Posts Tagged ‘Indie Folk’

11. Ready, Able – Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest

12. The Reeling – Passion Pit, Manners

13. Hesitation Blues -Willie Nelson & Asleep At the Wheel, Willie and the Wheel

14. You’ve Got the Love (XX remix) – Florence + the Machine (XX Remix), Single

15. 40 Day Dream – Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, Up from Below

16. Hell On Earth – Deer Tick, Born On Flag Day

17. It’s Nice to Know You Work Alone – Silversun Pickups, Swoon

18. Empire State of Mind (feat. Alicia Keys) – Jay-Z, The Blueprint 3

19. Silver Trembling Hands – The Flaming Lips, Embryonic

20. Southern Point – Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest

This is the first of 4 posts with 10 songs each which will make up the “Top 40 Songs of 2009 – According to Coach” at cutbucket.com.  Picking 40 songs out of all of the great music that has come out in 2009 proved to be a tremendous challenge which is a testament to all of the new and wonderful sounds that filled my ears this year.

The thing to remember here is that these selections are my opinion based on many things including “my taste”.  The beauty of music is that we all have our own taste and style of sound we prefer.  2009 was an exceptional year regardless of your taste and my selections are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to all of the great music released this year.  Whatever your taste is, there are far more than 40 songs which can tell the story of music in 2009.  What an amazing musical time we are living in.  The maturity of the internet, while still far from perfect, has allowed so many more artists to find a channel in which to be heard over.  It’s a great time to be a fan of music.

The criteria that I considered were the following -

Number of Listens – How many times did I play each song (based on tracking within iTunes).  Of course, songs that came out later in the year were weighed against the available length of time listen to each song.

Sticky Factor - Did each song have the ability to “stick in my head” so to speak.? Was it recognizable again immediately after the first couple of listens?  Did I find myself humming the tune in my mind days after hearing it?

Overall Production Value – This speaks for itself…

Uniqueness – We don’t want no posers here.

Single Song Value – This was one of the hardest factors in my consideration.  Was the song strong enough to stand on it’s own without being part of an album.  In the day and age of single song downloads this is very important.   When picking the top “Songs” this has to be a factor.  If I were to pick the top “Albums” this would be a completely different mix of artists.

NOTE ::  As it relates to Single Song Value I had a very tough challenge placing the songs from Animal Collective’s release “Merriweather Post Pavilion”.  To truly appreciate the outstanding quality of their album I feel it needs to be judged as just that… AN ALBUM.  It is by far one of the top 3 of the year!!!  What is so special about Merriweather is it’s value as a work of art as a complete album in the day and age of the single song download.  That being said, none of the individual songs jumped into a natural spot within this list.  Therefore, I have included what I believe are the strongest singles from the album and put them at the bottom of the list.  This by no means represents the value of this album, I just didn’t know what else to do.  I highly suggest you listen to the entire album start to finish if you are going to listen to it at all. SORRY FOR THE LONG EXPLANATION.  I FELT IT WAS DUE.

NOW ON TO THE LIST….

31. About Face – Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest

32. Tell Me True – Sarah Jarosz, Song Up In Her Head

33. Soldier (Feat. Santigold) – N.E.R.D.

34. Walking On a Dream – Empire of the Sun, Walking On a Dream

35. What You Do to Me (feat. Billy Danze, Jim Jones & Nicole Wray) – Blakroc, Blakroc

36. Ghosts N Stuff – Deadmau5, Ghosts N Stuff – Single

37. Higher Than the Stars – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Higher Than the Stars

38. Things Will Never Be the Same Again – JJ, JJ N° 2

39. Summertime Clothes – Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion

40. Brother Sport – Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion

With the proliferation of folk music these days, I don’t see why The Amazing is not getting big run.  Maybe it’s because if you google “the amazing” you get lost in a myriad of links related to some lame reality show and if you google “the amazing band” not much better.  For God’s sake, you can’t even find them on an iTunes search with their horrible new UI…. uhhhhh!!!!! (even though they are there)

Below are my listening suggestions:

1. Start with Is It Likely and a glass of wine (or scotch in my case).  The last 2 minutes is a serious jam session.
2. Move on to Dragon and light a cigarette.  Sit back and chillz.  Wine refill.
3. Next is Romanian.  Sit even further back and close your eyes for 7 minutes.
4. Open your eyes for The Strangest Thing and pour another glass of wine.
5. Finally reminisce in your mind about the ones you love to Beach House and drunk dial your Fave 5.

