Aram Shelton

Top 5 Chicago Albums
Aram Shelton’s Arrive, “There Was…” (Clean Feed)
CAVE, “Neverendless” (Drag City)
Disappears, “LUX” (Kranky)
Bongripper, “Sex Tape” b/w “Snuff Film” (Great Barrier Records)
The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, “Kryptonite” (My Publishing Group)
—Dave Cantor

Top 5 Recordings
Bill Orcutt, “How the Thing Sings” (Editions Mego)
Puffy Areolas, “Gentleman’s Grip” (HoZac)
Ras G “Down 2 Earth” (Ramp Recordings)
Shlohmo, “Bad Vibes” (Friends of Friends)
Void, “Sessions 1981-83” (Dischord)
—Dave Cantor

Top 5 Holiday Albums
Carole King, “A Christmas Carole”
“A Christmas Story: The Musical” Original Cast Album
Paul Hillier, Theatre of Voices, Ars Nova Copenhagen, “A Christmas Story”
Marcus Roberts Trio, “Celebrating Christmas”
Chicago XXXIII, “O Christmas Tree”
—Dennis Polkow Read the rest of this entry »

Illustration: Pamela Wishbow

In a world where you can fit 40,000 songs in the palm of your hand, the CD is becoming a distant memory; the vinyl record, practically a relic. And the record store? Obsolete.

Or so you might think. Record Store Day, a celebration of the glory of an in-person, physical, nitty-gritty music-buying experience, is in its fourth year and bigger than ever. Bands are releasing their music on vinyl again, because people still want to buy it. Kids born in an iPod age are dusting off their parents’ record player or buying a turntable.

“I’ve watched vinyl go away and in the past five years, I’ve watched it come back,” says Joe Bruce, owner of Groovin’ High, Inc. “The comeback has been huge with the under-30 crowd.”

With vinyl, you can play older music originally recorded in an analog format the way it was intended to be heard, on an analog player, catching all of the little nuances of the recording. Digitizing music breaks it down into small, discrete units of information that audiophiles argue aren’t as full-bodied as analog recordings, even if it’s hard to tell the difference with a mid-range speaker setup.

Regardless of what it really sounds like, people crave the tactile experience of buying and playing records. Read the rest of this entry »

Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Millennium Park/Photo: Todd Rosenberg

Top 5 Classical Concerts
Riccardo Muti Inaugural Concert at Millennium Park, Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Berlioz Episode in the Life of an Artist, Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Beethoven Festival, Bernard Haitink and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Boulez@85, MusicNOW
Bach Christmas Oratorio, Jane Glover and Music of the Baroque Orchestra and Chorus
—Dennis Polkow

Top 5 Albums
Esperanza Spalding, “Chamber Music Society” (Telarc)
Stanley Clarke, “The Stanley Clarke Band” (Heads Up)
Os Paralamas do Sucesso, “Brasil Afora” (EMI Latin)
Alex Cuba, “Alex Cuba”
Sheryl Crow, “100 Miles from Memphis”
—Ernest Barteldes

Top 5 Albums
The National, “High Violet” (4AD)
Sun Kil Moon, “Admiral Fell Promises” (Caldo Verde)
Frightened Rabbit, “The Winter of Mixed Drinks” (Fat Cat)
Twin Shadow, “Forget” (Red General Catalog)
Vampire Weekend, “Contra” (XL)
—Tom Lynch

Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Francis Chung

Best California Dreaming
Best Coast’s album art says it all—palm trees, waves and a cat named “Snacks” perfectly portray the lazy and blithe songs on their first album, “Crazy For You.” Songwriter and singer Bethany Cosentino and multi-instrumentalist Bobb Bruno have perfected a summer anthem of sunshine, romance and weed while slowly transforming into caricatures of a lo-fi, surfer-rock phenomena. And like any front man, err, front chick, Cosentino has bangs that kill. Don’t fall too hard for the dreamy Pitchfork-darling—to boost her references to anything aquatic she’s dating  Nathan Williams of WAVVES. If you hate anything within the realms of California, avoid the show. Actually, avoid the entire Sunday lineup. (Sylvia Kim)

Tips for Aging Festival Attendees
This goes out to those with a steady income, a more or less contented view on life, and “cutting-edge” taste in music:

1 Bring the kids. Seize every opportunity to indoctrinate them with your indie-rock agenda.
2 Bring the spouse. Bond over microbrews and green initiatives in between sets.
3 It’s your job to lecture twentysomethings on the glory days of alternative rock. While they were in diapers you were crowd-surfing at Pavement gigs. Read the rest of this entry »

Top 5 Records
Loney Dear, “Dear John” (Polyvinyl)
A.C. Newman, “Get Guilty” (Matador)
Future of the Left, “Travels With Myself and Another” (4AD)
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, “The Pains of Being Pure at Heart” (Slumberland Records)
The Antlers, “Hospice” (Frenchkiss)
—Tom Lynch

Top 5 Albums
Animal Collective, “Merriweather Post Pavilion” (Domino)
Luciano, “Tribute to the Sun” (Cadenza)
Jesse Rose, “What Do You Do If You Don’t” (Dubsided)
The Juan Maclean, “The Future Will Come” (DFA)
The xx, ” xx” (Young Turks)
—Duke Shin Read the rest of this entry »