Okay, so that doesn’t work as well without the visual of the thumbs pointing at myself.  Reviews of new(-ish) music by MGMT, 7 Worlds Collide, Dan Black, and The Bird and The Bee are below.

Boston was great.  Hoping for good things.  One more track for music’s sake:

Also: Those tacos from the food post?  This happened.

“Time To Pretend”, a song about the excesses of fame off MGMT’s first album Oracular Spectacular, seems eerily prescient now.  “Kids”, another song off of Oracular, came out of nowhere to become a smash hit for the group.  Listening to Congratulations, the group’s second album, it’s clear they’re still processing what this all means.

A warning: if you’re looking for another “Kids”, Congratulations is going to disappoint you.  There’s nothing as immediately hooky in the album’s 9 tracks, but overall the tracks are more consistent and coherent.  “It’s Working” and “Flash Delirium” mix British Invasion and psychedelic pop influences with what feels like the kitchen sink – “Delirium” in particular feels like it rips through about 4 or 5 genres in its 4 minute running time.  Even the 12 minute “Siberian Breaks” is a delight, blending surf rock with the Beach Boys and other 60s influences to produce something sonically unique.

If there’s a bad track in the bunch (which is debatable), it’s probably “Lady Dada’s Revenge”, an instrumental that doesn’t really go anywhere over its short running time and feels more like padding.  Sometimes the songs feel a little overstuffed as well – it seems like 18 songs could have been produced from all the ideas the band put into these 9.  Aside from these minor detractions, the album explores some impressive ground musically, putting it in contention as one of the best albums of the year.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Between a prominent placement in the (500) Days of Summer soundtrack, multiple parodies on SNL, and the webseries “Live From Daryl’s House”, Daryl Hall and John Oates are having a resurgence of popularity.  The Bird and the Bee continue this trend with their new album “Interpreting the Masters Volume I: A Tribute to Daryl Hall and John Oates”, covering eight of the duo’s classic hits along with one original homage.

It’s a bit disappointing then, that the album seems so one-note.  The album’s production, provided by Greg Kurstin (the “Bee” to Inara George’s “Bird”), seems mostly to blame.  The soaring blend of soft synths, 60’s tropicalia, and jazz that populates their two previous albums is nowhere to be found here.  Each track carries the same half-60s/half-80s blend of semi-distorted bleeps and boops, which gets tired after only a few tracks.  The re-interpretations of “Maneater” and “Private Eyes” make the most of the production choices, but slower songs (“Sara Smile” and “One on One”, in particular) suffer, dragging along and ruining the listening experience.

The album isn’t a complete misstep, though.  The opening track, “Heard It On The Radio”, feels like a lost Hall and Oates B-Side; I actually had to check that they hadn’t recorded the song originally.  It’s a fantastic eye into how closely The Bird and The Bee studied the music of Hall and Oates; it’s also a shame the rest of the album doesn’t have the energy of this single track.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Dan Black’s breakthrough in the UK came when he posted a mashup of the Notorious B.I.G.’s “Hypnotize” and Rihanna’s “Umbrella” title “HYPNTZ” to his MySpace.  Now his debut album has arrived in the States, and it builds on the influences of that track to mixed effect.

The album’s lead track, “Symphonies”, shows the clearest influence of the mix of hip-hop style beats and R&B instrumentation—the drum line is a near replica of Rihanna’s smash hit, and this contrasts nicely with the angelic instrumentation providing the rest of the song’s backbeat.  Other songs that blend these disparate influences nicely are “Ecstasy” (which features some great beatboxing as part of its instrumentation) and “Cocoon”, a slower track.

Other than these songs, though, there’s not much else to recommend on UN.  Black’s whiny vocals ruin the choruses of “U + Me” and “Yours”, and the swagger he displays in tracks like “Pump My Pumps” and “I Love Life” doesn’t fit with the more sensitive side he shows during much of the rest of the album.  It’s easy to see what’s influenced Dan Black’s debut album; this is also its downfall.  There aren’t enough tracks that feel like an original extension of these influences to truly recommend checking out the entire album.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

7 Worlds Collide is slightly different than other supergroups.  21 artists came together in New Zealand over 3 weeks to record an album to benefit Oxfam, and the results are fairly impressive; all 24 tracks of the double-disc set feel cohesive in sound while retaining their own eclectic touches. “Too Blue”, a collaboration between Johnny Marr, Jeff Tweedy, and Neil Finn, and “Reptile”, Lisa Germano’s quirky contribution shine on the first disc.  Scottish singer-songwriter KT Tunstall really shows herself on the album–both “Black Silk Ribbon”, a collaboration with Bic Runga, and “Hazel Black”, her contribution on the second disc, are excellent.

With any double album, though, there’s bound to be some filler.  Tracks like Liam Finn’s “Red Wine Bottle” and Tim Finn’s “Riding the Wave”, while nice, aren’t particularly memorable, and the instrumental “3 Worlds Collide” doesn’t really seem to have a purpose other than to make both discs 12 tracks long.  Still, these are minor faults in an overall solid album.  The eclectic range of singers and styles provides something for everyone.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

To start, a few that don’t require much explanation besides a bullet-point mention:

• Having a single
• Volleyball (finally made it to playoffs)
• Grades (3 A’s and a B+)
• Getting a literature minor (a third one I wasn’t expecting to get until I found out I qualified this fall)

Now for those that require a little more explanation.

All of my other favorite awesome things have to do with my goals I set at the beginning of the year and modified at the midpoint.  Since this section’s going to need a little more reading than the previous section, here’s one of my favorite “blocks” of songs I played on Audiophonic this term.

I am still having a kickass senior project.  Development, while a little difficult at times because we’re unfamiliar with the platform, is enjoyable, and everyone has really had a hand in creating the final product.  I haven’t done much work on the game mechanics side of things, but the UI, learning to use interface builder, and making sure views transition correctly is all my handiwork (although the transitions got a major boost from another part of the team).  I can’t overstate how great our client has been through this whole process–he’s a Rose grad, so he knows that while we get stressed at times, we always produce great work.  There’s a great feeling knowing that even though your client travels a lot, even though you usually get his out of office email reply when you send him a status update, your questions/comments/requests WILL get a response within 48 hours.  Usually much sooner.  He’s responsive, he understands how we feel about feature creep (and hates to do it, but his ideas usually ARE good), and most importantly, he understands how busy we are.  That said, it felt really good to know that we blew him away with what we had done for the version of the iPhone app that was presented at the Senior Projects Expo.  Knowing that he felt really glad with what we had to show him going into the expo really made me feel confident it what my team’s doing.

The expo itself was great–our advisor, knowing our team’s potential to do something creative for the expo, encouraged us to go beyond the typical presentation.  We didn’t get everything we wanted to have at our table, but were still happy with what we came up with.  Our first goal was to have our poster stand out.  Using some of the original graphics from the game for our title/section headers made it fit in with the game, and the backgroun made sure things would stand out.  Our game is primarily targeted at a female audience, and as such, is pink.  We had one of two options with the presentation of the game:

1. Embrace the pink
2. Be Lame

We chose to take option 1.  I knew exactly which poster was ours when I went to pick it up from the printer–the inside of the tube was intensely pink.  I started having some doubts about whether it was too pink–I wanted something that would stick out, but not be retina-searing.  That seemed bad.  I made the executive decision to have another poster printed up with the game’s original gradient (which isn’t as intense, and still looked good), and brought the first version of the poster to our advisor meeting.  Our advisor thought it looked fine and actually liked it.  After talking with him and the group before our teleconference with our client, I sort of went back on my initial overreaction, but it still seemed like a good idea to have the second poster made.  That way we could decide as a group which background better represented the game.  The second poster got botched–no background was visible at all.  We wanted a pink background over a white one, so the carzy poster stayed.  And I’m sort of glad it did.  After four years of looking at the senior project posters, I didn’t expect my legacy in the department to be a giant pink poster, but I’m not sure I’d want it any other way now.  If nothing else, it’s certainly had the faculty talking (Sriram told me point blank at lunch that he didn’t realize how pink the poster was until after the expo).

We also wanted to have some sort of video loop going at the presentation showing the game in action, but couldn’t find good free screen capture software for the mac that didn’t leave a watermark or export solely to Flash.  Our replacement, a powerpoint file that did the same thing and showed the changes between our version and the original game, actually ended up working better and probably was more professional looking than our video would have been.  We also had a soundtrack (well, an iTunes playlist of appropriately-themed songs) for our booth–perhaps not the most innovative of things, but it was another touch I thought our display should have, and aside from adjusting the volume, it seemed to go over well.

The projects got featured on the news and on the RHIT website.  The local news stayed for what felt like 30 seconds and only talked to the booth next to us (doing an educational-themed project that hasn’t tested its interface with actual educators, as far as I know, which seems like an egregious mistake) before disappearing completely.  We got featured because we were setting up in the background and had an iPhone project.  iPhone is still a buzzword.  The news likes buzzwords.  The reporter from the Rose-Hulman PR office was a little better–he talked with our group for about 15 minutes and took a photo of our whole group, but none of the information we gave him or the picture showed up in the actual report.  He assumed both of the mobile groups are working on the iPhone (not true) and left it there because of the secret nature of our projects.  Oh well.  At least we got press.

The other awesome thing in my life right now pertains to that whole “get a job” goal I’ve had all year.  The endgame.  The goal at the end of all this schooling.  I’ve actually got a company pursuing me, and it feels amazing.  A week before the career fair (which I wasn’t planning on attending–none of the companies interested me), I got an email from a Liberty Mutual representative letting me know they’d be at the career fair, the career services office had emailed them my resume, and they were interested in seeing me as a result.  I was thrilled, especially when I learned they had an office in Seattle and a rotational program that appealed to me.  I talked with them at the fair, they seemed interested, and by the end of the week I had been asked to interview in the career services office a couple weeks later.

The more I looked at their website, the more Liberty Mutual fit as a company.  I’m a math dork–others in my major have avoided any additional math courses beyond what was required of them, but I’ve embraced the additional courses.  There’s something really cool about how you can use math to model most things, so I’ve pursued minors in math and computational science, both of which will come in handy–Liberty Mutual is a company that has a lot of data coming in, and knowing how to use that data and creat models from it seems like a particularly handy skill.  I’m hoping I can bring that to them should they hire me.

Anyways, the interview rolls around, and despite maybe needing a haircut, I looked good (or at least something approaching professional).  I don’t recall everything the interviewer and I talked about (and probably shouldn’t, in case there’s a non-disclosure in place), but I do remember a fun part of the interview.  My interviewer saw that I was a DJ at WMHD and asked me to announce one of my favorite songs (I chose 24 Hours) in 10 seconds.  Despite some initial fumbling when I tried to give some background on why I chose the group, I apparently impressed him with my delivery–I sounded “like I’d had plenty of practice” doing that (a year of doing that for 2 shows certainly helped).

I was told I’d hear back in about 2 weeks.  I had a positive response by Friday of the same week.  I must have done something right.  they were prepared to have me do another interview, but needed to know which position I wanted to pursue, a software developer role in Seattle or a Systems Analyst position elsewhere (my work this summer was of a somewhat SA-related nature).  I was confused-I thought the first rotation was a business rotation.  After some emailing back and forth, it turns out I wasn’t able to get into that program (they were filling the last position for that already), and this was a similar, non-rotational program.  I was a little disappointed, but I seem to remember the interviewer saying something about the possibility of getting in on the other program the next time it rolls around as an employee, so all is not lost.  that sort of sealed things for me–I was going to pursue the position in Seattle, as it fit closer with my skillset/goals.  That interview’s coming up sometime this month.  I’m pumped, partially because I get flown out, partially because this seems like a good fit.

So there we have it. Awesome things.  Hopefully I won’t be quite as swamped next term–it’s taken me 3 days to get this post together.  Looking to spring (my last quarter at Rose–amazing it’s already come so fast.  It feels like only a year ago I was moving onto campus and starting a livejournal for back home).  After a term of having a single, I will have another roommate this term–an exchange student.  We’ve talked briefly on Facebook, and things seem to be getting along well.  Hopefully when we meet face to face on Sunday that feeling continues.  On to the final lap–it’s not a victory lap, yet; I’ve still got 10 more weeks to push myself hard to reach the finish.

Beach House’s sound has been fairly consistent over their last two albums, 2006’s self-titled debut and 2008’s Devotion.  Alex Scally’s reverb-drenched guitars and Victoria Legrand’s keyboards and distinctive vocals mix in a sea of tinny drum machines and slow, measured tempos to create something dreamy and ethereal.

With Teen Dream, their third album and Sub Pop debut, they’ve cleared some of the fog from their sound, adding live percussion and speeding the tempo up a bit to create something both familiar and refreshing.  Songs like “Zebra”, “Norway”, and “Used to Be” are bright and engaging while still retaining the dreamy sound the band is known for.

If there’s any fault in the album’s 10 tracks, it’s that a few of the songs, like “Real Love”, drag a little too long.  None of the songs on the album could be considered short; most average around five minutes while the shortest is just under four.  Still, these atmospheric songs showcase Victoria Legrand’s low, distinctive voice to great effect.  If the growth between this album and their last is any indication of how the band will continue to progress, the future holds bright things for this Baltimore duo.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Full Disclosure: Although after the review was written/turned in, I received a copy of the album and a poster of its cover in blue on one side and in yellow (like the album itself) on the other.  The label sent them to the station because we’re playing it a lot lately.

Vampire Weekend’s self-titled debut exploded on the blogosphere two years ago, with critics either finding its afro-pop meets indie-rock aesthetic amazing or horrible.  Two years later, their sophomore album, Contra, should hopefully turn those who weren’t as keen on the first album around to the band’s sound.

The album shows a clear progression from the first album; while the guitar tone and rhythms that defined the band’s first-album sound are still present on the songs (“Cousins” and “Holiday” could easily fit onto the group’s debut), more synth-based rhythms are also present.   The group even manages to make Autotune (an overused element in 2009) sound fresh on “California English”.

The group’s experimentation with new sounds doesn’t always pay off—while the electropop influences on “Giving Up the Gun” make the song even better, the muddled, overlayered strings of “I Think UR a Contra” detract from the song’s reflective lyrics.  Overall, Contra retains many of the elements that made Vampire Weekend’s first album so unique, it shows a growth and willingness to experiment that indicates a band that has the potential to produce interesting music for years to come.  I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars