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top ten of 2002
1. Thuja, Ghost Plants
The thirteen tracks on this disc reduce the forms of rock, jazz and world music to postapocalyptic artifacts, weathering them down to faint vestiges and provocative hints. These archaeological remnants are then buried within a thick mix of sounds drawn from a industrial world crumbling back into nature. The resultant 39 minutes are transporting and utterly beguiling. Music for the tribes inhabiting our collapsed future. On Emperor Jones.
2. Taj Mahal Travellers, Stockholm 1971
Reissue of a long group improvisation utilizing bowed bass, amplified violin, electronics, small percussive instruments, voice and delay. Early on, the three performers stake out a territory which is both claustrophobic and vast, and they stick close to it, patiently exploring it for over two full hours, and producing a black soundtrack to your innermost drugged-out epic in the process. On Drone Syndicate.
3. Black Dice, Beaches and Canyons
Black Dice have the transcendent energy of a psychedelic jam band, but their desire for ecstatic ascension is countered by their love of unconventional structure and a good old punk fondness for thwarting expectations. Their first full-length release ends up ultimately more interesting than a dozen of psych freak-outs: it sounds like someone disassembled the Boredoms’ Vision Creation New Sun and decided to weld funky ugly junkyard sculptures out of the component parts. On DFA.
4. Minamo, .kgs
Simple patterns played on acoustic instruments, microsound-ish knocks and crackles, and electronic drones that range from the lulling to the piercing—this album takes these incongruous textures and integrates them into an enormously appealing mix. Another example of the tendency of Japanese music to erase the division between the synthetic and the organic. On 360 Degrees.
5. Anti-Pop Consortium, Arrythmia
A document of an inventive hip-hop group at the absolute top of their game. Verbal ingenuity, genius sample-work, electro fuckery and sheer charisma are combined here to produce an album that surpasses their previous domestic full-length, the superb Tragic Epilogue. Now that the group’s split up, they can truly be said to be retiring undefeated. On WARP, "pioneers of weird electronic dance music."
6. Mighty Flashlight, self-titled
Most likeable hybrid of the year: stream-of-consciousness folk blues ornamented with unusual samples and laptop frippery. This album is too slack and modest to qualify as the feel-good album of your summer, but its affability and warmth will serve you well through the colder seasons of your year. On Jade Tree.
7. Keith Fullerton Whitman, Playthroughs
A minor minimalist gem, a worthy addition to a canon that includes the works of Stars of the Lid and Rafael Toral’s Aeriola Frequency pieces. By making incremental adjustments to sets of simple tones and pulses, Whitman gradually develops sonic gardens which teem with life. Possibly the best album to fall asleep to since Brian Eno’s Music For Airports. On Kranky.
8. Tyondai Braxton, History That Has No Effect
An effects pedal is an instrument. Beginning from this principle, Braxton (son of avant-garde jazzman Anthony Braxton) uses his pedals to build an entire backing ensemble, and from them he coaxes sounds that the world has never before heard, ranging from cascading forcefields of crashing cymbals to mutant beatbox to sheer hellish noise. The audacity and promise of this debut eclipse the few moments of indulgence. On JMZ Records.
9 / 10. Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot / Various Artists, Antifolk Vol. 1
These discs make up a set based on the way they serve as antipodes to one another. The Wilco record relishes in unorthodox instrumentation and inventive production; many of the Antifolk contributions remind us of the pleasures of a single guitar recorded on crappy lo-fi equipment. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is ambitious in scope, occasionally sinking under its own self-importance; the Antifolk contributions are idiosyncratic and modest, to the point where they sometimes degenerate into juvenilia or mere novelty. Each album misses as often as it connects, but together they cover an enormous range of emotional territory, testifying to rock music’s continued ability to teach us about how it feels to be human. On Nonesuch / Rough Trade.
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