This has been one of the greatest and most anticipated years in music I’ve ever experienced. This year gave me new Big Black Delta, Björk, DJ Shadow, Gorillaz, The Kills, KMFDM, Lamb, Omniflux, PJ Harvey, Puscifer, Saul Williams, Sonoio, UNKLE, War Widow and a new soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. With a few random songs by mostly underground bands like Zola Jesus, Jealov, In the Valley Below, and Corduroi. Oh and the 12 minute song by Massive Attack vs Burial.
Let’s start with the disappointments: Most disappointing album of 2011 is Let England Shake by PJ Harvey. Björk’s Biophilia was wayyy worse but I expected that. Biophilia pretty much makes me hate all Björk- even the older good stuff. But back to PJ Harvey- she once was a force to be reckoned with. She couldn’t be ignored and was the envy of all other female rockers. But then in 2007 she released White Chalk, which is better than Let England Shake, showing that PJ was over making music to stomp your feet to. And this makes me sad. But before the release she did a few live performances of song “Let England Shake” which featured a “1950’s barber shop sounding” sample that didn’t make the cut on the recorded album. the sample- not the song. The album in general is boring with some moments of pretty wretched vocals (but not like on other PJ H albums where the wretched vocals where awesome and raised goose bumps). Over all, and like Björk, I think PJ Harvey is getting too old for rock ‘n’ roll or good rock ‘n’ roll anyways.
A few other disappointments: This year I discovered Angie Mattson- if her album Skeleton Arm was released this year it would be best album of the year hands down- anyways Angie got together with Jeff Mendel from Sabrose Purr and they created In the Valley Below. The following EP released by them featured the single “Palm Tree” fire which is a really funky amazing song and video to boot but the rest of the EP (4 out of 5) isn’t very good. It’s not wretched but not library worthy. Next is the Saul Williams album Volcanic Sunlight. Nothing on this album stands out as good. The Gorillaz album The Fall was made entirely on Damon Albarn’s iPad during the tour for the last 2010 album… It was released in Dec of 2010 as a free download on the bands website with the physical release coming out in April 2011 so it’s not quite a 2011 album but I discovered it in 2011 so we’re going to go with it. Anyways, it’s essentially an all instrumental album with just a few guest stars making it kinda boring.
Next lets talk about the albums that made it in the middle (just good) category: first I want to talk about The Kills album Blood Pressures- when they released the first single of the album, “Satellite”, I was so very super excited. Past Kills albums- No Wow and Midnight Bloom- where as Now Wow had only three good songs really but Midnight Bloom featured more electronic music and is brilliant- after hearing “Satellite” I thought Blood Pressures was going to be an orgasmic mix of the two sounds… When I finally bought the album on release day I was very upset and disappointed. I was angry! But after time I calmed down and now I appreciate the album for what it is with a 55% library worthy rating. But for the greatness of the songs “Satellite” and “Future Starts Slow” I’d give the album as a whole a 75%. Plus the 1:14 long song “Wild Charms” with vocals just by Jamie Hince and vintage sound helps that rating as well.
Next is the DJ Shadow album: after his last one I expected horribleness and got something great. Completely unexpected.
Now I want to talk about a few albums separately without categorizing: BBDLP1- This was my most anticipated album of the year. 3 of the 9 songs where released in 2010 on BBDEP and then 2 others where released sporadically in 2011 before the album release in Oct. And the month before the single “Betamix” was everywhere but not as a download. Anyways I had expected BBDLP1 to feature more original songs then the 3 that had never been heard before the release… Anyways I already had all the Big Black Delta songs that I loved before and the album release really only gave me a few new songs that aren’t all that. So BBDLP1 is a brilliant album by most standards but the anticipation was let down by the lack of more and better unreleased songs. Either way BBDLP1 will go down as one of 2011’s best albums and as a debut that’s pretty fucking cool.
KMFDM- I really only like a few songs off each new KMFDM albums and WTF?! was no exception. Either way it’s always nice when a KMDFM album comes out as you know there will usually be at least one song that’ll get you all powered up.