Download: The Amazing – Is It Likely

Download: The Amazing – Dragon

Download: The Amazing – Romanian

Download: The Amazing – The Strangest Thing

Download: The Amazing – Beach House

Hopefully my first of many posts here, I thought I’d start with an oldie from 1996 that I had on one of my first mix CD’s titled “Hidden Gems”.  This song is from his great (and only) solo CD “Sweetie”.  Full of great pop rock songs like this one here – “My Hometown”.  T Bone Burnett produced the disc, and this track includes great lead guitar sound.  Daniel comes from some musical royalty, his parents being Barry and Holly Tashian, well known on the indie folk/songwriter front for many years.  Daniel has had several bands since, including The Bees US and Silver Seas.  But his old solo disc is still my favorite.  Enjoy!

Listen: Daniel Tashian – My Hometown

Readers of cutbucket have come to find that there is no real direction, no real target for the type of music you will find here.  The reason? Try and bring wonderful music to the masses with no “walls”.  There is so much great music out there and so many people pushing the bad stuff in our faces, we need stand up for the good stuff.

Well… let me push some good stuff on ya (again)!  One of my favorite bands of the year is Deer Tick.  Maybe I like them because I can’t quite explain them.  You can read my previous post [http://cutbucket.com/?p=177] to get my impressions.  I had the opportunity to ask 5 questions of front man, John J McCauley III.  He gave honest and insightful if not hilarious answers.  I hope getting to know John a little better helps open some insight into Deer Tick’s music for you.  It did for me.

cutbucket – I was going to ask you how a kid out of Rhode Island ended up making super textured country folk rock (actually I am not sure what Deer Tick music is, which is great), but I hear you started to develop your sound by listening to the likes of Hank Williams.  What are some of Deer Tick’s other major influences and who are you listening to these days?  (Sorry for the boring standard “influences” question.  I promise it gets better)

John – I think Deer Tick started out by being heavily influenced by Hank, and Townes Van Zandt and stuff like that. But I don’t listen to that stuff all the time. I’ve been listening to a lot of Tom Petty and The Replacements lately. And Dylan, who I used to not really like.

cutbucket – I understand that the band’s name “Deer Tick” came about from a personal experience with a deer tick.  If you had to re-name your band based on experiences since then, what would it be?

John – I don’t know. Foot Fetish? Let’s All Trip On Shrooms And Throw Stuff Off The Bus? Those are pretty good band names, huh?

cutbucket – If “Born on Flag Day” was a soundtrack to a movie, what would that movie be about?

John – An old, miserable Irish American with cancer, living in Providence.

cutbucket – When Deer Tick was going through the writing process for Born on Flag Day, did you give more consideration to where your music would fit into your fans lives or was all about telling your story?

John – I didn’t really write the album as an album. They’re songs I picked from a bunch that I’d written that I thought would fit nicely together. I guess its more about telling the story.

cutbucket – The first line of the song “Hell on Earth” states, “Life is beautiful and beauty is a dying art”.  Do you feel Deer Tick’s art is “beauty” or are you aiming for something different?

John – I wouldn’t call it beauty, hell no. It’s some kind of art. Sometimes it feels like we’re all locked in a room together and there’s a gun in the middle of the room and somebody is going to snap at any moment and we’ll all be dead in a big, rock n roll murder-suicide. Other times it feels about as perfect as a margarita on a hot summer day. We’re not really aiming for anything, which is maybe a problem.

Listen: Deer Tick – Hell On Earth

Listen: Deer Tick – Easy

Listen: Deer Tick – Friday Xiii

Author:  Coach

The Swell Season is one of those groups that just has a “feel” to their sound that hits you in the heart.  I never saw the movie “Once” which I guess was loosely based on the relationship between Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglov, the front man/woman of The Swell Season.  However, I did listen to the soundtrack of that movie many times over.  The music is so emotional that I guess I never needed to see the movie because it played out in my mind through the music.

