Monday, December 20, 2010

Albums of the Year 2010: Honorable Mention

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Pitchfork
December 15, 2010
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Albums of the Year 2010: Honorable Mention






ceo
White Magic
[Modular / Sincerely Yours]


Keeping it real has been a successful marketing ploy at least since the first 1950s Volkswagen ads, which cleverly contrasted the humble "bug" with Detroit's falsely gleaming behemoths. But when Eric Berglund, better known as one-half of Swedish electro-pop duo the Tough Alliance, samples the words "I keep it real" on this solo debut, it sure sounds like he actually means them. Whether or not that's true, great songs like the intricately pulse-raising title track or twee S&M jam "Love and Do What You Will" don't lie. Indeed, the only thing modest about White Magic is its half-hour length, as electronic beats, indie-kid earnestness, hip-hop bravado, and all sorts of new-agey nature noises add up to one of the year's lushest productions. Berglund's cryptically rambling interviews send the same message as labelmates jj's cryptically terse ones: Music first.


Toro Y Moi
Causers of This
[Carpark]


Of all the dudes making hazy synth-pop in their bedrooms this year, Chaz Bundick might be the most versatile. The South Carolina electronic pop artist who records as Toro Y Moi has already flashed his dance-friendly side on a 12" under the alter ego Les Sins; his Body Angles cassette goes more for spiky distortion; and his next album leaves samples behind for "a more traditional approach." Debut full-length Causers of This is Bundick's spaced-out R&B record, and it's a beaut. Unlike so many similar projects, Causers can be enjoyed as much for its lusty, lonely songcraft as its dense atmosphere. "How can I tell if I love you anymore?" Bundick sings at one point, answering his own question: "Never mind/ I know I do." With soulful samples, funky bass, and palpable yet slightly oblique emotion, this is the breakup album for people who love makeout albums.

The Top 100 Tracks of 2010

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Pitchfork
December 13, 2010
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The Top 100 Tracks of 2010







80. The Radio Dept.
"Heaven's on Fire"
[Labrador]

Let's say you're one of your country's most underrated bands. Let's also say, hypothetically, you're a little irritated by that fact, but you're clever and talented enough to realize that nobody wants to hear a dreamy soft-rock band's sour grapes. For the Radio Dept., a long-running Swedish pop group that previously had their biggest international success with the Marie Antoinette soundtrack, "Heaven's on Fire" is a perfect solution. Originally titled "Spring Time", the song is as radiant as the season: all cheery keyboards, jazzy guitars, and muted reverb. But Thurston Moore's anti-capitalist opening rant-- omitted from a version I've heard over corporate airwaves-- isn't here just for kicks. "When I look at you, I reach for a piano wire," Johan Duncanson murmurs on the song's second verse. Later he worries that "everyone" seems to be siding with "charlatans." Hell is other people; this song is something else. Heavenly subversion.


18. Titus Andronicus
"A More Perfect Union"
[XL]

The phrase "a more perfect union" is part of the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, right after the "We the People" bit the Tea Partiers love so much. It's also the title of a speech that then-Sen. Barack Obama gave about race when his primary campaign looked most lost. As an indie rock song by Titus Andronicus, "A More Perfect Union" is ambitious enough for these lofty origins, and as down-to-earth as a college kid's face after one too many Four Lokos.

In other words, this is an anthem for people who hate anthems, at once intensely personal and impossibly grandiose. There's room for the places and experiences of Patrick Stickles' life, from the Garden State Parkway to Somerville, Mass., by way of the Fung Wah bus. There's room for Billy Bragg and New Jersey patron saint Bruce Springsteen. And, in keeping with the grandiose Civil War concept of the album this song opens, there's even room for the Battle Hymn of the Republic. (Stickles' former high school drama teacher is here, too, meticulously reciting Abraham Lincoln.)

Most simply, though, "A More Perfect Union" rocks: a riotous seven minutes of raw-throated passion and ragtag righteousness, fiery guitar interludes and madcap drumming. It's not entirely clear which flag Stickles wants us to "rally around," but anyone who has ever felt the least bit of allegiance to what some marketer once called "Alternative Nation"-- anyone who has ever considered themselves an underdog-- well, please rise. The state of the union could always be more perfect. This song probably couldn't.

