1. EMA – Past Life Martyred Saints (Souterrain Transmissions)
Listen: Anteroom

Martyrs are not victims. There is no self-pity or cool detachment to their pain. This is the mantra by which Erika M. Anderson lives in her songs. Past Life Martyred Saints is an intimate but uncomfortable album, it will make you feel guilty for the hearts you’ve torn apart and it will make you feel weak for all the times you’ve been hurt and felt victimized for it.

2. Colin Stetson – New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges (Constellation)
Listen: Fear of the Unknown and the Blazing Sun

The first time I heard Colin Stetson he was the opening act for Godspeed You! Black Emperor and it was absolutely mind-blowing. Some of us mistook him as a sound engineer and were caught completely by surprise when he started playing. One by one we fell into a silent trance as he created out of thin air the most magnificent, heartbroken beasts I’ve ever heard from a one man band. Recorded in one take with no overdubs, Judges captures the thrill of hearing him live with precision. Not only is the record technically impressive and conceptually novel but also highly compelling at a musical level. Inspired by post-rock and electronic pioneers, Stetson favors sonic aesthetics over experimentation, every deviation sounding calculated enough as to not scare the feeble away but smart enough to hook the most demanding listeners.

3. Shabazz Palaces – Black Up (Sub Pop)
Listen: Swerve… The reeping of all that is worthwhile (Noir not withstanding)

Experimental hip-hop that finds its roots on avant-garde jazz acts such as Sun Ra instead of disco and funk. I’ll be completely honest, english being my second language I have a hard time trying to understand hip hop lyrics, so I suck at appreciating the genre for one of its defining features and yet the multiple twists and turns in Black Up give it a replay value like few other albums I heard this year. Breezy, psychedelic and extremely unpredictable.

4. Braids – Native Speaker (Flemish Eye)
Listen: Lemonade

Native Speaker feels to me like an erotic reinterpretation of Animal Collective’s ‘Feels’; on one hand it has the same approach in creating pop music: Loops of haze, rock instruments stretched to odd realms and cryptic lyrics; on the other one, we’ve never heard Animal Collective create songs as deeply personal and carefully constructed as the ones in Native Speaker. There’s a definite streak of innate sensuality and maturity which gives the music a whole new level of influence and meaning.

5. Robag Wruhme – Thora Bukk (Pampa)
Listen: Wupp Dek

It’s always a treat to hear a producer who is proficient and well known around the techno community turning away from the dancefloor to release music that borders outside of their usual field of expertise. Thora Vukk is Wruhme’s exploration of his music’s more melancholic, contemplative side, while keeping the sense of tension and attention to detail that he has perfected as a techno producer. The result is warm, gorgeous album that is fascinating, at least on an aesthetic level. Chillroom microhouse.

6. Thee Oh Sees – Castlemania (In the Red)
Listen: I Need Seed

Of all the indie bands that have adopted the garage rock influence, Thee Oh Sees are, in my humble opinion, one of the most fun around. At 16 tracks, Castlemania is their longest album to date yet there isn’t a single song in here that outwears its welcome. Every track keeps things fresh by throwing a wild, eccentric touch into the mix which makes them sound like a forward thinking, modern band that isn’t particularly concerned with revisionism.

7. Vinicius Cantuária & Bill Frisell – Lágrimas Mexicanas (E1)
Listen: Aquela Mulher

One of my favorite discoveries this year was Vinicius Cantuárias’ music; an elegant sort of Brazilian jazz that seems to fit all my moods and seasons. On ‘Lágrimas Mexicanas’ he is joined by guitar-virtuoso Bill Frisell and the result is a very colorful sound that switches between Frisell’s heavily geared, atmospheric stylings and Cantuaria’s Brazilian sensibilities. Although it doesn’t quite bring anything new to the table this album is an absolute pleasure to listen to.

8. Chain & the Gang – Music’s not for Everyone (K)
Listen: Why Not?

Chain and the Gang frontman, Ian Svenoniu comes up with an upfront, snobby attitude and the unruly approach of a punk star, rocking out unironically while critiquing the very own genre’s conventions. Mordant and unusually funny, the enjoyment of this album depends on how much you appreciate tongue in cheek sloganeering and cynicism.

9. Crystal Stilts – In Love with Oblivion (Slumberland)
Listen: Through the Floor

While Thee Oh Sees sound like they are pretending they’re a 60′s garage band that travelled in time to use today’s technology, Crystal Stilts behave like gravekeepers. They think of their dead idols as purveyors of a sound now rotten and decomposed, creators of long forgotten anthems that are now bathed in a ghoulish atmosphere. Do not, under any circumstance, attempt to undig them. The dead should remain buried deep underground. Leave them be. Hear what their spirits are whispering and reinterpret it for any of us living that might still be listening.

10. The Go! Team – Rolling Blackouts (Memphis Industries)
Listen: Ready To Go Steady

I remember being annoyed by the songs in ‘Thunder, Lightning, Strike‘ when I first heard them back in 2004. It took me 4 years to finally understand, digest and admire the band, nowadays it has become one of the most treasured pieces of my music collection. When ‘Rolling Blackouts’ came out earlier this year I already knew what to expect, the energy of a horny, raging bull charging into a room filled with cheerleaders, brass-blasting walls of sound and a complete lack of subtleness. If this sounds like your thing, then it is as amazing as it sounds.

Note: I’ve had this post ready for months now, almost thought of killing it and storing it in the fridge… I mean it’s probably a bit late for best-of lists but maybe it will help you discover something you missed out. Hope you enjoy.
Also: Schils Favourite Albums 2011 & his Top Mixes and Compilations.

