I know, I know. Year-end roundup season has long since passed. This blog is late. Late late late. Oh so very late. For reasons that will become apparent.
- Kayo Dot – Gamma Knife
- Sidsel Endresen & Stian Westerhus – Didymoi Dreams
- Bong – Mana-Yood-Sashai
- Divorce – Divorce
- Ictus Ensemble & Mike Patton – Laborintus II
- Converge – All we Love we Leave Behind
- Volcano the Bear – Golden Rhythm/Ink Music
- Melvins Lite – Freak Puke
- Asva & Philippe Petit – Empires Will Burn
- Thumpermonkey - Sleep Furiously
- Getatchew Mekuria + The Ex + Friends – Y'Anbessaw Tezeta
- Neurosis – Honor Found in Decay
- Man Forever - Pansophical Contract
THE DEATH-DEFYING
UNICORN
A last-minute entry, this. I clearly had my bulbous bonce
under a sizeable rocky outcropping for the first 11-and-a-half months of 2012,
given that this double-disc collection of tunes seemingly custom-built to give
me telepathically injected joywibbles went previously unnoticed until
mid-December. Heavy, heavy kraut-psych? Chunky, tricksy riffs? Middle-Eastern
modes? Prog up, within and out the wazoo? Colossal ambition and sheer joy in
the possibilities of sound? All these things and more. Had I heard this earlier
and more often before compiling this bloody stupid list, I’ve a feeling The Death Defying Unicorn would be
higher placed. As it is, it’ll no doubt be a fixture during 2013.
9. JOHN ZORN
TEMPLARS IN SACRED
BLOOD
(TZADIK)
It's a rare Onions for Eyeballs best-of list that doesn't feature at least a tiny smidgen of Mike Patton – this time, in his capacity as
ultra-throat for John Zorn’s Moonchild project. Templars is the sixth outing of
this ensemble, and arguably, the most subtle and melodic yet. That’s not
suggest it’s a dream-pop ballad collection though. Rather, it’s full of
stop-start bass/drum interplay courtesy of Trevor Dunn and Joey Baron, with unearthly
screams, guttural growls and manic demonspeak from Patton, layered with John
Medeski’s shimmering keys. It’s a great suite, beautifully composed by Zorn and
performed with considerable occult vigour. Not quite up there with the lean
first album or the unfeasibly fiendish Six
Litanies for Heliogabalus, but more than smart and fierce enough.
8. THINKING PLAGUE
DECLINE AND FALL
(CUNEIFORM)
Even within the outré world of progressive rock, Thinking
Plague’s music is decidedly strange. Extremely technical to the point of
perfectly sculpted formlessness, it’s full of outrageously nimble, often
discordant guitar lines, brawny, discombobulating cross-rhythms and the
scale-vaulting, almost atonal, stream-of-consciousness approach to melody of
Elaine Di Falco. Some may find it pretentious, perhaps dry and clinical, but it
has an aggressive physicality, love of noise and a sinister edge that will
appeal to those who like their weirdness rough, unpredictable and in several
time signatures at once. This is only Thinking Plague’s sixth studio album, but
also marks their 30th anniversary. Even though the band now has only one
original member (guitarist/composer Mike Johnson), it retains its extremely
singular, inventive and uncompromising aesthetic – if anything, they’ve only
become stronger (and weirder) with time. Decline
and Fall is precisely not what its title implies but is, like Thinking
Plague’s entire (if modest) back catalogue, utterly essential.
(originally published in Rock-a-Rolla)
7. THE ONE ENSEMBLE
ORIOLE
(PICKLED EGG)
Now on
their seventh album, the One Ensemble are led by Daniel Padden of cult
experimentalists Volcano the Bear, and feature members of Glasgow Improvisers
Orchestra and equally wayward Pickled Egg label mates Tattie Toes. Given the
extra-curricular activities of its members, the Ensemble’s sound is
unsurprisingly difficult to pin down – somewhere between Eastern European
traditional music, modern classical, free improvisation, rural folk ditties and
a math-rock band reborn as a chamber quartet. It’s music of contrasts,
equally comfortable with the luscious and the wilfully discordant, switching
styles on a whim, blending musical signifiers of high cultural seriousness with
mischief, e.g. the local news headline ‘MEAT JOBS AXED’ reconfigured into
meaningless phonetic garble, or the surreal ritual of ‘Chicken on a Raft’. It’s
superb stuff – entirely unique and wildly experimental, but at the same time
unpretentious and inviting.
