psychedelic folk

Record #439: Grizzly Bear – Painted Ruins (2017)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

painted ruins

Any time I find myself in a conversation about how modern music is garbage, I always bring up Grizzly Bear. Veckatimest is a flawless record that deserves to be listed next to albums like Pet Sounds and Odyssey and Oracle. It was a breakthrough that netted them an invitation to tour with Radiohead.
Grizzly Bear might have been doomed to live the rest of their career in the shadow of one perfect record, but the records that have followed have been similarly glorious.
Shields saw the group exploring sparser arrangements and a more measured composition. But, the record had a hard time maintaining the bliss of the first few tracks. The last half slowed the tempo down to dangerous levels, and the record ended up being a little forgettable.

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Record #169: Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues (2011)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

The question to any perfect debut is “Where can we go from here?”

Their self-titled full-length was as close to flawless as a record could get—it’s golden harmonies and Seattle-bluegrass instrumentation combined to form a record that was truly timeless, sounding traditional and contemporary at once.

And so when they returned to the studio to record what would undoubtedly be one of the most anticipated records of the year, they decided (wisely) to expand rather than progress. Continue reading →

Record #168: Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes (2008)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

I remember the first time I ever heard White Winter Hymnal. Someone had posted the creeping, stop motion video online, and I was spellbound. I gobbled up everything of Fleet Foxes I could–the record, radio performances, their Judee Still cover on Black Cab Sessions, everything. When I returned to college that fall, I spread White Winter Hymnal like gospel (along with Bon Iver, who broke through that same summer). Their mix of Beach Boy harmonies and mountain folk filtered through Seattle sensibilities was at once fresh and familiar. Just how familiar was revealed to me when my roommate responded to the album with “that was Fleet Foxes? I thought you were listening to James Taylor.”

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Record #132: Department of Eagles – In Ear Park (2008)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

It’s tempting to file this under “see also: Grizzly Bear.” After all, Daniel Rossen, Department of Eagles’ primary songwriter and most-frequent vocalist vocalist is one of the two most prominent voices in Grizzly Bear, and Bear’s other vocalist, keyboardist/founder Ed Droste, is the only member of that group not to appear on this record. And for the most part, none of these songs would sound too out of place on a collection of Vickatimest B-sides (except Teenagers, probably). And it doesn’t help the case against this NOT being a Daniel Rossen solo project that Fred Nicklaus (the other member of Dept. of Eagles) receives only one unique credit on their Wikipedia page: aux percussion.

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Record #113: Danielson – Tri-Danielson, Vol. 1: Alpha (1998)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

If you don’t know who Danielson (slash Danielson Famile slash Danielson Family slash Brother Danielson slash Daniel Smith) is, you might not be interested at all in his music, which sounds something like a gypsy family band fronted by a helium voiced Gospel camp preacher. Once, while listening to the Omega disc of this double project on my iPod, I took an ear out and put it in a friend’s ear without any warning about what he might here. His face turned from curiosity to displeasure as he said, “why would you do that to me?”

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Record #44: The Beach Boys – Surf’s Up (1971)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

After the demise of the Smile sessions and the varying levels of commercial and critical success of the albums that followed, Brian Wilson shrank behind the rest of the band members, letting De Facto Front Man Mike Love lead the group in a less ambitious, more commercially viable direction. Then in the wake of their most poorly received album ever, they hired a new manager who encouraged Brian to take back his role as band leader. He was reluctant, but his brother, Carl, who shared his artistic leanings, took the role. The result was Surf’s Up, considered by many to be a return to greatness.

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