Let’s get these three out of the way first: Merriweather Post Pavilion by Animal Collective, Veckatimest by Grizzly Bear, Bitte Orca by Dirty Projectors. These three albums were the subject of more hype than any other “indie” release this year by far, and to be honest there’s not much else to say about them than has already been said a hundred times before. But I will say things anyway!

MPP – the most influential album since Kid A, maturation and culmination of Animal Collective’s sound, instant classic, blah blah blah. Yeah, it is really good. I do believe that this probably the most unique and important band of my musically-mature years (the past five or six years). I don’t know if this is their best album, though. “Also Frightened” does not engage me, and the albums drags a bit with perhaps a little too much reverb and too little percussion at times (but when they drop that beat, oh man… finally hearing “In the Flowers” live the third time I saw them this year was wonderful), but overall it has one of the strongest claims on album of the year.
Veckatimest – perfectly, painstakingly composed and arranged, impeccable melodies & harmonies, everybody in the band can sing like Andrea Bocelli and dress like Beau Brummell, &c, &c. Though as a silly high-schooler I couldn’t always explain why, I always liked Grizzly Bear, eventually growing to love Yellow House like a brother. It took a while for me to get used to the new album, but it’s damn good. The drummer, Christopher Bear, gets love mostly just from music nerds, but anyone privileged enough to see him play right in front of you, the very definition of “controlled intensity,” would be able to see why he’s such an essential part of the band. Honestly, I’ve never been so happy watching a drummer’s performance.
Bitte Orca-Dave Longstreth finally makes his crazy genius accessible for a wider audience,  three excellent singers + 12-hr rehearsals = spectacular vocal tracks, each track stuffed full of ideas and brilliance, boopity boop boop. It’s all true. The “easiest” Dirty Projectors album, and arguably the best, it definitely rewards repeat listens, defies categorization and, hey, is pretty damn catchy. If there’s one guy who deserves to hang around with David Byrne it’s Longstreth.

There was, of course, more to the music scene this year than these three releases. A few albums, then, that I also have deemed worthy of mention, either because I think they’re one of the best of the year, or else a lot of other people did and I want to talk about that. We’ve got some top-ten material, some honorable mentions, some bop bop-a-do-bop. They’re not in any particular order, mind you. Well, they’re kind of grouped together, some of them. Like Motel Motel and The Rural Alberta Advantage. That was intentional.

Family – Le Loup. Sounds a bit like old Animal Collective, with more “folk” in their freak-folk — including banjo. Frontman Sam Simkoff sounds like Panda Bear sometimes, but when the tempo picks up his vocals and phrasing style are entirely his own.

Album – Girls. I downloaded this album during the latter half of the year, while I was trying to isolate myself from the hype storm that any regular reader of music blogs weathers (and even embraces). Word eventually spread to me, though, about the praises being sung to this release. So I listened with critical ear and, looking down my critical nose, couldn’t really find too much to criticize. I told the Good King Martinslas a while ago that the fifties were going to be the new hot revival decade and he said some fool thing about blues making a comeback in the indie world. This is why he’s the king and I write about music. If you can deal with singer Christopher Owens’s somewhat affected (some might say whiny) delivery, you’ll have a good time with this one, whoooo.

The xx – The xx. Here’s another band that rode the hype wave all the way to Bombay this year. They’re good, I like them, but 3rd best album of the year? I wouldn’t go that far.

Gorilla Manor – Local Natives. I think this album is only out in Europe now, but I’m not going to wait, because by this time next year they’re going to be too famous for me to mention them on here without risking losing big-time credibility. And, let’s face it, I have precious little credibility to begin with, here. So yeah, this is a big old pop record, really, with big old voices using big old reverb on big old catchy choruses. Think Fleet Foxes, Annuals, maybe some Arcade Fire without Régine. This record might not stand up to ubiquity like Fleet Foxes — we’ll see — but for now it’s great to listen to straight through once in a while. If only I had the same restraint with Danish butter cookies — I overindulged and now I can’t stand them. HA! Just kidding. That could never happen.

