This winter, Austinist wanted to take some time to check in with some of our favorite local performers, artists and musicians to see what they enjoyed in 2008. Our request was simple: give us a few things that you enjoyed listening to this year, and feel free to include releases that might not have been released in 2008, but that found their way onto your turntable anyhow. We'll be sharing our own list too, but be patient and hear what some of our favorite folks thought was worthwhile in '08.
Today we're checking in with Jared Van Fleet, of Voxtrot and Sparrow House. Van Fleet's collaborative project with Ramesh Srivastava and others took a bit of a break in 2008, after spending almost all of 2007 recording and touring. He kept busy working on Sparrow House songs due for release in 2009 on Autobus, and lent his piano skills to Bill Baird, the Black and Sara Beck (Pink Nasty). He also produced an album for the Parisian artist Mina Trindle. Here's what he's been enjoying this year:
1. Little Joy - Little Joy
This was my favorite release of the year. Balanced and concise, it's a perfect pop record. Noah Georgeson's production captures the warmth and intimacy of a home-recorded project without letting the album's more upbeat songs suffer from any lack of clarity or punch. Fabrizio Moretti and Rodrigo Amarante match each other's strengths so evenly it sounds as if they should have been playing music together their whole lives. It's a disservice to this record to critique it in the context of other Strokes side-projects, as there are moments in Little Joy that transcend even the best of Is This It?. Everyone involved here really knows what they're doing, but they do it with such charm and enthusiasm, you would never guess this wasn't their first time around.
2. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
MGMT is the kind of band you find out about from your girlfriend. After awhile, you apologize to her for not really giving their music a chance the first few times you heard it. Later, songs like "Weekend Wars" begin to pull you into the album's gigantic world. Each massive track sounds like a call-to-arms from some post-apocalyptic tribe of psychedelic youth, and you start to wonder where you can sign up. Dave Fridmann's production is excellent, but even a quick glance at their earlier recordings reveals that these two guys definitely know what they're doing. Even if they're a little too into the rock star thing, and probably after your girlfriend.
3. Hercules and Love Affair - Hercules and Love Affair
For an album so engrossed in homage and pastiche, Hercules and Love Affair comes across to me as surprisingly fresh. I've never appreciated Antony's voice as much as my friends, but in this context, it shines. Andrew Butler's songs feel like lost Paradise Garage classics, and his production (with the help of DFA veteran Tim Goldsworthy) is sharp and perfectly crisp. The incorporation of live strings and horns in tracks like "Hercules Theme" help take their dj/producer sound to a new level of sophistication. This is a dance album, yes, but it's also dark, personal, and worthy of many repeated listens.
4. Beach House - Devotion
Press "play" on the drum machine that comes with any old organ. Now add the softly-changing chords. Run a slide guitar through delay. Take a beautiful voice and cover it in cathedral reverb. Beach House seem to have their formula down, but no matter how predictable their palette, there's something about those melodies and their magical combination of sounds that still manages to affect me. There are subtle moments of pop genius, like in the second half of "You Came to Me"... but the overall effect is less like scratching an itch, more like hypnosis.
5. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
Love it or hate it, take it or leave it, but I think it deserves a mention if just for the fact that everyone seemed to have an opinion. I never felt very enthusiastic about this record, but in the end, many of the songs stuck. By the time my band played with them at the Primavera Sound festival, I was really ready to like them, and their set that night finally won me over. They're better when they're aping the Zombies than when it's Paul Simon they're after. I think my favorite song is - perhaps fittingly - "I Stand Corrected".
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