10s: The Top 10 Albums of 2013 [1-5]

1.  Daft Punk - Random Access Memories

                    The best album of the year is a reflection of earlier music through a contemporary lens; it's robotic music with soul.  It is with that sentiment that we explore the dual meaning of the title, Random Access Memories.  The title directly refers to data storage but interestingly enough includes an allusion to the recollection or earlier types or ideas or "memories" of music.  Here, Daft Punk have perfected a retro-futurism that they've never quite nailed as pointedly before but certainly have hinted at (see "Digital Love").  There is an unparalleled intelligence behind this album and that alone makes it one of the best records of the year and furthermore the single greatest Daft Punk album (I don't care what you say).  Although you've probably heard it already, here's the video for "Get Lucky"...

2. Ghost - Infestissumam

                Ghost changed the scene with their debut album, Opus Eponymous, so it goes without saying that many a fan was dying to hear what their follow up would provide.  If you ask me the Ghost fan-base can be torn in two based on the degree to which they appreciate metal (Mercyful Fate influences) vs rock (ABBA influences).  While Opus Eponymous is heavy and guitar oriented, Infestissumam is much more theatrical and rock oriented.  The sound of 70s organ is as alive as their lyrics are optimistically and powerfully ritualistic and satanic.  With Infestissumam is also much more consistent in its philosophical underpinning.  There is a clear vision of a diabolical Genesis whereas Opus Eponymous loosely tied the concept together with songs like "Elizabeth" becoming an abstraction to the large concept of songs like "Con Clavi Con Dio" and "Prime Mover".  Here's the brilliantly Polanski-esque NSFW video of "Year Zero"...
http://vimeo.com/62694560

3.  Kanye West - Yeezus

                     Kanye is one of the most hated yet critically acclaimed artists and it pains me to admit it but Yeezus is an incredible album.  It's antagonistic, minimalist, at times vulgar and other times poignant but all around impressive in it's forcefully anti-pop intentions from the lack of catchy hooks and clear traditional hip-hop beats down to the no artwork cover art.  With "New Slaves" Kanye mounts a rebellion against a modern "slavery" where the blacks of today, including West, are striving to be the most important by surrounding themselves in a facade of affluent capitalism and hip-hop industry.  The metaphor expands as he says, "I see blood on the leaves" which immediately draws a parallel from "New Slaves" to another single, "Blood on the Leaves".  The latter samples the hauntingly beautiful "Strange Fruit" as sang by Nina Simone, which speaks volumes as it presents the image of "strange fruit" aka "black bodies" hanging from the poplar trees.  As you can see there is a lot going on in Yeezus, much of which appears deliberate and for this it's one of the best albums of the year.  Here's the video for arguably the most accessible song on the album,  "Black Skinhead".  

4.  Chvrches - The Bones of What You Believe

                     The best synthpop album of the year is definitely The Bones of What You Believe, the debut full length from the Scottish band, Chvrches.  I had an immediate positive reaction to this album without the need of several listenings.  I think the last time I heard a synthpop album this killer was back in 2009 with La Roux which is in some sense comparable sound-wise.  The album is generally upbeat, which is in part due to this crystal clear production.  The lead vocals of Lauren Mayberry compliment the upbeat nature of the album with an angelic, soft and at times almost downtrodden but optimistic tone.  Here's a perfect example of the album - the video for "Gun".

5. In Solitude - Sister

                 In Solitude is quite possibly the most underrated metal/retro-rock band in the scene now but I suspect Sister is slowly changing that.  This is the third album from the swedes and it's a creature of much more cohesion than their previous two efforts, which in themselves are also excellent albums.  In Solitude always seemed to want to write good metal songs but with Sister they seemed to shift that way of thinking to writing a good metal album - the songs here are more dynamic and feel much more fluid in the albums structure.  The production may be off putting to some as it's much more icy than the previous albums but it fits the gloomy black and white nature of the concept.  With memorable riffing songs like "Pallid Hands", "Lavender" and the title track severe to prove the (should be) significance of In Solitude.  Here's "Pallid Hands".

Find 6-10 here

And there you have it - 

My Top 10 Albums of 2013

1.  Daft Punk – Random Access Memories
2. Ghost – Infestissumam
3. Kanye West – Yeezus
4. Chvrches – The Bones of What You Believe
5.   In Solitude – Sister
6. Polica – Shulamith
7.   Darkthrone – The Underground Resistance
8.  Portugal. The Man – Evil Friends
9. Sleigh Bells – Bitter Rivals
10. Glorior Belli - Gators Rumble, Chaos Unfurls

Other Notables of the year:

• Anna Calvi – One Breath
• Au Revoir Simone - Move in Spectrums
• Deafheaven – Sunbather
• Kvelertak – Kvelertak
• Rob Zombie - Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor
• Satyricon - Satyricon
• Sky Ferreira – Night Time, My Time
• Soap&Skin – Sugarbread ep
• The Thermals – Desperate Ground
• Watain - The Wild Hunt

10s: The Top 10 Albums of 2013 [6-10]

________________________________

6.  POLICA - Shulamith

                There is an ethereal yet neon soaked world where the sophisticated electro lounge groove of Shulamith envelopes all sonicscapes.  It tells the stories of such a world with beaming highs like "Chain my Name, "Trippin" or "Spilling Lines" and soulfully dark lows like "Smug" or "Vegas".  POLICA knows a key to their success is their brilliant use of percussion.  With that said, it's certainly notable here as the songs have a refined depth due to the effective use of layering.  Let the smooth reverberations flow through you - here's the video for "Warrior Lord"

______________________________________________________________________________

7.  Darkthrone – The Underground Resistance

                The Underground Resistance is a cornucopia of metal and proto-metal; an album entirely unheard of from the likes of the mighty Norwegian duo - Nocturno Culto and Fenriz.  While the production is as raw as ever (okay, maybe not Under the Funeral Moon raw but raw nonetheless) the songs are lengthy, sometimes melodic and sometimes speed thrash or NWOBHM-esque.  Even more interesting is the introduction of some kind of imperfect power metal vocal lines that, at times, seem to echo Mercyful Fate.  Anyway, here’s a rocker

______________________________________________________________________________

8.  Portugal. The Man – Evil Friends

                Here’s an eclectic alt-rock album that gleams with as much interesting instrumentation as it does catchy hooks.  Part of being this eclectic in its layering and structuring can be the ever so present pitfall of sounding overly busy and even worse being so without good reason.  However, I feel as though Evil Friends is catchy enough to make even the lightest listen comfortable.  Give it a listen; particularly the tracks, “Creep in a T-Shirt”, “Plastic Soldiers” and this sing-along strummer…

 _______________________________________________________________________________

9.  Sleigh Bells – Bitter Rivals

Here’s a duo that has contemporary (aggressive) pop figured out.   Sleigh Bells marches into the studio donning athletic apparel, cameo and denim with a drum machine and an 80s zebra print guitar cranking all inputs to 11 just to distort the hell out of a fashionably rhythmic assault.  Some may say they’ve gone repetitious but they have only begun to really expand on their song writing.  Whereas the simplistic nature of their debut, Treats benefited their sound the modern slightly more complex song structuring is allowing them to become more dynamic.  That might leave some begging for the more Treats but I say let the spider spin the web – its intricacy is beautiful.   

Though I prefer the tracks “Love Sick”, “Sugarcane” and “Young Legends” here’s the video for the title track…

________________________________________________________________________________

10. Glorior Belli - Gators Rumble, Chaos Unfurls

                This French black metal group dredges out of some Deep South bayou to present a near perfect combination of extreme black metal and southern rock.  Glorior Belli has been struggling to get the blend this graceful since their first foray into the south in 2009 with the masterful, Meet Us At The Southern Sign.  Though the production takes a bigger piece of the black metal pie than I’d like it’s anything but detrimental to the album.  The songs are both demonic and rocking with groovy riffing worthy of any 70s rock band or perhaps late era Satyricon.

Here’s the whole album on youtube…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4k59XMjFZAo

1-5 to come.

