Those pleasing sounds of 2012, in full and unabridged

I know, I know. Year-end roundup season has long since passed. This blog is late. Late late late. Oh so very late. For reasons that will become apparent.

Not that I post very often anyway. Indolence is the watchword of Onions for Eyeballs.

Best get to the point, then – below are my ten favourite albums of 2012, in reverse order.  

First, some honourable mentions. Great albums one and all. Any one of these could have been in my top 10 had I compiled it on a different day, in a different mood, with a different level of caffeine or cheese in my bloodstream.  

•  Kayo Dot – Gamma Knife
•  Sidsel Endresen & Stian Westerhus – Didymoi Dreams    
•  Bong – Mana-Yood-Sashai    
•  Divorce – Divorce
• Ictus Ensemble & Mike Patton – Laborintus II     
•  Converge – All we Love we Leave Behind      
• Volcano the Bear – Golden Rhythm/Ink Music 
• Melvins Lite – Freak Puke 
• Asva & Philippe Petit – Empires Will Burn
• Thumpermonkey - Sleep Furiously 
• Getatchew Mekuria + The Ex + Friends – Y'Anbessaw Tezeta 
• Neurosis – Honor Found in Decay
• Man Forever - Pansophical Contract

Right, now the list proper. Onward!

(Spotify playlist here)

10. MOTORPSYCHO AND STÅLE STORLØKKEN

THE DEATH-DEFYING UNICORN

(RUNE GRAMMOFON) 

A last-minute entry, this. I clearly had my bulbous bonce under a sizeable rocky outcropping for the first 11-and-a-half months of 2012, given that this double-disc collection of tunes seemingly custom-built to give me telepathically injected joywibbles went previously unnoticed until mid-December. Heavy, heavy kraut-psych? Chunky, tricksy riffs? Middle-Eastern modes? Prog up, within and out the wazoo? Colossal ambition and sheer joy in the possibilities of sound? All these things and more. Had I heard this earlier and more often before compiling this bloody stupid list, I’ve a feeling The Death Defying Unicorn would be higher placed. As it is, it’ll no doubt be a fixture during 2013.

9. JOHN ZORN

TEMPLARS IN SACRED BLOOD

(TZADIK)

It's a rare Onions for Eyeballs best-of list that doesn't feature at least a tiny smidgen of Mike Patton – this time, in his capacity as ultra-throat for John Zorn’s Moonchild project. Templars is the sixth outing of this ensemble, and arguably, the most subtle and melodic yet. That’s not suggest it’s a dream-pop ballad collection though. Rather, it’s full of stop-start bass/drum interplay courtesy of Trevor Dunn and Joey Baron, with unearthly screams, guttural growls and manic demonspeak from Patton, layered with John Medeski’s shimmering keys. It’s a great suite, beautifully composed by Zorn and performed with considerable occult vigour. Not quite up there with the lean first album or the unfeasibly fiendish Six Litanies for Heliogabalus, but more than smart and fierce enough.

8. THINKING PLAGUE

DECLINE AND FALL

(CUNEIFORM)

Even within the outré world of progressive rock, Thinking Plague’s music is decidedly strange. Extremely technical to the point of perfectly sculpted formlessness, it’s full of outrageously nimble, often discordant guitar lines, brawny, discombobulating cross-rhythms and the scale-vaulting, almost atonal, stream-of-consciousness approach to melody of Elaine Di Falco. Some may find it pretentious, perhaps dry and clinical, but it has an aggressive physicality, love of noise and a sinister edge that will appeal to those who like their weirdness rough, unpredictable and in several time signatures at once. This is only Thinking Plague’s sixth studio album, but also marks their 30th anniversary. Even though the band now has only one original member (guitarist/composer Mike Johnson), it retains its extremely singular, inventive and uncompromising aesthetic – if anything, they’ve only become stronger (and weirder) with time. Decline and Fall is precisely not what its title implies but is, like Thinking Plague’s entire (if modest) back catalogue, utterly essential.

(originally published in Rock-a-Rolla)

7. THE ONE ENSEMBLE

ORIOLE


(PICKLED EGG)

Now on their seventh album, the One Ensemble are led by Daniel Padden of cult experimentalists Volcano the Bear, and feature members of Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra and equally wayward Pickled Egg label mates Tattie Toes. Given the extra-curricular activities of its members, the Ensemble’s sound is unsurprisingly difficult to pin down – somewhere between Eastern European traditional music, modern classical, free improvisation, rural folk ditties and a math-rock band reborn as a chamber quartet. It’s music of contrasts, equally comfortable with the luscious and the wilfully discordant, switching styles on a whim, blending musical signifiers of high cultural seriousness with mischief, e.g. the local news headline ‘MEAT JOBS AXED’ reconfigured into meaningless phonetic garble, or the surreal ritual of ‘Chicken on a Raft’. It’s superb stuff – entirely unique and wildly experimental, but at the same time unpretentious and inviting.

(originally published in Rock-a-Rolla)

6. BANG ON A CAN ALL-STARS

BIG, BEAUTIFUL, DARK AND SCARY

(CANTALOUPE)

Must admit, years ago I’d pretty much written off Bang on a Can before I ever heard a note they played. Something about them suggested the smug, beige, coffee table end of NYC contemporary music. I’d like to state clearly that I’m sorry. I was a fool. An utterly wrong fool that deserves barabaric punishment. I first encountered them live, at a free concert in Tramway, Glasgow, part of the city’s ongoing and excellent Minimal festival. They played several of the compositions that appear on this album, and were absolutely stunning. Bold, exploratory, dynamic and exciting – and, in places, extremely fucking heavy. The next day they played again, this time including a mesmerising version of Philip Glass’s ‘Two Pages’ that was so intense that I’m still not sure I survived it.

