(pair of mirrors)

#18 - Gillian Welch - The Harrow & The Harvest

“Down Along The Dixie Line” 

2011 was the year that Gillian Welch and her longtime musical partner David Rawlings finally ended her 8-year hiatus. The Harrow & The Harvest, Welch’s latest release, is everything you hope and dream a Gillian Wench work would sound like. The Harrow & The Harvest is pure poetry; it is a collection of beautiful stories unpolluted by production or percussion. The Harrow & The Harvest flows peacefully along a gentle river of sound, supported by not much more than Rawlings’ six-string (and banjo).

In this day and age, this kind of simplicity is stunning. Welch sounds like she belongs in pre-industrial Tennessee, not modern day America. Her songs conjure up visions of farmhouses, humid southern nights, creaky veranda floorboards, straw hats, and lullabies. Welch makes you want to lead a simple life, circa fifty years ago. 

“Banjos are strumming / Horseflies are humming / Ripe melons on the vine” croons Welch in “Down Along The Dixie Line”, and you can just sense what she is singing about. Somehow, if you really listen to the way Welch sings that line, you can detect life, peace, joy, longing, sadness, reconciliation, acceptance, and love. And that’s just one line.

Such narrative energy is present on every one of Welch’s songs on The Harrow & The Harvest, really on every one of Welch’s songs ever  – that’s what makes Gillian Welch so great. However, the narrative is not always about “the river of whisky that flows down in Dixie”, or similarly whimsical subject matter. Sometimes the narrative is pretty hard-hitting. Take, for instance “Way it Goes”. “Becky Johnson bought the farm / Put a needle in her arm” sings Welch, which leads to “And her brother laid her down / In the cold Kentucky ground.” The lesson? Things end, things begin, and that’s the way it goes:

That’s the way,

That’s the way that it goes

Everybody’s buying little baby clothes…

And that’s the way that it ends –

Though there was a time when she and I were friends.

Gillian Welch comes up with pure poetry on The Harrow & The Harvest. If you’re looking for an album to bop along to, chat to, drink tea to, then this isn’t the one for you. This album is so elusive and subtle that, if you’re going to do it justice, you need to sit down and listen it – like a book. 

-L

#19. Austra - Feel It Break

“Shoot the Water”

I write a lot about music that I like to write to, drive to, think to, laze around and drink tea to. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m often a sucker for what I deem “beautiful” music. Finding beautiful music to listen to is hardly a challenge for me. Upbeat music that pumps me up and makes me want to move on the other hand, that also has a long shelf life, is intelligent, and doesn’t sound just like everything else is something I struggle with. For 2011 Feel It Break has been the album that makes me move. Austra gets me ready to go out, get pumped up to play a show, or sometimes just make it through the last and most painful 10 minutes on the treadmill. It is the “Beat and the Pulse” (haha get it?) of this album that I love so much. That and the fact that Katie Stelmanis’ operatic vocals are incredibly fun to sing along to. 

Gothic and catchy at the same time, Feel It Break is an incredibly dark pop album. The songs are all dramatic and brooding but also make me want to dance and sing. I think it is that contradiction that makes this album so interesting, and has brought me back to it over and over again (seriously, it’s been on repeat since May). I find it impressive that songs I want to dance to are also thematically engaging, relatable and interesting. This doesn’t happen enough!

This album is so cohesive that some people might argue the songs are too alike. Personally I’m just glad there are 11 tracks worth of that dark dance-worthy sound. Learning there were 10 more songs like “Lose It” was a relief—because I couldn’t get enough. That being said I love the dynamic way Austra manages to blend really synthy pop sounds with soaring piano parts and those previously mentioned operatic vocals. For example, “The Beast” wraps up Feel It Break on a pretty serene and heart wrenching note. 

I am excited that Austra was short-listed for the Polaris Prize this year, and super proud that this sound is coming out of our city. I can’t wait to hear what Katie Stelmanis and her band bring to the table next, because they have certainly accomplished a lot in 2011.

-M

#20. Yuck – Yuck.

“Shook Down” 

Ah, the ‘90s.

That magical decade during which plaid shirts, high-waisted jeans, and scrunchie ponytails were worn without the slightest trace of irony. ‘90s is the long-gone decade during which indie rock was young, brazen, and rough around the edges. No one could play properly, no one could sing properly, and no one cared – it was all in the name of grunge, remember?

Full disclosure – I really really really love the ‘90s. I lament the fact that I was between the ages of 2 and 12 during those prolific years. I would have been one of those people who mourned Kurt for months after his death. I would have been there for Woodstock ’95, to witness one of Shannon Hoon’s most iconic (and, sadly, among his last) performances. When Hoon died in ’95 of a cocaine overdose, literally months after Kurt Cobain, I would have mourned him too. Pavement, Smashing Pumpkins, Neutral Milk Hotel, Sonic Youth, Blind Melon, and, ohmygod, Nirvana – these are among my favorite bands of all time, not just the ‘90s.

