Mike Snipper, the man behind the mask of Blank Dogs, helped lead the way of both 80s and lo-fi revivals that characterized so much indie music this year. Combining the post-punk new wave of early Cure with the noise and reverberation of bands like Jesus and the Mary Chain, Snipper provided a fresh and exciting product that invoked the days before "alternative" even had a name. It wasn't just nostalgia-fucking that made Blank Dogs so successful though, rather it was good old fashioned songcraft. Unlike some lo-fi bands this year, Snipper's clatter rattled around on top of solid pop structures. One listen to the discordant, but candy coated, "Over and Over" is enough to hook you on Snipper's goth-pop darkwave, repeated listens will have you losing your mind over how good it all really is.
Nika Roza Danilova, a/k/a Zola Jesus, hails from Madison, Wisconsin, which is about the last place on earth that you would imagine her to be from when listening to "The Spoils." Danilova creates an otherworldly mixture of sounds out of opera, lo-fi, post-punk and goth. While certainly there are elements of Siouxie Sioux, This Mortal Coil and early Dead Can Dance at play here, Danilova is very much her own woman, creating her own dark and astonishingly beautiful music. What truly sets Danilova apart from her influences and peers is soul. This is a woman whose voice comes from a place so deep and real that it is impossible to ignore. 2009 was a great year for Danilova, not only did she release "The Spoils," but she also produced a superb ep, and another wonderful full length, as well as took part in the amazing Former Ghosts project (reviewed here). Not bad for a 20 year old who just last year released her first 7". The music world got a lot larger this year thanks to Danilova's presence. Here is to hoping for a long and fruitful career for this incredible talent.
Combining the hypnotic mantra-metal of fellow duo Om with thrash and jazz, Iceburn Collective's Gentry Densley rolled out his new band Eagle Twin with this hyperliterate mountain of sound. Taking inspiration from Ted Hughes' pitch black collection of poems "Crow," Densley and drummer Tyler Smith have created a record as complex, powerful and brutal as Hughes' work. Like any great work it requires an investment of time. This is not a collection of singles stacking up to make an easily accessible album, this is a concept album that can only be appreciated in full by listening from start to finish. I realize in this day and age of iPods set to shuffle that is asking a lot, but keep in mind that while this work may not provide instant gratification, the best things in life, and in music, usually don't come that easy.
Yo La Tengo hasn't really made a bad album since 1997's watershed "I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One," but none have been as consistent and pleasing as "Popular Songs." Offering up a variety of styles, the band has cemented their place as indie rock legends with this album in much the same way that Sonic Youth has over the years - by doing what they do best and producing works like "Popular Songs" that younger musicians can only envy.
A few years ago the Flaming Lips appeared to be ready to join the dinosaur club. After producing a string of classic albums, the band's late-aughts output was lukewarm at best, dreadful at worse. The band still kept a high profile with festival shows, constant touring and selling their songs for use in commercials and films. Yet, even as they were circling the drain, one could not help but admire the long weird road they had traveled to get to this point. At the same time, though, one wished for a third act more worthy of the fabulous freaks of old. The Lips simply were not one of those bands you ever wanted to say "I like their old stuff" about, but they were becoming one of those bands.
"Embryonic" changed that. It didn't just provide for the obligatory "return to form," it actually upped the weirdness quotient and ensured that any of those new found fans looking for more slightly off kilter acid-inflected indie pop were in for a very bad trip indeed. Frontman Wayne Coyne's lyrics have always contained darkness and existential dread, but the Lips' music usually made it palatable for even unicorn and rainbow loving hippies to digest. With "Embryonic" the Lips chose to match their music with the darkness of Coyne's words, producing a sometimes difficult listen. Even more accessible songs like "Silver Trembling Hands" sound claustrophobic and frightening. The album does meander at times, and they could have cut it by a song or two, but as a whole it succeeds in expressing what may be the ugliest and most disquieting chapter in the band's career long exploration of the beauty, horror, meaning and meaninglessness of the universe. The Lips' commitment to this dark vision is alone cause for celebration. The band could just have easily written a few more upbeat pop songs and cashed their paycheck, but they chose to do the opposite with "Embryonic," and for that they have proven themselves worthy of admiration all over again.
