29/12/11

Happy New Year– Favorite songs from MM´s Best Albums of 2011


Facing the end of 2011, just like any other year in my life I find myself surrounded by people I love, friends and family that make every day in my life special. I find myself again in that special place I call home. Although the location has changed and these ¨home¨ places have multiplied, diversified and even nucleated in different countries, the feeling of joy and happiness is exactly the same. Friends and family have multiplied too and that is truly priceless.

Below, just because, are my favorite songs from my top 10 albums of this year. Some people send Christmas cards, I share this with you all.

Best wishes…

Enjoy,

MM

(@MMLeiner)

1 “Holocene” from Bon Iver - Bon Iver

2 “Lotus Flower” from The King of Limbs – Radiohead

3 “Putting the Dog to Sleep” from Burst Apart - The Antlers

4 “ Lorelai” from Helplessness Blues - Fleet Foxes

5 “17” from The Year of Hibernation - Youth Lagoon

6 “Reach a bit Further” from Smother - Wild Beasts

7 “Get Away” from Yuck – Yuck

8 “Goshen” from The Rip Tide – Beirut

9 “LYF” from Go Tell Fire to the Mountain - WU LYF

10 “Wonderful (The Way I Feel)” from Circuital - My Morning Jacket

23/12/11

Musical Soulmate... 3 years

¡¡¡Feliz cumpleaños Musical Soulmate!!! 3 años de compartir y disfrutar tantas cosas entre amigos, todas ellas alrededor de la música, motor fundamental, piedra angular, quid de cada una de las vidas de todos los miembros del crew de este blog. 
Bienvenido el 2012,  ya esperamos el nuevo disco de Efterklang, de Grizzly Bear, de Bear In Heaven, etc, etc, etc, bendita música!
Gracias al crew, a todos los lectores y en especial como siempre al enorme MM.
Sin más, esperando iniciar una tradición para este día, revelaremos el disco favorito del blog. Este año al igual que la Exclaim!, Paste, Epitonic, The Owl Mag y la respetada Pitchfork, nuestro reconocimiento va para Bon Iver y su producción homónima, respetada y aclamada casi de manera unánime por la crítica internacional... aplausos a Justin Vernon y su increíble buen invierno.


Listas 2011 (MM, Amarillo, Chinoconsuegra, Vane, B, Ale, Jones, Ger)







17/12/11

Best Albums of 2011 by MUSICAL SOULMATE CREW


Because MUSICAL SOULMATE goes beyond the people that often write on this blog, here are the individual lists for Best Albums of 2011 from the rest of the MUSICAL SOULMATE crew.

Thanks to everyone that contributed.


Porque MUSICAL SOULMATE va mas allá de la gente que comúnmente escribe en este blog, aquí les mando las listas de los Mejores Discos de 2011 de parte del resto del MUSICAL SOULMATE crew.

Gracias a todos.



BARBS, JUST B

1. Bon Iver - Bon Iver
2. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
3. The Antlers - Burst Apart
4. My Morning Jacket - Circuital
5. Yuck - Yuck
6. Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost
7. Beirut – The Rip Tide
8. Wye Oak – Civilian
9. The Horrors – Skying
10. Radiohead - The King of Limbs

CHINOCONSUEGRA

1. My Morning Jacket – Circuital
2. Noah & The Whale -Last Night on Earth
3. The Antlers – Burst Apart
4. Bon Iver – Bon Iver
5. Fleet Foxes -Helplessness Blues
6. Wild Beasts – Smother
7. Radiohead – The King of Limbs
8. The Rapture – In the Grace of Your Love
9. James Blake- James Blake
10. The Rural Alberta Advantage – Departing

VANE

1. The Antlers - Burst Apart
2. Bon Iver - Bon Iver
3. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
4. Blind Pilot - We are the Tide
5. Yuck- Yuck
6. Girls - Father, Son, Holly Ghost
7. Radiohead - The King of Limbs
8. Youth Lagoon - The Year of Hibernation
9. My Morning Jacket - Circuital
10. Cults - Cults

