Best of 2012 (Now w/ Hindsight!)

I'm gonna be honest, 2012 did not pop out to me as much of a year in the way of new music, at least not like 2011 did. However, I'm a year older and more cynical and less impressed by the nostalgic musical textures making the rounds these days. Cold wave is totally bored and dead, 70s revival has been done to death by now, post-80s 808s now make me gag, witch house was always shit and indie rock needs embalming, its rigor mortise is rampant. That being said, I managed to scrape together 10 records that made their way to my earholes in the last 370 days, which is my standard for whether something should have been heard at all - I heard it. Mind you I heard some other things, this list isn't purely lazy, but what you see hear are the things I made it all the way through more than once without being strapped into a dentist's chair.

 

 Zeus blew up on the Toronto bar scene nearly half a decade ago when they ditched Jason Collett to pursue their brand of uber-catchy, Abbey Road revival album rock. Having been to a handful of their truly scintillating live shows I eagerly awaited a recorded debut. Their Sounds Like Zeus EP and Say Us full length presented a tame, analog rendered version of their energy. It is on Busting Visions that they have perfectly captured what was so great about the '70s harkening sounds of Sloan's Navy Blues, with even more clarity in their sonic vision of the past. Are You Gonna Waste My Time? Anything You Want Dear and Proud and Beautiful are the most recent songs to adequately re-imagine the studio-rock legacy of 10cc in the modern day. A great listen the whole way through. 8/10 

Busted 

 

This one had to go up here as it is a) the best album title of the year and b) a welcome return to form for PE pioneer weirdo Boyd Rice. While I missed the NON project on their first time round at the end of the last century I will surely be looking into them having heard this immense tour-de-force of post-apocalyptic, grating mid-range abuse. If you like anger and sadism, nothing else released this year rivals this newest gospel from the master. Extra points for an old-school Warm Leatherette rendition.

Back To Mono

My introduction to this female singer-songwriter powerhouse came in the form of this seminal release. Tramp is a total breath of fresh air in the world indie-folk lady songstresses as its themes of love, possession, heartbreak and infatuation range from candidly intimate to icy cold in performance. While the textures on this album could have been more varied, the songs themselves are perfect. The stoned haze which the songs sound like they were written in conveys a character on record who is refreshingly as paranoid and guarded as she is subdued and seductive. Looking forward to more from Ms. Van Etten. 

Give Out

Sludge and doom are not easy. These sub-genres are predicated on very basic cliches and thus, like with any music that's been happening for more than 20 years, a surplus of generic and unoriginal bands is continually mounting. This makes seeking out the innovators or even just the talented acts can be exhausting. Luckily I have friends and band mates to do that for me. Monarch are undoubtedly part of that select few. With Omens they demonstrate their monolithic ability to effortlessly create plodding riffs that keep you interested and in the dark while generating an atmosphere that pulls the listener deeper into a darkened pit of depravity. 

Transylvanian Incantations           

 

 A Thing Called Divine Fits is 2012s answer to Kill The Moonlight. This record recognizes Britt Daniel as the true champion of the claustrophobic pop he first perfected with Spoon on the aforementioned 2002 opus. After a decade, Daniel shows that, having wandered down that 70s glam garden path with his old outfit, he can reinvent himself in the idiosyncratic idiom that suits him best. Bonus points for stealing my preferred high school cover of Nick Cave band the Boys Next Door's Shivers.

