My Best of 2011

I don't follow newly released music as much as the other team members so my list won't be as extensive. Without further ado, here it is.

1. Ramshackle Glory - Live the Dream

This very heart felt folk-punk, with extremely elaborate arrangements for the genre, is the newest project of Pat "The Bunny" Schweiss. A brief selection of his work is elsewhere on Angrychairs. His early stuff was more abrasive and had a very self-destructive, nihilistic outlook. His personal growth (it was the first thing he did after getting out of rehab earlier this year, I'm pretty sure) is manifested in the core Live the Dream. I have a lot of respect for the bunny for refusing to write anything but the most honest music. The overall lyrical tone is more optimistic, but retains the highly oppositional outlook. So vote November 2nd if it seems right to you, Or don't vote if you think it just holds us down, Just tell me what we're gonna do on November 3rd, To make sure there's no government left to elect two years from now. Fuck yea. The five-piece consists of acoustic guitar, accordian and saw, banjo and tambourine, and piano, drums, horns, noise-boxes and more.

The hardest thing about this album is that there is one song on it that is so incredible it sort of makes the rest seem kind of weak, so I'm posting that here for sampling. Listen to From Here to Utopia (A Song for the Desperate) here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHVUYa1dyRU. The rest of the album has grown on me, it's great from start to finish.

http://www.mediafire.com/?rjbfza68zclb2sa

2. Zomby - Dedication

Almost. Zomby got famous as an eccentric dubstep producer, and managed to be one of the only people keeping the '05 - '07 era dubstep alive. Much of his work, however, is much closer to IDM. Dedication is Zomby realizing his potential as a creator of forward thinking experimental dance music, where a simple medium synergizes with complex arrangements. There may only be one song that even slightly resembles traditional dubstep. This is a very emotionally evocative album, that was written for a recently deceased friend of Zomby's. Things Fall Apart features Panda Bear from Animal Collective.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?a6fgyd992ihbdne

3. SBTRKT - s/t

Another album for y'all to hate. It's just awesome, combining elements of house, dubstep, jungle and pop. In an almost obnoxious display of talent, each song has and was written for a different vocalist, and manages to be incredibly varied without being at all disjointed.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?335wac3e9uc57dy

4. Omega Massif - Karpatia

I am not a huge fan of Post-Metal. I'll spare you an essay and just say I find most of it to be an unfortunate perversion of the post-rock ethos. This album is a beast though, delivering heavy hitting doom seamlessly intertwined with an apocalyptic drone. I'm not even sure what to say about it, and I think it's already on this blog. But if you missed it the first time around, don't mess up again!

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?gcp1g68rtwd2hrp 

5. Psychedelic Horseshit - Laced

More lo-fi, noisy garage rock. This album isn't as out there as Magic Flowers Drone, which is elsewhere on Angrychairs. With the exception of I Hate the Beach--an incredible 7-minute long psych epic mocking Wavves. That one is crazy and the most remarkable on the album. The rest is no worse than MFD which pretty much puts it up here by default.

http://www.mediafire.com/?yth6aawx28o88nm

II

While I don't listen to "new" music per se, I am always after music that is new to me. To that end, I present two of my most significant personal discoveries of the past year.

Charlie Parker & Dizzy Gillespie

  

The sublime, adventurous and heartfelt jazz of Charlie Parker and Mr. Gillespie delivers an endless stream of fiery music that seems to posseses life, and remain new every time I listen to it. This recording of All the Things You Are is incredible. More well known performances of it are wonderful, mellow, drawn out and emotional pieces, powerful, but only 3 minutes long. This one is 7 minutes and much more upbeat, with the same catchy hook but more frantic and less meditative. It's gripping. Enthralling. Hypnotizing. It's almost unnerving the way it sometimes teeters on the edge of falling apart, yet never actually does.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?g9wk2yvg2jg8c2t

Frederic Chopin - Nocturnes

 

The analgesic, melancholy genius of Frederic Chopin, speaks for itself. I find these to be some particularly beautiful recordings.

http://www.mediafire.com/?x163bro588c6m6o