One of the absolute best shows I saw at SXSW this year was Todd Goldstein’s ARMS, the then-three-piece playing frostily beautiful versions of songs from EP and their upcoming album as the Austin cold threatened to freeze their fingers off. Stripped of the EP’s reverb, the songs were naked and lovely and limited to that afternoon — until now. The band’s Daytrotter session was recorded earlier that week, and it captures a sliver of that afternoon, a Polaroid on expired film. It is raw like Kanye West’s Twitter feed and pretty like Mandy Moore.

ARMS – “Emily Sue Pt. 2″ (Daytrotter Session): mp3

(Get the full session on Daytrotter)

Previously: SXSW 2010: ARMS at Kung Fu Saloon, 3.20.10

More often than not, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin is the best power-pop band in the world. Take “Everlyn,” a track custom-engineered by Nobel prize-winning scientists to boggle your mind: After that first magnificent chorus, all cymbals and falsetto, it dips back into verses but careens out into an early bridge — when the second, final chorus comes, it’s with the force of a freight train. Or an orgasm, but let’s not get awkward — the Boris boys have that one handled.

Let It Sway is the group’s third album and first produced by Death Cab for Cutie’s Chris Walla, who adds his John Hancock: mid-range thicker than Sofia Vergara. The beefier sound gives weight to songs such as “Sink / Let It Sway,” whose barre chords burst out of speakers with the ferocious, adorable energy of hungry kittens. The band’s newfound chunkiness means leaving behind some of the feather-light agility of 2008′s still-great Pershing, though, and their goofier sensibilities (see: the vaguely, awkwardly homoerotic “All Hail Dracula”) sometimes miss the mark this time around. They’re best being sincere, as on lo-fi ballad “Stuart Gets Lost Dans Le Metro”: “Got a four-track on your bed… this is for us, not them.” Let It Sway is for you.

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltins – “Sink / Let It Sway”: mp3

(Let It Sway is out now. The band plays Spaceland on Nov. 16 with fellow Walla wards The Lonely Forest.)

Since the DIsmemberment Plan split after 2001′s Change — and since frontman Travis Morrison got a 0.0 from Pitchfork for the disastrous Travistan, a review that for all intents and purposes single-handedly pushed him out of music-making — the band’s legacy has been a bit unclear. Let’s shake off the cobwebs right now. The sound the band achieved on 1999′s Emergency & I remains unduplicated and unparalleled: spastic proto-dance-punk and shimmering indie-pop blended like the world’s strongest margarita under Morrison’s yelpy, paranoid vocals — and the best lyrics in indie rock. Despite the million or so songs on the topics, few have ever written better about loneliness and misanthropy than he did on “The City” or “Back and Forth.” Now, the band’s playing a few reunion shows (their second mini-reunion tour, for those keeping track) on the East Coast in January in honor of the January 2011 reissue of Emergency & I on vinyl.

I’m going to say this again, so there’s no confusion: This is one of the best albums ever made. It makes LCD Soundsystem look like a kid building Legos and peeing his pants. When it comes out, you will go buy it and listen to it on your record player on loop until you want to die. Clear? Remember, everybody and also Kelly Clarkson: The city’s been dead / since you’ve been gawwwwwwwwwwwn!

(Related: Bassist Eric Axelson went on to play in Maritime, and that band’s We, The Vehicles is a minor classic.)

And actually enjoyed myself. You can find that at Brand X, where I also interviewed the gentleman behind the Echo Curio.

At this point, even Sufjan Stevens seems to have moved on from All Delighted People, the surprise “EP” (at an hour, it’s longer than most people’s albums) he released on Bandcamp on Aug. 20. In the three weeks since, he’s announced a new album, The Age of Adz, his “official” follow-up to 2005′s Illinois, and dropped a pair of beat-blemished singles. So where does that leave All Delighted People, a luxurious collection of orchestral folk that, for all musical intents and purposes, picks up not far from where Illinois left off?

Stevens is an analyst, first and foremost; his seemingly abandoned 50 states project, if born on somewhere between a whim and tongue-in-cheek journalist fodder, grew as a means of turning historical dissection and scholarly thinking into song. Likewise, his Christmas EPs were a way for him to grapple a holiday season he found himself at odds with. Musicians have always used their craft to funnel feelings into art, but for Stevens, the process itself can grow so complex that the final product’s emotion can be lost. Compare, for instance, Seven Swans‘ directness with the self-described “pageantry” of Illinois. Different projects, different aims — yet all must fit into a single legacy, a concern that may weigh heavily on Stevens. In recent interviews, he’s admitted to existential angst (particularly in this revealing Vish Khanna conversation), wondering out loud, “What is a song, even?”

On All Delighted People, he finds inspiration, oddly enough, in Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sounds of Silence,” to which the EP’s title track (which, in two different renditions, covers nearly 20 minutes of the set’s 60 minute runtime) pays homage through lyrical and melodic hat-tips. Without losing Illinois‘ chamber-pop bombast, the song is less Glee and more folk-rock emotive — though unlike Simon and Garfunkel, Stevens seems unconcerned with brevity. The song’s twists and turns are gripping enough, but its length is ultimately inessential — the extended form fails to offer the sort of revelations of, to go right to the top, “Bohemian Rhapsody” or “Stairway to Heaven.” The other tracks are mostly of more manageable, traditional lengths, with arrangements to match — they’re best compared to his Seven Swans material, full of religious imagery, delicately arranged folk and earnest delivery. Closer “Djohariah” begins as a Serge Gainsbourg homage and, over the course of its 17 minutes, builds with a dynamic confidence “All Delighted People” fails to match.

Despite its minor failings, on All Delighted People, Stevens remains an able vocalist, a clever arranger, a charismatic performer and a sensitive writer (if not, as the Age of Adz songs are unfortunately revealing, a top-shelf beat-maker). At $5, the EP should be an automatic addition to one’s library. But like Lost, the EP raises more questions than it, or its maker, can answer. By including a second version of the title track, he continues with his fascination with repetition (Illinois outtakes album The Avalanche included three versions of “Chicago”), an indulgence he must surely realize and one that makes the set feel less serious — less a piece of art than a cobbled-together collection, as The Avalanche was. Cut it, add another song or two for balance, and All Delighted People becomes a proper, impressive album, rather than a Mutations-esque one-off or mere fan catnip. Is this a crisis of artistic identity? Of desire? Of legacy? Or perhaps one of fear? After reaching his greatest levels of commercial success, Stevens has spent the last half-decade burying himself in ephemera — The Avalanche, the Christmas box set, the audio-visual left turn of The BQE, and now, this EP — rather than release a conventional, expected follow-up. There’s value in all of this work, of course, but should Adz arrive as a disappointment, one can’t help but wonder if Stevens would be better served by spending less time struggling to escape the box and more in remembering that sometimes, thinking inside it works just fine.

(A final note: The versions of “All Delighted People” found on this EP are actually Stevens’ second and third takes on the song — a static-y, lo-fi “All Delighted People” with little in common with the new ones was released on 2000′s Eye of the Beholder compilation, which seems to be long since out of print.)

Sufjan Stevens – “All Delighted People” (Eye of the Beholder version): mp3

I’ve written a lot this year about how the bigger names in indie rock have almost unanimously decided to stubbornly release extremely adequate 2010 albums. Not bad, not great. To document this phenomenon, I’ve decided to rank these mid-range classics for the year so far. (I would be remiss not to note that most of these earned Pitchfork Best New Music 8+s, which is the new “Three stars means never having to say you’re sorry,” maybe?) Anyway:

1. The National – High Violet
2. The Hold Steady – Heaven is Whenever
3. Broken Social Scene – Forgiveness Rock Record
4. Midlake – The Courage of Others
5. Sun Kil Moon – Admiral Fell Promises
6. Liars – Sisterworld
7. Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
8. Vampire Weekend – Contra
9. LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening
10. Interpol – Interpol

I’m looking forward to sighing and adding Sufjan Stevens’ Age Of Adz to the top five. Thoughts, folks?

(Editor’s note: In this year’s “good-to-great” range and thus not on this list: Joanna Newsom – Have One On Me, Spoon – Transference, The New Pornographers – Together)

Two can’t-miss shows this weekend: The Clientele, with its typically wondrous Minotaur mini-album on the way, plays the Echoplex on Saturday, while dream-pop fuzzmakers Wild Nothing headline the Echo on Sunday. Both well worth blissing out at.

The Clientele – “Jerry”: mp3

Previously: Live: The Clientele at Spaceland, 3.05.10 | First Look: Wild Nothing – Gemini

2010 only. All the good stuff. Dream on after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »