October: a month in which a minor obsession with minimal techno flourishes. Hence Gold Panda (I listened to “You” at least once a day), The Field, more Flying Lotus collabs. Someone buy me the Ninja Tune XX comps please.

Sufjan’s new album is worth a listen or seven.

Brian McBride of Stars of the Lid is keeping the ambient torch lit.

And the rest is all new releases and old favorites. Make sure to check the streaming player below or on the 8tracks site.

1. Buke and Gass – “Revel in Contempt” (Riposte)
2. Young Money – “BedRock (feat. Lloyd)” (We Are Young Money)
3. Mumford & Sons – “Timshel” (Sigh No More)
4. Sleigh Bells – “Infinity Guitars” (Treats)
5. Junip – “Sweet & Bitter” (Fields)
6. Andreya Triana – “Lost Where I Belong (Flying Lotus remix)” (Ninja Tune XX: Volume 1)
7. Gold Panda – “You” (Lucky Shiner)
8. The Field – “The More That I Do” (Yesterday and Today)
9. Swans – “My Birth” (My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky)
10. Mount Kimbie – “Serged” (Chilled Deep Dubstep)
11. JFB – “Duck Jam” (Chilled Deep Dubstep)
12. Breakage – “Vial (feat. Burial)” (Chilled Deep Dubstep)
13. Brian McBride – “Mélodrames Télégraphiés (in B major 7th) Part 1″ (The Effective Disconnect)
14. Sufjan Stevens – “Too Much” (The Age of Adz)

Oh hey. I guess it’s June now. When did that happen?

New albums from Roky Erickson, The Hold Steady, The National, LCD Soundsystem, Gayngs and Horse Feathers ruled the month, it seems. Otherwise it was a fairly quiet month.

1. Roky Erickson with Okkervil River – “Please, Judge” (True Love Cast Out All Evil)
2. Horse Feathers – “Thistled Spring” (Thistled Spring)
3. The Hold Steady – “We Can Get Together” (Heaven Is Whenever)
4. The National – “Bloodbuzz Ohio” (High Violet)
5. Gayngs – “The Last Prom On Earth” (Relayted)
6. Earth – “The Bees Made Honey In The Lion’s Skull” (The Bees Made Honey In The Lion’s Skull)
7. Avi Buffalo – “What’s In It For?” (Avi Buffalo)
8. Jesse Malin and the St. Marks Social – “Burning the Bowery” (Burning the Bowery)
9. LCD Soundsystem – “Dance Yrself Clean” (This Is Happening)
10. Sufjan Stevens – “Redford (for Yia-Yia and Pappou)” (Michigan)
11. Zomby – “Daft Punk Rave” (Where Were U in ’92?)
12. Iyaz – “Replay” (Replay)
13. Jason DeRulo – “Whatcha Say” (Jason DeRulo)

And, and always, you can listen here:

Oh no! A meme on my blog? It’s all downhill from here. But really, did you expect me to pass up a music-themed post, especially when I’m not feeling my best and have a hard time finding inspiration?

Think of 25 albums that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life or the way you looked at it. They sucked you in and took you over for days, weeks, months, years. These are the albums that you can use to identify time, places, people, emotions. These are the albums that no matter what they were thought of musically shaped your world.

I couldn’t even begin to put these in order of preference. They’ve all been number one in my heart at some point or another. So, in true Rob Gordon fashion, I put them in autobiographical order, all the way from high school up to now.

I won’t even begin to try and explain each album or even the general progression of my music habits. If you are curious, that’s kind of what comments are for.

1. Jimi Hendrix – Woodstock
2. Project 86 – Drawing Black Lines
3. Incubus – Make Yourself
4. Radiohead – OK Computer
5. Tool – Aenema
6. A Perfect Circle – Thirteenth Step
7. Sigur Rós – Ágætis byrjun
8. Extol – Undeceived
9. Sufjan Stevens – Michigan
10. The Dillinger Escape Plan – Miss Machine
11. The Mars Volta – De-loused in the Comatorium
12. Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
13. Radiohead – Amnesiac
14. He Is Legend – I Am Hollywood
15. Killswitch Engage – The End of Heartache
16. The Dillinger Escape Plan – Irony is a Dead Scene
17. Explosions in the Sky – The Earth is Not a Cold, Dead Place
18. mewithoutYou – Catch for Us the Foxes
19. The Appleseed Cast – Low Level Owl: Volume 1
20. mewithoutYou – Brother, Sister
21. This Will Destroy You – Young Mountain
22. Neko Case – Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
23. Sigur Rós – Takk
24. Ryan Adams – Heartbreaker
25. This Will Destroy You – This Will Destroy You

Are there only twenty good Christmas songs? I’m starting to get that idea.

