Mount Wittenberg Orca - Dirty Projectors + Bjork

A collaboration between two of my favorite musicians?  Yes please.  All donations towards the National Geographic Oceans Society Project?  Even better.  Buy the album here.  Its well worth the money for both reasons.  There are videos and a letter from David Longstreth about the album too.

Rise Above - Dirty Projectors

Bitte Orca is an amazing album, if you haven't heard it - you need to.  This is the album preceding it.  I was hoping for the same unique sound and excellent writing and I think I got it.  I can't explain this music at all.  I've never really heard anything like it.  Its odd, but its not creepy.  The voices are slippery, slightly manipulated.  The sonic landscape is sparse.  The tempos, the melody are hard to follow.  They are irregular and often don't repeat, but the songs are not disjointed.  Each one feels complete and whole like they took each germ of an idea and realized it fully.  There is no danger of boredom - you have to listen to the entire song again to hear each part of it that got stuck in your ear.  Catchy hooks are not beat to death like a pop song, but they are definitely abounding.  The music is upbeat, but not bubble gum.  The lyrics are abstract and as stream of consciousness as the music.  Catchy stream of consciousness would be the best way to describe it I suppose.  I can't think of any other.  For those that enjoy music this definitely comes highly recommended, although still not as highly as Bitte Orca.  If their next album is that much better, I will be first in line to hear it.

Monitor - Titus Andronicus

I'd never heard of Titus Andronicus, but apparently they have a few releases.  This is their latest and only second real album, out just a few months ago.  Like most softer punk (I'm thinking Brand New or early Fall Out Boy) the band name, the song titles are references to literature, movies, obscure references in other genres of performance art (this particular band name a reference to Shakespeare's play).  This albums is different however in that it is a concept album based loosely on Civil War concepts.  Its now\t bad punk.  I've not really been listening to this kind of music for awhile and I miss it.  The bands I used to listen to in this genre, from this part of the country have put out albums since that don't really interest me anymore.  Monitor is the kind of sound I've been looking for, but the Civil War lyrics aren't something I can really grab onto beyond a nod of well done, whats next.  That's just me though, I'm not into music to learn about history unrelated to it.

Let's talk about the music.  The vocals are raw and gritty.  Sometimes I mistook him for Conor Oberst, especially in Desaparecidos.  In addition to a mix of underground indie artists contributing to the album in various ways, Titus Andronicus incorporates a lot of instrumentation including some bagpipes, some fiddle, other nonconventionals in this genre.  Its really an interesting mix and something this area of music has been missing for awhile.