The two-day 2012 edition of Slipped Discs — where we feature great albums that missed our Best Albums of 2012 — concludes with PopMatters writers offering their personal picks for some of the best records of last year.
Album: Blues Funeral
Label: 4AD
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Mark Lanegan Band
Blues Funeral
Blues Funeral may not be the best album of Mark Lanegan’s career, but it’s the one that, once and for all, cement’s the man’s title as one of the best songwriters of his generation. Like Dylan, Young, Waits and others who reside in the upper echelon of modern bards, Lanegan continues to take chances and experiment with his craft, refusing to churn out the same formula. Yes, his morose lyrical focus on longing, morbid obsession and biblical allusions remains, but the music backing his tales is worlds removed from the acoustic folk-blues of his earliest solo records. Building on the brutal rock template of previous album Bubblegum, Blues Funeral sees Lanegan add down-tempo electronica, disco and synthpop elements to the mix. What results are 12 moody soundscapes, brooding and evocative, profane and transcendent, with Lanegan’s sandpaper baritone serving as the conductor of the deep black vanishing train. Cole Waterman
Album: Wake Up to the Waves
Label: Osaka
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Last Days of 1984
Wake Up to the Waves
People standing behind keyboards and racks of equipment, thrashing around a bit, playing thumping, psychedelic, cerebral dance music that isn’t rock or pop but does not qualify as “techno”, either. In these post-Merriweather Post Pavilion days, it seems like there are a lot of those around. But don’t let that cause you to look past Last Days of 1984 or their thrilling debut, Wake Up to the Waves. On the surface, the Irish duo may have a lot in common with Animal Collective’s recent work. Further exploration reveals their sound to be its own beast. Wake Up to the Waves took in dreampop, techno, polyrhythmic world music, as well as Fleet Foxes-like pastoral folk and Bollywood soundtracks. And it was all molded into Last Days of 1984’s unique, reverb-soaked, wonderfully left-field approach. It all added up to one of 2012’s best, most essential debuts, not to mention one of its greatest videos. John Bergstrom
Album: Lilacs & Champagne
Label: Mexican Summer
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Lilacs & Champagne
Lilacs & Champagne
Brooklyn label Mexican Summer had a supremely impressive output in 2012, especially with the strength of the debut LPs they put out, namely the self-titled albums by Light Asylum and Lilacs & Champagne. The latter was also one of the strongest overall debuts of the year; sadly, given its January release, it was woefully overlooked come the swarm of end-of-the-year summaries. Lilacs & Champagne — the moniker of Alex Hall and Emil Amos, two members of the Portland post-rock outfit Grails — is a niche project, but one that’s very effective at filling that niche. The brand of trip-hop of Lilacs & Champagne evokes a specific mood: a psychedelic spy film. In my initial review for PopMatters, published back in March, I described it as like “watching The Friends of Eddie Coyle after a bad LSD trip,” a strange image that I stand by still today.
But for all the paranoia on this record, there’s also a spirit of great fun laced throughout, what with the many bizarro samples (“Of course he’s a nice man… did you expect the Antichrist to be some sort of nasty person?” a televangelist rambles) and some intriguing, Urban Dictionary-defying song titles (“Moroccan Handjob”). There hasn’t been much chatter about Lilacs & Champagne since early in the year, which could mean this was nothing more than a one-off. Hopefully, this isn’t the case; while it would be ill advised to rehash this same style again and again on future adventures, Hall and Amos have proven themselves to be masters of creating mood through music, a skill that should be talked about more often. But whether this is a debut for something else in the future or a one-time deal, Lilacs & Champagne is a deep and rewarding album, one that’s easy to see gaining a cult following in the years to come. Brice Ezell
Album: The Passing of the Night
Label: Readymade
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The Lost Brothers
The Passing of the Night
The Avett Brothers and Mumford & Sons grabbed most of 2012’s Americana headlines, but it’d be a shame for the Lost Brothers to go unnoticed. The group’s third album is their best yet, offering a quieter folk vision, free of Mumfords-style dramatics. If you’ve ever wondered what the Everly Brothers might have sounded like if they were raised in an English pub, the Lost Brothers provide a possible answer. Already armed with gorgeous harmonies and intricate fingerpicking, Irishmen Oisin Leech and Mark McCausland benefit from the way Brendan Benson (and his backing band) bring out subtle new tweaks in the Brothers’ sound. Musical saw, pump organ, Sun Records-style twang, faint traces of horns, Andrew Bird-worthy whistling, and hints of the ’60s folk revival all show up on Night, elevating the album’s sound beyond what you’d normally expect from an acoustic duo. Andrew Gilstrap
Album: Sin and Lostness
Label: Northern Star
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The Lost Rivers
Sin and Lostness
