Dan Morgridge writesCHIRP Radio Best of 2011 (Dan Morgridge)

Throughout December CHIRP Radio presents its members’ top albums of 2011. The next list is from Dan Morgridge. (Check out his Spotify playlist, too.)

(Click here to get the complete list of CHIRP Radio members’ picks.)

1. Frank Ocean – Nostalgia, Ultra (Self-Released)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   The usual array of indie-white-kid-friendly rap/pop stars made hits this year – Kanye, Jay-Z, Beyonce dropped two albums between them, each of which were fantastic by anyone’s measure. But the secret ingredient in both of those chart-topping albums is named Frank Ocean. Penning one song for Beyonce and appearing on two for the boys, Ocean’s touch is already in high demand (he’s written for John Legend and Justin Bieber in the past as well). But far from being the next Scott Storch, Ocean is just a 24-year-old kid with a tumblr of gifs, twitter-sized updates, and Sade and Pink Floyd videos.
   
   What he brings to the turntable, is hard to pin down, if not hard to appreciate. The odd storytelling of “Novacane”, the heart-on-sleeve angst of “Swim Good”, the wry send-up of hip-hop love songs on “Songs For Women” – Ocean’s charm is multi-faceted, but always held down by his top-notch production and top-tier R&B croon. Kanye’s clever/confessional rubric is certainly a blueprint for Ocean, but he’s stepped into the shoes without the anger or ego. If people still wonder how much Odd Future is a joke that the boys are in on, they need only look as far as Ocean: he epitomizes the vast knowledge a good student can learn, as well as the earnest naivete needed to attempt – and succeed – at besting your teachers.
2. Unknown Mortal Orchestra – Unknown Mortal Orchestra (Fat Possum)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Unknown Mortal Orchestra might be one of many acts with an air of mystery about their origin/identity this year, but they’re probably one of the best. Coming off like a lost-long psych rock artifact, the album finds timeless hooks with a dusting of fuzz on them. While on first glance nothing but sunny and upbeat, the songs also curiously all share a melancholy tone – songs like “Ffunny Friends” and “How Can U Love Me” toe the line between hippie cheer and wistful sadness. Maybe it’s a choice; or maybe they’re sad that they have to settle for making nostalgia from this modern world.
3. The Weeknd – House of Balloons (XL)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Canadian Abel Tesfaye stayed almost completely anonymous as he released his debut album this past March. It was easy to picture a famous singer adopting a disguise to release this ode to burnt-out excess – the cold production and lyrics like “he’s what you want, I’m what you need” reeked of such vile, hollowed-out sex talk and an indifference to anything other than the next high, it had to be from someone riddled with years of soul-decaying fame. One can only hope House of Balloons is not purely confessional, but it’s eminently believable. The sparse church-organ beat on opener “High For This” shines a dim spotlight on Tesfaye’s angelic and soulful voice. Of course, that voice is spouting lines like “Drinkin’ Alizé with our cereal for breakfast/Girls calling cabs at dawn, quarter to seven” over Vangelis-meets-R. Kelly production, making this album one of the dirtiest slices of R&B imaginable.
4. Mesita – Here’s To Nowhere (Self-Released)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   James Cooley is 23 years old, and is a self-taught multi-instrumentalist. He’s not as world-famous as Zach Condon of Beirut yet, but that part of your brain that doles out pure jealousy should probably be kicking in soon. Releasing EPs through his own webpage since 2008, Cooley’s first official LP finds him collecting his acoustic-guitar-driven melodies into a proper package. Opener “A Million Shades of Sky” is at heart a kid strumming his guitar, but the lush production and depth of layers is truly impressive. The bouncy bassline of “Somewhere Else” makes it the standout – robbed of anything else funky to partner with, the bass simply makes the falsetto croon and guitar fingerwork all the more head-bob-worthy.
5. SBTRKT – SBTRKT (Young Turks)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Another of London’s up-and-coming producers, Aaron Jerome and his debut are vivid frontiersman of a new sound. SBTRKT’s music employs soca, dem bow riddims, trance, Chicago House and the equally hard-to-define “UK Funky”. (Don’t worry, there’s no witch-house in here). The easiest musical parallel to draw is to Basement Jaxx, whose use of a medley of vocalists is followed here. Little Dragon’s Yukimi Nagano soulful wail elevates the dubstep of “Wildfire” to another level, while the smokey-voiced Sampha adds his accented croon to half of the tracks on the album.
