Music log 2011 (October-->)

Submitted by Feif Umgotnn on Sat, 10/01/2011 - 00:34

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More words about albums
December
Glenn Gould: Glenn Gould's Solitude Trilogy: Three Sound Documentaries (1992) G
Franz Liszt: S.139, Douze études d'exécution transcendante (1852) VG+++
Franz Schubert [Wilhelm Furtwängler]: Symphony No. 9 in C major, D 944 Great C major (1840) X
Ingram Marshall: Fog Tropes/Gradual Requiem (1984) X
Andrew Hill: Judgement (1964) VG
Ivo Perelman/Daniel Levin/Torbjörn Zetterberg: Soulstorm (2010) g
The Melodians: Pre-Meditation (1978) G
Antibalas: Liberation Afro Beat Vol. 1 (2001) G
Mark Sandman: Sandbox (1999) G
Jon Anderson: “Open” (2011) g
Johann Sebastian Bach [Helmut Walcha]: The Organ Works () X
Action Beat: Beatings (2011) VG/G
Back Door: Back Door (1972) G
The Dirtbombs: Ultraglide in Black (2001) G
Died Pretty: Free Dirt (1986) G
Slim Harpo: The Best of Slim Harpo (1969) G
Honey Ear Trio: Steampunk Serenade (2011) G
Ed Yazijian: Gansrud (2011) G
Dutch Uncles: Cadenza (2011) G
Boas: Grave Dreams (2011) G
Verdena: WOW (2011) G
The Men: Leave Home (2011) G
Human Eye: They Came From The Sky (2011) G
Hauschka: Salon des Amateurs (2011) G
Fire! With Jim O’Rourke: Unreleased? (2011) G
Dumbo Gets Mad: Elephants at the Door (2011) G
Julia Holter: Tragedy (2011) G
John Luther Adams: In The White Silence (2003) G
The Oscillation: Veils (2011) G
Nick Mazzarella Trio: Aviary (2011) G
Za!: Megaflow! (2011) G
Za!: Macumba o Muerte (2009) G
Starlicker: Double Demon (2011) G
Ryan Garbles: Sweet Hassle (2011) G
Diva: The Glitter End (2010) G
Devotchka: 100 Lovers (2011) G
Cut Hands: Afro Noise I (2011) G
Winter Family: Red Sugar (2011) G Some moments seem powerful, and then it goes and goes very slowly with only the bits of momentum from that illusory power.
Lykke Li: Wounded Rhymes (2011) G
Lilys: In the Presence of Nothing (1992) G
The Resonance Ensemble: Kafka in Flight (2011) VG
Gardens & Villa: Gardens & Villa (2011) D
Fishboy: Classic Creeps (2011) ee
Dream Affair: Endless Days (2011) d
Does It Offend You, Yeah?: Don’t Say We Didn’t Warn You (2011) D
The Dø: Both Ways Open Jaws (2011) G
DJ Quik: The Book of David (2011) ee Well produced stupid rap
Diva: The Glitter End (2011) G/D
Dignan Porch: Deluded (2011) d
Devotchka: 100 Lovers (2011) G
Delphic Vapours: Get off Their Knees (2011) D
Daphni: Daphni Edits Vol. 1 (2011) D
Ulterior: Wild in Wildlife (2011) G
A Winged Victory for the Sullen: A Winged Victory for the Sullen (2011) d
Hexlove: Your Love of Music Will Be an Important Part of Your Life (2009) VG
Run, Forever: The Devil and Death and Me (2010) ee
George Stavis: Labyrinths (1969) VG
D. Charles Speer & the Helix: Leaving the Commonwealth (2011) d
Cut Copy: Zonoscope (2011) d
Cut City: Where’s the Harm in Dreams Disarmed (2011) d
Creepoid: Horse Heaven (2011) d
Cotton Jones: Sit Beside Your Vegetables (2011) d/ee
Contrepoison: Until Next Morning (2010) ee
Conquering Animal Sound: Kammerspiel (2011) D/g
Cold War Kids: Mine is Yours (2011) d/ee
Cold Cave: Cherish the Light Years (2011) d/ee
Coh: Iiron (2011) ee
Cliffsides/Cenote Glow: The Dweller in Sirius/Ikil (2011) d Split recording
Clanthrus: Aloof Out Rwanda (2011) d
Christopher Merritt/Reedbeads: Hundred Waters/Residual Clouds (2011) G Split recording
Chicaloyoh: Quand les tables se mettent à tournoyer (2011) ee
The Binary Marketing Show: Because Of This, This and This (2011) D
Bernardino Feminielli: Souvenir Express (2011) d/ee
Ben Vida: Soft Epic (2011) d
Bear Bones, Lay Low: Smoked the Whole Thing (2011) D/G Something is lost in the production.
Beach Fossils: What a Pleasure (2011) ee/d Boring
Asobi Seksu: Fluorescence (2011) d
Araab Muzik: Electronic Dream (2011) d
Apex Manor: The Year of Magical Drinking (2011) D
Angelica Sanchez: A Little House (2011) D
Alessandro Bosetti: Royals (2011) D/G+++ Sometimes horrible, sometimes very good, but altogether it is stuck in one man’s head.
4 Hero: Parallel Universe (1995) d
Oval: 94 Diskont (1995) VG/G
Joey Beltram: Places (1995) D
Paul Dolden: L'ivresse de la vitesse (1993) VG
X-103: Atlantis (1993) VG
Ken Ishii: Garden on the Palm (1993) d
Bally Sagoo: Wham Bam 2: The Second Massacre (1992) d
Fingers Inc.: Another Side (1988) D
Youssou N’Dour: 'Djamil' - Inedits 84 - 85 (1985) G
The Walker Brothers: Nite Flights (1978) D Good, but there is a lot of crap you have to go through to get to the really good parts. It is much better than the stuff Walker is famous for.
Al Green: The Belle Album (1977) VG
Betty Davis: They Say I’m Different (1974) G
Herbie Hancock: Sextant (1973) X
Pierre Akendengué: Nandipo (1974) G
Sun Ra: Strange Strings (1967) XX More fantastic jazz from space by Ra, especially the “voice” on “Strange Strings (with lightning drums)”, and the lightning drums.
Bill Dixon: Intents and Purposes: The Artistry of Bill Dixon (1967) X/XX Bubbling free-jazz.
Animal Collective: Strawberry Jam (2007) G Most of the album is forgettable except for some wonderful melodies that made Merriweather Post Pavilion digestable as one of the best albums of 2009. “Fireworks” is the savior, like “Summertime Clothes” is for MPP, the rambling journal entry is wonderful to listen to as Tare sings a sweet teenage melody close to the brightest moments of The Beach Boys.
MH: Black Animal (2011) G Half country rock and half experimental country rock, pretty good.
Goodbyewave: Dog Days (2011) D OK pop rock
Faces on Film: Some Weather (2011) G
Matt Valentine: What I Became (2011) G New hippy jam songs that don’t really piss me off, or maybe it does because I like it.
Lucky Dragons: Shape Tape (2011) d/ee VERY long ambient songs, that don’t do much.
Jill Andrews: The Mirror (2011) d Innocent singer/songwriter
Red Horse: Red Horse 2 (2011) VG Much improved, with the fire turned up and everything refocused and tighter. The “VG” may be an overreaction, but I will revisit at the end of the year.
Red Horse: Red Horse (2009) D/G Improv/noise/free
Zomby: Dedication (2011) D Infantile rhythmic pieces, with a few ambient ones mixed in, that hopefully will lead to better days ahead.
Thoughts on Air: Vent (2011) G++ Drone/lo-fi tortures and walks on the beach.
The Smithereens: The Smithereens 2011 (2011) d/ee Boring 90s pop rock, which was interesting when they were doing it in the 80s [sic] but not in 2011
The Ravonettes: Raven in the Grave (2011) d/ee Dark wave, basically a boring derivation of Joy Division
Radiohead: King of Limbs (2011) G Not as horrible as I remember, but still not as stunning as most have it, or as Kid A.
The Necks: Mindset (2011) VG More long soft shifting jazz jams, good stuff.
La Dispute: Wildlife (2011) D/G Post-hardcore/post-rock, mid/late 1990s sound. The band gets moving at times, but the singer is not exciting enough to revisit.
Idiot Prayer: Falconer (2011) G A punk album headed in the right direction, but falls short…next time?
Idaho: You Were A Dick (2011) G Laid back singer/songwriter with nice ambient pieces, vocals like Jeff Tweedy in the tender moments of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (“Ashes of American Flags”)
Hotel Lights: Girl Graffiti (2011) D/d Singer/songwriter
His Majesty the King: Long Story Short (2011) D+ Pop
Echo Lake: Young Silence (2011) D++/G Nice shoegaze pop.
Derek Monypeny: Don’t Bring Me Down, Bruce (2011) ee/d He put out another album that has about 5-10 minutes worth of material stretched out over 45 minutes. Nothing ever really happens, and the absence of action is not interesting, it is just one long prelude now 2 albums long.
Dead Skeletons: Dead Magick (2011) D/d
Dadavistic Orchestra: Dokument .02 (2011) D
Broken.Heart.Collector: Broken Heart Collector (Rock Is Hell; Discorporate, 2011) VG+
The Boxer Rebellion: The Cold Still (2011) G Apparently I hated their last album; this is much better.
Anna Calvi: Anna Calvi (2011) G
Anna Aaron: Dogs in Spirit (Two Gentlemen, 2011) G++/VG “Elijah’s Chant” is a march of the piano, a sucking of life, a muttering of a lifeless incessant chant carve the groove of Dogs in Spirit that dances livelier with added percussion halfway and a fuzz guitar, dragging deeper into the chant that Aaron ascends slightly, cutting deeper into the groove. “Sea Monsters” is as far away from the chanting the album began with and dives into typical piano based singer/songwriter charms that do not fail to charm. “The Drainout” is a ballad for an organ drone, wandering drums, and solo horn that exposes some of the limitations of Aaron’s voice, though she does a good job to sing within herself. “Siren” and “Queen of Sound” are upbeat compared to some of the moderate depression elsewhere. “The Passion” is a pretty good a capella. “King of the Dogs” is the “pop rock” song of the album, and the typical single. “Joanna” and “Since I Met You My Peace Is Gone” has Aaron singing with a bit of soul.
Useless Pieces of Shit: Fuck Shit Up! (1987) ee
Patty Waters: Love Songs (1996) G
Goldmund: Two Point Discrimination (2007) G
Sachiko M: Bar Sachiko (2004) ee This may be interesting for an “art” gathering, but not worth the energy of the laser to inscribe the tones (there are more than one, but not many) that make up the hour of sound.
Kaleidoscope: When Scopes Collide (1976) G This is the same band that put out the semi-trippy Beacon From Mars in 1968 with the most of the psychedelia removed leaving only the country folk, which is superbly played. “Black and Tan Fantasy” is a nice psychedelic tinged folk instrumental for a tango that sputters out of control on the miniatures “Canun Tune” and “Stu’s Balkan Blues” (less than a minute each). The rest consists of more folk rock that make up the rest of Beacon From Mars and the rest of the late 60s early 70s country rock. A cover of “Man of Constant Sorrow” and the nice jam of “It’s Love You’re After” are the other songs that stand out, the latter only hinting at the spacy aspects of “Taxim” and “Beacon From Mars”.
Loren Chasse: The Air in the Sand (2005) ee Something to sleep to.
Derek Monypeny: La Tortuga del Alma (2010) D/g The Soul of the Turtle is closer to the noise of Fahey and nowhere near the folk dances, which is the mix on his 60s albums that make Fahey interesting and this a nice exercise or a warm-up to something greater. It is not all worthless, but "The Amber Steakhouse" goes on far too long with no light at the end of the tunnel.span>
Jennifer Castle: Castlemusic (2011) d
Alexander Turnquist: Hallway of Mirrors (2011) G
Beach Fossils: What A Pleasure (2011) d/ee
Goldmund: All Will Prosper (Western Vinyl, 2011) D Goldmund plays slow nostalgic new age music that is minimal in instrumentation as it is in speed, which works great for the commercials and touching moments in films (of many that Goldmund has scored) but begins to be boring after the initial taste, Corduroy Road (Type, 2005). A significant step in another direction was made on Two Point Discrimination (Western Vinyl, 2007) added a rocky texture to the pretty pieces. The Malady of Elegance (Type, 2008) adds the haunted stare of the girl on the front cover with bits of violent ambience moving slightly in front of Corduroy Road without obliterating it. Famous Places (Western Vinyl, 2010) continues exactly where The Malady of Elegance left off. All Will Prosper starts the Goldmund project anew with an album full of quiet nostalgic acoustic guitar to go with the piano. Few ideas are stretched out over an eternity making the Goldmund catalog one long portrait of an infinitely mecurial nostalgia, or just, nostalgia.
Goldmund: Famous Places (2010) d
Cut Off Your Hands: Hollow (2011) d
aTelecine: The Falcon and the Pod (2011) ee/d
The Black Keys: El Camino (2011) d/ee
A Journey Down The Well: How Little Can Be The Orchestra (2011) D
November
Zomes: Earth Grid (2011) d/ee
Zombi: Escape Velocity (2011) ee
Wild Flag: Wild Flag (2011) ee/d
Weyes Bluhd: The Outside Room (2011) D/G
The Weeknd: House of Ballons (2011) G+
Vivian Girls: Share the Joy (2011) d
True Widow: As high as the highest heavens and from the center to the circumference of the earth (2011) G
The Soft Moon: Total Decay (2011) D
Skull Defekts: Peer Amid (2011) G
Skeletons: People (2011) D/d
Sashash Ulz: Cladonia Rangifernia (2011) d
Samantha Glass: Cosmetic Daydream (2011) g
Rain Drinkers: Springtide (2011) d
Pears: Soft Plans (2011) d/ee
Olivia Wyatt: Staring into the sun (2011) ee It is not horrible, it is boring, theoretically flat. If there had been more of the traditional songs played or some interesting editing then it may have been a better album, but it is very boring, though probably much more exciting in person, in Africa around the drum circles.
Vetiver: The Errant Charm (2011) g/D
Torlesse Super Group: Torlesse Super Group (2011) G+
Sand Circles: Midnight Crimes (2011) d/ee
Lumerians: Transmalinnia (2011) d
Kitchen Cynics: Wooden Bird (2011) d/ee
Iceage: New Brigade (2011) g/D
