Bobby Power’s 2011 List

Best Album
Rene Hell, “Terminal Symphony” (Type)

I’m still trying to fully grasp this album.  Jeff Witscher’s second full-length as Rene Hell simultaneously attacks and celebrates classical music with a retro-futuristic lens and jagged production.  Witscher seems to have perfected his hand at editing and effects-work, as every sound is essential to the whole.  Terminal Symphony is a concept album fully-realized by an artist in his own genre and operating in his own realm.  Deeply meditative music buried underneath chaotic, synthetic noise.

Best Song
Bill Callahan, “Riding for the Feeling” (Drag City)

I’m sure it still irks people to hear that Bill Callahan’s only gotten better since shedding his smog/(smog) moniker.  Get over it, people.  For his third studio album under his own name, Callahan’s vision is astoundingly lucid and gorgeous, not to mention hilarious and heartbreaking.  He shed his introverted voice with Woke on a Whaleheart, mastered stringed accompaniment with Sometimes I Wish I Were an Eagle, and released his most engrossing and genuine work with Apocalypse.  “Riding for the Feeling” is classic Callahan, with stark yet descriptive scenes of isolation, over-/under-dramatized events, and contentment with personal dilemmas.  The song’s effective slow waltz pacing, resolved delivery, and effective touches of instruments give me chills every time.  Here’s a high-quality live video of the song recorded earlier this year in Kansas City.

Runner-ups: Disappears, “Revisiting;” Frank Ocean, “Thinking About You”

Best Debut
Lyonnais, “Want for Wish for Nowhere” (Hoss)

Perfectly synthesizing a whole bunch of sounds I adore, Lyonnais’ debut sounds like what Spacemen 3 would have sounded like if they were on Factory.  The sound on this record are spiritually akin to brooding sounds of British post punk, NY no wave, and Kranky’s 90s drone rock, but emphasize a dense and cold production style like no other guitar-based band I’ve heard in a while.

Runner-up: A Winged Victory for the Sullen, A Winged Victory for the Sullen

Best Reissue
Harald Grosskopf, “Synthesist/Re-Synthesist” (Rvng Intl.)

2011 seems to have had more essential reissues reaching out-of-print status than any other year, in my mind.  Digitalis’ beautiful reissue of Jürgen Müller’s Science of the Sea has gone through at least three pressings that I’m aware of, while Talk Talk’s Laughing Stock and Mark Hollis solo album received lovingly reproduced editions courtesy of Ba-Da-Bing!.  Even a handful of “underground” albums were reissued out of the blue, like Tolerance’s Nurse with Wound-List-approved Divin.

RVNG Intl. has been the one of the best new labels to launch in the past couple of years, and reissued Harald Grosskopf’s landmark in percussion-cum-synthesizer krautrock.  The label made sure to highlight the album’s importance in 2011’s retro-futuristic tendencies by including a companion disc of Grosskopf’s songs reimagined and reinterpreted by such heavy-hitters as OPN, Arp, Blondes, and Stellar Om Source.

Runners-up: Jürgen Müller, Science of the Sea; Talk Talk, Laughing Stock; Tolerance, Divin

Best Various Artists Compilation
“SMM: Context” (Ghostly International)

Kompakt’s annual Pop Ambient series hasn’t necessarily fallen in the past few years, but there might be a stale quality lurking.  I still love the series (and the Total companion series), but Ghostly International’s dark compilation of ambient collages seems to be a counterpoint to Kompakt’s long-running institution.  Even some of the artists who’ve contributed to previous Pop Ambient comp’s showed up here, and with arguably better material.  Leyland Kirby’s “Polaroid,” Jacaszek’s “Elegia,” and Christina Vantzou’s “11 Generations of my Fathers” are all stand-outs amongst the other great pieces.  Bonus points for the unnecessarily heavy gatefold cover and double 180-gram vinyl for the wax edition.

Best Anthology
The Radio Dept., “Passive Aggressive: Singles 2002-2010 ” (Labrador)

Nothing like a singles collection for a band like The Radio Dept.  The band’s harshly sweet, somewhat shoegaze pop is presented here with the cinematic aesthetic of the Labrador label’s best band. Including the band’s earlier, “harsher” songs and their recent upbeat songs like “Pulling Our Weight” and last year’s “Never Follow Suit,” Passive Aggressive is roughly an hour-and-a-half of sincere and succinct noise-pop.

Runners-up: Excepter’s bandcamp, Demdike Stare Tryptych, Stephin Merritt, Obscurities

Best Cover Art
Tim Hecker, “Ravedeath, 1972” (Kranky)

Tim Hecker’s beautifully cathartic and destructive album rips apart your ears with timeless instrument.  It’s only fitting that the album’s cover shares the beautiful and chaotic theme.

