Nick Drake

Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left (1969)

Wiki / Amazon

Okay, cool guy. You've heard of Nick Drake. You like to say things like, "all of modern acoustic guitar singer-songwriting owes him thanks" (guilty), or maybe "his style is just now being understood" (guilty). Nick Drake is like the Erik Satie of acoustic singer-songwriters: anyone who knows anything is aware of him, but everyone likes to pretend he is a big secret that no one understands or has even heard of.

So great, you heard Pink Moon on that car commercial and subsequently saw an Amazon review that says he's one the most brilliant musicians of the century. I mean, cool, whatever it takes to get you listening. But wait, don't stop at Pink Moon, armed with platitudes! He has two whole other albums!

Of which this is the first. Let's start with this: this album is beautifully depressing. It's not depressing in the "OMG SADDEST [totally fucking boring and generic] PIANO SONG EVER YOU WILL CRY" Youtube video way (seriously, I want to start a witch hunt every time I see one of those videos - and no one gives a shit about your shitty inability to get over your ex, Youtube commenters). Phew, excuse me. No, this album is depressing in a way that gets inside you, that brings you into Nick Drake's world and shows you his drowned cities, his foggy forests, and his fragile glass heart. Mmmm.

Let's finish with this: there are few songwriters in the history of music that can stack up to Drake's songs. His guitar playing is spectacular, and his orchestration on this album is flawless. Listen to it.

Julian Lage

Julian Lage - Gladwell (2011)

Wiki / Amazon

Who is Julian Lage?

Well, he's definitely one of the most underground artists I'll recommend on here in terms of name recognition, but the youngin' has already had a prestigious career as a jazz guitar virtuoso. You wanna name-drop, oh LET'S GO: David Grisman, Bela Fleck, Mark O'Connor, Chris Potter, Herbie Hancock, Antonio Sanchez...I'll stop there.

But who is he really? My impression is that he may be the nicest man on the planet. I had the pleasure of seeing him open for the Punch Brothers last year (Chris Thile's words as Lage and his band left the stage: "...definitely not an opening act."). The thing that I remember most distinctly his Lage's ceaseless smiling. And no, this wasn't some cool-guy-at-Chuck-E-Cheese smile, nor a tool-y CSI: Miami smile. This smile was pure, like a baby's ass. The man would rip out ridiculous licks at catastrophic speeds, and the whole time, he would just bob and smile. Occassionally he would do the jazzy "uhh yea" facial expression, but like, waaaay later than when the rest of the crowd started doing it in reaction to his solo. He won our embittered Punch Brothers hearts over in a jiffy. I just wrote juffy accidentally...a juffy is something much grosser, I think. Juffy juice? Enough.

Okay, so he's the virgin Mary incarnate. What sort of music does this anti-Ares play?

Jazz. But let's deconstruct that. Let's build up a spectrum of jazz. At one end we have pop-jazz. We'll place Jamie Cullum's album Twentysomething there (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFIjSY0amtc). At the other end, we've got, hmm, John Coltrane's Giant Steps (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30FTr6G53VU&feature=related), the pure, uncut raw stuff that Coltrane himself loved...him and Miles both. Sniff. See, most people like the Jamie Cullum end, but as we get more towards Giant Steps, we bleed people like Coltrane's saxophone bled notes. Enter Julian Lage, the marijuana of jazz. That's right, he is the perfect gateway drug into jazz; he helps you took those giant steps towards...oh, shut up, John. This is exactly what I like about Lage so much; he's a jazz musician steeped in the jazz tradition who hasn't forgot about songwriting. He's modernized jazz songwriting on his album. He flirts with nearly pop-like structures on certain songs, but he just happens to be doing brilliant jazz things in those structures.

You haven't convinced me. What artists does he sound like?

DANGLING PREPOSITION. Okay, that's out of my system. He sounds like John Scofield with the acid-techno aspects. He sounds like Brad Mehldau with more focus on songwriting (sorry Brad). He sounds good. Listen to him.

Download the album "Gladwell"

pw: crossgenre

PS to my one or two occasional readers / people I forced to read: sorry for being MIA. Finals week is a bitch, and wisdom teeth-removal is a bigger bitch. Hopefully I can stay on track now.

