There was so much really great music that I heard this year, to the point that putting together these lists was quite difficult and time-consuming. But even so, there are still a lot more albums out there that were recommended to me by others that I simply never got the chance to hear, as well as some that I felt needed more listens for me to fully absorb them, so they sadly won’t be showing up on here (Danny Brown, Julianna Barwick, The Weeknd, Fucked Up, PJ Harvey, Main Attrakionz, Tune-yards, Yuck…I could go on and on). I’ll have to catch up with them very soon. In the meantime though, here’s a compendium of what I thought was excellent in 2011.
Top 30 Songs
30. Bon Iver - Holocene
29. Washed Out - Eyes Be Closed
28. Bibio - Excuses
27. Girls - Vomit
26. Gang Gang Dance - Glass Jar
25. Massive Attack/Burial - Four Walls
24. Four Tet - Pyramid
23. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
22. Elzhi - Life’s a Bitch
21. James Blake - The Wilhelm Scream
20. Battles - Ice Cream
19. Mr. Muthafuckin eXquire - The Last Huzzah
18. The Field - Looping State of Mind
17. Burial - Street Halo
16. Braids - Lemonade
15. Tune-yards - Bizness
14. Kanye West/Jay-Z - Niggas in Paris
13. Wilco - Whole Love
12. Bill Callahan - Riding for the Feeling
11. Gil Scott-Heron/Jamie xx - I’ll Take Care of You
10. The Drums - I Need a Doctor
9. A Winged Victory for the Sullen - Steep Hills of Vicodin Tears
8. The War on Drugs - Come to the City
7. Real Estate - It’s Real
6. Lykke Li - I Know Places
5. M83 - Midnight City
4. Kurt Vile - Baby’s Arms
3. Radiohead - Morning Mr Magpie
2. Cut Copy - Need You Now
1. Destroyer - Bay of Pigs (Detail)
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Top 30 Albums
30. Rustie - Glass Swords
29. Battles - Gloss Drop
28. Nicholas Szczepanik - Please Stop Loving Me
27. The Drums - Portamento
26. Beirut - The Rip Tide
25. Wild Beasts - Smother
24. Elzhi - Elmatic
23. Bon Iver - Bon Iver
22. Washed Out - Within and Wihtout
21. Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica
20. Drake - Take Care
19. Burial - Street Halo EP
18. James Blake - James Blake
17. Bill Callahan - Apocalypse
16. Wilco - The Whole Love
15. Braids - Native Speaker
14. Deaf Center - Owl Splinters
13. Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring for My Halo
12. Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost
11. M83 - Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
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10. The Field - Looping State of Mind
“Looping state of mind”: an almost comically apt descriptor for the music of The Field, the pseudonym of Swedish electronic producer Axel Willner. When I first heard that he was releasing a new album this year with that title and was now also a full group (joined by a bassist and drummer) I was at once thrilled and concerned. Thrilled because, well, the guy has a stunning track record. His previous two albums gained him the reputation of being one of the best working acts in electronic music today. But I was also concerned, because with an album title like that, it seemed as if he was confessing that this was more of the same. Thankfully my worries were unfounded; the songs are still unmistakably his, but his sampling, song structure and aesthetic variation have all been given a slight upgrade, and for a musical style as specific as this, that’s just the right amount. Album highlight “Burned Out” coasts along dreamily on a cloud of hi-hat and drunken synths, while opener “Is This Power” slowly morphs into a hydraulic beast, its beating heart an uncharacteristically sinister bass line. But the album’s title track is the best example to date of Willner’s genius. After building towards an emotional climax for the four songs before it, this song unleashes a flawless groove of liquid bass and white noise fog banks and rides it like a wave, until halfway through when it’s joined by a harmonizing synth melody that carries you with it far up into the clouds. For music that simply flooded my dopamine receptors with undebatably beautiful noise, no other artist came close to matching The Field this year.
9. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
“Though the melodies aren’t quite as instantly memorable, the album is in many ways superior to its predecessor. The band’s multi-part harmonies function more as a piece of the wide-screen arrangements rather than the dominant feature. The voice of Robin Pecknold is more out front and lyrically direct; against an intricate web of counterpoint melodies, he plays the troubled narrator wrestling with his place in the world. Employing everything from woodwinds to Tibetan singing bowls, with finger-picked acoustic guitars sailing atop rumbling timpani, the band makes a wonderful sound: rich but not overstuffed, intricate but not labored, virtuosic without sounding like anyone’s showing off. The songs don’t stick to verse-chorus formula, they’re more like mini-suites that turn and twist without drawing attention to their complexity…In striving for more self-less version of self, Pecknold and his excellent band have made an album that embraces modesty. Which is why it may take a few listens for its rarefied combination of beauty and anxiety to hit home. In this case, another virtue that Pecknold extols — patience – has its rewards.” - Chicago Tribune
8. Colin Stetson - New History Warfare Vol. 2
Colin Stetson is having a banner year. Besides releasing this breakout solo LP, he also played guest performances with huge acts such as Bon Iver and Arcade Fire, always recognizable on stage with his mammoth bass sax. This must be an unnerving amount of sudden attention for someone who just released his second album of experimental jazz and paints dystopic landscapes of black skies and churning waters punctured only by the stark narrations of Laurie Anderson and Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond). The unrelentingly heavy mood that he creates is commendable enough in itself, but none of that would be possible were it not for the sheer raw force that he wields with his saxophones. Amazingly, there are no loops or overdubs at work here—only Stetson, alone in a room with some carefully placed mics, creates this otherworldly din. This music simply sounds operatic, hurricanes of sound that I would expect to hear performed in a 17th century symphony or sounding from the heavens on Judgment Day. Perhaps the best representative of his abilities is “From No Part of Me Could I Summon a Voice”, a 2-minute piece reminiscent of Fantasia’s “Night on Bald Mountain” sequence, that, when I listen to it in the dark, conjures visions of flickering candles in the dark and thousands of ghosts descending from the sky in a screaming tornado. Through his astounding musical ability and perfect production choices, he can switch between channeling an entire orchestra into distorted arpeggios and the heaving, hydraulic engine that powers songs like “Judges” and “Fear of the Unknown and the Blazing Sun”. Whatever style he chooses, it never sounds anything less than Biblical.
7. A Winged Victory for the Sullen - A Winged Victory for the Sullen
This album came to me at a very strange time in my life. I first heard it back in August while I was still living away from home in Washington D.C., completing my summer work study job with the National Park Service. It was a difficult transition to make, growing up in rural New Hampshire and then spending a summer living with my brother in a big city with no other friends living nearby. Following that, I came home for a week and then shipped off to Ireland, where I spent the next four straight months studying abroad in Cork City with two friends and travelling across Europe, seeing Amsterdam, Milan and Venice. And during these many long months away from home, sometimes plagued by pangs of loneliness in a foreign world, I could always count on the brilliant duo of Dustin O’Halloran and Adam Wiltzie (Stars of the Lid) to comfort me, like a lover’s open arms or a warm blanket to wrap myself in. With their self-titled debut, A Winged Victory for the Sullen have crafted an album that is in equal strokes breathtakingly poignant and as impossibly graceful as colliding galaxies in distant corners of space. That may sound like hyperbole, but I can assure you, looking out my window on an Irish autumn afternoon, sipping wine and thousands of miles from home, I could not have asked more a more perfect soundtrack.
6. Real Estate - Days
Shady lanes of trees. Bright lit skies. Aimless drives down Route 95. These are the simple pleasures at the heart of Real Estate’s sophomore album, a breezy trip through suburban memories that’s expertly paved with wistful guitar melodies, Martin Courtney’s gently yearning vocals, and just the right amount of melancholy sprinkled on top. While their overall musical style has changed little since their self-titled debut, there are still noticeable shifts here, and all of them positive. The upgrade in production suits them well, giving more space to show off Matt Mondanile’s guitar work—beautifully arranged pop melodies to rival The Go-Betweens and R.E.M.—and Courtney’s lovely yet modest singing. The arrangements are undeniably better too, more confident and fleshed-out; “Green Aisles” sounds like the best song The Stone Roses never made. Indie rock suburban melancholy is indeed a style that has been done to death in recent years, but this band is simply doing it better than anyone else.
5. Radiohead - The King of Limbs
Certainly no strangers to stirring up a ruckus in the music industry whenever they release any album—which is then inevitably followed by a series of thinkpieces about the album’s place in Radiohead’s canon and the current state of rock music—the Oxford quintet’s latest was more divisive within their fanbase than with journalist crowd, and for obvious reasons. At first glance, The King of Limbs feels noticeably smaller than its predecessor In Rainbows, both in release method and in its sound. There are no grand crescendos or thundering guitars to be found here; they have been replaced by subtly interlocking rhythms and groove-heavy tracks reminiscent of dance music and the UK electronic scene instead of their more typical Neil Young, Can and The Smiths influences. Although I could blabber on for hours about why many fans felt disappointed and confused after being given this low-key 35-minute album from one of this century’s biggest bands, I won’t. Instead, I’ll just call The King of Limbs what I believe it to be: another resoundingly successful entry into the band’s catalogue that blends graceful balladry with dance music that shakes up both your body and mind. The dark first half of the album is propelled by rickety, skittish percussion and slinking bass lines, and the expansive second half unfurls as slowly as a (lotus) flower in the dewy morning sun, accompanied by haunting melodies and samples of birdsong. While others may continue to dismiss it as dull, boilerplate Radiohead, I respectfully disagree. I revisited this album many times over the course of 2011, and with each listen I was always struck by its smoldering, hypnotizing beauty.
4. Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972
Brian Eno first coined the term “ambient music”, referring to it as music that could be “actively listened to with attention or as easily ignored, depending on the choice of the listener”. But only one minute into Ravedeath, 1972’s opener “The Piano Drop” and it’s easy to see that this won’t be “easily ignored” by any stretch of the imagination. Churning distortion shatters wavering chords into millions of tiny blue crystals. Walls of drone slowly dissolve into vast, tundra-like soundscapes. Some songs seem to rip themselves apart from the inside out with a desperate energy, molecule by molecule. Comparing it to what else I’ve heard of Tim Hecker’s catalogue, this is arguably his most sonically intense record, but it’s one of his most emotionally engaging as well, thanks to the simplicity of Ravedeath’s palette (the base melodies of all of these songs were recorded on an organ in an Icelandic church) and Hecker’s intensely visual composition style. The result, when paired with unyielding waves of distortion, is the sound of entire worlds being torn in two in a constant tug-of-war between beauty and brutality.
3. The War on Drugs - Slave Ambient
Where other albums flow and evolve like a short story, The War on Drugs’ Slave Ambient feels like a gargantuan, dusty tome one might find found locked away in a temple. This isn’t because it’s particularly lengthy—it clocks in at about 45 minutes—but because TWOD have more to say, and they know exactly how to say it. Slave Ambient is a carefully crafted psychedelic trip of shimmering, sky-high peaks and far-reaching canyons of sound that feel aged and weathered, all tethered by the ragged, Dylan-esque storytelling of singer Adam Grandaluciel, lest the songs shoot off into space. At its best, it feels as if Slave Ambient encapsulates those breathless moments when you’re standing on top of a mountaintop in a national park, gazing out onto a sprawling landscape that feels more colossal and divine than you’ll ever understand.
2. Destroyer - Kaputt
Upon sitting down to start writing about Destroyer’s fantastic yacht-rock opus Kaputt, I quickly realized that I had no idea where to begin. During my first few listens, I was immediately entranced for reasons beyond my comprehension; I loved what I was hearing as the muted, rainy-day jazz of “Chinatown” emanated from my headphones, but I couldn’t quite pinpoint why that was. Months later, after having Dan Bejar’s ramblings about jaded lovers named Christine and watching ships disappear in the seaside fog soundtrack countless evenings, everything has become clearer. Slightly. Dan Bejar—the presence that ties this whole bizarre affair together—is still an enigma to me, a drunken amalgam of free association visions. His bottomless pit of dry wit gives these songs a very distinct character that elevates them from pretty great to fantastic; that feat alone is enough to write a few pages about, since Kaputt was constructed entirely from 80’s lite-jazz and new age instrumentation that, through the wise composition and production choices by Bejar and Co., here sound impossibly lush without ever feeling forced. This is an album to swim around and lose yourself in, endlessly creative, comic, and tragic.
1. Cut Copy - Zonoscope
I never would have guessed back at the beginning of this year that Cut Copy’s third album would be sitting pretty at the top of my year-end list come December. The three of us here at BA did a mid-year favorite albums list that we posted late into the summer, and even then, Zonoscope remained my one to beat. Now why might that be? My devotion to this album is definitely influenced to the evolution of my musical interests this year; I did a lot of aural experimentation over the course of these twelve months, gaining a greater appreciation for stranger genres such as ambient and UK garage and in turn having a better understanding of why I love music so much. Along the way, I also came a long way in learning to love pop music, warts and all, rather than stubbornly shunning it like I used to for poorly thought-out reasons. This is intimately tied to my love for Zonoscope, because it combines my favorite aspects of pop music with Cut Copy’s signature lush dance-rock and otherworldly ambient interludes.
As the album cover suggests, their goal is to completely flood your senses with sonic ecstasy like pop music hedonists, and they achieve that in spades. It’s a sturdy bridge between the directions that Cut Copy wish to explore next and the skills they’ve already perfected, an immensely satisfying compromise for those who wanted more of the sonic highs that In Ghost Colours had and those who wanted a popular, well-regarded group to take the opportunity to think outside of the box. And most of all, it’s a hypnotizing, gorgeous tropical-disco trip that consistently keeps me crawling back for more.
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Favorite Reissue
Talk Talk - Laughing Stock (1991)
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Favorite Concerts
Real Estate, Dent May and Andrew Cedermark (Washington D.C.)
Cut Copy and Delicate Steve @ Ram’s Head Live (Baltimore)
The Field and Walls @ Cyprus Avenue (Cork, Ireland)
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Favorite New Discovery
Tim Hecker - Harmony in Ultraviolet (I added this category just so I could express my undying adoration for this album and Mr. Hecker. Seriously, this shit is so good.)
