Dusted Features

Kurt Vile – Constant Hitmaker (Gulcher)

Easily my biggest pleasant surprise of the year, Vile handed in a set of beautiful songs that balanced his earnest pluck with heaps of carefully placed background drone, affecting this year’s most criminally neglected debut. Sounding like vintage folk-rock run through a kinder, gentler Royal Trux filter at times, this is someone you need to know about, and sooner rather than later.

Stephan Mathieu – Radioland (Die Schachtel)

I’m surprised I didn’t hear more about this record during 2008. Oh well – I guess having an (incredible) Italian label release your stuff in small art editions will do that to you. No matter, as this was the most complete and fully-realized Mathieu recording to date, one that took his familiar methods of signal processing and applied them to a set of radio transitions for one of the most haunting pieces of grainy ambient music to emerge this year.

Portishead – Third (Island)

I never really cared about this band during their first go-round in the ’90s and, based on a recent re-appraisal of those first two records, I still don’t really give a crap about “trip-hop” (it makes my asshole clench just to type that word). But this one sounds like Portishead spent the past few years listening to krautrock records so they could make tracks like “We Carry On” and “Machine Gun,” the latter of which takes the most repetitive, nagging beat possible into unimaginably beautiful and ominous territory.

Billy Bao – Dialectics of Shit (Parts Unknown)

Granted, the Fuck Separation 10” on S-S was way better, but this LP from Basque noise dweeb Mattin’s aggro-punk project was no slouch, either. Ignore the silly, made-up backstory (Nigerian expat finds himself hating humanity while in Spain, makes a punk a record to celebrate that fact), and dig into a disc that balances out plenty of irritating experimental jabs (intentional skips, and tweaked out recordings) with songs that sound like Brainbombs attempting Bleach.

Food for Animals – Belly (Hoss)

I listened to this record more than any other in 2007, but alas, Belly didn’t officially make it out until the beginning of this year. Even after 18 months in near constant rotation, this still sounds fresh, with Vulture V and Hy’s flows offering some grounding to Ricky Rabbit’s increasingly fractured, mangled, left-field beats.

Eddy Current Suppression Ring – Primary Colors (Aarght!)
Ooga Boogas – Romance and Adventure (Aarght!)

Leading the charge out of Australia this year was this modest four-piece. This is pretty quintessential meat and potatoes punk, channeling bits and pieces of post-punk and pub rock into one of the most consistent and unassuming rock records to arrive in a long time. The Ooga Boogas feature members of ECSR, but instead lean a little more heavily on classic British DIY, thus taking the whole of their debut full-length into territory that calls to mind Swell Maps sitting down and writing honest to God anthems.

Idea Fire Company – The Island of Taste (Swill Radio)

Another pleasant surprise, this latest LP from IFC dabbled in well-worn minimal composition techniques and field recordings in a way that made these types of sounds feel completely innovative. Alternating between beautiful, delicate melodies and grim patchwork, this one was good enough to have a much higher profile.

Religious Knives – Resin (No Fun) / Live at Big Jar Books (Archive) /
The Door (Ecstatic Peace)

From here on out, anyone who insists on referring the RK as a noise band is an idiot who isn’t listening. These three 2008 recordings fully documented the band’s transition from grimy moaners to full-on narcotic rock pushers.

Janek Schaefer – Extended Play (LINE)

A great concept for an installation (separate instrumental scores played on turntables that change pitch in accordance with foot traffic in a room), Schaefer’s Extended Play documentation of his gallery piece ended up becoming a pretty great high-water mark for the intersection of experimental electronics and modern composition. Delicate and spare in a way few of his recordings have ever been, this is easily Schaefer’s best work to date.

Lindstrøm – Where You Go I Go Too (Smalltown Supersound)

Lindstrøm’s mixes, singles, and collaborations have been a pretty consistent go-to for me on those oh-so-long commutes over the past few years. This one was unexpected, though – three long tracks of glorious space disco that took the dude’s basic palette into some pretty indulgent territory. The biggest shock? It actually worked.

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