JONES, JONSI, JONEY, DOC, TOM HANKS

1. Radiohead - The Kings of Limbs
2. The Horrors - Skying
3. The Antlers - Burst Apart
4. Yuck - Yuck
5. El Columpio Asesino - Diamantes
6. My Morning Jacket - Circuital
7. Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost
8. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
9. Elbow - Build A Rocket Boys!
10. Wilco - The Whole Love

ALE

1. Bon Iver - Bon Iver
2. My Morning Jacket – Circuital
3. Radiohead - The King of Limbs
4. The Antlers - Burst Apart
5. The Rural Alberta Advantage – Departing
6. Cults – Cults
7. El Columpio Asesino – Diamantes
8. James Blake - James Blake
9. Tennis - Cape Dory
10. Blind Pilot - We are the Tide

GER (EL NOVATO)

1. Bon Iver - Bon Iver
2. James Blake - James Blake
3. Beirut – The Rip Tide
4. The Antlers – Burst Apart
5. My Morning Jacket – Circuital
6. Radiohead – The King of Limbs
7. The Darcys –The Darcys
8. SBTRKT -SBTRKT Album
9. Memory Tapes – Player Piano
10. Wye Oak – Civilian


Enjoy

MM

(@MMLeiner)

15/12/11

2011 Best Albums by MM


Another year is about to end. Life keeps moving despite our efforts to slow down time and it relentlessly shape us into different things.

Life has no mercy and we evolve and morph to become progressively a different person. Some days we are happy and everything seems complete. Music is there celebrating our victories and adding to our joy. Others, we are deep down in sadness, remembering moments that made us cry, weeping about loves that never worked out, frustrated about things that turned out exactly the way it shouldn’t. Those days, music is there too, adding to our suffering, removing tears from our eyes, making us feel as if we would not belong anywhere, as if there is no fix to our problems. Also from time to time, music brings hope. And listening to a song will convince you could do it all, that you are close, that things will change and that life will eventually become everything you want it to.

Life is hard, but in the end, music stays, life moves on.

Summarizing the best music of a year is essentially trying to write an abstract of your life over a period of time. Our end-of-the-year lists talk about who we are and who are we about to become. Our lists tell a lot about our joys, our defeats and the hopes we carry through life.

My list for 2011 is no exception, and it encompasses the music that had walked, run, or flown with me through this year. As objective as I try to be all the time, my list is undoubtedly full of feelings, fears, ambitions and desires. It is as I said, a part of me, a description of MM during 2011.

Below, my top 15 albums of this year, a collection of good music that will stay with us forever. I hope you like it.

1 Bon Iver - Bon Iver

“Not the needle, nor the thread, the lost decree
Saying nothing, that's enough for me
And at once I knew I was not magnificent
Hulled far from the highway aisle
(Jagged vacance, thick with ice)
I could see for miles, miles, miles” from Holocene – Track 3

2 The King of Limbs – Radiohead

“No one gets hurt
You’ve done nothing wrong
Slide your hand
Jump off the end
The water's clear and innocent” from Codex – Track 6

3 Burst Apart - The Antlers

“If the wheels jump off the road,
There’s no widows left to know,
No perfect love above,
No punishment below” from No Widows – Track 4

4 Helplessness Blues - Fleet Foxes

“I was raised up believing I was somehow unique
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes, unique in each way you can see
And now after some thinking, I'd say I'd rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me” from Helplessness Blues – Track 6

5 The Year of Hibernation - Youth Lagoon

“When I was seventeen,
My mother said to me
"Don't stop imagining. The day that you do is the day that you die."
Now I pull a wanton carriage,
Instead of the horses, grazing along.
I was having fun. We were all having fun” from 17 – Track 4


6 Smother - Wild Beasts

“Boy what you running from?... Boy?


