Making this list was pretty tough. While 2012 was a decent year for music, I really feel like I didn’t listen to a huge number of great albums. Whether that says more about the music itself or my listening habits is certainly up for debate, but it feels like 2012 was year of great songs but fell short of 2011 in terms of LPs. The obvious interesting point in this list is the Perthness of it. The fact that four of my top 10 hail from Perth is a bit weird, but it’s my list…
10. Perth — Babes, Water, Waves
First up, let’s deal with the name. Calling your band “Perth” is one of those things that is simultaneously brilliant (because it’s hilarious) and infuriating (because I didn’t think of it first). So there’s that.
As for the actual music, Perth emerged “from the same tree that bore the fruit of Apricot Rail”, and have assembled a record that effortlessly splits the difference between post-rock, psych and electronica. Something that could sound clumsy and directionless in the wrong hands has been handled perfectly here. The fact that such a feat has been achieved on Perth’s debut record is amazing.
9. Flying Lotus — Until the Quiet Comes
When I was compiling this list of top albums for 2012, I had the nagging sense that I’d forgotten something obvious. It wasn’t until another Life Is Noise writer sent me their list that I realised what it was: I’d forgotten about Flying Lotus. Thankfully, I’m the editor of this blog, so I’m retrospectively adding FlyLo and maintaining some semblance of credibility.
Featuring some very fine guest performances (Erykah Badu, Thom Yorke, Thundercat), Until the Quiet Comes pushes into more down-tempo territory while attempting to fulfill its conceptual idea of being “a collage of mystical states, dreams, sleep and lullabies”. The record probably isn’t going to blow anyone’s brains out like previous FlyLo creations (at least immediately), but it’s still a damn impressive piece of work.
8. Actress — R.I.P.
Actress, aka Darren Cunningham, has created a beautiful piece of work in R.I.P.. If I hadn’t already vastly exceeded my annual quota of words like “shimmering” and “stunning”, I’d bring them out in industrial quantities for this release. Bringing to mind the genius of Oneohtrix. R.I.P. is an immensely alienating record that somehow doesn’t leave you cold. Rag on Pitchfork all you like, but the description of the listening experience as “like seeing the city you live in from a plane: You can’t reach out and touch it but you’re comforted by how manageable and well-planned it all looks” is pretty much the perfect summary of R.I.P..
7. Drowning Horse — Drowning Horse
Every time I try to see these guys live, fate intervenes and something happens to stop me. It’s pretty clear that this is the work of some sort of supernatural force/being/whatever, but what I haven’t been able to figure out is if this God is trying to fuck me over or add years to my life by sparing me this doom-laden sludgy onslaught.
So as one of the few people in the world to hear this record before seeing the band live, I’m in a position to give a review free from live-show-induced expectations. Unfortunately, I’m going to use this fresh perspective to gush in the same boring way that everyone else that has willingly subjected themselves to this record. To put it simply: it’s HEAVY (in a way that makes you realise how much people misuse that term) and it’s fucking brilliant.
6. smRts — Have Friends And Visit Them At Night
I love everything about this record. I love the way it is simultaneously joyous and heartbreaking, I love that you can listen to it drunk, hungover, happy or sad, I love the cover, I love the title.
While the traditional smRts sound is largely intact on this record, there’s enough boundary-pushing to keep interest. Genre-wise it’s still “world music dying at the hands of garage rock”, but there’s definitely an added aggression to Have Friends and Visit Them At Night, something that seems to have translated to the band now being approximately 32% scarier live.
All in all, a great record from a great band.
5. Tame Impala — Lonerism
I decide to put this record in my top 10 and then fucking NME call it the best album of 2012. Whatever. A broken clock is right twice a day (unless it’s a digital clock — then it is probably just wrong all the time). Anyway, point being that both this band and this record have received a lot of hype lately and you can either whinge about the fact that now you’re probably going to have to brave a doucheload of douches if you ever want to see a Tame Impala concert again, or you can be happy that a thoroughly brilliant record is getting the praise it deserves and that for once someone from Perth gets money for making good music. Personally, I choose to do both.
4. Godspeed You! Black Emperor — Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!
“Oh hey guys, you know what we really need — more fucking exclamation marks! More intensity.”
So yeah, I understand why some people are a little bit down on this release. I get that to some people it’s retreading old ground, that’s it’s not really boundary-pushing stuff.
Here’s the counter-argument:
3. Neil Young — Psychedelic Pill
Here’s an interesting question — what makes some musicians say “fuck it, I’m done with creating new music, I’m just going to spend the rest of my life touring and living off my previous output, appearing on shitty reality TV shows and gouging baby boomers”? On the other hand, what makes some musicians say “fuck it, I’m going to make a record that starts with a 29 minute song, I’m going to create something that can make you weep and smile and sing along to and make you so goddamn happy/sad just to be alive and that is instantly recognisable but isn’t stale at all.” The answer to these questions is “the degree to which said musician is Neil Young”.
Psychedelic Pill is up there with the Young’s best work which, when your LP discography numbers in the dozens, is pretty impressive. It’s the best thing he’s put out since Dead Man, at any rate. The lyrics are hit and miss, but that’s not really anything new or anything to get too worked up about (but seriously Neil, please don’t sing about the audio fidelity of digital compression technology). If anyone else pushing 70 sung “gonna get me a hip hop haircut”, I would piss my pants laughing. When Neil Young does it, however, I can either take it as brilliantly ironic or just plain endearing. The guitar work, at any rate, is first fucking class NY brilliance. Oh, those Crazy Horse guys aren’t bad either.
2. Clark — Iradelphic
There’s 1000 adjectives that could be thrown this record’s way. “Accomplished”, “ambitious”, or even (no doubt to Clark’s consternation, “intelligent”). However the defining feature of Iradelphic is its “realness”. The best dance music often plays on the dichotomy between the natural and the artificial, and on Iradelphic, Clark serves up diverse range of tracks that are held together by the use of a seemingly endless amount of obscure instruments, not to mention smart production and one hell of an eye for detail.
When we interviewed him earlier this year, Clark voiced his displeasure at the term IDM (Intelligent Dance Music), stating “I don’t really feel like an electronic artist — I just feel like a craftsman that makes music with whatever he can, and when people put the tag “intelligent” on it, I feel like it’s kind of sneering at all the people who enjoy music that doesn’t wear its cleverness on its sleeve, and for that alone it should be mocked.” On Iradelphic, Clark gives an excellent example of the way in which truly intelligent music doesn’t make this feature its only selling point. Iradelphic is a subtle, understated gem.
– Jack Midalia
1. Mt Eerie — Clear Moon
Mt Eerie’s Clear Moon reminds me a lot of In The Airplane Over The Sea. Not so much in terms of sound (although they’re not completely dissimilar in parts), but more in the sense that both records will/should gain that crazy level of cult status based on their ability to connect so directly to the listener, even if the reasons for that connection aren’t immediate.
Something of an exploration of the gap (or lack thereof) between civilisation and nature, Clear Moon kicks off with the staggeringly great “Through The Trees pt. 2?, a song that (despite its ironic misnomer) fits so well as an opening track in that it assures the first-time listener that this is going to be a great record. The grandeur of the following track, “the Place Lives” gives the first taste of just how ambitious Clear Moon really is.
In their glowing review of Clear Moon, Tiny Mix Tapes discussed the problem of writing about the record, stating “you’re confronted with the problem of writing about music that seems to demand nothing less than silence.” It might not be enough for a music writer to merely state that Clear Moon is a brilliantly fascinating work, but in this case I’m simply going to have to do just that.
– Jack Midalia