Photo:Emile Barret

• Roland Appel - Dark Soldier
  Dark Soldier (Sonar Kollektiv, 2004)
• These New Puritans - We Want War
  Hidden (Domino, 2010)
• Forest Swords - Rattling Cage
  Dagger Paths (No Pain In Pop, 2010)
• Lone - The Birds Don’t Fly High
  Emeral Fantasy Tracks (Magic Wire Recordings, 2010)
• Andrea Parker - The Rocking Chair (The DR 55 Mix)
  The Rocking Chair (Mo Wax, 1996)

We began by nodding our heads in time to the drumming, then our feet. Soon we were dancing round and around the pond, waving our arms and generally behaving in a very strange manner. (…) Never before had I experienced the joy of rhythmic dance, even in the days of foxtrot in the arms of some eligible young man. We seemed inspired by some marvelous power, which poured energy into our decrepit carcasses.- Leonora Carrington. The Hearing Trumpet.

Photo: Llove exhibition via Yatzer.

Alice asked the Chesire Cat, who was sitting in a tree, “What road do I take?”
The cat asked, “Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know”, Alice answered.
“Then,” said the cat, “it really doesn’t matter, does it?”

- Lewis Carrol, Alice in Wonderland.

• Tape – Summa Afrique (Oren Ambarchi remix)
  Operette (Cubicfrabric, 2004)
• Iva Bittova & Vladimir Vaclavek – Sirka V Louzi
  Bílé Inferno (Indies, 1997)
• Choying Drolma & Steve Tibbetts – Tal
  Chö (Hannibal, 1997)
• Deux Filles – She Slides
  Silence and Wisdom (Papier Mâché, 1982)
• Sogar – Selkind
  Apikal.blend (12k, 2003)

My connection was in danger—that was all. Sometimes our connection is frayed, it is in danger, it seems almost lost. Views and streets deny knowledge of us, the air grows thin. Wouldn’t we rather have a destiny to submit to, then, something that claims us, anything, instead of such flimsy choices, arbitrary days?

- Alice Munro, The Albanian Virgin.

One of those days when I feel sabotaged from within. The world turning into a pale substance made of hubris and daydreams and obsessions. I’m trying to remain constructive by making a list of  practical things that help me breathe through these sort of days. So far the activities that have worked for me are: Running for miles until the pain and exhaustion overcomes circular thoughts. Taking a nice, thorough shower of angst. Listening to music that puts me in a halcyon frame of mind. Sleeping it over.
Tonight will be the night I kill all of my idols. It’s time to stop making excuses and move on.

How long that wild rush lasted I have no means of judging. It may have been an hour, a day, or many days, for I was throughout in a state of suspended animation, but presently my senses began to return and with them a sensation of lessening speed, a grateful relief to a heavy pressure which had held my life crushed in its grasp, without destroying it completely. It was just that sort of sensation though more keen which, drowsy in his bunk, a traveller feels when he is aware, without special perception, harbour is reached and a voyage comes to an end. But in my case the slowing down was for a long time comparative. Yet the sensation served to revive my scattered senses, and just as I was awakening to a lively sense of amazement, an incredible doubt of my own emotions, and an eager desire to know what had happened, my strange conveyance oscillated once or twice, undulated lightly up and down, like a woodpecker flying from tree to tree, and then grounded, bows first, rolled over several times, then steadied again, and, coming at last to rest, the next minute the infernal rug opened, quivering along all its borders in its peculiar way, and humping up in the middle shot me five feet into the air like a cat tossed from a schoolboy’s blanket. – Gulliver of Mars

” The beep beep list. ”

01. Simone White – The Beep Beep Song
Ministry of Sound: Chilled Acoustic 2010 Disc 3 (2010)
02. Lali Puna – Move On
Our Inventions (Morr Music, 2010)
03. Pantha Du Prince – Abglanz
Black Noise (Rough Trade, 2010)
04. Brian Eno – Bone Jump
Small Craft on a Milk Sea (Warp Records, 2010)
05. kangding ray – apnee
automne fold (2008)
06. Bombay Bicycle Club – you already know [feat. kathryn williams]
Om Lounge (15 Year Anniversary Edition) (Om, 2009)

note: Experimental pop of sort. I made this last year actually, trying to make glitch tech more palatable and not so cryptically futuristic, more pop-ish while not being kitschy. I declare it a success and move on. It’s hard to do you know. Well, think of it as retro futuristic lounge for lazy day.

image: Rob Sheridan

Image: Nathalie Miebach

The universe is nothing but a furtive arrangement of elementary particles. A figure in transition toward chaos. That is what will finally prevail…The skies will be glacial and empty, traversed by the feeble light of half-dead stars. – Michel Houllebecq.

• Fairmont- Traum
  Elektronische Musik-Interkontineltal (Traum, 2001)
• Trentemøller – Miss You (Pascal F.E.O.S. Edit)
  Miss You (AM28, 2008)
• Nathan Fake- Dinamo
  Dinamo (Traum Schallplatten, 2005)
• Agoria - Libellules
  Impermanence (Infiné, 2011)
• Engineers - To An Evergreen
  In Praise Of More (Kscope, 2010)
• Terre Thaemlitz - Elevatorium
  Soil (Instinc Ambient, 1995)

The brain is more than an assemblage of autonomous modules, each crucial for a specific mental function. Every one of these functionally specialized areas must interact with dozens or hundreds of others, their total integration creating something like a vastly complicated orchestra with thousands of instruments, an orchestra that conducts itself, with an ever-changing score and repertoire. – Oliver Sacks

In many dimensions, the only 2 perfect things are the brain and the universe. Unfortunatelly, both are habited by the humans.