Chevalier - Chapitre II

Oh FUUU-- this ticks about every metal box I have. The first thing you'll notice on the opener is the bass, which is wrong and should not be, but which straightens out later, foob. The vocals are androgynous banshee wails, but with goddamn hooks, and the bookending tracks have backing vox that are literally just banshee howls from the void. The production is both wall-of-noise and somehow dubby? and the structures are knotty but intuitive - I suck at metal comparisons but I'd say it's not entirely unwarranted to put this at least in the parking lot of the ballpark of Flames of Hell's Fire and Steel, which couldn't possibly be a bad thing to be compared to. In a way, it's the perfect mixture of everything right and just and honest and true and sweet about metal in 1986 and 2018 - atmo-trad, anyone? Fucking amazing. 

I'm triple-posting about that moment approx. 2:39 into "Nina" by Orchestre Kiam because it's the coolest thing I've ever heard an electric guitar do and I need to remember that the next time I'm tempted to praise "Born Under Punches" to the high heavens like its nonpareil

I always make sure the year is good and dead before I make my AOTY list, or; Two Talisman That Hate Teens!

5
__________________________

Heather Leigh Murray - Throne
Chevalier - Chapitre II
Hi & Saberhagen - Light on Leaves

***

4.75
__________________________

 Freya Josephine Hollick - Feral Fusion
Chancha Via Circuito - Bienaventuranza
Rabit - Cry Alone
Tierra Whack - Whack World
Koenji Hyakkei - Dhorimviskha
Kali Malone - Organ Dirges 2016 - 2017
Mid-Air Thief - Crumbling
Make a Change... Kill Yourself - IV
The End - Svårmod och vemod är värdesinnen
Foodman - Aru Otoko
Nazar - Enclave
SS Thaman - Toliprema

***

4.5
___________________________

Elg - Vu Du Dome
Janusz Jurga - Duchy Rogowca
Daphne & Celeste Save the World
Niño de Elche - Antología del cante flamenco heterodoxo
Extra Large Unit -  More Fun Please
Typhonian Highlife - The World Of Shells
Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar - Ragas Abhogi & Vardhani
Bantu Continua Uhuru Consciousness - Emakhosini
Serpentwithfeet - Soil
Cucina Povera - Hilja
Gutter Instinct - Heirs of Sisyphus
Migos - Culture II
Pink Siifu - Ensley
Georgia Anne Muldrow - Overload 
Teki Latex - the Naked King
Devi McCallion & Katie Dey - Some New Form of Life
Amnesia Scanner - Another Life
Le1f - Blue Dream
Galen Tipton - Nightbath
Lorde Fredd33 - NORF: The Legend of Hotboy Ronald
Black Dresses - Hell is Real
Gurrumul Yunupingu - Djarimirri
700 Bliss - Spa 700
Frontierer - Unloved
Kendall :) - Hey
Ravyn Lenae - Crush
Maxo Kream - Punken
Black Mecha - Counterforce


***

4.25
______________________________

Mustie=DC - A Future Meows
Spectral Wound - Infernal Decadence
Vishal-Shekher - Naa Peru Surya Naa Illu India 
Hamoudi Karma - Folklore Sétifien
Joris Roelofs + Han Bennink - Icarus
Drawn and Quartered - the One Who Lurks
Rae Sremmurd - 3 
Noah Creshevsky - Reanimator
Moozlie - Versus
Rockwell - User
Anthroprophh - Omegaville
Erik Friedlander - Artemisia
The Cyclist - Beat At The Heart Of The City
The Pyramids - An Angel Fell
Coffin Torture - Dismal Planet
Elvenstorm - the Conjuring
Sudan Archives - Silk

Five Star Review: Max Roach Drum Soli

Drum soler gedda bad rap. It's twue. I remember some no doubt sage old RYMer (pro)claiming that hating drum solos made you rockist. And it's true, no lisp thith time. John Bonham and Ginger Baker were cackhanded wack mechanix but letting that taint Art Blakey or Famadou Don Moye is like claiming Moor Mother must be a racist because she's a rapper and so is 6ix9ine.

