Great year. 136 albums reviewed, more listened to, some just flat out skipped for sympathy. Some skipped for over-productiveness (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE). But I have to say that this project was and is a fantastic outlet for me, and has led me to a greater appreciation of what this area produces.
So without worrying about feelings or agendas, here are my 20 favorite albums from the area I heard in 2011. (NOTE: I've tried to label the ones with 2010 that were released in 2010. If you're picky, just feel bad for all of the December albums I miss.)
20. HARSH REALITY: MMXI
The straight-fowardness of this hardcore album is endearing to every punk-sensibility I have. Nothing fancy, nothing overly technical. As I mentioned in my original review, an album of anger called '2011' that sounds like a late-90s hardcore album would be ironic, if the things to be angry about had changed in over 10 years. Alas, they haven't. In many ways, one of the most relevant albums of 2011.
19. THE GRISLY HAND: Safe House (2010)
This overly-folksy outfit has more in common with Fourth of July than, say, Union Station. Something intrinsically local about them is great. Fourth of July had one line that stuck with me when I was living in Illinois (where I'm from): "I hear in Texas it gets hot as shit / and I know Kansas 'cuz I burned in it." The Grisly Hand's song "Paris of the Plains" may as well have had the very line. From operating fair rides in Sedalia to dealing with shitty public transportation to trying to find a job. I'm absolutely in love with this album.
18. R. ANDREW LEE: Ann Southam, Soundings for a New Piano
There was a student as Indiana Statue University who received a grant to go to their School of Music. It was a fatty grant, too. And the dude wrote a song called "Pi" where he played a single note repeatedly:
Three times.
One time.
Four times
... and so on to the 100th or so place of Pi. Legend has it (as related to me by a student of the program) that audience members at his grant-mandated recital, which included donors and college sponsors, began leaving. I tell you all of this so that you understand that there's a difference between shitty modern/contemporary music and good. This is good. If you really need an explanation, read the liner notes.
17. FURNITURE: The Decision
I contacted the band and had to ask if they were playing through VOX amps, because that's the only way you can get the kind of tone they put out on this album. They confirmed my suspicions. If you want fun pop, great recordings, and highly consumable music, I recommend Furniture. Listen, pop's not a dirty word, so I hope they're comfortable in their own skin.
16. CLAY HUGHES: The Whether Machine
This album is the perfect form of its genre, and a premonition you should all heed. Have you heard the new Yelawolf album? The music critic I trust the most loves it. The AV Club didn't. But AV Club pointed out something I agreed with: Yelawolf tried to record an Uncle Kracker song. The thing is, Uncle Kracker has an idea of what HE THINKS some kind of folks/blues/rap hybrid should sound like. Yelawolf tried to copy what someone else thought that ideal should be. Clay Hughes fucking aced it. I called it the My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy of his genre, and I stand by this. Its highs and lows happen within the confines of what a sound should be, and goes to town on it. Does it suffer from it? Sure, but like the Kanye album referenced, it triumphs in the end and exists as an ideal for a sonic idea others who have tried have failed at.
15. ELSA RAE: Plays Tiny Instruments
Hands down the greatest voice in the entire list. I harp on this a bit much. Nonetheless, her album has what should be a death sentence (ukulele, guys) and is carried by her voice. She makes a kazoo not as ridiculous as it sounds. I'd love to hear all of these songs reimagined for a Beach House set up with some synth and drums. Even without that dream, this album is a great set of songs I'd listen to over and over again.
14. RUTHLESS ANTARCTIC EMPIRE: You Know Better
Three sparse tracks that evoke a Saves the Day teenage prison (without the horrid mutilation of exes!) They're deceptive tracks that feel larger than they really are. Part of this depends on you filling in the sonic blank spots with what you've already learned from Bright Eyes, Death Cab for Cutie, the Decemberists, and similar. I can handle a codependency on pop-knowledge, and in many ways the awareness is commendable. These aren't backhanded compliments, and the desolate, lonely images you find familiar aren't any less powerful in these three tracks.
