Aufhebung

Ryan's BEST OF 2011

2011-12-21T11:57:00.000-08:00

I sat down and wrote a bit about my favourite films and music of the year, as I do at this time every year. Let me know what you think, what I missed, or what you think should be dropped. And if you have your own lists or recommendations, please send them my way.

Film*

[Click title to watch the trailer for the film]

1. Slow Action – Ben Rivers [UK]

There I was, on a September weekday afternoon, headphones on, lying on a beanbag chair on the ground of an art gallery a few doors from my house. It was just me, the projectionist, and Ben Rivers’ post-apocalyptic utopian/dystopian film. What a perfect way to be transported to the imagined futures of Lanzarote, Gunkanjima, Tuvalu, and Somerset. But in this imagined time the islands’ names are different (except for Somerset), as are their customs and histories. Two monotone narrators act as field guides to this ethnographic tour of 16mm-shot footage of post-tsunami wastelands, floating geometrical shapes, volcanic mountains, and mathematical linguistic rituals. On one island we are told

Legend has it that four trunks, residue of four separate catastrophes in four great storms, washed up on four of the promontories on the same day. In each trunk there was a human baby and a single book. At the time of Grugg these were thought to be Leon Trotsky’s The Permanent Revolution, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions, Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and Zitsko’s No Frontier.Every promontory believes itself at one time or another descended from one of the four babies.

Zitsko is an invention. As with everything else in this film, the line between fact and fiction, mathesis and poesis, technology and primitivism is blurred. TIFF’s Andréa Picard saw the imprint of Chris Marker here, but it was the seaside hallucinations captured in Le Clézio’sLe Procès-Verbal and Casare’s The Invention of Morel that were on my mind. This isn’t all that surprising considering that in an interview on (and in) Second Life, that world where the “sense of porousness between the real and the virtual” can be felt, Chris Marker mentions Casares’ book as a favourite. Whatever the inspiration, within the frame of 45 minutes Rivers presents a group of lifeworlds so rich that the possible references are endless.

Trying to figure out of what I just saw, I picked myself off of the ground, walked out of the screening room, and left my mark in the guestbook. There I noticed that the last person who had taken the same trip to the islands of Eleven, Hiva (The Society Islands), Kanzennashima, and Somerset had been Atom Egoyan.

2. Melancholia – Lars von Trier [Denmark]

The Cannes jury didn’t just pick the wrong film, they picked the diametric opposite of the right film. I wrote this the moment I left is first North American screening: Melancholia is the antithesis to Tree of Life. They chose transcendence over immanence, alterity over materiality. Both are epic, metaphysical films, but in Melancholia there is no third act where a greater purpose is given, no escape from the world into a teleologically-ordered cosmos. As if responding to Mallick’s prefatory “There are two ways through life: the way of nature and the way of grace,” Dunst’s Justine proclaims that “Life is only earth, and not for long.”

Melancholia is a foremost a film about depression. It is a film about bottling up or acting out against the stupidity of the world. Without that third act, it’s all inanity. In a scene that still haunts me regularly, Jack, played by Sutherland, refuses to accept this senselessness; he takes a final swing at taking control and restoring meaning. In a way, the planet Melancholia represents both the mathematical and dynamic sublime, but probably void of the pleasure Kant would suggest this evokes. Perhaps Justine’s smirk suggests that there is a certain lightness possible with its recognition. The thing is, the planet doesn’t symbolize our epistemic inability to comprehend the meaningful magnitude of nature nor the imminence of annihilation; it represents the ontological absence of any sense in such circumstances.

3. House of Tolerance – Betrand Bonello [France]

House of Tolerance is a sultry but genuinely moving drama about the working residents of an upscale Parisian brothel, l’Apollinade, at the turn of the century. Like Marie Antoinette before it, Bonello sets his period piece to a (more) contemporary score and embraces anachronisms. But where Coppola had precisely no point to make, Bonello’s film is about class and the power of privilege, and he isn’t content to leave the major statements to the costume designers. In this sense, I discerned strong hints of a personal favourite, Brisseau’s Secret Things. As for style, there’s plenty. Indeed, it was a pleasant surprise to find that House of Tolerance was the film that actually delivered the fantastique that Sleeping Beauty’s trailer promised. One particularly memorable scene of stylish but vile euro-horror includes the lead actress receiving a Glasgow smile, which also, when paired with the film’s use of split-screen cinematography, suggests the possible influence of DePalma’s The Black Dahlia. And on the topic of directors, the cast interestingly includes many of Bonello’s accomplished French director peers in acting roles, including Xavier Beauvois, Jacques Nolot, and Noémie Lvovsky.

4. Killer Joe – William Friedkin [USA]

Of all the Academy-award winning, name-instantly-recognizable directors, William Friedkin has got to be the most leftfield. Think Cruising. Think Bug. And of all his anti-blockbuster blockbusters, Killer Joe is probably my favourite. A perfectly-crafted, absolutely entertaining, deliciously pulpy film with a whole lotta punch (maybe one too many?). Matthew McConaughey plays the role he was born to play, a playboy cop-slash-hitman who swaggers into the company of a trailerpark sexpot (Juno Temple, who also starred in last year’s funnest film, Kaboom!), who wants him to free up her mom’s life insurance money. Things go Fargo bad pretty quick, but any inclination of predictability is handily written off once its batshit-crazy conclusion rolls around.

5. Martha Marcy May Marlene – Sean Durkin [USA]

You tell me about a new American indie, character-driven, buzzfilm set in a rural wilderness that evokes classic 1970s American indie, character-driven films set in rural wildernesses and I’m thinking a Sundance darling. That is, I’m thinking something altogether negligible like Winter’s Bone or White Lightnin’. Oh, and then you mention it’s starring one of the Olsens. Really? Well, hype and subsequent prejudices aside, Durken’s first picture is actually a very strong one. And though every review of the film has already mentioned this, it bears repeating: Elizabeth Olson shines in the role of Martha. What we learn about Martha, a psychologically damaged and emotionally unavailable escapee from a cult, comes in spurts. We struggle to understand what Martha is thinking as she struggles to come to terms with the tension between the ideas that drew her to join the commune and her experience with the people she once thought she shared these ideas with. In the safety of her sister’s summer home, Martha naps, wanders around aimlessly, forgets important details, and questions the commonplace – evidence of the commune wielding its power at a distance. The sense of helplessness we are left with in the face of this invisible threat makes Martha Marcy May Marlene one of the most affective American psychological thrillers in a long time.

