I’ve written about The Magnolia Demos before – 9 solo acoustic versions of tracks that appeared on Songs: Ohia’s final album before Jason Molina transitioned into Magnolia Electric Co.  The songs are truly spectacular in this stripped down format – undeniable proof of just how much Molina had grown as a singer and songwriter over the last few years of Songs: Ohia.  To my knowledge they’ve never seen release anywhere else since appearing with the very early pressing of the CD and LP versions of MEC.  But following the recent passing of Molina, Secretly Canadian has made it (as well as every other Molina offering) available for a limited time as a bandcamp stream.  Here’s your chance to check it out if you have never had the pleasure.  The highlights are many (Molina sings lead on “The Old Black Hen” + “Peoria Lunchbox Blues”!), but to me this contains the best version of “Whip-Poor-Will” these ears have ever heard.  Listen:

——————————————————————————–

I’m out of hibernation tonight because of the untimely passing of Jason Molina.  As the primary creative force behind Songs: Ohia and Magnolia Electric Co. Molina was behind some of my favorite songs and records of the past dozen or so years.  Didn’t it Rain, Magnolia Electric Co., and What Comes After the Blues are just flat out classic records, and scattered throughout the rest of his discography are a large batch of stirring songs that draw from folk, blues, country, and Crazy Horse-styled guitar rock.  I don’t have anything profound to add to the conversation, just very sad to hear the news today and wanted to share one of my favorite Molina songs – “Whip-Poor-Will”, written around the time of Magnolia Electric Co. and later released on Josephine from 2009.    

—————————————————————————–

Been spending the time I used to spend posting about music here on PHW catching up with Sons of Anarchy and now Breaking Bad (both of which are easily right up there with my favorite shows of all time, fwiw).  Just been on a major TV kick lately, not listening to a lot of new music these days – mainly just Yo La Tengo’s excellent new Fade and of course mbv.  But one random tune to catch my ear this young year is this short, heavy garage/psych jam from Theo Verney called “Dead N Bones”.  Verney’s a U.K. artist who writes, plays, and produces everything himself – yet still manages to make this song sound like it’s from some blistering and tragically unknown full band.  So far there are just a handful of free singles on his bandcamp page – hopefully we’ll get something more soon.

MP3  ::  Dead N Bones

————————————————————————————–

One of my favorite singer/songwriters that I’ve come across since starting this blog 6 years ago is Wynn Walent, whose music I’ve written about and shared on multiple occasions over the years.  Walent has only released, to my knowledge, a pair of EPs since 2007 – the masterful Upon Leaving and later another gem called Eating an Ocean.  The reason, I suppose, for the general lack of prolificacy is Walent’s commitments to bigger and more important causes than making great indie-folk songs.  He lives and works in Haiti, and devotes his time to educating and providing additional support for under-privileged children in one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere.  It’s admirable work that he’s involved in, as the accompanying video displays.

Recently Walent organized and lent his singing talents to an EP of Haitian spirituals called Songs In The Night.  The songs were recorded intimately in the chapel at St. Damien’s Hospital in Taberre, Haiti.  The result is a disarmingly beautiful collection of songs.  It’s a pay what you want at Bandcamp, but all proceeds will go to the Haitian voices heard in the music.  It’s significantly different than the usual PHW fare I post around here, but I’ll be damned if it didn’t knock my winter socks off when I first heard it.

Stream:  Ou Pa Janm Lage’m Yon Jou

Stream:  Koupe Kod La

And here’s one of my favorite Walent originals – it’s  from the Upon Leaving EP

MP3  ::  A Question of Water

————————————————————————————–

The last few weeks of every year are always great for catching up with records you missed out on over the previous 12 months.  This December has been no different, though admittedly it’s been a little thinner this year compared to others.  That’s likely due to the fact that I was pretty good at zeroing in on exactly what I wanted to hear this year – not a lot slipped through the cracks.  Two records that did manage to go by unnoticed were John Wesley Coleman III’s The Last Donkey Show and The Golden Boys’ Dirty Fingernails.  I’ve been digging both tremendously over the past few days, and both likely would have done well on my “Albums 2012” list had I heard them a few months or even weeks ago.

Though connected by Coleman (in addition to his solo work, he’s a member of Golden Boys), these two records offer slight differences from one another to make them interesting for their individual merits. His solo joint Last Donkey Show is the more sonically diverse; it’s full of horns, organ, and pedal steel guitar, giving these garage/folk songs a bit of a soul feel.  The songs are uniformly excellent – Coleman’s lyrics are witty throughout and he pulls off the soulful slowburners like “The Howling” with aplomb.  Nightmare/pop raver “She’s Like Dracula” is an early fave.  Dirty Fingernails is the more straightforward garage rock record of the two, but even still the keys give the songs some added sonic weight.  It’s also just a really cool record straight thru with tight, well-written songs that only get better with repeat listens (except for the awful “Daddy’s Horsewife” – the one and only dud on either record.  Thankfully it’s only a minute long).  If you dug bands I recommended this year like Spider Bags, King Khan & The Shrines, or The Tough Shits then both of these records are absolutely must haves.  Dirty Fingernails was released on 12xU, Last Donkey Show by Goner.