Last year I made a Christmas mix for my friends that included all the tracks below. This year I’m trying to turn it into a tradition, but I’m having trouble finding good Christmas music that I haven’t already used. At least not without tapping further into Sufjan’s and Mindy Smith’s Christmas albums than I already have. That would be a bit lopsided a mix, don’t you think?

Maybe I should have saved a few for this year. Anyone know any good Christmas songs on par with these ones?

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a sad realization when I get on here and see that my last post was a monthly playlist. Maybe one of my goals for next year should be to write more often. It’s not so much a lack of content as it is a lack of time. So maybe my other goal should be to not have so many goals.

Adam Pasion’s new album is worth checking out and listening to ten times. Do it. And Matthew Robert Cooper is a “side project” for one-man band Eluvium who you already know I love. Check him out too. And all the rest of the songs, of course.

Also, if you can get your hands on Aphex Twin’s bootleg from Coachella 2008, listen to that ten times too.

1. Adam Pasion – “Run By Faith” (O Hear the Rattling)
2. Joshua James – “Dangerous” (The Sun is Always Brighter)
3. Adam Pasion – “Awake” (O Hear the Rattling)
4. Calexico – “Crumble” (Feast of Wire)
5. Danielson – “Don’t You Be the Judge (live version)” (Trying Hartz)
6. DJ Rupture – “Mass Dampers: Ekstrak” (Uproot)
7. Tobacco – “Dirt (feat. Aesop Rock)” (Fucked Up Friends)
8. Kings Of Leon – “Use Somebody” (Only by The Night)
9. Joshua James – “Lovers Without Love” (The Sun is Always Brighter)
10. Sufjan Stevens – “Oh God Where Are You Now? (In Pickerel Lake? Pigeon? Marquette? Mackinaw?)” (Michigan)
11. Sufjan Stevens – “Redford (for Yia-Yia and Pappou)” (Michigan)
12. Matthew Robert Cooper – “Miniature 7″ (Miniatures)
13. Matthew Robert Cooper – “Miniature 9″ (Miniatures)
14. M83 – “Lower Your Eyelids To Die With The Sun” (Before the Dawn Heals Us)
15. The Snake The Cross The Crown – “Electronic Dream Plant” (Cotton Teeth)
16. Aphex Twin – “Nannou 2″ (Drukqs)
17. Port O’Brien – “I Woke Up Today” (All We Could Do Was Sing)

I’m only a few days late. This was a month of making the best Christmas mix CD ever (exclusively in the hands of my closest friends), listening to countless best-of-2007 lists (hence the recurrence of M.I.A. and The Snake The Cross The Crown), a new This Will Destroy You record (not as good as Young Mountain, but still not a waste of money if you make it to the last few songs), discovering only a few years too late how great I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning is and realizing that Sam Beam has probably been listening to dub music.

Coming up: my personal goals for 2008, which explains how this here blog will finally be put to greater use than monthly playlists and the occasional rant.

1. The Knife – “We Share Our Mothers’ Health” (Silent Shout)
2. Daft Punk – “Robot Rock / Oh Yeah” (Alive 2007)
3. Holy Fuck – “Echo Sam” (LP)
4. Thom Yorke – “Harrowdown Hill” (The Eraser)
5. Sufjan Stevens – “O Come O Come Emmanuel” (Songs For Christmas)
6. Vince Guaraldi – “Christmastime Is Here (Vocal)” (A Charlie Brown Christmas)
7. Rihanna – “Umbrella” (Good Girl Gone Bad)
8. A Fine Frenzy – “Fever” (Dan In Real Life Soundtrack)
9. Bright Eyes – “Poison Oak” (I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning)
10. Bright Eyes – “Road To Joy” (I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning)
11. This Will Destroy You – “The Mighty Rio Grande” (This Will Destroy You)
12. Mindy Smith – “Santa Will Find You” (My Holiday)
13. The Snake The Cross The Crown – “Cakewalk” (Cotton Teeth)
14. M.I.A. – “Mango Pickle Down River” (Kala)
15. The Snake The Cross The Crown – “Electronic Dream Plant” (Cotton Teeth)
16. M.I.A. – “Paper Planes” (Kala)
17. Iron & Wine – “Wolves (Song of the Shepherd’s Dog)” (The Shepherd’s Dog)
18. This Will Destroy You – “They Move On Tracks Of Never-Ending Light” (This Will Destroy You)

The final part of my four-part series. The list to end all lists. I present to you the best new albums in 2006.

