Three years

It was three years ago today that everything changed.

This morning, I (as I so often do) looked at Facebook's "On This Day" feature. There were several items of interest for August 23. For one, in 2011 I posted, "Whoa, I've never felt an earthquake before just now!" (And yes, I was right here in Cleveland when that happened - anyone else remember that quake?)

Much more significantly, at 1:13 pm on August 23, 2013 I updated my Facebook profile picture to a photo of Cara and me on a sun-soaked beach in Guanacaste, Costa Rica on the last day of our honeymoon.

Instantly I remembered what had happened three years ago today. I did not remember, though, the exact timeline of events on that day. Was there any particular significance to the time at which I had updated my profile picture, I wondered? And so I dove into my online chat history with Cara in order to answer that question.

One of the quirks of our relationship is that so much of our communication was done online. This was especially true in the period of time when we were "just friends," from March through the beginning of November in 2006. Our communication then was almost exclusively via online messaging - we chatted for hours on end most days, while we only got together in person a total of six times over those months and very rarely talked on the phone. After we became a couple, on November 4, 2006, we spent most weekends visiting each other, but continued to do a huge amount of chatting online. This decreased, of course, when Cara moved to Cleveland in September 2008, but we still messaged each other fairly often as we did not live together until June of 2009. When that happened, the frequency of our online messages dropped dramatically, but it picked back up two years later after Cara lost her job at Medical Mutual (where she had no ability to chat with me during the day) and later that summer found a new job at Case (where no such restriction existed).

The upshot of all this is that I have a very detailed textual history of almost our entire relationship, which is rather unusual, although undoubtedly becoming at least a little less unusual than it would have been in past eras. It's really wonderful to have that history. I suppose the equivalent, for more traditional forms of communication, would be if all your in-person and telephone conversations were audio recorded as they happened and then converted to text. That would seem like a really weird thing as it happened, but years later, wouldn't it be cool to have such a record? In the absence of such a recording system, most all of the face to face conversations I ever had with my beloved wife and best friend have become nothing more than vague memories. But all the online messaging communications are still there in the exact same words as when they first happened. Especially now that Cara is gone, that's an amazing thing to have.

Moving past that digression. The month of August 2013 was a very eventful month. Among the messages I have from Cara are some very brief ones during her great Pedal to the Point adventure (sample: "I miss my bed"). For years, Cara had been participating in the MS charity bike tour to Sandusky. On more than one occasion, she had planned to stay overnight in Sandusky and do the return ride on day two, but then had changed her mind after the first day's ride and had me pick her up in Sandusky. In 2013 she finally did the whole thing, covering 150 miles on her bicycle in two days. This was a huge deal. Throughout that summer, she had been experiencing increasingly worse respiratory symptoms such as wheezing and shortness of breath, which were incorrectly diagnosed as being due to asthma at an urgent care in May. Yet somehow, on that last Pedal to the Point ride, she said that she felt great.

Our chat history at that time includes messages about several different health issues of Cara's. One, her visits to a reproductive endocrinologist about our continued unsuccessful attempts to get pregnant. Cara had PCOS, resulting in very irregular cycles and making it very difficult to get pregnant. This was very frustrating for her. Another issue that popped up that month was the pain and swelling in Cara's leg. On August 7 she messaged me: "Um. There's some really bad swelling on my ankle. I just noticed, on the outside." She went to an urgent care, where they said she had a sprained ankle. She wasn't sure how this would have happened.

The foremost issue, though, was with Cara's breathing. Cara was becoming increasingly convinced that the source of the problems was mold in our apartment. This belief was strengthened when she felt remarkably good on her Pedal to the Point ride and then went back to feeling worse after returning home. It was a time of extreme frustration for Cara and a stressful time for both of us. One message she sent me about this was, "I hate to be a buzzkill but if we go to the ADKs and I don't have asthma issues I'm going to insist that we move." (The ADKs means the Adirondacks, where my family vacations every year in August.)

As it turned out, Cara's issues got even worse during that trip.

On August 15, the two of us hiked Cobble Hill, a relatively short and easy but very nice hike in the village of Lake Placid near the house where we stayed. Cara had to go very slowly on the uphill portion of the hike, but once we were at the top, she was very happy and we had fun posing for some pictures and making each other laugh.

