Finally after months and months of watching everyone else’s darlings soak in the 2008/early 2009 limelight- *cough* Fleet Foxes *cough* Animal Collective- one of my own personal favorites is back in action!  I’m referring of course to the brilliant John Vanderslice!

Really?  You’re not familiar with the man?  And you call yourself a human being?  Hmmm.  Well, here is a refresher course, ya’ bolthead!   Not only is Vanderslice  ‘one of the most imaginative, prolific, and consistently rewarding artists making music today’ and ‘the most important songwriter of the moment’, but he is also  ‘the nicest guy in indie rock’.  The dude is aces.  And unlike abortion, the death penalty, and how comedians will finally figure out how to satirize Barack Obama, this issue is NOT open for debate!

Ah, so here we are now a year and a half removed from Mr. Vanderslice’s last album, the strikingly straightforward and confident Emerald City.  Even with only 9 tracks and no trademark Vanderslice bleeps and bloops to be found, the record still garnered a solid 80 on Metacritic- earning it the distinction of being the San Francisco songwriter’s best reviewed album.  Congratulations, Johnny boy!  What else do you got cooking in your metaphorical and/or analogous music kitchen?

Today we found out.   John Vanderslice will  make his return on May 19th, 2009 with his 7th official studio album, Romanian Names (you’re moshing!).  Oooh and that’s not it! Adding even more excitement and intrigue is the news that, after nearly 10 years on Seattle’s Barsuk Records, Romanian Names will be released by Jagjaguwar/Secretly Canadian imprint Dead Oceans.  That’s right, people-  the man just became even that more indie.

According to the official press release, our boy has started playing new songs at recent live shows, giving hometown San Francisco audiences first dibs on the new jams.  Check out the slamming video four ass-kissing paragraphs above for the internet’s first look at new Vanderslice material.  The track is called ‘Too Much Time’ and if I may say so, it is just as beautiful and dreamy as anything off Emerald City.  The footage was recorded at Great American Music Hall as part of a concert celebrating the 10 year anniversary of Vanderslice’s recording studio Tiny Telephone.  The people surrounding him playing fancy instruments are the 30-piece Magik*Magik Orchestra.  I know a close friend who prefers Vanderslice’s earlier, more rocking tracks (’Pale Horse’, ‘Me and My 424′) to his recent pop leanings but personally I think the man is on some top serious, next-level roll the last handful of years and this video just confirms it.

Now all we need is some new The National music- oh that’s right!  I forgot to tell you guys!  Oh man, I’m so forgetful.  What a forgetful jones!  On February 17th The National are releasing an exclusive, unreleased track called ‘So Far Around the Bend’ as part of the Dark Was the Night double cd, super compilation on 4AD- proceeds will go to benefit HIV/AIDS research.  I have the track on my hard drive (I’m an important music blogger, remember?) but unfortunately I can not share it with you (I’m not important enough to not get sued).  But I can say this- it’s pretty good.  Definitely sounds like a b-side/compilation track but it is still solid as a rock.  A gold rock.  With diamond moss growing on one side and radioactive pill bugs chilling beneath it (radioactive material is as valuable as gold and diamonds, right?  Right?).  The double album/triple vinyl also contains exclusive new tracks from Ben Gibbard and Feist, Andrew Bird, the Books, Bon Iver and many more super indie people.

Here are some legal mp3s from Johnny V’s back catalogue.

John Vanderslice - White Dove from Emerald City

John Vanderslice - The Kingdom b-side/vinyl-only track from Pixel Revolt

(mp3s hosted by JohnVanderslice.com)

I first caught Say Hi’s Eric Elbogen opening up for Nada Surf at the El Ray in Los Angeles back in 2005 (or was it 2006?) and after a few songs I was convinced.  The dude is pretty good at what he does:  electronic/bedroom pop with apparently the right amount of distorted guitar necessary to warm up a crowd of Nada Surf fans.    Back then he was playing under the expanded- and much sillier- monicker Say Hi to Your Mom.  While the name has changed over the years, the music has stayed pretty consistent.   Funny, I actually always thought of him as a much deserving younger brother to David Bazan of Pedro the Lion and now they are both label mates on Seattle’s Barsuk Records (and also consecutive Limb post subjects!).

While he has yet to create his “break out” album, Elbogen has a handful of pretty good full lengths under his belt over the past 7 years- I’d say his best so far has been 2005’s Ferocious Mopes (”Girl Number 2!”).  Judging solely by the recently leaked track, ‘November Was White, December Was Grey’, his up coming record Oohs and Aahs is more of the “pretty good” and not yet “woah, stop the car!”.  Although to his credit, I’m not sure I or anyone knows exactly what a “woah, stop the car!” song sounds like.  But if we hear it, we’ll be sure to tell you.

Say Hi - November Was White, December Was Grey

(pre-order album)

In poking around the web, reading old reviews, it appears there was a significant tide of backlash against David Bazan’s previous project Pedro the Lion towards the latter end of its life.  It started right around the time the concept album Control was released and continued heavily through the release of their last official album Achilles Heel.  This trend is interesting to me, mostly because first of all I’m not sure I understand it and also because it seems to be continuing today even up to Bazan’s last official release, the Fewer Moving Parts EP in 2006.

The criticism usually concerns the heavy handedness of Bazan’s lyrics and his deeper, more monotone vocal delivery first featured around the Winners Never Quit album.  Personally, I find the dark stories of lust and murder in Control and Winners Never Quit to be a highly entertaining strength- I’ve listened to both of those albums hundreds of times over.  As for Achilles Heel, sure, I can understand the overall rejection more with that album- ‘it isn’t fun to listen to’- but strangely enough it is my favorite Pedro album.  It reminds me a lot of John Vanderslice’s Emerald City in that all the extra fluff has been stripped and what is left is a solid, non-flashy record that has no stand out tracks or singles, but as a whole is probably the best of each musician’s career.  I only need to  hear the very first seconds of ‘Arizona’, ‘Discretion’ or especially ‘Start Without Me’ (yes, especially that one) and I get chills.

I’m going to skip Bazan’s all-synth side project Headphones because the coverage on that album was so minimal I would have to reach even further than I already am here.

So this takes us to the solo artist’s most recent record, the Fewer Moving Parts EP.  Here is what the prestigious Pitchfork had to say:

The thing is, Bazan’s once-sharp songwriting has dulled considerably since 1998’s understated but utterly endearing It’s Hard to Find a Friend. Whether humorously skewering standards of beauty (”winter legs give me heart attacks”) or nakedly hanging his bleeding heart out to dry on songs that addressed his Christian faith, Bazan’s early work never buckled under the weight of its self-importance. It was just spare indie rock unafraid to admit to some serious heartache. But, after a few regrettable dalliances into concept records like Winners Never Quit and Control, Bazan eschewed any semblance of subtlety for clobbering listeners with a message. And in that department, Fewer Moving Parts leaves you pretty battered.

So he is too self-important?  He needs to be more unassumingly clever?  Or maybe it’s that only unknown artists waiting to be discovered can get away with trying anything conceptual or well thought out?

The reviewer then goes on to pick apart Bazan’s lyrics on the EP by posting them plainly at face value, stripped off all context, not acknowledging the added impact of their slow twisting  revelation (basically what makes Bazan’s story telling so effective).  That tactic makes me laugh because stripped of all context and their original medium any artist’s lyrics will appear to be “cloying” and in “avoid-at-all-costs territory”.

The truth (or shall I say my truth) is somewhere in the middle.  Fewer Moving Parts is nowhere near the top of Bazan’s best work, however, it contains two great tracks that rank near the very top of the aforementioned list.  Those tracks are ‘Fewer Broken Pieces’, the autobiographical tale of going solo and letting his friends down in the process, and the immoral ‘Cold Beer and Cigarettes’.  What disappoints me about this two year old EP is its production.  Too many of the songs still sound like demos and I have to agree with Pitchfork when they point out the odd choice to include acoustic versions of each track on the same disc.  They sound so alike that either the acoustic songs are very finished or the finished songs are very raw- and I have to side with the latter.   It also adds to the already clumsy feel of it all.

The other thing that bugs me about the EP is that it’s been two years and we haven’t gotten the full length yet!  Sure, maybe I am unecessarily blaming the poor EP for something beyond its control but, hey, I want more music.  The good news is that Bazan is expected to release his first solo full length sometime in 2009 (much better news than The National announcing their follow up to Boxer is set for 2010).

David Bazan - Cold Beer and Cigarettes

(buy album)