December '17, 2017 in review, January 2018...
My apologies for this weird disjointed and delayed update. After, like, January 10th it's hard to give any thought to year-in-review type stuff.
Jack's favorite 2017 records:
#1. Girlpool - Powerplant
I wanna make fast dust, something I never thought of
The first single from the Girlpool album, 123, came out on the Monday of my last week at my first post-grad job, as I was about to be launched into a weird soul-searching pea-soup. I had heard in an earlier form on Cleo Tucker's EP from last year but this version took the morsel of malaise the original track had and blew it wide open to numb yearning and regret. It was so validating to hear the word "sorry" so many times at a time that it was the word that was almost all that I could think. And the rest of the record scratches so many rock music itches I've been yearning for over the last few years. I loved letting this record envelop me.
#2. Emperor X - Oversleepers International
Do you still believe in the war? Do you still believe in the trust fall? Do you still think you know what love is? You definitely don't.
Chad Matheny steps out with his most focused body of work to-date -- showcasing endless pop hooks and the best merging of the "studio" and his powerful, singular live performances. A victory lap after defeating cancer and on the cusp of marriage, the triumph and gratitude is palpable across the entire record. Idiosyncratic yet piercing lyrical moments: "We tracked the signal to noise controlling every electron. Don't turn the bolt in the door, the heating element's left on! You're nice to me. Who are you?" "Will you pay for my flu shot? I'm immune, but my heart's not, and I'm cold. Will we blink like the charge on a battery, blinking out together?... Open question." A special collection from a special person, criminally underrated in a music-press capacity, but I'll continue screaming the worth of this project for as long as I possibly can.
#3. Lorde - Melodrama
"Be your quiet afternoon crush... be your violent overnight rush ... but it's just the supercut of us"
Had no expectation of enjoying this record because the sour taste of "Royals" stuck too deeply with me. Sam McKinnis Berlin High School Class of 2003 made the album art and Steph kept playing "Green Light" in the car. I visited it finally, and I liked it. After a few months, I walked back to it in a different sort of life context and I was absolutely hooked. A generational touchstone, a grounded flamethrower. Lorde's spectrum of emotion here is righteous and evocative, it really does transcend the melodramatic.
ISS - (Endless Pussyfooting)
from the minds that gave you Brain F≠ comes a twisted punk cut and paste
Chris ttt - social justice whatever
vaporwave-tinged and numbing cultural novocaine, best experienced with its accompanying video
No Faith - Forced Subservience
PV/grind with concretely intentional noise, concretely intentional and political motivation
David Grubbs - Creep Mission
evocative instrumental guitar for the real ones
Lina Tullgren - Won
rock-solid singer-songwriter comes out swinging
Charly Bliss - Guppy
Baby Bottle Pop music, E.G. Daily fronts Veruca Salt and riffs all over you
Paramore - After Laughter
Hayley (along with whoever's in the band this week) perfectly toes the line between slick and sad -- bonus, she exposes the pop-consuming world to the genius of Aaron Weiss
some other records I liked
Exit Order - Seed of Hysteria (Boston punk, chorus pedals and knives)
Open Mike Eagle - Brick Body Kids Still Daydream (Chicago heady rap, Mike steps away from detached cool to deliver pointed personal-as-political)
James Elkington - Wintres Woma (wonderful riffs and big songs from Chicago lifer)
Hardware - Burning In The Sun (WMass kitchen sink hardcore punk)
Omni - Multi-Task (jerky hooky post-punk fun time)
Jaimie Branch - Fly Or Die (humorous and visionary trumpet-centered arrangements)
Ex Eye - s/t (mega riff)
Code Orange - Forever (mega riff pt. 2)
Will Guthrie - PeoplePleaser (disorienting and reflexive EAI/jazz)
A note: Mount Eerie - A Crow Looked At Me is a record that I visited one and a half times. It doesn't appear on this list because such a document doesn't feel appropriate to classify along the rest of these albums. It's on a completely different plane as a piece. Good Lord.