So, when an album like Yuck by Yuck shows up, I rejoice. Yuck is an appeal to my more grunge sensibilities. But, unlike a lot of the music that defined the ‘90s, Yuck does not take any getting used to. The album manages to be catchy and listenable, even though half of it is drowned out in feedback and reverb. It also helps that the subject matter is so relatable – Yuck is about being young, and about growing up. Marc Hogan captured the spirit of the album with his description of Yuck in a Pitchfork piece – “a deeply melodic, casually thrilling coming-of-age album for a generation that never saw Nirvana on 120 Minutes.” Yep.

The melody of “Shook Down”, for instance, is simple and straightforward. Like the majority of what Yuck does, “Shook Down” operates on little more than four guitar chords. Up until the third minute of the song, the whole thing rhymes and bops every two verses to a sweetly vague but very catchy chorus. But don’t let this fool you; around the 3:00 mark the song just breaks:

You could be my destiny,

You could mean that much to me…

The line is repeated over and over again. There is power, there is intensity, there is conviction. And, hell yes, there are ever so many guitars.

Much of the album follows the formula of “Shook Down.” But instead of becoming tiresome, the simple, youthful, and yearning proclamations that permeate Yuck’s freshman work become more endearing every time you listen to the album. Combined with the nostalgia evoked by the general ‘90s-ness of the record, you’ll be reminiscing in no time about you high-school ex “Georgia”; the time you told her, in a less-than lucid state, that you can be her “suicide policeman”; and even that awkward moment when you wailed – at the top of your lungs – “I’m holding out for you!”

- L

We are excited to present our second annual Pair Of Mirrors Top 20 of the year! We will be counting down our favourite albums of 2011 every day until New Years!

Get excited and stay tuned!

Love,

L & M

Agnes Obel - “Just So”

Philharmonics

I have told you probably one too many times how magical it is watching Timber Timbre live, so on Saturday I was prepared to have my mind blown by Taylor Kirk and his crew. What I wasn’t prepared for was Agnes Obel.

I found Agnes Obel’s opening act one of the most moving musical performances I’ve seen in a long time. The looping of very elegant, quite classical piano, with the haunting sound of her companion’s cello and even more haunting back up vocals, was seriously magnetic. I was sucked in and spit out by their performance. I was so jealous of how incredibly powerful her music was. 

I’ve since downloaded Philharmonics and the jealousy continues. She has this Joahnna Newsom sound but it I find it more accessible and easier to dive into, and with instrumentation that appeals more to my piano sensibilities (oh and I need to get a cellist… stat). 

I’m have listened to this album over and over and over and I just love it. It’s calming, its clever and thoughtful, but above all really beautiful. This album makes a quiet but moving companion for the days that have gotten too short. 

-M

Martha Meredith - “302” 

Martha Meredith EP

For about two years now, this has been one of favourite pastimes: after noticing that a new blog post has popped up on this (my own) blog, getting giddily excited, clicking on the said post, clicking on the attached track, and having it be the soundtrack to whatever words of life, tomfoolery, and wisdom my compadre M has come up with. 

But here is another favourite pastime: clicking play on M’s new EP, Martha Meredith EP, and hearing the same words of life, tomfoolery, and wisdom, flow out from the record.

Full disclosure is necessary here. M, a.k.a. Martha Meredith, a.k.a. the other half of this blog, is like my bestest pal. She’s also someone who I immensely respect, because for one she agreed to do this little blog project with me years ago. Around the same time she agreed to go to Bonnaroo with me and even provided a car for the adventure (that trip that has started quite the chain reaction, wink wink nudge nudge, but more on that in a couple months). Another reason I love/respect/admire Martha Meredith is the above(twice)mentioned words of life, tomfoolery, and wisdom which the girl has a knack for coming up with. As I said before, sometimes those words come in form of blog posts. And sometimes they come in a form of songs. 

M started writing in university thinking about everyday things and putting them down on paper. Her songs were, and still are, about simple but moving things: a night on a friend’s fire escape, small town woes, drowining your sorrows in wine. Facing your fears, keeping on carrying on, living life. “Big Fish Peter Pan,” for instance, is a cathartic little song about someone deciding to stay stagnant and static in their life: getting nowhere fast: 

The world is everywhere where are you

The world is everywhere what are you hanging around here for? 

And “Build Me”, for me, has always been a song that captures a turning point in one’s life: that moment when you realize that things you wanted before are not necessarily things your want now, and maybe actually even quite the opposite: 

When usually I say buy me a drink, 

Here all I need is for you to sing me a song… 

By far the most standout song of the EP, however, is the opener “302”. It’s an incredibly honest song, and one that shows Martha Meredith’s continuing maturity as an artist. The song seems to be about the incredible pressure that comes with just being a person, and how sometimes that pressure just makes you want to fold: 

Can I have another sip of that red wine

And can I sit, 

Where I don’t have to face my fears, 

And I can hide away

‘Til the smoke clears  

I got a gift that got me bound 

I’ve got a guilt that keeps on bringing me down 

I have the privilege to know that one of Martha Meredith’s favourite sayings is “WIth great privilege comes great responsibility”, and I think that is what “302” is about. For Martha Meredith, her gift, her privilege, is her art. For me it’s something else (it’s this blog…joking!). For you, it is something else entirely. But it is a universal human trait, one which I share with you and we share with Martha Meredith, that at times our own gift, our own talent, our own responsibility to ourselves, seems like an impossible load to carry. Sometimes, despite all our shiniest and most promising traits, it seems easier simply to fold. 

