ramdom

Rick Medland's Top Recordings of 2010

It was the best year for music in recent memory. Things broke wide open again and changed up, it seemed. Everybody was doin' a hybrid, doing all kinds of genres and eras on their records. A little bit of this and a little bit of that. It is also wonderful to see bands that I was digging 30 years ago finally being recognized by young people/hipsters who weren't even kicking around their mama's tummies. Orange Juice, Prefab Sprout and all kinds of under the radar indie stuff from the Dead-80's, coming back as the amazing artists they were. Who next: Kissing the Pink? And so it goes. Lots of old stuff to keep unearthing too. Steven Still's Manassas. Point Blank. the JPT Scare Band. the Isley Bros., Old Kinks albums (amazing concept music that just shines and a fathomless back catalog. Anyways...

1. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti : : Before Today
My Recording of the Year. A total blast from start to finish, with it's skewed production and melodic genius and everything. And how did I discover this gem? Oh sure, I heard it was supposed to be a "hypnogogic recording" (which is music that invokes the dream state of musics past, evoking bits and pieces of songs you almost remember, or something), but this was different. But truly by the headphones... the minute, sublime attention to detail and sonic hi-jinx that permeate the mind's eye. The melodies are exquisite and if you hear his back story, this L.A. slacker has been knockin' out Lo-Fi gems that sound like your old 8-track smeared with green jello for years. It's pure pop, pouty prog, and sexy psyche all at the same time. It has a flow, it's a real Long Playing Record and it's really brilliant music making. I really love this record but

2. Beach House : : Teen Dream
almost took first place. A truer title didn't exist this year: it sounds like a desire-laden, perfect little memory pack from the languid dreams of a romantic teenager. It floats and waves and the songs keep getting better as the tide plays out. Usually if you can find a record with 3 good tracks you're doing good. (what's a full length record, Daddy?) With only 3 fillers tracks you're doing pretty amazing actually. But with every song on Beach House's 3rd effort, it's languishing vibe levels you with a) poignancy b) hooks and c) perfectly simple, simply perfect arrangements and ...that voice. That pleading, conspiratorial, androgynous mystery of a mouth that sings about Norway and zebras. It could be the Yellow Pages. I play this album once a week or once a day - it's all a blur. I will continue to play it. Ariel Pink beat it out this year though as Before Today is just that touch more creative and much more original. After all, classic albums are a dime a dozen these days. Take

3. the Black Keys : : Brothers
for example. I put the 'jet black' disc in the CD player. - flat black, no titles, no image, no song listings - an all black, artsy, minimalist design. Fact OK?. 40-50 minutes or so later I discover that the CD, when I removed it, is off-white with all the song titles visible! OK, I must have missed something or maybe it was some other disc I was playing...earlier? Huh?. Too many CDs maybe? Next time I pick it up to play it, I examine the disc and my finger prints are revealed where heat was generated by my touch. Tthe friction from the player had the same effect! Why has nobody else has ever mentioned this? Do I win a prize? Am I the only recipient? Is everyone else too hip or jaded to mention such an obvious and novel marketing ploy? I dunno. (Maybe it's something to do with downloading, iTunes, file-sharing etc., that most listeners haven't even got the actual disc? Hmmm.) I've always been a sucker for a really original and nicely designed package! Music is pretty damn good too. You've probably heard that somewhere already in our info-pizza, take-a-slice, society about how the Black Keys are the blues, soul and pop all at once. Even

4. Kanye West : : My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
brings all the noise. And ...Fantasy is a pretty damn good record too. It showed up at the top of every critics list garnering universal acclaim. Mostly as 'the best damn record of the year' type. Is it worth the fuss and kudos? It certainly is. I believe this is the best mainstream hip hop album in years and years. It's arrogant, conceited, self aware and brilliant of Mr. West to infuse it all with so much sincerity and honesty. What's that all about? The long instrumental passages (auto-tune as a solo Instrument!?), impeccable samples and career defining guest spots are all here. There's something for everyone. Except the kids and anyone over 45. Why must there be so much shocking profanity in hip hop? It even makes me wince, and then shiver, that my daughters listen to this potty mouth genre and are growing up with it. Yet it's such a stone dead classic recording, but why mar it with so much debasement and lyrical cruelty? Why does a rap superstar have to lower the bar to raise our opinions? It's an old (mans) complaint, sure. But this isn't even Gansta, it's supposed to be radio tunes! So why all the "douchebags and assholes" thing? I know I'm showing my age but damn it - hip hop has been around 30 years or longer depending on who you ask. I know that

5. Deerhunter : : Halcyon Digest  
don't need cussing and kitty whippin' to get their point across. They just infuse their Beach Boys collection with a serious shot of Sonic Youth, a hint of Yo La Tengo and a gentle shoegazing shine. Just hit play to enjoy light, deceptively complex, sunny afternoon songs. Leader Brandon Cox is apparently the brains and the loudmouth behind the band, but my favorite song is 'Desire Lines' by lead guitarist Pundt. The rest of the songs seem to satellite around it. It's starting to sound like a watercolor-washed year with all the ambient textures and sonic splashes floating around my top 5 this year.
Halcyon - 1. Calm and peaceful; tranquil. 2. Prosperous; golden: the halcyon years. Totally apt album title then.

