Animal Collective’s New Film ODDSAC to Premiere At Sundance; My Guess There Will Be Few to No Animals Starring in Said Film (Unless You Count Panda Bear – He’s Super Cuddly) [Gorilla vs. Bear]

2010 Grammy Nominees Are Revealed, The Biggest Surprise In Which Being There Literally Are No Surprises (Except that The Fray is Apparently Still a Band) [Idolator]

Watch Phoenix Perform a Bunch of Songs in France for La Blogotheque; Elsewhere, Watch Various Blogs Plug these Videos of Phoenix Playing, Even Though La Blogotheque Posts Dozens of Takeaway Videos…Slow News Day For Everyone, Deal With It [La Blogotheque]

Kieran Hebden Has Been in the Middle of a Residency at London’s Plastic People, Which is Ending…To Commemorate Ending, He’s Giving Away a Free Four Tet Mixtape, Called Much Love to the Plastic People, Which Will Be Given to Some Tech-Savvy Raver, and Swiftly Leaked to the Web…Hoorah! [Prefix]

Stream New (And Extremely Depressing) Track From Portland’s Premiere Looping Ambient Artiste Eluvium, “The Motion Makes Me Last,” Which is As Cold and Barren As the Blizzard [Insert Year of Famous Local Blizzard Here] [Stereogum]

Lead Fleet Fox Robin Pecknold Talks About the Writing Process of the Next Fleet Foxes LP; Elsewhere…Remember That Band the Bravery? (That Band Who Wrote Shitty 2004 Post-Punk Revival Single “An Honest Mistake”?) Well…Here’s Them Performing a Baffling Cover of Fleet Foxes’ Adored 2008 Single “White Winter Hymnal” [Pitchfork]

compiled by Max Sebela

FRESH BAKED
Sonya Cotton
Red River
2009 | Self-Release
A

So it’s time for the context show.

There are two major elements that complicate my reviewing Sonya Cotton’s Red River. First, I know Sonya. She’s pretty cool, and she’s super nice to dogs. We are friends and we played music together for a long time. I also produced her first two albums. So, there’s that glaring “conflict of interest.” But I’ve no intention of writing a press release for Cotton, and I’d certainly, and without qualms, refuse to review her album if I wasn’t smitten by it. Second, I’m admittedly an overly liberal grader (much to the frustration of JM.com’s editors’ attempts to regulate the grading scale). The Low Anthem sounds really enthusiastic, shows a lot of promise, and has three incredible songs? Alright, “A.”  J. Tillman’s new album is significantly better than his last? Aw, hell. Give the guy an “A.” He’s worked hard for it. Sometimes the editors suggest that I rethink and perhaps alter those generous grades, and I appreciate and actually thank them for that. It’s nice to have somebody to reel you in every once in a while. And it’s not unlikely that they will question the fact that I’m throwing Red River an “A.” This is all to say that the “A” above (and I’m even tempted to give an “A+”) is mine, it’s not the site’s. If you don’t agree with my mark, that’s totally okay. Not everybody can love every album. And I have a feeling that this album in particular a lot of people are going to be lukewarm about. If you don’t like Sonya’s voice, you’re not going to like this album; it’s a lot of Sonya. And if you don’t generally like female singer-songwriters, then you probably won’t like this album either – even though I think it establishes Sonya as one of the premier living female folk songwriters, right alongside Nina Nastasia. (I love Joanna Newsom, but Ys is not nearly as consistent as Red River.)
More on Sonya Cotton | Red River

FRESH BAKED
J. Tillman
Year In The Kingdom
2009 | Western Vinyl
B+

J. Tillman’s got a fantastic voice. It’s a quiet hush that embodies an aching loneliness, some weathered resignation. But it’s also the kind of voice – the kind of whispery, measured reed – that can get very tired very quickly. Which has been problematic on all of Tillman’s prior releases: taken individually, without context, the songs are gorgeous folk stories; but, in listening to an album through, those same songs can get burdensome, too similar, too one-note. His 2006 offering, Long May You Run, J. Tillman, in theory, should be the perfect autumnal album – it’s Tillman at his Nick Drake-iest, alone with his guitar, singing his dependably beautiful gothic-folk songs – but there’s neither the intensity nor the singularity of purpose to maintain its own momentum. On 2007’s Cancer and Delirium’s “When I Light Your Darkened Door,” Tillman first started incorporating some of the elements that make his most recent album, Year In The Kingdom, his best: the dark, propulsive percussion, the unexpected dynamic eruptions, the eerie and intelligent and nearly unhinged accompaniment. But neither Cancer and Delirium nor its follow-up, Vacilando Territory Blues (released earlier this year), exhibited any real consistency.