But to the point – Big, Beautiful, Dark and Scary is Bang on a Can’s 25th-anniversary album (I interviewed them about this and more for the Feb/March 2012 issue of Muso magazine – read online here), but is full of fresh material, ranging from interpretations of unplayable Conlon Nancarrow compositions to new music from Louis Andriessen and Dirty Projectors’ Dave Longstreth. The best pieces, for me at least, are by BOAC’s founder members, particularly Julia Wolfe’s imposing title track and David Lang’s astonishing ‘Sunray’, which transitions from hazy beauty to relentless algebraic heaviness reminiscent of late-period King Crimson. A superb collection, which has been on constant rotation all year.

5. MESHUGGAH

KOLOSS

(NUCLEAR BLAST)

Someone – I forget who, but all credit to said anonymous individual – once described Meshuggah as a band with one song, which they constantly refine. That’s fine by me. Koloss is a groovier, more straightforward piece than ObZen, which still might be my favourite Shugalbum, but their song is as irresistible as ever. Favourite moment? The way ‘Break Those Bones Whose Sinews Gave it Motion’s tense, spacey intro half glides, half explodes into the collapsing mountain of the main riff… man alive. Even swallowing an iceberg doesn’t produce chills like that.

  

4. EYVIND KANG

THE NARROW GARDEN

(IPECAC)

Works such as Theater of Mineral NADEs, Sweetness of Sickness and last year’s Visible Breath testify to Eyvind Kang’s proficiency at creating evocative, well-considered and at times extreme experimental music. However, some of his strongest work has been his prettiest and most approachable. The Narrow Garden, then, feels like the culmination of his work to date, bringing together his pricklier side with the rich, romantic melodicism that characterised the likes of Live Low to the Earth…, The Story of Iceland and Virginal Co-ordinates.

The painstakingly crafted Arabesques of ‘Forest Sama’i’ and ‘Mineralia’ will delight admirers of Kang’s stint as Secret Chiefs 3’s viola vizier, though these are far more meditative compositions than the heady, manic fusion of Spruance & co. ‘Pure Nothing’, initially pitched somewhere between Christmas carol and English folk ballad before heading eastward, is given an eerie feel by Jessika Kenney’s sublimely detached, spectral vocals. ‘Usnea’ and the title track are more abstract, drone-based, informed by Middle Eastern modes and Ligeti-like dissonance, respectively. And the closing track brings these disparate strands together in spectacular fashion. Over nine-and-a-half glorious minutes, its Sultanate stomp and honeyed melody swell into an uncharacteristically cataclysmic finale of blazing horns and flayed strings­ ­– possibly the most thrillingly visceral music of Kang’s career.

(originally published in Rock-a-Rolla)

3. SWANS

THE SEER

(YOUNG GOD)

Swans.

Yikes.

Much as the live sets around My Father Will Guide Me up a Rope to the Sky were astoundingly good, the album didn’t do that much for me beyond the opening track (itself a pale shadow of the twice-as-long live version). I was therefore intrigued but not overly enthused by the prospect of a new album, especially as it was two hours long and one or two of the mooted guest musicians were not exactly my favourites… [/diplomacy]

However, in what appears to be a recurring theme in this blog post, I was wrong. Oh so very wrong. The wrongest wrong of all the wrongs in all of wrongland. In advance of Swans playing the Arches in Glasgow, I finally got around to listening to The Seer. And it was good. Very good. But way too much to take in in one gulp. The subsequent gig was astonishing – a relentless two-hour assault on brain and body alike, harder, louder, harder, louder. By far the greatest set of the year, no question.

In the wake of that punishment, The Seer made so much more sense. Everything about it defies the obvious, avoids cliché (even Swans clichés) and exudes contradiction. It’s brittle and invulnerable at the same time. It’s deeply psychedelic without hinting at any cultural references associated with that term. It’s bleached-bones stark and lavishly opulent. It’s brutal and tender. Even for an album reliant on a loosely standard guitar-rock sonic template, it sounds like nothing else on Earth. Consider me floored.

2. AMANDA PALMER & THE GRAND THEFT ORCHESTRA

THEATRE IS EVIL                                            

(8 FT RECORDS)

Those who haven’t been living in a cave on a diet of scolopendra and rock sweat will have noticed the vast number of Tweets and blogposts about Amanda Palmer in recent months. Some gushing, some vitriolic. What with the kerfuffle about artist responsibility and new business paradigms, you’d be forgiven for missing the point – that she writes really clever, honest, funny and moving songs. Produced by John Congleton (of The Paper Chase), Theatre is Evil offers big, fiery glam-rock stompers, ’80s synthpop infusions and post-New Wave FM anthems, and a couple of those unbearably poignant confessional piano ballads at which Palmer excels, all delivered with characteristically anaerobic verbiage and unfeasibly vast choruses. And in 'The Grand Theft Intermission', we have a superbly incongruous stomping instrumental that recalls, of all things, the titanic majesty of Ex Orkest. Generally noisier, rawer and more gutsy than its predecessor (Who Killed Amanda Palmer?), this is also hookier, more immediate, and confirms that, like it or not, we’ll all be hearing a lot more about AFP for a long time yet.

(originally published in Rock-a-Rolla)

1. SCOTT WALKER

BISH BOSCH

(4AD)

Given that Scott rarely puts a cloven hoof wrong as far as I’m concerned, it’s no surprise that this should be no. 1. Even though it came out late in the year, I knew from first listen that it was something special, even in the wake of its extraordinary predecessor, The Drift.