Gonjasufi: The Ninth Inning (2011) d/ee
Gigan: Quasi-hallucinogenic sonic landscapes (2011) d
Asobi Seksu: Fluorescence (2011) D/d
Glenn Jones & the Black Twig Pickers with Charlie Parr: Eastmont Syrup (2011) G
Young Galaxy: Shapeshifting (2011) d
Sonic Youth: SYR 9: ‘Simon Werner a disparu’ bande originale du film (2011) d Soft ambient Youth
Sea Oleena: Sleeplessness (2011) D/G
Hobo Cubes: Aerial Nocturnes (2011) ee
Hobo Cubes: Timeless-Mindless (2011) D
Food Pyramid: New Omni-Directional Healing Techniques (2011) d
The Rural Alberta Advantage: Departing (2011) ee/d
Wolves in the Throne Room: Clestial Lineage (2011) g/D
Smith Westerns: Dye it blonde (2011) d
Happy Camper: Happy Camper (2011) d/ee
Hands and Knees: Wholesome (2011) d/ee It sure sounds wholesome.
Skullflower: Fucked on a pile of corpses (2011) ee Noise, noise, noise, noise, noise, noise, and “Hanged Man’s Seed”.
Skybombers: Black Carousel (2011) ee A boring Oasis type cover band, or at least they should be an Oasis cover band. Dance kiddies, dance.
Dinosaur Bones: My Divider (2011) D Pretty good twee pop
Crystal Stilts: In Love with Oblivion (2011) D/G A cute take on early Pink Floyd and other 60s pop rock, but it is easily forgettable.
Circle of Ouroborus: Eleven Fingers (2011) ee Poorly recorded dark post-rock
Young Prisms: Friends For Now (2011) G/D Lively shoegaze,
Earth Enemy: Bardo (2011) d/ee
Wind in Willows: Elephant Dreams (2011) D Nice drones and delay effects, a very pleasant listen.
Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O.: The Ripper at the Heaven’s Gates of Dark (2011) G
Gnaw Their Tongues: Per Flagellum Sanguemque, Tenebras Veneramus (2011) VG
Hey Colossus: RRR (2011) VG+
The War on Drugs: Slave Ambient (2011) d
The Joy Formidable: The Big Roar (2011) D
Toning: Pitch the drone (2011) d umm, drones, and pitches.
Mutemath: Odd Soul (2011) D
Gum Takes Tooth: Silent Cenotaph (2011) G Noisy and childish prog that succeeds in its calm chaos.
Call Back the Giants: The Rising (2011) d Lo-fi drones that range from doom to cheesy sci-fi movie soundtracks.
The Black Lips: Arabia Mountain (2011) ee/d
Across Tundras: Sage (2011)
Wooden Shjips: West (2011) D
Charalambides: Our Bed is Green (1991) G
Blackout Beach: Fuck Death (2011) G
Deep Magic: Lucid Thought (2011) G
Craft Spells: Idle Labor (2011) D Trip-hop/brit-pop/shoegaze that won’t kill you; it is shy and wandering, and lacking in ideas or execution.
Cults: Cults (2011) D Some neat pop songs
Dawes: Nothing is Wrong (2011) d
Codes In The Clouds: As the Spirit Wanes (2011) D Soft/optimistic symphonic post-rock in vein of Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
Bright Eyes: The People’s Key (2011) ee
Auktyon: Yula (2011) D/G
Atomic Bitchwax: The Local Fuzz (2011) ee/d 42 minute soft metal jam
Cass McCombs: Wit’s End (2011) d
Cankun: Jaguar Dance (2011) D
Johann Sebastian Bach: Brandenburg Concertos (1721) XX/FAV
Garreth Davis & Machinefabriek: Grower (2011) G Good drones with tinges of horn, nice.
Evil Madness: Super Great Love (2011) D/g Very good electronica, that is, an ok album…
BassDrumBone: The Other Parade (2011) D Meh-jazz.
The Civil Wars: Barton Hollow (2011) D
Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah: Hysterical (2011) VG
Squirrel Bait: Squirrel Bait (1985) G/D
The Flaming Lips: “7 Skies H3” (2011) ee Too long, too boring
Albert Ayler: My Name is Albert Ayler (1963) VG
October
Moonface: Organ music not vibrapohone like I’d hoped (2011) VG Continuing in the vein of his Dreamland EP, the marimba and shit drums are replaced by kaleidoscopic synths but the detached voice remains as well as the quality; another good album.
Panda Bear: Tomboy (2011) D What was cool on Person Pitch is now cute and a little annoying.
William Basinski: The Disintegration Loops (2002)
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: Abbatoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus (2004) D
DJ / rupture: Uproot (2008) d
Erykah Badu: New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) (2008) G+
Clipse: We got it for cheap vol. 2 (2003) ee compilation
Clipse: Lord Willin’ (2002) ee
Cannibal Ox: The Cold Vein (2001) G/VG
Mesita: Here’s to Nowhere (2011) G+
Frog Eyes: The Golden River (2003) G The singer’s voice is really annoying at first, like having a pair of comfortable shoes and they are both righties.
John Foxx: Metamatic (1980) ee Painfully annoying 80s electronic beats and synth
Perigeo: Genealogia (1974) G
23 Skidoo: Seven songs (1982) G++
20/20: 20/20 (1979) ee/d
African Scream Contest: Raw & Psychedelic Afro Sounds from Benin & Togo 70s (197?) G
Pospulenn: Sun people sleepwalker (2010) d
Joan La Barbara: Voice is the orginal instrument (1976) G+ The first disc is solo acoustic vocals. The second disc is the same technique—grating, sparse, primal vocalization—with electronic manipulations. The second disc is far more enjoyable throughout while the first gets tiring after the first track.
Johann Sebastian Bach: Cantata “Ich habe genug” BMV 82 (1727) VG/X I liked the arias.
Johann Sebastian Bach: Cantata “Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen” BMV 56 (1726) VG/X The solo voice was a little borin beyond the first track. The chorus was better.
Johannes Brahms: Symphony #4 (1885) VG/XX/FAV It needs another listen
Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano sonata #23 in F minor “Apassionata” (1805) X
Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano sonata #8 in C minor “Pathetique” (1798) X/XX
Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano sonata #14 in C sharp minor “Moonlight” (1801) XX/FAV
Wu-Tang Clan: The W (2000) d/ee
Pulsars: Pulsars (1997) D
Mitochondrion: Archaeaeon (2007) VG
15-60-75: Numbers Blues (2002) G A.k.a. The Numbers Band. Nive live blues album.
Scarface: The Fix (2002) ee
Disco Inferno: D. I. Go Pop (1994) G
Bonnie “Prince” Billy: The Letting Go (2006) g
Anouar Brahem: Thimar (1998) G
Anouar Brahem: Barzakh (1991) D
Anouar Brahem: Astrakan Café (2000) VG
Akask Maboul: Onze danses pour combattre la migraine (1977) VG/G+++
Ozric Tentacles: Arborescence (1994) G
Franz Schubert [Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Gerald Moore]: Winterreise (1828) X
Oliver Lake: Heavy spirits (1975) G/VG
Wilcox, Sullivan, Wilcox: An album of original music (1973) g
Vitalic: OK Cowboy (2005) D
Johann Sebastian Bach [Glenn Gould]: The English Suites; Overture in the French Style (1735, 1977?) X
Jim O’Rourke: Eureka (1999) VG
Beat Happening: You turn me on (1992) g
Common: Like water for chocolate (2000) G
Erlend Øye: DJ Kicks (2004) G
Shellac: Terraform (1998) g
Lil Wayne: Tha Carter II (2005) ee
Ghostface Killah: The Pretty Toney Album (2004) ee
T.I.: King (2006) ee
Loop: Fade Out (1987) g/D
Affinity: Affinity (1970) G++
Affinity: If you live (1970, 2002) D
Eric Glick Rieman: Trilogy from the outside (2009) VG
John Adams: Complete piano music (2001, 2007) g Meh, I like the piano.
A.R. & Machines: Die grüne Reise - The Green Journey (1971) G
Julian Cope: Jehovahkill (1992) VG+
The End: Introspection (1969) VG
Barbara Manning: Lately I Keep Scissors (1988) G
Barn Owl & The Infinite Strings Ensemble: Headlands (2010) G
Robyn Hitchcock: Eye (1990) G
The Soft Moon: The Soft Moon (2010) D
Mumuüre: Mumuüre (2010) g
The Spinanes: Manos (1993) G
Stereolab: Chemical chords (2008) d
KaS Product: Try out (1982) VG++/X A fucking great 80s album with that typical 80s sound everyone hates and jokes about.
Jane Weaver/Demdike Stare/The Focus Group: The Watchbird Alluminate (2011) D++/G
Hanno Leichtmann: The African Twintower Suite (2011) d/ee
Kaboom Karavan: Barra barra (2011) D
Horsebladder: Nicole (2010) d
Heat Wave: Empty Head (2011) d
Field Rotation: Acoustic tales (2011) D/G
The Flaming Lips: Gummy song skull (2011) D
The Flaming Lips: Gummy song fetus (2011) d
Luke Roberts: Big bells and dime songs (2010) D/g
The Flaming Lips: Strobo Trip (2011) G/VG It is not an EP, I don’t know when the EP changed from the vinyl temporal parameters to the CD/mp3 track quantity parameters. 6+ hours is 7LPs, an LP being a bit under 60 minutes. That aside, the 6 hour song “I found a star on the ground” is not great…it goes on a bit too long. The band does a good job of not making a 3 minute song go on forever; they make a 25 minute song go on forever. For the average fan this is shit because it is mediocre jamming for 6 hours with no inspiring section that can be pulled out for future days. It just goes and goes. For the diehard Flaming Lips fan here is another gem of what makes the band so loveable. Though it is middle of the road jamming, I look forward to the medicore 24 hour song that I have read about they might be working on. What is amazing about the song is that it is, at any 40 minute interval, better than most albums released today, which is sick. You can easily play with their Strobo Trip toy while listening to this and tripping on acid. I definitely prefer this spastic jamming to the lighter albums that have been released in the past decade. The other two songs are stupid.
Bong: Beyond ancient space (2011) G++ Very good drone metal.
British Sea Power: Valhalla dancehall (2011) G Much better midi pop rock
Broken Bells: Meyrin Fields (2011) d/D
Caravana: Caravana (2011) G/D
Cave: Neverendless (2011) D Pretty good jams that are hollow and suffer dearly because of it.
The Field: Looping state of mind (2011) D If you are a fan of electronic music then this is may be a masterpiece to you, I am not a fan. Like typical metal & hip-hop, electronic music has an uphill battle with me.
Ladytron: Gravity the seducer (2011) ee/d
Shabazz Palaces: (2011) ee Boring.
tUnE-yArDs: w h o k i l l (2011) D/g
Wildildlife: Give in to live (2011) D/d Loud but tame. Get Six.
Wildildlife: Live at WFMU (2008) G
Wildildlife: Peas feast (2007) G
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion: Extra widte (1993) G
Zebulon Pike: Space is the corpse of time (2011) g I don’t know how the various subgenres of metal are weighted within the metal community, but this is some damn good “progressive metal”. It doesn’t have that impenetrable auto drumming and mechanical noodling. The time shifts are wonderful, but may not be heavy enough for the true metal fan. But, I also thought of myself as a burgeoning psych expert and I was in a completely different circle than the people who think all the psychedelic pop bands from the 60s were great…I think it is bullshit pop music with some effects laid over the weak structures causing the albums to be reduced to rubble when played. Having said all that, I am not a fan of “metal” music as it is played today, so a “g”ood rating is high. The greatest metal album with the current sound is probably only a 4/5, far away from A Love Supreme and the proto metal juggernaut White Light/White Heat.
Surfer Blood: Tarot Classics (2011) D
Katy B: On a mission (2011) ee
Julie Tippets & Martin Archer: Tales of FiNiN (2011) G
Bodies of Water: Twist again (2011) G
Benjamin Francis Leftwich: Last smoke before the storm (2011) d
Jim O’Rourke: Old News #5 (2011) ee Long meandering noise tracks that do absolutely nothing. If this is all it takes to be a famous musician these days, then I need to become a famous musician. There are “noise” albums that I like, and a few glitch albums I can stand, but too often I run into this: it doesn’t resemble anything good, and it isn’t new, and it isn’t powerful at all; it is mind music for an occupied mind. If you want sounds to ignore, I think everyone who read this can make something that everyone can ignore, and some have to be able to do it better than this…and the loads of other new stuff I have heard. I don’t imagine this makes an artist much money, so it has to be done for artistic reasons; I hear very little artistic value, and again, if you are not breaking new ground you must be powerful/interesting, or resemble something that was. The Fleshtones are a band that did absolutely nothing new, but they did everything extremely well. I like 60s garage bands, so I like The Fleshtones. I am sure someone can make sense of liking this, but he doesn’t do it well. If you want to hear better, if not great, electroacoustic music visit Cathy Lane’s soundcloud page.
Black Zone Myth Chant: Straight cassette (2011) G+
Mostly Mother People Do The Killing: The Coimbra Concert (2011) G
Jenny Hval: Viscera (2011) g/D
Mathilde 253: Mathilde 253 (2011) D
Olympus Mons: Reflections of bliss lake (2010) D/g
Peter Evans Quintet: Ghosts (2011) D/g
3 Leafs: Eat the earth (2011) D/d
Kasabian: Velociraptor! (2011) d/D
100 Monkeys: Liquid Zoo (2011) d
A Hawk and a Hacksaw: Cervantine (2011) d
Arrington de Dionyso’s Malaikat Dan Singa: Suara Naga (2011) d
Beastie Boys: Hot sauce committee part two (2011) d
Carol Anne McGowan: Songs from the cellar (2010) d/D
Eleanor Friedberger: Last summer (2011) d
Jakob Munck Mortensen: Adventures of ht eomnichord (2011) d
Jon Porras: Undercurrent (2011) d