Year In The Kingdom begins like any Tillman album might: alone with a guitar, singing a simple folk song. And, like most Tillman songs, it’s a good one. But Tillman alone is not good a enough template to build an album from. So it’s refreshing and exciting when this quiet opener “Year In The Kingdom” is followed by “Crosswinds,” which starts amidst a lingering cacophony of strings and distortion before blossoming into one of Tillman’s finest moments to date: a beautiful melody, gorgeous choral harmonies, an offsetting yet remarkably conceived dulcimer section, all barreling towards a considerable dynamic conclusion. Tillman has spent the past year in tenure as the drummer of Fleet Foxes, and their influence is felt: these songs are scrappier, more wild and experimental, than anything he’s presented before. Which suits him wonderfully: his earlier output was in constant threat of sterility; it was often so measured and immaculate that the blood felt drained from it.
More on J. Tillman | Year In The Kingdom

IN THE TUBE
In the land of hushed, let-me-whisper-a-secret-in-your-ear folk music, J Tillman is the reigning king. His voice is one of the most textured and beautiful in folk music today, and, unlike some of the other whisper-singers (Sam Beam, we’re looking at you), he’s capable of creating dynamic and nuanced atmosphere using only his voice, rather than depending on instruments and production tricks to force it. His voice is a stunning instrument, both onstage and off.

But it isn’t always coupled with appropriately inspired material. While 2006’s Long May You Run, J Tillman is a fantastic album name, but it’s too quiet and repetitive; his other 2006 LP, Minor Works, contains more fleshed material, but buries it beneath an “Adult Contemporary” sheen that drains the songs and Tillman’s voice of their grainy authenticity. Both 2007’s Cancer and Delirium and 2009’s Vacilando Territory Blues (sidenote: in case you haven’t guessed, Tillman records a lot) utilized a pristine, dusty production style that properly accommodates his voice. But, again, much of the material was underwritten, threadbare, and felt incomplete. These are the kind of albums that make you pause and think (especially Cancer and Delirium) that if he’d just spent a little more time on this, it might have been a masterpiece.

Tillman’s upcoming album, Year in the Kingdom, is unquestionably his finest. It might not be the masterwork that he’s got in him, but it’s certainly the most interesting and consistent album of his career so far. It’s hard not to hear the influence of his tenure as Fleet Foxes’ drummer: it’s a significantly more harmonic and choral work than he’s attempted in the past. Kingdom is most reminiscent of what I consider the apex of his recorded career thus far: Cancer and Delirium’s “When I Light Your Darkened Door.”

So, for the uninitiated, here’s that bit of Tillman perfection. It is an example of what keeps Tilllman relevant. ”When I Light Your Darkened Door” stands as a promise that Tillman will record a masterpiece, at least someday.

by Chris Kiehne

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compiled by Max Sebela

FRESH BAKED
The Low Anthem
Oh My God, Charlie Darwin
2009 | Nonesuch
A-

The Low Anthem’s Oh My God, Charlie Darwin will unquestionably attract devotees. It will also likely (though undeservedly) draw some detractors – which one would expect when considering the effect of revisionist folk music upon the current critical and commercial climate. Not until the recent reign of Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver had folk-based American music inspired such widespread accolade.

There are always detractors, because there are always going to be listeners insistent upon declaiming a folk performer, if not an outright thief, at best, derivative. Never mind that that’s what great American music is built upon (a dependant yet revisionist mentality); there are going to be haters. And Charlie Darwin does often sound, in its way, similar to Justin Vernon and Fleet Foxes, but only insofar as all three performers seem so inextricably drawn to the past, so disinclined to consider or incorporate any current popular trends in their compositions. Although Charlie Darwin fails to maintain the consistently revelatory heights of For Emma, Forever Ago or Fleet Foxes, at its best, it is breathtakingly good; and its finest songs sound worn and ancient, engrained in the modern folk vernacular.
More on The Low Anthem | Oh My God, Charlie Darwin

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compiled by Max Sebela