Noise rock is a mad beast, and not just because the music is intended to abuse. Err too far to one side and you’ve sold out and made “hard rock”, too far to the other and, well, you’re Merzbow. Following down the path that A Place to Bury Strangers have paved, the Lost Rivers’ outstanding debut falls near in the middle. The slow burn opening drone explodes into white noise guitar and pounding repetitive bass. Monotone vocals, nearly lost in the mix, do little to ease the listener into this world. The odd sampled beat placed here and there only pushed the record further into red, simply creating another element to battle for supremacy amongst the furore. There seems to be a hint of romance or ballad in a track or two, but for the most part this is simply nearly an hour of torrential noise rock. Music to frustrate your neighbours and frighten your dog. Sin and Lostness may push the dial more to the Merzbow side than many will enjoy; but that’s the price you pay for venturing into unchartered territory. Andrew McDonald
Album: Nootropics
Label: Ribbon
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Lower Dens
Nootropics
That Nootropics, Lower Dens’ sophomore breakthrough, takes its name from mind-altering cognitive enhancers is appropriate enough, considering that the album basically creates its own alternate reality out of a complex, fully immersive sound. Nootropics is an effort that truly operates on multiple levels at once: it can envelop your unconscious mind with its post-Kraut space-rock atmospherics, or it can shake you out of a daze and get you to pay careful attention to its finely wrought details. Like a new-school Stereolab or Broadcast more steeped in an Amerindie tradition, the adventurous Baltimore band, led by multi-talented Jana Hunter, has a knack for concocting experiments with sound without ever sacrificing shape and form. Just check out album highlights like the earworming mind-trip “Brains” and the pinwheeling mid-tempo “Propagation”, which work equally as well as deep, heady noise-art or as singles streaming from the future. In short,Nootropics is one of those albums you can constantly go back to, yet always find something new that to fascinate you. Arnold Pan
Arnold Pan
A.C. Newman and more…
Album: Amanda Mair
Label: Labrador
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Amanda Mair
Swedish musician Amanda Mair made a strong first impression in 2011 thanks to her debut single “Doubt”. An absolutely beautiful little song, it ingeniously takes the artsy, Kate Bush-derived style of Bat For Lashes and puts an affable, pop-oriented spin on the sound. The end result is classy and mature for something coming from a 17-year-old, but at the same time playful instead of dour. Released this past summer just before she turned 18, Mair’s debut album builds nicely on the promise of that single, thanks to a wonderful collection of songs written by Acid House Kings’ (and Labrador Records boss) Johan Angergård and Philip Ekström of the Mary Onettes. It’s a gently lively and eclectic album, combining that Bat For Lashes feel with lighter, Feist-derived fare (“Sense”), a fun ‘80s pop aesthetic (“Before”, “House”) and a nice dose of Lykke Li-style quirkiness. The end result is a record that has a lot more character than your usual singer-songwriter fare, and thanks to some very smart songwriting and a singer/musician with tremendous charisma and talent, this charming album stands above all the sound-alikes. This young artist has a very bright future. Adrien Begrand
Album: Signs & Signifiers
Label: Rounder
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JD McPherson
Signs & Signifiers
With raunchy guitars, scintillating drums, jaunty horns, and a honed collection of tightly packed singles, Oklahoma native J.D. Mchpherson’s Signs and Signifiers burst onto the scene like a Memphis fireworks display, dusting off vintage gear to capture the propulsive sound of ’50s rock and roll. While many records of the year reached back into bygone eras to high acclaim (most notably Alabama Shakes’ Boys and Girls), JD McPherson’s Signs and Signifiers distinguished itself by actually sounding like a true artifact from the genesis of rock and roll. Produced under the care of bassist extraordinaire Jimmy Sutton in the mold of early studio recordings, the two nailed the sound of blistering rockabilly and the thoroughly funky R&B backbeat of the 45-era.
There are Chuck Berry worthy singles like the fiery “Scandalous”, the gorgeous teen angst pop and Buddy Holly overtones of “North Side Gal”, and the deep and danceable Boogie Woogie groove of “Scratching Circles”. Combining the infectious fury of Little Richard and Chicago electric blues, McPherson dazzles with the shuffle of “I Can’t Complain” and even manages to reference both Bo Diddley and the Smiths in a stroke of genius on the title track. Precise in his aim to reclaim the past for the modern age, McPherson rocks with swagger, style, and greaser attitude. Josh Antonuccio
Album: Backward Path
Label: Northern Spy
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Dan Melchior
Backward Path
Over the last 15 odd years, Dan Melchior has patiently carved out a stubbornly independent and impressively prolific niche as one of the elder statesmen of the current DIY-garage-blues revival scene. Either as a solo artist, as the frontman of groups like the Broke Revue and Das Menace, or collaborating with luminaries like Billy Childish and Holly Golightly, Melchior has been responsible for over 20 albums’ worth of underground rock ‘n’ roll experimentation, crafting his own inimitable blend of mutated country, electronic-infused blues, and Americana-punk weirdness. He’s virtually earned the right to be classified as a genre all by himself.
