#yearend 2018

[dustedmagazine]

Broken bodies all the time: Ian Mathers’ year in review

Photo by Paul Husband

Since, let’s say, September, I’ve seen an increasing number of comments from people amazed at just how bloody long 2018 has been, pointing out that events that seem much further back (tide pods! an Olympics! that one political thing in the US, you know, the thing that feels like it was a decade ago!) actually happened this year. I’m no more immune to that kind of horrified, exhilarated realization than any of my friends and loved ones, but I also have a personal one that I can’t believe had fallen so far off my radar that I wasn’t originally conscious of it when I was trying to sum up my year for Dusted.

This past January I went and had surgery to remove a “grapefruit-sized” chondrosarcoma and a section of the three ribs on my left side where it had grown. Other than a noticeable lump in my chest there’d been no other symptoms, one surgery (and about 6 weeks off of work, with pay thankfully) dealt with it cleanly, at least according to the follow-up scans I’ve had and will have twice-yearly until 2022 or so. If you have to get surgery-necessitating cancer, basically, mine was just about the best-case scenario you could hope for (especially here in Canada, where I didn’t have to worry about bankruptcy as a result of medical costs). I don’t want to, and haven’t, made this entire essay about My Cancer Experience (in no small part both because I did have it relatively easy enough that I routinely feel guilty expecting any sort of accommodation for it, even when I was still very much knocked out by the surgery I’d had, and because when everyone wants to know about it you quickly realize it’s kind of boring to talk about), but it does strike that it’d be almost disingenuous to talk about my experience of 2018 without mentioning it. I did allude to it in passing in my 2017 essay here (as well as my wife’s diagnosis of a chronic autoimmune illness, something that honestly effects our day to day lives a lot more), but that was pre-surgery so I was too superstitious to give it a name in such a public forum. Now, when people who know me mention it, I almost have to remind myself that the scariest medical experience of my life to date happened not that long ago.  

I’ve been thinking about it a bit more since reading on Bandcamp Daily that, while Low didn’t really make this part of the narrative around Double Negative when it was being released, about eight months of that album’s gestation happened after Alan Sparhawk had a ski injury involving broken ribs and punctured lungs, and that the recovery process was arduous and involved a lot of prolonged pain. And that got me thinking about context. There are positive and welcomed uses of context, of course; personally, to take a few examples from this year, I think both Leverage Models’ Whites and Zeal & Ardor’s Stranger Fruit are great albums that only gain from some of the context around their creations. But, crucially, it seems the creators involved agree with me, which is why that context is presented up-front in the material around those albums. It’s different when it’s something that, while you might acknowledge its real effects (as Alan does above), you suspect people will blow out of proportion to make the only important fact surrounding what you’ve made. It got me thinking about my own resistance to people - people who love and care about me! - ascribing aspects of my behaviour or actions to the cancer and/or the surgery (and it definitely did have some effects… to take a pretty surface-level one I listened to a lot more records in 2018 than I did in 2017, but didn’t write quite as much). It got me thinking about David Bowie not wanting his last record to be received, at least initially, as his last record.  

And while Alan doesn’t make a big deal of it in that piece, I can see why he might want people to absorb the startling, abrasively gorgeous Double Negative (along with Whites, which I could describe in very similar terms, my favourite/most important record of 2018) on its own terms rather than our narrative-seeking minds possibly turning it into being just ‘about’ his injury (and, not incidentally, wiping out the contributions of the others who worked on the album). Those listeners who did find themselves responding to the record probably wouldn’t be changed that much by the extra information, but goodness knows that every piece of art that gets released has to deal with some dumb, reductive takes, and how would it feel to have those responses taking on (and inflating the importance of) something so personal and literally painful?  

2018 also potentially sees a bigger and less personal loss of context in the music/music criticism world, though. As much as I will maintain all day every day that the more consensus you get when it comes to things like records of the year the more boring you intrinsically have to get, I still felt an absence knowing that the Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics poll was going to vanish with the Voice itself. The interesting thing about every year’s poll was almost never the top ten most acclaimed albums and singles (not necessarily a shot at the quality of that music, just that we’d all been talking about them all year; inevitably, they were all very known quantities), it was seeing what had placed in the lower reaches of the standings, digging around in the votes of friends and colleagues, tracing odd connections and seeing how your own lesser-known favourites were regarded, if at all, by the larger group. And even more than that, I’d argue, what was fascinating and valuable about Pazz & Jop was the way it functioned as a kind of historical record, so that you could look back at a year from decades past and see, not what were the best or even longest-lasting records from that year but what the people who were engaged in listening to and thinking and writing about music thought was important and engaging. I say “potentially,” though, because I had just enough time to realize I was mourning an institution I’d kind of taken for granted (and to be fair, again, each year’s findings at the top seem kind of ploddingly obvious at the time) when I got a new ballot. It looks like some sort of continuation is happening, although only time will tell if this is a genuine resurrection or a last gasp.  

Either way, I haven’t yet tried to narrow things down to lists of 10 (and given that there’s still over 10 hours of music left in my playlist of 2018 releases I haven’t gotten to yet), so here is 25 of the records I’ll be thinking about as I try to figure that ballot out, strictly in order of when I added them to my list, with links to the ones I’ve written about on Dusted. (I didn’t have as much time to go over reissues as I’d like, but probably my favourite was the gorgeous one of the overlooked late Bark Psychosis album ///Codename: Dustsucker, which I reviewed here.) 

Xylouris White - Mother

Mesarthim - The Density Parameter

V/A - Black Panther: The Album

Well Yells - Skunk

Tangents - New Bodies

Tracyanne & Danny - s/t

Tove Styrke - Sway

Wand - Perfume

The Armed - Only Love

Low - Double Negative

Let’s Eat Grandma - I’m All Ears

Obnox - Templo Del Sonido

Nadja - Sonnborner

Pusha T - DAYTONA

No Age - Snares Like a Haircut

Zeal & Ardor - Stranger Fruit

Chelsea Jade - Personal Best

Leverage Models - Whites

Aidan Baker - Deer Park

Robyn - Honey

Efrim Menuck - Pissing Stars

U.S. Girls - In a Poem Unlimited

Andrew Bayer - In My Last Life

Abul Mogard - Above All Dreams

DenMother - Past Life

And I can’t manage one of these every year, but this was an awfully good year for the EP, so here’s a top five: 

EMA - Outtakes From Exile EP

Underworld & Iggy Pop - Teatime Dub Encounters EP

IN / VIA - Treading Water EP

Protomartyr - Consolation EP

Hatchie - Sugar & Spice EP

[dustedmagazine]

“1, 2, 3, 4!”: Jennifer Kelly’s 2018 review

Jennifer Kelly is a frantic romantic.

