Ohmpark Mixtape #5: Holiday Chillout Mix

For this mix, I worked hard to pick out the very best holiday songs I could find from the artists we heart and put them together in a dreamy, surreal, maybe creepy sort of overall piece. For instance, Evangelicals have a Christmas song b-side from somewhere, but there’s something more special about “Snowflakes” from The Evening Descends that just sets the mood I’m going for much more appropriately. I hope you enjoy, and happy holidays to all of you!

Au : I’ll Be Home For Christmas
Bodies Of Water w/ No Small Kindness : O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
Snowden : White Christmas
Atlas Sound : Requiem For All The Lonely Teenagers With Passed Out Moms
My Morning Jacket : Silent Night
Death Cab For Cutie : Christmas (Baby Please Come Over)
Evangelicals : Snowflakes
Deerhoof : Little Drummer Boy
Sufjan Stevens : O Holy Night
Low : Blue Christmas

Bonnaroo 2008 Sunday (Day 4 And Wrap-Up): We ‘Roo Victoriously

After only a few hours of sleep in the hot sun in my van, I was exhausted both in body and spirit. But no matter how much heat, how many beers, how little sleep, or how bad my body aches, there is no slowing down at a party this serious. So it was time to finish this thing with a win.

I barely made it in time to see Broken Social Scene‘s first set at the Sonic Stage. They did three songs from You Forgot It In People and their pro-Obama rally song in both pro- and anti-bong forms. You can download the show here.

After that we headed to The Other Tent to see Ladytron. I had very little familiarity with this band prior to seeing them, but I thought they were pretty cool. This is definitely not a style of music I could get into deep, but very much something worth seeing.

Click here to read the entire post…

Live Review: Death Cab for Cutie – Bonnaroo 2008

I think the most disappointing thing I experienced at Bonnaroo (other than Kanye totally disrespecting not only the entire Bonnaroo community but the entire music community) was the major conflict on Sunday. As I mentioned in my review of Narrow Stairs, Broken Social Scene’s main set and Death Cab for Cutie’s only set overlapped by 30 minutes. To make matters worse, the “Other” tent (where BSS was playing their main set) was running about 30 minutes behind.

Panic sets in! On one hand, Broken Social Scene was putting on an incredible show, and was promising to play until they were dragged off stage. On the other hand, I didn’t want to chance missing any of the new Death Cab songs I knew they would break out early in their set.

Click here to read the entire post…

Album Review: Narrow Stairs



Narrow Stairs is quite like last year’s We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank by Modest Mouse. Both of these albums are follow-ups to very commercially successful releases (despite negative reactions from long time fans including myself). Both were highly anticipated. Like We Were Dead…, Narrow Stairs debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200. Both were released in springtime. Perhaps with hopes of their singles becoming summertime anthems? Finally, while neither are essential albums, they are both very good.

Narrow Stair‘s first single, “I Will Possess Your Heart” has been described by the band as a “ten minute Can jam”. It combines the breadth of “Transatlanticism” with the persistence of “Movie Script Ending”. If anything, the band picking an 8+ minute song as their first single is a statement against everything that Plans stood for. However, fans of the band’s softer side are not deprived on Narrow Stairs; tracks like “Your New Twin Sized Bed” seem to pick up almost exactly where “Brother’s On a Hotel Bed” left off.

“Long Division” brings a new calculation to a sound the band really hasn’t featured since Photo Album. For me, this alone makes picking on vinyl when Barsuk releases it in September.

The bottom line – This a good album by what is possibly the best songwriter/producer duo in music today. Overall, the album seems to be on middle ground much like Transatlanticism. Transatlanticism was on the verge of departure to Plans, whereas Narrow Stairs is a band’s sensible return to their roots with new tricks learned and new friends found along the way.

You can catch Death Cab for Cutie (along with most of the Ohmpark crew) on the last day of Bonnaroo. Too bad that you’ll have the sacrifice the end of Broken Social Scene‘s set to catch the beginning of Death Cab for Cutie. Their sets overlap by 30 minutes.

Death Cab For Cutie : Narrow Stairs : Long Division

Buy Narrow Stairs here

Death Cab For Cutie website