I am from Las Vegas, Nevada. Las Vegas calls to all the outsiders to unite in this seemingly small city. Nothing surprises me anymore. From the time I was ten I could have named 20 strip clubs. My middle school English teacher was once a stripper. I’ve seen a drunk man masturbate to billboards of call girls. The lights and constant ebb and flow of dreamers and addicts makes me forget the natural red rocks that surround me.

The most surprising part of Las Vegas isn’t the addicts who constantly scratch their scabs but rather the area that surrounds us. The city is consuming but the sheer emptiness of the vast desert that lies at the city’s borders makes even the grandest of hotels look small.

In Las Vegas, I was raised by a single mother. I never knew specifics about my father but I know that he was raised in the deserts of Nevada. He loved the red sand, the cactuses, the billowing mountains. It was not until the beautiful singer and songwriter Joan Baez coerced me to retreat into the land that my father loves so dearly that it caused him to recoil from me.

Joan Baez captures the essence of the Southwest in the soulful song “In the Quiet Morning.” She speaks of a girl who is tormented by loneliness, much like the feeling one gets when they realize how epically minuscule they are in comparison to the vast Southwest landscape. She also remains true to the real essence of Las Vegas, a place before Jay-Z’s club openings and Criss Angel, but rather a place where the clothing on your back was enough to ensure a sense of content.

She embraces the natural in her song “In the Quiet Morning.” Her voice is not grandiose but rather sweet and simple alongside the noise of a lone guitar. The lack of fluff is central to this song’s dynamic and seems as though she is in the middle of the desert herself and happened to stumble upon a group of vagabonds with guitars. It is charmingly authentic.

The chorus is exceedingly cheerful and consists of the repetition of the words “la la la”. There is a sense of jubilation. I can only compare the chorus to the way I feel when I look at the desert landscape I once detested because of its reminders of my father, only to realize the frailty of human life and its beauty. The rocks that surround me will last far beyond my time and my father’s relationship. They have endured much worse than I ever will. I look to the desert mountains and Joan Baez, the woman who loved them so much, to remind myself to forgive because I am just a temporary fixture in the desert landscape.

By Michelle Merica

WVAU’s executive board shares their picks for 2012’s most exciting music.

Event Director Ryan Gaffney’s picks:
1. Chairlift – Something
Chairlift has the misfortune of being a band with a song that was featured in an iPod commercial, because their big single “Bruises” is known by a lot of people as “that song from the iPod commercial” (or if you’re the guy in the audience from when they opened for Peter Bjorn & John, “the blowjob song”). It’s a shame because that overshadowed what was a really cool pop album that probably came from outer space. The lead single “Peculiar Paradise” suggests they haven’t lost their touch by touring for, like, years.

2. Franz Ferdinand
They’ve got two great albums and a pretty good one under their belt. It’s been three years since the last album, leaving the ‘nand comfortably in the window between “it’s been so long that they’ve lost their touch” and “cranking another album out too soon after the previous one.” Scientifically speaking, this album can’t not be good.

3. The Killers
Here’s a really controversial opinion: I like The Killers. Scandalous! World Humblest Musician Brandon Flowers promises that the new album will synthesize all the best parts of the previous three albums. Those albums all have distinct sounds that don’t necessarily sound like they would mesh, but this album is exciting at the very least for being so ambitious. Even if it’s not great, it will still be interesting.

4. Kaiser Chiefs/Muse
These are two bands I was really fanatical about in high school whose last albums were, in my esteemed opinion, a steaming pile and a bit of a let-down, respectively. Here, the anticipation is less of a “can’t wait to hear new music from groups I love” and more of a cautious “should I run their older albums over with my car” sense of dread. Don’t let me down.

Librarian Allie Porambo’s pick
Sleigh Bells – Reign of Terror
I am generally a quiet person. I don’t like to brag or show off, and I would much rather prefer a night in watching a movie with some close friends to going out for a night on the town. When it comes to music however, there comes a time in everyone’s’ lives that you just need to be louder, more obnoxious, and cockier than the Donald Trump as the king of Karneval. And when I’m in that mood, I reach for Sleigh Bells.