In fact, my choice of Scott in the top slot is the principal reason for the disgusting tardiness of this post. I’ve reviewed it twice in print – once for Rock-a-Rolla, once for The List ­– but neither were satisfactory. Bish Bosch is so extraordinary, so vast, so ingenious, so ridiculous, so bizarre, so powerful, so breath-taking, that it can’t even vaguely be encapsulated in a short review. So I felt I had no choice but to write a new, more thorough one for this blog. But I knew it’d have to be at least 5,000 words to do it justice. And, other, much better writers – Frances Morgan in The Wire, Joe Kennedy on The Quietus – had written about Bish Bosch with a clarity of vision, depth of insight and beauty of phrase that I can’t possibly approach. So I put it off. And put it off. And then put it off again. And here we are, well into 2013.

Long story short: I’m chickening out. And I have no shame about that. Well, a bit.

TOTAL K.O.

In celebration of the release of Kayo Dot's new album Gamma Knife, here are three futile attempts to capture in words what this most confusing and indefinable of bands sounds like.

KAYO DOT

BLUE LAMBENCY DOWNWARD

(HYDRA HEAD)

A man with a defiantly unique and increasingly impenetrable muse, Toby Driver returns with Kayo Dot album number three. Blue Lambency Downward’s ten-minute title track makes the intention less than clear right from the start with a mordant shuffle, somewhere between spare modal jazz and Gregorian chant, in which even the most tangible structures are made of smoke. The first ‘solid’ moment arrives during ‘Clelia Walking’: a brief eruption of Crimson-esque battery surrounded by sombre strings and weightless bassoons.

There’s very little precedent for Kayo Dot. They have the air, and very occasionally the aesthetic, of a left-field experimental metal band (whatever you take that to mean). However, your angle of listening may suggest jazz (wine bar or free), prog, contemporary classical or even ambient. It’s mostly about constantly shifting planes of space through which beautiful, discordant elements meander, sometimes converging in violent catharsis – see the ‘Awkard Wind Wheel’s focused technical abstraction and terrifying clarity of vision.

Although Driver’s wafting vocal has been lazily compared to Jeff Buckley, the closest thing you’ll find, in feel and tone, if not in genre, is Buckley Senior, Tim – particularly the albums Starsailor and Lorca. They too have an approach to rhythm, melody and songwriting that’s fluid, near-shapeless. The genius of both Tim and Toby is their ability to shape this ephemeral, elusive aesthetic into compelling compositions. Even more bewildering, complex and vague than its predecessors, which is really saying something, Blue Lambency Downward is exactly the kind of album that will bewitch or repel.

KAYO DOT

COYOTE

(HYDRA HEAD)

Some bands really do defy easy encapsulation. Kayo Dot make music of a perpetually shifting kind, a writhing, transfiguring sound that possesses elements of prog and jazz and avant-garde composition and art-rock, but inhabits none of them and all of them at once. Their fourth album, Coyote, is a single five-part composition, the lyrics and narrative arc of which were written by artist and close friend Yuko Sueta in the final stages of terminal breast cancer. Given that, lines such as ‘Help me, I’m disappearing’, delivered via Toby Driver’s brittle howl, carry a night-unbearable weight.

Though micro-composed to the point of OCD, Coyote is remarkable not only for its complexity, but for its breathtaking fluidity, the way the wildly disparate moods and methods metamorphose into each other imperceptibly. KD’s former metal leanings have been utterly expunged these days, but it’s notable that they’re just as forceful without them. A greater emphasis on brass adds gravitas and shimmer to the jazzier passages, at times redolent of ’70s Miles, which at any second may flow into doomy, neo-gothic ambience, bursts of kaleidoscopic prog that blossom like fireworks, or an agonising trawl through clattering shaped chaos. More powerful, both sonically and emotionally, than its wonderful but nebulous predecessor, Blue Lambency Downward, this is a unique, draining experience, as immersive as it is ineffable. 

KAYO DOT – STEREO, GLASGOW

With half their number detained by customs and stranded in France, Kayo Dot are struggling against adversity tonight. Unable to perform a full-band set, the stripped-down lineup of Terran Olson on keyboard and clarinet, Mia Matsumiya on violin and Toby Driver on guitar opt to perform selections from the Tartar Lamb side project. Even more so than KD, this is highly abstract stuff – very gentle, dauntingly subtle but highly complex. Those only half paying attention could feasibly believe that it’s mere improvised wafting, but every single moment is clearly painstakingly pre-planned. Notes wrestle for the right to emerge from nothingness, or pass through each other, intangible. It’s music placed halfway between nirvanic contentment and the chalky ravings of a calculus professor. After the previous bands’ sensory assaults, KD could be seen as an anticlimax in terms of energy, yet their stillness makes them all the more compelling.

(all reviews originally published in Rock-a-Rolla magazine)

An assortment of things that have pleased me greatly: part 1

As an old, old man (ish), I’m liberated from the societal pressure to keep up with the modern world. A shameful admission for a part-time music journalist, perhaps, but I mostly find myself listening to a lot of old(er) stuff. This year, as well as the daily Cardiacs fix (over the past decade or so they’ve become my favourite band. I consider the genius of Tim Smith to have few, if any, musical peers. And I will fight with clubs and spittle those who say otherwise), there’s been lots of Toru Takemtisu, Pierre Boulez, Zakir Hussain, Chet Baker, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Strapping Young Lad, Art Blakey, Naif Agby, Melvins, Arvo Pärt, Sammy Davis Jr, Circle, Tool, Philip Glass, Ravi Shankar, Olivier Messiaen, Alim Qasmiov and Oum Kalthoum – and a considerable amount of time spent with 2008’s Who Killed Amanda Palmer? (of whom, possibly, more anon).

However, in amongst all that, I have heard some new things. Not in strict order, but roughly numerical (the first three are my clear highlights), here’s the first ten of my favourite new albums of 2011. More to follow next week. Maybe.

Handy-dandy accompanying Spotify playlist: Onions for Eyeballs' Best of 2011.

Unless otherwise indicated, all reviews originally appeared in Rock-a-Rolla magazine.

