Aural Quarterly, October-December 2011

As the year ends so slows the release of music unto the world. Maybe musicians are all bears that need to hibernate. Or maybe bears are just musicians. All of them, part of a band or a solo singer/songwriter out in the woods, scratching backs on trees and playing drums. It must be all bears tho, because there's a lot of music coming out nowadays. Bears aren't endangered are they? Polar bears are. I bet polar bears make music like Bjork or Hall & Oates. Save the icecaps so I can hear me some Hall & Oates.

OCTOBER

Let's start it off right with our very own perennial contemporary folk father Bonnie 'Prince' Billy. I have listened to BPB's more raved about albums, holding each one in high regard and to special occasion, but the lesser lauded releases, including Wolfroy Goes To Town seem to slip thru the cracks. After adeptly soothing me on an anxious busride home from Maryland I learned not to ignore the little people any longer. Wonderful. Finally wrapping my head around the brilliance that is Future Islands (right), the album On The Water really got me in a good way, what with its quiet power that sneaks up on you from behind and starts rubbing your neck gently and before you know it you're in a full deep muscle massage, and I feel 17 again. Hitting all cylinders on the hipster tour is Real Estate, playing the kind of smart jangle pop on Days that invoke bliss and head swaying to the strums and cymbals of each little understated gem aboard.

Over the past 5 or 6 years I have become quite fond of Tom Waits (left) and since most of his stuff predated my affinity for his scratch-throat meanderings I have done my due diligence in exploring his back catalog, all of which are magically timeless enough to seem fresh all these years later. Bad As Me fits that mold and continues the tradition of immortality in the musical realms. Never one to shy away from his epic movie-themed heavy synth mini operettas, M83 has released an album that the critics alike think is a masterpiece. I thought Hurry Up, We're Dreaming was good, but I didn't get all crazy on it or anything. In a year and month like this I much preferred the sullen lull of a band like Low Roar, whose quietly unassuming s/t album was a surprise delight, its cover depicting a large buck apparently breathing out birds, conveying the concept of the gentle beauty that can come from a massive beast. Seems about right. 

Now let's get on to some acquired tastes. Since it was the year of the saxophone why not highlight the man who builds his entire album around the thing. Colin Stetson takes the instrument to new uncharted territories on New History Warfare, Volume 2: Judges. Implementing his own invented recording techniques and wildly creative electronic transgressions, he breaks all the preconceived notions and makes me wish I never put mine down after freshman year. Sticking with the reedly gifted, German saxophonist Daniel Erdmann scoured the world and gathered a group of talented musicians from Mali, France, and the US to produce Patchwork Dreamer for the public, including Chérif Soumano, Francis Le Bras, Johannes Fink, John Betsch & Alain Julien. I hear it's the jazz musicians most cinematic and cosmopolitan release to date, but I wouldn't know about these things. I do know that it would be my favorite jazzish album of the year were it not for Kip Hanrahan (right). From the first Latin fused grooves of At Home In Anger I was hooked and kept on playing til it faded away in a funky piano scale/handclap duet. Entertaining to say the least. Instrumental albums are like t-shirts, each one making its way into your wardrobe, some wearing out with overuse and others rising to the top of the drawer, possibly set aside for special occasions where you'd like to make a certain impression and/or send an appropriate message to a specific audience. Like Mirage by Moholy-Nagy is on track to become the latter.

Hailing from Rennes (that's France), Trunks (left) is yet another strongly saxophoned outfit that upon first listen I dismissed as noisy noise mess, only to revisit later with a wider range of acceptance in mind as On The Roof has now become one of the go-to albums for getting up and going-to. From The Mouths Of The Middle Class sounds like it may be a dreary listen, but I didn't expect Blessed Feathers to create such a strong travel folk record, trading girl/boy vocals and never more than an arm's reach from that tom tom. Walt Wolfman is the new quickie from Richard Swift, full of new ideas and approaches for the falsetto-when-appropriate singer songwriter. Probably his funkiest collection of tunes, but it was over all too soon. Laura really digs Rachael Yamagata and all she does with song, so I gave Chesapeake a spin or two. Pleasurable.

