Another Baby YHT pick.
Month: September 2015
Positive No
While running along a barrier- and spectator-lined section of Monument Avenue, I found the perfect album to pair with UCI Road World Championship racing: Positive No’s Glossa.
My rationale:
Dawes
I really liked “All Your Favorite Bands” when I first heard it, though I have to admit it felt a tad sentimental. Then I saw the video, at which point shit got real.
Cave In
My brother-in-law Brian knocked the birthday present baseball out of the park with a colored vinyl copy of Cave In’s Tides of Tomorrow EP, the front cover of which is pictured above. It’s excellent on its sonic merits, but it has some especially intriguing art on its inner sleeve. Check it out:
CD Monday
Been eyeing this one with CD Monday in mind for weeks. It’s Mrs. YHT’s copy — note the PA-based radio station sticker in the top right corner. Side note: Flipping through a high school CD collection that’s not yours is just about the funnest thing ever, especially when you’re in a friend’s room that was left alone since the start of college. You get to laugh at the crappy music time wasn’t kind to, shake the dust off the good stuff and pop it in whichever boombox they had, marvel at how many flashing lights there were on boombox displays… The 90’s were a wild time, man.
Spencer Strickland
I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Spencer Strickland, an award-winning mandolin player who’s part of the Church Sisters — one of the groups featured on the amazing Orthophonic Joy album that you need to hear immediately if you haven’t already — and the Virginia Luthiers, which is a group of instrument makers who play what bassist Gerald Anderson calls “Doc Watson kind of music.” But Strickland isn’t just an award-winning player — he’s also a record-setting one, as he was among the 493 pickers who came together at this year’s Old Fiddler’s Convention and successfully broke the Guinness World Record for largest mandolin ensemble.
Young Rapids
I had a fantasy football draft scheduled for last Wednesday night, which happened to be the same night as a Broadberry show I’d been looking forward to for some time. Lucy Dacus… Young Rapids… Manatree… Avers… So I did what any music-loving perennial fantasy failure would do: I went to the Broadberry, found a place to sit, opened up Yahoo’s fantasy app and neglected to pick a running back until the fourth round.
Did I mention I’m terrible at fantasy football? Fortunately, the onstage lineup fared better than my virtual one.
CD Monday**
Two asterisks for this week’s CD Monday** — one for the fact that it’s not, strictly speaking, Monday, and another for the fact that Loose Fur’s self-titled album won’t actually be spending the week in my car. I’m lending it to Bandmate 4eva (and partner in Wilco-related crime) Doug, who I texted ASAP after finding a vinyl copy at Little Amps Coffee in Harrisburg, PA on Saturday.
William Basinski
I’ve been spending a lot of time with William Basinski’s Disintegration Loops, “dlp 1.1” especially. Given the project’s backstory and cover art (you can read more here), it’s hard to avoid thinking about 9/11 while you’re listening to it. As a result, I’ve had today’s date at or near the front of my mind more often than I otherwise would, and while it’s certainly a somber way to spend your time, I’m inclined to think that it’s a reasonably healthy way to do what Americans collectively said we’d do about what happened that day: to never forget.
Destroyer
One of the best front-to-back albums I’ve heard this year. It’s been late-night listening, whistle-while-I-work listening, cocktail-hour-with-in-laws listening… it’s both interesting and versatile, which isn’t a combination you find too often.
The other thing I love about Poison Season — and you might call this a contradiction, too — is how the songs convey a sense of place and an unreality at the same time.
You Hear That 