13. ROOFTOP VIGILANTES: Real Pony Glue
Letting go feels good. There's a moroseness to drinking binges that are singularly indulgent, and an empathy towards those that lack a selfish destructiveness; those that have an awareness that this world's a shitty place and you're just gonna party until it's over. Bands like Titus Andronicus might list out everything wrong in one's life, but there's an amount of responsibility taken. Also, listing what's wrong doesn't necessarily imply a cry for sympathy. That's kinda what this does. Maybe Deer Tick was a better comparison? Regardless, it's fun. Maybe overthinking this one was a mistake. It's just fuckin good.
12. 18 CARAT AFFAIR: N. Cruise Blvd.
Denys Parker is one of the most innovative and creative musicians in the Kansas City area. This smaller set of tracks is a good entry point for people to either get into his music projects, or even to get into thinking of music as art, or to get into the 80s, or to get into music criticism. If you follow the Twitter feed, you probably suspect there'll be more 18 Carat Affair. You're a smart person.
11. CHOCOLATE VELVET: Aries
Mr. William Chaffin has put out about thirty billion songs between all of his music projects. Black Bullet Promise, Chocolate Velvet, and Vitae & the Pale Horse are just three of them, and they've all got high and low points. But I really had to just stop reviewing his albums because, even though I listened to all of them, that's a lot of coverage for one dude. So then, he goes and releases his best album at the end of the year after I've already made this decision. Chocolate Velvet is his project that's just a little bit funkier, a bit more polished. And the tracks may be more independent of each other than, say, V&tPH, the album's are more beginning-to-end solid. Aries was a nice surprise at the end of the year. Even though I could build an album or two out of Vitae tracks I like better than this one, Aries is my favorite Chaffin release.
10. LES IZMORE: The Granny Smith Theorem
D/Will is the best producer in Kansas City, Les Izmore is a fantastic rapper, and this Halloween present to Kansas City proved to be one of the most solid albums to hit all year. With the aggressive cadence of what I imagine a sober ODB would sound like, and probably 3 times as talented, Les Izmore drops rhymes that might appear lackadaisical, but always conclude to demonstrate that he has 100% control of the songs at all time.
And can I say, holy shit those horns on "The Line?" D/Will's magic.
9. THE LONELY HEARTS CLUB: Skinny Jeans for Fat People
Dutch Newman and Johnny Quest combined to make one of the most fun hip hop albums of the year. Listen to "Hold it Down" and I dare you to not get hyped. Seriously, every track on this is awesome. It's got guest spots from Approach, Stik Figa, Str8jakkett, and other local personalities that you should all know by name. There may not be anything overly complicated about this album, and it may not warrant a thirty page dissertation like every track 18 Carat Affair's ever released, but you're probably never gonna throw down in the pit to a 18 Carat Affair song.
"Errbody here gettin' white boy wasted."
8. THE ACBS: Stona Rosa
A lot of things done right on this album, not the least of which is their use of chorus on the vocals (or doubling or whatevs you want to call it). Honestly, they're like a Phoenix on the Prairie (which is kind of like Paris of the Plains?) The strengths in production are worth noting, but the song writing and instrumentation is what makes the songs themselves great. The artwork and production complete the album package, but it's gloss on well-written pop music.
7. D/WILL: Beat Emporium: Cartoon
Before JDilla died (actually, on his death bed), he put out Donuts. It was like a marathon of what he could do, a last minute appeal to the world to say "I mattered." And he did. He always will. He's one of maybe two people I who could wear a Detroit Tigers hat and not fill me with rage.
Luckily (as far as I know!) D/Will is not suffering a degenerative blood disease, and he has plenty of time to build up his already bulky resume. All of his collaborations and production credits are one thing, but Cartoon is his JDilla moment. The accomplishment of this release should put him in that level.
And in addition to the idea of throwing down beats as a figurative gauntlet to all challengers, the focus on the cartoon theme and samples is something that hip hop should've been doing for years by now. It's one solid album on its own from which dozens more could be extrapolated from (just like Dilla).