One of the pictures was even described by Cara as her favorite picture of herself that was ever taken:

The following day, we went on a bike ride that we had done in the past. It was about the flattest route available in the area but still had some hills. There were a couple of long, gradual hills and I remember Cara was just going so slowly up them. I felt frustrated (undoubtedly nowhere near as frustrated as she herself felt) and also felt really bad for her. I thought back to the very first times we had gone for bike rides together, all the way back in 2007, and how slow she had been back then. She had improved her fitness so, so much in the ensuing years, and now it seemed like all that progress was being reversed.

With a few miles left in the ride, there was a steep uphill. Cara started up it, experienced a fit of hacking coughs, and stopped. She couldn't do it, she said. I had to ride the last few miles myself to retrieve our car and come pick her up. After that we enjoyed our traditional lunch at the Noonmark Diner in Keene Valley, an eatery known for its pies and one I had been going to with my family since I was a kid. Incidentally, my Facebook profile picture immediately before I changed it to that picture of us on the beach was taken at the diner that day, a funny picture of me wearing Cara's sunglasses:

Cara would describe what she had felt when she tried to ride up that steep hill as like one of her lungs was only partially filling up.

This was, in fact, exactly what was happening.

I recall lying in bed at night in that house in Lake Placid, next to Cara, listening to her just cough and wheeze and cough. It should have been clear then that something was seriously wrong. It wouldn't be much longer before we found out what.

The following week found us back in Cleveland (while my parents and brother remained in Lake Placid, having rented the house for two weeks). August 22 brings some heartbreaking messages in my chat history. That morning, Cara excitedly messaged me, "I got non-stop flights!" In October, she was going to be traveling to Baltimore for a training program related to her job as an exam proctor. She had never done something like this before and was very much looking forward to it. I told her, "It will be really weird to be home alone for a week!" She replied, "It definitely was weird any time you left," referring to times I had been out of town for conferences. I, on the other hand, had never stayed at home without Cara in all the time we had lived together, not even for a single night. (Edit: looking back at this, that statement is obviously untrue, because I was home alone for a night earlier that month when Cara did the two-day bike tour. But to my recollection, that was the only time this had happened.) Little did I know that I would be "home alone for a week" much, much sooner than October - in fact, beginning the very next day.

(Well, I spent much of that week in the hospital, of course, but I did go home every night.)

Also on August 22, she messaged me to ask if I could take her to the store when I got home. She said she was "awfully woozy/dizzy." I said that I could, and she thanked me and said she felt bad for "being so needy."

That was a Thursday. That night I was going to see local band Cloud Nothings perform at the Beachland Ballroom. Cara ended up not going to the store; I made a quick trip there by myself before going to the show, picking up some ramen soup and other things typical for someone with a bad cold. I had a really great time at that Cloud Nothings show, which some of my friends also attended. Looking back, that was the last time that my life was anything resembling normal.

The next morning, Friday, August 23, Cara had a doctor's appointment in Family Medicine at University Hospitals, right by Case campus where we both worked. She unfortunately had not had a primary care physician, and this appointment was to establish a relationship with one. Cara wanted to discuss, among other things, the breathing problems she was continuing to have.

At 10:24 am, she messaged me, "Fever is gone as of now" (she had had a fever the previous night). "That's good!" I replied.

At 11:02, Cara messaged me again. "She's actually kind of concerned about a blood clot. Possibly in my leg. Which could attribute to respiratory issues." As Cara would tell me later, after talking about her ongoing problems with "asthma," the doctor had asked Cara if anything else had been bothering her. Cara mentioned the pain she had been having in her leg. The doctor felt Cara's leg, noticed a warm spot in her calf, and was instantly concerned.

Cara, 11:59 am: "They found a clot. I'm waiting in vascular to see what they do. I might be admitted." 12:28 pm: "I'm in family medicine again... it's such a cluster fuck. I have no idea what's going on."

At 1:02 I messaged Cara to say that I had been away from the computer for a while and her boss had just called me. Cara filled me in on what was going on - she was going to be taken to the ER, where she would be admitted. And so it was that at 1:13 pm, full of concern for my wife, I changed my Facebook profile picture to that honeymoon photo of us, and then left to meet her at the ER, a short walk from the lab at Case where I worked. I spent the next hour or two with Cara in the ER, and listened to a doctor explain what was known at the time. Eventually I went home with plans to return later that day, because there were some things at home that Cara wanted. (Among those items, from a chat message she sent while I was at home, "Boco" - her name for the oldest and most beloved of her Chococat plushes - and "yb" - standing for "yellow blanket," her baby blanket that she continued to sleep with throughout her entire life.) Before I left the hospital, Cara asked me how I was feeling. I said I was feeling pretty at ease, because finally there was some explanation for what was going on with her. A problem had been identified and it could be treated, and then, I figured, Cara could get better. The thought that she might have cancer did not enter my mind.

