarkably strong, but "The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth" in particular stands out, with its richly buzzing synth phrases, textbook Modest Mouse guitar lead (a trebly, gliding string bend skimming over the rhythm like a flat stone over a pond), contrapuntal bass, and shuffling drums. The song also features one of vocalist Alec Ounsworth's most memorable performances: He ramps up the urgency as the heavier chords kick in, his voice cracking and shifting in cascading waves as if someone were pressing his vocal cords to a fret board and bending them. "Is This Love?", with its clean, galloping guitars and fruit loop synth trills is the song most blatantly redolent of Neutral Milk Hotel (especially of the unhinged pop and careening vocals Mangum favored on On Avery Island), and its dizzily wowing vocal harmonies carry over to "Heavy Metal", where fuzzed-out bass and wheezing harmonica punch smart shapes into the fizzy guitars.
To be fair, there are some pieces to the album that need to be reconsidered, but, for the most part, its an excellent demonstration that indie music has not completley dissapeared. If anything, this album is a testament to the notwithstanding assumption that the 'scene' is dead, and in its wake we bear the onslaught of artists whom lack pre-packaged images for us consumer to swallow. But you know, I think I like the new system more than the old.
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