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Tramp is a ridiculously good album from Brooklyn’s Sharon Van Etten, that was released just this week.  In a sense the album title should be swapped with her previous record, Epic, since this is not an austere collection of tunes but a rather soaring and complex masterpiece that maintains the emotional majesty that is her hallmark but adds new depth to the music itself.  Produced by Aaron Dessner of the National (who, along with some of his bandmates and other luminaries such as Zach Condon, makes guest appearances too) this is a real step forward for Van Etten and is one of 2012’s leading albums to beat.

I discovered Escort through a club remix of the first track on this album, Caméleon Chameleon, which first appeared on an NPR podcast and then in my SoundCloud feed.  Now I’m listening to the full album, thanks to the power of the internet.  These guys are funky as hell, rediscovering the old disco roots of Brooklyn via the medium of gloriously upbeat tracks mixed with a sly sense of modernism.  Officially tipping Escort as a live band for 2012…

Another one where serious questions have to be asked about this writer’s taste and dedication as to why it wasn’t posted 6 months ago.  Burst Apart is a sonically stretching follow-up to the cathartic Hospice (another of 2009’s sleeper hits) that elevates the themes to something less likely to make you bawl but soar instead.  The epic opener I Don’t Want Love sets the album off at the right pace as a heartfelt and yet self-undermining protest and the rest of the album continues just as brightly.  Great stuff.

Part of the 2011 winter clearout - albums not reviewed when they came out but still worth sharing before the end of year lists hit.

Original release date: 10 May 2011

The Rip Tide is an excellent album that, much like the rest of Zach Condon’s discography is something of a slow burn (whilst being characteristically recognisable).  Not sure why it took so long to get round to it here but with tracks like East Harlem and the title track, it’s strong enough to comfortably slot into the end of year lists.

Part of the 2011 winter clearout - albums not reviewed when they came out but still worth sharing before the end of year lists hit.

Original release date: 30 August 2011

Six years after Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!’s definitive, eponymous debut and four years after the disappointing, loud and nonsensical followup, Some Loud Thunder, came Hysterical.  A marvellous collection of quirky indie pop that returns to the lighter side of CYHSY! whilst bringing a more well-rounded maturity to the track list.  

Part of the 2011 winter clearout - albums not reviewed when they came out but still worth sharing before the end of year lists hit.

Original release date: 

Oh Panda Bear, how were you ever supposed to live up to expectations on Tomboy?  The critical success of Person PItch weighed heavily and the seemingly-forever postponed recordings (due in part to the success of Merriweather Post Pavilion and Animal Collective’s touring) that led to the release of this album 4 years later didn’t help.  Tomboy is certainly not a bad record, indeed there are quite engaging tracks in there, but really not enough to keep you returning and certainly nothing nearly as inventive as he’s delivered before.

Part of the 2011 winter clearout - albums not reviewed when they came out but still worth sharing before the end of year lists hit.

Original release date: 11 Apr 2011

When the good people of Summer Camp go to sleep at an angle, this is what you get.  Beautiful, dreamy synth-pop that’s slightly too off-kilter to call pop and slightly to charming to call shoegaze.  The twisted dream state extends beyond the rather ethereal ephemera that is each song but into the content too, covering everything from the complications of time travel to the distorted videotapes of our history.  Blouse is ultimately the captured sound of our collective dystopian retromania disintegrating into something ultimately quite vivid.

Imagine the Moldy Peaches on their most introspective days.  The days when the wacked-out, crack-finding urges were gone.  Now imagine a pineapple.  Forget the pineapple.  What you’re left with is Gospel Music.  Anyone who listened to the EP Duettes will know how How To Get To Heaven From Jacksonville, FL is going to sound.  Charming little pop ditties with witty lines such as “I can’t be a man if I don’t have a woman, and I can’t get a woman if I’m not a man” show Owen Holmes poking fun at himself and “You don’t have to be alone (but you can’t be with me)” poking fun at others.

Parallax is probably Bradford Cox’s 1,057th album in the last three days, such is the man’s impressive output.  And it’s good.  It’s like a collection of postcards from a constantly shifting destination, a time and space undefinable but defiantly refined.  But not only does Parallax contain a misty mystery but it is also contains some great songs - from a conceptual and a tuneworthy perspective.  Take Mona Lisa for example, not as memorable as Da Vinci’s version but equally likely to make you smile.  Expect another new album any time soon but enjoy this one for what it brings down from the skies today.

The King Is Dead… Long Live The King!  A fitting companion piece to the Decemberists fine album from all the way back in January.  ’twas so long ago this record almost sounds vintage now.  So old that it’s cool again.  Well okay, it’s actually one of the few records of 2011 that’s stuck all the way through the year so having a little fill-up on that is more than welcome.  Tracks like Row Jimmy and E. Watson (which is not about the Harry Potter starlet but a lawless cane sugar plantation owner called Edgar Watson) would’ve fit perfectly on The King Is Dead were it not for their very selective editing. So long live the Decemberists…

You Are All I See.  It taps into everything that’s cool about 2011.  Heavenly yet ghostly vocals (like a zombie archangel doing celestial karaoke) mixed with ethereal, spacious sounding electronica, slightly off-tempo beats, R&B undertones and even the knowing lyrics.  It has something fairly unique in its use of the harp to decorate the album in a way that is a more refined, shiny production than Pat Grossi managed on last year’s Curtis Lane EP (which was more Animal Collective than Washed Out).  

The world has only waited around 44 years to hear these recordings.  It’s like the Kennedy files of pop music.  The secret stash of unfinished but certainly not unfurnished studio takes of this infamous album have finally surfaced and now you can experience the maddening frustration of Brian Wilson’s attempts at perfection which ultimately drove him slightly mad.  Each track on here is a window into his mind and into the Beach Boys’ world, even (and almost particularly) the ones that are clearly incomplete and filled with studio chatter.  The resulting 5-disc set (which includes a full deconstruction of micro-elements of both Heroes and Villains & Good Vibrations) is a bitty affair that will fascinate the super fan and intrigue the casual observer.  The nuggets we do get to see are significantly different than the more polished version Wilson released in 2004 with the Wallflowers as his backing band and go to prove that, even despite more rudimentary technology, the voices and harmonies of the original Beach Boys simply cannot be bettered.  

This disappeared just before I had a chance to blog it but it has just returned.  Not really with a bang of course because this album is entirely about the slow burn, the subtlety with which things creep up on you in life is reflected delicately in the songs of Trevor Powers.  Each song is a carefully considered meditation, drenched in so much reverb and echo that you feel like you’re listening to this through a waterfall.  A really promising debut overall.

In Light, the inaugural album by Louisiana’s young Givers, is not a new release but it has recently hit Spotify.  Fusing the indie-pop-afro-beat of Vampire Weekend with a more exuberant undertone and some lush, tropicalia-inspired rhythms, In Light is an infectiously-melodious record.  This is no more evident than on Up Up Up, their rabble-rousing album opener and set closer but also appears on In My Eyes and Saw You First.  Sometimes the songs take a while to ramp up but when they do it’s invariably worth it.  Maybe this won’t stand the test of time, but for now it’ll take you out of the darkness.