Baby Get Worse

*** I heard this one early on this year and genuinely forgot/did not realize it was a 2012 release, it seemed too good, too instantly nostalgic. Sleigh Bells have come out the gate firing on all cylinders in a Reign of Terror I hope continues for years to come. Impressively tackling textures as disparate as hair metal shred guitar revival, shoegaze soprano vocalise and grind drum machine programming. The result is a dizzying display of sugary sweet pop melody atop throbbing mechanical heavy metal dance beats. Boom.  
 Never Say Die

 There's not much people won't have said about this one. Frank Ocean completes his ingenious one-two punch of releasing a largely plagiarized mix-tape of improved-upon hits with sonic interludes that made reference to the influential medium within which he was working by creating a near flawless original album that tackled another medium of popular media consumption: television. As we're guided, flicker in hand, through a series of episodes in the young, talented and recognized artist's mind, we experience an emotional roller coaster boiled down to snapshots of unwitting patrons seconds before they drop. Along the way are odysseys of the heart, addiction, commitment and frivolity that grip the listener at every turn, keeping them glued through advertisements.  

 Pyramids

 Aldebaran have long been in the above mentioned distinguished league of funeral doom hordes. Their newest and sophomore effort took a surprising turn for the melodic after the bleak and brooding sludge of 2007's Dwellers In Twilight. Boasting one of the most Thergothon comparison worthy tracks of the past decade (clocking in at a couple under half an hour), Aldebaran's newly donned depressive harmony is a welcome change that does all but eclipse their debut stronghold.

Forever In The Dream of Death  

Cloud Nothings managed to spur a great Albini rant on reddit this year as well as deliver a biting full-length of moody 90s post meets pop punk that brings as much new melody and songwriting as it does familiar textures with King Dick behind the boards. From gloomy mid-tempos to infectious hooky rockers, Attack On Memory carries more excitement than an online scrabble match.

 Fall In

 

By far the most exciting and innovating record this year and shockingly put out by Sub Pop! Spoek Mathambo is equal parts eccentric, hip, South African dance, hip-hop hooliganism and post-rock angst. Father Creeper is an unsettling and idiosyncratic afro-futurist vision of a generation who outlive the end of morality and the world as they know it. With the accompaniment of an extraordinarily versatile band, drum programming and minimal sampling, Spoek manages to realize an apocalypse that's profound nature comes in that it is social and not environmental. And most of this happens over an irresistibly complex dance beat.

Put Some Red On It

SWANS second reactivated effort trumps all with its impeccable conceptual fortitude and all-encompassing range of material. Gira has managed a piece that is retrospective and inventive at the same time, which fits well into the album's theme of endings as new beginnings and vice verse. Culling unfinished compositions from throughout his 30 year career and up to the present day, Gira demonstrates his unchallenged diversity in musical texture. The 30 minute title track alone weaves through avant garde tonal walls, tense marital swells and into the SWANS own brand of bludgeoning proto-sludge droning incorporating, along the way bagpipes, tubular bells, dulcimers, gongs, harmonica and what sounds like a power drill. Through The Seer the SWANS/Angels of Light catalog has been given new meaning and continuity. That's no easy feat.

Avatar 

Its high, and its steep...

This was for J&MC to the 90s what the VU's Loaded was to the 70s; a seminal band that inspired a generation of musicians with their noisiest material release a perfect pure pop record towards the end of their heyday. Occurring amidst the mid-90s mass pop conversion of contemporaries Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr., as well as many of their own sonic descendents such as Pavement, Stoned & Dethroned is an incredibly self-aware and polished record. With hangover clarity, J&MC sift the emotional feedback wall of Just Like Honeys past and distill from it concrete sentiments to be transmuted onto a large variety of guitar pop moods. The simple arrangements and the crisp, nuanced production convey a band stripped naked of any glamour or mystique past darkness might hold and simply continuing to make the music they make, which just so happens to be exactly what their present was ready for. With a Junkie's severity, J&MC observe their position in an forgiving cycle of existence and openly embrace it, with life-changing results.       

Here I am a blog post on a webpage: some text with a JPEG and a link, OH!

