2020 sucked (for global events) but was pretty good (for the kind of godless bleep bloop music I like). Here, in no particular order, are the albums I listened to the most during this horrible, no good, very bad year.
Rosa Pano by Luis Pestana
Weird (but good weird) even by Orange Milk standards, Luis Pestana combines glitchy textures and traditional melodies in a collage of organic layers split by hard metallic shards. Presented as a single piece, it flows through sections of noise, drones, melodies, and field recordings, but never feels piecemeal. We’re being led through a kaleidoscopic world where these disparate sounds reflect, bounce off, and complement each other in surprising ways.
Inlet by Hum
23 years is a pretty long gap between albums, but Hum never really broke up, they just went back to their normal lives after a brief fling with a major label. Free from the expectations of commerce, they made an album the way they wanted to: slow and patient. They still sound like Hum, but stretched out over (mostly) epic songs that near 9 minutes long. Besides the infectious “Step Into You”, they are more about vibe that melody, sketching out huge horizons and cavernous voids with their distorted, down-tuned riffs.
Be Up A Hello by Squarepusher
Tom Jenkinson returned to (mostly) straight ahead hardware breakbeat, after years in the wilderness making fusion, solo jazz bass, and DIY software music. This is about as close as you’ll get to the melodic hum and gritty beats of early stuff like Feed Me Weird Things, and for that we are grateful. It’s nice that he’s continually branching out, but, as he’s said in interviews leading up to this, Be Up A Hello has a melancholy undercurrent that perfectly matches this big dumb year.
Scis by Oval
2020 marked the (estimated) 30th year of Markus Popp’s Oval project, but 2010 was a watershed year, going from sampling damaged CDs to making original sounds of his own. O was a pretty abstract release, unfolding at its own pace, unencumbered by traditional son structure. In the decade since, his music has actually gotten more traditional, adhering to a steady beat, using clearly identifiable tones, and achieving something approaching catchiness. That’s not to say he’s lost any of the magic, and in fact Scis is full of aural surprises while maintaining his own glitched out version of four on the floor techno.
Speed Kills by Chubby & the Gang
When hardcore bands decide to do an Oi! throwback, it’s easy for them to come off like scientists in a punk rock lab, carefully trying to emulate the ancient 7”s they worshipped as kids. Instead of treating music with tweezers and microscopes, this London band takes the brute force of modern hardcore and straps on the catchy melodies of the punks of yore, before dissonance became an arms race. This is undeniably catchy and undeniably brutal, even the doo-wop song.
Suddenly by Caribou
Dan Snaith’s early one-man albums really struck a chord with me, but as he added live instruments it kind of turned into more of a straightforward indie rock thing. It was still good, and catchy, but seemed to be missing the slightly unnerving distance on albums like Up in Flames and Start Breaking My Heart. Suddenly finds a great middle ground between the two poles of his music, being catchy yet texturally interesting.
Rakka by Vladislav Delay
I’m a mark for everything this Finnish producer puts out, from his stripped down dub albums on Chain Reaction to today. Recorded while living with his family near the Arctic Circle, it describes the vast empty tundra in a way perfectly suited for his type of abstract techno. Vladislav Delay tracks always manage to make slick beats out of rough samples, and that juxtaposition always hits me just right.
The Common Task by Horse Lords
Hypnotic microtonal Saharan-influenced instrumental rock? Yes! The Common Task was supposed to be Horse Lords big break, but then Covid-19 happened, now they can say “well if it wasn’t for that damn pandemic!” *shakes fist*. There’s more of a loose 70s jazz rock feel to this album, like when Miles Davis drafted rock musicians or Santana did that album with Buddy Miles. The rhythms ebb and flow but never let up, as instruments sketch increasingly intricate lines around each other. Hopefully the next time this Baltimore band resurfaces, there’s not a damn global emergency happening.
