Quickly becoming one of my favorites of 2008 is Cave’s Hunt Like Devil (Permanent Records), a thick, knotty and unbelievably heavy dose of post-modern psychedelia and noise.

Cave: HLD 3

The title track is the best of the bunch, but clocking in at almost ten minutes, it didn’t make sense to post here. Besides, no reason to give away the whole basket in one toss. “HLD 3″ is one of the heavier tunes on the album, and comes with the most vocals you’ll get of the bunch, too. Shrieking, really. That part of their music reminds me a lot of the ’90s, when Locust was first on the scene and everyone was kind of trying to reinvent Man is the Bastard.

But I don’t want to pigeonhole them, they are not really a ’90s sounding band at all. There are influences from all over: jam bands of the ’60s and ’70s, Led Zeppelin (John Bonham, mostly) and post-hardcore all find a way to slip in. The entire album is unbelievable. I’m not sure I’ve heard a better heavy record all year, except maybe Harvey Milk and Elephant 9.

Anyway, give it a shot if this late night half-ass recommendation is doing anything at all for you.

I made a mix that looks something like this for a friend, and decided to share it. Mostly jazzy, give it a go. The Quarteto Novo song is one of my favorites of all time, it’s delightful and full of wonderful harmony, and Gismonti’s piano is unbelievable — I know most folks follow him for his guitar work, but his piano works are so fucking gorgeous.

DOWNLOAD: Action, Re-Action Mixtape (mp3, best played in iTunes)

01 Ed Thigpen “Action-Re-Action - Action-Re-Action”
02 Masabumi Kikuchi & Elvin Jones “Hollow Out”
03 Quarteto Novo “O Ovo”
04 Kronos Quartet & Wu Man “Royal Wedding”
05 Paul Motian “Time and Time Again”
06 Noah Howard “Queen Anne”
07 Egberto Gismonti “Karate”
08 Chicago Underground Trio “Protest”
09 NOMO “Book of Right On”
10 Bill Evans “Minority”
11 Kieran Hebden & Steve Reid “People Be Happy”
12 Cold Bleak Heat “Pound Cake”
13 Bulent Arel “Final”

This is really frustrating.

Not to dig up this horse, but it’s starting to feel like the Vampire Weekend apologists are drinking too much Kool-Aid. Listen, I’ll be the first to admit it: they’re writing catchy tunes, and they’re working really hard. Congratulations, guys. Enjoy your success.

That being said, if you’re going to try to spin their unoriginality into something cool, why punk rock? And why not just let them continue with their shtick without forcing another label on them? They don’t want to be punk rock any more than they want to be Lower East Side. Actually, for them, punk rock is probably something more akin to New Jersey.

If punk rock is defined by how it pushes boundaries, gets people out of their comfort zone, and inspires new ways of thinking, then there’s few bands that have done so of late to the same extent as Vampire Weekend.

What boundaries are we really pushing here? They force people to accept their polo shirts and Graceland-influenced “Afropop”? If they were doing something at all original, I could see it, but they’re really not, and that’s the point.

And that isn’t even a bad thing. It’s hard to be original. Also, they’ve created their own marketing movement and they’ve been successful with it, who am I to judge? Everyone does it. In this case, I think that the backlash based on the way they dress and where they’re from (the Prefix article discusses these sidebars almost exclusively, as though the music’s derivative nature and overblown praise has nothing to do with the backlash) is just as shallow and meaningless as “Oxford Comma.” Who cares what they wear?

Self-conscious indie rock fans who feel some tinge of guilt about liking something so centered around class and privilege, that’s who. Folks who grew up listening to dirty pop sung by dirty dudes and have some sort of vague and difficult to identify problem with kids that unapologetically sing about a life they’re supposed to reject.

If you’re bitching about the clothes, you’re missing the point. If you’re bitching about the previously mentioned overblown praise for music that, while not bad, isn’t particularly ground-breaking, you’re on the right track. If you’re able to shut up and just enjoy the record, more power to you. I’ve been trying, maybe I’ll give it another go (despite seeing the “Oxford Comma” video the other day and liking it, then hating it, then getting upset about previously liking it, then just wanting to watch Tenenbaums to cleanse).

Fact Magazine reviews the new collaboration, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today:

The suspicion grows, in fact, that Eno is a marketer without porfolio whose art lies in assimilating, synthesizing and then re-selling any era’s trends, and that what his celebrated adaptability anticipated more than anything was the ‘flexibility’ demanded of the late capitalist immaterial labourer. Eno once manufactured glam masks, No Wave grimaces and Ambient impersonality; with the Coldplay assignment and this, he’s fallen into line with this decade’s taste for ultra-conservative singer sincerity.

I’m not sure exactly what I expected out of Byrne on this record, but I do always expect (no matter what his previous project was) Eno to be astounding. I wouldn’t have discussed it this harshly, but it is a triumphant effort in … banality. Pleasant enough, and when Byrne performs at Austin City Limits with this stuff (and, assuming, a mix of older tunes) it will go over well. As a headphones listen from two of the best musicians I’ve had the pleasure of listening to in my life? Eh, kind of sad.