BLASPHEMOUS MOCKERY - Quaking Earth Vibrations

This straddles my two favourite genres of music, noise and new age--perhaps you could call it harsh-ethereal. The title of the album does a good job describing it: Quaking Earth Vibrations. The album is one long piece that starts with the lighter-spirited wash of inspiring flute-loop and static fuzz. It slowly turns into a louder and harsher beast. A very, very nice piece from Blasphemous Mockery (Wolfgang Nessel of Heavy Water, Blood Honey and Bummer in the Summer festivities). If you want a window into the noise and psych-drone community in Toronto, this would be a good one.

2008 CALENDAR - Classic Blues Artwork From The 1920's

This R. Crumb endorsed collection of blues artwork and music has been a long-standing holiday fave around the store for a while now. For the unfamiliar, this calendar features a superb gallery of vintage promotional artwork from blues artists in the 1920s. The calendar also includes a compilation CD that this year includes Blind Lemon Jefferson, Ma Rainey, Blind Willie McTell, and a bunch more. This is the fifth volume in a series that is supposed to run for fifteen volumes. No better time to start the collection than this year!

JEFFREY LEWIS - 12 Crass Songs

From Lou Reed to Jello Biafra, Gordon Gano to Dylan, sometimes the most effective messenger of discord is an off-kilter, atonal voice. Comic book artist Jeffrey Lewis knows he's not the greatest singer and he uses this to his advantage. No fancy trills get in the way of his caustic lo-fi folk attacks on fake punks, crappy club promoters, and basically everything Republican. These 12 Crass Songs are indeed full of cuss words, but this album is hardly just a bunch of lazy swearing. Lewis is a clever and very funny lyricist who's always sure to back up his shock tactics with a well-put point.

RUFUS WAINWRIGHT - Rufus Does Judy At Carnegie Hall

If this May's ostentatious Release The Stars didn't already drive the point home, let this 2CD reenactment of Judy Garland's iconic 1961 Carnegie Hall performance remind you—with Rufus, it's go big, or go home. But despite the grand ambition of this undertaking, he displays genuine humility in the face of Garland's legacy and, most importantly, is talented enough to keeps things fun for the audience yet also save it from descending into a campy lark. When Wainwright hits tunes like "The Man That Got Away", "Do It Again" and yes, "Somewhere Over The Rainbow", you'll know why these songs endure.

TOM ZE - Best Of/Nave Maria

I put these two albums up for my favourite song, "Nave Maria", which appears on both albums in different versions. The Best Of focuses on more folk-oriented Ze songs and offers a slightly stripped-down version of "Nave Maria", while the album "Nave Maria" has the original version with '80s-era effects mixed in. Nave Maria is a fun album that jumps all over the place, with some energetic and often outrageous Brazilian tunes. The song in question is a very compelling track with percussive soprano harmonies in the chorus and a pretty danceable beat. It drives and accelerates through some pretty interesting guitar sounds, like you're climbing up a volcano that's erupting with diamond lava.

BOOKS: AUTUMN DE WILDE - Elliott Smith, VARIOUS WRITERS - Da Capo's Best Music Writing 2007, DAVID MEYER - Twenty Thousand Roads, STUART BAKER - New York Noise, VARIOUS TITLES - 33 1/3 Series, more

                   

Music books are always a great alternate gift for that impossible-to-buy-for music friend. This season has seen a pile of excellent new titles. Photographer Autumn de Wilde was a friend of the late Elliott Smith who, much like Merri Cyr did with Jeff Buckley a while back, has released a picture book chronicling her view of the musician. Fans will recognize the photoshoot which graced the cover of his 2000 album, Figure 8, but the remainder of the book is a goldmine of candid shots as well as several essays about Smith. The book also includes a 5-song live CD.

Speaking of goldmines, the latest edition of Da Capo's Best Music Writing is here. This is a collection of some of the year's best work in music essays and articles, and never fails to be a great buy.

Coinciding nicely with the new Gram Parsons Live CD is Twenty Thousand Roads, a study of the life of one of country rock's most beloved cult heroes--one who is tied as much to established icons like The Byrds, Stones and Emmylou Harris as he is to heroin and amateur cremation.

Soul Jazz records has been at the forefront of music archiving with their excellent reggae/soul/jazz/electronic/punk comps, so it's no surprise to see them releasing a book. Based on their three volume CD series, New York Noise covers pivotal themes in the development of the Big Apple's underground, profiling Lou Reed and Philip Glass to Suicide and Rhys Chatman. 

Finally, if you're ever really stumped, just check out the 33 1/3 series. Each one of these ingenious (and low-cost!) books is based around a particular album. Most are in-depth discussions of the album's genesis and its place in pop culture, however others, such as Kate Schatz's book on PJ Harvey's Rid Of Me, are pieces of creative writing inspired by the record.
Of particular note, mid-December will bring the arrival of Toronto writer Carl Wilson's analysis of the appeal of Celine Dion(!) and its polarizing effect on people. This book should be stellar, not to mention a great way buy something Celine Dion-based for a friend and have it still be thoughtful and cool (our heads are exploding right now). Happy reading! 

APOSTLE OF HUSTLE - U King EP (Limited Edition)

After releasing an excellent second full-length album this past February, the resplendent National Anthem Of Nowhere, Apostle Of Hustle bookend their year with the U King EP. Featuring remixes of album faves such as "Rafaga!" and "Fast Pony For Victor Jara", it also explores brand new territory, like the electro polyrhythms of "Opera Song For Edward Said" and a dizzy cover of Mancini's "Charade". More than anything, this EP reminds us of how well Apostle Of Hustle has fully synthesized of all its varied influences into one sweet, sticky gumbo. We're receiving a limited run of 50 of this tour-only EP so don't delay!

GRAM PARSONS - Archives Volume One: Live At The Avalon Ballroom 1969 with the Flying Burrito Bros.

A pivotal force in the transformation of the Byrds; the inspiration behind The Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses"; youthful singing partner of Emmylou Harris; dead at 26 via the usual career-making cause of drug overdose. Despite all of these claims to fame, the influential country/rock prototype that was Gram Parsons is a relative unknown. Even the crowds on this rare 2CD set are an appropriate mixture of wildly enthusiastic and politely indifferent. All of which perfectly suits Parsons' legend: he was an artist of immense inspiration and bad luck whose beautiful music still waits to be discovered by so many.

A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS - S/T

When your band leader makes his own guitar pedals under the company name Death By Audio, you can bet your band will understand the art of making some pretty righteous noise. And so is the case with Oliver Ackermann and A Place To Bury Stangers. Picking up where Ackermann's old band Skywave left off, this is 21st-century guitar pop of the noisest, harshest persuasion. While it's next to impossible to not bring up The Jesus and Mary Chain when describing this band, that's only because few bands since then have proved so able to merge thick waves of trebly noise and feedback with sugary melody. Exhilarating stuff.

THE WEATHER STATION - East

The Weather Station are a local 5 piece that consist of banjo, mandolin, and violin. They create a brilliant myriad of sounds that ranges from new, and old-time appalachian folk, celtic, and experimental. Their music reflects the harsh landscapes of the east coast, urban confusion and rural absolutes.  This is quite possibly one of my favourite albums of the year.  Look out for their monthly residence at the Tranzac starting in December.

SIGUR ROS - Heima DVD

Few bands have been as continually associated with their homeland's geography as Iceland's Sigur Ros. The band's entire catalogue plays as a sort of audio language for the blind to describe the island's untouched landscape of creeping glaciers, thermal hot springs, dormant volcanos, sunlight summers and ink-black winters. So no one can feign surprise at the success of this marriage of homecoming concerts by the band and pristine footage of the country. After an album, Takk, that wasn't so much a failure as it was more of the same by a great band, watching Heima quickly reminds us of what makes Sigur Ros so special.

VARIOUS ARTISTS - The Best Of Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour

Started in 2006 and running for 50 episodes, the first season of Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour confirmed a few things: he has a great affinity for the early country/blues/folk/jazz artists that shaped him as a youth; and he is a keen observer of modern culture, as evidenced by the occasional LL Cool J, Blur or Streets tune tossed into the mix. This 2CD, 52 song release takes at least one song from each of the programs, covering themes like Hair, Coffee, Weather, and The Devil. As a collection of the roots of American Music, it's dead-on and nicely balanced between the well-known and the obscure.

WHITE RAINBOW - Prism of Eternal Now

Like many experimental indie noisemakers--the many projects of Toronto's own Aidan Baker come to mind here--Adam Forkner's White Rainbow began with a series of CD-R releases. After 2006's 5CD/1DVD Box compilation, he has gone on to release three CDs in 2007. Prism of Eternal Now, however, is his first one with respected label Kranky. This Chicago label is the perfect home for Forkner's music, a mixture of electronics, drum circles, chants, psych pop and primal noise manipulation. Constantly evolving music that's a late contender for one of the better experimental titles of the year.

BONNIE 'PRINCE' BILLY - Ask Forgiveness EP

Following suit with his collaboration with Tortoise, Ask Forgiveness finds Bonnie 'Prince' Billy once again in the mood for covers. This time, he's backed by The Espers' Meg Baird and Greg Weeks and while the music is a little less eclectic than that of the Tortoise album, the selection is no less varied. That Will Oldham manages to cover Bjork, Danzig, R. Kelly, and Phil Ochs within one coherent EP reinforces the fact that this guy is more than just a great songwriter--he's a master interpreter. Speaking of his songwriting, Forgiveness includes one new Oldham tune, "I'm Loving The Street". Consistency, thy name is Bonnie.

SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE - Shelter From The Ash

Ben Chasny has built up quite a catalogue--Shelter From The Ash is his ninth release since 2000, not including his louder work with psych-hurricane Comets On Fire. Over this time, Chasny has found a way to merge the 20-minute raga drones of his early music into more concise songs. Just how that merging emerges is what lends Shelter its addictively morphing qualities. Whether it's the extended marriage of airplane howls and repeated codas on "Final Wing" or the more straight-up psych-rock of the title track, Chasny guides his music with just the right balance of sober assuredness and wired curiosity.

NICK DRAKE - Fruit Tree

This reissue of the classic Drake box set is a curious one. There's no disputing his studio albums themselves--Five Leaves Left, Bryter Layter and Pink Moon are CLASSIC and getting them together is great. However, it lacks the killer rareties collection, Time Of No Reply found on the original Fruit Tree. Does the inclusion of a new 100-page book and DVD of the documentary A Skin Too Few compensate for this omission? Ultimately, that's up to the consumer, but as someone who has always told people to not bother with a Drake best-of CD because you're gonna want them all anyway, it's nice to have Fruit Tree back.

VASHTI BUNYAN - Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind: Singles and Demos 1964-1967

At the time of these recordings, cult folk icon Vashti Bunyan was just another pop hopeful in London trying to break into the industry as a girl group singer. Featuring production by Andrew Loog Oldham, as well as a title track written by Jagger and Richards, these sessions never really bore any fruit. Cue the legend: Bunyan quit the scene in frustration, a reclusive experience that eventually led to the writing of her revered Just Another Diamond Day album. This disc shows that she probably deserved better than she got from these tunes—even if fans of Diamond Day are kinda glad it didn't work out for her.

LCD SOUNDSYSTEM - 45:33

Before "Someone Great" was one of 2007's best songs, it was an instrumental section to LCD Soundsystem's 2006 iTunes-only workout disco symphony, 45:33. Now issued on CD with a trio of bonus tracks, we get a chance to hear the creative process in reverse. A piece of music commissioned by Nike, 45:33 was designed to accompany a 45-minute cardio workout, complete with warm-up and cool-down sections. Despite the commercial nature of it, this project is an interesting creative concept and one for which James Murphy was ideally suited. Irreverent, full of hidden subtleties, and just as fun off the treadmill.

ROBYN HITCHCOCK - I Wanna Go Backwards

Covering the space between his beginnings with The Soft Boys and his recent string of acclaimed albums, I Wanna Go Backwards collects a decade worth of Robyn Hitchcock albums: Black Snake Diamond Role, I Often Dream of Trains,  and Eye. All three albums are available individually with bonus tracks, but the box gives you two extra discs of demos, charmingly titled While Thatcher Mauled Britain. The perfect opportunity to catch up with a widely-mentioned but still little-known British songwriter. His surreal, witty compositions deserve many more fans than they presently claim.

ARETHA FRANKLIN - Rare & Unreleased Recordings From The Golden Reign Of The Queen Of Soul

After a mind-blowing display of charismatic star-power at Aretha Franklin's free show on Bloor Street last week, I can't stop listening to this collection of unreleased gems from her Atlantic-era prime. Admittedly, none of this material is as instantly memorable as the classic hits from the proper album releases; still what is here is top-notch soul, sung with a passion and insight that you don't see much anymore. Bow down to the Queen Of Soul!