For posterity's sake.....

Volume 1

Poliça - Dark Star
Freddie Gibbs - Anything To Survive w  Freeway, Sly Polaroid & Adrian
Wendy Rene - After Laughter
Lee Fields & The Expressions - I Still Got It
THEESatisfaction - Extinct
The Dø - Bohemian Dances
Tanlines - All Of Me
Grimes - Genesis
Porcelain Raft - Is It Too Deep For You?
Young Galaxy - Cover Your Tracks
Koushik - Nothing's The Same
The Peach Kings - Little Things
35bag - Find Me Pt.2
Action Bronson - Double Breasted
Teebs - While You Dooooo (Extended)
Clams Casino - I'm Official [Squadda B]

Volume 2

The Replacements - Androgynous
Islands - This is Not A Song
Andrew Bird - Lusitania
Hospitality - Argonauts
The Shins - September
Vetiver - Can't You Tell
Jagwar Ma - Come Save Me
Tennis - Origins
Cate Le Bon - Puts Me To Work
Jessie Baylin - I Feel That Too
Damien - Jurado - Maraqopa
Wendell Stuart & The Downbeaters - My World Is Empty Without You
Michael Kiwanuka - I Need Your Company
King Creosote - Bootprints
Lambchop - Gone Tomorrow
Wild Beasts - Devil's Crayon (Acoustic)
Heartless Bastards - Marathon

Volume 3

Daughn Gibson - In the Beginning
Major Lazer - Get Free
Tomas Barfod feat. Nina Kinert - November Skies
Gardens & Villa - Orange Blossom
The Beastie Boys - Flute Loop
Quantic & Alice Russell - Magdalena 
The Walkmen - We Can't Be Beat
Kindness - Anyone Can Fall In Love
Frank Ocean - Super Rich Kids (feat. Earl Sweatshirt)
Kwes. - Honey
Beach House - Irene
Chromatics - Back from the Grave
Craft Spells - Burst
The Mynabirds - Radiator Sister
Jack White - Love Interruption

Volume 4

Cat Power - Manhattan
Chris Cohen - Rollercoaster Rider
John Maus - Bennington (2007)
Grizzly Bear - gun-shy
Twin Shadow - Run My Heart
Wild Nothing - Only Heather
Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Baby
Delicate Steve - Luna
Ombre - Weight Those Words
King Krule - Rock Bottom
Divine Fits - Would That Not Be Nice
Django Django - Storm
Quantic & Alice Russell - Una Tarde en Mariquita
Andrew Bird - Near Death Experience Experience
Dirty Projectors - Just From Chevron
Fiona Apple - Anything We Want
Eternal Summers - Good As You
Lambchop - Gar

Volume 5

The xx - Chained
Melody's Echo Chamber - You Won't Be Missing That Part of Me
Mac Demarco - Dreaming
Andrew Bird - Three White Horses
Jessica Pratt - Mother Big River
Bat For Lashes - Laura
Cold Specks - Winter Solstice
Chris Cohen - Open Theme
Nightmoves - Colored Emotions
Miguel - Adorn
Kendrick Lamar - Poetic Justice ft. Drake
Chromatics - There's a Light Out On the Horizon
Le1f - Wut (5kinAndBone5)
Big Boi - CPU
Grimes - Genesis
Action Bronson & Alchemist - Modern Day Revelations feat Roc Marciano
Purity Ring - Belispeak
Ellie Goulding - Anything Could Happen

Oh, hello there.  I missed you too!  Aauugghh, STOP IT.  I know.

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

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.

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

"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...

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.

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.

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)

As a little birthday treat to myself, my favorite song of the moment, maybe even the year. This new Horrors album is a straight-up statement. Darkly beautiful and refined. This one song hints at just about every stage of the Cure's career.

When those horns kick in, ooo-we! I am adrift... and then I reemerge to a timeless post-punk riff that whips me around a solitary, moonlit, ocean cliffside highway. Endless blue.



Download the track here.

I have a correction to make. So, I wrote this whole post about Stornoway and how New Zealand was on the up. Which would have been clever enough if Stornoway was actually from New Zealand. They are not. I learned this, months later, the hard way - losing an argument with a complete stranger, who showed me up with one click on Google. Oxford!? Who knew...

So, to make it up to you, I offer two (2!) New Zealand gems, which have been thoroughly vetted for geographic authenticity. [Okay, UMO is from Portland, but their centerpiece is a Kiwi, I swear!]