Ah right, the Golden Years...

6. David Bowie : : A Reality Tour
I guess it takes an old master to bring home the classic sounds and confidence of a living legend. Enough of these young upstarts. David Bowie's 2003 album Reality was his best in years, if you asked me. So it was amazing to find a double CD recorded in Dublin in 2003 released this year with so many great hits and album tracks* from every shape-shifting era he shape shifted into. Thirty three of them songs to be exact. And the old, thin Duke is in great form and engineered by Visconti again and with one Earl Slick on guitar! I believe this is the best live recording he's ever released. But it's Bowie's positivity and general eloquence towards his audience that truly astounds. He sounds magnanimous in spirit and generous and in remarkable form.

7. Jamey Johnson : : the Guitar Song
Speaking of form, here's a long lost genre rarely done well; the Outlaw musician. Way back it was Steve Earle and Dwight Yoakam who changed the Nashville game and raised the stakes. In the country sense, this is classic music with wit, style and substance. And without compression, goofy lyrics and cynical commercialism either - Johnson is the real deal. He brings the songs across the canyon on an even rarer beast: the country double album. With depth and brilliant playing, the 2 albums are of a concept apparently - the White (day + happiness) and the Black (night + melancholy) discs. He lets his team loose on some Skynyrd-like jams just to stretch them out and have some fun (on the White Album, of course) and shows his hurtin' side a bit more on the other. He sees the joy inside his tears and the pain in loving fully, so the lines are blurred. I suppose it sounds better than calling it the Gray Album though. If you have reached the conclusion that George Jones is essentially a white soul singer then this is your best bet in years. Jamey Johnson put's all his cards on the table and he's All In. A truly sublime set.

8. Girls : : Broken Dreams Club
Try finding this band on Google for a download, heheh. It's an inexpensive e.p. but it's seven songs clock in at just over 30 minutes. One minute I'm reminded of the Feelies or Lambchop, the next song it's Coldplay. Then the mariachi sounds of the band Love. Very subtle arrangements make this a wonderful afternoon listen. It floats on it's own momentum but carries a light load. It rocks at times but not to much. Tasty morsels.

9. Black Mountain : : Wilderness Heart
No really long jams this time, just tight compelling Canadian rock music. The songs feel like epics but there's a surgical precision in the playing and production on their third release. The lyrics tend towards bleaker topics and dire prophecies of mankind's troubled paths but it's still a swaggering, psychedelic journey. Vancouver's Black Mountain still have the magic that sets them apart...

10. Black Country Communion : : Black Country
but a band like Black Country Communion is in a different neck of the woods. This is, essentially the type of music Black Mountain is trying to emulate. BCC is a far better supergroup than last years immensely disappointing Them Crooked Vultures, where the band member's strengths were completely squandered. But here it's the Voice of Rock, Mr. Glenn Hughes who brings that classic rock credibility in spades. This roars out of the gates with the song 'Black Country'. A three minute ripper that lasers right into your face, set to stun. All the parts are there in microcosm. The wailing vocals (actual singing!), the unbelievably fast and lyrical lead guitar, invisible keys that round it out and Bonham's over-compensating, manic fills and muscled wallops. Not too bad. And if you mistakingly find disappointment in the songwriting, Hughes brings a classic Trapeze song (Medusa) onboard from 1971 to update it's sound and show his commitment (or royalties). Admittedly, I'm a Trapeze fan from way back and I'd only heard of axeman Joe Bonamassa before as a blues player in the Rory Gallagher, Stevie Ray, Slowhand vein but was pleasantly surprised here where he shares the vocals and songwriting as well. Check out "Song of Yesterday' an 8 minute slice of Robin Trower-ish rock bliss. A nice surprise for 2010 but it would be nice to see it a little less unrelenting and relaxed. If they harness Hughes soul voice and writing prowess and give Bonham a Valium or two, these guys could make a real stand. Like it's 1974 all over again.

Thanks for reading. Everybody has a list nowadays, search 'em out!. We all just shuffle the same 5o records in a different order. Buy one of these. Happy 2011 - may it be fruitful and multiplied.
Mail this LIST to anyone you'd like but exactly as composed here... please?

Peace!
Rick
(Medland)




The Contenders...

Joanna Newsom : : Have One On Me
An interesting 3 disc set that requires full attention. A dense and mercurial talent, is she. And a song called Esme' too!

the Black Crowes : : Croweology
An acoustic recovery of the Crowes back catalog. Way better and more confident than I ever expected. A black phoenix rises!

The National : : High Violet
Not as immediately jaw dropping as 'Alligator' or 'Boxer'. Not by a long shot for me. But the 21st century answer to Joy Division can do no wrong. Just less better than before.

Black Dub : : Black Dub
An ambient bar band? swampy soul music? all masterminded by the esteemed Daniel Lanois for a lark? Is that all this is? Not by a long shot. He's found an interesting collection of players. An amazing drummer in Brian Blade who is simply outstanding on the kit - played in technical counterpoint to Lanois's airy, effects laden guitar tones - Blade can play anything or just disappear. Trixie Whitely offers a feminine mystique to the entire affair, at times evoking a musty Nina Simone or Amanda Marshall. The entire recording loops between dub, soul, rock, trip hop, blues and an odd form of New Orleans psychedelia. It's reminiscent of Robbie Robertson's 'Somewhere Down the Crazy River' explored from every possible angle. Everyone in the band is given a democratic time to shine, room to move and to coalesce with gentle but firm grace. If you're familiar with Lanois's productions you'll agree this is what he does best anyway.

Black Dub oozes integrity. It's both gritty and pleading and the whole album is a study in subtle contrasts. It's minor fault seems to be a search for an identity and yet this is what might keep us coming back for more; a rich diversity all glued together with Lanois's atmospherics. There's some wonderful jams that add to the general "space", giving everbody time to find the groove and Hold. It. Right. There.

Let me think... Black Dub is ahhh, earthy. There's no other way to describe it, once you add up all the locales (and textures) and Whitley's Blues Goddess vibe. The more I write the more depth I discover and the more I'm enjoying this record. It could be the best thing Lanois has released since his debut. It's stature will only grow as it finds it's audience, a bit like a Broken Bells strategy. Lanois may have finally found his Muse. Winona was just a thief after all.

Black Dub's debut is wonderful music. (the art is interesting too. Sure the penny whistle baby on the giant hog is a little weird but the folk art aspect is ground solid and somewhat apt - that contrast thing again...) Something for everyone with soul to spare. Recommended.

Broken Bells : : Broken Bells
It could have been so much more. The sepia tones on the record sound like mild depression - there's a veneer of fog here. And the melodies make the album sound like one long prog suite for Indie kids. I guess Mercer misses the Shins. Maybe he shouldn't have fired them all. This must be his band break up record. Bummer.



* Bowie's Reality Tour : : a track listing...

CD 1 = 1. Rebel Rebel 2. New Killer Star 3. Reality 4. Fame 5. Cactus 6. Sister Midnight 7. Afraid 8. All the Young Dudes 9. Be My Wife 10. The Loneliest Guy 11. The Man Who Sold the World 12. Fantastic Voyage 13. Hallo Spaceboy 14. Sunday 15. Under Pressure 16. Life on Mars?  17. Battle for Britain (The Letter)

CD 2 = 1. Ashes to Ashes 2. The Motel 3. Loving the Alien 4. Never Get Old 5. Changes 6. I'm Afraid of Americans 7. Heroes 8. Bring Me the Disco King 9. Slip Away 10. Heathen (The Rays) 11. Five Years 12. Hang on to Yourself 13. Ziggy Stardust 14. Fall Dog Bombs the Moon 15. Breaking Glass 16. China Girl

Fire Fight

In October 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a group of American destroyers trapped a Soviet submarine near Cuba. When the ships began dropping depth charges, the sub’s captain prepared to launch a nuclear-tipped torpedo, believing that a war between the superpowers might already be under way.

But the launch was permitted only if three officers agreed to it, and second-in-command Vasili Arkhipov held out against his superior. An argument ensued, but eventually he persuaded the captain to surface instead and seek orders from Moscow.

“The lesson from this,” remarked NSA director Thomas Blanton in 2002, “is that a guy called Vasili Arkhipov saved the world.”



Music in the Millennium

[T]he professional [musician] himself will cease, like the actor, to rank as a sort of superior harlequin or performing animal, exhibiting his powers for the diversion of an assembled public. What he has once played can, if he choose, be constantly repeated. … Instead of the executant or singer being judged by his performance on an occasion when fatigue, illness or unfavourable circumstances may militate against his perfect success, when the nerve-shattering conditions of the platform probably in any case offend his susceptibilities and detract from the perfection of his performance, he will be able to found his reputation upon the very best performance he is capable of. He will be able to try and try again in the privacy of his study. When he has satisfied himself, and then alone, will he publish his artistic effort to the world. He can destroy as many unsatisfactory records as he pleases, just as the sculptor can break up his clay when he has not succeeded, just as the painter can paint out his picture when it has not pleased him, and be judged only by his best.

– T. Baron Russell, A Hundred Years Hence, 1906

Foreword from
Amusing Ourselves to Death
by Neil Postman

We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.

But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions". In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.


listening -new-
Grizzly Bear - Vecktamist
Fleet Foxes - S/T
Anything by Josh Rouse
Moby Grape - Essential Grapes
Manic Street Preachers - Journal for Plague Lovers

there are no pencils here now, nor brushes.
thoughts ramble into the countryside of
switchers and routers.

children populate with their petty
immense concerns.
supper calls, errands beckon, sleep
evades and life enters it's own domain.

there are no thoughts or revisions,
or visions at all.
merely the plucking of habit from the
limbs of days. (evasions)

i do not write.
i do not paint.
i have given it all to you.
but more importantly,
i have taken it away from myself.


©ramedland1999