PondaBlog

january 2 of a brand new baby year, and i’m posting my review of 2010. not bad. perhaps next time i can actually sort this out before december 31 becomes another memory.

anyway, here are my ruminations on the year just passed – mostly focused on music, and touching on a few other things too. none of my fave albums are in any particular order, except for the first one up.   

thanks for reading – and here’s to the second decade of the 21st century.

(Ed.’s note – as noted in the comments, i received a well-deserved slap upside the head from sam bubblegum cage, who notes that mount eerie’s wind’s poem came out all the way back in 2009, and not last year. please, reader, forgive me.)

 top 10 albums of 2010 

Ikonika – contact, love, want, have

Okay, I admit, there’s a pattern forming here. Zomby was my pick of 2009, and burial’s debut was my top album of the decade. And both were hyperdub releases. Now, here’s my fave of 2010 – ikonika’s contact, love, want, have – and yep, once again it’s on hyperdub. granted, this could be construed as wanton worship of a label on my behalf – regardless of what it puts out, I’m gonna praise it. but once again, I have to credit Steve Goodman’s aural acumen, which consistently results in some of the most mind-bogglingly mental, absorbing music that I’ve had the pleasure to immerse myself in. What makes this all the more intriguing is that Ikonika is 20-something Sara Abdel-Hamid, a Londoner and a female in a field that’s almost entirely dominated by men. I’m not going to riff on gender dialectics here, but just let me say – well done. Contact, want, love, have was absolutely my anthem album of the year, and the record I returned to the most. the queasy G-funk of “ikonoklast (insert coin)” that opens the proceedings sets the stage for an array of dubstepped, psychedelic 8-bit symphonies and bass leviathans that reach their peak with magnificent tunes such as “idiot,” “they are all losing the war,” “sahara Michael” and “psoriasis.” a subtastic debut and top pick o’ 2010.

 

Loscil – endless falls

Another subdued and mesmerizing effort, courtesy of Vancouver’s Scott Morgan, who is nothing if not prolific. He’s been putting out his strain of submersive, immersive electronica for over a decade now, and endless falls is his eighth album, far as I can tell. It begins with the title track, a contemplative offering that unfolds with the sound of falling rain – a fitting opening for a musician who hails from a city that’s more than familiar with wet nights and sodden alleyways. Morgan maintains this meditative vibe throughout; he ends with “grief point,” which features Dan Bejar of Destroyer (whom morgan also drums for) uttering lines from some doomed tale: “the answer to the making of grief point is picnic baskets filled with blood.”

 

Caribou – swim

Dan Snaith – aka caribou, and before that Manitoba – is a smart canuckian cookie. Not only is he seriously into numbers (dude has a PhD in mathematics from Imperial College London), he’s also put out an array of albums that are hypnotic, psychedelic and rhythmic. the superb swim was tagged as caribou’s “dance” album when it came out. indeed, it has an accompanying remix album that was recently released (and which I haven’t heard but really want to). And swim is a dance offering, albeit a warped and abstract and lovingly melancholic one. But snaith also understands the architecture of a good groove – just witness“bowls,” where the beats and bass follow one another like consummate logic tumbling down the page.

 

Mount eerie – wind’s poem

In which Phil Elverum, the Anacortes, Washington-based enigma, indulges in the darkness and comes up with a haunting, and occasionally howling, album. Wind’s poem – which sports a gorgeous split-sleeve package, complete with creepy gold leaf lettering – starts with an icy blast of black metal, then dissolves into a gauzy haze that brings to mind the driftings of Grouper. This sets the template for the album, a heady, often hushed offering that’s occasionally pierced by an onslaught. Somehow, it doesn’t come across as forced; the melancholy at the heart of both sounds produces a hypnagogic whole, a meditation on the vast gloom of the pacific northwest and the inner shadows of the human condition.

 

Janelle monáe – the archandroid

Everyone’s freaking over kanye (see below), but in terms of pulling off a move of sheer ambition and scale, the 20-something Janelle Monáe more than wins that battle. The wonderfully titled the archandroid – a concept alb of sorts whose central figure is a messianic female android – brings the robot-funk with a sound that features echoes of Motown, Stevie Wonder, funkadelic, outkast (the mercurial big boi stars on the ace “tightrope”) and pure pop know-how. there are unexpected tangents as well – orchestral flourishes, and the aptly dubbed “mushrooms and roses,” whose drugged droid vocal brings to mind the bruised electro-scuzz of freakrockers black moth super rainbow. Often, albums that mix it up this much fall apart under the sheer weight of their eclecticism; there’s not enough glue to hold the disparate parts together. But monáe makes it work, and then some. whatever planet she’s inhabiting, I wanna visit. And stay for a while.

