Eleanor Friedberger - Personal Record (Merge), courtesy of blurtonline.com (Blurt)

Hey. Reverberations Readers ... 

As you know, I write for other periodicals. Yup. Blurt is one such outlet. They just posted my review of the new release from Eleanor Friedberger; perhaps you know her work from the band the Fiery Furnaces. Her sophomore solo release, Personal Record, is a really, really fine album. I think I did a fair job of capturing its quality and spirit. So ... uh, enjoy - 

http://blurtonline.com/review/eleanor-friedberger-personal-record/




Oh, and while you're hanging around "Reverberations" enjoy this video ...

And what the heck explore the blog, too. 

THANKS!

The Countdown Continues with No. 8, Eleanor Friedberger

Continuing today, and culminating with REVERBERATIONS number one album of the year, we’ll be counting down the top twenty-five records of 2011. I’m referring to this countdown as Twenty-five Faves because I have no pretenses about telling you what’s “best.” Sure, I think my taste is better than yours. But nobody died and made me Lester Bangs. And Lester could be arrogant, but I kind of think he would come down on the favorite side of the fave/best dichotomy. His criticism was nothing if not personal. 

I've reviewed the majority of these selections. In the event that I have I'll simply recycle the original reviews, sometimes with a little new commentary. If it's a selection I haven't reviewed previously, I will dash off a new, brief, introductory review just for perspective.

Joining:

25. Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring for my Halo (Matador)
24. Fountains of Wayne - Sky Full of Holes (Yep Roc)
23. Bass Drum of Death - GB City (Fat Possum)
22. Coathangers - Larceny and Old Lace (Suicide Squeeze)
21. Meg Baird - Seasons on Earth (Drag City)

20. White Fence - Is Growing Faith (Woodsist)

19. Dum Dum Girls - Only in Dreams (Sub Pop) 

18. Steve Cropper - Dedicated (429 Records) 

17. Thee Oh Sees - carrion crawler/the dream ep (In the Red) 

16. Sonny and the Sunsets - Hit After Hit (Fat Possum) 

15. Tom Waits - Bad as Me (Anti)

14. Laura Marling - A Creature I Don't Know (Ribbon) 

13. Pete and the Pirates - One Thousand Pictures (Stolen Recordings/U.K.)

12. Jolie Holland - A Pint of Blood (Anti)

11. Wild Flag - s/t (Merge)
10. Vaccines - What Did You Expect From the Vaccines (Columbia)

  9. Jack Oblivian - Rat City (Big Legal Mess/Fat Possum)

The number eight selection, Eleanor Friedberger's Last Summer was reviewed for REVERBERATIONS in August.

Here's a link to that review:

http://stevemahoot.blogspot.com/2011/08/eleanor-friedberger-last-summer-merge.html

Eleanor Friedberger - Last Summer (Merge Records)

First things first, I suppose. This comes from the “there’s a bathroom on the right” school of rock lyric mishearing. The first two times I listened to Eleanor Friedberger’s sparkling new record Last Summer I thought she was singing “you promised to take me to the end of the Seventh grade” on track two, “Inn of the Seventh Ray.” Hey, I know, all I had to do was look at the track listing, right? But by golly, before I came to enjoy the real thing (listening properly to the lyrics and all) I constructed a whole emotional world around Ms. Friedberger reconstructing her life, revisiting some pivotal moment in, well, Seventh grade.

Lord, I digress. Of course the real “Inn of the Seventh Ray” is even better. With quiet, urgent repetition Friedberger sings of a certain someone who promised to take her to the titular destination, but who couldn’t, wouldn’t, didn’t know the way. The mounting disappointment is musically palpable, and the song could be about anything from the obvious (a desired journey never taken) to a metaphor for romantic, erotic, or existential failure.