Top Ten (Actually Nine) Records 2011

Nils Frahm, Felt

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So much music sounds like it was made in and emitted from an empty black box, with everything flawed stripped out - but this is something else entirely. It's truly one of the most beautiful pieces of recorded art, a living breathing thing that evokes place, time, instrument and artist equally. I suggest headphones on a quiet night - and turn it up. 

James Blake, James Blake

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A sonically pleasing, subtly kaleidoscopic record that perfectly marries Blake's old soul vocals to newer forms of musical expression. His voice is particularly striking to hear live, but the record still captures its emotional power. The bass makes for several exceptional music-moments as well. Some music sounds good for a couple months, then the freshness wears right off, but this record has sexy slow burn staying power.

Loscil, Coast/Range/Arc

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After seeing too many shows where a white guy fiddles with an apple laptop placed atop a metal-legged table wearing a white catering apron (the table not the artist), I'd temporarily sworn off anything "electronic" or even ambient, but this record brought me right back into the fold. This is a grand unfolding ode to the slower, deeper rhythms of landscapes. Best listened to from start to finish, and very loud.

Benoit Honore Pioulard Plays Thelma

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Like seeing a flashing light in a grassy field, and finding that it's a shard of broken mirror reflecting the sun.

Beirut, The Riptide

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Zach Condon has created a near-perfect marriage of his electronic indie pop and wild "world" music sides. His most personal record to date, it fills you with a truly inspiring sad-happy nostalgia.

Wolves in the Throne Room, Celestial Lineage

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When this screaming witch man from Olympia starts up, you'll get the distinct feeling that black metal has something to offer, and that other artists might not be trying as hard as they could be to push the boundaries of music. In my mind, this record evokes opera more than any other genre of music, albeit a pagan opera conducted at midnight around an enormous burn pile in the woods.

Chad Vangaalen, Diaper Island

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Such a strange, sad, angry, pretty collection of pop songs. And while I don't know where Diaper Island is located, I'm starting to get the feeling I might actually be living there.

Jacaszek, Glimmer

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The perfect suicide-contemplation music, and everyone knows you have to have some of THAT in your collection. Poland rules.

Radiohead, The King of Limbs

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Sure, I could use more string arrangements from the masterful Mister Greenwood, and yes, it's a long way from KID A, but, even a slightly slighter Radiohead record still kicks ASS.

I Hate My Blog

Maybe it's because the background color of this pre-made template is a cross between "fake leg" and "paper bag"- or maybe it's because everything I ever think of, or see, has already been blogged or posted, tumbled or tweeted by the time I get around to remembering I even have a blog: video of policeman helping ducks cross multi-lane freeway at rush hour - check; floating opera stage with giant skeleton holding open a book - check; American Apparel visible-pubic-hair print ads - check; the fact that the former editor of Paris Vogue looks a lot like The Grinch - wait, wait, I think I came up with that one. Well, whatever the reasons, I realized: I hate my blog.

So why did I start a blog? To answer this question I had to use my brain, a vastly under-worked organ which has spent its last several years marinating in a heavy mix of alcohol and Victorian novels; with time, the answer became clear, I started a blog because I was miserable, and the source of my misery is the confluence of these simple facts.

I live on Vashon Island.

I don't live in Manhattan.

For those not in the know, Manhattan and Vashon are almost identical in general shape and size (minus the artificially attached Maury Island - rudely bonded to Vashon by a stinking dirt bridge with rusty exercise bikes parked along its side; note about those bikes: they're supposed to be charming, and they're not, they're unsightly and annoying). Maps are inexpertly placed below for people who like maps.

I love Manhattan. I love it like a person. I watch for it in movies, like an old friend. Just the thought of being released onto the streets of Manhattan makes me swoon. And I don't love an idealized Manhattan. I love a noisy, dirty, fast and imperfect Manhattan. A Manhattan that is never the same when you go back. A Manhattan that was always better ten years ago according to someone who lived there.

Not Loving Vashon/Loving Manhattan is my two-headed misery-making monster. There are reasons I live here (boring blah blah on that later) and why I don't live in Manhattan. But first, I would like to share one item that will help highlight the difference between these two places:

Last week in Manhattan, you could have attended the debut of Jonny Greenwood's new music for the film "Doghouse," part of the Wordless Music series - Jonny's largest and longest work yet. Vashon: you could attend a fiber fest and make potholders out of goat hair. Okay, I'm not sure if that's what happened at fiber fest, because I was raving drunk when I read about it, and too hung over the next day to attend. (Trapped in a car, my mates had no choice but to listen to me read back and forth from the event listings in the New Yorker and our local paper, which is called, er, um, vague feeling of shame arising: The Beachcomber.  Just typing out the name of that paper makes me feel like getting drunk right now, in the middle of the day.)