(originally published in Rock-a-Rolla)
6. BANG ON A CAN
ALL-STARS
BIG, BEAUTIFUL, DARK
AND SCARY
(CANTALOUPE)
Must admit, years ago I’d pretty much written off Bang on a Can
before I ever heard a note they played. Something about them suggested the
smug, beige, coffee table end of NYC contemporary music. I’d like to state
clearly that I’m sorry. I was a fool. An utterly wrong fool that deserves barabaric punishment. I first encountered them live, at a free concert in Tramway, Glasgow, part
of the city’s ongoing and excellent Minimal festival. They played several of
the compositions that appear on this album, and were absolutely stunning. Bold,
exploratory, dynamic and exciting – and, in places, extremely fucking heavy.
The next day they played again, this time including a mesmerising version of
Philip Glass’s ‘Two Pages’ that was so intense that I’m still not sure I
survived it.
But to the point – Big,
Beautiful, Dark and Scary is Bang on a Can’s 25th-anniversary
album (I interviewed them about this and more for the Feb/March 2012 issue of Muso
magazine – read online here), but is full of fresh material, ranging from
interpretations of unplayable Conlon Nancarrow compositions to new music from
Louis Andriessen and Dirty Projectors’ Dave Longstreth. The best pieces, for me
at least, are by BOAC’s founder members, particularly Julia Wolfe’s imposing
title track and David Lang’s astonishing ‘Sunray’, which transitions from hazy
beauty to relentless algebraic heaviness reminiscent of late-period King
Crimson. A superb collection, which has been on constant rotation all year.
5. MESHUGGAH
KOLOSS
(NUCLEAR BLAST)
Someone – I forget who, but all credit to said anonymous
individual – once described Meshuggah as a band with one song, which they
constantly refine. That’s fine by me. Koloss is a groovier, more
straightforward piece than ObZen, which still might be my favourite Shugalbum,
but their song is as irresistible as ever. Favourite moment? The way ‘Break
Those Bones Whose Sinews Gave it Motion’s tense, spacey intro half glides, half
explodes into the collapsing mountain of the main riff… man alive. Even
swallowing an iceberg doesn’t produce chills like that.
4. EYVIND KANG
THE NARROW GARDEN
(IPECAC)
Works such as Theater
of Mineral NADEs, Sweetness of
Sickness and last year’s Visible
Breath testify to Eyvind Kang’s proficiency at creating evocative,
well-considered and at times extreme experimental music. However, some of his
strongest work has been his prettiest and most approachable. The Narrow Garden, then, feels like the
culmination of his work to date, bringing together his pricklier side with the
rich, romantic melodicism that characterised the likes of Live Low to the Earth…, The
Story of Iceland and Virginal
Co-ordinates.
The painstakingly crafted Arabesques of ‘Forest Sama’i’ and
‘Mineralia’ will delight admirers of Kang’s stint as Secret Chiefs 3’s viola
vizier, though these are far more meditative compositions than the heady, manic
fusion of Spruance & co. ‘Pure Nothing’, initially pitched somewhere
between Christmas carol and English folk ballad before heading eastward, is
given an eerie feel by Jessika Kenney’s sublimely detached, spectral vocals.
‘Usnea’ and the title track are more abstract, drone-based, informed by Middle
Eastern modes and Ligeti-like dissonance, respectively. And the closing track
brings these disparate strands together in spectacular fashion. Over nine-and-a-half
glorious minutes, its Sultanate stomp and honeyed melody swell into an
uncharacteristically cataclysmic finale of blazing horns and flayed strings –
possibly the most thrillingly visceral music of Kang’s career.
(originally published in Rock-a-Rolla)
3. SWANS
THE SEER
(YOUNG GOD)
Swans.
Yikes.
