SCQ's Honorable Mentions of 2011

In 2010 Skeleton Crew Quarterly broke tradition by expanding its annual Top Twenty Albums list to a Top Thirty. At the time it felt like a necessary indication of growth; SCQ was consuming a great deal of music so it made sense to expand the site’s year-end accolades. But even as I hastily posted them last Christmas, something was amiss. All of the well-meaning excuses I could think of didn’t negate the fact that I was indeed diluting my year-end list. Those additional ten albums that made the grade for 2010’s feature are still deserving in my mind but they incidentally lowered the bar. At best, those titles should’ve been Honorable Mentions.

So here we are. The worthy events that slowed SCQ’s pace in 2011 have at least restored my appeal for tradition, as this year’s Top Twenty Albums list has proven competitive right up to its final deliberations. I’ve listened to just as much – if not more – music this year but written about less, and I’d like to think that anything worth writing about either has been, or is awaiting last minute coverage on SCQ’s Top Twenty. Surprises abound and, no, they don’t feature Adele.

SCQ’s Top Twenty Albums of 2011 will post by the end of this week. In the meantime, here are the top five records that fell just short of Skeleton Crew Quarterly’s Top Twenty (arranged alphabetically by artist name).

Cheers,

~ SCQ

Glimmer - Jacaszek (2011 Honorable Mentions)

Glimmer

Jacaszek

Ghostly International.

SCQ Rating: 81%

A title like Glimmer seems all too predictable at a time when chill-wave and its mutations continue to shave every instrumental grain down to a sleek, 80s-tinged sliver. With Jacaszek, we know better – especially on the heels of ‘Elegia’, the beautiful piece he contributed to Ghostly International’s SMM: Context earlier in the year.

An elusive unfurling of post-classical plodding, Glimmer gathers its shine from infrequent refractions of light touching suffocated, cave-like dwellings; the sort of place you scope out with your palms. It bears the conflicted soul of a left-field electronic record but not necessarily the make-up, with ‘Goldengrove’ establishing a terrain of tender harpsichord and bass clarinet. A rustle of textures pervades, often distorting the perceived pace of ‘Dare-gale’ and storming over ‘Evening Strains To Be Time’s Vast’, but it never dominates a record so protective of its negative space. Even a piece with no obvious arc at all (‘Seidenen Stille’) inspires thanks to its transient, shape-shifting arrangement.

Providing a rare dose of organic richness to the electronic fringe, Jacaszek’s craft is all nuance, texture and grain - kinetic sensibilities that unveil Glimmer as a previously undiscovered playground.

Japanese For Beginners - Near the Parenthesis (2011 Honorable Mentions)

Japanese For Beginners

Near the Parenthesis

n5MD Records.

Original SCQ Review.

Japanese For Beginners is seamless almost to a fault. Led via piano but operating on a series of keys, beats and ambient swells, Tim Arndt’s song-cycle flows like a continuous bubbling-up of tear-inducing melodies and intricate drum-loops. The set feels whole in a way that track titles, suggestive though they may be, can’t really slice up. Was that ‘The Rose and Burial’ or ‘The First Surface’ playing? Don't worry, it’s hard to separate.

Now if that sort of homogeny doesn’t sound appealing, you've probably yet to give Japanese For Beginners the benefit of the doubt. Here’s a record that dives straight into the lush details of Four Tet’s Rounds and then stitches a series of emotional sonatas into the flurry. Track titles, suggestive though they may be, can’t function on the level of Arndt’s piano progressions, which build in momentum (‘The Listening Surround’) and fall back into ambient pools (‘Country Of True Wonder’). It’s undoubtedly “one-note” but in a classical sense that expands and contracts contently in the background. Was there room for Near the Parenthesis to add more conflict amid the beautiful elements at play? Of course, but then I might not have listened to it in a state of hypnosis all year.

Sleep Beneath the Willow - Daniel Romano (2011 Honorable Mentions)

Sleep Beneath the Willow

Daniel Romano

You’ve Changed Records.

Original SCQ Review.

There aren’t many songwriters thriving in Canada’s independent scene who cite Conway Twitty as a major inspiration, but that’s just one of countless reasons Daniel Romano is so irreplaceable. Every project Romano has worked on this year – he’s kept himself very busy – wields a freshness and honesty that couldn’t be manufactured, and Sleep Beneath the Willow follows that mantra to a tee.

A country record that thrives on deep cuts, Romano laments heartbreak and redemption over burly guitar, bittersweet pedal steel and distant chorals. The subdued ‘Knowing That You’re Mine’ and ‘I Won’t Let It’ likely won't stick out in your mind on the first spin, but they’re the glue that makes Sleep Beneath the Willow so authentically dour. And thankfully, Romano spreads those warm but harsh songs around should-be classics like ‘Hard On You’ and ‘There Are Lines In My Face’. Somehow, inexplicably, songwriting of this caliber has yet to catapult Romano up the international country scaffolding but rest assured: a song like ‘Time Forgot (to Change My Heart)’ can’t stay hidden forever. And Sleep Beneath the Willow, I truly believe, will find a larger following in the years to come.

Culture Of Fear - Thievery Corporation (2011 Honorable Mentions)

Culture Of Fear

Thievery Corporation

ESL Records.

SCQ Rating: 83%

It isn’t particularly cool to like Thievery Corporation. Don’t get me wrong: the chill-out two-piece are, by all accounts, more popular now than they’ve ever been but through dedicated pockets of fans that lounge comfortably outside the progressive scene. And for good reason: this Washington DC based duo has been refining the same predictable down-tempo for years, with each album adding a variety of world music embellishments that nonetheless congeal into the band’s decade-strong sound. What’s worse is that reputation for being refiners as opposed to innovators will keep Culture Of Fear a secret among super-fans, which is all kinds of wrong.

Opening on the familiar premise of appealing break-beats, a soulful vocal performance from a female I’ve never heard of, and a decent freestyle about the ills of our social climate, the couplet of ‘Web Of Deception’ and the title track prepare me for a typical post-Cosmic Game outing: guest-star heavy and emphatic on grooves. But Culture Of Fear expands with a celestial ease from that point, offering chill-out classics (‘Take My Soul’) and devious reggae dancehall beats (‘False Flag Dub’) that force me to reevaluate how uncool I’d deemed 2002 the past few years. So, yes, Thievery’s latest resonates like a throw-back to the days when down-tempo ruled the electronic scene, but that’s an accolade for the potency of songs like ‘Fragments’ and ‘Stargazer’.

By revisiting the less collaborative years that spawned The Mirror Conspiracy and The Richest Man In Babylon, the duo sound more focused and confident than ever. A powerful blend of heady dub, Parisian lounge and shimmering atmosphere, Culture Of Fear should reinstate both Thievery Corporation and down-tempo as fashionable and, yes, cool. 

The Whole Love - Wilco (2011 Honorable Mentions)

The Whole Love

Wilco
dBpm Records.


SCQ Rating: 80%

 Skeleton Crew Quarterly arrived late to Wilco’s adventurous return, and backwards. On a rocky, unmarked highway that winded the roofless rest-stops outside Montego Bay, Jamaica, I let closing track ‘One Sunday Morning’ fill my heart; from there I was sneaking my way through The Whole Love’s back-door. As such, I’ve had a hard time bonding with these songs as honestly as I had with, say, A Ghost Is Born. Although my wedding preparations and honeymoon no doubt clouded the record’s hype and release, it’s just as likely that my personal divide exists because The Whole Love is downright bizarre.

And thank the heavens. I mean, I don’t think I could’ve swallowed another bland placebo on the scale of Wilco (The Album) but a return to the convoluted pop labyrinth of Summerteeth is something else entirely. Don’t let ‘Art Of Almost’ have you believing that Wilco are going off the deep end; in reality, it’s a seven-minute knot of red herrings – electronic rhythms, unusually hip discord, and a bewildering guitar freak-out – that nonetheless primes us for the unknown. Like the Jamaican hills our small convoy tripped along, The Whole Love’s momentum never settles amid dreamy ballads (‘Sunloathe’) and wide-eyed roots-rock (‘Born Alone’). In fact, Wilco’s habit of constantly combing our expectations with one song before rubbing against the grain with the next creates more friction than the record needs (really, does ‘Capitol City’ fit in anywhere on this disc?). But friction proves far more interesting than the band’s complacently mellow stuff, and Wilco scopes out new songwriting avenues with combustible results.

More than anything I'm just excited to hear Wilco hungry again, spinning their creative wheels as opposed to resting on lazy laurels. That surprise, in and of itself, won’t be enough to rival the band’s previous classics but The Whole Love offers more than its share of quality cuts to suggest that Wilco aren’t hanging their American rock crowns on MOR rock quite yet.