Just as Woodsist, Not Not Fun and In The Red were preparing to unleash the whole shitgaze, no-fi movement on us, a little one man band called Night Control had already beaten his better known brethren to the punch with the early year release of "Death Control." Sounding like a bedroom mix of early Badly Drawn Boy (when he was respectable), the Stones, Big Star, John Lennon and Pavement, Night Control's Christopher Curtis Smith rocked as much as he postured for coolness' sake. Add to the mix a little lo-fi My Bloody Valentine-like experimentation and "Death Control" ended up being a great little album, and one worth a hell of a lot more attention than it received.
The story goes that Ernest Greene, the man behind Washed Out, graduated college, couldn't find a job thanks to this shitty economy, had to move back to his parents' home in Georgia and while living there composed this collection of dreamy pop songs indebted to the 80s. Maybe it is because Greene needed to find hope and comfort wherever he could that these songs sound so sweet, so innocent and so full of hope, like cotten candy shared between two young lovers on a first date. Maybe they were inspired by escapist memories of a much happier and more certain childhood. Whatever the case, these songs are the sound of memories that are better than any actual reality. And while it may be overly nostalgic and derivative of everything we have already heard from the 80s, this little collection of songs works because they are better than the real thing, and they make everything seem alright, even when everything may not actually be. I kind of believe that is what these songs did for Greene during his shitty post-graduate summer. The beautiful thing about "Life of Leisure" is that if you let them, these songs will do the same for you.
Justin Broadrick has offered up a variety of releases under the Jesu banner over the past couple of years. There have been eps, singles, splits and even a single massive 50 minute slab entitled "Infinity." While nearly all of them have been intriguing and worthwhile, none have come close to the perfect mix of pop, metal and shoegaze that Broadrick delivers on his proper albums. "Opiate Sun" is different. It is an ep that unleashes the unparalleled power of Jesu's full-lengths. Gone are the electronic flourishes that so often accompany Broadrick's shorter offerings, and in their place are the full force of his crunching guitar and thunderous live drums. "Opiate Sun" is easily the best Jesu release since "Conqueror," and offers a stop gap between albums that stands tall alongside those masterful full-lengths.
This collaboration between Broadcast and Julian House's Focus Group could not be more inspired. Both artists traffic in comforting, but eerie, library sounds as the building blocks for their music. Taking inspiration from European cult-cinema they have crafted a soundtrack for a film never made likely involving ghosts, the occult, young girls and sexual awakenings. It also works as a nice compliment to a hazy lazy rainy day. Either way, it is perfect mood music with much to unpack on closer inspection.
Check out the trippy videos that have been put together for this release here and here
I don't really know who the hell Cameron Stallones is, or if that is even a real name, but I do know that his musical moniker Sun Araw made the most intriguing music of the last couple of years. Mixing noise, metal, psychedelia, surf, lo-fi, dance, ambient, freak folk and damn near anything else you could imagine into a perfect sound forever, Sun Araw had me at every beat, ever weird effect and every note along the way. Since last year Stallones has put out two eps ("Beach Head" & "The Phynx", a 3" to die for ("Boat Trip")and a full length ("Heavy Deeds"). Each recording is unique, yet each have grown organically out of one another. Tied together by tribal beats and layers of jungle sound, both scary and bright, he crafts travel music for both the body and mind. You can lay on your back to this while having an imaginary conversation with Colonel Kurtz on acid, or paint yourself and your Polynesian harem day-glo before engaging in the kind of heavy deeds that we all wish for. Stallones channels in extreme light and extreme darkness, often making his music reflexive of the hazy in-between. This is the goods, plain and simple, yet nothing about this music is plain or simple.
Dayve Hawk is a stay at home dad living in Jersey and he is the most fully-realized one-man operation in music to date. Most one-man operations rely on a certain minimalism to get by, and usually to great effect. There is nothing minimal about Hawk's Memory Tapes. Instead, Hawk composes widescreen technicolor dance anthems that combined 80's new wave with modern electronica. It all sounds slightly like a 15-piece Notwist, but with bigger hair and more brightly-colored neon leg warmers. It is unabashedly over the top at times, like the jazz hands inspiring climax of the amazing "Bicycle," but it consistently manages to stir the soul and shake your ass. I had a kind of love/I don't know relationship with his work this year, but in the end I gave myself up to his sweaty sweetly comforting 80s inspired work. I am naming him my artist to watch because any single musician that can make this kind of work (and seriously only a band like Arcade Fire with a girls choir playing dance songs could make a record like this) is massively talented and I can't wait to hear what he does next.
