> PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
If I had to put down coin, this would be my record of the year. It's a totally English album - one that acknowledges all of PJ's back-catalogue, everything that the Mekons have put to tape, everything in the catalogue of Anne Briggs, Fairport Convention, the Pogues, and all of the folk and punk music that has been wrenched out of the British Isles over the past 50 years - wrenched because there's a real pain in many of these songs. PJ explores war, politics, social and financial blights that have eviscerated the queen's island over the years. It's got the stuff that made some of her first few albums some of my favorite albums ever, but it also does a brilliant job of bringing it all to the here and now - recorded in an ancient church in the nowheres of the English countryside, it is all about the here-and-now of All of our country's shakings and quake'ings.
This is a brutal listen, totally beautiful, but heart-breakingly brutal. Willy Vlautin writes songs that attain a southern gothic sense of deep dark nepotistic pain that even few novels can reach. The High Country is a series of vignettes that build on the story of 'the Girl' and 'the Boy' who fall into a forbidden love, in a run-down, rain-sodden dead end of the Pacific Northwest. Things don't go well - not at all - but the music veers from desultory day-in-the-life moments to life-changing non-decisions that just seem to happen, when high and drunk on muddy roads. The musicianship is top-notch and the production and attention to sonic nuance is flat-out gorgeous on the vinyl version of this release (on the British-pressed Diverse Records rendition and, from what I hear, the well-recorded hi-rez state-side cd version too). This is an under-the-radar gem that deserves many more ears to be raised to attention. The last few releases by these guys have hit a lovely, cinematic, dark stride of Pacific-Northwest-Redneck-Noir that this one takes even a lil' step further....highly recommended.
great live studio rendition courtesy of the Line Best Of Best Fit Sessions
> Destroyer - Kaputt
LOVE IT! This is one of my favorite releases of the past year, and one of the better and most unique ones of the past handfull of years. Dan Bejar takes all of his scorn and bitter observations of the American Way (and, yes, that includes ALL of N. America with his Canadian lineage and his semi-removed/askance perspectives on our USA-ism's in general), and channels them through the musical canon of the past 20 years, with special attention paid to the late eighties/early nineties. Horns are brilliantly deployed in late night jams that stretch almost all the way back to Steely Dan-era cool. Just the right amount of synth. and eighties pseudo-funk liven the tracks that, in the end, in true Destroyer style, are most informed by the atmospheric moments of mid-70's Bowie. And that ain't a bad thing at all.
worth it just for sec. 41 - 60... a great song too...seeing this album, along with Painter in Your Pocket performed live with full horn section was a big time Best Of 2011-Moment for me...
> iceage - New Brigadeworth it just for sec. 41 - 60... a great song too...seeing this album, along with Painter in Your Pocket performed live with full horn section was a big time Best Of 2011-Moment for me...
My faith in punk restored - incarnate. A few teenagers from Denmark channel their record collections and no small dose of Ian Curtis in a skate-punk smash-shit-fest that is heavily colored by the wearing of Nordic winter goggles gazing at a far-off So-Cal dream of surf and sun. The drums are propulsive, the breaks are insane, and the fuzzy guitars are heavy, what's not to love?
(so, shitty s.q. on this video but it captures the live vibe better than most other YouTubes I saw...great live show, the most real punkin' and moshin' I've seen in a long while.)
> Bon Iver - Bon Iver
This is a pretty obvious pick but totally necessary...it's one of the best things to be done, musically, in a long time. We were lucky enough to see them perform at the State Theater in Mpls. this summer, just an awesome show that showcased how great these new songs are. The arrangements are excellent, the vocals and lyrics perfect, the production is a bit weird but works well for the album - the guitars and some of the instruments are buried with the vocals put Way up front. While his debut album was intimate and 'late-night', this one is painted in broader strokes - indicated right off the bat with the geographic city and state song-titles. A great document of the evolution of an artist and album that is approaching a perfect 10.
> Shabazz Palaces - Black Up I always feel like a bit of a white-boy schmuck when I get psyched about hip hop albums in my year-end lists...as usual though, there're a few unignore-able thumping and, ahem, black, albums to mention. Black Up is, if nothing else, a hands-in-the-air celebration of everything the Digible Planets ever did back in 'the day'. This was the era of guys like me to listen to, love, and actually be ok, listening and loving some honest-to-god hip hop. NWA was cool, good - but not mine. Beastie Boys were awesome. And fer real. But they were, and are, white boys. Digible Planets sang some outrageously surreal, and real, lyrics. Rapping and rhyming in a way that made Everyone feel good. And laying down true beats that bridged a gap that was real in a music/social/racial/political way...they were game-changing, and friggin' awesome, and for just about everybody.
Shabazz Palaces takes up this helm, 20 years later. Ishmael "Butterfly" Butler, now aka 'Palaceer Lazaro' is the primary guy here and the album shows that Butterfly's been Listening to music and has his finger on the pulse of current dub and the atmospheric raw-rubbed sound environments that have been explored in recent years by Burial, Ohneotrix Point, and a bunch of stuff that I just don't know... this album reeks of being nostalgic (and good weed) but I'm so happy that it's transcended that. Butterfly is always cool like that.
