bedsitter23

Please stay tuned for parts 2 and 3.

It was a great year for music. So many records could have made the cut, but I had to keep it to 20. Here goes...

Arctic Monkeys Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino(Domino)- In a weird twist of fate, the Arctic Monkeys were supposed to be a fad, but by 2013s AM, in a post-rock world, they became one of the rock bands that matter. So what did they do? Alex Turner made himself a too-cool-for-school crooner in the mold of Jarvis Cocker. Bowie is of course, the obvious touchpoint, but this album may be more closer to Bolan, or frankly, the Rocky Horror Show and might be more “Bowie in Space” (Flight of the Conchords) than Bowie in Space. That said, strangely, this concept holds up. You know, space has always been important in all genres of rock- Rush, Floyd, Parliament, Voidoid, and Klaatu, to name a few. Still, in a world of Yelp, Netflix and Uber; of Trump, Kardashians and Elon Musk, it’s possible that no one has been more accurate with their vision of the future than the A-Monkeys. Critics like Pitchfork wrote 1000 word essays on the opening line of “I just wanted to be one of the Strokes”, but they were wrong. Turner’s reinvention here is something deeper to appreciate.

Chris Carter Chemistry Lessons Vol 1 (Mute)- I spent the 90s collecting the Chris and Cosey albums. The post-Throbbing Gristle duo always took a back seat to Psychic TV and Coil. (With reason, I enjoyed their music, but it was hardly essential. The stalwart Allmusic only gives two of their albums four stars or more). This record is rather enjoyable and though it can be used for background music; it really grabs the ears. Not too much unlike Martin Rev’s album last year, here is one of the classic innovators of the genre doing some really interesting work with sounds- 25 “songs” most averaging about two minutes each. This one is unique enough and hard to describe, more ambient and less dance than Chris and Cosey, more like a modern dat Kraftwerk than industrial, it certainly falls in lines of music that imagines the future in the way we thought of it in the past. I was pleasantly surprised to see this fall on Mojo’s “Best of 2018” list.

Current 93 The Light is Leaving Us All (The Spheres)- Current 93 makes Neofolk easy, but it’s not. Just type “neofolk” into a music aggregator and see. Indeed, the band’s latter era masterpiece (2006’s Black Ships Ate the Sky) makes it look real easy, though a listen through many of the band’s records since, show how hard it can be. David Tibet makes his best music when he sounds possessed, and he sounds a bit possessed here. The album is very much in line with an apocalyptic folk vision of Black Ships and 1997’s All the Pretty Little Horses- a world beyond time straight out of Fantasy. It doesn’t quite live up to those two records, but that it comes close is a testament to Tibet’s amazing talent.

The Damned Evil Spirits(Spinefarm)- Anyone who has seen the Damned live in the last couple of decades (or one of their many live records) know that there is still a lot of fire there. Unfortunately, the last couple of attempts at studio recordings have been terrible. This album finally gets it right- what we all knew, that there must still be fire in the tank. The band at this point feels like The Damned with Vanian, Sensible, the return of Paul Gray, and two newer members who have 20+ years in. Tony Visconti is an inspired choice to capture the sound, most masterfully in the sonic opener “Standing on the Edge of Tomorrow” and the closer “I Don’t Care”. It’s unfair to compare this to the band’s first three records or even 1985’s Phantasmagoria. It just doesn’t hold up to repeat listens after that first listen “They’re back” rush. Still, it’s a very enjoyable album and captures the grab bag of the band’s styles. Indeed, any track here would fit seamlessly on the band’s Light at the End of the Tunnel retrospective. Like the Stranglers, it’s great to see these so important punksters prove that they still have it.

David Davis & the Warrior River Boys Didn’t He Ramble: Songs of Charlie Poole (Rounder)- David Davis's uncle played in Bill Monroe’s band, but by now, David has plenty of bluegrass bonafides on his own. While the band has made some wonderful traditional bluegrass records in the last two-plus decades, this one is really special. By covering Charlie Poole, he’s unearthed some really great tunes. Now, Poole has a lot of rock fans (Dylan, Mellencamp, Baez, Wainwright III, the Dead, Hot Tuna, the Holy Modal Rounders), but the WRBs really do a great job of presenting the songs of Poole, which should be of interest to anyone who likes 1920’s music, country and blues, bluegrass, and maybe haven’t sampled bluegrass since the days of O Brother Where Art Thou. If you are interested in any of the above or the artists influenced by the sound, it really is worth checking out.

Ed Schrader’s Music Beat Riddles (Carpark Records)- Ed Schrader and Devlin Rice are fixtures on the very cool Baltimore scene (Beach House, Future Islands) and hooked up with another big Baltimore name Dan Deacon who produced this. ESMB was a good find for me. This is a wonderful future-looking album. Many of the songs have a repetitive beat which makes it almost impossible not to compare to another electronic duo, Suicide. It can veer from garage punk and noise to EDM, and “Tom” (Major?) also shows how big an influence Bowie is. A great unheralded album.

(To be continued)