Our staff, as well as our growing forum community (the “Brasky Society” over on Facebook), have been committed to following music this past year. Inevitably this means having to endure countless tracks that land well outside our preferred genres, but it’s a necessary toll before you can make sweeping assertions about what music is the “best”.
After critically evaluating a few hundred albums in one year (for our best albums of 2011 selections), I found myself developing surprisingly precise, abstract ideas about how everything fit together and what that “means” about the state of all creative music. It was a long year but I finished the whole thing (with a little help from my Brasky frands).
Here is an accurate summary of what’s going on:
Right-brained thinkers should feel satisfied and can stop reading.
For the restless and curious, here are a few more thoughts on the past year in music. +Continue Reading
The following editorial is: 1) A review of Skrillex’s “The Mothership Tour” show at the Ritz last Friday or 2) The rudiments of a manifesto on dubstep sociology.
When I found out I had a list spot at Skrillex’s show, I was surprised by how intrigued I became with the show. The Brasky forums know that I’ve been critical of Skrillex since his Deadmau5/Youtube-fueled emergence, but:
I enjoy live bass music and stick up for dubstep in this spirit
I’ve been curious to understand Skrillex’s popularity since noticing that his track “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites” has surpassed 50+ million views, putting Skrillex in Lady Gaga territory. And, for the most part, he has done it without the visibility gained via mainstream media exposure. How? I needed to get to the bottom of it.
Upon arrival at the show I started ravenously observing the diversity of showgoers that were rolling in. It was clear that Skrillex was reaching a lot of different audiences within the electronic world, with most everyone represented.
8 Types of Skrillex Listeners
1.
Those half-naked rave girls, decorated with fluorescent doodads/trinkets/gewgaws – specifically, those Clydesdale ankle muff things. They are on drugs, but I’m not sure which ones.
2.
“Getting laid guys” (credit: Louis CK) in collared shirts, hooting at the fluorescent dancer girls (who of course are immensely detached from the people around them).
3.
Awkward computer nerds with Skrillex tees (I think these are the guys who relish the Transformer/dubstep correlation. Note: This correlation has been a terrible thing for dubstep. Also terrible: Zealous YouTube comments about “the drop” or “filth” that are so slobbery you can almost feel the mist)
4.
Suburban hipster looking people dressed very randomly with the jean shorts and wayfarer sunglasses and whatnot. I was wearing suspenders so I think that automatically lumps me here.
5.
Goth/metal couples on dates. (preemptive correction assuming this class may care greatly about this distinction: “cyber-goth”)
6.
People on ecstasy. And weird dudes in masks giving them nose-grazing neon hand jives while they sucked on lollipops and pretended to be rolling hard enough not to notice how REALLY WEIRD THIS LOOKS. IN PUBLIC.
7.
Vintage (2000-2005) screamo kids
8.
Clusters of white girls who appear to be dressing up to mimic the possibly-sincere fashion guidelines of any combination of the preceding. Most are unfamiliar with Skrillex but they’ve heard of dubstep and they like that band.
Now that I’ve judged 99% of the people in the building, let’s judge the final 1%–the performers. +Continue Reading
Guest author and friend-of-the-blog Dylan Boynton invites you to familiarize yourself with the music of Amon Tobin, weighing in on how Tobin’s newest album fits into his anthology.
Before Ableton Live there were guys like Amon Tobin, mastering clunkier tools to produce music for smaller audiences. For those unfamiliar with his name, Amon (formerly “Cujo”) has been one of the most influential producers in the world of IDM dating back to his first release in 1996. An Amon Tobin track can be listened to several times over without hearing every nuance. Much like other artists who produce such masterful output, Tobin’s works are at worst interesting, and are often on the vanguard of industry trends. But the industry has changed, and while the visibility for production specialists like Amon has increased, so has the competition. With the release of his newest album earlier this spring we wondered if a producer from the 90s could remain stylistically relevant in an age of renaissance for electronic music. Thanks in part to an expressed interest in new styles, it’s easy to argue that he’s succeeded. +Continue Reading
Relentless nostalgia, formula-breaking dance music, introverted virtuosos, and a lot of contrived genres ending in “wave”. Brasky opines.
Reader:: I thought this was a Florida music blog. BRASKY:It is. But we wouldn’t be very good at evaluating the local music scenes if we didn’t know what was going on elsewhere.
Reader:: Well if I wanted a broader summary of best albums, why wouldn’t I just go to Pitchfork, Amazon, NME, etc? BRASKY:Go for it. This isn’t so much a proclamation of what was the best this year as much as it is a calibration of the criteria we use to review local music and diagnose local culture. We hope that this brings us closer to our audience.
Reader:: OK. So a couple of you got together and reviewed your iTunes play counts from 2010. BRASKY:There are about 20 people who collaborated on this. We listened to more albums than we could bear and we all hate listening to music now. The discussion has been going on all year and the following list encapsulates the mean sentiment of people whose judgment we trust. To honor the democratic spirit of the process, the list is not ordered.
Immediately upon settling the needle down on the imaginary vinyl of Eyelid Movies, the rookie album from the New York duo that record as Phantogram, the sound emerges in much the same manner… it seems to diffuse out from the speakers, a highly textured mixture of viscous sexuality and fearless mystery-pop that requires no special glasses to tickle your amygdala. - Aaron Rogge
Astro Coast is the album that Weezer fans have been living 15 years without. Unabashed power-pop hooks meet sunny self-aware rhetoric in an album that knows just where to hang tambourines, hold pauses an extra beat, or take a scrumptious riff around the block for another spin. In a year that saw numerous ‘beach’-themed albums slam 1960s Detroit blues-pop into Beach Boyish reverb-soaked lullabies for maximum indie cred, this album comes across as the most honest, hard-working, and promising of 2010′s rock crop. And with Brasky being a Florida-based music/scene/art blog, it just feels right to include these South Florida youngsters in our top 10. - Aaron Rogge
For much of the year this album defied measure for the Brasky reviewers, first described as yet another chin-stroking Caribou album when we reviewed it in April. Swim, Dan Snaith’s 5th full-length album and 3rd under the Caribou moniker, was unmistakably inventive and beautiful, though the prevailing criticism was that some of the songs were simply too challenging. 2007′s Andorra (“a mellow, psychedelic grab bag of masterfully conceived “bedroom music”.”) marked the beginning of a psychedelic shift in his sound, a trend inherited and heavily accentuated by Swim. Snaith tests, new funky vocal styles alongside electro synths metered by house rhythms, sprinkled as usual with studio-sampled drum work. Our original review noted that the underlying music was, in some ways, a throwback to the more electronic sounds of Manitoba:
“Swim takes a turn to more experimental and earthy sounds, more closely resembling the sounds of Snaith’s earlier work as Manitoba, with tracks building and decaying steadily and with more repetition, in general. But Swim is by no means a digression, as Snaith tests a variety of sounds and styles, including regular doses of scale-wandering vocals that call to mind fellow Canadians the Junior Boys.”
That was after a week’s contemplation in April. What we came to discover as the year went by was that the more we dissected any one aspect of the music, the more merit the songs gained. Most importantly, we realized the album grew in plain listenability throughout the year. While it’s important to note that there is still some internal debate on this album, the prevailing zealousness of its endorsers earns it a spot in this year’s top 10. - Derek Clark
LCD Soundsystem have knocked it out of the ballpark. Whatever the creative process is for James Murphy, it works. As people expected a dance record, they were instead given a masterpeice of melodies and rhythm. - Emanuel Moshouris
Before there was Haunted Graffiti, there was just Ariel. Since the early 2000′s he has been secretly amassing a vast catalog of lo-fi, nostalgic pop music. Before Today hit at the perfect moment for a fast-growing undercurrent of listeners ready to embrace new(er) wave sounds and 80s nostalgia. The album seems effortlessly timeless, wandering carefully through stretches of psychedelic rock and new wave ennui. Accusations of mimicry should instead be described as support for Ariel’s nimble translation of an emerging cultural yearning to rediscover the artistic honesty of 70′s/80′s pop music. - Derek Clark
After an epic meltdown on his European tour, the troubled genius behind Wavves brings that trademark sense of sarcasm and aggression to another noise punk hit-list. Drawing heavily from the Pixies, Nirvana, and every jaded pill-popper that’s ever thrashed on a Fender Jaguar, Wavves pushes the pace yet still finds time to groove. - Aaron Rogge
Age of Adz feels like Sufjan Stevens had submitted to himself. It seems as if there had been this thing catalyzing inside of him, growing with each album released, larger and more substantial until he could bear it no more. In reality, months before development had started on Age of Adz, Sufjan had been victim of a bizarre nervous system infection, nearly rendering him immobile and in excruciating pain.
I won’t pretend to know of the creative process, because I don’t. I can however, imagine how frustrating it must feel to be unable to create when there is something inside of you needing to be let out. Evidenced by the dark and bellowing melodies with electronic undertones, by no mean is this a typical Sufjan album. - Emanuel Moshouris
Lyrically this album seems more personal and more mature than his others. He has the same angelic chorus for his backup vocals. On this album he got his hands on a drum machine and experimented with textures. - Cathy Hughes
Teen Dream lands somewhere between French X-rated movie soundtrack and midnight college radio long-play material. That being said, the restless winding of this album is a haunting and gratifying trip through afternoon memories and summer endlessness. - Aaron Rogge
Last year Gold Panda arrived on the scene with the infectious sounds of “Quitter’s Raga” – A 2-minute collage of diced-up Eastern sentiment. From this teaser we approached Gold panda’s debut full-length release, Lucky Shiner, with optimism. The album immediately delivers with “You”, a track that borrows from the formula that made “Quitter’s Raga” so appealing – finely diced vocal samples laid over syncopating hip hop pattering. From here the album takes an intriguing shift toward minimalism, remaining rich with detail but steady and enchanting in rhythm. “Same Dream China” and “Snow & Taxis” are great examples of the patient accumulation of sounds and moods that come to shape the emotional experience of the music. As the song titles seem to support, Lucky Shiner oozes a vibe of reflection on past memories, places and relationships. Seems fitting enough coming from a reclusive Englishmen who’s spent time in Japan and attended the School of Oriental and Asian Studies at the University of London.
“Sleigh Bells managed to first fuse together two massive, adrenaline pumping styles–hardcore and crunk hip hop–but then took it a step further by sprinkling it with soft, feminine synth pop vocals. Occasionally the sonic shitstorm stalls long enough to hear Alexis chirp something about “your boyfriend”, immediately cut off when overdriven, heavily stacked chunks of “melody” resume the assault on your eardrums. The compression and overdriven distortion are usually so heavy that they nearly mute out the vocal tracks when the two coincide – this usually would constitute a production error, but this seems consistent with the spirit of Treats: Unrelenting, unpolished, provocative machine “pop”.
- Derek Clark
”
Honorable Mentions
These albums were in the discussion for the top 10 and should be g’sharked, pandora’d, or otherwise passed through the body.
Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
Joanna Newsom – Have One On Me
Deerhunter – Halcyon Digest
Bonobo – Black Sands
Baths – Cerulean
Avi Buffalo – Avi Buffalo
Big Boi – Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty
Daedelus – Righteous Fists of Harmony
Vampire Weekend – Contra
Best Coast – Crazy For You
Zach Hill – Face Tat
Matthew Dear – Black City
Local Natives – Gorilla Manor
Flying Lotus – Cosmogramma
Broken Social Scene – Forgiveness Rock Record
Sparklehorse – Dark Night of the Soul
Kanye West – My Dark Twisted Fantasy (10.0 Pitchfork? C’mon.)
Staff Top 10s
These album nods are attached to names and rankings (which will be useful for readers formulating vitriolic objections in the comment box.)
Derek’s Top 10
Nikki’s Top 10
10
Harlem – Hippies
9
Wild Nothing – Gemini
8
Sleigh Bells – Treats
7
Surfer Blood – Astro Coast
6
Tennis – Baltimore
5
Noisia – Split the Atom
4
Wavves – King of the Beach
3
Gold Panda – Lucky Shiner
2
Baths – Cerulean
1
Phantogram – Eyelid Movies
10
Heyoka – Cosmic Boogie
9
Beats Antique – Blind Threshold
8
The Great Mundane – This is so You
7
Venetian Snares – My So-Called Life
6
Sufjan Stevens – Age of Adz
5
LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening
4
Sleigh Bells – Treats
3
Gold Panda – Lucky Shiner
2
Beach House – Teen Dream
1
Phantogram – Eyelid Movies
Emanuel’s Top 10
Aaron’s Top 10
10
Hans Zimmer – Inception Soundtrack
9
Crystal Castles – Crystal Castles II
8
Phantogram – Eyelid Movies
7
Venetian Snares – My So Called Life
6
LCD Soundsystem – London Sessions
5
Sufjan Stevens – Age of Adz
4
Autechre – Oversteps
3
Sleigh Bells – Treats
2
Jimmy Edgar – XXX
1
LCD Soundsystem – This is Happening
10
Beach House – Teen Dream
9
Four Tet – There is Love in You
8
Wavves – King of the Beach
7
Local Natives – Gorilla Manor
6
Phantogram – Eyelid Movies
5
LCD Soundsystem – This is Happening
4
Bonobo – Black Sands
3
Red Sparowes – The Fear is Excruciating…
2
Best Coast – Crazy for You
1
Surfer Blood – Astro Coast
Stay tuned for a completely accurate list of the top songs of 2010!
Everyone knows Broken Social Scene, the famous collective of noteworthy indie rockers.
Sorta.
Not really? But certainly everyone has heard of Broken Social Scene, no? Certainly suburban North Americans, Britons, and a smattering of indie kids across the globe? Surely!
Floridian Derek E. Miller and Alexis Krauss, a.k.a. Sleigh Bells may have just formed world’s first… hardcore girl pop band? Their story begins in late 2008 when Derek E. Miller–former guitar player for post-hardcore notables Poison the Well (FL!)–waited on Alexis and her mother (guess life is less hardcore after PtW). Derek was looking for a female vocalist for a new music project, and, as the story goes, Alexis’ mother volunteered her in what surely was an excruciatingly embarrassing moment. In her teen days, Alexis sang in a girl pop group of indeterminate quality… we doubt Derek was too picky, in that regard. Before long, Derek and Alexis were making music, and not too long after that, word of their live shows and first few singles were gaining viral momentum around the web. By the end of 2009, Sleigh Bells buzz was leaking to mainstream media outlets. With only a couple tracks recorded, Sleigh Bells managed to land at #57 in Pitchfork’s top 100 list of 2009 with “Crown on the Ground”
With all this hype before even releasing an EP, let alone an album, could Sleigh Bells meet expectations in 2010? With the release of Treats last month, we think that they have. In fact, Treats is currently boasting a remarkable 87 average review on Metacritic.com, very unusual for an album this edgy. The reviews seem a little inflated, perhaps for the hype, but we won’t deny the quixotic appeal.
Dutchman are weird, but occasionally they are ace producers.
April has been an exciting month for new music. Our attention going into the month was on some big followup albums from MGMT, 65daysofstatic, and Caribou (if you don’t know who these bands are, please go home.) The two highest scoring albums, however, came from some relative upstarts. Noisia, a house/DnB hybrid electronic group blew us away with a 19-track arsenal of skillfully produced Holland hardcore that *truly* straddles genres. Close behind was west coast post-rock outfit Red Sparowes, outshining 65daysofstatic with a formidable collection of expertly played songs that excel in most every aspect of what makes instrumental rock awesome.
Sample As You Read
If our fancy college words and unfancy internet obscenities leave any mystery to the content of these albums (unlikely!), we have once again included album samples.
BTW Section
We’re scoring albums out of 100 now, because:
We copy everyone and nothing on this site is unique or of value
We are each capable of discerning 100 discrete levels of satisfaction, each accompanied by at least one precise adjective.
March was a relatively slow month for groundbreaking releases, but nonetheless we were able to sift out some quality music — so here we are. This month’s most iconic release was probably Plastic Beach by Gorillaz, an idiosyncratic album that was either: a) ironically ironic (secretly regarding itself as a masterpiece) or b) simply lame. Contrastly, Peepers by Polar Bear came in under the radar but proved to be a wonderful showcase of musicianship quite worthy of our ears. Also winning favor were Warp veterans Autechre, dazzling us with what we think is one of their finest collections of sonic intricacy.
This month’s report includes streaming samples for you, hoping to draw out each album’s spirit more adeptly than our clumsily-chosen words. So read on and we’ll see you next month, as we get started cooking up reviews on buzz-generating releases from musical maestros MGMT and Caribou, among others.
‘Plastic Beach’, the newest album from pop supergroup Gorillaz, is a confounding listen. Much like its title suggests, from a distance, this album appears to be everything that fans have been waiting for and more. With an impressive cast of co-stars, it reads to be a ground-breaking blast… on paper. But when one examines closely, it turns out that the sand and waves are merely hollow representations of how amazing the record could have been. As the equally plastic NOW Magazine puts it: “It has hooks, but none as immediate as past Gorillaz hits.”
It shows characteristic signs of dance-worthiness, but at other (unfortunately more frequent) times, it devolves into utter tedium. Too many tracks start out at the pace that they will ultimately maintain, and nearly every song seems to pass through some stage where the novelty edges dangerously near grating or downright annoying. Although a progressive group in some senses of the word, most of the songs begin with great promise only to dwindle into repetitious lushness, never breaking out of that 4/4 ‘tick tick tick tick’ hi-hat and 1-2 bass snare humdrum. The reviews are puzzlingly positive, with only the Los Angeles Times breaking the mold and slamming it handily: “Too many of these 16 hazy, half-crazy tracks sound like undercooked studio goofs recorded in the wee hours by Albarn and his impressive circle of celebrity pals.” Perhaps the writers in LA were not so awestruck by the celebrity guests. They and Brasky both urge you to keep in mind: although perfectly good corn sometimes turns up in turds, it is inadvisable to consume.
Other reviews paint a picture of an unforgettable album worth listening to again and again: “[Plastic Beach is] not just one of the best records of 2010, but a release to stand alongside the greatest Albarn’s ever been involved with and a new benchmark for collaborative music as a whole.” says the BBC. While it may be a shot in the arm for pop music, overall it seems like just another album, the way that many bands’ fourth and fifth records happen to turn out (read: Zeitgeist by Smashing Pumpkins, No. 4 by Stone Temple Pilots, etc). The main gripe that Brasky has with this album is that it simply never finds that explosive passion from previous recordings. Although the snark and intrigue remain, the energy and soul seem to have been drained from the disc, replaced by something ‘plastic’, something that the band seems to assume that we will automatically get excited about simply because it exists under the ‘Gorillaz’ moniker. +Continue Reading
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