6. Dreileben – Christian Petzold, Christopher Hochhäusler, Dominik Graf [Germany]

Dreileben is a collection of three films with interweaving narratives. As such, they can be watched together, in any order, or independently. The strongest are the films by Petzold and Hochhäusler, two of the brightest stars of what is, in my opinion, currently the most interesting contemporary film movement, the Berlin School. The other is by Graf, a critic of the supposed coldness of these dffb graduates’ films. There is a considerable difference in the styles of each film, which make sense, with each film focusing on a different life, as the title suggests. But the most interesting facet of the project is the juxtaposition of the styles and stories, each detail at once both peripheral and significant. Taken together, this experiment in mereology does nothing less than invent a new spectatorship for the viewer.

7. Shame – Steve McQueen [UK]

Although McQueen switches the topic, by portraying a man struggling against his bodily desires once again, he achieves the same intimacy as he had in Hunger. And just as we felt pangs seeing Fassbender wither away, in Shame we are also drawn into understanding his attempts to organize the chaos around him through control and disaffiliation. McQueen establishes this empathy not by having us share his vice, not via eroticism, but by stripping Fassbender’s persona bare in such a way that we cannot help but see ourselves in his empty pursuits, in his cynicism, in his hedonic depression. We admit this response is fruitless, but we are still left wondering if the truly sick ones aren’t in fact those who need nothing but earnestness to get through the day.

8. Generation P – Victor Ginzburg [Russia]

Pelevin’s Generation "П" (published in English as Homo Zapiens) had been considered a novel too bizarre, too hallucinogenic, too full of references to be brought to the screen. I haven’t read the book, so I can’t say how it stacks up as an adaptation, but I can say that the filmed version is a thoroughly enjoyable, frenetic joyride through Yeltsin-era ads, mob power, drugs, conspiratorial networks, capitalistic excess, and the confusion of post-Soviet values.

9. Michael – Markus Schleinzer [Austria]

Great cinema isn’t always easy to sit through. With respect to Schleinzer’s quiet character study, this is an understatement. Michael depends on casting two people, a pedophile and a kid. The entire tone of the film rides on this choice. It’s no surprise then that Schleinzer, the former casting man for the Austrian geniuses of discomfort, Haneke and Seidl, hits the mark. Although inspired by the appalling news stories of Austrian basement prisons, such as the Fritzl and Kampusch cases, Schleinzer surprisingly (and thankfully) never ventures into exploitative or unnecessarily shocking territory. But perhaps the restrained, mundane tone of the study makes it even more difficult to bear.

10. Jean-Baptiste Léonetti - Carré Blanc [France]

Carré Blanc is a gorgeous, piece of stark structure, crisp shots, and modernist architecture. This polished, organized environment may seem quaint as the image of a not-so-distant dystopia, which will likely be decidedly more postmodern and ‘flexible.’ But Léonetti does hit on something real when he illuminates throughout the film the complete marriage of neoliberal economics and neoconservative family values. Further, it is to his credit that, echoing Ballard, the villain here is not the typical dystopian authoritarian dictator, but the much more relevant business society and their army of middle-managers who invent tortuous life-or-death games for prospective employees to test their entrepreneurial creative spirit.

11. Prismatic Planes – Alex McCleod [Canada]

There is so much detail in Torontonian Alex McCleod’s virtual city. We float around above buildings like Oscar’s ghost in Enter the Void. Second Life on psychadelics. This world seems endless, the infrastructure programmed for miles. We dip down to explore further and suddenly the architecture transforms itself. Sudden zooms and spasms of digital corruption interrupt the consistency of the environment. Immersive, three-dimensional glitch art.

12. This is Not a Film – Jafar Panahi, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb [Iran]

This is a difficult, DV “film” about film as a subversive art and an exploration of the limits of censorship. Panahi restlessly wanders around his home where he is under house arrest, worries aloud about his impending hearing, and creatively imagines how to get around the Iranian government’s ban on him making any more films. A few ideas he tries out are holding the camera up to his own film playing on a TV and running through ideas of scenes, replete with staging tape on the ground. Shortly after this ‘film’ was made, Panahi received word that he would be sent to jail for six years and be prevented from making films for twenty. Panahi’s co-director Mirtahmasb was arrested shortly thereafter in a sweep that detained five other Iranian filmmakers.

13. Rise of the Planet of the Apes – Rupert Wyatt [USA]

This was one of the most explicitly leftist films I’ve ever seen come out of Hollywood, coincidentally released during the London riots. The very premise of the film is that political subjectivity is borne out of a negation of the standing order. Echoing Lacan’s (quite Hegelian) thesis that ‘the word is the murder of the thing,’ Caesar’s political transformation begins when he utters his first word: ‘NO.’ Rejecting the immediate situation they find themselves in, these new revolutionary subjects revolt and hit three targets: the police, the businesses (Gen-Sys), and the prisons (the cages). At first, Caesar demands that the other apes resist violence and one wonders if the film will end with an anti-revolutionary liberal message, something along the lines of a pragmatic ‘protest can be valid, but violent riots never are.’ But when it comes to the oppressors (Jacobs, Dodge), his concern for revolutionary justice ultimately outweighs the impotence of pacifism. What we have here is Caesar as a Robespierre figure who refuses to apologize for the tyrant’s bloody robes. Caesar ends up putting his egalitarian love for all apes before his personal love of Will (cf. Engels on the family) or himself. And as I sat watching, listening to the audience cheer the apes, I wondered if the reaction would be the same when a boiling point has been reached with the human oppressed.

14. You’re Next – Adam Wingard [USA]

You’re Next is a first-rate, Scream-informed home invasion slasher with a strong female lead, a great score, and quite a few laughs throughout. Even more impressive in a genre that often paints by the numbers is the fact that this is a genuinely inventive and, for that reason, constantly tense film. Whatever your phobia, the antagonist couldn’t be made more personal than it is here. Oh, and you’ll have Dwight Tilley’s ‘Looking for the Magic’ stuck in your head for weeks.

15. Almayer’s Folly – Chantal Akerman [Belgium]

Akerman crafts a perfectly paced, loose adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s first novel of the same name. The novel’s themes of colonialism and greed and its characters, including the fiercely anti-colonial Nina, are still present, but the story has now been set in jungles of mid-century Cambodia. Gorgeous shots of the Mekong river create an atmosphere that hints at Murnau’s Tabu. Wagner’s beautiful prelude to ‘Tristan and Isolde’ is used as the main theme but to very different effect than in Melancholia, a testament to the composition’s depth.