IFRS Adoption: A Little Perspective

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December 13, 2010
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SEC Covers Top Audit Issues in 2010 Comments

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December 13, 2010
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The Return of the Hedge Fund Activist

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December 13, 2010
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Pfizer, Massey Split CEO-Chair Roles After Exits

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December 13, 2010
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Dodd-Frank Challenges Mount for SEC

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December 13, 2010
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Mass. Pension Fund Seeks More Female Directors

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December 6, 2010
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IRS Offers Last Chance to Fix Deferred Comp

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December 6, 2010
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Financial Pay Practices Have 'Worsened' Since Crisis: Study

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December 6, 2010
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Report Links SEC's Leniency on Merrill Deal to Bailout

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December 6, 2010
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Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Miko - Chandelier

Album Review
Pitchfork
December 8, 2010
Link
7.5

Chandelier












Australia's Lawrence and Rebecca English have spent the past few years proving that the everyday can be avant-garde. The husband-and-wife pair run Someone Good, while Lawrence curates sister imprint Room40, a preeminent experimental label that has recently put out records by the ambient-inclined Grouper and Tim Hecker. The Aussie couple are also the curatorial minds behind Someone Good, an imprint that takes a more modest, domestic view of gorgeous textural abstraction, releasing music often by Japan-based artists: avant-twee couple Lullatone, piano minimalist Akira Kosemura, Tenniscoats offshoot Nikasaya. This is simple yet elegant stuff.

As Miko, Tokyo-based Rie Mitsutake assembles vividly mic'd piano, acoustic guitar, and off-kilter percussion-- along with field recordings and her own hushed vocals-- into languidly immersive sound worlds that make the familiar wonderfully strange. Her 2008 debut, Parade, successfully introduced the basic elements of Miko's developing aesthetic, but that effort placed a greater emphasis on glimmering electronics and at times used near-shoegaze levels of ear-splitting distortion. Sophomore album Chandelier, like Kosemura's excellent Polaroid Piano last year, takes a turn toward the organic. The result shapes restrained, homespun instrumentation into something at once quaint and futuristic.

Someone Good is billing Miko's latest as a "new kind of folk music," and that's apt. Bird-like squawks and delicate vocals transcend their potential cutesiness to attain a sort of ascetic grace ("Sea House"); Talk Talk-inclined drums gently splash behind indie pop plinks and plonks ("Kikoeru"); saxophones drift past thrumming acoustic guitar ("New Town"). When Miko sings the word "America", on the hypnotic track of the same name, she conjures up a faraway place vastly different from the one I know. Compared with traditional folk song, there's certainly more attention paid to what words and sounds suggest rather than their literal meanings. (Apparently Miko chose the title Chandeliers as much for its spoken sound as for its associations with light and warmth). But there's also a sense of intimacy, of basic human connection, on which the old avant-garde might look with disdain. That would be missing the point.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

The 40 Best Albums of 2010

Feature
SPIN
January/February 2011
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CARIBOU

SWIM 


"Hop in the blue, blue sky," sang avant-disco luminary Arthur Russell on 1986's "Let's Go Swimming." And with Swim, Dan Snaith does just that. The chameleon formerly known as Manitoba has explored shoegaze, IDM, krautrock, and shiny '60s psych-pop, but his latest dives into headphone-friendly dance music's deep blue. What does he find, amid floaty vocals, MDMA grooves, and poignant lyrics? "Sun, sun, sun." Add the vibrant pathos of "Odessa" and "Kaili," and you've got the first grown-up chillwave album.







BIG BOI

SIR LUCIOUS LEFT FOOT:THE SONG OF CHICO DUSTY 


Label politics kept the Aquemini-echoing André 3000-Raekwon collabo "Royal Flush" off this first official solo album by OutKast's street-savvier half. Lame? Yeah. Fitting, too. While Lucious is a great rap album in a classic sense, its heavy, heady funk never looks back. Guests kill: Gucci Mane on the soul-woozy "Shine Blockas," even dissolute producer Scott Storch on teeth-rattler "Shutterbugg." But "General Patton" prevails: "Let's be clear / I'm a leader, not your peer." Boi, don't stop.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Robyn - Body Talk

Album Review
Pitchfork
December 3, 2010
Link
8.7

Body Talk 












"Fembots have feelings, too." When we first heard Robyn sing those words, on a single promoting what would become a three-volume set of mini-LPs all bearing the name Body Talk, it was easy to focus on the Swedish pop singer's quirky sense of humor. But on this new full-length edition, "Fembot" also reveals itself as a compelling statement of purpose. Playing off contemporary pop's age-old diva-as-robot trope and cautioning that fellow droids who "burn out" are "ready for demolition," Robyn is a pop star who first and foremost projects a need for emotional connection.

