Help! They Just Keep Rolling Out the Great Music ...

If you thought "Up In Flames" was a great album ... well, then I feel sorry for you, because it wasn't. It was a great EP with an average LP wrapped around it (that great EP was "Dirt Road", "Hendrix With Ko", "Jacknuggeted", "Birthday").

The new Manitoba Caribou Caritoba (? why not) album manages to be both experimental (pop songs, weird songs, one-minute sprints, seven-minute wigged-out epics) and concise (all this happens in only 40 minutes). It starts like a less Byrds-y "Up In Flames" (at this point I was thinking that I was in for a photocopy of the last album), moves into some weird Animal Collective moments (with a few nods to the pastoral electronica of his somewhat underwhelming Boards of Canada ripoff debut album), and concludes with a Can-esque motorik piece of complete brilliance. At nearly every turn, this album surprised me, and all the surprises were welcome ones.

Not twenty minutes after finishing yesterday afternoon's post, I heard that the new AUTECHRE album was floating around on the internet. Ooooooh, yet another great album of 2005. It's certainly better than "Draft 7:30" and might be better than "Confield". In fact, the new album (apparently titled "Untilted", and yes, I assure you that I have spelled it correctly) is "Confield", albeit a less dense version of it. It's easier on the ears but is still dominated less by melody and more by manic chaos and unpredictability. And it's got chunky "Chiastic Slide"-esque beats. I need more time with this one ...