Best new music of 2011
» Impose's favorite releases.
Best new music of 2011
We present to you our favorite albums of 2011. Some of these we knew were going to be grand slams in the beginning. None of them have any measure of mediocrity. They are barely in any order, because we think lists are kind of dumb anyways. There are 58 albums on this list. The top eight are our "Best of the Best" and the rest are the "Rest of the Best". We love all of these records. It's hard to see trends in our groupings other than ones that are indicative of our personal tastes – 2011 was not a "Year of the [Insert trope]". If anything, this was a year when we saw through genre. It would be hard to classify most of this music into a definitive group, where it could reside with other similar records. There is no clearly defined genre for Liturgy's "transcendental death metal" or Oneohtrix Point Never's classical audio collage or Pictureplane's DIY trance. Future Islands say, on their Twitter bio, that they are "too noisy for new wave, too pussy for punk," and it's true. Nothing fits in a box anymore.
This is an excellent development.
58. Serengeti, Friends & Family (Anticon)
Serengeti's latest solo record is produced by the cheekily-arty Yoni Wolf of Why and Adance Base (Owen Ashworth of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone). It is dropping on the Oakland-based avant-garde rap turned weirdo-electronica label Anticon. But, Serengti is a Midwest boy at heart and few things convey that better than cupcaking on the paint mixing bitty at Menard's hardware store.
57. Pure X, Pleasure (Acéphale)
Pure Ecstasy have made themselves about 80% cooler (Ecstasy into X was a very smooth move). The guitar sound is pretty much identical (no wah on this track), the tempo is still locked in at a lazy meander, and Nate Grace's syrupy vocal chords still coat his compositions with a gooey layer of what's no longer Ecstasy, just X.
56. Speculator, Nice (Underwater Peoples)
Nick Ray, a.k.a. Speculator, is not sampling and compiling like he once did on the Lifestylecassette, but on "Blue Rose" the influence is one giant black transmission of Joy Divisionism. Can't hate it though, it's just one song at the end of an LP that warps kraut-rock, tape hisses through 80s popism, sticks to walls of icky, noisey reverb, and revs up on Suicide-wave.
55. Apache Dropout, Apache Dropout (Family Vineyard)
Apache Dropout's self-titled LP is a half-hour of southern fried dialects babbling out hazy proto-punk, utterly blazed boogie down romps and the kind of chugging good ol' blasted rock music that speaks the same tongue from Lou Reed to the band's namesake Edgar Broughton Band.
54. Dirty Beaches, Badlands (Zoo Music)
Damaged soul, broken beats. You may need to hide your girlfriend/wife/husband (or just your boyfriends, actually) during Dirty Beaches' initial approach. Duck while Montreal-based Alex Zhang Hungtai swoops in crooning low and sultry, single-handedly constructing a nostalgia-narrative around fragments of 50s pop ballads and 60s-era guitar growls that have been jack-sawed and hacked up and left to rust. Or just indulge in a sonic key party and flip that switch, it's a beautiful ride.
What we've got here is (surprisingly) refreshing- a John Cale experimental Velvet Underground reminiscent set of songs that do a pretty damn decent job of containing the band's live energy on record. If this album had been made in 1985, it might have been eye-rollingly derivative, but in today's current landscape, it sounds pretty new and exciting. How many bands did you see at SXSW that utilized free jazz style saxophone?
52. Schoolboy Q, Setbacks (Mixtape)
Despite the top shelf guest spots, Schoolboy Q goes in hungry with a teeth-gritting bravado denouncing broke rappers that want to claim they know hip hop.
51. James Pants, James Pants (Stones Throw)
The poor guy has the Bernie Mac disease the month of his excellent Stones Throw debut. You can see how that went here (the disease, that is).
50. Hail Mary Mallon, Are You Gonna Eat That? (Rhymesayers Entertainment)
The Hail Mary Mallon project has been in the works since it debuted in '09 on the on the fourth installment of Definitive Jux Presents. With Def Jux out of the picture, Rhymesayers is primo-real estate for the release of Are You Gonna Eat That? - possibly the worst album title ever conceived. Do not let the title dissuade you.
49. Kendrick Lamar, #Section80 (TDE)
48. Mikal Cronin, Mikal Cronin (Trouble in Mind)
Mikal Cronin is going through some thangs, but luckily he's got his bro Ty Segall to help him make sense of the Orange County malaise and post-college distress. The two first collaborated on the Reverse Shark Attack 12" (Kill Shaman), but this time Ty is behind the boards while Mikal pours his moon-born heart into a solo record.
47. Total Abuse, Prison Sweat (PPM)
Total Abuse' Prison Sweat LP opens with 7-minutes of distortion and high-art skronking that screeches and scrawls, functioning as the waking yawns and stretches for the band to rise for track two, "Early Morning". The album intro "First Passage" gives the impression that the band slept under a bridge last night and are far worse off than you on Monday. But the feedback fuggery gets Total Abuse limber for "Early Morning," which is a jaw-crack from a billy club for a wake up call.
46. Rangers, Pan Am Stories (Not Not Fun)
This album is a kind of masterpiece ode to the spookiness inherent in '70s soundtracks and soft emulations of Steely Dan and its discontents, taken not from the angle of sputtering, destructoid tape manipulation or tampered sample collage, but from the same side of the line as any classic rock endeavor, with the intent to write some pretty great songs on the guitar.
45. G-Side, Island (self-release)
The Huntsville duo celebrate their push-pin in hip hop's geographical map on Island. ST 2 Lettaz and Yung Clova earned the privilege to boast a bit on "Look Up" as they've ridden the high wave of hype into solidifying their city's place in the hip hop community. Besides, when Block Beattaz are mixing up horns like the ones heard here, it's impossible not to grin in triumph.
44. Cloud Nothings, Cloud Nothings (Carpark Records)
Recorded entirely by Dylan Baldi, the release does justice to the band's live show: fast, precise, pop glee.
Song for song, this is not just the greatest thing Bejar has produced, but it’s evidence of his progression and climb to the top. As a singer and songwriter, he’s mastered the fine art of restraint; knowing what words to sing, and knowing exactly when to sing them. He’s running laps around nearly every other lyricist, and the composition of the music is note perfect, right down to the soft rock saxophone (which is an album highlight).
42. Tim Hecker, Ravedeath, 1972 (Kranky)
You may not hear a hit single on a Hecker record, but you never have to worry about the experience lulling. It's the kind of music you put on and zone out to. It's a kind of religious experience. The face of god coming through the fractured, silver clouds to lend you levity about life and your place in the world.
41. Jensen Sportag, Pure Wet (Cascine)
Jensen Sportag's "Everything Good" is everything swell and tastefully nostalgic that we love about retro-fitting our R&B; the snaking bass line, the posh runway-ready synths, schmaltzy white-boy vocal musings and of course, subtle cowbell clanging - overt cowbell breakdowns are so DFA circa '04.
40. Shlohmo, Places EP (Friends of Friends)
The title track to his Places EP is simplistic in its soothing ruminations of airy coos and acoustic plucking, but once Shlohmo begins his exploration, an alternate universe opens up a new path to nirvana.
39. Chelsea Wolfe, Ἀποκάλυψις (Pendu Sound)
Real Talk: I thought Chelsea Wolfe's debut LP would either sound like Zola Jesus or Salem. I can’t help that other people's music writing is piss poor enough to make me agree with lumping her in with aforementioned groups; in fact, Ms. Wolfe is in a class reserved for groups like Earth or the latest Jesse Sykes stuff, but all mixed with Kate Bush. Heavy, atmospheric, haunting, totally gorgeous, and not what I expected.
38. Dead Gaze, "Somewhere Else" 7-inch (Atelier Ciseaux/La Station Radar)
Daed Pizza got it pretty dead on when she called it New Order in a swamp, but you can find the opiatic lushness of Olivia Tremor Control in the b-side track from Dead Gaze's new Atelier Ciseaux/La Station Radar 7-inch. It's right there: the southern sprawling softness of a padded wall of guitars strummed sweetly against an unobtrusive synth wash.
37. ICEAGE, New Brigade (What's Your Rupture)
There's a very decent chance that this record upseated Fucked Up's David Comes to Life as the best hardcore album that people not normally into hardcore will enjoy. It certainly got us.
36. The Peoples Temple, Sons of Stone (HoZac)
These Michigan loners seem to get that psych music doesn't necessarly mean peace and love posturing. It's bored kids making loud music just like other luminaries from their state, The Stooges, MC5, and The Gories.
35. Open Mike Eagle, Rappers Will Die of Natural Causes (Hellfyre Club)
Much like dreaming of work, the nightmare does not end in the waking life as Open Mike raps, "the internet and the cables out / man, I should go get a paper route." As down-in-the-dumps as Open Mike is presenting himself lately, it's resulted in some of his strongest songs to date. Indeed, this is no climate for an intelligent rapper with a lacksadaisical delivery, but Open Mike seems painfully aware of that by focusing on the humor of public disinterest in art rap
34. John Maus, We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves (Ribbon Music)
If you’ve ever watched a video interview with Minnesota-native John Maus, his twirling hands, violent head shaking, and incoherent philosophical ramblings are enough to write him off as some over-eccentric madman with an affinity for synth-pop. But with a closer listen, you can’t help but nod your head at his plea for a new language for a modern generation—a task that’s the driving force for his third LP.
33. Woods, Sun and Shade (Woodsist)
Woods continued their neo-tradition of rousing classically pastoral ballads and contained romps with their latest LP on Woodsist. Along with their album came an equally pleasing, gnarly companion single in "Find Them Empty".
32. Sun Araw, Ancient Romans (Sun Ark Records), Eternal Tapestry + Sun Araw, Night Gallery (Thrill Jockey)
Heady vision-quest music that likes its sounds twisted like knots of fiber stretched into tapestries of aural color. Night Gallery was recorded during SXSW 2010 at a live broadcast in-studio session on KVRX student radio. It was improvised in its entirety "after a brief discussion of mood" and will be released as it was played, with no overdubs. The title of the release is a homage to a surrealistic early 70's TV show produced by Rod Serling that the musicians listened to as they fell asleep in Texas, and as we hoped, the release is darkly oneiric and otherworldly.
31. Pictureplane, Thee Physical (Lovepump United)
Seeing as Travis Egedy went ahead and published a manifesto on his new album on our site, we'll always hold a special place for it.
30. Fair-Ohs, Everything Is Dancing (Lefse)
It seemed unfair to call the band "a sluttier Vampire Wekeend" back in the day, but with "Summer Lake" it seems like we were pretty much on the money.
29. HTRK, Work (work, work) (Ghostly International)
Out of the tragedy of losing their bassist Sean Stewart, Jonnine Standish and Nigel Yang have taken their craft deeper into subterranean tunnels, "Synthetik" atmospheres and a strange cathartic beauty pulled out of grief.
28. Amen Dunes, Through Donkey Jaw (Sacred Bones)
The tale of Damon McMahon’s cultural journey from the Catskills to China and back again is one of self-discovery; the sort of dreamy tale woven from the fabric of Americana. Though it sounds corny, it’s the same identity crisis that has lent itself to McMahon’s Amen Dunes persona. It continues to boil over throughout the upcoming Through Donkey Jaw. The album hums with dark confessionals and mumbled pop overtures; the amount of genre bleeding amounts to the blood, sweat, and tears McMahon has long placed in his musical vision.
27. Gross Magic, Teen Jamz (Fat Possum)
Brighton's Sam McGarrigle of Gross Magic got himself signed to Fat Possum on the heels of completing his much anticipated Teen Jamz EP. With mondo buzz from the single "Sweetest Touch," the single rocks through the past 3 decades of guitar movements at a flip book's pace with a sound and style that is fresh and sure to be an instant favorite.
26. Psychic Ills, Hazed Dream (Sacred Bones)
"Mind Daze" marks a sudden moment of structural coherency after a few years spent exploring the distances of drone and no-peak music that tested the limits of a four-piece's ability to stay in one place at all times. Psychic Ills are going for the brass ring of truly great fried and stoned psych rock for the first time since Dins (actually, more so than that 2006 album).
25. The Soft Moon, Total Decay (Captured Tracks)
The Moon gets weirder with a sound that only gets muddier, darker, denser and thicker like a selection of instruments sequenced to battle the EP's production with the mutually asserted threat of disintegration in the way that your AV professor warned you about the analog quality loss through the generational difference from multiple dubs that deviate away from the initial integrity of the original tape.
24. Pharaohs, "Uhh Uhh" 12-inch (100% Silk)
Pharaohs' 12-inch on Not Not Fun's italo-influenced imprint is some straight acid melt that drips off the disco balls hanging from the smoggy firmament of LA's crotch.
23. Tonstartssbandht, Now I Am Become, (Arbutus)
The brother duo continue to expand their rock chops and their holier than most vocal harmonics on their latest release, which includes "Orange Miss You", a succinct synthesis of those two polar influence on their sound. Meanwhile, their April-released Hymn cassette was the duo at their best, effortlessly mashing out classic 70s boiler rock through a psychedelic meat grinder, phasers and ribbons of feedback blowin' in the radiated wind. Rumor has it they'll be re-recording this entire effort after returning from shows in Russia, but the original sounds mighty fine to us.
22. Tycho, Dive (Ghostly International)
Ghostly Intl. does it again with the latest offering from the Bay Area's Tycho with an end of the year stunner. With tracks that chronicle elements of the human experience of everything from "A Walk," "Hours" to "Eulogy;" Scott Hansen has created electronic arrangements for the soundtrack for every moment and movement of minutiae from our every day lives.
