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.

Help Me Build My Summer Playlist

Okay, crowd participation here . . . I want a nice playlist for the rest of the summer, so everybody pitch in with their favorite summer songs.  I would prefer new material, but toss in some old stuff too if you're feelin' it.

Post as many times as you wish.

Here's my first summer hit:



and just for grins:

Boris

Sometimes Boris is wacky, sometimes Boris is predictable. The 24th of May, they managed to be both at once, releasing one album of fairly standard big-ass Boris rockers

called Heavy Rocks 2011 (not to be confused with Heavy Rocks 2002); and an album of dream-pop

called Attention Please.

Heavy Rocks 2011 is non-essential if you have the first Heavy Rocks, Pink, or Smile (none of which live up to the godliness of such titles as Amplifier Worship, Absolutego, or Akuma No Uta), but if you just can't get enough, you won't be disappointed.

Attention Please, on the other hand, is a weird one. It's essentially a wistful dream-pop album with A BIG FREAKING BEAST UNDER THE HOOD! On first listen, I pretty much wrote it off as a nice little experiment (and lord knows, Boris aren't afraid of trying different things), but it actually grew on me by about the third time I listened to it.

I'm not big on the dream-pop stuff (I did listen to a bit of Opal and Mazzy Star back in the day, but I never joined the Bjork legions), so I'm not the best judge of how this works, but I like it quite a bit. And, though the description may have you thinking "Pixies" almost immediately, it doesn't sound at all like that either, which is fine by me, not being the world's greatest Pixies fan either.

This isn't a great album, but it is a good one, and very listenable. And, as an added bonus, it's one album that both the wife and I can enjoy.