Hometowns – The Rural Alberta Advantage. This album was released last year, but was re-released this summer on Saddle Creek, so let’s go ahead and count it, hey. Singer Nils Edenloff has a bit of a Jeff Mangum thing going on and I hear a little Billy Corgan in there, too (no offense, Nils. I’m sure the similarities don’t extend to being really wack and doing really wack things). The songs are plaintive, honest (I hope!) and since Neil Young is a little busy right now doing his electric car thing and releasing everything he’s ever recorded, it’s nice to see some Canadians doing what would probably be called Americana except yeah right, you wish, these colors don’t bleed, why don’t you go back to where you came from foreigners? take your socialism back to the Arctic, tea party, SP2012. So maybe we’ll just call it “music for white people.”

New Denver – Motel Motel. Another record that technically debuted in 2008 but saw re-release this past summer (on 7 July, weirdly enough the same day as Hometowns), this time by the Rebel Group, which may explain why it hasn’t seen even the modest acclaim afforded to the RAA record. If only for showstopper “Coffee” this album would be worth your time, but you should go ahead and give the rest of it a shot, because there’s a lot of good Americana going on, here. And they’re actually Americans.

If I were you I’d be looking forward to seeing another post later with some more thoughts on some other albums, possibly including Phoenix’s Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, The Antlers’ Hospice and maybe even a little record I like to call Celebrity, by *NSYNC.

Anyway.

I was not expecting Dirty Projectors to open this show by themselves, with a song that’s not even the single off an album that has not yet been released. But they did! So that was pretty exciting. The song was Useful Chamber, and it’s actually pretty great. The next song, Stillness Is The Move, is also off the new record (Bitte Orca), and also quite a good song, but did not sound quite as good as Useful Chamber. On Stillness, Amber Coffman’s voice can turn into a bit of a mewl. I’m not saying she can’t sing, just that, live, she can get a bit grating. I don’t know if it was the venue, but she definitely sounds better on record. She still sounds like the same singer, but I guess their producer has a knack for making her vocal idiosyncrasies fit well into the rest of the song. At Radio City, the mewling stood out a bit. This was only a few moments, though, and, on the whole, I enjoyed the performance. Ms Coffman got her dance on a bit, and some of her more spot-on vocals sounded a bit like Mariah Carey, so that was exciting.

Whoa, am I going to talk about every song? That seems excessive. We’ll see how this goes.

David Byrne came out for the next song, Ambulance Man, which was apparently recorded for the Dark Was The Night album but didn’t make the cut, ceding to the Byrne/Projectors collaboration Knotty Pine, which finished the DPs set last night. I like Knotty Pine better, but maybe that’s only because I’ve heard it a lot more. All in all, I’m not sure Dirty Projectors are exactly ready for such a big place but I enjoyed their set since I was in the seventh row.

After Dirty Projectors, Red Hot head guy John Carlin came onstage to discuss briefly the evening’s format. He learned me a little something about the history of Red Hot. Aight, Carlin. Word.

My Brightest Diamond (Shara Worden) was next, with her cover of Feeling Good, made famous by Nina Simone. Ms Worden absolutely handled the song, and the backing band — which included members of the National along with a violinist, bass clarinetist, maybe a couple of horns, who knows what else — performed admirably as well. Unfortunately, Ms Worden did not play any more of her songs. A little disappointing, that.

The National were next, with singer Matt Berninger joining the members who were already onstage playing with Ms Worden. Since Bryce and Aaron Dessner were big parts of putting together the album and the show, I was hoping that the National would play a bit longer than the standard three or four songs. Alas, it was not to be. They started with Boxer cut Slow Show, then played what I think was a new song, called England. Next was DWTN standout So Far Around The Bend, followed by another new song, called something like Vanderlyle Crybaby. Justin Vernon ripped a sweet guitar solo on that one, boy oh boy. Let ‘em know, Vernon. That actually may have been the highlight of their set for me. The National were perhaps the band I was most looking forward to seeing, since I had never before seen them live, but they disappointed me — not the band so much as Matt Berninger, the singer. I had read that his stage presence was less than engaging, but I didn’t think too much of that criticism, since much of the National’s music (especially on Boxer) is melancholy and even-tempered. However, I did expect his voice to sound at least as rich and mellifluous live as it does on record. It does, sort of, but he doesn’t seem to have great control over it. The timbre is the same, but he’s not precisely in tune on a lot of the notes. It may just be because I’ve heard him hit each note perfectly on the albums so much. The vocals were a bit low in the mix, too.

A sharply besuited Dave Sitek was next, singing the Troggs’s With A Girl Like You over the fuzzed out guitar and horns and a veritable choir behind him. I like the song, but Mr Sitek is not really a frontman, and it was also once again a bit wack that there was a set change into a one-song set, and then another set change. Not ideal for the pacing of the show. Good thing our noble hero, David Byrne, came on next.

I knew he wasn’t going to do any Talking Heads songs, since Mr Carlin had told us as much earlier in the evening. I was resigned to this fact, and looked forward to hearing the songs Mr Byrne had done for previous Red Hot efforts. And they were swell! His cover of Cole Porter’s Don’t Fence Me In was enlivened by a drumline of sorts (come on, Firefox, how can you not recognize ‘drumline‘ as a word? And how do IMDB users have that at just a 5.2? Travesty). He finished with a couple other of his old Red Hot tunes, which Mr Carlin said he had never before performed live. Justin Vernon came out to fill Caetano Veloso’s shoes on Dreamworld: Marco De Canavezes and Leslie Feist dueted with Mr Byrne on Waters Of March. Lovely, lovely, indeed.

Intermission followed. I stretched. I watered the plants. I prepared the feast.

Bon Iver opened the second part of the show with Brackett, WI, off the first disc of the compilation. Their next was Blood Bank, from the EP of the same name. The National then came out to join in on Big Red Machine (credited as Justin Vernon + Aaron Dessner on the album), with Mr Berninger and Mr Vernon sharing vocal duties. While these three songs were great, the next was absolutely phenomenal, and, to me, the high point of the evening. Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond) came out to sing a verse on Flume, complementing Mr Vernon’s vocals beautifully. I didn’t realize it last night, but thinking back on it now, Flume is the only song of the night (besides Feeling Good, which I also loved) that I’ve been listening to for longer than three months. So after a year and a half of listening to it, seeing Flume in such a fantastic setting at such a fantastic event with such fantastic performers on stage really gave it new meaning and power.

Feist had the unenviable task of following that spectacle, and she boldly took the stage alone, with just an acoustic guitar. And, keeping with the evening’s trend of artists avoiding their more famous songs, she didn’t play 1-2-3-4! She didn’t play any of her own songs, actually, opening with the traditional The Wagoner’s Lad, which fit well with the short film that had segued the evening into her set, which featured women musicians discussing what it means to be a female in band. Next was the enjoyable Look What The Light Did Now, originally by the Bay Area’s Little Wings. Ben Gibbard did not show up to perform his part on Train Song, so Justin Vernon came on and filled in admirably. While I’ve not listened to much Death Cab lately, I actually rather enjoy Mr Gibbard’s contribution to the track, and I wondered how Mr Vernon would handle his role. He sounded fantastic, his distinctly low voice (no falsetto, here) offering a take on the song compellingly different from Mr Gibbard’s. Feist had also called the rest of Bon Iver to the stage with her, and they provided (you guessed it) some lovely harmonies. For her next and final song she strapped on an electric guitar for a cover of Someday Baby, off of Bob Dylan’s Modern Times. I’m not sure how I feel about her playing by herself for three out of four songs. I didn’t mind too much, since I was close enough that it didn’t matter to much to me, but I can’t imagine that it could have been great to be in the third mezzanine, watching a small woman on stage singing alone. There was also the issue with the copious reverb on her voice. It sounded lovely for held notes, but faster passages were bogged down a bit by the fog, especially on Look What The Light Did Now; it was difficult to distinguish lyrics. She does have a fantastic voice, though, and I’ll admit that the reverb often made it sound even better. I am rather a fan of reverb.

