THE ANTLERS Release New Video - Bear

LADY GAGA Rocks, But the Grammys Are Dead To Me

Lady Gaga opened the Grammy's this year with the theatricality we have all come to know and love from America's greatest current pop star. The performance - a medley of "Poker Face", "Speechless" and "Your Song" - featured a riveting duet and duel of the keys with Elton John. From there it was downhill the rest of the evening. Don't even get me started about the Best New Artist category. I still can't understand how Silversun Pickups even qualify in this category, but then Zac Brown beats out MGMT and The Ting Tings for the award! My nominees for this category would have looked like this:

The Antlers
Fever Ray
Lady Gaga
Neon Indian
The XX

The Sky Report - Albums of the Year

1. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion

2. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest

3. The Antlers - Hospice

4. Fever Ray - s/t

5. The Horrors - Primary Colours

6. Atlas Sound - Logos

7. Natureboy - s/t

8. The Fiery Furnaces - I'm Going Away

9. The Flaming Lips - Embryonic

10. PJ Harvey & John Parish - A Woman A Man Walked By

11. Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport

12. Bat For Lashes - Two Suns

13. The XX - XX

14. Sharon Van Etten - Because I Was In Love

15. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

16. The Raveonettes - In and Out of Control

17. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!

18. Nite Jewel - Good Evening

19. The Pains of Being Pure At Heart - s/t

20. Real Estate - s/t

21. JJ - n° 2
22. Memory Tapes - Seek Magic
23. Bear In Heaven - Beast Rest Forth Mouth
24. Antony & the Johnsons - The Crying Light
25. Girls - Album
26. Woods - Songs of Shame
27. White Denim - Fits
28. Ganglians - Monster Head Room
29. Yo La Tengo - Popular Songs
30. Lotus Plaza - The Floodlight Collective
31. Neon Indian - Psychic Chasms
32. Dark Was the Night (compilation) - various artists
33. Bibio - Ambivalence Avenue
34. Sunset Rubdown - Dragonslayer
35. St. Vincent - Actor
36. Royksopp - Junior
37. Masterface - Freedom Tower
38. DâM-FunK - Toeachizown
39. Cold Cave - Love Comes Close
40. Telepathe - Dance Mother
41. Wavves - Wavvves
42. Gossip - Music For Men
43. The Sandwitches - How To Make Ambient Sadcake
44. Neko Case - Middle Cyclone
45. Jeremy Jay - Slow Dance
46. Discovery - LP
47. Here We Go Magic - s/t
48. Micachu - Jewellery
49. Kurt Vile - Childish Prodigy
50. Night Control - Death Control

FULL YEAR-END COVERAGE HERE

Best of 2009 - Guest List - The Antlers

As a precursor to our impending year-end list, we've asked some of our favorite artists to select their five favorite releases of 2009. The Antlers have quietly become the breakout band of the year. Their third album Hospice has shown up with high placing on year-end lists such as The Music Slut, Stereogum and NPR's All Things Considered. And just last night they headlined a sold-out Bowery Ballroom. I think you get the point - the album is amazing!

Here are The Antlers' six favorite songs of the year, according to drummer Michael Lerner:

(In no particular order)...

Bon Iver - "Bloodbank"

Justin Vernon's soul/folk picked up right where he left off with For
Emma, Forever Ago. Beautiful melody and imagery here.

Sharon Van Etten - "I Wish I Knew"

Can a song be both fragile and powerful at the same time? Absolutely!
Just a gorgeous song. Sharon's live shows are also a must see.

Phoenix - "1901"

I feel like I heard this song everywhere this year and it still
continues to dominate my iPod. It completely succeeds in striking the
perfect balance between pop and rock.

Grizzly Bear - "While You Wait for the Others"

Such a great song! The verses slyly creep along before exploding into
the soaring chorus. The harmonies in that chorus are amazing! Also
great is the way the downbeat is dropped and lands on the 2 - Love
that!

Dirty Projectors - "No Intention" / "Stillness is the Move"

Ok, maybe I am breaking the rules by choosing both of these songs here
instead of just one, but I don't care - they are both that good!
2 of the best songs you'll never hear on Hot 97 but totally could/should.

FULL YEAR-END COVERAGE

Best of 2009 - Guest List - SHARON VAN ETTEN

As a precursor to our impending year-end list, we've asked some of our favorite artists to select their five favorite releases of 2009. Next we have Sharon Van Etten, who has had an absolutely amazing year. When I first hung out with her at SXSW last March, she seemed confident, yet altogether unsure of what the outcome of her new LP would be. Weeks later, the staggering Because I Was In Love was released and the blog world was stunned. What a shockingly sparse, honest, and cohesive album she had up her sleeve! All the major players cited her with positive remarks - Pitchfork, Gorilla vs. Bear, Spinner - and if that weren't enough, she popped up on The Antlers' Hospice LP, an album that is in serious contention for record of the year. And now she's laying her own claim on best of lists, just yesterday topping Said the Gramophone's Best Songs of 2009 list. Yes, she came in at #1! And just to add more fuel to the fire, she shows up on Earfarm's Top Ten Bands To Watch in 2010. I think I've said enough. Here are Sharon's top 5 selections for 2009...

#1 - The Antlers - Hospice - They've worked really hard. They are genuine, sweet, honest people and every time I put the record on, I am reminded of that.

#2 - She Keeps Bees - Nests - Jess and Andy are amazing together. They have the best rock show hands down I have ever seen - and her voice SLAYS. Be on the look out for a light coming your way through blues methods.

#3 - Natureboy - Natureboy - Her arrangements are STUNNING and her songwriting is classic. Gets stuck in my head every time. And Sarah's voice reminds me of Betty Serveert which was one of my favorite bands in high school - so I get SUPER reminiscent.

#4 - Glass Ghost - Idol Omen - Another really hard working ny band. I got to play with them a few times and it is so exciting to see them go further and further. I have been looking forward to this one for over a year now. Crazy mix of hip hop, indie, jazz, spoken word. David Byrne reincarnation - no doubt.

#5 - Rain Machine - Rain Machine - Kyp Malone is the most balls out, risk taking, honest, blunt writers I have ever met and have been lucky enough to know and to play with. I played with him when he was still playing these songs solo. To see them grow (organically) with his friends - to see his ideas brought to a whole new level is so exciting to me. It's rare to get this kind of honesty in music these days... and to hear and understand his incites has always been inspiring to me.

FULL YEAR-END COVERAGE HERE

New Music Monday

Cleaning out my inbox today and decided to post some great music for you. Some of it isn't brand new, but still worthy of your ears. Enjoy!

Acrylics - All of the Fire
The Antlers - Two
Devon Williams - Sufferer
Imaad Wasif - Priestess
Loney Dear - Airport Surroundings
The Mary Onettes - Puzzles
Music Go Music - Warm in the Shadows
Neon Indian - Terminally Chill
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Higher Than the Stars
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Higher Than the Stars (Others in Conversation remix)
Real Estate - Beachcomber
Sufjan Stevens - Movement VI—Isorhythmic Night Dance with Interchanges

THE ANTLERS - Two

The Antlers' debut album Hospice is hands down one of the most solid albums of the year. Read our review of the album from back in February. The band just released this impressive animated video for the new single "Two", further strengthening the album's staying power for year-end lists in December.

Review THE ANTLERS - Hospice 85%

Review by Matthew Dunehoo, contributor

The Antlers’ Hospice features artwork that is delicate but painfully red, and the title instills more dread than anything ever conjured by Cannibal Corpse. Supposedly the self-released album began as a narrative if not a memoir of Peter Silberman’s experiences with self-imposed isolation and discouragement experienced shortly after arriving in New York City, 2006. Here, Silberman is joined by a full band, as well as Brooklyn vocalist Sharon Van Etten.

There is an undeniable thread of sadness pervading Hospice. One envisions the still air found in rooms of care for those with terminal illness. The distant sounds here swell, become throbbing sensations, cede again. As with sickness, there is a sedentary nature to the record, it’s often parked and it festers, but with all the fascinating, hallucinatory imagery one may imagine the terminally ill (or deeply heartbroken) to encounter.

The two singles from the album are excellent pop songs. “Two” became a blog darling after its September 2008 release and “Bear” was released just last month. Neither one of these tunes contain the same degree of imminent fear and vulnerability that the majority of the album’s songs seem to. Siberman’s delivery is more rollicking, bolder, as demonstrated:

“Daddy was an asshole and he fucked you up, built the gears in your head, now he greases them up.”

Moments like these serve to remind that not all of hospice lives on cold linens; there is real dream sway here, blissed tunefulness. Though, for the most part the lyrics remain focused on physical and emotional confrontation and discomfort, conveyed via shimmering falsetto.

The Antlers will release Hospice, on March 3rd, 2009.

Purchase
The Antlers - Bear (mp3)
The Antlers - Two (mp3)
myspace

CD release party at Union Hall, March 5th.

Sharon Van Etten