Back in the summer of 2010, when their debut album Treats was released, the Brooklyn duo’s release was permanently stuck in my car’s stereo system. Whether I was dropping off my mom at Bunco night with her girlfriends or picking up my cats’ medicines, I’d turn up the volume, roll down the window, and feel like the coolest kid in the veterinary office parking lot.

Treats was the perfect mix of guitar-driven aggression and angelic vocals, and if the single Born to Lose is any indication, Reign of Terror will not be much different. Though the album may be dropping in February, I will certainly be blasting it from the speakers of the family van well into the summer.

Music Director Emily White’s picks:

1. The Return of Legal Music
Music sales actually went up in 2011. Major labels and album sales may be down overall, but music is more popular and assessable then ever before. I know that music pirating will never stop completely and I am by no means a supporter of SOPA or PIA as a means to prevent it– But my hope for 2012 is that the music business finds a better alternative. Ideally, legal streaming services like Spotify will iron-out their kinks, find a way to get more revenue back to the artist, and put a damper on illegal downloading.

2. Pictures of Blue Ivy Carter
Will Beyonce’s genes prevail? We can only hope.

3. The possibility of new Spoon, Grizzly Bear, or Animal Collective
Some of my favorite bands are well overdue for a new album. Hoping these three come through in 2012 and give me something to look forward to!

4. The soundtrack to Moonrise Kingdom
Yes, Wes Anderson movies typically feature similar casts, themes and cinematography BUT they never fail in the soundtrack department. The trailer for his latest, “Moonrise Kingdom”, features Françoise Hardy’s “Le Temps De L’amour,” which bodes well for the rest of the soundtrack.

General Manager Alex Rudolph’s picks:
1. The Magnetic Fields – Love at the Bottom of the Ocean/Magnetic Fields, April 9 @ 9:30 club
My favorite band gets back to the label (Merge) and dense, gloomy synth-pop that originally turned me into a Stephin Merritt obsessive. After a trilogy of records made with mandolins, violins and guitars, Merritt has let himself return to his weapon of choice. The tracklisting is a little too punny and the album art is ridiculous, but when the funniest/saddest band in the world makes a return to form, you can allow them a few dud song names.

2. Pulp’s U.S. tour
When Pulp, the secret winner of the Blur/Oasis brit-pop war, reunited to play European festivals in the summer of 2010, I sat waiting for the announcement of American dates. And none came. And there was a year of silence. But then, earlier this month, they were revealed to be playing Coachella and this morning they announced a single date in New York. Tickets will be impossible to get and travel will be inconvenient, but there is a near-endless list of things I would do to see Common People live, and Pulp is about to test the limits of that list.

3. The World Forgetting About Odd Future

Music Director Maxwell Tani’s pick:
James Blake – anything
Although there are no signs that a new James Blake EP is in the works (hell, he released a new one a little over a month ago), I think we can be fairly certain that the 24 year-old British crooner has something exciting planned for 2012. Riding off the heels of 2010’s wildly successful CMYK and Klavierwekre EPs, 2011 was Blake’s year from beginning to end. His self-titled debut LP dropped in February, incorporating minimalist singer-songwriter piano and vocal stylings with his trademark post-dubstep splicing. He quickly followed this with two solid EPs, Enough Thunder further showcasing his angelic vocals, and Love What Happened Here harking back to his earlier punchy, sample-ridden releases.

The last two years have seen Blake successfully build and maneuver his way to the forefront of a genre that he has pioneered, fusing the unlikely pairing of balladry and cut-and-paste post-dubstep to create a sound uniquely his own. So while there is no clear indication of any new records from the already prolific songster, Blake’s penchant for ambitious experimentation, genre-defying innovation, and consistently frequent quality releases is enough to keep any music lover excited for more.

