This is normally the time of year when I begin compiling my “Best of” music lists, but after perusing other people’s lists it occurred to me that I haven’t really listened to any new music this year. Of all the records on Pitchfork’s “Best of” ballot, I only have listened to ten. Most of them – She & Him, Islands, and Vampire Weekend, to name a few – were released early in the year. If I wanted to compile a list of “Ten Best Albums Released Before Barack Obama Clinched the Democratic Nomination,” I totally could.
In fact, during the primary season, my music-blog reading was superceded by political-blog reading, and I stopped being my tastemaker self. And once school started… Forget about it.
Yesterday I stayed home sick from work, and once I woke up (feeling much better now, by the way) I decided I was going to catch up on what I missed. Armed with iTunes 30-second previews and a music blog in every Firefox tab, I got to work in checking out the unanimous picks for the year. I downloaded a few albums: Blitzen Trapper “Furr,” Plants and Animals “Parc Avenue,” Vivian Girls’ self-titled œuvre, Quiet Village’s “Silent Movie,” and one more, which has emerged as the only thing I’ve been able to listen to in the past 24 hours:

I have listened to 11 new releases in the past 12 months, and this is the best.
Because I said so, and I am an expert.
Department of Eagles is kind of a Grizzly Bear side project, in that it includes 3/4 members of Grizzly Bear. It’s kind of not, because Department of Eagles predates Grizzly Bear. And because Ed Droste is the excluded member and he basically is Grizzly Bear. Which fully explains why I loved “Yellow House” (which was on my ‘06 list) and did not love “Horn of Plenty,” which was mostly Droste.
This record is just as soft and ethereal and “swirling” (as Pitchfork puts it) as “Yellow House,” but it’s more upbeat. I wouldn’t go as far as calling it poppy, but, it… swings a bit harder, I guess? But I can guarantee that if you like “Yellow House,” (which, if you haven’t figured it out, is the most recent Grizzly Bear LP) you also will like this. I daresay I love “In Ear Park” more, because of some very obvious Nilsson influences, particularly on “Teenagers” and “Herring Bone,” which I have uploaded here for your listening pleasure.
I’d just like to add that I’d be a terrible music reviewer. I second-guess myself so much that even though I have a sprawling collection of Harry Nilsson’s work on vinyl (by sprawling, I mean three records, but I’m a huge fan), I Googled “daniel rossen nilsson” to make sure I wasn’t the only person who detected this influence. And even then I considered it a cop-out because, well, everybody’s influenced by Nilsson, right? He’s only like one of the greatest songwriters ever.
Tags:
brooklyn,
daniel rossen,
department of eagles,
grizzly bear,
Music