Top 25 Favorite Albums of 2012 (and more)

Favorite Albums

(in no particular order)

1.Chromatics - Kill For Love

2. Grimes - Visions

3. Ital - Hive Mind

4. Air - Le Voyage Dans La Lun

5. Ty Segall - Twins/Hair/Slaughterhouse

6. Flying Lotus - Until The Quiet Comes

7. Kendrick Lamar - Good Kid, M.a.a.D City

8. JJ DOOM - Keys to The Kuffs

9. Odd Future - Odd Future Tape vol.2

10. Spaceghostpurrp - Mysterious Phonk: Chronicles (Instrumentals)

11. Twin Shadow - Confess

12. El-P - Cancer For Cure

13. Burial - Kindred EP

14. The Men - Open Your Heart

15. Crystal Castles - III

16. Matthew Dear - Beams

17. The XX - Coexist

18. Four Tet - Pink

19. Pop.1280 - The Horror

20. Beak> - >>

21. Daphni - Jiaolong

22. Actress - R.I.P.

23. METZ - METZ

24. Schoolboy Q - Habits and Contradictions

25. DIIV - Oshin

 

Favorite Mixtapes (hyperlinked for download)

1.Curren$y - Priest Andretti/Cigarette Boats/Here
2. Captain Murphy - Duality 

3.Joey Bada$$ - 1999

4. Gucci Mane - Trap God
5. Wiz Khalifa - Cabin Fever 2 & Taylor Allderdice

6 Clams Casino - Instrumental Mixtape 2

7. Lil Wayne - Dedication 4

8. A$AP Mob - Lord$ Never Worry

9. Hodgy Beats - Untitled EP

10. Meek Mill - Dream Chasers 2

Singles
1. Earl Sweatshirt - Between Friends/Chum

2. Japandroids - The House That Heaven Built

3. Liars -  #1 Against The Rush

4. A$AP Rocky - Goldie

5. Lil Wayne - My Homies Still
6. Father John Misty - Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings

7. Kanye West - Mercy
8. Beak> - Mono
9. Cloud Nothings - No Future/No Past
10. Azealia Banks - Fuck Up The Fun

Jack White is turning into Michael Jackson....

 ...and I think he knows it, cuz Jack's contemplating cutting off his face. Which he's done before, and with good cause. Jack knew when it was right to put White Stripes down, "preserving what is beautiful and special about the band." He made greater strides behind the boards (Loretta Lynn, Wanda Jackson), reinventing himself as an all encompassing, Rick Rubin style, genre spanning producer, cranking out countless one off singles and live albums on the fly from his Nashville based Third Man Records. Jack started two other bands, The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather. He even worked with Insane Clown Posse. 

Yes yes, Jack needed to forge ahead his separate identity free of the past, never forgetting it, yet rising above and beyond it. However, in all that time Jack never released any music under his name proper.  

That changes on April 23, 2012 when Jack White will release his solo debut, Blunderbuss.

"I've put off making records under my own name for a long time but these songs feel like they could only be presented under my name. These songs were written from scratch, had nothing to do with anyone or anything else but my own expression, my own colors on my own canvas." - Jack White

We got the first 7" single in this week at Jackpot Records.

 

'Love Interruption' is cold gospel soul, minimal in arrangement and sparse with instrumentation. Backup vocals by Ruby Amanfu add fire to White's seething declaration that "he won't let love disrupt, corrupt, or interrupt me."

 

 

B-Side 'Machine Gun Silhouette' gets back down to business with a full band attack, going off on a hard driving country blues jam. Great drums, great recording. 

I'm looking forward to the full length now. I anticipate a raw record with slightly more refined influences.  But if those influences turn out to be associated with Quincy Jones, the 'Scream' video, and vitiligo, don't say I didn't warn ya.

