

Heres the Fruit Jar Guzzlers (best band name ever?) doing a prehistoric version of the Stack-O-Lee ballad. This is the wonderful calculus of The Return of the Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of, a two-disc set with great documentation that travels back to the 1920s and unearths some of the earliest recordings of homegrown American music. When it comes to the American songbook, taking rides through the deeper parts of that history can be as thrilling and immediate as seeing a live concert. But every riff, every melody, every harmony has its own rich history.

Too often we reflexively think that music is born when it is recorded, that it simply comes into existence fully formed. Various Artists, The Return of the Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of (Yazoo Records) I/O, whose real name is Ayo Olatunji, is a newcomer on the rise.
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Piece of Mind is nicely jelled with electronic sounds, and his soft voice shines on Strangers and Well Always Be, with its addictive hook full of hand claps. The epic Id Be Lying is the best example, where I/O is motivated and looking for more in life. Hes singing about heartache and heartbreak on this 12-track staple, but he doesnt come off as annoying. His second mixtape, Isolation, is an impeccable adventure of R&B and eerie sounds that heal your ears. That trend in music a movement that includes Frank Ocean, The Weeknd, Miguel and Dawn Richard will continue to blow up in 2013, and New York-based singer-songwriter-producer I/O should be among those to look out for. Oh, progressive R&B, how I enjoy your sound. But Marvelous Clouds rewards multiple listens, and provides plenty of hints that Freeman will continue to surprise. Ween devotees felt betrayed when Freeman broke up the band, and they were confused that such an accomplished songwriter opted to record someone elses tunes. Every track is suffused with a melancholy that draws comparisons to some of the best of Weens softer material, including the aching ∻irthday Boy and I Dont Want It. The production on Jean and the title track are by turns lush and spare. McKuens a crooner often dismissed as schlocky, but Freeman finds the earnest heart and crushing heartbreak in gentle ballads like ∺ Man Alone, which could be the records theme song. To find his footing as a solo artist, the former Gene Weens first tentative step was to release Marvelous Clouds, a covers album featuring 13 songs by Rod McKuen, the 1960s poet and composer. Middle age and sobriety caused Aaron Freeman to split this year from Ween, the deliriously genre-defying cult duo he co-founded 25 years ago. Mesfin Fekadu, AP Music Writer (/musicmesfin)Īaron Freeman, Marvelous Clouds (Partisan Records)

Thats a bit unusual, but its also a break from mainstream pop music, and a needed one. The 10 tracks that make up Shields are drum-filled and smoky, and half the songs are more than five minutes long. Anchored by the voices of Edward Droste and Daniel Rossen, this Brooklyn, N.Y.-based foursome has created a disc that is genre-defying and consistent throughout. Shields is a semimasterpiece that feels both old and new and in the best ways possible. And yes, it debuted in the Top 10.īut did it earn any Grammy nominations? No. Yes, iTunes named Grizzly Bears Shields the best album of 2012. Heres what you should know about, and why Yet for how uncharacteristic it might seem for a band whose greatest gift, all along, was nuance, this louder take suits the band brilliantly.While everyone was buzzing about big releases from Frank Ocean, Fiona Apple, Mumford & Sons and Taylor Swift, you might have missed some must-listens. And Chris Bear’s drums crash with an urgency that rarely surfaced in the chamber-folk arrangements on past albums. Their guitar riffs have grown more ragged and noisy. Shields doesn’t wholly comprise songs with the level of bombast displayed in “Sleeping Ute,” but it’s no exaggeration to say this is the most dramatic album in the Grizzly Bear catalog to date. There’s a little bit of synthesizer too, but that’s entirely beside the point in a song that finds the ordinarily softer-spoken Grizzly Bear coming much closer to Led Zeppelin than ever before. The breezy, bouncy twinkle of “Two Weeks,” the kind-of sort-of hit that emerged from 2009’s Veckatimest, has all but vanished, and in its place are lots of guitars. It only takes about 30 seconds of “Sleeping Ute,” the first track on Grizzly Bear’s fourth album Shields, to fully grasp that something has changed with the Brooklyn indie-pop quartet.
