Delay

You may have noticed that I've pushed back the next set of reviews a week. I'm taking a short break for research. I'm doing some reading about techniques and tools of musical criticism. I hope to incorporate some of the ideas I find into my writing. The next set of reviews will be longer, allowing me to more fully and precisely express what I enjoy about each release. I hope that my recommendations will grow more enjoyable and helpful for anyone looking for great new music. Thanks for your patience.

Portishead: Third

Third cannot exist unless everything we know is wrong. It's an abomination unto the laws of nature. And like all abominations worth their salt, it's astonishingly beautiful. Portishead have created a return to form that's also a radical departure. Paradoxically, Third recreates the mood and the aesthetic of Dummy by discarding its techniques and employing a new toolkit. Third sounds as if it were Portishead's eleventh album snatched from an alternate reality, rather than their third in this one. In another potentially universe-detroying contradiction, Beth Gibbons sounds like a torch singer enfeebled by chemotherapy, but her presence is anything but meek. I've always felt that the best music seems imaginary, though music becomes real once it is imagined. Third seems less real the more I listen to it, so by this criterion (and by many others) it's easily one of this year's best albums.

Robyn: Robyn

It's actually been four years since Robyn, Sweden's former teenage "pop tart", released this astonishing comeback album in Europe. However, it didn't get a U.S. release until this year. Fortunately for Robyn and for the States, it still sounds ahead of its time. She has clearly matured beyond the teen pop stereotype and into the role of auteur. Robyn is constructed on a bedrock of impeccable electro and dance pop, but the whole affair is handled with much greater intelligence than is typical of these genres. Her winking, smirking bravado and semi-coherent appropriations of American slang are a perversely astute deconstruction of the clichés of celebrity. It's no wonder why Robyn has crusty old music snobs scratching their heads and reevaluating preconceptions of musical credibility.

Fleet Foxes: Fleet Foxes

It's quite unusual for a band to release such a sophisticated debut as that of Fleet Foxes. It's even more anomalous to hear an album that's both highly polished and unfailingly excellent. Yet Fleet Foxes have achieved both in one fell swoop. This is largely because they know their myriad strengths well and have crafted an efficient showcase for them. Their songs rely equally on unabashedly buoyant melodies, sunny harmonies and arrangements or guitar, piano, etc., played more than competently. If you haven't heard Fleet Foxes yet - and judging by its U.S. chart peak at #83, you probably haven't - you're missing one of the finest albums of the decade.

The Ruby Suns: Sea Lion

It saddens me that most people's first (and probably only) exposure to The Ruby Suns will be a recent Microsoft commercial that uses about three seconds of "Oh, Mohave". I say that because the venom just beneath the surface of the ad - it implies that if you don't like Vista, the problem is you, not Vista - is antithetical to the spirit of the band. Ryan McPhun skillfully marries Brian Wilson-inspired sunshine pop to the equally good vibrations of the South Pacific. Sea Lion hasn't a single malicious note. The album is a densely layered confection of fuzzy, sunny loveliness. I hope that the songs will be licensed for more commercials, but for companies that use their powers for good instead of evil. Then Sea Lion will get the exposure it deserves without being sullied by malice.

Syclops: I've Got My Eye on You

Syclops isn't the typical act for DFA Records, if there can be such a thing anymore in the wake of the label's more diverse recent signings. The funk and punk trappings ordinarily found in their releases are sparse on Syclops' debut album and there is very little cowbell. Likewise, with few exceptions, the tracks on Eye are much more landscape than foreground. The negative spaces are filled with dreamy synths and squelches. The array of tone colors floating around the middle of the mix provides ample reward for repeated listens.

Autechre: Quaristice

Warp Records stalwarts Autechre seem to have recovered from their slump. Heralded as the future of electronic music in the 1990s, Autechre's sound didn't carry well into this decade. It seemed that they were doomed to release the same dull, plodding record over and over again. Quaristice manages to outdo most of their recent output and some of their older stuff, too, by breaking the routine. It's their most diverse album so far, integrating the weirdo noodling of Amber with the cacophony of Tri Repetae and the nearly dancy rhythms of LP5. Most of the tracks are very short by Autechre's standards as well, around four minutes on average. Compared to the interminable repetition of the eight-minute-plus tracks of Untilted, the songs of Quaristice are a welcome return to brevity and variation for Autechre. Apparently, they've still got it in them to shape the future of IDM.

Blood on the Wall: Liferz

In an era when the past is being systematically mined for dormant genres to reinvigorate modern music, it's almost a subversive act to adopt a form so recent it never had a chance to go out of style. The low-fi alternative guitar rock of Pixies, Sonic Youth, Guided By Voices, Dinosaur Jr. and others has never lost its indie cred, so it's not a good style choice if one is trying to get by on meta-ironic gimmicks. On the other hand, Blood on the Wall do something pretty unusual for an indie band in the 21st century: solid, inspired musicianship. Liferz shows that with care and attention to detail, even the most well-worn paths can feel fresh and vibrant.