If that's Robyn's artistic credo, then Body Talk is living, breathing, cybernetic proof. Melding dancehall with bubblegum pop, heartbroken love songs with hilariously catty weirdness, and euphorically catchy melodies with propulsive rhythms, Body Talk-- which combines the five-song Body Talk Pt. 3 with, outside of Pt. 1's uncommonly wise "Cry When You Get Older", the highlights from the first two mini-albums-- is a deeply affecting pop record. Robyn may not have released three full albums this year as first implied, but her first true full-length in five years is one of the year's best.

What sets Robyn apart from her contemporaries is the three-dimensional complexity of her character, and all sides are on display here. There's plenty of don't-fuck-with-me attitude in the icy electro-throb of "Don't Fucking Tell Me What to Do", which introduces a shit-talking heroine who may be flawed but won't be anyone's pawn. And with production by Diplo, the mock-outrageous Jamaica homage "Dancehall Queen" proves she's not kidding. But she's also sensitive enough that, during one of Body Talk's most inspired moments-- the soaringly tuneful electro-pop ballad "Call Your Girlfriend"-- she tells her boyfriend exactly how to break it off with the other woman to inflict the least emotional damage.

However, the highlight from this Year of Robyn remains the gorgeous "Dancing on My Own". What's especially remarkable is that there was any room for improvement: The track appears here as an amped-up "radio remix" with bonus synths giving the lovelorn chorus an extra wallop. But then again, Robyn is a master of re-invention: "Indestructible" and "Hang With Me" were first released as emotive acoustic ballads, and later given revved-up Eurodisco overhauls that ramped up the intensity without sacrificing an ounce of their bittersweet charm. Those are the versions included here, and both lend further ammunition to Body Talk's already military-grade stockpile.

Robyn's willingness to experiment with album conventions may feel like an ingenious gimmick, but there's no artifice to the desire for human connection that underlies her vocal quiver and party-starting kickdrums. She communicates heartbreak so convincingly that some of her most devoted fans actually wonder online about her presumed loneliness. She also attacks the charts from the fringes. She explores the fringes from the charts. She should be universal. So why isn't she? With Body Talk, Robyn ups the ante for pop stars across the radio dial and raises her own chances of appearing on yours. And for all her three-album talk, she never forgets that cardinal rule of showmanship: Always leave them wanting more.

Say-on-Pay Frequency: What Should Boards Support?

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November 29, 2010
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Justice Dept. Official Puts FCPA Violators On Notice

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November 29, 2010
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ICI to SEC: Exempt Munis From Asset-Backed Rules

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November 29, 2010
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Monday, November 29, 2010

Baths - Cerulean

Album Review
SPIN
January/February 2011
Link 
6/10














L.A. beatmaking scene finds one-man Passion Pit

Will Wiesenfeld says he picked his nom de synth because, as a kid, he really liked baths. Though often lumped in with chillwave's warm, watery return to the womb, this singer-producer -- a classically trained pianist -- shows no signs he's bullshitting on his precociously excitable Anticon debut. Glitchy beats, hyperactive strums, gawky vocals, and eclectic samples pile up like notes in an augmented chord. Songs suit their titles: "Maximalist," "♥." How was Baths to know there was a chill-out party going on?

SEC Proposal Would Add to Funds' Disclosure Burden

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November 23, 2010
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Despite Reg FD Crackdown, Selective Disclosure Could Persist

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November 22, 2010
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Investor Group Predicts ‘Limited’ Use of Proxy Access

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November 22, 2010
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Monday, November 22, 2010

Nicki Minaj - Pink Friday

Album Review
SPIN.com
November 22, 2010 
Link 
7/10

 












Nicki Minaj has been putting the boys in their place with a series of schizoid guest verses, but on her pop-oriented debut, she rewrites the rules.

