VITAL REVERB: BEST OF 2009 — APRIL By Nick McGregor
Forget what you’ve heard about the music industry’s
coming demise:
plenty of record labels have blessed our ears with rock-solid
albums in 2009. ESM waded through the
muck to spotlight the best so far.
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Black Dice
Repo
Paw
Tracks
ESM Rating: 6/10
Demented
Brooklyn sound collagists return with their fifth album of dissonant electronic
noise, painstakingly crafted into schizophrenic outbursts of cacophonous
beauty. Even with little to no instrumental structure and a propensity for
aggressive beat combinations, Repo still
stands as the group’s most polished output to date. “Love ‘em or hate ‘em”
fare, for sure — as long as you approach Black Dice without lazy expectations, some part of their quirky
clatter should appeal to you.
Crystal Antlers
Tentacles
Touch
& Go
ESM Rating: 8/10
Schizophrenic
Farfisa organs, blitzkrieg drumming, and a surprisingly gorgeous marriage
between stoner metal heft and jumpy hipster tempos set Crystal Antlers apart from the neo-psychedelic pack. Lead singer
Jonny Bell’s asphyxiated yelp, the rest of the Long Beach, CA, band’s prog-rock
tendencies, and an ability to mix blues, psychedelia, and heavy rock keep Crystal Antlers’ debut album from falling into the trap of genre
exclusivity. And like most growers — records that get better with
repeated listens — playing it over and over at increasingly louder
decibel levels allows Tentacles to
reach its true potential.
The Thermals
Now We
Can See
Kill Rock
Stars
ESM Rating: 6/10
The Thermals prove that their home base of
Portland, OR, can still churn out ‘90s-style alt-rock on the trio’s fifth
album, Now We Can See. Although it
diverts noticeably from their past lo-fi sensibilities, the cleaned-up
production can’t take away from The
Thermals’ traditional guitar crunch. And lead singer Hutch Harris’ nasally
naïve vocals belie his years of music industry experience, all while echoing
the sardonic wit evident in the band’s press release: “We live in Portland,
Oregon. You know, the place all your friends are moving to. So they can
paint/record/do gravity bong hits, when they’re not slinging lattes at one of a
thousand or so coffee shops.”
Crippled Black Phoenix
200 Tons
Of Bad Luck
Invada
ESM Rating: 6/10
Atmospheric
yet doom-drenched post-rock on the second album from this collective of British
slowcore musicians, who moonlight in bands like Electric Wizard, Mogwai, Gonga,
and Pantheist. Crippled Black Phoenix
delves deep into the darker instrumental moments of blues, metal, and prog
rock, while also exploring the intricacies of epic 19-minute song suites and
haunted house-style zaniness. Definitely a grower that expands via headphones, 200 Tons Of Bad Luck is heavy on the gloom
while still keeping the experimental flame lit.
The Coathangers
Scramble
Suicide
Squeeze
ESM Rating: 6/10
This
all-female Atlanta, GA, quartet churns out snotty post-pixie-punk that’s equal
parts freewheeling juvenilia and avant-garde artiness. Sprinkle in a wee dose
of dream-pop and a hearty helping of garage stomp and you’ve got Scramble, The Coathangers’ second album of anything-goes riot-grrl rock. The shouted
lyrics and pounded-out drums of the band’s debut album return, but are tempered
this time around with brooding pianos and even a few near-ballads. Plus —
call me sexist if you like — there’s nothing hotter than four tattooed
brunettes playing no-holds-barred rock‘n’roll.
Micachu & The Shapes
Jewellery
Rough
Trade
ESM Rating: 7/10
Abrasive,
noisy, distorted, and dissonant — even with all of those
less-than-desirable attributes, how does Micachu
& The Shapes’ debut album Jewellery
still sound more innovative than nearly any other indie rock album released
in 2009? Found sounds like kisses and vacuum cleaners are used as beats, acoustic
guitars are squalled out by clanging electronics, and the whole shebang is
raucously narrated by Micachu’s sexually
ambiguous yet vaguely feminine South London accent. Who knows where Mica Levi,
a classically trained composer and instrumentalist, will go next — for
now, all that matters is how far she and Jewellery
have pushed indie music outside its comfort zone.
Various Artists
Spiritual
Jazz: Esoteric, Modal + Deep Jazz From The Underground 1968-77
Jazzman/Now
Again
ESM Rating: 8/10
Don’t let
the intellectual title turn you off — this 14-song collection of mostly
unknown and out-of-print jazz classics still cooks with passionate fervor, even
for all the “esoteric, modal, and deep” entries. Everyone from underground
Detroit gospel legends to Egyptian big bands to high school jazz ensembles to
prison-yard collectives throw their weight around on jazz cuts of all makes and
models — cool, hot, fast, slow, funky, sparse. No matter the
nomenclature, this one will help you jive through summertime like nothing else.