Scacco Matto by Lorenzo Senni
Combining punk and electronic music usually ends up as some lame nu metal hybrid, but Lorenzo Senni successfully combines the energy of the former with the timbre of the latter. This new album is a bit less “artsy” than his last couple: instead of abstract repetitive rave buildups that refuse to reach the Drop, these are more song-oriented, with identifiable parts and a clear arc. While still using traditional hardcore aesthetics (there’s a song called “Xbreakingedgex”), this might be his Emo record, with elegiac songs named after Orchid and Mineral albums. Lorenzo Senni has rarely been this serious, but don’t worry, there’s also a song called “Wasting Time Writing Lorenzo Senni Songs”.
Shall We Go On Sinning So That Grace May Increase? by The Soft Pink Truth
Matmos’ Drew Daniel has used his The Soft Pink Truth solo side project for critical reinterpretations of punk and black metal songs, but for this Biblically-named new album he assembled a crew of avant garde luminaries for a meditative collection, far removed from the abrasive albums of past. There’s bits of noise, modern classical, ambient, and R&B flowing in the aether, traveling from hypnotic repetition to collage noise as a single seamless presentation.
Please Advice by Beauty Pill
Chad Clark’s multi-limbed project has always been a conversation with the eternal Present, dropping references to modern people & events in order to give a frame for the bigger questions. Beauty Pill’s music exists in the ecstatic options available with modern recording technology, throwing all manner of instruments & sound processing into the mix, then stripping things away until the core emotions of the songs reveal themselves. Despite being EP length, there’s more than a full album’s worth of ideas across the multiple formats (CD, vinyl, cassette) it comes in.
K.A. Music by The Chinkees
The ska-punk vets are back with a brief but killer EP of organ-driven tunes, with four tracks of all killer no filler. K.A. (Korean American) Music doesn’t just focus on third wave ska punk though, they go back to the first- and second-wave sources, embracing the Caribbean influence much more than their contemporaries. Above all, every song is a catchy, fist-pumping anthem, and we really need those now.
Skeleton Coast by The Lawrence Arms
I’m a Larry Arms lifer, from back when I saw them play in my friend’s living room in high school. There’s been a recent theme of pop punk bands singing about growing older, but this Chicago trio has always mixed their whisky soaked songs with an undercurrent of death’s eventuality. Concept albums are nothing new with the band, and Skeleton Coast links tracks with the sounds of whale calls, while lyrical motifs pop up across the album. I got love for the whole thing, but the standout for me is “Pigeons and Spies”, with its absolutely flooring chorus and seemingly random verses, which were influenced by rapper Immortal Technique.
Hot Wet & Sassy by Tobacco
Black Moth Super Rainbow got messier and messier until the main dude decided to change the name to Tobacco, the better to let listeners know to expect neon splatters instead of pastoral chunes. After a brief return to the sedate BMSR sound, Tobacco makes a 180 with an album that takes his hiss-drenched melodies into even spookier environs. The video of Falcor creeping around the forest is pure nightmare fuel.
Mass Cathexis by Krallice
Since going the full DIY route, Krallice have been pumping out progressive black metal at a quick clip, taking detours to prog epics and brain-melting complexity. This is a pretty brief, straightforward set from the Brooklyn kings of metal, but maybe that’s what we need right now, songs that cut to the bone and don’t mosey along with 100 riffs over ten minutes (which, mind you, they are very good at).
Sign & Plus by Autechre
Just when the world needs them the most, Booth & Brown drop two full lengths to sate the masses. At a combined running time of just over 2 hours, it’s short compared to their epic releases from the last few years, but that makes it all the easier to digest in one sitting. Autechre seem to be looking backwards with these releases, using their recent Max MSP software to grind up, splatter, and re-arrange the softer textures of early albums like Incunabula and Amber. The albums are split thematically, with one covering their ambient side and the other their off-kilter rhythmic side. Taken as one album it would be overwhelming, but split up it’s easier to see how the parts reflect on each other.
True False & The World Will Decide by Negativland
https://negativland.com/negativland-studio-releases
I’m a latecomer to the California satirical cut-up collective, this is as good a place to start with their unique take on cultural criticism. The thing I never knew about then was how often their tracks are built on jokes, like I was expecting shocking audio collages akin to Peter Sotos’ work? Negativland goes down a lot smoother, combining clicking beats and soundbites to show just how fucked we are as a society (a lot).
No comments:
Post a Comment