All of this makes his latest effort so impressive. An artist with such a long and varied resume should be running out of tricks, but Melchior’s 2012 album The Backward Path is among his finest work, and a major stylistic leap forward. Inspired by his wife’s tragic battle with cancer, the songs on The Backward Path jettison Melchior’s usual blues and rock pastiche, and instead focus on deeply personal, painful, and heartfelt songwriting that is doubtless the most revealing and emotional of his long career. For old fans and newcomers alike, it’s a richly satisfying journey. Pat Kewley
Album: Shut Down the Streets
Label: Matador
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A.C. Newman
Shut Down the Streets
Back when A.C. Newman was starting his solo career back in 2004, he seemed to be looking for ways to contrast his own material from that of his band, the New Pornographers. Hence, the songs were more baroque and fellow Pornographer Neko Case was replaced by other female backing singers. Eight years later, Newman seems completely comfortable with his solo career. As a result, Shut Down the Streets is a relaxed record that isn’t particularly concerned with going for the big hooky chorus on every song. Which isn’t to say that Newman has lost his songwriting touch. Songs like “Encyclopedia of Classic Takedowns” and “Strings” are classic Newman, wordy and catchy, with soaring melodies and gorgeous harmonies. Other songs have subtler charms, like the use of the rarely-heard marxophone and pocket piano on “Do Your Own Time”, and the heartfelt but self-deprecating advice to Newman gives to his newborn son in “There’s Money in New Wave”. These 10 tracks are each excellent; there isn’t a clunker in the bunch. Oh, and this time Neko Case is all over the album, doing harmonies and backing vocals on nearly every song, and it’s gorgeous. Chris Conaton
Album: Ohnomite
Label: Traffic Ent. Group
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Oh No
Ohnomite
Anticipation for Ohnomite, was always going to be high. Producer and sometime MC, Oh No had set the bar high for his solo work with 2009’s Ethiopium, an instrumental album which took its queue from the jazz and funk of East Africa, and found itself in PopMatters’ top five hip-hop albums of that year. So the thought of a more lyrically-driven album, built from samples of blaxploitation films (quite specifically those of Rudy Ray Moore) was an exciting prospect. He didn’t disappoint.
As a producer, Oh No’s work coalesces into a mixture of psychedelic funk, chopped up breaks and soulful rhythms, which nod to their sampled origins but crackle with grit and originality, whilst as a rapper, he’s less self assured, but also manages to surprise. With his greater talents clearly lying behind the mixer, we’re lucky that he’s also accompanied by a host of collaborators. From well renowned names like MF Doom, Eric Sermon and Phife Dawg, to more underground artists such as Rapper Pooh and Phil Da Agony who show a compelling raw energy on standout track “You Don’t Know Me”. The shadow cast by his elder brother Madlib may be long, but with Ohnomite, Oh No continues to steadily plough his own furrow, adding another high concept album to his catalogue, which ripples with a collective of rappers who’ve rarely sounded better, and beats so incendiary they might burn your face off. Tom Fenwick
Album: Ondatropica
Label: Soundway
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Ondatropica
Ondatropica
Quantic frontman, Will Holland, has left the White Cliffs of Dover far behind and relocated to the city of Cali in Colombia in search of the authentic sounds of cumbia, salsa and other Latin American rhythms. Once there he quickly formed a friendship and musical alliance with Mario Galeano, bandleader of the awesome Frente Cumbiero. The pair hatched a plan and brought together some of the legends of Colombian music in the equally legendary Discos Fuertes studios in Bogota. The result is a startling album, recorded live, that fuses those Latin sounds I mentioned with jazz, funk, hip-hop, Afrobeat, electro and dub. From opener “Tiene Sabor, Tiene Sazón” all blazing horns and gorgeous female vocals, to a quirky take on Black Sabbaths “Iron Man” here cast as “I Ron Man” to the furious ska driven “Ska Fuentes” Ondatropica is an exquisite album, played by master musicians that aren’t afraid to stretch themselves and take risks. Ondratropica will take the ‘world’ circuit by storm next year and will cross over just as Buena Vista Social Club did a few years back. Check them out now before they become the band whose name is on everyone’s lips! Jez Collins
Perfume Genius and more…
Album: Sugaring Season
Label: Anti-
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Sugaring Season
Beth Orton’s early musical collaborations with trip-hop artist William Orbit and later Big Beat artists the Chemical Brothers laid the groundwork for genre-hopping, expanding the boundaries of the female singer-songwriter. She returned in 2012 after a six-year hiatus with an album that showcased an artist not only regaining her form, but breaking new ground artistically.
Sugaring Season reveals Orton as an artist who, bolstered by ensemble work and showing confidence in the expressive range of her voice, moves beyond her characteristic clipped, vocal inflection. Her range is on display in stunning effect in “Candles”, a track that interweaves her expressive voice with the work of violinist Eyvind Kang into a recitative that picks up momentum in a spontaneous burst, which not surprisingly, was recorded live in the studio. “Magpie” offers a sharp contrast between Beth’s voice and a Celtic roots orientation that conjures up Mike Scott’s mining of the rich musical heritage in “Fisherman’s Blues”, while “Poison Tree” is a ballad that has her singing with a lilt, and soaring in an interplay with keyboard and fiddle reminiscent of the soprano of roots artist Loreena McKennitt.
Several tracks showcase a music alliteration. “Last Leaves of Autumn” with its spare arrangement, unfolding at a leisurely pace, seems to highlight the impending desolation of season’s end. “State of Grace” achieves a stoic graceful quality. “Mystery” features angelic vocals that fade at the end. “Something More Beautiful” breaks ground, as it’s an achingly beautiful song, a contemplative number that conjures up the sheer aesthetic beauty of Grant Lee Buffalo’s ’90s crooner, “Mockingbirds”, something which, for all her strengths in songwriting, and her earliest inventive arrangements, she could never lay claim to, until now. All in all, the album, taken as whole, ranks as perhaps the most satisfying achievement in her repertoire, back to and including her seminal work, Central Reservation. Dennis Shin
Album: Cokefloat!
Label: FatCat
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PAWS
Cokefloat!
There were very few joyous punk-leaning outings in 2012. That fact may have worked to Paws’ advantage on their excellent debut LP Cokefloat!, which was the most exhilarating auditory sugar-rush I experienced all year. Hailing from Scotland, this trio managed to cobble together and power through a surprisingly affecting party-starting record. When dissecting Cokefloat!, three things immediately stand out; the immediacy, the outwardly fun sound, and the personal and deeply-felt lyrics. Of that trio, it’s the last trick that kept me invested while the other two simply begged revisits. All three are also, in some way, accentuated by the brilliant production of Rory Astwell (formerly a member of Test Icicles).
In the wake of the recent onslaught of great punk bands that take their darker and more foreboding aspects as seriously as possible (Cloud Nothings) and those that seem to just be cranking out music because they have to (Ty Segall), it’s almost necessary to have a punk band with pop chops occupying the middle ground. This is intelligent music that rewards both intelligent indifference and investment. Whether you want to party or to think while tapping your feet, 2012 had nothing better than Cokefloat!. Steven Spoerl
Album: Put Your Back N 2 It
Label: Matador
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Perfume Genius
Put Your Back N 2 It
Perfume Genius’s Michael Hadreas experienced a brief moment of internet notoriety earlier this year when YouTube banned a promotional video for his upcoming album Put Your Back N 2 It for not being “family safe”. The clip in question featured images from the video for “Hood”, in which Hadreas and gay porn star Arpad Miklos dress up in costumes, gaze affectionately into each other’s eyes, and cuddle in various states of PG-rated undress. The video is tame by YouTube’s typical standards of decency, and the site immediately drew criticism for its homophobic double standard.
In a year that saw much needed progress for LGBTQ visibility within the realm of popular music and culture, Hadreas’s piercing and personal songs on Put Your Back N 2 It, often reminded us that we still have a long way to go. On the gorgeously understated “All Waters”, his voice quivers amidst the lush textures of a synthesized organ, longing for a day when “I can take your hand / On any crowded street / And hold you close to me / With no hesitating.”
Perfume Genius combines the melodic gifts of Sufjan Stevens with the minimalist folk-pop arrangements of Cat Power. And while this album is rich throughout with resonant song writing, the moments that really haunt you are the minor-key ballads, like the devastating “Dark Parts” with its gently plodding piano line and enchanting harmonies that give way to a final bare-bones section in which Hadreas intones, unforgettably: “I will take the dark part / Of your heart into my heart.” And it’s this ability to transform a subtle turn of phrase, or a deceptively simple melody into a moment of revelation that sets Hadreas apart from other contemporary indie-songwriters. Robert Alford
Album: Worship
Label: Dead Oceans
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A Place to Bury Strangers
Worship
Comparing A Place to Bury Strangers to the Jesus and Mary Chain has become a common talking point in just about every review. The truth is that if there were more wall-of-noise, art-of-feedback power-pop bands in the game we wouldn’t be confined to such a tiny frame of reference. No band has ever really nailed what the early Jesus & Mary Chain introduced (themselves included) until now. But even within the context of their own body of work this record is a huge leap forward and a modern re-emergence of a sound which will undoubtedly influence bands to come.
The Jesus & Mary Chain created the qualities of Psychocandy by an appreciation for the murky beauty of feedback, a desire to describe drug-induced haze in audio terms and of course sheer physical calamity while standing fortuitously close to studio recording equipment. Worship is deliberate. Every wailing squeal is sculpted to decorate the atmosphere with energy and emphasis. They’re restrained and patient in the application of the wide range of effects while tied to unstoppable rock and roll momentum and slacker vocal delivery. At its best every crash and shimmer on “Mind Control” is tooled for perfect timing. A Place to Bury Strangers took the idea of brash raw noise vocabulary and perfected it. We almost missed it because of our revelry for what once was, but this record is important to what will be. Darryl G. Wright
Album: Ill Manors
Label: Atlantic/13Star
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Plan B
Ill Manors
Plan B (real name Ben Drew) followed his popular-everywhere-but-in-America album, 2010’s The Defamation of Strickland Banks with Ill Manors, a release that made an even smaller dent stateside. In Drew’s native England, Ill Manors was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize and accompanied by a likewise acclaimed self-directed feature film, all well-deserved. With more of a hip-hop edge than its predessor and lyrics rising considerably close to The Wire‘s level of social realism, Ill Manors may not be the most pleasant artistic achievement of the year, but attributes abound. Look beyond the (equally great) protest anthem title track and such treasures as a cameo from punk poet John Cooper Clarke provide ample recovery from the grim tales Drew spins. The penultimate track, moving soul ballad “Live Once”, (featuring British grime rapper Kano) even provides a crack of light in the wake of all the despair that comes before. Even without, the portraits Ill Manors paints give a humanistic touch to the “chavs” and “hoodies” so often ridiculed in popular culture. Maria Schurr
Album: Temple Beautiful
Label: Yep Roc
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Chuck Prophet
Temple Beautiful
With so much of my listening done through headphones or in front of my computer, it was a rare treat and a happy accident that I picked up Prophet’s love letter to San Francisco right before the wife and I visited that city this spring, and that it provided the perfect soundtrack to our vacation. (Go ahead and try it yourself. We’ll wait for you to come back.) But even if I hadn’t set foot in Alcatraz or the Mission this year, Temple Beautiful would’ve still have been considered one of the year’s best albums. The title track comes straight from Ray Davies, circa 1978; both “Castro Halloween” and “White Night, Big City” take sobering snapshots of the city’s gay rights movement (with the former providing one of the album’s best riffs), and the evocative “Willie Mays Is Up at Bat” might as well be a time machine to the Bay City, 1964. Passionate, literate roots rock — with an emphasis on rock — it might just be Prophet’s best album in his 20-plus-year, post-Green on Red solo career. Truly, a late career gem. Stephen Haag
Punch Brothers and more…
Album: Death Dreams
Label: Paper Bag
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Death Dreams
When it came to Canadian two-piece bands, Japandroids took most of the press and year-end best album accolades, despite the fact that Celebration Rock really sounded to these ears like Post-Nothing Part II. However, there was another Canuck two-man guitar and drum combo that was making much more interesting music. With Death Dreams, Kingston, Ontario’s PS I Love You delivered a nightmarish and paranoid pop album of grand vistas, and it was also fun to pump a fist in the air to. When Paul Saulnier sings “I’m free / But I’m not free”, you’re hearing the sound of a psyche being twisted in its own rusted cage. What’s more, while Japandroids were much more universal, PS I Love You delivered a personally inward Canadian album with reference points to “Toronto”, “Saskatoon” and their own hometown with “Princess Towers”. A marked improved over their debut in many ways, and, let’s face it, Meet Me at the Muster Station was no slouch to begin with, Death Dreams is a harrowing, sweaty and dense record of ambitious proportions. Forget houses that heaven built. Death Dreams is the real deal if you’re looking for anthemic rock from a Canadian two-piece band. Zachary Houle
Album: Who’s Feeling Young Now?
Label: Nonesuch
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Punch Brothers
Who’s Feeling Young Now?
It’s well-known in bluegrass and instrument nerd circles that Chris Thile is probably the best mandolin player in the world at the moment [Ed note: Sorry, that’s Ronnie McCoury or David Grissman], and has been for many years. His virtuosic ability puts him in high demand in all sorts of different musical environments. So you don’t hear him take many showoffy solos on the albums of his main band, Punch Brothers. Instead, he often pushes the group to take chances and expand the horizons of what an acoustic ensemble can do. Who’s Feeling Young Now? strikes the balance between the more out-there material and traditional-sounding pop and bluegrass songs. Hence, the simultaneously high velocity and droning opener “Movement and Location” is contrasted immediately afterwards with the catchy, jaunty sing along “This Girl”. The title track thumps like a hard rock song despite the band’s lack of a drummer, while “Patchwork Girlfriend” slides between atonal background accompaniment and vaudeville-style theatricality. And when it comes time to cover Radiohead, the band thinks way outside the box and tackles “Kid A” with aplomb. This is an album that works precisely because it doesn’t stick to one thing, and because Punch Brothers are so damn skilled that they can pull off doing eight or nine different things without batting an eye. Chris Conaton
Album: Quakers
Label: Stones Throw
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Quakers
Quakers
The best hip-hop record to come out of 2012 didn’t come from Kenrick Lamar, Killer Mike, or El-P, as many lists would have you believe. The most inventive, audacious, ambitious, and flat-out best hip-hop full-length came from the minds of Portishead’s Geoff Barrow (operating under the name Fuzzface), 7-Stu-7, Katalyst, and the minds of 35 up-and-coming MCs. Between those 38 people, they mustered 41 tracks of pure unadulterated hip-hop, presenting a perfection of a singular style. Drawing samples from seemingly everyone and everywhere, Quakers manage to cobble together a towering genre masterpiece that makes good use of every single one of the genre’s irrefutable hallmarks.
