Favourite Releases of 2012: Preamble and First Entry

There are three reasons why I never make year-end "best-of" lists: 1) I find them too time-consuming to compose. 2) I usually don't hear enough good music that won't already appear on every other best-of list. 3) I find ranking and rating equally frustrating, impossible and pointless. But this year, I feel I've heard enough music that may (or may not) have been overlooked, so I've decided to give making a list another shot.

As I have around thirty releases in mind, l've decided to attempt mini-reviewing one release per day until the New Year, despite blogging having stalled over the past couple of months. Call this an exercise against writer's block - in writing concisely and prolifically without over-thinking grammar and structure (two of my most formidable roadblocks in becoming a serious writer). And in order to save myself the headache of ranking my favourites, I've decided to simply list them alphabetically.


Angel Olsen - Half Way Home (Bathetic)

2012 was a year of folk revival for me, incited by new discoveries such as Chelsea Wolfe and the late Bert Jansch, having embraced Nico's 1967 album Chelsea Girl as one of my favourite albums of all time and pushed forward most significantly by Canadian filmmaker James Cullingham's documentary In Search of Blind Joe Death: The Saga of John Fahey, a long-overdue definitive biography of the late American guitarist which debuted at this year's Vancouver International Film Festival.

While not as haunting as Wolfe's "doom-folk," musically delicate or emotionally naked as even Bert Jansch's least moving pieces or environmentally transformative as the soundscapes conjured by John Fahey, Angel Olsen's greatest draw for me is the tension that exists within her music: her quivery treble rings out so pronouncedly against the inviting warmth of her clean and relatively spare arrangements (usually no more than twangy acoustics). Half Way Home opens with a song called "Acrobat," a title that could describe her singing which she topically demonstrates right out of the gate. If Angel Olsen can retain the amount of originality found in her voice alone, she'll definitely be an artist to keep an eye on in the coming year.

FULL STREAM - Death Grips - NO LOVE DEEP WEB (Self-Released, 2012)

Add Sacramento's experimental hip-hop duo Death Grips to the list of musicians I never thought I'd like.

I've been a fan of drummer Zach Hill since he and L.A. art-punk duo No Age released their collaborative 2008 EP Flannel Graduate, but I like Death Grips for more than just the mere fact of his involvement: there's a certain organicness and thematic metaphysicality to Death Grips that I haven't found in any other super-aggro hip-hop group. Maybe it's Stefan "MC Ride" Burnett's internal look-to-the-self-for-inspiration vs. idolatry philosophy, the fact that Death Grips employs live drumming rather than programmed beats and their minimalist approach (see Zach's three-drum set-up) that imbues their primal performance with a certain humanness or immediacy.

Death Grips play Fortune Sound Club this Friday. Redcat Records will announce a winner of two pairs of tickets as well as a copy Death Grips' first (and only other) album The Money Store in the format of one's choice this evening. There's still time to enter the contest, which you can do by clicking over to Redcat's Facebook page.

BotchedSpot - "Smart Fan"

Click the image to enlarge or view at BotchedSpot.com.

Today's comic is like me with music, except I'd never see that vampire Lincoln movie, and I've never told anyone to kill themselves over music.

Night Plane feat. Casey Gibbs - "Heartbeat"

"Nu disco"? Sure. Call it whatever you'd like. It kicks ass:

hearty magazine Feature: "Angel Haze: Can't Stop Won't Stop"

"Haze brushes off tired juxtapositions to other female rappers like Nicki and Azealia. Apart from the fact that those kinds of comparisons are sexist and unimaginative, her teenage-boy like build and the way her music plays with gen/sex issues make her a specific case study. In a time when people can't seem to get over asking if 2012 is the year of the femcee and whether Hip Hop is ready for gay rappers, Angel is ready and willing to beat her way into the spotlight to answer, 'Yes.'"

Read the full article and interview at hearty magazine's website.

Coming This Friday: Third Man Records Novelties Lounge

That's it. I'm moving to Nashville to pursuit my dream job at Jack White's Third Man Records.

"Then Vote Hezbollah Did a Pro-Bush Song That Pissed Everyone Off

but that was the whole point and even when the crowd booed, they had a great time doing it because they got the joke. You have to stop trying to make sense of Punk - what it's for, what it's against. It's against everything. The singer from Vote Hezbollah pissed on the Qur'an. Everyone loved it. Then he picked up the kitab, shook some drips off, carefully turned the frail wet pages and recited Ya Sin with absolute sincerity. Somehow, the whole thing made sense."