Web Director Maeve McDermott’s picks:
1. Sleigh Bells: Reign of Terror
It’s a real shame that Sleigh Bells pushed back their album release date from February 14th, because you can’t ask for a better Valentine’s Day antidote than baddest bitch Alexis Krauss. The sheer thrill of being wailed over the head by Sleigh Bells’ riffs has subsided for me by this point, and though the thought of a followup album of “Crown on the Ground” soundalikes may be tempting, Sleigh Bells’ sledgehammer guitars-meets-airy female vocals gimmick isn’t tenacious enough to stay interesting on a carbon-copy second album. It’s time for Sleigh Bells to evolve a little, and from the lead singles we’e heard so far from “Reign of Terror,” it sounds like Krauss and guitarist Derek Miller have risen to the challenge, adding a little nuance to their trademark genre-defying sound. Try to snag a ticket for Sleigh Bells at 9:30 on February 16, or catch them opening for the Red Hot Chili Peppers (wait, what?) this May.

2. The Shins – Port of Morrow
We all started listening to music somewhere, and I started with the Shins. As my adolescent music library ballooned from the OC soundtracks outwards, I’ve always been fond of the Shins, nothing more and nothing less. Some indie rock that introduced me to music in general has grown even more dear to me since junior high school, like Sufjan Stevens and In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, while my pre-teenaged idolization of Colin Meloy and Ben Gibbard didn’t make it past 2007 (though I will indeed defend Transatlanticism always and forever). But my feelings for the Shins have remained constant, and I’ve immensely enjoyed their previous three releases while remaining entirely uninvested emotionally in James Mercer’s music. I’m curious to see where James Mercer takes his next release Port of Morrow, after he traded the sun-kissed preciousness of 2007’s Wincing The Night Away for the Danger Mouse-assisted Broken Bells project and basically handled every part of Port of Morrow’s recording by himself. And if the album sucks, I’ll be more than happy to just forget all about it and keep laughing about my 10th grade Motorola Razr cellphone with its “Phantom Limb” ringtone.

3. Jeff Mangum, Jan 27 @ Lincoln Theater
Just because.

I can honestly say I’ve never seen a live performance of a movie score, much less heard of the concept, until now. In late November, English band 65daysofstatic took their alternative score of the 1972 sci-fi flick “Silent Running” to the Duke of York Picture House in Brighton, Britain’s oldest continuously operating cinema.

The band premiered their revamped “Silent Running” soundtrack at the 2011 Glasgow Film Festival, as part of a series in which several artists composed and performed alternative scores to old films. 65’s take on the environmental space odyssey, the film that inspired the director of Pixar’s 2008 hit “WALL-E,” was so well-received the band decided to take it on tour, playing cinemas all over the UK. After further popular demand, 65 recorded their score, initially only released on vinyl and digital download in mid-November.

As a bit of a movie score geek, this was an exciting, intriguing new experience. How would 65 pull off exactly matching the pace of the film to their sound? Are you supposed to sit like when at the movies or stand like when at a gig? And where do you even look – the band or the screen? Answers: Lots of practice; sit; and both, the band played directly under the screen, so all that was required to switch your focus was a slight shift of the eyes.

The primary focus of the performance was the film, which was logical considering how the music so closely depends on the mood of the plot and pace of the editing. The band even made sure the audience was paying attention to the film, softening the volume when important dialogue kicked in so the audience wouldn’t miss out on major plot points.

The composition was in the same vein as Academy Award-winning “The Social Network” score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross: a recurring, sweet piano theme floated over distorted, industrial guitar riffs and racing, determined drums. The range in styles and sounds featured throughout the soundtrack also shows off the band’s versatility. In the 90 minutes of movie, 65 seamlessly weave in and out of melodic piano, galactic electronica, “Twilight Zone”-esque synths and epic post-rock swells.

65daysofstatic managed to hit that perfect balance of composing a soundtrack that had all the qualities, served all the functions and unmistakably sounded like a movie score, all while maintaining their distinctive sound and staying true to their experimental, glitch-rock roots.

Here’s the trailer for the vinyl release of “Silent Running,” featuring music from the score:

65daysofstatic Silent Running Vinyl Release from 65daysofstatic on Vimeo.

By Marissa Cetin