Before I move on to another Best of 2009 category, I want to give a shout out and honorable mention to the following metal albums. If I had more time I would have posted a top 10 metal album countdown (maybe next year) and they would certainly have placed:
Black Cobra - "Chronomega" (Southern Lord) Malkuth - "Sefirah Gevurah" (Hospital Records) Immortal - "All Shall Fall" (Nuclear Blast) Wormsblood - "Mastery of Creation" (Barbarian Records) Wolves in the Throne Room - "Black Cascade" (Southern Lord)
"Renihilation" Begins with what sounds like a Gyorgy Ligeti outtake and quickly explodes into something akin to John Coltrane playing black metal. Mixing the buzz of Burzum and Ulver's "Nattens Madrigal" with a compositional style more suited to Glenn Branca, Rhys Chatham, modal jazz and 20th Century minimalism, than black metal, Liturgy astonishes. The band provokes intellectually, plays with an emotional intensity that an emo kid would cut himself for, and blasts grim with the full frosty fury of the most blacked metal. It is almost too much to take, it is that powerful. "Renihilation" is easily the black metal album of the year and a serious contender for black metal album of the decade.
Combining the hypnotic mantra-metal of fellow duo Om with thrash and jazz, Iceburn Collective's Gentry Densley rolled out his new band Eagle Twin with this hyperliterate mountain of sound. Taking inspiration from Ted Hughes' pitch black collection of poems "Crow," Densley and drummer Tyler Smith create a sound as complex, powerful and brutal as Hughes' work. Like any great work it requires an investment of time. This is not a collection of singles stacking up to make an easily accessible album, this is a concept album that can only be appreciated in full by listening from start to finish. I realize in this day and age of iPods set to shuffle that is asking a lot, but keep in mind that while this work may not provide instant gratification, the best things in life, and in music, usually don't come that easy.
When we last heard from Baroness they were a pretty decent stoner rock band that cooked up a good homemade brew of sludge from time to time. Well, the boys have been picking up cooking lessons somewhere, because they are experimenting with all sort of different ingredients here - pop, prog, even a little disco beat ("O'er Hell and Hide") - to make one of the tastiest stews of the year. It is still pretty thick and you need to eat it with a fork, but damn if it doesn't taste like upscale cuisine with all sorts of overtones and undertones to keep you coming back for more. Ridiculous cooking analogy aside, this album fucking rocks, even with all the overtones and undertones. Drawing on elements from southern rock, thrash, power pop, psychedelia and prog, the band's kitchen sink approach is entirely in the service of a seamlessly consistent kick-ass whole.
Marduk are one of the most extreme black metal bands in existence. Purposefully setting out to be the most blasphemous band in the world, Marduk have come pretty close to reaching that goal by centering their lightening fast music around themes of Satanism and Nazi Germany (although the band is not NSBM). In the past their music was a singular juggernaut of violence with very little differentiation. Not that this was a bad thing, but if you didn't like the ripping buzz of black metal you were not going to find much in Marduk. Well, Marduk have aged, and like most aging bands they have mellowed, and by mellow I mean they still play at lightening fast speeds, sing about evil incarnate and generally provide for one of the most transgressive listens out there, but they have also fashioned a much more dynamic sound on "Wormwood," their 11th studio album to date, and I would argue, their best. Taking a bit of inspiration from the French black metal scene that emphasizes complex song progressions alongside the blacked buzz of the genre, Marduk have fashioned a record that not only perfects that approach, but makes it their own. There is nothing unblack here, it is as furious as anything else out there tearing around the black metal forest, but it is also sophisticated and compelling every step of the way. The songs here will still lay waste to any listener, but they also invite closer inspection. Repeated listens pay off and like all great records it reveals itself over time. This isn't just a huge step forward for Marduk, this is a huge step forward for black metal in general.
You can read my rather pissy review of Krallice's "Dimensional Bleedthrough" here. Basically I really loved Krallice's self-titled debut last year. That album combined black metal with shredding guitars and ample emotional umph. When I found out that they were issuing a followup I waited for it with more anticipation than probably any other album this year (well, except for Sunn 0))) and Slayer). I kept looking for it to leak, and it never did. When it finally came up for on-line sale, I grabbed it without hesitation. Then I waited anxiously for the mail to arrive. I remember getting it in the mail, ripping the package open and throwing it on immediately. Then I remember nothing. Seriously, I don't remember anything because nothing stood out and grabbed me enough to make me listen. The shredding was there in full force, or rather too much force, but the black metal was almost gone and more importantly the emotional umph had been replaced by masturbatory overly technical musicianship. I listened again and again, hoping for something to break, for something to catch, but it didn't. Instead I had to withdraw in disappointment. It was crushing. What was more crushing was that I seem to be the only person out there saying, 'um, this sucks,' which means the band will probably keep going in this direction until the hype dies and everyone else realizes the emperors of Williamsburg boutique black metal wear no cloths, or rather, have no real devil horns.
Thank you very little AC, for your utterly boring "Merriweather Post Pavilion." The album came out within a week of the new year and everyone seemed to lose their shit over it. Critics tripped over themselves to declare the second coming and hipsters adopted it as some sort of generation defining album. Even I got caught up in the hype listening to it over and over again waiting and waiting for something to happen. In the end it didn't. In the end all we were left with was what sounded like a bad jam band playing music for a rave. Understand I have been diggin' on AC since back when they were just Avey Tare and Panda Bear. I thought "Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished" was groundbreaking. I stayed with them all the way through the much maligned "Strawberry Jam," but "Merriweather" is the line in the sand for me. When AC starts making music again and not background white noise better suited for shopping at an American Apparel store, I'll start listening again.
In truth Girls aren't that bad. There is a great solid ep tucked into their debut album. Unfortunately there are also some pretty lame songs on there as well. But so what? Not everyone can produce a masterpiece for their debut album. Look at the Beatles. It took them more than a few albums to hit their stride. Radiohead had a pretty embarrassing debut as well. The problem here is not with this little band that has promise, the problem is that this little band that has promise got blown up into a massive technicolor widescreen hypefest that overshadowed what they actually laid down on wax. The Girls are the exact reason why bloghype can boomerang back on a band. Rather than being able to enjoy the little indie pop gems found on their album, the listener is left trying to reconcile those gems with the sea of hype surrounding this band and ultimately coming up short. This is why there is something to be said for a band who grows their audience the old fashioned way and learns from prior missteps before subjecting themselves to wide exposure where assholes like me start throwing their punches. I wish Girls well, I really do, I just hope they don't believe the hype, because their album isn't really all that.
What the fuck is this? My six-year-old daughter could make better music than this with a casiotone. How the hell did this get past even the most basic bullshit detector of even the worst music critic? Somehow it did and idiots ate this shit up raving about it with mind-boggling hyperbole. Was it mass fucking psychosis? Hypnosis? Or just wanting to sound cool, cause someone in Williamsburg said it was the next hot shit? Seriously, if there was ever a band to be entirely made of hype it is Neon Indian. I am not opposed to raping the 80s in the service of chillwave and snarky indie pop, what I am opposed to is making a lifeless heartless soulless mess and calling it music and then everyone clusterfucking everyone else to be the first to declare it the best album of the year the day it comes out just to sound hip and in the know.
Before I continue on with the year end countdown, I need to take a moment and acknowledge the very sad news that Jack Rose has passed away. He was only 38 years old and had already ensured his place in the pages of musical history for his work in the influential experimental band Pelt and by way of his own incredible guitar mastery that took up where John Fahey left off. If you have never heard Rose, please check out his solo work as well as his work with Pelt. Rose had recently signed to Thrill Jockey who will release his final album in February. Arthur Magazine has compiled a small collection of songs and videos of Jack playing here.