The Massive Attack vs Burial 2 track EP thing- “Four Walls”, a new song by Massive Attack and Burial which is a 12 minute long weird Arabian sounding beauty and the Burial remix of “Paradise Circus” which is like Burial took “Paradise Circus” and mixed it with “Four Walls”… And it introduced me to Burial, who’s two albums are interesting, slightly boring but interesting and the 2006 debut album with the song “Spaceape feat Spaceape” has become a favorite of mine.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross was pretty much as I expected. A whole shit ton of instrumental songs that sound alike with a few gems like “An Itch” that give you the chills. My one question is: on just about every NIN album is an instrumental song that’s chilling, brilliant and I love but then with the all instrumental NIN album Ghosts and the film scores for The Social Network and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo never feature instrumentals as good as a NIN album would… Is this Atticus Ross’s fault? The GWTDT also features the Led Zeppelin cover of “Immigrant Song” with Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, which is a very delicious treat and after the song was featured in the short teaser trailer for the movie back in June or May or something like that I have been waiting and waiting to finally own the mp3 to play as I wish. And another bit of awesomeness from the soundtrack is the Bryan Ferry cover of “Is Your Love Strong Enough?” by How To Destroy Angels. The sound was very unexpected but amazing and addictive.
Next is UNKLE’s release of Where Did the Night Fall: Another Night Out. Another Night Out is the mixture of post WDTNF EP’s and b-sides. So not technically a 2011 album but it was released in 2011 and some songs on Another Night Out where new to 2011… Anyways, Another Night Out is awesome. Though it has the feel of b-sides and extras slapped together unlike the continuity sound of most UNKLE albums it’s still great. UNKLE has never let me down and I always early await new music from James Lavelle.
New comers War Widow released their debut self-titled album which is always a great listen. Some songs sound too much a like but all in all I love this album. And with the song “Tear It Up” being a “loved” song they’ve especially have my attention for future releases. They’re also planning on releasing cover song each month- last month being a Sparklehourse cover which they generously emailed me the mp3 for free. That always gives artists bonus points.
And now for the best albums section: as I’m writing this today, 12/11/2011, Puscifer’s Conditions of My Parole is the big winner of 2011. But we have to wait to see if Mariqueen Reznor’s tweet that new HTDA soon means 2011 or 2012… But I’ll post a new blog for the new HTDA review if it comes out in 2011.
Puscifer: Conditions of My Parole- it has a typical humorous title like most Puscifer albums and when I heard of it’s release I thought “cool- new funny/weird Puscifer songs!”. What I didn’t expect was the seriousness and brilliance of it. With only the title song and “Man Overboard” being silly songs and “Toma” being the only weird song: the rest are serious sounding. With many of the songs like “Tine Monsters”, “Green Valley”, “Horizons” and “Tumbleweed” being beautiful songs with an unplugged feel best listened to in the desert; “Telling Ghosts” and “The Rapture (Fear Is A Mind Killa Mix)” has a kinda A Perfect Circle rock kinda feel to them… Either way COMP only has one song un-library worthy and several songs as “loved” tracks. This album is playable under all circumstances and is an unexpected beautiful treat. I would love to hear more Maynard projects that sound as good as this.
Now down the line of other beautiful 2011 music treats: Lamb 5- when I heard Lamb was releasing a new album 6 years after their last I thought “fuck…”. I expected the worst and got brilliance. Let me explain: when I first started to listen to Lamb my first album was their self-titled debut which was when I was deep into my love of just trip hop music and Lamb was at the top of the list. But as there music progressed it started sounding less trip hop and more electro indy. I was very unimpressed with What Sound? and Between Darkness and Wonder but now when I go back I like more track off the later two than the debut and Fear of Fours. So I didn’t know what to expect except that a lot of my bands I enjoyed sucked more as they got older I just wasn’t excited about 5. But as a collector I got it anyways and was truly amazed! With a 67% library worthy track list and 4 out of 12 songs being “loved” songs it makes the album as an entire a 90% for me. Lamb- keep ‘em coming!
Next we go to new comer Omniflux. I fucking love Omniflux- with just 3 songs released free they are all brilliant, chilling and beautiful. And with a promise of more new free songs before an eventual LP I can tell you right now Omniflux’s LP is one of my most anticipated release of 2012 (along with How To destroy Angels(?) and the rumor of several Massive Attack EP’s here and there…). Mahsa Zargaran also gets bonus points for being awesome when a Facebook post said to pick a number from 1-100 and I picked 37 and won a prize from Mahsa herself- a hand painted picture signed on the back with a message on lovely paper.
And this is it for my review of 2011 music. All in all I say it was a good year for music and I’m looking forward to next years rumored releases.
