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Best Album: Bruce Peninsula’s A Mountain is a Mouth

Albums released early in the year often fade out of memory and miss out on well-deserved slots on end-of-year lists. Bruce Peninsula’s A Mountain is a Mouth, however, was just too remarkable to forget about. Here is what we said about it back in March:

Bruce Peninsula is one of my new favorite artists.  I heard their song, “Steamroller” on WERS at like 1:00 in the morning last week and immediately went to their website to buy their debut album, A Mountain Is A Mouth.

Bruce Peninsula is folk that isn’t afraid to get loud and noisy.  Singer Neil Haverty’s voice isn’t necessarily pretty, but it’s unmistakably earnest and entirely unignorable.  The most immediately noticeable element, however, is the gospel choir that instantly gives each song an epic quality.

I know that 2009 is still very young, but I honestly believe A Mountain Is A Mouth is a solid contender for album of the year.

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Honorable Mention: Mew’s No More Stories…

Best Movie: Fantastic Mr. Fox

Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou are two of my very favorite movies, but 2007’s The Darjeeling Limited left me wondering if Anderson had peaked with Tenenbaums. Fantastic Mr. Fox, based on the children’s book by Roald Dahl, is Anderson’s first stop-motion film, and the visual presentation is simply gorgeous. This, combined with Dahl’s endearing writing-style (not just for kids) and Anderson’s hilarious retro quirkiness makes this my favorite movie of 2009 and one of the best moves I’ve seen in a very long time.

Best TV Show: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (season 5)

Anyone still mourning Arrested Development’s untimely demise should find solace in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s dysfunctional family. Dennis, Mac, Charlie, Dee, and Frank (played by Danny DeVito) are all varying degrees of manipulative, incompetent, pathetic, and vain and manage to find new and hilarious ways to engineer their own downfall each episode.

Honorable Mention: 30 Rock (season 4)

Best Video Game: New Super Mario Bros. Wii

I always get a little nervous when someone tries to remake any kind of classic with a modern twist, but Nintendo has pulled it off beautifully with New Super Mario Bros. Wii. The key update was not to graphics or level design—frankly, they could have just as well left those the same as the NES or SNES Mario games. Rather, the most important inclusion is the 2 to 4-player simultaneous cooperative gameplay, which is both super-fun and relentlessly addictive.

Honorable Mention: Smash Bros. 64 (rereleased on Wii Virtual Console)

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Celebrate with us by checking out this traditional New Year’s song that The Points North just recorded at the Grinding Tapes House!

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I would have said “Roundabout” by Yes, but that was too big to fit.

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Here is an excellent unreleased cover of the Magnetic Fields’ “Come Back from San Francisco” by Grinding Tapes artist The Points North:

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And for those of you looking to compare, here is the original by Stephin Merritt & co. from 1999’s 69 Love Songs:

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Unfortunately, I didn’t know about this earlier, or believe me I would have made haste to share the information with all of  you. But me and my girlfriend, in search of a movie, stumbled across this treasure of a concert going experience the other night. If you live in one of the cities yet to be hit on this tour, I implore you to go and see it. Andrew provided a positive environment as always, and his passion for music was showcased in a way I had never seen before.

The Calder Quartet are an extremely talented group of young gentlemen who have embarked on what Andrew repeatedly referred to as an “experiment of sorts.” In this experiment they certainly allowed us, the audience, to take part in a number of ways. There were performances from composers Phillip Glass and John Cage on the bill, not to mention solo improvisations on piano from Andrew (a sight to behold), and inclusive retelling of a few “I Get Wet” classics. His solos were riveting acts of a rock-and-roll mind bent out of control and intent on delivering  a piano-style vengeance on the ‘classical’ style. The Calder quartets performances were impossibly vivid displays of what us rock and roll fans miss when we look over the classical section of our record stores. Andrew’s more rock based music and presence provided the glue of hilarity and joy and unity that fans have come to expect, and onlookers were made to love.

If you have never experienced Andrew W.K. in concert (or even recorded) I suggest you spare no expense to do so at your next possible chance. But if you have seen Andrew, I suggest you do whatever is in your power to attend this unique concert-going experience. The dates are few, but hopefully he will extend or return to performing in this fashion again soon.

Here is Andrew’s album of Piano Improvisation, “Cadillac ‘55″, in it’s entirety:

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Friends! We have two new releases available in our store! Please check them out and enjoy!

The Points North: I Saw Across the Sound vinyl and mp3
The Points North’s debut full-length is their most mature musical statement yet. This provocative and engaging album captures perfectly the stunning precision and thoughtful understatement of their live performances during 2008 and 2009. These quiet New England anthems are perhaps more at home in 1909 than 2009, but you won’t find a better folk album this year.

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Slowest Runner: The Flophouse Session CD
Slowest Runner’s debut album is a live performance from their Band in Boston session on May 23rd, 2009. Named after the Band in Boston podcast itself, The Flophouse Session delivers on the abundant promise of the band’s jaw-dropping live performance. On The Flophouse Session, Slowest Runner combine guitar, bass, drums, piano, violin, cello, tape loops, and heavily-distorted vocals to create beautifully-dramatic movie score music that frequently reaches blistering intensity.

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We are also pleased to offer a new product in our store called the Grinding Tapes Subscription! For just $10 you will get three rare and exclusive mp3s from Grinding Tapes-related artists each month starting in October 2009 and ending in March 2010. That’s six months and 18 total songs! At the end of the six months, you’ll receive a special exclusive CD with all 18 songs in classic Grinding Tapes packaging. Check it out!

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Hi everyone!  Sorry that we had so few updates these past several days.  I was taking a bit of a lazy vacation, but we’re back on track now!  Thanks to Matt for keeping the content rolling in my absence!

Oh, and here’s a remix that I did last week of Kanye West’s “Love Lockdown”.

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Ok, so maybe it’s a few days late, but in honor of Easter, here is a tasty Johnny Cash hymn off of  his “My Mother’s Hymn Book” disc in the Unearthed box set from 2003:

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This song was later popularized by T Bone Burnett and Alison Krausse on the “O, Brother Where Art Thou” Soundtrack.

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