Maria Minerva: Tallinn at dawn (2011) d
Marisa Anderson: The golden hour (2011) d/D
Metal Mountains: Golden trees (2011) d/D
Monster Rally: Coral (2011) d
Nick Rivera: Happy song is a happy song (2011) d
Ocelote Rojo: Pacarina (2011) d
Keren Ann: 101 (2011) ee/d
LIQUID SKULLS: DEAD IN YR EYES (2011) ee/d
Cloud Shepherd: Cloud Shepherd (2011) ee/d
Higuma: Pacific fog dreams (2011) ee/d
Adrianigual: Exito mundial (2011) ee
The Indelicates: David Koresh Superstar (2011) ee
Jeffry Astin: Grasses only green (2011) ee
Kreng: Grimoire (2011) ee
Larkin Grimm + Extra Life: Split (2011) ee
Mountainhood: Owlland (2011) ee
The North Sea: Never stop it (2011) ee
Protest the Hero: Scurrilous (2011) ee
Quiet Evenings: Spirit smoke (2011) d
Rambutan: Outside (2011) d
Richard Youngs: Atlas of hearts (2011) d
River Spirit Dragon: River Spirit Dragon (2011) D/d
Sandwitches: Mrs. Jones’ cookies (2011) d
Sanso-Xtro: Fountain fountain joyous mountain (2011) ee/d
Shaula: Yona (2011) d
*Shels: Plains of the purple buffalo (2011) D
Thee, Stranded Horse: Humbling tides (2011) d
Tennis: Cape Dory (2011) ee
Terror Bird: Human culture (2011) d
Thursday: No devolución (2011) ee/d
Trap Them: Darker handcraft (2011) ee
Warpaint: KCRW Session (2011) d
Wise Blood: These wings (2011) ee/d
Yuck: Yuck (2011) d/D
Weasel Walter, Mary Halvorson, Peter Evans: Electric fruit (2011)
Touche Amore: Parting the sea between brightness and me (2011) ee
Sky Stadium: Life for future travel (2011) ee
Seven Feathers Rainwater: 15 apple magicians (2011) d/D
Love Cult/Tempera: Split (2011) d/D
Lee Noble: No becoming (2011) d/ee
Je Suis le Petit Chevalier: A shelter in bolinas (2011) D/d
Francois Carrier: Entrance 3 (2011) D
Free Rein: Free Rein (2011) ee
CM von Hausswolff: 800 000 seconds in Harar (2011) ee
Chlesea Wolfe: The grime and the glow (2010) D/d
Demian Johnston & Mink Stole: Trailed & Kept (2011) D/g
Der Blutharsch & Aluk Todolo: A collaboration (2011) D
Emanuele Errante: Time elapsing handheld (2011) ee
Government Alpha: Somnambulant (2011) ee Loud and chaotic for no reason except to piss me off.
Hala Strana: Compendium (2011) d
Hiss Golden Messenger: Poor moon (2011) d
Holly Throsby: Team (2011) G
Cam Deas: Quadtych vol. 1 (2011) ee
Gillian Welch: The harrow & the harvest (2011) D
Charles Bradley: No time for dreaming (2011) d
First Nations: Black beach (2011) d
Fabio Orsi: Stand up before me, oh my soul! (2011) G+++/VG
Christina Rosenvinge: La joven dolores (2011) D/d
Björk: Biophilia (2011) G
Bruno Ponsato: Lovers do (2011) ee
Alexander Tucker: Dorwytch (2011) D/g
Matana Roberts: Coin coin chapter one: Gens de couleur libres (2011) VG/G++
Wilco: The whole love (2011) G++
Nicolas Jaar: Space is only noise (2011) d
Sam Moss: Eight constructions (2011) d
D. Charles Speer: Arghiledes (2011) D
Felicia Atkinson: Les bois rouges (2011) D
The Diamond Family Archive: February (2011) d/D
Bill Callahan: Apocalypse (2011) d
Anna Calvi: Anna Calvi (2011) D/g
Animal Collective: Keep (2011) ee
Black Eagle Child: Lobelia (2011) D Ambient guitar noodling.
Keijo: My time (2011) d Lo-fi psych instrumentals.
Russian Tsarlag: Eternal flame (2011) d
Washed Out: Within & Without (2011) ee “Chillwave”=boring
The Bevis Frond: The Leaving of London (2011) d/ee
Andy Scott: Passed me by (2011) g/D Somewhat interesting electronic glitches.
Alela Diaine: Alela Diane & Wind Devine (2011) d
Adele: 21 (2011) D/G Soul singer/songwriter that does not do a bad job of trying to live up to her mass media hype.
Acrylics: Lives and Treasure (2011) d Midi bedroom pop
Abner Jay: Last ole minstrel man (2011) d/ee Folk-blues singer/songwriter. I don’t know if it is supposed to be lo-fi for aesthetic or because he couldn’t afford more.
Across Tundras: Tumbleweeds (2011) G+
The Bats: Free all the monsters (2011) d Midi pop
A Dream of Poe: The mirror of deliverance (2011) d
Active Child: You are all I see (2011) ee Semi-80s retro soul pop
100 Mile House: Hollow ponds (2011) ee/d
40 Watt Sun: The inside room (2011) ee Light doom metal—there are too many types of Metal and Electronic
Stitched Vision: Open palms (2010) ee Soft droning electronica.
Panabrite: Wizard chimes (2010) ee/d Meandering soft electronica that neither excites nor explodes my imagination.
She & Him: Volume two (2010) d/ee More of the same, a little better than Volume 1
She & Him: Volume one (2008) d/ee A bit flat midi pop album.
Jane’s Addiction: The great escape artist (2011) d/ee
Tom Waits: Bad as me (2011) VG Another Tom Waits album continuing in the Swordfishtrombones sound, which is still interesting after 28 years and a handful of albums.
Peter Gabriel: Blood (2011) D Not as stupid or good as it may seem.
Halls: Halls (2011) d Smooth and mostly peaceful drones with a little dubstep.
L.A. Lungs: Cryptic snuggling (2010) d Cryptic…droning.
Magazine: No thyself (2011) ee I didn’t fall in love with Real Life, so this was probably not going to blow me away.
Ozric Tentacles: Paper monkeys (2011) d
Red Fang: Murder the mountains (2011) D Stoner metal that surprised me at times by reaching a level of enjoyment while being painfully predictable.
Wild Beasts: Smother (2011) ee The brits make a lot of boring midi pop music, and here is another.
Tim Hecker: Dropped Pianos (2011) g/D Certainly not as grand as Ravedeath or Imaginary Country (I need to get his other stuff), but beautiful; mostly solo piano.
Psychic Reality: Vibrant new age (2011) d
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: Belong (2011) D Midi pop songs that has its niche crowd that is on another plane of there.
M83: Hurry up, we’re dreaming (2011) D OK. What I was expecting. Baroque effervescent shoegaze songs.
Lucinda Williams: Blessed (2011) d Professional singer/songwriter album. If you think you will love it then you probably will, but if you didn’t like her famous stuff this is the older, worn version of Williams and that can be very, very boring.
Ignatz: I hate this city (2011) ee More lo-fi trash that I think has potential. I always think the first track of albums like this are metaphorical introductions to something much better, then the album continues and the first track sounds more and more brilliant, and it is crap.
EMA: Past life martyred saints (2011) G Very good “alt” singer/songwriter, but all of those seem to be lacking something, her too.
The Caretaker: An empty bliss beyond this world (2011) D/G+/VG I understand if most think this is pure crap, but I am into abstract music, and this is not only abstract, but it is boring, slow, sparse abstract vinyl pops and touches of piano. I like it, in theory, but I am not sure if I will like it as much the next time around.
Hercules and Love Affair: Blue songs (2011) ee Annoying dance music that is like the first album by Hercules and Love Affair: forgettable; I have no idea what the other one sounds like.
Boy Friend: Boy Friend (2011) d Lo-fi dream pop that is muddled up in the fidelity but gives it the charm that better production would expose.
Bitchin’ Bajas: Water wrackets (2011) D Electronic film score.
Beardfish: Mammoth (2011) d/ee Laid back prog that never gets too intense (King Crimson) or too fun (Phish).
*AR: Wolf notes (2010) D Peaceful, spiritual ambient washes built up and around a female voice.
Abstract Spirit: Tragedy and weeds (2011) ee Long and very slow doom metal.
Mitochondrion: Parasignosis (2011) d Death metal I can put up with once.
Peaking Lights: 936 (2011) d Average psychedelic guitar with some dub and pop singing mixed in.
Niggas with Guitars: Ethnic frenzy (2011) D/g NWG is as far away from NWA as possible. Ambient drones that can be beautiful (“Milky white”), haunting (“Blacksnake”), and infused with a typical hip-hop beat (“E.F.O”).
Liturgy: Aesthethica (2011) ee Boring hardcore: lots of screaming and loud guitars for the anti-chart topper youth of the world to be forgotten under the mangy beds of the world.
James Blackshaw: Holly (2011) g A couple more good guitar songs from Blackshaw, a bit fluffy, but good nonetheless.
Eternal Tapestry: Beyond the 4th door (2011) d Soft space rock for the 70s Floyd stoner.
Foo Fighters: Wasting light (2011) ee Slick and professional “alternative” rock, that is not for me.
Deerhoof: 99% upset feeling (2011) ee A competent live album of songs that weren’t that great perfected. Pretty good for fanatics of Deerhoof, but no one else.
High Wolf: Étoile 3030 (2011) D Relaxing psychedelic drones, though it is too juvenile to get you anywhere. It might make for some good background music.
Girls: Father, Son, Holy Ghost (2011) D Pretty good midi pop.
Fishbone: Crazy glue (2011) d Slightly funky metal/hard-er rock.
Alex Turner: Submarine (2011) ee I can’t believe I remembered his name, and without that it would be slightly difficult to recognize the Arctic Monkeys in this album, which is the point. That said, I miss the boring Arctic Monkeys Turner, and I should have seen the pop star Turner coming like the rest of them. This is only an EP, and maybe he will fill out his sound with a band. He doesn’t have to return to the teenage songs of their debut, but something more than this attempt at being the overly sensitive singer/songwriter.
Abraxas: Damnation (2011) ee A long death metal stutter with a solo acoustic guitar interlude. I have never liked death metal and this is even more myopic than most of the others.
Deep Magic: Sky Haze (2011) D Decent lo-fi ambient psychedelia.
David S. Ware, Cooper-Moore, William Parker & Muhammad Ali: Planetary unknown (2011) D Ware and company are stuck in the 60s, but I don’t know what I should expect from an unambitious jazz album. It does a good job, just an old one.
Devin Townsend Project: Ghost (2011) d
Daniel Higgs: Unltraterrestrial harvest hymns (2011) ee Some more ULTRA lo-fi recordings that should have been shelved as demos for something Higgs could have recorded at a later date with some, not a lot, but some money/equipment to flesh out what may be going on.
Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi: Rome (2011) ee Boring cool hip-hop instrumentals with singing by Norah Jones, who can sing well, and Jack White, who sings, but I never wanted him to and now he has become a vocalist. Maybe I should be a singer.
Cunninlynguists: Oneirology (2011) ee
Cubs: The whispering woods (2011) d
Coma Cinema: Blue suicide (2011) d
Dodos: No color (2011) ee Indie bubble gum “rock”.
Defeater: Empty days and sleepless nights (2011) d Bad hardcore, bad screaming, and really boring acoustic guitar: delete!
Dan Melchior: Assemblage blues (2011) D/g Some of the acoustic guitar would be better deleted, but most of the electric guitar is cool, but nothing lasting.
Clams Casino: Clams casino (2011) D/d A bunch of decent instrumentals by rappers I hate. It sucks that I might actually relisten to this.
Corrupted: Garden der unbewusstheit (2011) g/D Slow-slowcore metal. The first 33 minutes will put you to sleep, and the final 30 will wake you to slow doom.
City and Colour: Little hell (2011) ee 1993 or 1994 soundtrack music to a movie you never saw.
DJ Shadow: The less you know, the better (2011) d/ee Shadow must love this breakbeat sampling; it is tiresome 15 years later. Some of it will spin in frat houses, others in sorority houses.
Daughters of the Sun: Ghost with chains (2010) D “Hexagram” had some good dark shoegaze going for it. The rest rattles off into the ether.
Dalglish: Benacah drann deachd (2011) d/D It all sounds like worthless glitch stuff, but 30.12.2008 had some cool seconds…then…glitches.
Butcher Mind Collapse: Night dress (2011) g Semi-intelligent mindless noise. Italians can do something other than make cars nowadays.
City Hymns: Fragments of grace (2011) d
Dirty Beaches: Badlands (2011) ee Ultra lo-fi that desperately needs money to record a proper album
Grouper: A I A (2011) G+ Long, “boring”, and lovely.
Kurt Vile: Smoke ring for my halo (2011) d An above average singer/songwriter singing about his “baby”. Van Morrison sang about his baby too, but this is only a tangent on the shadow of a broken record of Astral Weeks or Moondance, or even St. Dominic’s Preview
The Vaccines: What did you expect from the Vaccines? (2011) d Uhmmm, well, some power pop/indie rock stuff that everyone is raving about but does nothing special
Today Is the Day: Pain is a warning (2011) G Few hardcore bands can walk the razor edge of noise and badass jamming; screaming and screaming that have more than the purpose to give you nightmares. They have lost the variety that made Sadness will prevail a classic, but is not far behind. Austin hasn’t lost his power.
Primus: Green naugahyde (2011) G Another good goofy album by Primus.
John Maus: We must become the pitiless censors of ourselves (2011) ee Boring, more boring, and bad 80s synth songs. I don’t want to know what he is singing, I just want it to stop…stop!
