The Year: 1969
The Album: Alexander 'Skip' Spence, Oar
Who It Influenced: Beck, Wilco, Tom Waits, Giant Sand, Cat Power, Sandro Perri

This year, Scientologist song-and-dance-man Beck started up an online 'Record Club,' in which he and his pals —brother-in-law Giovanni Ribisi, producer Nigel Godrich, Devendra Banhart, Little Joy, MGMT— would get together to cover an entire album, all in a single day.

The first two LPs done in their entirety, The Velvet Underground's The Velvet Underground and Nico and Leonard Cohen's Songs of Leonard Cohen, are perennial classics, records already known and loved by, like, everyone. Beck threw a curve, this week, with the unveiling of the third Club work: hooking up with Wilco, Feist, and Jamie Lidell to tackle Alexander 'Skip' Spence's strange, psychedelic, lonesome Oar, an album whose audience could only be described as 'cult.'

Beck had publicly professed his Spence affection before, in 1999, when he appeared on a tribute record, More Oar, which also recreated this cult LP in its entirety. The others on the tribute? Robyn Hitchcock, Tom Waits, Mudhoney, Flying Saucer Attack, and, um, Robert Plant.

This roll-call of famous fans proved, once more, that it's not how many people hear your record, but who hears it. Which is lucky, given that, on its release, Oar was supposedly the lowest-selling release in the history of Columbia Records.

These days, Spence just sounds ahead-of-his-time; his insular, self-styled, half-finished tunes having all the hallmarks of the songwriters who'd spring up in the lo-fi movement. And, with near-mythical tales of dropped acid, schizophrenic panic, and axe attacks in its back-story, you can only imagine the cult of Oar will continue to grow.

• Full review: Alexander 'Skip' Spence, Oar

Xiu Xiu, the long-running art-noise confessional vehicle of Oakland's Jamie Stewart, will release their ninth album on February 23, via Kill Rock Stars. Having already named albums Knife Play, Fag Patrol, and Women as Lovers, Stewart keeps things consistent with the happily, self-parodically shocking title of his latest: Dear God, I Hate Myself.

Stewart has spent most of 2009 doing things other than Xiu Xiu; from working on the pretty-great Former Ghosts record (alongside the amazing Nika Roza Danilova of Zola Jesus), to touring solo, to guesting on the forthcoming Los Campesinos! LP.

Now, with the release of the first Xiu Xiu album since his cousin Caralee McElroy quit the band, we may all discover, once and for all, just how much Jamie Stewart hates himself.

Dear God, I Hate Myself Track List:
1. "Gray Death"
2. "Chocolate Makes You Happy"
3. "Apple for a Brain"
4. "House Sparrow"
5. "Hyunhye's Theme"
6. "Dear God, I Hate Myself"
7. "Secret Motel"
8. "Falkland Rd."
9. "The Fabrizio Palumbo Retaliation"
10. "Cumberland Gap"
11. "This Too Shall Pass Away (For Freddy)"
12. "Impossible Feeling"

In June, lo-fi innovator and New Zealand music legend Chris Knox suffered a debilitating stroke. Since then, Knox has been hard at work on the slippery slope of recovery. In aid of such, a motley crew of friends, peers, and fans have assembled two compact-discs' worth of Knox covers on a fundraising tribute record entitled, funnily enough, Stroke.

Initially, super-reclusive Neutral Milk Hotel main man Jeff Mangum was lined up as a contributor, but, alas, Mangum's contribution never arrived, and he remains a figure of pure mystery. Still, indie fans will be able to comfort themselves with a line-up that includes: the Mountain Goats, Yo La Tengo, Lou Barlow, Bill Callahan, Will Oldham, Lambchop, Stephin Merritt, AC Newman, Jay Reatard, and the entire Kiwi rock royalty.

Stroke was just released this week in Knox's homeland —and you can hear one-minute teasers of its every song on the Chris Knox website— but its official world-at-large release will come via the mighty Merge Records in February.

