We have moved

Avant-Noise has resurfaced and relocated to tumblr. Thank you to everyone who read this blog in the nearly two years that it operated on blogspot and for all the kind feedback. Hopefully you'll join us over on tumblr.

http://avantnoise.tumblr.com/

P.S.

I think I'll be moving Avant Noise over to Tumblr quite soon. I really like their format a lot better. We'll see. This might be a new era for the blog.

Beach Fossils

I have been absent from this blog for many months, but I have finally found a band worth blogging about. Beach Fossils is my latest discovery. Without a doubt, this New York-based band can be compared to contemporaries such as Real Estate and Dum Dum Girls. There is something quintessentially "beachy" about their lo-fi garage rock sound, and I love it. I've been listening to them all day.

Their self-titled full-length will be released on the 25th of May. You can order it here.

Listen to their music here.

Coachella 2010

Click to enlarge


PAVEMENT!
that is all.

2000-2009

In an attempt to assess the mass amounts of music that has been created since the year 2000, I have found myself writing a memoir of my adolescence instead of a simple blog post listing some noteworthy albums. The truth is, there were just too many good albums to choose from. While I just might post my homage to the past decade of music elsewhere-- I'll keep it simple and straightforward for this blog. I wouldn't even call this a "best albums of the decade" list. Each album presented here is quite different. This is more like a "albums I found myself listening to over and over in this decade" list.

I present to you (some of) my favorite albums of the past ten years, in order of the year in which each album was released.

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Radiohead / Kid A (2000)



Wilco / Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)



Sufjan Stevens / Michigan (2003)



Death Cab for Cutie / Transatlanticism (2003)



Arcade Fire / Funeral (2004)



Sufjan Stevens / Illinois (2005)



Bright Eyes / I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning (2005)



Margot and the Nuclear So and So's / The Dust of Retreat (2006)



M. Ward / Post-War (2006)



Snowden / Anti-Anti (2006)



Panda Bear / Person Pitch (2007)



Radiohead / In Rainbows (2007)



Berlin Whale / Berlin Whale (2007)



Of Montreal / Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? (2007)



That Ghost / Young Fridays (2008)

Salvation is Created

I just found out last night about Bifrost Art's latest Christmas album entitled Salvation is Created, thanks to a friend. The compilation, which is a follow-up to Come O Spirit!, features Sufjan Stevens, J. Tillman, The Welcome Wagon, Damien Jurado, David Bazan, and many other great artists.

To quote from Bifrost Art's site, "Bifrost Arts is a sacred music non-profit that exists to enrich the church and engage the world with beauty and truth."

This sounds rather excellent to me. I hope to be purchasing this soon. For more information about the album and Bifrost Art, click here.

New Arcade Fire album in 2010!

All speculation has finally been confirmed. Yes, that is correct. The Arcade Fire are finally returning with a third studio album in 2010. The projected month of release is in May. According to Billboard.com, "[t]he band is weighing multiple offers for live shows in the spring, and will likely take a top slot at one or more of the major North American summer festivals."

This is information that I, along with many other Arcade Fire fans have been waiting to hear since their 2007 release, Neon Bible. Needless to say, I am very excited about this. Could it mean a headlining spot for the band at Coachella?

New song from That Ghost: "In House"

Upon listening to "In House" by That Ghost, I was immediately transported to the Roosevelt Hotel in the 1920s. Images of the ghosts of actors and actresses of the day as they roamed about the hotel filled my mind, and sepia tones abounded.

It's a wonderfully sleepy track with earnest and somewhat haunting vocals. The lightness and subtlety of the song itself called to mind Grizzly Bear, ever so slightly, in their earlier days. Furthermore, the song casts a somber yet very warm and inviting tone, beckoning to be listened to more than once. If you have been following Ryan's music at all, you will notice his pleasant progression as an artist from his early recordings to now. However, if you are not so familiar with That Ghost, I urge you to take a listen.

myspace.com/thatghost

Los Angeles Freeway Opera

It could be purely coincidental, but I seem to be noticing a trend here when it comes to projects having to due with concrete lanes and automobiles. First, it started in New York with The BQE from Sufjan Stevens, which was originally commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Now, we move to the West Coast, where the Los Angeles Opera is undergoing a project entitled "The 110 Project".

Commissioned by the Education and Community Programs department of the LA Opera, "The 110 Project" is centered around four main characters as they make their way through seventy years worth of Los Angeles history, which according to Current.com, begins with "the birth of the space program in Pasadena's Arroyo Seco in 1939 to downtown Los Angeles at midcentury. It concludes at the port of San Pedro in the present day."

Keeping true to the history of LA, the company has decided to include true events and authentic documents. As for the music, multiple composers are on board and the final project will be comprised of various original scores. Of course, it wouldn't be a true freeway opera without the use of freeway sounds. According to the L.A. Opera, the singers will form "a freeway chorus that scats and honks its commentary."

photo credit: nimarazfar.com

New EP from Animal Collective

According to Paste Magazine, Animal Collective is set to release a five-track EP entitled Fall Be Kind. The digital release will be available November 23rd, and a physical copy (either in compact disc or vinyl format) can be obtained in stores on December 15th.

Remember when Animal Collective made headlines this summer by gaining rights to a Grateful Dead sample? The song ("What Would I Want? Sky") featuring the sample will be available on this EP, as well as "Graze", a more recent live track from the band.

Videos: Jookabox & Animal Collective

Though Halloween has long since passed, I can't help but enjoy this video.
"You Cried Me" by Jookabox, from their latest album entitled Dead Zone Boys.
Asthmatic Kitty Records 2009.