Cause it's a terrible scare,

But that's why the dark is there,

So you don't have to see what you can't bear,

The lion's share" from Lions Share – Track 1

7 Yuck – Yuck

“Did you see the fire brigade?
Steed heavy and filled with rage
Through the city dissolve my fire
After dinner I was burning with desire
They can never burn out my love for you” from Suck – Track 7

8 The Rip Tide – Beirut

“Sound is the color I know,
Sound is what keeps me looking for your eyes,
And sound of your breath in the cold,
And oh, sound will bring me home again. from East Harlem – Track 3

9 Go Tell Fire to the Mountain - WU LYF

“And I said son
You know I love you forever
Your faith is true
You know I love you forever
But my blood runs blue” from LYF – Track 1

10 Circuital - My Morning Jacket

"With the sun on my shoulder
And the wind in my back
I will never grow older
At least not in my mind
I feel so wonderful, wonderful, wonderful the way I feel” from Wonderful (The Way I Feel) – Track 4

11 Father, Son, Holy Ghost – Girls

“Oh god, I'm tired
And my heart is broken
It's so hard to feel so all alone
And so far
So far away from home” from My Ma’ – Track 5

12 Dye it Blonde - Smith Westerns

“I want to shine before I show up
I want to die with my chin up
And definitely maybe I will live to love
Definitely maybe I will live to love” from All Die Young – Track 4

13 James Blake - James Blake

“Kestrels breed

Looking farther than I can see

Without talked to read

She'll take a shining to me


Beacon, don't fly too high” from Lindisfarne I – Track 4

14 Conatus - Zola Jesus

“When the only one sticks around
When they call your name out of a crowd
When you say you don’t hurt when I am going alone
And you know it don’t hurt but I keep it strong so I don’t try to go” from Lick the Palm of the Burning Handshake – Track 8

15 Smoke Ring for my Halo - Kurt Vile

“In the morning I'm not done sleeping

In the evening I guess I'm alive

It's alright to still peel myself up sleepwalking

In a ghost town” from Ghost Town – Track 10



BONUS:

Finally, since I know some folks use this blog as a source for good music, I include a complementary list of albums from this year that I highly recommend…I know it’s too much, but so what!

16 Skying - The Horrors
17 Celebration Florida - The Felice Brothers
18 Last Night on Earth - Noah & The Whale
19 The Big Roar - The Joy Formidable
20 The King is Dead - The Decemberists
21 We Are the Tide - Blind Pilot
22 Cults - Cults
23 Kaputt - Destroyer
24 Days - Real Estate
25 Let England Shake - P.J. Harvey
26 El Camino -The Black Keys
27 Civilian - Wye Oak
28 Build a Rocket Boys - Elbow
29 Canta Lechuza - Helado Negro
30 Departing - The Rural Alberta Advantage

Enjoy,

MM

(@MMLeiner)

14/12/11

CHINOCONSUEGRA 2011 TOP TEN

Al empezar a hacer esta lista me di cuenta de que es una lista dominada por segundas producciones, lo cual está increíble ya que significa que la fe y confianza que pusimos en dichos grupos no nos quedó a deber y nos hicieron disfrutar una vez más de sus melodías hipnóticas, armoniosas, divertidas, tristes o melancólicas una y otra vez.
Como siempre, es muy difícil hacer este tipo de listas ya que el conflicto interno por meter o no un disco ponerlo arriba o abajo es un poco desgastante pero satisfactorio.
Sin más que decir les dejo mi "top ten" de los mejores discos de este 2011 con un pequeño comentario del por qué están en ese lugar y p
ara finalizar un par de menciones honoríficas de aquellos que se quedaron muy cerca pero por diversas situaciones no lo lograron.



10. "Departing" The Rural Alberta Advantage

Desde que me los presentaron
por primera vez fue como amor a primera vista, gracias a su sonido sencillo, pegajoso y el particular tono de voz de su vocalista tienen un lugar particular en mi corazón.






9. "James Blake" James Blake
Sin duda este "niño de 16 años que hace cosas increíbles" como diría Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) nos hipnotizó y seguirá hipnotizando por mucho tiempo con su música que se te mete hasta los rincones más oscuros de la cabeza.







8. "In the Grace of your Love"
The Rapture
Alguién tenia que poner la nota alegre y fiestera, una vez más lo hacen los chicos de The Rapture con sus guitarras y sintetizadores. Punto extra por bailar sin parar en su presentación del Corona Capital.