Giles Corey: Giles Corey (2011) VG/G An updated version of Black Heart Procession, Giles Corey removes the lyrical intensity and heightens the musical drama with screams and chains on “The haunting presence”. The simple acoustic beginning of “Blackest bite” and sends it off into the contemporary echo ecstasy that so many people do when they don’t know what else to do, but Corey makes the transition work better than others. The vocal harmonizing on “Grave filled with books” is accompanied well by a quiet yet foreboding solo guitar before a quick Beach Boys or Fleet Foxes section finishes. “Empty churches” is mostly worthless percussion with a sampled voiceover from the 1950s/60s. A similar vocal rave-up marks the demise of “I’m going to do it” while an intimate one on “Spectral bride” delivers the “procession” much better. The first half of “No one is ever going to want me” is deceptively boring, but becomes necessary when the waves of the band comes crashing in. The solo acoustic song of “A sleeping heart” and the drone of “Buried above ground” to one final stand for life; the logical and welcomed end to the sweetly depressing album that is basically The Black Heart Procession 7. Unfortunately the good parts are very good and the bad are very boring and time consuming.
Deaf Center: Owl and splinters (2011) D With only ominous drones and slow solo piano lines there is really nothing to return for.
Beirut: The rip tide (2011) g “A candle’s fire” (has the melody of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s melody from “Who’ll stop the rain”) starts it off where it will remain: some cute rhythmic hooks, detached dramatic vocals, horn fills, and bunch more good indie tracks.
Colin L. Orchestra: Infinite Ease/Good God (2011) VG+
Six Organs of Admittance: Asleep on the floodplain (2011) G Some boring guitar tracks and a worthless organ/accordion driven “Brilliant blue sea between us” only exist until “S/word and Leviathan” comes in. 12 minutes of the haunting “S/word” and 5 of the hopeful “Dawn, running home” saves the album from complete obscurity, but it is only barely enough. The rest of the album sounds like a bunch of ideas to whittle down to one song.
Charalambides: Exile (2011) G Charalambides have gone commercial, in a way. The fuzzy dreams and hikes of their Our bed is green through at least Joy shapes has a slight make over with genre music played their way. Scottish hisses of “Into the Earth”, country blues of “Immovable”, and the clean guitar on “Words inside” are elongated touches of non-droning psychedelia. The album does go on too long with a song like “Wanted to talk” having big enough spaces to fit a few jumbo jets stacked on top of each other. The band still puts out mostly high quality minimalist psych music.
Tim Hecker: Ravedeath, 1972 (2011) VG Listen as Hecker kills modern music as we love(d) it. The undulations of sound; the negative and positive hatred; the vision and the memories; it all comes to halt on a Tim Hecker album, Ravedeath, 1972 does in a way that you will be smiling when you return to that music and smiling more when you come back to Hecker’s slaughter.
Amon Tobin: ISAM (2011) G Amon Tobin writes “welcome to the future” on his Sound Cloud page that has the entire album synced with commentary by Tobin. I was never expecting him to return to the jazzy hip-hop breaks from the legendary run of Bricolage to Out from out where, and the Cujo material, and here is what Tobin comes up with: an album full of sound and more sound. He says that he was inspired by Pink Floyd’s excursions away from their 60s psychedelic pop roots by which he must mean the legendary flop and absolute masterpiece Ummagumma, which this sounds a lot like. Tobin has too many ideas and they explode in almost every second of ISAM. The album never really finds a place to settle down. As soon as it seems like you can make sense of the chaos it flies off in the completely opposite direction. He wanted to make an album of almost completely found sounds altered to sound like real instruments, but the sounds are never stable enough to work like any real instrument. It would be like piecing together a bunch of brush and debris you found on the side of the road to make a jet engine; it make be a funny looking replica, but if you are crazy enough to try and use it like one it will incinerate or just fall back to the pieces that you formed it with. The songs sound like they were pieced together from 100s of other songs a few seconds apart and it just sounds confusing. It is a “jack of all trades but master of none”. I actually enjoy the album, but only because it is a softer and slicker electronic version of the chaotic free-jazz of the 60s and 70s. If Bricolage was John Coltrane, ISAM is Anthony Braxton.
Juliana Barwick: The Magic Place (2011) VG Beautiful vocalizations along with ethereal new age soundscapes are entrenched in achieving the sublime of the old baroque choral works. Barwick builds her voice in the distance slowly reaching into every crevice of life that can hear it. The only drawback is that once the voice is established it does little to move remaining monolithic and overbearing, which in this case is a wonderful thing, but not a masterpiece thing. The Magic Place could have been just as good as an EP. The drums were a nice attempt at movement, but it sounds more like someone recorded over one of the previous songs to see if you would notice. The beauty of the monolithic voice is still undeniably wonderful and should be a good place to start building truly magical pieces of music in the future.
Low: C’mon (2011) g Low does a pretty good job of quelling any crazy “happy” maturation on C’mon, and puts together yet another good collection of revelatory songs of sorrow and beauty reflected by the world of Low. These songs could have gone on their albums in the 90s, which means they have not morphed in any way; however, they have nestled nicely into their groove.
Boris: Heavy rocks (2011) d This is heavier than New album but none of the ripped metal Boris has thrashed out of Japan in the last decade. These are professional songs with catchy guitar solos and some minor noise pop. With the same name and cover design changed to orange from violet, the “rocks” have gone from heavy to heavy-ish. With the exception of “Window shopping” and “Aileron” this is only a heavy version of Attention please and New album, which is to say that it is slightly heavy window dressing.
Boris: New album (2011) ee You don’t know what you have until it’s gone…I liked the heavy and the heavier moments of Boris that has been put out last decade, and I thought that it was nice, then “what else do you have” comes out and you wish you could take it back. New album is proof that you cannot just walk up and do something that is out of your element just because it looks easy—try driving a Formula car!—well this is well over done (very bad?) pop music. It sounds like a soundtrack from the Japanese children’s television shows that made it over here in the 1990s and 2000s: cheesy and annoying, but the kids put up with it because there are bright flashing colors distracting them; I don’t see any bright colors and weird little creatures. When they play hard they play too hard, and the rest of the time they are just idling and I would rather play Feedbacker or anything else that I haven’t heard by them. The natural ability to have a few seconds of listenable stuff here and there make keeps this from being completely deleted from history. This is basically the exact same album as Attention please with songs moved around a bit: worthless.
Boris: Akuma no uta (2003) VG The singing is limited to only a few songs, and in those instances they do a good job of keeping up with the energy from their metal frenzy. The morbid noise of Heavy rocksis leveled out nicely with quiet guitar feedback in the intro, and again in track 4 (無き曲) that goes on to bend the mind without frying it. Of course the frying resumes on the final two tracks in step with the “heavy rocks” of the band.
Boris: Heavy rocks (2002) G This is Boris, this is heavy, this will rattle your ear lobes off. It is a lazy meth head. “Heavy friends” awakens the beast that Japan has unleashed in heavy psychedelia in the last few decades. It is ultimately held back by the senseless interruptions of singing through the apocalypse in “Korosu”, “Dyna soar”, and “Wateruride”. “Soft edge” and “Rattlesnake” take it back, but the band must be bored with it because they end up singing bits throughout the rest of the chaos. I don’t like the band singing because (1) I can’t understand them, but that never stopped me from loving Catherine Ribeiro, so really (2) they don’t add anything to the music; and it is really hard to compete with the mayhem vocally.
Lil’ Wayne: Tha Carter IV (2011) ee I though his “rock” album was horrible, then there is this. Some tracks have nice intros and then Wayne raps over it with the same tried ‘hate dem bitches/get tha money’ mantra that is not radically different than ever some rock songs, but those are only tolerable because of subtlety or substance that Wayne never offers—the rock songs are rarely that good but I’m sure there are some I like with that same mantra implied. His popularity, and others like him in any genre, is either a product of people who completely agree with nearly every word that comes out and how it comes out: lazy and boring; or he is popular because he is just popular and no one is really paying attention just time and money, over and over again. I take exception to write about this album because of the horrific sampling of Harry Belafonte’s “Day-O”, which is one of the greatest and most moving songs from the 20th century. Wayne samples the “six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch!” line where Belafonte is singing about working for nothing in the banana fields in Jamaica stack more and more bananas waiting for the sunrise so you can take a break from the agony. In “6 foot 7 foot” Wayne raps about fucking “two bitches”, his crew (called the “Money Militia”), and diamonds among other asinine things. If you want to sample old songs because you are not creative enough to create “new” music or reorganize your favorite stuff, fuck it…whatever; art doesn’t need boundaries, and this song/album doesn’t either, but you have to be fucking clueless or such a narcissistic mind fucked insensitive prick to sample that song in that way. If you just like the recording and really don’t care about the substance of the Belafonte song then you can’t sing “Paper chasing, tell that paper, ‘Look, I’m right behind ya’ / bitch, real G’s move in silence like lasagna”; if you are a real G then move in fucking silence and stop talking about all the money you have to masses of “banana stackers”—he’s that popular that there have to be masses of metaphorical “banana stackers”.
Cheer¬-Accident: No ifs, ands or dogs (2011) g Going back to the noise pop that they do every other album or so, Cheer-Accident have settled into a sound close to the Flaming Lips without the extremely baroque and “perfect” vocal dubbing. There is the progressive element that supports the sarcastic pop melodies of “Cynical girl” and “Barely breathing”, the intellectual side that the band in rooted in will not let you dose off without some polyrhythmic or ultra-stiff timing that if left to breathe will yield enjoyable results; if it is only sampled it will sound mindless.
Cheer-Accident: What sequel? (2006) d This is not the pop music from the mid-90s but the easy listening is still intact. Most of it is boring, mixing pop with the frigid prog that they are known for and not doing either one particularly well.
Cheer-Accident: Introducing Lemon (2003) D/g Like always, Cheer-Accient cannot sit still. Once they make a brainy album they make a less mindful pop album, back to the roots, and then a chill jam album, then prog, then hard rock, and here a super calculalted/brainy album. 45 minutes are taken up by two lenthy jams that can be solved by algebra. “Camp o’physique” and “Track 29” are good versions of the Residents lunacy. “Smile” is a little noise pop song, and “While” verges into piano ambience” until the second 22 minute track “Find” finishes it all off in a summation of the previous hour.
Cheer-Accident: Gumballhead the cat (2003) G+ The quiet jams on Gumballhead the cat are the best songs the band ever put out on one album. Each track is modest, cool and great, particularly compared to everything that came before it. Even on the long jam “Time for more walking”, there is really only a guitar solo over a rather amateurish rhythm section and it sounds fresher than everything they have recorded combined. It gets a little brainy but not enough to take away from the luxurious leisure elsewhere.
