The Annual Music List: 2012

Quick foreword:
This year was very unique for me musically because this was the first year that I got to participate actively in the creation, recording, and production of a lot of great music. 9 months of this year were spent at Nimbus School of Recording Arts and I learned so much and met so many awesome people. So I start this post off with some shout outs to the bands/artists I got to work with this year; YOU GUYS made my musical year. Thank you!

Derrival
The Monarch
The Ruffled Feathers
Shadows

Also shout out about my cousin Kevan Chandler's band Innocent Smith, which released a really witty and heartfelt album called Losing Lungs, Finding God.

Another little side note:
This year was a pretty big one as far as my relationship with Hip Hop goes. Discovered some classics from over the years and also there were just a ton of great Hip Hop albums released this year; many more than will appear on this list.

PPS: Sorry bout the formatting (extra gaps in the first few reviews.) it's coz I wrote it in word and copied it in...too lazy to fix it now.

Now to the Records of the Year! (in alphabetical order):

Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do
Produced by Fiona Apple and Charley Drayton

The Idler Wheel… is a sparse album, if you’re only listening to the arrangements. Lyrically and emotionally Fiona Apple covers a huge amount of ground and the spaciousness of the music allows her voice and words to cut through and hit hard. These open arrangements have the odd effect of occasionally creating a sense of claustrophobia, almost as if she is sitting too close and singing only to the listener; a personal concert that you cannot turn away from.

This is essentially a break up album, there is pain, anger, longing, pleading, and everything else you’d expect, but backed and reinforced with a unique turn of phrase and powerful vocal performances.

The album begins with the chiming of bells on “Every Single Night” which is mostly an unaccompanied melody with the refrain of “I just want to feel everything.” “Daredevil” follows up with “I don’t feel anything until I smash it up.” Daredevil has some of the most intense vocal passages where Fiona’s vocal chords twist up and spit out “WAKE ME UP!” to a frantic brushed snare beat. This album definitely required some physical pain to create.

It’s hard to convey in words how effectively the arrangements match the emotion of the songs. Sometimes the piano is very present and upbeat and other times it is awash with dissonant strings and feels very far away. “Valentine” contains one of my favourite couplets. “I’m a tulip in a cup, I stand no chance of growing up.” Another appears on “Left Alone.” “How can I ask anyone to love me when all I do is beg to be left alone?”

“Werewolf” is one of the most immediate songs and sums up the whole album pretty well: “I could liken you to a werewolf, the way you left me for dead, but I admit that I provided a full moon.” I think this album is so powerful because it jumps back and forth over the fine line of blaming the other and blaming oneself and knowing full well that both parties share the guilt of why things went wrong. Regret, pain, wishful fantasies of things working out, fond memories all collide and blur until the picture is both complete and unclear.

There’s only one track that feels at all misplaced: the album closer “Hot Knife.” I love the song and lyrically it works, but production wise it is a multilayered vocal round which is really the only song which FEELS like it was tampered with in the studio. There’s plenty of recording brilliance and manipulation throughout, but this song SOUNDS like it. It does however end the album with strength and an energy, almost as if in admitting defeat she can pick herself up and face the world again.

Fiona Apple is more honest than many of us have the courage to be and in being so opens doors for us to feel her raw humanity, and in turn we get to feel more human ourselves.

Favourite Track: "Periphery"

"Periphery" is just barely ahead of "Left Alone" for my favourite track. It moves well, the riff is really catchy, her vocals are at turns strained and sing-song, and the lyrics are some of her most acerbic. “All of that loving must have been lacking something if I got bored trying to figure you out. You let me down, I don’t even like you any more.”

Baroness - Yellow & Green
Produced by John Congleton

Yellow & Green was my favourite album of the year for about half the year until a few amazing albums starting giving it some competition. This is a double album and runs over an hour. I have liked Baroness’ previous efforts (Red and Blue) and loved their combination of great heavy riffs, that Atlanta holler (see Mastodon), and a surprisingly delicate musical approach of interweaving melodies, riffs and rhythms. Yellow & Green both outdo their predecessors by miles in almost every area. The melodies are stronger, and while the vocals are cleaner and a little more up front (which has led to some fans complaining about the band going soft) there are some seriously crushing and triumphant moments.

One thing I like about this album is the subtlety of the effects and tones used. The whole thing sounds totally unified and yet every track does something different, every ringing note has a different effect which keeps it interesting and yet it isn’t distracting (like some tracks on the new The Mars Volta album…)

A lot of the best moments are on Yellow, but there aren’t enough lulls to stop me from listening to both discs back to back. “March to the Sea” is one definite strong point. It combines all the traits I described above. It starts with a gorgeous guitar melody and then kicks in (with a fill reminiscent of "Smells Like Teen Spirit") and then just gets heavy with dueling guitars swirling around. I love that I can hear everything in the mix on every track. Each line is distinct and nothing is by accident. And yet it never grows stale like some albums which are too planned out.

Lyrically the album is vague and the most of the songs convey more of an emotional impression, usually on the nihilistic/negative side (“I wish I was drowning, then I could watch you burn.” The singer states on “Little Things.”) but the album avoids depression with its gorgeous melodies and huge moments as display on the instrumental “Green Theme.”

I was really worried when I heard that Baroness had a really bad accident in their tour bus this fall, rendering all of the band members hospitalized. I’m glad to hear that they have recovered and are hoping to get back to touring as soon as possible.

This album is a pretty huge achievement and I’ve listened to it more than any album released this year and I still find some new gem to enjoy every listen.

Side note: the singer does all of the artwork for the baroness albums as well as for a lot of other bands. The art, like his music, is an ornate and gorgeous juxtaposition of the morbid and the beautiful.

Favourite Track: "Back Where I Belong"

This song has my favourite lyric/melody combination. It starts as a frustrated complaint of ending up back in a bad relationship, “stuck with you… back where I belong.” But takes a turn at near the end with a gorgeous moment where they, for a split second, remember the better days of love they enjoyed as young lovers. “When we were kids we never felt so young. Take me to a hazy Sunday morning.”

Cloud Nothings - Attack on Memory
Produced by Steve Albini

Attack on Memory is angst and frustration incarnate. The singer flips between total apathetic paralysis and a deep seeded anger at the futility he sees in his life. The album begins with the repeated statement “Give up, come to.” Life has “No Future/No Past” and is just a cycle of passing out and waking up. Life is lifeless.

Musically this album hearkens back to late 80s early 90s indie such as …Trail of Dead and Sonic Youth a la Daydream Nation. And it’s refreshing to hear a band that feels like it just wants to play hard and loud and just get lost in the cacophony.This album is simple but never boring. Aggressive but introverted. Apathetic yet threatening to explode at any moment. And explode it does.

“I thought I would be more than this!”

“Fall In” with its harmonies and “Stay Useless” with its enigmatic chorus are the catchiest tunes on the album and are a welcome relief after the wonderfully harrowing “Wasted Days.”

The album pounds along for just over 33 minutes, but when it ends it’s hard to know if you’ve been listening for just a moment or for hours. The final track is called “Cut You” and is a creepy letter to an old flame asking questions like “Does he hurt you like I do? Is he gonna work out? I need to know. I deserve to know.” Dude is dealing with some serious issues, but Cloud Nothings have managed to turn them into a concise and kick ass album.

Favourite Track: “Wasted Days”

Running near the 9 minute mark this track takes up over a quarter of the album and is a distressing but compelling journey. There are more than one great riff in this song and which flies along at breakneck pace for about three minutes until it suddenly breaks down. Weird noises flit in and out like inhuman babble and a huge crescendo builds and builds until the song explodes into a frantic energy again while the singer screams, “I thought I would be more than this!” over and over and over until the song collapses in on itself. Anyone who has struggled with identity or has been disappointed with how things have turned out cannot help but relate.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!
Self Produced

At their prime, Godspeed You! Black Emperor were one of the most interesting bands around with their incredibly complex and long (like 20 minutes a song long) compositions which blossomed slowly and enveloped you in their sound before crushing you with a powerful wall of sound. They were pioneers of the crushing wave of post-rock that erupted in the early 00's (Sigur Ros, Explosions in the Sky, etc.)  'Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!, their first album in 10 years, gathers some unrecorded material from that time (some of which has been played live in the meantime) and manages to faithfully maintain and increase their tradition of powerful post rock. Few bands live up to their name after a 10 year break, so it’s wonderful that Godspeed have not only survived but delivered something that expands, rather than merely sustains, their legacy.

The album consists of two twenty minute tracks and two short(er) compositions of just over 6 and 8 minutes each. Like all of their material each song is essentially a giant crescendo. On some of their previous work there were moments where I felt that the slow builds served no purpose, were just there for their own sake. I feel that this album has more of an obvious arc to it which I enjoy. The title really fits. It really feels like some massive beast is struggling up out of the mud, breaking free, and roaring at the clouds before taking wing. The two shorter interludes also provide more movement to the album than some of the more cumbersome moments of other albums.

This album is not something to throw on in the background. It demands your full attention. At times we feel like the clouds will continue to close around us forever, but then light bursts through.

Favourite Track: “We Drift Like Worried Fire”

The second of the longest compositions has much to offer. It’s always hard to pick “favourite track” on a Godspeed album because each covers an enormous amount of ground. So I’ll say this, the last 8 minutes of “We Drift Like Worried Fire” is kind of like a summary of the whole album: plodding along in dismay, a huge fight for freedom, bursting through and then a sobering moment of reality but ending in a much better place than you began, and hope of even better things ahead.

Julia Holter - Ekstasis
Self Produced

Julia Holter’s last album, Tragedy, was a masterpiece, a bizarre opera based on an ancient greek play which combined high baroque pop sensibilities with sound collage and yet kept a certain simplicity of soul. This year’s Ekstasis contains more focused songs, and has a higher production value (Tragedy was very raw and much of it self recorded.) and, although it falls short of the previous work, is still wonderfully captivating.

Each piece is very impressionistic. 80s synths blend together with new age melodies and classical string arrangements and medieval chants. This is meditative music which refuses to remain still.

The second track, “Our Sorrows” ends with a gorgeous chant, immediately to be juxtaposed by "In The Same Room"’s drum machine and harpsichord driven refrain “I can’t recall this face, but I want to.” Julia creates a wonderful swirl of keyboards and vocal lines which overlap and weave in and out of each other throughout the album and often feels like a combination last year’s The Magic Place by Julianna Barwick and Native Speaker by Braids, both which made my top 10 of 2011.

“F’ur Felix” is feels like you’re exploring a foreign bazaar. And yet you could never quite place where in the world you could be. It’s a magical in between place which also boasts one of the catchier riffs on the album.

I find it hard to explain this album. Here, in short, is why I love this album: It beholds a magical world with a childish sense of wonder and yet filters all it sees through mature eyes. That is no small feat. A perfect example of this is the song “Four Gardens” which begins with a girl’s giggle but sings about waiting patiently for love.

Float away into Ekstasis.

Side Note: Julia Holter recently released an expanded version of Ekstasis which includes some re-arranged and re-recorded versions of some songs on both Tragedy and Ekstasis which are wonderful but cannot replace the initial versions in my mind.

Favourite Track: “Ekstasis”

At nearly 9 minutes, "Ekstasis" really provides the time for Julia’s ideas to progress and develop. The groove is slow but not slack. Everything builds, it is a peaceful celebration of wonder. Then everything but the saxophone cuts out and then even that falls silent and when the voices begin again you feel as if you have stepped through some veil onto holy ground but the journey is not over. The pace increases and drums become the most prevalent instrument while church bells chime in the distance. A disjointed and strange bass groove carries you along. And always the voices remind you, “This is the ekstasis.” Then just as suddenly as they began, the drums disappear and you are left floating between a cello and a saxophone which play you off to sleep.

Kendrick Lamar - good kid, m.A.A.d city
Produced by Dr. Dre (and a million other guest producers)

Oh. Damn. This album is good. Gunna say it's tied for the top spot of the year. Hailed as an instant classic and drawing many and much deserved comparisons to Illmatic this album kicked the doors in when it was released. Kendrick Lamar has created a hip hop album that far surpasses a bunch of great hip hop albums released this year. good kid, m.A.A.d city is subtitled "a film by Kendrick Lamar." and it's true. This is cinematic. This is good story telling. This is complex character development.

The album opens with a group of young men dedicating their lives to Jesus in a prayer. It's kind of shocking at first, but this album tells a story which touches on many areas of life and it is rich with meaning. Produced by Dr. Dre and a bunch of other great beat makes/musicians, this is a sonically rich album with plenty of ear candy. The beats are in turns laid back, aggressive, sad, hopeful and hazy, depending on the situation the protagonist finds himself. In theory the story follows a young Kendrick who heads out to meet up with a girl, gets sidetracked by some buddies, gets into some trouble and then has to deal with the consequences. The mental and spiritual journey these events take him on become his story.

The skits (and there are lots) rather than just being interludes contribute to the story greatly. Voice mail messages from Kendrick's mom begin annoyed that the car is missing and end up just praying that Kendrick remember who he is and that he get home safely. 
Kendrick's brilliance as a performer is not limited to his great word play and narration, he actually morphs his voice so that it sounds different on nearly every track. Some of this is achieved with effects, but just as much is his own versatility as a vocal artist.

There aren't any low moments on this album. There are good, great, and amazing moments. The album is mostly somber and self reflective, but there is humor and energy. Some of the most poignant lyrics are in "The Art Of Peer Pressure" which can be summarized by "Really I'm a peacemaker, but I'm with the homies right now" after describing jumping and terrorizing someone. Another stand out track is "Swimming Pools (Drank)" which hides lyrics about a dangerous drinking habit under the guise of a party track. A third stand out is "Backseat Freestyle" which is supposed to reflect on young Kendrick's mindframe (it's supposed to be his first freestyle in highschool.) As such there's a lot of classic rap humour re: sex and violence, but it creates a bold contrast to the conscientiousness most of the rest of the album shows. I also can never get that opening "Martin had a dream! Martin had a dream! Kendrick have a dream!"

The final track I'll talk about is "Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst." It's a song for those who have gone before. "Promise that you will sing about me." It's 12 minutes long. Which is crazy for a hip hop track. But it moves, it grows, it mourns. It has some shocking moments, and after it's all over the prayer for salvation comes back, this time led by an older black woman who chastises the boys for being angry when anger solves nothing. It's powerful stuff. 

This album is about life examined. It's honest. It's hurting. It's strong and vulnerable. It's an amazing piece of art by a young artist.

Favourite Track: "The Art Of Peer Pressure"
It's super hard to pick a favourite for good kid, m.A.A.d city, but I think the powerful truth of how easily we can be swayed if we're not careful sticks with me. The beat switch halfway through is awesome too.

> Frank Ocean - Channel ORANGE
Self Produced (with a few co-producers including Pharrell)

This year Frank Ocean made people who don't like R&B listen to, and find they like, R&B. That's quite an achievement. This album easily covers the most musical ground out of any album on this list. Frank Ocean is a stylistic chameleon, but the album maintains a pure vision because of his voice. It is a powerful and emotional tool which never shakes your attention.

The album opens with the sound of a Playstation (the first one) starting up. For anyone that listened to his last release Nostalgia/Ultra, this shouldn't be any surprise. He talks a lot on that album about video games, anime, and other fairly nerdy pursuits (for a potential R&B heartthrob). Frank has had a crazy couple years tho: Joined Odd Future when everyone was listening to anything those boys put out; guest spots on The Weeknd and Watch the Throne, being threatened with legal action by The Eagles (!!!) for his re-writing of "Hotel California" as "American Wedding" (exact same music, all new lyrics) etc. He's matured a lot, there's a lot more thoughtful writing on Channel ORANGE, but the kid is still there. On "Pink Matter" - one of the more reflective feeling songs on the albums - he references Majin Buu (THIS GUY BELOW)

from Dragon Ball Z, followed closely by a lazy sounding but always on point Andre 3000 verse.

"Super Rich Kids" is maybe the best summary of the dichotomy Frank Ocean is living. "Too many bottles of this wine we can't pronounce... the maids come around too much. Parents ain't around enough....Super rich kids with nothing but loose ends. Super rich kids with nothing but fake friends." He wants to be young and restless, but he's too aware of what's wrong with everyone, including himself. "We are the [Xanax] Nation" Earl Sweatshirt raps. A generation of over medicated avoidance.

This is probably the most cleverly produced album of the year. Multiple genre's and styles and seamlessly blended and woven together to paint a picture of a sensitive, but wreckless life. One that's trying to be lived to the fullest but is too aware of it's own short fallings to really take off. It's a sad story. But not too sad. Just kinda numb, with all the emotion just raging below the surface.

I really feel like I didn't do this review justice. There's just too much. Go listen.

Favourite Track: "Pyramids"
Ok, so I kinda avoided talking about this up top. But this really is the reason I love this album in a nutshell. Another 10 minute mindblowing track (only the second half is in the video up top). This starts off as fantastical story about an Egyptian princess named Cleopatra who has been stolen away. "Set the cheetahs on the loose!" The beat evolves as the story morphs dreamstyle. "Chandeliers inside the pyramids tremble." And then suddenly the song shifts dramatically, and the dream is over. Now a lonely Frank lies in bed as his girl dresses to go work [strip] at the Pyramid. "She's workin at the Pyramid tonight." So he hits the town to try and forget, "Bubbles in my champagne, let it be some Jazz playin" but there's still a sentimental longing for the girl who's workin at the Pyramid tonight. It's crazy. But it works. And I love it.

