Fela Kuti - Teacher Don't Teach Me No Nonsense

Maybe it's the fact that it is Sunday, maybe it's the fact that it is a very moderate Sunday for the winter, or maybe it is the thrill of listening to "Ghana Special," which features an appearance by Fela, that made me want to post something by the master today. I'll have a review of "Ghana Special" up soon, in the meantime, enjoy this wonderful live performance by one of the greatest musicians of all time.

Hank Williams - Alone and Foresaken

After watching Dave Matthews desecrate this song last night, I decided to post the original sacred text by the man himself.

Grouper/ Weston Currie - Sputnik

What better way to kick off a new year of content with a short film featuring Skeletons & Candy favorite Grouper? Directed by Weston Currie this short piece features incidental music by Liz Harris. It's pretty haunting, as you can imagine. Enjoy.

Sputnik from Weston Currie on Vimeo.

Best of 2009 (albums) #1 Sunn 0))) - Monoliths and Dimensions (Southern Lord)

If the aughts were the decade of the drone musically, in every other respect it was the decade of doom. Wars, rumours of wars, environmental degradation and economic collapse all made for a pretty shitty decade. It's not entirely surprising given the state of the world that a band who played heavy as fuck glacial doom/drone metal would become one of the decade's most acclaimed artists. Of course it wasn't just because the band provided the soundtrack to our fear and trepidation that Sunn 0))) became so highly regarded, rather it was because the band expertly combined drone and doom, while relentlessly, and successfully experimenting with their basic primordial template. As a result the band has produced three of the decade's finest albums; "White 2," "Black One," and now "Monoliths and Dimensions."

The album begins with exactly what you expect from Sunn 0))), a singular monumental slab of doom guitar bliss that sounds like the cracking of the earth itself. About halfway through opener "Aghartha," purportedly about a lost underground city, the guitar gives way to Penderecki-like strings. If the guitar is the breaking of terra firma, the strings are the tearing of the roots buried deep within, as the band burrows further underground into the darkest bowls of the earth. The piece ends with jazz legend Julian Priester submerged deeper still and blowing drones out of a conch shell while black metal legend Attila Csihar recites his esoteric lyrics. "Aghartha" makes it clear that Sunn 0))) have a lot more on their mind than simply turning their guitars up past 11.

"Big Church" follows, not with pummeling guitar, but a Viennese woman's choir, eventually the crushing guitar does come in, but the women's choir maintains the upper hand. Throughout the piece, Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson's legendary guitar drones engage in a sort of point counterpoint with the choir that is occasionally punctuated by Csihar's mantra like chanting. Mind you this is no metal meets orchestra tripe. This isn't Metallica backed up by a symphony, or even anything resembling symphonic metal, this is something more akin to modern composition. It is art, but art that you can raise your devil horns to.

"Hunting and Gathering" crushes. And by crushes, I mean it crushes everything in sight, and everything that has ever been recorded by anyone ever, anywhere. Others have called "Hunting" the heaviest song ever. Maybe, if you discount Sunn 0)))'s other recordings. To avoid that argument, let's just say that Sunn 0))) is the heaviest band ever, and this is certainly one of their heaviest pieces. "Hunting" sounds like a war party stomping across the land on their way to victory. This time the band's bread and butter guitars take center stage alongside Csihar. Only occasionally does the song give way to horns, percussion and regular collaborator Oren Ambarchi's electronics.

And then there is "Alice." "Alice" is Sunn 0)))'s fitting tribute to jazz legend Alice Coltrane. The piece finds the band tapping into the same spiritual transcendence that Coltrane's music delivered. Beginning with ominous earth-bound (the band and the planet) guitar , as "Alice" progresses it crawls its way toward the heavens. 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. It is an incredibly beautiful end to any album, much less an album by the premiere doom metal band.

I have always argued that doom metal has a transcendental quality about it. "Monoliths and Dimensions" is a prime example of that transcendental experience, taking the listener from the center of the earth to the outer reaches of space. Given that Sunn 0))) has continually confounded and expanded expectations over the past decade, one can only assume that the 10s will be just as rewarding, especially if "Monoliths and Dimensions" is any indication.

Monoliths And Dimensions - Sun...

Best of 2009 (albums) #2 Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

I said most of what I want to say about Phoenix when I declared that "Lisztomania" was the number one song of the year. I can't think of a more perfect indie pop album. If you haven't heard "Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix" yet you are doing yourself a disservice, and if you have and it hasn't hooked you, well then, I pity you man.