December
Listening
Cecil Taylor - The World of Cecil Taylor (1960)
MC Paul Barman - Blue Moon Kaboom (2017)
v/a (Numero Group) - Warfaring Strangers: Acid Nightmares (2017)
The Go! Team - Thunder, Lightning, Strike (2004)
Beverly Tender - What Have You Done To My Water? (2017)
Lily Konigsberg / Andrea Schiavelli - Good Time Now (2017)
Literature - Arab Spring (2012)
Citric Dummies - Tearing Out My Nails (2017)
Open City - City Of Ash 7" (2017)
Brian Eno - Another Green World (1975)
Big Thief - Capacity (2017)
Bottomless Pit - Congress EP (2008)
Container - LP (2011)
Omar Souleyman - To Syria, With Love (2017)
Isotope 217 - Utonian_Automatic (1999)
Omeed - Postal Art for The FBI (2017)
Keiji Haino / Oren Ambarchi / Jim O'Rourke - This Dazzling, Genuine “Difference” Now Where Shall It Go? (2017)
Self Defense Family - Bastard Form 7" (2017)
King Crimson - In The Court of the Crimson King (1969)
Headroom - Head In The Clouds (2017)
Flower - When God Closes A Door... (2017)
Metric - Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? (2003)
Bill Frisell - Rambler (1985)
Kittyhawk - Hello, Again (2014)
Posse - Horse Blanket (2017)
Lemuria - Recreational Hate (2018)
Klein - Tommy 12" (2017)
Mission of Burma - Signals, Calls, and Marches (1981)
The Appleseed Cast - Low Level Owl Vol. 1 (2001)
Ida - Ten Small Places (1997)
Wicca Phase Springs Eternal - Raw & Declawed 7" (2017)
Closer - All This Will Be (2018)
Reading
Angela Nagle - Kill All Normie: Online Culture Wars from 4chan and Tumblr to Trump and the Alt-Right (2017)
Susan Howe - That This (2010)
Mick Moloney, J'amie Morrison, Colin Quigley (eds.) - Close To The Floor: Irish Dance from the Boreen to Broadway (2009)
Toni Morrison - The Bluest Eye (1970)
Henry A. Giroux - The Mouse That Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence (1999)
Alison Bechdel - Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (2006)
Tricia Rose, Andrew Ross (eds.) - Microphone Fiends: Youth Music & Youth Culture (1994)
January
Listening
Ava Luna - Ice Level (2012)
Bitch Magnet - Star Booty (1998)
Arto Lindsay - Mundo Civilizado (1996)
Christian Scott - Stretch Music (2015)
Castor - Tracking Sounds Alone (1999)
The Breeders - Last Splash (1993)
Serge Gainsbourg - Histoire de Melody Nelson (1971)
Rainer Maria - A Better Version of Me (2001)
Craig Taborn - Junk Magic (2004)
High Dive - EP (2014)
Harry Pussy - Harry Pussy (1993)
David Grubbs - Rickets and Scurvy (2002)
Escort - Demo CS (2017)
Reading
Stacy Szymaszek - Emptied of All Ships (2005)
Reynold Levy - Yours For The Asking: An Indispensable Guide to Fundraising and Management (2008)
Paula Fox - Desparate Characters (1970)
Astra Taylor - The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in The Digital Age (2014)
Norm Macdonald - Based On A True Story (2016)
Jon Fine - Your Band Sucks: What I Saw at Indie Rock's Failed Revolution (But Can No Longer Hear) (2016)
Recent fun stuff
The first weekend of January I recorded two songs with Andi Jones for a forthcoming Future Interior release. I'm eager to share these with the world. They are slow and they are burners, they are not slow-burners. Thanks to Andi for the stellar work they put in, all of the All Night Diner crew for being so hospitable and tolerating open A and D (or B and E) strings for hours on end, and thanks to TomJoe for slapping the skins on these and being the best skin-slapper in the whole dang world. More soon.
Not much else to report -- I'm learning how to use Pure Data right now which is fun. I'm about to move to Ridgewood. I'm enjoying life and I hope you are too. Going to see Now, Now tonight in Williamsburg. Should be good.
See you next time.
atb-
JT
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