If those aren’t words of life, tomfoolery, and wisdom, then I don’t know what is. 

-L 

PS: get the Martha Meredith EP here! Girl’s gotta eat. 

Gonzales - “Gentle Threat”

Solo Piano

There are all these new records that I have been listening to to that I keep meaning to sit down and tell you guys all about, but in typical M fashion I am far more wrapped up in an album that no one is talking about…probably because it came out almost 8 years ago. I don’t care how old it is—I think it is one of the most beautiful albums I’ve ever heard. 

Ladies and gentleman, you have to hear Solo Piano by Gonzalas. Not only is it beautiful, it manages to be calming and moving and inspiring too. From the very first notes of Gogol, I am filled with an intense urge to make the world more beautiful place. I find myself putting the album on over and over again because nothing seems to be good enough after its over. I want to listen to that feeling it gives me forever. It makes me want to paint something, film something, or do ballet. Of course I’m not very good at any of those things, so instead I put on Solo Piano in my apartment, lie on the floor with a cup of steaming tea and my cat and scribble furiously in a notebook. This album is one man’s creativity inspiring creativity in others…. its art helping to make art. It is magnificent. 

A little part of me is worried about how much I like this album. Am I getting old? My 76 year old father sits in his favourite chair listening to classical music every morning, moving his hand like he’s conducting an orchestra… lost in the music. I always appreciated how moved he was by classical music, but also a little frustrated that he didn’t appreciate the power of words enough. I wanted him to listen to the way John Samson spins the world, or how Regina Spektor imagines a love story. This morning I’m struck by how nice it is when there aren’t any words. 

I think sometimes the world is a lot nicer when people aren’t talking. I wish I was better at listening and not talking…at finding a feeling and not trying to find the words. So I’m going to shut up now, and just tell you to buy this. I hope it inspires you.

-M

Lykke Li  - “Rich Kid Blues”

The Sound Academy - November 15th 2011

L & I went to check out the lovely Lykke Li last night at the Sound Academy and we are both super glad we did. I was so inspired by her that I have both her albums on repeat this morning—two records that have never been lacking for play time around here anyway.

What was so great about Lykke was how good of a show it was. I say show because it is the theatrical element that sets watching Lykke apart from watching others. There was a really intense amount of strobe lights and smoke machines, coupled with three simple but elegant pieces of draping fabric hanging from high up in the smoke. Lykke would storm around in the fog dancing in the pieces of fabric, hammering on the symbols with a drumstick, and creating beautiful silhouettes of herself in front of the strobe lights. Furthermore, she created a really dynamic show by alternating between things like being all alone on the stage playing her-auto harp, to screaming through her megaphone backed up by her full band and back up singer. 

I found a new appreciation for the instrumentation in Lykke Li’s music. The percussion in her songs is so exciting! It’s got so much going on and so much power in it. It’s so fun to dance to, but also to watch her stomp around the stage to. It really struck me that she takes things to the next level with her choice to have 2 drummers on stage, and the way her full band and back up singer really support her throughout. There were moments when she sounded tired, but you didn’t mind… you didn’t blame her for it, because she was delivering a great show anyway. 

A song-writer myself, I was reminded of the time my mother told me that “people probably don’t want to hear songs about how hard it is to live your easy, privileged, beautiful life” (thanks mum). However, I think Lykke Li turns that statement on its head. Songs like Rich Kid Blues and Everybody But Me give beautiful and passionate insight into the lives of women who are obviously beautiful, smart, talented and lucky… but restless and unsatisfied. I hear a really beautiful and brutal honesty in her songs. They attack a subject I can relate to, and obviously the throngs of other people at the Sound Academy last night could too.  What truly makes Lykke special is how she makes this really profound statement with her lyrics, offering you a really interesting perspective… while simultaneously making you want to stomp your feet, move your hips and close your eyes. You want to Dance Dance Dance until you feel better, and then you actually DO somehow feel better, after.

To conclude, Lykke Li is as awesome as ever. She knows how to put on a show just like she knows how to put out a record. I can’t wait to see what she gets up to next! How how Lykke—We love you.

Wire wire over my head

Mama she told me keep your eyes on the trophy

And the sires sires out of your bed

For delirious gestures are so easily misread

Mama I got your wild eyed taste

Mama there’s nothing you can do or say

I got the rich kid blues and its got nothing to do with you

I got the rich kid blues and I’m not sure that I’m pulling through

-M