-b

The (re)value: Phase IV

Title: Phase IV

Director: Saul Bass

Year: 1974

IMDB

When one hears of a sci-fi film about the massing of hyper-intelligent ants one immediately constructs a mental imagine of something akin to Them! (1954) with its ridiculous, though iconic, monster ants barely functioning well enough to move.  However, Phase IV is an entirely different movie…and ant for that matter. Phase IV is nothing short of a sci-fi film for the “thinking man”.  While being fully aware of the genre’s motifs its cinematic approach is that of the art-house – a 70s psychedelic sci-fi trip shrouded in hordes of ants directed by the famous Academy Award winning graphic designer, Saul Bass.  For all this, its status in film history is nothing but a tragedy.  It’s the only feature film directed by Bass and it’s almost completely forgotten and certainly isn’t readily available for viewing.

The story is fairly simple: some undefined cosmic event occurs and augments ant evolution.  This particular desert colony ascends to an intelligent collective consciousness making the ants capable of communication and great terror.  The colony, per its aggressive expansion, drives out the local human population.  A scientific lab is established with our main scientist protagonists.  The proceedings eventually lead to a division between the two scientists and some inevitable chaos.

The brilliance of this film is the visual component.  The cinematography by Dick Bush (not kidding) is in line with the best of the 70s.  Furthermore, there are also a lot of interestingly beautiful shots of the colony and ant behavior.  Straight away at the start of the film we are presented some truly striking images of the ant intelligence movement for several minutes – no dialog, no humans, just cinematic language.

In short one could say, If you’re the type of person annoyed by a Space Odyssey or even Blade Runner, then you’re the type of person that shouldn't watch Phase IV.  However, if you’re a total cinephile and/or sci-fi nerd I highly recommend you seek out this hard to find, underrated, masterpiece – you will not regret it.

Witness: I Hate Myself : )

Title: i hate myself :)

Director: Joanna Arnow

Year: 2013

Trailer: Youtube

Facebook

Joanna Arnow spends a year of her life locked in a presumably empty relationship with a “racially charged poet-provocateur” who happens to also be a complete asshole and the best part is she decided to film it.  This is the premise of her new documentary entitled, “i hate myself :)” which was presented on nobudge.com (it’s up there today only with a Live @&A at 8:30 est).

The poet in question is James Kepple.  He has racist tendencies and in some other ways represents extreme views about society and politics.  However, what’s most important to this film is that he appears afraid of serious emotional connection – it’s all loose and lofty, always.   He’s kind of a loud mouth, he’s boisterous and self-important.  He’s got ego for days.  Frankly, that is just James Kepple.  I think he’d appreciate that.

Arnow and Kepple have what appears to be a relationship that is almost entirely one-sided.  In the least, they differ absolutely in the concept of their relationship.  While Arnow expresses a deeper or more traditional love, Kepple’s love is clearly insincere as he avoids questions of it and manipulates several conversations to benefit his own perverted view of their relationship.

The fact that Arnow stayed with Kepple for a year is what’s actually interesting here.  There is a sense of loneliness that pushes her to stay.  At one point she suggests that she enjoys the relationship because she is attracted to his charisma and that in some way it removes her from a “static” and “confined” life stagnated to specified areas and peoples of the city.  In reading between the lines of her emotions and statements throughout the film we realize that her real reason for staying is a reflection of the title itself.  Arnow thinks it’s acceptable to be plagued by the brutish insolence of Kepple and to subsist in such a one-sided relationship because she ultimately hates herself.  In a lot of ways I found Arnow to be a real life Hannah (Lena Dunham in GIRLS) or, more to the truth, Hannah is a televised version of Arnow.

The one thing everyone will appreciate about this documentary is its purity.  It throws the viewer into something that is utterly real and therefore utterly effective.  There is a beauty in its anarchistic sense of emotional exhibition that makes us watch in amazement.  The beauty we behold is a synthesis of emotional truth (purity) and real-world terror (train-wreck aesthetics). 

