2010 in review.
Not a bad year, not an outstanding year, but what year is, really? Those stretches of “Holy fuck” cultural output drift down the pike ever so rarely. Some years follow the theme of “Sophomore jinx”: Those breakout albums followed up by fumbles or formula. Some are fallow periods, and looking at the broader land of indie, another year went in one ear and out the other.
In my own headphone universe, 2010’s theme was all about pleasant consistency.
To wit:
Oneohtrix Point Never’s Returnal was simply adequate, and beyond Blixa Bargeld and Alva Noto’s anbb project not to mention Mr Nicolai’s For 2, Raster-Noton simply did what they did well.
Furthermore, Loscil did Loscil, Momus entertained and tickled the libido and intellect, and The Fall’s Your Future Our Clutter was the usual “return to form” that Mark E. Smith and his band of hired guns manage to squeeze out roughly once a year.
And you know what? God bless all of the above for it.
I won’t get into the crap, the meh, the dross of 2010: Go check predictable ol’ Pitchfork and a thousand other blogs. Although this I have to say: Witch House / Occult imagery, while seductive = vaudeville.
So. Here goes.
Not in order, mostly 2010, if not, they were still on heavy rotation over the course of the year.
OMAR SOULEYMAN - Jazeera Nights.
One person’s cheezy wedding music that their grandma rocks out to (direct quote from a customer who came in, puzzled to find us bumping it at work) is somebody else’s new party banger. Who’d a thunk it?
Missed his show at the Jazz fest, thus cemented as biggest regret of 2010. As far as regrets go, there are much worse ones, so that means 2010 was better than 2009. Maybe.
AJILVSGA - Origin of Chaul
Via the formidable Killed in Cars, a symphony of low-rumble cassette-compressed psychic drano. Similar to SUNN O))) in that it amplifies the curse of apartment living: You can’t crank it up and fully experience it at its’ intended volume, lest the landlady who happens to live below you come knocking with an eviction notice. Bah.
DAS RACIST- Sit Down, Man
Obvs shoo-in, a million plays, and each time there’s a witty couplet or reference that I didn’t catch or piece together before. Makes decently-read white guys with arts degrees who love hip hop (but maybe can’t relate to most rap circa 2k10) bounce happily, or at least feel in on the joke. These dudes are fucking smart. Love.
DIE ANTWOORD
Love or hate? Comedy of the highest order with layers upon layers of WTF IS THIS I DON’T EVEN, but when Diplo’s producing some of the beats, who cares? Total candy, will be as relevant as Fischerspooner in a few years, but fuck it, enjoying the buzz in the meantime.
THE SECRET - Solve et Coagula
After a few years of ignoring the heavy stuff, the dirty mess that is this album (see also: KILL THE CLIENT ) blew me away. Whorls of ugly and exhilarating hatred, the kind that makes you happy, with none of that clowny macho chest-thumping. Full rapturous blather here.
FRANCISCO LOPEZ - Untilted #228
Field recordings in Indonesia tweaked by the master into harrowing lights-out listening. Boomkat put it this way:
“…an intensely hallucinogenic experience. If you’ve been enraptured with the alternate sound worlds of Thomas Köner, Russell Haswell and Florian Hecker, David Toop or The Hafler Trio/Chris Watson, this album is as essential a listening experience as it gets “
Vinyl run of 250, had to rely on other means to acquire. So it goes. Play loud, and preferably blindfolded.
PANTHA DU PRINCE - Black Noise
We like our techno German, minimal, warm and tasty.
Roger Tellier-Craig, he of Pas Chic Chic, Le Fly Pan Am and Godspeed brings the cinematic analog kosmische. Satisfying.
SHACKLETON - Fabric 55 mix
Consistently ominous -think Muslimgauze’s percussive grooves with massive bass- Shackleton chopped and spliced his catalogue into a single longform opus. This mix acts less as a series of floorbangers melting into each other, and more as a dynamic, lucidly-shifting hashish dream. Be careful in there.
Dubstep fizzled into shmubstep over the last while and I think there’s been enough witchy occult references plastered all over the interwebs to make Crowley backflip in his grave, or at least make Kenneth Anger facepalm.
And then there was this.
“1-sided mysterious producer skuzz bass “like Mika Vaino doing broken dubstep…in a year where occult imagery was regularly deployed to mask half-baked musical ideas, Chasing Voices’ ‘Acidbathory’ was that rare thing – a record that lived up to the air of mystery, ominousness and evil that it projected. A powerful but very elegant mingling of dubstep, techno, industrial and doom metal elements.”
CHIHEI HATAKIYAMA - A Long Journey
Beautiful drift, cinema behind the eyelids.