"They're a Different Bunch," Replied Jehangir,

his eyes stuck on the closed door.

"They're a buncha cocks," said Muzammil.

"They're decent guys," said Jehangir. "They'll give you anything. If all they have to give you is a fuckin' Bic pen, they'll fork it over. But they're a little rough to deal with sometimes-"

"Hatemongers, Jehangir. Fuckin' bigots. If they had their way I'd be tossed from a minaret." Jehangir paused for a moment.

"Yeah," he said softly. "Yeah, Muzammil. They hate you. And they hate me too. They hate all of us for something. Me for the beer in my hand, you for the cock in your mouth, Rabeya for having her clitoris intact. We're all going something haram. Look at us. We're the ones that have always been fuckin' excluded, ostracized, afraid to be ourselves around our fuckin' brothers. They don't build masjids for us. We have to get our own. A fuckin' fag mosque in Toronto, you know I'm all for it. Female imams, God bless 'em. Whatever. You know I don't give a shit. But let's not play that bullshit game where once we get our own scene we can push people to the sidelines, to the fuckin' fringe like they did us. Do you only want a community so you can make someone else feel like the Outsider?" His voice gradually raised. "Fuck that, he said sharply. "Fuck being as small as they are. I say be big. Be bigger. Kill 'em with kindness. How the fuck are they going to hate you when you love them?"

"Why Don't You Have Any Taqwacore Bands?" I Asked.

"Because the fuckers put all their shit out on vinyl."

"What? Why?"

"They just do," he answered shrugging.

"But who even has a record player anymore?"

"I do," said Jehangir. "But just so I can listen to those guys. And it fuckin' sucks because it can't record from vinyl to a cassette, the shit's so old."

"I don't get the vinyl thing," I said. "Is there some kind of ideological point behind that?"

"Maybe. A lot of punks turn out to be sentimental suckers."

"Like Amazing Ayyub last night," Fasiq interjected, "when he said that there hasn't been any real punk since 1980."

"What does that have to do with vinyl?" I asked. "Do they think that they're closer to the Lost Golden Age by rejecting CDs? What does that have to do with anything?"

Micro-Sculptor Willard Wigan TED Talk

British sculptor Willard Wigan discusses his method of working between heartbeats to create his microscopic sculptures which he paints using a single housefly hair. Fascinating:

Full Album Stream: Slint - Spiderland (Touch and Go Records, 1991)

It took me, oh, eight or so years to appreciate this album:

James Murphy DJ Set at Celebrities

 

Whoooooaaaaa. I don't do DJs, but I might have to make an exception.

What's This? A Whole Weekend Off?

Well, I'll be damned. I can't remember the last time I had an entire weekend off.

Angel Haze: 21, Makin' Waves

With her ironically Eminem-sampling version of "Cleaning Out My Closet." Read how in this article by the Atlantic.

Metric Still Kicks Ass

That is to say, all of the Metric I've been listening back to has aged well. Old World Underground, Live It Out, "Help, I'm Alive," "Gimme Sympathy," "Stadium Love" (their biggest song in terms of its arena-filling ambition and scope) and by far and away my favourite Metric song "Rock Me Now."

I never thought Metric would become an arena band. In fact, I didn't know they had become an arena band until a couple of months ago when I saw a flyer for their show at Rogers Arena with Stars opening on Nov. 10. And then, random Twitter freeloading led me to this contest by the Georgia Straight to win tickets to that show, and while I don’t like today's Metric (or today's Stars or arena shows, for that matter), fuck, I'm not going to turn down a chance at free ticket to see either of them anywhere given how much I like them in general. Plus, the show's on one of the extremely rare Saturdays I have off.

So, the contest has me revisiting Metric, and I've been remembering how jagged, rocking, danceable, clean and sultry they can be, even though I can personally attest twice to their reputation of being a sloppy, drunken, likely stoned mess live. Actually, didn't I swear off seeing them ever again after those two shows? Shut up; it's free … It's free … It's free …..

Beats on Repeat, Beating on Me

I've had this one on repeat since Monday: