MP3: Monolithic Cloud Parade – A New Ice Age

I’ve always liked Corey Fry’s Monolithic Cloud Parade project, so I’m sad to see the band go. But, as he sings in this mp3 from The Sea and Setting Sun, “Die die die, it’s all gonna die.”

From the Facebook event page:
This is the final show you will see Monolithic Cloud Parade play. Then we die. We will be playing all of the hits that you’ll vaguely recognize unless you’re the Moms or Girlfriends, at which point you will probably know lots of the words better than Corey does.

It all dies at Rumba tomorrow (8/19) with the Saturday Giant and Domes.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Lost Revival‘s new video for “Cotton and Lace” was shot, edited and directed by Monolithic Cloud Parade‘s Corey Fry, and “filmed over the course of two separate very sweaty evenings in Columbus, Ohio with a Canon T2i.” Kevin Collins and crew will be at Comfest’s Offramp stage at 6:30pm Saturday.

MP3: A New Ice Age

I don’t know jack about CapcomMobile, but that commercial uses a snippet of Columbus band Monolithic Cloud Parade’s track “A New Ice Age.” It’s kinda clever, but it’d be cooler if the zombie and a bunch of his zombie friends actually started eating people while the song kicks into the chorus and Corey Fry sings, “Die die die, it’s all gonna die.”

This band got some undeserved battering locally when its new record, The Sea and Setting Sun, came out in September. But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — I’m down with MCP, nasal singing and all. Check it out for yourself on Bandcamp and name your own price.

Already wrote about 2cow and Lost Revival for The Other Paper, so I’ll stop typing and just give ya some release-show info and let you watch that video and sample these mp3s to make up your own mind:

The Lost Revival and Monolithic Cloud Parade’s combined release show is 10 p.m. Saturday (Sept. 25) at Skully’s, 1151 N. High St., with George Elliot Underground.

Two Cow Garage’s CD release show is Saturday (Sept. 25) at the Rumba Café, 2507 Summit St., 10 pm(ish), with Scotland Yard Gospel Choir and Ghost Shirt.

1. Larry Jon Wilson – Larry Jon Wilson
I won’t lie. Talking to Larry Jon and producer Jerry DeCicca (Black Swans) about this album, learning about its origins, and visiting Wilson’s back catalog gave me a heightened appreciation for this masterpiece. So context helps, but even if you know nothing about the back story, this is a stark, beautiful album from start to finish from one of the forgotten country outlaws. Wilson’s Georgia baritone is the sweetest thing I heard this year. For Townes Van Zandt fans, this is required listening.

MP3: Feel Alright Again

2. The Love Language – The Love Language
It’s a rock n’ roll cliché and a PR flack’s dream: Guy breaks up with girl, drinks heavily, pisses off all his friends, eventually sobers up and retreats to his parents’ house to record an album on a four-track. But man does this cliché jangle with some of the best in-the-red pop songs I’ve heard in a while. Stuart McLamb’s Chapel Hill band signed to Merge in October and is slated to have a new release in August, and after seeing the full band (now a 7-piece) put on a terrific show at the Wexner Center in the fall, McLamb’s next outing could be even better with a little help from his friends.

MP3: Manteo I MP3: Lalita

3. Andrew Bird – Noble Beast
Every aspect of Andrew Bird just keeps getting better—his voice; his gorgeous, multi-layered violin arrangements; his whistling. It makes for a backdrop so compelling that he can sing about proto-Sanskrit Minoans, porto-centric Lisboans, Greek Cypriots and Hobis-hots and have you nodding your head in agreement instead of scratching it in confusion.

MP3: Oh No

4. Kurt Vile – Constant Hitmaker; God is Saying This to You…; Childish Prodigy
I’m grouping these together so I can squeeze more in, but all three LPs probably deserve a separate spot for different reasons. God finds Vile filtering his psychedelia through John Fahey and Neil Young; Childish kicks the volume up a notch and tones the lo-fi down; and Hitmaker, the best of the three, plays both sides with casual brilliance. “Freeway” is one of my favorite songs of 2009.

MP3: Freeway

5. The Antlers – Hospice
Hospice is one of only a few albums this year that completely transports me whenever I give it my full attention. (Brian Harnetty’s Silent City is another.) A concept album about a hospice worker and a young patient, the songs swell like Sigur Ros then retreat into gingerly tapped piano, lightly strummed guitar or shimmery synth. It’s in those quiet portions that Silberman employs his alabaster falsetto — more hushed than Jeff Buckley but less wispy than Antony Hegarty. Back in March, the Antlers played a show at Cafe Bourbon St. in front of me and maybe three other people. I’m thinking there’ll be a few more in attendance next time.

MP3: Bear

#6 onward + Columbus list after the jump.

6. David Bazan – Curse Your Branches
We’ve talked about Bazan a lot recently, so I’ll let this photo/video/recap do the explaining. Just know that Bazan’s crisis of faith led him to create the best album of his career.

MP3: Bless This Mess

7. Yo La Tengo – Popular Songs
Yo La Tengo’s performance at Stuart’s Opera House in Nelsonville was my favorite show of the year. It helps that they played a whole lot from this record. I love that no matter how many perfect, three-minute pop songs Ira, Georgia and James write, they’re still not afraid to beat your ass with 10- and 15-minute feedback-laden wallops.

MP3: Here to Fall

8. Bill Callahan – Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle
“Well I used to be darker, then I got lighter, then I got dark again.” This is post-Smog Callahan at his best — sinister and sweet. And the pristine production on this record complements his deep deadpan perfectly. (P.S. It’s been a good year for Drag City.) (P.P.S. Remember that Used Kids performance? Good times.)

MP3: Eid Ma Clack Shaw


9. Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca
The great thing about Dirty Projectors is that anything that may come across as high-minded is balanced with something high-spirited. No other band is this brainy and this fun.


10. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
I know, if you’re a blog reader (or even if you’re not), you’re likely beyond tired of this band and this album. But seriously. The deliciousness of this record cannot be denied.

11. Atlas Sound – Logos
“Walkabout” just may be the best song released this year. More Bradford Cox/Noah Lennox collabs, please.

MP3: Walkabout


12. Justin Townes Earle – Midnight at the Movies
Steve Earle’s boy plays country- and blues-inspired folk songs with the conviction of a modern-day Leadbelly, yet his take on the Replacements’ “Can’t Hardly Wait” shows that though he’s indebted to Americana music, it’s more of a gate than a fence.

MP3: Mama’s Eyes I MP3: What I Mean to You


13. fun. – Aim and Ignite
I wrote earlier that this record “sounds like Freddie Mercury and Paul McCartney getting drunk at a carnival, then catching a Broadway show. There’s copious strings and accordions and Wurlitzers galore, all gallivanting next to Nate Ruess’ impressive, addictive tenor. So ‘fun.’ is exactly that.” This is the best ready-for-radio pop album of 2009.


14. The Mountain Goats – The Life of the World to Come
John Darnielle’s best songs capture the darkness of the human condition yet still feel uplifting in some way—a thread of human dignity facing an overwhelming heartache or obstacle. This Biblical concept album is no different.

MP3: Genesis 3:23


15. Volcano Choir – Unmap
Justin Vernon’s collaboration with Collections of Colonies of Bees proves his voice goes well with anything and everything. Even when he’s talking gibberish in a digital haze.

MP3: Island, IS


(16. XX – XX
OK, last-minute add… I was really late getting around to this record, but, wow… Amazing, super-clean production and sparkling hooks that slowly form like icicles. Good stuff. Looking forward to the Wexner Center show in April.)

Columbus albums:
1. Brian Harnetty – Silent City
2. Wing & Tusk – The Secret of Toadflax Tea
3. The Receiver – Length of Arms
4. Times New Viking – Born Again Revisited
5. The Sun – Don’t Let Your Baby Have All the Fun
6. Sinkane – Sinkane
7. RTFO Bandwagon – Dums Will Survive
8. Monolithic Cloud Parade – Children with Wolf Heads
9. This is My Suitcase – The Keys to Cat Heaven
10. Bird and Flower – Here We Cease Our Motion

Harnetty rarely plays live, so catch him when you can. The Black Swans and Super Desserts open the show.

mp3: Brian Harnetty – Sleeping in the Driveway
mp3: Brian Harnetty – Silent City

Here’s how Monolithic Cloud Parade describes the concept behind its debut: “The album tells the story of a pack of turn-of-the-century carnival freak show children with wolf heads who escape their wagon train in a deadly accident one night and head off into the forest to fend for themselves, where they are confronted with fears both real and imaginary.” If you like Neutral Milk Hotel, you’ll dig these guys. Corey Fry has created an ambitious, lo-fi concept album that succeeds much of the time, bizarro storyline and all. Not bad for a guy who couldn’t even play an instrument a couple years ago.

MCP’s record release is at the Scarlet and Grey Cafe with The Lost Revival and Darynyck. It’ll also serve as Darynyck’s farewell show.

mp3: Monolithic Cloud Parade – Airplanes Full of Flames

Another debut concept album, Wing & Tusk’s The Secret of Toadflax Tea tells a story from three different viewpoints: an old monk, a young monk and a doctor, all of whom are on a European island stricken with the black plague, for which the only cure is a drink called Toadflax Tea. But that cure is known only to the monks… Betrayal, murder and heroism ensue.

Along with Harnetty’s Silent City, this is one of my favorite Columbus releases of the year so far. Singer Josh Rea reminds me a lot of David Bazan, a good thing in my book. Wing & tusk takes its folk-rock foundation and builds on it till it reaches the ether, adding strings, horns, beautiful harmonies and such along with way. Epic stuff.

mp3: Wing & Tusk – Home, Sick Home

Concert posters after the jump. Wing & Tusk’s is particularly cool/creepy.