In other news, Animal Collective has released a new video for "In The Flowers" off of their early 2009 release Merriweather Post Pavillion. It is (quite fittingly) very whimsical and colorful. Click here to view it.

Ready, Able

The video for "Ready, Able" off of Grizzly Bear's 2009 release,Veckatimest, was released recently. Simply put, it is a beautifully constructed video for a beautifully constructed song. Enjoy!

To the Pacific Northwest We Go.

Just some images of Phil Elvrum from when he was in the Washington-based band The Microphones.

Lately, I've been dreaming of the Pacific Northwest, and these photos only make me think of traveling to Oregon and Washington even more. It all seems wonderful. I can't wait to embark on that journey.

For now, though, I'll be here, listening to The Microphones and Helios (a wonderful Portland-based one-man band lead by Keith Kenniff that I haven't been able to get enough of for the past few years).

On a different note, Iceland (and essentially ever other Scandinavian country) always puts forth some great musicians. I've been listening to a lot of bands from that region lately. They're not new discoveries by any means, but rather old and familiar bands that I'm getting re-acquainted with. I love it when that happens. Maybe I'll devote a post to the great countries of Northern Europe soon.

Viva Voce

I've been constantly listening to the song "Octavio" by the Portland-based husband and wife duo (although they have added two more members for their latest album, so duo might no longer suffice) Viva Voce for the past few days. Though the song was released earlier this year, I can't help but play it on repeat. It brings me joy, and I thought that I might share a bit of that joy with you all.

The song if from the album Rose City which was released this year (2009) through Barsuk Records.

Sufjan Stevens

I recently came across an interview with Sufjan Stevens in The Guardian. Naturally, he discussed his inspiration for The BQE. He also mentioned his upcoming project entitled Music for Insomnia, which according to the article, is "an improvised synth-based album".

As for the 50 States Project, it's possible that we will not be seeing any more albums paying homage to all the American states. When asked about it, Sufjan responded with "I have no qualms about admitting it was a promotional gimmick". I'm not entirely surprised with this statement, but I did hold out hope for at least a few more albums for the project.

While Stevens is no stranger to grand projects, he mentioned that "I've feverishly, consistently, obsessively recorded, so now I've begun this self-imposed hiatus, where I'll stop releasing records and focus on writing. It's healthy for me to shake off all these pretensions and these epic conceptual endeavours."

A review of "The BQE" in all its grandeur

Sufjan Stevens has outdone himself again with his latest release. Though the inception of The BQE may have been a simple project commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music, it has snowballed into something more. This is a masterpiece that surpasses all notions and boundaries of what one would expect from a current artist. Perhaps that’s the magic of Sufjan Stevens; we know his sound, but with each release he does something new. One can never know what to fully expect from this man.

As I sit hear listening to the album, I can’t help but envision Sufjan on stage surrounded by a symphony in a beautiful concert hall. The explosions of sound, the arrangement of each instrument—it is all too brilliant. Some pieces are dark and brooding (Interlude I: Dream Sequence in Subi Circumnavigation), while others are lighthearted and playful- calling to mind paintings from the Rococo era (“Movement III: Linear Tableau with Intersecting Surprise”). However, Stevens does not end the musical journey in the 1700s. There is a sense of modernity when electronic elements are showcased in the appropriately titled “Movement IV: Traffic Shock”, with all the samples and sounds creating a mental image of frenzy and confusion, truly mirroring “the BQE’s inexplicable twists and turns,” as Stevens goes on to explain in the accompanying comic book. (Yes, a comic book!)

The ending track, “Prelude: Critical Mass” is a delicate and moving piece. There is a sense of serenity; a stillness and sadness that stirs the soul. It is the most perfect and calm way to end a tumultuous journey through The BQE (and when I say tumultuous, do not think of the negative dictionary definition, for the tumult presented on this album is nothing but the best kind of uproar and loudness. The sounds shift from heavy to light, from calm to bellicose, and that is what I am trying to capture). The BQE is a road that begs to be traveled down again and again.

This album is easily one of the best that I have had the pleasure of listening to in 2009.

You can purchase the album in various forms through Asthmatic Kitty Records.

Update

I have not been updating the blog all that often, but I hope to stay more on top of all things music and actually start posting more frequently. Expect a review of Sufjan's newest album, The BQE, in the near future. The man is brilliant.

I guess that's all for now.

New Radiohead album in 2010!

Earlier this year, it was reported that Radiohead would no longer be making albums. Thom Yorke was misquoted when he said that making another record would "kill the band". According to guitarist Ed O'Brien, Radiohead is set to release a follow-up to In Rainbows in 2010!

Read what Ed O'Brien had to say here.

October // Hauntology

In August, I posted a Dead Man's Bones mp3 for the song "My Body's A Zombie For You". Since it is the first of October, I thought it would be fitting to post a video for it. As far as I know, this is not an official video for the song, but one can't help but think of Autumn and all things Halloween with the images of jack-o-lanterns and illustrations from Edward Gorey's The Gashlycrumb Tinies.

Their debut album comes out October 6th!

MP3- Sufjan Stevens

In July I posted about Sufjan's newest album, The BQE. If you haven't heard yet, a download of "Movement IV: Isorhythmic Night Dance with Interchanges" from the forthcoming album is available for streaming and download via Asthmatic Kitty Records. It starts off as a delicate and light-hearted instrumental piece. However, it picks up the pace towards the end with powerful sounds from the brass and wind sections. Upon listen, you can't help but wonder if you have been transported to the Baroque era.

Don't forget-- the album is set to be released on October 20th!