Rock and roll forever, sure, but it’s hard to avoid the fact that the guitar/bass/drum idiom has been pushed way off to the side in the cultural conversation. Mainstream sites list “best rock records” as a weird, subcultural genre, with a slightly bigger audience, perhaps, than best cumbia records or top Hawaiian slack key recordings (but not much). Worse, to come up with a reasonable size list they include all kinds of things that don’t belong. I mean, really, is Mount Eerie rock by any definition?

Rock isn’t dead, but it’s been made to sit in the corner. The only time in 2018 when everybody thought at once about a guitar band was when Pitchfork’s Jeremy Larson dropped his scathing, hilarious review of the Greta Van Fleet. For a moment, we all snickered as one.

Big rock was terrible in 2018. It almost always is. Yet there’s something disingenuous about the genre of year-end write-ups that laser in on the absolute worst and most bloated of rock bands to make a point about the art-form as a whole. Sure, Imagine Dragons suck. Yes, “Africa” is a soul-destroyingly awful song no matter who sings it. No, I’m not wading into the whole 1975 thing. Who has time? Who has the heart for it?  

Because this year, against a tide of commercially viable horse shit, against a backdrop of monolithic indifference, rock bands of all configurations, from all countries (but really especially Australia), continued to make great punk and rock records. And, I, for whatever reason, heard more of them than usual, and it made me happy. And maybe that’s the secret to being happy in music, in any year…find your niche, listen to the best in it, forget about what the mega-corporations are trying to sell.

Also see it live. My big highlight this year was seeing the Scientists in October (with Negative Approach, too!), but it was a pretty great 12 months for live music. It started with a fantastic show comprised of Mike Donovan, the Long Hots, J. Mascis and his Stooges cover band and Purling Hiss (with J on board for one song) at the Root Cellar, a venue I’d never heard of before that show, and that ended up putting on a string of great events. I saw Marisa Anderson, Paul Metzger, Speedy Ortiz, Howling Rain, Trad Gras Och Stenar with Endless Boogie, that Scientists show and Gary Higgins at the Root Cellar this year, and I missed a lot of shows I would have liked to see. Other great shows happened outside the Root Cellar – The Thing in the Spring in Peterborough with William Parker, Bonnie Prince Billy and others, Amy Rigby and Wreckless Eric at the Parlour Room, Messthetics at the Flywheel. Western Massachusetts has been in a commercial chokehold for years, with one organization controlling most of the venues, but there were a lot of options this year.

So, here’s to the drummers with their sticks in the air, counting off the four. Here’s to the guitar player wrecking his knees jumping up and down as he/she furiously slashes away. Here’s to the sweat and muck and black humor of $10 shows with four bands on them, two of them still in high school. And here’s to the people (me at least and possibly you) who like these things. Eddie Argos of Art Brut, who used to top these lists and now merits a footnote, spoke for this tiny, beleaguered sub-cult when he urged “Wham! Bang! Pow! Let’s rock out.”

Indeed. Let’s.

Amy Rigby—The Old Guys (Southern Domestic)

The Old Guys by Amy Rigby

Let’s just set aside the fact that the first and best song on this album is an imagined email exchange between Philip Roth and Bob Dylan on the eve of the Nobel ceremony or that Rigby namechecks three of my favorite ever TV characters in “New Sheriff.” Let’s forget, too, how rare it is for a woman of roughly my age to be making her own music and controlling her own destiny even now in 2018. No, let’s focus on the songs which are sharp, smart and full of hooks, the clean, romantic chime of Rigby’s electric 12-string, the viscous pleasure of the arrangements. This is the very best kind of rock record, one that doesn’t attempt to remake the genre but somehow makes it bigger, brighter and more necessary. The songs sounded great, live, too, with the great Wreckless Eric in tow, and the two of them bickering like old married couples do, and Rigby glowing with triumph by the end of the show.

 Shopping—The Official Body (Fat Cat)

The Official Body by Shopping

Bubbly in a hard way, strict and minimal in a manner requires body movement, this album arrived early and stayed on my go-to list all year. For Dusted, I wrote, “You could bounce a quarter off the bass lines in this third Shopping full-length. They’re pulled hard and tight against minimalist syncopated drums, the leaning, waiting, anticipating space between the thwacks as important a character as the beats themselves. The London-based trio harks back to the funky, stripped down post-punk of bands like ESG and Delta 5, with hints of the boy-girl bubble and pop of the B-52s and Pylon.

 Salad Boys—This Is Glue (Trouble in Mind)

This Is Glue by Salad Boys

Always weak for NZ lo-fi and equally a fan of the early R.E.M., so of course I fell for this buzzy daydream of a record. “Psych Slasher” bursts with immoderate, glorious joy in the chorus, then cuts back to uncertainty in the verse, the ideal blend of rambunctious rock and wistful pop. “Exaltation” is a gentler sort of classic, just as radiant but moodier, its murmur-y vocals disappearing into cloud banks of fuzzed guitar tone. The whole record sits on the knife edge of rock and indie pop, leaning one way and the other, but never falling over.

 Patois Counselors—Proper Release (Ever/Never)

Proper Release by Patois Counselors

I went all in for “So Many Digits” in my Dusted review this year, but the two great punk songs on Proper Release are “The Modern Station” and, especially, “Target Not a Comrade.” This latter song chugs and lurches on guitar and bass, trembles with wheedly keyboards and crests in a massive, hummable refrain. It’s a catchy, twitchy punk tune that’ll hit you in the part of your brain where you keep Wire and the Buzzcocks, hooky as hell in a weird, distorted way.

 Bodega—Endless Scroll (What’s Your Rupture)

Endless Scroll by BODEGA

Flipping the gender cliché, Bodega is an all-woman band with a male singer. Its tight, nervy, jangles wrap around themes of internet-age dislocation and movie references. Smart, sarcastic, ironic, sharp, Bodega bristles with what you want from a garage punk band but reveals a surprisingly soft heart uncovered round about “Charlie,” a wistful song about a boy who died too soon.

 Bardo Pond—Volume 8 (Three-Lobed)

Volume 8 by Bardo Pond

The eighth in a series of improvised albums, this year’s Bardo Pond record towers and surges with monumental heaviness. I wrote at Dusted that, “The sound, vast and muscularly monolithic as ever, seems more like a demon summoned periodically from a ring of fire, than the product of any sort of linear development.”

 Meg Baird and Mary Lattimore—Ghost Forests (Three Lobed)

Ghost Forests by Meg Baird and Mary Lattimore

This year’s most beautiful album, Ghost Forests undergirds lyric folk melodies and angelic pizzicato harp plucks with roiling, violent darkness. My Dusted review observed “The best and most interesting [tracks] juxtapose the muted violence of electric guitar with a harp’s serenity. A guitar howls from a distance throughout “In Cedars,” pushing a simmering turbulence up under sun-dappled lattices of harp picking. Later “Painter of Tygers” does the same trick of joining muscle to fairy dust, the electric guitar raging from far away, while harp and voice spread delicate magic over the tumult.”

 Seun Kuti & Egypt 80—Black Times (Strut)

Black Times by Seun Kuti & Egypt 80

Fela Kuti’s youngest son inherited his dad’s fierce political commitment, his rhythmically unstoppable Afrobeat style and a few of his band members, but this wonderful album is more alive and present than a tribute. “Struggle Sounds, “ with its hard-bounce of a beat, its blurting sax, its ecstatic backing chorus, its swagger of horns and fever-dreamed keyboards dances through history right up to the modern day. “Last Revolutionary” enumerates past African heroes and connects them to the now. I wrote, “Kuti extends his father’s legacy, its tight rhythmic interplay, its fervent political engagement, its relentless exhilarating uplift, while bringing it a bit further into the present.”

Ovlov—Tru (Exploding in Sound)

TRU by Ovlov

I first noticed Ovlov at the Thing in the Spring Festival, on an eclectic Thursday night in a book store, where the sweet surge of guitar sound felt solid enough to body surf on. Later, for Dusted, I said of Tru that “Ovlov churns a monumental fuzz, a wave of surging, undulating, feedback-altered sound …. You can almost poke it with your finger, this onslaught is so palpable. It stirs your hair like an oncoming breeze.”

Speedy Ortiz—Twerp Verse (Carpark) 

Twerp Verse by Speedy Ortiz

There’s something so bendy and unpredictable about Sadie Dupuis tunes. They hare off in unexpected ways. They stop and start. They interpose weird little intervals of pop and noise. They refuse to behave, and end up exactly as they should be, though never what you’d expect. Twerp Verse takes more pop turns than other Speedy joints, but in the tipsiest, most eccentric way, with acerbic asides in the lyrics that catch like fishhooks and stay with you. “Speedy Ortiz offers a serrated sort of pop pleasure, full of rhythmic complexity and gender confrontation,” I observed in my Dusted review.

 Had enough rock? Me neither

Here are some more punk rock and garage records that I couldn’t squeeze into the top ten overall, mostly in the order that I thought of them, but Constant Mongrel and Richard Papiercuts are pretty great and that’s probably why I thought of them first.

Constant Mongrel—Living in Excellence (La Vida Es Un Mus)

Richard Papiercuts— Twisting the Night (Ever/Never)

GOGGs—Prestrike Sweep (In the Red)

Hank Wood & the Hammerheads—S-T (Toxic State)

Obnox—Bang Messiah (Smog Veil)

Zerodent—Landscapes of Merriment (Alien Snatch!)

Sleaford Mods—Stick in a Five and Go (Domino)

Ethers—S-T (Trouble in Mind)

IDLES—Joy as an Act of Resistance (Partisan)

Bad Sports—Constant Stimulation (Dirtnap)

Lithics—Mating Surfaces (Kill Rock Stars)

Art Brut—Wham! Bang! Pow! (Alcopop)

 Whoa, slow down!

Also a shout to the musicians who made more than one really excellent album this year. Ty Segall made five, I think, but I didn’t love all of them as much as Freedom Goblin and Prestrike Sweep.

Obnox—Sonido del Templo/Bang Messiah (Astral Spirits)/(Smog Veil)

Mount Eerie—Now Only/(After) (Elverum & Sons)

Ty Segall—Freedom Goblin (Drag City)/GOGGs—Prestrike Sweep (In the Red)

Ryley Walker—Deafman Glance/The Lillywhite Sessions (Dead Oceans)

  Nevertheless, they persisted

And finally, hats off to the bands and artists that have been going forever and continued this year to produce great music.

Kinski—Accustomed to Your Face (Kill Rock Stars)

Low—Double Negative (Sub Pop)

Loma—S-T (Sub Pop) (Shearwater’s Jonathan Meiburg plus Cross Record)

Oneida—Romance (Joyful Noise)

Wreckless Eric—Construction Time and Demolition (Southern Domestic)

Messthetics—S-T (Discord) (The great Fugazi rhythm section plus a young guitar ripper—one of the best live shows of the year for me.)

Charnel Ground—S-T (12XU) (This is Kid Millions from Oneida, Chris Brokaw and James McNew from Yo La Tengo, and as you’d expect, it’s really good.)

[dustedmagazine]

A year of pissed-off, bummed-out music: Jonathan Shaw’s year in review

Photo of Agrimonia by Victor Sanchez

I’m not making any grandiose claims about the “greatness” or the “best-ness” of any of these records. But they’re the records I kept coming back to, throughout the year — the ones that refused to fall off the queue, that insisted that I listen, closely and attentively.  

The list also gravitates toward the slow and really, really heavy. This year, if a record’s sounds weren’t loud and pissed off or bummed out, it didn’t have much chance of holding my attention. Heavy, pissed and bummed were my affective baselines, as U.S. politics and culture spiraled around an ethical nadir. Music has never been an escape for me. It’s life’s soundtrack. And life has a dire, desperate feel these days. The records respond accordingly.  

Agrimonia’s Awaken is the record I played most often this year, and I played those by YOB and Thou almost as frequently. The others are in no particular order, but I spent a lot of time with all of them.

Agrimonia — Awaken (Southern Lord)

Awaken by Agrimonia

Awaken is a remarkably potent blend of crust’s politico-cultural ethos and metal’s volume and riff worship. The band’s roster combines decades of experience gigging in Gothenburg’s fecund metal and punk scenes, and their confidence and deftness shows. It’s a passionate, exciting record, egregiously underappreciated.  

YOB — Our Raw Heart (Relapse)

Our Raw Heart by YOB

To call this LP “heartfelt” might be a bit too on the nose. Still, Mike Scheidt’s heavyweight bout with near-fatal illness has imbued YOB’s riffing with a nakedly emotional impact. The band still brings the heavy, but they do so with palpable humility and humanity, and that’s a real artistic accomplishment. 

 Thou — Magus (Sacred Bones)

Magus by Thou

An absolute knockout: all the scabrous, desolate noise you could want out of a sludge record, and an outsized load of smarts, too. Thou released a ridiculous amount of new music this year, but this record is the motherfucker. Unrelentingly intense and full of ideas.

  Candy — Good to Feel (Triple B)

Good To Feel by CANDY

The remarkable hardcore record, Good to Feel finds a way to get to the other side of nihilism by taking it seriously. Careful with this one—it leaves a mark. And the band are among the best live acts in heavy rock right now.

 Efrim Manuel Menuck — Pissing Stars (Constellation)

Pissing Stars by Efrim Manuel Menuck

Menuck is one of the founders of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and that band’s sonic grandiosity is occasionally registered on this solo LP. But most of the sounds are bleak, angry or emotionally tapped out. It’s pretty harrowing stuff. Menuck attempts to bring the record’s tone around to hope, and the title track almost gets there. Almost.

 The Armed — Only Love (Self released)

ONLY LOVE by The Armed

An impossibly exciting hybrid of hardcore’s provocation, electro’s technical spazz-out and noise rock’s information overload. It’s hard to get a handle on exactly who these Detroit-based pranksters are, and what they intend by presenting the world with these sounds. But the sounds themselves are undeniable.

 Material Support — Terror Prone Nation (Aklasan Records)

Terror Prone Nation by Material Support

The year’s sharpest political punk, Terror Prone Nation couples ideological clarity with memorable melody. Vocalist Jackie commands the songs with a voice that’s clear and compelling. She knows that the words are what matter, but she can shout with the best of them. “Tear it down and start again.” Right on.

 Moloch — A Bad Place (Feast of Tentacles)

A BAD PLACE LP by MOLOCH

At once unendurably ugly and utterly transfixing, this is the sound of the earth ball rolling around the rim of a rusting, crumbling sewer pipe. Depending on how you’re situated, A Bad Place is either the worst record to play when you’re feeling shitty, or the only record to play.

 Screaming Females — All at Once (Don Giovanni)

All At Once by Screaming Females

As on all Screaming Females records, Marissa Paternoster’s guitar-hero antics dominate. But All at Once also demonstrates the range of her gifts as a singer, and the record’s ongoing thematic interest in image (on the Internet, self-image and identity, and in visual arts) makes for a cohesive and stimulating set of inventively written songs. And the solos burn it down.

 Primitive Man / Unearthly Trance — Split LP (Relapse)

Split w/ Unearthly Trance by Primitive Man

This is one of those rare split LPs that feels like a complete record, as both bands explore the relation between doom metal and harsh noise. Primitive Man’s tracks are much more oriented to experimentation with noise, while Unearthly Trance absolutely destroy their side of the record with four songs of soul-shattering metal. Among the heaviest records of the year, by whatever metric you want to use.  

Also, a special shout-out to Philadelphia’s own Moor Mother, who threw down the loudest, smartest and most searing live show I saw this year, among a bunch of loud, smart and searing shows. If you haven’t seen Moor Mother do her thing, stop fucking around and go. Here’s a taste:

Peace.

 Jonathan Shaw

[dustedmagazine]

Year End 2018: Derek Taylor

Another year above ground. Another year salvaged in no small part through the solace of music. That may register as a Limbo-worthy low bar for measuring life satisfaction, not mention one hopelessly awash in hyperbole, but there’s a reason. The sobering sense of normalcy that’s come to characterize the daily insanity of the world writ large and small makes the railing and grousing about it through a laptop keyboard feel at once futile and arrogant. Many of us still have it pretty good, if not better. Able to move and think freely. Fortunate to readily find the time to spend sequestered with art, whatever the senses and thoughts it stimulates. Plenty of others can’t consistently say the same. That ever-widening disparity weighs on my mind with a regularity that makes the compiling and commentary of lists such as this seem both a luxury and a necessity. We’re all in it together and revitalizing music is as meaningful a reminder as any of that steadfast reality. If only the orange orangutan still soiling the Oval Office and the psyches of millions (if not billions) would swap the MAGA-emblazoned nonsense that’s his usual headgear for the Burnside brim pictured above and mean it!  

No real ranking to the entries below other than the general order to which they visited me through contemplation and return engagement.

Eric Dolphy – Musical Prophet: The Expanded 1963 New York Sessions (Resonance)

Released in haphazard, infrequent and incomplete editions, Eric Dolphy’s interstitial work (landing between his formative tenure at Prestige and his solitary masterpiece for Blue Note, Out to Lunch) under the aegis of producer Alan Douglas has never really received a fair shake from curators and critics alike. That long-standing slight was rectified this year with the Record Store Day release of Musical Prophet: The Expanded 1963 New York Sessions on the Resonance label. Rescued, enhanced and appended with 85-minutes of previously unreleased music and a lavish 100-page book stocked with scholarly essays by the likes of flautists James Newton and Nicole Mitchell, Sonnys Rollins and Simmons, Han Bennink, Henry Threadgill, Oliver Lake and others it’s an unprecedented boon on all fronts. The CD version of the set is slated for a 1/25 street date.

Barre Phillips

Octogenarian expatriate bassist Barre Phillips has sustained a relatively steady output in the 21st century, but End To End, a solo set (his purported last) for ECM, and a Oh My, Those Boys!, a timely reissue of his extended duets with Japanese confrere Motoharu Yoshizawa on the Lithuanian No Business label are aural confirmation of his consistency across decades. Alone and self-limited to the length of a LP he sculpts a somber soliloquy of intimate communion with his instrument. In the fast company of Yoshizawa, who fields a custom-made electric upright, the mood is much more frenetic in playful. Both settings are aurally transfixing.

Mingus – Jazz in Detroit/Strata Concert Gallery/46 Selden

Weighing in at a mighty five-discs, Jazz in Detroit/Strata Concert Gallery46 Selden dispenses with Christian name specifics and allows surname to suffice in announcing its bigger-than-life subject. Mingus’ instrumental faculties weren’t quite as consistent as the virtuosic powers that propelled him in youth (he had just over six years to live in the winter of 1974 when this material was captured), but any effects of advancing age fall away when he calls a tune, soloing with strength and at length and according his auspicious sidemen including drummer Roy Brooks who is ostensibly responsible for the recording’s survival. Retooled staples like “Pithecanthropus Erectus” and “Peggy’s Blue Skylight” join newer improvisational springboards like “The Man Who Never Sleeps” and “Noddin’ Ya Head Blues” to form a veritable smorgasbord of vibrant small group, stage-born jazz.

Peter Brötzmann

The venerable German road dog always has a place on this list. Now somewhat miraculously pushing eighty he’s still at it, crisscrossing the globe and breaking hearty musical bread with friends old and new. Three releases stood out to these ears: two recent duos and a welcome reissue of Hot Lotta, one of his early free jazz missives recorded almost five decades earlier with faithful countryman Kowald and the Finnish duo of Juhani Aaltonen and Edward Vesala. In the must-hear duo column reside, Ouroboros, a 2011 German club date with Chicago cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm on Astral Spirits, and Sparrow Nights on Trost, a wrenchingly intimate studio encounter with pedal steel phantasmagorist Heather Leigh, who ranks easily among Brötzmann’s most intriguing recent coconspirators.

Corbett vs. Dempsey

Keeping the Corbett vs. Dempsey count to just three for the year is a tough task as their usual prolificacy combined with a commensurate excellence. The reissue of Steve Lacy’s seminal Stamps, originally released in 1979 as his debut for the Swiss Hat Hut imprint narrowly edges out the equally edifying appearance of Milford Graves long-lost Bäbi if only because my spouse allows me to spin the cacophonously calorific latter platter only in her conspicuous absence. A decade was a long time to wait for Joe McPhee and Hamid Drake’s duo follow-up, Keep Going, this time trading stage for studio. But from the music to the mantra-ready title it’s a welcome inoculation against the forces of idiocy and ire globally arrayed against those with humanist allegiances.

Guy Lafitte

Last year it was Lucky Thompson. This year French tenorist Guy Lafitte got the Fresh Sound archival treatment with four full discs of material from his heyday as one of his country’s most popular indigenous purveyors of jazz. Each set delves into a different side of his folio from tight ensembles to modestly-sized orchestras, sometimes in the company of visiting guests, but more often plying his sound amongst a core crew of fellow believers. One of former, Michel de Villers, also earned a survey with The Complete Small Group Sessions 1949-1956 that shows him living up to the sobriquet of “Low Reed” at length on deftly deployed baritone saxophone.

Steeplechase

The Danish Steeplechase label always seems to slot in my yearly look back, mainly because of the consistency of both their roster and long-standing aesthetic. Sea changing surprises instigated by their records are exceedingly rare, but the odds of a stimulating listen are conversely high with virtually every release. Guitarist Pierre Dørge’s Soundscapes convenes a quintet with tenorist Stephen Riley and cornetist Kirk Knuffke in the service of the leader’s customarily open-ended compositions. Riley’s Hold ‘Em Joe is at once a canted tribute to Sonny Rollins and a welcome return to the piano-less trio format he first cut his teeth on for the label a decade ago. Baritonist Gary Smulyan’s Alternative Contrafacts yields winsome results with the instrumentation as well in a creative nod to the sort of extrapolations that were the fertile province of the Tristano School in the last century.

No Business/Chap Chap

A partnership between the No Business label and the Korean Chap Chap imprint continues to yield impressive reissues. All in circulation to date are worthy of consideration, but two bent my ears with pleasing consistency. Kang Tae Hwan’s Live at Café Amores offers an extended concert for solo saxophone that is equal measures Zen meditation and extended techniques master-class. Choi Sun Bae Quartet’s Arirang Fantasy teams a trio of Korean improvisers with visiting Japanese bassist Motoharu Yoshizawa for another café set that is ripe with cross-cultural creativity. Lastly, a reissue of sorely unsung vibraphonist Bobby Naughton’s 1976 masterstroke The Haunt with Leo Smith and the recently-deceased Perry Robinson (R.I.P.) in a setting of creative chamber jazz perfection.

Jimi Hendrix – Electric Ladyland 50th Anniversary (Sony)

Repackaging of milestone rock albums is still the rage even as the compact disc as a physical musical format continues to wane with advance of other intangible digital formats. Hendrix has had his fair share of legacy parceled and promoted along these lines and it’s hard to fault the family for seeking to both cash-in and do right by his memory. Electric Ladyland 50th Anniversary does better than most past projects in this regard by hewing to a logical presentation and proffering some genuine value across three compact discs, a Blu-ray and a lavish LP-sized container replete hardcover tome covering all the minutiae of the original double-album phenomenon. And let’s face it, Hendrix fooling around with songs in their protean forms is more fun than sitting down with most rock musicians’ finished product.

Jack Sels – Minor Works (SDBAN)

Parts of Belgian Jack Sels biography read like Hollywood-ready bohemian melodrama with riches, rags, tragedy and triumph all sewn into the story of a saxophonist who spent much of his life trying to capture the magic of his American idols while remaining fiercely true to his European roots. That latter decision explains his relative anonymity today, but the expertly-curated if humbly-titled Minor Works is practically bursting with recovered music and anecdotal context that frames a vivid portrait of a player well-deserving of posthumous consideration.

Jon Irabagon

Irabagon’s a dues-payer, tireless and admirably selfless in his dedication to a revolving door of projects and regular gigs. A recent interview with clarinetist & podcaster Jeremiah Cymerman reveals just how cool and unflappable a customer the Filipino-American saxophonist can be as he relates exercising the patience of Job in the face of dunderheaded racism by erstwhile peers. On the aural front two specific contexts stuck with me as evidence of his indefatigability. Dr. Quixotic’s Traveling Exotics on his own Irabbagast imprint teams his quartet with veteran trumpeter Tim Hagans in a program that feels like a natural and more focused extension of earlier work in Mostly Other People Do the Killing. Dave Douglas’ Brazen Heart: Live at the Jazz Standard released on the trumpeter’s Greenleaf label explores one of Irabagon’s recurring sideman posts and at length over eight discs covering a four-night stand at the titular NYC club in 2015.

Roscoe Mitchell

Recent and nascent masterworks with nearly a half-century of revelatory activity between them, Ride the Wind (Nessa) and Sound (Delmark) represent two essential signposts in Roscoe Michell’s reliably iconoclastic career. Both center on the blurring the subjective boundaries between improvisation and composition. Whether adapting improvised solos to orchestral charts or atomizing ensemble interplay into a freeing malleable framework that can take participating musicians in a multiplicity of expressive directions, Mitchell’s courageous adherence to personal designs and investigations has always been the bedrock of his work.

Intakt

The Swiss Intakt imprint bridges the best aspects of a classic label construct (reliable stable, dependable production values, deep catalog, etc.) with a refreshing willingness to tweak the formula through a voracious ear for new talent. German altoist Angelica Niescer’s triumphant Berlin Concert and a pair of from Cuban pianist Auran Oritz, Live in Zurich with his working trio and Random Dances and (A)tonalities in the unexpected company of clarinetist Don Byron fit that latter bill. Globe Unity 50 Years celebrating the half-century longevity of Europe’s most influential improvising orchestra and Music for David Mossman by the equally indelible trio of Evan Parker, Barry Guy and Paul Lytton argue conclusively that the former end of Intakt’s endeavors is equally secure.

  Clean Feed

Staunch loyalists to the tradition of improvisational album in physical form, Lisbon-based Clean Feed doesn’t just soldier on, it leads away with a release docket that reliably weds frequency with dependability. The sixteen discs that hit circulation in the span since January all have elements to recommend them, but two stuck to my ears and cranium more tenaciously than the others for both their audacity and intimacy. Vocalist Serpa’s Close Up is exactly that, a sans-net song forum with the stark support of Ingrid Laubrock’s saxophones and Erik Friedlander’s cello as the sum of sounding board. Similarly, trumpeter Susana Santos Silva’s All the Rivers situates her solitary horn in the unforgiving acoustics of the Panteão Nacional, a vast marble cathedral, for a recital rife with reverberating complexity.

  Satoko Fuji – 12 for 60 Project

Year-long artist celebrations through output aren’t exactly common, but there’s certainly precedence (bassist Reuben Radding’s 12 in 2007 springs to mind). Already admirably prolific Japanese pianist Satoko Fuji decided to commemorate her 60th birthday on the planet by releasing a dozen albums on the Libra label over the course of the annum. As with her back catalog, many of them featured her kindred spirit Natsuki Tamura on trumpet as well as ensembles both familiar and freshly-minted. I’m still digesting the series in sum, but the standout so far is Aspiration, the core duo’s conclave with Wadada Leo Smith and electronicst Ikue Mori. Fuji has an admitted tendency to crowd the market and numb the senses with her productivity, but the focus and unity guiding these releases sets them apart.

Voices of Mississippi: Artists and Musicians Documented by William Ferris

In common with the intimation of its name, Dust to Digital is a label that takes its time in the laudable work of producing archival music collections that stand instantly apart in terms of quality, scope and expertly-examined context. Voices of Mississippi: Artists and Musicians Documented by William Ferris is a work of art from the packaging to the sounds (and sights) contained within. Incisively indexed into three categories (Blues, Gospel & Folk), the field recordings are immersive and often carry the mesmerizing magic of incantations. A fourth disc containing a DVD collection of Ferris’ hand-shot films evokes time, place and person even more vividly. Temporary antidotes to slowly normalizing nightmare we find ourselves in as a world abound on this list, but this the one I have probably returned to most since my first encounter. It’s that transportive.

V/A – Technicolor Paradise: Rhum Rhapsodies & Other Delights

Exotica was originally indicative a certain slice of commercial music expression, one inextricably entangled in associative issues of appropriation, exploitation and in many cases mollification of indigenous cultural capital. Sometimes it was a complete recontextualization entirely as Numero Group’s Technicolor Paradise explores over three discs and an associative booklet brimming with commentary. This sort of deep crate project is nothing new for the label, but it is gratifying to see them go at it with such gusto after an earlier and unexpected embrace by the label honchos of streaming as a means of revenue. Some selections tip irrevocably into bromidic kitsch, but the first disc especially, which focuses on guitar bands keeps a more even keel of interest.

Charlie McCoy – Real McCoy/Charlie McCoy/Good Time Charlie/Fastest Harp in the South

Jerry Reed – Jerry Reed Explores Guitar Country/Cookin’/Georgia Sunshine/Me & Jerry (w/ Chet Atkins)

Time was when a two-fer reissue was a common currency in the compact disc market place. BGO’s done that erstwhile staple two better maintaining a fearsome foursome reissue program. Sets by country mouth harp maestro Charlie McCoy and good old boy-turned-ace guitar picker-turned-movie star Jerry Reed. Both are dipped liberally in countrypolitan production values that only occasionally slide over into schmaltz and McCoy wisely avoids vocals in favor of instrumentals that often sound like they could serve as soundtrack snippets to The Rockford Files (not a bad thing). Reed by contrast had a decent set up pipes to complement his strings-slinging skills and the chutzpah to try his hand at dry humor like the hilariously off-the-cuff ode to inconsolable nicotine addiction, “Another Puff.”

V/A – The Beginning of the End: The Existential Psychodrama in Country Music 1956 to 1972 (Omni) V/A – Hillbillies in Hell: Country Music’s Tormented Testament (1952-1974) – The Resurrection (Omni) V/A – Hillbillies in Hell: Country Music’s Tormented Testament (1952-1974) – The Rapture (Omni)

After an unexplained although far from unnoticed hiatus several years ago, the Omni Recording Corporation out of Australia roared back to life with renewed reissue campaign. The schedule of new projects eschewed full album(s) + plus bonus tracks for keenly curated collections focusing on the wilder and more tortured sides of the vintage country and country/pop spectrum. The Beginning of the End details descents into madness committed to song while two volumes more of the ongoing Hillbillies in Hell series doubled the entries to date describing that region of idiom(s) devoted to Beelzebub and his myriad earthly incarnations. All three are archly edifying as they are fun.

Sun Ra

Sun Ra reissues are once again a semi-regularity now thanks to reissue operators like Modern Harmonic and Cosmic Myth, both of which have conscripted longtime Ra repository Michael D. Anderson in their noble endeavors. Cymbals/Symbol Sessions: New York 1973 covers ground previously mapped by an earlier set on the Evidence label pairing worthy material including the (16:33) John Gilmore tenor <I<tour de force “Thoughts Under a Dark Blue Light.” God is More Than Love Can Ever Be has singular status as the solitary piano, bass and drums trio album in the entirely of Ra’s omniversal oeuvre and largely lives up to the stated promise of that proposition.

25 more in no fixed order...

Tyshawn Sorey – Pillars (Pi)

Henry Threadgill – Dirt… And More Dirt (Pi)

Peter Kuhn Trio – Intention (FMR)

Dave Holland – Uncharted Territories (Dare2)

Devin Gray – Dirigo Rataplan II (Rataplan)

John Coltrane - Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album (Impulse!)

JD Allen – Love Stone (Savant)

Fay Victor’s SoundNoiseFunk – Wet Robots (ESP-Disk)

A Pride of Lions – The Bridge Sessions 8

Michael Adkins – Flaneur (hatOLOGY)

Houston Person & Ron Carter – Remember Love (HighNote)

Spontaneous Music Ensemble – Karyobin (Emanem)

Cecil Taylor – Poschiavo (Black Sun)

Paul Rutherford – In Backwards Times (Emanem)

Mike Westbrook Concert Band – The Last Night at the Old Place (Cadillac)

Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar – Raga Yaman & Ragas Abhogi & Vardhani (Ideologic Organ)

Kitsos Harisiadis – Lament in a Deep Style: 1929 to 1931 (Third Man)

Asnakech Worku – Asnakech (Awesome Tapes from Africa)

V/A – African Scream Contest 2 (Analog Africa)

Mulatu – Afro-Latin Soul (Worthy/Strut)

V/A – Listen All Around: The Golden Age of Central & East African Music (Dust to Digital)

V/A – Ocora – Le Monde Des Musiques Traditionelles (Ocora)

V/A – Music City Blues & Rhythm (Ace)

Professor Harold Boggs – Lord Give Me Strength: Early Recordings 1952-1964 (Nashboro/Gospel Friend)

Yuri Morozov – Strange Angels: Experimental & Electronic Music (Buried Treasure)

[dustedmagazine]

Rachel Smith’s 2018 top ten

I didn’t write any reviews for Dusted this year, but I have spent a lot of time on Twitter. So — because apparently my brain only works in thought-nuggets of 240 characters or so — here are, in alphabetical order, very brief reviews of some of my 2018 favorites. This isn’t so much a “best of” as it is a few snapshots of the records that served a purpose in my life this year: a release valve for the free-floating rage and despair that still permeate our political climate, a welcome distraction, a glimpse of a better future, a moment of quiet contemplation or the reassuring return of a familiar face. I hope they do something for you, too.

Author & Punisher — Beastland (Relapse)

Beastland by Author & Punisher

2018 was the right year to drop this unwieldy slab of jet-black industrial doom metal. From inside a virtual mech suit of gnashing machinery, one-man band Tristan Shone delivers a fatalistic vision that would seem almost camp if it wasn’t so well-suited to the mood today.

Daphne & Celeste — Daphne & Celeste Save the World (self-released)

In difficult times, self-care matters, and so whenever necessary I encourage you to escape into the sugar-coated world of Daphne & Celeste. Produced by Max Tundra, the king of meticulously maximalist electro-pop, Save the World is a riot of color and cozy clutter.

Dustin Wong — Fluid World Building 101 With Shaman Bambu (Hausu Mountain)

Fluid World Building 101 With Shaman Bambu by Dustin Wong

Maybe dystopian sci-fi isn’t your bag. If so, try summoning a brighter, weirder future with Tokyo-based multi-instrumentalist Dustin Wong. Busy, cheerful, and gently askew, Wong’s virtual worlds sparkle with the chirps and burbles of mutant life.

Ezra Furman — Transangelic Exodus (Bella Union)

If Bruce Springsteen’s cover of Suicide’s “Dream Baby Dream” somehow gave birth to an album, I imagine it would sound a lot like Transangelic Exodus. Part trad-rock bombast, part weirdo folk-punk, Furman's meditations on faith, medicine and change leave a lasting mark.

Hot Snakes — Jericho Sirens (Sub Pop)

Jericho Sirens by Hot Snakes

Hot Snakes made some of the best rock records of the Bush, Jr. administration and although the political timing is surely a coincidence, it’s good to have them back. John Reis’ swagger and Rick Froberg’s righteous indignation are still balm to the soul.

Joan of Arc — 1984 (Joyful Noise)

1984 by Joan of Arc

For the first time, Joan of Arc frontman Tim Kinsella cedes lead vocal and lyrical duties to bandmate Melina Ausikaitis, and the experiment, I’m pleased to say, is a complete success. Ausikaitis brings refreshing new energy to the group’s playful, introspective post-rock, making 1984 is one of their best.

Julia Holter — Aviary (Domino)

Aviary by Julia Holter

Fueled by “the cacophony of the mind in a melting world,” Aviary is Holter’s attempt to carve out meditative space in a chaotic present. With complex, synth-driven arrangements, she transforms the smoggy haze of LA sprawl into an eerie, expansive dreamscape.

Nap Eyes — I’m Bad Now (Paradise of Bachelors)

Nap Eyes wed the lilting sounds of 1960s U.K. folk-rock a la the Incredible String Band and Fairport Convention with the grounded slacker-punk Zen of 1990s indie and, in so doing, have created my perfect comfort food record. Thanks, Nap Eyes!

Nicholas Krgovich — “OUCH” (Tin Angel)

"OUCH" (North American Customers) by NICHOLAS KRGOVICH

When Krgovich sings “Everything’s fine, I guess, but I wish I were dead” and a plaintive slide guitar kicks in like a punch line, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, but I think the correct answer is “both.” “OUCH” is a great break-up album, but it’s also a great album about being a person in the world.

Spirit of the Beehive — Hypnic Jerks (Tiny Engines)

Hypnic Jerks by the spirit of the beehive

Hypnic Jerks reminds me of a harder-rocking version of the Olivia Tremor Control’s Dusk at Cubist Castle—a hypnogogic patchwork of odd, elliptical little psych-pop songs that never quite work the way you expect them to but always end up somewhere good.

18 Great Records from 2018:

1.       Author & Punisher — Beastland (Relapse)

2.       The Breeders — All Nerve (4AD)

3.       Courtney Barnett — Tell Me How You Really Feel (Milk! Records)

4.       Daphne & Celeste — Daphne & Celeste Save the World (self-released)

5.       Dustin Wong — Fluid World Building 101 With Shaman Bambu (Hausu Mountain)

6.       Ezra Furman — Transangelic Exodus (Bella Union)

7.       Flasher — Constant Image (Domino)

8.       Hot Snakes — Jericho Sirens (Sub Pop)

9.       Joan of Arc — 1984 (Joyful Noise)

10.   Julia Holter — Aviary (Domino)

11.   Matthew Dear — Bunny (Ghostly International)

12.   Media Jeweler — 1-800 SUCCEED (Fire Talk)

13.   Nap Eyes — I’m Bad Now (Paradise of Bachelors)

14.   Neneh Cherry — Broken Politics (Smalltown Supersound)

15.   Nicholas Krgovich — “OUCH” (Tin Angel)

16.   Noname — Room 25 (self-released)

17.   Parquet Courts — Wide Awake! (Rough Trade)

18.   Spirit of the Beehive — Hypnic Jerks (Tiny Engines)

[dustedmagazine]

Isaac Olson’s year in review

This was my first year writing for Dusted. As I tried to nail down what I was looking for in a record, I returned frequently to John Berger’s essay, “The Ideal Critic and the Fighting Critic”. Berger evaluated art by asking, “does this work help or encourage men [sic] to know and claim their social rights?” It’s not that artists “can or should be primarily concerned with the justice of a social cause,” but that “a valid work of art promises in some way or another the possibility of an increase, an improvement...it increases our awareness of our own potentiality”. It’s the identification with and negotiation between different ways of seeing (and hearing) that tears down the walls. Communion, singularity, freedom: states all the more precious for being in short supply as another bullshit year in Trumpistan ground inexorably on.  

The usual caveats apply:

1.)    I spent most of 2018 discovering older records.

2.)    I missed a ton of great records this year.

3.)     There are plenty of records I’ve heard recently that, given more time, would likely have made this list.

4.)    These aren’t the most important records of 2018, just the ones that meant the most to me.

Album of the Year

Marisa Anderson— Cloud Corner (Thrill Jockey)

Cloud Corner by Marisa Anderson

This was the most restorative, cathartic record I heard this year, and it’s a huge leap forward for my favorite living guitarist.

Think Locally, Dance Globally

The Fossil Lickers— S/T (Blue Hole)

The Fossil Lickers by The Fossil Lickers

This tape brought me more joy than pretty much anything else I heard this year, but I’m a fiddle tune fanatic. Non-fanatics need, at most, one album of old time fiddle tunes every few years. Make it this one.

I’m Not Here to Hunt Rabbits: Guitar and Folk Styles from Botswana—V/A (Pirahna)

I'm Not Here To Hunt Rabbits by Various Artists

Angelique Kidjo— Remain in Light (Kravenworks)

Follow Your Arrow

Kacey Musgraves— The Golden Hour (MCA Nashville)

I’m a poptimism skeptic because pop criticism frequently confuses the popular with the important and the important with the good. Plus, I don’t like when money and attention are directed towards people who have too much of both. That said, I regret to inform my fellow contrarians that The Golden Hour is as good as everyone says. Musgraves dosed mainstream country with a much needed hit of empathy, humility, and starry-eyed wonder.

Neko Case—Hell-On (Anti-)

Hell-On by Neko Case

Neko Case comes to terms with the fact that letting people in and ceding control doesn’t tame your artistic vision: it enhances it, and make it stronger, weirder, fuller. Quoth Kacey Musgraves, “Love is a wild thing.”

John Prine— The Tree of Forgiveness (Oh Boy)

The Tree of Forgiveness by John Prine

John Prine, on what is hopefully not his last album, has chilled out enough to fully embrace his role as America’s cornpone bodhisattva. Prine on heaven: “I'm gonna have a cocktail: vodka and ginger ale/Yeah I'm gonna smoke a cigarette that's nine miles long/I'm gonna kiss that pretty girl on the tilt-a-whirl/Yeah this old man is goin' to town.” Kacey Musgraves on heaven: “My idea of heaven is to burn one with John Prine.” Amen.

The Road Reversed

Daniel Bachman— The Morning Star (Three Lobed)

The Morning Star by Daniel Bachman

This was the sound of the gut-level anxiety and wounded hope I felt throughout 2018.

Nathan Bowles—Plainly Mistaken (Paradise of Bachelors)

Plainly Mistaken by Nathan Bowles

As a critic, my reaction to Plainly Mistaken is that it’s an intriguing trip through the American Primitive genre’s favorite touchstones: Appalachian picking, smeared drones, spiritual jazz, and modernist minimalism. As an amateur banjo player myself, my reaction is awe and envy.

The Newbies Lift Off

Tierra Whack— Whack World (Self Released)

I don’t listen to nearly as much hip-hop as I used to, but this late breaking favorite is weirder, braver, slyer, funnier, more frustrating and, by a damn sight, catchier than just about any other avant garde or experimental record I’ve heard this year.

Makaya McCraven—Universal Beings (International Anthem)

Universal Beings by Makaya McCraven

Makaya McCraven convened some of the best young-ish jazz musicians working today for sessions in four cities: New York, Chicago, London, and Los Angeles, the results of which he chopped, remixed, and looped. The utopian vibe is grounded a bit by McCraven’s heavy editorial hand, and his skittering, Dilla-indebted production is so dense that it’s a lot to take over the course of 90 minutes. Treat it like four city-centric EPs, and it’s one of the most rewarding listens of the year.

Sons of Kemet—Your Queen is a Reptile (Impulse)

Martial jazz/dub/free-funk soundtrack to the decolonized, matriarchal revolution by its token all-male house band.

Andrew Bernstein—An Exploded View of Time (Hausu Mountain)

An Exploded View of Time by Andrew Bernstein

Tashi Dorji and Tyler Damon—  Leave No Trace: Live in St. Louis (Family Vineyard)

Leave No Trace: Live In St. Louis by Tashi Dorji & Tyler Damon

2018 MVP: Mary Lattimore

Mary Lattimore—Hundreds of Days (Ghostly)

Hundreds of Days by Mary Lattimore

Meg Baird and Mary Lattimore—Ghost Forests (Third Lobed)      

Ghost Forests by Meg Baird and Mary Lattimore

Velvet Hammer in a Cowboy Band

I’m a sucker for pedal steel guitar, and I’m a sucker for weird music. It was a good year for weird pedal steel guitar music.

Barry Walker Jr.— Diaspora Urkontinent (Driftless)

Diaspora Urkontinent by Barry Walker

Venetian Snares x Daniel Lanois—(Planet Mu)

Venetian Snares x Daniel Lanois by Venetian Snares x Daniel Lanois

Peter Brötzmann and Heather Leigh— Sparrow Nights (Trost)

Sparrow Nights by Brötzmann / Leigh

Saariselka—Ceres (Longform Editions)

Ceres by Saariselka

Honorable Mentions

●       Amy Rigby—The Old Guys (Southern Domestic Recordings)

●       Bardo Pond—Vol. 8 (Fire Recordings)

●       Body/Head—The Switch (Matador)

●       Courtney Marie Andrews—May Your Kindness Remain (Fat Possum)

●       The Ex—27 Passports (Ex Records)

●       Ezra Feinberg—Pentimento and others (Related States)

●       HC McEntire—Lionheart (Merge)

●       Idris Ackamoor and the Pyramids—An Angel Fell (Strut)

●       Kurt Vile— Bottle It In (Matador)

●       Nathan Salsburg— Third (No Quarter)

●       The Necks—Unfold (Northern Spy)

●       Negro—Clase Media (La Castanya)

●       The Other Years—S/T (No Quarter)

●       Red River Dialect—Broken Stay Open Sky (Paradise of Bachelors)

●       Sarah Davachi— Let Night Come On Bells End The Day (Recital Program)

●       Sarah Louise— Deeper Woods (Thrill Jockey)

●       Superchunk—What a time to be Alive (Merge)

●       Tim Hecker—Konoyo (Kranky)

●       Träden – Träden (Subliminal Sounds)

●       Willie Nelson— Last Man Standing (Legacy)

●       Wussy—What Heaven is Like (Shake It)

●       Woven Skull—Woven Skull (Oaken Palace)

●       Yob— Our Raw Heart (Relapse)

●       Yuzo Iwata—Daylight Moon (Siltbreeze)