At this point, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings took over and funked everything up real crazy-like. Sharon Jones is a fantastic performer, and a great singer, too. I thought her breath control was as impressive as her James Brown impression. The lady can move, though, and that’s what sets her apart from other good singers who can’t win over an audience like she can. Even though there’s pretty much nothing original about their funk/soul revivalism, I wouldn’t exactly call that a problem. I never got a chance to see James Brown, so if this is the closest I’m going to get, I’ll take it.

For the finale, almost everyone came out with some acoustic guitars and one of the Dessner brothers announced that the last song was dedicated to Pete Seeger, who happened to have his own benefit going on simultaneously over at Madison Square Garden. The song was Woody Guthrie’s This Land Is Your Land, and yeah, I sang along. Sure I did. What of it? But wait! Then Sharon Jones came out and said, easy, folkies — we’re gonna get funky funky funky. And, bam! soul version of This Land Is Your Land. In the words of Malkmus, We Dance.

So there it is, there’s the evening for you. Rest easy, gentle reader. I wish you well, and, as is my custom, leave you with a set list.

Dirty Projectors – Useful Chamber
Dirty Projectors – Stillness Is The Move
Dirty Projectors – Ambulance Man (with David Byrne)
Dirty Projectors – Knotty Pine (with David Byrne)
My Brightest Diamond – Feeling Good (with a couple guys from the National) [Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse cover, made famous by Nina Simone]
The National – Slow Show
The National – England
The National – So Far Around The Bend
The National – Vanderlyle (?) Crybaby (with Justin Vernon)
Dave Sitek – With A Girl Like You (with like a million people)
David Byrne – Don’t Fence Me In [Cole Porter cover]
David Byrne – Dreamworld: Marco de Canavezes (with Justin Vernon)
David Byrne – Waters Of March (with Leslie Feist)

Intermission

Bon Iver – Brackett, WI
Bon Iver – Blood Bank
Bon Iver – Big Red Machine (with Matt Berninger and the National)
Bon Iver – Flume (with My Brightest Diamond)
Feist – The Wagoner’s Lad [Traditional]
Feist – Look What The Light Did Now [Little Wings cover]
Feist – Train Song (with Justin Vernon in the Ben Gibbard part and the rest of Bon Iver on harmonies) [Alasdair Clayre cover, made famous (well, not famous, exactly...) by Vashti Bunyan]
Feist – Someday Baby [Bob Dylan cover]
Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings – Not Gonna Cry
Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings – When I Come Home
Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings – Inspiration Information
Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings – 100 Days, 100 Nights

Encore

Almost Everyone – This Land Is Your Land [Woody Guthrie cover (obvs!)]
Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings – This Land Is Your Land (funky version)

The gift is a presale password to the Dark Was The Night Live concert at Radio City Music Hall. In case you didn’t know…

Dark Was The Night will be released on February 17th, 2009. It’s comprised of 31 exclusive tracks and it will be available as a double cd/triple vinyl/download and will benefit the Red Hot Organization – an international charity dedicated to raising money and awareness for HIV and AIDS through popular culture.

and the good folks at Red Hot just recently announced that

We are pleased to announce Dark Was The Night – Live , a concert commemorating the newest Red Hot release Dark Was The Night. The show will take place Sunday May 3 at Radio City Music Hall and will feature several of the artists that contributed to the compilation including Dave Sitek, Dirty Projectors, Feist, My Brightest Diamond, The National, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings plus more to be announced in the coming weeks. Tickets will go on sale this Friday, March 13 at 11am via Ticketmaster. Dark Was The Night – Live begins at 8pm (doors will open at 7).

(via DWTN Web site)

Word is that Grizzly Bear and David Byrne will also be there.

Anyway, the presale starts at 9 a.m. on Wednesday 11 March here, and the password is HEDARK. There’s also an AmEx presale happening at exactly the same time, and I don’t know which will have the better seats.

EDIT: I forgot to post this. My bad. Good thing I have a strong late-night/early-morning readership.