The Southgate House, a venue across the river from Cincinnati, Ohio closed last month. They say it will re-open elsewhere, but that just won’t be the same. Here’s a video of Arcade Fire killing it there on their original 2004 Funeral tour.
I already have a list of stuff to check out from other end-of-the-year lists floating around, but I’ve got to push my own list before sifting through that. Same as last year, the following ten albums are unranked, but ones that I returned to consistently in 2011.
Bon Iver – Bon Iver
Clearly the same artist who made For Emma…, but also a satisfying widening of sound. I didn’t hear much about it from critics this year, but maybe that just means everyone was digging it. The song “Holocene” works well as a statement of purpose and stakes a claim as one of the best songs of the year.
Colin Stetson – New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges
This album is a force of nature and one of the most original things to come out of 2011. It has vaulted an already successful saxophonist into a rarified space. The arrangements work regardless of how you come at it, but knowing it was recorded with only his instrument and no overdubs boggles the mind.
James Blake – James Blake
If we’re going to be honest (and we are), this is probably my most played album of the year. Part of that is simply that it came out so early in 2011, but it’s earned it. The album rounds the edges and lets breathe the minimal electronic Blake has been making for a few years in England.
Ballake Sissoko and Vincent Segal – Chamber Music
An accomplished French cellist and Malian koro player team up to make something special. It’s a recipe sure to make NPR salivate, but the sparse instrumentation and masterful playing lead to subtle charms. I almost forget why fusion is such a dirty word.
Cults – Cults
You can’t keep a catchy album down. It seems that a few songs from this record have already lodged themselves firmly in the cultural consciousness. “Go Outside” is probably the best example–a collection of hooks so tight it has its own gravity.
Gillian Welch – The Harrow & The Harvest
Though she’s been busy, Gillian hasn’t come out with an album since 2003. This release finds her nervous darkness intact, even if there’s now furniture in some of the dusty rooms. Dave Rawlings is one of the best guitarists around, and their long history together makes things sound easy.
Julianna Barwick – The Magic Place
Uncompromisingly beautiful, this album seems to require either full attention or be relegated to near-ambient background music. The whole affair is so intimate that it just doesn’t fare well in that middle ground of social music. With any real attention, it makes one feel like Odysseus.
Oneohtrix Point Never – Replica
This is an album unstuck from time. Sometimes it sounds brand new, sometimes retro, and sometimes even downright classic. No small feat for an electronic album, but the lack of traditional song structures allows for surprises.
Destroyer – Kaputt
That “middle ground of social music” that Julianna Barwick doesn’t hit? That is exactly what this album does well. It glides along and easily holds interest without the need for dramatic highs or lows. Eminently listenable once you get over the sometimes-prominent saxamophone.
Drake – Take Care
I love a good 2am album (see the XX previously), and Drake is able to construct this in a hip-hop framework. Producer Noah Shebib lends much to the sound, and they get smart help from the Weeknd, Jamie Smith, Andre 3000, and even Stevie Wonder.
It was a stellar year for many other reasons as well: The Weeknd, Tune-Yards, Bill Callahan, Charles Bradley, The Black Keys, Cass McCombs, Grails, Craig Taborn, Adele, and Washed Out, to name a few.
A scientific study made some news recently declaring that, when playing blindfolded, even professional violinists cannot tell a Stradivarius from a modern instrument.
Except it didn’t. As often happens when a ‘finding’ jumps from a journal to the news, the nuance was lost. Laurie Niles, a violinist and blogger who participated in the study, explains how it was done and what conclusions were actually drawn. Essentially, they were only asked their personal preferences and not to identify instruments.
In their coverage, NPR has side by side audio samples of a Strad and a modern instrument. Who knew they had that kind of budget.
For a couple of years in my early twenties, I was a die-hard believer in the Sapir-Whorf, though I had never encountered the term, or even read a description of it, which begins to hint at what’s wrong with it as a theory.
Samuel R. Delany in a recent interview with the Paris Review. I’m reading his novel Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand — and it’s something else.
Art blog BOOOOOOOM asked readers to submit classic art remakes using only a camera. While the most literal ones are admirable, I like the oblique approach to some others, like the Mondrian above. Click through for many, many more.
I’m looking forward to checking out Andrew Bird and Ian Schneller’s “Sonic Arboretum” at the MCA this month. More info from AV Club.