Cheer-Accident: Not a food (1996) G Cheer-Accident keep the easy listening power-pop of the previous album, but reaches back to their prog and metal music of the 80s to make up most of the album with moments of “King Cheezamin” and “Even has a half-life” with fits of ecstasy and paranoia beyond the cliché time swaps from the rest of the prog handbook in the rest of the album. The MC Shapoopy (whoever that is) mix of “Even has a shelf life” is another highlight, though only a brief 2 minutes.
Cheer-Accident: The Why album (1994) D By the time The Why album was recorded the band had shuffled various musicians in and out with only Thymme Jones (vocals, drums, keys) and Jeff Libersher (guitar, vocals, horn) remaining from their first 3 albums recorded/composed in the 1980s. The proggy material stayed in “Learning how to fly”, “You never bothered to know me”, “The Answer”, and “Dead man’s float”, and the rest of the album is a collection of power-pop ballads; they are closer to Big Star than Henry Cow.
Cheer-Accident: Dumb ask (1990) D/g Severing the roots of their 70s prog rock album (Sever roots, tree dies) they switch to 70s hard rock. More relaxed and less calculated like stoner metal bands of the early 90s, Dumb ask has the structure of the 70s with the veneer of the 90s. There are hints at something “new” in “Everybody’s ugly up close”, “Elbow deep in turkey”, and “Filet nod” but lots of other bands did it better, even if they were not all present in 1990. By the end, “Filet nod”, metal takes over the bands sound and structure, almost completely removing the British intellectualism.
Cheer-Accident: Sever roots, tree dies (1988) G Rigid and cold progressive rock carried over from 70s English bands that is as intellectual as Henry Cow and loud as King Crimson and Jethro Tull, which gets self-deprecating in “Black and white”, and is imitated well throughout.
Have Gun, Will Travel: Mergers and acquisitions (2011) D+ A country pop band that are a little softer than the Byrds on Sweetheart of rodeo with the same sweet depressed detachment of Gram Parsons and the soft pop rock the Byrds did better than just about everybody. The band veers into Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on “To the victor go the spoils”, and on into early Wilco on “Time machine”. Burke sounds a lot like Petty without the flashes of brilliance that gave Petty some unique charm. In total the band puts together a good alt-country album that will pass the time enjoyably, but none of the lyrics cut deep though they do call your attention due to Burke’s luring vocals. Burke and the rest of the band may be solving the somewhat simple formula of country, but they do it so well and sound so genuine as if it was a rusted shack that they fixed up and call home, if you like that sort of thing. Fans of early Wilco, Uncle Tupelo, and any other alt-country bands/albums should try these guys out. The name alone got me in the door; the short instrumental “By the flicker of the flame” will keep me on alert for any releases in the coming years.
Bruce Lamont: Feral songs for the epic decline (2011) G Bruce Lamont is a veteran of metal, which carries its way over to his first solo album beginning with the opening track “One who stands on the Earth” which builds slowly on acoustic guitars, Lamont’s saxophone and his vocals that calm down the metal snarl to faint growl until after 8 minutes African jazz rhythms begin the son anew with medieval chants and garbage thumps among a wave of droning guitar before spinning off into a psychedelia that it does not return from. Every track on the album is structured for an atmosphere for contemplation. “The Epic decline” shows the last breaths of the soul that was washed up in the currents of a final judgment. “Year without summer” returns Lamont to a solo acoustic ballad like the first movement of “One who stands on the Earth”, but “The Book of the low” falls back into the psychedelic doom of “The Epic decline” as it just buzzes along with someone banging to get in or out of the world in decline. “Disgruntled employer” is a saxophone saturnalia filling the lows and the mids with more (extremely) sparse drumming, a distorted electronic fluttering above, and deep chanting inhaling and exhaling the darkness. A slight return again to a gloomy guitar intro of “Destructing self destruction” before it gets ripped apart by relentless industrial rhythms and an exorcism vomiting vocal doom as the syth rattles at its hinges and…the solo acoustic guitar steps back in with a romantic saxophone solo amid wandering electronic remnants as Lamont begs for a dream as a harmonica and guitars walk off with it. When Lamont should have used his metal roots he used it effectively, and when he needed to reach for his ambient soul he took enough to get him through the decline and out the other side.
Graveyard: Hinsingen blues (2011) D A good stoner/hard rock album. Every song recycles the hard rock from the 90s of Europe and America, and they do so seamlessly. The first three songs use the hard rock pace of the arena rockers of the 70s with a scream similar to Paul Rodgers of Free, with "Ain't fit to live here" getting the adrenaline pumping hard enough to spill over to the next two songs. "Uncomfortably numb" is a nice ballad that "explodes" at the end with a stale solo nowhere near the breadth of David Gilmour on Floyd's "Comfortably numb". The hot rod blues boogie continues on "Buying truth". The action comes to a standstill on the more dramatic instrumental "Longing" that puts solemn blues guitar to good use with a whistle roaming over top reminiscent of a Sergio Leone spaghetti western soundtrack. This is good stuff to play in a bar until the band arrives.
Chelsea Wolfe: Ἀποκάλυψις (2011) G+ Don’t let the cover or the growl in the opening track throw you off. There are some dark-ish parts to the album, but nothing like the industrial massacres of 20 or 30 years ago. The album is filled with funereal paced echo laden fits of depression that Wolfe sings through with the despair of Amy Lee (Evanescence) and PJ Harvey (To bring you my love). Some of the darker (better) moments of the album are the gothic rock of “Pale on pale”, the undead muttering in “The Wasteland”, and the real wasteland of “To the forest, towards the sea” and “Movie screen”, the other bookend that comes close to delivering on the cover. “Mer” has some Latin flair. “Tracks” and “Moses” sound like a 90s PJ Harvey outtake from To bring you my love, and “Demons” is less of an exorcism than a rock song from The Cramps with more echo on the vocals. The lighter material may detract from the title (Apokalypsis) and cover but doesn’t detract from a good—dark-er—album.
Colin Stetson: New history of warfare vol. 2: Judges (2011) VG Judges is a bit cold and calculated. “The Stars in his head” contains the edge that is seeded in the first two tracks and moves into an enchanting stretch from “All the days” to “A dream of water” that settles into a cool psychotic horn of “Home” that meanders into “Lord I just can’t keep from crying sometimes” with a beautiful and slightly soulful confessional by Shara Worden. Stetson’s sax does a bit of solo ballet in “Clothed in the skin of the dead” with light percussion accompaniment. The rhythm picks up in “Red horse” and never quite sits still as electronic swells teeter on the border of nightmare and dream as “The Righteous wrath” slides into the dream. Worden returns compressing her vocals through a syth over a languid rhythm that is unfocused the without losing sight of the warfare. As the album awoke it scrapes along the floor back into the rooms we keep closed and shut off from our conscience. The spoken word moments by Laurie Anderson are not the keys to the labyrinth of doors throughout the album, but they are not worthless either. A jazz album that will have Jon Hassell fans as well as Radiohead fans smile (though there may be a huge crossover for those two artists).
Natural Snow Buildings: Waves of the random sea (2011) D Natural Snow Buildings always puts out albums that are too long that could have been shortened to make a better product and artistic statement, unless they are trying to say every boring thing we do needs to be listened to because every single thing on the earth has the same value. “The Waves of the random sea” works like most of the opening tracks on their albums. It is easy to put up with the extra droning or repetitions, and in this case the eerie bits at the end, because the album may have different tracks that are as strong or build on the opening themes in whimsical or powerful ways. Natural Snow Buildings never do this. They at least did not release a three disc 240 minute album like all their other albums prior seem like. The instrumentation by the band is not virtuoso or new; there are parts of songs that are worth keeping, but there are too many parts that repeat boring moments that should have never made it to the final cut of their songs. Too many things take too long to develop, and when they do any significance has been lost due to the time. It is cool if you want to fill up the CD to give the listener the most for their money, and the option for the fanatics, but the padding is just not worth it, especially when there are a lot of bands that have been making this stuff for decades and this band has already worn out. Minimalists from the 60s have pieces that go on for 40+ minutes, and La Monte Young has his Well-Tuned Piano go on for 5 hours, but every album like that gets to be too much. Robert Rich could not release 10 versions of Somnium because that is dry and stupid. The ideas begin to get stale, and the artist reflects this in their work. The second half of “This ice fortress” can be significantly shortened; “Through the breaches” through “Drift the water soul” has about 15 minutes total of quality music, within this aesthetic; “Still desert” is not radically different, but it doesn’t sound like a demo that never got shelved like most of the album. The album is rarely engaging, though I don’t think they care about engaging you except to send you off into a dream, and again they’re not spectacular musicians with too many unfocused ideas; they sound average with too much time on their hands. If you need to study for something or drone out the world this may do, but there are too many great pieces of music that can do the same thing that you will want to hit repeat many times over with.
Deerhoof: Deerhoof vs. Evil (2011) G++/VG A good mix of typical rock instruments, acoustic and electronic sounds that do not sound padded or excessive. When the album needs to be chill (“Must fight current”), it is; and when it needs to rock (“Behold a darkness”, “Let’s dance”) it comes hard and always keeps you guessing on the first run (as much as any pop album can, since most have heard the cliché hooks 100+ times before), and it sounds intelligent without bludgeoning you to death with its well-trained time signatures. The rest is the usual mind music that has taken over pop music in the last decade. The lyrics are very forgettable, and the vocals come and go without making any lasting mark. This is easily an enjoyable album from start to finish, and is so on repeat listens. The pop song should have been thrown away and they should have focused on the music to make the best album. Nevertheless, the boring pop songs are outweighed by the fun instrumental bits.
Bibio: Mind Bokeh (2011) d More boring electronic music that implements tangential imitations of other genres like funk (Light sleep), hard rock (Take off your shirt), r&b (Wake up!, More excuses), and ambient drone (Mind bokeh), to push along the “Pretentious” electronic music that powers the elevators of the world, not your mind. If you like to ignore the music like at work to move you along in your repetitive task then Bibio are great. Nothing will get your blood to simmer or freeze, though it may raise the blood pressure, but it certainly won’t raise your spirit or mind.
James Blake: James Blake (2011) d Another English dubstep (future garage) album that offers little with its minimal beats, that people seem to like because they are not the big beats from their parents day (I don’t know). Blake adds an English pseudo-soul voice, like Antony but not as pretty, that has no real soul but grew up imitating the American soul singers as best as he could and stifles the sound by singing in a shoe box. All of the electronic treatments to his voice detract from what will become a sensationalized “great voice” while not adding hype or intrigue in the wake. The album plays like one long unfinished song that has no purpose and is proud of it. It is possible to get through it once if you do not have to pay attention to what Blake may be singing, which is good since it does not come through clearly, and there isn’t an special emotional or artistic reason for that, just a lazy 21st century electronic reason that everyone opts for rather than showing off their vocals or getting a new singer.
