During rowjimmy.com’s little “break” since Festival 8, there was a little thing that we like to call Phish Fall Tour 2009. Your lovable and reliable bloggers (sophist and rowjimmy) managed to take in a couple shows apiece and listen to the rest diligently. Someone’s got to do it, right? So now, we present to you a run down of the entire tour, night by night, for your entertainment and reference.
So many albums, so little motivation to blog ‘em all… We’ve been through my top ten albums but there were several that missed the cut for that list. Today we’ll run down a few of those (in no particular order.)
This 2-LP compilation was assembled by to benefit the Red Hot Organization and features a who’s who of the indie rock scene. David Byrne, Feist, Bon Iver, The National, The Decemberists, The Arcade Fire, Conor Oberst, Riceboy Sleeps, Iron & Wine, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings and more contribute a wide ranging but cohesive collection of songs. Grab this and throw it on your iPod and whether you play it straight through or ride the shuffle this one is bound to please.
Wordless and entrancing, this side venture from Sigur Rós frontman Jónsi Birgisson features less of the Icelandic bombast and more subtle textures. Any fan of Sigur Rós or ambient music should check this out for a fascinating piece of middle ground.
More after the jump…
It’s that time again where every music blogger on these here intertubes sorts his iTunes by year and selects their favorite albums of the year. Naturally, we at rowjimmy.com wouldn’t want to miss out on that so we’ve come out of hibernation to give you our obligatory list.
This dreamy collaboration between Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) and Collections of Colonies of Bees began several years ago but didn’t get recorded until late last year. Merge Vernon’s low key vocal style with a bit of quiet, electronic, math rock and you get a striking, contemplative record that is hard to ignore.
Largely acoustic with occasional bouts of electric guitars, percussion and more, this record firmly cements the singer songwriter atop the heap of the current crop of folkies. Check this out on a snowbound Sunday morning.
Even before its release, I might have guessed that this record would make this year’s list but I had no idea that it would be such a dark throwback to the earlier bizarreness o the Lips. Instead of easing up the popular path laid by “Yoshimi” and “Mystics” the band re-explored its history and produced a record of marvelous cacophony, melody, and heart with less of the slick, overdriven, nonsense (“Yeah Yeah Yeah Song” anyone?) If you are a Flaming Lips fan that likes anything prior to “Yoshimi” you should dig into this record.
More after the jump…
