If anything, this year's list suffers from schizophrenia, elitism, and hipsterism.
(in no order)
KING NIGHT by Salem (IAmSound)
I don't know what that guy over at Tiny Mix Tapes was talking about when he
said "the replay value here is scant," because I've been listening to this album
on repeat since before it officially dropped. Don't worry, I bought the CD and
vinyl. Having said that, Salem has easily become my go-to band. Party? Salem.
Drunk? Salem. Stoned? Salem. Depressed? Salem. Sex? Salem.
I'm no expert on "witch house" (which arguably Salem is / not) but, they've
certainly created a sound with few peers and many imitators. I can't get
enough of this album. On one hand, John was interviewed in BUTT Magazine,
which would seem to make them a niche band right out of the gate. On the other
hand, Todd Pendu proved to the world that Salem can be just as good live as they
are on record. I feel like everyone spent 2008-2009 debating on whether or not Salem
was real or authentic. Suddenly they're the best thing ever. Which is true.
I'm biased. My boyfriend went to high school with Heather. The first time I heard
King Night front to back, we were having sex after our first official dinner-date.
WHATEVER. I fucking love this album, by far one of the year's best. It's dark ("Sick"),
it's totally gorgeous ("King Night"), it's funny ("Trapdoor"), and it's totally fucking
heart-wrenching ("Finna").
THE CULT OF YELLOW TEARS by Yellow Tears (Hospital Productions)
I already loved Yellow Tears before this newest release came out but, this only
cements my rabid devotion to this trio of total freaks. Let me preface the following
paragraph: what follows will be sexually explicit.
Yellow Tears have been pulling the same strings as most noise musicians: loops
from porno and horror movies, mentioning degradation, humiliation, gags, whips, abuse.
However, there's always been an implied interest in urolangia. Maybe I only thought
that because the idea of being pissed upon by my boyfriend is one of the most arousing
ideas to ever worm through my creepy brain. POINT BEING: The Cult Of Yellow Tears
uses the sounds of Yellow Tears pissing in bowls, gargling their piss, gagging, splashing around.
This 7" + cassette box is essentially the most erotic piece of audio I have ever come across
(only because my man and I don't do phonesex). Plus, as I've already told Dom
(or whoever answered the emails), this is one of the most intricate releases I've ever been
lucky enough to get my hands on from Hospital. The 7" and tape come in a reel-to-reel box,
plus a piece of a towel (I thought it was medical gauze but, someone on Discogs corrected
that mistake), twenty-three color photos of the recording / creation process, liner notes,
and the whole thing is hand-signed and numbered by Yellow Tears.
NEW LOVE by Former Ghosts (Upset! The Rhythm)
...and moving right along, we have a release that's so emotionally up-front you can't
help but love the damn thing.
So, if you don't know, Former Ghosts is Freddy Ruppert (This Song Is A Mess
But So Am I), Nika Roza (Zola Jesus), Jamie Stewart (Xiu Xiu), and sometimes
Yasmine Kittles (Tearist).
This is an album of love songs, and I mean the sort you'd hear on the radio.
"Don't break my heart" love songs. Straight-forward, no bullshit. The difference is
that everyone in this band is in so many other incredible projects that the music is
too good for conventional radio.
Buy this LP, then go out and by last year's Fleurs too.
Get a bottle of red wine, put them on, get lost.
DEAR GOD, I HATE MYSELF by Xiu Xiu (Kill Rock Stars)
This may be Xiu Xiu's best album, not necessarily in the sense of their strongest
work but, Jamie Stewart has managed to distill the pop song mentality with noise
flourishes and traumatic content into a purified essence with this album. I feel like
this is the most "Xiu Xiu" of Xiu Xiu albums.
I'm still bummed that the show I was going to open for them on got canceled; of
course that was their only show in South Carolina this year.
BLUE WATER WHITE DEATH by Blue Water White Death (Graveface)
2010 has been a good year, personally, creatively, and because Jamie Stewart
has been all over it musically. I wasn't familiar with Shearwater / Jonathan Meiburg
prior to this collaboration but, I'm glad I discovered him (thank you, Jamie Stewart).
A few reviews of this album seemed to find the work "unfocused" and "tentative" but,
I happen to think that this work is exactly as tenuous and soft-spoken as need be.
This is how I imagine Jamie Stewart solo shows sound. This is perfect music for long,
lonely drives. This is great music for driving home from the bar at 3am, wishing you
were going home to your boyfriend but, instead you're going to your small bedroom in
your parents' house to climb into your bed which always seems so big and empty and
cold. That's not to say that this album is sentimental or emotional. If anything, it's that
quiet restraint that you learn as a survival mechanism; this album is all about risks, not
big, showy ones, but rather small, important ones.
777 by Tonetta (Black Tent Press)
I only found Tonetta because a friend happened to recommend this "Youtube artist"
to me. I had no idea what he meant, having never heard or seen Tonetta previously.
Chances are, you haven't either. Please, take some time to enjoy these quaint,
intimate performances.
The easiest way to explain Tonetta to the uniformed is: remember Buffalo Bill from
Silence Of The Lambs? Well, if instead of skinning women and listening to Q Lazzarus,
Tonetta writes countless songs and makes homemade music videos for the world to see.
Thanks to Black Tent Press, you can now own Tonetta on high-quality vinyl.
Oh, what a world that has such people in it!