21. Raleigh Moncrief, Watered Lawn (Anticon)
The beat science remains, but is content with making cameo appearances instead of insisting on being the main character. Watered Lawn acts as a reminder of Moncrief’s time spent playing it low-key and collaborating with the likes of Marnie Stern and Zach Hill. The accumulated experiences are poured into his full-length debut, encased in sun-baked riffs and unstable rhythms as its foundation.If J. Mascis or Lou Barlow were growing up in these times and made friends with members of the Brainfeeder crew, this album could be the end result. Raleigh Moncrief’s full-length debut is a stunning achievement and a beautiful marriage of traditional song structure and present-day beat maker experimentalism.
20. Silk Flowers, Days of Arrest (Captured Tracks)
We're sad to say that Silk Flowers is no longer an active band, and that their last show passed earlier in the summer opening for Ariel Pink. The trio, who made woozy synth ballads fueled by samples and beats and noise abstractions, were a good year or two ahead of the large wave of projects that used similar tools to tell less strange and lovely sonic stories. It's sad to see them go, but they've left us with one more four track EP entitled Days of Arrest.
19. Oneida, Absolute II (Jagjaguwar)
The final segment of the band's +200-minute, three album series, Absolute II is the frost after the storm, the drone excursions that hovers ominously over the various Kraut and dub-inflected excursions that were signature Oneida as evidenced on the previous two releases. Signature Oneida until now.
18. Laurel Halo, Antenna (NNA Tapes)
We would feel forever guilty if we didn't note that this tape is one of the coolest things we've heard in months. An ambient excursion for the electronic beatsmith, Antenna travels into infinitely textured, wordless regions of synthetic space and time that are more concerned with overall experiential tones than meter and melody.
17. Moss of Aura, Wading (Friends Records)
Moss of Aura's deeply emotional and intricately simple synth compositions are grossly underrated. Gerritt Welmers, one-third of Future Islands, has been releasing these as CDRs and various cassettes for years, selling them on the merch tables of the more established other project, but now, with Friends Records releasing the entire back catalog, we finally get a comprehensive look at this amazing work, of which the current record, Wading, is the best.
16. Thee Oh Sees, Carrion Crawler/The Dream (In the Red)
Hear why critics and fans are calling this Dwyer and company's most realized record to date. "Weird through-and-through in a delightful way, Carrion Crawler/The Dream may be the most cohesive, while still crazy, of Thee Oh Sees’ numerous releases. Each track is heavily rooted in a repetitive rhythm that anchors fun, fuzzed-out shredding and endless vocal distortions, providing a solid base for the band to jump from."
15. Psychedelic Horseshit, Laced (Fat Cat)
The ever hazy and shifting identity of Psychedelic Horseshit took another unexpected turn, this time in the form of... structure? Laced is a cleaner, far more electronic sound than their previous work. Recorded in basements and living rooms on reel-to-reel, the Columbus duo kept their lo-fi aesthetic while breaking new ground in the style department.
14. Woodsman, Rare Forms (Lefse)
Really love Woodsman as put to tape for their LP Rare Forms, out in January on Lefse and Fire Talk. "Serfer" floats the same soft guitar dithering as "Insect", but with added galactic string pads and the constant kraut beat, this is the trio at their most Space-prepared. Hopefully NASA knows to put these guys in the digital cue for the sick sound system they'll install on the Mars shuttle.
13. Cankun, Ethiopian Dreams (Hands in the Dark)
A side-wack to the head from Archers by the Sea guru Vincent Caylet. Think of Ethiopian Dreams as a chorus of guitars that specialize in sparkly hi-end fragments and tell tale elements of drug music: shimmering psych texture, odd harmonic sense, gently lilting beats looping ad infinitum.
Before the tape dropped, A$AP Rocky won us over by being humble damn near to a fault. His parents named him after the God-MC Rakim, but it never went to his head. He's of a rare breed in rap that believes in practicality and frugality with money, recognizes his favorites clothing lines are designed by homosexuals and can say "I like friends" in an interview without sacrificing his credibility. Post-LiveLoveA$AP, the Uptown rapper proved he was worth every penny of Kreayshawn's major label deal and a cool 3 mili of icing.
