(acrylic on canvas sheet, 9x12)
Saturday, December 15, 2018
Friday, December 14, 2018
Sunday, December 9, 2018
#250 Christmas Eve Sunset
Welcome to the 250th post on the little blog that could. Hard to imagine that we'd be here, 250 posts and thousands of views later, still putting out weird paintings of various shapes, sizes, hues and textures. This one came out of a confusing Saturday night where I just decided to scrape away the confusion and ended up making something that looked like a drunken Christmas escapade. The image might appear a little blurry, and I may try to take a better picture of it but it could be that this is actually how it looks, which is somehow even more appropriate to what I was trying to capture. I don't normally add a gloss of words to the images, but it felt necessary in this case somehow.
(mixed on canvas, 12 x16)
Saturday, December 8, 2018
Flotsam
Trying out a new shape here, with a wider narrower panel. Also imagining some kind of series, perhaps a diptych or a triptych of sorts. Also starting to wonder why so many of these things are imaginary depictions of coastal scenes somehow. This one looks a lot better in person, mostly because of textures you can't see here, but also because the colors are more striking in real life. Plus it's two feet wide.
(acrylic and oil on canvas panel, 12x24)
Thursday, December 6, 2018
Wednesday, December 5, 2018
The Year in Music - 2018
I was tempted not to write a tortuous and long-winded essay this year, because I was mostly underwhelmed by what I heard in 2018, so this is the best of a pretty bad lot. But I decided, after some encouragement, not to be lazy and at least try to summarize some of my feelings about the albums that seemed to grab and keep my attention this year, even if there weren't any instant classics to be found this time around. In no particular order, I suppose, although Kacey Musgraves did bring me the most joy, and it's no accident that the first dozen albums are by female artists, because they brought overwhelming power to bear on the scene this year. Perhaps also interesting to note what is absent from this list, given what was released (Arctic Monkeys, Courtney Barnett, Cat Power, Kurt Vile, Yo La Tengo, Superchunk, Kamasi Washington and Elvis Costello, for example, all of which I found worthy but ultimately rather dull, to be quite honest about it). The handful at the bottom are kind of the stragglers (or albums that I haven't been able to listen to enough to form a full opinion), but I didn't want to leave them off altogether.
Record – Tracey Thorn
Tracey is approaching national treasure status, if she hasn't already achieved it. This album feels much more satisfying than her last couple of solo albums for some reason, and it gloriously and proudly bridges the gaps between her (my) generation and that of her growing and almost grown children, to the point that she is making dance music for herself to dance to in her own kitchen while a few too many glasses of white wine in on a Friday night, much to their almost certain embarrassment. And she does all of this so gracefully that her children should be inordinately proud of her. I love how Tracey Thorn writes songs about going out and dancing and how it's possible to feel lonely and not lonely at the same time in those moments of collective euphoria, or equally in moments of dancing by oneself. While I adore the xx, I also have to say that they owe almost everything to Tracey Thorn and the later works of EBTG. She's still got it in spades. And I'm also looking forward to her latest memoir. She's a top notch memoirist, by the way.
Dance Music – Mastersystem
The loss of Scott Hutchison (Frightened Rabbit) in May of this year was devastating, all the more so perhaps because he appears to have died at his own hand, prompting untold anguish about what must surely have been a deep dark well of suffering, about which he was never, to be fair, shy. We just never thought he would follow through on all those lyrics that seemed to be musing only idly about death by drowning. In hindsight, though, those images always did feel more than simply metaphorical, as we now so sadly know to be true. I spent an unhealthy season of mourning his loss at the bottom of a more than a few bottles, in my own kind of drowning, I suppose, while thinking about the massive legacy he had bequeathed us, not the least part of which was this side project enacted with his brother Grant and members of Editors and Minor Victories. It's a poignant (obviously) and apposite final testament (if such it is), exuberant, ragged, feeling somewhat unfinished, but overflowing with acerbic humanity. Unlike the rather polished folk-rock (I know that's not accurate, but I'm approximating as best I can here) of Frightened Rabbit, who came to resemble nothing so much as a Celtic version of my beloved The National (their last album, 2016's Painting of a Panic Attack was produced by Aaron Dessner), Mastersystem kicks out some rather more punk-inflected jams here and it's a breath of fresh air, all the more ironic for the fact that it preceded such a tragic snuffing out. Scott Hutchison wrote a lot of lyrics that turned out to be chilling and prescient, but perhaps none more than these lines from Dance Music's Teething:
A man who died won't make a man
A fort without a battle plan
The promise of control seems to escape me
It's times like this we turn to hate
As the fucks I gave evaporate
And the worry is I'll always be this way
All the fucks he gave sure enough evaporated and he left us both with and without his white hot spirit. This loss, of all the losses, was especially hard to take.
In The Rainbow Rain – Okkervil River
I've loved Okkervil River for a long time (and I won't rehearse the long journey that led me to that place, because I've told the story before), but I felt that their previous few albums, while worthy and admirable, somehow indicated a time spent, if not treading water, at least in some kind of somewhat stagnating wilderness. It seemed as if they (and by they I mean Will Sheff) had foundered by trying to write albums that weren't concept albums and then by attempting to make another concept album (The Silver Gymnasium) they foundered again in trying to recapture that thematic coherence that worked so spectacularly well on Black Sheep Boy, The Stage Names and The Stand Ins, a trilogy that will live on in my memory of all-time classics. But In The Rainbow Rain might be the first fully-realized and completely successful non-concept album they have yet produced. If the opener Famous Tracheotomies seems like it's trying a little too hard lyrically, the sophisticated and shimmering musical tone is established early and maintained throughout. It's a beautiful album that doesn't require you to pay attention to its lyrical content because the music alone is enough, but as usual if you do heed the lyrics you'll marvel at Will Sheff's acuity, literacy and sensitivity, as well as his somewhat off-kilter and wry humor. If you don't know the band already, this is a good place to begin backing into their oeuvre, packed as it is with neurotic anthems like The Dream and The Light and Pulled Up The Ribbon. I found myself playing it more and more as the year progressed until, as usual, it was all the way under my skin, where almost all of Will Sheff's songs tend to end up.
We’re Not Talking – The Goon Sax
You might say that The Goon Sax are precocious. And you might say that I have a soft spot for Australian bands, particularly those containing the offspring of one of the members of the greatest band of all time, namely the Go-Betweens, so this one hits me right in my pleasure zone, since Louis Forster (son of Robert) is a prime mover of The Goon Sax. Their first album, Up to Anything (2016) seemed ridiculously accomplished for a bunch of teenagers, but it turns out that that wasn't a fluke. Like the Go-Betweens, they are on that wonderful VU continuum, the continuum that defines my own taste more than almost any other. The longest song on this album (Strange Light) is 3:22 and shortest (Somewhere in Between) is 1:01. I have plenty of attention span for longer explorations of sound and feeling and such like, but this range also seems perfect somehow. There is something at once mundane and altogether exceptional, ordinary and extraordinary at the same time, about the emotional spectrum depicted here, for example in Losing Myself:
Lookin' at my bank account
And I'm feelin' lonely 'cause I got no money
And my TV's not workin'
I've got no patience, 'cause I don't speak German
And now I'm back home
And no one's calling
But I'm not picking up the phone
Hope Downs – Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever
More Australians! This feels much more post-punk than anything else on the list (I didn't have the energy for most post-punk - like Ought and the like - this year), and I'm a sucker for all of that stuff that came after punk but before former punks escaped over the border to fame, fortune and something more new romantic, so it's in what you might call my wheelhouse. RBCF (I'm tired) also put together a mean guitar riff. This is what guitar music should sound like. Make more music like this, please.
The Oddfellows’ Hall – The Ocean Party
I've been a fan of The Ocean Party for a few years now, since I heard Light Weight a few years ago. They're a prolific band, not least thanks to Zac Denton, who very sadly also passed away this year at the stupidly tender age of 24. The Oddfellows' Hall is almost typical Ocean Party material, world weary but simultaneously exhilarating, and shot through with those crystal clear guitar lines that wend their way from song to song underneath the dry vocals that are also their calling card. It's a heady and enchanting combination.
S/T – Big Red Machine
I had given up on both Bon Iver and The National, for complex personal reasons I won't belabor here, but then along came Big Red Machine, a collaboration between Justin Vernon and the aforementioned Aaron Dessner. It just might rehabilitate both bands for me, since it makes both of their previously cloying aesthetics come back into focus. I'm glad that they're calling me back to them, even though their last two albums, respectively, made me feel nothing but bad things about them, myself, and the world in general.
New Hymn to Freedom – Szun Waves
A Humdrum Star – GoGo Penguin
Grid of Points – Grouper
Liz Harris is a hero of mine. This is a modest but perfectly formed little slice of her ambient experimental genius.
Black Panther OST
Kendrick, not even trying, is still better than everyone else's 110%.
Evening Machines - Gregory Alan Isakov
I just became aware of this album at the last minute while I was writing this up (this happens a lot at the end of a year, for some reason) and I think if I had had more time with it I would have made much more of its not inconsiderable charms. It's very low-key, but that's almost what makes it even more alluring. Gregory Alan Isakov's lugubrious singing voice makes me think that he doesn't really care if I listen or if I like him, but he's clearly a sensitive soul, and these songs are beautiful. It reminds me of things I cannot quite identify, which is tantalizing, and also part of its appeal.
Some albums I liked (or might end up liking when I get around to giving them more of my attention) but don't really have anything much to say about at the moment (Note: I may update this with thoughts at a later date once I've had a chance to gather them):
I Don't Want: The Gold Fire Sessions - Santigold
Hive Mind - The Internet
Oxnard - Anderson.Paak
When I Shoot at You with Arrows, I Will Shoot to Destroy You - Micah P. Hinson
Golden Hour – Kacey Musgraves
I'm not a fan of what we used to call new country and that particular radio format generally urges me to violence and regurgitation, but Kacey Musgraves seems to be doing something a little different, in that she manages to blend pop and country into something that isn't cloying or reactionary, as if Taylor Swift suddenly grew up and didn't become a raging and grudge-holding narcissist. The songs on Golden Hour are gorgeous and intelligent and yearn not only for the requiting of what is unrequited in their narratives, but also for a kind of music that doesn't insult or condescend to its listeners either aesthetically or emotionally. Slow Burn is probably my song of the year, and it's accompanied by so many more gems here. I do tend to sing along in a rather horrific way to Slow Burn, especially that melisma toward the end, but only when I'm alone so as not to cause the baby Jesus to cry, or to hurt puppies, or otherwise to inflict any unnecessary suffering, as is always my goal and intention, however much I may ultimately fail in that undertaking, that is to say all the time.
I'm not a fan of what we used to call new country and that particular radio format generally urges me to violence and regurgitation, but Kacey Musgraves seems to be doing something a little different, in that she manages to blend pop and country into something that isn't cloying or reactionary, as if Taylor Swift suddenly grew up and didn't become a raging and grudge-holding narcissist. The songs on Golden Hour are gorgeous and intelligent and yearn not only for the requiting of what is unrequited in their narratives, but also for a kind of music that doesn't insult or condescend to its listeners either aesthetically or emotionally. Slow Burn is probably my song of the year, and it's accompanied by so many more gems here. I do tend to sing along in a rather horrific way to Slow Burn, especially that melisma toward the end, but only when I'm alone so as not to cause the baby Jesus to cry, or to hurt puppies, or otherwise to inflict any unnecessary suffering, as is always my goal and intention, however much I may ultimately fail in that undertaking, that is to say all the time.
Lush – Snail Mail
For better or worse I tend to think of the Snail Mail, Soccer Mommy and Lucy Dacus albums as part of a trilogy of sorts, however loosely related, and most certainly not in a "women in rock" lumping together, but perhaps because they seem to create a sort of aural commonality. Not being in any way technically musical, I am not able to articulate this similarity, but they do tend to create a certain mood and deploy some similar groups of sounds, such that I often found myself rotating around among the three, and it makes for a very fine playlist. I find that I cannot choose one over another in terms of what I "liked" more, and they work separately and together equally well. If you're paying particular attention to the nuances here, though, as you should if you're not as lazy as me, you might conclude that Snail Mail is the spiky one, Soccer Mommy is somewhat more subdued, and Lucy Dacus kind of synthesizes the two, much as she does in the (to my ears) rather patchy boygenius EP she did with Julien Baker and Phoebe Bridgers, which started strong and rather tapered off about 2/3 of the way through. You might also conclude that Lucy Dacus is possibly closer to being ready to "cross over," by which I mean you might be more likely to hear one of her songs at the end of an episode of The Blacklist as Liz and Reddington return in his private jet from a mission to some country whose name ends in -stan, but for now all of these wonderful albums sit well alongside other recent heroes like Waxahatchee and the band we'll talk about next. But for all the attempts at distinction, Soccer Mommy, whose name feels kind of icky to me, has its spiky moments, just as Snail Mail has its chillout phases, and they all seem like they'd be transcendent and transporting in a live setting (says the person who now goes to bed at 9:30 because middle age). But what I love in general and particular about these albums is that they are all some kind of sparkly while also conveying a rather melancholy vibe, because that's really my own aesthetic in a nutshell - sparkly melancholy. There, I finally said it.
Clean – Soccer Mommy
Historian – Lucy Dacus
Historian – Lucy Dacus
For better or worse I tend to think of the Snail Mail, Soccer Mommy and Lucy Dacus albums as part of a trilogy of sorts, however loosely related, and most certainly not in a "women in rock" lumping together, but perhaps because they seem to create a sort of aural commonality. Not being in any way technically musical, I am not able to articulate this similarity, but they do tend to create a certain mood and deploy some similar groups of sounds, such that I often found myself rotating around among the three, and it makes for a very fine playlist. I find that I cannot choose one over another in terms of what I "liked" more, and they work separately and together equally well. If you're paying particular attention to the nuances here, though, as you should if you're not as lazy as me, you might conclude that Snail Mail is the spiky one, Soccer Mommy is somewhat more subdued, and Lucy Dacus kind of synthesizes the two, much as she does in the (to my ears) rather patchy boygenius EP she did with Julien Baker and Phoebe Bridgers, which started strong and rather tapered off about 2/3 of the way through. You might also conclude that Lucy Dacus is possibly closer to being ready to "cross over," by which I mean you might be more likely to hear one of her songs at the end of an episode of The Blacklist as Liz and Reddington return in his private jet from a mission to some country whose name ends in -stan, but for now all of these wonderful albums sit well alongside other recent heroes like Waxahatchee and the band we'll talk about next. But for all the attempts at distinction, Soccer Mommy, whose name feels kind of icky to me, has its spiky moments, just as Snail Mail has its chillout phases, and they all seem like they'd be transcendent and transporting in a live setting (says the person who now goes to bed at 9:30 because middle age). But what I love in general and particular about these albums is that they are all some kind of sparkly while also conveying a rather melancholy vibe, because that's really my own aesthetic in a nutshell - sparkly melancholy. There, I finally said it.
Bark Your Head Off, Dog – Hop Along
I suppose the Hop Along album might have been grouped with the foregoing trilogy, but Hop Along have carved out their own space over the last couple of years with their progressively more assured recorded output. They have established a quite remarkably distinctive sound which is both regressive in that it recalls the illusory heyday of "alternative" music in the 90s and also updates it with an oxymoronic clarity of fuzz which is very pleasurable. There's also something more in-your-face about Hop Along than the trio of albums above, and Frances Quinlan's voice seems a little more fried and weary than her colleagues in the other bands we have previously encountered, at the same time that there is a versatile pep and spring in her step, suggesting a range of songwriting we have yet to see to its full extent. This album feels like an apotheosis of sorts on the trajectory of Hop Along, perhaps a defining statement, perhaps a plateau perhaps a breakthrough, perhaps a preview of a really big leap (The Fox in Motion has a certain shimmy that suggests a band on the cusp of something much bigger than the indie fishbowl might allow, for example). In any event, this is a supremely satisfying listen.
I suppose the Hop Along album might have been grouped with the foregoing trilogy, but Hop Along have carved out their own space over the last couple of years with their progressively more assured recorded output. They have established a quite remarkably distinctive sound which is both regressive in that it recalls the illusory heyday of "alternative" music in the 90s and also updates it with an oxymoronic clarity of fuzz which is very pleasurable. There's also something more in-your-face about Hop Along than the trio of albums above, and Frances Quinlan's voice seems a little more fried and weary than her colleagues in the other bands we have previously encountered, at the same time that there is a versatile pep and spring in her step, suggesting a range of songwriting we have yet to see to its full extent. This album feels like an apotheosis of sorts on the trajectory of Hop Along, perhaps a defining statement, perhaps a plateau perhaps a breakthrough, perhaps a preview of a really big leap (The Fox in Motion has a certain shimmy that suggests a band on the cusp of something much bigger than the indie fishbowl might allow, for example). In any event, this is a supremely satisfying listen.
In a Poem Unlimited – U.S. Girls
U.S. Girls separate themselves from the pack by making what might at first appears to be a precision stampout of the aforementioned "alternative" sub-genre, but which on closer inspection and repeated listening is also or instead going in multiple directions at once, recalling other 90s pioneers than those traditional indie reference points, for example the more jazz-inflected, art-pop and/or outre artists such as Mary Margaret O'Hara, Jane Siberry, and even a little bit of Gail Ann Dorsey, and more latterly St. Vincent. If it strays into muso territory here and there, then so be it, and I found myself on some days having no patience for this album at all, but on the days when I wasn't feeling hopelessly impatient and cynical, I enjoyed it very much.
U.S. Girls separate themselves from the pack by making what might at first appears to be a precision stampout of the aforementioned "alternative" sub-genre, but which on closer inspection and repeated listening is also or instead going in multiple directions at once, recalling other 90s pioneers than those traditional indie reference points, for example the more jazz-inflected, art-pop and/or outre artists such as Mary Margaret O'Hara, Jane Siberry, and even a little bit of Gail Ann Dorsey, and more latterly St. Vincent. If it strays into muso territory here and there, then so be it, and I found myself on some days having no patience for this album at all, but on the days when I wasn't feeling hopelessly impatient and cynical, I enjoyed it very much.
Trouble Anyway – Rosali
S/T - La Force
A good friend of mine recommended this to me with the reference points of Patti Smith and Fleetwood Mac, which was clearly bound to push all of my buttons and so it did. This album quickly became addictive for me, and perhaps cements me rather more firmly in that middle lane of the music highway befitting my ever-advancing years. But I do love those albums that mumble their sadness into a chamber of echo with the through line of a single guitar note, as this one seems to do more than once.
La Force is the band name of Ariel Engle's project outside of Broken Social Scene, where she is doing sterling work covering all the bases left empty by Feist, Amy Millan and Emily Haines. This album feels both connected to BSS and entirely separate from it, and it somehow also feels to belong to the same family tree as the Rosali album somehow, so I put them together for the purposes of this exercise. Some beautiful songs, a relatively short album, and a quiet little gem is the result. If you only had two albums to play at your grown-up dinner party, these would work just fine. I can curate the shit out of a dinner party playlist. You're welcome.
S/T - La Force
A good friend of mine recommended this to me with the reference points of Patti Smith and Fleetwood Mac, which was clearly bound to push all of my buttons and so it did. This album quickly became addictive for me, and perhaps cements me rather more firmly in that middle lane of the music highway befitting my ever-advancing years. But I do love those albums that mumble their sadness into a chamber of echo with the through line of a single guitar note, as this one seems to do more than once.
La Force is the band name of Ariel Engle's project outside of Broken Social Scene, where she is doing sterling work covering all the bases left empty by Feist, Amy Millan and Emily Haines. This album feels both connected to BSS and entirely separate from it, and it somehow also feels to belong to the same family tree as the Rosali album somehow, so I put them together for the purposes of this exercise. Some beautiful songs, a relatively short album, and a quiet little gem is the result. If you only had two albums to play at your grown-up dinner party, these would work just fine. I can curate the shit out of a dinner party playlist. You're welcome.
St. Peter – Emma Tricca
This one isn't entirely dissimilar to the Rosali album, although it's clearly less inclined to enter the fuzzy echo chamber of mumble, remaining mostly in the plaintive acoustic cathedral of bewilderment. When it does go to the fuzzy end of the spectrum it feels a bit like the Cocteau Twins went to their own Tiny Desk Concert, as on Buildings in Millions (or something - that doesn't really mean anything, I apologize).
This one isn't entirely dissimilar to the Rosali album, although it's clearly less inclined to enter the fuzzy echo chamber of mumble, remaining mostly in the plaintive acoustic cathedral of bewilderment. When it does go to the fuzzy end of the spectrum it feels a bit like the Cocteau Twins went to their own Tiny Desk Concert, as on Buildings in Millions (or something - that doesn't really mean anything, I apologize).
Fall into the Sun – Swearin’
Swearin' is the on-again/off-again project that includes Allison Crutchfield, sister of Waxahatchee's Katie Crutchfield, for what that's worth, and this album feels like a very comforting welcome back to a familiar sound, both from the band themselves and also in that it recalls some more of those bands some of us may remember from the mixed blessing that was the 1990s. Swearin' seem to know more than most what they're doing. They're like the Cheap Trick of whatever it is they're doing, in that they don't ever get it wrong, as if they went to indie graduate school and earned the highest possible grade on their final project. I have no bones at all to pick with this perfectly executed example of its particular sub-genre. And all of the voices just work so well together along with the instrumentation, it's as if the entire thing is hermetically sealed. Swearin' totally out-Weezers Weezer musically and is entirely more interesting lyrically. By the way, what on earth was the point of the Weezer cover of Toto's Africa? They couldn't even pull it off without bringing in one of the members of actual Toto to help them out with it? That was lame. We only need one version of Toto's Africa, and that's the one by Toto, duh.
Swearin' is the on-again/off-again project that includes Allison Crutchfield, sister of Waxahatchee's Katie Crutchfield, for what that's worth, and this album feels like a very comforting welcome back to a familiar sound, both from the band themselves and also in that it recalls some more of those bands some of us may remember from the mixed blessing that was the 1990s. Swearin' seem to know more than most what they're doing. They're like the Cheap Trick of whatever it is they're doing, in that they don't ever get it wrong, as if they went to indie graduate school and earned the highest possible grade on their final project. I have no bones at all to pick with this perfectly executed example of its particular sub-genre. And all of the voices just work so well together along with the instrumentation, it's as if the entire thing is hermetically sealed. Swearin' totally out-Weezers Weezer musically and is entirely more interesting lyrically. By the way, what on earth was the point of the Weezer cover of Toto's Africa? They couldn't even pull it off without bringing in one of the members of actual Toto to help them out with it? That was lame. We only need one version of Toto's Africa, and that's the one by Toto, duh.
LIONHEART – H.C. McEntire
H.C. McEntire is a veteran of one of my favorite unsung bands, Mount Moriah, so it was both satisfying and bittersweet to see this album get so much attention from the critterati when Mount Moriah have languished in obscurity for just about their entire career. This project lacks something of the edge of Mount Moriah and feels a little bit more NPR-friendly that I am entirely comfortable with, but its nod to the kind of country music I absolutely adore (notably Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton and those hallowed Trio albums of yore), makes it estimable and to be treasured. Roots without the earnestness and country without the schmalz. But if you aren't yet au courant with Mount Moriah, do yourselves a favor and check them out. They're a revelation, and they're where this lovely album comes from.
H.C. McEntire is a veteran of one of my favorite unsung bands, Mount Moriah, so it was both satisfying and bittersweet to see this album get so much attention from the critterati when Mount Moriah have languished in obscurity for just about their entire career. This project lacks something of the edge of Mount Moriah and feels a little bit more NPR-friendly that I am entirely comfortable with, but its nod to the kind of country music I absolutely adore (notably Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton and those hallowed Trio albums of yore), makes it estimable and to be treasured. Roots without the earnestness and country without the schmalz. But if you aren't yet au courant with Mount Moriah, do yourselves a favor and check them out. They're a revelation, and they're where this lovely album comes from.
