Best of 2011

Alright, folks, I sat on this one for a long time, but I put some serious elbow grease into it.

The consensus was that 2012 didn't produce a whole lot of heavyweights, and I wouldn't disagree, but one album defined this year for me, gave me goosebumps the first time I heard it (hiking solo in Big Sur a year ago), quickly revealed itself as the year's first great album, got more plays on our table and on my headphones than anything else, and still blows my mind every time I hear one of its silky sax solos, worthy of my mom's smooth jazz station.

That would of course be Kaputt, by Destroyer. Welcome to the recesses of my heart and soul.

Meanwhile, the music world continues to grow weirder and wider and more fractured and fascinating by the year. My impressions thereon..

The Best of the Rest:

The Horrors - Skying
Little Dragon - Ritual Union
Wild Beasts – Smother
James Blake - s/t
Yuck – s/t
WU LYF - Go Tell Fire to the Mountain
V/A: Sofrito Tropical Discotheque
Radiohead - The King of Limbs

T10 - 25:

Shabazz Palaces - Black Up
Other Lives – Tamer Animals
Gotye - Making Mirrors
Anna Calvi - s/t
Okkervil River – I Am Very Far
Ty Segall – Goodbye Bread
Nicolas Jaar - Space Is Only Noise
Toro y Moi – Underneath the Pine
Eleanor Friedberger – Last Summer
Teebs – Ardour / Collections 01
Spectrals – Bad Penny
Zola Jesus - Conatus
St. Vincent – Strange Mercy
Austra – Feel It Break
The Weeknd – House of Balloons / Thursday
The War On Drugs – Slave Ambient

Underrated Cusp Albums:

Blood Orange – Coastal Grooves
Wilco – The Whole Love
Fruit Bats - Tripper
Smith Westerns – Dye It Blonde
The Kills – Blood Pressures
Diego Garcia - Laura
Weekend - Sports
Future Islands – On the Water
White Denim – D
Fools Gold – Leave No Trace
Julian Lynch – Terra
Grouper – AIA: Dream Loss / Alien Observer
Bibio – Mind Bokeh
Lykke Li – Wounded Rhymes

Properly (and above) Rated Cusp Albums:

Feist - Metals
Girls - Father Son Holy Ghost
Cut Copy – Zonoscope
Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring for My Halo
PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
Julianna Barwick – The Magic Place
Atlas Sound - Parallax

2011 Annex (aka Small Sample Size Stunners):

Sandro Perri – Impossible Spaces
Korallreven – An Album by Korallreven
Charles Bradley – No Time for Dreaming
SBTKRT – s/t
Laura Marling – A Creature I Don’t Know
Thee Oh Sees – Carrion Crawl / The Dream

Fave EP: Trash Talk

Best single without a proper release: Mazzy Star – ‘Common Burn’

Most interesting: The Weeknd

Best album by Kanye or Jay-Z since Graduation: Kanye West & Jay-Z - Watch the Throne

Model of consistency: Okkervil River - I Am Very Far... Four very good LPs in a row (not counting last year's collab with Roky Erickson, which is probably great too!). Name me another band. I'm just sayin...

Best album that has at least three unlistenable songs – Gotye – Making Mirrors

Seven-headed monster that proves women run sh!% - Zola Jesus / Austra / Anna Calvi / Eleanor Friedberger / Laura Marling / St. Vincent / every Yukimi Nagano appearance

Music city of the year: San Francisco, California, suckaaa (killer releases by Girls / Ty Segall / Sonny & the Sunsets / Thee Oh Sees / Weekend / and we’ll throw in Oaktown’s Tune-yards)

Favorite product of the Dirty Dirty since TI's 'King': Big K.R.I.T. – Return of 4Eva

Favorite major label release: Cults – s/t

Archaeological Dig of the year: The Olivia Tremor Control – Dusk at Cubist Castle

Favorite beatmaker of the year: Teebs

Go-to ambient album of the year: Kyle Bobby Dunn – Ways of Meaning

Life-affirming thumper - Anna Calvi - 'Desire'

Poised to make noise in ‘12: King Krule

Listen to: Eleanor Friedberger

My text to DB: "Bro this Eleanor friedberger album is heavy heavy heavy. Perfect parallel universe pop. Remind me to send."

That parallel universe, as DB well knows, is not necessarily one where pop is dance-y and frivolous but where the hooks, buried in skronky bass lines and hiding around unexpected left turns, are even more satisfying. Pop that resonates in your heart and provokes your mind while still preying on your impulses and demanding repeated listens.

Eleanor Friedberger - My Mistakes from Merge Records on Vimeo.