The Advisory Circle: As the crow flies (2011) D Nice ambient music to sleep or relax to with some songs like “Everyday Hazards” and “Modern through movement” angering you by attempting to sound important but really just interrupting your rest while a song like “We cleanse this space” is annoying for being a lonesome burst of the extraordinary.
Bob Martin: Midwest farm disaster (1972) G++ A country/folk album not produced by a famous artist that is worth listening to with some enjoyable and memorable uses of Americana clichés. Usually music like this without some sort of intense political/social commentary is boring dribble slowly dripping out of the corner of a great old-timers mouth as he is rocking his way to sleep talking in his sleep of the old days. Martin achieves a southern whine that can put you to sleep or prepare you for a last stand.
Alvarius B: Baroque Prmitiva (2011) d/ee Boring lo-fi acoustic music with a Latin touches at times that can work well in an elevator to nowhere.
Gkfoes Vjgoaf: Spirit dance (2011) g If you find yourself dying for more Gkfoes Vjgoaf albums this is not the worst you could find, but most of the tracks go on and on without arriving at any conclusion, per track or per album. The brief percussion interlude at the beginning of “Mirror mirrored” is all you really get to stop the droning, which is a relaxing half hour if you can sit through it.
Gkfoes Vjgoaf: The Joy of awakening (2011) VG A light psychedelic album uses nature music and low chanting with prominent acoustic guitars in “Giving is receiving” to create a pleasant hippie sunrise to the electronic waves through “Floaters” and the percussion of “Water voices” and “Invitation to wonder” which brings back the distant vocals, acoustic guitar, and nature to wonderful ends. Nothing is overdone or too minimal. All the slots are filled on every track always giving you what you need.
Little Wings: Black grass (2011) d An underdeveloped singer/songwriter album like Springsteen’s Nebraska without the haunting visions of humanity except for “Black grass”, the only track that attempts to fill out the sound that is desperately needed.
Julian Cope: World shut your mouth (1984) X Some individual tracks sound cheesy alone, but the slightly lame sound in one moment of a song is far eclipsed by the eccentric playfulness of the album as a whole. It is like the ugly baby with cute features that matures into a super model. Fried from 1984 is close to the complete opposite; it is the equivalent of Syd Barrett’s solo albums to Piper at the gates of dawn. A much drier straight pop/rock album to World’s aggressive eclecticism.
Blonde Redhead: Penny Sparkle (2010) ee Going backwards to the slow synthetic 80s New Wave while pushing forward into that middle age territory that always softens pop stars, or maybe it isn’t the age bu the years doing any one thing that makes anyone bored and in need of rejuvenation; either ay this is depressing to listen to, but not for the usual reasons. There is nothing to cry about except your hope that the percussion sounds were locked up in a crate with The Ark in Raiders, but here it is full color. The sound is in the middle of everything. The anxiety of the early albums is exchanged for boredom, or such a major depression that they just couldn’t get up to do anything else. The languid vocals would have greater impact with the trite tempos completely removed. The percussion and synth filler would probably benefit without the distraction of unimportant lyrics, none of which I can, and therefore did not want to, remember, which would hopefully lead to the band to focus more energy on the music. But, because none of that was done, what is offered is an album full of 80s soundtrack music, most of which would probably be played over the credits. Everything is half-baked and not in the “they’re only demos that have great potential” way, just a waste of time and money.
The Leisure Society: Into the murky water (2011) G What amounts to a Sufjan Stevens replica is still enjoyable without the little touches that separates a pop album by Stevens from everyone else. The highlights are tracks that the instrumental eccentricities are at the front (Into the murky water, You could keep me talking, This phantom life), every other track flails uneasily with basic instrumental structures that cannot support the baroque vocals.
Art Brut: Brilliant! Tragic! (2011) ee Art Brut has been making this same self-referential album that is never interesting and never trying to sound/feel new. Recycling the 90s brit-pop with the too-cool-to-play-better than they should be "rock" music that has filled the past decade with bedroom bands like The Strokes and The Libertines who are just as boring and unfortunately replaced the garage bands of the 90s. The White Stripes are victims of this to a certain degree, but they play bigger than the quiet wallflower who wants all the attention. What was neat on Bang bang rock & roll is banal here. It is too annoying to try to ignore as background music, but every once in a while a break will not make me want to turn this off immediately.
The Honeymoon Killers (Les Tueurs de la lune de miel): Les tueurs de la lune de miel (1981) VG All of the “weirdness” is gone; but, in their professionalism, the band still seems to put together a fairly goofy album of the proper sounding New Wave of the 1980s. The jazz is replaced with a kitsch drum machine, and there is a new line-up, but if you look a bit deeper than the cheesy technological sounds of the 80s, this is the same band that put out the charming minimal cute jazz album a few years before, they are just grown-ups, or they are more reserved. The quirks are there, but now they are dressed in shoes with the laces tied and a shirt that is tucked in. “L’heure de la sortie” is the track that would have made so many other New Wave bands legends in the press as being too weird, and The Honeymoon Killers did get press despite not singing in English, but that is probably a small part of what is holding them back today.
The Honeymoon Killers (Les Tueurs de la lune de miel): Spécial Manubre! (1977) VG+ Not to be confused with the American band with the same name, The Honeymoon Killers from Belgium, and formed a decade earlier than the U.S. band started out as far away from 1977 cliché as they could get. Ignoring the punk’s faster, simpler, louder version, any disco, and unlike any of the other New Wavers that they are lumped into, The Honeymoon Killers sounded more like The Residents with absolutely mad sing-a-longs, loose but non-sensical and frightening jazz of “Le petits oiseaux” and “La lecon de twist”. The band is often very loose and always interesting either by sounding “stupid” or embellishing a rhythm to keep everything a bit off.
The Lions Rampant: It’s fun to do bad things (2010) G A fucking great garage rock band that are greater live than anything you can hear on an album. Their first 2 EPs are the adolescents that matured into Bad things. This album, and band, is about partying and looking for new ways to have a good time and it is on display in every moment of every track; from the opening ‘yeah’ of “Give me” to the final search for love in the swampy riffs of “Cigs and gin” there is nothing but good times. Their MC5 roots are laid bare on “I need (your love)” with the riffs and the famous refrain from “Kick out the jams” that spills over into every other track. These guys are not artistes, they are rockers, the ones your parents got stoned and tripped on acid to save the world 100 decibels at a time 40 years ago and they don’t sound like they are imitating; they breathe the 60s garage, and talking to Stuart you begin feel the warmth of the 60s energy and when you see him live you hear the endless echo of the wonderful nightmare that is rock ‘n’ roll. The only rival to this sound is The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, and it has been some time since they have released anything. There is a new king of the jungle and it is in Cincinnati.
Jeans Wilder: ”Nice trash” (2010) VG Jeans Wilder debuted in 2009 with Antiques, which at first blew me away, but then repeat listens floundered considerably. The low fidelity worked in the band’s favor with the highly depressing atmospheres. On Nice trash there is more production value, more noise, but no less of a murky atmosphere and sound. It is considerably louder and more demonic at times like in “Blonde beach” with a voice that grows larger and larger and a drone that moves with the tides. “Don’t want to live forever” sounds like a mid-80s New Wave hit repeatedly with a hammer until it submits to the 21st century funeral procession of neurotic bands in NY lofts. The album sounds every bit patched together by depressed carny as the first album did but there is no trace of “Deep end of the pool”. I still can’t understand most of what is being sung, but I have fallen in love again with this band.
White Lung: It’s the evil (2010) D Barely audible lyrics, loud mix, and fast is a good recipe for a punk band…from Canada. I didn’t know that Canada had the ability to produce anything more than hockey players, Celine Dion and a boot or two. The album has all the typical attempts at guitar hooks and pulsing rhythms, but the band is nothing here. The singer sounds like she is talking loud but it doesn’t sound like she has anything to say. The band comes to life live; the only reason I bought the album was because the guitarist, Kenny McCorkell maybe (I never asked his name), kills it live. Not a guitar hero, but he was doing things that I, and others, wanted to watch him play just to see how he was making the sounds that were taking over the band and the entire night. None of what I thought I heard live comes through here. I recognize the riffs I heard, which repeat ad nauseam, but all the special parts are apparently reserved for live shows. If you get a chance to see them live, pop your head in to see if he is lighting it up, but do not buy any CDs unless you like the basic structures of their songs because that is mostly all you get from the album; the drummer can really play too; the band has lots of potential.
Heavy Cream: Danny (2010) D The Ramones are alive on a horse. That also means that the album will not excite you, unless you were actually a fan of The Ramones albums, rather than just a few tremendous singles. Nothing new, and no terrific musicianship, but all the energy a punk band can usually get on an album.
Eggs: Bruiser (1992) G The album fades in slowly…and it never really goes anywhere despite sounding like it wants to burst apart like The Feelies did in the 80s. It has the now typical “indie” sound of meandering lead guitar, careless singer, and tapping rhythms that sound like a drizzle on the windscreen of your car on a road trip to nowhere. It is not a complete waste of time—nowhere can be interesting if you don’t want to be where you are—but this never gets to the energetic levels of Sonic Youth, even in the bits where the speed picks up. Teenbeat 96 Exploder is the only other album by Eggs, and it sounds like they were bored with what they were doing as well with all the recording detours that make for a much cooler album to listen to, but for “indie” fans either one will make you smile. “Ebeneezer” was the highlight with the melody from the MASH theme fitted to a shy 90s pop band.
Brian Eno: Music for films (1978) G+ A collection of interesting ideas that as an album ultimately go nowhere but make for a nice addition to his ambient work, which was really kicked off in 1978 as well, but nothing comes close to the first section of Music for airports though none of the other sections do either. Everything on here sounds like outtakes for Airports.
The Brian Jonestown Massacre: Who killed St. Pepper? (2010) ee Boring everything, and it is really long so you can get really bored.
Broadcast: Tender Buttons (2005) D Electronic music that is not lifeless all the time (except for “Bit 35”), and a voice that is pleasant though dejected. It is a typical 2000s pop album that is not too wasteful but not too enjoyable either. All the songs melt into one another without any grand statement or feeling to hoist. It is short and yet it feels like it goes on and on.
Nils Lofgren: Nils Lofgren (1975) D Boring and intelligible rock music that sounds as dated as a hyena does frightening in the night of on an African plain. If you are nostalgic for the good ol’ days of no frills drinking beer on the hood of your car while trying to count the stars in the sky this is for you.
16 Horsepower: Secret South (2000) VG The motor keeps-a-movin’ with Secret South, but a bit of air is let out of the tires. The album is well worth a listen, but a step down from any of their earlier stuff.
