cleaning out my closet: the top 100 records of 2011

Posted in Uncategorized on December 31st, 2011 by whineyg

1. Tim Hecker – Ravedeath, 1972
2. Liturgy – Aesthetica
3. Matana Roberts – Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de Couleur Libres
4. The Men – Leave Home
5. Horseback – Impale Golden Horn
6. Pistol Annies – Pistol Annies
7. Fucked Up – David Comes To Life
8. All Pigs Must Die – God Is War
9. Factory Floor – “A Wooden Box”/“R E A L L O V E”/“Two Different Ways” 12-inches
10. Ballaké Sissoko & Vincent Segal – Chamber Music
11. Killer Mike – Pl3dge
12. EMA – Past Lives Martyred Saints
13. Ghost – Opus Eponymous
14. E-40 – Revenue Retrievin: Graveyard Shift
15. Melvins – Endless Residency 4 CD set
16. Israel Martínez – El Hombre Que Se Sofoca
17. Cultus Sabbati – The Garden Of Forking Paths
18. Escort – Escort
19. Big K.R.I.T. – Return Of 4Eva
20. Blanck Mass – Blanck Mass
21. Burning Tree – Stinger
22. Danny Brown – XXX
23. Gui Borrato – III
24. Korn – The Path Of Totality
25. Shabazz Palaces – Black Up
26. Mouse On The Track – Swagga Fresh Freddie
27. Hubble – Hubble Drums
28. Thee Oh Sees – Carrion Crawler/The Dream
29. Big Business – Quadringle EP
30. Nicholas Jaar – Space Is Only Noise
31. Drake – Take Care
32. Boris – Attention Please
33. Colin Stetson – Live At ATP 2011
34. The Dirtbombs – Party Store
35. Grails – Deep Politics
36. Don Trip & Starlito – Stepbrothers
37. Deaf Center – Owl Splinters
38. Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto – summvs
39. Drive: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
40. Glenn Jones – The Wanting
41. Sick Llama – Fuor Coffins
42. Oh No + Alchemist + Roc Marciano – Greneberg EP
43. Mark Deutrom – The Value Of Decay
44. Psychic Paramount – II
45. DJ Rashad – Just A Taste, Vol. 1
46. Hauschka – Salon Des Amateurs
47. Lady Gaga – Born This Way
48. Gunplay – Inglorious Bastard
49. Group Doueh – Zayna Jumma
50. Soft Moon – Total Decay EP
51. Dayton Family – Charges Of Indictment
52. Grayceon – All We Destroy
53. Kool G Rap – Riches, Royalty & Respect
54. Winter Family – Red Sugar
55. Beyoncé – 4
56. Death Grips – Exmilitary
57. Elzhi – Elmatic
58. Mick Barr – Coiled Malescence
59. Driphouse – Root71
60. The Field – Looping State Of Mind
61. Bruce Lamont – Feral Songs For The Epic Decline
62. The Advisory Circle – As The Crow Flies
63. Terakraft – Aratan N Azawad
64. Mountains – Air Museum
65. DJ Quik – The Book Of David
66. Remember Remember – The Quickening
67. Cam’ron & Vado – Gunz & Butter
68. Mika Vaino – Life (…It Eats You Up)
69. Beastie Boys – Hot Sauce Committee Part 2
70. M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
71. Jay-Z and Kanye West – Watch The Throne
72. Lloyd – King Of Hearts
73. Juicy J & Lex Luger – Rubba Band Business
74. Tity Boi – Codiene Cowboy
75. Yob – Atma
76. Shinji Masuko – Woven Music
77. S.C.U.M. – Again Into Eyes
78. Juv – Juv
79. White Suns – Waking In The Reservoir
80. Rabbits – Lower Forms
81. Tyler, The Creator – Goblin
82. Windmills By The Ocean – II
83. Subrosa – No Help For The Mighty Ones
84. Guðmundur Steinn Gunnarsson – Horpma
85. Oneohtrix Point Never – Replica
86. Mark Fell – Periodic Orbit Of Dynamic System Related To A Knot
87. Das Racist – Relax
88. Pechenga – Helt Borte
89. Tombs – Path Of Totality
90. Craft – Void
91. The Necks – Mindset
92. PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
93. Red Horse – Red Horse
94. Wolves In the Throne Room – Celestial Lineage
95. Golden Retriever – Emergent Layer
96. Encoffination – O’ Hell, Shine In Thy Whited Sepulchres
97. Beauclerk – Beauclerk
98. KEN Mode – Venerable
99. Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 – From Africa With Fury: Rise
100. Matthew Cooper – Some Days Are Better Than Others

Rolling 2011 Twitter Reviews

Posted in Uncategorized on February 18th, 2011 by whineyg

205)Cults/Cults: Hyundai focus group indie. Pitchfork Pomplamoose. Glockenspiels.#2.5

204)400 Blows/Sickness And Health: An uneasy Devo-gone-hardcore tautness was always their strongest suit, and it’s on full display.#7

203)Altar Of Plagues/Mammal: Eighteen-minute black metal epics cross lines between hypnotic and endless.#6.5

202)Elzhi/Elmatic: Masterful Detroit MC hopscotches, skips, jumps all over your favorite record.#8

201)White Hills/Hp-1: Psych-rrawwk cosmonauts aren’t floating in space but dying in space.#7.5

200)Mark Deutrom/The Value Of Decay: Ex-Melvins bassist makes tripnotic toybox sludge.#8

199)The Men/Leave Home: Triumphantly pigfucking the age of No Age.#8.5

198)Mamuthones/Mamuthones: The Art Ensemble of Italian Cryptkeepers.#6.5

197)A Lull/Confetti: AnCo, Sufjan, MGMT, Temp Res, pretty much everything else.#5

196)Looking For An Answer/Eterna Treblinka: Spanish grindcore band with the moistest, most spittle-crazy, Daffy Duckest pblt pblt pblt.#6.5

195)Kurt Vile/Smoke Ring For My Halo: If Springsteen never dropped out of college and then smoked weed through all four years.#6