Oh ya. And there's that John Mayer Solo. 

Purity Ring - Shrines
Produced by Corin Roddick

This album blends so many opposites together in such an awesome way that it makes me giggle sometimes. It's chill. It's fun. It's downtempo and dark, but fun and catchy. The lyrics are sung by a really cute female voice, but they are bizarre and morbid and just plain weird. As a result I am rarely not in the mood for this album. If I'm happy the beats and melodies make me happy. If I'm down, the atmosphere is just murky enough that I'm not annoyed by what made me happy. If I'm exhausted the beats are just chill enough but not lugubrious. Shrines is a masterwork in tightrope walking.

Favourite Track: "Fineshrine"
To those lyrics I was talking about. This song opens like this: "Get a little closer, let it fold/ Cut open my sternum and pull/ my little ribs around you." But the melody is so sweet. And the beat moves as weird vocal swells swirl. Just a great tune. Followed by another. Followed by another.

Swans - The Seer
Michael Gira

And now we come to the second double album on my list and the album which ties Kendrick for Album of the Year. THE SEER. Weep! Woe! Despair! This album is just freaking bleak. And it is passionately bleak for very nearly two hours. Tracks range in length from under 2 minutes to over 30 minutes in length and very few minutes in any way relent. It is, in many ways, the inverse of 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! This is claustophobia incarnate. The story, loosely, seems to be about a young boy with a special gift for seeing what others cannot, torn from innocence, and thrust into a sort of deranged and enlightened lunacy which people fear but are drawn to. That's how I feel about his album. It is scary and yet it draws you in.

So much to talk about. The drums are huge and pounding. The repetitive riffs are hypnotic and distressing. The squalor of sound! It really feels like you're being chased through the slums of a foreign land for a lot of these tracks (especially the beginning of "Mother of the World") And yet along with the moments that sounds like a higher fidelity outtake of "Sister Ray", there are moments which sound more like Earth's more recent droning, Ennio Morricone influenced, Spaghetti Western, doom paced, compositions. But even those slower meditative moments - like the uber creepy lullaby "The Wolf" ("Wash me in your bloodlust") - never allow a moment of ease. It's always the calm before a new storm or an eye in the storm or a mental collapse of exhaustion because of trying to endure the storm.No rest for the wicked. Prime example? The 32 minute monstrosity which is the title track. Bagpipes, church bells, droning organs, disjointed cymbal rolls, all erupt at once in an extended cacophony of madness. Then the frantic dulcimer with lumbering drums being dive bombed by guitar slides. And then a crescendo into madness that would make Godspeed proud. 

"I've seen it all. I've seen it all. I've seen it all. I've seen it all. I've seen it all. I've seen it all. I've seen it all. I've seen it all. I've seen it all. I've seen it all. I've seen it all. I've seen it all. I've seen it all. I've seen it all. I've seen it all. I've seen it all. I've seen it all. I've seen it all. I've seen it all. I've seen it all. I've seen it all. I've seen it all. I've seen it all. I've seen it all. I've seen it all. I've seen it all. I've seen it all. "

There is some amazing drum work going on while the Seer further loses his mind in the immensity of what he's seen.

Perhaps the only break is the 4 minute opener of disc two, "Song for a Warrior" where Karen O guest stars in an (actually pretty) country ballad before things go totally south and crazy again.

Part of me is tempted to draw comparisons between The Seer and the second half of Salman Rushdie's literary masterpiece Midnight's Children. Bleak, but wonderfully expressed, and fantastical in nature.

You really have to drown in this album. Or swim away. It's not for everyone, but it's a remarkable experience.

Favourite Track: "The Seer"

Really this track could stand alone. So much crazy stuff happens. So much heavy chaos. Right at the half way mark there are these waves and waves of heavy chords. Unrelenting. You feel like surely the world must be ending. And then you realize that there are 16 more minutes. And you feel like...these waves could actually go on for 16 more minutes and I would not be able to turn away. Fortunately, Swans mastermind Michael Gira decides to not drive us quite as completely mad as the Seer, and the track enters a desert of harmonica loneliness before it rises, like a ghost.

Honourable Mentions:

Note:

I just couldn't decide on my tenth for my top 10. So I'm going to write a mini review for 11 Honourable Mentions. (No Links. Look em up!)

Black To Comm - Earth - The most Scott Walker influenced album I've heard in a while. Very detailed and textured compositions which require close listening.
Burial - Kindred EP - Burial kills it again with his subtle and deft producer's hand giving pre-Skrillex dubstep new life. These are long compositions which grow and collapse and rise again. Gorgeous.
Death Grips - The Money Store - Could have been my number 10 maybe if I'd got it earlier in the year. Insanely aggressive in its exclusion of others, angrier than most metal albums, and featuring the brilliant Zach Hill on drums, these are some of the weirdest and coolest beats going. Totally bizarre and abrasively awesome.
Dirty Projectors - Swing Lo Magellan - Never got into Dirty Projectors before this. Really weird art rock with plenty of strange harmonies and melodic ideas, as well as some really interesting lyrical ideas.
Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music - This album just ripped my head off. So political. So hardcore. So uncompromising.
Krallice - Years Past Matter - Krallice again just barely misses my top ten with another amazing black metal/prog metal/shred fest of unrelenting ferocity. The complex rhythmic and modular developments this band consistently puts out is amazing to me.
METZ - METZ - At just under 30 minutes, this album is a punch in the gut and a kick to the teeth of teenage angst. Super fun, super fuzzy, super good.
The Mountain Goats - Trancendental Youth - Another band who consistently releases great albums which barely miss the top 10 mark. Now with way more horns!
Pallbearer - Sorrow and Extinction - I don't usually go for more straightforward metal. I like it weird. And I even more rarely go for metal with sung vocals (as opposed to harsher vocal manipulations). This album just had some really great, doomy, tunes which I was really impressed by.
Spiritualized - Sweet Heart Sweet Light - If you can find me a more Beatles influenced album released this year I'll be surprised. You definitely won't find a better one. More songs life and death and depression and God and girls with names like Mary and Jane. Some really great tunes.
Split Cranium - Split Cranium - ISIS broke up. I was sad. Aaron Turner (the lead singer) joined Split Cranium for some super fun, crust punk, hardcore goodness.

Other Mentions:
Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band - Bat Chain Puller - This is the album which the record companies rejected and was replaced by 1978's Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller). 35 years later we finally get what the Captain had intended. It's basically a more blues'd out version of Shiny Beast. But I love it.

Scott Walker - Bish Bosch - This album makes Lulu look like it made sense. Scott Walker is both making fun of himself and his fans while taking his art deadly serious (listen to those knives being sharpened.) Probably the only person who can make a fart joke sound like a death threat nightmare. 



Favourite Tracks (not appearing on the above 20 albums):
Beck - "73 - 78"
Big Boi featuring Kelly Rowland - "Mama Told Me"
The Harpoonist and the Axe Murderer & Portage and Main - "Wake Up"
Japandroids - "Younger Us"
Carly Rae Jepsen - "Call Me Maybe"
Jordan Klassen & Facts - "A Silent Sphere"
Kanye West featuring Big Sean, Pusha T, 2 Chainz - "Mercy"
Taylor Swift - "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together"
Schoolboy Q featuring A$AP Rocky - "Hands on the Wheel"
Jessie Ware - "Wildest Moments"
Jack White - "I'm Shakin'"

I am very busy. That is a good thing. But this blog is officially on an indefinite hiatus.

M'apologistics

I need to rethink this blog. I no longer do movie reviews, period. Most of the time they are just summaries of the plot. I rarely have anything to rave or complain strongly about, partly because I have so few hours to watch movies. Because of my time restrictions, when I do actually get around to watching a movie, I want an escape, something light and fluffy and generally casual, not an emotional rollercoaster or mindbendingly phenomenal film. My loss, I'm sure. The same thing, in a slightly lesser manner, affects my music listening/reviewing. I rarely have time to actually sit and listen to music for its own sake anymore. I'm always either a) on public transit b) at work or c) doing homework...which is now mostly requiring my ears attention since I'm usually mixing/editing music.

Added to this is the problem of my approach. I had decided, when commencing the reflective endeavor that is this blog, to only review albums I purchased a physical copy of. Most of the music - to my shame - that I have consumed in the last year has been acquired by other means. I often don't even get to listening to most of the music that I pick up any more. That's sad. As a result I have almost nothing to write about. So now, basically...I'd opening that up. My reviews will likely be less in depth, but that will - hopefully - be an improvement over the dearth of writing that has left the drain of this blog totally unstopped.