    

Off The Wall - Record Explorer's Club

We have a lot of great records at Jackpot, the best of which we display on the wall. But what's the point of keeping a record on the wall when it should be listened to and appreciated? Sometimes the records have to come.........(wait for it).........off the wall.

Charles Bukowski - Hostage

Part Poetry reading, part stand up barf bag drunken bastard...Charles Bukowskis' 1980 recording made at the Sweetwater, in Redondo Beach, California is filled with swarthy swagger and dumpster intellectualism, a brutal zen exercise filled with bile tongue, audience taunting, contempt, degradation and humor. Comprised of one 60 minute set (30 minutes each side), Buk reads poetry and pontificates upon gambling, sex, drinking, love, hate, death...the usual fun stuff.  For all his legendary status of being a filthy fuck, Charles voice has a timber of sweetness, a forgiving quality...he was born into this, he can't help it. But if you want to watch him "perform" a one of a kind poetry, and possibly puke on stage, Charles will gladly take your money for spending on whores, liquor, and horses.

This bit was one of my favorites:

The In Sound From Way Out! - Perrey & Kingsley

Obviously one of the first things that grabbed me with this album was the cover...particularly the album title. Beastie Boys copped this shit hard.

This music is very reminiscent of Raymond Scott electronics, although tape loop manipulation and live instrumentation augment these recordings. Fun, light, cartoonish...probably not something to listen to all the time but its relevance as one of the first commercially successful electronic albums has to be appreciated.

La Planete Sauvage - Alain Gorgaguer

Holy god! Where has this album been all my life? In a way its been with me for a long time...Madlib sampled THE FUCK outta this album for The Unseen, especially on 'Come One Feet.' This 1973 soundtrack to the acclaimed animated French film is one killer orchestral jazz funk psych masterpiece. Between this album, Daft Punk's Tron Soundtrack, and the new Air soundtrack for Le Voyage Dans La Lune, I gotta say the French got sci-fi music on lock.

La Planete Sauvage is available to watch online

Slayer - Live Undead

It's funny this record came in as I have been going through an early Slayer thing via River's Edge. This album sounds fucking sweet comin' off the Technic. I've come to the conclusion that it is essential older metal be appreciated on vinyl, which is to say, the nuance of speed and thrash, blasts better loud in analog. Everything sounds better analog, I know...but when you've never had the chance to really get into old Slayer vinyl you notice the difference.

Here's a couple sweet tracks.

Die By The Sword

 Black Magic

River's Edge Soundtrack

I feel like... Chuck Norris, y'know?

  
!!!DON'T NARC!!!!

River's Edge (1986) is one of those movies you don't forget. Weird, awkward, disconnected, apathetic....yet highly attuned to a teenage frequency that is particularly hilarious small town rural and pre-internet. It's the antithesis of John Hughes-ian 80's teen romanticism....although John Bender, the character Judd Nelson plays in The Breakfast Club, might feel at home in this world. But instead of a principal raiding Barry Mainlow's wardrobe, you have wife murdering Dennis Hopper selling drugs, waving a revolver and dancing with an inflatable sex doll. And instead of Emilio duct taping Larry Lester's buns in gym class, Daniel Roebuck rapes a girl to death with cold power violence, then casually proceeds to brag to all his friends about it and invites them to come poke the dead girl with a stick. This aint Shermer...this is nowhere. And these kids are numb, dumb, and full of Slayer.

Certainly one of Crispin Glover's best roles. His character Layne is a masterpiece of neurotic, passionate, tweeker fanatacism, moronic, brutal....loyal to the point of mania. 

It might be Keanu Reeves best movie too because it plays to his strength of being a vacant faced dumb fuck aloofly asking questions.

I was working at the downtown Jackpot Records this weekend, staring at this SEALED vinyl copy of the River's Edge soundtrack (released on Metal Blade) sitting on the wall.

There are some really cool cuts on this soundtrack. I was pleasantly surprised to see The Wipers on here. In many ways it makes since that a band from the Pacific Northwest would be on this soundtrack. River's Edge technically takes place in Nowheresville, but given the rain-soaked overcast landscape it could easily take place in say, Oregon City.

That song 'Lethal Tendencies' by Hallow's Eve is NOYCE.

Slayer represents four times too. No coincidence though since all the songs are off Slayer's Metal Blade albums...three from their debut album Show No Mercy and one (Captor of Sin) from the EP Haunting The Chapel. I like the fact these tracks get some shine because usually the Slayer story really starts with Reign in Blood, as it should I suppose. If you're gonna know one thing about Slayer, and Death Metal for that matter, it's Reign In Blood. But if you wanna know two things about Slayer, it's their ties to River's Edge.

Here are links for the songs:

1. Hallow's Eve - Lethal Tendencies
2. Slayer - Die By The Sword
3. Fates Warning - Kyrie Eleison
4. Slayer - Captor of Sin
5. Slayer - Evil Has No Boundries
6. Agent Orange - Fire In The Rain
7. Slayer - Tormentor
8. Wipers - Let Me Know
9. Burning Spear - Happy Day

As a bonus I want to include the River's Edge Theme by Jürgen Knieper. In my opinion that should have been the final track of the album. It's a haunting piece of music and fits more cohesively with the punk and metal theme of the soundtrack.

Summer Madness Winter Sadness: Records I Want To Get

I want to find these records.

Kool & The Gang - Summer Madness

I want the 12" of it....looks like the one I want is this Japanese pressing. It has the extended mix which is what you need for this record. I can't tell if Kool and The Gang are actually playing on this Soul Train performance.

Sequence - Funk U Up

This has to be my favorite female rap track. I love the bass too. The original Sugar Hill 12" release will do just fine. It has the long and short version. Long version is best. This one shouldn't cost too much.

Audio Two - Top Billin'

Total classic right here. Perhaps not the most obscure track but its influence can not be ignored. That beat that is so famous was an accident according to legend. Sometimes mistakes are our greatest creations.What more can I say?

Stax of Wax: 3 New Records For The Collection

FIRST

Rodney O and DJ Joe Cooley - 'Everlasting Bass' 12" (1988)

Recently I have been on an old school hip-hop BINGE. 83-88 mainly...I have decided without a doubt old school rap wax is what I want to collect with ferocity. I have a decent stack already but now I'm ready to go all in deep. I scored this a couple weeks ago. The second the needle dropped I felt that rush of discovery, the connection of dots; I had heard this track before. Lil Wayne freestyled this track (renamed 'I Can't Feel My Face') on his legendary 2007 mixtape Drought 3

Now I could be all cool and act like I knew that was the old Rodney O, but honestly I didn't. I try to listen as much music as possible. But sometimes you miss some tracks. So what a great way to discover the history of this track. Which to me sounds very modern. It was totally plausible to me that 'I Can't Feel My Face' was some modern lo-fi stripped down Miami 808 shit...I love this track. Dark ominous synths with nice scratching, and of course that classic 808 beats and bass. I wish the instrumental was included on the 12" but still very happy to score this old school classic.

SECOND

Bohannon - Bohannon's Best (1975) 

This dude is heavy. Funk and Disco Spiritual Master. There are more authentic releases to get from him, particularly the stuff on Dakar/Brunswick. However, this German import "Best of" packs all the singles from that era onto one slab. It roars like a dream. And that is what is most important.

THIRD

The Brothers Johnson - Look Out For #1

This is The Brothers Johnson first full length from 1976, produced by Quincy Jones. They're second album is probably more well known, particularly because of the single 'Strawberry Letter  23' but I find the first album just slightly more cohesive and less polished than 'Right On Time.' Tracks like 'Get Tha Funk Outta My Face' demonstrate Louis Johnsons bass chops, pretty much summing up why Q had him playing bass on Off The Wall and Thriller.