194)Khann/Erode: Rocketship hardcore, Kylesa as cavemen.#6.5

193)Jonas Reinhardt/Music For The Tactile Dome: John Carpenter’s Escape To Nowhere.#6

192)J-Rocc/Some Cold Rock Stuf: CD packaging of the year!#6

191)Israel Martínez/El Hombre Que Se Sofoca: The slow smearing of life’s subway and helicopter hums into evocative noise.#8

190)Echtra/Paragate: Acoustic-tempered doom rides a drone to nowhere.#6

189)Killer Mike/Pl3dge: Pretty much what David Banner should have done after Mississippi: The Album. Thanks for picking up the slack.#8

188)Random Axe/Random Axe: This > Slaughterhouse.#7

187)Helms Alee/Weatherhead: Harmony-rich cuddle-sludge goes big.#7.5

186)Bon Iver/Bon Iver: The Pitchfork generation’s Bruce Hornsby.#6

185)Colin Stetson/New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges: Amazing doom-honk, swirly Reich flutter, questionable Laurie interludes.#6.5

184)Chris Brown/F.A.M.E.: No one cares that you have famous friends, asshole.#4

183)Big Business/Quartet Single: Seventeen minutes of their finest sludgy splatterjoy.#8

182)Asva/Presence Of Absences: Ritual doom band hits some pretty nauseatingly fantastic lows.#7

181)Boubacar Traoré/Mali Denhou: Bluesy Malian veteran aims for the slow and serene.#7

180)Thurston Moore/Demolished Thoughts: A pastoral game of ‘who’s copying who?’#6.5

179)Ty Segall/Goodbye Bread: Marcy Playground’s “I Am The Walrus.”#7

178)Weekend Nachos/Worthless: Relentless nu-powerviolence where the highlight is actually the void-staring feedback breakdowns.#7

177)Wild Beasts/Smother: Antony without the chops, Grizzly Bear without the textures, indie rock without the rock. Totally lifeless.#1.5

176)Across Tundras/Sage: The inevitable, tumbleweed-ready Cormac McCarthy metal band.#7

175)Com Truise/Galactic Melt: Perpetually vogue Tron-era chillage synths at least get a Warp records chop-and-blip makeover.#6

174)Akron/Family/S/T II: The Cosmic Birth And Journey Of Shinju TNT: Art-beardos equally adept at a softer side.#7

173)Cave In/White Silence: Returning from hiatus and an embarrassing major label run by becoming the genre-hopping Ween of Hydra Head.#6

172)Bass Drum Of Death/GB City: Bro Age.#4

171)Black Eagle Child/Lobelia: Pastoral guitar clouds like Mark McGuire not itching to tug your nostalgia cords.#7.5

170)Razika/Program 91/All-girl teenage jangle/J-pop/post-punk band is way to gifted to be faking naivete.#5.5

169)The Caretaker/An Empty Bliss Beyond The World: Vinyl crackle sound drifts as misremembered memories, dark rituals, meditations.#7

168)Unknown Mortal Orchestra/Unknown Mortal Orchestra: The Breakestra for the James Pants illwave era.#7

167)Alvarius B./Baroque Primitiva: Lo-fi, sleepy, tape-hissy Morricone from a Sun City Girl. He works better with a production budget.#5.5

166)Dominik Eulberg/Diorama: Airy techno rolls around in the park.#6.5

165)13 & God/Own Your Ghost: Themselves as their most Themselves, Notwist as their most Notwist.#6.5

164)Eternal Tapestry/Beyond The 4th Door: Shooting for Cluster, but just weed-caked enough to be third tier Ecstatic Peace circa 2007.#5

163)Rene Hell/The Terminal Symphony: Wildly diverse drone suite moves with sprightly abandon and begs for a string quartet revision.#7.5

162)Weedeater/Jason… The Dragon: A giant squid swimming through an oil slick.#7

161)Wooden Shjips/West: Raw Power groovonauts get a little sunlight.#7

160)USX/The Valley Path: Neurosis endless.#6

159)Malachai/Ugly Side Of Love: The bedroom Gnarls Barkley of spending too much time getting the right vinyl crackle noise.#5.5

158)Dope Body/Nupping: Abrasive noise-punk band fearlessly dicking with funk and ska, for better or worse.#7

157)The Lonely Island/Turtleneck & Chain: Still masters of Spinal Tappian detail, but just a little unnecessarily NC-17 this time.#7

156)Kendrick Lamar, Jay Rock, Ab-Soul & Schoolboy Q/Black Hippy: Intense ciphers are Cali electric, with no relaxation.#7.5

155)Jesu/Ascension: Low as metal band; instead of sucker-punches, Justin Broadrick’s guitars now chime like church bells.#7.5

154)Dels/Gob: An line between pixellated indie rock and weirdo art-rap that really shines when stretching chiptune noise like taffy.#6.5

153)Horseback/Forbidden Planet: Gorgeous tangerine nightmares huddle for warmth under black metal’s northern sky.#9

152)EMA/Past Life Martyred Saints: Self-help drone; burnt symphonies for remembering your fuck-ups and bravely making new ones.#8

151)Lady Gaga/Born This Way: Ga Ga La La Ba Ba Ba Ba Ga Ga Ha Ha Ha *sax solo*.#7.5

150)Waka Flocka Flame/Salute Me Or Shoot Me 3: Too many mixtape drops and half-baked choruses distract from his more appealing chaos.#4.5

149)Vieux Farka Toure/The Secret: One of Mali’s best playing alongside America’s most granola.#6

148)Tity Boi/Codiene Cowboy: Atlanta loudmouth conjures Jeezy’s best lines and Gucci’s cringeyest.#7

147)Fucked Up/David Comes To Life: The real Suburbs.#8.5

146)Lupe Fiasco/Lasers: “I’m an ambulance! And a fire truck!”#3

145)Guðmundur Steinn Gunnarsson/Horpma: Wild new composer tricks orchestra into making Icelandic water torture.#7

144)E-40/Revenue Retrievin’: Overtime Shift: But this one has the best two slaps (“Beastin’,” “I Am Your”).#7.5

