Sondre Lerche – “Lewis Takes Off His Shirt” (Owen Pallett Cover)
This is my favorite cover of this highly covered song, which in it’s original form definitely makes the shortlist for best songs of 2010. Sondre Lerche’s voice is the perfect replacement for Pallett, with the same breathiness, but a little added tenderness.

The Mountain Goats – “Tyler Lambert’s Grave”
John Darnielle passed out this new Mountain Goats track via his Twitter account. “Tyler Lambert’s Grave” is a piano-driven song he recorded in the summer on his own and later sent off to get some strings added. So it’s not quite a glimpse of what will be on his new album All Eternals Deck which is out in March through Merge, but it’s not bad.

Wire – “Two Minutes”
Wire is back in 2011 with a highly anticipated new album. “Two Minutes” is our first look at what they are up to, and unlike many of their contemporaries, Wire is still in top form.

British Sea Power – “Caribou” (Pixies cover)
British Sea Power give out an ethereal take on the classic Pixies track. Even the most well versed will have trouble recognizing the original in their acidy washes of electronics. In fact, outside of a few lines of the chorus towards the end, I don’t know if anyone can recognize this one.

Steve Mason (of The Beta Band) – “All Come Down”
Steve Mason of The Beta Band struck out on his own last year with his album Boys Outside. “All Come Down” is from that recording. It’s good, but it makes miss The Beta Band.

Sidi Touré & Dourra Cissé – “Bon Koum”
Sidi Touré is a Malian singer/guitarist that is just starting to make his mark stateside. He’ll be doing a full US tour later in the year in support of his debut album through Thrill Jockey, Sahel Folk, on January 25th.

Akron / Family – “So It Goes”
Akron / Family offers the first glimpse of their new album, S/T II: The Cosmic Birth And Journey Of Shinju TNT, with the surprisingly upbeat and straightforward track “So It Goes.”

Danielson – “Grow Up”
In a track from his forthcoming album Best of Gloucester County (Feb 22) Danielson vacillates between rock ballading and über-weird verses with screeches and cracking voices, of exactly what you want from Danielson.

Yellow Ostrich – “WHALE”
Yellow Ostrich is the project of Alex Schaaf, who has been Yellow Ostrich for a while, but only recently started playing shows in his current home of NYC. This entire album is beautiful, but this track is, in particular, noteworthy. There is a free download of his LP, The Mistress, at the Yellow Ostrich Bandcamp page.

Bonus Track:
Yellow Ostrich – “Love More” (Sharon van Etten cover)

Dustin Nelson

Unfortunately the videos are embeddable. But you can track these down over here. The series is Carter looking back over a long and prolific career. A little on the series from Boosey & Hawkes:

This first film in a new series of interviews with Elliott Carter charts his early years in New York, at Harvard University and studying with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Filmed at his Manhattan apartment in June 2010 the interview is combined with music including Holiday Overture, Symphony No.1 and String Quartet No.1.

Akron / Family has released a new video for the track “So It Goes” from their forthcoming album S/T II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT out through Dead Oceans on February 8th. The band will be hitting the road shortly and is also hosting listening parties for the new album across the country. All dates after the jump.

So It Goes by Akron/Family from Secretly Jag on Vimeo.

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‘Oxford American’ Digs into Alabama’s Music [All Things Considered]

What do the Rev. Fred Lane, the Maddox Brothers & Rose, and Eddie Cole & His Gang have in common?

Give up? They’re all from the state of Alabama — the featured state in the Oxford American magazine’s 12th annual Southern Music edition.

You’ll find more than two dozen songs on the accompanying CD. Some of the artists are well-known outside the state; others are more obscure — such as King Britt Presents Sister Gertrude Morgan.

This is third preview track (following “SWM” and “Freak Out”, both great) from the forthcoming Tapes ‘n Tapes record Outside. The album will be released on January 11th through ibid records.