It is my great hope and intention (paving paving paving) to write a review of something of some sort every week.
Thanks to those of you who occasionally check in.

Music Lists 2011: Meditations

*TRIUMPHANT ENTRANCE MUSIC*

And so, as with every year, the year end list rouses my writing spirit and shames me from my inertia.

This year was a good year for music I like, despite the fact that no album touched last year's favourite: Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me - which continues to delight and is a likely competitor for best album of the decade. (She topped my lists for the 00's...so why can't she top the 10's?)

Interesting note: four of the five artists that made it into my top of 2009 list release albums this year, and not one made it in the top 10 this year. This is both a reflection on the development of my own musical tastes as well as the new albums just not being (on the whole) nearly as good as the previous efforts. The one exception are The Decemberists, who made a better album than their last one, and are the only of the four 2009's who got close to this year's list.

With my favourite albums the word/theme/idea of Meditations because each one really seems to either sit in one idea/emotion/attitude for its entirety.

And now, without further ado:

THE BEST ALBUMS LIST! (Alphabetical)

Julianna Barwick - The Magic Place

This album may have the most obvious connection with the word "Meditation." Composed almost entirely of hauntingly gorgeous ambient vocal loops, these wordless hymns float in and out and around you and will take you to a beautiful - truly magical - place, if you let them. This is music to fall into, not to scrutinize. There were several more interesting and exciting albums this year, but I could never shake the indisputable sense of peace this album gave me, which is why it held in the top 10.

Favourite Track:

I think my favourite track is "White Flag". I say "I think" because I have a hard time not thinking of this album as a single work. But the main loop of "White Flag" sits lower and stands out. It also adds a real choir of voices (reminiscent of Ennio Morricone's "Ave Maria Guarani") partway through, along with delicate bass-guitar notes to fill in the lower register. The music is a peaceful surrender, head held high, and lacks any of the shame or cowardice associated with the white flag of defeat.

James Blake - James Blake

Last year James Blake release three diverse and fascinating EPs that made my list as a single entry of greatness, and I predicted this album being here this year. Sometimes albums that come out in January can get shafted on lists because you have listened to them for so long that the excitement is gone. James Blake's full length, while not being in heavy rotation at this point is still always a great listen. Instead of the distorted and decayed glitchy electronic music of the three previous EPs, his self titled album leans more towards singer songwriter, with lyrics and more structured songs, but it doesn't lose the old interesting feeling that was the initial draw. The big song that most people know him for "The Wilhelm Scream" is a beautiful meditation on that lethargic discovery of realizing you don't know much about anything you used to be sure of. The motif of "I don't know about my dreaming anymore," slowly decays and distorts until the melody is all but unrecognizable, just like his dreams. The rest of the album follows suit with thoughtful songs about friends and family and the ambiguity of life. Yet it ends with the hymn-like "Measurements," a caution to the listener, and to himself, that pride and bold doubts are revealed as "bones" next to "their faith in prayers." Despite the "forest cold" there is hope.

He also released two more EPs this year Enough Thunder, and Love What Happened Here. The first was pretty boring, despite a collaboration with Bon Iver, and made me worry about the direction James Blake might be leaning for the future. It was his anti-dubstep EP. Having come from that scene, Blake rejected the "farting contest" that a lot of mainstream dubstep (especially the American imports) has become. In doing so though, it felt like he crippled Enough Thunder, by removing pretty much any interesting beats whatsoever. The one saving grace for the EP was his gorgeous cover of Joni Mitchell's "Case of You" with just voice and piano - no manipulation whatsoever. Love What Happened Here, then, was a great relief to me. It harkened back to his original trilogy of EPs of glitchy, and delicate, manipulation of voice and melody, without feeling like a step back. As a result he's created yet another entry into my good books.

Favourite Track:

The two-part "Lindisfarne" is I think the best showcase of James Blake's sense of melody, space, rhythm and vocal manipulation. It begins with his voice, distorted, singing of kestrels with a sense of wonder in his voice. In response to their freedom he cries out in self pity and longing, "Beacon, don't fly to high," as if his hope rests solely in the inspiration the birds give him, and if he loses sight of them, he loses sight of himself. The song is named for a small island off the coast of the UK nicknamed the "Holy Island." There's some serious searching going on here. The song also has one of the most confusingly fascinating music videos of the year.

Bon Iver - Bon Iver

Unlike the majority of Bon Iver fans I know, I didn't love For Emma, Forever Ago. I understood the appeal of the story, but the music just didn't grab me how I wanted it to. TheBlood Bank EP was more interesting, but still not enough to make me invest any considerable effort. I perked up a bit when listening to Justin Vernon's contributions to Kanye West's self-destructive brag fest that was last year's MBDTF. And then I heard the first track for this record, "Calgary." It was a slow burner for me, but I kept coming back to it. It waslush and beautiful, and very different from the stark works I'd heard from him earlier - and that difference caught my ear.

Lush is probably the best description of this album. Sounds chirp and swell in and out of the hazy atmosphere that sits around every word and phrase of Vernon's multilayered voice. And there's percussion! The drums on this album are really well done. Nothing too straight forward or distracting, but swelling and carrying the emotion of the melodies and lyrics. Lyrically the album is interesting, but unfocused. Stand out lines for me include "And at once I knew I was not magnificent" on "Holocene" and "Never gonna break, not for a part in any gamut of the dark" on "Minnesota, WI." Most verses are impressionistic, melancholy, poems about friendships, nature, and loss. What makes this album stand out however, are those moments, in spite of the melancholy, when joyous rapture breaks through.

Favourite Track:

"Best/Rest" was probably the most talked about track when it came out, because it challenged so many conceptions of what was acceptable music for those in my peer group. It is insanely 80s and not in the "cool" way that music in the last couple of years has revelled in. It has a saxophone solo which couldn't exist without Kenny G (courtesy of Colin Stetson, who I will talk about at length later). It has the electric synth sound that your mom likes in her easy listening music (not mine...she only listens to classical). It has slide guitar. And yet, somehow, "Beth/Rest" develops and unfolds beautifully over it's five minutes without making me cringe. In fact, quite the reverse is true. The lush 80s sounds, arranged and tied together by Vernon's soulful longing feels more like a big hug than the dead cheesy plastic of Kenny G era muzak. And that is an accomplishment indeed.

**I started writing this on Boxing Day and it is now 2012, so I will try to write with greater brevity**

Braids - Native Speaker

Montreal's Braids surprised me this year. There was a single floating around my iPod that I must have downloaded off of Pitchfork or something, but whenever it popped up on shuffle it caught my ear. "Plath Heart" swells into a sustained and vibrating chord into which sporadic drums and guitars burst while a girls voice sings a beautiful, but quirky, melody which seems to have very little correspondence to much of the music. Singer Raphaelle twists her voice and manipulates her vowels (similar to Joanna Newsom on such tracks as "Good Intentions Paving Co.") so that the bizarre poetry and angular music seem to unite into a seemless organic flow. Lines like "when you scold me it leads me to implore the" and "push and push and push and push until out slides the Golden Baby" were really the only words I could pick out during a casual listen, but they intrigued me and drew me in. Upon hearing the rest of the album, the fascination continued. Non-melodies, strange time signatures overlaying each other, minimalist repetition, sparkling bell-like atmospherics, lines ranging from "Lemonade"'s accusatory "Have you f***ed all the Dragons yet?" to the title track's sexual (yet somehow awkwardly cute) fantasies ("And I know/that days aren't only about touching and loving you/but my my my my my it feels good...having you inside me") to song's about a dead sister (I think?)...this album is a strange window into a unique female mind strong, and opinionated, but willing to be vulnerable and acknowledging a certain clueless abandon. Tying it all together is that voice. Raphaelle alternates between singing sweetly enough to fit easily on Julianna Barwick's The Magic Place and screeching and squawking incoherently and aggressively like a wounded bird. And so the braids of her personality weave together with the music and reveal a large and fascinating heart.

Favourite Track:

"Glass Deers" is the strangest track on the album. It begins with a long guitar and synth loop which then begins to have pretty bells swell in over it with soaring vocals. Then the lyrics start and they don't quite swell like the rest of the music, as if the mind and heart are at odds. "I found my place in the wishing well/ I found my place not feeling well...Oh, I am f***ed up." And then, as that voice begins to crack and screech, there is the most bizarre description of an intimate encounter possibly in any song: "His back bone is grabbing my hand" "He doesn't make any sound/ he just slaps my thighs." And yet, it is at these words that her voice is the least beautiful, the most distorted, unmelodic. She begins to screech, almost as if in anti-orgasm, anti-ecstacy, anti-intimacy. And then the ironic punch line. It is his silence and physical aggression which "makes a man." Braids writing is at it's most provocative, interesting, and darkly humorous where cynicism and great emotion clash, and "Glass Deers" exemplifies this.