Nicki Minaj will not be contained. Not to 16-bar verses. Not to one persona. Not even to hip-hop. Brought up in Jamaica, Queens, and taught to be a star at New York City's "Fame" school (LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts), the MC born Onika Maraj has more alter egos than most pop stars have nicknames. With three promising mixtapes and a streak of spotlight-hogging guest verses, she's established herself as the best (avowedly bisexual) female in hip-hop's "no homo" boys' club. But anyone who comes to her official full-length, Pink Friday, expecting more of the raw, terrifically unhinged rhyming that stole Kanye West's "Monster" will be disappointed. Rap's most hotly anticipated debut works best if you don't think of it as a rap album at all.

That's no accident. No shame, either. Like fellow Young Money sluggers Lil Wayne and Drake before her, albeit with less Auto-Tune and a lot less innuendo, Minaj turns toward frothy, hooky pop on her new album. That means you'll hear her singing, which is nothing exceptional, as well as rapping, which is still spectacular: cartoonish, clever, and endlessly flexible. This move to the mainstream has led to speculation about dark corporate shenanigans. But it's really nothing more -- and nothing less -- than Minaj's latest reinvention, one she agonizes over here from start to finish. With savvy '80s-tinged samples, simple but convincing emotions, and a feature list that reads like a Billboard chart summary, Pink Friday is as self-aware is it is fiercely entertaining.

As an MC showcase, though, the album falls short, with no verses as memorable as those she dropped for Robin Thicke, Usher, Trey Songz, Ludacris, or Mariah Carey. But this self-styled Harajuku Barbie certainly can compete with the big boys, and she doesn't let anyone forget it. "I am not Jasmine / I am Aladdin," Minaj declares over pulsating Swizz Beatz strings on "Roman's Revenge," employing her Roman Zolanski alter ego to try and out-nasty Eminem. Slim Shady lands a knockout blow with an epic metaphor involving "two pees and a tripod"; his use of an anti-gay slur on gay-friendly Minaj's track signals the bout is no-holds-barred. But she proves almost as twisted, brashly reclaiming another derogatory slang term ("cunt"), before veering off into an outlandish British accent. Minaj's best rapping comes over the whirring synth drone of the Bangladesh-produced "Did It in On 'Em," where she pulls out an imagined "dick" and pisses on a washed-up rival.

But Pink Friday makes a point of shifting the terms of engagement to less-macho terrain. Opener "I'm the Best" floats on triumphant synths and snapping drum programming from "Bed Rock" hitmaker Kane; it's at once origin myth and glass ceiling -- "I'm the best bitch doin' it" lacks the oomph of boss Weezy's "best rapper alive" boasts. Minaj appends a possible clarification: "I ain't gotta get a plaque / I ain't gotta get awards / I just walk up out the door and all the girls will applaud." In other words, if male hip-hop heads don't clap along, that's okay; Minaj is poised for something bigger: the pop realm.

"You sing along with a pop song, you turn into a girl," Rob Sheffield writes in his recent book, Talking to Girls About Duran Duran. On "Your Love," Minaj's highest-charting single, she basically does just that. Goofily doo-be-doo-ing along with Annie Lennox's "No More I Love You's," Minaj redirects her own absurdist elan into uncomplicated bubblegum: "When I was a geisha, he was a Samurai / Somehow I understood him when he spoke Thai." Yup, Thai. Ballad "Right Thru Me" winningly reveals this brain-eating rapper's vulnerable side, though she's no Stephin Merritt when it comes to pop songcraft: Check the rote inspirational platitudes on Rihanna-assisted "Fly," or Natasha Bedingfield's forgettable hook on finale "Last Chance." Still, even the corniest tracks -- take will.i.am's Buggles-sampling "Check It Out," which could be second-tier Black Eyed Peas -- have her charismatically colorful, larger-than-life personality all over them.

Pink Friday directly addresses the gap between Minaj's present and past selves on the beguiling "Dear Old Nicki," acknowledging, "In hindsight I loved your rawness and I loved your edge…but I needed to grow." And grow she has. Ultimately, the album is a budding artist's love letter to pop -- well-wrought and exuberantly penned, with skulls and crossbones in the margins and little pink hearts over the i's. Maybe the divide between underground rapper and pop starlet will be her most compelling split personality yet. The men don't know, but the little girls understand.