7. "The King of Limbs" Radiohead

Se puede decir algo más acerca de ellos!!!??? Nuevamente cuando pensamos que no podrían hacerlo mejor nos traen esta joya, nos queda agradecer que pongan la vara tan alta para el resto de la industria.






6. "Smother" Wild Beasts
Evolución y madurez es lo que marcaría a los Wild Beasts para su segundo disco, más profundos en sus evoluciones que te hacen cerrar los ojos mientras los escuchas.







5. "Helplessness Blues" Fleet Foxes

Al ser originarios de Seattle se esperaría que hicieran este tipo de música, ya sea por su pasado o por su clima pero los Fleet Foxes se están consolidando como una de las mejores bandas de Folk/Rock de los últimos tiempos, no hay forma de que al escucharlos no te quedes anonadado con sus excelentes ejecuciones.




4. "Bon Iver" Bon Iver

La
revolución que causo Bon Iver en nosotros fue algo para la historia, la manera en que nos atrapó nos dejó con muchas expectativas para su segundo disco, que sin duda marca otros tiempos para el grupo donde la inspiración ya no viene de una cabaña en medio de la nada sino de sus mentes más claras y relajadas.



3. "Burst Apart" The Antlers
Después de su desgarrador primer disco deciden traernos algo más digerible sin perder su escencia en la música hipnótica que también nos cuenta grandes historias y sus lyrics alucinantes. Gran punto extra verlos en vivo en el Corona Capital.






2. "Last Night on Earth" Noah and the Whale
La gran virtud de este disco es que se puede escuchar de principio a fin y nunca hartarte, es una maravilla como te hacen pasar por diferentes estados de ánimo y sigues disfrutándolos, haces una pausa y quieres más. Verlos en vivo fue brutal.






1. "Circuital" My Morning Jacket

Desde que tuve este disco no paraba de escucharlo una y otra vez sin cansancio, casí era algo enfermo, tenía que mentalizarme a escuchar otra cosa.
Para colmo, verlos en vivo recalcó mi enfermedad, la energía con que ejecutan es impresionante, ya la había sentido a través de los audífonos pero eso fue BRUTAL, Lollapalooza 2011 fue My Morning Jacket de principio a fin.


Menciones Honoríficas
"El Camino" The Black Keys
"We are the Tide" Blind Pilot
"If Not Now, When?" Incubus
"House of Ballons" The Weeknd
"WhoKill" Tuneyards


9/12/11

Top 15. Discos del 2011 (Amarillo)



Pues aquí va, otro gran año musical en donde muchos discos nos regalaron momentos y sensaciones increíbles. Al pensar al respecto de mi lista me di cuenta de la enorme cantidad de música que en verdad disfruté durante este año, y decidí escoger mis 15 discos favoritos basándome mucho más en una catarsis personal que en el consenso.
Saludos a todos, les dejo la lista acompañada de un vid de cada disco, la disquera del artista y una pequeña parte de la crítica de Pitchfork... enjoy.


15.- Real Estate - "Days" 




"...It's a quality their music shares with the jangly hooks of early R.E.M., the breeziness of later Pavement, and the garage twang of the Fresh & Onlys. But their closest kin are New Jersey forefathers the Feelies. That group's undying ability to mine repeated chords and Zen phrases is matched best by the album's closer, "All the Same", a looping study of how night and day are merely sides of the same coin. Lasting over seven minutes, it might be Real Estate's first epic. But it's as subtle and unassuming as anything on Days-- more evidence from this band that great music doesn't have to sound hard to make, even if it is." 
Marc Masters; PITCHFORK. October 18, 2011 
Domino




14.- Smith Westerns - "Dye It Blonde" 




"That moony/beery-eyed feel bleeds through every corridor of this album and in turn forms a crystalline expression of what moves this band. Their use of the studio in augmenting that never goes overboard, though: this music still retains the innately psychedelic, lamp lit, tongue-kissed sense of atmosphere that set it apart. There's perhaps no better instance of all that than "All Die Young", the album's centerpiece. It's a ballad turned hymn whose grand, tumbling scale and "Oh Yoko"-indebted outro celebration are peaks on an album rich in them. In its closing moments, Omori sings what sounds like, "Love is lovely when you are young." They were convincing before, but now they seem like experts." 
David Bevan; PITCHFORK. January 18, 2011 
Fat Possum