Remain in Light – Angelique Kidjo
Angelique Kidjo's previously recorded output was not setting anything much on fire for me. I'm not sure if it's ironic or something else that she came into her own by enacting a song-for-song cover album of Talking Heads' Remain in Light. If you ever thought that the TH album was doing something Graceland-like in its appropriation of African sounds (I never did, by the way), then Angelique Kidjo more than reclaims it for the originators of those sounds, and really impressively re-invents the rhythms and the moods of the original album. I played this more than almost any other album this year, for what that's worth.
Angelique Kidjo's previously recorded output was not setting anything much on fire for me. I'm not sure if it's ironic or something else that she came into her own by enacting a song-for-song cover album of Talking Heads' Remain in Light. If you ever thought that the TH album was doing something Graceland-like in its appropriation of African sounds (I never did, by the way), then Angelique Kidjo more than reclaims it for the originators of those sounds, and really impressively re-invents the rhythms and the moods of the original album. I played this more than almost any other album this year, for what that's worth.
Isolation – Kali Uchis
I don't remember how I came across this album and I'm going to refuse categorically to acknowledge that it might have been thanks to Pitchfork because I am still my own person and not a callow sheep of taste. This is really quite an extraordinary piece of work. I suppose it's a pop album, but it has so many other inflections, including jazz and hip hop, that it feels as if it is under constant re-invention as it progresses. A very enjoyable diversion and a happy discovery.
I don't remember how I came across this album and I'm going to refuse categorically to acknowledge that it might have been thanks to Pitchfork because I am still my own person and not a callow sheep of taste. This is really quite an extraordinary piece of work. I suppose it's a pop album, but it has so many other inflections, including jazz and hip hop, that it feels as if it is under constant re-invention as it progresses. A very enjoyable diversion and a happy discovery.
Record – Tracey Thorn
Tracey is approaching national treasure status, if she hasn't already achieved it. This album feels much more satisfying than her last couple of solo albums for some reason, and it gloriously and proudly bridges the gaps between her (my) generation and that of her growing and almost grown children, to the point that she is making dance music for herself to dance to in her own kitchen while a few too many glasses of white wine in on a Friday night, much to their almost certain embarrassment. And she does all of this so gracefully that her children should be inordinately proud of her. I love how Tracey Thorn writes songs about going out and dancing and how it's possible to feel lonely and not lonely at the same time in those moments of collective euphoria, or equally in moments of dancing by oneself. While I adore the xx, I also have to say that they owe almost everything to Tracey Thorn and the later works of EBTG. She's still got it in spades. And I'm also looking forward to her latest memoir. She's a top notch memoirist, by the way.
Dance Music – Mastersystem
The loss of Scott Hutchison (Frightened Rabbit) in May of this year was devastating, all the more so perhaps because he appears to have died at his own hand, prompting untold anguish about what must surely have been a deep dark well of suffering, about which he was never, to be fair, shy. We just never thought he would follow through on all those lyrics that seemed to be musing only idly about death by drowning. In hindsight, though, those images always did feel more than simply metaphorical, as we now so sadly know to be true. I spent an unhealthy season of mourning his loss at the bottom of a more than a few bottles, in my own kind of drowning, I suppose, while thinking about the massive legacy he had bequeathed us, not the least part of which was this side project enacted with his brother Grant and members of Editors and Minor Victories. It's a poignant (obviously) and apposite final testament (if such it is), exuberant, ragged, feeling somewhat unfinished, but overflowing with acerbic humanity. Unlike the rather polished folk-rock (I know that's not accurate, but I'm approximating as best I can here) of Frightened Rabbit, who came to resemble nothing so much as a Celtic version of my beloved The National (their last album, 2016's Painting of a Panic Attack was produced by Aaron Dessner), Mastersystem kicks out some rather more punk-inflected jams here and it's a breath of fresh air, all the more ironic for the fact that it preceded such a tragic snuffing out. Scott Hutchison wrote a lot of lyrics that turned out to be chilling and prescient, but perhaps none more than these lines from Dance Music's Teething:
A man who died won't make a man
A fort without a battle plan
The promise of control seems to escape me
It's times like this we turn to hate
As the fucks I gave evaporate
And the worry is I'll always be this way
All the fucks he gave sure enough evaporated and he left us both with and without his white hot spirit. This loss, of all the losses, was especially hard to take.