THE BOOK OF KNOTS – GARDEN OF FAINTING STARS

(IPECAC)

After maritime travel and mid-western industry, the third loosely conceptual album from The Book of Knots deals with the endgame of space travel and the death of dream. Here, the band’s somewhat abstracted, subconscious art rock is more focused and fully realised than ever before. ‘Microgravity’, with an appropriate launchpad chorus from Carla Kihlstedt, even feels like a loose approximation of a pop song, albeit built from misshapen power chords and jury-rigged electronics. As ever, myriad guest vocalists and musicians colour the core members’ compositions. Blixa Bargeld offers a queasy narrative full of entomological nausea and jet lag. Elyas Khan and Mike Patton turn in two of the highlights, the former offering lysergic quasi-qawwali to the ether, the latter heading skyward over the album’s sludgiest sounds. Redolent of one of the Flaming Lips’ more cosmically outré moments, ‘Lissajous Orbit’ is a hyper-dramatic realisation of the terrors of intergalactic isolation. ‘Obituary for the Future’, which beautifully offsets Kihlstedt’s bitter-honeyed voice against a palm-muted metal chug, forms a final, tragic lament for humanity’s interstellar aspirations.

KILLL – LIVE

(FYSISK FORMAT)

Comprising members of JR Ewing, Jaga Jazzist and No Place to Hide, Norway’s KILLL have been in existence since 2003, but solely as a live entity, never releasing anything until this live CD & DVD. Their self-described oeuvre consists of ‘stroboscopic avant-metal’, which is about as perfect and succinct a description as it gets. It’s at once maximal and minimal – ultra-lethal no-flab precision riffs, massive barbed sonics, cybernetic pummel and maddening repetition result in something quite shockingly intense, even for the most jaded of aural masochists. Factor in the DVD’s seizure-inducing op-art visuals, the effect of which is like using a heavy machine gun to fire every Bridget Riley print that ever existed directly into your optic nerve, and you’ve got a blueprint for total sensory overload. Absolutely stunning, in both the superlative and concussive senses.

TATTIE TOES
– TURNIP FAMINE

(PICKLED EGG)

Glasgow’s Tattie Toes are one of the more idiosyncratic bands to inhabit this flimsy plane of existence. In theory, their blending of elements makes little sense – a stridently proggy post-punk rhythm section, a richly mournful or exuberant violin, and an outrageously chameleonic Basque Country chanteuse, as adept at soaring operatics as she is mellifluous melodies and caustic animalistic shrieks. Imagine Yma Sumac and Lajko Felix jamming with the Dog-faced Hermans and you’re a quarter of the way there. Yet there’s nothing forced about this collision of styles – rather, it sounds like a respectfully edgy update of the centuries-old traditional music of an as-yet undiscovered Mediterranean island nation. Compared to the wayward raucousness and visual drama of Tattie Toes’ live set, their debut album is relatively spare and airy, but no less bold and sumptuous. By turns boisterous, sensuous, explosive and delicate, this is a unique and joyful experience from start to finish.

ASVA – PRESENCES OF ABSENCES

(IMPORTANT)

Asva III turns out to be both simpler and far more complex than its predecessors. Lineup and sound alike are pared back, the former doomy crunch largely supplanted by an emphasis on organs, texture and shifting modes. ‘A Bomb in that Suitcase’ features ecclesiastical reeds, sustained bass tones, vocals alternately liminal and choral. As the drone becomes all-enveloping, drums kick in, the chorale ascends, shapes are hewn from solid bass, dissonant horns join the fray and it unfurls like an embittered rose.

Continuing the bicameral Asvic tradition of offsetting impervious music against a vulnerable human voice, the delicate spell of ‘Birds’ is woven from Toby Driver’s withered, anguished falsetto. The 24-minute centrepiece, ‘Presences of Absences’ is built from organ drones so thick you could race rhinos on them, with intermittent doom stabs that recall Asva’s previous outings. Driver appears again at his most ethereal, floating above the music, harmonising with his own ghosts. The closer, the delicate, labyrinthine ‘New World Order Rising’, finds Asva at their most liturgical, ambiguous emotions ebbing and flowing as it inches towards a dynamic climax with all the haste of a glacier. Intricate, thoughtful and muscular, Presences of Absences is a pivotal album for Asva, one that sees them shedding some of their armour, but all the stronger for it.

MASTER MUSICIANS OF BUKKAKE – TOTEM THREE

(IMPORTANT)

The final instalment of MMOB’s triptych of ersatz ethno-drone is less oppressive than part I, not as pretty as part II, but the most immediate of them all. ‘Bardo Sidpa’ may consist of great washes of truculent gamelan-tinted doom, but this belligerent hum segues into ‘In the Twilight of Kali Yuga’, a beautifully bright, spry and wiry piece of virtuoso raga slink. With its New Age flutery and pineal-gland-caressing cultish chant, you might expect to find ‘Illuminating the Ten Directions’ playing as you stock up on Nitraj and crystal woo, were it not for the crushing guitars. ‘Prophecy of the White Camel’ hits a hypnotic Saharan blues groove – a welcome non-surprise to find Alan Bishop wailing here – and the sweet, quasi-medieval melodies of ‘6000 Years of Darkness’ are contrasted with ‘Reign of Quantity’s robovoices and bubbling body horror. Alas, this glorious and ambitious trilogy ends with ‘Failed Future’ – a miniature John Carpenter homage that’s little more than a throwaway gag. But then, as their name suggests, and as with their spiritual forbears Sun City Girls, self-defeating humour is part of the package, and doesn’t diminish their essential beauty.