Tobias Fröberg: Turn Heads

If there are any mediocre Swedish bands or musicians, I don't want to know about them. In the Sweden of my mind, the streets are crawling with pop geniuses and the wind carries impossibly sweet melodies. One day something will shatter this illusion, but I'm grateful that it won't be Tobias Fröberg. Turn Heads, Fröberg's third album, is yet another example of modest yet impeccable albums flowing out of the country these days. Nothing on this album screams out for critical acclaim or indie cred, but it doesn't need to. It wins over the listener quietly and gradually. I found it unremarkable on first listen, but it has grown on me over the past couple of months. Now I recognize it as one of the strongest, most infectious albums of the year despite its unassuming demeanor.

Quiet Village: Silent Movie

Quiet Village's approach to songcraft is similar to that of The Go! Team, Girl Talk, and numerous others that have emerged this decade. Silent Movie combines copious samples with original music to weave vivid atmospheres. But while their contemporaries turn their dials up to eleven, Quiet Village trade in subtlety. Silent Movie is a slow collision of Martin Denny's exotica, Ennio Morricone's film scores, shoegaze, and early 90s downtempo "chillout" music, among others. A few years ago I formulated a theory that in this decade, every form of music from the previous century would reemerge in unusual combinations, giving birth to the first new musical forms of the 21st century. Silent Movie is compelling evidence that I might just be correct.

Lil Wayne: Tha Carter III

If you told me two years ago that I'd be writing a recommendation of a double-platinum certified rap album, I would have thought you were crazy. Yet, here we are. Tha Carter III retains many of the best qualities of Lil Wayne's 2006 mixtape with DJ Drama, Dedication 2, but is strangely more cohesive despite having nearly as many producers as songs. Wayne's shambolic cadences are criticized as lazy in some circles, but when paired with the relatively mechanical flow of Jay-Z and others, Wayne just seems to be having a good time. In nearly eighty minutes, Tha Carter III explores so many ideas that it might be easier to appreciate in smaller portions. However, hardly a single moment on the album seems dispensible. Tha Carter III might be somewhat demanding, but it pays enough dividends that it can afford to be.

Head of Femur: Great Plains

Great Plains is a lot to take in. Copious numbers of instruments, abrupt rhythm changes and winding muli-part songs keep the listener on the verge of sensory overload. But when "Jetway Junior" starts, it becomes clear that all this complexity actually serves simplicity in perverse ways. The kernel of each song is a great melody and propulsive rhythm. Once this realization sinks in, it becomes easier to focus on each track's core qualities. The large arrangements are in sharp relief with the simple pop melodies, making Great Plains a more interesting listen as it progresses.

Sigur Rós: Með Suð í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust

Less than ten seconds into "Gobbledigook", the opening track of Með Suð í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust, it's clear that Sigur Rós has made a long overdue change in direction. Three albums of pretty much the same sound was beginning to get a little stale. By the time Takk... was released, they were just treading water. Now it seems Sigur Rós has been paying a little more attention what's going ob outside their own insular world. The melodies still are soaring and pretty and spacy (it would hardly be a Sigur Rós record otherwise), but the instrumentation is much more complex. There are fewer strings and more varied instruments like horn sections showing up on various tracks. Rhythm is more prominent than it has ever been on a Sigur Rós album. At moments, there is even an unmistakable Animal Collective influence. Finally shedding some of the trappings that were beginning to make Sigur Rós a bit dull, they are now free to explore their undiscovered potential. If Með Suð í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust is an indication, then their best days may still be ahead of them.

Kelley Polar: I Need You to Hold On While the Sky Is Falling

Kelley Polar, aka Michael Kelley, is a Juilliard-educated violinist and this shows in his approach to electronic music. Kelley treats his electric instruments as a means to an end, foundations of a larger structure, components of a finished product. While most of his peers aim to dazzle with the strangest sounds (many to wonderful effect), Kelley is more comfortable with the slow build and the cumulative effect. In a genre that frequently depends on instantaneous reward, Kelley's music demands a great deal more attention and is unlikely to create the kind of mass fervor that Daft Punk have. However, I Need You to Hold On While the Sky Is Falling rewards the attentive listener with a deeper experience. This is more bedroom music than dance music.

Herman Düne: I Wish That I Could See You Soon

Herman Düne is a French band, but it's understandable why people would think they're from Sweden. In recent years, Sweden has handily unseated Glasgow as the world capital of tongue-in-cheek twee pop of the sort that is found on this EP. While a playful giddiness typical of the genre (if it can be considered one) is evident here, it belies a deadly serious earnestness. On "When the Water Gets Old (And Freezes on the Lake)", David-Ivar Herman Düne almost entirely drops the self-effacing wit and observational humor that pervades the EP, letting the ache it conceals show through. As is the case with their Swedish non-countrymen, the tiniest measure of bitterness makes the rest all the sweeter.

Mehcommendations resume

Mehcommendations will resume tonight at midnight with my review of Herman Düne's I Wish That I Could See You Soon EP.