A few caveats:
A) The music industry, now in shambles, has made conversation about music fragmented, confusing and weird.
B) A true Best Of list, liberated from genres, agendas and mission statements, reads like Spotify just threw up on your keyboard.
C) Spotify did, in fact, throw up on my keyboard, sending me to the farthest reaches of recorded music, only a sliver of which was recorded in 2011. I was lucky to find these gems, and to see some of the bands live. Otherwise I hang on to so-called “common knowledge” only through limited familiarity with the Kardashians. (There are three, one more atrocious than the other.)
Battles – Gloss Drop
It seems perfectly normal to start an album review with praise for a video, especially when the (literally) trippy “My Machines” (feat. Gary Numan) provides all the gateway drugs required to hook into Battles catalog, live show and angular, restless aesthetic. Drummer John Stanier (ex-Helmet) is a force of nature, and on his foundation hangs a menagerie of Moogs and Marshalls that continue to blur the line between high-minded electronica and knuckle-dragging rock. Vocalists are guests (live, they are relegated to video wall projections), and the choice of ’80s synth pioneer Gary Numan speaks volumes. His disembodied delivery still sends chills, and the rhythm section brings heat.
Radiohead – The King of Limbs
Thom got…romantic. Or at least this is what I think it sounds like when androids get romantic. It’s lovely, really. All the emotion you’ve come to expect from human interaction, set to the stuttering digitalia you’ve come to expect from alien abduction. Boring choice? Obvious? Sure. But if this wasn’t on your Best Of list, I might have to unfriend you.
King Creosote & Jon Hopkins, Diamond Mine
Wandering aimlessly through Spotify, I came across a list of nominees for the 2011 Mercury Prize (basically the Grammys of the UK). PJ Harvey won, but I fell into this mix of ambience, folk music and field recordings from the East Neuk of Fife, Scotland. A synth swell and a few seagull squalls later, and I’m sitting in a wood-beamed seaside bar I might have made up, where folks are eating, talking and living in a relaxed moment that is becoming increasingly rare. I’ve been going to this bar a lot, lately.
Dub Trio – IV
Known to some as the backing band for Hasidic dancehall-rapper Matisyahu, this trio, when unleashed, grinds Meshuggah-level instrumental noise metal against straight-up dub and reggae rhythms. The combination might sound implausible, but not only does it work, it stretches and deepens with every record. Live, they have to be one of the tightest bands I’ve ever seen.
Apparat – The Devil’s Walk
I found this on the KEXP Song of the Day podcast and have played the bejeesus (yeah I said it) out of it ever since. Story is: Sascha Ring, a Berlin-based producer, and his Chicagoan friends escaped winter in those cities by renting a beach house in Mexico and relying on acoustic instruments to fuel a song-based, electronic aesthetic. It’s lush, sweeping and gorgeous, especially if you like Matthew Dear, Junior Boys, cold vodka and warm climates.
Tom Waits – Bad As Me
I thought it was a rule in music that people are supposed to suck as they get older. They get married and lose their edge; they get sober and start writing songs about their cats. Instead, 2004’s Real Gone was a burnt offering full of the civil war soldiers and beautiful corpses that run amuck under Tom’s porkpie hat. Bad as Me is that same kind of party, with a guest list that includes Marc Ribot, Les Claypool, Keith Richards, Flea, Ben Jaffe and David Hidalgo. Waits, a (married) man who has built his own planet, barks, shuffles and howls through 13 more brilliant additions to his discography.
Rival Schools – Pedals
What’s past post-hardcore, unblemished by screamo, smart, hooky and ragged all the same time? Is there a name for that? That’s this. The understated supergroup fronted by Walter Schriefels (Gorilla Biscuits, Quicksand) finally followed up 2001’s United By Fate, lost a guitarist, but still brought it live at Brooklyn’s Bell House this year, thanks to drummer Sam Siegler and some brilliant arranging. They’ve promised not to take so long on the next one, but till then, their sticker looks good on my desk.
Gwilym Simcock, Good Days at Schloss Elmau
Also on the list of 2011 Mercury Prize nominees, this hit me in a way that contradicts all the other choices on this list. No guitars, no synths, no field recordings, no frills – this is straight up solo piano with a wild harmonic vocabulary and textures that are romantic, intelligent and forward-focused. Simcock treads through the valley of musical disaster – new age on the right, math class on the left – and emerges with an engaging language of his own.
…and so on. Holy Ghost, Cults, Biblio, etc. Sure, there were others. These just stuck out today. Check ’em out. And if you have suggestions, tell me! I love this stuff.
Mike Errico is a musician, writer, music supervisor and producer based in Brooklyn, NY. His own 2011 release, Wander Away, did not make his own list, out of obvious conflict of interest concerns.