My top 10 albums of 2009

What a fantastic year for music. In my humble opinion, besides 2005, this has been the strongest year for music this decade.

Here's my top 10:

1. Merriweather Post Pavilon/ Animal Collective
2. Manners/ Passion Pit
3. Telekinesis!/ Telekinesis!
4. My Maudlin Career/ Camera Obscura
5. Blue Lights on the Runway/ Bell X1
6.Fantasies/ Metric
7.Patchworks/ Chuck Morgan
8.Monsters of Folk/ Monsters of Folk
9.Two Dancers/ Wild Beasts
10. I And Love And You/ The Avett Brothers


Keep in mind I have yet to listen to the new Wilco album (or a bunch of other potentially fantastic albums)

The Ancient Tapes- "Thinking About Thought"

One thing for sure is true about Drew Miller- he is getting better at composing and arranging his music. In his most mature release yet, Thinking About Thought, he channels Brian Eno and early Sigur Ros and brings a completely experimental yet accessible album. You could hear glimpses of this record with United States of a Virus - E.P., which came out earlier this year, but this album is a bit more cohesive and seems to have more direction than that record. How can any generative music have any direction, you may ask? Well, it's simple really. Each song tells a story. In my opinion, that's the only way this music works. Miller's earlier songs didn't tell stories as coherently as the songs on Thinking About Thought. It's open to interpretation, of course, but I believe every song on the album has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Every song builds up to a climax of some sort, and it's obvious that Miller just didn't throw a bunch a cool sounds together- he obviously put a lot of work into this one. Stand out tracks for me were "Snowbank," which definitely reminded me of Brian Eno's most recent stuff, and "Internal Youth," which certainly channels both Sigur Ros and mum. He lives in the Denver area, but maybe he should move to Iceland? In conclusion, this is The Ancient Tapes at its best- so far. Download the album for free right here.

If you download our song, "I'm Boring," for free, I will love you forever and ever

My band, Electric Needle Room, is participating in another contest through Microsoft and Reverbnation. The winning band gets over $500! How do we win, you may ask? Well all we have to do to win the contest is get people to download our new song "I'm Boring."

The more downloads, the better chance we have to win. Please help us! Simply click this link and download our song (and heck, while you're at it, listen to it!). That's it! Do you already own the song? Well download it again anyway! And tell your friends to also do so!

Thanks in advance for your help with this.

Electric Needle Room - "It Just Came Out That Way EP" download it for free

That is correct. Our new EP, It Just Came Out That Way, is now available, and for free. So now you have no more excuses. Download it here right now. Just do it.

It Just Came Out That Way EP
Electric Needle Room

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