Ok so this oddity of an historical musical act in the 70s rock arena has been a bit of an obsession of mine lately. A couple of Manchester lads with a smashing studio set-up in Stockport who anonymously worked their way up the charts under various band names until finally landing a #2 with the questionable hit "Neanderthal Man" under the Hotlegs moniker in 1970. It was as 10cc that the team of Creme, Godley, Gouldman and Stewart redefined themselves as hopelessly Zappa-obsessed album rockers with plenty of music industry cynicism and studio experimentation to fill at least two volumes with material strange and fascinating enough to catch the ear of one J-Dilla. Oh and hooks, they had lots of those.

Hum drum days

The band's s/t debut traverses the rich lyrical ladscapes and sonically iconic soundscapes of 50s & early 60s rock cliche, all the while with tongue protrudently in cheek. Opening with the memorable martydom of Johnny Kowalski ("aka Johnny Angel"), and effectively that of the motor-accident subgenre which created him, 10cc begin their extensive project to lampoon each of the rock's idiomatic inventions and their inherent cultural givens. The project continues with the portrait of the classic idle femme in "Donna" (which shamelessly borrows from "Oh! Darling") and the application of real life law enforcement temperaments to the "Jailhouse Rock" tradition in "Rubber Bullets". On all accounts, these bubblegum homages raise questions of identity within the framework of rock 'n' roll subject matter. Interestingly, in looking back to this earlier framework - as many of their glam and proto-punk contemporaries were - 10cc would seem to find and get at these issues more directly rather than simply emulate a retro aesthetic, while writing fun and catchy ditties that stick in your head for days. Perhaps my favourite cut from this disc, "The Dean and I", exemplifies this: an epic journey from adolescent innocence and its corresponding popular contexts and sentiments through sexual maturity and nuclear familial fulfillment and into the oblivion of moral responsibility: capitalism! 

Play Me

Very easily the band's opus, Sheet Music is an intricately crafted journey through the ins and outs of success in the rock world of the 70s, with a handful of ingenius melodies and recording techniques to boot. Opening with the Neil Young meets Spoon infectiousness of "The Wall Street Shuffle", 10cc turn their scathing critical eye upon NY's financial gravy train, recently the site of some kind of pinko occupation or other. Having set the tone for an economic commentary that will run throughout the album, the band turns that same fiery beam of cynicism upon themselves in the now highly coveted (RIP Dilla) "The Worst Band In The World", a track that really shows their mad scientist sound engineer side. It seems to me what Dilla did with the aforementioned track (retitled "Workinonit" on his Donuts) is exactly what pop music used to do: reappropriate something timelessly appreciated by all and update it. This is, of course, exactly what 10cc were doing themselves on their debut. It's Dilla's adaptation of their song that highlights exactly how ahead of their time they were in certain regards. "Old Wild Men" is a simply beautiful tribute to their rock forefathers while "Silly Love" showcases again the band's chameleon quality, with it's Marc Bolan-esque fuzz leads and ADT-ed barked shouts. "Somewhere In Hollywood" is a majestically beautiful odyssey through yet another commercial American cityscape and features a totally unecessary "The Long and Winding Road" melodic quote. "The Sacro-iliac" is an appropriately relaxed look into the future of the cushily retired rock musician, giving us a sense of where 10cc saw themselves in a decade and not a bad guess at that!

The whole affair brags lush textures, untouchable 70s drum sounds and a treasure of oddball samples for the hungry digger. DIG!    

Riot

The best burnout of the 20th century would have to come from the '60s wouldn't it? And it would of course have to come from Sly Stone, the number of drugs he used in the recording and production of this album likely being close to the amount of overdubs. This hazy trip into the socio-political mind of America's foremost popular Soul/R&B/Funk group at the time cast an inescapable shadow over the futures of hip-hop and electronic music movements alike. Tape hiss and a mix determined more by mechanical degradations than human ears convey the claustrophobic nature of Sly's creative process as well as his drug-induced paranoia perfectly. Here and there darkly tinged proto-electro-soul pop non sequitors emerge ("Runnin' Away"), freeing the listener enough to breath deep before revisiting one of the Family's anthems through Stone's murky disillusionment ("Thank You For Talking To Me Africa"). This is still avant and lo-fi by today's standards, let alone seethingly cynical and funky.

