A couple of quick things. In fairness, both Tom Waits and Paul Simon could easily be on this list. They show few signs of slowing down and it is appropriate to acknowledge –and celebrate– their longevity and the case they continue to make for their own relevance. So I salute them and in some ways bow down to what they have achieved. On the other hand, enough other outlets are showering them with sycophancy (for mostly the right reasons), so it gives me extra incentive to discuss a handful of albums that some people may not have heard or otherwise found. But there is no agenda here: each of these albums merits a legitimate place in my annual list.
Here’s the deal: every year we have the hipsters and reactionaries, not to mention the unimaginative and lazy, lamenting that no good music gets made anymore. Of course this is nonsense. There is great music being made all the time. In fact, for me 2011 has had more sheer musical quality than anything I can recall in recent memory. So there. For those people who are unconvinced I’d offer two pieces of advice. One, read my blog (haha). Two, get out more. And I don’t mean outside, although leaving the confines of your too-comfortable existence might land you in a tiny club where you catch a band you’ll one day be unable to imagine not having in your life. I mean outside that self-imposed system that is obviously not working for you. If you are not discovering amazing new music on your own, you should be hearing it or reading about it. Note: this advice is intended for people who truly love music and have lost their way, and people who are genuinely interested in seeing what all the fuss is about: there are few things more validating than hearing something everyone else raves about and determining it sucks. Knowing you still have the capacity –and investment– in sorting out what moves you versus what gets put in the rotation by commercial-minded consensus. Better: being humbled by an album or artist you would never have listened to had you not picked up the recommendation. Each year I am astonished, and humbled, by how much music falls into my pile by luck or happenstance; each year I have the actual proof of what should be obvious: great art is being made all the time. This year I was fortunate to have a handful of artists contact me and, through the correspondence that ensued, I got hip to music I was previously not hip enough to get on my own.
2011 was not the easiest year for many of us, and there is no certainty that it will get better soon. One thing that never disappoints is music and it’s especially during the difficult times that we should cling closely to the art that restores us. 2011 was, in this regard, an amazing time to be alive.
Let’s do this.
10. Wanda Jackson, The Party Ain’t Over.
We have rightly mentioned the two not-so-dignified elder statesman who dropped fine albums this year (Messrs. Simon and Waits). How about the very dignified Wanda Jackson who, at 73 (let me repeat that: seventy-three) is still willing and able to get down and dirty. With the considerable help of the reliable –and indefatigable– Jack White, she put out an album that would have warranted some love just for the sake of its creation but…it’s a damn fine album by any criteria.
If you don’t know who Wanda Jackson is, get thee to the Internets. She has been around a long time and has been a legend since before many of us were born.
On The Party Ain’t Over, her trademark voice is correctly front and center, but White should get ample credit for his savvy arrangements and production acumen: the sound is at once lush and filthy, and it’s obvious everyone is having a blast. A spirited take of The Man in Black’s “Busted“, an interesting interpretation of Amy Winehouse’s “You Know That I’m No Good”, an addictive rundown of “Rum and Coca-Cola“: there’s a lot here to love.
Check out the Queen or Rockabilly making it work, live on Letterman:
9. Michael Giles, In The Moment.
Imagine my delight when, hot on the heels of fighting for my right to party like a prog-rock fan (see the list that aroused more concern than solidarity here), and diving deep into the Devil’s Triangle with my review of King Crimson’s remarkable In The Wake of Poseidon, I received a message from original KC drummer Michael Giles. It’s always gratifying to have one’s writing affirmed by artists one admires, but there was more important news to receive. Did I know Giles was still making music? I did not. Was I aware that he had a new album? I was not. Flash forward a few weeks later. It’s one thing to want to like an album by an artist you admire; it’s quite another to genuinely be impressed by it. My full review is here. Here is the good news, succinctly:
Still, it’s cause for rejoicing to see a gentleman past retirement age who not only refuses to retire, but provides an example any of us, regardless of our age, would do well to emulate. Personal appearance, for better or worse, is often less than half the story (and the least important half) when it comes to art and the people who make it, but the fact that Giles looks about half his age speaks volumes. Checking out recent pictures or catching some videos of his band in action make it abundantly clear that this is one geezer whose body and mind are very much intact. If that sounds vaguely patronizing, once again consider the physical and mental states of most of the people who made music in the early ‘70s.
How to describe the sounds? It’s minimalist without being subdued (a signal of extreme confidence) and deliberate without being forced. Giles and Pennie provide rhythmic framework and Chivers and Tippett splash and spray the canvass with color and light. Sometimes the roles reverse and frequently all four are increasing the energy or unwinding the agitation in unison. The result is a series of industrial, percussion-based landscapes. There is an assortment of purposeful clinging and clanging with carefully orchestrated guitar-fueled tension. It occasionally resembles a ruckus but it’s a syncopated ruckus. This, at times, is a musical equivalent of getting in the car and driving, not figuring out where you are until you get there. In the hands of indulgent or untalented hacks, this is a recipe for sonic atrocity; with experts behind the wheel the journey is enjoyable as it is unpredictable.
At times it could almost be called free jazz (the horror?) or even free rock (the horror!) but it works. Suffice it to say, this is not for people who need a beat created by computers, or vocals extolling the virtues of expensive products. In other words this is art. Possibly even art for art’s sake. Imagine that. And enter at your own peril.
8. Garage a Trois: Always Be Happy, But Stay Evil
2011 gave me two chances to meditate on the awesomeness of Skerik. First, I was obliged to rave about his new release with The Dead Kenny G’s (I know!) and this is how I sum up my feelings about the man and his music:
I have a dream: If I could get some of what I envision, we would live in a world where peace, love, and understanding wasn’t funny. The Wall Street miscreants and the super-sized weasels enabling their machinations would be having a house party in the Big House. Reality TV would not be real, and Oprah Winfrey would be unable to infantilize millions of women looking for enlightenment in all the wrong places. A modicum of the bilious exhaust Rupert Murdoch spews would back-up and cause him to explode like a Spinal Tap drummer. Electric cars, solar panels, and science would be accepted (and venerated) the way billionaires, right-wing prophets, and camera-ready politicians are in our scared new world. A lot of other things, obviously, but not least of these that jazz musicians would get the attention American Idol contestants receive. In this right-side up society, Skerik would be a household name.
The rest of that review is here.
Next, I had the opportunity to quickly fall in love with the latest Garage a Trois project. That review is here. Here are the key takeaways:
Between Benevento’s swarm of sounds and Skerik’s patented saxophonic stylings, it is not always possible to determine which instruments are doing what, but, of course, it doesn’t matter. These guys are tinkerers, but they are also masterful technicians; as always, to expand on convention generally presumes a certain level of mastery. To make music that sounds like this (and nothing else sounds like this), you have to not only know how it will sound, but how to make those sounds.
That last point might get to the heart of what makes this particular incarnation of Garage A Trois so powerful. Skerik has spent more than a decade whittling away at jazz (and musical) cliché, cultivating a unique and rewarding approach. There is not really anyone else out there who can encroach on the territory he’s created for himself and his various ensembles. Add the prodigiously, almost frighteningly talented Benevento—another musician who has worked hard and had a lot of fun obliterating the typical rules of engagement—and we have two of the more audacious iconoclasts on the scene.
It’s always difficult, to varying degrees, to try and describe music in a way that is both honest and accurate. How, ultimately, can you choose words to reflect a form of expression that purposefully eschews spoken language? You are entitled, if not obliged, to report what types of feelings and images the sounds evoke, and if you are familiar with the artists’ aesthetic, you can reasonably offer some suggestions of what they may be after. It is still, in the end, a hopelessly inadequate way of articulating what Garage A Trois pulls off yet again. Perhaps the most efficient strategy would be to say, simply and urgently: you need this shit.
7. Mogwai, Harcore Will Never Die But You Will
Special props to a band that manages to retain the sound that they made distinctive, but remain uninterested in recycling the same old sludge, even though certain fans would clearly lap it up. Indeed, there are a lot of people out there who damn Mogwai with faint praise, claiming that they’ll never match their debut album. Two things for these idiots. One, it will never be 1997 again and some of us are happy about that for musical and aesthetic reasons. Two, with more than a half-dozen proper albums under their belts, Mogwai has been playing long ball, steadily and confidently amassing a catalog that any band with integrity would be pleased to imitate.
Did any album in 2011 have a better title? I think not. (And for anyone new to Mogwai: how can you not get behind a band that made an album about French football genius Zidane, or sold t-shirts that declared “Blur Are Shite”?)
All the wonderful things about these Scottish noise architects still abound: the Sonic Youth meets My Bloody Valentine wall of guitar bliss, the slow burn of compositions that stretch out but never meander, and the sense of release that a complete listen imparts. These are not musicians who string a handful of songs together; there is a destination they are working toward and once again they slither, crawl and occasionally blaze a path that ends up exactly where they meant to go. If you get on board, once the last notes of the (wonderfully titled) closer “You’re Lionel Richie” play out, you understand you are exactly where you were meant to go as well.
6. Opeth, Heritage
What are two things everyone can agree on? Prog rock and Swedish death metal, obviously.
But seriously folks. Opeth has steadily been building a career, and bringing everyone along with them. Each of their previous albums in the last decade has seemed to edge them closer to what they finally pull off with Heritage. That is to say, a fully convincing, arresting and occasionally awe-inspiring work. They’ve retained their elemental darkness without smoothing out the edges, but the sound seems more expansive and, for lack of a better word, engaging. None of which is to suggest this is easily approachable or in any way a watered-down reduction of their previous work (although there are always haters for whom the past tense reigns supreme). It is evident that a significant amount of attention and obsession went into the making of this album, and it should be remembered as one of the more ambitious, yet enchanting releases of the year.
This is an album that should make an immediate impression but as is often the case with worthwhile art, the more time you spend with it the more return you’ll get on your investment. For anyone who hears the word “metal” and runs in the other direction, always remember that labels are (often) ludicrous and an open mind is the pathway to redemption. Put another way, check this out:
And in case you were concerned that this one doesn’t rock out, don’t be silly (and in case you’ve forgotten, God is dead!) :
To be cont’d…