After leaving the hospital, I called my parents, who were still on vacation. "My parents are on a hike but I got through to my dad. I'm at home now," I told Cara at 3:25.

Some time later, I received a phone call from Cara, who sounded upset and told me that I needed to return to the hospital as soon as I could. I asked what was going on. She gave the phone to the doctor, who said she couldn't explain to me over the phone what was going on, and I should just go to the hospital to hear it in person.

So, no longer feeling at ease, I returned to the hospital.

There I learned why Cara had sounded so upset. Cara had had a CT scan of her lungs. Her lungs were full of pulmonary embolisms (blood clots). Moreover, there was an unidentified mass obstructing one of her bronchial tubes.

What.

What.

At that point, it was still an unidentified mass. But an unidentified mass, that sure sounded like it might be a malignant tumor. Through all those months of Cara's increasing respiratory symptoms, all that wondering of what was going on with her, I don't think the notion that cancer was the cause ever occurred to me. And now there it was. In my mind for the first time. The idea that my wife, a vivacious, healthy, and active 34-year-old woman, might have cancer.

As I said at the beginning of this post: it was three years ago today that everything changed.

The next week is something of a blur. Certain specific events stand out, but the exact timeline is lost to my memory. Unlike August 23 and the days leading up to it, there's little chat history for me to look back on. I called my parents, of course, to update them. I remember telling them, trying to put it optimistically, that the doctors had to "rule out lymphoma or lung cancer" - which, of course, actually meant "Cara might have lymphoma or lung cancer." Or maybe I told them that in person, when they came to see us. As I said, it's something of a blur. (I recall at one point, some time in between Cara's admission to the hospital and her actual diagnosis, being told that lymphoma seemed more likely. I'm not sure why that was.)

My parents and brother were already going to be heading back from the Adirondacks that weekend, and rather than driving straight through to Columbus as they usually did, they made a stop in Cleveland to see us. Additionally, Cara's mother came up from Columbus to be with Cara in the hospital. It had been a long time since we had seen her.

One day the next week a bronchoscopy was performed on Cara. I remember sitting with my mom in the waiting area. The surgeon came out to see us. He said that everything went okay with the procedure, but that it looked like Cara had lung cancer. This was another gut punch, because as I said, for whatever reason I had been under the impression that lymphoma looked more likely. Not that a diagnosis of lymphoma is a good thing, but...

Naturally my immediate instinct was to look up lung cancer survival statistics. What I saw was not pretty. I remember being in a hospital bathroom soon after, washing my hands and looking in the mirror, and just breaking down in tears. How could this possibly be happening?

Once Cara was back to her room, it fell to me to tell her what the surgeon had told me - that it looked like she had lung cancer. Not long after, the doctor in charge of her care learned of this, and was very upset, because he said the surgeon should not have told us that, and Cara had not yet been definitively diagnosed. We did not know whether she actually had lung cancer. We would have to wait for the biopsy results.

I remember clearly the morning that we received those results. I made the same nine-tenths of a mile walk from home to the lab that I made every morning, but only stopped in briefly before making the much shorter walk across the street to the hospital's old Lakeside building. As I walked up the steps to the hospital's entrance, I was stopped in my tracks by a striking sight: a praying mantis was sitting there on the handrail, at the top of the steps, facing the doors through which I was about to walk. It was eerie. I'm generally not a superstitious person, but I imagined the mantis might be some sort of harbinger of death. Although this was a moment that will always stay with me, I did not, back then, look up the symbolic meaning of seeing a praying mantis. Perhaps I was being a little superstitious. Perhaps I was afraid of what I might find. (Looking it up now, I see that it's more often regarded as being a sign of good luck. Go figure.)

I took the elevator up to Cara's floor and walked down the hall to her room, where everyone else was already waiting.

The doctor confirmed that yes, Cara did, indeed, have lung cancer.

At these words, everyone in the room started crying. Cara later said that this was the absolute worst moment. She also said that it was the only time she had ever seen me cry (as in full-blown tears, not just welling up), and that she hoped to never see it again. Remarkably, she got her wish. Although I've cried many times since then, both before and after her death, this has mostly happened when I was alone and never when I was with Cara.

The doctors did not actually use the term "stage IV lung cancer" at that time, but did say that the cancer had spread to her liver and bone, meaning that it was stage IV.

During the previous few months, Cara had often been frustrated and at times even angry about all the issues she was having in her life, foremost being her respiratory issues followed by her infertility. This all changed when she was diagnosed. That anger was gone. Having a baby no longer seemed important when she had a life-threatening illness. And now that the horrible true cause of her respiratory issues was known, her attitude was, okay, it is what it is and we and the doctors are going to come up with and carry out a plan to treat it, and we're going to go on living and enjoying our lives the best we're able. She carried this amazing positive attitude and resilience with her for the rest of her life, and in this way, she carried me with her, and has continued to do so even after her death.

I'll finish with an anecdote about a wonderful thing Cara did for me not long after her diagnosis. Earlier that summer, the band Ohbijou, a band I loved and had never seen live, announced that they were calling it quits and playing a single farewell show in their hometown of Toronto on September 7. Seeing this, I immediately decided that I wanted to go, and I asked Cara if she would go with me. She said that she would, and I bought a pair of tickets.

As August turned to September, Cara was in no condition to make such a trip. I remember after she was released from the hospital, she and I were eating lunch with my parents at our favorite restaurant L'Albatros. I remarked that I wasn't sure whether I would still go to the show in Toronto. My mom got a horrified look on her face, like how could I even consider still going. I'm sure a lot of people would react the same way.

Cara, though... she knew how much seeing that show would mean to me. Of course, if she had said that she didn't want me to go, I absolutely would not have hesitated to stay with her and give up going. But instead, she told me that I should go without her. Her mom was staying at our apartment, so Cara would not be home alone. Still feeling uncertain about it, I did head out early that Saturday afternoon on the five-hour drive from Cleveland to Toronto. I told Cara that after the show, I would start driving back from Toronto and then stop to find a hotel when I got too tired. As it turned out, my eagerness to get back to Cara outweighed any feelings of tiredness, and I drove all through the night, getting back into Cleveland just as the sun was coming up (a very strange thing for me to experience). All told, I drove five hours to Toronto, spent five hours in Toronto, and immediately drove five more hours back home. And it was well worth all that driving; the show was an incredible and supremely emotional experience. There is something very, very special about farewell shows. I wrote a review of the show a few days later, but while I shared it on Twitter so that the band and other concertgoers would have the opportunity to see it, I did not share it on Facebook. This was because I figured that many people would have a hard time understanding how I could have gone to a show in Toronto by myself less than two weeks after my wife was diagnosed with lung cancer. And putting it that way, it does sound strange. But Cara understood. I'm forever grateful to her for letting me have the opportunity to experience that show. Just as I'm forever grateful to her for so, so many other things.

Ohbijou's Farewell Show

Farewell concerts tend to be memorable occasions. Five years ago Cara and I went to Hamilton, Ontario, to see the final show by A Northern Chorus, and I still consider it the best concert I've ever attended (review here). On Saturday I again made a trip up north, this time to Toronto, to see Ohbijou's farewell concert. Over the past few years, Ohbijou became one of my favorite bands, despite my never having gotten the chance to see them perform live. When they announced they were going on "indefinite hiatus" and playing a single farewell concert on September 7 at Toronto's Great Hall, I knew that I had to go. As I anticipated, it was well worth the trip (a trip in which a period of about five hours spent at the concert venue was sandwiched between two five hour drives!)

I've felt for a while that Canada has a really disproportionate amount of great music coming out of it when you consider that the country has only about one-tenth the U.S.'s population. Many Canadian indie bands (Arcade Fire the most notable example) have gained great popularity here in the States, but at the same time, there's a whole scene of really exciting indie music in Canada that I feel most American indie fans are fairly oblivious toward. I've become familiar with more and more of this music over the past several years, largely through exploring similar artist connections on the website last.fm. The band that kicked this all off for me was Woodpigeon, but Ohbijou was another key in the discovery process. Other favorites of mine include Forest City Lovers, Evening Hymns, and Bruce Peninsula. What I didn't realize until fairly recently was that many of these bands were and are members of a Toronto music scene with Ohbijou at its center. Ohbijou's frontwoman Casey Mecija lived in a house on Bellwoods Avenue in Toronto where many local musicians would often gather, and this led to the creation of two "Friends in Bellwoods" compilation albums featuring songs by Ohbijou's many friends and collaborators, with proceeds benefiting a local food bank. I recently picked up the second of the two albums, and it's really a fantastic collection; I still need to check out the first album. With Casey Mecija and her band serving as the core of such an exciting community, it was only fitting that the members of Ohbijou were joined at their final concert by probably two dozen plus other musicians, who were both members of the audience and, at times, performers in the show.

The format of the farewell concert was unique. There was no opening band; rather, Ohbijou took the stage first, at 9:30, and played (sublimely, I might add) for about an hour, after which the concert was far from over. In the second portion of the night's proceedings, a number of Ohbijou's friends (mostly groups of two, with occasional solo or trio performances) took turns taking the stage to play Ohbijou covers. Between each song, there was a lot of talking about how the people on stage had come to know Ohbijou, and what Ohbijou meant to them. Admittedly, this section of the concert did drag at points, and I sensed that I was not alone among the audience in feeling this way. Some of the covers were better than others. But looking up toward the balcony and seeing the reactions of Casey and her bandmates made it all worthwhile. One of my favorite performances of this section came from Evening Hymns. Jonas Bonnetta, the lead singer and creative force behind the band, spoke of how his music career had essentially been kickstarted by Ohbijou asking him to open for them at several concerts in a row, and how if it weren't for Ohbijou, he wouldn't be a professional musician. Considering the two stunningly gorgeous albums Jonas has released as Evening Hymns, this is another reason to be very grateful toward Ohbijou! The best cover, I thought, was saved for last, a mesmerizing rendition of "Echo Bay" by Daniela and Dan of Snowblink.

After this interlude, Ohbijou took the stage again to play a second set, which lasted all the way until 1:30 in the morning. Between the two Ohbijou sets, they played a majority of the songs from their three studio albums, and there were memorable moments and marvelous musicianship throughout the night. As I mentioned, I'd never seen Ohbijou live before, so I couldn't help but be struck by what a small woman lead vocalist and guitarist Casey Mecija is - and what power she brings to her performances in spite of it. Her vocals are often sweet and angelic sounding, but when she wants to, she can really pack a punch. Her sister, violinist Jenny Mecija, added some wonderful backing vocals. Their two voices together were heavenly.

I thought that I knew every Ohbijou song, but they actually played two that I wasn't familiar with, and both were stunning. The first I don't remember the title of, but it was from the Zips and Zings EP, a release preceding Ohbijou's first full-length which I was previously unaware existed. (Does anyone know if it's possible to obtain a copy? Google didn't help me.) The second new song to me was a cover of Nathan Lawr's "Barking At Your Door." If you're an Ohbijou fan and don't know the song, check out this video of Ohbijou performing it - really gorgeous stuff. During the farewell concert, Casey and Jenny split the audience into halves and, toward the end of the song, traded off leading each half in singing the chorus.

A highlight from the first set was "Balikbayan," off of Ohbijou's last album, Metal Meets. A balikbayan box is a shipping container used by overseas Filipinos to sent items back home. Casey dedicated the song to her parents, who were at the concert and who she said had brought their children to Canada so they would have a better life. The string section of Jenny Mecija on violin and Anissa Hart on cello really shone on this song.

The numerous special guests from the local musical community were not just there for the set of covers, but also joined Ohbijou in performing many of their songs. This resulted in some really memorable performances. Rolf Klausener of The Acorn shared lead vocals with Casey on "Steep," an Ohbijou song that was also covered by The Acorn on a split EP with Ohbijou. Evening Hymns and Nils Edenloff of The Rural Alberta Advantage provided outstanding guest vocals on other songs. (I wouldn't have guessed that Nils's distinctive, somewhat nasal voice, so familiar to RAA fans, would work so well on an Ohbijou song, but it was a real thrill to hear.)

As the main set neared its conclusion, "Make It Gold" provided another standout song. It's one of my favorites by Ohbijou, and it was fantastic in person. The rich trumpet sound was great live. There's a moment toward the end of the song where Casey just takes her vocals to a totally different place than anywhere else in Ohbijou's catalog. I was anticipating this moment all night, and it was just as intense and thrilling as I'd hoped. "Turquoise Lake" followed as the main set closer, and Casey's guitar playing at the end of this song had even more intensity than her vocals on the previous song. Ohbijou left the stage to thunderous applause. A chant of "OH-BI-JOU! OH-BI-JOU!" soon resounded through the Great Hall, prompting the band to return for their final encore. And although the concert had been great up to that point, I have to say that the encore was what really set it apart. I'm ready to declare it the best encore I've ever seen.

The encore started with "Anser," one of my favorite songs from Metal Meets. Soon after the song began, Casey descended from the stage, carrying her microphone into the crowd. I've seen musicians do this before, but never in quite the same way as this time. As Casey wandered through the crowd, singing, she paused at each person she came to and looked at them with an expression of sheer gratitude in her eyes. She came to me, looked at me and touched my arm, and it was as if she was saying, "Thank you so much for being here and for sharing in this moment with us." As the song continued, she returned to the stage, and standing on its edge, urged the audience to clap in time with the music. "Louder! Louder!" she cried, even as the clapping was about as loud as it could possibly get. She continued to shout as the band continued to play and the audience continued to clap; most of what she said I didn't understand and I'm not quite sure how coherent it all was, but it was one of the most visceral emotional displays I can remember. And then she came back down to the floor, and laid down on her back in the middle of the crowd, singing, and looking like she wanted to capture that moment and bask in it for all eternity. Earlier during the concert she had mentioned that performing was like being in a dream. With her lying there on the floor (and me in the front row of the crowd encircling her), I had a strong sense for what she had meant. It was a staggering moment.

There was one final song after "Anser." Casey said she wanted that last song to feel like a house party, and urged all of the musical guests to come down from the balcony and onto the stage. So there were probably close to thirty people on stage, dancing and singing and banging on various objects, as Ohbijou concluded their final concert with "The Woods" from their first album, Swift Feet for Troubling Times. Although tinged with bittersweet emotions, this final performance was full of exhilaration and joy. It was a true demonstration of the power of community, and the power of music to bring people together. It was an unforgettable night, and I'm very grateful that I could be there.

Favorite music of 2011

With the new year here, I guess if I want to post a list of my favorite albums from 2011, I had better get to it! It was a strong year for music, from my point of view. I got to listen to a lot of really good albums; some were releases I'd been anticipating and many others were artists I discovered. There were also some great concerts. Godspeed You! Black Emperor in Chicago and The Decemberists at Nautica stand out as two of the most memorable shows I've ever attended. The former was simply one of the most epic experiences of my life, two-and-a-half mind blowing and eardrum rattling hours of post-rock mastery. The latter was an all around great set punctuated by the single most memorable song performance I've witnessed, as a huge cargo ship passed behind the riverside stage in perfect timing with "The Mariner's Revenge Song."

In this post, I decided to list my ten favorite albums of the year. I make no claim that these are the ten best albums of the year; these are strictly my opinions. I listened to about three dozen new albums this year (and at least as many albums from previous years that were new to me). There's undoubtedly lots of great stuff out there that I haven't heard, but this was a good number for me. I like being able to devote extra attention to the stuff I really like, rather than trying to listen to as many different albums as possible.

I'd like to mention When You Left the Fire by The Wilderness of Manitoba, which I reviewed here. It was released in 2011 in the U.S., and would rank pretty highly on my list, but was actually released in 2010 in Canada.

And now, to the countdown.

10. Beirut - The Rip Tide









"Postcards From Italy" off of Beirut's first album, Gulag Orkestar, is one of my favorite songs ever. The words and music together create an amazing mood of nostalgia and of being transported to another time and place. And oh, those horns! Although The Flying Club Cup was pretty good, nothing off of Beirut's sophomore LP really came close, and I found it somewhat disappointing. The Rip Tide, in contrast, has several tracks that evoke similar feelings to "Postcards From Italy," and coming from me, that's saying a lot. Key tracks: "A Candle's Fire," "Santa Fe," "The Rip Tide."

9. My Morning Jacket - Circuital









Here's another band whose previous LP disappointed me, and in this case, a lot of other people as well. Circuital is a nice return to form, just some great roots rock that adds nicely to what the band did on albums like It Still Moves and Z. Key tracks: "Victory Dance," "Circuital," "Holdin on to Black Metal."

8. The Rural Alberta Advantage -Departing









I reviewed this album from the Canadian indie rock trio after it was released. It picks up right where their first album, Hometowns, left off - "Departing is ten more tracks of the RAA's signature sound - Nils Edenloff's Jeff Mangum-esque vocals over purposefully strummed acoustic guitar and propulsive keyboard and percussion." Although I'd like to see them change up their sound a little more in the future, they certainly haven't worn out their welcome yet; there's some great stuff here. Of special note, Paul Banwatt's drumming is killer, not something you often hear in modern indie rock. Key tracks: "Stamp," "Tornado '87," "Good Night."

7. Odessa Chen - Archives of the Natural World









Odessa Chen is a little known, San Francisco-based artist who I discovered several years ago and whose gorgeously moody music characterized by stirring cello, arpeggiated electric guitar lines, and Chen's strong voice I fell in love with. This is her third album; it was funded by a Kickstarter project which I gladly donated to because I enjoyed her previous albums so much. The title of the album refers to Chen's desire to record the stories of the numerous forms of wildlife that are being driven to extinction by human activity. This serves as an overarching theme for the album, which, musically, is fairly similar to her previous work, with a bit more of a rock side. The appropriately nautical-sounding "Oh, Atlantis!" is a real standout. Key tracks: "Deer Perspectives," "Oh, Atlantis!", "The Mercy of Sound," "Cinders."

6. Bon Iver - Bon Iver, Bon Iver









This album ranked highly on a lot of people's year-end lists, and I can see why. I was really surprised by the dramatic evolution in sound here, and I personally like this album quite a bit more than the also quite good For Emma, Forever Ago. Key tracks: "Perth," "Holocene," "Calgary."

5. Motopony -Motopony








This is another album that I already reviewed. I guess it's appropriate that it ends up adjacent to Bon Iver on my list, because I wrote, "In a certain sense, I'd compare this album to Bon Iver's latest. I wouldn't say that Motopony sounds just like Bon Iver (maybe a little) but there is a similarity in that, at its heart, this is a guy with a guitar playing folk music, but then it pulls in all sorts of eclectic instrumentation and stylistic influences and becomes a wonderfully diverse (yet cohesive) collection of songs." There are several songs on this album that are just beautiful. Key tracks: "God Damn Girl," "Wait For Me," "Wake Up."

4. Various Artists - National Parks Project









Here's an album that seems to have flown under just about everyone's radar, and that's a shame. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Canada's national parks, the National Parks Project was created, a film and accompanying soundtrack album with contributions from a whopping 39 musicians. As a big fan of Canada's indie music scene, it's not surprising that I've found much to enjoy in this album, with contributing artists including some of my favorites (Mark Hamilton of Woodpigeon and Casey Mecija of Ohbijou) and a whole host of others, such as Kathleen Edwards and Besnard Lakes' Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas. What did surprise me was how well it actually works as an album. There's a tremendous variety of sounds, but it all flows together pretty well, and I can imagine the songs here would go well with the scenes one might encounter in national parks - much of the music tends toward the pastoral or the atmospheric in sound. With twenty tracks, It's a pretty long album, but it's well worth listening to the whole thing. Key tracks: "Welcome to the Dark," "Sunblood," "Mystic Morning," "Wapusk," "Kathleen Lake."

3. Moving Mountains - Waves









After two albums of epic post-rock music with emo vocals, Moving Mountains decided to change things up, leaning more toward the post-hardcore side of their sound with an album of songs that are generally heavier and more to the point. Although I do miss their more drawn out post-rock numbers, this album still has the essence of what makes Moving Mountains' music great, with soaring melodies, heavy riffs, and plenty of emotional intensity. If you are into the sort of music that comprises the rest of my list, there's a chance this won't be your cup of tea, but sometimes it's nice to just rock out. Actually, this is the one album on my list that I'd describe as great workout music. Key tracks: "Where Two Bodies Lie," "Furnace Woods," "Full Circle."

1. Okkervil River - I Am Very Far and Ohbijou - Metal Meets (tie)









Two albums stood well ahead of the pack for me, and when it came down to it, I couldn't decide which one was my favorite. (I previously reviewed both.) Okkervil River is my favorite band, so I was expecting to love I Am Very Far, and it didn't disappoint. The band definitely pushed their sound to new places, with a variety of instrumentation making this their biggest sounding album. At times raucous, at times gorgeous, and with more of Will Sheff's reliably brilliant lyrics, it's another outstanding addition to the Okkervil catalog. That another band released an album I ended up loving just as much is a testament to how much Ohbijou has grown as a band. They, too, really explored new places with their sound, adding synths and heavier guitars to help create lush dreamscapes, with the string section and Casey Mecija's angelic vocals reminding the listener that this is still the Ohbijou we know and love from their previous releases. Yet this is definitely their most confident-sounding, and in my mind best, album so far. Key tracks: "We Need a Myth," "Show Yourself," "Wake and Be Fine," "The Rise" (I Am Very Far), "Niagara," "Balikbayan," "Anser," "Scalpel Blade" (Metal Meets).

