Other Favorite Albums of 2012

Other favorites of 2012!

1. Deerhoof, Breakup Song
2. Screen Vinyl Image, Strange Behavior
3. Wire, The Black Session – Paris, 10 May 2011
4. Aesop Rock, Skelethon
5. Mallard, Yes On Blood
6. Mode Moderne, Strange Bruises
7. Chromatics, Kill For Love
8. Japandroids, Celebration Rock
9. Sharon Van Etten, Tramp
10. Moritz Von Oswald Trio, Fetch
11. Oren Ambarchi, Audience of One
12. Talk Normal, Sunshine
13. Sun Araw, M Geddes Gengras, and the Congos, Icon Give Thank
14. Berangere Maximin, No One Is An Island
15. Adrian Sherwood, Survival and Resistance
16. CS Yeh, Transitions
17. Andy Stott, Luxury Problems
18. Tame Impala, Lonerism
19. Christian Loeffler, A Forest
20. Alog, Unemployed

Favorite Local Albums of 2012

Another great year! I need 15 spaces for my top ten and could have easily added a few more ….

1. Krill, Alam No Hris
2. Autochrome, Separation Realms
3. Various Artists, Boston & Beyond: SXSW 2012
4. Future Carnivores, Future Carnivores
5. Foolish Ida, Book II
6. Dirty Dishes, Most Tarnished Birds
7. Hands and Knees, Red Hot Minnow
8. Milling Gowns, Something Dangerous Loves Me
9. Novel Ideas, Home
10. Plumerai, Mondegreen
11. Avoxblue, A Place Without Time
12. Mission of Burma, Unsound
13. Black Fortress of Opium, Stratospherical
14. Mean Creek, Youth Companion
15. Exusamwa, Phase IV

Other Favorite Albums of 2011

Other favorite records of 2011!

1. Braids, Native Speaker
2. Fucked Up, Queen of Hearts
3. Jamie Jones, Fabric 59
4. Real Estate, Days
5. Bvdub, Resistance is Beautiful
6. The Men, Leave Home
7. Robag Wruhme, Wuppdeckmischmampflow
8. Washed Out, Within and Without
9. Mark E, Stonebreaker
10. Mark McGuire, A Young Person’s Guide
11. Lee Scratch Perry, Rise Again
12. Zodiak Free Arts Club, Floating World
13. Tim Hecker, Ravedeath 1972
14. Weekend, Red
15. Wye Oak, Civilian
16. Thee Oh Sees, Castlemania
17. The Field, Looping State of Mind
18. Atlas Sound, Parallax
19. Panda Bear, Tomboy
20. Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto, Summvs

Favorite Local Albums of 2011

My favorite local records from 2011!

1. Various Artists, Deep Heaven Now IV Compilation
2. Endless Wave, Notes from the Compound
3. Guillermo Sexo, Secret Wild
4. Prefab Messiahs, Peace Love & Alienation
5. Hands and Knees, Wholesome
6. Plumerai, Your Guilty Prize
7. Reports, Dinamo Cambridge
8. Gabe Goodman, Friendly Fires
9. The Novel Ideas, Summer Demos
10. Kelsey Jarboe, Magical Realism
11. To The Wedding, To The Wedding
12. Bobby, Bobby
13. The Frost Heaves, Frost Heaves 0 Cones 1
14. Carter Tanton, Freeclouds
15. The Hush Now, Memos

Love and Mathematics – Other Favorite Albums of 2010

I need a list of 20 to keep track of all my other favorites of 2010 …

1. The Besnard Lakes, Are the Roaring Night
2. No Age, Everything In Between
3. Fucked Up, Couple Tracks: Singles 2002 – 2009
4. Deerhunter, Halcyon Digest
5. Abe Vigoda, Crush
6. Oneohtrix Point Never, Returnal
7. Emeralds, Does It Looks Like I’m Here?
8. Thomas Hammann and Gerd Janson, Live at Robert Johnson
9. Weekend, Sports
10. Warpaint, The Fool
11. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Before Today
12. Four Tet, There is Love in You
13. LCD Soundsystem, This is Happening
14. Mount Kimbie, Crooks & Lovers
15. The Knife, Tomorrow in a Year
16. Broken Social Scene, Forgiveness Rock Record
17. Avi Buffalo, Avi Buffalo
18. Shrag, Life! Death! Prizes!
19. Best Coast, Crazy for You
20. Pantha Du Prince, Black Noise

Love and Mathematics – Favorite Local Albums of 2010

My favorite local records from this past year — another great one for Boston rock …

1. Young Adults, Black Hole
2. Gabe Goodman, Conundrummer
3. Ghost Box Orchestra, The Only Light On
4. 28 Degrees Taurus, All the Stars in Your Eyes
5. Magic Shoppe, Reverberation
6. Whitehaus Family Record, Family Record
7. Andre Obin, Front Runner
8. Day Sleeper, Wonderland Kid
9. Guillermo Sexo, Vivid Nights
10. Kelsey Jarboe, Among Your Kind

Greil Marcus/Werner Sollors – A New Literary History of America

Just finished reading the Marcus/Sollors anthology, “A New Literary History of America,” cover to cover.

