the names upon these signs

This month’s mix is an attempt to process through the new music released thus far in 2009. How is it there’s so much this year already?

Sometimes, I went back to previous albums (Vetiver, Yo La Tengo, Sunset Rubdown — by way of Swan Lake), sometimes I remembered music from the recent past (Islands, SSLYBY, Rogue Wave), some are regulars in my iTunes rotation (Spoon, Okkervil River, Rural Alberta Advantage) and some are bands that I didn’t like on first listen but have warmed up to (the Dodos, Rogue Wave).

The new music didn’t make it easy to choose either. Every track off the new PJ Harvey sounds great in its own way as does the Andrew Bird and the Elvis Perkins is really growing on me. And though I haven’t been super fond of their music in the past, I’m really diggin’ on Animal Collective’s new album. I know that tsuru doesn’t think that A.C. Newman will make it to the end of the year, to his top albums, but I’m really fond of it still.

1. Fleet Foxes – Mykonos
2. Vetiver – You may be Blue
3. Neko Case – People Got a Lotta Nerve
4. Andrew Bird – Fitz and the Dizzy Spells
5. the Dodos – Winter
6. Animal Collective – Summertime Clothes
7. Beirut – La Llorona
8. Grizzly Bear – While You Wait for the Others
9. Elvis Perkins in Dearland – Chains Chains Chains
10. Sunset Rubdown – Us Ones in Between
11. PJ Harvey & John Parish – Sixteen, Fifteen, Fourteen
12. Rural Alberta Advantage – Frank AB
13. Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin – Dead Right
14. Great Lake Swimmers – Pulling On A Line
15. A.C. Newman – the Changeling (Get Guilty)
16. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Little Shadow
17. Okkervil River – Lost Coastlines
18. Yo La Tengo – I Feel Like Going Home
19. Islands – Pieces of You
20. Rogue Wave – Lake Michigan
21. Spoon – the Figures of Art