Summer

Long time, no update.

Here's the deal. The semester is over, hard work paid off, and Baltimore hasn't warmed up to summer standards... yet.

I've still been doing some heavy listening though. Not necessarily to really new stuff, but I've been familiarizing myself with the shit load of music I have acquired over the past year.

That being said, there is now a massive wish list of albums that anyone should want spinning in their ipod or car. Well researched stuff...

We'll see what the audio phile can get his hands on. In the meantime, here's what's gonna happen:

This blog will most likely become a vehicle for recording my work with the Summer Undergraduate Research Fund that I was awarded at the end of the semester.

The work I will be doing will focus on the cultural and social politics of the 2008 Broadway season. Seems like that's out of left field, right? Not really. I love the performing arts (Hello? Concerts anyone?), and I am in fact an English major (could I be more stereotypical right now?).

Regardless, I'll be updating the blog with the happenings of the project and my research. In addition to the self-centered and academic postings that will most certainly come to fruition, with them, there will be either a song or a playlist or both to accompany the seemingly off topic project oriented ramblings. Of course, the music will correspond to the work I'm doing. So, it'll be like the Research Fund Mix Tape. Enjoy!

Here's my present wish-list (Heard almost all of it, but I want to own the damn records, baby) followed by my projected top 31 albums so far:

Battles - “Mirrored”
The Tough Alliance - “A New Chance”
The Forms - “The Forms”
Okay - “Huggable Dust”
Shearwater - “Palo Santo”
Jose Gonzalez - “In Our Nature”
Fennesz - “Endless Summer”
White Rabbits - “Fort Nightly”
She and Him - “Volume One”
Dodos - “Visiter”
Los Campesinos - “Hold On Now, Youngster…”
Hilotrons - “Happymatic”
Sebastian Tellier - “Sexuality”
Wolf Parade - “At Mount Zoomer”
Sally Shapiro - “Disco Romance” (both orig and remix)
Dan Friel - “Ghost Town”
Tunng - “Good Arrows”
The Streets - “A Grand Don’t Come For Free”
Foals - “Antidotes”
M83, Portishead, Karftwerk, and MSTRKRFT from other people
Dizzee Rascal - “Boy In Da Corner” and “Showtime” and “Maths + English”
French Quarter - “French Quarter”
Tokyo Police Club - “Elephant Shell”
Tapes ‘n Tapes - “Walk It Off”
Man Man - “Rabbit Hats”
Death Cab for Cutie - “Narrow Stairs”
Coldplay - “Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends”
Santogold - “Santogold”
Cut Copy - “Bright Like Neon Love” and “In Ghost Colors”
Hercules and Love Affair - “Hercules and Love Affair”
Mates of State - “All Day” and “Rearrange Us”
Annuals - “Be He Me”
Peter Bjorn and John - “Falling Out”
Menomena - “I Am the Fun Blame Monster”
Architecture in Helsinki - “In Case We Die”
Datarock - “Datarock Datarock”
Talib Kweli - “Quality” and “Reflection Eternal (with Hi Tek)”
The Islands - “Return to the Sea”
Deltron 3030 - “Deltron 3030”
The Books - “Thought for Food"
The Cool Kids - “Bake Sale” EP
Blood on the Wall - “Awesomer”
Seabear - “The Ghost That Carried Us Away”
Mission of Burma - “Obliterati” and “OnOffOn” and “Vs.”
Tom Waits, Frank Zappa, Crosby Stills Nash & Young discographies (along with BB King’s “Hummingbird”)


TOP 30 SO FAR -

1 okay - huggable dust
2 wolf parade - at mount zoomer
3 evangelicals - the evening descends
4 the dodos - visiter
5 death cab for cutie - narrow stairs
6 cut copy - in living color
7 french quarter - french quarter
8 the ruby suns - sea lion
9 hercules and love affair - hala
10 bodies of water - ears will pop and eyes will blink (and probably their new one)
11 crystal castles - cc
12 no age - nouns
13 beck - modern guilt?
14 re-up gang - we got it for cheap vol. 3
15 vampire weekend- vampire weekend
16 man man - rabbit hats
17 beach house - devotion
18 portishead - third
19 hilotrons - happymatic
20 m83 - saturdays=youth
21 los campesinos - hold on now, youngster...
22 dan friel - ghost town
23 tokyo police club - elephant shell
24 santogold - santogold
25 she and him - volume 1
26 sebastian tellier- sexuality
27 coldplay - viva la vida or death and all his friends (guilty pleasure)
28 foals - antidote
29 high places - anything they release
30 matmos - supreme balloon
31 el guincho (i'll stop here)

lil wayne will be good too right? as will my bloody valentine? radiohead doesn't count

Bowerbirds

#90.1 - BOWERBIRDS - Bur Oak
by lablogotheque


My love for these guys is due in large part to fellow DJ, Ed Gonzalez. What a great NC band... Dead Oceans is really impressing me.

