It’s been a rough journey since this week began, but we’ve made it. Here’s the twelve records that I think are the best twelve records to come out between January 1, 2011 and December 9, 2011 at 4:41 PM. If you were planning on releasing a record around 7 PM tonight, sorry, but it will just have to float in record limbo forever. Shame, really.

So, here we are. If you don’t think these are the best records of 2011, you’re wrong and I’ll punch you and sneeze in your face. Then, later, I’ll feel really bad about it, because that was a total jerk move on my part. Sorry. ANYWAY.

12. John Maus - We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves

And the rain came down, down down down.

John Maus gets lumped in with his buddy Ariel Pink a lot. Sure. I guess the idea is that they’re both auteurs working at music that embodies a bygone, unfashionable era. Where this breaks down for me is that Maus strikes me as way more of a craftsman than Pink. In this way, he reminds me more of another modern synthesizer-obsessed craftsman: Dan Deacon. Part of this is the sheer energy (even with Maus’s Ian Curtis-aping vocal delivery) and part of this is the perfectionist care both producers appear to take in building their tracks. Even at its most ridiculous (hello, “Matter of Fact”!), We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves sounds meticulous and genius. 
 By the way, even if his words were taken out of context, I kind of think it’s okay for a guy not to like record stores. I like ‘em a lot, but come on people, it’s not impossible to imagine them being unappealing. 

11. St. Vincent - Strange Mercy
 
Best, finest surgeon, come cut me open.

Generally, I’m able to concoct some dumb, presumptuous statement of an artist’s process or intentions or development for these blurbs. Here’s what I’ve got for Strange Mercy: Annie Clark just wrote better songs. On her first two albums, she had a great sound, but it felt too easy to get lost in the sound and ignore the songs. That’s no longer an issue, as Strange Mercy’s songs are purposeful, fiery things. Clark’s always-celebrated guitar became a terrible, frightening element, slowly slicing at the emotional skin. (And if that wasn’t clear, there’s a song here called “Surgeon” to totally get the point across.) Oh and as always, reaching Xiu Xiu levels of discomfort will forever be a way to get me hooked. 

10. tUnEyArDs - w h o k i l l

I can’t believe I ate the whole thing. 

A record so good, I’m willing to put up with Merrill Garbus’s disregard for proper rules of punctuation and spacing. At times, w h o k i l l reminded me of a few things, Tom Tom Club and Dirty Projectors mainly. More often, it reminded me of nothing, a completely original work whose songs slithered away from predictable structures and exploded into violent epiphanies. Then there was Garbus’s lyrics, which got dreadfully personal on fears about body, sex, class, and unlawful acts from supposedly lawful entities. On paper, it sounds a little boring, a laundry list of “serious topics for a serious songwriter.” Garbus made them sound crazed and fantastic, the completely honest thoughts of an amazing weirdo.

9. Cold Cave - Cherish the Light Years

I know people! With no substance!

 Cold Cave’s influences are obvious, but what gets me is how they express their past on Cherish the Light Years. Here’s the synopsis: nearly everyone in Cold Cave used to be in some sort of considerably more punishing project, be it hardcore, grind, noise, experimental, etc. etc. Light Years, as a result, is built on a punishing framework, leaving little room to breathe or relax. That very framework is clothed in the garb of new-wave titans New Order and Depeche Mode’s most yearning hits. It’s a bold move for Cold Cave to abandon their churning, less pop-oriented sound for something so utterly theatrical and open-armed. Granted, if you’re wired a certain way, it’s pretty easy to love when Wesley Eisold channels vintage Morrissey, singing over-dramatic lines like “I’ll love you with all the love in my heart, even if it means there’s none left for me” over the constantly in-the-red synths and mechanical drums.

8. Mountain Goats - All Eternals Deck

Is this somebody’s idea of a joke?

 Interesting coincidence I just noticed: All Eternals Deck follows The Sunset Tree’s sequencing strategy of a fiery front-half and a more subdued back-half. Huh! Sort of! Makes an awful lot of sense that this is my favorite Mountain Goats record since The Sunset Tree, eh? I’m on to you, Darnielle, and I would like you to keep doing every single thing you’re doing. I kind of feel like Mountain Goats records don’t need a lot of explanation: they’re all going to be good in one way or another. But, if you’ve gotta twist my arm, All Eternals Deck really does feel a cut above. I recall John Darnielle saying that this was his most black-metal inspired album, though perhaps my mind is just swirling this record and Mount Eerie’s Wind’s Poem together. Regardless, that record is a good partner for All Eternals Deck, imbuing each songwriter’s long-crafted style with a nice bit of shadow.

 7. Future Islands - On the Water
 
‘Cause I was just like you, so arrogant and brave.

I don’t like this record as much as In Evening Air.  That means nothing, because I love In Evening Air more than I love all the other things that I love. Really, that record is just so great. So while On the Water doesn’t top that, it does deepen my love for Future Islands quite a bit. Future Islands songs tend to sound impeccably lonely, but they also consistently sound warm and inviting. If On the Water does dial down the band’s sheer cathartic power, it certainly compensates in lushness, offering up waves upon waves of gorgeous tones. A slow-burner wasn’t exactly what I wanted from this band after their last record, but they’ve proven that their slow-burns are as striking as their breakdowns.

6. Shabazz Palaces - Black Up

I lost the best beat that I had.

 Shabazz Palaces really are being quite redundant by maintaining their mysterious, aloof image. Even if they told us every single detail about themselves, they’d still feel entirely separate from current hip-hop. Black Up is a hypnotic beast, ready to lob minimal house beats and rotating horns and free-jazz rhythms at you. In a way, it’s the negative image of mixtape rap. What Shabazz Palaces created is as far away from the repetitive grind as possible; it’s a tightly constructed, seemingly-labored over domino set of sounds. Over it all, Ishmael Butler holds court, speaking in his own spaced-out language. All these elements together should lead to cacophony, which is admittedly suggested at points, yet everything comes through with complete grace. I’ll reiterate my ignorance of an awful lot of hip-hop, but I’ll also reiterate that I have never heard hip-hop that sounds anything like this.

5. Bomb the Music Industry! - Vacation

And so what, it’s hot in Texas and worse in Arizona.

 I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Jeff Rosenstock is roughly the most interesting songwriter in modern punk. In a way, Vacation is the logical conclusion to the happy music/sad lyrics combination. Beyond all the charged-up, spazzy punk rock on display here, there’s a very matter-of-fact and non-dramatic picture of depression. By simply coming out and talking about his anxieties, doubts, and the feeling of constantly fighting to just to be happy, Rosenstock has made one of the year’s darkest, potentially most depressing records. Simultaneously, he’s made one of the most hopeful, as he spins that dark cloud above him into something that’s not too enveloping to handle. And, being the nice guy he is, he’s made it so everyone can sing along to that.

4. Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica

YAH YAH YAH YAH YAH YAH YAH YAH

  Supposedly, most of the samples on Replica are taken from commercials from the 1980s. This concept could be such a disaster. Someone could have taken it and made the ultimate tribute to 1980s nostalgia. (Which would have been futile anyway, because John Maus already nailed that idea.) Thankfully, Daniel Lopatin is the absolute best and made this, an album that never even touches the concept of nostalgia. Actually, it’s hard to really pinpoint what concepts Replica touches on or is even meant to touch on. Where last year’s fantastic Returnal felt like an evolution of Lopatin’s early science-fiction synthesizer flights, this feels like a total side-step. Nothing really congeals, but it does so in the absolute best way. It’s a bunch of patterns fighting for their own space, then creating some entirely new feeling out of that fight. Somehow, Lopatin has summoned a lonely grace from complete awkwardness. I’ll never figure out how, but I’m constantly intrigued enough to examine this record over and over again.

3. Bill Callahan - Apocalypse

The real people went away.

There’s one moment on Apocalypse that weirdly stands out above all others: “DC 450.” In the record’s final moments, Bill Callahan drawls out Apocalypse’s number in the Drag City catalogue. He chooses to close the record’s final song, a rustic song that is beyond languid in its movement, with the reminder that you are listening to a piece of music that will be packaged and sold as the 450th release of a long-running indie label. This is a weird choice. For the rest of Apocalypse, Callahan works pretty hard to create something pretty earthy and folksy, so why would he close it out by reminding the listener of mass production? Because he’s Bill Callahan and making exactly that kind of bizarre decision is what has made him the Bill Callahan we know today. Without those weird little habits, Apocalypse would just be the most fantastically written and composed folk record in quite some time. With those weird little habits, it’s also the fascinating art that comes from an incredibly brilliant, particular mind. 

2. EMA - Past Life Martyred Saints

We thought you’d never do it.

Past Life Martyred Saints is a pretty damaged album and, yet, it’s not the slightest bit fragile. Erika M. Anderson lays out some pretty serious emotional material throughout the record, but she expresses it through the skin-peeling drones of her guitar and a voice both bellowing and whispering. To put it simply, I don’t think any record providing me a more visceral emotional experience this year than Past Life Martyred Saints. “Grey Ship” is the poised introduction, “Marked” is the ballad covered in angry vomit, “California” is the apocalyptic sneer stretched into a hymnal, “Butterfly Knife” is a cacophonous squeal like I’ve never heard before, and on and on and on. As much I loved Gowns, their knotty songs never quite hit as consistently as this whole record does. Each song on this breaks me down and I absolutely love it for it.

1. Destroyer - Kaputt

I was okay in everything else there was.

I was trying not to be predictable. Destroyer exists in a pretty rarefied air for me, my devotion to the works of Mr. Bejar only matched by my devotion to The Replacements, Jawbreaker, and…that might be it, really. Still, last time Destroyer put out a full-length record, it was a bit of a low-point; Trouble in Dreams was good, but felt fairly Destroyer-by-numbers. And I didn’t have a ton of faith that the “Bay of Pigs” single was anything but a detour. When it came time for a new Destroyer, full-length I figured we’d be seeing another variation on Rubies or Streethawk.

This was dumb. Weird as it may sound, I’m somewhat drawn to Destroyer due to the project’s frustrating inconsistency. Sometimes Bejar’s diversions into new sounds work, sometimes they don’t, and sometimes they just feel too inside that guy’s head to really absorb. Kaputt isn’t a total diversion, as it draws a lot on the basic sound of “Bay of Pigs,” but it’s commitment to that foggy, disco-inflected sound paid off something fierce. These nine songs are nearly-perfect, creating a sequence as finely-crafted and deeply rewarding as possible.

But that perfection, taken on its own, is boring. As genius as its construction is, I love Kaputt even more for being something totally perverse. On this record, it feels like Bejar has swallowed up many of the past few years’ trends and regurgitated them in his own strange way. You’re toying with some cheesy saxophone? Well, here’s a record full of that and every usage of it is legitimately great. Into chillwave’s hazy atmospherics? Kaputt takes that atmosphere and gives them drive and purpose. Disco has returned? Bejar’s made his own disco, using its light-touch but also mutating it into its three-way child with folk and glam. Nothing on Kaputt is quite heavy enough to suggest stomping, but, whatever, Dan Bejar has stomped all over modern underground music and come up with his own masterpiece. 

  1. superparade posted this