There's only been like five good rock drummers anyway and all but one of them doubled in jazz and improv and only one them ever really took solos, and he could do that because he was motherfucking Jaki Leibezeit. 

I honestly love the sounds of a well-recorded, well-played solo trap kit more than the vast majority of more traditionally melodic instruments (and when there's like four of 'em at once? mmmmmmmmmmmm, that's nice.) And when I fished from the always significantly delicious Inconstant Sol (blog) an entire album of Max Roach, a Particularly Epochal Person (P.E.P.) in the history of jazzerations, slamablamming by his lonesome, you know I was Highly Anticipatory. And it smacks! Kisses, mwah! I always thought that Roach, like Ellington and Mingus, was far more important and worthwhile for his arrangements and ideas and talent-nurturing than pure performance skillz (that's why I dunnae like Junney Mongle.) Blakey was the thunderballstrike to your earpins - Roach was a little more polite. Well, if Art Gardrumkle invented rock 'n' roll, then Maximillian Roachispierre was busy doing things a little more... This Heat. Yeah, I hear a metric h*ckt*n of Charles Hayward here! Or am I chronologically backwards, ladies and gems? These drums don't just go talking, they rant, they pant, they conversate, they chitterchat. These are not dumdrums or humdrumdrums. This is pure virtuosity on Heifitz/Menuhin/Annapurna Devi-levels and they will wash your mindmouth out with "Toad"-Forgetting Soap.

I'll never forget sage old RYMer avant-classical-president/demagogue docperkins (pro)claiming that the drummer on Obscura should/could perform Xenakis' percussion compositions. Well, here Roachee (not that one) one-ups Danny L. Harle sneaking ballet Stravinsky into the snare programming of some innocent k-pop ditty by performing an Autechre tribute on solitary hi-hat... in the 70s!

so

are we really gonna let 6ix9ine do... that? Just get away with... all of... th'stuff... he does?

Jesus.

edit: for the record, I was just referring to his unabashed use of the n-word, not even touching that... other thing he did. What a bad human,

you ever listen to one of your ten favorite albums ever...

and get somewhere on the second half and go "fuck, this song is somehow even better than I remembered?" That's happening right now with the Congos' "Ark of the Covenant." Was it always so funky? Did the "princes, priests and warriors" hook always kick so much ass? Gosh, I know it's a cliche but that album is transcendent - not transcendent like "it transcends reggae" or some such shit but transcendent like "it bends space-time through sheer soul."

to my utmost relief...

Kenny Segal's Happy Little Trees does not actually sample Bob Ross, meaning that Almighty Black Canvas, the all-Joy-of-Painting-samples instrumental hip hop ep I've been planning for months is still an original idea. Dodged a bullet there.

post-industrial strength deconstructed club sandwich

Broken Haze's MZD ep sounds like me attempting to emulate Regis in FL12 using only the SOPHIE sound pack. That's, uh, not an insult.

"Light on Leaves" by Hi & Saberhägen

starts off with a song entitled "Loveless" that isn't just better than that other Loveless, but better produced than it, too. Bass thumps haven't been this orgasmic since "Bipp." The next track has eyes-roll-back-and-toes-curl drum machines. I swear I haven't heard an edm ep this good since 69.

y'all are sleeping on the new Georgia Anne Muldrow

like even more than usual. remedy that.

when we're excavating the trans foremothers that brought us here, to the year of Oil and WASTEISOLATION

special attention must be paid to Lauren Bousfield because Avalon Vales is a genreless masterpiece and probably the most 2018 album of 2013.

garth brooks is...

... chris gaines is the funniest goddamn album cover of all time. I don't think I was fully aware of what constituted "laughing uproariously" until I saw that emo fringe and soul-patch combination. jesus fuck. sweet hell. holy boners. my lands. pheewww.

four years on...

Baby Zionov's chopped and screwed remix of Clio's "Faces" is still one of the greatest accomplishments of this century.  A billion stars times infinity.