Below is Low Rising, off of the upcoming new album as well as my favorite from the “Once” soundtrack, Falling Slowly.  I suggest sitting on your patio, opening a bottle of Pinot from Willamette Valley Oregon and hit repeat on these two.  It helps if you have your signiffy other or box of tissues (if your lonely) with you while you listen.

Listen: The Swell Season – Low Rising

Listen: The Swell Season – Falling Slowly

Author: Coach

Monsters of Folk (MOF) is due to release their new LP on September 22.  In lead up to this release, they have released 3 exceptional singles.  The music incorporates Folk (duh), Rock and Electronic elements.  Outstanding stuff.  No way I am missing their stop at the Orpheum in Phoenix.

Dear God was my immediate favorite of the bunch as I am a huge My Morning Jacket fan.  I am not sure there is a better vocal stylist out there to match the falsetto of Jim James.   The song comes strong with a funky bass line and has a Radiohead quality to it.  James finishes the song off with his ghostly pipes flying off into the distance.  Liquid Gold!!!

The Sandman, the Brakeman and Me is a whimsical folk ballad that you can picture as the soundtrack to a children’s book about a train that the sandman rides while delivering dreams to little boys and girls.  Sound rediculous?  Listen to the track and you will see what I mean.  Another killer cut that I would consider a “lullaby for adults”.   Both cuts are great and make sure you pick up the entire LP on the 22nd as I am sure it is going to be amazing.

Listen: Monsters of Folk – The Sandman, the Brakeman and Me

Listen: Monsters of Folk – Dear God (Sincerely M.O.F.)

Author: Coach

There is literally no time to post all of the good music out there and what makes it most difficult is cutbucket is a blog that aims to have something for everyone.  We try and leave no genre untouched.

This latest effort by Doves seems to be a perfect fit for cutbucket as it will  likely appeal to folks with all sorts of musical tastes.  These cuts I have posted from the Kingdom of Rust album include the title track of the same name.  Kingdom of Rust pulls in country, indie, folk and alternative influences with its twangy guitars, flowing strings, hollowing reverb and diving synths.  Think of it as Coldplay meets Chris Isaak.

Jetstream is a perfect title for the other cut.  It builds up to the exactly halfway point of the song (somewhere around the 2:40 mark) and takes off as if the song was exploding into the sky and then soaring to wherever your imagination goes when you close your eyes.  The reveb and synths will grab you and take you for a ride if you let them.

Listen: Doves – Kingdom of Rust

Listen: Doves – Jetstream

Author: coach

I am a HUGE fan of MGMT as are many of you.  They dialed in the new psychedelic sound that is everywhere these days.  Most of you out there are fans of “Time To Pretend” and “Electric Feel” (if you are not, you need to pull your head out the hole you have been keeping it in for the last 2 years).  I want to share what I consider their 4th best song on their groundbreaking album, “Weekend Wars”.  Retro-freak-show all the way.  It never got the radio/blog play that it deserved.  Hope you love it as I Love it!

Listen: MGMT – Weekend Wars

Author: Coach

First off, sorry for the long delay on the posts.  Ivy Simone created a little speed bump to my posting rhythm.  Love ya Ives!

“Heart it Races” is a great cut laid down by a total sleeper band, Architecture In Helsinki.  The original track by Architecture In Helsinki has an M.I.A/Santagold’esqu drum beat with an killer steel drum riff that resurfaces throughout the song.  As you digest it for the second and third time it really grows on you.  I am not sure how I missed this song back in 2007.  That is the joy of great music, there is always a killer cut out there that you have yet to discover.

The best part of discovering this cut may be the remake version released on an “Heart it Races” EP which is performed by one of my favorite bands, Dr Dog.  Dr Dog is on my cutbucket.com “yet to be posted bands” list.  Their version of “Heart it Races” outshines the original in my opinion.  Take a listen to both and let me know what you think.

Listen: Heart It Races – Architecture In Helsinki

Listen: Heart It Races (As Played By Dr Dog) – Dr Dog

Author: Coach