"1901" live


"Rome" live in studio


"Girlfriend" live


"Lisztomania" Bratpack mashup

Best of 2009 (albums) #3 Yellow Swans - Mort Aux Vaches (Staalplaat)

Most noise bands pummel you into oblivion with extreme sound violence. Shards of noise bash around the listener until through sheer volume alone an immersion of the listener into the sound field occurs. Yellow Swans are not most noise bands. Instead of pummeling the listener, they intoxicate with cascades of sound that are as beautiful as most noise is brutal. This isn't to say the Yellow Swans are an easy listening ambient trip; they are as loud and intense as they come, but they make a place in their audio assaults for dynamics and melodics that few of their brethren bother with.

"Mort Aux Vaches" finds the Yellow Swans at their most expansive and dramatic. Haunting guitars cry out under squalls of noise, while the band explores breathtaking peaks and valleys of sound among the album's four sound sculptures. It is an exhilarating and intensely moving listen. The guitar invokes the aching arch of Godspeed You Black Emperor at times, but married to, and at odds with, a relentless tidal wave of noise. The juxtaposition of harsh electronics with mournful guitar is quite effective, but the band really hits their stride when both guitar and noise accompany and compliment each other through epic buildups of sound. There is something downright anthematic about this release. Yellow Swans do immerse the listener to the eventual point of oblivion with "Mort Aux Vaches," but they do so by way of their unique transcendental ascensions of noise rather than the decimated leveling of pure sonic violence. Phenomenal stuff.

Untitled #3 here
Untitled #1 here

Best of 2009 (albums) #4 HEALTH - Get Color (Lovepump United)

The first time I encountered HEALTH was at a little known hipster ho-down called the Pitchfork Music Festival. A friend and I had just left Boris, whose equipment had crapped out under the intense heat of the 2008 summer. We had just grabbed a beer with a water chaser, because it was that hot, and heard some serious racket emerging from the "C" stage. Something over there sounded like This Heat at their loudest. When we got there it was chaos, in both the crowd and the stage. Tribal drums, noise, the obligatory screeching, and this little lead singer/ guitarist that punctuated the mess with his melodic falsetto and crisp post punk guitar. It was a sight and sound to behold, and immediately I knew that the first thing I had to do when I got home was pick up HEALTH's debut album.

I did that, but it didn't compare to the spectacle I experienced at Pitchfork. When HEALTH announced that they were releasing their follow up "Get Color," I immediately perked up and waited anxiously to see if the band I saw that day could make an album worthy of the sound I heard that day. To say that they did would be an understatement. "Get Color" satisfies across the board. A perfect mix of noise and post-punk, the album finds the band simultaneously at their most melodic and most chaotic. Just as I remember them on that brutally hot day two years ago.

Like all great albums "Get Color" is not a collection of singles, but a singular listening experience. Pieces feed off of and bleed into one another and when it is all finished you are left with an exhilarating, brutal and mesmerizing battery of melody, noise and beats. It is razor sharp clean and tightly constructed, experimental, yet amazing accessible, devastating and beautiful; more importantly, "Get Color" is something you want to hear over and over again.


"In Violet" live


"We Are Water" live


"Nice Girls" live

HEALTH "DIE SLOW" from Lovepump United on Vimeo.

Best of 2009 (albums) #5 Zelienople - Give it Up (Type)

Talk Talk, Slowdive, Zoviet France, The Verve, Spacemen 3, Neil Young, Boris, Angelo Badalamenti, Labradford, Boxhead Ensemble, Bark Psychosis, Bohren & Der Club of Gore; these are only some of the bands that critics have tried to compare Zelienople to throughout their career. While certainly elements of the band's sound could be related to any of these artists, for the most part these comparisons are solely the product of lazy writers. The band sounds at times like all of these artists, sure, but Zelienople is, and always has been, their own beast. Mixing elements of post rock, slowcore, drone, ambient and jazz, Zelienople has emerged as one of the most original bands of the past decade. Nearly every attempt to pigeonhole them ultimately comes up short, only hinting at a tiny part of the band's sprawling sound. The only word that can truly describe these guys is hypnotic. Listen to a Zelienople album from beginning to end and you will be transformed. There is a natural immersion that occurs when listening to their records. You get lost in their songs, and when you surface there is almost a zen-like calm to everything.