16 Horsepower: Low estate (1997) VG++ One of the coolest bands I rarely listen to and always blow me away when I listen to any track. They are American Southern without being annoying spokespersons for the Mmerican-way-o-liff. Each song off of this album and their debut Sackscloth ‘n’ Ashes is humble, cool, interesting, moving, and every now and again some of the most bad-ass rock music you will hear. They are not overflowing with bad-ass clichés and they will not beat you senseless with it. A southern drawl and the skeletons of country music are drug from corner to corner of the South illuminating the darkness of the Southern night exposing everything you don’t want to see but can take easier rather than all the frightening visions haunting you from the shadows outside the law and the safety of “modern” morality. The insanity is delightful. The depression is uplifting. The quiver of David Edwards is infectious. The album is great. A cover of The Gun Club's "Fire spirit" is the exception to all of this. Everything that is good and slightly unique about 16 Horsepower is abandoned for a few minutes, but is returned with “Golden rope”.
Velocity Girl: ¡Simpatico! (1994) d More of the same pop music as their debut with the edges roughed up a bit if you look close enough, but again, I don’t want to look close enough. It is more simple (boring) pop music that goes nowhere, leaves nothing to hum indiscreetly, and nothing that will move you for even a moment or two; except for, maybe, the final track that is a little over a minute of solo guitar that is the only track with any artistic integrity, but is too little way too late.
Velocity Girl: Copacetic (1993) d Ok twee/indie/noise pop if you’re into any of that. It is too juvenile to take seriously. All of the instrumental parts sound like they were written by a different person and recorded for a different singer than the one who composed the vocal melodies. I could get through it, I decided not to.
Van Morrison: Inarticulate speech of the heart (1983) g The 80s really took a bite out of Morrison, and there were plenty of artists making music that was not filtered through the New Wave intestinal tract. If the songs had been recorded a decade before it probably would have yielded Veedon fleece. Alas, this is another blunt object to add to the “80s sucked” arsenal even if Morrison would be the exception if one would look beyond the surface…the surface is just so tacky to ignore.
Van Morrison: Common one (1980) G Some of the energy has been shed from Into the music leaving Morrison to go through the motions of some pretty good songs, but nothings is stuck in my head and I will forget the album completely in a couple days, which may provide a reprieve some months or years from now if that is a bonus.
Van Morrison: Into the music (1979) VG Van’s band is back in full force in the vein of the more effervescent sections of Moondance. With his classic line-up of a couple horns, a couple back-up singers, chugging rhythms Morrison is relaxed in the midst of good songs and extremely solid performances by polished musicians.
Van Morrison: Veedon fleece (1974) G++/VG Somber and sleek, Morrison churns out an album with a greater amount of vocal exaggerations like on his live album It’s too late to stop now without the pace of “Gloria”. The arrangements are intimate confessionals that stroll along with Morrison’s soul is in repose.
Van Morrison: St. Dominic’s preview (1972) VG Returning to the fanfare of Moondance Morrison puts together a joyful and soulful album that digs close to Astral weeks depths on “Listen to the lion”, all together an album that will not disappoint and only add to the aura of The Man.
Bola Sete: Shebaba (1969) VG Just as I was about to write Sete’s group work off completely I get this. Sete and the band finally melt into each other. The earlier albums sounded like they were recorded by completely different people at different times without any knowledge of any of the music to be put together any time in the future. This album sounds like one person playing and recording, and Sete is not overpowered or overpowering anyone else. Each piece is composed and played for the better of the listener and not the musician in a noise isolation booth. The result is a band only putting their best foot forward at all times and always on sure ground. Every bit rolls along as if they have been playing for years on end until someone happened to walk by with a recording device, except for The Beatles and George Harrison covers which sounds odd if you don’t see it coming.
Bola Sete: Autentico (1966) g …More guitar and percussion, closer to Tour de force without the leap forward I expected. I prefer his solo guitar stuff to anything I have heard with instrumental accompaniment. His guitar playing does not lend itself to reflection by other instruments. It is too quiet, or it was recorded too quiet. The instruments never feed off or talk to each other, or even happen to combine randomly to create a greater experience; they are just both being recorded at the same time, though it can be quite pleasant.
Bola Sete: Tour de force (1964) g More of the same stuff that was released a couple years before on Bossa nova only a little better, but still not great. The major difference is that Sete sounds like he was recording with the other musicians that played on the album rather than just piecing together bits of music you like regardless of what it actually sounds like. The guitar work sounds better, composed and performed.
Bola Sete: Bossa Nova (1962) D The guitar is ok, but the rhythms seem like they were stapled onto a finished guitar piece, or possibly the other way around. Then comes in the singing parts, which too sound like they were recorded years and miles apart from the instrumental backing track and someone was just humming along to the radio while a microphone happened to be recording. The guitar and the percussion parts are not bad, but they should be put on different albums; they sound like they were. It is like when you try to put two favorite food items together in hopes that it will be better but it ends up being toxic!
West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band: A child’s guide to good & evil (1968) g/D A pretty good 60s pop album with nothing too fast, or even too psychedelic, but outside of 60s pop albums this is far below average; nothing is memorable or superficially neat. It functions as a way to pass the time until you listen to a good album.
Harmonia: Deluxe (1975) VG++ another good cosmic album from Rother and Harmonia
Harmonia: Musik von Harmonia (1974) VG+ veterans of the German kosmische musik scene, Cluster and Neu! collide gently to make Harmonia. The intensity of Neu!’s first two albums is not here but the lush atmospheres of that and Cluster’s work are.
Disco Inferno: The five EPs (1994, released 2011) g/D I am not blown away while still being surprised by a band that I had written off without ever hearing, I think; I never wrote it down. There is nothing special here. Some of it is neat to hear as it goes passing by in the background. After hearing it once it becomes that annoying album you own. There is a lot of repetition that ultimately goes nowhere; it just dizzily circles in place.
Plankton Wat: In magical light (2011) G A solemn album that has slight fits of purpose that only manages to rest on the outskirts of time as the guitar tingles as quiet sympathetic drones swell of with a voice that yearns to continue in the desert. Slightly beautiful, slightly encouraging, highly spiritual.
Talk Talk: Talking Colours (Bootlegged 1991) G Despite the band playing their cheesy early new wave stuff, it still sounds pretty good
Orchid: Dance Tonight! Revolution Tomorrow! (2000) d/ee It starts out very interesting, but the singing becomes a chore to listen to, not because I cannot understand what is being said, but because I don’t care what is being screamed. The guitar too sounds like it will be great and then it literally fizzles out and becomes a blur of nothingness multiplied.
Barn Owl: Shadowland (2011) G Neat shoegaze/post-rock album, though darker than what the shoegaze name usually implies about an album.
Bohren & der Club of Gore: Beileid (2011) G “Zombies never die” and “Catch my heart” remind me of the more somber moments of Floyd’s “Shine on you crazy diamond” and “Beileid” is much slower and glacial like Eno’s ambient work. It was a very relaxing album to listen to, and not annoyingly so.
The Flaming Lips: Zaireeka (1997) G If the album is mixed down on a computer it is reduced to being a direct precursor to the boring albums, Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi, but this is not supposed to be that. There are four discs and each is supposed to be set up on a different CD player and then attempted to be synced, but one person would be lucky to get it within a ½ second of “perfection”, and two people probably couldn’t do any better. So, it becomes an exercise in stopping the compositional bleeding. Because no one can keep it perfect, the song continuously changes, but only slightly, unless listeners purposefully put larger and larger gaps between start times of each CD. It is like Christian Marclay’s “vinyl symphonies” but not nearly as destructive or cool. Alas, like I said before, the music is very tame so this becomes a footnote to an album I will never crave highly anticipate listening to ever again. Flaming Lips fans would probably like the version I listened to, which was mixed perfectly, I assume, on a computer allowing The (Pre) Soft Bulletin to shine through.
Jimi Hendrix: Winterland (1968, 2011) G Typical great live Hendrix performances. I don’t know if these have been available as bootlegs for decades now or if they vary from other live albums that are released like carbon dioxide from human lungs. Make sure that this is different; there is nothing worse than paying for something you already own.
Johannes Brahms: Ein deutsches requiem, Op. 45 (1868) X
15-60-75: Jimmy Bell’s still in town (1976) VG+++/X -- A very good blues rock album with a great jazz undertow; every song hits and all of them together make one of the best new listening experiences I have had this year. You can lounge with it, dance with it, or contemplate existence with it…I don’t dance.
Anouar Brahem: Khomsa (1995) G Here we go, something that doesn’t put the dead to sleep. The accordion eruptions in “Souffle un vent sable” and mournful violin in “Regard de mouette” are worth any down time.
Nirvana: Nevermind: Dexluxe/Super Deluxe Edition (2011, 1991) ee The original album is good, but these releases are an assault on the intelligence of the general public, and sadistic maneuver against the Nirvana fanatics; it is fucking sick that shit like this can constantly be recycled for a premium to the public because executives are too stupid to promote other greater bands and albums. In utero/THE ULTIMATE FUCKING NIRVANA deluxe edition will be here in a couple years!
Anouar Brahem: Conte de l'incroyable amour (1992) d This is boring. It is not forceful enough, ever. It is not pretty, or intellectual.
Pia Fraus: Sailing on a grapefruit lake (2005, compilation) d
Pia Fraus: Plastilina (2003) d
Pia Fraus: Nature heart software (2006) D OK, I GET IT, YOU LIKE THE SONG “TO HERE KNOWS WHEN”
Pia Fraus: Mooie island (2004) d The final track “My landlord is trying to kill me” is an oddly wonderful departure from the stereotypical shoegaze persona that this band cannot let go of, now if it was great I might care about this album; the previous 4 tracks are typical Pia Fraus shoegaze.
Pia Fraus: In solarium (2002) d a bit livelier than After Summer but nothing you should worry yourself with unless you are a diehard shoegaze fan and need a little more
Pia Fraus: After Summer (2008) d average shoegaze music, that sounds like the slower moments of Loveless without the dynamism or the eccentricity that made it and the other shoegazers great back in the 1990s
Michael Nyman: Drowning by numbers (1988) X
Michael Nyman: The Kiss and other movements (1985) XX -- even better than The Draughtsman’s Contract with an even greater breath of life infused to the minimalist “frigidity”.
Michael Nyman: The Draughtsman’s Contract (1982) X -- see, minimalism can be smart and moving, and just plain enjoyable without being loud, or very very long; but, the loud and long stuff is still great.
Feist: Metals (2011) g a step up for her, and the only album by Feist I really want to listen to more than once. It has the predictable sparse arrangements that so many albums seem to have these days as well as a vocal delivery similar to many other singer/songwriters—she blends in rather than every trying to stand out in any way except for maybe “A commotion”; “Get it wrong, get it right” is basically Sufjan Stevens, and “Graveyard”, and lots of others; “A commotion” maybe?. I still enjoyed it and recommend it for anyone who loves Feist or 21st century pop music.

