Taking a Short Break

So right now things have been pretty busy. Add this to some pretty nasty headaches that I've been having for the last few evenings, and well there haven't been to many chances for me to write on here lately. I'll be back very soon (possibly as soon as January 1st), but for the moment I have some stuff to take care of, and some sleep to catch up on.

2009 My Lamb Sells Condos Most Favoritest Albums of the Year List: 25-16

Okay, well we are reaching the end of 2009 so I figured it was about time to introduce the first annual "My Lamb Sells Condos Most Favoritest Albums of the Year List". It took longer than I expected to compile, but bellow are the 25 albums that stood above the rest.

So....

Without further ado....

#25: Various Artists - Dark Was the Night

I generally don't like compilation albums, but Dark Was the Night is far to good to ignore. Bringing together some of the most talented musicians in the indie / underground music scene, Dark Was the Night is easily one of the coolest compilations you could ever hope to come across.

#24: Taken By Trees - East of Eden

Swedish musician Victoria Bergsman, who performs under the stage name Taken By Trees, is probably most well known in the States for her duet with Peter Bjorn and John in Young Folks. On East of Eden though Bergsman shows that she is an extremely talented solo artist. Combing Swedish indie pop with Pakistani influences, East of Eden creates soundscapes that are both elegant and jarring, walking a fine line between complexity and simple beauty.

#23: The Paper Chase - Someday This Could All Be Yours, Vol. 1

The Paper Chase is a weird band. The closest thing I could say to come close to describing them is that they sound a bit like The Flaming Lips playing in hell. Someday This Could All Be Yours, Vol. 1 is their follow up to the amazing (and rather creepy) Now You Are One of Us and what appears to be the first part of a series of concept albums. The lyrical theme of the album is sunny as usual, this time the focus is placed upon natural disasters and our ultimate helplessness against the whims of nature. It's dark, crazy, and utterly engrossing.

#22: Girls - Album

Was this album a bit over hyped? Yeah. Was it still quiet good? Yup. The mere fact that this still comes in at number 22, even though it was kind of a let down for me after all the hype I heard about it, is a testament to how good this album really is. The band itself has an amazing back story and the music they make is warm, quirky, very emotive (in a good way), with decidedly classic rock tendencies. It isn't the potential album of the year I went in expecting, but it is very, very, very good anyway.

#21: Florence + the Machines - Lungs

Bombastic is probably the best word to describe Lungs. This album is huge, the drums boom, the instrumental work is diverse and at times orchestral, and Florence Welch's voice soars as she tells fairy tales of love, loss, and coffin building sons. An amazing full length debut.

#20: .fun - Aim and Ignite

The word fun could not be a more perfect name for this band. Rising from the ashes of The Format, Aim and Ignite takes everything that made The Format great and brings those strengths to the forefront while amping up the theatrics and mixing in a heavy dose of Queen.

#19: M. Ward - Hold Time

Hold Time isn't really the kind of album bloggers or big name reviewers are generally gonna faun over very much. It isn't a release from some shiny new band that everyone wants to be one of the first to promote, nor is it some sort of revival or rebirth. Instead with Hold Time Ward has simply released a beautiful album. It was never gonna be the buzz of the blogosphere, but it's a damn good record and one of my favorite releases of the year.

#18: Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion

Yeah I know, this is supposed to be in my top 3 right?

Merriweather Post Pavilion was easily the most universally cool album of 2009. It will probably earn more number one spots on year end lists than any album this year. I totally understand why this is the case, it's weird and catchy, it basically bleeds coolness from the way it sounds to the moving optical illusion on the cover. Yet, though this is the case, the reason I placed this album at number 18 is quite simple; there are 17 albums that for some reason or another resonated with me just a little bit better. It isn't a slight against the band or those who absolutely adore the album (it is quite excellent), it's just personal preference.

#17: Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest

I'm probably killing any chance at indie cred by placing both Merriweather Post Pavilion and Veckatimest outside my top 10 but oh wells. Anyways, Veckatimest is the album that really got me into Grizzly Bear. I've had Horn of Plenty and Yellow House in my iTunes forever (and they are both great), but this album is the one that really made Grizzly Bear into a band I could listen to regularly. Here Grizzly Bear has taken their sound and allowed it to fully grown, managing to craft songs that retain the original haunting quality of older Grizzly Bear but doing it with a more expansive sound.

#16: Malcolm Middleton - Waxing Gibbous

Malcolm Middleton is actually having some fun. Who woulda thunk it? Waxing Gibbous is probably the most upbeat collection of tracks the former Arab Strap multi-instrumentalist has ever released. Though it certainly isn't all sunshine and puppies, Waxing Gibbous shows a new side to Middleton, and though it was unexpected, it works very well. There is nothing quiet as stunning as the title track off his last official full length, A Brighter Beat, but the album meshes together so beautifully who cares?

Anyway, how could anyone possibly not dig that heavy Scottish accent?