This spring, my girlfriend and I lamed out after a very rocking Hold Steady show in Bloomington, Indiana and returned to our hotel room earlier than we had expected. We turned on the tv and started watching SNL because Seth Rogan was hosting, and hey, he is pretty fucking funny. We were talking and missed the introduction of the musical guests that night. It didn't seem that important at first. Another indie rock band full of fey boys singing earnestly about something. But then that earnestness turned into urgency and suddenly we were paying attention. Suddenly we were tripping all over ourselves trying to figure out who the hell it was that was blowing us away in that hotel room in Bloomington. To be honest the last group I would have ever guessed it would be was Phoenix, who have always been an "also ran" French pop band for me, well behind fellow countrymen Air and Sebastian Tellier. But it was, and this year was the year Phoenix finally got it right, really right. "Lisztomania" set a new standard in indie pop music, infectious as hell, with just the right amount of song progression to make it intriguing beyond the basic verse verse chorus template, but not make it too complicated to take it out of the pop realm, and all played with a tightness that can only come from a band who has been kicking it around for nearly a decade now. Sorry I ever doubted you Phoenix, if I had known it was all leading to this, I would have never have questioned you. That SNL performance here, and an inspired Brat Club mash up here
An unbelievable piece of inspired 80s alt influenced dance music. Choppy lyrics over synth arpeggios, squalls of guitar noise and two different continuous beats, makes for one of the most satisfying singles in years. This is the only song I know of that makes me want to dance when I am sober. Also it kind of makes me so happy to be alive every single time I hear it that I want to burst. Listen here.
"Die Slow" combined HEALTH's volatile mix of noise and post-punk with dance, and it was as dark and groovy as anyone could have hoped. Razor sharp circular guitars coupled with steady pulsating keys and drums made this a song that you could shake your ass to as well as slam. The video, which basically features a blood orgy and the slaughter of a bunch of beautiful hipsters, captured the song's essence perfectly. Stylish, sexy and violent. Watch it here.
For Sunn 0)))'s fitting tribute to jazz legend Alice Coltrane, the band tapped into the same spiritual transcendence that Coltrane's music delivered. Beginning at the bottom of Mt. Doom, which Sunn 0))) helped build, slowly but surely "Alice" crawls its way toward the heavens. Sun Ra's trombonist Julian Priester pushes the song further outward and upward into the universe before stealing it completely from the black robed guitar gods. The song ends with slight harps, denoting Coltrane's instrument of choice, and Priester's legendary horn echoing out through the cosmos. I have often argued that doom metal has a transcendental quality about it, but who knew it could be this stunningly beautiful as well? Listen here.
A blues song by a Swedish female electronic musician? Yes, and it is brilliant. Bjork and Thom Yorke are likely green with envy over this tale of unfettered greed and its inevitable consequences. A fitting new blues for our supercapitalist nightmare. Awesomely creepy video here.
Starting out all mid-tempo and ending in psychotic screams of "Birthright! Murder!" over brutal speed metal, this song stands shoulder to shoulder with classic Slayer. Tom Araya sings and then barks a first person narrative of the infamous blood Countess Bathory. Drummer Dave Lombardo and guitarists Kerry King and Jeff Henneman don't sound a day over 1989, other than like a good wine they have grown more complex and refined. This is the kind of song that could change a 16 year old's life forever, or make an aged headbanger in his middle ages feel 16 again. "Beauty Through Order" is so far beyond the typical "return to form" that it becomes the form itself.
The song featured those wonderful Grizzly Bear harmonies, fairly dynamic verse chorus changes and a cool vocal bridge that proceeds the song's kind of rocking climax. Even if a lot of dad rockers and their suburban wives fell in love with it, making it instantly suspect, "While You Wait For The Others" had enough power and soul underneath the accessible veneer to not only maintain respectability, but make it one of the best songs of the year. Oh, and Michael McDonald was recruited to redo the vocals as a b-side, which is one of those so wrong it is right moves. Kind of bizarre video/studio version here. Live version here. And what the hell, here is that Michael McDonald version as well.
One of Grouper's most mournful songs, it is also one of her most haunting. Choral like vocals descend into a murky haze of drones and gentle guitar, weaving a dark but comforting blanket of sound. Listening to it is like being buried in snow, one flake at a time. In short,"Rising Height" is absolutely stunning.
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