Writing in the blogosphere can start to seem like a cut and paste affair: "I read this, I found this" Drag, Right Click, COPY, Right Click, PASTE, type three grabbing lines of information, and POST. But, that's not why I started my blog. I started the ZenLunatic to be about my taste. I want it to sound from me.
So, in an effort to make my 2009 taste-making more genuine, I have organized a format in which I will post my favorite albums of 2009. In the same vain as Aquarium Drunkards' Decade Piece, I will consistanty post my favorite albums in no particular order from now (end of November) to the end of the year. My goal is that these albums feel as happenstance of a discovery as they did when I first put the disc in my car CD player.
2009 served as a moment in my life where I was clearly starting to define my taste in music. I started ZenLunatic in March of this year , originally out of boredom and fear (to do something meant you weren't failing). So every morning, when I found myself out of work, in my sweat pants, and wired from too much coffee, I wrote about music. It started simply because. As I continued to explore and dig deeper, I found myself exposed to another universe of artists, genres, and creative possibilities. The world of music, as experienced via the web, is an energizing and hopeful place where artists communicate and survive all while remaining dreamers. I hold fast, that our likes and dislikes (opinions) are the guards to what food, what music, what art, what film, what people might come asking to take residency in the place that makes you, you. While exercising my ability to discover within the Clear Channel-less realm of music, I learned that finding what you like and don't like is the same as finding who you are. The following albums are the ZenLunatic.
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I've said it this multiple times this year, but, I'll say it again: "Real Estate is my favorite band to emerge in '09." I consider myself a young buck to the music game and Real Estate makes a good companion. Themselves having only been active since 2006, their first volume of material didn't hit the web, vinyl, and disc until this year. From Jersey, the band creates a sound rooted in the Shore. Not the Shore that has been showcased on MTV's True Life (jager bombs), but, the Jersey Shore that strikes any westerner as a contradictory idea. Oceans get cold? Sand can be covered with snow? As contradictory as frigid beaches might sound, so does Real Estate's music.
The album maintaina a common thread of low key optimism that doesn't promise you anything but would never think of taking anything away either. "Beach Comber" is the corner stone of the record, a song about a Beach Comber (the dudes that scan the beach with a metal detector). Analogous to the beach comber is every young human finding their way through life and everyday altering what it is they ultimately value. What is it that we are looking for? Through the multitudes of sand, the excitement and anticipation of finding grand treasure, we realize we are happiest when just looking. Hence, the music follows the lyrical content in rejoicing in a beach sway like a breeze through Palm leaves. "Beach Comber" states the ethos of Real Estate.
Real Estate rests upon their laurels of melodic, low key, and lo-fi indie rock. Real Estate's music is carried primarily by the fresh sound that Martin Courtney has brought out of his guitar. Aquatic, much, like the reflection of a swimming pool, the guitar seems suspended, but always moving. Melodic and upbeat but never overtly optimistic, weather in lyric or instrumentation, Real Estate's s/t never cuts too deep, nor, steps on your toes with idealism. It simply creates a nostalgic backyard BBQ environment where the sun is out and the vibes are chill.
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