Cut Off Your Hands is one of those bands that makes me wonder how they don't have a bandwagon the size of their country. What is not to like!?

They can write hooks for days.

Cut Off Your Hands - Oh Girl from NZ Beats on Vimeo.

They'll break it down for the ladies.

And now they've settled into a lean, mean, full-on Smiths impersonation. I would file that under That's A Good Thing.


Cut Off Your Hands - You Should Do Better by inertiamusic

And then there's Unknown Mortal Orchestra, one of - no, THE weirdest debut of the year, with a baffling cover shot of an alien fortress-looking complex, unnecessarily misspelled song titles, and a fuzzed out collection of unclassifiable guitar funk ditties. DB and I saw these dudes open for Yuck last week, and they played with little to (more often) no lights, all three lowriding their hats. Their whole operation is a mystery. What was obvious, though, was that that their frontman is an absolute criminal on the guitar, one of the best I've seen in a long time.

This one, 'How Can You Luv Me,' could be a Midnite Vultures-era Beck track, but these dudes are way deeper down the psych rock rabbit hole.



[Unrelated footnote: I wrote that line about the rabbit hole before I found the video. WTF.]

Rounding out the first half of the year...

Volume 3

Big K.R.I.T. - Dreamin'
Egyptrixx featuring Trust - Bible Eyes
Sade (Feat. Jay-Z) - The Moon and the Sky (Remix)
Bibio - Wake Up!
Thao & Mirah - Rubies and Rocks
Adolfo Echeverria Y Su Conjunto - Sabroso Bacalao
Beastie Boys - Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win (ft. Santigold)
Cut Chemist - What's The Altitude
Quantic Presenta Flowering Inferno - Cumbia Sobre El Mar
Diego García - Stay
Club des Belugas - My Hunger Hurts
Joan As Police Woman - Kiss The Specifics
Lykke Li - Silent My Song
The Weeknd - Coming Down

Volume 4

Nicolas Jaar - Colomb
Washed Out - New Theory (RAC Mix)
Elbow - Lippy Kids
James Blake - Measurements
Panda Bear - Scheherazade
Wild Beasts - Burning
Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie xx - I’m New Here
Small Black - Despicable Dogs (Washed Out Remix)
Radiohead - GiveUpTheGhost
Antony & The Johnsons - Swanlights
Mia Doi Todd - Under the Sun
Bonobo - Stay The Same (Feat. Andreya Triana)

Volume 5

Generationals - You Say It Too
The Kills - Baby Says
The Antlers - Parentheses
Future Islands - Swept Inside
Fleet Foxes - Grown Oceans
Julian Lynch - Terra
Kurt Vile - On Tour
Yuck - Get Away
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Heart in Your Heartbreak
Surf City - Zombies
OFF! - Jeffrey Lee Pierce
My Morning Jacket - Holdin On To Black Metal
The Strokes - Taken For A Fool
Timber Timbre - Black Water
Alexander - Awake My Body

Immediately my new obsession. DB said it right: "i like this dude's punky throat style cutting through all these beautiful guitars / crescendos / beats...."

Lotta cats recently been asking for recommendations, and being the civil servant that I am, I put together a quick rundown of some recent highlights for your listening pleasure...

Julian Lynch - Terra. Rich, mellow, medium-fi blend of strummy indie rock, atmospherics, and jazz goodness, with an Elliott Smith-esque quiet intimacy. The only thing out there that sounds like it is his excellent Mare from last year's top 10.

Wild Beasts - Smother. I have said enough about these guys that I decided not to review the album, but suffice it to say, I love it intensely. Not quite the tour de force performance of Two Dancers, but they are just as enrapturing and sexy with the new, stripped-down, electronic-heavy sound.

Future Islands - In Evening Air. So, I realized recently that I have a propensity towards unusual voices. Case in point, my two albums of the year so far - Destroyer and Wild Beasts - are fronted by two guys that would legitimately creep most people out. After that probably comes James Blake, who sounds like a heartbroken robot, and Radiohead, who, well, you know. No doubt that's the first thing you'll notice about FI, and you'll probably know right away whether you're hooked or a hater. I think he sounds like a sensitive wizard-villain exiled from the land of his glam rock warrior-people. Beyond that, though, a decent survey of the last 5 years in indie rock. I am the Tin Man!!

Diego Garcia - Laura. Argentina-via-NYC guitarist/singer-songwriter (I mean that in the literal, not the pejorative, sense - but that's another post for another day) with a golden voice and a flair for the cinematic.