Listen: 

California (from Dirty Fingernails)

Older Than You (from Dirty Fingernails)

She’s Like Dracula (from The Last Donkey Show)

Don’t Waste My Time (from The Last Donkey Show)

——————————————————————————–

50.  I Don’t Know / Lantern

49.  You Will Be Here, Mine / Will Johnson

48.  On the Radio / Mind Spiders

47.  Get Me in a Room / Hallelujah the Hills

46.  I Want More / French Kissing

45.  Am I Wrong / Mikal Cronin

44.  Gone Tomorrow / Lambchop

43.  She’s Like Dracula / John Wesley Coleman III

42.  Always Forever / Hunx

41.  Brains / Lower Dens

40.  Bite My Tongue / King Khan & the Shrines

39.  Master of my Craft / Parquet Courts

38.  Headin’ for the Top Now / Spiritualized

37.  Moonlight Mile / The Babies

36.  Wind and Walls / The Tallest Man on Earth

35.  Monoliths / Lotus Plaza

34.  Wrecking Ball / Bruce Springsteen

33.  Song for a Warrior (ft. Karen O.) / Swans

32.  Become What You Are / Merchandise

31.  Wildest Moments / Jessie Ware

30.  Ekki Múkk/ Sigur Ros

29.  Sledding / No Kill

28.  Susannah / Woollen Kits

27.  Numb / Andy Stott

26.  I -80 / Apache Dropout

25.  Do It For You / Plateaus

24.  Myth / Beach House

23.  Vacation / Howls

22.  Lupine Dominus / Thee Oh Sees

21.  Goodtime Blues / TRMRS

20.  Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings / Father John Misty

19.  Whispering and Singing / Boomgates

18.  Kill for Love / Chromatics

17.  Cats & Dogs / The Tough Shits

16.  Adult / Ceremony

15.  The Weight of the Sea / Great Elk  (photo cred)

The lead track on Autogeography, Brooklyn indie/folk band Great Elk’s full length debut, can stand up to any mid-00s indie rock anthem and then some.

14.  Impregnable Question / Dirty Projectors

Dirty Projectors turn in the year’s most disarming love song. 

13.  No Idea Why / TV Torso

Just got into this band’s Spoon-meets-new wave sound over the past few weeks after hearing their EPs from earlier this year.  Here’s to hoping for a full length before long.

12.  Thinkin’ About You / Frank Ocean

No doubt Ocean took the world by storm this year.  The falsetto chorus on this song is genius.  Soul music that truly bears the soul.

11.  Oblivion / Grimes

Visions, as a whole, didn’t do much for me. But “Oblivion” and “Genesis” are undeniably thrilling and inventive singles.

10.  Never Again / Royal Headache

I don’t think there is a band on this list whose future I am more excited about than Australia’s Royal Headache.  From Shogun’s soul/punk vocals to the band’s blazing backing tracks, Royal Headache’s self-titled debut is full of brawlers and psychotic episodes so visceral they could be playing in your garage.

9.  Friday Night / Spider Bags

Spider Bags’ drunken, take-no-prisoners rock & roll is best captured on this beer-soaked anthem.

8.  Museum of Flight / Damian Jurado

Jurado has managed some gorgeous folk melodies in his 15 years of recording, but perhaps nothing he’s ever recorded is as purely celestial as this.

7.  Heaven / The Walkmen

“Little House of Savages”, “The Rat”, “Louisiana”, “In the New Year”, “Angela/Surf City”.  The Walkmen have penned some of indie rock’s most memorable songs of the past ten years.  Heaven has a handful of songs that could sit alongside those classics, but none more so than the title track.

6.  (tie) Thank God for the Sinners / Ty Segall (from Twins)

The Tongue / Ty Segall Band (from Slaughterhouse)

I guess I’m skirting around my self-imposed “one song per artist” rule with this one.  But without that rule about 50% of this list might belong to Segall.   

5.  Is It Honest / Woods

For Woods, this is about as close as they come to some sort of indie-rock anthem.  Bend Beyond is full of memorable songs and wondrous melodies – “Is It Honest” wins this spot by a nose over all the other gems.

