9/12/11

Top 15. Discos del 2011 (Amarillo)



Pues aquí va, otro gran año musical en donde muchos discos nos regalaron momentos y sensaciones increíbles. Al pensar al respecto de mi lista me di cuenta de la enorme cantidad de música que en verdad disfruté durante este año, y decidí escoger mis 15 discos favoritos basándome mucho más en una catarsis personal que en el consenso.
Saludos a todos, les dejo la lista acompañada de un vid de cada disco, la disquera del artista y una pequeña parte de la crítica de Pitchfork... enjoy.


15.- Real Estate - "Days" 




"...It's a quality their music shares with the jangly hooks of early R.E.M., the breeziness of later Pavement, and the garage twang of the Fresh & Onlys. But their closest kin are New Jersey forefathers the Feelies. That group's undying ability to mine repeated chords and Zen phrases is matched best by the album's closer, "All the Same", a looping study of how night and day are merely sides of the same coin. Lasting over seven minutes, it might be Real Estate's first epic. But it's as subtle and unassuming as anything on Days-- more evidence from this band that great music doesn't have to sound hard to make, even if it is." 
Marc Masters; PITCHFORK. October 18, 2011 
Domino




14.- Smith Westerns - "Dye It Blonde" 




"That moony/beery-eyed feel bleeds through every corridor of this album and in turn forms a crystalline expression of what moves this band. Their use of the studio in augmenting that never goes overboard, though: this music still retains the innately psychedelic, lamp lit, tongue-kissed sense of atmosphere that set it apart. There's perhaps no better instance of all that than "All Die Young", the album's centerpiece. It's a ballad turned hymn whose grand, tumbling scale and "Oh Yoko"-indebted outro celebration are peaks on an album rich in them. In its closing moments, Omori sings what sounds like, "Love is lovely when you are young." They were convincing before, but now they seem like experts." 
David Bevan; PITCHFORK. January 18, 2011 
Fat Possum





13.- The Horrors - "Skying" 




"Both Badwan's voice and the band's production have made some strides here: He sounds surer behind the microphone than ever, and the band's guitars and synths are frequently smoothed of shrieks into one great blur, the black eyeliner watered down and smudged into a gray cloud. So while they may have started out as all glittering surfaces, the Horrors have evolved into a dependable band making wide-reaching rock music. Whether a calculated retreat or just a natural maturation, the Horrors have found a sound more content with background and atmosphere, and it suits them nicely." 
Eric Grandy; PITCHFORK. July 25, 2011 
XL





12.- PJ Harvey - "Let England Shake" 




"Even a cursory glance at the album-- its title, song titles, lyrics-- marks this as a very English record. Its pastoralism befits Harvey's West Country background and recording setting (as well as the fields in Europe in which most of WWI was fought, and where most of the dead are now laid to rest). But it's less about the experience of one nation with war, so much as one people. That those people are English is Harvey soaking her music in her own surroundings and experiences. Swap out the place names with others, though, and the message remains the same. It's universal and it's necessary-- and it's powerfully and clearly stated. That it's also a joy to hear is perhaps the most confounding juxtaposition of all, turning a record you'll respect into one you'll also love." 
Scott Plagenhoef; PITCHFORK. February 15, 2011 
Vagrant / Island Def Jam




11. Radiohead - "The King of Limbs" 




"Radiohead's eighth record, The King of Limbs, represents a marked attempt to create a considered and cohesive unit of music that nonetheless sits somewhere outside of the spectrum of their previous full-length discography. And that's not to say that it doesn't ripple with the dazzling sonics or scenery that have become the band's stock in trade, but just that, unlike so many of their milestones, there's no abiding sense of a band defying all expectations in order to establish new precedents." 
Mark Pytlik; PITCHFORK. February 24, 2011 
XL




10.- Wild Beasts - "Smother"




"Smother, their third full-length, is just as the above quote promises: completely uncompromising. And that's why it succeeds. Thorpe and Co. have continued down the path of Two Dancers, paring their sound down even further. What they're left with is naked in arrangement, nocturnal in tone, and deeply, deeply sensual." 
David Bevan; PITCHFORK. May 13, 2011 
Domino





9.- My Morning Jacket - "Circuital" 




"Like nearly all of their studio albums, Circuital may not reach the heights of the band's live show-- a good MMJ concert can recalibrate your gut, it can change you-- but it’s a remarkably solid step for a band that's never stopped evolving." 
Amanda Petrusich; PITCHFORK. May 31, 2011 
ATO






8.- Wu Lyf - "Wu Lyf" 




"...And it's easy to imagine Go Tell Fire to the Mountain giving disaffected listeners the promise of an entry to something beyond themselves in a way that James Blake or Bon Iver can't. Maybe you've grown past that sort of thing, but what about a record of exhilarating expanse and passion that sounds like indie rock and yet feels way bigger? Well, Go Tell Fire to the Mountain is that too." 
Ian Cohen; PITCHFORK. June 23, 2011 
L Y F





