It’s often that you don’t get the same experience from listening to a single song that you do when you listen to an entire album. There’s a story being told that you miss out on when you listen to one or two random songs. If I like an album, I listen to it over and over until I digest it as best as I can. Each of these albums was there for me through thick and thin, through any kind of weather, through road trips, through heartbreak, through life, death, what have you. However, I’m tired of putting things in a numbered order. It doesn’t matter. Each of these records is amazing. I thought “this is the best record I’ve ever heard” while listening to each one of these albums. Putting them in a numbered list seems fucking ridiculous now. In no particular order:
This is my last list for LISTS WEEK. I am announcing here and now that I will be taking a break from the blog to regain whatever hours I’ve managed to shave off of my life from not sleeping. Call it a period of hibernation. I will be back sometime in January. Until then, if I don’t see you tonight or tomorrow, Happy Holidays!
I listened to a lot of songs this year. I’m talking A LOT. A few stuck with me, a few didn’t. This list was hard to pin down. I’m pretty sure I’ve talked each and every one of my friends’ heads off about at least one of the songs on this list. I have a habit of going “HEY EVERYBODY, LISTEN TO THIS” when I hear something I really like. Sometimes my exclamations are met with indifference, sometimes they’re met with “Yeah, we know”s. Other times they’re met with “QUIT YELLING”s. Just the same, I love these songs. Feast your ears on
You could say I ‘joined’ my local scene back in 2005. A good friend of mine started taking me to his band’s shows, most of which were of the ‘hardcore’ persuasion seeing as how that’s what was ‘in’ back then. I met a lot of the other bands and befriended a few of the guys. Eventually, my friend’s band broke up, I stopped seeing people, and stopped talking to them as a whole. (MySpace didn’t count.) Fast forward a year or three and I re-meet a guy named Steven Salazar who I met when he played in a band called My Final Farewell a while back. Fast forward to today, and Steven’s now known as Lumberjack, one of the Rio Grande Valley’s blossoming electronica artists and a close compatriot of Jeff the Smith. He was kind enough to contribute today’s first list of his
Top 10 Albums of 2010
10. Com Truise – Cyanide Sisters EPLumberjack: Com Truise is something new to chillwave that will be setting standards. That bass drum sound and those synth parts are unforgettable. Key Song: “Slowpeels”
9. Arch M – Land HuxtLumberjack: A very short and simple EP but amazing at the same time because it gets to the point with very well set samples and transitions. Key Song: “Highest Plains”
8. Dum Dum Girls – I Will BeLumberjack: I caught the Dum Dum Girls at SXSW and really enjoyed the sound. Then this album came out and I was in awe. This album is fun and raw and keeps playing on and on. Key Song: “Jail La La”
7. Small Black – New ChainLumberjack: Do I have to say anything? I mean, holy shit, Small black knows how to write amazing music. Chillest album I have heard yet. Key Song: “Patterns”
6. Starslinger – Volume 1Lumberjack:Groove and bob your head is what this album should have been called. Amazing hooks and samples; I couldn’t get enough of this album! Key Song: “Extra Time”
5. oOoOO – oOoOOLumberjack: R&B-style influenced and hard bass, this album goes well for drives and just chilling. Key Song: “Hearts”
4. Active Child – Curtis LaneLumberjack: Haunting vocals and harps put together make Active Child’s EP just amazing. It feels like I’m in a dream of some sort. Key Song: “I’m In Your Church At Night”
3. Keep Shelly In Athens – In Love With DuskLumberjack: Amazing key parts and wonderful vocal parts, this EP just makes me remember the good days. Key Song: “In Love With Dusk”
2. Best Coast – Crazy For YouLumberjack: Songs about weed and love are the best; perfect soundtrack for the summer of 2010. Key Song: “Bratty B”
1. Twin Shadow – ForgetLumberjack: Reverb and singing about heart-ache always goes well together in a album. It also has killer bass parts. Key Song: “Forget”
Come January, Lumberjack will be releasing a single called “French” here. There’s also talk of a possible vinyl release.
(in no particular order: Frankie Rose, Kate Ryan, Margot Bianca, and Caroline Yes!)
:droooool: –ahem. Yes.
Frankie Rose (ex-Vivian Girl, ex-Crystal Stilts, ex-Dum Dum Girl) and her band The Outs finally have a full-length LP ready for release.
It is self-titled and will be put out on Slumberland Records September 21st.
YEEES. I have been waiting for this band to have a full-length since I first heard the “Thee Only One” single last year. This kind of atmospheric, dreamy, straightforward pop just drives me crazy. This album is going to be a more ‘hi-fi’ approach to the kind of music Rose has worked with in the past so it would seem that Wavves isn’t the only one polishing their sound with flying colors this year.
Oh, and this new single, “Little Brown Haired Girls”? Incredible. Listen below.
I should have posted about this band a long time ago but decided for one reason or another not to post about them…or her…no, them. ‘Them’ is correct.
(From L-R: Dee Dee, Bambi, Frankie Rose, and Jules)
The four lovely women above you are the most recent form of Dum Dum Girls, one of the best bands I’ve heard in a long time, period. Originally the solo project of the woman you see below:
(Dee Dee)
Now, the project has grown to be a four-piece (including the stunning ex-Vivian Girl, Frankie Rose) and come March 30th they will be releasing their first full-length album on Sub Pop.
The album is called I Will Be and is looking to be one of my favorite albums of the year.
The first single off of the album, “Jail La La” is an absolutely brilliant pop song. If you can, find the rest of their catalog somewhere and listen to it. It’s some of the best lo-fi pop music that I’ve heard in the past couple of months. Hear the track for yourself below.
Dum Dum Girls – Jail La La
The 7″ for the track will be out on Sub Pop February 16th.
If you like a band you hear about or listen to on here, go to their shows and purchase something. A shirt, a record, even a meal. Give back to the artists that ever-so-willingly give to you.
Contact: thephotongod[at]gmail.com
Lumberjack: Com Truise is something new to chillwave that will be setting standards. That bass drum sound and those synth parts are unforgettable.
Lumberjack: A very short and simple EP but amazing at the same time because it gets to the point with very well set samples and transitions.
Lumberjack: I caught the Dum Dum Girls at SXSW and really enjoyed the sound. Then this album came out and I was in awe. This album is fun and raw and keeps playing on and on.
Lumberjack: Do I have to say anything? I mean, holy shit, Small black knows how to write amazing music. Chillest album I have heard yet.
Lumberjack: Groove and bob your head is what this album should have been called. Amazing hooks and samples; I couldn’t get enough of this album!
Lumberjack: R&B-style influenced and hard bass, this album goes well for drives and just chilling.
Lumberjack: Haunting vocals and harps put together make Active Child’s EP just amazing. It feels like I’m in a dream of some sort.
Lumberjack: Amazing key parts and wonderful vocal parts, this EP just makes me remember the good days.
Lumberjack: Songs about weed and love are the best; perfect soundtrack for the summer of 2010.
Lumberjack: Reverb and singing about heart-ache always goes well together in a album. It also has killer bass parts.
The Photon God 