The fact that the best track on Quakers occurs towards the very end says a lot, especially considering that by the time it rolled around two things had and hadn’t happened: 1. I was still listening to a record 40 tracks in. 2. It hadn’t lost my attention or investment. Deluxe editions came with the instrumental versions of the track and those proved to be rewarding even stripped of some of the brilliant verses that once accompanied them. Quakers felt as classic as it should prove to be. Steven Spoerl
Album: Between the Times and the Tides
Label: Matador
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Lee Ranaldo
Between the Times and the Tides
Sonic Youth power couple Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore have separated, Moore has refocused his formidable energies on new project Chelsea Light Moving, and the future of Sonic Youth remains totally unclear. Amidst that splintering, Lee Ranaldo rediscovered his love for the acoustic guitar and emerged from the shadows with a wailingly melodic batch of straightforward guitar-rock. While it misses Moore’s avant-noise sensibilities or Gordon’s brash poetry, Between the Times and the Tides is refreshed, I think, by how comfortable Ranaldo seems in his own shoes — neither trying to rewrite “Eric’s Trip nor emulate his absent bandmates’ muses. Highlighted by lengthier, lyrical workouts (“Xtina As I Knew Her”, “Fire Island (Phases)”) and driving rockers (“Angles”, “Tomorrow Never Knows”), the album brims with unsurprisingly agile guitar interplay and mellowed vocals stylings. Expect neither dissonance nor Daydream Nation; you’ll find comfort and well-worn talent. Zach Schonfeld
Album: Provincial
Label: Epitaph
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John K. Samson
Provincial
One of the great mysteries of modern music to me is how John K. Samson’s profile has remained as consistently low as it has. Arguably one of our generation’s best songwriters, he never seemed to gain the massive popularity stateside as he’s achieved in his native Canada, which is downright shameful. As the frontman for the Weakerthans, he managed (and continues to manage) to display an enviable and singular vision. The worlds that Samson consistently presents are rich, subtle, and nuanced affairs that feel lived-in to the point of realism. He’s achieved this with both the Weakerthans and on his own, which is something that’s proven to be difficult for a lot of noted lyricists breaking away from their main vehicles to embark on a solo outing (the most appropriate example of this would be the release of Craig Finn’s Clear Heart, Full Eyes, which shared a release date with Provincial). John K. Samson’s first solo full-length was full of the world-weariness Samson’s known for and all but cemented his status as a songwriter. A relatively somber affair Provincial proved to be yet another masterful release from one of the sharpest minds in modern music. Steven Spoerl
Album: Christian aTunde Adjuah
Label: Concord
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Christian Scott
Christian aTunde Adjuah
I feel like Christian aTunde Adjuah might have been a victim of expectation, at least here. I’d really enjoyed Yesterday You Said Tomorrow, but trying to get myself into Christian Scott’s fourth full length took a little more time than was available when it was newer. Take a few more paces through “Dred Scott” and you’ll wonder why you were ever less than baffled by that track. Compare how instrumental “I Do” could have been the ultimate D’Angelo wedding ballad in another life. I was quick to speak on this album because at the very surface it was just so Christian Scott. But as the months have gone by I’ve realized that the signature qualities are very subtly so, and that you can find plenty of drama amongst this crew’s many cuts. Christian aTunde Adjuah seemed a little intimidating on release, and maybe that’s ultimately not enough to judge a project on. Functionality may prosper too. David Amidon
Patti Smith and more…
Album: Architecture of Loss
Label: Bedroom Community
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Display Width: 200Valgeir Sigurðsson
Architecture of Loss
Reviewed to late to be included in my albums of the year, Valgeir Sigurðsson’s third album Architecture of Loss jumped straight into my number one spot. From Iceland, Valgeir is the leader of Bedroom Community, the label that hosts artists such as Nico Muhly and Ben Frost, producer for the likes of Björk and Bonnie Prince Billy and creator of hauntingly beautiful music such as is found on this album.
Conceived as a suite of music to accompany a ballet, Sigurðsson’s compositions stand alone as a beautiful instrumental album that invokes cold war espionage chases, the Icelandic tundra, and passing (maybe illicit?) love affairs. It envelopes and enriches the listener and bares repeated listening as layers of sonic textures slowly unravel and reveal themselves. This is a modern and daring hybrid of classical and electronica music and ideas that fuses together to create a harmonious, stunning and utterly beautiful album. An album that you just need to go and hear – my words simply do not do it justice. Jez Collins
Album: Banga
Label: Columbia
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Patti Smith
Banga
Patti Smith’s 11th studio album, and first in five years, was inexplicably absent from all the major year-end best album lists. I could have done with a little less Japandroids-championing, but it’s apparent that critics weren’t looking solely for easy pleasures in 2012; so one can only hope that Banga‘s being so overlooked was the result of too much quality output robbing it of the it so crucially demanded. If the highly insightful Smith-written liner notes and an appearance by Television’s Tom Verlaine on the sweet first single “April Fool” weren’t enough to warrant purchase, then the ferocious, Master and the Margarita-indebted title track makes Smith’s importance in this day and age brutally clear. Yet, softer moments such as the Amy Winehouse tribute “This Is The Girl” and the closing Neil Young cover “After the Gold Rush” leave even greater a mark. Banga is worth the attention and love of double the amount of people who said they read Just Kids. Maria Schurr
Album: King Animal
Label: Republic
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Soundgarden
King Animal