11. Monster Rally, Coral (Gold Robot Records)
Channeling the same scrappy sampling sentiments as Al Lover, Monster Rally unearths the underground wells that birthed hip hop and made unforgivable monsters of the DJ Shadows of the world. But Monster Rally's on a gentle mission. No dance floors will be cleared by some misunderstanding between the green vinyl this new LP is coming out on next week and a well-meaning DJ: this is home grown, home-friendly music that will be your surrogate sun in midwinter, and your heat wave when the season turns and you don't need a coat to get out of bed to use the bathroom. (Shut up LA, just enjoy this all year round in the shade.)
10. Liturgy, Aesthetica (Thrill Jockey)
Brooklyn's black metal quartet refined the genre-busting statement of Renihilation into a thoughtfully produced, riveting expansion of their signature combination of pain-stakingly wrought structure with out-sized bombast and explosives. No face paint.
9. Danny Brown, XXX (Fool's Gold)
50 Cent is kicking himself for not signing Danny Brown based on a pair of skinny jeans. His reasoning is severely flawed, considering both rappers are after a mutual interest: white girls. Brown's XXX proves his signing to Fool's Gold was the proper career initiative. His endless supply of nasty disses and prowess proclamations are best served over Fool's Gold's marriage of hip hop and electronic music. Brown's comical modus operandi awards him the creative freedom to pummel us with a dark record and still come out grinning his broken tooth smile. At 30 years of age, Brown is too old to die like a rockstar, but if there's truth in the stories on XXX he is blessed to be alive to tell them.
8. Oneohtrix Point Never, Replica (Mexican Summer/Software Records)
Daniel Lopatin's masterpiece of collage is the perfect tempo of today. No one else has succeeded in creating the soundtrack to the futuristic world of melded, molded pop-culture and computers in our pockets that actually has come to pass. Oscillating between heady sensuality and arrhythmic techno-crunch, all embedded with hidden, unrecognizable samples of your favorite television shows, OPN enters a thesis of cultural study into the canon.
7. White Fence, Is Growing Faith (Woodsist)
For all the retro-graded releases of the past few years, no one has the chops to bust the space-time continuum and yoink unmitigated crate-dug morsels from the past like White Fence. Tim Presley's Golden ear fluidly re-imagines early 80s Residents-style outsider bedroom skronk alongside florid paisley pop, carrying a healthy songwriter's wit through the process.
6. Co La, Dial Tone Earth (Friends Records)
A whirlwind of deconstructed dub, pop, soul, and everything else -- this is the type of album you bring to an intergalactic dance hall. Shiny melodies cascade over zonked-out and repetitive rhythms which then transforms into something you'd swear that you've heard before, only it has yet to exist in this universe.
5. Main Attrakionz, 808s & Dark Grapes II (Mishka NYC)
Main Attrakionz are growing up before our eyes into bossalinis of the west at a light speed pace with eight mixtapes within the year. It begs the question, what is it about the Bay Area that breeds prolificity?
4. Ty Segall, Ty Rex (Goner), Goodbye Bread (Drag City), Singles 2007-10 (Goner)
Hard to really say how this guy does it, but he has built himself up from a one man garage rocking machine to be the standard by which many lesser garage outfits are judged.
3. Future Islands, On the Water (Thrill Jockey)
We've already asked for their canonization, but Future Islands showed that they earned it with October's On the Water. Everything about it is perfect: Sam Herring's dressed in white and screaming at us to make it right; we are waltzing through synths that are cold in key but warm in what they have to say to us about harmony and new beginnings. Lots of other bands from their graduating class, Whartscape ca. late '00s, are breaking up but if Future Islands keeps making records like this they are obviously in it for the ages.
2. Peaking Lights, 936 (Not Not Fun)
936 is Peaking Lights emerging from a cocoon that's main nutrients were textural ambience and lo-fi skullduggery, and entering into a galaxy light years closer to the immaculate conception implied in their name. You could call that getting "poppier", but with their clearest and crispest recordings to date, they've shed none of the emotional heft--one that recalls distance and an ever-tugging meloncholia--that has always made them such an evocative band.
1. Death Grips, Exmilitary (mixtape)
Recorded over a stretch of five months, Death Grips' mixtape is an avant hip hop project involving Zach Hill and some Sacramento homies whose identities remain purposely obscured. This could be a one-off record in Zach Hill's hungry blob of side projects or the rumblings of a hostile takeover. I plan to simply enjoy the ever-loving fugg out of this record, as it sounds like the evolutionary inevitable of Anti-Pop Consortium's avant garde aspirations without suffering through the deliberate propaganda of branding it as forward. It's also a well-timed alternative to the maddening proclamations of Waka Flocka Flame being the "first truly metal rap star"
Posted on December 21, 2011. More on: best new music, best music
