It’s been awhile since I did a end of year top ten album list. Since I’ve been taking a break from making music it makes sense that I’d want to help push what I’ve been listening to onto all of you. So here it is in no real particular order:
Ghost Dubs – Damaged
German Producer/Bass Specialist Michael Fiedler has created something here that feels like a mix between Ritchie Hawtin and The Bug’s works, but is neither. It’s appropriate considering that this is the first release on The Bug’s PRESSURE label. The mix of Dub bass and noise elements are so well crafted that it feels like they’ve always been together. Shades of Kim Gordon’s recent work but coming from a very different direction. Simultaneously booty shaking and trance-like, this album is a beast. Calling Fiedler a Bass Specialist is no joke, either. I played this record in the living room and it had my Sub rattling the entire house in ways that nothing had done previously. I wanted more of this from the first track and I’ll be hard pressed to not try to emulate it in my own work.
Fallen – Midnight Poems for Lost Seasons and Cripple Hearts
I’ve been paying attention to Lorenzo Bracaloni’s The Child of the Creek/Fallen for sometime now and he has never disappointed. The work always progresses and never stagnates. Some artists find what works and stick to it until the bus is firmly in the ditch. This is not how Lorenzo works.
Released on Icelandic label Moatun 7 in March of this year, it’s been the album I come back to more and more as the year went on. Sparce percussion that sounds like it was recorded in a cave, layered underneath solid synth, guitar, and piano motifs, all blended with field recordings. This is the album I keep coming back to over and over again this year.
My Bright Eyes, My Brightest Sight for example has light percussive electric piano almost mimicking vibraphone (I once loved playing Alesis vibe samples on a MIDI guitar so this hit nicely), mixed with piano and slight flourishes of harsher synth lines over top of a gently lapping shoreline. The weave of the piano and vibes along with the vocal that eventually joins in is so beautiful it nearly brought tears to my eyes the first time I heard it.
Kim Gordon – The Collective
Much has been said of Kim Gordon’s solo work post Sonic Youth. This and 2019’s “No Home Record” are well above anything done by her former bandmates post break up, as far as I’m concerned. Knowing that these albums were written and recorded in a studio with producer Justin Raisen, I wondered how these songs would translate to a live setting, though. I found out in a graveyard on Chicago’s north side. Boy did I find out. It’s taking a spot in the top 5 shows of my entire life.
Chat Pile – Cool World
I’ve seen this hit a lot of other peoples best of lists and for good reason. From the outset this bands take on rock brutalism has been compared to The Melvins, Nirvana, and The Jesus Lizard, but to my ears I hear more Dazzling Killmen and Milkmine than any of those other bands. Their first full length album “God’s Country” was intensely fresh and fairly well recorded for a first album. This latest second full length effort is definitely more matured. Still brutal, but now adding some hooks that almost come off as goth-like (think Christian Death or TSOL). And the bass tone on this album is to die for. It just punches you in the face at every turn. There is a more focused rhythm here as well that would make Phil Puleo of Cop Shoot Cop proud. Chat Pile are the new face of solipsism in America. Bar none.
The Mesthetics and James Brandon Lewis
This third Mesthetics record is literally what I was hoping for with the second effort “Anthropocosmic Nest”. As much as I liked that record, it still felt like a half measure. Almost as if Brendan Canty and Joe Lally seemed a little hesitant to kick open the doors and throw the ghost of Fugazi out of them. Avant-garde guitarist Anthony Pirog did a great job trying to help you forget his rhythm sections previous work but alas he was all alone. On this latest effort he’s not and it’s all the better for it. This is not a full on jazz record by any means but is far closer to a jazz fusion record than the previous effort. I want more of this from them in the future.
The Urusula Gunn – Prayers Without Peace – Peace Without Pain
Stumbled on this one on the r/noisemusic sub-Reddit. Much of what I dislike in “Noise Music” is its obnoxious adherence to bad mixing. Just run the faders as hard as you can and see if the listener can discern all the different frequencies you forced thru your mixer. There’s a place for that, honestly, but so often it’s just a lot of wanking without any thought or feeling put behind it. This is the exact opposite.
The mix here is cohesive enough to feel like each track was recorded at the same time, but with enough separation that you can hear and feel the individual tracks. The percussive bits sounds like an entire machine shop was run thru a blender then hammered onto tape. It’s meditative in how angry it comes off as a whole.
It’s harsh noise, to be sure. This is not going to win you any friends from the pop or metal crowds. If you put this on at a party it will clear the room. But let’s face it, those people bored you two hours ago and you want something cerebrally abrasive enough to make them flee. This is that record.
Collin Stetson – The love it took to leave you
Recorded over a week in early 2023 at The Darling Foundry, a 144-year old former metalworks facility in Montreal now transformed into a contemporary art complex. Ambient yet percussive, all from the same instrument. Collin manages to top his earlier work by playing thru his PA and bouncing his saxophones off the above mentioned cavern. This album sounds huge! At times it sounds like a band, or at least some looping bits, but as noted on the Bandcamp page for the album, “All songs performed live by Colin Stetson on solo, alto and bass saxophones and contrabass clarinet (no overdubs/loops)”. I’ve been a fan of his work for some time and if pressed I’d say this is my favorite of all his work by a mile.
K K Null x Joel Gilardini – Psychic Drones 3
Kazuyuki Kishino has released a ton of good stuff over the years and this year he released a whopping 10 records. I bought only two this year. As mentioned elsewhere on this site, I was curbing my music purchasing this year, so I regret not buying more, but here we are. As much as I love Kazuyuki’s solo efforts, I’ve really enjoyed his collaborations and this is no different. After listening to this, I immediately put the first two Psychic Drones records into my BandCamp shopping cart.
Very drone oriented but with enough rhythm to give this some very subtly sparce sections that progress in and out of bombastic bits. A much more dynamic mix than one would expect from a “drone” record. The interplay of high frequency bits with the lower registers is kind of intense, especially in headphones. It occasionally creeps up on you like a guy with a drill to the back of your head, who’s been there for the last 5 minutes without notice.
Shellac – To All Trains
Even without the untimely passing of Steve Albini “To All Trains” would’ve made this list. From the very opening riff of WSOD all the way thru to the poignant end of this very brief record with “I Don’t Fear Hell”, Steve, Todd Trainor, and Bob Weston compromise with no one but themselves. I didn’t hate the last two records they released, but they didn’t really live up to the promise of the first three records in their discography and felt overly long and unfocused at times. This one fixes that for me as there are no lengthy tracks here, almost as a response to those earlier records. This is the first record they’ve made that left me unsatisfied in a way that just leaves you needing more. Especially, knowing full well it’s the last.
Oranssi Pazuzu – Muuntautuja
This Finnish band has become my newest obsession. I first bought their 5th full length album, Mestarin Kynsi, early last year after I found it posted by someone on my Facebook feed. I was an instant fan and obsessed over the meditative nature of this still very metal album. Had I heard it in 2020, the year it came out, it would’ve made my list of top ten records that year.
Their latest, Muuntautuja, is definitely from the same band, but it’s a very different animal. Where the early record was more repetitive and atmospheric, this album is somewhat deranged in a way that sometimes feels like the band is listening to each other yet purposefully playing against each other, only to come together and grip you by the head as if to wake you from a trance. I feel like this has a lot more regard to sound choice on this album as well. The sonic pallet is much wider here than on the previous one. Not better nor worse, just different. I get the feeling this is a band that cares more for their own self interest than in any real commercial concerns and that just makes me love them all the more. Really looking forward to what they do next year.