That sounds a bit crazy, I know, but I learned a lot and was very often entertained.

Here’s a list of my favorite entries, in chronological order:

1. Francois Furstenberg, Washington’s Farewell Address (1796)
2. Robert Clark, The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841)
3. James Dawes, The Limits to Violence (1885)
4. Richard Powers, The Robert Gould Shaw and 54th Regiment Monument (Memorial Day 1897)
5. Walter Mosley, Hardboiled (1926)
6. Paul Muldoon, Carl Sandburg and the American Songbag (1927)
7. Marybeth Hamilton, Jelly Roll Morton Speaks (May 1938)
8. Robert O’Meally, Billie Holiday, Strange Fruit (1939)
9. George Hutchinson, Letter from Birmingham Jail (April 1963)
10. Anne M. Wagner, Maya Lin’s Wall (1982)

Everyone has their hobbyhorses, though, me included, so I will also say that there should have been more about the last three decades. No entry on David Foster Wallace, despite the fact that he wrote the greatest book of the last quarter century. Nothing about Madonna, either: like it or not, she’s had an enormous influence on American culture over that same period. Her first album was pretty good, too.

Still, it was great in particular to see some American academics and intellectuals writing about stuff that really matters.

Love and Mathematics – Other Favorite Albums of 2009

15 more favorites from last year, to go with the 10 local albums listed below.

1. Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion
2. Dirty Projectors, Bitte Orca
3. Sister Suvi, Now I Am Champion
4. Shrag, Shrag
5. Bibio, Ambivalence Avenue
6. Atlas Sound, Logos
7. Animal Collective, Fall Be Kind
8. Maayan Nidam, Nightlong
9. Abe Vigoda, Reviver
10. DJ Koze, Reincarnations – The Remix Chapter 2001-2009
11. God Help the Girl, God Help the Girl
12. Sonic Youth, The Eternal
13. Durutti Column, Love in the Time of Recession
14. The Juan Maclean, The Future Will Come
15. Mountains, Choral

Love and Mathematics – Favorite Local Albums of 2009

2009 was a great, great year for rock in Boston, and so I could have easily expanded this list into a top 20. But, anyway, here are my ten most favorite local recordings from the year just past.

1. Old Furnace, Hidden Hills
2. Pants Yell!, Received Pronunciation
3. Neats, 1981-84 The Ace of Hearts Years
4. Chriss Sutherland, Worried Love
5. Arms and Sleepers, Matador
6. Mission of Burma, The Sound The Speed The Light
7. Joe Pernice, It Feels So Good When I Stop
8. Technoir MA, Technoir MA
9. Appletown Gun Shop, Ghosts of Green
10. Animal Hospital, Good or Plenty, Streets + Avenues

Love and Mathematics – Favorites of 2008

My favorite albums, local and other, from the year just past.

Local:

1. Guillermo Sexo, Magic Lanterns
2. Thalia Zedek Band, Liars and Prayers
3. Big Dipper, Supercluster: The Big Dipper Anthology
4. Passion Pit, Chunk of Change
5. Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, Dawn of the Cycads
6. 28 Degrees Taurus, How Do You Like Your Love?
7. Chop Chop, Screens
8. Matters and Dunaway, Feel the Future
9. Pretty and Nice, Get Young
10. Pray for Polanski, The Ghost and Bones

Other:

1. Hercules and Love Affair, Hercules and Love Affair
2. Parenthetical Girls, Entanglements
3. French Kicks, Swimming
4. Gang Gang Dance, Saint Dymphna
5. F— Buttons, Street Horrsing
6. Of Montreal, Skeletal Lamping
7. Love is All, Mixed Up
8. Palms, It’s Midnight in Honolulu
9. Atlas Sound, Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel
10. Rare Book Room Records, Living Bridge Compilation
11. Miss Murgatroid and Petra Haden, Hearts and Daggers
12. High Places, High Places
13. Health, Health/Disco
14. Ananda Project, Night Blossom
15. Kangding Ray, Automne Fold

Playlist at http://spinitron.com/public/index.php?station=wzbc&month=Jan&year=2009&plid=13309