MIKE PATTON – THE SOLITUDE OF PRIME NUMBERS

(IPECAC)

After A Perfect Place and Crank: High Voltage, Patton returns with his third solo soundtrack project. Far closer in spirit and tone to the elegant, atmospheric former than the gonzoid latter, this score accompanies both Saverio Cotanzo’s film and the source novel by Paolo Giordano. Devoid of their cinematic and literary context, these 16 prime-numbered tracks – some melodic and beautiful, others murderously chilling – make for a subtle, impressionistic experience. There are certainly elements here that can be readily identified – a Mediterranean feel for melody that’s redolent of Mondo Cane’s source material, a Herrmann approach to lavish string arrangements, Penderecki-inspired looming discord, Carpenter synth pulses… But, as ever, it’s the way in which he draws on, manipulates and recontextualises his influences that makes Patton a distinctive musician in his own right.

What’s interesting about The Solitude of Prime Numbers is the way that a man known for his vocal abilities is gaining confidence in his other voice, as an instrumental composer. Where A Perfect Place was very much in the ‘main theme plus variations’ school of soundtrack composition, this is a more subtly woven work, in which narrative elements that recur do so by stealth. That makes for a less immediate work than his other two soundtracks, but at the same time a more accomplished and rewarding one.

MOMBU – MOMBU

(SUBSOUND)

Mombu: being the fusing of Zu’s Gondorian sax behemoth Luca Mai with serial drum abuser Antonio Zitarelli of avant-jazz types Neo. As you’d expect, it’s supremely heavy and outrageously adept stuff, mainly occupying the bowel-battering end of the spectrum. OK, so there’s no getting away from the fact that it can sometimes sound pretty close to Zu’s manic, jazz-infused prog-hardcore with the bass removed. However, here, Mai’s sax is often double-, even triple-tracked or more, giving Mombu more than enough dynamism, depth and sheer sonic muscle. And the duo are at their most distinctive and effective when their Ethiopian influence comes to the fore – present most explicitly in Zitarelli’s hand drums and other percussive varieties, but also in Mai’s forays into melodic lines redolent of Getachew Mekuria or Mulatu Astatqé. If Mombu’s self-description as ‘Afro-grind’ doesn’t make this connection explicitly and irresistibly clear, then the brain-hugging polyrhythmic assault of ‘Regla De Ocha’ will.

MOGWAI – HARDCORE WILL NEVER DIE, BUT YOU WILL

(ROCK ACTION)

Mogwai’s seventh album finds them both delving deeper into familiar modes and exploring fresh ideas with inspiring confidence. The more traditional stuff is as big and beautiful as ever: ‘Death Rays’ is utterly lovely but comfortable, a sombre, yearning instrumental of the type that they can pull off while unconscious, while the sparse piano and mournful violin of ‘Too Raging To Cheers’ collapse into a vast, cascading riff worthy of Harvey Milk. But there’s a new energy here too. ‘Mexican Grand Prix’ is highly atypical, a dreamy Stereolab pulse with heavily processed robo-whispers. ‘How to be a Werewolf’ and the optimistic ‘George Square Thatcher Death Party’ also share this spry, motorik vibe, while ‘San Pedro’s entwined guitars rack up more BPMs than any other song in the band’s history. But the clear highlight is ‘Rano Pano’. It starts loud, gets louder, and has a peculiar melodic, pseudo-mystical charge, its fuzzy central riff a sublime, extended mantra that could have been lifted from a gamelan session. Mogwai albums usually end well, and this is no exception, as ‘You're Lionel Richie’ swells into a monolithic doom dirge that ends about 30 minutes too soon.

REMEMBER REMEMBER – THE QUICKENING

(ROCK ACTION)

Formerly one man called Graeme, a loop pedal, a guitar, a glockenspiel and a box full of toys and trinkets, Remember Remember is now a seven-piece band. It’s not just the line-up that’s grown, but the breadth and depth of the music too. The Quickening builds on the debut’s strengths (grand melodic statements, lavish sonics, carefully woven patterns, slow-burn dynamics) and adds big live-band arrangements and considerable emotional weight. ‘Ocean Potion’ is the most perfect realisation of the new sound, a darkly magical nine-minute epic that blossoms into an unexpectedly proggy, rhythmically askew long-form riff. Elsewhere, the solo piano piece ‘A Larger Demon’ stands out by virtue of daunting bare-bones simplicity, while the achingly sad ‘One Happier’ culminates in some unbearably poignant flamenco-style strumming from acoustic virtuoso RM Hubbert. Wonderful, instantly appealing stuff, but for all its elevated ambition, still unmistakably the work of a guy who finds delight in overlaying sweet melodies with the utterances of a squeaky shark.

COLIN STETSON – NEW HISTORY WARFARE VOL. 2: JUDGES

(CONSTELLATION)

Exactly how Colin Stetson does what he does is a mystery for seasoned sax detectives. He proudly proclaims that his tunes are one-take live recordings, with no overdubs or similar studio shenanigans. Yet this one man and his horn are capable of sounding like a polyphonic analogue synth, a wailing vocalist, a bassist and a drummer, all at the same time. Percussive, multi-layered and supremely dense, his sound is utterly compelling – his perpetual motion breath control alone is enough to induce hypoxia in the listener. But it’s no mere technical flashfest. His compositions are as captivating as his playing, by turns aggressive, playful, sombre and exhilarating. The unforgiving wall of brass is occasionally accompanied by the larynxes of Laurie Anderson and My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Woden – the former, authoritative, lyrical and imposing; the latter, wounded and crystalline. Stetson has created a uniquely involving sound world here, one that reconfigures elements of jazz, gospel, art-rock, heavy drone and even vintage electronica with just a single instrument and a herculean pair of lungs.

obligatory fin-de-siècle list-making behaviour

Here be my top 10 albums of the past 12 months, most of which I reviewed in print (reproduced below). Big thanks to Rock-a-Rolla for letting me splurge my nonsense in their pages on a regular basis.

Tracks from many of the albums below, plus some other bits’n’bobs, are featured on this here Spotify playlist.

10) Kayo Dot – Coyote

Some bands really do defy easy encapsulation. Kayo Dot make music of a perpetually shifting kind, a writhing, transfiguring sound that possesses elements of prog and jazz and avant-garde composition and art-rock, but inhabits none of them and all of them at once. Their fourth album, Coyote, is a single five-part composition, the lyrics and narrative arc of which were written by artist and close friend Yuko Sueta in the final stages of terminal breast cancer. Given that, lines such as ‘Help me, I’m disappearing’, delivered via Toby Driver’s brittle howl, carry a night-unbearable weight.

Though micro-composed to the point of OCD, Coyote is remarkable not only for its complexity, but for its breathtaking fluidity, the way the wildly disparate moods and methods metamorphose into each other imperceptibly. KD’s former metal leanings have been utterly expunged these days, but it’s notable that they’re just as forceful without them. A greater emphasis on brass adds gravitas and shimmer to the jazzier passages, at times redolent of ’70s Miles, which at any second may flow into doomy, neo-gothic ambience, bursts of kaleidoscopic prog that blossom like fireworks, or an agonising trawl through clattering shaped chaos. More powerful, both sonically and emotionally, than its wonderful but nebulous predecessor, Blue Lambency Downward, this is a unique, draining experience, as immersive as it is ineffable.

(from Rock-a-Rolla magazine)

9) The Ex – Catch My Shoe

As this year’s 30 compilation showed, The Ex’s creativity shows no signs of fizzling out as they enter their fourth decade. Catch My Shoe is their first album sans founding vocalist GW Sok, but new guy Arnold de Boer makes for a painless transition. First single ‘Maybe I was the Pilot’, with exuberant squalls from incomparable trumpetfiend Roy Paci, is a brash opener – its long-form build typical of this band in 2010: jagged, angular riff builds via repetitive drive into an ecstatic frenzy. ‘Bicycle Illusion’ is similarly exceptional, the melodies reminiscent of the band’s infatuation with Ethiopian sounds circa Moa Anbessa, the climax swollen with rambunctiousness. Drummer Kat voices ‘Eolyeo’, an Eastern European folk ditty that weaves together the celebratory and the sombre in an exquisite way. The blazing first half gives way to a simmering third quarter, but ‘Life Whining’ and the uneasy, discordant ‘24 Problems’ constitute a volatile finale.

(from Rock-a-Rolla magazine)

8) Killing Joke – Absolute Dissent

Their 14th album finds Killing Joke both reinvigorated and somewhat nostalgic – understandably so, as this is the first reappearance of the original Jaz/Geordie/Youth/Ferguson lineup since 1982. The title track is 100% classic Joke, barging straight in with a chorus like an unexpected quarry, guitars like mating bulldozers, talk of chemtrails and mind control – a call to arms with disco hi-hats. The heavier tunes perpetuate the metallic bent of the last two albums, especially ‘This World Hell’s brutal, mechanical one-note riff, chorus fuelled by double-bass rolls and flamethrower vocal. No one else sings like Jaz Coleman. His apocalyptic roar sounds like a man vomiting up a radiator, or the last drop of life being squeezed out of the last mammoth. The super-heavy ‘The Great Cull’ finds him giving full vent as he predicts and revels in Armageddon over sublimely chunky riffs. Anthemic, filthy and uncompromising, ‘Endgame’ is an instant classic, with almost a touch of boogie to its shuffling extinction lilt.

It’s not all brutality: ‘European Super State’, a celebration of the EU project, is a return to KJ’s dancier/more electronic side, sidelined since the mid-’90s. Though still noisy and awkward, ‘In Excelsis’s arena-filling chorus is extravagantly poppy, while ‘The Raven King’, a song for late bassist Paul Raven, is comparatively delicate and beautiful. Given KJ’s clear influence on Broadrick, it’s pleasing that the soaring ‘Honour the Fire’ sounds exactly like a faster Jesu, complete with surprisingly vulnerable streak.

Elsewhere, the choppy riff and skipping beats of ‘Fresh Fever from the Skies’ seem to come straight from What’s THIS For…!; the rough, aggressive ‘Depthcharge’ recalls the Extremities era; and ‘Here Comes the Singularity’s lean and wiry riff summons the early days by deliberately invoking ‘Eighties’ (or Nirvana’s ‘Come as You Are’ if you prefer…). In a final bit of broken nostalgia, ‘Ghosts of Ladbroke Grove’ harks back not only to the band’s geographic origins, but also the dub sound of their first EP. Absolute Dissent feels like a definitive Joke document, an encapsulation of (almost) all of their eras and manifestations in one handy, crushing package. Undeniably strong and vital in its own right, but also a great place for dawdlers to jump on board.

(from Rock-a-Rolla magazine)

7) Master Musicians of Bukkake – Totem Two

Part two of the trilogy from the finest band of exploratory musicians ever to be regrettably and incongruously named after a degrading act of group misogyny. Anyway… Totem Two bathes in much the same scrying pool as its predecessor – long-form quasi-mystical and texturally sumptuous ethno-dronescapes with a doom-derived aesthetic – but is blessed with greater dramatic power. Opener ‘Bardo Chonyid/Master of All Visible Shapes’ rises out of dust devils; plague bells chime, a warning horn sounds, guitars strike and slither. ‘Perde Kaldirma’ brings the dubious gift of panpipes, but does so in an instinctive way that complements its hypnotic funereal dirge. But it’s ‘Coincidental Oppositorum’ and ‘Patmos’ that are the most radical and captivating, built on sweeping, time-lost melodies, epic in scale, atavistic in their beauty, reminiscent of Eyvind Kang’s boldest, most sensuous work. It’s here that MMB’s curtain of darkness falls away and they embrace the purity of the sublime.

(from Rock-a-Rolla magazine)

6) Melvins – The Bride Screamed Murder

The third manifestation of the Nth incarnation of the thing known as Melvins brings mostly refinement, but hints of revolution. Half of the tracks continue to build on the principles established by the Big Business-enhanced line-up on (A) Senile Animal and Nude With Boots. For virgin ears, that means knotty, reptilian guitar lines; muscle-bound twin drum attack by Dale and Coady; and refreshingly inviting harmony-saturated vocals from Buzz and Jared. The average tempo and pop saturation of Melvins has increased significantly since the Big Business boys came to town. Buzz’s crispy latterday guitar sound is even more sharp and sprightly, especially on the spiralling, companion pieces ‘Electric Flower’ and ‘Lighten Up’, the latter soaring oddly like Jane’s Addiction if Perry Farrell were two burly men.

However, the strongest tracks are the most anomalous and experimental. Irresistible opener ‘The Water Glass’ starts out in a tangle of suitably crushing riffage, but gives way to few minutes’ Full Metal Jacket-style drill sergeant call and response. Layered vocals and cavernous effects give super-heavy crawl ‘I'll Finish You Off’ a curious high church feel, an impression cemented by queasy, high-pitched vocals from menacing altar boys.

The highlight is arguably the treacle-paced version of The Who’s ‘My Generation’, seemingly sung by a gang of Muppet weasels in an Anderson shelter. Where the original was fuelled by brash hedonism, this sinister dirge resembles a recruitment anthem for sociopaths. As the riff cycles, ever slower and more distant, enveloped by muffled noise, it’s difficult to shake the feeling that your bathysphere has been cut loose and you’re heading for the ocean floor. The closing ‘P.G. x 3’ is one of this band’s strangest works – a surreal collage of suffocating drones, funereal a cappella folk, sensuous guitar resonance, and a lonely child reciting numbers in a hyperbaric chamber. Beautifully balanced between the anticipated and the aberrant, The Bride Screamed Murder is the sound of Melvins continuing to ignore your idea of what they’re supposed to be.

(from Rock-a-Rolla magazine)

5) Zs – New Slaves

It might sound odd, given that this is at no.5, but I’m still uncertain as to whether, as a cohesive album, New Slaves is really that good. For the most part, it’s an interesting enough bit of rumbling cacophony and improv and drone. But. But. It more than earns its place here on the basis of one piece at its centre, the truly astonishing 20-minute title track – a relentless, clanking, genre-dodging atonal grind that smudges the borders between freeform improvisation, ultra-tight, complex pre-composition and dogged, maddening repetition in a way that’s thoroughly unsettling and cortex-shatteringly brilliant.

4) Mike Patton – Mondo Cane

It’s easy to see why Mike Patton was drawn to these 1960s Italian pop tunes. Most share the same heightened, almost cartoonish sense of drama that has characterised the best of his own work, from the sculpted ultra-dynamics of Fantômas to the bombastic power of Faith No More. And of course, their octave-bounding melodies allow him to administer a good seeing-to to those fans who’ve been yearning for him to really cut loose and sing.

‘Il Cielo in Una Stanza’, which eagle-eared cinephiles may spot lurking in the background of Goodfellas, is a simmering opener, bubbling up out of storm clouds and syncopated ‘la la la’s and blossoming into lavish histrionics. ‘Ore d'Amore’s swooping melodrama features fuzzy guitars and sublime moments of swelling rallentando – this one really pushes the larynx too, the verse starting deep in the belly and soaring straight to the stratosphere. Accompanied only by an acoustic guitar, Patton excels himself on ‘Scalinatella’, a sombre heartquake whose strength lies in its understatement. Probably the strongest vocal performance here, though easily the least flashy.

It’s mostly a relatively down-tempo, explicitly seductive collection, though there are exceptions. ‘Urlo Negro’ is a frankly ridiculous song consisting of a stomping riff and a whole lot of throat shredding. Patton plays the sleazy carnival barker on ‘Che Notte!’, a storming bit of Mediterranean swing driven by Roy Paci’s voluptuous trumpet.

Regular touchstone Morricone is represented by ‘Deep Down’, one of his pop outings, though it feels relatively lightweight, both within the context of this album and in relation to his other work. ‘Senza Fine’ brings things to a suitably grandiose close, its delicate sentiment and rich melodies leading to a huge, emotive climax.

These songs are essentially orchestral live recordings tweaked in the studio, with mixed results. The electronics and overdubs and effects are mostly well-woven and subtle, but can at times be excessive – the multi-layered vocals on ‘Urlo Negro’ and the ‘singing in a tin cupboard’ effect on ‘Senza Fine’, for example, are obtrusive and distracting. It also feels a little slight, clocking in at just over 35 minutes. But these are minor quibbles, and shouldn’t detract from a lush, bold, hugely entertaining and often genuinely moving labour of love.

(from Rock-a-Rolla magazine)

NB: Having been familiar with the Mondo Cane live bootlegs, I found the production a little much at first. I’ve since revised my opinion, and now think it’s a beautifully rendered and insanely detailed production job that reveals more and more with every listen.

3) Cleric – Regressions

As statements of intent go, starting your debut album with a 20-minute splurge of vile noise, unsettling sound sculpture and around 50 insanely intricate riffs entwined in an orgy of bones and blood is a pretty bold one. ‘Allotriophagy’ may just be the least welcoming opening track of all time – but it sets the tone. Aside from a handful of ambient interludes and field recordings, Regressions offers unceasingly confrontational, staggeringly dense avant-grind death-thrash and patchwork brutality from start to finish. It’s relentless yet restless – any given moment may bring precise low-end polymetrics, mathematic speedfreakery, doom battery or sheets of rancid guitar noise.

