What are you listening to?

Why?
When I walked in to the Why? gig in a club called Babylon on Bank Street in Ottawa I saw a man in his late 20's with a moustache clutching a drumstick in one hand pounding on a tom drum, and with his other hand playing the melody line on a keyboard. If that isn't enough, he was singing really profound lyrics that got in my head and kept me thinking about what was said for days. I was late for the show and how sorry I am that I was because it was some of the most magical music that I've heard in a while. I want to call the music 'folk-hop' but I don't think that does it justice. It just sounds like such a bad combination - though there are artists, such as Buck 65, who may be worthy of the title. To support my claim, I'll point you in the direction of Buck's last album where indeed there was a banjo. Anyhow, this is a tangent, we are talking about Why? and I'm trying to pigeonhole music that takes elements of folk, rock, experimental, hip-hop, and pop and puts them all together with the ethos of the indie-rocker. The instrumentation in the band when I saw them consisted of drums, keyboards, synth, other percussion, and guitar. These instruments were not always together as there were only 3 members but, as I alluded to above, sometimes more instruments were played than there were members on the stage.Check out the album Elephant Eyelashes to see for yourself.

John Vanderslice
This man knows how to listen to music. That much is evident from his 2005 release Pixel Revolt. I was elated to find that it was released as a double LP on 45 rpm 180 gram vinyl. What that means is that it is released on a format that probably gets as close to perfection as possible. When I put this on, turn it up, and listen - every detail in the music is evident. The music itself is thoughtful, poetic, and gentle independent music that obviously only exists because of the passion that Mr. Vanderslice and co. get from making noises that people want to hear. I'm not going to look for comparison, but it is high on my list of current favourites and I think it will remain there for a while. I have yet to explore his other recordings but that will be coming in short order.

I am the resurrection
A tribute to John Fahey
When I first heard this album, I had been searching for a while for something that combines folk, blues, and experimental music. This tribute fits the bill as the bands do a great job interpreting these songs. Unfortunately, I'm commenting from inside a vacuum because I've never really sat down to listen to the originals. I guess that's what a tribute album is all about though. If some of the bands that you really respect are playing this guy's songs then he must have been on to something. Sufjan Stevens, Devendra Banhart, and Calexico provide highlights for me, mostly because I knew these artists before picking up the album, but there are a whole host of others who do stellar tracks. In the liner notes to the disc, Fahey was commenting on the idea of theme and variation in his music when he said, "there's no variation. I just play the same thing over and over." Each song really builds upon a central riff and this makes it really great to listen to, you have to listen for the subtle variations in the music to really appreciate it. The album is pieced together in such a way that it actually sounds like an album when you listen to it vs. a compilation because of the way the tracks are put together. Now, I'm off to check out the originals...