Back from Hanover after a wonderful Thanksgiving trip. It’s my favorite holiday, mostly because the entire premise is that you get to hang out with your friends all day, relax, cook way too much food, and then stuff yourself for the rest of the evening. This year we attended a big potluck. Our contributions were sweet potatoes (you absolutely have to use real maple syrup to get the appropriate type of sweetness), cranberries (cooked with brown sugar, ginger, and lemon), pesto gnocchi, an African peanut soup with red peppers, and my friend’s delicious vegetarian stuffing. It was a grand old time.
It’s now reaching that point of the year when time gets precious, though. I’ve got final papers to write, for one thing. And I’ve got to start putting together my end-of-the-year albums list. Which means combing through the hundreds that have already been posted to find out what I missed. And it also means I really have to get around to actually writing reviews for the major contenders that I’ve failed to cover so far (The Gaslight Anthem and Marching Band, to name a couple). As of right now, I’d have to say I’m finding 2008 to be a bit disappointing, especially compared to the ridiculous amount of good music that’s come out in the past few years. Still, there’s a lot that I haven’t heard so I need to get cracking…
Right now, though, I’ll look a little furhter ahead and post a teaser for a forthcoming 2009 record from the shimmery shoegazers Asobi Seksu.
Me and Mary – Asobi Seksu
This picks up right where 2006’s stunning Citrus left off. It hits you with a wave of sound like any good shoegaze should, but it takes you dancing and swirling around corners at breakneck speed in a way that a million My Bloody Valentine retreads could never even imagine. While their past record was driven by soaring waves of fuzzed-out guitar, this one features a bit more detail. The patterns of sound change regularly, and it offers a more complex background to play against singer Yuki Chikudate’s stunning voice.