4.  Land I Love / Slow Country

For most of the year this song made me think of what Neil Young might sound like if he were still 24.  Echoes of Buffalo Tom and Sun Kil Moon as well.

3.  Oscillation / The Men

There were a bunch of contenders for this list from Open Your Heart – the muscular hard rock of “Turn It Around”, the Stonesy-romp of “Candy”, the art-punk brilliance of the title track and “Please Don’t Go Away”.  But in the end its “Oscillation”, an extended, kraut-like scorcher, that most made me come back to this one.

2.  Wild Desire / King Tuff

King Tuff released a handful of outstanding songs this year, a few on his self-titled Sub Pop debut, and a few on a scattering of 7”’s.  “Wild Desire” is from a Suicide Squeeze single, and pretty much any other year this would be my runaway #1.  It’s just such beautiful rock & roll poetry on top of a near infallible jam.

1.  The House That Heaven Built / Japandroids

I wanted King Tuff to be #1 so bad, but when I heard this song for the first time sometime last spring I knew that nothing else would stand a chance.  This song is just so complete, so Herculean in its every sound and movement that even a track as perfect as “Wild Desire” gets TKO’d by that first chorus.

—————————————————————–

The ghostly + gorgeous “Airbrushed” comes from Dublin-based ambient/pop band Feather Beds’ upcoming 2013 debut, The Skeletal System.  Fans of Sigur Rós might just split open and melt.

MP3  ::  Airbrushed

———————————————————————

Here they are, the 15 best records of 2012.  Just listen.  #30-16 here.

15.  Dirty Projectors / Swing Lo Magellan

Stream: Gun Has No Trigger

14.  Sic Alps / Sic Alps

Stream: Glyphs

13.  The Babies / Our House on the Hill

Stream: Moonlight Mile

12.  Parquet Courts / Light Up Gold

Stream: Borrowed Time

11.  Boomgates / Double Natural

Stream: Whispering or Singing

10.  Slow Country / The Late Great Slow Country

This collection of dreamy folk songs comes via one of Queens, NY’s best kept secrets.  The fact that this priceless record is still available as a free download on their Bandcamp is just absurd. 

Stream: Yes You Have

Stream: Land I Love

9.  Spider Bags / Shake My Head

Shake My Head is a pure blast of rock & roll fury – a tight, deceptively adventurous set of songs that are worthy of group hugs, raised beers, and shouting along.

Steam: Friday Night

8.  The Tough Shits / The Tough Shits

The Tough Shits’ self-titled LP just pumps out the garage/pop jams like some sort of A.M. radio heyday – it beats Gentlemen Jesse hands down at his own game.  Every song here could be your favorite if it wasn’t for the one that comes next.  Burger Records you guys.

Stream: Cats & Dogs

7.  Damien Jurado / Maroqopa

Jurado’s been around since the 90s, crafting album after album of finely tuned folk and folk rock.  Maroqopa is his second official collaboration with Richard Swift, and these guys are clicking on all cylinders at the moment.  The first half finds Jurado exploring some jazzy/avant-folk styles with great results, and the more traditional back half contains some of the finest songs of his career.

Stream: Museum of Flight

6.  Royal Headache / Royal Headache

The debut from these Aussie garage-rockers is brimming with swagger, undeniable hooks, and great great songs.  I caught up with this one last December, but its U.S.-release last spring opened the doors to a whole new audience.  Have you heard this shit yet?

Stream: Never Again

5.  The Walkmen / Heaven

I have no qualms saying that The Walkmen are my favorite working band.  Heaven may not be their best album (that goes to the 2008’s infallible You & Me), but it just maintains the plateau these guys have been working from for the past half decade, while introducing even more nuance and gravitas into this wonderful band’s sound. 

Stream: Heaven

4.  Japandroids / Celebration Rock

The sophomore set from this Canadian duo has been in virtually every conversation all year of the best rock records of 2012.  This one is even tighter, louder, and more heroic than the debut – the most perfectly named LP of the year to boot.

Stream: The House that Heaven Built

 3.  Woods / Bend Beyond

Woods might be the most undervalued band working today.  These guys continue to jam pack their annual albums with wall-to-wall hooks, and Bend Beyond is their most immediate and fully formed LP to date. 

Stream: Cali In A Cup  

2.  The Men / Open Your Heart

On their latest and most sonically diverse album yet, The Men lay waste to virtually everything in their path.  I was late to the masterpiece that was last year’s Leave Home (it would be a sure-fire top-5 if I re-examined my list right now), but Open Your Heart has been blasting since it dropped last winter, and I haven’t gone more than a week or two between spins since.