Thao & Mirah - s/t. Brings out the best of both of these indie singer-songwriters (there it is again). Nice eclectic range of styles.

Beastie Boys - Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2. No explanation needed. Probably overrated at the moment, but certainly in line with Hello Nasty. I'm down.

Bibio - Mind Bokeh. How to describe Bibio? Downtempo dance music or upbeat driving music? Hell if I know. He's a beat maker at base, but never, ever do you feel like you're listening to a tired instrumental track. He's got a killer 70s/00s electro/funk/hip-hop dynamic going on and makes me feel like I never want to live anywhere but the heart of the city. Check out Ambivalence Avenue, too (maybe even first).

V/A - Sofrito: Tropical Discotheque. 'World Music' is just about the slipperiest music term out there, often invoked simply to signify 'the other,' without any attention to - or usually respect for - the particular cultural lineage. (I totally majored in Anthropology). But I can't help but call throw the world music label at this mix for its huge range of regional styles all cobbled together into a seamless, super fun dance party.

Big K.R.I.T. - Return of 4Eva. A worthy heir to the Southernplayalisticcaddilacmusic throne of our favorite spaced out, storytelling ATLiens.

See the side bar for everything else, including some older material...

Never even heard of these guys, and I'm an instant fan. Courtesy of my man JN...

Cute. Equal parts humility and moment-owning.

My first exposure to the Kills was at Coachella '04 or maybe '05. They were the first band I saw all day, and it was like walking into the party and immediately having someone throw a splash of tequila down my throat.

Since then, I have always thought they were on the cusp of making a great album. Always wanted it. They are a ferocious live band and couldn't be cooler, but truth is, it just wasn't quite there in the studio.

Well, I think they finally made the leap. The songwriting on Blood Pressures is stronger and the sound fuller (see 'Future Starts Slow' and 'Damned If She Do'), but without sacrificing any of that sneering, visceral energy. The difference-maker, though, is a few well-timed curveballs to tie all the rockers together ('Wild Charms,' 'The Last Goodbye,' 'Pots and Pans').

Then there's this, probably my favorite thing the Kills have ever done.

Whoops. This one snuck up on me. Well, anyway, I gave you my spiel last year. Show some love, people.

Here is Pitchfork's rundown of all the special releases and in-store performances, plus other helpful links.

I'm hoping to grab the Wild Beasts' "Albatross" 7", the James Blake vinyl release, and the Trash Talk / Wavves split 7"!

I don't mean that as a bad thing. It's just that they have weirdly similar career trajectories, and I feel almost exactly the same about both bands.

2000, Coldplay releases Parachutes; it flies under the radar but in retrospect is a killer album. 2001, The Strokes release Is This It?; it does well but really gains stature stature over time. Both albums are front to back gems and highly re-listenable.

Again one year apart, both release good but not great sophomore albums under the weight of Next Big Thing hype. Is This It? is a better album than Parachutes, but I prefer A Rush of Blood to the Head to Room on Fire, so I say they come out a wash. At this point, both bands are pretty well overrated. They date movie stars.

Smothered with unrealistic expectations, they each drop unlistenable duds the third time around (again, The Strokes one year after Coldplay). Popular opinion turns drastically against them. The Coldplay backlash is more vitriolic (probably because expectations were loftier. That, and they're soft.), but both bands are now, generally speaking, Not Who We Thought They Were. They disappear for a while.

Here's where I get to my point. They probably stayed away long enough that nobody really cared anymore either way. Everybody sold their stock and no longer has a stake in the outcome. This mellowing gives them freedom from expectations again, and they both bang out competent, professional, polished, and generally decent albums. And we probably have enough lingering love that they still benefit from what we liked about them in the first place. I liked Viva La Vida okay, because, I don't know, I had no reason not to like it. And I'm enjoying Angles this week because I just don't need a whole lot from The Strokes right now. A couple good hooks, that unfazeable croon, and a nice pace, and y'know what, I'm good.

The lesson, as always, expectations are everything.

As you know, I think very highly of Wild Beasts. Or as JV likes to call them, Vampire Opera. So you could guess that I went epileptic when I saw this:



And now, this:

Wild Beasts - Albatross by 1FTP

JV said she thought it was going to be totally different. Sounds like she's on to something. I say Bring. That. Sh!%.

I would bet a pantless day at work that this thing is going to make like Godzilla.

2 months and counting...