We should all thank Joanna for being so direct and honest in a world that’s so often distant and hollow.  I got to say, i like her :)

Listen: Zola Jesus – “Versions” (2013)

Artist: Zola Jesus

Album: “Versions” 

Year: 2013

Website: http://zolajesus.com/

Versions is Zola Jesus’ 2013 release touting new versions of previously released material.  As dreadful as compilations can be this album is well within reason if not simply for its sheer beauty.  The music has been disemboweled.  Its organs removed, leaving skeletal remains to be built upon.  And though her modus operandi has been largely electronic, Versions is an entire different, organic creature.  There is an electronic sensibility to it among some remaining electronic percussive elements but its melody is that of a string section fashioned in a chamber[1] – and it fits the skeleton like a glove.

With arrangements of the brilliant JG Thirlwell featuring the Mivos Quartet, the goth-operatic vocals of Danilova seem elevated this time around.  Perhaps, she has merely had time enough to truly explore the lyrics and melody to fully expound their sometimes boisterous, sometimes subtle, splendor.  Her voice is poignant.  More poignant than when these songs were first christened by a pessimistic youth having an affinity for Schopenhauer while studying philosophy in Madison, WI[2].

One problem of the compilation album as a thing is the lack of continuity between songs and the loss of any purely defined album structure.  Versions seems to suffer from these issues significantly less than the ever so popular Greatest Hits albums out there.  It would stand to reason that this is because of the fresh take on the songs – consistent production can go a long way.  There was certainly an intention by opening and closing the album with softer, slower tones.  This is particularly highlighted by the fact that the opener, “Avalanche” wasn't a softer, slower tone in its first occurrence.

The renditions of “Hikikimori”, “Sea Talk” and “Night” stand out for me.  “Hikikimori”, in this string driven vehicle, seems more optimistic than its synthetic doom laden version on Conatus (2011).  The staccato strings on “Sea Talk” makes the rhythm a much more playful thing that the reverb doused version of Valusia (2010).  “Night” always seemed to me as the first “hit” song of Zola Jesus as the lead track on 2010’s Stridulum EP.  It’s a song screaming for a string rendition.  As its screams are met with Versions there is a greater power unleashed by the song’s hypnotic pounding siren call.  Lastly, “Fall Back” is the one new song on this album.  It’s a trilling, pizzicato, pulsation building to a percussive explosion of intimate grandeur. 

With Versions the cadaverous songs have been reanimated with a passion.  It’s simple to see that Danilova has always wanted to work within the realm of a quartet and that excitement cuts through like a rainbow on a cloudy day.  I’d say if you’re looking for rain turn on the earlier versions but if you’d like a little optimism in your darkness, turn on Versions.

---

[1] I speculate this entire concept was conceived after giving a performance at the Guggenheim with a string section.

[2] This statement is more for style than anything.  Note that Conatus was written and recorded after the whole Madison thing.

Expanding Culture: Aphorisms in the Theory of Black Metal

Aphorisms in the Theory of Black Metal

What Predicates Black Metal -

1st. Black Metal predicates itself on music

(Black Sabbath, Venom, Mercyful Fate)

2nd. Black Metal predicates itself on war.

(Arson, Murder, Suicide)

3rd. Black Metal predicates itself on philosophy.

(Every human being not going to the extreme limit is the servant or the
enemy of man and the accomplice of a nameless obscenity.)

1^st Wave –

Black Metal is coined; no one can exemplify its palpable philosophical depth.  Its milieu is now light-years ahead of Venom.  In fact, Venom was buried as early as Quorthon.

2^nd wave Then –

All that existed previously should be considered silent.  The cycle of philosophy – destruction and creation – continues…

“Earthquakes are breaking the silence, a vision of hate”

“Your lungs gasp for air but are filled with blood”

“Suddenly…life has new meaning”.

Landscapes of the genre –

In the wake of Mayhem, many had found shelter in woodland unbound.  It is time to flee from stagnation of these roots: a post movement routes itself into depressive cities where belonging is unfound, while the third-wave existence becomes immaterial.  What’s next?  -  Drought would suggest the desert.  Entrance: Jerusalem?

To Mother North –

a request of death to all “Pigeon-hearted beings of flesh and blood”. If their mediocrity could sense their beds ablaze they too would send this request; united we stand, sacrificial lamb and all.

Ye Entrancemperium -

When an Emperor sits upon the throne it can become one of two things: 1) controlled discourse, 2) dialectical progress.  Here we have chosen the latter to let decay, decay.

  - Thus Spake the Nightspirit

2^nd wave Now –

“May the wolves start to howl again.  May the age of darkness arise.  May we touch the black flames of the past again…and forevermore.”

“In every night I wish that I was back to the time when I rode through the forests of old” 

Is this not a call to the ancients?  Is this progression in fact regression?  Was it the position of the 2^nd wave to construct stagnation?  Zizek might say – this wave was not thoroughly violent enough.

For example: The Inconsistency of Reinkaos –

In dissecting the sound of Gothenburg, there is nothing revolutionary, anti-material…nothing “anti-cosmic” revealed.  2006, a regression in form is cosmic order itself.

Constructing the Third-Wave

1

“Satan, the Kings are heading home.”

Stripping rust only leaves you with the same form.  Ascend!

2

Let the death of an Empire leave “no trail to guide me” and “no point of reference in sight."  Two waves have navigated dark tunnels but now, after many years, was the time for silence reborn. 

“There was nothing…”

3

“There's a day coming…for you to be
swallowed by a power much greater than yourself”

“It will gradually tear you apart”

Ascension means destruction of form.

4

Let this be a transmutation of the pre-existing formulations: Black Metal can no longer function as a music no one could understand - it must act as an Idea proper; which is to say, Black Metal can no longer act exclusively as a term.  This is our aspiration and…

“It takes a non-poisoned creature to defeat and destroy a monster that has grown and spawned a darkness, a darkness we cannot tolerate.”

5

Ignite the depths and release visions of a music transformed –

 “The rays of Gnosis are burning yet liberating in a blissful imposition of the primal paradox.”

6

The predecessor atmosphere

–through Gnosis –

Focuses the efforts of Black Metal to a point of magic

“Higher! Higher! Come all ye sons of fire,
Daughters of the black moon,
Practitioners of arts, most dire.
Dance! Dance! Limbs twist in white eyed trance,
Let us praise the flowering darkness.”

7

The world’s corporeal aspects have been digested in the stomachs of the 2^nd wave.  The 3^rd has the philosophical privation of digesting the indigestible.  It is the position of contemporary Black Metal to comprehend the incomprehensible.  This concept is manifest in the relationship of Man to Divinity:

I. Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice

II.  Fas – Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum

III. Paracletus

8

Norway: Blood of the North injected into a musical cycle of philosophy – “Born a Son of Nordic tribe”.

France: Form of the cycle corrupted by the Blut Aus Nord – Nothing is, Nothing is not, Nothing Becomes.

Norway: The Work which Confronts God – “Like a thorn in the eye of God!”

France: The Work which Transforms God –

“Nothing is known to precede the echo of god, the grand evil who hides away in the upstream of time.”

9

 “Was there not an inconceivable loss of knowledge at Bethlehem?
Christ's abasement, His subjecting Himself to the laws of Human birth
and growth and to the lowliness of fallen human nature...”

This too, may suggest the emptiness of Black Metal.  Its all-too-human nature must flourish wildly.  The unfettered nature destroys itself and creatures itself anew.  Can we not ascend to Gnosis?  Can we not be crucified and resurrected?

10

“Singularity reborn in parallax”

Our subjectivication by way of Judeo-Christianity is henceforth not marked as merely confrontational.  Black Metal is an Eternal Idea and therefore represents something of divination – does it not?

Grand Opening

i     n     i     t     i     a     t     i     o     n

Beguiled

art review

Writings will surface here.

Writings will arise from these depths;

these depths as categories…

Listen

// music reviews

Witness

// movie reviews

Expanding culture

// philosophy, traditional & non-traditional art

Folly

// surveying the obscure, absurd and/or clandestine

The (re)value

// revisiting unfavorable or under-appreciated art

10s
// a reflection of personal tastes in the form of top 10 listings

(in)Jest

// humor

with zeal,

brian beguiled