Ohbijou: Metal Meets

Prior to this year, Toronto-based indie band Ohbijou had released two albums, each full of beautiful chamber pop music highlighted by ornate string parts and Casey Mecija's ethereal vocals. At times, they managed to go beyond "beautiful" and create something truly magical - "Make It Gold" off of their sophomore effort Beacons comes instantly to mind. I've come to adore both Beacons and Swift Feet for Troubling Times, but if there's any criticism I'd level, it's that when listening to either album, by the time I reach the end of the album I feel there's a certain sameness to some of the songs. It seems the band liked to work in their comfort zone - and it was a very good comfort zone, so that's not really a bad thing - but it was on the songs when they pushed beyond that comfort zone that their music gained those magical qualities.

Two weeks ago, Ohbijou released their third album, Metal Meets, and from the instant I first heard the powerful electric guitar chords that introduce opening track "Niagara" I felt something was different. That sense of magic? "Niagara" has it in spades, the guitar and some spacey synths complimenting those familiarly gorgeous strings and vocals in a dreamy masterpiece. "Niagara" is an apt beginning to an album that takes Ohbijou's sounds to places barely imaginable from their previous albums. The aforementioned "Make It Gold" was my previous favorite song by the band, but perhaps half of the tracks on Metal Meets are just as good or even better.

What's remarkable about this album is that it's simultaneously a natural progression and a radical evolution in style. Previously, Ohbijou's brand of chamber pop was folk-tinged. That's gone now, with nary an acoustic guitar to be heard. Instead, the listener is treated to richly textured soundscapes built on electric guitar tremolos, airy synth arrangements, and a weightier rhythm section - but it wouldn't be Ohbijou without the strings, and they're just as present and just as gorgeous as ever. It all comes together as a fuller, more confident sound for the band, and the vocals top it off perfectly - Casey Mecija's remarkable voice can be both angelic and mischievous, and the backing vocals of her bandmates compliment it wonderfully.

The sense of sameness that I sometimes felt creeping in on their previous albums is also gone. Each song now feels vital, and each is its own distinct entity (but not in a way that sacrifices the flow of the album). After "Niagara," third track "Balikbayan" is another standout. In a nod to Casey and (sister and bandmate) Jenny Mecija's Filipino heritage, its lyrics are inspired by Balikbayan boxes, pieces of luggage that overseas Filipinos use to send items back home.

"Sligo" is the longest Ohbijou track yet, and it makes good use of its six minutes, starting off at a leisurely pace that's repeatedly punctuated by stately strings, and then going into a drawn-out buildup in its second half that takes full advantage of Ohbijou's newfound penchant for the electric guitar. "Sligo" kicks off a sequence of songs that showcase a band at the height of its abilities. "Anser" is another strong contender for best song on the album. It's a wonderfully dramatic composition, with piano, guitar, strings, and shared female/male vocals all building off each other. This newly dramatic, dynamic Ohbijou continues to strut their stuff on "Obsidian" and "Scalpel Blade," before pulling back toward that leisurely pace for the beginning of "Turquoise Lake." (They operated at a leisurely pace for most of their first album, actually, but this is darker, more impactful stuff.) And then "Turquoise Lake" culminates in another dramatic buildup, with a heavy guitar part that I never would have imagined hearing on an Ohbijou album before now. Yet on this album, it fits right in. There's one more song, "The Dreaming." It's as dreamy as you'd guess from its title, and it's a nice way to close out one of the best albums of the year.

In summary, if you are in any way into lushly orchestrated indie pop music, do not miss this album. I continue to be amazed at all the great music arising from the Canadian indie scene, and Ohbijou has just staked their claim as one of the heavyweights in that scene. If Metal Meets is your introduction to the band, don't miss out on their previous albums, either - they're both gorgeous, and the evolution of Ohbijou's sound is wonderful to experience.