Bill Callahan - Apocalypse

"I consoled myself with rudimentary thoughts/And I set my watch against the city clock/It was way off."

Bill Callahan has been making records for over two decades now, and I never paid attention. I really probably should have. Especially when he used to dated my favourite artist of the new millennium (so far) and lent his deep baritone voice to one of the truly magical moments on her breakthrough album. This year however, as with Braids, it was a single which kept popping up and demanding my attention. A simple guitar picking - somewhere between Josh Ritter and Johnny Cash - accompanies "Baby's Breathe", a song which tells a story of a marriage doomed from the outset, the lyrics and accompaniment are perfect. Delicate, sad, regretful, but changing pace, moving, and then bursts of percussion to drive the madness, and atonal guitars howl like wolves, and yet the gentle melancholy never leaves.

The rest of the album follows suit. Tales of isolation, complaints of misrepresentation, ironic nationalist manifestos - this is lyrically my favourite album of the year. And musically it stands up as well. Where Josh Ritter is happy to stay fairly safe in his folk-rock tower (which I'm quite fond of actually), Callahan explores: "America" is almost disco(!!); "Free's" is reminiscent of Astral Weeks' folk-jazz fusion with its flute solos. Callahan is a first class story teller, and his deep and rich voice, and melancholy soul draws me in to his beautifully painted worlds.

Favourite Track:

This is really hard for me to pick. "Drover" drives against convention. "Baby's Breath" is devestatingly beautiful. "One Fine Morning" has that two chord back and forth (which I love) as it spins with hymn like piano into a hymn to becoming "the hardest part [of the road.]" But I think it'ss the quietest moments on the album, the most earnest moments, which are the best. And the quietest moment comes on "Universal Applicant." Trapped at sea, a flare goes up and silence fills the track until, with almost hilarious mock solemnity, Callahan whispers the sound effect "Fwooshh..." and "to the universe [the flare] applies." And I am reminded of that great poem "This is how the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper." But it's not over. To add insult to injury, the flare, both the hope for survival and the icon of life's brevity, returns to his small life boat and it burns. All he is goes down with the ship.

"And the punk/And the lunk/And the drunk

And the skunk/And the hunk/And the monk in me

All sunk
Sunk, sunk, sunk, sunk, sunk"

Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972

This album is a meditation on disintegration. Hecker has taken samples of an organ, recorded in an old church, and turned them into evocative texture paintings with titles like "In The Fog", "Hatred of Music", and "The Piano Drop." There is no favourite track. Just go for a walk and lose yourself in the fog.

Liturgy - Aesthethica

And now for the most controversial metal album of the year. Hurray.

First of all, screw the controversy. I'm deciding now to avoid talking about it as much as possible. Look it up yourself if you feel the need...it has little to no impact on the music itself.

Black metal originates from the Nordic regions of our planet and has generally been associated with church burnings, dramatic black and white "corpse" face paint, pagan celebrations and raspy high pitched screechings accompanied by blast beats and really terribly mixed guitars. In the last couple years, North Americans have begun to claim their own stake in the black metal scene with a more nihilistic and atmospheric approach - and generally better mixing. Krallice was the first band which caught my ear with their album Dimensional Bleedthrough - an exhausting and exhilarating uninterrupted shred-fest with jazz-like chord modulations and guitars which danced counterpoint to each other wonderfully. Although Diotima, this year's Krallice effort, is excellent, it didn't expand enough from the earlier works to quite make it into the top ten (although it was in my considerations at all times.)

This year Liturgy stood out in a quickly blossoming North American Black Metal scene for a number of reasons. First of all, despite the fact that Aesthethica unquestionably does everything a black metal album should, it goes above and beyond. Diotima's technical work is more complex and difficult, but Liturgy allows breathing room and experimentation to take root under the impeccable and relentless chops. This is actually what initially turned me off of the album - it seemed almost too accessible. However as time has gone on, I have come to find that the multifaceted approach (while resulting in some less pristine moments) has been a draw as layers continue to reveal themselves with addition listens.

What does this album do that the others don't? First of all, when you read the lyrics, you don't want to crawl into a snowbank and fall asleep forever. Despite embracing the chaos of the Black Metal world, Liturgy sets itself apart in it's focus. Rather than staring at, and screaming challenges at, the abysmal eternal void which - the focus of most black metal lyrics - Liturgy chooses to stare at and scream challenges at God and the eternal universe. Still dark, still raging, but with some underlying positivity. Secondly, they embrace other genres and styles. There are a couple moments which resemble eastern chants (see "Glass Earth" - one of which is one of the low points of the album...but still demonstrates my point), there is an instrumental break in "Helix Skull" which is essentially a mathematical, minimalist, guitar tapping exercise, and "Veins of God" starts out with a down-tempo, grungy, blues riff that Mastodon is probably jealous of. All the variety has had metal "purists" up in arms, but really it's quite nice to see a band embrace music as opposed to a scene.

Really, the name says it all: Aesthethica is about beauty. Beauty in chaos. Beauty in rebellion. But beauty nonetheless. And this celebration of beauty, with all it's intense technical ferocity, keeps me coming back for more.

Favourite Track:

It's hard to pick. Most tracks, despite the albums wider range, flow and blend together really well. There are a few obvious starts and stops (between LPs for instance) but for the most part this album is a whole piece. "Glory Bronze" stands out though. This is partly due to the fact that it is the most unashamedly major and triumphant while in no way giving up any ground on the technically wonderful and crushingly complex chord structures. Ahhh but every time I listen through the album while actually looking at which track I'm listening too, something else stands out. My favourite track will probably change until the day this album stops being played.

Colin Stetson - New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges and the Those Who Didn't Run EP

Colin Stetson is the coolest artist that you have listened to but never heard of. Heck, it took me a month or two after falling in love with Judges before I realized that I'd seen him live! I saw him on stage with Arcade Fire at Deer Lake Park for their tour supporting Neon Bible, and I remember being impressed by "the guy playing the big saxophone." The man played horns on one of my favourite Tom Waits albums (Alice) and I didn't even know who he was for cryin' out loud! Sigh. Well I am ignorant no more. The man has played on more cool records in the last decade than probably anyone else, including Dear Science, The Suburbs, and this year's majestic Bon Iver. But it wasn't until I heard Judges that I "met" Colin Stetson and came to appreciate him. The track that sank it's teeth into me first was a cover of Blind Willie Johnson's 1920's "Lord, I Just Can't Keep From Crying." The original was a powerful blues song, but Stetson's rendition (featuring vocals from Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond) is straight up haunting. Shara's voice adds an emotional tension to the piece as it is, but the saxophone playing elevates the song from it's blues roots to a tense transcendent hymn of lament.

About Stetson's saxophone mastery. There are very few musicians I have heard recordings of in the last few years who push themselves towards mastery of their instrument - and many of those who do produce impressively technical works which really are just glorified scales. Heck yes, the man can play scales, but Steston's playing goes beyond technicality to embrace human emotion on multiple levels.

Now, the music on Judges is wonderful and evocative by itself, but I can't get over how it's made. First of all, Colin Stetson is one of a very few musicians who play bass saxophone. The thing is almost as big as he is. Secondly, the music on both the LP and EP, which sound like they were created by layering multiple saxophone takes, are all (with very limited exceptions) one man, playing one take, with no overdubs. Read that again. In an age of autotune, limitless layering and processing power, that is nearly unheard of. But to top it off, it sounds like there's a whole band - percussion, guitar, choir - playing at once. But it's just the brilliance of Stetson as a musician as well as how the sounds are miked.

Colin Stetson practices circular breathing - the art of continuously pushing air through an instrument without dying. Apparently he runs and does yoga for multiple hours a day just so that his body can perform/create the sounds that are captured on this record. There are three mikes. One on his throat to capture his throat humming (while still playing scales and arpeggios...); one on the keys to capture the percussiveness of his fingers playing the notes; and one room mic for the actual saxophone tone - all mixed amazingly and naturally to create the remarkable effects on the album.

Those Who Didn't Run extended the techniques on Judges with two tracks (over ten minutes in length each!) and showed a more free jazz improvisational side to the LP.

Favourite Track:

"Lord, I Just Can't Keep From Crying" is not the most impressive song technically, nor is it the most creative. But it is the most human; the most emotional. It stirs something in my soul. The only thing I haven't mentioned about the track is the saxophone tone. It sounds more like the downtuned, overly distorted, tonal experiments of Sunn 0))) than any saxophone I've ever heard. Seriously amazing.