Pairs nicely with:
TAKU SUGIMOTO / MOE KAMURA - Saritote II
Guitar and voice. Quiet, delicate, gentle but above all: brevity as an aesthetic strategy. Refreshing in that particular style that only Japan does so well, but without going too heavy into twee/ ^_^ kawaii ^_^ territory. For fans of Tenniscoats/Small Color.
TAYLOR DEUPREE - Shoals
Textures, scratches and loops sourced from broken strings, eBow and the surfaces of Javanese/Balinese gamelan instruments. Less blissful and more inquisitive than his usual sound, and remarkably fresh to hear him work with a sense of heightened attention rather than just sculpting a pleasingly snowy monochromatic drift.
VARIOUS -Turkish Freakout: Psych-Folk Singles 1969–1980
Erkin Koray. That is all.
Praise the record nerds-turned musicologists for things like this. Haunting Greek immigrant sorrow @78rpm.
CLEO & PATRA - Marcus Antonius on the Run
As stated:
We’re not huge fans of the edit over here.
In theory, it sounds great: Take an old gem apart and piece it back together for the floor circa now- but often, the end result can be less than spectacular. The occasional edit does it right: Take the original, honor it by bumping up the best parts of the song and recreate it as something stronger, leaner, meaner. The mystery duo reworks legendary Paradise Garage hit You Got Me Running” by Lenny Williams, creating what we consider to be the bomb track of the year. Take the bass line, dirty it up even more over a hint of housey percussion, bring extra oomph to the kick drum, and let it work voodoo on the hips. Larry Levan would be proud.
VARIOUS - deutsche elektronische musik (soul jazz)
Yeah, everyone’s probably tired of the neue-alte-kosmische-prog-motorik rehash but this plays like a mix-tape/cd (remember those?) with a bunch of songs you already have. Meaning: the numbers you already heard a thousand times get removed from your own familiar listening experience/context (eg: the album itself, your own mixes) and rub up against strangers and in turn, you hear the old saws with a layer of familiarity peeled off…when the repeaters pop up, there’s little in the way of “Groannn, Veterano/Heisse Lippen/Hallo Gallo again?!?”.
Cheers to all things well-curated.
Did this come out in 2010? Who cares? The “Library Music” phase at Flares HQ shows no sign of ending, and like the classic Barry 7’s Connectors series that put its hooks into us during the last decade, this acts as a perfect intro to the industry that became a nerdy collector’s genre. Thorough lowdown from Trunk Records here.
VARIOUS -Brazilian Guitar Fuzz Bananas: Tropicalia Psychedelic Masterpieces 1967-1976
Fuzzy, dirty vinyl sees the light of day in all of its reverbed glory. Sweat.
VARIOUS: Minimal Wave Tapes Volume One and Cold Waves and Minimal Electronics
Both stand at a tie. Thankful for the resurrection of old cold-wave-minimal-synth etc outside the realm of the pop heavy-hitters (Human League, Cabs, D. Mode, Sheffield in general), and these two comps simultaneously owe a debt and act as an extension of the flexi-pop archives, not to mention the stellar French minimal synth comp Femmes Sous Cellophane.
Both show this short-lived genre as a natural offshoot of post-punk and DIY: some brilliant work, some desperate attempts to fit in, and like any short-lived movement or genre in its infancy, even the “meh” tracks display genuine effort and enthusiasm even when trying to come off as blank-faced and dreary.
»»»»»»»>MIXES««««««««<
RootStrata, Resident Advisor, FACT MAG, Touch Radio and Allez-Allez: Ol’ reliable, all five. Key sources for consistent quality in podcast form.
Lethargic and sexy: slo-mo house elements with disco edits chopped and screwed into a dopey haze. At points this mix churns up memories of Funki Porcini/Ninja Tune and Mo’Wax at its dubbiest, but with none of that bitter 90’s throwback aftertaste. Skin up.
Shed dropped a fantastic mix for Resident Advisor, while Touch Radio brought gems by Phill Niblock, not to mention the terrifying audio art work that was Imaginary Hospital Radio.
Last but not least, GREG DAVIS dropped his just-shy-of-three-hours Tracers mix with all the analog/modular/Kraut/kozmik heavyhitters, and acted as a kind of finalizing gesture that put a period onto a three-year-long synth bender for yours truly. Now that there seems to be a backlash against “Hauntology” and it’s been replaced with “Hypnagogic pop” or somesuch (at least if you read The Wire mag) there was a sense that there’s nowhere left to go from there, and we’ll see what new buzzwords and micro-genres get crafed next year…
Finally, we must acknowledge some key losses:
and of course, Captain Beefheart.
On a personal note, this post is dedicated to the memory of Devon Clifford, one of the kindest and funniest, not to mention talented people I had the fortune of knowing, who left us way too soon. There is now a waterfall in his name to visit in 2011.
Okay. The Flares is now officially on holiday.
Have a happy new year, and I will try my best to refrain from obsessively editing and re-editing this post. I have a plane to catch.