13.- The Horrors - "Skying" 




"Both Badwan's voice and the band's production have made some strides here: He sounds surer behind the microphone than ever, and the band's guitars and synths are frequently smoothed of shrieks into one great blur, the black eyeliner watered down and smudged into a gray cloud. So while they may have started out as all glittering surfaces, the Horrors have evolved into a dependable band making wide-reaching rock music. Whether a calculated retreat or just a natural maturation, the Horrors have found a sound more content with background and atmosphere, and it suits them nicely." 
Eric Grandy; PITCHFORK. July 25, 2011 
XL





12.- PJ Harvey - "Let England Shake" 




"Even a cursory glance at the album-- its title, song titles, lyrics-- marks this as a very English record. Its pastoralism befits Harvey's West Country background and recording setting (as well as the fields in Europe in which most of WWI was fought, and where most of the dead are now laid to rest). But it's less about the experience of one nation with war, so much as one people. That those people are English is Harvey soaking her music in her own surroundings and experiences. Swap out the place names with others, though, and the message remains the same. It's universal and it's necessary-- and it's powerfully and clearly stated. That it's also a joy to hear is perhaps the most confounding juxtaposition of all, turning a record you'll respect into one you'll also love." 
Scott Plagenhoef; PITCHFORK. February 15, 2011 
Vagrant / Island Def Jam




11. Radiohead - "The King of Limbs" 




"Radiohead's eighth record, The King of Limbs, represents a marked attempt to create a considered and cohesive unit of music that nonetheless sits somewhere outside of the spectrum of their previous full-length discography. And that's not to say that it doesn't ripple with the dazzling sonics or scenery that have become the band's stock in trade, but just that, unlike so many of their milestones, there's no abiding sense of a band defying all expectations in order to establish new precedents." 
Mark Pytlik; PITCHFORK. February 24, 2011 
XL




10.- Wild Beasts - "Smother"




"Smother, their third full-length, is just as the above quote promises: completely uncompromising. And that's why it succeeds. Thorpe and Co. have continued down the path of Two Dancers, paring their sound down even further. What they're left with is naked in arrangement, nocturnal in tone, and deeply, deeply sensual." 
David Bevan; PITCHFORK. May 13, 2011 
Domino





9.- My Morning Jacket - "Circuital" 




"Like nearly all of their studio albums, Circuital may not reach the heights of the band's live show-- a good MMJ concert can recalibrate your gut, it can change you-- but it’s a remarkably solid step for a band that's never stopped evolving." 
Amanda Petrusich; PITCHFORK. May 31, 2011 
ATO






8.- Wu Lyf - "Wu Lyf" 




"...And it's easy to imagine Go Tell Fire to the Mountain giving disaffected listeners the promise of an entry to something beyond themselves in a way that James Blake or Bon Iver can't. Maybe you've grown past that sort of thing, but what about a record of exhilarating expanse and passion that sounds like indie rock and yet feels way bigger? Well, Go Tell Fire to the Mountain is that too." 
Ian Cohen; PITCHFORK. June 23, 2011 
L Y F





7.- Youth Lagoon - "The Year of Hibernation"




"There are a few things we've come to expect from recent, home-recorded indie pop: thin production, lyrics that reference childhood and nostalgia, a vibe of hushed intimacy, lots of reverb. Youth Lagoon, the project of 22-year-old Boise, Idaho, musician Trevor Powers, ticks all of those boxes and sounds immediately familiar the first time you put it on. "Posters", the opening track on his debut LP, The Year of Hibernation, even starts with a warbly synth to evoke the fabled VHS glow that has become a touchstone for kids of his generation. When you hear so much of this stuff, it starts to bleed together-- almost as if by design-- and you start to wonder what it would take for an artist in this realm to stand out. Powers has a few ideas." 
Mark Richardson; PITCHFORK. September 29, 2011 
Fat Possum / Lefse




6.- James Blake - "James Blake" 




