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Best Week Ever
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Music (For Robots)
videos.antville.org

yes, I know, I haven't posted in over two months. it was very negligent of me, but I was a little busy getting a job or two and then, you know, commuting and performing said jobs. still, its the most wonderful time of the year, where its a perfectly well accepted cliche for me to look back on the music that came out in 2006 with an almost nostalgic personal analysis.

the first album to get this treatment from me is the self-titled debut album from Think About Life.
The album kicks off with the infectious drum machine loops, synth taps, and distorted moans of "Paul Cries", wherein Martin Cesar sluggishly reminds you to "put on your shoes and your clothes. Get set, get set for life!" The song is a perfect intro to the rest of the album, with its noisy wails of sound, like a group of toddlers stepping on casio keyboards plugged into various distortion peddles and huge amps, and immediately you are knocked back on your ass, astounded by how much rhythm these toddlers have got!
"Commander Riker's Party" starts off sounding like a sample from the Capcom-produced "Little Nemo in Slumberland" NES game (that's a very good thing to sound like) and quickly kicks into party mode.
One of the more nuanced songs on the album, "Money" starts off sounding like a simple straightforward, nothing special keyboard and drum machine song, but about halfway through the entire song is taken over by a beat change and waves of excited whelps "It was all for the money!!!" which bring the song to an uproarious and galiant conclusion.
The two most welcome surprises, though, come in the latter half of the album. The easily favored "What The Future Might Be" (very likely my most-heavily played song of the year) features LA's Subtitle competently rapping over the surprisingly melodic distorted synth and drum machines of TAL, as Subtitle and Martin both are quick to point out "this is not a love song" (and who would have thought that would be a fun line to sing along with?).
Most impressive, though, is "In Her Hands" which starts out exactly where I worried the sound of the band might head, with wooshing, dark, driving synths filling the atmosphere with a decidedly goth sound as a woman's sing-talking is lost in the swirls of vibration, sounding like a fall into the twilight zone, and as you reach the other end of the rabbit hole, a delightfully upbeat tune awaits you in the last half of the track. What a welcome surprise!

Think About Life's debut album was easily one of my favorite guilty pleasures this year, and I only considered it a guilty pleasure based on the boarish simplicity of the tunes. I'm not sure if it qualifies as "art rock" but it sure as hell qualifies as damn good listening.