But wait, maybe I should attend Sludge Fest, and learn about septic tanks and alternative toilets, or go see that display of old apple peelers, maybe, just maybe, I should embrace what this island has to offer, rather than sit at home full of bitterness and bile. But god what kind of drug would it take to get me to attend a session of "yoga for birders" at the local land trust building?

Somebody. Help. Me.

Vashon, just like Manhattan, minus 2 million people or so.

Photo by Francesa Woodman

American photographer 1958 - 1981.

How can I sell my pants on this blog?

I see other people selling their pants on their blogs.
Important Note: Google image search "old jeans" and look at the number of things you should NOT do with your old jeans.

I Want This Dog

It sings.

Art In Progress

Another Top Ten Records of 2010 List

I think you should buy these artists' records, from an independent music store (Go Vashon Music!) or directly from the label, because they are very, very good records.

(1) Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz

You know how dogs tip their heads to the side when they hear a funny sound? That's what I did when I first heard this record. I listened again, and tipped my head the other way. Again: well then I fell in love. A bold, complex, crazy piece of true art, the musical equivalent of one of de Kooning's snarling lady paintings, where you see an artist trying to undo every precious skill they've ever learned and end up making something strange and brilliant. Sufjan gets an A for Adz and an A-plus for the jaw-dropping live performance of Seven Swans in Seattle. He's not fucking around.

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(2) Shearwater - The Golden Archipelago
When overcome with the burden of bearing witness to the decline of songbirds and forests and the atmosphere itself, it's scientist musician extraordinaire Jonathan Meiburg that I most want to hear. Meiburg's voice is mesmerizing, and his lyrics, written or performed, are pure poetry. Shearwater stands as a testament to the power of doing meaningful work, with honesty and skill, and kicking ass live.
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(3) Brian McBride - The Effective Disconnect
Two words. Absolutely Gorgeous. Composed for a film about Colony Collapse Disorder - the ever-cheering subject of the massive die-off of honey bees. If you want to be oblivious and shake your shit around, this is not the record for you. But if you want to listen to 50% of Stars of the Lid do his best solo work to date, and shed a tear only a couple minutes in because the strings are so effing pretty, this is your record. Side Note: I wonder if Mr. McBride noted that his music is often classified as "drone" and that a drone is also a worker bee? Hmmmm.
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(4) Jonsi - Go
Wilst Sigur Ros slumbered in temporary hiatus, Jonsi went out on his own, and let loose with this super pop record. Producer Nico Muhly clearly put some wind in Jonsi's sails, and it includes songs you can definitely bounce up and down to; but it's the big beautiful epic songs, Kolnidur and Grow Till Tall that support the New York Time's contention that Jonsi is "a messenger of ecstatic hope."
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(5) Under Byen - Alt Er Tabt
After seeing them on their last tour, David Frick named them "the best band in the world." And after seeing that tour, I was inclined to agree. But as it turns out, not only is this a truly great band, it's a band with balls. Big Danish balls. Because they could have (and in a commercial sense should have) just done a repeat of their critic-pleasing 2006 record "Samme Stof Som Stof," but did they? Absolutely not. Instead, they made a deeply dark, idiosyncratic art piece which speaks to the power of insanely talented musicians following their muse.
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(6) Benoit Pioulard - Lasted
I'm secretly (well not so secretly now) thinking that if Thomas Meluch, dba, Benoit Pioulard, had a band, he just might be the next Radiohead. He has the mental and musical chops. Instead, he goes it alone, beautifully blurring the lines between ambient, pop and folk. I love the feeling that these songs are emerging as if buried, coming up through layers of sound. So many records feel impersonal and over-produced, but Lasted has the quality of a hand-made keepsake you return to again and again for the memories it evokes.
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(7) Efterklang - Magic Chairs
To see them live is to love them; and while my favorite record of this spectacular Danish band remains their earlier effort "Tripper," I was completely floored by the diversity of songs and sounds this band made on Magic Chairs, and by the spectacular front and center vocals of the band's insanely charming lead, Casper Clausen.
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(8) Swans - My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky
I just kept hearing "Swans" "Swans" "Swans" from musical corners far and wide. So, I got this record. And it kicks ass. I'm not going to pretend I know much else about this band. All I know for certain is that I have to see them LIVE.
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(9) Valgeir Sigurdsson - Draumalandid
Another beautiful record from the fantastic Bedroom Community label. This soundtrack to an Icelandic environmental documentary is diverse and lovely and oh come on, just go buy it, because I'm getting tired of trying to make up words about sounds.
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(10) James Blake -  Klavierwerke, CMYK - EPs
I normally don't like what I think this music is: dubstep? Does that sound right? But this guy's music is so divinely diced and spliced it's weird and beautiful, and what the hell, is he pretty or what? I hope his upcoming full-length is as good as it seems it will be; however if it is, I fear for him that he will become embarrassingly huge.
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