Gift Ten – Teresa

It appears I started a bad precedent by bringing my gift late last time. I therefore I have my gift today, in the hopes you all will follow in suit. My gift this go-round is the album “Skylarking” by XTC.

I realized something about the gifts that I’ve brought to the table. They are all very dated. All of my music comes from a time when I was most impressionable. My collection has an obvious cutoff date from 2001, when I rededicated my life to the Lord. I didn’t stop purchasing music because of some strange conviction that secular music is evil. My priorities changed and so did my influences. There was some music that I burned in effigy (translation: threw away in a garbage can) as some misguided sense of sacrifice to the Lord, but all in all, my music stayed frozen in time. The Collective has forced me to pick the music I loved from its long untouched shelf, blow off the dust and download onto my computer. I am indebted to The Collective for this.

This album was huge for me in my late teens and early twenties. And I struggled with it. The most popular track on the cd is a song called “Dear God”. My atheist friends loved it because they felt it was an anthem for them. But, I don’t find that to be the case. “Dear God” is a song for the angry Catholic who can’t just seem to wrap their head around what kind of God would allow such evil in the world. For someone who would rather try not to believe in this type of God rather than grapple with the hard questions about God we all face. I loved (and still do love) this album for its gut-wrenching honesty, from lost-love, bitter heartache and this song that shows anger at a God they don’t understand. The album is fluid and flows together as a movement. This is one of my favorite cds on the planet. Please enjoy!

That’s Really Super, Super Girl

1000 Umbrellas

Dear God

Gift Nine – Dustin

Forgotten Mix

In my search for new music, I often collect free mp3s from random bands I’m interested in and burn them en masse onto CDs with enigmatic names. On discovering them later, they may yield hidden aural gems, as is the case with this set of beauties from a disc cryptically inscribed as Car Side/Fire Side.

The first two are from a band called The Delgados. The Delgados were an indie rock band who formed in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, in 1994, and disbanded in 2005. The band was formed after friends Alun Woodward (vocals/guitar), Stewart Henderson (bass) and Paul Savage (drums) were forcibly ejected from the band Bubblegum. Joined by Savage’s then-girlfriend Emma Pollock (vocals/guitar), the band named themselves after Tour de France winning cyclist Pedro Delgado

The next two are from The Helio Sequence. With Brandon Summers on guitar and vocals and Benjamin Weikel, who has also played for Modest Mouse, on keyboards and drums. The band produces an eccentric brand of electronica-tinged indie rock.

Then a little ditty from Scandinavian freaks Nanook of the North. Named after a silent documentary film about the lives of Eskimos, this band naturally became college radio darlings.

And last, perhaps least, is a song from National Skyline. National Skyline is a conceptual band formed in late 1996 by Jeff Dimpsey of Hum. Dimpsey originally formed the band in order to perform a 45-minute long song that he had written. They were initially an indie rock supergroup of sorts, with a rotating cast of prominent Champaign/Chicago area musicians. They did record the 45-minute song/album with Rick Valentin (of The Poster Children) in spring 1997, but it has never been released. The band’s name is apparently a reference to Bob Dylan’s album Nashville Skyline, though their music betrays no stylistic debt to Dylan, nor to country and western music.

Enjoy this fun, and educational romp through uncharted musical waters! Full steam ahead!

The Delgados: Coming In From The Cold

The Helio Sequence: Give, Give, Give

Nanook of the North: Karen Boye’s Grave

National Skyline: Pack Up

Gift Eight – Mark

My gift to The Collective this week is Ours.
Ours are the brainchild of Jimmy Gnecco. Formed in 1997, the relentless genius of Gnecco took four years to write and record their first album “Distorted Lullabies” in 2001. With reverb soaked guitars and haunting melodies and lyrics, “Distorted Lullabies” is a masterpiece canvas over which Jimmy Gnecco paints the world through his eyes.

The heart of the album is the vocal. Skill and inflection matched by no one. Drawing from such influences as Jeff Buckley and U2, Gnecco skillfully conjures mood and environment every time the melodies breach his lips.

The songs I have chosen are from “Distorted Lullabies”. The full album is listen-able in my iTunes and under the playlist “The Gift”.  I’ve also included a video with a special live performance of my favorite Ours song “Medication”.

Fallen Souls

Sometimes

Meet Me In The Tower

Gift Seven – Kate

The gift I bring to The Collective today is a little gem of a band called Azure Ray. Azure Ray is one of many gems coming from the indie label Saddle Creek, which is located in Omaha, Nebraska and boasts of indie favs such as Bright Eyes and The Faint.

Azure Ray, unfortunately, is no longer together, having broken up in 2004 to being their own projects. Dustin and I got to see them before they disbanded at a very intimate show at the Larimer Lounge, where they were just as fantastic live.

I hope you enjoy the songs I chose. Each one is very special to me in different ways, but now more than ever their music really speaks to where I am at just generally in life. It is a bit melancholy, very nostalgic and is best listened to on a rainy day.

November

 

Sleep

 

Rise

 

Fall Into Me