Show 9

There is a point when belatedness is more part of one's identity as opposed to just a trend. Perhaps that's the case here, but let's be honest for a second. This is a blog. Moreover, this is a blog without much web-traffic. Were The Audio Phile to average more listeners and more visiters then perhaps that would manifest a compulsion to please and a subsequent desire to write often and on time.

At the moment, and as the language of past posts has made clear, this is a self-serving blog and radio show. In a word, it's fun, or at least it has been. But now?

I don't know. Consequently, I've slipped into a habit of simply posting about past shows with a mere tracklist and some poorly written excuses. There has been an overload of informality and with it way too many first person pronouns.

Are these the ramblings of a stickler? Perhaps, but the status of the blog has recently gone from one that would excite me with its potential to one that appears to be more of a worthless, demanding task, only completed out of a promise to those few listeners and to myself. Hence, the late posts, sloppy writing and so on.

Then I had an epiphany - or perhaps it was a realization that felt like more of a reminder.
Both this radio show and this blog display a very developed and refined taste in music - one that is marinated in particularity and ecclecticism. I mean, this stuff is good... really good.

Granted, the music could be construed as safe, but to a point. Nothing played or recommended comes to you without other critical acclaim. Indeed, it is rare that an album gets added to this here audio phile's iTunes without an extensive check on its critical reception. Yet, this can be blamed on the understandable fear of disappointment. It's been touched on before, but buying an album and not liking it can be a monumental let down, a waste of time for want of liking it, and an embarrassing stain on a discography.

However, the music comes to you having gone through one final step of refinement. After repeated listens, extensive research, and various classified tests, the artists you hear on the show, the ones you see featured on this blog - they all have one thing in common, and this one linking commonality is the most important aspect of the music. It's my approval - my enthusiastic promotion because the chosen artist has touched me in a way that I've decided you need to feel too.

My thoughts digress. The point is, I really like what I listen to, and I have an instilled passion to spread the good news. I want you to like what I like also. Maybe there's a hint of arrogance there, but anyone who is proud of their musical taste can attest to their own pretentions.
Anyway, consider this a renewal of my vow to keep up the blog and to continue to make the radio show an excellent one each week.

Remember, KSCR every Wednesday at FOUR PM pt. You'll like what you hear.


On to last week's show:

I only DJed the first hour, and it'll be like that until the end of this semester. Bill the intern, or William as you may know him, is now in studio for The Audio Phile. TRAINING HAS COMMENCED! Be warned, our two tastes do differ, but keep an open ear. Bill knows what he likes, and I've got to say I like it too.

Here's the first hour's playlist. It's a tad out of order since, as you may recall, there was not an outlet to be found in studio. Still, the music is, as the kids say, awesome.

"Spinning Cotton Candy in a Shack Made of Shingles" - Black Moth Super Rainbow {mp3}
"Start To Melt" - Peter Bjorn & John {mp3}
"Elves" - The Dodos {link to cdbaby}
"Grease 2" - Thee Oh Sees {MySpace}
"In The Mausoluem" - Beirut {mp3}
"Rolling Down The Hills (Spring Demo)" - Glass Candy {mp3}
"Hip-Hop Saved My Life (Feat. Nikki Jean)" - Lupe Fiasco {mp3}
"Bring It On Down" - Goose
"The Good, the Bad, the Ugly (feat. Kanye West)" - Consequence {mp3}
"Blind (feat. Antony Hegarty)" - Hercules & Love Affair {mp3}
"Tragedy" - Okay {MySpace}
"Sipping On The Sweet Nectar" - Jens Lekman {zSHARE}
"Here Comes Your Man" - Pixies {mp3}
"Be Dark Night" - Phosphorescent {mp3}
"All I Need (Remix of Radiohead)" - AmpLive {zSHARE}

Horrible

oh. god. had to post. thank you kevin.

Arcade Fire (Black Mirror)

CLICK

sooo much fun.

Okay Is The New Awesome

photo from sefronia.com

Thanks to MFKWCRG, Pop Apocalypse and YouAintNoPicasso, here are three new tracks from an artist that you absolutely have to add to your music library.

MP3: Okay - Tragedy

MP3: Okay - Only

MP3: Okay - My

Little is known about Marty Anderson, who operates under the name Okay. He has a new full length coming out called Huggable Dust (artwork below), and based on these three posted songs from the album, it's a must buy.

Okay clearly makes great music. It's a twisted form of pop; there's lush instrumentation and countermelodies that bubble with passion under Anderson's quavering voice against shifting rhythms. This creates a fragile lo-fi uniqueness that seems to delicately discover beauty. Indeed, the songs appear complex because of their layered texture, but the musical phrases are, for the most part, based around simple chord structures. This gives Okay's sound an interesting dichotomy, which in the end, is compelling. Similarily, his lyrics seem sad and meaningful - it's an inspired sense of longing that I come away with. Perhaps that can be attributed to Anderson's battle with Crohn's Disease, which keeps him pretty much confined to his room.

"Only" is the exception. It's short and, well, sweet, with a fingerpicked acoustic guitar, handclaps and Anderson's voice as the only instruments. Yet somehow, the fragile sense of longing is still implied, despite his arguably ironic try at comfort ("i want you to know it's alright"), probably because his croaky voice seems like it will give out any second.

Stunning, yet catchy.

This is Okay's third album, Huggable Dust, out sometime this year on Absolutely Kosher.

Some Okay/Anderson artwork:

Fresh: Evangelicals

Thanks to Stereogum and the wonders of Myspace, here's a gloriously wacky band from the OK state: Evangelicals. Instructions: Take some Menomena, The Forms and TV on the Radio. Mash with MIDI blips and delay effects. Sprinkle with distorted samples. Blend all that with a good deal of psychedelia and you have the crazy-fun pop of Evangelicals. Their new album is called The Evening Descends and it's out Jan. 22. Stream it at their Myspace page and buy it at a record store near you. I know I will.



MP3: Evangelicals - Skeleton Man

Must See

One of the cutest things you'll ever see. This is a live version of Menomena's "Wet and Rusting" off the excellent early 2007 release Freind and Foe. The studio version of the song is, in a word, powerful, and I think this Take Away Show performance is a different kind of powerful. Witness how music moves people, regardless of language and age.



#62.3 - Menomena - Wet and Rusting
Uploaded by lablogotheque

Dork Reference: (Makes me think of Dumbledore's sentimental comment in Sorcerer's Stone when he wipes a tear from his eyes after the singing of the school song. "Music... A magic beyond all we do here." True dat.)

Welcome

It would be customary for this inaugural post to both qualify this website’s existence and articulate its purpose. The most that can be said at this beginning stage, however, is that pretty much everything about this site has yet to be defined. Whether it shall strictly be an in depth companion to the radio show of the same name or another blog offering its take on the news and releases of the music world, I cannot say.
Here’s what I do know. I love music, particularly what’s new and artistically compelling. I guess that explains the corny title of the blog. “The Audio Phile” was intended to be more of a play on those song files that one has saved on his or her computer, but it became both the sadly unpunny name of my radio program and the title to its appendix (this blog). Yes, I am a DJ. I proudly spin tunes and say a few things into the mic for the best station around, KSCR. I hope to incorporate my show into this website.
Now, to business. My music taste:
It varies, but focuses on Indie pop, rock, folk, electronica, hip hop, or any music mirroring the Indie style. Since “Indie” has become such an overused and often misinformed label for many artists, I do not wish to debate the propriety of the title for those whom I have lauded as worthy creators of music. Instead, let’s acknowledge that most of the music featured here is not, for all intensive purposes, mainstream. On the other hand, there are some good artists/bands on major labels.
Understand that I’m not limiting this blog’s content to the pretentious and snide discourse that often accompanies the writing of those who share this same particular taste in music. Indeed, critical open-mindedness will, with any luck, be exercised.
This is both a site of critique and explanation. Hopefully, you find its contents informed and compelling. And please, listen to KSCR for your new music and check this blog often. ENJOY.

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