Stroke: Songs for Chris Knox Track List:
(Yellow Disc):
1. Jay Reatard, "Pull Down the Shades"
2. The Checks, "Rebel"
3. The Bleeding Allstars, "Ain't It Nice"
4. Peter Gutteridge, "Don't Catch Fire"
5. The Chills, "Luck or Loveliness"
6. David Kilgour, "Nothing's Going to Happen"
7. The Crying Wolfs, "All My Hollowness to You"
8. Stephin Merritt, "Beauty"
9. Portastatic, "Nostalgia's No Excuse"
10. The Mint Chicks, "Crush"
11. Jay & Sam Clarkson, "I've Left Memories Behind"
12. Skygreen Leopards, "Burning Blue"
13. Shayne Carter, "The Slide"
14. Pumice, "Grand Mal"
15. Hamish Kilgour, "Knoxed Out"

Black Disc:
1. Boh Runga, "Not Given Lightly"
2. Red&Zeke ft. Bill Doss and Neil Cleary, "Bodies"
3. Bill Callahan, "Lapse"
4. Genghis Smith, "Growth Spurt"
5. Yo La Tengo, "Coloured"
6. A.C. Newman, "Dunno Much About Life But I Know How to Breathe"
7. Alec Bathgate, "Glide"
8. Don McGlashan, "Inside Story"
9. Sean Donnelly, "The Outer Skin"
10. Lambchop, "What Goes Up"
11. The Mountain Goats, "Brave"
12. The Tokey Tones (and Friends), "Round These Walls"
13. The Bats, "Just Do It"
14. Will Oldham, "My Only Friend"
15. The Finn Family, "It's Love"
16. Jordan Luck, "Becoming Something Other"
17. The Verlaines, "Driftwood"
18. Lou Barlow, "Song of the Tall Poppy"
19. The Nothing, "Napping in Lapland"
20. Tall Dwarfs, "Sunday Song"

Like peaches and cream, or a coach and a team, St. Vincent and Wildbirds & Peacedrums are hoping to be a perfect match when they pair up for one heavy February of shows together.

The New Yorker vixen and the Swedish husband/wife duo have both been standout alternative music figures this year: St. Vincent earning copious admirers for her second LP, Actor, whilst Wildbirds & Peacedrums' sophomore set, The Snake, has been undoubtably one of the best albums of the year.

Now, the two will join forces on a North American tour early in 2010; where they'll get to swap stories of jazz childhoods and, assumedly, slay audiences in tandem night after night. To get a taste of how good the openers can be, for one, witness W&P live on Swedish TV. Killer!

SV and W&P, Together Forever:
February 3: Victoria, BC - Element
February 4: Vancouver, BC - Venue
February 5: Seattle, WA - Neumo's
February 6: Portland, OR - Doug Fir Lounge
February 8: San Francisco, CA - Slim's
February 9: Los Angeles, CA - El Rey
February 10: Solano Beach, CA - Belly Up Tavern
February 11: Phoenix, AZ - Rhythm Room
February 13: Denver, CO - Bluebird Theater
February 15: Lawrence, KS - Bottleneck
February 16: Iowa City, IA - The Industry
February 17: Milwaukee, WI - Turner Hall
February 18: Chicago, IL - Metro
February 19: Pontiac, MI - Pike Room
February 20: Columbus, OH - Outland On Liberty
February 21: Pittsburgh, PA - Diesel Club
February 23: Charlottesville, VA - Jefferson Theatre
February 24: Washington, DC - 9:30 Club
February 25: Philadelphia, PA - First Unitarian Church

Other St. Vincent Shindigs:
17 November: Basel, Switzerland - Volkshaus
19 November: Cologne, Germany - Kulturkirche
20 November: Den Haag, The Netherlands - Crossing Border Festival
21 November: Paris, France - La Cigale
22 November: Katowice, Poland - Club Hipnoza
24 November: Copenhagen, Denmark - Vega
25 November: Oslo, Norway - Rockefeller Music Hall
26 November: Stockholm, Sweden - Debaser
29 January: New York, NY - Time Warner Center

Wildbirds & Peacedrums' Own Shows:
November 20: Gdansk, Poland - All About Freedom Festival
November 21: Tampere, Finland - Valoa Festival
December 1: Köln, Germany - Studio 672
December 2: Berlin, Germany - Bang Bang Club
December 3: Cesena, Italy - Teatro Comandini
December 4: Luzern, Switzerland - Südpol
December 5: Paris, France - Point Ephémère
December 6: Brussels, Belgium - Rotonde Botanique
December 16: Istanbul, Turkey - Babylon

Name: Jordaan Mason and the Horse Museum
From: Toronto, Ontario
Story: His soft, silly music is meaningful, magical
Sound: Acoustic music as an open wound. With horns!

