2011 Picks

This year I got more into older music than any new stuff that was coming out.  That said, here are my picks for the best stuff that I heard that came out this year.

-When Saints go Machine, Konkylie
These guys do some really interesting voice-as-instrument stuff, paired with really rich synthetic tones that walk a nice line between the abstract and Depeche Mode pop.

-Obits, Moody, Standard, and Poor
Rick Froberg uses blues-rock to tell you how it is.  Yes, it is shitty.

-A Winged Victory for the Sullen, S/T
What would happen if two guys tried to make Millions Now Living Will Never Die after listening to Gorecki's 3rd about a million times.

-Bibio, Mind Bokeh
I imagine that if you replaced the music in all the movie adaptations of Clive Barker novels with something pretty and soothing, this is what it would sound like.

-Junior Boys, It's All True
If we allow ourselves to pretend that George Michael's output dropped off in the '90s not because he was fighting with his label, but because he was hard at work on an only whispered-about masterpiece whose working title was "I Want Your Sex Pt. 3", we can also allow ourselves to pretend that this is the long-awaited fruition of that long endeavor.

-Destroyer, Kaputt
stream of consciousness musing, call a woman's name, drop an f-bomb, repeat.

-Cut Copy, Zonoscope
Men at Work, Paul Simon, others, big bright Australian production.

-Atlas Sound, Parallax
 Yes, of course.

-True Widow, As High As the Highest Heavens and From the Center to the Circumference of the Earth


-College, The Northern Council