Cleric are pushing extremes of both invention and intensity, but this is no mere mosaic of Guitar Institute exercises. It flows seamlessly and hints at a coherent but impressionistic narrative thread, a painful backstory that the ever-shifting barrage consistently tries and fails to obliterate via extreme, futile catharsis. It’s not until the haunting piano-led coda of the final track that the splenetic rage subsides and a kind of stoic acceptance is reached. Stunning, on all levels.

(from Rock-a-Rolla magazine)

2) Shining – Blackjazz

While 2007’s Grindstone was a wildly eclectic genre splurge, Blackjazz (despite the title) is very definitely a rock album – albeit a supremely heavy, unceasingly brutal and forward-looking one. ‘The Madness & the Damage Done’ establishes the new paradigm of maximum intensity with buzz-ravaged, digitally tooled stop-start riffs, avant-math-thrash beats and distorted vocal rage. Then ‘Fisheye’, ‘Exit Sun’ and ‘HEALTER SKELTER’ each take turns to hit new heights of dextrous, off-balance bludgeon. But it’s with the total system detonation of ‘Blackjazz Deathtrance’ that Shining really outdo themselves (and everyone else) – 11 minutes of perilously exciting hyper-speed 22nd-century industrial technoprog chaos metal that sounds increasingly unfeasible with every listen. At album’s end, Enslaved’s Grutle Kjellson rends his throat during a charred, mutilated version of King Crimson’s ‘21st-century Schizoid Man’, the fuzzed-out bass notes of which could arouse humpback whales. Astonishingly focused and potent, Blackjazz is what it sounds like when a tirelessly questing band finally finds its identity – and it turns out to be a shark-eyed killing machine from an impossible future.

(from Rock-a-Rolla magazine)

see also: http://thequietus.com/articles/03754-shining-blackjazz-album-review

1) Marina & the Diamonds – The Family Jewels

So here we are. Much as I’d love to gain hardcore metal/experimental/noise points by putting something truly crushing and brutal at no.1, the truth is that by far my most listened-to, scrutinised and adored album of the year was a collection of eccentric and super-catchy British pop.

Marina was first brought to my attention in 2009 by Caroline McKenzie, who posted a YouTube link for ‘Mowgli’s Road’ on Twitter. I was at first intrigued and then entranced by this strange but urgent tune, a stomping, bizarre paean to the difficulties of self-realisation, delivered by a brash, idiosyncratic voice. Though no Beyonce-style vocal virtuoso, Marina clearly revels in exploring the limits of her distinctive, expressive voice. It’s a versatile instrument, mahogany in its resonant depths, shimmering at its apex, punctuated by odd ticks and purrs and bleats and yelps and a restless (rootless) accent.

The album came out in February this year, and never left my ears for long. It packs some pretty bizarre, unlikely and incongruous ideas and huge amounts of detail into irresistible three-minute pop songs in a way that’s utterly fascinating. Every single song here sounds like a colossal hit single, but no two sound remotely alike. Yet The Family Jewels also has an indefinably cohesive character. Every tune, be it the Moroder bass rumble and arena-rock chorus of ‘Shampain’, the Sparks-esque giddy absurdities of ‘Hermit the Frog’, the heartbreakingly empowered vulnerability of ‘I am not a Robot’ or the pained elegance of ‘Numb’, clearly springs from a single imagination.

One attribute that sets Marina apart from those to whom she’s most often lazily compared (Florence, La Roux, etc. (’cause female musicians must only ever be compared to other female musicians. IT’S THE LAW)) is her lack of self-consciousness. Where others convey lofty insouciance and a need to attain gravitas, she’s not afraid to be silly (‘Mowgli’s Road’, ‘Hermit the Frog’), almost embarrassingly frank (‘Guilty’, ‘Obsessions’) or avowedly ruthless in her pursuit of success (‘Oh No’, ‘Numb’). At times she’s even kind of crass and obnoxious (‘Hollywood’, ‘Girls’), but this only serves to ground her songs, to establish them as rounded whole. The first lines of the first song of her debut album (‘Are You Satisfied?’) talk about signing her record deal, creating an infinite self-referential loop that suggests she didn’t even exist prior to the recording process. Hollowing yourself is hardly the most ingratiating way to announce yourself to the world, but with hindsight, it makes perfect sense and introduces a creative spirit in a state of flux. Though clearly aimed squarely at the mainstream, this is no bland, glossy product assembled by committee, but a peculiarly charismatic warts-and-all patchwork.

Who knows where Marina will go from here? On the one hand, I hope she’ll disregard the need to maintain the success she’s already achieved and do something really way out, unfettered and uncommercial – yet it’s exactly the tension between her wild imagination and the pop format that makes so many facets of The Family Jewels so captivating.

Finally, some other goodnesses from this year, in no particular order, almost any of which could have been in the top 10:

Swans – My Father will Guide Me up a Rope to the Sky

Foetus – Hide

Sun City Girls – Funeral Mariachi

Extra Life – Made Flesh

Marnie Stern – Marnie Stern

Carla Kihlstedt/Matthias Bossi/Shahzad Ismaily – Causing a Tiger

Prince Rama – Shadow Temple

Richard Youngs – Inceptor

Watain – Lawless Darkness

Janelle Monae – Archandroid

Bardo Pond – Bardo Pond

Black Sun – Twilight of the Gods

The Ex – 30

Andrew Paine – Chapel of Stars

Hey Colossus & the Van Halen Time Capsule – Eurogrumble

Alistair Crosbie – Sad Faces of the Moon

Rashomon – The Finishing Line

Acid Mothers Temple & Stearica – AMT invade Stearica

Richard Youngs/Andrew Paine – Robot

Harvey Milk – A Small Turn of Human Kindness

Mogwai – Special Moves

John Zorn – Ipsissimus