16. Drive – Nicolas Winding Refn [USA]

I have a problem remembering Refn’s films. I watched Pusher a few weeks ago and can tell you what it’s about but I don’t recall many scenes. Sometimes the entire narrative of a film will stick with you. For other films, it is strong sense of atmosphere that remains. For Drive, I find it’s the latter. People talked about the violence in this film but, a few months having passed, I honestly don’t remember much of that. What I do remember is Gosling sitting in a car expressionless. The details of why he’s there are fuzzy right now. But his cool stare is vivid. And it’s that combination of Two-Lane Blacktop’s moody angst and the sleek blankness of a car commercial that will be with me for awhile.

17. That Summer – Philippe Garrel [France]

That Summer (aka A Burning Hot Summer) is a well-crafted drama about jealousy, infidelity, and the mercurial shifts in a relationship between being passionate for and bored with each other. While far from his best, this is Garrel’s most accessible film to date and longtime fans should still be pleased. Monica Bellucci plays the stunning actress Angèle, who feels years younger than her age, and Louis, as always, plays the troubled artist.

18. Seeking the Monkey King – Ken Jacobs [USA]

Experimental master Jacobs has made a career out of shooting immobile objects and editing them in such a way that an almost tangible depth emerges through constant movement rather than any reliance on 3-D glasses. In his latest work he continues this process, transforming a series close-ups on tin-foil into a magmatic apocalypse, which are made all the more ominous by J.G. Thirlwell’s score. The ostensible simplicity of the project is countered by jarring interruptions for the octogenarian’s wide-ranging advice, philosophical musings, and reflections on life.

19. The Skin I Live In – Pedro Almodovar [Spain]

It’s been 21 years since Almodovar teamed up with Bandaras, but he’s back just like where he left off in Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, with another film about a mentally disturbed person kidnapping someone and hoping the Stockholm syndrome takes effect. Back are all the Almodovarian themes: gender, sexual confusion, psychological and physical imprisonment, and transformation. But this time it’s a comedy-thriller that recalls Franju’s Eyes without a Face. If you pay attention to detail – or if you’ve watched any other Almodovar film – the final twist can be sensed well before it is unveiled. The true surprise, however, is that despite being packed full of scenes so absurd and ideas so over-the-top that the story feels like it will inevitably veer off the rails, Almodovar holds the whole thing together until the end.

20. The Turin Horse – Bela Tarr [Hungary]

Like the works of Nietzsche, its inspiration, Tarr’s final film is both gruelling and life-affirming; moments sway between repetition and paroxysm. It always takes me a little while to focus my attention enough to tap into my Tarr zone and focus on his films’ rhythm. But once found the experience can take on an almost meditative quality. And this film, about the base survival, is chiefly a reflection on the tempo of everyday life when stripped of all enjoyment and distraction.

*Rules for selection:

I consider films, short or feature-length, that have been first released this year. This includes festival releases and excludes films that were first released last year but received a wider release this year. For this reason, many 2011 list favourites, such as Meek’s Cutoff, Mysteries of Lisbon, Four Times, My Joy, Uncle Boonmee, et. al., can be found on my Best of 2010 list. As such, a few of the following will likely pop up on certain Best of 2012 lists.

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Music**

[Click title to listen to my favourite track on the album. Also, here is a mixtape I made of my favourite hip-hop/r&b songs of the year]

1. Frank Ocean – nostalgia, ULTRA [internet]

Just like the mixtapes you probably used to receive, y'know, the ones you’d get from someone you cared about, Nostalgia, ULTRA is an incredibly personal output, each song meant to express something important about himself. A song about love, then a song about sex. A song about loss, then a song about chilling out and watching movies. The 'actual mixtape’ feel is even heightened by the occasional sound of a cassette player opening and closing. If this sounds cheesy, just wait… Coldplay. MGMT. The Eagles. They’re each on here. Each of these bands being practically textbook examples of boring taste, I can’t say that I’m a fan of any of them. However, when Frank sings over each one of them, he somehow elevates them into something else entirely, into something sincere and vulnerable. He’s unashamed and thinks they’re sufficient backdrops to say what he needs to say, and he’s right. And even though Frank himself states that he’s more interested in Radiohead than Jodeci, his willingness to deliver tracks like “There Will be Tears” with honest emotion, and his unflinching refusal to protect himself from the cynical derision tracks like these expose him to, is, to my mind, the real spirit of R&B. Needless to say, not what you’d expect from an Odd Future member.

2. G-Side – One…The Cohesive [Slow Motion Soundz]

The criminally underrated Huntsville, Alabama collective bookended this year with two albums. Most of their lyrics revolve around reflecting on their peculiar position in hip-hop coverage, as either slept on or compared to the criminally overrated Outkast, a comparison they’re quick to point out and deride on ‘Inner Circle’ (although no one could listen to ‘Jones’ and deny some similarity). This explicit self-awareness might feel a bit whiny on its own, but paired up with absolutely massive orchestral and choral arrangements, epic swirls of emotion, and stadium-sized bombast, you can’t help but feel that they really are a singular group whose gripes are completely justified.

3. Lucy – Wordplay for Working Bees [Stroboscopic]

Lucy makes pitch-black, brooding techno for fans of Berghain mainstay Marcel Dettmann or the witchy dub of Shackleton. In fact, ‘Gas,’ with its distorted samples from a Le Corbusier lecture, sounds like it would naturally follow some track from Soundboy’s Grave Gets Desecrated in a 5am set in some dank warehouse. The quickly flapping percussion of ‘Ter’ conjures to mind some winged beast, maybe Poe’s raven. Through the distortion of ‘Eis’ there emerges a genuinely funky groove, perhaps some relief, but a wall of indiscernible chatter preserves the ominous tone.

4. Robag Wruhme – Wuppdeckmischmampflow [Kompakt]

Wuppdeckmischmampflow is everything Kompakt’s recently disappointing Total series should be, a microcosm of the lush, organic sound that makes Kompakt so special. But Wruhme is happy looking outside of the restrictions of his label to find this signature warmth, from the modern classical compositions of Danny Norbury to Four Tet to the standout track by Chateau Flight. Throw minimal masters like Villalobos and Claro Intellecto in and you might just have the label’s best mix since Michael Mayer’s Immer 1.