Author Comments:

Any album in the first 3 categories will be highlighted. Recommendations are always welcome, and I will try to listen to all of them within a week, but sometimes stupid shit happens and I forget or cannot get to it, so I might need a reminder.

The categories are based off of the RYM rating system though the numbers are not really that important.

FAV: absolute favorite! 5/5 ex: "Paint it black"
XX: Exceptional/Masterpiece/Fucking-fantastic 4.5/5 ex: "Satisfaction"
X: Essential for me, give it a listen 4/5 ex: "Jumpin' Jack Flash"

VG: VERY good 3.5/5 ex: "Lady Jane"
G: Good/Pretty good 3/5 ex: "Play with fire"
D: Decent, some good parts, but others are forgettable 2.5/5 ex: "Angie"
d: decent, I can get though it once 2/5 ex: "It's only rock and roll"
ee: everything else--bad, boring, should not exist 1.5 and below ex: just about every song from the 80s by the Stones

I apologize for any incoherent...or stupid comments. I write them in a vacuum and forget exactly what I wrote, with a few exceptions. I generally listen to the music quickly and revisit anything I thought was worth it and my mind changes but I forget to change my words. You will find professional reviews somewhere else, with very few exceptions. I will try to make the writing better.

http://feifumgotnn.blogspot.com/p/2011-music-log.html

callanyvegetable10/08/2011

Nice, the numbers band album is definitely a fun listen. Would probably work well for parties, good background music for sure.

Feif Umgotnn10/09/2011

Fantastic! I don't know why I didn't listen to that album years ago when I got the Datapanik box set...I may have...I remember the cover...anyway, thanks for that one!

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Music log 2011 (October-->)

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