Carefully Crafted (Y)Ear

            I’m sitting here listening to this addictive dubstep mix, and yes, the song is floozy but there’s something about it, like when you open up a big bag of chips when you’re not hungry, and you fall into that obsessive hand-to-mouth routine. That’s what it’s like. Don’t care much for the original, but this mix is dirty.

So I was talking to Leanne about not knowing what to write about, and then she said she wasn’t feeling the mix. That got me to thinking where I was at musically about a year ago. While most people chart their life by dates and times and memories, I find that I often label periods of my life by music.  By December 2009, I had started my first leg of the journey into indie/fuzz folk/underground but not really type music. I had at that time discovered “Blue Ridge Mountains” by the Fleet Foxes and “Skinny Love” by Bon Iver, well into Death Cab being old but good news, discovering random Iron and Wine songs, such as “Boy with a Coin”. But I was just getting started in this area of this genre of music. 

To be fair, I met a music mentor in late December. He introduced me to Mumford and Sons back then, although I didn’t fully appreciate them until a couple months later, and now they’re all over the radio and are up for a Grammy. He was better with individual songs though, such as “Candy” by Paolo Nutini and such, so that was nice.  I remember on the 28^th or 29^th curling up by the fireplace and listening to Bon Iver on repeat while staring up at the full moon and the clouds, hearing the adults murmuring in the background. It was a nice night. Such was the musical vein of January. 

Now it must be said that I don’t like discovering too many new bands at once. It overwhelms me because I need to sit down and fall in love with the band on my own time. I need to dissect each song after a lot of careful listens, pick up the little details here and there that make their song my own. So while the list may not be extensive, my knowledge of the songs of these bands grew and still continues to grow. 

In February, another kindred soul introduced me to Neutral Milk Hotel. Now let me tell you something about NMH – I feel like it’s a musical interpretation of everything I want to be as a person. The lyrics are out there, if you look at it objectively, but for me they seemed so natural. The chords are simple but the melodies are hauntingly beautiful. In fact, this band brought me to my knees so often, I was emotionally incapacitated. I couldn’t function emotionally for so long but I couldn’t stop listening. I could go on forever about every one of their songs, and one day I might, but I won’t for now. Just remember to check them out. You will thank me, if not now, one day. The same soul gave me the Avett Brothers, GYBE! (who I still have yet to explore), among other things. Besides, if it wasn’t for NMH, Roch and I wouldn’t have gone to seen Neutral Uke Hotel during NXNE and have one of the most epic nights of our lives ever.

So these bands made up the bulk of the spring. I saw Said the Whale and In-flight Safety at the Casbah with Jess, and that was a mindblowing show. I still have yet to explore them more fully but definitely on my  to do list. So spring became summer, and having a lot of chauffeuring duties I ended up finally being able to listen to the radio, where I became familiar with the top 40 stuff (Usher's “OMG” anyone?). Fist pumping in cars became the norm.

 However, reading the Star one day, I read a review of this band called “The National”. They looked interesting, so Youtube led me to “Bloodbuzz Ohio”,  and by God I had fallen in love again. Still am in fact. Discovering their new album and their older songs (“Slow Show”, “Baby We’ll be Fine”, “Apartment Story”, “Geese of Beverly Road”, etc...) was magical. I would take long walks during the summer, so Mumford and Sons, the National, Iron and Wine, Arctic Monkeys, Fleet Foxes,  Postal Service, Calexico, NMH, Bon Iver, Tokyo Police, and other such bands became staple in my ear diet and exercise intervention.

A certain Nova Scotian also introduced me to dubstep over the summer. It was this one summer night and I actually listened to the videos he played, and then I was hooked. Even now, I curse him (in a good way) for being able to distract me in a second with such kind of music, loaded with heavy bass and drops so big and dirty that your mind explodes into little tendrils of pleasure and adrenaline, causing your blood pressure to rise and your moral conscience to disappear.

This continued on into the fall. Moving to Saskatoon, I had to hold onto any music memories I could. My music life remained relatively stable, I continued to explore all the bands I mentioned above. Until I discovered Fanfarlo’s cover of “In the Aeroplane Over the sea” by NMH, and what a cover it was. Fanfarlo themselves are a pretty band (“Comets” and “Atlas” are beautiful), and through the Fanfarlo Youtube mix I discovered Beirut. Wow. Beirut. What an eclectic yet beautiful sound do they employ (“Nantes”, “Guyamas Sonora”, “My Night with the Prostitute from Marseille” , “Idle Days”, among others). I love the trumpet and trombones that most of these bands use, makes the sound that much richer and fuller, different yet familiar.

So that brings you to December 2010. Yes I still love System and I’m excited they’re back together (and hopefully will see them if they come to this side of the Atlantic). I mean, along with “Eh Cumpari” and “Amazing Horse” this year was pretty decent musically.  Still have some bands to explore in due time (Bowerbirds, Cloud Cult, Arcade Fire, Pavement, Dream City Film Club, etc) and along the way have picked up more than a few music mentors. I mean, there are still so many individual songs to discuss that if I were to start, I wouldn’t finish. I mean, how can you possibly finish talking about music?

But I have to, for now.

Cheers!