"Give it Up" marks the band's sixth proper album and one of their very best. As with their last album "His/Her," there is a cohesive progression to these songs. Beginning with the doom riddled "Aging," the band sets the tone by sinking the listener immediately in the deep end. Singer/guitarist Matt Christensen's voice begins as a whisper and slowly builds toward an anguished cry, asking "how did we get this way? how did we get this old?" rhythm guitar/multi-instrumentalist Brian Harding provides a sonic patchwork out of keyboards, guitars and woodwinds that echoes the deterioration reflected in Christensen's lyrics. This is the most doomy song Zelienople has ever recorded, and it fits them well. "Aging" finds the band at their most minimal, while still maintaining an impressive depth of field that is central to Zelienople's sound. This is a band that demands "deep listening," as so many elements exist under the surface of their songs to be explored. Even on repeated listens, something new crops up, and "Aging" is a prime example of the band's craftsmanship in this regard. The song is rounded out by a cloudy drone punctuated by the type of percussion effects that has increasingly made drummer Mike Weis one of most impressive and unique drummers playing. Dude is in a league with Jim White.

"Can't Stop" highlights Weis' work as he lays down a circular rhythm constructed out of bass drum, dumbek, dholak, claves, and a vibrator spinning on the inside of a Turkish frame drum; yes, I am serious. Harding's guitar follows the rhythm darting in and out of frame, while Christensen's guitar eventually erupts into a quasi-psychedelic soundscape that almost sounds like amplified bed springs. Frankly it wouldn't surprise me one bit if that is what Christensen was playing. For a band who earlier in their career made "Ink," an album that featured a slew of homemade instruments, bed springs wouldn't be too far of a stretch. Album highlight "All I Want is Calm" follows. The song sounds simultaneously submerged and spatial. Subtle, but propulsive, percussion carries the song along as a minimal pattern of notes repeats. Alternating between pleas for solace and resignation, Christensen's voice sounds distant initially, but quickly find its way to the center of the piece. The song builds throughout with Harding's subtle woodwinds and layers of Weis' percussion. The piece has a narcotic effect on the listener that is bolstered by the haze of "Water Saw." "I Can Put All My Faith In Her" finds the band returning to a more traditional slowcore, shoegaze sound. Early Verve admittedly comes to mind here. The song is an easy piece to love and proves how adept at this kind of thing the band has become over the years.

"Little Lady Eyefull" sets the stage for the album's close with the band's most effective and haunting moment. A steady drone plays throughout as a somber vocal performance by Christensen takes center stage alongside a gentle reoccurring guitar pattern. Weis' subtly chaotic free jazz backbone gives the song an immediacy and depth that very few similarly situated songs achieve.

The album ends with a couple of patented Zelienople ambient experiments. Both pieces continue to submerge the listener in the depths of the ocean of sound that the band has been creating throughout "Give It Up." When it is all over the world emerges slowly through a narcotic haze, and oddly every car that passes by, every creak of the floorboards and hum of the machinery that surrounds us suddenly come into sharper focus than ever before. Zelienople inflicts that kind of existential experience, and it is as exhilarating as it is calming. I can't think of another band that has that effect, or at least that profound of an effect.

"Give It Up" is easily one of the richest and finest albums of 2009.


"All I Want Is Calm"

Listen to "Give It Up" in its entirety here

Jay Reatard R.I.P. 1980 - 2010

For anyone who still considers themselves a punk rocker, or a lover of rock music at all, the last 24 hours have been unbearable. One of punk's greatest voices was taken from us at far too early of an age yesterday. Jay Reatard, born Jimmy Lindsey, Jr., was only 29 years old and had already produced the finest body of "Hey Ho" throwdowns of the past twenty years. When I first heard "Blood Visions" and his stellar collections of singles I declared that Jay was the second coming to anyone who would listen, and two years later I still mean it. Immediately he catapulted himself into the upper echelon of punk musicians.

Punk is essentially three chords and the truth played really loud and fast. It began with the only holy trinity that really matters; The Clash, Sex Pistols and Ramones, it was preserved by Husker Du, and finally after so many intolerable years it found a bearer of the light in Reatard. Yes, he was that great.

