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.

Check out the Bon Iver song Holocene on youtube.

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.

Listen to the Ballake Sissoko and Vincent Segal song Chamber Music on youtube.

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.

Listen to the Julianna Barwick song Envelop on youtube.

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.

Listen to the Drake song Doing It Wrong on youtube.

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.

• The Selvedge Yard features a collection of Jacob Riis photographs of a turn-of-the-century slum in New York City called the Bandits’ Roost. The photos clearly show poor, hard lives, but the hats and coats and dresses cause some cognitive dissonance.
• Recording Magazine has a nice primer on the technical aspects of mastering to vinyl.
• The Old Town School of Folk, 55-years-old and going strong, has expanded with the opening of its new building on Monday on the east side of Lincoln Ave. It’s great to see more classes and concerts, but I don’t like the carpet. Greg Kot covers the opening in the Trib.

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.

• Looking like something out of an adventure book, Ball’s Pyramid is the tallest volcanic stack in the world (about twice the Eiffel Tower). Seeing a satellite view makes the volcano shape more evident.
• Hannes Coetzee, South African guitarist, plays a unique style of slide guitar with a spoon.
• Wikipedia lists hand gestures. Watch out for the Clinton thumb.

Listening to Loaded and reading about Doug Yule, I came across a neat mini-documentary that sheds some light on his Velvets involvement while focusing on his more recent violin pursuits.

You can read Yule’s own comments on the recording of Loaded here, including a perceptive take on Lou Reed:

Sterl and Lou had no set roles. Lou always played basic rhythm when he was singing and Sterl alternated between rhythm and parts. When it was solo time, they divided the songs up by some method known only to themselves. Sterling always wound up with the more organized breaks while Lou favored the longer, louder, raunchier ones. He had a brilliant sense of melody but an imperfect instrument. Sterling seemed to be just the opposite, more a process of technique that lacked a soaring vision and relied on the acquired skill of filling in the final pieces of a puzzle without overdoing it.

I have a vision of Lou’s mind as filled with beautiful, transcendent melodies that are trapped inside and every time he tries to push one of them out through his fingers or his throat it gets distorted by the imperfection of the vehicle. When it does finally arrive in the world, it is cloaked in the struggle which gave it birth and its beauty only partly visible to the casual observer. Lou’s best work takes some effort to get to.

This is on display in the unreleased tracks from the special edition, like this early take of Satellite of Love, which would eventually become a Lou Reed solo track.

• The Michelin Guide published its second year of Chicago restaurant reviews, and only Alinea received the three-star top award. Their more budget-minded Bib Gourmand award went to 56 area restaurants, including such slouches as Frontera and Avec.
• Jeff Mangum is going on tour for first time in at least a decade. While ‘In the Aeroplane Over the Sea’ has rightfully been canonized, things were not always that way. Take a look back at Rolling Stone or Pitchfork’s modest review of the album (with vintage site design). Also worth checking out: the title track slowed to a 13-minute glacial pace.
• Wikipedia’s list of sandwiches, complete with pictures. Most are legitimate and appetizing, but it looks like a few came together very late at night.

Diego Stocco:

Almost everyday, on my way to a local bakery, I walk in front of a dry cleaners. When they have the front door open, I hear a lot of interesting sounds coming from their work equipment. Eventually, the different mechanical and steam sounds sparked something in my mind, so one day I asked the owners if I could record a piece of music by using their machines as musical instruments.

I used a puff iron, press and dry cleaning machines, a washer, clothes hangers, and a bucket full of soap. The bass and lead sounds were created from the buzzing tones coming from the conduits and engines. There are no additional sounds from any traditional or electronic instruments.