Matana Roberts - Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens De Couleurs Libres

A second emotionally intense saxophone record! Coin Coin derives its name from a distant great aunt of Matana Roberts. It is her story but tied up in it is an abstract history of African Americans - Gen De Couleurs Libres translated means "Free People of Colour." This jazz record is so captivating that upon a single listen right before christmas this year, it rocketed into my top ten. There are beautiful droning sections - Matana Roberts has worked with Godspeed You! Black Emperor. There are chaotic free jazz improvisations. Matana's voice is first heard 7 minutes in, at the beginning of the second track, and it disturbs. It is not human. In fact, it sounds like a tortured saxophone. And right there, you know this is special. The record then unfolds with Robert's narrations of Coin Coin's story, from slave, to free black woman, to slave owner herself.

"Negros are for working...I was only sixteen. There will never be any pictures of me."

Throughout the record not only does the story of Coin Coin carry you along, but a history of black music in America as well. Melodies, motifs, styles, drift in and out of the more free form narrations, teasing your memory with old movie soundtracks, a hymn mostly forgotten, gospel choirs hiding around corners of your mind. In some ways this album functions a lot like The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady - probably my favourite jazz record ever - in that the music dances and each part talks to each other; each instrument has it's own character and attitude.

"Hustling to survive so that others may strive to be something more than me. I am twenty-five. There will never be any pictures of me."

I also love the fact that there is a second voice speaking french, just slightly further back in the mix, which both doubles and opens a new facet to the story. I can understand a decent chunk of the french, and it sometimes repeats exactly the english, and other times makes bold statements of identity - almost like a primal subconscious screaming out to be heard, but left misunderstood or ignored.

I could go on and on. If you buy one challenging record this year, one that takes you outside your comfort zone, make it this one. It is harrowing, and rewarding. I am thrilled to hear the future chapters of this Coin Coin cycle. Apparently 5 are being performed live (each between 45 and 60 minutes) and there are notes for up to 10 chapters. An insanely ambitious project which couldn't have gotten off to a better start.

Favourite Track:

"Libation for Mr. Brown: Bid 'Em In..." is the centerpiece of the whole album, and encompasses so much ground it's hard to know where to start. Based around a simple chain gang refrain, the song begins as an auction for the sale of Coin Coin, as told by the auctioneer, who brags of the young woman's "merits" before selling her for 7 dollars. And yet where as in other parts of the album Robert's voice is harrowingly disfigured...here she sings more sweetly than anywhere else - "You can rape my mother...You can slap me...You can brand me...All you got to do is bid me in." It's disturbingly detached... and it turns into a bluesy jazz refrain in a introducing-the-band sort of way. "Mister bass man, doo ba do doo do doo, bid me in!" But finally in the last 30 seconds of the 10 minute song, the band explodes into chaos. Coin Coin's brave face cannot hold in, no matter how sweetly her story is sung, the anger and pain of her life. The song is not necessarily the best representation of the whole, phenomenal work, but it holds the key.

Jay-Z & Kanye West - Watch The Throne

It feels weird ending with this one. Especially right after Coin Coin. I've been challenged by my Nimbus peers that these guys don't make good music. I'm not great at defending it to be honest. But. but. but...Ok here's the deal. The production is effing HUGE and bombastic and the arrangements are lush, diverse and provocative. After the other meditations this year, on loneliness, alienation, disintegration, memory and identity - after a lot of seriousness - I think this record was a much needed break. This is a meditation on luxurious excess - in presentation and in content and in lifestyle. "Photoshoot fresh, lookin' like wealth, I'm 'bout to call the paparazzi on myself."

Under that gold-plated album cover, the most expensive samples ever, the de/re-construction of a 6-figure car (see music video below), after and under all this, these two insanely rich mutha-muthas still somehow end up touching on something more than "money, ho's and rims again." - to quote another Yeezy song. On last year's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Kanye perfected his ability to be vulnerable about his faults while telling you how much better he is than you. Watch the Throne is less self pity and more reality. There is way more partying on this album, but the somber sides of fame and wealth, and the realities of culture that these not-so-young-anymore men came up in, have rubbed off. There's nothing transcendent in this music, but the ability to be both higher than the clouds and rooted in the moment is a remarkable feat. On no track is this dichotomy better exemplified than on "Murder to Excellence" which is basically a manifesto on the pain and glory of the life these guys live.

I said this album was a break from seriousness. The middle melancholy section is surrounded by some of the most over the top hip hop you've ever heard. "Why I Love You" begins with a huge hook and beat and then drops the beat for the verses in exchange for a synth and guitar crescendo. "H•A•M" (my favourite rap abbreviation since G.O.A.T.) has gothic choirs wedged between 808s and boasts of sexual conquest and wealth. "Niggas in Paris" has become the epitome of the excess that The Throne stands for - being played up to ten times in succession(!) as an encore on their tour. "That s*** cray!"

This album feels like the Book of Ecclesiastes - Vanity Vanity/Meaningless Meaningless/ Every Thing is Meaningless Vanity - without the humble conclusions of the great teacher. "Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment....Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man."

Favourite Track:

"Otis" is easily my favourite track of the album. I love Otis Redding and this song is inspired by him and samples him. It's fun. It's outrageous - "I invented sweat." - and the back and forth between 'Ye and Jay is seemless. Super fun.

Honourable Mentions (Alphabetical):

The Decemberists - The King is Dead

Fucked Up - David Comes to Life

Girls - Father, Son, and Holy Ghost

PJ Harvey - Let England Shake

Nicolas Jaar - Don't Break My Love EP and Space is Only Noise

Krallice - Diotima

M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming

Psychic Paramount - II

Trash Talk - Awake EP

St. Vincent - Strange Mercy

Tom Waits - Bad As Me

Other Mention - Lulu

This year Lou Reed and Metallica release the most ... something ... record. This is a messed up listen and has been labelled with "Worst Album Ever." Pitchfork gave it a 1/10. Lou Reed says it's probably the best thing by anyone ever. Both are, in my opinion, incorrect. Lulu is a pretty bad album. But I've heard worse this year - maybe not more difficult or abrasive - but more boring, which is a worse crime. The Metallica boys do their thing, whatever that is, and Lou reads (pun!) amoral sexual and violent lyrics. There are great moments ("Junior Dad"), hilarious moments (James Hetfield singing "I am the table!" numerous times on "The View") and painful moments (hearing the phrase "spermless like a girl" forty times in ten minutes.) Probably the most talked about, least listened to, album of the year, I keep finding myself turning to Lulu, perhaps in self torture - but the album is kind of about that, so it's fitting right?

Some Additional Tracks - Including Guilty Pleasures:

**Note: Some links are a little NSFW and may contain profanity**

Nicki Minaj - "Super Bass"

Thee Oh Sees - "The Dream"

Beyonce - "Love On Top", "Countdown" and "1 + 1" (yes. I'm a total sucker. get over it)

Dirty Beaches - "Sweet 17" and "Lord Knows Best"

Lana Del Ray - "Video Games"

Maher Daniel & Matthew Dekay - "Tauben"

Drake - "Lord Knows" and "Marvin's Room"

Destroyer - "Chinatown" and "Bay of Pigs"

Frank Ocean - "Novacane"

The Weeknd - "High For This"

Cormorant - "Unearthly Dreamings"

Final Note:

One of the coolest music videos ever. I don't even care about the song.

Apologies

This year has been crazy. I dropped out of University, got married, and started going to a school for Music Production/Engineering. I have 18hour days most weekdays which has left me with too few hours to keep this blog up. (I hear a New Years Resolution somewhere....)

I also for the first time had NO (zero, 0.000 , zilch) expendable income. This caused a regular dearth in record purchases, and I will shamefully admit that after 23 years of holding out against downloading...it started. As I had decided to only review albums I bought....this caused another road block for this blog.

I have in three short months come to appreciate just how much time/effort/tears/hair loss, music really does take to make and am resolving (second one this blog) to drastically reduce my internet music consumption.

Now for a brief recap of the year followed by my year end list. Hopefully.

Movies I saw this year:

NOTES:

(re) = seen before

Bold = ****+

Die Hard **** (re)

Once Upon a Time in the West **** (re)

Rambo 2 + 3 ** *

Zombieland **** (re)

Rambo 4 ***

Space Balls **

The importance of being ernest **

wall street **

The Social Network (re) ****

The New World ****

Toy Story 3 ****

sleuth (re) - ****

jonah hex *

thor **

steel magnolias ****

how to lose a guy in 10 days **

devil wears prada ***

gullivers travels *

going the distance *

tangled ***

super troopers (re) ***

Beerfest **

club dread *

harry potter 1 ** (re)

sahara *

i am legend ***

mission impossible 2 **

Mission impossible 3 **

clue **

runaway jury ***

Charlie's Angels **

the other guys **

Paul **

the slammin salmon **

wizards **

jane eyre ****

happy feet ***

gymkata ***

dr no ***

from russia with love ***

say anything ***

charade **** (re)

a serious man ***** (re)

goldfinger ***

rocky horror **

inframan ****

you only live twice **

high society ***

200 hotels **

a man for all seasons **** (re)

swing time ***

sabrina ***

all about eve ***** (re)

the revenge of the pink panther ** (re)

pirates 4 **

a room with a view ****

rudolph christmas **

Albums I Actually Purchased/Acquired by fully legal means:

NOTES:

(I know I rate out of 10, but I was lazy in my documentation so it's out of 5 less accurate than my movie scores above)

Also, all vinyl unless otherwise listed.

Michael Jackson - Thriller ***

CCR - Cosmo's Factory ****

John Coltrane & Eric Dolphy - Live ****

James Blake - James Blake **** (2011) (Digital)

The Black Keys - Brothers ** (CD)

CCR - Bayou Country ****

Outloud - Out Loud *

Aretha Franklin - Who's Zoomin' Who? *

Robert Wyatt - Rock Bottom *****

Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band - Safe as Milk*****

Frank Zappa (The Mothers of Invention) - Freak out*****

The Doors - Totally Live****

Billy Joel - Stranger/Piano Man***/***

Residents - Not Available****

The Grateful Dead - Live Dead ***

Little Richard - Here's Little Richard ****

Mandrill - Is ***

Blindside - With Shivering Hearts We Wait ** (2011)

Colin Stetson - Those Who Didn't Run EP **** (2011)

Tom Waits - Bad As Me (2011) ***

That's a really short list...I bought that many albums in OCTOBER last year.

I must also mention that my friend Viktor's mom Larissa sent me two or three BOXES of records so I got a bunch more...but I didn't write them all down (included Neil Young, Bob Dylan, and lots of 80s stuff - Saturday Night Fever S/T?) I also got a box of old (reallllly old) Jazz LPs from my dad's godfather who's in his eighties. Pretty sweet.

next stop...Year end list.

127 Hours (2010) ****

Directed by Danny Boyle

Aron Ralston (played by James Franco) is a cocky young thrill seeker who goes on a mini hiking vacation without telling anyone where he's going. He's enjoying his day hiking at a good pace but nothing too difficult when suddenly he slips and his hand is crushed and trapped by a boulder. 127 Hours is the story of his mental, emotional and physical ordeal. It shows his ingenuity, his strength and the highs and lows of human experience. Cut off from society with little chance of rescue he tries desperately to find a way out. He tries everything from chipping away at the boulder to building a pulley system out of climbing rope, but after a few days he realizes he has to cut his own arm off in order to survive. One of his few possessions is a small video camera on which he records a digital epitaph to his parents and family. Franco brilliantly shows the desperation, symptom of dehydration, delusion and eventually despair of the young hiker. Danny Boyle's direction heightens the sense of isolation as well as explores the need for humans to be a social animal. He also keeps the movie from being just a guy trapped on a rock and transforms it into a tale of rebirth.

Wouldn't be my pick for best picture, but definitely worth the nomination it received.

Rambo: First Blood (1982) ****

Directed by Ted Kotcheff

Starring Sylvester Stallone First Blood is a great action movie. I've quoted Ebert on this before that it's not the slashing that makes horror films fun, it's the waiting for the slashing. This isn't a horror film, but it uses the same principle towards action. John J. Rambo is a vietnam veteran who after discovering that he's the last of his team to be alive gets pushed around and abused by a small town cop. After losing control of himself he escapes and begins a war on the police officers involved in his mistreatment, using all his guerilla tactics and advanced training at his disposal to survive in the wilderness and hunting his hunters. The action is well paced with plenty of suspenseful "hunting" scenes as well as balls to the walls action. It does get a little ridiculous at times, but it's balanced enough to keep it intelligent. First Blood also puts a focus on the lack of help Nam vets received on returning home and the psychological baggage that came with that conflict. Stallone barely says a word the whole film but his physical and emotional presence is well felt.

One of the better straight up action movies.

Metropolis (1927) [2010 Extended/Recovered Version] *****

Directed by Fritz Lang

Metropolis is easily one of the greatest films of all time. Filmed in Germany in the interwar period, the film explores class issues in a capitalist society. Rather than embracing a marxist view of class struggle, the film promotes a non-violent, mediatory approach. It's also the most expensive silent film ever made.

The opening quote recalls Plato's Republic where the "head rules the belly through the chest" or the Aristocracy rule the masses through the army. Lang instead opens with "The Mediator between the Head and the Hands must be the Heart."

When the heir to Metropolis - Freder - encounters a working class woman - Maria - who shows him the workers' children and calls them his brothers, Freder is both smitten and intrigued. He searchers for here and encounters the terrible working conditions. From that point on he seeks to find a peaceful unity between the two. He is opposed by his fathers minions and by the mad scientist Rotwang who kidnaps Maria and makes a "Machine Man" in her image, who he uses to turn the workers against Freder's father.

With stunning effects (even today after all those years - there were phenomenal for the time), brilliant acting (you understand what the characters say despite the silence) and some straight up weird SF stuff make this just a wonderful film.

Everyone should see this.

The Producers (2005) ***

Directed by Susan Stroman

I haven't seen the 1968 version of The Producers starring Gene Wilder...but I'd like to. Mel Brooks screen play is sharp and fun and has done well on screen as well as on stage. However, where Wilder has always been a mesmerizing comedian I find Matthew Broderick is often stale. Yes his character has quirks and they're at times hilarious, but over all he has felt forced since his perfect role as Ferris Bueller. Broderick loves musicals. He remade one of my favourites, The Music Man, and I had the same complaint then: new fangled choreography can't make up for a cardboard cut out with little charm. Nathan Lane (most famous as Timon from The Lion King) is a voice actor mainly, but his outrageous vocal antics work in a flamboyant musical.

The premise: two men decide to make a cheap broadway flop and run away with the excess endorsements...but finding the worst actors/director/play is harder than one might think...and a ravishing Swedish girl might make things more complicated (played by Uma Thurman).

The songs are catchy, the antics ridiculous (Will Ferrell - who I normally do not enjoy - is a pretty great Nazi), but it doesn't quite feel right over all. I'm holding out on the original to satisfy me.

Back to the Future (1985) *** Pt. 2 (1989) * Pt. 3 (1990) **

Directed by Robert Zemeckis
PART ONE
It took me 23 years before I watched Back to the Future. It's fun, kinda sad I missed out as a kid. Michael J Fox stars as Marty McFly, the not-quite-a-loser with a crazily dysfunctional family. He skateboards, he plays in a band, he has a pretty girl, but life ain't great. He's been hanging out with "Doc" Brown who is a mad scientist who happens to discover time travel. When Marty gets sent back to 1955 he runs into a problem: his mom falls for him instead of his dad like he's supposed to, jeopardizing Marty's very existence. Things get a little messy but McFly manages to pull it off with some help from the (younger version) Doc and some fancy skateboarding moves. Not to mention some Chuck Berry imitations. Time travel is messy business though and when Marty gets home there are a lot of changes (though all of them good.)

Slapstick humour, 50s memorabilia and a lot of fun pseudo-science and effects make the movie a lot of fun. They don't make comedies like they used to. I was surprised by the amount of swearing but it's way tamer than most things these days. I now understand why Back to the Future is up there with Indiana Jones and Star Wars for 80s adventures (although it touches neither of them).

A good, lighthearted romp.


PART TWO
Well, Pt. 2 is disappointing. It's all over the place (or time) and the only moments worth laughing at are the ridiculousness, rather than any sort of wit or cleverness. The effects were great for the time, and some of the stunts are fun. The parts which were the most fun involved multiple selves in the same time, dodging each other, filling in what Marty got up to in the first movie, while not being able to actually encounter the other Marty...

That's really the extent of the movie...
Merely a bridge to PART THREE...

Which takes place in the old west. The final installment rekindles some of the charm of the first movie but again doesn't quite live up to the fun or brilliance of the original. Doc's scientific explorations make for a quirky SF feel to a western and Marty's continued lack of understanding of anything going on around him as well as his stubborn and cocky attitude's keep getting him in trouble. Once again there is Delorean trouble which needs some ridiculous scheme (this one involving a train) in order to get back to the future. This time it's complicated by a love interest for Doc (since Marty always is leaving his girl behind...) There's a happy ending and some decent gags but I was really only watching because I liked the first one.

Fun but shallow.

300 (2006) **

Directed by Zack Snyder

300 is 7 parts testosterone, 2 parts history and, 1 part acting. Zack Snyder appears to me to be a nerdier and James Cameron, raised on comics instead of the great film epics. He's visual and highly stylized, but his films feel hollow. Everything is over calculated and precise...to a fault. This was my third time (kind of) watching this film and it was the first time I didn't hate it. Yes it's visually stunning and "epic" and has some great action sequences...but its self narration drags on and is really obnoxious. Whereas in The Matrix slow motion was made to heighten senses and bring things into a shocking perspective, every other moment in this Spartan tale occurs in slow motion, I think in order to make it feel more like the comic book is was made after. But I don't watch movies to read comics...that's what comics are for. I haven't read the graphic novel 300 but I've seen Snyder's take on The Watchmen and so I can figure out what's going on. He has a hard time adapting the script to film. It's almost purely an issue of translation.

The best parts are the one liners ripped from Herodotus and other contemporary Greek historians but the rest is a mere vehicle for slaughter. And beautifully flowing and choreographed slaughter it is. But I find no fulfillment in any of it. Or very little. Occasionally something would actually make me go "Wow that was cool," but mostly I was...bored. There is NO sense of pacing. At all. Just full out war from start to finish with some female nudity occasionally to mix things up. And then there are the freaks: The Fat guy with bone axes for hands and the armless concubines. It's pointless and just doesn't work in film. Especially a pseudo history.

One thing I do appreciate is the flow of the action sequences themselves. You can follow everything and see everything and that makes such a huge difference. I'd love to have Zack Snyder direct a Christopher Nolan movie. Maybe then I could have a good story with intelligible action sequences. But it would probably end up stale anyway...

A visual triumph dragged down by everything else.
I will end with what I think is the most succinct review of the film I have ever heard, courtesy of my cousin Dan.
"That would have been an excellent 20 minute silent film."

The Graduate (1967) *****

Directed by Mike Nichols

Dustin Hoffman is Ben, who has just graduated from college and has no idea what to do with his life when he gets seduced by Mrs. Robinson. It's awkward and weird...and then he falls in love with her daughter. This is a movie about neurosis. Everyone is neurotic, with perhaps the exception of Elaine Robinson (the daughter).

A provocative plot, phenomenal actings, and really great editing and direction makes this film tense, funny and depressing all at the same time.

This is the movie that Wes Anderson tries to make every time, and fails. The Royal Tenenbaums (one of my favourite movies) came close, but crossed too far into the ridiculous to keep it believable. Every twisted thing in The Graduate could happen, the characters could be real. Anderson's films are charicatures, and great ones, but Nichols makes it hurt by keeping it close to home.

Brilliant. (and it doesn't hurt to have a Simon & Garfunkel soundtrack...)

Spy Game (2001) ***

Directed by Tony Scott

Spy Game (Starring Robert Redford and Brad Pitt) is my dad's new favourite movie. He's a big Jason Bourne fan and this film fits that sort of build. When former FBI operative Tom Bishop (Pitt) is caught trying to break someone out of a Chinese prison, he is convicted of being a spy and sentenced to be executed. His former boss Nathan Muir (Redford) is on his last day on the job and tries to figure out why he was in China and how to get him out while most of the rest of the FBI are deciding that letting him be executed would be better for damage control. Redford has to spy his way around the FBI offices to find the information he needs while having less and less access to areas because of his retirement. Bishop's back story is told in flash backs which involve a love interest which isn't super interesting but a key point for the plot. The weakest moments involve her. The best moments are when Redford makes his colleagues look stupid by dodging their questions, finding out information and working around any loopholes he can find.

A fun spy thriller, but nothing phenomenal.

Casino (1995) ****

Directed by Martin Scorsese

Casino follows the exploits of Sam "Ace" Rothstein (Robert De Niro) and Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci) in late seventies/early eighties Vegas. Rothstein is a brilliant bookie who finds favour with Santoro's mob fathers and given run of the Tangiers Casino. Santoro is sent to keep an eye on things and keep everything running smoothly - which usually means beating people up or killing them. Their two different philosophies - Ace the efficient and more level headed type and Nicky as the thug - begin to clash as both try and leave their mark and make the most money. Despite being best friends, things get ugly when Ginger (Sharon Stone) gets involved and eventually greed and drugs end up sending everything to hell with FBI, kidnappings, murders, and plenty of profanity. Scorsese is a great director but as always is a little over the top with violence. Thankfully though, the movie never descends into the stupidity of some scenes in Gangs of New York.

Organized crime is fascinating to me, and I understand the appeal and the glamour that seems to surround it, however it truly does border on madness the worldview/mindset required to be part of such an institution, and the movies can make it seem over-glorified - it's easy to be caught up one isn't careful. The consequences always seem to be portrayed in a tragic light rather than...well, than being what they are: the just ends. Despite any moral qualms with the subject matter, the acting and direction are top notch, the characters have flare, and the plot kept me wound tight until the end. And that's why it's a good movie. It tells a story smoothly and effectively and churns the brain and heart. Scorsese scores again with Casino.

A Note On Rating Alterations

I have decided to rate movies out of 5 rather than 4 now. I like having a middle ground in which to put average movies. Ratings will be amended. Like My album ratings the majority will be middling with less on to the extremities.

The King's Speech (2010) *****

Directed by Tom Hooper

The King's Speech is an easy pick for my favourite movie of the year. It's funny, it's touching, and it's brilliantly executed. Colin Firth is poor Prince Albert who has a terrible stammer. The impediment is painful not only for "Bertie" but for anyone around him who must listen to him speak. That includes the audience. Firth does a magnificent job at expressing the pain, and the frustration of therapy and the expectations of those around him. Having abandoned all hope, his wife resorts to the classified ads of the newspaper and ends up with an eccentric Aussie speech therapist, brilliantly played by Geoffrey Rush. The movie touches on many subjects - class, anxiety, leadership to name a few - and deals with them all within the context of pre WWII Britain. But more than Hitler's rising threat, Albert must overcome his anxiety as he suddenly finds himself as King George VI after his brother abdicates to marry an American of questionable honour. A stirring tale of friendship, honour, and overcoming personal trials.

Rating *****

Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More (2010) CD [5/10]

Mumford & Sons build their music around big builds, banjo flourishes and strained and pained vocals. It kind of sounds like they're trying to be the Frames...but aren't quite as melancholy. They write decently catchy songs and have some hopeful lyrics in amongst the moping which is refreshing. The three singles "Sigh No More", "The Cave" and "Little Lion Man" and the additional "Roll Away Your Stone" are easily the best tracks with the rest of the album sounding like less successful versions of said tracks. That is my biggest complaint. It all sounds cut from the same cloth, but instead of that contributing to and overarching sound it merely leaves me dry and bored. Some decent tracks worth listening to though.

Gone With The Wind (1939) ****

Directed by Victor Fleming

Gone With the Wind is an epic story of love and loss set in the Southern states during the American Civil War. Scarlett O'Hara is a rich young beauty who can have any man she wants...except the one she wants: some guy named Ashley who marries one of her best friends. Rhett Butler is a rich and powerful man who wants her but can't have her because of her stubbornness and her love for Ashley. Rhett ends up having to try and tame his shrew. The Civil War destroys any sense of security any of the characters have which adds to the relational tension.

Besides the war, Scarlett's stubborn pride is the cause of most of the problems and she drove me crazy. The best scenes involve Clark Gable's (Rhett) attempts to get Scarlett to come around to his side of things and those which show the devestation of the south in the war. One particularly powerful scene has hundreds of extras dressed as wounded soldiers filling a train yard. Other great moments involve minor characters being the foil to Scarlett's selfishness and revealing to her her own terrible nature.

The cinematography is well done with impressive effects for the time. The acting is over dramatic as was the style at that time, but it doesn't take away from the film too much.

Over all a very impressive film.

Titanic (1997) ***

Directed by James Cameron.

So I watched Titanic. First time. It is both better and as bad as people say. The acting is pretty rubbish. But then we don't watch James Cameron films for the acting do we? No we watch because he's a visual titan. His biggest critical success (11 Oscars tying with Ben Hur and Return of the King for most ever.) won no oscars for acting, but won pretty much everything else. And it deserves it. The sound, the set, the costumes, the CGI and the direction are all exceptional. It's hard, more than 10 years after the musical theme was original to not burst out laughing every time it appears. It has after all been parodied since the movie first came out. And the classic lines are as cheesy as ever. "Jack! I'm flying Jack!" "Put your hands on me Jack." "I'll never let go!" etc etc.

I preferred to see the fairly lame plot as a vehicle for exploring the actual historical event. The bravado of the engineers at the outset. The lavish accommodations. The class prejudice. The musicians going down with the ship. The cries of "Women and children first." The frozen bodies. It's all super impressive and quite powerful.

As far as romances go it's not very great, but Titanic is a visual accomplishment and that makes it worth seeing at least once.