Opeth

Opeth - Damnation

I'd like to relate a story to y'all of how I first got into Opeth. First, some scene-setting:

A 14 year old punk named John Montroy is sitting in front of his so-big-it-might-be-a-transformer monitor connected to his way-worse-than-he-thinks-it-is computer, most likely in his boxers with old dirty dishes scattered around him, and maybe a used tissue or something. His mother wanders in and out occasionally, throwing secretive and despairing glances at the youngest of her flock, hoping desperately for some indication that he is aware of things in the real world, like the woman who raised him. Receiving no such signal, she sighs softly and walks out. John sniffs loudly, probably picks his noise and continues staring at the screen.

This particular day, the screen is filled with LimeWire, that old derelict P2P program that was 95% a bad life decision. John is searching for new music, as he has just stumbled upon the "Metal" boards on IGN.com's forums. He has recently been given the blessing of Porcupine Tree, a band he enjoys to this day. Steven Wilson, front man of Porcupine Tree, has connections to this band called Opeth. John knows nothing of Opeth, and blissfully decides to download a couple tracks. Ignoring the tracks like "opeth band full download album" and "brittney spearz opeth sex" (because he's a cleeeever boy, and he'll save the second one for later), John downloads two tracks. The first is called "Death Whispered a Lullaby" off the album "Damnation", which instantly appeals to John's Final Fantasy / anime-oriented mindset of overly dramatic titles like that. The second is called April Ethereal, off the album My Arms, Your Hearse.

The track Death Whispered a Lullaby starts to play. John nods approvingly, while probably apathetically eating Cheetos off his chest. Sounds Spanish-y with the acoustic guitar...cool vocals too! This guy has a beautiful voice. The track finishes out, and John is close to being an Opeth fan.

He turns on April Ethereal. Pretty vocal chord fades in, but it's eerie. And then-

RRRRRIIITTTTT WAAAAS MEEEERRGHGHG, PEEERRRING THROOOOUGH THE LOOKING GLAHHHHHSSSSSRRRR

oh my god. control of bodily functions gone, cheetos spill everywhere. mother montroy rushes in to see what the hell that noise is, realizes it, is disgusted, and leaves.

seriously, what? the cookie monster just got poetic. either that, or someone is giving a chronic smoker a colonoscopy while the smoker reads lines from Shakespeare.

John would soon learn to understand the appeal of Shakespeare-reading cookie monsters, and Opeth would prove to be a gateway to all sorts of soul eviscerating vocals. But what of that first track? Well, it turns out that it comes off that album Damnation, which is an entirely acoustic, clean vocal album. And actually a bloody brilliant little album. A little dark, a little drowned in mellotron, but super pretty.

Give it a listen, yo. Just - you all have fair warning when you go to their other albums. Opeth is a (damn interesting and ambitious and atypical) death metal band first and foremost. But this album - it sounds like Nick Drake on a sad day. Which is good.

Download this album

pw: crossgenre

Nickel Creek

Nickel Creek - This Side

Wiki / Amazon

Scene: Some tool's house. Tool is looking through cool guy's iPod, loudly judging cool guy's better taste in music.

hmmm, i guess creed is okay...no linkin park, wow, man that's bad. oh haha i love gnarls barkley, rofl i think you're craaazy right? oh, look nickelback! ...ohh wait, nickel creek, my bad. super lame, who the heck is nickel creek?

Uhh...for the record, on a list of "Bad Things in the World", Nickelback would be between 'migraines' and 'opium'. No subtext intended in the choices. Let's ignore you comparing the cancer of music to Nickel Creek for now, and move on. Nickel Creek is like...hmm, they're hard to sum up, they're like...progressive-ish bluegrass acoustic pop, and...

EW bluegrass, you mean like banjos and stuff? rofl this guy, only mumfords and son can pull off banjo, otherwise lemme go get my pipe and suspenders and put some blistahs on me fingahs rofl family guy reference right right yeeeaaa. no but seriously brah, bluegrass is really bad, it all sounds the same, cheesy lyrics, endless bad solos, and old men in suits and cowboy hats.

You're thinking of Bill Munroe-esque bluegrass. Because it's totally impossible for a genre of music to change in the 65 years since The Original Bluegrass Band in 1946. 1946. Movie tickets could be bought with a single dollar bill, World War II had just ended, and home televisions were bricks with tiny screens (no factual accuracy really intended). Israel wasn't a country, the USSR was about to be the greatest evil since Genghis Khan, and smoking was healthy for you. 65 years was long enough for Jesus Christ to live twice. 65 years is a long time, bro. Genres grow up.