"While the songs are the magnetic center here, Blake's musicianship and sonics are equally striking. A "dubstep" producer with a gentle piano touch and an ear for granular synthesis so sharp it will make fleets of laptop toters envious, his toolkit is seamless. " 
Grayson Currin; PITCHFORK. February 9, 2011 
A&M / ATLAS




5.- Girls - "Father, Son, Holy Ghost" 



"We may eventually remember 2011 as the Year of Retro. Critic Simon Reynolds' recent book on the subject tapped into a feeling a lot of people had but couldn't quite pin down: In the age of the limitless archive, the relationship between new artists and their influences are changing. Since the retirement of LCD Soundsystem, San Francisco's Girls, who return here after the terrific debut LP Album and an also-great follow-up EP, just might be the band best making use of the current situation. Their music pilfers from the past without shame but also manages to sound like no one else."
Mark Richardson; PITCHFORK. September 12, 2011 
True Panther




4.- Yuck - "Yuck" 




"There's no escaping it: If you've heard anything about Yuck, it's that this London four-piece loves the 90s. The band's members are very clearly products of the web rather than any particular geography; their self-titled debut evinces tastes that run toward fuzzy indie bands from both sides of the pond. Yes, there's a bit of the wah-pedal guitar violence of Dinosaur Jr., and a little of the lackadaisical detachment of Pavement, but there's also the rich tunefulness of Teenage Fanclub and Velocity Girl, and at times the unadorned resignation of Red House Painters or Elliott Smith. However, like so many artists saddled (fairly or not) with the "revival" tag, from post-punk and garage-rock to nu-disco or neo-soul, Yuck are worth hearing not so much because of who they sound like, but what they've done with those sounds: in this case, make a deeply melodic, casually thrilling coming-of-age album for a generation that never saw Nirvana on '120 Minutes'". 
Marc Hogan; PITCHFORK. February 15, 2011 
Fat Possum




3.- Fleet Foxes - "Helplessness Blues" 




"Helplessness Blues' analytical and inquisitive nature never tips into self-indulgence. Amidst the chaos, the record showcases the band's expanded range and successful risk-taking, while retaining what so many people fell in love with about the group in the first place. And once again, a strong sense of empathy is at the heart of what makes Fleet Foxes special. Much has been made of American indie's recent obsession with nostalgic escapism, but Robin Pecknold doesn't retreat. He confronts uncertainty while feeling out his own place in the world, which is something a lot of us can relate to." 
Larry Fitzmaurice; PITCHFORK. May 2, 2011 
Sub Pop





2.- The Antlers - "Burst Apart" 




"Brooklyn's indie scene can feel like a series of bands each trying to be hipper than the next, but thankfully nobody told Pete Silberman. In the dog days of 2009's deadbeat summer, the Antlers frontman emerged from his bedroom with his third LP, Hospice. On it, he unfashionably embraced hackles-raising choruses and concept-album ambition, and he pushed the button on emotional nuclear options: abortion, cancer, death, all that fun stuff. Now a trio, the Antlers have claimed the influence of "electronic music" for Burst Apart, a typical omen for a typically "difficult follow-up album." But while Burst Apart sheds the PR-bait bio and Arcade Fire aspirations that made its predecessor a word-of-mouth success, it's still tethered to a magnanimity and expressive clarity that makes it almost every bit as devastating." 
Ian Cohen; PITCHFORK. May 12, 2011
Frenchkiss / Transgressive






1- Bon Iver - "Bon Iver" 




"After the closeness and austerity of For Emma, Vernon has given us a knotty record that resists easy interpretation but is no less warm or welcoming. You can feel it even as you don't completely understand it-- a testament to its careful construction and Vernon's belief in the power of music to convey deeper meaning. It's a rare thing for an album to have such a strong sense of what it wants to be. Bon Iver is about flow, from one scene and arrangement and song and memory and word into the next-- each distinct but connected-- all leading to "Beth/Rest". On the way there, the music moves like a river, every bend both unpredictable and inevitable as it carves sound and emotion out of silence." 
Mark Richardson; PITCHFORK. June 20, 2011 
4AD / Jagjaguwar