Stream: Open Your Heart 

1.  Ty Segall / Twins, Slaughterhouse

Nobody owned 2012 like Segall, releasing three psyche/fuzz full lengths full of the year’s best songs of the kind.  Fraternal albums in every sense, Twins and Slaughterhouse differ only slightly – Twins, the true solo album, more melodic and direct; Slaughterhouse, with the Ty Segall Band, heavy and menacing.  Both damn near perfect.  

Stream: Wave Goodbye

Stream: The Hill  

—————————————————————————————————————————————

Splitting this list in half this year, the only reason being my blog is being a pain in the ass and not allowing me to upload so many jpegs into one post.  Weird, I’ve never had this issue in prior years. 

This year I got back to my roots and fell in love with a lot of primitive sounding rock records.  Looking over this part of the list (as well as part 2, coming real soon), it’s overrun with bands that play their guitars really loud (with only a few notable exceptions).  That’s what is doing it for me these days.  Also, it was harder than ever this year to keep up with posting everything I wanted to or was listening to – it just became an impossible task.  It doesn’t mean I was listening any less, and I think this year was a pretty solid one for new music overall. 

Though they didn’t make the cut, this year I also really enjoyed albums from White Fence, Lantern, Gap Dream, Woollen Kits, Mind Spiders, arrange, Dinosaur Jr., Dylan Ewen, Expwy, GY!BE, Craig Finn, Grizzly Bear, Merchandise, No Kill, Benjamin Shaw, Simon Joyner, and Spiritualized.

As always, thanks for reading.  My favorite songs list is coming soon as well.  Hope you are safe, have a handful of wonderful holidays, and that you find some new favorites…….   

30.  Departures / Still and Moving Lines

Stream: Pillars

Stream: Being There

29.  Guided by Voices / The Bears for Lunch

Stream: She Lives In An Airport

28.  Liars / WIXIW

Steam: No. 1 Against the Rush

27.  Hunx / Hairdresser Blues

Stream: Always Forever

26.  King Tuff  /  s/t

Stream: Keep On Moving

Stream: Bad Thing

25.  Howls / Rocky Ground

24.  Ty Segall & White Fence / Hair

Stream: I Am Not A Game

23.  The Tallest Man on Earth – There’s No Leaving Now

22.  Great Elk / Autogeography  

Stream: The Weight of the Sea

Stream: I’m Going to Bend

21.  Apache Dropout / Bubblegum Graveyard

Stream: I-80

20.  Lotus Plaza / Spooky Action at a Distance

Stream: Monoliths

19.  Tame Impala / Lonerism

Stream: Apocalypse Dream

18.  Beach House / Bloom

Stream: Myth

17.  Frank Ocean / channel ORANGE

16.  Thee Oh Sees / Putrifiers II

Stream: Lupine Dominus

————————————————————————————————————————

I’ve spent the better part of the past 2 weeks dipping my toes into the bottomless GBV catalog – yes, of course Bee Thousand and Propeller and Alien Lanes, but more so the myriad EPs, lost albums, boxed sets, and b-sides.  If your familiarity with Robert Pollard’s enormous body of music doesn’t extend beyond the time-tested classics, check out these gems you’ve been missing out on and then go exploring:

“We’ve Got Airplanes”

“Crutch Came Slinking”

King Shit and the Golden Boys was a disc of previously unreleased songs that originally appeared in the Box boxed set – essentially a CD reissue of their first four albums.  There are highlights throughout (“Dust Devil” sounds just like early R.E.M.), but these two tracks could’ve fit nicely on pretty much any early GBV record up through Alien Lanes.

“Dayton, OH-19 Something and 5”

“Key Losers”

“Unabaited Vicar of Scorched Earth”

Tonics and Twisted Chasers was a fan club only release in 1996.  From what I’ve read the album is mostly just Pollard and Tobin Sprout, so much of the LP has a more minimalist, laid-back feel to it.  If you look at the band’s 1996 releases, it’s pretty amazing: Under the Bushes Under the Stars, Tonics and Twisted Chasers, the Sunfish Holy Breakfast EP.

“Cocksoldiers and their Post-War Stubble”

“A Contest Featuring Human Beings”

Speaking of ’96, the Sunfish Holy Breakfast EP is prime, essential GBV.

“Bunco Men”

“Pink Drink”

I actually only picked up Suitcase 1: Failed Experiments and Trashed Aircrafts yesterday.  So needless to say at 100 songs, there’s a lot to get to over the coming weeks.  These two are from Disc 1 – the first sounds like a completed song worthy of a spot on UTBUTS perhaps, the second is Pollard just kicking up a storm with an electric guitar.

“Big School”

From the 1993 EP Static Airplane Jive.  “Big School” is a vintage big anthem.

“June Salutes You”

More from ’96, this one from The Official Ironman Rally Song EP.  

———————————————————————–