I have been patiently waiting for this new album by DIIV for the last couple of months. It is finally out this week! DIIV is the band formerly know as Dive. Dive released a couple of 7"s on Captured Tracks before deciding to change their name. DIIV is Zachary Cole Smith of Beach Fossils. I have loved almost everything Captured Tracks has released the last couple of years. However I didn't really fall for that Beach Fossils ablum like I did the others. I loved Craft Spells, Wild Nothing, Soft Moon & Blouse. Even though I did not love the Beach Fossils album I really do love this new DIIV album. I might need to go revisit the Beach Fossils. I am not alone I am sure in my love for DIIV. Billy already mentioned his love for it earlier this week on his blog.So I don't want to bore you too much with my endless love for all things Captured Tracks. But this new album does deserve your time. Any fan of all things jangly dream pop and shoe gaze will love this album. It came out on CD this week. The official regular LP will be out on 7/10. But at Amoeba Hollywood we just got some copies of the limited edition blue vinyl! We don't have that many left. So I suggest picking it up now if you want it. I do love that colored vinyl. I just like to take it home and stare at it.

Listen to "Doused" by DIIV from the new album Oshin...

In recently trying to fill in a friend on what I'd spent the last year or two listening to, I realized that my personal taste tends to gravitate towards some element of either Folk form (any hint of hill-folk finger-pickin' or Ozark/Appalachian melancholy and I'm in), Psychedelia or the tendency to extend a theme for a good long jam (a category in which I include a lot of the Jazz that I like), or just a great, funky groove.

With those qualifiers in place, the following is a year by year review of the last decade which somehow got past me with out noticing it. I mean, really?!! 2010?!!!  I didn't see it coming: 

2000: Album of the Year

Air's enjoyable and wacky Moon Safari had been on the decks for a couple years before they contracted for the soundtrack to Sofia Coppolla's Virgin Suicides. The resultant score is absolutely sublime and marked the French electronauts as contenders to watch.

For myself, it was the defining sound of the millennium's new year.
















Shelby Lynne released a killer country-soul gem, I Am Shelby Lynne, that echoed early material from the likes of Bonnie Raitt. Thinking that it was a brilliant debut from a talented 32yo unknown, I was eventually shocked to find that it was her 6th album. I listened to it for months.

Ribbon mics, reel tapes, jukeboxes, tubes & radio transmission towers- the embodiment of old world recording cool.  Hell, we even have an "Olde World Records" in this bunch.  People have long  fetishized recording and audio gear, these labels are a testament to such interesting interests.