Tag: Alberta Cross

Best Songs of 2011

In anticipation of our favourite annual post here at LITC—Best Albums of such-and-such year—we are proud to share fifty tracks that we think are the best released this year.  Trust us, there was so much good music released this year that we found picking our fifty favourite tracks to be a rather excruciating process. We’d also love to hear about any songs that you feel should not have been left off of this list in the comments section! So without further ado, here are our fifty favourite tracks from 2011 (in alphabetical order):

  1. ‘All the Sand in All the Sea’   DeVotchKa   100 Lovers
  2. ‘Angel Is Broken’   Atlas Sound   Parallax
  3. ‘Animal’   Neon Trees   Habits   
  4. ‘Ash/Black Veil’   Apparat   The Devil’s Walk  
  5. ‘Battery Kinzie’   Fleet Foxes   Helplessness Blues
  6. ‘Belong’   The Pains of Being Pure at Heart   Belong
  7. ‘Circulation’   Thurston Moore   Demolished Thoughts
  8. ‘Codex’   Radiohead   The King Of Limbs
  9. ‘Country Dumb’   Josh T. Pearson   Last of the Country Gentlemen
  10. ‘Cruel’   St Vincent   Strange Mercy
  11. ‘Days’   The Drums   Portamento
  12. ‘Degeneration Street’   The Dears   Degeneration Street
  13. ‘Don’t Move’   Phantogram   Nightlife EP
  14. ‘Downtown Eastern Bloc’   Times New Viking   Dancer Equired
  15. ‘5 Chords’   The Dears   Degeneration Street
  16. ‘Fuck This Place’   Frightened Rabbit   A Frightened Rabbit EP 
  17. ‘Galactic Tides’   The Dears   Degeneration Street
  18. ‘Heaven’s Gonna Happen Now’   The Pains of Being Pure at Heart   Belong
  19. ‘Helplessness Blues’   Fleet Foxes   Helplessness Blues
  20. ‘Honey Bunny’   Girls   Father, Son, Holy Ghost
  21. ‘I Don’t Want Love’   The Antlers   Burst Apart   
  22. ‘Keep You’   Class Actress   Rapprocher     
  23. ‘The King’   RAMESH   The King
  24. ‘The Last Living Rose’   PJ Harvey   Let England Shake
  25. ‘Lippy Kids’   Elbow   Build A Rocket Boys!
  26. ‘Montana’   Youth Lagoon   Youth Lagoon
  27. ‘Municipality’   Real Estate   Days
  28. ‘No Room to Live’   Times New Viking   Dancer Equired
  29. ‘No Widows’   The Antlers   Burst Apart
  30. ‘People’   David Bazan   Strange Negotiations
  31. ‘Save Me’   Gotye   Making Mirrors
  32. ‘Scottish Winds’   Frightened Rabbit   A Frightened Rabbit EP
  33. ‘17’   Youth Lagoon   Youth Lagoon
  34. ‘Smile’   Smith Westerns   Dye It Blonde
  35. ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’   Gotye (ft. Kimbra)   Making Mirrors
  36. ‘Song Of Los’   Apparat   The Devil’s Walk  
  37. ‘Steve McQueen’   M83   Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
  38. ‘Strange Negotiations’   David Bazan   Strange Negotiations
  39. ‘Sweetheart I Aint Your Christ’   Josh T. Pearson   Last of the Country Gentlemen
  40. ‘Tatooine’   Jeremy Messersmith   Tatooine Single
  41. ‘To Every Man His Chimera’   Cass McCombs   Humor Risk
  42. ‘Trembling Hands’   Explosions in the Sky   Take Care, Take Care, Take Care
  43. ‘Try to Sleep’   Low   C’mon
  44. ‘Under My Nose’   Fucked Up   David Comes to Life
  45. ‘Video Games’   Lana Del Rey   Video Games
  46. ‘Wait’  Alberta Cross   The Rolling Thunder EP 
  47. ‘Wash’   Bon Iver   Bon Iver
  48. ‘Weekend’   Class Actress   Rapprocher  
  49. ‘Weekend’   Smith Westerns   Dye It Blonde
  50. ‘Your Eyes’   Bombay Bicycle Club   A Different Kind of Fix

If you’d like to check out these tracks for temporary review before you go out and buy the single or the record, you may click here to have a listen.

Keep a lookout for our upcoming Best Albums of 2011 post!

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Past Forward: a penitential mix

SO, my supposed return to the world of blogging was obviously rather presumptuous, seeing that I’ve fulfilled all of ONE of my anticipated posts on LITC.  I have no explanation, no cause, no defense.  Somehow, I’ve just not gotten to it.  I hope you will believe that I’ve BEGUN to write, but alas, completion of any particular post has eluded me.

In lieu of a meaty slab of verbiage, I offer instead…a mix.  A mix the like of which I have never before made, namely, a concentration of electronica/dance-ish type songs.  Recently, I have perceived a deluge of retro-80’s synth/drum machine/gloom-pop tunes in the musical ether.  For instance, I thought I had stumbled upon an unreleased duet between Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush when I heard the song, “Somebody that I Used to Know” by Gotye (pronounced “gore-tea-eh” apparently) and Kimbra.  The synth line and flat drums of Class Actress’ “Weekend” transported me back to middle school, when I used to tape songs off of the radio (before my best mate Wade opened my mind to punk, proto-indie, and goth on vinyl).  There’s also some heavy 80’s influence evident in the new “chillwave” genre which seems to be gaining momentum amongst the hiptelligensia…thanks to my Portland DJ friend, David A. for the heads up on this scene.

With the help of my Shazam app, the RCRD LBL daily download, and my retinue of music blogs, I put together a playlist of some 19 songs roughly fitting in this emerging genre, in a mix entitled, “Past Forward (or, Addicted to a Certain Kind of Sadness)” which you may download here.

I have dedicated the mix to my co-blogger and close-as-a-brother friend, Elijah Wade Smith, to whom I owe a letter of epic proportions, with my deepest apologies for epistolary delinquency.  I hope you all enjoy and know that I am working on getting my blog-self into gear.  As a new internet meme declares…

Tracklist:

  1. Video Games/Lana Del Rey
  2. Days/The Drums
  3. Lofticries/Purity Ring
  4. When We’re Dancing/Twin Shadow
  5. No Reasons/VEGA
  6. Weekend/Class Actress
  7. Don’t Move/Phantogram
  8. The Suburbs/Mr. Little Jeans
  9. The Body/The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
  10. Throw Away This/Telepathe
  11. Polish Girl/Neon Indian
  12. Animal/Neon Trees
  13. Wait/Alberta Cross
  14. Old Friend/Caveman
  15. Somebody That I Used to Know (feat. Kimbra)/Gotye
  16. Destructive Paths to Live Happily/Kindest Lines
  17. Car Crash/Telekinesis
  18. You Have My Eyes Now/CLUEs
  19. Exit The Mine/Baths