There was day in October where I relished in the synthy pop goodness of Spanish Prisoners new album, Golds Fool. Once again trading off girl/boy style and adding a little extra drama, at least for a light hearted pop record. I was very much looking froward to the debut by Still Corners (right), but once I gave Creatures Of An Hour a couple turns in the lineup I was underwhelmed by its pace and scale. Not to say I don't like each track as it stands alone, but as a collection I didn't feel compelled to stay together for the kids. Staring At The X is a misleading album title for Forest Fire, denoting a strong focus and intense concentration, that of which I get no sense of with the music that lie therein. But it's like dating someone with a bad name. You still love them, you just give them a sweet nickname sooner.

NOVEMBER

One of my favorite discoveries of 2011 was King Krule (left). A youngen still hailing from the greater London, KK released just a s/t Ep worth of blues/hiphop/jazz fusion material obviously well beyond his years sprinkled with his deep leaning lyrics and managed to get the buzz going and as the blogosphere usually is way off on these kinds of things, I feel like we may have something here. Looking forward to more from him soon. The ever changing approach of Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox and the side project he wears like a gun holster, Atlas Sound, manage to churn out a couple playlist worthy tracks in each attempt. With Parallax he may have finally made the album I can't pull any track from, because it would be a shame to hear them apart. And I remember more than few late fall evenings where I cooked some dinner or did the dishes to the warbly synths and seductive vocals of the s/t debut from Blouse. Hopefully they keep it coming because you never know when you're going to have to score a 1980's Brian DePalma film.

I have never given enough credit to Dakota Suite and their penchant for creating gorgeous song upon song of warm and graceful contemporary classic composition. Bringing Quentin Sirjacq onboard to make The Side Of Her Inexhaustible Heart neither enhanced nor detracted from the usual beauty created on a Dakota Suite record so I recommend them all. Greek postrock poster children Misuse put out April in November. Crazy I know, but it is the band that opens up for big name headliners in the genre for the Greek leg of their tours. And this is the reason for that. Danny Paul Grody (right) released one of my favorite instrumental guitar albums of 2010. Not to be outdone, Danny Paul Grody released In Search Of Light, which became probably my favorite instrumental guitar album of 2011. 2012?

As a response maybe to his wonderfully dreary album released earlier in the year, Cass McCombs (left)sounds downright chipper on Humor Risk, or as close as he can get at least. Either way it's a nice counterpart for an artist brave enough to release two great albums in one year and talented enough to do it. Preceding the release of M+A's Things. Yes I caught a couple silly music videos of 50's workout teams and the like that got me interested in hearing more fluffy computer pop and while I'm sure the album is full of studio wizardry, without the visuals is just comes across a little thin. But I can get down with Luke Roberts and his campaign to save country music from itself. Big Bells & Dime Songs is a collection of songs written in true simple storytelling fashion given slight modern twists and highlights for an outstanding end product. Those other phonies can shove their AMA's in their tailpipe.

Get ready to really love Rich Aucoin (right)because he certainly does. At least We're All Dying To Live has a couple good tracks on it, amongst the many to choose from. Consider him a Sufjan Stevens meets Lady Gaga, because he already does. And tho I've not navigated many of the neofolk albums released by Wooden Wand or many of James Toth's incarnations, I imagine many of them sounding as bright and dare I say, poppy as Briarwood. May be a good starting off point for the uninitiated. Unfortunately named NYC team Caveman put out Coco Beware and sound like Arcade Fire on dilaudid, Brian Wilson channeling Radiohead circa 1984 and baklava. Turkish not Greek.

You need some darkjazz to go with that leftover hecate incense burning a hole in your nightstand? Try some Dale Cooper Quartet & The Dictaphones. Metamnoir is my favorite soundtrack to a David Lynch movie that never was. I think All That We See And Seem, the latest album by The New Lines is better than I may give credit for. I can't tell if the musical choices made within the space psych album were intentionally leading towards a blues rock feel or if someone rocketed an early 80's Led Zeppelin cover band into outerspace and the forgot about them. A genre I don't yet feel totally comfortable around is the electrofusion rock type, possibly due to my relative inexperience with a quality synthesizer, but Fotoshop do some cool stuff, computerizing rhythms and humming melody. Yeah, Lifeforms is a good title for such a humanizing piece of music made by machines.

I don't know what it is about Florence And The Machine that doesn't allow me to be as smitten as most, I do like her and her golden shimmering pipes, and the musical accompaniment always just a step away from full on tribal ritual, pounding heartbeats and arena powerhouse. Ceremonials is a great album, but I probably won't listen to it much after the once around I gave it. Probably. Sea Lions (right) are the ugliest band out there, they know it and that's part of their undenying charm. Everything You Always Wanted To Know About The Sea Lions is the sound of the band falling down the stairs into a pool of chewed gumballs and sticker bushes, twanging their way to the edge, only to pop off their shirt and cannoball back in again. And last but certainly not least, Smashing Pumpkins released some jam packed reissues of Gish and Siamese Dream, unarguably two of the best records from the early 90's, cementing an ambitious foot in the door with the former and creating a still yet to be outdone guitar rock masterpiece in the latter. Both albums are essential to even the part time musical participant.

DECEMBER

December is a rough month to release music but I managed to few a handful of gems and quartzes. None more effective than the British nature duet Colour Sun whose album simply but tellingly titled just ... dangled their dirty dreadlocks over gentle guitar passages and quite honestly made probably a tremendous 1960's folk revival record to date. Continuing my foray into the ambient drones I got all up on Jacaszek, because it's a delicate balance on this kind of record, where the empty space begins to outweigh the more dense moments. Melody can be lost and then you just get dead noise. This is not the case on Glimmer. It is painful beauty and melancholy wrapped in dusty clouds of static and sound. Well done. Relative anonymity can be a winning hand when you're dealing with the fickle love them and leave them world of modern music, and when Happy Particles (left) released their album on Christmas Day they could not have been more brilliant. Who goes to the record store on Christmas Day? Who goes to a record store? If Under Sleeping Waves was your heartbeat, you'd be dead, but it would've been a peaceful passing. The peacefullest.

Possible daughter of baroque pop legend Harry Nilsson (she's not) Molly Nilsson (right) dropped a sweet synth slowcore album called History, justifying her work with genre stalwarts like John Maus and never relying on flash to sell a song or two that already display such strong groundings. Apparently my first listen to Teenage Cool Kids is their last creation as a band. Another victim of the East coast lure, but Denton After Sunset is a tightly wound search and destroy kind of pop record tied together with perfectly dissonant vocals and guttural guitar squelch that led to the this fine finale. Not to discount the lovely renderings of a crew like Glass Pear whose s/t attempt at loevliness, though often quite lyrically cheesy, still manages to find a nice place amongst the years best docile rock records.

Rounding out the big commercial releases from artists courageous enough to brave the thinning winter drought The Roots (left) and The Black Keys each released albums, respectively, the former dropping Undun, a story-laden theme record hopping hips and blasting new alleyways of genre bending soul and blues while the latter attempted to follow a career defining success with El Camino, a mild to moderate success. And squeaking just in time to win the "weird of the year" album, mystery artist Macintosh Plus put out Floral Shoppe, an album with track names all in Japanese kanji and reminded us how srange it would be if we all still embraced the radio soft rock of the 80's. Cuckoo.






So that was 2011. This year is off to a bang. I may rework the layout. Probably not tho. Stick with what works. Who made it?