Africa is talking to you

Two sides of Gene / left rev MCD

Gene side - Popular, commercial, smooth, "vanilla", straight, orchestral,  patriarchal, crooning.

Strangely I came to know the identity of this incredible voice through his not so sappy, yet not so subtle Jack Nitzsche arranged hit "Walk With A Winner". The overtly competitive machismo that defined this musical seduction of sugar mamas the world over, coupled with Gene's vocal bravado, won me quickly, helped by a few well-placed tubular bell parts from Jack. I quickly sought out his discography, which at first disappointed me with its over-saturation of (A. Nobody) writer credits and chart fluff as well his credit for penning forgettable Yardbirds hit "I'm A Man" ("that's spelled M-A-N"). However my further discoveries of this fascinating figure's pedigree sowed seeds for whats become a longtime appreciation for both Gene's smaltzy beginnings and his Hip-Hop championed self-reinvention...

left rev MCD side - Unhinged, political, funky, dark, stoned, fused, radical, unnerving.

This is the artist that lands himself as one of the greats to be remembered this and every month. The indescribable feeling of hearing "get it together... SEE WHAT'S HAPPENING!" in its original musical context as well as the "Jagger the Dagger" groove will never leave me, having redefined my teenage ear as profoundly as Q-Tip and the Beasties defined my adolescent one. Headless Heroes is one of those extremely unique early moments after jazz's heydey in which you truly get to see the black indivdual in total unabashed, political, social and artistic expression, all synthesized into a truly experiential album. The unmistakable textures on this record would inspire a generation of disciples to the vinyl statements of black cultural consciousness of which MCD was at the fore. Even his adoption of the Master of Ceremonies abreviation began a tradition that became central to hip-hop and rap culture. The ease with which the left rev spins something like Jesus' love, supermarkets and discovery of the americas into fever-pitched, politically charged lyrical landscapes is impressive in light of the climate of media repression around such issues. Mention must also be made of one Alphonse Mouzon who's performance at the drumkit here is unrivaled by any other. Playing with bold character and wild abandon, Mouzon's deep grooves and chopped polyrhytmic breaks shape the percussive backbone of hip-hop to the present day. I have no doubt anyone who hears this will fall head over heels for the bleeding heart radical that Eugene McDaniels became and produced his most influential work as.

GET IT TOGETHER

Strangely fascinating

If there was a debut this year of an artist who came out guns blazing, it was this one. About as afraid of pretension as of being too rock 'n' roll, EMA's Past Life Martyred Saints delivers the kind of unforgiving and self-confident individuality its title suggests. While evoking a lineage of underground female rock icons too obvious to list, EMA stands out with her extremely bold and captivating songwriting which relies as much on its melodic simplicity as its stark arrangements and grainy production. Perhaps the most refreshing aspect of this record is its utter lack of gimmick or novelty. For as blatantly "hipster" as her visual aesthetic can be, these songs are impressively original in their composition and arrangement while the lyrics, at first sounding overbearing, have a great depth to them. Sexually grimy, simultaneously culturally void and rich mimicking the both passionate and understated monotone of her singing. She's almost Nico meets Thurston, really, which goes somewhat for the rest of her musical aesthetic. The production is tastily overdriven which, espeically in contrast to the acoustic sections, gives a warm, vaguely psychedelic murkiness to the atmosphere. Enjoy, with drugs.

The Gun 

The Operators

There is so little point in talking about this because its influence is still speaking to us from basically every record released since it. Without this album the Black-Eyed Peas would have to learn how to program a drum machine and Coldplay would have to know how to write a hook. Wanna know the secret to radio-play-ability today? FOLLOW THE FLOCK, RIP THIS OFF. 30 years later, this record is our world. 

Compute