Finale
A Pipe
Dream & A Promise
Interdependent
ESM Rating: 7/10
Gritty,
street-level hip-hop that’s about as topical as you can get these days: Finale is a Detroit native who gave up
a career as an automotive engineer seven years ago to pursue his rap dreams.
Good choice, son — as the Big Three wallow on the precipice of
bankruptcy, A Pipe Dream And A Promise finally
earns it due, thanks to crisp, Motown-inspired production from up-and-comers
Black Milk and Nottz and late luminaries like J Dilla. With his personal
experience in tow, Finale shuns the
flashy and sticks to ruminating on reality, which is painfully on show in his
crumbling home city.
Ida Maria
Fortress
‘Round My Heart (Re-issue)
Mercury
ESM Rating: 6/10
Jittery
pop-punk played with panache by this Norwegian starlet, who burst on the scene
in 2008 and then enjoyed a major boost when her ragged anthem “Oh My God”
received top billing on hit twenty-something TV show Gossip Girl. A one-hit wonder Ida
Maria ain’t, though, as she bounces easily from boozy boisterousness to
sexed-up sass to driving danceability. Flashes of Courtney Love, Janis Joplin,
and Björk pop up in Ida’s formidable
vocals, but the volatile energy of Fortress
‘Round My Heart may just help her carve a spot on the female
singer/songwriter totem pole.
Papercuts
You Can
Have What You Want
Gnomonsong
ESM Rating: 7/10
Californian
Jason Quever delivers his third album under the Papercuts moniker, opting to continue to work within his gauzy,
muted indie pop aesthetic. Roiling organ riffs, choogling bass lines, and
hushed drum beats mesh well with Quever’s boyish, lo-fi vocal delivery, and by
the end of You Can Have What You Want,
the album’s sun-dappled demeanor and amiable pace is elevated to a luxurious, supple
languor — the perfect way to while away your next hazy, lazy summer.
Camera Obscura
My
Maudlin Career
4AD
ESM Rating: 7/10
Another
sugary batch of orchestral pop from this Scottish five-piece, with lead singer
Tracyanne Campbell still riffing on love, relationships, and romance four
albums into Camera Obscura’s career.
But the sweet sum of the band’s sunny, Belle & Sebastian-influenced outlook
is simply too hard to resist, as girl-group harmonies, string-heavy
arrangements, and even a bit of country rock show up and flit cheerfully across
My Maudlin Career. Lush production
and an airy ambiance permanently attached to Campbell’s lyrics rounds the whole
playful production out.
Cryptacize
Mythomania
Asthmatic
Kitty
ESM Rating: 6/10
Former
Deerhoof guitarist Chris Cohen and sprightly vocalist Nedelle Torrisi come
together for their second off-the-wall experimental garage pop collaboration
under the name Cryptacize. The
entire affair is kept light and breezy by understated instrumentation, but
spurts of enigmatic guitar, psychedelic keyboards, and glitchy electronics ground
the stratospheric ramblings of Cohen and Torrisi. Hard to pigeonhole and not
immediately decipherable, Mythomania takes
time to bloom from its slightly drugged-out center of gravity. But extra effort
often leads to extra rewards.
El Michels Affair
Enter The
37th Chamber
Fatbeats
ESM Rating: 7/10
Picture
this — a band of retro-leaning funk and soul musicians get together to
record their own organic versions of the grimy soul samples favored by Golden
Age hip-hop producers like RZA, Pete Rock, and DJ Premier. The band, dubbed El Michels Affair, gains so much fame
— helped no doubt by the explosion of artists like Sharon Jones and Amy
Winehouse — that soon they find themselves touring as the backing band
for esteemed Wu-Tang MC Raekwon. Two years later, they’ve recorded a
full-length album crammed to the hilt with buttery instrumental
reinterpretations of Wu classics like “Duel Of The Iron Mics,” “C.R.E.A.M.,”
and “Shimmy Shimmy Ya.” What a strange, beautiful world we live in.