By the way, for those of you following at home, if we the answer wasn't already clear, I think now we know which is the more satisfying, less obtuse half of her brother-sister outfit The Fiery Furnaces.

2011, Vols. 7-8

For a year that's been a little short on big time albums, the hits keep on coming! Here's what I've been gettin down with recently...

2011, Vol. 7, aka Boom Sh-Clack Clack

Gotye - Smoke and Mirrors
Blood Orange - Sutphin Boulevard
Phantogram - Don't Move
Little Dragon - Constant Surprises
Atlas Sound - Te Amo
The Rapture - In The Grace Of Your Love
ASAP Rocky - Trilla (Feat. ASAP Twelvy & ASAP Nast)
Kanye West & JAY Z - Ni**as in Paris
Kavinsky & Lovefoxxx – Nightcall
Youth Lagoon – Posters
Zee Avi - Concrete Wall
Mayer Hawthorne - The Walk
Sade - When Am I Going To Make A Living (Poolside's Tons of Drums Edit)
Kisses - Bermuda
Metronomy - Everything Goes My Way
Jonti - Firework Spraying Moon
Teebs - Long Distance ft. Gaby Hernandez
Björk – Crystalline

2011, Vol. 8, aka Gabba Gabba Hey!

The Horrors - Endless Blue
MGMT - All We Ever Wanted Was Everything
King Krule - The Noose of Jah City
DJ Shadow - Scale It Back
St. Vincent - Dilettante
The War on Drugs - Come to the City
White Denim - River to Consider
Cut Off Your Hands - You Should Do Better
Future Islands - Balance
The Head And The Heart - Lost In My Mind
Arctic Monkeys - That's Where You're Wrong
Anna Calvi - Desire
Zola Jesus - Vessel
Pure X - Surface
Mazzy Star - Common Burn
Other Lives - Dust Bowl III

VOTD: King Krule

"Girll.... don't you worry bout a 'fing"

Not my favorite track from this dude (that would be 'The Noose of Jah City'), but you'll see what you're gettin into. And I'm all about it. Am I being Rick-Rolled? I don't care, I think this kid slays...

SOTD: Other Lives

You're officially on notice about Other Lives. Carefully crafted but expansive late-Beatles-meets-Grizzly-Bear chamber pop from... wait, WHAT?... apparently Stillwater, OK. Which I can tell you first hand ain't so bad but still would've been my second to last guess after Yemen. Anyway, they're lush and seductive and just right.

This one's got a Western vibe that's a little misleading, but you gotta here the chops on display here. You expect this kind of business from the vets, but not the first time you ever hear an artist. Just a mesmerizing five minutes.

SOTD: Anna Calvi

I must have heard this song 'Desire' 20 times on KCRW. I thought it was... interesting... more theatre than song. I inherited a copy of her self-titled debut and stashed it away for a couple weeks. I noticed that she was nominated for the Mercury Prize, and I kinda shrugged. Finally I heard Anne Litt say it was her album of the year, and I figured, alright, I should give this Anna Calvi chick a shot. And all I needed was the intro, a noir-ish, echoing, suspense-filled guitar track to take me in its grip. Suddenly 'Desire' made perfect sense. And this album is all I've listened to for 2 days.

The sound, for one, is indulgent. I'm obsessed with the quality of the snare; the toms are big bullies; and her foreboding and fierce guitar play is excellent. But it's the unbridled force of her voice, awesome in the true sense of the word, that makes this album so compelling for me. To top it off, there's a feeling of sexual power, captured and controlled, that would make Madonna blush.

I'm not sure what it is, but I feel something of Patti Smith in her. Maybe it's the voice, although Calvi belts where Patti snarls. Maybe it's the touch of androgyny, although Calvi is more of the Annie Lennox variety. Probably it's just the commanding, I am woman, hear me roar spirit that has my utmost respect.

2011, Vol. 6

I got dealt a good hand this time 'round. Def my fave mix of the year...

Amy Winehouse - Valerie
Fruit Bats - So Long
Wilco - I Might
Eleanor Friedberger - My Mistakes
Okkervil River - Your Past Life as a Blast
WU LYF - Heavy Pop
Ikebe Shakedown - No Answer
Fool's Gold - The Dive
Blu - Since
Kanye West & JAY Z - Otis (feat. Otis Redding)
Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi - Two Against One
Little Dragon - Please Turn
Cults - Oh My God
Mr. Little Jeans - The Suburbs (Arcade Fire Cover)
James Drake - Wilhelm's Fucking Best
Washed Out - Before
Austra - Lose It
Shabazz Palaces - Swerve... The Reeping of All That Is Worthwhile (Noir Not Withstanding)
The Cool Kids - Summer Jam (feat. Maxine Ashley)