> Helm's Alee - WeatherHead
Brad Verellen from the one-off-wonder's Harkonen, and a master guitar amp builder, has put out two full lengths under the name of Helm's Alee. It's a lineup configuration I love, two chicks - playing drums and bass - and singing, with Brad playing guitar and making sure it all sounds Awe-Full. At the end of the day, I think I like their first full-length, Night Terrors, better, but this is an amazingly strong release considering the amount of (non) attention it got...part of it's fun is that it takes the total love of three people making a melodic, cool-sounding rock n'roll record, and makes it palpable...you can taste the fun they're having.
> Meg Baird - Seasons On Earth
A lot of music made over the past year or two has harkened back to another day and age - reverbed folk with banjo as a lead instrument is - against all odds - cool right now. No complaints from me - in theory - but the level of earnestness and dumb-down'ed-ness seems especially high (see Dawes, Mumford and Sons, and to a lesser degree, Fleet Foxes). This is where Espers and, the lovely/incredible lead singer Meg Baird, come into play to save the day. Espers continues to put out absolutely amazing neo-folk-psychedelic tapestries in the form of music but their sound is streamlined and coelesced in the form of Meg Baird's solo albums, and specifically, in her new release. The pedal steel of Marc Orleans is in and of itself, worthy of a Grammy. It's nuanced, poetic, technically perfect, and mind-fuckingly soaring as good pedal-steel should be. The way Meg's guitar harmonizes with her vocals is reminiscent of the first Joni Mitchell album and her voice, though similarly lovely, is more a nod to the British folk chanteuse-highest bar of Sandy Denny. All this, yet unique and, somehow, contemporary enough to never be mistaken for anything but a voice of our new and confused millenia.
> Jesus Lizard - Club
This was recorded in 2009, the first show on their reunion tour, in Nashville - in other words - their first live show together in over a decade. Doesn't show. It is blistering, sweaty, virile as fuck, tight and loud. The sonics are lush and honest...live but not blurred or bloated. All the 'hits' are here and sound spot-on. This is an awesome release by one of the better bands that's graced our collective rock n' roll ears in the past 25 years. Yow!
> Grails - Deep Politics
What's in the water in Portland, OR?...(it's the killer weed!)...something's going on. And only getting better. Earth put out a great album of desert-drenched instrumental explorations this year. Agalloch has only continued to hone their heady stew of death metal wintery folk to a fine, baleful blade over the past few releases. And Grails just put out an outstanding lp, their most refined and concise yet, if not achieving the ragged raw truth that the Black Tar releases revealed, Deep Politics is a precise showcase of all the aspects that have made them the purveyor of eastern-tinged psychedelia drone metal for the past handfull of years. Buy it, Turn it up!
> M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
Epic and anthemic. Less My Bloody Valentine, more Depeche Mode on this one but strikes a great balance between atmosphere and luscious, crescendo-ing pop songs. Wasn't sure of this one at first but I keep wanting to listen to it. So I do.
Epic and anthemic. Less My Bloody Valentine, more Depeche Mode on this one but strikes a great balance between atmosphere and luscious, crescendo-ing pop songs. Wasn't sure of this one at first but I keep wanting to listen to it. So I do.
> Key Losers - California Lite
I have a friend who has five or six cassette tapes and cds - stuff that's continued to be put in boxes as she's moved from dorms to apartments to mortgage-world. She just doesn't listen to music as an activity. Weird. I get the feeling that Katy Davidson, who is the Key Loser - backed by a stellar band culled from the Mount Eerie stable, doesn't listen to music very much either. That her go-to stuff is mid-eighties Joni Mitchell, maybe an Arthur Russell mix tape or two, stuff a few quirky friends have recorded themselves. She takes these dubious influences and has crafted them into a totally unique, but so refreshing and comfortable album that's a bit ineffable in it's appeal. Kind of Lite rock, kind of Laurel Canyon rock, kind of timeless and not like anything else.
> Wye Oak - Civilian
Not sure why this stands out so much because it doesn't do anything too unique - Jenn Wasner singing and playing guitar, Andy Stack on drums, keyboards. Sort of folk-leaning indie rock with a bit of crunchy noise and moments of shoegaze drifting here and there. It's just good music.
Runner's Up ...aka: Good Stuff /but doesn't/hasn't gotten as many spins:
Fucked Up - David's Town (and the awesome accompanying David's Town)
Laura Marling - A Creature I Don't Know
BruteHeart - Lonely Hunter
War On Drugs - Ambient Slave
Tinariwen - Tassili
Lee Noble - HorrorismLow Anthem - Smart Flesh
Tom Waits - Bad As Me
Ty Segall - Goodbye Bread
+ Great Reissues from 2011:
Beach Boys - SMiLE
Neutral Milk Hotel - complete discography box set (this is luscious!)