143)E-40/Revenue Retrievin’: Graveyard Shift: The most cohesive of the series boasts haunted-house atmospherics and excruciating details.#8

142)Dustin O’Halloran/Lumiere: Sluggish and lugubrious Berlin pianist; where atmospheric turns into dull.#5

141)Brotha Lynch Hung/Coathanga Strangla: Horrorcore veterans spend a little too much time making the creepiest skits imaginable.#6

140)Lobi Traoré/Bwati Kono: A live document of a fallen Malian guitar hero where rhythms often speak the loudest.#7

139)Wiz Khalifa/Rolling Papers: A sunny, funkyish A.R. Kane record ruined by raps devoid of any personality.#4

138)Saigon/The Greatest Story Never Told: An occasionally meandering post-Roc-A-Fella grab bag that’s serviceable in 2007 or 2011.#6

137)Sanso-Xtro/Fountain Fountain Joyous Mountain: Happy rattles, chiming toys.#6.5

136)Zombi/Escape Velocity: Italo-prog ghosts chase dance floor reanimation.#7

135)Tyler, The Creator: Goblin: Yes I am, no I’m not. Yes I am, no I’m not. Yes I am, no I’m not. Yes I am, no I’m not.#7.5

134)Cam’ron & Vado/Gunz N’ Butta: Vado steps up his game, Cam rests on his laurels, and you can’t hate 16 consistent tracks in 2011.#7.5

133)Blueprint/Adventures In Counter-Culture: One of indie-rap’s swellest, most passionate everymen gets a little lost in the club.#6

132)Berner/The White Album: One of the years strongest supporting casts can’t elevate rapping this lifeless.#4

131)Blanck Mass/Blanck Mass: A Fuck Button masters the uplifting, charred drone; creates spiritual lightning sans dancefloor thunder.#8.5

130)Beastie Boys/Hot Sauce Committee Part 2: Check Your Head, protect your neck, hoard your Rammellzee 12-inches.#7

129)Barn Owl/Void And Devotion: Tumbleweed drone.#7.5

128)Group Doueh/Zayna Jumma: Saharan guitar blusterers rebrand as a rock group, discover fabulous new worlds of trance and power.#7.5

127)Philippe Petit & Vultures Quartet/Tourbillon d’Obscurité: Saw VIII gorenoise with five guys providing creepy drips, drops and crashes.#7

126)Gates Of Slumber/The Wretch: Torturedoom walks line between goofy, anthemic, anthemically goofy, goofily anthemic—so, ultimately, fun.#7

125)Del The Funky Homosapien/Golden Era: The rap version of a Zappa triple-vinyl guitar solo.#6

124)Battles/Gloss Drop: The loss of their demented melodic counterpoint is assuredly felt,though bubblegoop grooves still deliver.#6

123) TK

122)Pulseprogramming/Charade Is Gold: Blissful masters of floaty electronics get a kinda-nauseous case of the Ian Curtis Mondays.#5.5

121)Big K.R.I.T./Return Of 4Eva: International Players Anything and Everything; and still somehow his most cohesive.#8

120)Shabazz Palaces/Black Up: Rapper/producer simply masters some smoky, aching, heartbreaky fidget-dub thing; kills witch house dead.#8

119)Matthew Cooper/Some Days Are Better Than Others: The Eluvium goosebump machine sculpting with simpler materials.#7.5

118)Tennis/Cape Dory: Fifth-generation twee barely given its requisite, contemporary mushwave makeunder. Insipid.#2.5

117)True Widow/As High As The Highest Heavens And From The Circumference Of The Earth: “Stoner Babes (Winter Version).” #6

116)Plan B/The Defamation Of Strickland Banks: The white Jamie Lidell.#3.5

115)Mountains/Air Museum: A fluffy and rejuvenating spiral of earthly and cosmic vibrations.#8

114)DJ Quik/The Book of David: Era-less mix of baroque ’80s roller jams, velvety ’90s slow-rides, contemporary Dam-Funk swooshwave.#7.5

113)Pharoah Monche/W.A.R. (We Are Renegades): His loopy, impossible flows dead-ended by Landspeed Records-meets-Puffy’s “Victory” beats.#6

112)Max B/Vigilante Season: A Harlem MC with a bent melodic swagger that’s equal parts St. Louis, Houston and Los Angeles.#7

111)Kreidler/Tank: Longstanding German avant-dance crew want you to feel the noize and/or some amphitheater-ready drum sounds.#6.5

110)Gridlink/Orphan: 12 minutes of serviceable, very precise, almost hospital-floor-clean grindcore.#6.5

109)Errors/Come Down With Me: A reverse Fuck Button, stapling frayed loft-show dance-punk to club-ready broken-house.#7

108/Daily Life/Necessary And Pathetic: The bottom of the Joy Division barrel scraped, amplified.#3

107)Francisco Lopez/Untitled #224: Slowly-evolving quakescapes with sinister crackles and downright bottomless doom-rumble.#7

106)Bee Mask/Canzoni Dal Laboratorio Del Silenzio Cosmico: Post-Emeralds neo-komische playing with a broader, scarier palette.#7

105)Panda Bear/Tomboy: Mushily mastering well-mastered mush.#7.5

104)Foo Fighters/Wasting Light: As bold and brassy and hook-laden and mean as 2010 can get for ’90 alt-rock throwback and QOTSA worship.#7.5

103)Fabric/A Sort Of Radiance: Emeralds-style drone that’s certainly a lovely nostalgiadrift, but maybe not as expansive as it purports.#6.5

102)Ducktails/III: Arcade Dynamics: Bounding with languid, syrupy moods (see “Little Window”), but that shouldn’t be confused for songs.#3

101)Stephan Mathieu/A Static Place: Drone that’s plaintive-yet-heavenly. Not a snowflake, but the sun that shines through one.#7.5

100)Burmese/Lun Yurn: Pig-fuck misanthropy and/or agony as splatter painting and/or hatefuck.#7.5

99)Jackie-O Motherfucker/Earth Sound System: Krautfolk sprawl and Marclay-scribbles-as-raga.#7

98)Lykke Li/Wounded Rhymes: Vaguely retro alterna-things that sound evocative but aren’t (i.e, “Like a shotgun needs an outcome”?)#4.5

97)The Strokes/Angles: Like MGMT trying to get laid, or the Cars reunion not trying very hard at anything.#2

96)TV On The Radio/Nine Types Of Light: Wherein the dancey stuff you disliked on “Dear Science” becomes their most formidable weapon.#6.5

95)Shinji Masuko/Woven Music: Heart-stopping Boredoms backing tracks as frenetic-yet-airy drone-jazz.#7.5

94)Ponytail/Do Whatever You Want All The Time: Their trickiest rhythms yet to soundtrack a neon food fight.#7.5

93)Ford & Lopatin/Channel Pressure: The misremembered hip-to-be-square ’80s as glitch-pop suicide pact.#3

92)Jason Forrest/The Everything: Sample clusterfucker proves himself to be masterful with suspense instead of abandon.#7.5

91)Times New Viking/Dancer Enquired: Nailing the Vaselines hooks, not exactly convincing with the Vaselines naivete.#6

90)Young Dro/Equestrian Dro: His better-than-T.I. syllable stretching at its absolute best meets mostly flat mixtape beats.#6.5

89)Young L/Domo-Kun: The Mixtape: Half completely perfect Vans-wrecking pavement shredders, half so-so N.E.R.D. worship.#6.5

88)Boris/Attention Please: Icy rhythms, smoky moods, slinking murkily alongside the sulk-dance of the XX, only tangentially metal.#8

87)Boris/Heavy Rocks: Acid sludge, Blue Öyster pöp billowing fluffily from the dreamy doom factory they constructed for “Pink.”#7

86)SMM: Context: Brilliantly curated mix of 11 wildly diverse sound artists—ironically not the best flow, but something will surely click.#7

85)The Weeknd/House Of Balloons: A reason to learn the difference between “affect” and “effect.”#6

84)Young Widows/In And Out Of Youth And Lightness: In hardcore, working smarter doesn’t always mean working better.#5.5

83)Trap Them/Darker Handcraft: A new breed of alterna-heavy, but hard in but one color of the paint.#6.5

82)Skull Defekts/Peer Amid: With Daniel Higgs in tow, it’s two aggro-bliss legends-in-the-making who can’t find common footing.#5.5

81)Moon Duo/Mazes: Tom Petty’s Full Moon Fever as endless bedroom psych.#7

80)Dead Rider/The Raw Dents: It took 45 years, but someone finally make Captain Beefheart sexy.#7

79)Ken Mode/Venerable: Melvins riffs, Oxbow flex.#7

78)R.E.M./Collapse Into Now: Hey, kids.#6.5

77)Gang Gang Dance/Eye Contact: Getting better in touch with trance and their Sublime Frequencies collections.#7

76)Buck 65/20 Odd Years: A two-decade OK Cupid profile currently buzzing on Steady B, Emily Haines, Serge Gainsbourg and zombie flicks.#6.5

75)Melvins/Sugar Daddy Live: Welcome to a new kind of tension; the hands-down best live album from a band that has 10 of them.#8

74)Trae Tha Truth/48 Hours – All Freestyles: Dizzying, syrup-soaked wobble buoys utilitarian raps.#7

73)Red Fang/Murder The Mountains: One melody day away from Big Business black bubblegum, but still too toothy.#6.5

72)Frank Ocean/Nostalgia/Ultra: Love in the time of Coachella.#7

71)Cold Cave/Cherish The Light Years: A cold wave gets a warm front, embraces shiny shiny new romanticism instead of the chilly willies.#6.5

70)Bloodiest/Descent: Expansive psych sludge goes for The Body bigness, Cough weirdness.#6.5

69)Bibio/Mind Bokeh: Gifted soundscapist flies to close to Flying Lotus and does Free Energy-style bad Thin Lizzy too.#3

68)Britney Spears/Femme Fatale: A few moments of transcendent robo-silliness overshadowed by Ke$ha trashgags, sub-Uffie pick-up sleaze.#5.5

67)Hauschka/Salon Des Amateurs: Get on the floor and do the funky Philip Glass.#8

66)Anni Ross/Heavy Meadow: Nu-twee with smarter melodies, bolder textures, no fake shyness.#6.5

65)Alexander Tucker/Dorwytch: “Blackbird” and “Revolution 9,” together at last.#7.5

64)Adele/21: Yes more drama. Winehouse via X-Factor with the occasional towering arrangement.#6.5

63)Low/C’mon: A very complicated Cracker record with an explosive third act.#7

62)tUnE-yArDs/w h o k i l l: Funky odes to the funkless.#5.5

61)COH/IIRON: Acid-bathed guitar/electronic peak-out crumble like Ministry without the beats.#7

60)Raekwon/Shaolin Vs. Wu-Tang: Kill Bill, Volume Zero.#7

59)So Percussion/Threads: Chiming, Reich-style Tinkertoy compositions with an itchy punker’s busy hands.#7

58)The Psychic Paramount/II: Laser-guided build-and-explode math-psych art-sludge and/or math-sludge art-psych.#8.5

57)Isolée/Well Spent Youth: A darker and dubbier turn peels the quirk (and some of the life) from a microhouse titan.#6.5

56)James Blake/James Black: Melodramatic vocals masked in irony by histrionic technology. Wack dubstep, wack R&B, wack Antony, OK glitch.#3

55)Implodes/Black Earth: Academic Deerhunter potgaze wooshers have more pedals than hooks.#6

54)Liturgy/Aesthethica: Black-metal Brancas grow up to be math-metal Stravinskys.#8.5

53)Gunplay/Inglorious Bastard: Rick Ross and Waka Flocka, nine months later.#7.5

52)The Game/Purp & Patron: The Hangover: The sound of one man being assured and over-eager all at once.#7

51)Fiend/International Jones: Tennis Shoes And Tuxedos: Legend makes smoothest possible transition into Curren$y-style haze-and-flow.#7

50)The Evolution Control Committee/All Rights Reserved: Sample snark-kings return with hackier jokes, preachier conceits, nerdcore lols.#5

49)Cultus Sabbati/Garden Of Forking Ways: A sucking jet engine that stares into the black metal void and the power electronics mirror.#8

48)OvO/Cor Cordium: Italo noise/metal/jazzers go a little more free and mean, like Seijaku without a leash.#6.5

47)Radiohead/The King Of Limbs: Autechre as the world’s drabbest psych band.#5.5

46)Grayceon/All We Destroy: An sultry, extreme metal rewrite of Alice In Chain’s Facelift-into-Sap transformation.#7.5

45)Smith Westerns/Dye It Blonde: The emperors no longer wearing their lo-fi cloaks.#5.5

44)Grails/Deep Politics: Chiming post-metallers get all dusty Morricone, but briefly stop in Mali too. The good, the bad and the Isis.#8

43)People Like Us/Welcome Abroad: Plunderphonics as nauseous fever delirium.#7

42)Bill Orcutt/A New Way To Pay Old Debts: No-fi spazz-folk, Fahey via Load Records, like looking into a hailstorm.#7

41)Caroline/Verdugo Hills: More of her radiant glitch-pop flutters off.#6

40)Toro Y Moi/Underneath The Pine: Sunshine sleepytime. Even the tambourine sounds half-assed.#4.5

39)Cut Copy/Zonoscope: Bleating clubbo Braysayer.#5

38)Windmills By The Ocean/II: Yes, the umpteenth shoegaze-metal band, but possibly the one that understands shoegaze the best.#7

37)Deaf Center/Owl Splinters: Perfectly foreboding Lynchian piano doom.#7.5

36)Thank You/Golden Worry: Baltimore punks are certainly Ecstatic, slightly lacking in Sunshine.#6

35)PJ Harvey/Let England Shake: Trip-hop Melanie plays hide and seek.#7

34)Æthenor/En Form For Blå: Art Ensemble Of Hell doom-jazz that’s mostly cheap scares and ghost rattles.#6

33)Wino/Adrift: Like a Steve Von Till album with no grasp of subtlety.#3

32)Wire/Red Barked Tree: All the melody, none of the bite; a warm journey back to the overproduced ’80s Wire records you never listen to.#5

31)Nicholas Jaar/Space Is Only Noise: Teenage electronic symphonies to anguish and cold realities.#8

30)A Hawk And A Hacksaw/Cervantine: More Balkan flurries with a nu-indie sense of of atmosphere.#7

29)Tim Hecker/Ravedeath, 1972: His unparalleled sucking hugfuzz finds room for euphoric stutter-trance and frosty subterranean doom.#9

28)Ghost/Opus Eponymous: Satanic thrillwave bubblegum for Mystery Machines, Haunted Mansions and Spider Babies.#9

27)Monotonix/Not Yet: Love you live.#4

26)Esben & The Witch/Violet Cries: The beatsmarter, extroverted, noisnik, gang-gang-chance reversion of The XX.#7

25)Electric Wizard/Black Masses: Still masters of mountain lightning, feel-good witchery, ganja gutpunch—just more muffled and amiable.#7.5

24)Gang Of Four/Content: You win this round, Red Hot Chili Peppers.#3.5

23)Disappears/Guider: Deerhunter in reverse.#6.5

22)The Dirtbombs/Party Store: Clinical Detroit techno classics played like sloppy garage fuzzfuck—misses point, stumbles across beauty.#7.5

21)Broken Records/Let Me Come Home: All those gleaming Arcade Fire hooks with none of the (over-?)ambition.#6.5

20)Bird Names/Metabolism: A Salute to the Energy of the Sun: Bumblefuck beach-brat Beefheart.#5

19)Belong/Common Era: Warm fuzz, chilly beats, increasingly like School Of Seven Bells with an attitude problem.#6

18)Ballaké Sissoko & Vincent Segal/Chamber Music: Kora and cello make rare world-fusion that’s somber, fragile, understated, ambient.#8

17)Sidi Touré/Sahel Folk: Relatively raw recording of Malian bluesman reveals perfect imperfections.#7.5

16)Roach Gigz/Roachy Balboa 2: Same vivid everydude narration as part one—but where’d the slaps go?#6

15)Lumerians/Transmalinnia: Heavy-kraut, endless boogie, quasi-metal masked men; a questionably cool blitzkrieg on vinyl nerds.#6.5

14)Mouse On Tha Track/Swagga Fresh Freddie: Unbelievably funky Louisiana producer gives some props to Mannie Fresh, deserves some back.#8

13)Juicy J & Lex Luger/Rubba Band Business: Twin titans of monolithic hip-hop do it in all caps, boldfaced and underlined.#7.5

12)Gucci Mane/Gucci 2 Time: Usually pyrotechnic rapper starts blurring the line between laconic and lazy.#5.5

11)G-Side/The ONE… COHESIVE: Alabama rappers grind on the internet, finally live the dream of rapping about grinding on the internet.#6.5

10)Rabbits/Lower Forms: Portland noizefuck crew shoots for AmRep, ends up as rotten Karp.#7.5

9)Fergus & Geronimo/Unlearn: Raspy, garage&B/Zappa doo-wop grab-bag that’s annoyingly self-referential as an R. Kelly song.#5

8)DOM/Sun Bronzed Greek Gods: A magical summer where even the 90-pound-weaklings sing into the sand.#4

7)Deerhoof/Deerhoof Vs Evil: Tireless spazzers ultimately work backwards from Trout Mask Replica to Safe As Milk.#6

6)Yuck/Yuck: Gold soundz, extra golden.#7

5)La Sera/La Sera: Vivian Girl cooks up their umpteenth reverb-and-harmony side project. This time: Spector Pixies.#6

4)Earth/Angels of Darkness, Demons Of Light 1: The sun shines on the loneliest dude ranch.#6.5

3)Paris Suit Yourself/My Main Shitstain: Saul Williams for cubists, Public Image Limited for crate-diggers.#6

2)The Ex/Catch My Shoe: Acute post-punkers fully absorb and internalize those pulsing Congotronics rhythms—and other ones too.#7

1)Mogwai/Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will: Surfing on a riff rocket forever and ever and ever.#6

cleaning out my closet: the top 100 records of 2010

Posted in Uncategorized on January 4th, 2011 by whineyg

1. Harvey Milk – A Small Turn Of Human Kindness
2. Big Boi – Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty
3. Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
4. Linkin Park – A Thousand Suns
5. Yelawolf – Trunk Music: 0-60
6. E-40 – Revenue Retrievin’: Day Shift
7. Waka Flocka Flame – Flockaveli
8. The Chemical Brothers – Further
9. Sightings – City Of Straw
10. Rick Ross – Teflon Don
11. Robyn – Body Talk
12. Rangda – False Flag
13. Diddy-Dirty Money – Last Train To Paris
14. James Blackshaw – All Is Falling
15. Sleigh Bells – Treats
16. Janelle Monaé – The ArchAndroid
17. Anika – Anika
18. Goldfrapp – Head First
19. Zs – New Slaves
20. Aloe Blacc – Good Things
21. Mike Patton – Mondo Cane
22. Drunkdriver – Drunkdriver
23. The Books – The Way Out
24. William Tyler – Behold The Spirit
25. Slices – Cruising
26. Grinderman – Grinderman 2
27. Titus Andronicus – The Monitor
28. Against Me! – White Crosses
29. K-X-P – K-X-P
30. Johnny Cash – American VI: Ain’t No Grave
31. Roc Marciano – Marcberg
32. Yellow Swans – Going Places
33. Roach Gigz – Roachy Balboa
34. Dillinger Escape Plan – Option Paralysis
35. Robin Fox – A Handful Of Automation
36. Tyler, The Creator – Bastard
37. Tobacco – Maniac Meat
38. Rotting Christ – Aealo
39. Big K.R.I.T. – K.R.I.T. Was Here
40. Cristal – Homegoing
41. Seijaku – Mail From Fushitsusha
42. Wormrot – Abuse
43. Ufomammut – Eve
44. Julie Christmas – The Bad Wife
45. Jatoma – Jatoma
46. Keith Fullerton Whitman – Generator
47. The Oh Sees – Warm Slime
48. Gangrene (Oh No + Alchemist) – Gutter Water
49. Kylesa – Spiral Shadow
50. Sharon Van Etten – Epic
51. Triptykon – Eparistera Daimones
52. Celph Titled & Buckwild – Nineteen Ninety Now
53. Mark Ribot – Silent Movies
54. Fennesz Daniell Buck – Knoxville
55. Swans – My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky
56. Hannibal Buress – My Name Is Hannibal
57. Hauschka – Foreign Landscape
58. El-P – Weareallgoingtoburninhell Megamixxx3
59. The-Dream – Love King
60. The Fall- Your Future Our Clutter
61. Hot Chip – One Life Stand
62. The Austerity Program – Backsliders & Apostates Will Burn
63. Koen Holtcamp – Gravity/Bees
64. Fat Joe – The Darkside, Vol. 1
65. Cloudland Canyon – Fin Eaves
66. Twilight – Monument To Time End
67. Noveller – Desert Fires
68. Mike Watt – Hyphenated Man
69. Arp – The Soft Wave
70. Eleh – Location Momentum
71. Gonjasufi – A Sufi And A Killer
72. Eluvium – Static Nocturne
73. On – Something That Has Form And Something That Does Not
74. Sun City Girls – Funeral Mariachi
75. Ciara – Basic Instinct
76. Pan Sonic – Gravitoni
77. Child Abuse – Cut And Run
78. Agalloch – Marrow Of The Spirit
79. Gil-Scott Heron – I’m New Here
80. The Fun Years – God Was Like, No
81. Emeralds – Does It Look Like I’m Here?
82. Earl Sweatshirt – Earl
83. Twista – The Perfect Storm
84. Dawnbringer – Nucleus
85. Yeasayer – Odd Blood
86. John Zorn –Ipissimus
87. Clockcleaner – Auf Wiedershen
88. Zola Jesus – Stridulum EP
89. Dosh – Tommy
90. Juan Maclean – DJ Kicks
91. Daniel Higgs – Say God
92. Twin Stumps – Seedbed
93. Ken Camden – Lethargy & Repercussion
94. Sculpture – Rotary Signal Emitter
95. Ted Leo & The Pharmacists – The Brutalist Bricks
96. Robert Hood – Omega
97. Aun –VII
98. Kayo Dot – Coyote
99. The Thermals – Personal Life
100. Max Richter – Infra

2010 tweet reviews: #419 – #429

Posted in Uncategorized on January 4th, 2011 by whineyg

429)Yelawolf/Trunk Musik 0-60: One of 2010′s best mixtapes gets Blu-Ray treatment via major-label mastering job and Gucci Mane commentary.#9

428)John Zorn/Ipissimus: A moment where Zorn’s squickakk and Mike Patton’s squawkgargle blend into one noise and spiral forever n ever.#7.5

427)Soulja Boy/The DeAndre Way: OK-we-get-it swag.#4

426)Shit Robot/From The Cradle To The Rave: Wacky Ween-house aching for that novelty club banger.#3

425)Diddy Dirty Money/Last Train To Paris: Billionaire Boys Club if they were really billionaires, and it beats waiting for more Kanye.#8.5

424)The Dead C/Patience: The brand of oppressive drone and lethargic drums we’ve come to love and trust, accept no substitutes.#7

423)Das Racist/Sit Down, Man: The Garry Shandling Show of rap.#7

422)Jefre Cantu-Ledesma/Love Is A Stream: Scorched earth megadrone in a periwinkle sleeve.#7

421)Darkstar/North: Gothier, melody-centric version of Flying Lotus ambles, stutters, murks, lurks, mucks.#5.5

420)Chris Schlarb/Psychic Temple: The glorious, bouyant Godspeed/Eno axis of the floatiest Sufjanisms, rolled flat and gently glazed.#7.5

419)Brian Eno/Small Craft On A Milk Sea: Still the reigning champion of the cloudy drift, but a total klutz with beats.#6.5

2010 tweet reviews #363 – #418

Posted in Uncategorized on November 22nd, 2010 by whineyg

418)Lil Boosie/Incarcerated: Circa-2008 anthems meet circa-2010 filler. Pick and choose.#6.5

417)How To Dress Well/Love Remains: Avant-softy loves everything about R&B but the hooks and energy and passion and performance ability.#2

416)Benoît Pioulard/Lasted: A tender place for song-writing, drone, field recordings and a whole fuckton of reverb.#6.5

415)Foetus/Hide: Possessed Jerry Goldsmith haunto-stabby freakouts gone big band.#7.5

414)Avey Tare/Down There: Gloopy-doopy sweatshirt dubstep.#5

413)Taylor Swift/Speak Now: Overcoming small-town adversity/presuppositions over and over and over again. “And the cynics were outraged.”#6

412)Aziz Ansari/Intimate Moments For A Sensual Evening: Indie-skewed version of “Never Scared”-era Chris Rock.#7

411)Alva Noto/For 2: Not as absorbing with beatwise Pan Sonic crunchout as he is with bliss-haunt.#6.5

410)Aloe Blacc/Good Things: A hip-hop generation dude who knows the best parts of soul records aren’t always the hooks or the beats.#8

409)Gucci Mane/The Appeal: Georgia’s Most Wanted: A to-do list of major label cliches from an artist who spent years avoiding them.#4.5

408)Vado/Slime Flu: Dipset’s Tony Yayo gives the purple a noirish, proggy feel.#6.5

407)Glasser/Ring: Florence And The Machine for people who think they know better but really don’t.#4

406)Die Antwoord/$O$: $hrill, worthle$$.#0

405)Agalloch/Marrow Of The Spirit: Rainbow black.#7.5

404)Girl Talk/All Day: More message board than dance floor unless Spacehog is your jam.#6.5

403)Celph Titled and Buckwild/Nineteen Ninety Now: As good a ’90s rap record as anyone’s gonna make under our draconian sampling laws.#8

402)Cristal/Homegoing: Seismic bummer drones for staring contests.#9

401)Kanye West/My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy: If Michael Jackson started building statues to himself in 1988. #9

400)Cee Lo Green/The Lady Killer: A living “We Didn’t Start The Fire” where the best parts are the ’50s and the ’80s.#6.5

399)Jon Mueller/The Whole: Meticulous drum tuner and junk collector does his slow-grind.#7

398)Katy Perry/Teenage Dream: LOL sex, yay trends, hey new wave.#3.5

397)The Thermals/Personal Life: The brittle sound of a lovesick teen filtered through the adult neuroses smart enough to micromanage it.#7.5

396)School Of Seven Bells/Disconnect From Desire: An 1988 where Cocteau Twins and Taylor Dayne share a dorm room.#7

395)OFF!/First EP: Vintage-store Cali-punk should maybe accessorize with an updated rhythm section?#6

394)Nails/Unsilent Death: Pigfuck for hoodies.#7

393)Skyzoo & !llmind/Live From The Tape Deck: Fuck chillwave.#7.5

392)Martina Topley Bird/Some Place Simple: Spare is better than a drunk Danger Mouse behind the wheel, not as good as “Quixotic” swirls.#5.5

391)Donnis/Fashionably Late: Nimble rhymer and evocative storyteller gets tempted by the fruit of Cudi-isms.#6.5

390)Sun City Girls/Funeral Mariachi: Ethno-punkers at their most accessible, peculiar, Morricone-tinged.#8 [http://bit.ly/SPINcw4]

389)White Moth/White Moth: Digital hardcore updates for snowcapped black metal guitars and dreamy Jesu churn.#7 [http://bit.ly/SPINcw3]

388)Salome/Terminal: Glorious feedback growl and paranoid scuttle occassional broken up by seismic sludgehammer blort.#7.5

387)Lesbian/Stratospheria Cubensis: Sneery bandana doomers sloooowly shotgun a warm beer.#6.5

386)Cough/Ritual Abuse: Electric Wizard acid casualties.#7

385)Bring Me The Horizon/There Is a Hell Believe Me I’ve Seen It…: Headroom hardcore or Gen Y Pitchshifter?#6 [http://bit.ly/SPINcw2]

384)The Big Pink/Tapes: !K7 EXCLUSIVE MUST CREDIT !K7 2010 SCENE CONTENT SALEM OOOOO JJ THE XX BALAM ACAB GR†LLGR†LL ACTIVE CHILD ACTRESS.#2

383)Sun Araw/Off Duty + Boat Trip: Groves of witch-fucking, night-sucking distortion juxtaposed with weak, nolstalgic dorkball dub.#6

382)Dawnbringer/Nucleus: Valiantly galloping post-Lemmy gööd guys.#7.5

381)Man’s Gin/Smiling Dogs: Pretty much exactly what happens when a metalhead answers Nick Cave’s boatman call.#7

380)Antony And The Johnsons/Swanlights: Hold on loosely.#6

379)8Ball & MJG/From The Bottom To The Top: Blunts and broads, sex in expensive cars… just trade “at last” for “always and forever.”#7

378)Nite Jewel/Am I Real?: VCR-gazer finds a cheerier niche in the sensual world.#7

377)Lloyd Miller & The Heliocentrics/Lloyd Miller & The Heliocentrics: Funkjazz purists and ethno-reedist push and push and push and push.#7

376)Julie Christmas/The Bad Wife: Sorta-metal, sorta-sadcore, like Jesus Lizard crashing the American Music Club.#8

375)Tyler, The Creator/Bastard: Bleary-eyed, synth-fucked hip-hop scream therapy lovingly wrapped in a zip file #fuckyoudad.#7.5

374)Weekend/Sports: Heroically more Psychocandy than Pure At Heart.#6.5

373)Waka Flocka Flame/Flockaveli: I am not afraid of you and I will beat your ass.#9

372)The Fucking Wrath/Terra Fire: Ultramegafuckedupok?.#6.5

371)Games/That We Play: Too much tape, not enough hiss. Still deserves a clamshell release.#6

370)Rah Digga/Classic: She means to brag; the means to boast.#7

369)Fucked Up/Year Of The Ox 12″: An Arcade Fire song improved by distortion b/w Goth-soaked cave-climbing.#7 [via http://bit.ly/acO4w7]

368)Kylesa/Spiral Shadow: Aiming for both the headbanger gutter and the cuddlecore stars.#7.5

367)Koen Holtkamp/Gravity/Bees: A swarm of hugs.#7.5

366)Sharon Van Etten/Epic: NY drone-folkie explores romance via complaints, regrets, a few well-placed insults.#8 [via http://bit.ly/cWURu6]

365)Killing Joke/Absolute Dissent: They will never tired of these chord changes; neither should you.#7

364)Earl Sweatshirt/EARL: This dude was like 15 years old when Eminem’s Relapse came out.#7.5

363)of Montreal/False Priest: Hunky doody. #3.5

Fuck NoOoOO: The Anti-Witch House Mixtape

Posted in Mixtapes, Uncategorized on October 28th, 2010 by whineyg

Look what critics are saying!

“[S]lowed-down… sonically detailed… low-end explosions… midnight tones… amniotic haze… spacey atmosphere… noise pop… wide-ranging tastes… crawled-out rave-recalling synth lines… low-riding Houston lean… grime-flecked trip-hop… hollow, thudding rhythms pitched-down… chopped-and-screwed rapping… original and compelling… rape.”

—Larry Fitzmaurice, Pitchfork
[Ed. note: Quotes may actually be about Salem]

Here are some of my fave recent songs that have many of the qualities people love about Salem—dark, foreboding, gauzy, enveloping, rhythmically unique, crypto-gothtastic, murky. But these tracks have the added value of outdated ideas like “passion” and “working knowledge of your equipment” and “not having a corny-ass white person that says ‘skreets.’” Keep your ears peeled,  indie rockers… you might even hear an actual rap song or two. See u @ the Fader Fort! #boo

Fuck NoOoOO: The Anti-Witch House Mixtape [2010]
[01:18:59]
1. Ben Frost – “Through The Glass Of The Roof”
2. Waka Flocka Flame ft. Pastor Troy & Slim Dunkin – “Fuck The Club Up”
3. Pan Sonic – “Voltos Bolt”
4. Demdike Stare – “Nothing But The Night”
5. DJ Paul ft. Lord Infamous – “Pop A Pill”
6. Sick Llama – “Untitled”
7. Tobacco – “Lick The Witch”
8. K-X-P – “Mehu Moments”
9. Beak> – “Ham Green”
10. 8Ball & MJG – “Blunts & Broads”
11. Big K.R.I.T. – “Country Shit”
12. Nappy Roots – “Do It Big”
13. White Moth ft. Dälek – “Shoot The Clock”
14. Pale Sketcher – “Can I Go Now (Gone Version)”
15. Locrian – “The Crystal World”
16. Waka Flocka Flame – “O Lets Do It (Chopped Not Slopped by DJ Steve)
17. Carlos Giffoni – “Severence III”
18. Rotting Christ ft. Diamanda Galás” – “Orders From The Dead”

**DOWNLOAD**

[Album art by Tristan Eden]

more reviews

Posted in Uncategorized on October 26th, 2010 by whineyg

362)The Moondoggies/Tidelands: Humble Black Mountaineers braving the world armed with far less distortion.#5

361)Sword Heaven/Gone: The Melvins’ “Spread Eagle Beagle” as unlikely career choice, Jon Mueller gone rabid, blam blam blam, blam, blam.#7.5

360)Helmet/Seeing Eye Dog: Page Hamilton and his three rent-a-mooks can’t even make a good Chevelle album at this point.#2

359)Swans/My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky: Gira’s distortion-fucked past makes amends with brooding, snake-bitten present.#7.5

358)Frankie Rose & The Outs/Frankie Rose & The Outs: The usual Tiger Trappings with a smart touch of nu-Breeders.#6.5

357)Eskmo/Eskmo: Dubby hip-hop producer vows to use the powers of chill for good.#6

356)Screaming Females/Castle Talk: Fewer blown-out garage tantrums, more dynamic S/K rock ‘n’ roll fun.#7.5

355)Phil Selway/Familial: Remarkably plain indie-folk pillages The Bends playbook, Nick Drake–via-trip-hop.#4.5

354)Blonde Redhead/Penny Sparkle: Nu-Scandinavian dub-tinged candle-flicker trades haunting for drab.#5.5

353)Christian Marclay/Graffiti Composition: A great idea for a burner, ultimately painted with too few colors.#4.5

352)The-Dream/Love King: If Trey Songz invented sex, meet our Henry Ford.#8

351)Pan Sonic/Gravitoni: Click click boom.#7.5

350)No Age/Everything In Between: Rocking out the joy-mush of the Losing Feeling 12″, but sadly smoothing it out too.#6.5

349)Nappy Roots/The Pursuit Of Nappyness: A self-released “World Party.”#6

348)Lil Wayne/I Am Not A Human Being: “Before I Self Destruct”-style, 90% rap, glorified mixtape where the weirdness lurks in the beats.#7.5

347)Deerhunter/Halcyon Digest: Lowercase noise, capital pop.#4

Hmmm, the second “day panel” d…

Posted in 1000 Times Yes on October 15th, 2010 by whineyg

Hmmm, the second “day panel” dude on this NY Times @jenniferdaniel / @sisario CMJ illustration looks eerily familiar. http://nyti.ms/byjm67

Tags:

I HATE dudes that retweet when…

Posted in 1000 Times Yes on October 14th, 2010 by whineyg

I HATE dudes that retweet whenever folks compliment them, but RT @mostlikely_to One of the best reviews I’ve ever read. http://bit.ly/arg841

Tags:

Love that Greg Tate piece to d…

Posted in 1000 Times Yes on October 14th, 2010 by whineyg

Love that Greg Tate piece to death

Tags: