So we're fuck-all of the way through 2008; what records are worth attention?

Also, that Shelby Lynne album is nice. I don't think I'm going out on a limb to say it's the best covers record by a female singer-songwriter so far this year.

dance album of the year so far: prosumer & murat tepali - serenity

OK, Nicole Mitchell album not from this year, but check this out for April!!!:

NEW HAVEN, CT -- Firehouse 12 Records will kick off its 2008 release schedule on April 29th with Xenogenesis Suite: A Tribute to Octavia Butler (FH12-04-01-006), the new studio recording of Chicago-based flutist/composer Nicole Mitchell's extended composition of the same name.

Times New Viking!!!Times New Viking!!!Times New Viking!!!

Dimension 5ive, can you list some of those jazz albums you're talking about for lazy people like me?

I almost bought it...but I didn't.

So far I would list my favoritest things I've heard like this:

1. Cuong Vu, Vu-Tet
2. Steven Bernstein, Diaspora Suite (Miles-ish space funk, but Jewisher)
3. Louie Bellson and Clark Terry, Louie and Clark Expedition 2 (big-band corny stuff but really good and kinda forward-looking -- Duke Ellington once said Bellson was the world's greatest musician and he was married to Pearl Bailey so that's good enough for me, jack)
4. Matana Roberts, The Chicago Project (only had it for a couple of days, moving up quickly)
5. Cowboys From Hell, Monster Rodeo (metal-jazz from Switzerland, covers of the "Halloween" theme and straight-up beat-jacks from "Eye of the Tiger", so amazing)
6. Jason Kao Hwang/Edge, Stories Before Within (Third Stream weirdness, kinda good while shoveling at midnight)
7. The Wrong Object, Stories From the Shed (Zappa Tribute Band goes jazz-legit LOL)
8. François Ingold Trio, Fat Free (v.nice)
9. Keith Marks, Foreign Funk (jazz flautist gets down with "Axel F"...but actually better than that sounds)
10. Joe Locke Quartet, Sticks and Strings (I'm a sucker for vibes)

-- Dimension 5ive, Friday, February 22, 2008 5:06 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

okay my copy of Maceo Parker's Roots and Grooves just arrived and it is SHIT HOT Y'ALL. He's playing with the Cologne big band WDR; one disc of Ray Charles covers, one disc of good old Maceo funk stuff including an 18 minute "Pass the Peas." Dude can still play the holy hell out of that saxophone, it's like he hasn't aged a day. WOW BLAM ZING.

-- Dimension 5ive, Friday, February 22, 2008 7:29 PM

V/A Messthetics #104 & #105
Valet - Naked Acid
Belong - Colorless Record EP
Citified - The Meeting After the Meeting
Lee "Scratch" Perry - Chicken Scratch: Deluxe Edition

i just checked out charlottefield, and on first listen i like it very, very much. is the album available in the states? brighton seems like an interesting town...

all i have heard from 2008 specifically is bits and pieces of the new nick cave, the new xiu xiu and hot chip. first two are fantastic, as expected. hot chip is kind of boring but maybe it'll grow on me.

Citified - The Meeting After the Meeting

Wow, you're the only other person in internetland who seems to even know who they are! I'm glad they've started lengthening their songs a little. I just wish there were more than seven on the new cd.

I'll vouch for Decrepit Birth, Eluveitie, Furious Seasons, Gamma Ray, Ida, Joe Jackson, Magnetic Fields, Bob Mould, Mountain Goats, Zapruder Point. And reissues from Burning Witch and Xasthur. And an EPs worth of new songs added to Cradle of Filth's Thornography, and my copy of this Mexico 70 album says 2008 though I think it's really 2005 or 2006.

And my three favorite 2007 releases that didn't make it to me until 2008 are by Hundred Reasons, Kent and Puressence.

Puressence are still around?!

Goslings album. Always interesting sludgeness. Amazing band.

oh i had totally forgotten about the ida album. i'm going to put it on now

Hmmm ... Apparently I am the only one that likes Why?'s Alpecia. I would recommend the bookends "Good Friday" and "Simeon's Dilemma." I've heard about 20 albums from 2008 and this is the only one to cause me to repeatedly listen to it.

albums i think are great so far:

Ladyhawk - Shots
Clark - Turning Dragon
oh, and that mountain goats person

british sea power, vampire weekend, bob mould, eMC, why? have also been getting some playtime

I think I've only been blown away by 2 albums of this year so far.

Xiu Xiu - Woman As Lovers
Boris - Smile

No love for Beach House's "Devotion"? Seriously? It's my favorite album of the year so far.

oh i forgot about the constantines album that's always a good one

Black Mountain is my favorite so far. The Drive By Truckers is good but about 5 songs too long.
Looking forward to Nick Cave, Gutter Twins, Boris among others.

