Don't get me wrong. Just because this is summer and just because this is a mix tape installment doesn't mean it's going to be made up of a whole slew of sun-shiny, danceable pop tracks that make people shriek when they hear them and proclaim things like, "This is my summer song!" and so forth.
Most of these albums came out just before the local heat index made its seasonal leap and, therefore, have used the last two summer months as an orientation of sorts into my personal "Best New Music" file.
They've done their time and they've proven themselves, so the fact that they are now being considered for my summer edition mix tape is by default, really.
The songs on these albums don't summarize the sentiment of carefree youth in under four minutes and they would sound just as good if played in front of a roaring winter fireplace as, say, on the way to the beach. Here are five really amazing albums that have been summer staples thus far. Enjoy.
With one of the most earnest and gritty voices in American folk music, William Elliott Whitmore sounds as if he's been dug up from the dusty graves of old rural traditional musicians and been plopped into modern society without ever really noticing. His latest, "Song of the Blackbird," which is due out Aug. 30, is a collection of nine songs, not polished, but more spit-shinned, into heartfelt tales of his life.
He sings -- and, at times, he wails -- about rural life along the banks of the Mississippi River, but it's no neo-traditional, folk revival gimmick. This guy might be young, but he was born and raised on an Iowa horse farm and it shows. Not only does he sound like the salt of the earth, he sings about it too -- mostly in between sweet sketches of love, banjo ditties praising homemade alcohol and the inevitable search for some sort of redemption, whether it come from above, below, or the very real possibility that it might just never come at all.
At first his poetry seems simple -- not boring, mind you, but simple, a la Leonard Cohen. Through more careful listening, however, it becomes obvious that there is incredible depth to his storytelling, as if he's giving a voice to the dirt he walks on and the whiskey he drinks.
Take everything you love about the soft, powerful crooning of Jeff Buckley, the gentle honesty of Elliott Smith, cheer it up with a bit of The Strokes, and you've got What Made Milwaukee Famous -- a newly signed Barsuk Records band with a great name (in our opinion, of course). These Austin-based boys are re-releasing their impressively bright and smart debut, "Trying To Never Catch Up," on Seattle's indie pop haven of a record label.
If you're at all familiar with Barsuk, it takes less than one song to see why this band got scooped up. Songs like "Hellodrama" are near-perfect pleasantries, with catchy piano, forceful vocal melodies and, yes, even handclaps, but two songs later, "Almost Always Never" takes on a Queen-like ballad feel, and all the diversity works seamlessly. Stay tuned to OnMilwaukee.com for a future interview with this band.
On its debut album, Asobi Seksu was on a mission from the '90s to prove that shoegaze was not dead. It worked, as the self-titled release was so chuck full of ethereal, sometimes noisy, pop songs it made everyone remember that they hadn't listened to My Bloody Valentine's "Loveless" in a few months, and probably should. With "Citrus," however, the band is lifting its head a bit. Playing out as colorful and refreshing as the title suggests, "Citrus" bathes its listeners in sweet, yet energetic, melody.
Front woman Yuki Chikudate is petite, but she can dish it out when she feels like it, resulting in sweeping songs that feel at one moment something like the soundtrack to riding your bike through tall grass on a really windy day and then the next like you've fallen off that bike, you're not hurt, and you are staring up at puffy white cloud formations.
Calexico is possibly the only band -- or, two guys with a sort of collective following of other musicians, much like all those Montreal bands -- that can release a handful of albums, make them all sounds noticeably different from each other, and somehow consistently come out on the winning side. While earlier tracks off albums like "Spoke" revealed a brooding take on old-timey folk chants, "Garden Ruin" visits the type of loneliness found among the ranks of Springsteen's "Nebraska" and just about everything that Wilco's done, and emanates a sort of "misery loves company" quality that feels way more beautiful than self-indulgent. The good news is that Calexico plays at The Pabst on Sept. 27. The bad news is that it is on the same night that William Elliott Whitmore joins Lucero for a Mad Planet gig. Choose carefully, choose wisely.
What the world does not need is its endless supply of hopeless Smiths fans stumbling over its own coy literacy, trying to recreate that which will never, ever be recreated. Thankfully, Voxtrot left all that behind on its debut EP. With this year's EP, "Mothers, Sisters, Daughters & Wives," the focus is less on frontman Ramesh Srivastava as an obviously talented writer (and, a' hem, a mega Morrissey lover) and lets the rest of the band catch up. "Rise up in the Dirt," which might just be the strongest song to date, spills Srivastava's lyrics messily over a plunky piano and commanding drums that march you through the song rather than let you get swept away. These five songs stands as an almost certain promise that when the first full length arrives -- whenever that may be -- it will be as good as this EP has alluded.
Most of these albums came out just before the local heat index made its seasonal leap and, therefore, have used the last two summer months as an orientation of sorts into my personal "Best New Music" file.
