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SCOTT WALKER: The Drift (2006): Late-period Scott Walker is pure exorcism, and 2006's The Drift, his first album in eleven years, stands as the most terrifying post-9/11 musical document I've heard. The sounds creeping around the grooves of this record are the stuff of nightmares, the bad trip vibes capable of double-taking a Nurse with Wound fan, let alone a casual listener (if, in fact, you can casually listen to today’s Scott Walker). It's the combination of all these rickety elements—the musique concrete sonics, the literally meat-punching percussion, the found sound samples, and Walker's ghastly exhortations—that keeps the album from toppling into pure ruin. As it stands, The Drift remains one of the most divisive, confrontational and extreme records of the decade, a statement of uncompromising truth our society would involuntarily repulse at if widely exposed. It’s that effective. JC




DEERHUNTER: Cryptograms (2007): Deerhunter’s Cryptograms, an album that has been very favorably received, was ironically met with very little anticipation leading up to its release. Not widely known outside of Atlanta, the five piece’s turbulent beginnings included the death of a founding member, the release of an album that frontman Bradford Cox is adverse to discuss (Turn it Up, Faggot), and multiple personnel changes. With the addition of new guitarist Lockett Pundt, Deerhunter proceeded to record Cryptograms, which melds krautrock rhythms, classic pop, and blissful ambient passages and feels more like a debut from a completely different band than the sophomore release of the group that produced Faggot. Recorded in two sessions, the album is logically divided into two distinct halves (an experimental ambient side and a more traditional, rock oriented side). Deerhunter were given a second chance with this release, an opportunity that would not likely have been afforded them had Faggot not been so underwhelming and overlooked. They made the best of that chance, and despite another strong, duality-centric follow-up (2008's Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.), the gauzy Cryptograms remains their best. Lukas Suveg




SUPERSILENT: 8 (2007): Improvisational Norwegian avant-jazz collective Supersilent toyed with elements of noise, ambient, free-rock, and fusion for a decade, but never presented all of those diverging tendencies in one gripping, dynamic whole until 2007's 8. As they’ve recently proven (on last year's somewhat underwhelming follow-up, 9), the whole of the Supersilent ideology is incapable of working as anything outside of this uniquely expert quartet. Advancing seamlessly across sequences of tectonic drone-metal (“8.1”), deceptively smooth jazz (“8.4”), electronically abetted post-rock (“8.5”), and, most stunningly, a paralyzing display of no-wave (“8.7”), the album manifests itself as both an impending elegy and an aurally crushing summation of modern out-rock. It’s unsurprising, then, that as music on American shores continues its long and inevitable trip towards the middle, distant locales such as Scandinavia would prove to be fertile ground for boundary-expanding, uncompromising experimentation. 8 tests the breaking point of abstract music. JC




THE ANTLERS: Hospice (2009): Hospice is one of the most intimate and personal records of last year. Peter Silberman, once the lone member of The Antlers, is reluctant to talk about the inspiration behind the music, but the heaviness of loss and death makes it seem close to the singer-songwriter's heart. He and his two new bandmates have crafted something remarkable: a haunting and especially compelling concept record concerning a bed-ridden cancer patient. There’s a bit of familiarity in the trio’s brand of atmospheric indie-rock, but the way in which their debut is executed sets it apart. Silberman’s quivering falsetto is supported by a variety of settings, including hazy piano, washed-out guitar, and less-identifiable textures and sounds. The songs themselves generally eschew traditional structures; lengthy, reverb-drenched ballads like “Kettering” and “Wake” require some patience as they ebb out of (relatively) more aggressive moments. Even the darkest and dreariest songs reward an attentive listener, as when “Wake” transitions from Silberman’s lonely vocals to an epic climax of messy guitar, which in turn morphs into the closing, acoustic “Epilogue.” Both immensely beautiful and intensely sad, Hospice is the kind of album that sticks with you for long after it ends and demands your frequent return. CN




RANDY NEWMAN: Harps and Angels (2008): Harps and Angels doesn't sound a whole heck of a lot different than Randy Newman's last album, 1999's Bad Love. The latter's cradle-robbing "Shame" finds its mate in Harps' "Only a Girl"; the acerbic social commentary of Harps' "A Few Words in Defense of Our Country" is as critical as Bad Love's "My Country"; and the new album's "Losing You" is ostensibly dedicated to the same ex-wife as the last one's "I Miss You." Hell, Bad Love has a melancholy weeper by the name of "Going Home," and Harps has "Feels Like Home." But none of this matters, because both albums are filled with the smartest, funniest and most biting turns of phrase any American songwriter could hope to pen, along with the boisterous arrangements Newman is known for. There's two equally stunning epics, too: the first is the title track, which recounts a near-death experience with the kind of twist only Randy could deliver, and the other, Newman's aforementioned stab at a State of the Union Address, "A Few Words in Defense of Our Country," contains Harps and Angels' coup: "Just a few words, in defense of our country, whose time at the top, could be comin' to an end. We don't want your love, respect at this point's pretty much out of the question, but at times like these, we sure could use a friend." Obama could scarcely be more diplomatic than that. SCM




BLACK DICE: Beaches & Canyons (2002): They’ve hardly compromised in the interim, but nevertheless the fractured house deviants that spawned a record like last year’s REPO bear little in common with the Black Dice of yore. The band's landmark noise LP, Beaches & Canyons, is one of those records that simply begs for complete immersion, and very few groups dabbling in similarly harsh tones have ever been able to match it, a realization which the band seemed to have come to almost immediately. Yet over the course of five songs and upwards of an hour in length, the Brooklyn four-piece (still with Soft Circle's Hisham Bharroocha within their ranks) systematically chart an epic course through a handful of sonic approximations that perfectly coincide with the album's title. Its sound methodically yet precisely strikes upon something utterly timeless and totally cyclical, as if the record continually folds in and around itself in a swirling haze of mangled electronics and minimal percussive patterns. Beaches & Canyons remains a watershed moment for noise in the Aughts, and it's the record's deft juxtaposition of beauty and chaos that continues to fascinate all these years later. JC




THE RAPTURE: Echoes (2003): As band after band continues to questionably integrate dance elements into their traditional rock setup, it’s refreshing to go back and listen to The Rapture's debut album, Echoes, and see just how the concept was resurrected and perfected so precisely and without artifice. What you have here is one of the decade's most ill-fatedly influential albums, yet neither time nor all those watered-down approximations can dilute the power of tracks as indelible as "Olio," "House of Jealous Lovers" and "Sister Savior." Unlike a lot of their contemporaries, The Rapture knew how to craft a full-length album, and as a result Echoes remains probably the best front-to-back recording of the dance-punk movement. JC




SUNSET RUBDOWN: Shut Up I Am Dreaming (2006): Riding high on the acclaim surrounding Wolf Parade’s stellar debut, Apologies to the Queen Mary, Spencer Krug followed up his success with this eclectic, strange, and ultimately excellent set of tunes, continuing down the path of what has become a prolific period for the Canadian indie-rocker. Sunset Rubdown’s first album to include a full lineup, Shut Up I Am Dreaming took the scattered ideas of Krug’s first Sunset record (Snake’s Got a Leg) and made them considerably better and more cohesive. Krug provides plenty of engaging pop moments on this sophomore effort, which range from energetic rock (“Stadiums and Shrines II”) to otherworldly ballads (“Us Ones In Between”) and melodic epics like the title track, which remains one of his best songs. CN




ANIMAL COLLECTIVE: Sung Tongs (2004): To refer to Sung Tongs as a pop album may seem odd considering Animal Collective’s more recent works, Strawberry Jam and Merriweather Post Pavilion, but, at the time of its release, the record marked a definite turning point in the band’s trajectory. While ambitiously experimental and often outright strange, Sung Tongs also provided flashes of the warm, buoyant harmonies and relatively more accessible style which would primarily characterize the group’s sound just a year later. In this context, the record sounds like a transitory collection, but in the best way possible—its mixture of psychedelic folk jams and moments of pop clarity result in something remarkable. Consistently surprising and often mind-bending, Sung Tongs can take time to reveal its most enjoyable qualities, but ultimately it’s a highly rewarding album and an especially important one in shaping the future of one of this decade’s greatest bands. CN




THE WALKMEN: Bows + Arrows (2004): The Walkmen’s Bows + Arrows is a record whose greatness lies in its intangible qualities. It’s a well-crafted and genuinely exciting rock album—that much is easy to see—but what makes it really special is more difficult to describe. One listen to the emotive “The Rat,” however, with its blazing riffs and jarringly fervent vocal performance, and the record’s appeal begins to manifest itself. Captivating both in its up-tempo rockers and its weary piano ballads, Bows + Arrows comes across as a completely natural creation of the band, staying grounded in a compellingly gritty reality with no excess to dilute its dark, edgy potency. It contains a vitality that The Walkmen haven’t managed to capture so completely in their more recent efforts, but there’s really no shame in having this stand as their crowning achievement. CN




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