Although it was started it for a purely utilitarian reason- “where do we put these records”- this category has since become the thing that allows me to go out there and dig into the wilder shit that catches my ear. And this year’s wilder shit is even more unhinged from popular standards than last year. Doseone is so far the only person to appear in this category twice, with a record that sounds like last year’s 13 & God dropped in a blender and sweetened with processed honey. And somehow, his is one of the more approachable records when you hold it up against the ghost of Chris Reimer, the feedback invocations of White Suns, the confrontational madness of B L A C K I E, the unhinged noise of Aaron Dilloway, and Scott Walker’s horror story symphony.
But you knew what won already. Our twitter account doesn’t post a whole lot and we don’t really reach out to artists or anything of that nature. We’ve so far made few exceptions, and one to make sure B L A C K I E got his for making this record. Gen is raw to the degree that calling anything else raw just feels wrong. Maybe it’s a lot to take in at first, but this is true of anyone baring their soul so fearlessly. From the electric hailstorms that bookend the record to the sparse, haunting backing music underneath the screaming truth, Gen is constructed with the love, spirit and freedom that B L A C K I E evangelizes. In a year of truly terrifying records, Gen is the only one where when it started I worried that the artist had lost the plot and when it ended I was convinced that it was me that’s lost it. And that’s the shit art is supposed to do.
Fermata over Whole Rest 