6. Toro Y Moi – Underneath The Pine (Carpark)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Chillwave might have been the sound of 2010, but it’s hard to pigeonhole South Carolinean Chaz Bundick into a fad. The tunes of “Causers of This” might have trended towards friend Washed-Out’s blissful vocal washes, but gems like “Low Shoulders” hinted at Bundwick being capable of some good, clean funk. Underneath The Pine doesn’t miss a step, with the wobbly, danceable funk of “New Beat” right at the front of the album. Purpose and percussion are here in plenty, with those chillwave tones taking a back seat but not going away completely. Album standout “Still Sound” is an innocent, funky dream of a love song, with what sounds like a dash of ESG’s “UFO” hiding underneath.
7. Thundercat – The Golden Age of Apocalypse (Brainfeeder)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Stephen Bruner – the bassist of Suicidal Tendencies – has a jazz album. Scratch that: Stephen Bruner who has played for Flying Lotus, Erykah Badu, Bilal, Snoop Dogg, and anyone who wants one of the best bassists alive – that guy has a jazz album. Completely devoid of irony, Thundercat simply lays down easy-listening jazz, with his own bass acting as a major anchor. The centerpiece of the album is the tandem of “Is It Love?” and “For Love (I Come Your Friend”. The former is a slow lead-up teaser, and the latter is a cover of George Duke and Frank Zappa’s masterpiece of the same name. While the square-goateed one is not laying down his unstoppable guitar work on this cover, there’s no need for a replacement: the percussion is lock-tight, Bruner’s falsetto soars, and his fingers fly across the bass with such beautiful, nasty funk that even Stevie Wonder would raise his sunglasses and blink.
8. Moss of Aura – Wading (Friends)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   The devastating and powerful rock of Future Islands is irrevocably stamped with the growling tenor of Samuel Herring. But without his presence (and the firm basslines of William Cashion), what’s left? Gerrit Welmers, AKA Moss of Aura, shows that there is addition in subtraction. Completely instrumental, Wading is a collection of Welmers’ beats made in spare time while not on tour with Future Islands. A vaguely tropical, almost cheesy theme connects the album, with a nostalgic postcard feel to everything (no accident, as the album is packaged with a set of five postcards). Simple, unforced, and in eternal repose, the album elicits and suggests relaxation of the highest order.
9. Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie xx – We’re New Here (XL)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   A phenomenal story as well as an album, Jamie xx’s debut is a monster effort. Taking the vocals of “I’m New Here”, the young brainchild of The xx handwrote letters to the musical legend, mixing his vocal samples into a dizzying array of dub, dubstep, drum-n’-bass, and a dash of chipmunk soul. Tracks like opener “I’m New Here” demonstrate the full range of Jamie’s production, but the album also holds soft love-letter gems like “My Cloud” in its array. The wobbly and wonky beat of “Ur Soul and Mine” is the prime of several examples where Scott-Heron is almost completely discarded, but finale “I’ll Take Care of U” finds a gorgeous dovetail of the two artist’s unique musical worlds.
10. Bibio – Mind Bokeh (Warp)
    BUY: Insound / iTunes
    Always a treasure trove of found sounds, warped cassettes, and general hazy bliss, Bibio’s book has more than a page or two borrowed from Boards of Canada. But his most recent records have revealed a more in-focus production aesthetic, none moreso than Mind Bokeh. Opener “Excuses” rises from a subterranean-sounding atmosphere towards a sparsely-backed, acid-tinged vocal, and finally emerging (inexplicably) gracefully as trunk-rattling beat worthy of any freestyle. The middle of the record can be hit or miss, with kitsch getting applied too heavily at times. But the phenomenal “Saint Christopher” wraps things up in a soft-focus, dreamy 4/4 pastoral dance floor monster – a beautiful paradox.

Honorable Mentions

• Junior Boys – It’s All True
  Deerhoof – Deerhoof vs. Evil
  Memory Tapes – Player Piano

Patrick Masterson writesCHIRP Radio Best of 2011 (Patrick Masterson)

Throughout December CHIRP Radio presents its members’ top albums of 2011. The next list is from DJ and Music Director Patrick Masterson.

(Click here to get the complete list of CHIRP Radio members’ picks.)

1. Disappears – Live at Echo Canyon (Plustapes)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   It seemed obvious after listening to Guider that Disappears are, perhaps strangely, at their very best on live cassette. Only their two Plustapes releases in 2008’s Live Over the Rainbo and this relatively short release from New Jersey capture the same sort of ruthless intensity that their live shows always betray. Lower fidelity suits their gritty nature, this the best example yet of why listening to the band is so important. I’m almost wishing the arrival of Pre Language in March wasn’t so soon. Almost.
2. Various Artists – Bangs & Works Vol. 2: The Best of Chicago Footwork (Planet Mu)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Last year’s first Bangs & Works compilation was a revelation I wished I’d heard in full before submitting my 2010 list, but nobody’s perfect, and anyway, this is the more listenable of the two. A few Mortal Kombat samples here, a few R&B/soul samples there (Young Smoke’s “Wouldn’t Get Far” is the standout), and more than a few of the ankle-breaking beats you’ve come to expect from footwork’s birthplace. We’re really lucky to be living this right now.
3. DJ Diamond – Flight Muzik (Planet Mu)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   If the Bangs & Works compilations are a good starting point for footwork, I see DJ Diamond’s Flight Muzik as the next logical step beyond the source material, the raw data. There are tons of footwork artists (or people who think they are, anyway), but it’s not always the point that they make it listenable; Diamond’s great feat on Flight Muzik (aside from the coolly understated album cover) is making a footwork LP that actually sounds like it’s suited for the form. Surprisingly listenable for a genre that thrives on confrontational twists and turns more than passive 4/4 head-nodding.
4. blink. – The Architects (Whistler)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   This album took up a fair amount of my listening in the early part of the summer. Really enjoyable record front to back, mostly because it went beyond merely cycling through the motions of jazz ages past; this is a thoroughly modern record that suits our city’s famous improv scene. From the the electronic eye winks that kick off “Protect From Light (I)” to the choir of “The Secret Life of Quiz Shows,” this one’s a can’t-miss.
5. Indian – Guiltless (Relapse)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   I think I complain about how much I miss the “old” Mastodon pretty much every year as a warm-up for expressing my gratitude to bands like Indian for existing, carrying on Remission’s forgotten promise. Guiltless surpasses the power of their earlier EPs and makes for the most brutishly sludgy album I heard this year. With Sanford Parker’s prowess behind the boards on full display, this LP duly rewarded Relapse’s support with dope-smoking doom par excellence.
6. Mannequin Men – Mannequin Men (Addenda)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   This dropped right in the middle of a three- or four-week period of exemplary local records (Netherfriends, Russian Circles, Heavy Times, JC Brooks, on and on it went), so it actually took me more time to get to than I’d originally expected. Maybe I was just saving the best for last, though: Memorable moments like “Cheryl Tiegs” and “Enough” grabbed hold and made me remember what I’ve loved about these guys from the first time I heard them years ago on Fresh Rot. Incredibly addicting rock n’ roll.
7. Implodes – Black Earth (kranky)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   One of Chicago’s darkest records this year (in case the silhouette holding a knife on the cover didn’t give it away), my clearest memory is playing the distant, haunting “Oxblood” alone late in the studio late one night and being unable to shake its vibe for the rest of my show. “Oxblood” on loop, that’s all that was going on in my head. But any of these songs could’ve done the same thing to you, such is Black Earth’s trance-like seductiveness. A nice companion to their distinctively separate live show.
8. L.E.P. Bogus Boys – Now or Neva (self-released)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   It’s funny to me that these guys opened up for Drake, A$AP Rocky and Kendrick Lamar on a recent Club Paradise tour stop considering how much more experienced they are in the rap game and how much more mature they sound on a mixtape as good as Now or Neva than… any of those kids, really. “Amerikkka’s Worst Nightmare” is a foreboding start without sounding cheesy, and the entirety of the tape supplies a steady stream of serious bass and blow talk. Grittiest mixtape from the City of Win this year.
9. JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound – Want More (Bloodshot)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   This band is too good at what they do to be from this decade, but lo, here they are, living and breathing the sounds of Numero Group’s lifeblood. Best part is that you don’t have to do any digging; they’re right here in front of us, delivering the truth one sterling soul gem at a time. The only thing that made it less than convincing was the incredibly crisp recording quality. The implications of needing poorer fidelity to enhance the listening experience reach far beyond what this paragraph is capable of sustaining, but the point is that it’s not the band’s fault. They’re more than holding up their end of the bargain.
10. Heavy Times – Jacker (HoZac)
    BUY: Insound / iTunes
    As any listener can tell you, nasty garage is one of CHIRP’s cornerstones. Few bands excelled at this well-trod path in 2011 quite like Heavy Times. The agitated, occasionally flat-out rancorous Jacker wasted no time getting to the point on “Motionless Drift” – about as inaccurate a song title as you could find this year – then proceeded to burn through 11 more roughened pop diamonds en route to one of the year’s better aural assaults. Don’t miss it.

Abbey Fox writesCHIRP Radio Best of 2011 (Abbey Fox)

Throughout December CHIRP Radio presents its members’ top albums of 2011. The next list is from DJ Abbey Fox.

(Click here to get the complete list of CHIRP Radio members’ picks.)

• Tom Waits – Bad As Me (ANTI-)
  BUY: Insound / iTunes
  Bad As Me was probably the album I was most looking forward to this year and I am pleased to report that it was also one of my favorites. Sure, it’s nothing really new in Waits terrority; he still sounds like a tortured voice that dares to speak the raw truth singing (often) dark and (sometimes) sweet love songs…and damn, he’s still really good at it. And that version of Auld Lang Syne at the end of the album? Perfection. You get the sense that this is the bad-as-me-kind of guy that wants all acquaintance to be forgot-sort of thing. Heartbreaking and beautiful.
  
  Recommended: “Raised Right Men,” “Kiss Me,” “New Year’s Eve”
• tUnE-yArDs – W H O K I L L (4AD)
  BUY: Insound / iTunes
  What can be said about Merril Garbus that hasn’t been said already? Seeing her live ignited my passion for Tune-yards. She is one of the most inventive, beautiful, and JOYFUL performers who so clearly loves making music….and all by herself. W H O K I L L continues to showcase her fascinating use of the vocal loop, random drumming on whatever is close to her, and over-all infectious energy that always present. It is often hard to capture someone so wonderful live on a recorded album, but listening to W H O K I L L only makes me like Tune-yards even more. Merril Garbus is awesome. This album is no exception.
  
  Recommended tracks: “Gangsta,” “Riotriot,” “Bizness”
• Tennis – Cape Dory (Fat Possum)
  BUY: Insound / iTunes
  A lovely pop album from the adorable couple that is Tennis, Cape Dory is delightful, light, and fun. It’s about love. It sounds like summer. It makes you want to dance. I really enjoyed it.
  
  Recommended tracks: “Pigeon,” “Marathon
• Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues (Sub Pop)
  BUY: Insound / iTunes
  Building on the success of their 2008 release, this sophomore album does not disappoint (in fact, it makes my top ten list). Introspective lyrics about one’s own relationship with society and thus one’s place in the world [lyrics ‘so now i am older/than my mother & father when they had their daughter/ now what does that say about me?’ open the album] are the beautiful forefront of the album for me. I’m in my mid-twenties, I feel like it was written for me, and I think the Fleet Foxes showcase modern folk music and its finest.
  
  Recommended tracks: “Montezuma”, “Sim Sala Bim”, “Helplessness Blues”
• Beirut – The Rip Tide (Pompeii)
  BUY: Insound / iTunes
  Critics have called it the most ‘restrained’ Beirut album; the one that manages to find the perfect balance between creative experimentation of his East European -influenced music (horns! strings! keyboards!) and earnest lyrics, and I agree. The Rip Tide has an expansive romantic sound that clocks in at only 33 minutes. And I again say, Zac Condon and crew: I want more!!
  
  Recommended tracks: “East Harlem,” “Payne’s Bay,” “Vagabond”
• Tinariwen – Tassili (ANTI-)
  BUY: Insound / iTunes
  They’ve been around for the past 30 years, but Tassili was my introduction to this amazing Sub Saharan band. A mixture of their native Arab influenced sounds and American blues performed on acoustic guitars will get stuck in your head for days. It doesn’t matter that you can’t understand the language, you feel their exploration of struggles and belonging. This is the kind of album that continues to grow on you, and I keep discovering new nuances with every listen. (also to be noted: they collaborate with Dirty Dozen Brass Band & TV on the Radio’s Kyp Malone on this album)
  
  Recommended tracks: “Walla Illa,” “Tamiditin Tan Ufrawan,” “Iswegh Attay”
• Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside – Dirty Radio (Patrtisan)
  BUY: Insound / iTunes
  This quirky little debut album by this bluesy-rockabilly band stuck with me all year. Based in Portland, Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside have a fun sound that still manages encompass raw emotions and pure honesty.
  
