Because of the amount of people who made comments that they had not heard of music in my top ten best albums of the year, I decided to attempt to write what started out as a brief introduction to them and then sort of… grew. My apologies. What was meant to fit as a reply to a comment now has to go as an individual post. Deal.
- Dra\’s 10 Best Albums of 2002: Explained and Introduced To You
- Badawi – Soldier of Motion: This is what modern \’world\’ music should sound like. Middle Eastern/Afro/Caribbean influenced electronic dub born in Jerusalem but raised in New York, giving you that awww yeah feeling straight from the bottoms of your bare dancing feet. Lee \”Scratch\” Perry, eat your heart out.
- Gogol Bordello – Multi Kontra Culti vs Irony: The band call themselves \”Ukrainian rural avant-garde.\” Ukrainian immigrants now based in New York, they play stompy, strummy, sing-along quality, punk-driven gypsy songs heavily influenced by their country\’s native music. The band consists of an accordion, a guitar and of course, the vocals, which are sung alternating in English and Ukrainian. Their live shows include horns, a violin, Mongolian throat singers, dancing gypsies and take on an energy that mimics Stooges era Iggy Pop, only imagine Iggy doing overdone cabaret. It is that good.
- Eammon Coyne – Through The Round Window: Coyne is a Scottish 4-string banjo player, though he also rather impressively plays the mandolin and guitar. This album is a good ol\’ Celtic album with a bit of a country and western flavored tinge, but don not let that put you off! His voice his haunting, his playing at times delicate and at other times commanding. Every song is a testimony to how much American country and western music owes traditional Celtic music, and why that is a good thing.
- El-P – Fantastic Damage: More music out of New York. This is El-P\’s first solo release since his seminal group Company Flow broke up last year. Hip hop like hip hop has not been done in years, this is practically rewriting the genre. With synths that seemingly belong only in industrial clubs, samples that go so old school you will think it was 1982 again (but hey, it is \”Scorpio\” and who can go wrong with the Furious Five?), and rhymes that flow smoother than KY on a hot day, this is the shit. Subject matter is overwhelmingly political, and while most cannot pull this off, El-P succeeds and leaves you wanting more. \”Come back to dead friends, the hardest way to get sent / You motherfuckers don\’t have grit, you\’re all teenage poetry, martyrs without causes / Move onwards to the pin with this test / Motherfucker, did I sound abstract? / I hope it sounded more confusing than that\” That shit rocks the joint, yo.
- Les Sans Culottes – Faux Realism: Yeah, these guys are from New York now, too, but they really are originally from France. Oui oui, tis not a front, though the rest of their schtick is plenty laughable (in a good way). Stage names, kitschy fun, reminiscent of \’60s bubblegum pop combined with a wee bit of garage and the stylings of good ol\’ cabaret (you can tell I like the campy cabaret by looking at my top 10, eh?) The songs are sung in French, the keyboards bounce, the backing female vocals croon and the drums would bring a tear to Mickey Dolenz\’s eyes. Oh yeah, and the remixes (which are not on this album), are to die for. Put on your day glow, flower power regalia and get on down for the French crown.
- Neutral – Motion Of: Damn it, I really wanted there to be other women on my list, but for some reason only Neutral managed to make it this year (sorry Neko). Under the name Neutral, Nicole Elmer has released three albums in three years on Mad Monkey and the incomparable Hymen. This album sees her coming into her own; the only artist I can think to even possibly compare her to would be a complete retrospective of Polly Jean Harvey\’s work, with just a little more somethingsomething. In her music her basis is as an electronic artist, but this album sees her covering ground with the addition of her own voice, acoustic guitar, piano, flute, and other unexpected rarities. Other surprises are the changes in rhythm: everything from downtempo to post-industrial. I cannot say enough about this record; though chided me for picking it over the new releases by Skinny Puppy, pLATEAU, dOWNLOAD, and Atom Heart (by the way, I meant Atom Heart\’s journey as Señor Coconut, which I think is easily one of the most brilliant things released this year, but I hesitate to call it the best as… okay, I really have no justification and I should be whipped. El Baile Aleman was #12 on my list, with the non-coveted #11 spot going to Slipper\’s Earworms).
Side note: all hail Subconscious Studios for putting out hella good music this year, as in past years. While the industrial genre often seems to be faltering, they continue to produce wonderful and exciting pieces.
- Phil Ranelin/Various Artists – Phil Ranelin Remixes: Technically this should not have made the cut as it is a remix album of Phil Ranelin\’s material from years past. Deal. It is a phenomenal release — exciting, interesting, and reworked in ways that brought whole new energies to already brilliant songs. Ranelin is a trombone player and composer who has been blowing soul, funk and free jazz from the depths of his soul since the \’70s. The songs have been taken on by a wide variety of people, with everyone from one of my other featured top ten players — El-P — to Morgan Geist. Featuring different genres of remixes ranging from the beautifully ambient to the bombastic hip hop, the songs are a retrospective of Ranelin\’s career, focusing on the past few years. A beautiful, excellent take on already wonderful music, and a great introduction to his work.
- Suicide – American Supreme: I love this album; this is my favorite album of the year. A friend of mine says it is \”semi-ironic\” and that it has \”rote dance arrangements\”. Yeah, and I put out too often and write loquaciously, but for some reason people still like me. If you buy nothing else I write about here, buy this album. Please. The most accessible and obvious single off this record is \”Child, It\’s A New World\” — the rest of the album is a droning, repetitive, screaming disaster of a masterpiece. At least download that song. Do it. Cave in to peer pressure. Go on. Alan Vega and Martin Rev (please, do not forget Martin Rev as so many people do) started out in the \’70s as the godfathers of what is now the electropunk/electroclash/electronoise scene and continued to do damage up through the \’80s and then onwards with their solo projects. More misses than hits in the past fifteen years, this is a powerful, unbelievable comeback.
- Tom Waits – Blood Money: Frankly, I have nothing to say about Tom, because who amongst you needs an introduction to him? Instead, I will say that this past autumn I fell in love while curled up in bed drinking hot apple cider and driving around the city in the chill weather, listening to Blood Money, Beautiful Maladies and The Island Years: Volume One, feeling that all was perfect and gorgeous in the world. His music is the music of life, encompassing every feeling and expressing it so eloquently that you feel as though you will burst with the overflow of emotion he makes you feel. On a lighter note, I came to the realization this summer that if Tom Waits and Kristin Hersh had a love child, I would be doomed to stalk that person until they fell wildly and passionately in love with me, for the combination of Hersh and Waits will make the most soulful, insightful, poetic, passionate, beautiful and insane person to ever grace the planet, and as such, they must be mine.
- Wire – Read and Burn 01: Like I said before, \”Wire, man, fuckin\’ Wire! These guys came out in the \’70s and if you missed them the first time around, go out and get them now (and by all means, try and avoid what they did in the \’80s when they sounded like the Psychedelic Furs). Their new album really does burn through, making up for lost time since their last release of new material in 1991. Exploring a combination of electronics and hard thrashing guitars, this sounds more Pink Flag than anything since, and yet sounds wholly unlike its predecessor. Instead of returning to their roots, stripping down and sounding like themselves, circa 1977, they sound as though they have taken the best elements of modern music and that their greatest influence was, in fact, their own debut album. Elastica got into a great deal of trouble for appropriating Wire\’s Pink Flag sound, particularly \”Three Girl Rhumba,\” on their debut album Elastica, but then took that sound to a whole new level, a — dare I say it? — more mature approach with a devilishly delicious ghetto booty. It took Elastica five years to advance to that point, and we soaked up every second of that glory (Elastica broke up for good this past year). Wire has taken twenty-seven years to produce a release that whips the pants off Pink Flag and redefines them artists. Welcome back, Wire; were it not for Martin Rev you would have been first on my list.
