PART III of Tyler's YEAR-IN-REVIEW!

4. FLEET FOXES.

At first, I was infatuated, bowled-over, stupefied with glee as though deep-down I'd been waiting for a band just like this -- chamber music, hymns and west-coast blissed-out prettiness and bits and pieces of American folk music and artrock, these are all things I like quite a bit from time to time and it's all there.

So why am I so indifferent to this band now?

And why -- I mean, REALLY? WHY? -- is their self-titled record so many people's favorite album of the year?

I don't have answers for the second question, and only a scattershot guessing mess of reasons for the first one.

Maybe I got bored of the record; I listened to it a lot, and while everything is very neatly arranged, it's not deep, not the kind of record where you notice something new every time. It's not filled with subtleties. It just is what it is. It's also terribly monotonous; when I first discovered them early in the year, I noticed on their Myspace that they'd made it a point to describe themselves as "not a rock band" and while at first I thought that slightly misleading, it turns out to be true in an unfortunate way: they are hardly exciting. (Anyone else notice that the bassist always and I mean always looks bored?) They are content to make pretty music with pretty harmonies, and too rarely do they push the decibel meter. It makes all the very-hushed parts in their songs feel cheaper for the lack of dynamic. (Quiet is the new loud? Again?)

Most of all, I get tired of wading through songs with uninspired segments. Off the top of my head, there's moments in "Ragged Wood", "Quiet Houses" and "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song" that actually annoy me, passages that seem to try too hard to be melodic or weird, instead of just sounding good, instead of really waiting for inspiration -- and these are three of my favorite songs on the record, in spite of their flaws, which only makes it more maddening. The album is absolutely thick with ideas, most of its songs have more ideas than some whole albums, and most of the melodicism is highly sophisticated. Yet it gets too melodic, as if they don't know anything else, as if they think music can only be carefully composed, as if chance doesn't belong.

I think it was Clay who said that the album almost sounds like an assignment. I wish that didn't sound right, but it does.

With all of that said, the fact of the matter is that Robin Pecknold is oftentimes very inspired -- take "Blue Ridge Mountains", "White Winter Hymnal", "Oliver James", all of which are vivid and warm, melodic and ageless. And it's a mightily impressive debut record, despite its flaws (again). I think the main reason I've fallen out of touch with Fleet Foxes partly has to do with what I thought they were when I first heard them. Nowadays, I hear The Beach Boys, sun-baked and immaculate, and brilliant. Before, I heard The Band in all their early glory, in their strange still-unmatched way of singing through and above and past one another. Back then -- think Music From Big Pink -- The Band was both crazy-loose and crazy-tight. While I like The Beach Boys, I hardly ever listen to them -- mostly I admire and respect what they could do, but really enjoying it, or more importantly loving it? Not-so-much. The Band is a different story. (Go on YouTube, check out Fleet Foxes' video for "He Doesn't Know Why". See the resemblance?)

I've got a prediction. Whether or not Fleet Foxes trims the fat and comes up with something truly great next time around, a lot of folks will at some point in the next few years re-scan their best-of-2008 lists and wonder, When was the last time I listened to this album?

BREAK A SWEAT, THAT'S WHAT IT TAKES

The Tallest Man on Earth - "The Gardner"

This song is about things we all share, even things we'd not-so-much admit to sharing. It's the lift and the ache of knowing that being just who we are makes even one someone want to try harder. It's the thrill, the glee of a good old-fashioned killing spree. (Figuratively, of course.) It's unbridled absurdity (love), it's separating the wheat from the chaff, it's casting yourself in a winnowing sliver of light. (Borrowed that one.) It's about everything we can't quite put our fingers on. We can't because we can only be in it: you can't be on music, on air, on her eyes. Even on time. (A river is not a line.) We're in this together, when we sing together it's the same time, the same air, we're seeing with the same swirls of twilight. "There is no need for suspicion / There ain't no frog kissing your hand / I won't be lying when I tell you / That I'm a gardner, I'm a man / In your eyes, babe."

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I don't know how Katy Horan would feel about me using her artwork for this post, but it's just SO PERFECT for the song; I'm almost surprised one didn't inspire the other. Though I'd assert it stands alone just fine, more than fine -- lately I'm just plum enamored with her work. Please give it a look. The piece I jacked is from her new solo exhibition (!) -- please check it out here.

If you haven't yet, check out Soirée à emporter n°2. All the videos are worth your time -- I'm partial to The Dodos and Fleet Foxes, of course, and Essie Jain was a welcome discovery -- but the real gem, the really real gem, is hidden in the really real sounds and smiles and stomps and clomps and shaking excitement of Vandaveer's all-too-brief performance. It's given me chills, welled up tears, made me miss my family. It's that good.

I wrote the man an e-mail, asking when and where a studio version of "A Mighty Leviathan of Old" might, um, surface, and here's what he said: "We actually have recorded that very tune for the next record, but we haven't set a release date yet ... most likely will be in early '09 ... but we may post it on Myspace or some other place before then to whet the collective whistle." WhoooooooOOOOooooo!

ASH TO ASH

J. Tillman - "Steel on Steel"

Your shirt as a pillow, the skin of your back touching the floor of the boat. A sky full of lion-clouds and a sun, our brightest star, in fact. You compare the different shades of red, eyes close and the sunglasses come off, then back on, things are darker again and this whole time, you haven't once noticed your breathing - the waves and the bobbing of the boat being more insistent, they tempt your interest. But you are neither here nor there. These strange things just pass right through you.

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Fleet Foxes - "Oliver James"

Here, Robin Pecknold doesn't need his bandmates - at 1:10, when his fingerpicking brings out a harmony above his vocal melody, and suddenly the hills come alive and the town is bustling with spirits. This, my friends, is a song: taking you through its own full day, like a mother would her child, singing to you until you're awake, singing you back to slumber.

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It was announced today that J. Tillman is the newest member of Fleet Foxes. What happens when one of your favorite songwriters for years teams up with one of your favorite new bands? (And by new, I mean to me.) The most gorgeous harmonies this side of CSN&Y / The Band / The Beach Boys / "Because"? I'm all excitement today.

Also - goddamnit if the tunes on Tillman's Myspace page aren't some of the best I've heard in a long, long time. I hope this Vacilando Territory Blues of his gets finished, released, whatever, and soon. So fucking great. In Robin's words, prepare to have yr mind blown -