Best Vinyl Only
Lawrence English, “The Peregrine” (Experimedia)

I’ve summed up my thoughts on The Peregrine and the album’s effects on me in my review of the album and my interview with English himself.  However, I can honestly say that it’s as captivating now as it was when I first put the thing on my stereo.

Best Cassette Only
Mark Lord, “Tachyon Firing Squad” (Phaserprone)

Christopher Forgues’ pseudonym for recording dark, distant synth experiments flirts with industrial noise and pop at the same time.  It was a toss-up between the other Mark Lord tapes (Killed at 13 in particular) and all of the other Phaserprone tapes released this year (Roe Enney in particular), but Tachyon Firing Squad seems to be Forgues’ most fully-formed work as Mark Lord yet.  Also, bonus to Forgues for his album with Sakiko Mori as Daily Life on Load.  Underground synth-pop at its best.

Runners-up: Roe Enney, Damnatio Memoriae; everything released by Brainworlds; Rene Hell The Cannon and Extended Nocturnes

(photo taken in Atlanta by Michael Konig)

Best Live Show
Bill Callahan @ Smith’s Olds Bar, Atlanta, 7/16/11

I’ve missed Bill Callahan the handful of times he’s played Atlanta due to my being underage and/or being out of town, and have always been under the impression that he’s not a fan of playing my town.  Not sure why or even if he actually doesn’t like performing in Atlanta, but I’ve noticed him skip our fair city on most of his tours of the southeast.  That being said, I had rather high hopes for this sold-out event.  Mr. Callahan, in a dapper pin-stripped white suit, performed most of Apocalypse, many of the songs from Sometimes I Wish I Were an Eagle, and even two or three songs from the final smog album, much to the appreciation of the standing-room-only crowd.  People hooted and hollered throughout the entire two-and-a-half hour set and did not disappoint the reputably-grumpy artist.

Runner-up: Swans @ Variety Playhouse, Atlanta, 9/16/11

Biggest Surprise
Frank Ocean, “nostalgia, Ultra” (self-released)

This thing really came out of nowhere for me.  Completely indifferent to the whole Odd Future craze and their music, I passed nostalgia, Ultra off as another unlistenable heap of crap.  Luckily, I kept seeing the album referenced again and again, but not from shock tactics like Goblin (ultimate flop of the year?) but rather with praises of sincere lyrics and melancholic melodies.  I was not disappointed, to say the least.  Christopher Breaux’s short, alt-rock and classic-rock-sampling mixtape is kind of epic in a way, with overwrought stories of nostalgia (obviously) and leaving things in the past.  On the cheesy side at times; kind of amazing at times.  The originals here are great on their own, but Breaux somehow perfected the songs repurposed for this collection.  Most notably, Coldplay’s “Strawbery Swing” with sloppy melody with decent production is fine-tuned into a clean, bittersweet tune.  The original version, although produced by the Great Eno himself, is more than annoying after hearing the Frank Ocean version.  Definitely give it a shot if you haven’t already.

Biggest Disappointment
Brian Eno’s 2011 recorded output? Sorry.

Most Overrated
Bon Iver; Lana del Ray; Tyler, the Creator; etc.

p.s. – Also for good measure, here’s my straightforward list of the 10 records I enjoyed most of all:

Rene Hell- The Terminal Symphony (Type)
Seefeel- Seefeel (Warp)
Bill Callahan- Apocalypse (Drag City)
Tim Hecker- Ravedeath, 1972 / Dropped Pianos (Kranky)
Mark Lord- Tachyon Firing Squad / Killed at 13 / Forced Out (Phaserprone)
Daily Life- Necessary & Pathetic (Load)
The Field- Looping State of Mind (Kompakt)
Jóhann Jóhannsson- Miners’ Hymn (Fat Cat)
Lyonnais- Want for Wish for Nowhere (Hoss)
Frank Ocean- Nostalgia, ultra. (Self-released)
A Winged Victory for the Sullen- A Winged Victory for the Sullen (Kranky/Erased Tapes)

Tags: A Winged Victory for the Sullen, arp, Ba Da Bing, Bill Callahan, Brainworlds, Chris Forgues, Christina Vantzou, Daily Life, Demdike Stare, Digitalis, Disappears, Drag City, Erased Tapes, Excepter, Experimedia, Fat Cat, Frank Ocean, Ghostly, Ghostly International, Harald Grosskopf, Hoss, Hoss Records, Jacaszek, Jeff Witscher, Jóhann Jóhannson, Jurgen Muller, Kites, Kompakt, Kranky, Labrador, Lawrence English, Leyland Kirby, Load Records, Lyonnais, Mark Lord, Merge, Modern Love, Oneohtrix Point Never, Phaserprone, Pop Ambient, Rene Hell, Roe Enney, Rvng Intl, Stellar OM Source, Stephin Merritt, Talk Talk, The Radio Dept., Tim Hecker, Tolerance, Type, Type Records

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