Calpers Reconsiders Corporate Engagement, Focus List

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November 15, 2010
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SEC Website Guidance Raises Transparency Questions

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November 15, 2010
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SOX Section 404 Adverse Opinions Fall to Lowest Ever

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November 15, 2010
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Global Accounting Body Seeks Strategy Input

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November 15, 2010
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US Chamber of Commerce Lobbying for FCPA Changes

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November 15, 2010
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SEC Chair: Financial Rules to Proceed Despite Election Results

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November 15, 2010
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HSBC: UK Pay Rules Hampered Recruitment

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November 15, 2010
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Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Dodd-Frank Likely in Resurgent GOP’s Cross Hairs

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November 8, 2010
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DOL Proposal Could Threaten ISS

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November 8, 2010
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SEC Gives Update on Accounting Convergence

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November 8, 2010
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Comments Pour In for ‘Proxy Plumbing’ Plan

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November 8, 2010
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Employee Benefits Top Financial Bosses’ Concerns

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November 8, 2010
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Monday, November 8, 2010

We Hate Music #4

Audio / Interview
We Hate Music podcast
November 7, 2010
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Marc HoganDon't Hurt 'emAnnie!Dawes

More Boards Tap Own Ranks for CEO

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November 1, 2010
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Big Employers Pour Extra Cash Into Pension Funds

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November 1, 2010
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SOX 404 Compliance Lowers Misstatement Risk: Study

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November 1, 2010
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Accounting Boards’ New Leaders Face Challenges

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November 1, 2010
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Berkshire Shares Fall Amid Succession Jitters

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November 1, 2010
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Activists’ Concerns: Relocation, Relocation, Relocation

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November 1, 2010
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Corporate Donors Back US Chamber of Commerce Efforts

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November 1, 2010
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Monday, November 1, 2010

Säkert! - Facit

Album Review
Pitchfork
October 27, 2010
Link
7.6

Facit












"Good writing cannot permit itself to be contained within checkpoints and borders," English novelist Zadie Smith writes in the preface to a recent European short-story anthology. If nothing else, unlikely Swedish pop star Annika Norlin is a very good writer. Her albums as Hello Saferide, both 2005's Introducing... and 2008's tellingly named More Modern Short Stories From Hello Saferide, demonstrate an unusual aptitude for pitch-perfect fictions. Norlin finds the sublime in everyday life and shows strength by being unafraid to bare weakness. Her first Swedish-language album as Säkert!, an eponymous 2007 release of homespun indie pop, went gold in her native country and won two Swedish Grammis, including an award for lyricist of the year.

Norlin returns to the Swedish language on her second Säkert! album, and once again her songwriting deserves to transcend cultural boundaries. Musically, Facit is more richly arranged than its predecessor, but also darker, with minor chords even among the fast songs. Henrik Oja, who again produces and now also gets co-writing credit, can count free jazz among his recent work; here he favors a dusky, approachable jangle that puts the focus on Norlin's conversational vocals. So sooner or later you're going to have to try to understand what she's singing about, whether a holy misfit with the same first name as the prime minister, a young rebel who reminds the narrator of her own faded idealism, or an insecure woman who can't help but go back to a former lover, like Liz Lemon returning to loser boyfriend Dennis Duffy in old episodes of "30 Rock". Non-Swedish phrases jump out here and there: Rosa Parks, Lonely Planet, Rotary. If you can watch The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo with subtitles, then you can wring a whole lot of enjoyment out of Facit, but it sure helps to follow along by mousing over the lyrics in Google Translate.

It turns out there's a wedding song, "Dansa, fastän", where horns, handclaps, and Daniel Berglund's subtle drumming nicely frame Norlin's romantic disillusionment. There's a funeral song, "När du dör", where a whispery Norlin imagines a dead lover turning into a tree, so future generations can meet him, or else that tree getting cut down to make paper, in which case she'd write letters with pen again-- she'd write poetry. And best of all, there's an unrequited-love song, "Får jag", where a couple go to a Stockholm bar called Dovas, watch hockey on TV without watching hockey, and lean in close to each other right when the score reaches 2-0 versus Finland: a stomach-tingling moment that, like the inland simplicity to which it hearkens, is doomed not to last. There was a minor Swedish media frenzy this summer after a magazine reported that Norlin would be quitting music. She has since dismissed such rumors, but Facit makes it easy to see why people might want to believe them. Although obviously crafted with great care, the songs here feel tremendously naked and transparent, even to someone who doesn't speak the language.