5. Nguzunguzu - The Perfect Lullaby [internet]

I recently read the following tweet from Flying Lotus: “It’s so hard to remix songs I love. Working on this ‘I’m God’ Remix for @clammyclams.” Transforming a boring song into an interesting one is an obviously fruitful challenge, but the problem with most remixes is that the enjoyment derived from them is too often an intellectual rather than a sensuous one, merely the result of correctly identifying two songs you already knew and loved. Two tracks might work well together, but the remix that actually betters a track you already loved is a truly rare thing. Over the course of 45 minutes, Nguzunguzu’s The Perfect Lullaby achieves this multiple times with some of my favourite Top 40 singles. Their key to bettering tracks I already loved is to mix them with global dance rhythms such as Antillean Zouk music, something genuinely interesting that I hadn’t had the occasion to hear, let alone love.

6. Drake – Take Care [Cash Money/Young Money/Universal]

Drake is Toronto and Toronto is Drake. Period. I mean, we have billboards that say as much. Our best radio station (Flo 93.5) plays him at least 75% of the time (honestly, this is not an exaggeration). I’d hate to be someone who lives in this city and isn’t wholeheartedly into him. But city-pride aside, if you didn’t already get him, it’d be especially hard to keep it up appearances here beacause Take Care is Drizzy at his catchiest and most polished. No one besides Kanye can match his talent for slipping in and out of disparate genres (a bit of Jamie xx here, a bit of Stevie Wonder there) and at sounding in full control when sharing the spotlight with established stars (Weezy) and protégés (The Weekend) alike. But the difference between Drake and Ye is that Drake can hold a key.

7. Joseph Hammer – I Love You, Please Love Me Too [PAN]

Is it possible to make a sound collage that will capture one’s attention for more than just a few minutes? Like John Oswald before him, Joseph Hammer doesn’t simply answer this in the affirmative. Instead, he goes further and, by layering thousands of samples (whose only resemblance to one another is that they are audible) on top of each other, produces something that’s actually intense, bizarre, and occasionally catchy.

8. ASAP Rocky – LIVELOVEA$AP [RCA/Polo Grounds Music]

He might be named after Rakim, but ASAP Rocky is a rapper for 2011, a rapper who defines hip-hop at a crossroads. His lyrics are just as likely to be about hard topics like hustling crack as they are to be about Rick Owens shirts and being ‘pretty’ (hat tip, Lil B). The ostensible contradictions don’t stop there either. Despite splitting his formative years between Harlem and the Bronx, he’s obsessed with lean and adopts the H-town pace and drawl. Surprising, then, is that rather than sounding as if he's being pulled in different directions, a unique personality, a particular style, comes through. Despite his influences, his sound is very much his own, instantly recognizable and consistent, regardless of which different producer (Spaceghostpurrp, Clams Casino) he’s employed to make his beats.

9. Tim Hecker – Ravedeath, 1972 [Kranky]

Ravedeath, 1972 is both Hecker’s most accessible album and probably his best (or, at least since 2001’s Haunt Me, Haunt Me Do It Again). And like his first album, it is simultaneously experimental and comforting. Its calming waves of ambience, recorded on an organ in Iceland, comfort in the same way the sacred minimalism of Pärt and Górecki does. These references are closer than the electronic connotations of the album's title. So, it seemed only fitting that he’d play this album, implementing a pipe organ, at St. George the Martyr Anglican church. But I felt some of its intimacy was lost when hearing it in public. This is quintessentially home-listening music. It’s the first thing I put on in my apartment every time it rains.

10. The Weeknd – House of Balloon [internet]

The Weeknd was, and I guess still is, an experiment. Taking advice from his mentor Drake, the post-label superstar who at every opportunity lets people know that he made it on a mixtape, Torontonian Abel Tesfaye tested out a certain formula to achieving fame in 2011: The internet is everything; Nobody pays for music; Details ruin hype; Vagueness keeps them guessing. Back on March 4, when I first read a story about The Weeknd in an write-upthat, as it turned out, had almost every detail wrong, I had no idea I was feeding into this experiment. When I lined up at the Mod Club on July 24 for The Weeknd’s first show and discovered that the show had sold out in seconds and that kids from the suburbs had driven in before dawn hoping for rush tickets (there weren’t any), I knew the experiment had worked. This level of calculated buzz might seem contrived if Abel had nothing but advertising acumen going for him. But there was his music. This was R&B for fans and haters of the genre, but it was musically more sinister and lyrically more sordid than anything going by that name. It was impossible to not be enticed by his portrait of seamy parties and wonder where in the city these lofts were…The Harbour Front? Humber Bay? Mystique. I had bought it. But the hype was right.

11. Steffi – Yours & Mine [Ostgut]

I first came across Panorama Bar's Dutch resident Steffi last year, when discovering her wonderful single ‘Kill Me’. With only a handful of songs to her name, it didn’t take long for that well to dry up. Thankfully, she’s delivered a lengthier product this year, a solid album of tasteful deep house ass-shakers, one of which, the soulful vocal number ‘Yours,’ might be my favourite club anthem of the year. Each track stays fairly steady in its pattern, without exploring around that much, but Steffi demonstrates that if the portrait is good enough there need not be anything boring about colouring within the lines.

12. Beaumont – Blush Response [Kinnego]

It would be unfair to describe Beaumont’s debut album as a product of anemic and unimaginative nostalgia. Sure, like 2010’s digital sax and synth aficionados Inc. and Games (now Ford & Lopatin) before him, he’s obviously indebted to the formerly-derided, now beloved and ubiquitous bathetic new age sound of forgettable 1980s television shows. ButBlush Response feels more like a legitimate exploration of the artistic potential of cultural detritus. Beaumont fully appreciates the necessity for vision in this borrowing and by filtering these memories into something progressive he offers us something truly novel and with more integrity than the ironic contrarianism of so many recent millennial retro-fetishists.

13. Ayshay –Muslim Trance [internet]

Dis Magazine’s very own Fatima Al Quadri makes music like no one else on her label, Tri Angle. In fact, I’d bet money she makes music like no one at all, unless you can point me toward anyone else remixing Shi’ite and Sunni prayers into interesting, richly-textured dance music… because that’s exactly what you get on her most interesting work, Muslim Trance, a mini-mix she made for the magazine she works for. And if you like this you’ll be happy to know that, according to her soundcloud, Muslim Trance 2 is coming out soon.

14. Squadda B – I Smoke Because I Don’t Care About Death [internet]

Between releases under Squadda B, Green Ova Undergrounds, the Shady Bambino project, and their main outfit, Main Attrakionz, producer Squadda Bambino and rapper Mondre had an incredible year. But it was Squadda’s brilliantly-titled tape that really stood out for me. Between usual collaborators Clams Casino, Nem270 (both of whom released incredible stuff this year), Pete Rock, and Squadda himself, this album is above all one that highlights production… lots and lots of murky, ambient production. And there’s also a few George Carlin skits, just for good measure.

15. Moomin - The Story about You [Smallville]

Moomin gave us one last hit with Oskar Offermann, before striking out on his own withThe Story of You, a beautiful collection of delicate, minimal House compositions. The soulful vocals on ‘Neither One’ suggest a conscious tip to Chicago. On the other hand, the seagull sample on the opening track and the steady ride cymbals on ‘You’ place Moomin at home with the resplendent naturalism of Pantha and Lawrence, a sound one only seems to find on the Hamburg labels.

16. Araabmuzik – Electronic Dream [Duke]

It’s about time! Abraham Orellana took some time away from working as Cam'ron's beatmaker to lay out what too many (aside from a vocal few, e.g., Pictureplane) have been too afraid to admit: there is a part hidden away in all of us that unironically loves the transcendent build-ups and uplifting rush of trance. To be sure, ‘Here’s your Trance, now Dance!’ would have been a perfect subtitle to this album if Omar-S hadn’t already put out a record this year with that title. Also, you're going to want to check this out.

17. Puro Instinct – Headbangers in Ecstasy [Mexican Summer]

Dream pop sisters, Puro Instinct (formerly Pearl Harbor), nail a sound that is probably best described as ‘Alternative,’ a term which admittedly hasn’t meant anything for a long time, but at one time simultaneously suggested R.E.M.’s melancholy wails, Lush’s harmonies, Cocteau Twins’ rich arrangements, and the Smiths’ jangly guitar plucks. Puro Instinct may not quite live up to these veterans, but they’re only 16 and 23 years old and they're the closest thing going today.

18. Grouper – AIA: Dream Loss/Alien Observer [Yelloelectric]

Give yourself a couple of hours, throw on AIA, sit down, and let the haunting, ambient lull of Liz Harris’ voice take over. Wherever you enter this double album, the more atmosphericDream Loss or the more elegant Alien Observer, taken together or separately, if you place it at the foreground of your focus, rather than let it fade into the background, you’ll be treating yourself to one of the most beautiful and elegiac records of the year. (And speaking of beauty, Harris is kinda cute, isn’t she?)

19. Pure X – Pleasure [Acephale]

If Pleasure points to any of the deadly sins, it’s sloth. The Texan trio formerly known as Pure Ecstasy has created a depressive slowcore album that lazily bumps along at a perfect pace for the comedown or the morning after. As far as stuff to get your languor on to, if you prefer My Bloody Valentine to Screw, it doesn’t get much better than this.

20. Egyptrixx – Bible Eyes [Night Slugs]

One night this winter, I decided to head over to The Drake Hotel to watch Egyptrixx preview his whole album live, a few weeks before its release. I was into it then. Then, when I got to listen to the actual album, I discovered the tracks with fellow Torontonian Trust on them (although with its male-sounding voice you might not initially recognize ‘Fuji Club’ as a Trust track)! Then there came word all over the net that “Liberation Front,” which fans of last year’s Night Slugs Allstars Vol. 1 were be already familiar with, was being used by some as Egyptians as an anthem for their revolution. I used it for a bit of jogging. But it probably works best on the dancefloor it was designed for. Whatever its use, its skipping hi-hat was guaranteed to get you moving. So, what’s the least ‘bro’ way of saying that this is an album that will pump you up?

21. Holy Other – With U [Tri Angle]

The anonymous Manchester musician known only as Holy Other creates slick bass music not so much meant for the club than for the late night drive home. The styles and bpms change frequently, but the spirit remains dark, moody, and urban throughout. The ethereal vocal samples on every track, however, transform this darkness into an opportunity to make a move, an exciting, sexy darkness rather than a depressive one.

22. Machinedrum – Room(s) [Planet Mu]

Travis Stewart has always been a chameleon. He brags about it on the title of his EP last year, Many Faces. By now he’s tried out every style of electronic music. At the beginning of the 2000s he was moving seamlessly between IDM and hip-hop. Ten years later, he’s fashioned the au courant Room(s) to bring together most of the trends in contemporary dialturning: footwork, bass, r&b, cloud hip-hop, throwback 90s house, whatever. Often these are all packed into one song, creating a confident new subgenre entirely. (And that’s not even to mention his other divas-n-dubstep side-project, Sepulcure, which also released a critically-esteemed album this year). But if one genre does dominate through the album and holds all of these disparate parts together, it’s juke/footwork, which makes a lot of sense considering it’s a Planet Mu release. An IDM vet, Stewart has no problem crafting a catchy pop tune out of these complicated mathematical footwork beats. Nevertheless, his album is a whole lot funner than anything footwork enthusiasts like labelmates DJ Elmoe, Chrissie Murderbot, or DJ Nate have put out to date.

23. Ango – Another City Now [LuckyMe]

It’s a real shame that Jacques Greene was too busy dropping amazing remixes and singles to remember to put his best work on his EP, The Look. But fellow Montrealer Ango, Greene’s collaborator and LuckyMe labelmate, did drop Another City Now and it delivers the same quality dancefloor R&B in the direct, heartfelt way that, to my mind, separates the LuckyMe crew from the ADD maximalism of overrated Rustie.

24. V/A – Music from Saharan Cellphones [Sahelsounds]

The Western Sahara has a rich and distinct musical tradition that labels like Sublime Frequencies have recently attempted to highlight. And, according to this album’s press release, much of this music is homemade, has no commercial distribution or online presence, and is instead shared via Bluetooth over cellphones rather than computers. Sahelsounds sifted through a number of memory cards and compiled the best of these tinny recordings. Mdou Moctar’s tender, autotuned waltz is itself worth the price of admission (which for the digital copy is only $3, and 60% of that goes to the original artists, whose names took the label a year to track down!).

25. The Caretaker – An Empty Bliss Beyond This World [Haft]

James Leyland Kirby’s other release this year, Eager to Tear Apart the Stars, was arguably the more beautiful album of the two and, for that reason, might be the one I return to most frequently in the future. But An Empty Bliss Beyond This World was definitely the moreinteresting of the two, an eerie grand hotel foyer soundtrack for 1930s Boardwalk Empiresociety types, bringing to my mind the haunted score pumped into the queue at Universal Studio’s The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.

26. Jhene Aiko – Sailing Soul(s) [internet]

Still without an album and without a hit since 2003’s instantly forgettable ‘No L.O.V.E.’,Aiko kind of disappeared before she ever arrived. But “a lot of shit has changed,” she repeats on 'Stranger,' her best song to date. Indeed, with appearances on a couple of slow jams with up-and-comers Kendrick Lamar and Schoolboy Q, a Nguzunguzu remix, and the arrival of a brand new mixtape that’s enlisted no less than the likes of Drake and Kanye, it seems that she’s serious this time around and situated perfectly between the underground and mainstream scenes. Not every track here is perfect, but it’s the best we’re going to get until the best woman in R&B, the similar-sounding Cassie, returns from her own hiatus.

