matt valentine

2012 Album Roundup

2012 LPs

Many of my 2012 LPs

I give up.

I’ve been thinking about the inevitable year-end top whatever list of albums for more than a month now. Countless records have found their way across the turntable or into my phone for listening on the train and some have risen to the top and others aren’t even a blip. But so many of them are just too good to rank, dismiss, or inadvertently diminish by stacking it above (or below) some other great album. The real message that bears conveying is that I’ve listened to a lot of great music this year and, while some of it was new in 2012, some of it dates well back to the past.

In keeping with the spirit of things I’ll limit this post to great things that came out in 2012 but stay tuned for more on those other things that have been occupying my ears in an upcoming post. Continue reading →

Spring 2012 Mix

Spring has sprung and that’s as good a reason as any to offer to my readers & friends a mix of some of the music that I’ve been jamming lately.

Woods – Skull – 2011 Summer Tour Split 7″ (Woodsist 2011)
The Cosmic Dead – The Spaceman – Psychonaut (self-released 2011)
David Bromberg – Diamond Lil – Demon In Disguise (Columbia 1972)
Matt Valentine – Hit The Trails – What I Became (Woodsist 2011)
Megafaun – These Words – Megafaun (Hometapes 2011)
Alexander ‘Skip’ Spence – Little Hands – Oar (Columbia 1969)
John Hartford – Back In The Goodle Days – Aereo-plain (Warner Brothers 1971)
Flaming Lips with Neon Indian – Is David Bowie Dying? – s/t (EP) (Warner Brothers/Lovely Sorts Of Death 2011)
Woodsman – Inside Outside – Rare Forms (Lefse/Firetalk 2011)
Brian Eno – St. Elmo’s Fire – Another Green World (Island 1975)
Akron/Family – Sun Will Shine – Set Em Wild Set Em Free (Dead Oceans 2009)

Continue reading →