Political Donations Spark Campaign Against Audit Chair

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October 25, 2010
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Towers Watson Rolls Out Say-on-Pay Offering

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October 25, 2010
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Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Clear Channel Updates Relocation Policy

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October 18, 2010
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Fidelity Mutual Funds Mark First ‘Green’ Proxy Votes

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October 18, 2010
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SEC to Review Mass. Disclosure Mistakes

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October 18, 2010
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ICGN’s Risk Oversight Principles Stress Shareholder Dialogue

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October 18, 2010
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FDIC OKs Litigation to Recoup $1B From Failed-Bank Execs

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October 18, 2010
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General Motors Expands Executive Stock Pool

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October 18, 2010
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Governance Disclosures Draw SEC Staff Comments

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October 18, 2010
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Apple Agrees to $16.5M Backdating Settlement

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October 18, 2010
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Thursday, October 21, 2010

Darren Hanlon - I Will Love You at All

Album Review
Pitchfork
October 21, 2010
Link
7.6

I Will Love You at All












If you're a fan of painstaking songcraft, there's a good chance you've brushed across Darren Hanlon's name before. The avuncular Australian came up in the 1990s as a member of the Simpletons and played on a bunch of recordings by much-loved countrymen the Lucksmiths. In the course of releasing three fine solo albums over the past decade, Hanlon has toured with Billy Bragg, the Magnetic Fields, and Jeffrey Lewis. With enough wry charm and vivid detail to withstand such comparisons, Hanlon's unassuming brand of indie-pop digs up the mundane or eccentric and scrapes off the dirt until he hits on something universal. Until now, however, he's never enjoyed a proper U.S. promotional push.

Each of Hanlon's albums has moments worth revisiting, but I Will Love You at All is his most consistently rewarding effort yet. Not only because, as befits the self-described "urban folk" singer's leap from Melbourne's now-defunct Candle Records to North Carolina-based Yep Roc, it's also his most American: Adam Selzer (M. Ward, She & Him, the Decemberists) recorded the album in Portland, so there's a familiarly Pacific Northwestern tint, not least in longtime Selzer collaborator Rachel Blumberg's meticulously understated drumming. What most sets Hanlon's fourth album apart from its predecessors, though, is that he's no longer singing about squash or the noisy punk-rock girl upstairs; when he shows off his tremendous wit, it's now in subtler and more lasting ways than proving he can shoehorn the word "aubergine" into a catchy song. This is a record of heartbreak, rendered richly enough that you might not notice it. It's also an immensely funny record, with enough real emotion behind it that you might not notice that, either.

It doesn't hurt that there's a lot more variety between songs than you expect from your typical heart-on-sleeve troubadour-- or, hell, from most bands in this era of tinier and tinier niches. Ukulele, euphonium, and strings enliven "All These Things", an affecting call-and-response duet with Shelley Short about the trivia that comes to define us. "Scenes From a Separation" depicts beautifully just what its title says, but with keyboards, a waltzing-Matilda rhythm and more backing vocals from both Short and Alia Farah. Opener "Butterfly Bones", about someone who injures easily, sets viola, trumpet, and hammered percussion over syncopated acoustic chords; "Buy Me Presents" rattles like the Modern Lovers' "Roadrunner" amid bongos, saxophone, and sly observations about fear of commitment. Only grandiose piano ballad "What Can We Say?" feels like a relative misstep.

As on records by anyone from Loudon Wainwright III to Jens Lekman, it's Hanlon's distinctive narrative vision that holds it all together, rewarding the attention this album requires. Nearly eight-minute centerpiece "House" isn't the album's best track-- that's "Folk Insomnia", a stripped-down jaunt about broken hearts and growing older-- but it's the best encapsulation of Hanlon's gift for funny, pathos-laden detail. There's a terrible Barenaked Ladies song called "The Old Apartment", where they do little more than state the obvious: "This is where we used to live." Here, Hanlon does just about the opposite, documenting all his idiosyncratic thoughts as he debates going into an old home, notices the wall's new color-- "the horror!"-- and finally comes to terms with the changes, in a crescendo of guitar and Blumberg's drums. Memories, Hanlon concludes, are "best if they're left in a place you can't find them." If I Will Love You at All is Hanlon's "mature" album, then maturing is less about embracing the flux than accepting it, moving on to the next misadventure, and then sharing stories about it all over beers.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Small Black - New Chain

Album Review
SPIN
November 2010 
Link 
6/10








Kindest regrets from the kids at Bummer Beach

Last year’s self-titled EP from this Brooklyn quartet, then a duo, was poignant, lo-fi synth-pop sung by a wisp of a guy already worrying what would happen “when I’m gone.” Live gigs backing up Washed Out further marked Small Black as persons of interest in the chillwave scene. Their debut album, mixed by Nicolas Vernhes (Animal Collective, Cat Power), brings a sharper sound to those wobbly keyboard lines and crisp ’80s snares, but somewhat blurs their emotional impact. Still, there are enough gently pleading choruses (“Photojournalist”) and sun-baked slacker sighs (“Light Curses”) to evoke yet another deadbeat summer.

Massey Governance Changes Approved

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October 11, 2010
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Companies’ Dodd-Frank Disclosures Address Uncertainty

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October 11, 2010
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Some Companies Misreporting Executive Pay

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October 11, 2010
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Thursday, October 14, 2010

Shrag - Life! Death! Prizes!

Album Review
Pitchfork
October 14, 2010
Link
6.8



Life! Death! Prizes!











Shrag take their name from an apartment block in their hometown of Brighton, England. According to an interview the quintet did this summer with the blog Rhubarb Bomb, one of the band members lived in a building called Sussex Heights, so their unusual moniker is really an acronym for "Sussex Heights Roving Artist Group." Not exactly the kind of thing you imagine they settled on expecting to have to market it all these years later to a wider audience. Was this Joy Division? Not at all. The Desperate Bicycles? Shampoo? Bis? Getting warmer...

Shrag's self-titled debut album was the result of a similarly haphazard process, and it turned out to be one of last year's most enjoyable indie pop releases. Scruffy, heartbroken, and genuinely communicative at a time when bands are increasingly getting by on mood or genre signifiers alone, Shrag collected some of the well-crafted, cleverly affecting singles and mp3s the band had quietly offered up in the past few years, including "Hopelessly Wasted", "Forty Five 45s", and (for those of us still too freaked out by adulthood to become parents) "Pregnancy Scene". With Life! Death! Prizes!, Shrag attempt a sophomore LP that works more like an album than a collection of singles, and they mostly succeed.

When they're doing tightly coiled pop songs that could stand beautifully on their own, the group-- now two women and three men, following former drummer Leigh-Ann's illness-related departure-- can be quite charming. Keyboard-streaked and punk-spiked, boy-girl duets "Tights in August" and "Rabbit Kids" are as catchy and upbeat as the feelings they express are confused and conflicted: "Your love is like your August tights/ It looks all right, but they're impractical tonight." Slowing it down but not turning off the distortion for "Their Stats", Life! Death! Prizes! scores another potential alternate-universe hit, a jagged, jerking anxiety attack that feels like the apt product of a time when "friendship" has become nothing but a number on a Facebook scorecard.

Like so many indie bands' second albums, though, Life! Death! Prizes! suffers just a little from having to be conceived during a year or so rather than a lifetime. The shouty "Faux-Coda" ("miraculous, still not over") and plaintive, poignant "Coda" ("It was a terrible year, though") are endearing and, production-wise, miles ahead of the band's past work, but they don't have the direct-hit impact of Shrag's "Talk to the Left" or "Mark E. Smith". They feel like, well, album tracks. That's fine-- they support the record's overall flow-- but it's still difficult for them to stand out in the crowded field of bands reminiscent of the UK's first big do-it-yourself wave. And the distinctive, much-needed female perspective on the indie scene shown in past singles like "Different Glue" is no longer much in evidence, either. Whether they were planning on it or not, Shrag deserve their own chance to reach a bigger audience, only for now, they're a slightly better singles group than albums group. Given indie pop's 7" culture and their own humble origins, it sort of suits them.