27. BNJMN – Plastic World [Rush Hour]

Of BNJMN’s two albums, both from this year, I found Plastic World to be the more propulsive and fun. But it’s difficult, because each track on both albums sounds very different. And Black Square’s ‘Open the Floodgates’ might be his best track. Nevertheless, there was just more to love on Plastic World, from the funky ‘Blocks’ to the steady minimalism of ‘Wheel in Motion’ to the 8-bit riff on ‘Ocean Spray.’

28. Chushi – basf [internet]

Not an album, hardly an EP, this is a collection of 14 tracks, many of which last only a couple seconds, totalling a final running time of just over 10 minutes. But in just a short duration aptly-titled basf channelsurfs its way through a series of what sound like late night C-band scrambled commercials, Jaeckin-esque soft porn backgrounds, hazy, tape-damaged soundscapes, half-finished ideas.

29. Nebraska - Displacement [Rush Hour]

Displacement is split, almost down the middle, between a jazzy but straightforward house record and a fairly experimental disco record. Most of its greatness lies with the latter. For example, ‘Patina’ at first resembles Soundstream’s classic 'Live Goes On.' Stripped away is everything but percussive synth stabs. But where ‘Live Goes On’ builds and builds until a richly textured sound emerges, Ali Gibbs prefers to turn his track into a technical exercise in adding and removing layers, demonstrating what the motor of the groove really is. In a way, this standout track is almost a danceable, disco version of an SND or Mark Fell track. Throughout the record there is no shortage of these seemingly improvised decisions with respect to what is introduced/removed, when, and why, which all makes for a pretty exciting ride.

30. Octo Octa – Let Me See You [100% Silk]

100% Silk is Not Not Fun’s brand new sublabel dedicated to that late 80s, coked-out, luxury cruise, hands-in-the-air, fashion house sound. Octo Octa’s EP is the most exciting thing on the imprint so far. The title track is the one most brimming with life, but stay tuned for the Beyonce–meets-Club-Casanovas-Miami jam ‘I’m Trying.’

**Rules for Selection:

I consider full-length albums, EPs, and mixtape, released independently or through a label, that have come out this year. I exclude singles from consideration.

Ryan Krahn's Best of 2010

2011-01-01T08:59:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately, after days of thinking about the films I'd seen and re-listening to albums I enjoyed and deciding what should finally make the cut, I wasn't able to find the time to write comments about each title here. So, in its place, this year I've increased the size of my lists (film from 10 to 20, music from 20 to 30) and included links to trailers and music videos and mixes. But I'd be happy to go into detail in the comments section below. Discussion and comments are always welcome. And send me your Best of 2010 list if you've made one. Happy New Year.

TOP 20 FAVOURITE FILMS

NB: I count a film by its actual release date, the first time it was shown in a cinema to the public, which forces me to exclude many great films from 2009. Notable films like Enter the Void, Hadewijch, Lourdes, Dogtooth, and White Material all received a wider release in 2010, but were all already featured on my Best of 2009 list . So, it's likely that some of the following titles will appear on 2011 lists next year.

Click link to watch a trailer from the film

1. Michael Rowe– Leap Year (Mexico)

2. Kelly Reichardt– Meek’s Cutoff (USA)

3. Sion Sono– Cold Fish (Japan)

4. Alain Corneau– Love Crime (France)

5. Gregg Araki – Kaboom (USA)

6. Aleksei Popogrebsky– How I Ended This Summer (Russia)

7. Martin Scorsese– Shutter Island (USA)

8. Xavier Dolan – Heartbeats (Canada)

9. Raul Ruiz– Mysteries of Lisbon (Portugal)

10. Guillem Morales– Julia’s Eyes (Spain)

11. Jean-Luc Godard– Film Socialism (Switzerland / France)

12. Frederick Wiseman – Boxing Gym (USA)

13. Michelangelo Frammartino– Four Times (Italy)

14. Olivier Assayas – Carlos (France / Germany)

15. Benoît Jacquot– Deep in the Woods (France / Germany)

16. David Fincher– The Social Network (USA)

17. Xavier Beauvois– Of Gods and Men (France)

18. Apichatpong Weerasethakul– Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall Past Lives (Thailand)

19. Darren Aronofsky - Black Swan (USA)

20. Serhiy Loznytsya – My Joy (Ukraine)

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TOP 20 FAVOURITE ALBUMS

Click link to watch a music video or hear a song from the album

1. Lone - Emerald Fantasy Tracks [Magic Wire]

2. James Blake – CMYK / Klavierwerke [R&S]

3. Actress - Splazsh [Honest Jon’s]

4. DJ Nate – Da Trak Genious [Planet Mu]

5. Emeralds – Does It Look Like I’m Here? [Editions Mego]

6. GAMES – “That We Can Play” [Hippos in Tanks]

7. oOoOO – oOoOO [Tri Angle]

8. Various – Night Slugs All Stars Vol. 1 [Night Slugs]

9. John Roberts – Glass Eights [Dial]

10. Moss of Aura – Still Parade [Self-Released]

11. How To Dress Well – Love Remains [Lefse]

12. Ariel Pink with Added Pizzazz – Ariel Pink With Added Pizzazz[Free Dope and F**king in the Streets]

13. Rangers – Suburban Tours [Olde English Spelling Bee]

14. V/A - Shutter Island: Music from the Motion Picture [Rhino]

15. Morgan Packard – Moment Again Elsewhere [Anticipate]

16. Wavves – King of the Beach [Fat Possum]

17. Demdike Stare – Forest of Evil / Liberation through Hearing / Voices of Dust [Modern Love]

18. V/A – Southern Hospitality Vol. 1: The New Age [Internet]

19. Earl Sweatshirt – Earl [OFWGKTA]

20. Twin Sister – Color Your Life [Infinite Best]

21. Solar Bears – She Was Coloured In [Planet Mu]

22. Zola Jesus – Stidulum II [Souterrain Transmissions]

23. Keith Fullerton Whitman – Disingenuity b/w Disingenuousness[Pan]

24. Roll the Dice – Roll the Dice [Digitalis]

25. Vas Deferens Organization – Ninth Ward Fourth World [Free Dope and F**king in the Streets]

26. El Guincho – Pop Negro [Young Turks]

27. Mark McGuire – Living With Yourself [Editions Mego]

28. Mark Fell – Multistability [Raster-Noton]

29. Zs – New Slaves [The Social Registry]

30. Frank (Just Frank) – The Brutal Wave [Wierd Records]

FAVOURITE RE-ISSUE

Jeff Phelps – Magnetic Eyes

FAVOURITE SONGS

NB: To avoid too much overlap, I tried to represent many songs by artists or from albums not listed on my favourite albums list.