Okay but like all the bands at festivals still listen to that stuff and sound like Bill Munroe, he's like bluegrass's superman, don't even deny it

Yea, and Bach has a dominating influence on every Western musician of this century, but that doesn't mean we all sound like Bach, with perfect counterpoint and form in every piece. Thank god, too. Back to Nickel Creek. They listen to everything from the New Grass Revival and The Telluride Sessions, to Radiohead, Pavement and Joanna Newsom. They're beautiful, melancholy acoustic pop. Their harmonies are perfect, they're all virtuosos on their respective instruments, and this may be their best album. I haven't met a single person who actually dislikes Nickel Creek...metalheads, outdated parents, classical snobs, no one. You would be the first if you claimed-

Whatever I like Nickelback more

Off yourself.

Download this album

pw: crossgenre

Gnarls Barkley

Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere

Wiki / Amazon

This album is for people who say:

"I THINK YOU'RE CRAAAAAAA-ZAAAAY" (calm down you bag of tools and buy the whole album...artists put out albums, not singles.)

"I SEE YOU DRIVIN' ROUND TOWN" (oh, you're totally that guy who thinks gnarls barkley is cee lo green's alias or vice versa. in related news, imogen heap is the artist, frou frou is the related collab with guy sigsworth. similar situation.)

"Such a good voice he's got!" (yea, and you haven't even heard the full range of it from the singles either...ever heard cee lo rap? sound sultry as hell? his voice is a wonder on this album.)

"I like shorter songs." (boom, your ADD is fully accommodated for on this album. average song length is an even 3 minutes.)

"I like vocal-driven funk/pop/soul/gospel." (well, that's specific. but what's the real point here? that's a lot of genres this album goes into...which means almost anyone can like something about it. thus why it's here! oooh, i'm listening to it now, and there's a bit of punk vibes in this track that i forgot about. one more influence!)

Download this track

Jamie Cullum

Jamie Cullum - Twentysomething

Wiki / Amazon

This album is for people who say:

"I like John Mayer." (is that a dangerous opening line? forget y'all, stop pointing at 'your body is a wonderland' and realize that john mayer is the best. distractions, hm. jamie cullum is john mayer minus the blues plus jazz, in my opinion.)

"My dad/grandpa/mom/grandma always talks about these old classics, like music will never be better than Singing' in the Rain. I just don't get it." (again, this album, man. jamie pours new life into songs that a generational divide can sometimes hurt.)

"I love jazz, but only when, like, Fiona Apple tosses me some jazzy sound chords. The full slab of jazz like 'Bitches Brew' level is just too much for me." (cullum writes songs, not jam sessions. i love ya miles, but 26 minutes later i'm not feeling too fulfilled either.)

"I really like cool covers." (radiohead, jeff buckley, my fair lady...goodness.)

Download this track

Eric Whitacre

Eric Whitacre - Cloudburst and other Choral Works
Wiki / Amazon

This album is for people who say:


"Oh yea, I sang one of his songs in high school/college choir, it was everyone's favorite one to sing! We'd all be so passionate and one time we storystorylol, but wow, I didn't know he had a whole CD!" (i literally have one of those stories, so s'all cool.)


"Choral stuff is really boring, like hallelujah hallelujah and stuff? Yawn." (trust me, this is like choral music with pop sensibilities. i mean one of whitacre's favorite albums is frou frou's 'details' for steve's sake! no i did not stalk whitacre to find that out.)

"I want to know what floating around heaven sounds like/I need more mood music." (put on this CD late at night when you're falling asleep...wheee, drugs without drugs man.)

"Sometimes choral stuff is great, like in movies and whatnot...I also really like Imogen Heap's 'Hide and Seek', does that count as choral?" (no, but it still counts as heart-wrenching. funny story btdubs, i lost the word heart-wrenching in my head the other day, and got stuck remembering it as 'heart-wrangling'. love is a rodeo, hmm?)

"I want a name to drop at cocktail parties." (tread lightly though...you're pretty much 50/50 for 'OH MY GOD I LOVE WHITACRE I NAMED MY CHILD ERIWHIT' and '...oh. well, uh, i'm not a, uh, particular fan, haaaaah'. the latter will be dripping with condescension. some people, man. if you're that guy, shame on you. listen with your hearts, not with your egos.)

And, just for funsies, a neat lil boogie woogie version of the same track:

Download the track 'Sleep'

Also be sure to check out with techno-choral-opera stuff 'Paradise Lost'! It's super. I can write about that if anyone wants.