2011 List of Lists

I make absolutely no claims to this list being anything other than what caught my attention in a good way in 2011.  I wouldn't know if it's the best, and I'm not even sure I care about the concept "best" anymore.  Some of the music mentioned didn't even get released in 2011, it's just what I'm listening to.  In no particular order:

Tyler the Creator: Goblin  Enough ink has been spilled on this already, but I stand by this as one of the most interesting records of the year.  And yes, I know you don't agree.  So far I like most of what I've heard from OWFGKTA.

Tim Hecker: Ravedeath, 1972  This would be the year that I really started listening to ambient music.  2012 will probably be the year I stop.  This, however, is a record I am sure I will return to quite often, along with a few other pieces of Hecker's discography.  Other ambiance that caught my attention this year (and is likely to stay in rotation for me): Black to Comm, God Destroyer, Biosphere, Johnny Raper.  Listened to a whole lot more ambient music, discovered I really didn't like most of it.

Kurt Vile: Smoke Ring for My Halo  A bit underwhelmed by the E.P. that came out later in the year, but Smoke Ring really delivered.  I am continually surprised by how much I like Kurt Vile's stuff; it's nothing like anything I would normally gravitate toward.

Death Grips: Ex-military  If pressed to pick a favorite record of this year, this would be it . . . I mean, they sample Link Wray, for the love of god.  HARD.

Shabazz Palaces: Black Up  Smoky, smart, dark, politcal, and funky.  Another really nice hip hop number.

Akira Sakata & Chikamorachi: Live at the Hungry Brain
Akira Sakata & Jim O'Rourke with Chikamorachi: And That's the Story of Jazz . . . Free jazz is becoming the new punk rock in the sense that it's getting harder every day to stand out from the masses of improvisers.  Sakata's spare, biting alto brings some distinction to the proceedings, and Chikamorchi (Darin Gray, bass, and Chris Corsano, drums) has to be among the best (if not the best) rhythm section currently working.  When O'Rourke gets his turn, he doesn't eff things up.

Loren Connors: Red Mars  I've listened to Loren Conners for a while now, but this year I really started to listen to him.  Red Mars is the kind of music that seeps into your consciousness so subtly that you often don't even notice until its gone.

Boris: Attention Please
Boris: Heavy Rocks 2011  I guess I didn't expect to Boris to become one of the foremost purveyors of disposable pop music, but there it is.  The breadth that the band demonstrates is sometimes at the cost of good taste, but I can live with that, overall.  Haven't even had a chance to really listen to New Album, their third release of 2011 . . . what I've heard sounds like cheesy theme songs to Japanimation dramas they show late at night on [adult swim], which isn't a good thing.  While I like these two albums quite a bit, I really miss the days when they did whacked-out feedback fests and hung out with people like Merzbow and Sunn O))).

Bill Orcutt: How the Thing Sings  As a fan and practitioner of all sorts of guitar fuckery, Bill Orcutt is one of my current favorite guitarists.  It is tempting to see him as a Derek Bailey-esque one trick pony; but, like Bailey, sometimes when your style is so far outside the norm, it's hard to see where the subtleties are.  I'll be curious if I'm still as fascinated several albums down the line, but for now, everything he does is pretty OK by me.

I was going to finish up this post with a few of the things that got on my nerves this year, but I guess I'll not bait all the Das Racist/Sun Arraw/Bon Iver fans this post.  Love to you all, and happy Hanukkah/Christmas/Solstice/Kwanzaa/New Year/and any other holiday I may have forgotten to you all.

A Handful of Scree

Bill Orcutt is getting some play these days, and good for him.  The ex-Harry Pussy guitarist is shredding on an acoustic guitar (shredding not here referring to the idiomatic Yngwie Malmsteen shred), and blowing it up with a Derek Baileyesque breakdown of the blues.  His latest is How the Thing Sings, recorded live in SF.  It is available on Spotify.

Yeah, those are Stevie Ray Vaughn picks on the cover.  I think they are apropos.  However, I have no sense of irony left.  It has gone the way of my hearing.

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An pal from the Bloomington days, Eric Weddle, runs a really swell record label known as Family Vineyard.  Every so often, when I want to get something cool in the mail, I put in an order, and Eric usually throws in a few nice little extras.  The last order started with Loren Connors's Red Mars.  Connors also deconstructs blues, but comes at it from a very different angle: as radical as Orcutt, but much (much!) quieter on average, Connors's guitar gestures seem to spread almost subliminally over space.  There isn't any pyrotechnics here (though Connors won't avoid aggressive atonality, if he thinks it's called for), and you find yourself discovering all kinds of interesting space . . . you sit and listen, waiting for something to happen, only to discover down the line that a unified piece has developed almost without your noticing  it.  I highly recommend Connors; but, like Orcutt, he is definitely an acquired taste, even if the approaches are almost opposite.

Give it a try . . . let it sneak up on you.  Also available on Spotify.

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Also in the package was a wonderful, free blowing record from saxophonist Akira Sakata and guitarist Jim O'Rourke.  The rhythm section on this one consists of Darin Gray and Chris Corsano (at this point, I'm the only noise guy in the world who hasn't recorded with Corsano), a.k.a Chikamorachi.  It's a free blowout of high caliber, and if that sounds like a good deal to you, then you should check it out.  It is, indeed, on Spotify.

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I also ponied up for O-Type's Lugubrious.  O-Type is an MX-80 spin off centered around the ambient bent of bassist Dale Sophia, and features Bruce Anderson (another shredder, whose idiom is somewhat closer to Yngwie Malmsteen, but still a fair distance away) and a handful of other MX-80 fellow travelers.  

I've been a part of a couple experimental music festivals this summer and fall, and I've had to sit through an unbearable amount of horrible ambient music . . . which is extra painful, since it is a music that I am becoming more interested in.  I've run across some good stuff - Tim Hecker, Black To Comm - and some bad stuff, which I will not dwell on, since I've met them and they seem like perfectly nice people.  If you were to search for O-Type's Lugubrious, you will find a Pitchfork review which encapsulates much of what I find wrong about ambient music.  Problem is, I don't think it applies to this record: drifty and aimless at parts, it nonetheless has some nice texture, and some parts that smack you right in the forehead.  Lugubrious is not the first ambient record I would recommend, but if you like this stuff, give it a listen.

Indeed, nothing on Spotify (or anywhere else that I can find), so enjoy this YouTube video instead.