Beauty can be elusive, so says Captain Obvious. In music, our mood can swing and sway beauty so much so it becomes a pendulum-like target. At least for me.
As the title says, these are the albums from 2018 that I enjoyed mostest. While I make no claims as to “best” outside of these Barn doors, you may enjoy some of them too, especially if there’s something new to you. Enjoy!
I first wrote about, and recommended, Asian Women on the Telephone (AWOTT) back in 2013. Here’s what I said:
Sometimes when I drive, magical things happen. 23 or so years ago Cathy and I were driving from the Maui airport to our hotel, on our honeymoon, and I tuned into a radio interview with Terence McKenna. This was my introduction to him and his work and I spent the ensuing years exploring his words […]
Antonin Artaud is someone we should all get to know. Unfortunately he’s been dead since 1948. Fortunately his works in literature, theater and art are timeless and his influence continues to be influential.
Boo! I love scary movies and scary movie music, especially when its convincingly creepy. Bernard Hermann’s Psycho comes immediately to mind, as does Edward Artemiev’s soundtrack for Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker, Krzysztof Komeda’s Rosemary’s Baby, and Goblin’s work on the original / Dario Argento Suspiria. Thom Yorke adds another entry to the list.
Can we still say punk or post punk to convey subversive? I don’t know but I think not so I’ll call Bristol-based IDLES 2018 album Joy as an Act of Resistance hard-core (wink). High-energy machine-gun fire vocals backed by over driven guitar, bass, and drums. Roots rock?
So-called outsider art, or Art Brut, or naïve art, self-taught, etc, are terms used to describe artists who did not go to Yale’s Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. That’s a joke, sorta, but I always found these terms a bit cagey and to some extent simply labels put on things in order to sell […]
The music of French Canadian Marie Davidson was new to me when I caught the buzz buzzing around her new album, Working Class Woman released on Ninja Tune last October. Classified by some as INDUSTRIAL / WAVE / ELECTRO, I find humor mixed into the beats and enough drive and energy to run a small […]