Of course the greatest tragedy is that he died just as he was getting started. Like Clifford Brown, the great jazz trumpet player who could have outshined Miles Davis had he lived beyond his death at age 25, Reatard could have easily become the voice of a generation, and if those wankers weren't listening, he was at least the voice of real rock and roll. He was the most honest rock and roller playing today. Unlike his oh so politically correct peers, Jay kicked, spit, pissed, was a snotty bastard at times, and loved to post about his man versus food takedowns on Twitter. He was as real as they got. He was also incredibly thoughtful and intelligent. He was proof that dropping out of middle school doesn't always result in stupidity and failure. His lyrics were as exhilarating as his music, and his interviews were often compelling. Jay didn't deserve to die, and we didn't deserve to lose him. There is a huge hole in the indie world now and it won't be closed anytime soon.


Waiting For Something - a short documentary about Jay Reatard

Jay Reatard | MySpace Music Videos

"My Shadow" live


Pretty cool video of "Oh, It's Such A Shame" until the guy filming it doesn't realize that the guy playing rhythm guitar is not playing that searing solo, and that Jay is the one ripping it the fuck up.

An actual video for "It Ain't Gonna Save Me" that is pretty great.


Audio of "Night of the Broken Glass," my first and still favorite song of Jay's.

Best of 2009 (albums) #6 Real Estate - s/t (Woodsist)

There is something so chill, so 'perfect day ever' about this album that you would have to be a goddamned robot not to fall in love with its charm. It is no wonder that this album has broken into a ton of year end lists seemingly without even trying. Following in the vein of Pavement at their most lackadaisical, Real Estate makes perfect lazy day music to be enjoyed alone or with friends, at home or on the lake, in the dead of winter or in the full blaze of summer. Basically this is the ideal soundtrack for anytime life is about living and nothing more, with what may or may not be a stoned smile on your face. While Real Estate draws from the well of a lot of mid-80s college bands like R.E.M. and the Feelies, these guys are a hell of a lot more fun. Even when lead singer Martin Courtney is pushing toward subversion on songs like "Suburban Dogs," there is always a buzzed bliss that defines this whole affair. Regardless of the late release date, this album quickly became the go to album of the year when life became too much about everything but living.


"Suburban Beverages"


"Black Lake" live


"Snow Days"

Best of 2009 (albums) #7 Cold Cave - Love Comes Close (Heartworm Press/Matador)

Read the full review here


"The Trees Grew Emotions And Died"


"Love Comes Close"


"Life Magazine" live

Best of 2009 (albums) #8 Xasthur - All Reflections Drained (Hydra Head)

Xasthur is one of USBM's big three. Along with Judas Iscariot and Leviathan, Xasthur has forged a wholly original body of work that has influenced and inspired artists far and wide. Like Burzum, the patron anti-saint of black metal, all three "bands" are really one man operations. Among the three, Xasthur a/k/a Malefic a/k/a Scott Conner has always tended toward experimentation more than his fellow brethren. That experimentation has increasingly grown with each subsequent release to the point that it is questionable whether or not to still classify Xasthur's music as black metal. Somehow I don't think Conner has a problem with that, as he has been fairly vocal about the limitations of any "scene," black metal or not.

And while some heads up their ass black metal purists may decry Xasthur's evolution, the rest of us have been richly rewarded by Conner's progression. I was a huge fan of the criminally overlooked "Defective Epitaph," but even that album's experiments didn't prepare me for this masterwork. This is the album where everything Malefic has been working at came together perfectly; Conner's compositional skills (which are truly impressive even buried under the lo-fi blacked murk), his penchant for woozy, nearly psychedelic rhythms, blackened ambient, and of course the occasional fit of grim black metal. This album stayed on continuous play ever since its release last spring.

"Reflections" is an emotional listen, and not just because it evokes the sometimes draining hatred and nihilism that a lot of earlier Xasthur does. In fact, hatred and nihilism are nary to be found here. Instead there is a sort of morbid spiritualism, a longing for something lost in the darkness. It kind of sounds like a soundtrack to a ghost story, told from the point of view of the ghost, with all the yearning, mournfulness and disquiet that a ghost might feel. For those with a penchant for the darkness, this is really quite a beautiful work of art.

As a side note, the cd version comes with a second cd that is just as impressive and highly recommended.

Listen to stream of entire album below:

Best of 2009 (albums) #9 Slayer - World Painted Blood

What more can I say about this album? The world's most ferocious band return with their best record since the classic genre defining hat-trick of "Reign in Blood," "South of Heaven," and "Seasons in the Abyss." What more is there to say? If you need more, read the full review of "World Painted Blood" here, or about the number six song of the year here, and the number one metal album of the year here.


Sadly, Tom Araya's back surgery is keeping Slayer off the road for now, so to tide us over here is a not so great quality live video of the title track. Hoping for a quick recovery for Tom, and more of this in the future...


"World Painted Blood" live


An unofficial, but really great fan video for "Psychopathy Red"

Best of 2009 (albums) #10 William Fowler Collins - Perdition Hill Radio (Type)

The 2000s were the decade of the drone. No other musical form permeated the soundworld as much as that primordial sound. Some of the most successful indie rockers, like Animal Collective and Deerhunter, built pop songs on top of the drone. Noise artists, for the most part, pretty much just played the drone really loud. Metal birthed it's most viable genre since the advent of thrash, death and black metal as a result of the drone. The drone was everywhere. Unfortunately over the past couple of years the actual art of the drone has fallen on hard times. A survey of year-end lists from the early to middle aughts would reveal a bevy of drone luminaries such as Campbell Kneale, Peter Wright, Mirror, Phill Niblock, William Basinski, to name but a few. Over the last couple of years it has been hard to find a drone release worth latching onto, most have simply rehashed what has already been done and to lesser effect. The same cannot be said for "Perdition Hill Radio."

William Fowler Collins' blacked drones moves the ball forward in much the same way that Tim Hecker's "Harmony in Ultraviolet," did a few years back. But whereas Hecker switched things up by adding elements of doom and electronica to the mix, Collins keeps things minimal. Like Hecker, though, Collins has crafted a full length sonic journey that one travels from beginning to end. While each piece can stand on its own and still provide an immersive experience, this is a record of epic scope that needs to be heard as a whole.

"The Hour of Red Glare" begins the album with the echoes of war and devastation. What sounds like bomb blasts populate Collins' noisiest drones on the album. What follows is the aftermath of the collapse of all things, and it is as harrowing as one would expect. "Grave Robbing in Texas" and "Dark Country Road" invokes the blackest of nights in a wasteland fit for no man, old or young. All is not lost though, after traversing through more blasted ground with "On Perdition Hill" and "Slow Motion Prayer Circle," the album ends with the beautiful shimmering "The Ghosts of Eden Trail." There is a note of hope, or at least resolution, in "Eden Trail." Whether that means survival and triumph, or the sweet release of death, is best left for each listener to decide. Few albums take you on a journey like this, and even those that attempt to, do not succeed like this.

It has already been said more than a few times that "Perdition Hill Radio" is the musical equivalent of Cormac McCarthy's "The Road." I would agree, even though it was never Collins' intention to tie this album to that book in the manner that it has been among critics. Collins had not even read the book before crafting Perdition's sound world. But like McCarthy's masterpiece, this is an album of unrelenting darkness that manages to maintain its humanity throughout. Both are also crafted in a minimalistic manner, yet contain a depth and power not found in lesser works full of sound and fury. Even if it wasn't Collins' intention to create the soundtrack for "The Road," he, like McCarthy, has crafted an album for the aftermath when each survivor will have to decide on their own, and through no faith in external ideas, whether or not anything is worth saving. If the warm heart that beats throughout "Perdition Hill Radio" is any indication, there may still be hope among all the ashes.

Listen to "Perdition Hill Road" here

Best of 2009 (albums) #11 Why? - "Eskimo Snow" (Anticon)

Why?'s Joni Wolf has made a career out of being the creepy guy in the back of the club. Wolf loves to sing about his failures as well as his flaking skin, thinning hair, propensity for compulsive masturbation and throwing up on occasion behind Whole Foods. He is also morbidly obsessed with death. In short he is us, but the us that we are too ashamed to acknowledge on most days. His painfully confessional lyrics are salvaged from simple sad sack navel-gazing by a wordplay not heard since the likes of Stephen Malkmus and David Berman.

Why?'s mix of indie rock with modern composition sets him apart as well from typical hipster culture. Imagine Pavement playing with Steve Reich or Philip Glass and you have a pretty good idea of what Why? sounds like. The music works perfectly to elevate the grotesque and morbid subject matter of Yoni's lyrics into something anthematic, sublime and transcendent. Nowhere is that fusion of ugliness and beauty more apparent than on "Eskimo Snow," Why?'s forth album, and third since Yoni made Why? into a proper indie rock band. The album is emotionally naked, with Yoni singing some of his most straightforward lyrics to date. The music is also a bit more subdued, with piano taking the forefront. But least anyone think this is an Antony and the Johnsons album, it is still very much a Yoni Wolf joint full of syncopated rhythms, inspired indie rock and enough loser/loner/creep declarations to remind you of all those dark corners of the psyche. It is also an album you can't entirely shake. It hides not behind irony or sarcasm, but expresses the striving, the hope, the failure, the fear, the loathing and the beauty that is life itself.