Floating Action
Floating
Action
Park The
Van
ESM Rating: 7/10
Shambling
North Carolina renaissance man Seth Kauffman produces his finest work to date
under the nom de plumeFloating Action. Combining Motown soul,
scattershot dub, rural folk, blues-rock, sumptuous gospel, and even Caribbean
exotica into an alluring ramshackle whole, Kauffman gives new meaning to the
term “one-man band.” Every instrument on Floating
Action was recorded by Kauffman, and his deliciously off-kilter vocal
delivery adds a touch of mournfulness to an otherwise joyful junk shop journey.
Here’s hoping Kauffman keeps digging through the crates to produce underrated
works of art like Floating Action.
Super Furry Animals
Dark
Days/Light Years
Rough
Trade
ESM Rating: 8/10
Irreverent
Welsh ensemble proves you can have fun and
craft a quality product on their ninth album, full of cheeky electro
grooves, campy space rock, and quirky Brit-pop. Yet the sonic Super Furry Animals landscape still allows
for expansive nine-minute psychedelic epics, Prince-worthy funk-sex jams, and
symphonic electro-dance ditties. And the lyrical content of lead singer Gruff
Rhys careens from recession-busting railcar arms races to Cymraeg tongue
twisters to, well, “Naked Crazy Girls.” Two decades in, no one has come close
to replicating the weird, wacky, and Welsh quite like Super Furry Animals.
Crocodiles
Summer Of
Hate
Fat
Possum
ESM Rating: 6/10
San
Diego’s Crocodiles dropped in to the
2009 lo-fi noise pop wave at just the right time, along with fellow Southern
California buzz band and Fat Possum labelmate Wavves. The influences on Summer Of Hate are obvious — Echo
& The Bunnymen, Spacemen 3, and Jesus And Mary Chain all rear their
droning, synthesized heads — but Crocodiles
also intersperse modern indie rock and hipster electro-dance into their
reverential, washed-out ‘80s homage. From a surfer’s point of view, it’s hard
to believe sunny San Diego can inspire Summer
Of Hate’s dark viewpoint, but you can’t argue with Crocodiles’ somewhat thrashy, very listenable noise punk.
Immaculate Machine
High On
Jackson Hill
Mint
ESM Rating: 6/10
Even
though British Columbia’s Immaculate
Machine recorded their third album, High
On Jackson Hill, in an makeshift home studio, the snarky glam-rock results
are still glossier than the band’s rougher past work. Crunchy guitars and defeatist
lyrics courtesy of frontman Brooke Gallupe differentiate Immaculate Machine from many of their positivist Canuck colleagues,
but the soothing backing vocals of New Pornographers contributor Kathryn Calder
keeps the album light on its feet. And Immaculate
Machine knows how to play irony to a tee — see the T. Rex samples on
the appropriately titled “He’s A Biter” and the acerbic sunshine of “Only Love
You For Your Car.”
NOFX
Coaster
Fat Wreck
Chords
ESM Rating: 6/10
Snarling
Los Angeles punkers return with their first post-Bush Administration album, and
although political rants still show up, the NOFX crew devotes a large part of Coaster to dealing with the joys of growing old, alcoholism, drug
addictions, and creepy-old-guy moments. “My Orphan Year” combines NOFX’s trademark blistering guitar
riffs and jackhammer drums with a solemn recollection of lead singer Fat Mike alternately
caring for his dying mother and snubbing his ailing father. Eleven albums and 25
years on, NOFX still hasn’t changed
much — you decide whether that’s for the better or the worse.
Serge Severe
Orangutan
Slang EP
Focused
Noise
ESM Rating: 7/10
Straight
shooting Portland, OR, MC delivers a follow-up to 2008’s critically lauded Concrete Techniques, all true school
rhyme structures, hauntingly cinematic beats by DJ Sect, and a refreshing DIY
attitude that few rappers embrace. Although Serge Severe knots intricate verses that emphasize battle raps over
braggadocio, the Animal Farm crewmember still keeps things fun, funky, and forward
thinking. “Real hip-hop” is a misnomer that gets regularly abused, but genuine
underground artists like Serge have
earned the descriptor through blood, sweat, and tears.
Thee Oh Sees
Help
In The
Red
ESM Rating: 7/10
In a
perfect world, this is what every ‘60s garage rock tribute would sound like:
unhinged, hallucinatory, and face-melting. Unfortunately, many indie bands
operating under the “garage” umbrella are still concerned with radio play and
record sales, while John Dwyer and his volatile San Francisco outfit Thee Oh Sees seem to care only about
hewing as close as possible to acid-drenched progenitors like 13th Floor
Elevators and Small Faces. Buzzsaw guitar distortion, clanging percussion,
driving male/female California harmonization — did psychedelic rock
actually sound this good back in the day?