When I introduced you to the Rural Alberta Advantage back in June, prior to the Saddle Creek release of their stirring first LP, Hometowns (truly one of 2009's best debut albums), it seemed safe to assume they would be the best Neutral-Milk-Hotel-influenced, aching acoustic act to come out of Canada in 2009.

Yet, a young songwriter from Toronto named Jordaan Mason has blown that idea out of the water. With his nasally wail and lyrical grotesquerie making it a dead giveaway, it's clear that Mason is a Mangum acolyte. But, where others may gravitate to the pop side of NMH, Mason sounds like a guy whose entire musical existence has been inspired by repeat exposure to "Oh, Comely."

Three-and-a-half years in the making, Mason's Divorce Lawyers I Shaved My Head LP is a work of uneasy listening. Sounding like an hour-long bloodletting, its 14 songs are an open emotional wound from which the songsmith spills the confessions of his soiled soul. Backed by a baroque nine-piece band he calls The Horse Museum, Mason strums his guitar hard and throttles out words in a rough-hewn caterwaul, whilst marching-band horns and musical saw and piano and woodwinds and cardboard box drums dance deliriously.

From the record's opening line —the tres-Mangum "my mouth is filled with his ovaries/I hold them here between my teeth"— it's clear that Mason is no garden variety lyricist. Across Divorce Lawyers I Shaved My Head he sings of bodily functions and bodily failures, of decay and disease, of genitals and sexual degeneracy, of horses and Henry Darger, of snow and Simon and Garfunkel, of an apocalypse set upon the world in 1990.

Or, as Mason himself puts it: "semi-illiterate songs about sex and sickness and the decline of (stupid f**king) western civilization." Indeed.

• Visit: Jordaan Mason on Myspace

Photo © Robin Sharp

The Year: 2000
The Album: Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
Who It Influenced: Explosions in the Sky, Mono, 65daysofstatic, From Monument to Masses, Do Make Say Think, The Arcade Fire

Now that it's been over seven years since Godspeed You! Black Emperor released a record, it's easy to forget how fast and furious things came back in their early days. The shadowy Canadian co-op's apocalyptic orchestral music is so grandiose, in both form and sentiment, that it feels like every single piece --each tiniest worried symphony-- should have taken years to pen.

Yet, made up of members who cut their teeth in the mid-'80s hardcore era, when bands were defined by the seriousness and diligence of their work ethic, Godspeed! were punk-rockers playing post-rock with a righteous fury. With the end of the world looming (well, at least in their music), they needed to make discographical hay whilst the sun shined; to turn out records whilst the world still turned. The band issued four of them in five years, and every work never felt hurried.

Coming fresh off the back of 1999's brutal and blustering 28-minute suite Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada, Godspeed! spread their bloody wings and stretched out long and languorous on 2000's epic Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven.

At 87 minutes in length, the second GYBE! LP fit on neither one compact disc nor two slabs of wax. Its running-time has less in common with albums, and more with motion-pictures. Which is fitting, given that post-rock is so often defined as a movement of musicians making soundtracks to imaginary movies. With this, their magnum opus, Godspeed! proved themselves to be post-rock's ultimate auteurs; utterly in command of every element of their pseudo-cinematic craft.

• Full review: Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven

Slumberland Records has had a mercurial two decades of existence. Born in Washington, DC, in 1989, the label helped create the twee music scene in America through releasing records by acts like Velocity Girl, Black Tambourine, and The Softies.

After laying dormant through much of the early '00s, Slumberland has recently been completely revitalized, taken to new crossover heights by acts like Crystal Stilts (pictured), Cause Co-Motion!, and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart.

In celebration of 20 years of thoroughly-indie records, Slumberland is, come this weekend, staging a series of anniversary shows featuring acts from the SLR catalog both new and old. Friday night they'll set up at DC's venerable Black Cat, before the bill trips to the Bell House in Brooklyn for the following night's jamboree.