In The Rainbow Rain – Okkervil River
I've loved Okkervil River for a long time (and I won't rehearse the long journey that led me to that place, because I've told the story before), but I felt that their previous few albums, while worthy and admirable, somehow indicated a time spent, if not treading water, at least in some kind of somewhat stagnating wilderness. It seemed as if they (and by they I mean Will Sheff) had foundered by trying to write albums that weren't concept albums and then by attempting to make another concept album (The Silver Gymnasium) they foundered again in trying to recapture that thematic coherence that worked so spectacularly well on Black Sheep Boy, The Stage Names and The Stand Ins, a trilogy that will live on in my memory of all-time classics. But In The Rainbow Rain might be the first fully-realized and completely successful non-concept album they have yet produced. If the opener Famous Tracheotomies seems like it's trying a little too hard lyrically, the sophisticated and shimmering musical tone is established early and maintained throughout. It's a beautiful album that doesn't require you to pay attention to its lyrical content because the music alone is enough, but as usual if you do heed the lyrics you'll marvel at Will Sheff's acuity, literacy and sensitivity, as well as his somewhat off-kilter and wry humor. If you don't know the band already, this is a good place to begin backing into their oeuvre, packed as it is with neurotic anthems like The Dream and The Light and Pulled Up The Ribbon. I found myself playing it more and more as the year progressed until, as usual, it was all the way under my skin, where almost all of Will Sheff's songs tend to end up.
We’re Not Talking – The Goon Sax
You might say that The Goon Sax are precocious. And you might say that I have a soft spot for Australian bands, particularly those containing the offspring of one of the members of the greatest band of all time, namely the Go-Betweens, so this one hits me right in my pleasure zone, since Louis Forster (son of Robert) is a prime mover of The Goon Sax. Their first album, Up to Anything (2016) seemed ridiculously accomplished for a bunch of teenagers, but it turns out that that wasn't a fluke. Like the Go-Betweens, they are on that wonderful VU continuum, the continuum that defines my own taste more than almost any other. The longest song on this album (Strange Light) is 3:22 and shortest (Somewhere in Between) is 1:01. I have plenty of attention span for longer explorations of sound and feeling and such like, but this range also seems perfect somehow. There is something at once mundane and altogether exceptional, ordinary and extraordinary at the same time, about the emotional spectrum depicted here, for example in Losing Myself:
Lookin' at my bank account
And I'm feelin' lonely 'cause I got no money
And my TV's not workin'
I've got no patience, 'cause I don't speak German
And now I'm back home
And no one's calling
But I'm not picking up the phone
Hope Downs – Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever
More Australians! This feels much more post-punk than anything else on the list (I didn't have the energy for most post-punk - like Ought and the like - this year), and I'm a sucker for all of that stuff that came after punk but before former punks escaped over the border to fame, fortune and something more new romantic, so it's in what you might call my wheelhouse. RBCF (I'm tired) also put together a mean guitar riff. This is what guitar music should sound like. Make more music like this, please.
The Oddfellows’ Hall – The Ocean Party
I've been a fan of The Ocean Party for a few years now, since I heard Light Weight a few years ago. They're a prolific band, not least thanks to Zac Denton, who very sadly also passed away this year at the stupidly tender age of 24. The Oddfellows' Hall is almost typical Ocean Party material, world weary but simultaneously exhilarating, and shot through with those crystal clear guitar lines that wend their way from song to song underneath the dry vocals that are also their calling card. It's a heady and enchanting combination.
S/T – Big Red Machine
I had given up on both Bon Iver and The National, for complex personal reasons I won't belabor here, but then along came Big Red Machine, a collaboration between Justin Vernon and the aforementioned Aaron Dessner. It just might rehabilitate both bands for me, since it makes both of their previously cloying aesthetics come back into focus. I'm glad that they're calling me back to them, even though their last two albums, respectively, made me feel nothing but bad things about them, myself, and the world in general.
New Hymn to Freedom – Szun Waves
A Humdrum Star – GoGo Penguin
Universal Beings – Mackaya McCraven
Your Queen Is A Reptile – Sons of Kimet
I don't know how to write about jazz, but these were some contemporary jazz albums I loved this year. They seemed to push the envelope without being unlistenable, and Mackaya McCraven made a much more compelling case this year than Kamasi Washington, whose new album seemed like it was trying way too hard compared to the tour de force that was The Epic.
I don't know how to write about jazz, but these were some contemporary jazz albums I loved this year. They seemed to push the envelope without being unlistenable, and Mackaya McCraven made a much more compelling case this year than Kamasi Washington, whose new album seemed like it was trying way too hard compared to the tour de force that was The Epic.
Grid of Points – Grouper
Liz Harris is a hero of mine. This is a modest but perfectly formed little slice of her ambient experimental genius.
Black Panther OST
Kendrick, not even trying, is still better than everyone else's 110%.
Evening Machines - Gregory Alan Isakov
I just became aware of this album at the last minute while I was writing this up (this happens a lot at the end of a year, for some reason) and I think if I had had more time with it I would have made much more of its not inconsiderable charms. It's very low-key, but that's almost what makes it even more alluring. Gregory Alan Isakov's lugubrious singing voice makes me think that he doesn't really care if I listen or if I like him, but he's clearly a sensitive soul, and these songs are beautiful. It reminds me of things I cannot quite identify, which is tantalizing, and also part of its appeal.
