Computer Music For Dorks Best of 2018

There were some incredible jams this year, but 2018 will be weighed in sheer volume. With certitude, it can be said that aggregations, superlatives, and musical comparisons make less and less sense when your favorite artist is putting out two to three releases, each of varying effort, a year, and a brand new unheard favorite artist pushes for attention once a week. Complication further arise when considering a second favorite artist is probably a close friend who is sending out monthly musical musings. I could probably go back and find 15 “big releases” (if you’re asking where and when the big release line gets drawn, I’m sure The Fader can tell you what type of hat you’ll need for 2019 — hint: an acid wash fishing hat embroidered with a Steal Your Face with the Zima logo in the middle — but I can’t help you, dear reader, decide what personality you need to strap on for the next eight to twelve months), five tapes, three reissues and one track that I could replace the ones on the forthcoming list with. How did I find all of these? I’m extremely lucky, may have dropped a tape or so or jammed with some of those who made the list, but mostly just went searching out for labels I liked, read through the Facebook post about “my newest release out now…” and made some good decisions, like, “don’t listen to the record everyone is talking about, you don’t have time or space”.

I listened to a couple of clips of the big ones this year, sorry to say, mostly sucked and I’m glad I decided to check in on New World Records so I could find out that new realizations of James Tenney music got recorded this year. I can tell you I probably would’ve missed it if I had been listening to a guy from Paris with a 30 year old drum machine and four months left on his Ableton license. The heart of The Point, for me, lies there, Orcutt & Corsano recorded a beast of a record picking up where Bailey and Steve Noble –they even do the make mouth sounds/talk while jamming guitar thing — left off, but with an aggressive American Hardcore 7” on the shag carpet sort of feel. I probably would have missed it had I been listening to garbage like Sophie, as the publicists would have me doing. The music game doesn’t even try to hide the drink tickets for play gears driving the reviews. Every year end list looked like it had been written by a cabal of publicists dividing up the map like the allied powers after the war. The festival line ups were about the same.

I could just dig into my own thing and ignore what the people getting paid in backstage passes and estate tax write offs have to say, and I mostly did, but I have to gripe a little when I have to actively ignore every musical media outlet. Digging through Facebook events and discogs label pages to find out about releases and shows I want to explore gets old. Facebook friending every artist I have a vague interest in just to find out if they put something out seems to make more and more sense. I just would like things to be slightlyless micro in scope. I can’t remember much of what I saw live, and I can say, again, with certitude, the New York Live Scene was severely lacking in good stuff this year. However, Cloud Nothings was in rare form at Warsaw, Shots were incredible at Alphaville last night, Halflings really got my brain zooming at Secret Project Robot. I loved Angels In America at The Glove sometime this year and some Power Electronics band I saw at the same show were also quite good. I saw Gene Pick probably about four times, all really great, Burning Fleshtival might have been the best one. Pak at Heck was a good one as well –if I think of more I’ll let you know. Here’s the list, no order.

Eisuke Yanagisawa — Path of The Wind

Smegma — Abacus Incgonito

LAFMS — 35 s Raymond Avenue

Mark Morgan — Department Of Heraldry

Alvin Lucier — Criss/Cross

James Tenney — Harmonium

Shit and Shine — Bad Vibes

Migos — Culture II

Nicki Minaj — Queen

David Grubbs and Taku Unami — Failed Celestial Creatures

Reinhold Friedl — 39:23:00

Body/Head — The Switch

Jero Route 66/Shots — Live From The Devil’s Den

Nurse With Wound — Changez Les Blockeurs

Chris Corsano/Bill Orcutt — Brace up!

Tapes:

MSHR — Phase Trance Constructions

Itasca — Morning Flower

New Hard Folk — S/T

Cold Electric Fire — The Alchemist

Gene Pick — S/T

Reissues:

Derek Bailey — Aida

Liz Phair — Girly Sound Tapes/Exile In Guyville

Marino Zuccheri — Parete 1967

Track:

So Drove — LA

Skating

Ben Kadow lipslide into a chain link fence

Tyshawn Jones taking a security guards bike before switch backside healing that FUCKED UP double set

Being surprised The Supreme video was actually really good and had great music

Cory Glick flat ground tricks

Foundation — Souvenir video

Evan Smith switch flip and wall rides

Stuff I Was Over:

The sudden Robert Ashley fanBOY trend and it being oh so well timed with his passing.

The music world borrowing stop watches from the Art World to count down the seconds to its’ finest musicians deaths so that they can be “rediscovered”

Doing noise then drone then synth then Kye Records worship music

Don’t know what I mean?

“He used to play as Zolk Blizzard then he did this thing North Star for awhile, then it was just called Star, now he just plays under his own name, but he uses his middle name and the full version of his first name”

Humorous Post Music

Not Trying But Really Trying Very Hard Jams

Music that sounds exactly like LEN be labeled experimental

Giant boards

Honorable Mention For Top Release:

Taku Sugimoto — Quintet

“I aint got time for just alright jams, so step your game up, like, now”

“For all you non-believers praying for my downfall”