# 2011 Album Favorites
-
Upload
hash-magazine -
Category
Documents
-
view
226 -
download
2
description
Transcript of # 2011 Album Favorites
Radiohead
THE KING OF LIMBSXL
CHOICE CUT: BLOOM
Girls
FATHER, SON, HOLY GHOST
TRUE PANTHER
CHOICE CUT: ALEX
“The way Chris’ songwriting and JR’s production interact is amazing. There’s good musicianship and there are some lyrical lines that I think are really special, like ‘...and then she’ll love me for all the reasons everyone hates me’.”—RUBAN NIELSON of Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Ambrose Akinmusire
WHEN THE HEART EMERGES GLISTENINGBLUE NOTE
CHOICE CUT: HENYA
Bay Area trumpeter debuts as a bandleader on Blue Note with mostly meditative LP: Akinmusire’s muffled slipstream is ripe with purpose, and shines brightest during the subtle, open-air excursions—of which there are plenty.
Favorite Album:
GOBLIN by Tyler, the Creator
“I love this album because it puts a stamp on time—when listening to it, you instantly know that hip-hop after this one album will have to be different.”
tUnE-yArDs
W H O K I L L4AD
CHOICE CUT: POWA
TV On The Radio
NINE TYPES OF LIGHTINTERSCOPE
CHOICE CUT: CAFFEINATED CONSCIOUSNESS
Unknown Mortal Orchestra
UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRAFAT POSSUM
CHOICE CUT: NERVE DAMAGE!
Portland via New Zealand lo-fi spunksters spring to life in their florid but dusty debut, tracing a glittering stripe of rainbow-funk rock: riffing on the nonsensical (“Nerve Damage!,” “Jello and Juggernauts”) and just plain riffing (“Thought Balloon,” “FFunny FFriends”).
Vinicius Cantuária & Bill Frisell
LÁGRIMAS MEXICANASeONE
CHOICE CUT: AQUELA MULHER
Unknown Mortal Orchestra
UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRAFAT POSSUM
CHOICE CUT: NERVE DAMAGE!
Bill Callahan
APOCALYPSEDRAG CITY
CHOICE CUT: ONE FINE MORNING
Cymbals Eat Guitars
LENSES ALIENBARSUK
CHOICE CUT: DEFINITE DARKNESS
Dengue Fever
CANNIBAL COURTSHIPCONCORD
CHOICE CUT: UKU
Los Angeles six-piece expands its formula with psychedelic synth-quirk and some-t imes r iotous ‘60s funk horns, conjur-ing another hazy spaghetti western out of Cambodian surf pop.
Favorite Albums:
BLACK UP by Shabazz Palaces
“BLACK UP might be my favorite album of the year simply because it’s the boldest. The abstract arrangements have a wonderful sense of freedom to them. It can be hit or miss, at times, but hip-hop so desperately needs an injection of creativity and this record is a full needle”.
—PAUL SMITH, drummer/ producer
NEW HISTORY WARFARE VOL 2: JUDGES by Collin Stetson
“Love the sound and feeling. It makes me feel upside down in high speed forward motion and the tech-nique is profound, almost unbearable.”
—DAVID RALICKE, horns
Casiokids
AABENBARINGEN OVER AASKAMMENPOLYVINYL
CHOICE CUT: DET HASTER!
Action Bronson
DR. LECTERSELF-RESLEASED
CHOICE CUT: BUDDY GUY
“Dude’s got a psychy-Neil Young thing goin’ on. I dig it. Our record also rules.”
—HONOR TITUS of Cerebral Ballzy
Kurt Vile
SMOKE RING FORMY HALOMATADOR
CHOICE CUT: RUNNER UPS
Pistol Annies
HELL ON HEELSCOLUMBIA NASHVILLE
CHOICE CUT: HELL ON HELLS
Danny Brown
XXXFOOL’S GOLD
CHOICE CUT: RADIO SONG
Cerebral Ballzy
CEREBRAL BALLZYWILLIAMS STREET
CHOICE CUT: INSUFFICIENT FARE
‘80s-hardcore revivalists sprint through 12 songs in 20 minutes, skating, snearing, puking, ogling, spitting, cutting class: no regrets, no consequences.
Mountains
AIR MUSEUMTHRILL JOCKEY
CHOICE CUT: BLUE LANTERNS ON EAST OXFORD
Brooklyn alchemists craft more electro-ecstasy with their finest long-play yet, twining digital and acoustic fibers into twinkling rivulets that bloom into unend-ing waterfalls.
Favorite Album:
THE VOICE ROLLING by Mind Over Mirrors
“Fully-saturated harmonium blis-tering from bliss out to harmonic overdrive; hints of kosmische and some heavy nu age: echoes abound. Current Chicago resident Jamie Fennelly has created his own lush yet beastly concoction of bubbling stasis. Controls set either straight for the sun or perhaps your mind’s eye. Oh wait....”
—KOEN HOLTKAMP of Mountains
Drake
TAKE CAREYOUNG MONEY/CASH MONEY/UNIVERSAL
CHOICE CUT: CREW LOVE
Feist
METALSCHERRYTREE
CHOICE CUT: CAUGHT A LONG WIND
Phonte
CHARITY STARTS AT HOMEFOREIGN EXCHANGE
CHOICE CUT: NOT HERE ANYMORE
Phonte raps with gritty gusto as the country spirals around him in this 2011 record for the times. Charity Starts At Home is a working class hero on the verge of existential implo-sion, meditating the merits of monogamy, hustling despite layoffs and spiking mort-gage rates—preaching to the choir, really, but without sounding preachy.
Destroyer
KAPUTTMERGE
CHOICE CUT: SUICIDE DEMO FOR KARA WALKER
Charles Bradley
NO TIME FOR DREAMINGDAPTONE
CHOICE CUT: HOW LONG
Fleet Foxes
HELPLESSNESS BLUESSUB POP
CHOICE CUT: HELPLESSNESS BLUES
Quilt
QUILTMEXICAN SUMMER
CHOICE CUT: COWBOYS IN THE VOID
Mellow melodists traverse space and time, channelling Left Coast folk circa Summer of Love, all the way from Boston in 2011.
Favorite Albums:
ASLEEP ON THE FLOODPLAIN by Six Organs of Admittance, & 936 by Peaking Lights
“Together they stitch the ways in which I’ve come to know now... totally contra-dictory and totally on the same track.”
—SHANE BUTLER, guitar, vocals, banjo
OK MIDNIGHT, YOU WIN by Happy Jawbone Family Band
“It’s the album that Lou Reed would’ve wrote if he never moved out of his mom’s house and ate more junk food instead of drugs.”
—JOHN ANDREWS, drummer
Atlas Sound
PARALLAX4AD
CHOICE CUT: TE AMO
Paul Simon
SO BEAUTIFUL OR SO WHAT
HEAR MUSIC
CHOICE CUT: QUESTIONS FOR THE ANGELS
Metronomy
THE ENGLISH RIVIERABECAUSE MUSIC
CHOICE CUT: THE BAY
“Shit is just mad catchy. I love the new move with more live instrumentation. Dude is a really good songwriter.”
—JOHNNY SIERA of The Death Set
Pure X
PLEASUREACÉPHALE/LIGHT LODGE
CHOICE CUT: HEAVY AIR
Jay-Z & Kanye West
WATCH THE THRONEROC-A-FELLA/ROC NATION/DEF JAM
CHOICE CUT: NEW DAY
The Stepkids
THE STEPKIDSSTONE’S THROW
CHOICE CUT: LA LA
Alec Gross
STRIP THE LANTERNSSOLEBURY MTN. MUSIC
CHOICE CUT: IF YOU DON’T MIND (BABY GO AHEAD)
Syrupy-voiced singer-songwriter gets con-ceptual over a soulful union of country and folk originals, belting like a supreme narra-tor when things get heavy.
Favorite Album:
CIRCUITAL by My Morning Jacket
“Muscular and still so musical. These guys are some of the most important musicians working today.”
Fucked Up
DAVID COMES TO LIFEMATADOR
CHOICE CUT: TRUTH I KNOW
Oneohtrix Point Never
REPLICAMEXICAN SUMMER/SOFTWARE LABEL
CHOICE CUT: ANDRO
Nostalgia 77
THE SLEEPWALKING SOCIETYTRU-THOUGHTS
CHOICE CUT: BEAUTIFUL LIE
Composer and gentle-jazz auteur returns from four years of collaborations with a record all his own—sorta. Josa Peit’s earthy baritone dominates the bulk of this LP, but in the best way; the Ger-man chanteuse realizes Nostalgia’s vision in ev-ery track she graces, from the dreamy “Beautiful Lie” to crisp, Howitzer-organ grumblers “Sleep-walker” and “When Love Is Strange.” Sleepwalking Society is mostly a marvel of steely blues, though its exiting gesture, the sighing instrumental “Hush,” is its greatest triumph.