"These Hands/January Twenty Something"


"Even the Good Wood Gone"

Listen to "One Rose" here

Best of 2009 (albums) #12 Kurt Vile - Childish Prodigy (Matador)

Kurt Vile has made a hell of a name for himself over the past couple of years with the much heralded "Constant Hitmaker" on Woodsist and "God Is Saying This To You..." on Mexican Summer, which is pretty much why it is so fucking weird that "Childish Prodigy" has fallen by the wayside of notice. Is the backlash that quick these days folks? Christ it took at least five years before Mogwai and Godspeed got the slap in the face for just doing what we wanted them to do. I am a pretty big hater of backlash, and if an original artist produces an excellent album, I think they deserve all the praise in the world, which is why Kurt Vile did not cease to amaze me with "Childish Prodigy."

Present are the lo-fi americana blues hymnals of old, but with a hell of a lot more consistency than before. Nearly every song on "Childish Prodigy" is worth getting excited about. While there is a little more sonic variation than before (Vile oscillates between a full band sound, and solo guitar and effects), the songs achieves a particular type of transcendence specific to American culture. Listening to "Childish Prodigy" is sort of like driving to Colorado with Jack Kerouac and Cassidy, while listening to Hank Williams Sr. read Walt Whitman's "O Pioneers." Yeah, it's that good.


"Blackberry Song"


"Freak Train"

Best of 2009 (albums) #13 Raekwon - Only Built For Cuban Linx...Pt. II (Ice H2O/EMI)

I am not a rap aficionado. Admittedly I am a dilettante. If I were an aficionado this album would be my number one album of the year. It is a masterpiece. Alas, metal and indie rock are my bread and butter and so this massive piece of work is where it is on the countdown and that may or may not be fair.

The basic facts of this album are this: Raekwon's "Only Built For Cuban Linx" is one of the greatest rap albums of all time by general consensus. So when the Chef made it known that the follow up was more than a rumor it was cause for both great trepidation and great anticipation; trepidation for fear that it would be a degradation of the original, and anticipation because, for gawd's sake, this was the follow up to one of the greatest rap albums of all time.

Some dreams do come true, and while "Only Built For Cuban Linx 2" doesn't necessarily top the original, it absolutely matches it ever step of the way, and that is all that anyone could ask for. Actually it is a hell of a lot more than anyone could ask for. "Cuban Linx 2" is a 22-song, nearly 80-minute slab that is one of the very few albums consistent enough to withstand that kind of epic trek. Masterful song after masterful song falls out of this thing.

"Cuban Linx 2" is also an important album, for reasons beyond the obvious. In fact, it may be the most important album of this year. Rae and his Wu-Tang Crew lay down the most massive narrative of ghetto life since N.W.A. raged out of Compton in the late 80s. Not surprisingly, this is a harrowing listen. Raekwon keeps it very very fucking real transmitting loud and clear the continuous ugly conclusion of racism in this alleged "post-racial" America. While the white American suburbanites who memorized every Easy-E to early Jay-Z rap have politely moved on from gangsta rap into dad rock and the occasional Rock Band/DJ Hero rendering of their favorite Wu-Tang song, real flesh and blood blacks are still slinging weed and crack to get by and getting capped every day in America. The Chef sings their laments throughout "Cuban Linx 2," since no one else seems to give a fuck. This is a cold dark album full of violence in the most unglorified manner.

"Cuban Linx 2" is the real black metal. Did I mention it was a masterpiece? Because it really is. And now I feel like an asshole for not making it my number one.


"Cold Outside"

Raekwon: House of Flying Daggers Official Music Video HD from Chain Gang Productions on Vimeo.

"House of Flying Daggers"


"Surgical Gloves"

Best of 2009 (albums) #14 Japandroids - Post-Nothing (Polyvinyl)

Take the Japandroids album title seriously. "Post-Nothing" is a collection of trend-bucking, fist pumping anthems that puts the rock back in indie rock. The Canadian duo of Brian King and David Prowse do their fellow countrymen proud by following their own path, instead of chasing the trends of American hipster culture. Just as fellow Canadians Neil Young, Rush, Godspeed You Black Emperor and Wolf Parade have pretty much done their own goddamned thing to great effect, regardless of fashion, Japandroids have entered the fray with some seriously ferocious garage power-pop. Add to their musical assault bittersweet lyrics that go to the root of individual restlessness and you have a debut album that brims with brawn and substance. This is the real shit here boys and girls, and it moves the body and heart in equal measure.