Alright so that ends part 1 of the My Lamb Sells Condos Most Favoritest Albums of the Year List. Tomorrow I'll be putting up part 2 which will contain albums 15 - 1.

Merry Last Minute Christmas

I know I'm a bit late, but last I checked it's still 11:30 PM, of December 25, here in Honolulu.

So...

Merry Christmas!!!

P.S.: My best albums of 2009 list is basically finished so it should be up soon. :)

The Grammy Nominations

Wow, I don't know why I even bothered looking.

The Grammys are easily the biggest joke of an award show around. They need to change the title of "The Best Album" category to "The Highest Selling of the Three Albums That Were In the Charts and Had a Couple of Songs On the Radio That 14 Year Old Girls Seemed To Enjoy, Plus One More Album From a Bunch of Old Guys Because They Have Name Recognition"...

My (Upcoming) Year End List

Being the pretentious hipster prick that I am, I figured I'd put together a list of my favorite (not necessarily the best) albums of 2009.

Douche...

It'll be pretty straight forward, probably within the 10 to 25 album length that is the norm for these list, and it definitely won't be finished within the next day and a half due to the fact it's 3 AM right now, and I'm gonna be out all day tomorrow. It is gonna get done in the near future though, so be warned because I'm gonna be throwing out my completely irrelevant opinions on what I enjoyed listening to in 2009 very soon.

Restarting

So, since the fall semester is over I've been pretty remise in posting on here. Most likely this is because, I lack classes to procrastinate from due to winter break. I guess I tend to be the kinda of person who has to do something when I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing to make me feel like I'm busy doing something to justify my putting off doing what I should be doing in the first place.

And if you were actually able to follow and fully understand that last sentence well...

Anyways....

The point I'm trying to get too is that I'm gonna be making this blog into something more than just a product of my procrastination. Hopefully I'll be posting regularly, with the content probably being random stuff with the occasional Arsenal FC or music related post. Basically it's just gonna be the wayward wanderings of my nomadic mind.

By the way I shamelessly stole (and most likely will continue to reuse in the future) the clapping folks above from tsururadio. It's an absolutely fantastic music blog, so go check it out.

Arsenal 2-1 Liverpool

Oh sweet, sweet, sweet victory.

Coolness

From Jeff Mangum's Orange Twin Field Works: Volume I

Politically Incorrect Fun With Batman

They shoulda used the kilt in The Dark Night.

The Last Week of Class is Looming...

Let the insanity begin!

No, but seriously, this is gonna get a bit intense. I am trying to keep things somewhat organized and scheduled though, so hopefully this will go relatively smoothly.

Brilliant

"I'm going to eat a Reeses tomorrow"

This might make more sense if you're somewhat familiar with Wes Anderson's work, but I'm pretty sure this is hilarious no matter what.

The Perfect To-Do-List

Amen Lucien.

This was actually found on ami. It's an absolutely awesome site that I would highly suggest to anyone into photography, graphic design, or just cool stuff in general.

This Lamb Sells Condos

This Lamb Sells Clondos is the name of a brilliant song by Canadian musician Owen Pallett who performs under the moniker Final Fantasy (no relation to the games :P) and is also the namesake of this blog.

If the above video isn't enough prove of this man's brilliance, I'll confirm it. Final Fantasy's two (soon to be three) albums, Has a Good Home and He Poos Clouds (which happens to be the album that contains This Lamb Sells Clondos) are utter masterpieces. Pallett combines metaphoric yet emotionally stark lyrics, dense classical (generally violin driven) soundscapes, and elastic vocals to create music that is both suffocating and euphoric.

Stuff That Doesn't Remotely Suck: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

In my limited spare time between studying for finals and writing papers, I've begun re-reading Johnathan Safran Foer's second novel Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Taking place in the mind of a child in post September 11th New York, and through the letters of two German immigrants who survived the bombing of Dresden, this novel looks at the complexities of the personal impact of large scale tragedy. In doing so, Foer paints a beautiful, and sometimes jarring, portrait of how events that have had global implications alter the paths of individual lives.

Madame Tutli-Putli

The Beginning

Blogging, is first and foremost, an internal dialog. Sure we like to imagine that we are reaching a wider and interested audience, but in reality (obviously with some exception to the rule) this is generally a justification for our talking to ourselves. The act of having conversations with oneself is generally frowned upon, but the more I think about it, the more I believe we are mistaken. Sure, walking around town muttering about impending alien invasions is probably a negative behavior, but sometimes the action of simply emptying your mind without having to form your thoughts for anyone but yourself can lead to the natural formation of uninhibited individual thought.

This blog is going to be a personal experiment with internal dialog, I'm not sure if this will go anywhere, and I'm not looking to change the world with some kind of deep philosophical pondering. Instead this will simply be a place where I share what comes to mind. Where I collect what interests me and hopefully, out of the randomness that is sure to ensue, something interesting might form.