Slumberland 20th Anniversary Shows:
November 13: Washington, DC - The Black Cat: Crystal Stilts, Brown Recluse, Pants Yell!, Frankie Rose and The Outs, The Ropers, Nord Express, Lorelei
November 14: Brooklyn, NY - The Bell House: Crystal Stilts, Brown Recluse, Pants Yell!, Frankie Rose and The Outs, The Ropers, Nord Express, Lorelei, and "Surprise Special Guest"

Photo © Lauren Bilanko

Insanely sad news broke on Sunday about the death of 34-year-old Gerhardt Fuchs of Brooklyn, New York. Known as Jerry Fuchs to a generation of New York music fans, he was currently the drummer in instrumentalists Maserati and disco-ish outfit The Juan MacLean. He had also played in punk-funkers !!! and tight-rockers Turing Machine, and appeared on records by punks Panthers and fearsome Ukrainian-born singer-songwriter Alina Simone.

Fuchs was attending a Uniform Project party at a Williamsburg warehouse that was raising funds for the Akanksha Foundation, a non-profit that supports under-privileged Indian youth. Fuchs and a friend were in an old freight elevator that got stuck between floors. Prying open the doors, they attempted to jump the four feet across to the floor. When Fuchs jumped, a piece of his clothing got caught. He fell five stories down the elevator shaft, and was pronounced dead shortly thereafter.

There's a really amazing eulogy to Fuchs up at Chunklet that does a great job of explaining why so many in the music world are currently feeling broken-hearted. His former bands, too, have chimed in with statements via their respective websites.

John MacLean offered: "Jerry was one of my best and most loyal friends. He was hands-down the best drummer I have ever played with or seen for that matter. Jerry was with me from the start of The Juan MacLean, and we had countless adventures together all over the world. He was utterly sincere and fiercely loyal."

Maserati's tribute read: "We are humbled to have been able to create music with you for all these years, Jerry. You will be missed more than words can express. We love you, bro."

And, wrote !!!: "We could never put into words how special a person Jerry was and how much we loved him. We ask that you tell all the people you care about and are thankful for that you love them. We wish we still had Jerry."

Uncategorizable New Yorker hipsters Yeasayer have announced details of the forthcoming second album. Entitled Odd Blood, it will be released February 9 on the band's new home at Secretly Canadian.

The follow-up to All Hour Cymbals, their stirring debut that proved one of the best records of 2007, Odd Blood was recorded by the band in the middle of a snowy winter in upstate New York.

The LP will be preceded by a single, "Ambling Alp," a chaotic tumble of keyboard zaps and clattering rhythms that features a particularly soulful vocal from Chris Keating. It sounds like a worthy successor to "Tightrope," the killer cut they contributed to the monstrous Dark Was the Night compile early in '09. Listen below!

• Listen: Yeasayer, "Ambling Alp"

Odd Blood Track List:
1. "The Children"
2. "Ambling Alp"
3. "Madder Red"
4. "I Remember"
5. "ONE"
6. "Love Me Girl"
7. "Rome"
8. "Strange Reunions"
9. "Mondegreen"
10. "Grizelda"

Photo © Guy Aroch

Name: The Love Language
From: Raleigh, North Carolina
Story: Merge Records' latest Love
Sound: Lo-fi wall-of-sound pop

When Merge Records announces a new signing, people take notice. Yet, when the Chapel Hill-based label announced the recent inking of Raleigh-based band the Love Language, the world seemed to shrug. Who were these unknown locals? Most didn't know. But a devoted few already did.

Early this year, the Love Language released a really great record on tiny Bladen County Records. To this point, it's garnered only a cult following, but has absolutely begged for a wider audience. The self-titled set finds songwriter Stu McLamb making a thick, fuzzy, lo-fi platter pealing with chiming pop-songs.

Slugging out jukebox-friendly ballads built on saloon-bar piano chords and heavily-reverberated vocals, McLamb has a wondrous way with melody. On "Manteo" he commands over a tender waltz-time tune that sounds for all the world like it should be coming from oldies radio, if only because of its sweet Phil Spector-styled showers of sleigh-bells.

Making its grandeur all the more impressive is that McLamb recorded these tunes whilst living in his parents' house, in the wake of a relationship gone sour. The seven-piece Love Language live-band was assembled only after the album was finished, but all hands will be on deck for the second LL LP, due on Merge in 2010.

• Listen: The Love Language, "Lalita"

Photo © Nathan Pazsint