Much as the live sets around My Father Will Guide Me up a Rope to the Sky were astoundingly
good, the album didn’t do that much for me beyond the opening track (itself a
pale shadow of the twice-as-long live version). I was therefore intrigued but
not overly enthused by the prospect of a new album, especially as it was two hours
long and one or two of the mooted guest musicians were not exactly my
favourites… [/diplomacy]
However, in what appears to be a recurring theme in this
blog post, I was wrong. Oh so very
wrong. The wrongest wrong of all the wrongs in all of wrongland. In advance of
Swans playing the Arches in Glasgow, I finally got around to listening to The
Seer. And it was good. Very good. But way too much to take in in one gulp. The
subsequent gig was astonishing – a relentless two-hour assault on brain and
body alike, harder, louder, harder, louder. By far the greatest set of the
year, no question.
In the wake of that punishment, The Seer made so much more sense. Everything about it defies the obvious, avoids cliché (even Swans clichés) and exudes contradiction. It’s brittle and invulnerable at the same time. It’s deeply psychedelic without hinting at any cultural references associated with that term. It’s bleached-bones stark and lavishly opulent. It’s brutal and tender. Even for an album reliant on a loosely standard guitar-rock sonic template, it sounds like nothing else on Earth. Consider me floored.
In the wake of that punishment, The Seer made so much more sense. Everything about it defies the obvious, avoids cliché (even Swans clichés) and exudes contradiction. It’s brittle and invulnerable at the same time. It’s deeply psychedelic without hinting at any cultural references associated with that term. It’s bleached-bones stark and lavishly opulent. It’s brutal and tender. Even for an album reliant on a loosely standard guitar-rock sonic template, it sounds like nothing else on Earth. Consider me floored.
2. AMANDA PALMER & THE GRAND THEFT ORCHESTRA
THEATRE IS EVIL
(8 FT RECORDS)
Those who haven’t been living in a cave on a diet of
scolopendra and rock sweat will have noticed the vast number of Tweets and
blogposts about Amanda Palmer in recent months. Some gushing, some vitriolic.
What with the kerfuffle about artist responsibility and new business paradigms,
you’d be forgiven for missing the point – that she writes really clever,
honest, funny and moving songs. Produced by John Congleton (of The Paper
Chase), Theatre is Evil offers big, fiery glam-rock stompers, ’80s synthpop
infusions and post-New Wave FM anthems, and a couple of those unbearably
poignant confessional piano ballads at which Palmer excels, all delivered with
characteristically anaerobic verbiage and unfeasibly vast choruses. And in 'The
Grand Theft Intermission', we have a superbly incongruous stomping instrumental
that recalls, of all things, the titanic majesty of Ex Orkest. Generally
noisier, rawer and more gutsy than its predecessor (Who Killed Amanda Palmer?),
this is also hookier, more immediate, and confirms that, like it or not, we’ll
all be hearing a lot more about AFP for a long time yet.
(originally published in Rock-a-Rolla)
1. SCOTT WALKER
BISH BOSCH
(4AD)
Given that Scott rarely puts a cloven hoof wrong as far as
I’m concerned, it’s no surprise that this should be no. 1. Even though it came
out late in the year, I knew from first listen that it was something special,
even in the wake of its extraordinary predecessor, The Drift.
In fact, my choice of Scott in the top slot is the principal reason for the disgusting tardiness of this post. I’ve reviewed it twice in print – once
for Rock-a-Rolla, once for The List – but neither were satisfactory. Bish
Bosch is so extraordinary, so vast, so ingenious, so ridiculous, so bizarre, so
powerful, so breath-taking, that it can’t even vaguely be encapsulated in a
short review. So I felt I had no choice but to write a new, more thorough one
for this blog. But I knew it’d have to be at least 5,000 words to do it
justice. And, other, much better writers – Frances Morgan in The Wire, Joe
Kennedy on The Quietus – had written about Bish Bosch with a clarity of vision, depth of
insight and beauty of phrase that I can’t possibly approach. So I put it off. And put it off. And then
put it off again. And here we are, well into 2013.
Long story short: I’m chickening out. And I have no shame about that. Well,
a bit.