Raphael Saadiq
STONE ROLLIN’COLUMBIA
CHOICE CUT: GOOD MAN
Ry Cooder
PULL UP SOME DUST & SIT DOWNNONESUCH
CHOICE CUT: LORD TELL ME WHY
SBTRKT
SBTRKTYOUNG TURKS
CHOICE CUT: SOMETHING GOES RIGHT
It’s no stretch to say Aaron Jerome goes to as much trouble in chiseling an anti-ego as he does composing brooding funk-step grooves for the antisocialite. But the smoldering, Little Dragon-boosted standout “Wildfire” brought SBTRKT out of self-prescribed anonymity once Drake remixed it, tuning many ears to the Londoner’s self-titled debut. The charred-but-precise soprano of Sampha makes him a key feature, a space-lounge singer booted into the dance party SBTRKT engenders for the quiet confines between your headphones.
The Death Set
MICHEL POICCARDNINJA TUNE
CHOICE CUT: WE ARE GOING ANYWHERE MAN
Aussie émigrés record their first full-length since the untimely death of co-founder/leader in 2009: the glossy punk-ballads are more dense, more serene, more poignant than before, but the trio’s raison d’être remains thrashing headlong into the unknown—while slapping you in the head and braying like a Beastie.
Curren$y
WEEKEND AT BURNIE’SJET LIFE/WARNER BROS.
CHOICE CUT: THIS IS THE LIFE
Favorite Album:
BEHOLD THE SPIRIT by William Tyler
“BEHOLD THE SPIRIT was released at the end of last year, but it’s a 2011 discovery for me. I had the pleasure of recording a quick session with Mr. Tyler in Nashville, and his debut confirmed my suspicions from that brief encounter—a rare emotional intelligence and a guitarist of The highest order.”
Willem Maker
AGAPAOSELF-RELEASED
CHOICE CUT: REVIVAL 6
Little Dragon
RITUAL UNIONPEACEFROG
CHOICE CUT: SHUFFLE A DREAM
PJ Harvey
LET ENGLAND SHAKEISLAND/VAGRANT
CHOICE CUT: ALL AND EVERYONE
The Roots
UNDUNDEF JAM
CHOICE CUT: MAKE MY FEAT. BIG K.R.I.T
The Black Keys
EL CAMINONONESUCH
CHOICE CUT: GOLD ON THE CEILING
Frank Ocean
NOSTALGIA, ULTRASELF-RELEASED
CHOICE CUT: WE ALL TRY
Joe Henry
REVERIEANTI
CHOICE CUT: GRAND STREET
Producer, singer-songwriter and downright multi-hyphenate Joe Henry lives in that ignominious domain of an influential musical pusher too often overlooked. His twelfth solo album is a lush and lethargic cycle of free-flowing compositions: they stumble and crash over their own feet, edges frayed into deliberate, stylish shambles. However bedraggled, the music always sounds sympathetic against Henry’s crooked tenor: “I deserve a much nicer hotel room than this,” he warbles in the album’s weary opener. Damn right.
Yuck
YUCKFAT POSSUM
CHOICE CUT: STUTTER
Tedeschi Trucks Band
REVELATORSONY LEGACY
CHOICE CUT: MIDNIGHT IN HARLEM
“It has such an amazing mix of blues, rock, funk, and country. Derek Trucks’ guitar work is worth the price of album alone.”
—BEN WILLIAMS
The Weeknd
HOUSE OF BALLOONSSELF-RELEASED
CHOICE CUT: WICKED GAMES
Shout Outs
EP’SBODY LANGUAGE, Social Studies
FORT LEAN, Fort Lean
PHANTOM FAMILY HALO, The Mindeater
MO KOLOURS, EP1: Drum Talking
GARY CLARK JR., The Bright Lights
HINDI ZAHRA, Until The Next Journey
THE ALABAMA SHAKES, The Alabama Shakes
TRACKSASAP ROCKY, “Peso”
THE WAR ON DRUGS, “Come To the City”
ELYSIAN FIELDS, “Sweet Condenser”
JAMES BLAKE, “I Never Learnt To Share”
DJ KHALED, “I’m On One”
BEN WILLIAMS, “Moonlight In Vermont”
BEASTIE BOYS, “Make Some Noise”
BEN SOLLEE, “Embrace”
TIM HECKER, “The Piano Drop”
VANAPRASTA, “G-”
BATTLES, “Ice Cream”
BODIES OF WATER, “Open Rhythms”
TWIN SISTER, “Kimmi In A Rice Field”
NICOLAS JAAR, “Variations”
WASHED OUT, “Eyes Be Closed”
UNKLE f. NICK CAVE, “Money And Run”
THE ANTLERS, “Rolled Together”
KATY B., “Katy On A Mission”
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF M. Sean Ryan
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Monica So
www.hashmagazine.com© HASH 2011