7.- Youth Lagoon - "The Year of Hibernation"




"There are a few things we've come to expect from recent, home-recorded indie pop: thin production, lyrics that reference childhood and nostalgia, a vibe of hushed intimacy, lots of reverb. Youth Lagoon, the project of 22-year-old Boise, Idaho, musician Trevor Powers, ticks all of those boxes and sounds immediately familiar the first time you put it on. "Posters", the opening track on his debut LP, The Year of Hibernation, even starts with a warbly synth to evoke the fabled VHS glow that has become a touchstone for kids of his generation. When you hear so much of this stuff, it starts to bleed together-- almost as if by design-- and you start to wonder what it would take for an artist in this realm to stand out. Powers has a few ideas." 
Mark Richardson; PITCHFORK. September 29, 2011 
Fat Possum / Lefse




6.- James Blake - "James Blake" 




"While the songs are the magnetic center here, Blake's musicianship and sonics are equally striking. A "dubstep" producer with a gentle piano touch and an ear for granular synthesis so sharp it will make fleets of laptop toters envious, his toolkit is seamless. " 
Grayson Currin; PITCHFORK. February 9, 2011 
A&M / ATLAS




5.- Girls - "Father, Son, Holy Ghost" 



"We may eventually remember 2011 as the Year of Retro. Critic Simon Reynolds' recent book on the subject tapped into a feeling a lot of people had but couldn't quite pin down: In the age of the limitless archive, the relationship between new artists and their influences are changing. Since the retirement of LCD Soundsystem, San Francisco's Girls, who return here after the terrific debut LP Album and an also-great follow-up EP, just might be the band best making use of the current situation. Their music pilfers from the past without shame but also manages to sound like no one else."
Mark Richardson; PITCHFORK. September 12, 2011 
True Panther




4.- Yuck - "Yuck" 




"There's no escaping it: If you've heard anything about Yuck, it's that this London four-piece loves the 90s. The band's members are very clearly products of the web rather than any particular geography; their self-titled debut evinces tastes that run toward fuzzy indie bands from both sides of the pond. Yes, there's a bit of the wah-pedal guitar violence of Dinosaur Jr., and a little of the lackadaisical detachment of Pavement, but there's also the rich tunefulness of Teenage Fanclub and Velocity Girl, and at times the unadorned resignation of Red House Painters or Elliott Smith. However, like so many artists saddled (fairly or not) with the "revival" tag, from post-punk and garage-rock to nu-disco or neo-soul, Yuck are worth hearing not so much because of who they sound like, but what they've done with those sounds: in this case, make a deeply melodic, casually thrilling coming-of-age album for a generation that never saw Nirvana on '120 Minutes'". 
Marc Hogan; PITCHFORK. February 15, 2011 
Fat Possum




3.- Fleet Foxes - "Helplessness Blues" 




"Helplessness Blues' analytical and inquisitive nature never tips into self-indulgence. Amidst the chaos, the record showcases the band's expanded range and successful risk-taking, while retaining what so many people fell in love with about the group in the first place. And once again, a strong sense of empathy is at the heart of what makes Fleet Foxes special. Much has been made of American indie's recent obsession with nostalgic escapism, but Robin Pecknold doesn't retreat. He confronts uncertainty while feeling out his own place in the world, which is something a lot of us can relate to." 
Larry Fitzmaurice; PITCHFORK. May 2, 2011 
Sub Pop





2.- The Antlers - "Burst Apart" 




"Brooklyn's indie scene can feel like a series of bands each trying to be hipper than the next, but thankfully nobody told Pete Silberman. In the dog days of 2009's deadbeat summer, the Antlers frontman emerged from his bedroom with his third LP, Hospice. On it, he unfashionably embraced hackles-raising choruses and concept-album ambition, and he pushed the button on emotional nuclear options: abortion, cancer, death, all that fun stuff. Now a trio, the Antlers have claimed the influence of "electronic music" for Burst Apart, a typical omen for a typically "difficult follow-up album." But while Burst Apart sheds the PR-bait bio and Arcade Fire aspirations that made its predecessor a word-of-mouth success, it's still tethered to a magnanimity and expressive clarity that makes it almost every bit as devastating." 
Ian Cohen; PITCHFORK. May 12, 2011
Frenchkiss / Transgressive






1- Bon Iver - "Bon Iver" 




"After the closeness and austerity of For Emma, Vernon has given us a knotty record that resists easy interpretation but is no less warm or welcoming. You can feel it even as you don't completely understand it-- a testament to its careful construction and Vernon's belief in the power of music to convey deeper meaning. It's a rare thing for an album to have such a strong sense of what it wants to be. Bon Iver is about flow, from one scene and arrangement and song and memory and word into the next-- each distinct but connected-- all leading to "Beth/Rest". On the way there, the music moves like a river, every bend both unpredictable and inevitable as it carves sound and emotion out of silence." 
Mark Richardson; PITCHFORK. June 20, 2011 
4AD / Jagjaguwar


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