Top Ten Songs of the Week 9/27/10

This is sort of our weekly, Kasey Kasem-inspired luddite DIY version of a podcast. Every week, we try to mix it up, offer a little something for everyone: sad songs, funny songs, upbeat songs, quieter stuff, you name it. We’ve designed this as something you can do on your lunch break if you work at a computer (and you have headphones – your boss won’t approve of a lot of this stuff). If you don’t like one of these songs, you can always go on to the next one: every link here will take you to each individual song. As always, the #1 song here will appear on our Best Songs of 2010 list at the end of the year.

1. Norden Bombsight – Raven

Macabre art-rock menace from the Brooklyn band’s brilliant album Pinto – the possibly only song ever to immortalize West Haven, Connecticut.

2. Ana Popovic – You Complete Me

Balkan blues guitar genius. Can’t believe she isn’t better known in the US – amazing stuff

3. Hot Rize – Diamond Joe

The bluegrass classic – the band are back together with a new guitarist after a ten year hiatus

4. The Thrift Store Cowboys – 7s and 9s

Southwestern gothic, Wilco meets the Walkabouts.

5. Open Ocean – Daydreaming

The Cocteau Twins visit Twin Peaks, Washington. They’re at the Convent of St. Cecilia’s, 21 Monitor St. in Greenpoint sometime on 10/23.

6. Jessica Pavone – I Must Have Done Something Karmically to Deserve This

Catchy/abrasive/ethereal violin rock groove – dynamics central.

7. Kyle Eastwood – Andalucia

Clint’s jazz bassist kid – music runs in the family. That’s Jim Rotondi on trumpet.

8. The Salesmen – She’s So Punctual

Funny retro new wave hit by these subversive, theatrical Pac NW rockers.

9. Sister Sparrow & the Dirty Birds – Just My Eyes

Country swing with a Memphis soul tinge. They’re at the big room at the Rockwood on 10/23.

10. Darker My Love – Backseat

Perfect Rutles-esque Beatles ripoff.

Raptly Watching Redhooker at Littlefield

“Usually our music is described as brooding, and dark, and melancholic,” Redhooker frontman/guitarist Stephen Griesgraber told the hushed crowd at Littlefield late in their show Saturday night. “This one’s not,” he grinned, and led the atmospheric avant-chamber group into a long, carefree, bucolic, absolutely gorgeous instrumental that he said was about fish. Fluid ripples flying from his fingers as he picked, he eventually ceded the distantly bluegrass-tinged melody to new keyboardist Derek Muro and his Fender Rhodes, the violins of Andie Springer and Maxim Moston managing to be simultaneously animated and hypnotic. It perfectly capsulized the mood they’d set early on and maintained throughout their set. Their latest album Vespers is aptly titled, a still, ambient series of nocturnes. Onstage this time around they took them to a land of midnight sun, imbuing them with a quiet joy.

What’s even better is that the band has started improvising live, with tremendously captivating results. Everyone was using his or her effects pedals, Griesgraber experimenting with drones, loops and sheets of feedback which he’d use to ease the compositions in to the point where a violin or two, or Muro’s organ, would add a texture or a single complementary note or phrase, pedaling or sustaining it depending on what the rest of the band was doing. Bedside, a trance-inducing rondo, got a stretched-out treatment which emphasized both its baroque roots and cinematic sweep. The sheer volume of the songs was one transformative aspect, the band digging in a little for a wider dynamic spectrum than on the album, Griesgraber reaching for a little extra oomph as the strings would swell, Peter Hess’ bass clarinet weaving in and out of the melody when he wasn’t anchoring it with a low drone or a contrapuntal bassline of sorts. At one point, the whole group had their pedals going, Hess tapping on the body of his instrument, adding yet another level of reverberating, pointillistic rhythm while Springer tossed off some sparks with some judicious pizzicato phrasing. Much of what they play could be characterized as horizontal or minimalist, but horizontality doesn’t often offer the opportunity for this kind of interplay or just plain fun. The crowd was rapt all the way through. It would have been interesting to stick around for headliner Kelli Rudick, who was schedule to hit at around eleven, but the threat of a midnight domino effect on the trains (you never know with the MTA – trains on the way there, ostensibly completely FUBAR, were fine) was reason to err on the side of caution instead of further adventure. And Redhooker would have been a hard act to follow in any case.