ONE MUST DIE by The Moon Knights (self-released, download)
I think a lot of people could say The Moon Knights play twee, or lo-fi, or some sort
of Beat Happening take-off. In a sense, that's true but, knowing Lester somewhat
personally, I think I can safely call The Moon Knights "West Coast Ghost-Bun(ny) Pop."
Anyway, this album is amazing, seriously. This is what "indie" will forever be in my mind
and heart, before The Strokes and The Hives and all the rest of the early-00 bands turned
an ideology into a sound.
Download this, burn copies, share.
WOLF EYES / FACENECK split 10" (Faceneck)
Much like the good chaps over at Mimaroglu, I can't really tell which side of
this 10" is which either.
That being said, this is a great 10" for fans of Wolf Eyes. One side is a heavy-hitter.
The other is a creaky burner, similar to some of Nate Young's solo work as Regression.
I don't know which side is which but, they're both great.
The price is a little steep but hey, the thing comes from Belgium. Pony up, music-lovers.
WOLF EYES / PRURIENT split 7"(Musikzimmer)
Two of my all-time favorite masters of noise put out a 7" on an obscure German label.
Hard to find? Well, yes and no. Depends on whether or not you're willing to pay €
compared $. Still, the Wolf Eyes side is a solid jam, starting in a slow burn and ending
in a frenzied collapse. Prurient's side recalls parts of Black Post Society, high-end wail,
tortured vocals, absolute angst. I love this 7", and it is gorgeously printed as well.
BELUS by Burzum (Byelobog / Back On Black)
Is this Varg's best work? No, not by far. However, this is his first album with guitars
since Filosofem in 1996 (which was recorded in 1993). True Norwegian Black Metal?
Yes!
Really, any time a Burzum album comes out, we should all rejoice.
BIRTH OF AN OLDER, MUCH MORE UGLY CHRIST by Relay For Death (Hanson Records)
Aaron Dilloway gives a far better review of this album than I could ever hope to:
"This shit is DARK... and I'm not talking about some fucking 'I sleep during the day' dark...I'm not talking some 'Cannibal Corpse shit - I'm a fucking mutilator' dark....And I'm not talking 'I'm a noise dude into black metal' dark... I'm talking total fucking END OF THE WORLD shit...like...everyone is going to die and it's gonna be fucking TERRIBLE.
Recorded in 2009 by sisters Roxann and Rachal Spikula while in a hospital doing some fucked up health study where all they could drink was Shasta for like 2 months. NO JOKE! Master tape arrived wrapped in a duct taped hospital gown with my address written on it in sharpie.
Side A: The tape becomes unpaused and kicks in with a menacing organ drone that mutates into the lo-fi skree of an empty room, eventually becoming a swirling abyss of tape hiss and the sound of nothing happening in a hospital... Distant creaks, buzz, and hums littered with hiss and garbage sound layered into a very unsettling frenzied drone.
Side B: A crunchy noise inferno that eventually leads us to what sounds to me like being in outer space watching the earth exploding. As you watch everything we know of destroyed, a saddening descending synth wave appears, buried by blasts of destroyed earth. It ends... and you are disturbed.
Limited to 300 copies. Pitch black vinyl with pitch black labels. Heavy duty black and silver silkscreened covers with the 'Hanson Droll Flaps'
Take a break from yer most recent mediocre synth bliss out tape and take a trip back to the real fucking world...where everything fucking SUCKS."
CANNIBAL by Ke$ha (RCA)
Yes, I like Ke$ha. I finally started to understand what my aversion to pop music was:
I was expecting too much. Pop isn't about explaining the esoteric workings of a 14th
century Gnostic text. Pop isn't about a body dead in a boat. Pop is about partying.
I guess Andrew WK gets some of the credit for this discovery since, on numerous occasions,
I have been heard to say "Andrew WK and Ke$ha should go on tour together!" I still think that's
a great idea; tell me you wouldn't go see that show.
So yes. Ke$ha just wants to party. Is Ke$ha trying to be a serious artist? No. She's a party-girl
pop-star. I haven't seen her try and pull any pretentious bullshit to back her own claims of being
a "serious artist." Nope. Ke$ha wants to make out with boys, drink, and have a good time.
Well shit! That's what I want to do, too!
Drop into the mix seriously incredibly songs like "We R Who We R" (she must have 2,000 producers
and they're all GODS), "Cannibal" (cannibalism isn't an extended metaphor for infatuation, she's
singing about fucking dismembering and eating dudes), and "The Harold Song" (I almost cry like a
little girl when I hear this song, oh my god).
The weird thing about Ke$ha is that some of my other friends, who like her also, happen to be really into
literary theory, art, Georges Bataille, politics, etc. Contrary to my dad's claims, Ke$ha isn't something
for thirteen-year-old girls.
$0$ by Die Antwoord (Cheerytree / Interscope)
For a short period of time I ignored Die Antwoord as an internet meme taken too far. I kept
waiting for the joke to end, for this "fake band" to outlive its comedy value. The problem is
that, like a lot of other people, Die Antwoord aren't a joke, though they love to.
I had heard a few of their tracks, "Enter The Ninja" and "Beat Boy" spring to mind, but it
wasn't until I heard all of $0$ in the back of a car, en route to Fairbanks, AK from Anchorage,
that I really got into Die Antwoord. They're clever, talented individuals with a clear aesthetic.
Maybe this is Hip(ster)-Hop, or maybe they really are incredible. I don't really care either way.
"Evil Boy" alone wins Video Of The Year in my book.
