Friday, August 26, 2011

Revel In The Disconnect (Asking Price)

Well it's been a minute folks.. took time away [again] to enjoy my summer. Seeing as the season is good for just about everything BUT music releases I don't feel I truly missed much. (still if you'd like yell at me and tell me how wrong I am in this assessment you can always start your own blog about how I am a lazy good-for-nothing bum)

Anyway, what's finally pulled me from the doldrums is the new album from Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, Mirror Traffic ; which was released this week on Matador.  If you know me at all you are likely aware of my love for all things Malkmus related - and while nothing can ever really come close to Pavement,  I have had to resign myself to the fact that they will probably never re-convene in full force and drop a new album. (Re-union tours are apparently another matter).  Knowing this is a little easier to take considering Stephen has consistently kept up work with the Jicks. Mirror Traffic is the groups fifth full length album since their debut ;  titled simply Stephen Malkmus (2001), and continuing on with Pig Lib (2003), Face the Truth (2005) and Real Emotional Trash (2008).  While I have liked these albums (Pig Lib in particular) I'd be lying if I said they were what I would call great albums.  Still Stephen remains one of my favorite song writers of all time.  He has always walked the line between incoherence and brilliance for me as a listener, going back even to pre-Pavement days w/ Silver Jews.  I still remember singing "Stereo" at the top of my pre-pubescent  lungs in the back of my mom's Ford Explorer.   

Mirror Traffic might not take me back to the glory days of 1997, but it is quite possibly the best Stephen Malkmus centric project in years and for me a definite step up from the group's last release Real Emotional Trash.  Here is one of the album's slow burners "Asking Price".



 


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