When the reunited Soundgarden announced they were recording a comeback album, fans winced and gritted their teeth as they hoped for the best but expected the worst. That Chris Cornell’s previous release was the abysmal Scream — and that its commercial and critical failure seemed the impetus for his getting back with his old cohorts — didn’t do much to counter the cynicism. But when fans tentatively pulled their fingers from their ears to give the resulting King Animal a fair shake, the cringes faded and that rare feeling of being glad to have been wrong settled in. Sure, first song (and lead single) “Been Away Too Long” is a dud with its grade-school lyrics, but past that, the record is stellard, filled with the foursome’s defining off-kilter time signatures, sludgy guitars and wailing vocals. “Blood on the Valley Floor” has one of Kim Thayil’s most savage riffs to date, “Bones of Birds” is equally sensitive, menacing and surreal and the work song vibe of “Rowing” replicates the hamster wheel tedium of existence. Though its title initially seems absurd, King Animal is actually fitting, being the bellow of a beast awakening from a 16-year hibernation. Cole Waterman
Album: Death and Taxes
Label: GroundSwell Music
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The Stanfields
Death and Taxes
Cape Breton island crowns the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. This is an island where babies are born with hearts that beat in time with traditional music. As they enter the world their cries are lost amid celebratory fiddle and accompanying mandolin and they Highland Dance right out of the womb until their umbilical falls onto the kitchen floor. This is the sort of place where real, unrefined musical talent runs so deep that it’s often taken for granted. The same can be said for Halifax, “the big city” at the epicenter of this small cluster of maritime provinces. It’s from towns like these that the members of the Stanfields come. Their latest, Death and Taxes arrived late in 2012 and never got the attention it deserved despite salt-stained, weathered delivery of a darker, harder traditional song structure and high energy rock. Comparisons to Flogging Molly or the Dropkick Murphys are inevitable — this is not a new idea. But what is new here is the authenticity. This isn’t just “roots-flavoured” or an homage to a sound they appreciated. This is in their blood. Real traditional Maritime music played with such passion that it will turn any living room into a working class pub. Darryl G. Wright
Album: Tender New Signs
Label: Mexican Summer
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Tamaryn
Tender New Signs
Pretty much everyone’s being described as shoegazer these days, but there’s a big difference between some dream-pop dabbling and the lush, all-encompassing soundscapes that San Francisco duo Tamaryn conjures up on its under-the-radar second disc, Tender New Signs. With billowing melodies surging their way through the album that are as imposing as they are gorgeous, Tender New Signs offers more to grab onto than just wispy atmospherics or gauzy mood. Sure, there’s plenty of feedback-y haze, but the honeyed sludge of “Heavenly Bodies” and steady build on “Prizma” feel more muscular than ethereal. Yet what really shapes and molds the free-form soundplay are the crisp, bold rhythmic elements, often keeping things interesting by creating deft textural contrasts, like on the lucid vision of “While You’re Sleeping, I’m Dreaming”, or switching up tempos, as with slo-mo-ish decadence of “No Exits”. With Tender New Signs, Tamaryn proves that head-in-the-clouds music can keep its feet solidly on the ground. Arnold Pan
Album: The Something Rain
Label: Constellation
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Tindersticks
The Something Rain
For a group known for barroom dreariness, The Something Ran is something of a revelation — an impressively rousing, even buoyant effort that is miles removed from 2010’s Falling Down the Mountain. “At the album’s heart lies the memory of the people we have lost in these last two years, but we were in no mood to be maudlin,” says the Nottingham outfit. “We are still drinking, laughing, crying, fighting, fucking, making our music.” That snarling spirit pervades the group’s ninth studio album. It’s in the richly woven instrumentation, which crackles and spins with funk wah, elegant organ, xylophones, and squealing horn textures. It’s in the jazzy backing vocals, which wrap silkily around Stuart Staples’ familiar baritone on highlights “Show Me Everything” and “This Fire of Autumn”. And it’s in the record’s fierce eclecticism, which stitches together sinister spoken word (“Chocolate”) and sad-eyed funk (“Show Me Everything”), frantic free-jazz (“Frozen”) and hushed muzak (“Goodbye Joe”), into a swirling patchwork that is as seductive as it is unexpected. Zach Schonfeld
Sharon Van Etten and more…
Album: Tramp
Label: Jagjaguwar
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Display Width: 200Sharon Van Etten
Tramp
Sharon Van Etten’s dramatic personal backstory often overshadowed the work on her gripping and poignant third album, Tramp. Interviews leading up to the album’s release focused less on her songs, and more on her escape from a long and terrifying abusive relationship. But many of her songs spring directly from that experience, and Etten’s openness about her past reveals a desire to heal both herself and others through her art. Tramp contains a multitude of warring emotions — sadness, strength, anger and inspiration — that careen together throughout the sparse, yet powerful arrangements of these songs. “Serpents” burns with a fierce and creeping energy as feedback-laden guitars and rumbling drums lift Etten’s soaring and world-worn harmonies high above their angry din. And “Give Out” gracefully devastates through its depiction of the cycles of ambivalence, fear and regret that often take hold in abusive relationships. As a whole, Tramp provides a courageous testament to the possibilities of moving on and getting better in life, and it’s a beautiful thing to witness in the hands of such a talented artist as Etten. Robert Alford
Album: Alate
Label: Projekt
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Weep
Alate
In a time when ’80s throwback post-punk and shoegaze has been done so well (the Horrors) and rated so highly (Cloud Nothings), it’s perplexing that this gem of a record wasn’t rated higher than it was. Weep hold this album together with throbbing, early-Cure reminiscent drum and bass grooves and fill the frame with lush keyboards, noise pop guitar and unhinged vocals. Thought the music stays within pop’s limits throughout, the slower tracks manage to channel the gothic romanticism of the Sisters of Mercy with beauty and aplomb. Also, the lyrics never let up the note-perfect embrace of darkwave sceneas on “It’s So Late”: “Cameras see you, photos fade away / The dreams I had were for another day.” With every song being potential single-bait, the record doesn’t flow as ideally as possible, but the ’80s never really were as easy as other band’s imply. Andrew McDonald
Album: Mumps, etc.
Label: Anticon
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WHY?
Mumps, etc.