Monday, October 11, 2010

How to Dress Well - Love Remains

Album Review
SPIN
November 2010 
Link 
8/10







If Bon Iver had grown up grindin’ to ’90s R&B jams

Hazy nostalgia may have been the indie world’s richest musical resource lately (Animal Collective, Deerhunter, Wild Nothing), but a long-overdue embrace of R&B has certainly been another (the xx, Dirty Projectors). As How to Dress Well, Tom Krell marries these two muses, conjuring fractured memories of Shai or TLC, mostly using his otherworldly falsetto. Also: reverb. But don’t expect the sex-intelligence quotient of The-Dream. This debut is a different kind of soul music, as meditative as it is evocative.

Barnes & Noble Proxy Win Holds Lessons for Boards

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October 4, 2010
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PCAOB: Raise Transparency for Enforcement Work

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October 4, 2010
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NYSE Bans Brokers From All Comp Votes

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October 4, 2010
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Activism at Chevron Meeting Leads to Criminal Charges

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October 4, 2010
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MetLife Hit With $2.5M Whistle-Blower Payment in SOX Case

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October 4, 2010
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Frank May Tweak Pay-for-Performance Disclosure Rule

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October 4, 2010
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IRS Makes Concessions on Uncertain Tax Positions

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October 4, 2010
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Company Faces De-Listing After Board Overhaul

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October 4, 2010
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Ex-Pay Czar Reflects on 16 Months of Fame

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October 4, 2010
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Monday, October 4, 2010

Working for a Nuclear Free City - Jojo Burger Tempest

Album Review
Pitchfork
October 1, 2010
Link
7.7


Jojo Burger Tempest












There was a brief moment around 2006 when there seemed to be a new movement of krautrock-inspired indie dance bands. As if updating the sounds of Madchester for the 21st century, Working for a Nuclear Free City's debut joined albums by Caribou, 120 Days, and Fujiya & Miyagi, ready to soundtrack rainswept city errands or some idealized Factory-like party. Fast-forward to 2010, and Caribou has once again changed pace with the beatific Swim; Fujiya & Miyagi are doing their own quirky thing, admitting they "were just pretending to be Japanese"; and man, it's been a while since we heard from Norway's 120 Days.

So the return of Working for a Nuclear Free City is a welcome reminder that the samples and electronic beats of blog house, chillwave, or post-dubstep are not the only directions for headphones-friendly psych-dance. Jojo Burger Tempest clocks in near 90 minutes, and once again it's a double: one disc of 17 individual songs, one of a single 33-minute suite. Such an ambitious sophomore outing is a lot to take in, but with its blend of live drumming, textural guitars, skittering electronics, and wistful harmonies, it's worth braving Jojo's, uh, storm.

As in the late 1980s and early 90s, when Balearic and ambient house emerged from acid house, Working for a Nuclear Free City achieve remarkably adventurous results from indoor rave-y dance music. "Silent Times" beckons toward Byrdsian psych-rock, while the intricate "Alphaville" manages to be both gentle and shrill while referencing Jean-Luc Godard (or 80s German synth-pop "Forever Young" band). There are sing-song vocal exchanges one moment, cymbal-smacking drum crescendos the next, minimalist piano atop a droning bass the next, and so forth. If nu-shoegaze rocker "Low" is a nod to David Bowie's Berlin era with Brian Eno, it's a fitting one.

Then there's the second disc. Made up of only the album's title track, this "P art Two" starts with a spoken-word performance by Chicago's own "rock poet," Thax Douglas, a longtime fixture at local shows before he moved last year to Austin. From there, the winding, crystalline track climbs from guitar patterns that echo the Edge (in a good way) to Aphex Twin-like synth experiments to hypnotic tone loops to video-game fuzz to motorik grooves to campfire lullabies and, well, round and round again, back to some more spoken word by Douglas. "A long time ago," ends the first disc, or "long time gone," or something like that-- you get the feeling, anyway-- and then there's a resounding echo.

Revised FASB Litigation Proposal Still Worries Business

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September 27, 2010
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Court: Mark Cuban Must Face SEC Insider-Trading Suit

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September 27, 2010
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