Best of 2011 #1: Ringo Deathstarr - Colour Trip

When I first heard Ringo Deathstarr, I thought that I was listening to a reformed and refocused Jesus and Mary Chain. As I said with the entry for Male Bonding, this was a great year if you loved shoegazer rock. Ringo Deathstarr take the fuzzed-out, feedback-drenched guitar esthetic of classic shoegaze ca. 1987 and merges it with a more modern pop sensibility, with a slight nod to the psychedelic rock of the 60s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3xATi5s9-A



Once the drugged out guitar loop of the opening track, "Imagine Hearts", kicks in, the album hits you like a woozy and figurative tonne of bricks. The music swirls and disorients, the vocals fade in and out of comprehension. As the album progresses, the guitars get loud and fuzzy and the vocals become even more unintelligible. You are carried along in a wave of feedback and static. Then, this hits:

http://youtu.be/z6J-qS4eLWY



"So High" merges the sing along qualities of a 60s pop song with the feedback of a 90s guitar. Here is where the band truly coalesces its sound. Simultaneously playful and deadly serious, "So High" is the pinnacle of this stellar album. Every song on the album hits the right note, and this album deserves to be my #1 album of the past year. It also deserves more of your attention.

Best of 2011 #2: Braids - Native Speaker

Only a couple of albums this year truly made me emotional from the power of their music. Braids are a great band from Calgary, AB that didn't get the proper attention for album of the year from other critics, in my opinion. One, they released their debut album Native Speaker on the tiny Flemish Eye record label (Kanine Records in the States), and two, the album came out in the doldrums of music releases, early January. I had been paying attention to this band since they started their careers in 2008 as The Neighbourhood Council. Their debut EP as that band, Set Pieces, was a slow burn of spacy post-punk. The EP simmered and sparkled but never seemed to coalesce. With Native Speaker, the band truly found their places as musicians and the result was a lush album of sprawling post-punk with pop and goth tinges. Their sound is quite similar to how Animal Collective sounded like before they started listening to their own hype.

http://youtu.be/1RnfroBOgO0

Best of 2011 #3: Thurston Moore - Demolished Thoughts

I've loved Sonic Youth ever since my first listen to Daydream Nation way back in the early 90s at CKUL in Lethbridge. Their sound totally rewired my brain and made me rethink a lot of what I thought about rock music. Their unique "wall of guitar noise" approach to music appealed to me, as did their later experiments in more textured indy rock. The members of the band are ruthlessly and unapologetically experimental. Guitarist and vocalist Thurston Moore's latest solo effort is an often subtle album of understated guitar-based indy rock. Producer Beck Hansen's handiwork is apparent all of this album. Often the music less Moore's penchant for guitar skronk and more Hansen's tendency to layered, dense poppy rock. The collaboration produced some fantastic tracks though. If you're a fan of either Sonic Youth or Beck, you deserve to give this album a listen.

http://youtu.be/5wllPXb4lkI

Cancon Round up for January 26, 2011

Cancon on the Canadian Top 40 Charts this week: Carly Rae Jepsen (top Canadian at #10), Victoria Duffield, Mia Martina, Marianas Trench, Hedley, Nickelcrap, Hedley (again), Martin Solveig and Dragonette, Dru, Drake, Anjulie (11/40= 28%, still below the nationally legislated 35% for Cancon)

Notes: I've been doing the Cancon column on my blog for about a year now and never has the Top 40 quota for Canadian content met the 35% needed for Canadian broadcast radio. This is pretty telling about the will of Canadian broadcasters to air Canadian music. It's not like there's a shortage of it, more a lack of will of broadcasters to seek it out and play it. Moreover, it seems to be the same acts each week. A lot of the songs played over the past year spend more than 9 months on the Canadian charts.

The only thing of note on the Canadian charts this week is the Black Keys, lurking around the low 20s for the past few weeks. On the US charts, Adele gets her third #1 song from her second album, and electro-rockers Breathe Carolina get their first Top 40 single.

On a side note, does anyone else think that Maroon 5's "Moves Like Jagger" sounds a lot like Cee-Lo's "Forget You"?

Best of 2011 #4: Wild Flag - Wild Flag

Sometimes, I long for the crunch of a rock guitar. But only when it's done well. Sleater-Kinney were the best rock band around until they broke up a few years ago. We've been bereft of the awesome sound of Sleater-Kinney since then. Sure, Corin Tucker brought out an album with her own band, but her unearthly blues wail just wasn't the same without Carrie Brownstein's guitar and Janet Weiss's drums. Enter Wild Flag. This band is about the closest we'll get to a Sleater-Kinney reunion in a while, and while they don't exactly capture Sleater-Kinney's wild abandon, they get pretty close. Brownstein and Weiss are joined by Rebecca Cole of The Minders and Mary Timony of the obscenely underrated noise pop band Helium to form Wild Flag. If you like your guitars crunchy and melodic and your music just a touch snotty, Wild Flag are for you. And if you've never heard Helium, check them out too.

http://youtu.be/8J8n9R8rnB8

Best of 2011 #5: Austra - Feel it Break

Toronto's Austra made a heck of a splash this year. Propelled by the startlingly expressive and operating voice of Katie Stelmanis, Austra have the sheen of a classic 80s new wave act combined with the tautness of a modern indy rock band. Feel it Break seems a bit unfinished in places, but it is a shockingly powerful album. As a debut album, Feel is Break is strong, but I have a feeling that their next album will be the one that defines them and puts them on the international radar.

http://youtu.be/8LJtMrhb558

Best of 2011 #6: Brian Eno - Drums Between the Bells

Those of you that know me know I'm a frothing Brian Eno fan. The man practically invented whole genres of electronic music, and continues to reinvent himself every time he puts his musical knowledge to work, whether as a musician himself or as a producer. Since jumping to Warp Records a few years, Eno's output has increased and his experimentation has also expanded. Drums Between the Bells is a collaboration with poet Rick Holland, who's words are sung by Eno and a number of guest vocalists. The result is an album full of glitchy ambient music the way only Eno could produce. Whereas lesser artists embrace a droning tone as a simple background, Eno uses the drone to construct immense castles of sound.

http://youtu.be/RMQXm4etRhU