6. MEATSHANK: Scavengers (2010)
The speed-metal of the mid-1980s gets less attention than the hair metal, and I don't know if I could make a band-to-band comparison to tell you if that's good or bad. I'm glad bands like Meatshank paid attention. A modern sound with 80s awareness, possibly the best metal album of the year from Kansas City, Scavengers is well-executed and assembled. Every metal cliche you could harp on is done too well to complain. I've listened to a lot of bad metal this year, so I hope more local musicians take notice to this.
5. 18 CARAT AFFAIR: Televised Tragedies
As I mentioned earlier, I could write 30 pages on each track Denys Parker has released. This most recent release is another darker turn in what I read as a collective work. Much like Samuel Beckett's vagabonds and rakes, I cannot examine one work of Parker's without considering its place in a canon, and its reliance on 80s nostalgia encompasses the lighter Miami Vice coke binge with the serious hangover. You can remember the fashion as something goofy, or you can take it seriously and appreciate whatever it may have meant. You can have the patriotic victory of the Star Wars NASA campaign, but you have to know who Christa McAuliffe is. The point is, there's no winking or mockery here: it's the collage of what made the 80s: not made it bad or good, but acknowledges it existed as whole, and helps us understand it a little bit better.
4. ABSCESS: The Black Diamond
This is, beginning to end, an album that sounds like it's by robots, for robots. The rawest sounding drums that are actually part of the industrial riffs, the patterns that form from them are infectious. From the opening track "mazz murder" which sounds like a chainsaw and a tornado siren, all the way to some fucked up Katy Perry remix, it's as if Skynet was prepping a mixtape for the apocalypse. But sometimes the fuzz is less NIN and more QotSA ("ankle grinder"'s a good example of that), and that doesn't break up any cohesiveness. When I heard it I was convinced it'd be the best album of the year. Clearly that changed, but it's not because this became worn out.
3. REACH: The Pen Pusha Mixtape
The tracklist scared me: 18 songs on a hip hop album often implies bloat, and in addition there are remixes. I'm leery of that on a singular release. But what made this album were how good those remixes were, and how well it was arranged. Kansas City is full of great hip-hop tracks, but an album assembled beginning to end this well is rare anywhere. The cameos are understated and the choice of collaborators suits Reach's style. If you don't think that's important, please see half of Nicki Minaj's guest spots. Where it isn't mixed as well as other albums released this year, the songs hold together on their own strengths. I enjoyed this album a lot, and it hasn't left rotation.
2. 18 CARAT AFFAIR: Life of Vice
One of my nerdy artist friends only ever cared what I thought about his art, and never told me what it was supposed to be. That was overly frustrating to me, but as long as I got something out of it, he was happy. I swear this is related.
On the scale of light to dark, Life of Vice feels like a turn towards something more serious in Parker's work. It's my favorite thus far for where it sits in the narrative I've created (or, if I am a profit, observed; I won't dare give myself that credit). I won't go on any longer, except to say that I hope Denys is happy i've got something out of 18 Carat Affair, and I hope that others do to. This stuff deserves a lot of play.
1. D/WILL & STIK FIGA: #HappyHour
In a time where hip hop is pulling backwards, you frequently end up with two different results: The Lex Luger retreads of Three 6 Mafia or the instrumental heavy sampling that Hi-Tek perfected in the late 90s. D/Will and Stik Figa might fall closer to the latter while being influenced by the former, but as both independently pointed out to me, there's a bit of Gangstarr in there, too. But as I've harped on too much by now, D/Will is the greatest producer in the area, and what I haven't had a chance to say is that Stik is the best emcee. #HappyHour, a quick preamble to the also very excellent Crown & Coke, has not left rotation in my house since its release. It's everything a great rap album should be: fun, smart, well produced, thoughtfully polished, and cleverly accented. Ladies and gents, your KC album of the year.
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