Badaboom by tapesntapes

Score for Black Swan and True Grit Deemed Ineligible for an Oscar [AV Club]

Another year, another Best Picture contender whose score is deemed ineligible for recognition by the Academy—and this year the list of original music compositions that have been preemptively denied includes Black Swan, True Grit, The Kids Are All Right, and The Fighter. In the case of The Kids Are All Right and The Fighter, it’s a refrain familiar from past denials of films like Where The Wild Things Are and Crazy Heart: Each score was deemed as “diminished” for making predominant use of songs, which are vulgar, vulgar abominations.

Sasha Frere Jones on Captain Beefheart [New Yorker]

I’ve never loved Captain Beefheart’s “Trout Mask Replica.” Or, rather, I have never loved the album the way my betters did. John Peel, the late BBC d.j. and father figure to thousands, said that “if there has been anything in the history of popular music which could be described as a work of art in the way that people who are involved in other areas of art would understand, then ‘Trout Mask Replica’ is probably that work.” “The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening called “Trout Mask” the “greatest album ever made.”

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All around a bit of slow week for downloads around the holidays. But there are some great compilations and mixtapes being passed around for best of the year lists. I’ve included a few here.

NYC Taper posted their ten best shows of 2010. Some good downloads in there if you missed any this year. They also listed their top 25 concert moments of 2010 with downloads. Also recommended.

NYC Taper has a Jeff Tweedy performance from the Yo La Tengo Hanukkah shows. There is also now the Dec. 8 Yo La Tengo performance from that series available.

Free Music Archive posted a list of their 45 Most Interesting MP3s of 2010.

M.I.A.’s ViCKiE LEEKZ Mixtape.

Altered Zones had a number of artists put together end of the year mixtapes. Here are the mixtapes from Big Troubles and oOoOO

Obligatory Daytrotter Sessions: Doug Burr, Korean is Asian, and Rasputina.

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Benoit Pioulard has started a SoundCloud page and posted a lot of early tracks that bring out the frequently gritty split between heart-on-your-sleeve bedroom recordings and electronic compositions that collide in his songs. Listen to the track “Tensed” below and then head over to his SoundCloud page to hear some more.

Tensed by Benoît Pioulard

by Dustin Nelson

Searching New Music for Keepers [NY Times]

“Most of the music we play,” a musician who specializes in contemporary works told me recently, “is not great. Some of it is very good, but it lacks something. It falls short. But we need to play it — not only because something great may turn up, and if we don’t play it, we won’t know it, but also because this is the music being composed now, and it ought to be heard.”

True Grit isn’t true…at least linguistically [Language Log]

What’s with the movie convention of representing 19th century American speech as lacking contractions? I was just enjoying the new version of “True Grit” by the Coen brothers—in fact it’s been a long time since I had so much fun at a movie. As I figure it the action is set in 1878. Much of the pleasure of the movie is the oddly formal and elaborate diction of the characters, taken straight from the Charles Portis novel. I actually find a lot of it true to my conception of the period, if rather stylized, except for the absurdity of pronouncing all contracted auxiliaries in full.

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The year in classical music [Seated Ovation]

We can do lists and best-ofs and countdowns but it’s not a bad idea to talk about what 2010 might have actually meant for classical music, and to get a bit broader, for music history. Don’t get me wrong—it’s great to talk about favorite performances and CDs, but sometimes I wish critics would take on the bigger task of speculating about The Scene. And really, I think 2010 was a benchmark year for classical music.

Nate Chinen’s Year in Gigs 2010 [Jazz Times]

My Gig of the Year took place 60 years ago, under less than favorable conditions, and it could easily have slipped everyone’s notice. The only token I have of its existence is a six-minute-long recording taken from the radio, and never released in any form. I’m referring of course to the live version of “Body and Soul” performed by Coleman Hawkins in May of 1940, during the tenor saxophonist’s ill-fated engagement at the Fiesta Danceteria on Times Square. By a wide margin, it’s the track I’ve pored over most this year, playing it on countless occasions and marveling anew each time.

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