So, What Have You Been Doing with Your Life?
I thought it might be appropriate to mark my return with a mid-year reckoning of my favorite 2006 musicka. Anyway, it's the easiest thing to write about and the kids love it.
Absolute tippy-top numbah one with vanilla caramel death rays; also, coincidentally, first alphabetically:
Ellen Allien + Apparat: Orchestra of Bubbles (Best techno album ever? Keeping in mind that techno is not known for albums? It's sexy, it's glammy, it's gooey, it's gothy, it's whimsical and melancholy. If I were left on a desert island and could only have one record: well, I would cheat and pick a Miles Davis boxed set. But if I were left in an abandoned, fully-automated, brightly-colored retro-futuristic space station, I wouldn't have to pack this disc because it would be the muzak.)
Other deadly favorites, alphabetically arranged:
Asobi Seksu: Citrus (Japanese for "play sex." Hmmm... Retro-shoegaze candy coating with a creamy dreamy pop center ).
Boris: Pink (Japanese doom-boogie-psych-metal with a girl guitarist who's, like, all cute and tiny. Still, evil. EVIIIIL.)
Espers: Espers II (& this chamber-folk beauty is as dark and doomy as any metal. Lullabies for after the End of the World.)
Ghostface Killah: Fishscale (Drugs. Violence. Misogyny. Blah blah blah. Like many great works of American literature.)
The Knife: Silent Shout (Okay, so it's the Year of the Creepy in pop music. So go read the news. Under a blacklight. To this.)
Madlib: The Beat Konducta v.1 & 2 (Now that I'm older, I insist that smoking weed inhibits creativity. Except for this dude.)
Serena-Maneesh: Serena-Maneesh (Imagine a torture device combining a roller coaster, a mallet, and your pleasure center.)
Shogun Kunitoki: Tasankokaiku (Umm, from Finland, as you can tell. Church music for pneumatic marshmellow cyborgs.)
Vitalic: OK Cowboy (this trash-techno opus came out LAST year in Europe and was a Pitchfork "best of." Ask if I give a shit.)
More tomorrow! Good to be back, etc. Kiss kiss.
Absolute tippy-top numbah one with vanilla caramel death rays; also, coincidentally, first alphabetically:
Ellen Allien + Apparat: Orchestra of Bubbles (Best techno album ever? Keeping in mind that techno is not known for albums? It's sexy, it's glammy, it's gooey, it's gothy, it's whimsical and melancholy. If I were left on a desert island and could only have one record: well, I would cheat and pick a Miles Davis boxed set. But if I were left in an abandoned, fully-automated, brightly-colored retro-futuristic space station, I wouldn't have to pack this disc because it would be the muzak.)
Other deadly favorites, alphabetically arranged:
Asobi Seksu: Citrus (Japanese for "play sex." Hmmm... Retro-shoegaze candy coating with a creamy dreamy pop center ).
Boris: Pink (Japanese doom-boogie-psych-metal with a girl guitarist who's, like, all cute and tiny. Still, evil. EVIIIIL.)
Espers: Espers II (& this chamber-folk beauty is as dark and doomy as any metal. Lullabies for after the End of the World.)
Ghostface Killah: Fishscale (Drugs. Violence. Misogyny. Blah blah blah. Like many great works of American literature.)
The Knife: Silent Shout (Okay, so it's the Year of the Creepy in pop music. So go read the news. Under a blacklight. To this.)
Madlib: The Beat Konducta v.1 & 2 (Now that I'm older, I insist that smoking weed inhibits creativity. Except for this dude.)
Serena-Maneesh: Serena-Maneesh (Imagine a torture device combining a roller coaster, a mallet, and your pleasure center.)
Shogun Kunitoki: Tasankokaiku (Umm, from Finland, as you can tell. Church music for pneumatic marshmellow cyborgs.)
Vitalic: OK Cowboy (this trash-techno opus came out LAST year in Europe and was a Pitchfork "best of." Ask if I give a shit.)
More tomorrow! Good to be back, etc. Kiss kiss.