Click links to download these mixes

Volume 1

‎01 - Teen Inc - Fountains

02 - Hard Mix - Memories

03 - GAMES - MIDI DRIFT

04 - Lone - cloud 909

05 - Teengirl Fantasy - Cheaters

06 - Drake - Fireworks (Deadboy Slo Mo House Edit)

07 - Lil B - I'm God

08 - OFWGKTA - Orange Juice by Earlwolf

09 - DJ Rashad - Itz Not Rite

10 - How to Dress Well - Ready for the World

11 - James Blake - Measurements

12 - jj - CEO Birthday

13 - Marina & the Diamonds - Obsessions (oOoOO rmx)

14 - Laurel Halo - Embassy

15 - Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Can't Hear My Eyes

16 - Twin Shadow - Slow

17 - Frank (Just Frank) - Coeur Hanté

18 - Minks - Funeral Song

Volume 2

1. Jamie Woon – Night Air (Ramadanman Refix)

2. Hot Chip – I Feel Better (Max Cooper Remix)

3. Hyetal - Phoenix

4. Ciara vs. Guido – Ride Baby (Armie A plus B)

5. Rihanna (ft. Drake) – What’s My Name?

6. Girl Unit - Wut

7. Sky Ferreira - One

8. Tensnake – Coma Cat

9. Nika + Rory – LA SUXXX (The Choice)

10. Chad Valley - Anything

11. D’EON – Keep the Faith

12. Gary Wilson – Electric Endicott

13. Hype Williams – The Throning

14. Holy Other – We Over

15. Trey Songz - Can’t be Friends

16. Alicia Keys – Unthinkable (Party Trash Remix)

Best of 2009.

2010-01-01T20:14:00.001-08:00

So the year is almost over and it is time for my annual list. I hope the following is useful to those looking for new film and music. I would very much like to check out others' lists and would be happy to burn a mixtape with some of my top music of 09 on it or try to track down copies of any of these films if anyone is interested. Comments and discussion are always fun too.

Best Movies 2009

Preamble: More than most years, I believe this year’s top 10 most accurately represents my taste in film; the movies that made an impression on me really made an impression on me and I was able to see enough variety to exclude most of those I thought were very good but not absolutely essential. That said, the final list happens to unintentionally tend toward the European arthouse side of things. With some minor exceptions I felt the tone of both American cinema and genre film in 2010 was, overall, mediocre, and the few Asian films I was able to see disappointed me (case in point, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s terrible Air Doll). The only noteworthy Asian film I was able to see this year was Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s A Letter to Uncle Boonmee, a short segment from Primitive, memorable as a meditative experiment on memory and repetition. Likely to change my sense of disappointment are some of the films I missed and will have to catch up with in 2010: Park Chan-Wook’s Thirst, Tsai Ming-liang’s Face, Soi Cheang’s Accident, Johnnie To’s Vengeance, Hong Sang-soo’s Like You Know it All, and Bong Joon-ho’s Mother.

Here’s what I did see and loved:

01. Gaspar Noé - Enter the Void [France]

Unlike any film I’ve seen or, more aptly, affectively sustained (since the sensory impact went far beyond the merely visual), the 163-minute director’s cut of Noé’s latest is nothing less than pure cinema. Breathtakingly innovative at every turn (from the gliding camerawork to the ability to actually simulate a DMT trip, from the epileptic fits of colour to the odyssean narrative through life and death, in and out of first, second, and third person vantage-points), Enter the Void is a (mathematically and dynamically) sublime, almost indescribable, masterpiece.

02. Lars Von Trier - Antichrist [Denmark]

Antichrist is much less the sum of a handful of brutal paroxysms designed to offend (which so distracted its detractors) than a hard look into the meaninglessness of nature and ultimately a Schellingian examination of the theological consequences that result from repressing the volatile materiality of the Real. I had the unforgettable opportunity to watch this at home with windows open to the score of a storm outside.

03. Michael Haneke - The White Ribbon [Germany]

Michael Haneke, my favourite living director, has described his Cannes Palme d’Or winner, at least 10 years in the making, as an exploration of the way in which children “are taught absolutist values, and the way they internalize this absolutism.” In this way it called to mind a personal favourite of mine, Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Ordet, and Christian Berger’s high-modernist Nykvistian cinematography of northern European village life in 1913 only furthered the comparison.

04. Götz Spielmann - Revanche [Austria]

A moody thriller about the double assault that follows the fleeing perpetrator of any unpunished, serious crime: personal guilt and the suspense that accompanies awaiting inevitable discovery. Johannes Krisch is perfectly cast in the brooding role of Alex (his first leading role in a feature film) who embarks on a race to find redemption before tension, at each moment bubbling under the surface, explodes into full-blown bloodshed.

05. Bruno Dumont - Hadewijch [France]

In prayer, Hadewijch, the character played by Julie Sokolowski, softly utters “The sweetest thing about love is its violence.” Dumont has us consider whether this sentiment is not correct and in what ways this love might be directed (for better or worse). Exploring one avenue this love might be misdirected, Dumont tells a fascinating tale of one child’s desperate attempt to respond to the nihilistic conditions created by late capitalism with religious zealotry and the destruction of life.

06. Jessica Hausner - Lourdes [Austria]

Jessica Hausner, former student/script girl of Michael Haneke, delivers us a quiet, extremely focused Bressonian film on faith and finding grace in, ironically, the unlikeliest of places: Lourdes, France. What follows is one of the most tragic and emotionally devastating films I’ve ever seen in my life.

07. Giorgos Lanthimos - Dogtooth [Greece]

An unsettling satire of the family as the link that binds together suburbanite moralism and xenophobia protectionism. Expanded further, Lanthimos’ truly bizarre but rarely quirky or cute film can be interpreted as an indictment of ideology in toto, a rumination on Jacques Lacan’s claim that the Big Other only exists insofar as it is believed.