Some albums I liked (or might end up liking when I get around to giving them more of my attention) but don't really have anything much to say about at the moment (Note: I may update this with thoughts at a later date once I've had a chance to gather them):
I Don't Want: The Gold Fire Sessions - Santigold
Hive Mind - The Internet
Oxnard - Anderson.Paak
When I Shoot at You with Arrows, I Will Shoot to Destroy You - Micah P. Hinson
Lavender – Half Waif
OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S INSIDES – SOPHIE
Yawn - Bill Ryder-Jones
Yawn - Bill Ryder-Jones
Last Building Burning – Cloud Nothings
7 – Beach House
This One’s for the Dancer & This One’s for the Dancer’s Bouquet - Moonface
The Blue Hour - Suede
Negro Swan - Blood Orange
Singularity - Jon Hopkins
Double Negative - Low
All Nerve - The Breeders
Hormone Lemonade - Cavern of Anti-Matter
Indigo - Wild Nothing
Slow Air - Still Corners
The House - Porches
Some albums I should have heard, or heard more of, but didn't and so am particularly unqualified to evaluate. At least one of these might turn out to be an album I play on repeat during the bleaker winter months of 2019. At the moment, Amen Dunes is the favorite candidate to receive this treatment:
Freedom - Amen Dunes
How to Socialize & Make Friends - Camp Cope
Joy as an Act of Resistance - IDLES
Songs of Praise - Shame
Critically well-received album that I almost completely loathed:
Be the Cowboy - Mitski
I really really didn't like it at all.
May I also say in closing that I was perturbed to see in 2018 what appeared to be a concerted if not systematic effort to rehabilitate the images and legacies of several artists who are most assuredly and permanently beyond any possible pale from which they might reasonably return. So can we please stop trying to say, "Oh, they were all right, really," "They were unfairly maligned," "Their production values were great," or "Those songs have really stood the test of time" about a) Queen, b) Phil Collins and c) Wings. Queen were and remain a bombastic monstrosity, and they played Sun City. Phil Collins is perhaps the least charismatic pop star of all time, he can't sing, and he rode to solo success on Earth Wind & Fire's coattails. The man is supremely uninteresting. Plus he's a miserable fucking Tory tax exile. Wings I have nothing to say about because I have said everything I have to say about their antichrist of a frontman. So enough with this revisionism. They were terrible. They are terrible. They will always be terrible. These are not opinions. These are facts. Don't distort the historical record with your bullshit reappraisals of their respective catalogs. These three artists are why we got punk rock, why we got the Buzzcocks, and why we got the genius of the very sadly missed and recently departed Pete Shelley. So GTFOH with that fucking nonsense already.
This One’s for the Dancer & This One’s for the Dancer’s Bouquet - Moonface
The Blue Hour - Suede
Negro Swan - Blood Orange
Singularity - Jon Hopkins
Double Negative - Low
All Nerve - The Breeders
Hormone Lemonade - Cavern of Anti-Matter
Indigo - Wild Nothing
Slow Air - Still Corners
The House - Porches
Some albums I should have heard, or heard more of, but didn't and so am particularly unqualified to evaluate. At least one of these might turn out to be an album I play on repeat during the bleaker winter months of 2019. At the moment, Amen Dunes is the favorite candidate to receive this treatment:
Freedom - Amen Dunes
How to Socialize & Make Friends - Camp Cope
Joy as an Act of Resistance - IDLES
Songs of Praise - Shame
Critically well-received album that I almost completely loathed:
Be the Cowboy - Mitski
I really really didn't like it at all.
May I also say in closing that I was perturbed to see in 2018 what appeared to be a concerted if not systematic effort to rehabilitate the images and legacies of several artists who are most assuredly and permanently beyond any possible pale from which they might reasonably return. So can we please stop trying to say, "Oh, they were all right, really," "They were unfairly maligned," "Their production values were great," or "Those songs have really stood the test of time" about a) Queen, b) Phil Collins and c) Wings. Queen were and remain a bombastic monstrosity, and they played Sun City. Phil Collins is perhaps the least charismatic pop star of all time, he can't sing, and he rode to solo success on Earth Wind & Fire's coattails. The man is supremely uninteresting. Plus he's a miserable fucking Tory tax exile. Wings I have nothing to say about because I have said everything I have to say about their antichrist of a frontman. So enough with this revisionism. They were terrible. They are terrible. They will always be terrible. These are not opinions. These are facts. Don't distort the historical record with your bullshit reappraisals of their respective catalogs. These three artists are why we got punk rock, why we got the Buzzcocks, and why we got the genius of the very sadly missed and recently departed Pete Shelley. So GTFOH with that fucking nonsense already.
