November: Bon Iver - Holocene

"I can see for miles, miles, miles."

Slight delay in announcing November's rotm as I've been on holiday. But that holiday gave me time to really listen to the new Bon Iver record and appreciate just how good it is. In particular, the tracks 'Perth', 'Calgary' and the quite brilliant 'Holocene'. And so, while it might have been released slightly pre-November, it's 'Holocene' that gets November's rotm.

First time I heard it I knew I liked it, but then it continued to grow on me, which is when I know that I really like a song. The constant, echoed guitar riff underpins the whole thing but - a bit like Okkervil River's 'Mermaid', an earlier rotm - there's so much more going on and to listen closely for. I remember once reading that classical music students have to complete exercises where they are given a piece of music that they have to listen to and they need to be able to dissect it into all the constituent instrument parts. This would probably make brilliant subject material.

Listening to the track reminds me so much of our holiday, driving across hundreds of miles of the long, flat roads of Wisconsin and Minnesota under early winter's sharp blue skies. The line "I can see for miles, miles, miles" pretty much speaks right to that. As we were driving, Clare absently said that this album was the perfect music to accompany our journey. She was right.

February: Okkervil River - Mermaid

"And my heart fills with love, with too much love to bear."

I came across Okkervil River by complete fluke, about nine months ago. I clicked on a friend's Stumbleupon link to look at something completely different (it was some pictures of cakes, not so surprisingly for those who know me well...). Then, once I'd looked at that, I clicked on the 'Stumble' button and it brought up a list of the ten best Valentine's songs that people probably wouldn't have heard. Okkervil River's 'A Stone' (from their album 'Black Sheep Boy') was one of the first tracks I...erm...'stumbled upon'. And I loved it.

Back to the future and I'm now a huge Okkervil fan, so was well pleased to find out this week just gone that their new album ('I Am Very Far') is out in May. And before that, they've released this single, 'Mermaid', which won't be on the album for some maddeningly bizarre reason.

There's so many little touches on this which you only pick up on closer listens. Like the use of mandolin strings to conjure up the sound of the mermaid's "freezing fins fluttering" or the drum patterns which batter and blow the song and ship towards its stormy finale. The fact that everything here was recorded 'live', except for Sheff's vocals and the string section, is pretty damned amazing.

Another reason that I'm such a big Sheff and Okkervil River fan is the guy's poetry. I love a great tune and melody but a song that also gives you great lyrics and which tells a great story is worth double, to me.

"With a sickening flick of her tail, circling,
Her gills fill with cold, salty water.
She thrashes and twirls,
Her freezing fins, fluttering.

"My hands meet and they press to a point in the air,
But my mouth fills with more panic than prayer."

Like many Okkervil River songs, I found that I only started to get the best out of Mermaid once I'd listened to it a couple of times to really hear what's going on beneath the surface and to truly get a feel for the lyrics and metaphor at play. It's this blog's first 'record of the month' but I reckon it'll go some way to be beaten.