All right, D5, I hope your Top 10 list above isn't in rank-order (or I hope all the selections on it are top-shelf outstanding), since No. 10 --The Joe Locke Quartet -- is the only one I found on eMusic.

I'll seek out some of the other titles elsewhere. I'm looking forward to trying some new jazz, so thanks for the recommendations.

it should be pretty easy to find information about The Wrong Object, especially if you check out certain websites.

really sad that no one has said Bruno Pronsato - Why Can't We Be Like Us cuz I think it's great.

very tentative top 10 so far, incl. late '07 releases that nobody I know heard last year (i.e., excluding Rihanna and Ryan Shaw, both of which I like but I figure I was just really late getting to):

1. Dolly Parton – Backwoods Barbie (Dolly)
2. Ross Johnson – Make It Stop! The Most Of Ross Johnson (Goner)
3. Frozen Bears – Hey, That’s a Good Looking Sportcoat! (myspace.com/frozenbears EP ’07)
4. James McMurtry – Just Us Kids (Lighting Rod)
5. Mechanical Bull – A Million Yesterdays (Woodstock Musicworks ‘07)
6. The Tonic Rays – The Tonic Rays (thetonicrays.com ’07)
7. Final Solutions – Songs By Solutions (Goner ’07)
8. Amanda Shaw – Pretty Runs Out (Rounder)
9. Sioux City Pete & The Beggars (Steel Cage)
10. Trent Willmon – Broken In (Compadre)

Next few official actual non-CD-R 2008 releases would probably be Alestorm, HorrorPops, Hayes Carll, Drive-By Truckers, Chris Cagle, Vampire Weekend, Left Lane Cruiser, Ayreon, Night Wounds, Chuck Wicks, Earth, and Kathleen Edwards, more or less in that order. Lazy Magnet seems interesting so far too.

Times New Viking and Mahjongg sounded good to me at first, but hold my interest less every time I play them, strangely enough. Haven't figured out why yet.

(Sioux City Pete & the Beggars' album is called Necro Blues, btw.)

For me there are three albums from this year that spring to mind as particular highlights so far:

Earth - The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull
Atlas Sounds - Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel
MGMT - Oracular Spectacular

I would also add Raheem DeVaughn (shut up r&b haters, it's weird and good), Taint, Weinland, Devian, Raveonettes, the Mars Volta, Luciano, Akoya Afrobeat, Gilberto Gil, and yes probably Ayreon because we haven't had enough double-CD metal operas about environmental breakdown and the vapidity of modern culture.

Yes, Puressence are still around, and I think the new album is as good as anything they've done, and maybe better. Think somewhere between Muse and the Delays...

I'm always amazed by the lists you come up with, Xhuxk.

I'm looking forward to the Boris and Earth albums v. much as well

je suis animal 'self taught magic from a book', top indiepop record of the year so far. ambition is such an odd thing for an indiepop band to have. the days ep is also excellent.

I like your blog, D5. BTW, the disc I discovered there that has captured most of my attention is Marco Benevento's Invisible Baby. But is it jazz? Sounds more rock to me.

Anyway, I likely wouldn't have ever heard of it otherwise. So thanks.

Think somewhere between Muse and the Delays...

...oops. (More on the Muse front.)

but they were kinda always a bit like that

and when i say a bit i mean a lot

Can somebody link me to the Dimension 5ive blog of which Daniel, Esq., speaks?

Cave 17. Or at least I assume it's D5's blog, based on a comment he made upthread.

Are pixeltan releasing their album this year?

-- I know, right?, Saturday, 23 February 2008 14:38 (2 days ago) Link

this is the chinese democracy of the dfa-loser generation

blind boys of alabama, down in new orleans
nik bartsch's ronin, holon

bang on a can's live recording of music for airports is pretty stunning

IT'S NOT A BLOG, GUYS! </D5>

...it's a LIFESTYLE.

(*cue the Reverend driving off in a sweet ride, cackling...*)

Yeah. What is it, then? It certainly looks like a group blog in its layout, and the posts look like blog-type entries.

It's looks like a blog, it smells like a blog, it quacks like a blog, but..... IT'S NOT A BLOG!!!

You'll have to ask D5 about that. He seems quite insistent about its unbloggedry.

it's more of a ... web...log, if you will.

ugh

it's a blugh

BLUGH! A Music Discussion War

Blugh: Defined.

ANYWAY, MY POINT WAS THAT I LIKED IT: WHETHER BLOG OR BLUGH.

thanks daniel, i appreciate it

i dont really want it to be a blog because that implies 'when we have time for it' rather than a regular sort of thing...but we dont really have time for it so whatever