"Boys Are Leaving Town" live


"Young Hearts Spark Fire" live


"Rockers East Vancouver" live

Best of 2009 (albums) #15 Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest (Warp)

Those harmonies, that prog-folk not heard since Wilco began their downward spiral into mediocrity and the Beta Band broke up, you know them, you may or may not love them, but I, admittedly, am a sucker for them, ladies and gentlemen - Grizzly Bear.


"While You Wait For The Others"


"Ready, Able"


"Two Weeks"

Best of 2009 (albums) #16 Ducktails - Ducktails (Not Not Fun)

Similar to Ernest Greene's Washed Out, Matthew Mondanile's Ducktails is a post-graduate project cooked up while living at home with the parents. Like Greene, Mondanile traffics in faux-nostalgia, creating music that permits the listener memories that are better than the real thing. But whereas Greene's music provides cotten candy synths to rest your weary head on, Mondanile prefers a good old fashioned lo-fi guitar to wash those blues away. There are moments when Ducktails sounds like a long lost Pavement demo of their more mellow moments. Add to that a little Sun Araw like dabbling in surf, sun-kissed psychedelia, and even a little new age, and you have the making of a very stimulating, but comforting album. And let's face it, sometimes we need to drift away, even if it is only in our mind, and Ducktails knows just how to get us there.

Listen to "Backyards" here


"Beach Point Pleasant" live

And although Parasailing is a stand alone 7" it is beautiful and indicative of Ducktails' sound, plus I was having a hard time finding media from the album to post, so enjoy...

Best of 2009 (albums) #17 Liturgy - Renihilation (20 Buck Spin)

"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.

Listen to "Mysterium" here
Listen to "Ecstatic Rite" here

"Ecstatic Rite" live
A full live performance at WFMU here

Best of 2009 (albums) #18 Wavves - Wavves (2) (Fat Possum)

Nathan Williams' Wavves is the best no-fi band out there. Period. In a year when labels like Woodsist, In the Red and Not Not Fun, to name but a few, inundated us with a whole lot of lo-fi/no-fi racket, Williams stood comfortably among the horde with superior pop writing skills and a constant lovable grin, even when he was fucking things way up. While live Wavves is all about a consistent surf/punk/pop onslaught, on wax things get a little weirder, a little more intimate, and more interesting than your average verse verse chorus punk band. Noise experiments sit comfortably alongside no-fi ragers followed up by experiments in psychedelia. Of all the bands out there jockeying for infamy in the whole huge shitgaze scene, Wavves is the band that should still be making great albums ten years from now. Williams certainly has the talent to make that happen, with or without all that distortion.


"No Hope Kids"



"Summer Goth" live


An all-acoustic performance of "Weed Demon"

Best of 2009 (albums) #19 Volcano Choir - Unmap (JagJaguwar)

The last time I saw Bon Iver play live they performed a cover of Talk Talk's "I Believe in You." As far as covers go, it was a pretty interesting selection, given that Talk Talk enjoy a rather elite status among music snobs, while the general (un)washed masses only know them as that one-hit wonder that Gwen Stefani made a killing off of. It was also interesting in that it provided further evidence that Bon Iver's main man Justin Vernon's experimental flourishes were not an exercise in dilettantism, but a conscious and consistent part of his folk-damaged emoting.

That nod to Talk Talk was also a sign of things to come from Vernon. Volcano Choir is a collaborative effort between Vernon and Collections of Colonies of Bees. Collections is no stranger to the avant. The band is more indebted to Steve Reich's modern classical experiments than indie rock. So it is not entirely a surprise that "Unmap" has more in common with Talk Talk's two great studio albums, "Spirit of Eden" and "Laughing Stock" than "For Emma, Forever Ago." Mixing jazz, modern classical, experimental, and a bit of that Vernon emotion, "Unmap" makes for a challenging, but satisfying listen. Some of the experiments work better than others, but overall it is a compelling listen. In the end, you have to admire Vernon for taking a step sideways and following up last year's album of the year with this.


Island, IS