Best of 2011: Words About Music (Vol. 1)

Okay, here’s the first batch of write-ups for songs and albums I really liked this year. Actually only one album (Cornershop) and a bunch of songs. Some of them I grouped together. I’m writing a big long thing about Tune-Yards, PJ Harvey, and St. Vincent, so you won’t see anything about them here. More to come soon.

Cornershop Cornershop and the Double-o-Groove of (Ample Play)

In my review of Cornershop’s 2009 album Judy Sucks a Lemon for Breakfast, I recalled the band’s quick rise in the mid-to-late-90s post-alternative nation free-for-all, as a key part of semi-pop’s semi-sudden global-a-go-go. With this year’s sublime, and asScott Plagenhoef wrote, wonderfully out-of-fashion Cornershop and the Double-‘o’ Groove of, they were once again buried by the more fleeting, hype-happy stuff, but they’re used to that by now. Tjinder Singh and Ben Ayers are doing just fine self-releasing theatrical odes to the vibrant Indian culture pulsating in the heart of England. A cult band from the start, a cult band they remain. This is their second best album. That’s cool.

The heart of the album is the vocal presence of Bubbley Kaur, an otherwise everyday New Delhi-born/Lancashire-residing housewife who Tjinder Singh met at a party several years ago (it’s a pseudonym). By 2004, Singh had built the irresistible “Topknot” around her voice. Like on the impossibly great When I Was Born for the Seventh Time, Singh merged Punjabi musical elements with those drawn from Western dance and hip-hop music, but what really stuck on this track is the hook. It’s not one of Kaur’s best-recorded vocals (it sounded purposefully “old”), and though the cadence felt a bit knotty to my Western ears, it was a blast training myself to recognize that the last thing the melodies were ever going to do would be to resolve in a way I was used to. Gradually, I just marveled at the way she bobbed around the rhythm, like a guitar virtuoso gliding over jazzy chord changes and making it sound fluid in a pop context.

Rough Trade released it, Peel wore out his 7”, but the track got little to no traction in the U.S. Ironically, critics would go insane for a mixtape released late that year by a fierce London art-student and Sri Lankan Tamil expat who’d dropped a guest verse on “Topknot”s remix. Maybe it’s because I don’t dig deep enough into Punjabi pop, but in 2011, “Topknot” still sounds cooler and less of-its-time than most other top 50 singles striving to do the same stuff.

“Topknot,” along with “United Provinces of India”—which dates back to 2003, and which by the way boasts one of 2011’s straight-up fiercest beats—and the minimalist drum-and-bass march of “Natch,” is the core of Double-‘o’s rhythm-driven, technicolor fantasia. Kaur sings her vocals entirely in Punjabi, and Singh fuses them to tracks that, as is the group’s wont, see no tradition, scene, or culture they can’t pull from. For the most part, he starts with basic rhythm tracks, and sometimes he stops there. But not always: “The Biro Pen” is a quaint ode to the springloaded ballpoint technology (I think), but it’s presented with the flashy widescreen giddiness of a peak-period Pizzicato Five track. “Double-Decker Eyelashes” merges Kaur’s loping vocal with an arid, courtly, British harpsichord, a patient coffeeshop bassline (you can hear hands sliding on strings), and periodic tabla fills. I’m hard-pressed to find music released in 2011 (aside from the Holy Ghost LP and the Go! Team’s “Apollo Throwdown”) that fills me with as much weird joy as this album.

Curren$y “Daze of Thunder”/Curren$y f. Big K.R.I.T & Killa Kyleon “Moon & Stars (Remix)”/Bad Meets Evil “Fast Lane”

I like driving, and I like rap songs about cars and driving, which is why I like these songs. Yes, the Curren$y tracks are from his least-heralded mixtape of the year (I love Weekend at Burnie’s for what it’s worth), but because it dropped so long ago, they’ve stuck around and soundtracked many of my own behind-the-wheel stints this year. “Daze of Thunder” is blissfully simple, just Curren$y spitting with no hooks or choruses (and few breaths) over Kanye’s track for Rick Ross’s “Live Fast, Die Young” from last year. It’s as if at the beginning of the track he merges onto the interstate, weaves in and out of traffic without alerting the cops during his verse, and then slowly arrives at his destination as the track winds down. “Moon and Stars (Remix)” was originally featured on 2010’s K.R.I.T. Wuz Here, and I’m including it because it’s got an insanely smooth G-Funk hook, I didn’t write about it last year, and K.R.I.T. calls weed “Yoda” in it. As for Bad Meets Evil, it’s a generally awkward step in Eminem’s attempt to be “real” and not a celebrity-as-rapper, an initiative he dumbly calls “Shady 2.0″, which pairs him up with long-time pal Royce da 5′9″ (”hi, Rihanna“). And “Fast Lane” works really well; mostly because of its trunk-rattling track, solid Nate Dogg-esque hook with an extended car metaphor, some tongue-twisting speed-rap from Marshall, and either because of or despite (I can’t decide yet) Em’s super gross Nicki Minaj shout-out and Royce’s admission of his evolution from “massive masturbator” to “Michael Jackson’s activator.” It’s the only song I listened to off the album, and I did so like 100 times.

Deerhunter “Nosebleed”/Atlas Sound “Mona Lisa”/Jeremy Jay “Out on the Highway”

Deerhunter didn’t release an album this year, but they put out a track that ranks among their best work yet. “Nosebleed”–the b-side of the “Memory Boy” single–is a simple acoustic-guitar-driven rave-up mini-anthem that clocks in at less than 3 minutes and crams in all the stuff that makes Deerhunter great. An awesome shout-along vocal and chorus hook from Cox, a killer riff, lyrics about the fallibility of memory and doing things you’re not supposed to do, um…bleeding. I’m not a big Atlas Sound fan, though I’m totally in support of an artist pushing his artistic limits publicly as much as Cox does. I’m much happier when his voice melds with the ambient surroundings of the textures he creates for this project, and thus I chafe when he tries to actually sing, as he does too often on Parallax in a crooner style that doesn’t fit his strengths at all. On “Mona Lisa,” however, he uses his voice as a breathy lead instrument for a quaint, incredibly charming folk song. God, this guy just has hooks coming out of his ears, doesn’t he? Finally, if you want evidence that Deerhunter’s influence has started to spread and infiltrate others, you only need to check the lead track “Out on the Highway” from Jeremy Jay’s otherwise ignorable Dream Diary. Does he need to pay Cox (or Lockett Pundt) residuals for this? It’s a really good song, but come on dude. Pay up.

Ford & Lopatin “Emergency Room”/Gardens & Villa “Orange Blossom”

Daniel Lopatin spent most of the last part of 2011 getting serious dap for going art-world on Oneohtrix Point Never’s Replica, but “Emergency Room” wins the 2011 Altered Zones award as the track that would have blown the fuck up on the 1982 version of MTV that no one outside major markets could get on cable yet. Gardens & Villa–the Secretly Canadian signees that everyone overlooks and that I can’t hope to be objective about–are still regretting buying that Beta player and racking up high scores on Galaga too, but they actually have a vocalist, and play a killer live set (with a Gary Numan cover). Think Yeasayer with all the excess gloop removed. (Speaking of these dudes, remember White Williams? Whatever happened to that guy?)

The Go! Team “Apollo Throwdown”

The Go! Team has always sounded like a producer stumbled upon a vault of Malcolm McLaren’s unreleased discoveries, fell in love with his field-recordings of some kids double-dutching in a 1983 playground, and then went fucking Bomb Squad on them. The real story’s a little different–Brighton UK producer makes album in bedroom, builds band to tour around it–but I like my version better. “Apollo Throwdown” comes off what might be the band’s last album. If that’s the case, too bad (they’re super fun), but also: good job ending with far and away your best song. “Throwdown” brings all the best Go! Team stuff to the table–teenage girls sing-rapping, groups of kids sing-rapping, a chorus that spirals heavenward, a giddy vibe that makes you want to choreograph a huge Busby Berkeley-type dance sequence for the thing–but adds just the right dash of psychedelic wonder to the mix that pushes it past simple pastiche. I’ve narrowed it down to a sample from Harry Nilsson’s “Birds” that elevates the track into something that could have sequenced well on the Avalanches’ Since I Left You. One day back in early February, in the midst of an absolutely horrible emotional week, I ran mundane errands for an entire afternoon with nothing but this song on a loop. After about an hour, it was all I could do not to swing around lampposts.

Lower Dens “Batman”

Speaking of bands without new LPs but who released killer pop tracks on singles! Right?! Hey Lower Dens, I dig Second-Hand Movement but more songs like “Batman”–maybe 2-3 stabs at stuff like it on forthcoming albums even–is only going to do well for you. Love: Eric.

My Morning Jacket “Circuital”/Megafaun “Get Right”

My Morning Jacket’s sixth album, and first since the turd that was Evil Urges, is way better than it has any right to be. Gone are the dorky funk pastiches and woefully misguided attempts to make Jim James’s voice sound like Kermit-doing-Rob Halford. All that’s left is what a big-budget, druggy roots rock album should sound like in 2011. It’s the album that firmly establishes MMJ with the Flaming Lips and the (sadly underperforming) Wilco as the default “good”  ampitheater/festival rock bands of the moment. There are doofy elements on Circuitalof course, but that’s okay. The title track isn’t one: it’s MMJ doing their version of an early-seventies Who song. It takes about 2 minutes to wind through an acoustic intro, and then soars into a straight-up anthem for several more minutes–James’ tremendous vocal performance (his best in years) buffered by a bed of acoustic strumming, nervous piano, a rad solo, and fist-pumping breakdowns.

Now then: how long before Megafaun makes it to MMJ/FL/Wilco territory? Do they want to? Sure sounds like it on their tremendous self-titled second 2xLP, on which they cram as many of America’s weird musical traditions into one release as I’ve heard in a while. There are straight-up Neil Young-style folk jams, excursions into free jazz freakiness and slight returns to John Fahey-esque compositions, stuff that’s based in the church/stuff that comes from the fields/still more ambient/electronic noises that come from computers, even one song (”Second Friend”) that sounds like fucking Ray Davies and has a bassoon in it. On top of all that is “Get Right,” a 8 and a half minute gospel-tinged shoegaze strumfest and shoe-in for 2011’s fucking grooviest song (bro). I was sort of dumbfounded at the corporate-look of Megafaun’s album cover this year–looks like it could be the logo for something called GloboChem or something (Megafaun itself sounds like a Mike Judge-style fake corporation that sells baby animals or something)–but it’s fitting in a weird way, I suppose. Because in all of its sublimely well-executed complexity, Megafaun is the band as brand–an entity that’s open to incorporating any and everything.