(This video has nothing to do with the rest of this post really – I just love it)
The ever-prolificMountain Goats frontman John Darnielle is at it again. Does the man ever sleep? March 26th will see the Australian release of new album All Eternals Deck and it will hit US stores on March 29. Check out the track listing below – I’m already entertained by the song titles alone.
1. Damn These Vampires
2. Birth of Serpents
3. Estate Sale Sign
4. Age of Kings
5. The Autopsy Garland
6. Beautiful Gas Mask
7. High Hawk Season
8. Prowl Great Cain
9. Sourdoire Valley Song
10. Outer Scorpion Squadron
11. For Charles Bronson
12. Never Quite Free
13. Liza Forever Minnelli
The following track is a new song but isn’t set to appear on the forthcoming album, as you can see from the list above. According to Darnielle it didn’t quite fit the mood of the record. I love the quietness of this song and the strings are beautiful.
This is my desk. The owls were a Christmas present. And if those other presents are still sitting on the desk that means I forgot to put them back under the tree and both my brothers-in-law are now short a gift. Oops.
The big day has arrived! And if you’re reading this on Christmas Day I’m assuming you’ve just stolen away from the family with some excuse like ‘I’m just popping off to get that eggnog for Aunty Mildred’ (seriously, does anybody actually drink that stuff? The name doesn’t exactly say DRINK ME, DRINK ME, DRINK ME does it?), but I actually wrote this last Tuesday in a panicky I-am-so-running-out-of-time-to-get-all-my-shit-done kinda mood, and I’m now spending time with my all my people while you’re reading this and did this overly long sentence ever have a point? I don’t know, I was eating cherries and drinking gin and watching Tim Minchin on the telly as I wrote this and hey… he’s funny.
So here are my favourite Christmas songs and I’ve just realised that this is the second Withered Hand track that I’m posting this week and I don’t care because it’s wonderful and you don’t have to play it if you don’t want to. But you should, because it’s Christmas and I said so and it’ll mean four extra minutes away from Aunty Mildred’s disapproving tuts at all the noise the kids are making and that slightly sour smell that her liberal lashings of lavender water haven’t quite managed to mask.
This time last year I posted my top 40 tracks of 2009.
1. Religious Songs – Withered Hand
2. Two – The Antlers
3. William Henry Miller Pt. 1 – Meursault
4. Love In The Time Of Ecstasy – Withered Hand
5. Kettering – The Antlers
6. White Blank Page – Mumford & Sons
7. Cornflake – Withered Hand
8. William Henry Miller Pt. 2 – Meursault
9. Bear – The Antlers
10. Oslo Novelist – Grand Archives
11. Winter Winds – Mumford & Sons
12. Northern Lights – Bowerbirds
13. Ruby – Roadside Graves
14. Madame Shocking – The Silent Years
15. Sigh No More – Mumford & Sons
16. Love Or Limb – Meursault
17. California On My Mind – Wild Light
18. Valley – Roadside Graves
19. The Cave – Mumford & Sons
20. People Say – Portugal. The Man
21. Sweet Disposition – The Temper Trap
22. Guiding Light – Muse
23. So Far Around The Bend – The National
24. Folding Chair – Regina Spektor
25. City Of The Dead – Pinstripe 45′s
26. With This Ship – The Basics
27. Familiar Light – Asobi Seksu
28. Black Ice – Ohbijou
29. Uprising – Muse
30. Far And Wide – Roadside Graves
31. Roll Away Your Stone – Mumford & Sons
32. 40 Day Dream – Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
33. Brother – Little Birdy
34. HiFi Goon – Throw Me The Statue
35. She Don’t Love Me – The Loops
36. I Love You, But Goodbye – Langhorne Slim
37. Antiques – Concept: Bravery
38. LaLaLa – The Loops
39. Suicide – The Raveonettes
40. Orchard – The Honey Trees
And how do I feel about them now? The Antlers are an every-now-and-then listen for me because of the sheer intensity of that album but I fall in love with it all over again every time I play it. Meursault are still going strong, getting a decent amount of spin on the stereo. Mumford & Sons… well I’ve gone off them a little bit lately and I think it’s because they were all hyped up and I kept hearing them on the radio in change rooms and shopping centres and that just didn’t sit right with me. They’re still good and all, but I need to remember that I loved them at least six months before they won Triple J’s Hottest 100 I think!
Muse & Temper Trap? Not even on my radar any more. That Wild Light track? Couldn’t remember it until I chased it up and it’s ok, but number 17? Yeah, no idea what I was thinking there. Number 34, ‘Hi Fi Goon’? A place holder, nothing more. Come to think of it, the last seven tracks on that list all belong in that category. Good songs, yes, but deserving of the Top 40? Perhaps not.
There are a few songs that I still really love. ‘Northern Lights’ by the Bowerbirds is the only track from Upper Air that’s stuck with me. ‘People Say’ by Portugal. The Man is also the only solo cut that I from The Satanic Satanist that I really latched onto. Pretty album art too, although I still haven’t figured out how to fold it all back up again. I love cardboard covers, but that one was like a bloody Rubik’s cube!
It must’ve been the year for albums containing only one song that I liked – I adore ‘Oslo Novelist’ but the rest of Grand Archives’ Keep in Mind Frankenstein hasn’t really stayed with me either. And as for ‘Madame Shocking’ from the 2009 EP Let Go The Silent Years…. well I’d totally forgotten all about it until tonight. How did that happen… I used to play that thing incessantly. As I’m doing all over again now. I do love rediscovering a track like that.
And as for my number 1 track? Well I was listening to Withered Hand just two days ago, so that is a love that’s still going strong. And ‘Religious Songs’ from last year’s Good News is still a favourite but there are several other tracks on that album that could easily have appeared at the top of my list. ‘Providence’. ‘I Am Nothing’. ‘For The Maudlin’ – oh, I love that one. A year on, these songs still tear me up. And you can read that as ‘tear’ (rip apart) or ‘tear’ (get all emotional like) – either and both are still true.
Just got home after spending the day car hunting (I found one!) and took a little detour through town to check out all the Christmas lights. I don’t feel like it’s really Christmas until I’ve ticked that off my list.
I wasn’t listening to these songs at the time but I’m passing them on to you so you can use them for your own Christmas light tours. Enjoy!
I love ‘Carol Of The Bells’ and I think that’s mostly down to watching ‘Home Alone’ countless times as a kid, especially around Christmas time. The song and the movie are forever linked in my mind. It’s quite a haunting kind of carol too when you think about it, and in the hands of The Bird & The Bee it’s almost creepy! Have a listen and see what you reckon.
I’ve already written about instrumental six-piece Balmorhea here, here and here. I think it’s because they’re just a little bit wonderful.
2010 saw the release of their fourth full length Constellations, an album that I’m yet to hear in its entirety. It’s on my (long) list! Not only that, they’ve also released a limited edition 7″ entitled Candor/Clamor. Sample ‘Clamor’ below, and then check out ‘Baleen Morning’ from their 2008 release Rivers Arms. It’s my favourite.
Well the countdown to the festive season is well and truly underway and we seem to be marking it here Down Under with a steady stream of seriously humid days, flash flooding and an evergrowing plague of locusts. Merry fucking Christmas.