There were expectations for a new WHY? record, to be sure. After the meditative sighs of Eskimo Snow, fans wondered if the new record would properly follow-up 2008’s Alopecia (i.e., if Yoni Wolf would return to rapping in his self-deprecating, middle-class, white man way). Yoni did, and Mumps, etc. has everything we could have asked for from a new WHY? record: hook-filled refrains, rhyme packed-verses, a full-band sound, and ironic lyrics about misplaced sexuality and mild depression. (“Girls used to fawn over my locks to kill, but now the curls are gone and I’m on minoxidil/I’m in decline but women like be jockin’ still.”) And yet, and yet, Mumps, etc. was met with either silence or misguided derision (looking in your direction Pitchfork). Bewildering? Yep. What else can we ask of the Brothers Wolf? Frustrating? Sure. Mumps, etc. is a great record with one or two aloof tracks. Maddening? Hell, yes. WHY? deserve more than the blasé reception the indie music circles gave them. They deserve a higher brand of recognition for their efforts. They deserve a place in every suburbanite’s music collection and a spot on every music critics’ Top 10 list. Then maybe Yoni Wolf can pay for all those prescriptions he needs to keep the WHY? fountain flowing for a long time to come. Scott Elingburg
Album: Unknown Rooms: A Collection of Acoustic Songs
Label: Sargent House
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Chelsea Wolfe
Unknown Rooms: A Collection of Acoustic Songs
Based in the urban wasteland of Los Angeles, the music of Chelsea Wolfe filters the supernatural confluence of influences that birthed the sprawling metropolis through a distinctive lens. Her brand of singer-songwriter fare is often called “doom folk,” a style leaning toward the gothic outskirts of metal and folk. As such, she is as well adapted to covering Burzum’s “Black Spell of Destruction” as she is the public domain’s “You Are My Sunshine.” Following 2011’s amazing Ἀποκάλυψις (Apokalypsis), which featured a plugged-in voyage through droning atmospheres, death growls, doom metal, and beyond, Unknown Rooms proves she is equally capable of acoustic subtlety, retaining her overwhelming sense of impassioned dread in open aural plains as much as in the ornate cathedrals she’d previously constructed. Framed as a collection of “orphaned” tracks that either didn’t fit on or were never intended for her first two albums, Unknown Rooms nevertheless feels like a work of substantial design. The sparser sonic density allows the core of her genuine, poetic songwriting to come into crystal clear focus. Her voice irradiates heart and sacrifice, an utter inability to bullshit, while her string-laden, acoustic guitar driven arrangements show a tasteful sense of creativity beyond her earthly years. Alan Ranta
Album: Transitions
Label: De Stijl
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CS Yeh
Transitions
C Spencer Yeh follows up his superb debut single “In the Blink of an Eye / Condo Stress” with a fresh and unpredictable avant-pop album full of fat basslines, crispy wah-wah guitar, sonorous vocals, and little squiggling synth and horn decorations. “Blink/Condo” seemed to draw from a similar well as Gang of Four, Eno, and John Cale. Transitions includes several hypnotic originals with one or two covers, including Stevie Nicks’s “Rooms on Fire”, which Yeh does without a trace of irony, re-imagining it as a goth-synth piece. I’ve played half a dozen of these songs continuously throughout 2012 and such is the elusive quality of the recording that it is yet to pall. Yeh conjures sounds akin to Arthur Russell, the early solo records of Brian Eno, even Robert Wyatt and Slapp Happy. His lyrics are enticing and mysterious, satisfying yet sketchy enough to keep their exact meaning tantilizingly out of reach. The oblique and mysterious. Transitions even rehabilitates the line “on a dark desert highway” — for which we should all be grateful.
This hugely accessible record is quite a distance from Yeh’s wild, textured, drone experiments as Burning Star Core and his work with Comets on Fire, Tony Conrad, John Sinclair and many others. Except thatTransitions is informed by the same restless imagination that has previously seen him use such tools as treated loops, computer patches and violin across a range of formats including radio, cassette, eight-track and vinyl. Quite how it, and the earlier single, have received so little interest is beyond me. Maybe he should change his name to the Black CS Yehs. D.M. Edwards
Album: Tiempo De Lujo
Label: Yep Roc
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Young Fresh Fellows
Tiempo De Lujo
While a handful of ’80s college rock veterans have returned in the oughts and early ’10s (Dinosaur Jr, Mission of Burma, now Redd Kross and Big Dipper), none have had as stealth a return to form as the Young Fresh Fellows, who followed 2009’s I Think This Is with the equally strong Tiempo de Lujo (“time of luxury”). Recorded in an afternoon, one gets the feels that the Fellows — bassist Jim Sangster, drummer Tad Hutchison and singer/guitarists Kurt Bloch and Scott McCaughey — enjoy the freedom that being off the radar affords, but goofy garage numbers like “Tad’s Pad”, “So Many Electric Guitars”, “Love Luggage” (a charming rewrite of the Hombres’ “Let It All Hang Out”) and a handful of McCaughey’s more somber-minded tunes (the closing “Broken Monkey”, “Life Is a Funeral Factory”) deserve a wider audience. In a world where nearly everyone and everything fights for your attention, the Young Fresh Fellows make a virtue out of being unassuming. Stephen Haag
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