They've done their time and they've proven themselves, so the fact that they are now being considered for my summer edition mix tape is by default, really.
The songs on these albums don't summarize the sentiment of carefree youth in under four minutes and they would sound just as good if played in front of a roaring winter fireplace as, say, on the way to the beach. Here are five really amazing albums that have been summer staples thus far. Enjoy.
With one of the most earnest and gritty voices in American folk music, William Elliott Whitmore sounds as if he's been dug up from the dusty graves of old rural traditional musicians and been plopped into modern society without ever really noticing. His latest, "Song of the Blackbird," which is due out Aug. 30, is a collection of nine songs, not polished, but more spit-shinned, into heartfelt tales of his life.
He sings -- and, at times, he wails -- about rural life along the banks of the Mississippi River, but it's no neo-traditional, folk revival gimmick. This guy might be young, but he was born and raised on an Iowa horse farm and it shows. Not only does he sound like the salt of the earth, he sings about it too -- mostly in between sweet sketches of love, banjo ditties praising homemade alcohol and the inevitable search for some sort of redemption, whether it come from above, below, or the very real possibility that it might just never come at all.
At first his poetry seems simple -- not boring, mind you, but simple, a la Leonard Cohen. Through more careful listening, however, it becomes obvious that there is incredible depth to his storytelling, as if he's giving a voice to the dirt he walks on and the whiskey he drinks.
Take everything you love about the soft, powerful crooning of Jeff Buckley, the gentle honesty of Elliott Smith, cheer it up with a bit of The Strokes, and you've got What Made Milwaukee Famous -- a newly signed Barsuk Records band with a great name (in our opinion, of course). These Austin-based boys are re-releasing their impressively bright and smart debut, "Trying To Never Catch Up," on Seattle's indie pop haven of a record label.
If you're at all familiar with Barsuk, it takes less than one song to see why this band got scooped up. Songs like "Hellodrama" are near-perfect pleasantries, with catchy piano, forceful vocal melodies and, yes, even handclaps, but two songs later, "Almost Always Never" takes on a Queen-like ballad feel, and all the diversity works seamlessly. Stay tuned to OnMilwaukee.com for a future interview with this band.
On its debut album, Asobi Seksu was on a mission from the '90s to prove that shoegaze was not dead. It worked, as the self-titled release was so chuck full of ethereal, sometimes noisy, pop songs it made everyone remember that they hadn't listened to My Bloody Valentine's "Loveless" in a few months, and probably should. With "Citrus," however, the band is lifting its head a bit. Playing out as colorful and refreshing as the title suggests, "Citrus" bathes its listeners in sweet, yet energetic, melody.
Front woman Yuki Chikudate is petite, but she can dish it out when she feels like it, resulting in sweeping songs that feel at one moment something like the soundtrack to riding your bike through tall grass on a really windy day and then the next like you've fallen off that bike, you're not hurt, and you are staring up at puffy white cloud formations.
Calexico is possibly the only band -- or, two guys with a sort of collective following of other musicians, much like all those Montreal bands -- that can release a handful of albums, make them all sounds noticeably different from each other, and somehow consistently come out on the winning side. While earlier tracks off albums like "Spoke" revealed a brooding take on old-timey folk chants, "Garden Ruin" visits the type of loneliness found among the ranks of Springsteen's "Nebraska" and just about everything that Wilco's done, and emanates a sort of "misery loves company" quality that feels way more beautiful than self-indulgent. The good news is that Calexico plays at The Pabst on Sept. 27. The bad news is that it is on the same night that William Elliott Whitmore joins Lucero for a Mad Planet gig. Choose carefully, choose wisely.
What the world does not need is its endless supply of hopeless Smiths fans stumbling over its own coy literacy, trying to recreate that which will never, ever be recreated. Thankfully, Voxtrot left all that behind on its debut EP. With this year's EP, "Mothers, Sisters, Daughters & Wives," the focus is less on frontman Ramesh Srivastava as an obviously talented writer (and, a' hem, a mega Morrissey lover) and lets the rest of the band catch up. "Rise up in the Dirt," which might just be the strongest song to date, spills Srivastava's lyrics messily over a plunky piano and commanding drums that march you through the song rather than let you get swept away. These five songs stands as an almost certain promise that when the first full length arrives -- whenever that may be -- it will be as good as this EP has alluded.
OnMilwaukee.com staff writer Julie Lawrence grew up in Wauwatosa and has lived her whole life in the Milwaukee area.
As any “word nerd” can attest, you never know when inspiration will strike, so from a very early age Julie has rarely been seen sans pen and little notebook. At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee it seemed only natural that she major in journalism. When OnMilwaukee.com offered her an avenue to combine her writing and the city she knows and loves in late 2004, she knew it was meant to be. Around the office, she answers to a plethora of nicknames, including “Lar,” (short for “Larry,” which is short for “Lawrence”) as well as the mysteriously-sourced “Bill Murray.”