 

Matthew dear – black city

The immensely talented mr. dear comes through again. Black city builds on 2008’s excellent asa breed, which saw dear infusing songcraft into the seductive minimal template that he pursued with earlier releases on spectral sound and under the guise of Audion. The result is a deep, darkly hypnotic mix of voodoo machine funk and dear’s weirdly teutonic baritone. Irresistible.

 

Four tet – there is love in you

There is love in you hooked me with the first tune – the aptly titled “angel echoes,” with its looped, sweet babblings and gossamer gamelan tones – and pretty much held me from there. some tracks exude a sense of rhythmic space that also infused four tet’s fab work with burial, some are pure propulsive pleasure, and some glisten quietly, beautifully. thank you Kieran Hebden.

 

Serena maneesh – abyss in b minor

I’d read about oslo’s serena maneesh and their debut album – but I never ended up hearing it, though my curiosity had been piqued by references to shoegazey walls of sound and other such treats that can make me weak in the knees. So when I saw their sophomore effort in a record shop during a trip to san Francisco, sporting an alluring, darkly hued cover of the sort that label 4AD is renowned for, I snagged it. and I’m glad I did. It was a bit of a slow burner, but not in an irritating “come on, get on with it” way – more of a “I want to get my head round this some more” way. Apart from the wonderfully over-the-top title (would’ve made an ace black metal screed too), abyss in b minor is a guitar-drenched affair that merges noise, atmosphere, melody and barbed psychedelia, resulting in more than a few truly sublime moments. Case in point: when the grindsaw churning that ends “ayisha abyss” suddenly morphs into “I just want to see your face,” a honeyed stunner that channels my bloody valentine’s heavenly isn’t anything. I really need to get that first serena album.

 

Sleigh bells – treats

Does it seem like a gimmick? Well, sure. A guy and a girl (Derek Miller and Alexis Krauss), a guitar and a voice, some other instruments/effects and based outta brooklyn, no less. I feared that this might be another heinous example of indie douchebaggery, but…I was also curious. And thank ye gods, because treats is indeed a treat, a heady mix of volume, noise, pop smarts and sheer anarchic glee. ace cover too.

 

Lcd soundsystem – this is happening

If James Murphy really does end up bowing out now that this is happening has happened, then blimey – well done. Murphy, the  DFA brainchild, has said that his third album was to be the final lcd album, a move that would allow him to pursue other passions. I’m not sure I believe him, but if it’s true then this is happening is a great way to go out. once again, I really wanted to hear the record when it came out, but I also had my guard up a bit. lcd soundsystem, dfa, James Murphy – sometimes, they all just seem a wee bit too perfectly hip. yet murphy’s undeniable ear for stunning songs always wins me over. Granted, “Drunk girls,” the second track on this is happening, is colour-by-numbers lcd. It’s what follows, though…just check out the mutant disco of “one touch,” followed by the one-two punch of the elegiac, eno-evoking “all I want” and the bruised homily “I can change,” where the anti-hero in a disintegrating relationship keeps telling himself that “I can change, if it helps you fall in love.” You can hear Murphy trying to convince himself that yes, I really can change, even though he knows that he can’t. and so do we. it’s a beautiful moment, and “all i want” and “i can change” are among the best things murphy’s ever written.

And once again, they were awesome live. Damn!

 

and a handful of others

Kanye west – my beautiful dark twisted fantasy

Multiple moons ago I read a piece about Quentin Tarantino that stated something along this line: reservoir dogs is a perfect little movie, pulp fiction is an imperfect big movie. Not only do I agree wholeheartedly – but this outlook also applies wonderfully to Kanye West. To me, college dropout is the perfect little album (er, which also includes a marathon confessional about family, life, etc. but whatever), whilst my beautiful dark twisted fantasy is the imperfect biggie. The title’s a hint – too obviously epic, it sounds like it should be on the cover of a my chemical romance album. and then there’s the music. certainly, there’s no shortage of awesome tunes on fantasy. from the opener “dark fantasy” and its proto wu-groove, to “all of the lights,” featuring 21st-century goddess Rihanna, to “runaway,” a sprawling self-paean of self pity, kanye pushes hip hop further than anyone else (along with the occasional odd flat vocal and overabundance of nerf-metal riffage). forget gaga: mr. west is today’s meta-poptician bar none. but fantasy does come close to imploding under the sheer weight of its ambitions – or, as Geeta Dayal puts it,  ”I’m coming around to the Kanye record, but I’m still trying to peel back the thirty thousand layers of bombast.” that said, fantasy is well worth exploring, and yet another offering from an artist who continues to confound and excite.

Flying lotus – cosmogramma

Broken social scene – forgiveness rock record

Pantha du prince – black noise

Oneohtrix point never – returnal

martyn – fabric 50

 

choon 

 

10 mixes for 2010

Fabio and grooverider – 1991 show on kiss fm

no idea how this got unearthed, but thank the almighty raver in the sky that it did. this decades-old mouth-watering mix from the heavyweight duo of fabio and grooverider mashes it all together – techno, house and the emerging bass ‘n’ beat science coming to be known as jungle – before scene loyalties and orthodoxies became entrenched. the future was wide open, and this mix sounds like it.

 Cio d’or – RA mix

Geeneus featuring katy b and tippa – fader mix

Xxxy – fact mix

Juan atkins – we fear silence mix

Untold – unsound mix

Robert hood – fact mix

rolando – field recording

dj stingray – RA mix

mount kimbie – RA mix

 

Best non-2010 finds

black flag – the process of weeding out

young marble giants – colossal youth reissue

Gary numan – the pleasure principle

Sun ra – disco 2000

Grouper – wide

Rolling stones – their satanic majesties request

thurston moore – trees outside the academy

windy & carl – introspection

 

Best reissue

rolling stones – Exile on Main Street

 

Best title of a new track from a reissue

“Good Time Women,” rolling stones – Exile on main street

 

gigs

2562/martyn

anthony braxton

shackleton

lcd soundsystem

femi kuti

fuck buttons

matmos

omar s

ron reyes 50th birthday bash

 

themes ’n’ tings 

 

the ‘nuum goes overground – again

so was 2010 really 1997 redux? back then, when roni size and reprazent’s potent new forms won the mercury music prize, a lotta bassheads viewed it as the beginning of the end – the death knell of mainstream approval for a sound that began and developed - crucially – as a resolutely underground art form (jungle/drum ‘n’ bass). and while a lotta great music continued to come out, it’s undeniable that scene orthodoxy and ossification became entrenched in drum ‘n’ bass and its sub-genres after the anointment of new forms by the (shudder) establishment.

fast forward 13 years, and there are some strange similarities. magnetic man – the dubstep supergroup consisting of skream, benga and artwork – appeared on the cover of NME and brashly proclaimed that “we’re cooler than every other pop group out there” (i get nervous whenever the dreaded “cool” rears its head as a signifier of quality). the ministry of sound, that bastion of club cheese, released a dubstep comp. even GQ mag got in on the action, telling its readers about this crazy new sound called dubstep (and relying on, er, diplo to educate the well-heeled male masses).

drum ‘n’ bass too proclaimed that it was going to take over the world back in the ’90s, and, well, we know how that went. so who knows what’s gonna happen this time ’round. mebbe it’ll implode. mebbe it’ll mutate in relative obscurity. mebbe young jeezy and zomby will join forces and blow our heads off. with post-dubstep acts such as demdike stare and mount kimbie producing some of the most intriguing music of the moment, and with new albums due in the spring from kode9 and james blake, i’m looking forward to hearing the future.

 

Witch house

first, i’m not sure about the tag, given that there’s nothing remotely housey going on here. and second, while i’m intrigued by this slo-mo scene, i’m not overly familiar with much of the music that’s been labelled, rightfully or wrongly, as witch house. what i have heard, though, is weirdly enthralling…yet the aesthetic approach, apparently inspired by the syrupy slowdown jams from the likes of DJ screw, raises some interesting issues. i mean, as philip sherburne noted earlier this year, even justin bieber can sound pretty damn awesome when he’s slowed down by 800 per cent. quantum mechanics also highlights the problems of endless reduction – what happens when everything is broken down to unstable particles? and what happens when the sizzurp wears off?

 

 does not compute: ariel pink’s haunted graffiti – before today

sure, before today has the odd fluorish, but the amount of critical lovage that’s been heaped on this slab is beyond me. at its best, before today reminds me of the indie inside jokesterisms that the likes of ween used to spew; at its worst, it’s as self-indulgent and crashingly dull as the acres of output from that high priest of hipster lameness, frank zappa. if i really want some coked-out cali bliss, i’ll mainline my well-worn copies of rumours and tusk any day. 

 

and a few others things from 2010 and years past

 

Films

moon

Enter the void

paranormal activity

Antichrist

Exit through the gift shop

Jean-Michel Basquiat – the radiant child

Hot tub time machine

The last exorcism

Stones in exile

cyrus

 

books

michel houllebecq – platform

marian bantjes – i wonder

 

Terminate with extreme prejudice

uggs

Michael cera

Matt and fucking kim

 

RIP

Don Van Vliet

Harvey Pekar

Alexander mcqueen