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. Continue reading
Best EP
Best EP is an idea we’ve toyed with in the past, for sure. It’s an interesting form of popular music, where the conceits of defining what a collection of songs means is discarded wholly. It’s an EP: it’s stuff that’s done now, that doesn’t really have some bigger home to belong to. It wasn’t until this year that there’s been enough EPs to consider seriously enough that brought the category into existence.
So our competitors this year:
Burial’s “Kindred,” which speaks for itself.
Cerce’s self-titled, which is like watching a deeply unsettling landspeed race.
“Silent Hour/Golden Mile” by Daniel Rossen, who I want to eat so I can gain his powers.
Hodgy Beats’ untitled EP, which had everything we were hoping to see in Mellowhype’s “Numbers”
Lower’s brutal Danish Punk Fuck You attack with “Walk On Heads”
The TNGHT EP, which is great if only for putting HudMo on everyone’s map.
AND THE WINNER IS Continue reading
Filed under 2012 FOWRies
Best Breakthrough of 2012
This category has undergone some facelifting this time around. Formerly existing for Best Debut, we found it too restrictive for what we wanted to emphasize most: a band/artist coming out and giving us the craziest impression. This year seemed abnormally easy when it came to the end of it all, but that doesn’t mean that there weren’t deserving artists, we could have picked any of these and we would have felt comfortable with the choice. Grimes was most obvious on a macro level and Joey Bada$$ made total sense, but all of our discussion went down to one act in particular. Continue reading
Filed under 2012 FOWRies, Andrew
Not Best Album of 2012
In 2010, this award was about voicing severe disappointment with a sophomore effort.
In 2011, this award was about voicing severe anger at the romanticizing of 90s rock.
In 2012, there’s a lot of ways we could’ve gone. Twin Shadow certainly embodies the 2010 reasoning, and Best Coast the 2011 reasoning. We also suffered through two of these albums for Oh God Oh No. The two other records, Metz and Julia Holter, are critical darlings that fell on deaf ears over here. So what’s the call? Continue reading
Filed under 2012 FOWRies
IT’S THE 2012 FOWRIES
The ceremony the entire industry has no idea about has finally arrived! After months of logistical management tragedies and a few weirdo last minute twists, we are proud to present the 2012 FOWRIES. Continue reading
Filed under 2012 FOWRies
RETRACE 2012 pt 2
At the first half of this year, there was a temptation to include The Money Store in Ineffable, which passed as we got to know the albums that would actually populate the category. Looking back at last year, Ineffable was kind of a cop-out category. We don’t intend on having a folk category, so the three folk albums that had an effect ended up there. We thought tUnE-yArDs was too “weird” to be in pop and so we excluded it. 13 & God and Colin Stetson were the only legitimate candidates, and Stetson was the reason the whole category existed.
This year, I’ve taken advantage of the term to go and experience some truly far out shit, so the things in Ineffable are mostly of my own footwork and discovery. Pure noise recording, ambient non-electronic recordings, and a repeat appearance.
Continue reading
Filed under John
RETRACE 2012, Part 1
(Yeah, I know. Content death. We’re hobbyists. Shit happens. I’m back now, anyways.)
2012 has been an insane year for music. Really, we chose the worst time to stop writing about things, because I know that I have a whole lot of shit I want to talk about that I haven’t gotten the chance to. So I’m embarking on a tiny adventure, focused on the year end shit.
We still split things up by genre, and in every genre, there’s these impossible juggernauts that seem unstoppable as category winners. At the same time, we’re not interested in something so droolingly easy as declaring category winners months ahead of time (although there was a brief temptation to rename the Best Album of 2012 award to “The Seer Memorial Runner Up Album of the Year 2012” before even that got hazy). Since we take a genre approach, this gives an easy way to introduce the records we’ve been enjoying that have a real shot at being category winners. Continue reading
Filed under John
John Vs. “No Love Deep Web” by Death Grips
(I’m not posting the cover, but not because I object to it. It’s because I don’t know where anyone will be when reading it, and it’s unfair to assume it’ll be somewhere without prying eyes. I’m also not posting the “censored” cover because fuck a cop-out.)
I thought I had nothing left to say about Death Grips after witnessing one of the few shows they did for The Money Store. That experience fucked my life up for a few months as I had to compartmentalize and come to terms with everything they showed on those screens. I thought by making the front of the website that fucking jacket I wouldn’t budge on that stance. And then No Love Deep Web came out, and a bunch of crazy shit came out with it. I have theories. Here they are. Continue reading
Fermata over Whole Rest 