08. Renato De Maria - La Prima Linea [Italy]

This film, co-produced by the remarkable Dardenne brothers, offers a sensitive portrait of the 70s/80s, Italian radical leftist organization of the same name, its actions, and its members. De Maria avoids the quick dismissals of any productive use of violence that so often plague treatments of this subject, yet his sympathetic portrayal stops far short of cheerleading impotent terror and, instead, presents the difficulties associated with grins without cats (and the balance achieved in La Prima Line certainly does warrant this reference to and comparison with Chris Marker).

09. Christian Petzold - Jerichow [Germany]

As a follow-up to his brilliant Yella, the crowning achievement of the Berliner Schule, Petzold updates The Postman Always Rings Twice for contemporary Germany where, as Nina Hoss’s character exclaims, “You can’t love if you’ve got no money.”

10. Claire Denis - White Material [France]

Although not one of Denis’ best films, even a relatively minor work from her is nevertheless cause for celebration. Returning to familiar themes, Denis tells the story of Maria Vial, played by Isabelle Huppert, a stubborn yet usually well-meaning French cosmopolitan plantation owner in Africa who refuses to acknowledge her surroundings, her nation’s history, and the role her mere presence plays within this context. For this reason Maria Vial reminded me of Maureen Smales in Nadine Gordimer’s novel July’s People, but a better comparison might be any of a number of Doris Lessing’s characters who provided the inspiration for the script. Denis-favourites Tindersticks provide the haunting score.

Best Albums 2009

1. SND – Atavism [Raster Noton]

The latest from SND since their days at Mille Plateaux in the early 2000s blends the austere with the inventive, producing an almost entirely percussive yet incredibly soulful record under the strictest of restrictions.

2. The-Dream – Love vs. Money [Def Jam]

If the rumblings that 2009 marked the imminent death of hip-hop became harder and harder to dispel (with Gucci Mane, Raekwon, and Freddie Gibbs acting as the only exceptions), the state of R&B, at the moment presided by Mr. Nash, seemed entirely intact, as if to lend some support to his own dichotomy: Love vs. Money.

3. Brock van Wey - White Clouds Drift On and On [Echospace]

Brock van Wey, aka bvdub, offers us the most gorgeous cinematic soundscapes this side of Gas that suggest less an engulfing, ambient wall of sound than slowly building and cresting oceanic waves. The vocal sample on “I Knew Happiness Once” is absolutely haunting. We can look forward to hearing more of bvdub in early 2010 on Kompakt’s Pop Ambient 2010 where he will play the headlining role that Klimek performed last year, offering two tracks, one lasting no less than 17 minutes.

4. Kurt Vile – Childish Prodigy [Matador]

With a drunken, bluesy voice reminiscent of Tom Petty, a whole lot of looped and reverbed guitar, and a taste for open-road Americana, Kurt Vile singlehandedly reinvents classic rock for a new age and kicks your ass in the process.

5. R. Kelly - The "Demo" Tape (Gangsta Grillz)

Amidst the legal trouble and moral nefariousness of a few years back, R. Kelly’s popularity and credibility as a master of his genre never really waned. And if there still remained any doubt that he remains at the top of his game, Kelly’s latest laughs off all past adversity, humourously reasserts his sliminess, and does it all with such irresistible slipperiness that even the severest of moralists have no choice but to be won over. Alongside some excellent new tracks, this mixtape includes almost every single good song played on the radio within the last year, including the essential single of the summer, Drake’s “Best I Ever Had.”

6. Girls – Album [True Panther/Fantasy Trashcan]

As annoying as it was to have everyone, over the course of one weekend, change their Facebook statuses to proclaim that they also would like a “pizza and a bottle of wine,” Album is an album that is completely worthy of the whirlwind of hype it immediately generated. Throughout the album a genuine sadness is injected into the 3 or 4 simple chords of each song, avoiding what would in other hands slip into saccharine, it-band preciousness.

7. Demdike Stare – Symbiosis [Modern Love]

Pendle Coven’s MLZ joins Sean Canty of the Finder Keepers label to produce cold, nightmarish dub with a globetrotter’s supply of references to all things dark and atmospheric. With its Middle Eastern rhythms and its evocation of voodoo exotica, I believe this will make a perfect companion to Reza Negarastani’s Cyclonopedia when I get to it in the new year.

8. 16-Bit – Twice [Twice]

The 16-bit remix crew has had an extremely busy and versatile year, but here they are at their softest, poppiest, and arguably best. The voices of Joanna Newsome and Little Dragon’s Yukimi Nagano have never sounded better than here, laid over tight dubstep (uh, and a waltz!).

9. Lusine – A Certain Distance [Ghostly International]

Every once in awhile I’ll read someone else’s year-end list before I compile my own and, after listening to an unheard recommendation, it will leave such an impression on me that I’ll be forced to instantly make room on my own list for it. This happened with Lusine, recommended by Andrea at basic_sounds who has summed up A Certain Distance as “sophisticated pop structures with warm melodic IDM melodies.” (Indeed, exciting is the fact that the last few years seem to signal a full-swing IDM revival).

10. Peter Broderick & Machinefabriek – Blank Grey Canvas Sky [Fang Bomb]

Simultaneously hypnagogic and melancholy, Blank Grey Canvas Sky, released in December 2009, feels like an appropriate way to exit the ‘decade when nothing happened’™.

11. Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca [Domino]

12. Byetone – Death of a Typographer [Raster Noton]

13. Ben Klock – One [Ostgut]

14. Micachu - Jewellery [Rough Trade]

15. Tim Hecker – An Imaginary Country [Kranky]

16. Moritz von Oswald Trio – Vertical Ascent [Honest Jons]

17. Pictureplane – Dark Rift [Lovepump United]

18. Washed Out - High Times [Mirror Universe]

19. Radio Slave – Fabric 48 [Fabric]

20. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – Reminisces [Cooler Cat]

Best Novel 2009

01. Jonathan Littell - The Kindly Ones [HarperCollins]

This literary masterpiece, which had Gallimard, its original French publisher, decide a few years ago to momentarily halt its pressing of the newest Harry Potter in order to free up room on the print-line, failed to make much of a splash on this side of the pond when it was translated into English this year. This is quite unfortunate because not only is The Kindly Ones a harrowing rehash of the sordid details of political genocide (the focus of most North American reviewers and the origin of accusations of ‘sensationalism’), it is also an admirable investigation into the manner in which ideology is able to appear as something else entirely, as well as the way enjoyment and desire are connected to this ideological symbolic system under fascism, serving a certain political function. Furthermore, Littell’s 1000+ page work is remarkable insofar as it presents the ultimate challenge to the hyperbolic, infinite hospitality to the other (including the Nazi other) endorsed by late capitalist postmodernity.