1. mewithoutYou – Brother, Sister
2. This Will Destroy You – Young Mountain
3. Mew – And The Glass Handed Kites
4. Jeremy Enigk – World Waits
5. Joshua Radin – We Were Here
6. Malajube – Trompe-L’Oeil (US Release)
7. Band Of Horses – Everything All The Time
8. John Mayer – Continuum
9. P.O.S. – Audition
10. Norma Jean – Redeemer
11. Thom Yorke – The Eraser
12. Neko Case – Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
13. Sufjan Stevens – The Avalanche
14. The Decemberists – The Crane Wife
15. The Appleseed Cast – Peregrine
16. Damien Rice – 9
17. The Knife – Silent Shout
18. Underoath – Define The Great Line
19. Angels & Airwaves – We Don’t Need To Whisper
20. Muse – Black Holes And Revelations

Well, that’s all folks. I had fun making these lists and you probably hated reading them. Or maybe you found something new to love. If that’s the case, my goal has been met.

Have a merry Christmas and a happy new year. Keep on discovering.

Part three of four. Of all the music I listened to that was released this year, these are the ones that mattered most.

1. This Will Destroy You – Quiet
2. Jeremy Enigk – Been Here Before
3. mewithoutYou – O, Porcupine
4. This Will Destroy You – The World Is Our ____
5. Mew – An Envoy To The Open Fields
6. mewithoutYou – In A Sweater Poorly Knit
7. Joshua Radin – Sundrenched World
8. mewithoutYou – C-Minor
9. Band Of Horses – The Funeral
10. Sufjan Stevens – Chicago (Acoustic Version)
11. Mew – The Zookeeper’s Boy
12. Thom Yorke – Harrowdown Hill
13. P.O.S. – Half-Cocked Concepts
14. Norma Jean – The End Of All Things Will Be Televised
15. Malajube – Montréal-40ºC
16. Mew – Special
17. The Mars Volta – Viscera Eyes
18. Malajube – Casse-cou
19. P.O.S. – P.O.S. Is Ruining My Life
20. Angels and Airwaves – The Adventure
21. Sufjan Stevens – The Avalanche
22. The Knife – Silent Shout
23. Jay-Z – Show Me What You Got
24. Angels and Airwaves – Valkyrie Missile
25. John Mayer – Bold As Love
26. Underoath – A Moment Suspended In Time
27. Joshua Radin – Star Mile

And, if by some random chance you happen to have Rhapsody, you can listen to this playlist there.

Part two of four of my evil list-making scheme.

1. Sufjan Stevens
2. Explosions in the Sky
3. mewithoutYou
4. Radiohead
5. The Appleseed Cast
6. Nickel Creek
7. The Dillinger Escape Plan
8. Godspeed You! Black Emperor
9. The Mars Volta
10. A Perfect Circle
11. Andrew Bird
12. MxPx
13. AFI
14. Alison Krauss
15. Project 86
16. Tom Waits
17. Sigur Rós
18. The Faint
19. Chris Thile
20. This Will Destroy You
21. Mew
22. Iron & Wine
23. Coldplay
24. Cloud Cult
25. John Mayer
26. Opeth
27. Joshua Radin
28. Killswitch Engage
29. Incubus
30. Ryan Adams
31. Norma Jean
32. Robert Johnson
33. The Black Keys

Once again, thanks to Last.fm for making this list possible.

I keep coming across all sorts of random videos on YouTube that are well worth viewing but haven’t ever mentioned them to anyone. All are music-related, of course:

• mewithoutYou performing “In A Sweater Poorly Knit” at Cornerstone
  I saw this well before Brother, Sister came out (and probably should’ve mentioned it then). It was the moment I knew I would love this album.
• mewithoutYou vocalist Aaron Weiss speaking at Cornerstone 2005
  Be warned that it’s 40 minutes long. Well worth the time spent, though. I love this man’s honest heart.
• Art Brut performing at Pitchfork Fest
  Hilarious. This video shows exactly why this band never ceases to amuse me.
• Sufjan Stevens and David Byrne (of the Talking Heads) covering “Saginaw, Michigan” live
• Music video for Sufjan’s “Romulus”
  (Did anyone else know there was a video for this? I sure didn’t…)
• The Decemberists live on Conan
  This was just a couple days ago. I’m loving their new album, by the way.
• French DJ group Birdy Nam Nam performing “Absesses”
  I had never heard of these guys, but their turntable skills take them beyond your average DJ. If this were just an audio track, I probably wouldn’t realize turntables were even involved.