best of tunes

I really wanted to compile a "best of" list for 2011.  The problem is I don't tend to ingest large amounts of any specific media or have the chops to filter it down to a list.  So I had to enlist my dear friend Ben to provide me with his annual list of best albums.  I met Ben in college and he took pity on my small stack of cd's and exposed me to the likes of Neutral Milk Hotel and Sunny Day Real Estate. In his own words, here are his picks for best albums of 2011.  I've also created both a Spotify mix and a mix on 8tracks of some of the standout tracks listed below.  You can listen to it on Spotify HERE or 8tracks HERE  {since I'm new to online mixes let me know if this works for everyone!} 

 10. Wild Flag – Wild Flag  (Merge)  Of Wild Flag’s four members, two of them fronted Sleater-Kinney, one played for The Minders and the last is independent music royalty. The band and the album of the same name are statements -- loud, noisy, intricate statements of Rock and Roll, like the pedigree of the members. They show us what can be, what it should be, and how it should be done.  Unless the Earth spins on a different axis where up is down and dog means cat this album was destined to be amazing.

Standout tracks: Romance; Glass Tambourine; Racehorse

9  . Ben Smith – Crooked Earth  (Independent)  Ben has been making astounding music for manyyears and deserves far more attention. Smith’s latest and first solo effort, ‘Crooked Earth’ conjures images of Gram Parsons alongside The Left Banke, but only as ghosts. He breatheshis influences, whets his sleeve with them, but the songhe respires are his alone. ‘All the Wonders of the World’ is oneofmy favorite songs that I have heard this year.  Incidentally some other notable musicians make an appearance on ‘Crooked Earth’: Aaron Weis of mewithoutYou and Eliza Jones of The Buried Beds. Both amazing bands that you would be a fool not to check into. Don’t be a fool.

Standout track: All the Wonders of the World; Love Potion #10

8. Tune-Yards – Who Kill  (4AD)  What looks random and accidental like so many abstract paintings are actually contrived and intricately planed piece of art. tUnE-yArDs ‘Who Kill’ is exactly this. The 42 minute schizophrenic mélange that often seems random and accidental is anything but. After 10 polyrhythmic, atonal, stream of conscious aural collages on economic, social, and body politic, ‘Who Kill’, does something that so many other records of this genre don’t do: it doesn’t leave the listener confused.

Standout Tracks: My Country; Es-So; Bizness

7. Real Estate – Days  (Domino)  Real Estate’s ‘Days’ has that impenetrable feeling of a lazy summer day stretched into infinity. Like a lens flared snap shot, a brief moment made permanent by the camera mechanism. The simple truths these boys from New Jersey lay in our ears are nothing new, but there is nothing simple or misplaced about any of these songs. The impermanence of time, youth, the leaves on the trees, or the summer you fell in love or were left behind never sounded so heartbreakingly sweet.

Standout tracks: Easy; Out of Tune

6. War on Drugs – Slave Ambient   (Secretly Canadian)  ‘Slave Ambient’ is really as close to a modern day miracle as it comes. After co-founding member Kurt Ville takes off to start his solo career and a drummer and an organist disappear into the Philadelphia ether, I don’t think anyone would have been surprised if front man Adam Granduciel disappeared down Dylan’s Highway 61 he so often evokes in his songs. Instead, he filled out his band and delivered one of the year’s most progressive throw back records of 2011.

Standout Tracks: Come to the City; Baby Missiles

5. Girls – Father, Son and Holy Ghost  (True Panther Sounds)  Girls leader Christopher Owens spent his youth in a religious cult with his mother. His experiences are well-documented. This is important to note, as it is clear that Owens’ is still working through some “issues” and music is definitely his therapy. For his sophomore record under the Girls moniker, Owens, takes a decidedly darker turn from the more garage rock sensibilities of ‘Album’ and looks for a deeper more introspective route to forgiveness and redemption. While I wish no man such a crisis of soul, his search for contrition is a bit unsettling as it is such a pleasure to listen to.

Standout Tracks: Honey Bunny; Vomit; Forgiveness

4. Little Scream – The Golden Record   (Outside Music)  Like the frosted car that Laurel Sprengelmeyer sits in, laying out a snowy story of isolation, longing and self-doubt in the album stand out.  While standout track ‘Heron and the Fox’ isn’t necessarily indicative of the style of ‘The Golden Record’, it is clearly the sentiment. Truth is, the record never really settles on one style or one particular sound. This isn’t unusual for a debut and can frequently be the beginning and the end for a new artist, but here it is actually a credit. Each song has its own voice and all of the voices are clearly Little Screams.

Standout track: Heron and the Fox; The Lamb; Red Hunting Jacket

3. St. Vincent – Strange Mercy   (4AD)   On her latest, Ms. Clark strips down to the bare essentials. (the band. Strips down the band, get your mind out of the gutter, that’s my fantasy indie rock wife you’re thinking about.) Annie Clark’s other worldly voice against her distorted guitar play like the physical embodiment of so many of the stories that make up ‘Strange Mercy’s’ often uncomfortable but always deeply rewarding songs.

Standout Track: Cruel; Surgeon; Year of the Tiger

2. Wye Oak – Civilian  (Merge)   In 2010, my list was topped by Baltimore’s Beach House and their devastatingly perfect album ‘Teen Dream’. In 2011 Wye Oak, who also hails from Charm City, slides into a comfortable #2 carrying with it an aesthetic edge that is quickly identifiable and easily comparable to their peers without being derivative. Each song on ‘Civilian’ seems like a conversation with unformed thoughts and sentences starting mid-stream, yet unfolding amidst all the confusion, revealing some sort of message before we all leave the room.  This record was probably my most anticipated release of 2011 and I am happy to report that it was better than I hoped.

Standout Tracks: Civilian; Holy, Holy; Fish; Doubt

1. Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues  (Sub Pop)  I want to write tomes about this album, but what would be the point? What took Søren Kierkegaard in 800 pages to sum up in ‘Either/Or’, Fleet Foxes does in less than 3 minutes on Battery Kinzie. If they can best Kierkegaard then I don’t have a chance. What can I possibly add to give this remarkable record anymore life then it already has? Helplessness Blues is one of the best songs written in the last ten years, maybe the last hundred.

Standout Tracks: Helplessness Blues; Battery Kinzie; Lorelai; Someone You’d Admire

 Other records that I loved….(in no particular order)  Gillian Welch – The Harrows And The Harvest  //  Youth Lagoon – Year of Hibernation //  Washed out – Within without //  The Decemberists – The King is Dead  //  Lykke Li – Wounded Rhythms  //  Bon Iver – Bon Iver  //  Cass McCombs – Wits End //  John Maus – We Must Become The Pitless Sensors of Ourselves

portrait by Rory Connell

Comments

[amanda jane]

mmm...love this. Thanks for sharing!

[jessica]

OMG, I'm taking notes, and notes, and notes.

Now if only I could find the time to sit down and file through all these little gems.

Ears, take charge.

[first came love]

Jessica, I just uploaded a mix of songs from each on 8tracks which might be more accessible than Spotify.
Check it out! http://8tracks.com/alyce_gorch/best-of-tunes-2011