  Recommended tracks: “I Swear,” “Write Me a Letter,” “Where Did You Go?”
• Yellow Ostrich – The Mistress (Afternoon)
  BUY: Insound / iTunes
  “WHALE” is my favorite song from 2011, hands down. The rest of the album is great too…front man Alex Shaaf really knows how to work a vocal loop pedal and harmonizes perfectly. I’m really psyched to watch this band grow in the next couple of years.
  
  Recommended: “WHALE,” “Mary,” “Bread”
• PJ Harvey – Let England Shake (Vagrant)
  BUY: Insound / iTunes
  I was never a PJ Harvey fan until this album. It’s not that actively avoided her music, but nothing ever quite stuck with me like this album did (and does). It’s a highly political album that brilliantly illustrates the complexities in our ever changing (and often violent) world. Harvey sings for her life on this album, it’s often terrifying but it’s always beautiful.
  
  Recommended tracks: “In Dark Places,” “Let England Shake,” “The Words that Maketh Murder”
• Steven Malkmus and The Jicks – Mirror Traffic (Matador)
  BUY: Insound / iTunes
  Lo-fi indie rock at its finest by one of our forefathers from Pavement. He continues to make weird words fit together in a way that makes you bob your head like you agree. Stephen Malkmus’s musical range is huge, will get you moving and will make you nostalgic in a way that also makes you excited for the next album.
  
  Recommended tracks: “No One Is (As I Are Be),” “Tigers”

Rubbed in Dirt, Dipped in Sugar writesCHIRP Radio Best of 2011 (John Lombardo)

Throughout December CHIRP Radio presents its members’ top albums of 2011. The next list is from DJ and Assistant Music Director John Lombardo.

(Click here to get the complete list of CHIRP Radio members’ picks.)

1. Cave – Neverendless (Drag City)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Since these guys have been hammering away in Chicago for years now, you wouldn’t have thought this album’s greatness would have taken anyone by surprise, but Neverendless felt like it came out of nowhere – slamming into your senses like the 2-ton flatbed truck that Cave commandeered to share its new songs with the city. Crisp and clear production with impossibly tight songs. Somehow these epic jams all seem to end too quickly!
2. Wugazi – 13 Chambers (self-released)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Mash-ups are by no means a new idea, but somehow these two non-DJ, diehard Fugazi fans managed to put together everything here perfectly. Everything from the pairing the tricky, unorthodox Fugazi riffs with b-sides of rare Gravediggaz outtakes down to the clever word play on song titles and the blended cover art, these guys nailed it!
3. Thank You – Golden Worry (Thrill Jockey)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   The new 4-piece Thank You mix their jagged and jangly guitars, drums, and keys into an tight 6-song album that smoothly spills from one song to another, riding groove after groove through epic freak-outs.
4. Dead Luke – Meanwhile in the Midwest (Glymph)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Madison, WI’s noisy troubadour overhauls classic Americana with blankets of distortion and scratched-up magnetic tape. An album as beautiful as it is chaotic.
5. Fungi Girls – Some Easy Magic (HoZac)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Weeding their way through the recent wave of garage revivalists, this young Texan trio distill everything great about surf, psych, lo-fi, and pop through though the filter of a teenage mind.
6. Wooden Ships – West (Thrill Jockey)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Wooden Shjips have put together perhaps their masterpiece. Not quite completely shedding their skin of minimalist drone, they’ve tightened their song focus and re-worked their psych approach with heavy nods to Sabbath and Spacemen 3.
7. X-Ray Eyeballs – Not Nothing (Kanine)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Twisted, dark, and eruptive. This album is bittersweet in its lyrics and saccharine sweet in its melodies.
8. Chad Vangaalen – Diaper Island (Sub Pop)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   The man who gave us those Women records with their fractured, lovely charm unleashes his fourth album, debuting the toys of his new studio – Yoko Eno. Undeniably catchy songs about love and life that seem to never resemble the album’s unsavory title.
9. Obits – Moody Standard Poor (Sub Pop)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   The next super-group in Rick Froberg’s growing arsenal, Obits have upped the ante with their second album. This album took a few listens to really embrace after fixating on I Blame You for about a year, but it is every bit as captivating
10. Heavy Times – Jacker (HoZac)
    BUY: Insound / iTunes
    Pure, relentless, sinewy rock and roll with big payoffs. Packaged in two-minute bursts, this record doesn’t calm down once until your needle is spent, exhausted, and pleading.