Best of 2011 Part 6

Now we're really moving quickly, we're heading into the top 5 today, with some of the year's truly outstanding albums. It's exciting, but getting harder and harder to pick only three songs out each one. I guess that's part of the fun. Onwards and upwards!

#6

Gus Gus

Arabian Horse

Gus Gus is constantly evolving, both in sound and in membership. Hailing from Iceland they are an electronic ensemble who have been around for several years now and have always been on the "pretty cool" side of things, but this album was really a changing point for me. Whereas most electronic music these days is released in smaller EPs and full albums are scarce, this one is meant to be listened to as a whole composition rather than in singles.

It's essentially a tech-house album, but features lots of airy reverb and pulsating pads and beats that give it a trance-like feel. It's subtle, smooth, progressive and deep all at the same time. The production is superbly done and the vocals are just enough to keep it interesting without being overbearing. The mood overall is almost a searching, inquisitive tone, teetering effortlessly along positive and negative space. Devote an hour of your life to listening it straight through and you might find yourself in places you didn't expect. A musical journey well worth taking.

Over

Arabian Horse

Changes Come

#5

Red Fang

Murder The Mountains

I think it's kind of awesome when the most fun album of the year comes from a metal band out of Portland, Oregon. These guys look like four dudes who work at the bottle depot after their high school garage band careers didn't quite pan out. Their videos are super low budget (and hilarious), they have scruffy haircuts, are in their mid-30's at least, and they kick f'in ass. Seriously. They absolutely rock. A strange bit of trivia too, this album was produced by Chris Funk, a member of The Decemberists. Nice of him to make this album even better than his own.

Their sound is kind of like Mastodon, who they're opening up for on a European tour starting in mid-January, but with less screaming and kind of a southern rock tinge, though at times they are classic metal in a Black Sabbath vein. They really are something else. I haven't been this excited about a metal band in a long, long time so I'm more than happy to say that if you are into hard rock at all, this album is a must have. After that you'll probably buy a shirt, because they're so damn cool.

Wires

Dirt Wizard

The Undertow

#4

The Roots

Undun

This is back-to-back killer albums from The Roots, who's album "How I Got Over" was my choice for album of the year in 2010. Whereas last year it was a full eighty minute killer front to back, this time it's a thirty-eight minute concept album, delivered backwards from death to life about a street hustler. The critics are going crazy over it, and I'm just another member of the chorus this time.

Some prefer it over the last album, I'm not sure I feel the same way. It's a masterpiece, for sure, but it's just different. This one feels more like a sort of rap opera, there's completely different pacing and voices throughout and it just seems to move through time and space to bring you to the conclusion. Check out the accompanying short film that I posted a few weeks back and it might help explain. Then get this album. It solidifies this band as THE premier hip-hop act in the world right now, and one of my favorite acts, period.

Sleep

Make My

Tip The Scale

EP #2

Sweatshop Union

The Bill Murray EP

Anything with Bill Murray in it has to be awesome, doesn't it? These guys are reppin' the 604 out of Vancouver and seem to be getting better with each new release. This one, for me, is their best yet. Up until a week before I started this list this was tops on my EP list, and at twenty-three minutes of top notch hip-hop it's my favorite Canadian disc of the year. It'll probably be yours too after you listen to this.

Makeshift Kingdom

Bill Murray

John Lennon

Tomorrow we get to the big cheese, numero uno!

Peter Gabriel - Digging In The Dirt

Today is special. It's Saturday, which is always a special day, but it's also the last day of winter. Yes, I know, technically this doesn't happen until next weekend, but tonight the time changes and the daylight sticks around an hour longer each day, which for me means that it's time for spring. Thankfully the universe has been listening to my pleas for warmth and has appropriately shifted the world's climate so that our winter has been milder, and it appears the end is nigh. Apologies to the parts of the world where the winter has been worse than usual, but them's the breaks. To that oversized rodent who keeps popping out and telling us we're doomed for a few more weeks: get stuffed.

Digging us out of the winter is a groovy tune from someone you may have heard of before. Peter Gabriel entered the music world as the lead singer of a tiny little outfit out of England, whose name I can't remember. Oh wait... Genesis? Something like that. I don't think they sold many records or stuck around for very long. Maybe they should have booked a show at the Capital? In any event, Peter clearly recognized that Genesis weren't up to much and decided to leave and do his own thing. After failing miserably to achieve success with some weird songs about a hill and a hammer, Peter finally found his footing with this catchy little ditty circa 1992. Turns out hard work and persistence pays off sometimes.

Note that this is, in fact, a remix. Now you might say that it sounds something like the original, but that, for me, is the beauty of it. So often songs are twisted and thrashed about just for the sake of change, but Richard Evans has done a very nice job of staying true to the original and just adding little bits here and there to give it a little extra shine. I actually prefer it to the original. Enough talk, here's music.

EDIT: There used to be a video for this. Now it's gone. These things happen.