Read entries 20-11 here.

We  did it.  The final ten.  I started writing this sometime in May and it is now November.  I look at these last ten albums and I can say with confidence I made the right call.  I hope you have enjoyed this ride as much as I did.

#10

Death Grips – The Money Store

There have been a few albums on this list that helped me to completely reconsider a genre of music.  The way they present a style of music in a completely different way has allowed me to appreciate it even further and encouraged me to dive deeper in, opening my mind to the prospect that there is more to a certain style of music than I may be aware of.  The Money Store, obviously based on that introduction, was one of those albums.  Death Grips’ debut Ex-Military was a forceful album sounding like a grenade interloped with Public Enemy, but for Zach Hill fans (his fourth appearance on this list mind you) it was uncertain if this was just another of his million alternate one-off projects or if this was the real deal.  Released almost exactly a year after their debut our questions were answered; Death Grips were here to stay and all those Zach Hill projects you love are now permanently on ice.  If The Money Store was not such a terrifying specimen of hip-hop’s dark alternate timeline this would have been a serious blow as it meant no more Hella, The Ladies, Shred Earthship, or solo albums. 

The Money Store landed in a sweet spot future Death Grips would never seek again, balancing mutant audio with claustrophobic lyrics, but also applying a radio friendly production on top.  For example, I’ve Seen Footage melds a horridly distorted sample of Push-It with paranoid lyrics about the surveillance state and System Blower’s main sample is a completed mutated recording of a tennis match, yet somehow despite how horrid it all sounds on paper you can not help but want to dance yourself into a puddle of sweat to these songs.  The Money Store frequently sounds like a post-apocalypse dance party, sure we are all fucked, but we can have a good time too.  To achieve this there are some concessions, lyricist Stefan Burnett (MC Ride) pulls back on the reigns compared to Ex-Military giving us some relatively mild (for Stefan Burnett) performances like on Get Got where he barely raises his voice or Bitch Please where he has an almost playful vibe, his rapping style more melodic and bouncy versus his normal barking.  He still gets a few wild moments in like on The Fever where his manic disdain for existence is ever present or Punk Weight where he has the ferocity of a drill instructor who had inhaled a brick of cocaine, but these are far less frequent compared to nearly all other Death Grips releases.  Also, there is incredibly limited Zach Hill drumming, and any that is on here sounds, well, not like Zach Hill.  He too has opted to channel his musical force in a more limited path.  Death Grips is often criticized for their everything and the kitchen sink vibe, it almost always operates at a 300/10 with grating instrumentation for Zach and Any Morin and ballistic lyricism from MC Ride. 

The claustrophobic paranoia that normally emits from Death Grips is its own unique beast but can feel exhausting.  When they opted to condense and concentrate their efforts here on The Money Store the result was a far more focused release that shed a lot of the main points of detraction and left the best parts.  Make no mistake I love their worst tendencies.  I love the untamed aggression of Jenny Death or the complete unraveling of sanity of Gmail and the Restraining Orders, but I also have to mentally prepare myself for those albums.  There is a question of “Am I ready to listen to Steroids today?” anytime I venture by them on my ipod.  With The Money Store this is not really a question.  It feels like a no brainer, hell yes I wanna hear the booming reverb of Lost Boys and yell “It’s such a long way down” with Ride, I want to declare that I stay Noided when I hear I’ve Seen Footage, and I really am interested in teaching bitches how to swim when closing up the album with Hacker.  The Money Store is more than Blade Runner in rap form as it was the pivot point for me for finding other experimental and strange rap acts.  After The Money Store I realized there is no way these are the only guys doing this and found artists like dälek, B L A C K I E, clipping, jpegmafia, Pink Siifu and others.  It opened the door to a world of bizarre and disturbed sounds being melded with beats and perverse lyrics.  It was a gateway to something magical, or horrifying depending on your view, magically horrifying.  Stay Noided

#9

King Crimson – Asbury Park 06.28.1974

Because of Robert Fripp’s ridiculous commitment to capitalizing on everything King Crimson there rarely exists a live performance of the band that has not been officially released.  If you want to cry foul on my original rule of “no bootlegs” feel free to pick up a copy of USA which is nearly the same exact album with some overdubs and a different recording of show closer 21st Century Schizoid Man.  I really tried to not pick this recording for this list.  For a long time I had Red on here and was ready to talk about “the pinnacle of classic prog” and the “the best classic Crimson would ever be”, but the reality of that being not true kept creeping up on me for two reasons.  First, as David Cross was kicked out of the band the day before recording Red the line-up suffered tremendously.  Second, King Crimson’s studio output is always secondary to their live output; they are a live band that periodically puts out studio albums.  That does mean the studio albums are bad, but because of the ever shifting form that is King Crimson, they feel like markers in time more than a definite form of their music.  Which, many sentences later, leads us to Asbury Park, a performance mere days before Cross’s eviction from the band and a few months before the complete implosion of the third King Crimson line-up and what you would consider the classic progressive rock era King Crimson. 

King Crimson at this point was a bullet train to hell, focused on complete obliteration of anything in its path.  While earlier and later line-ups would gleefully play in nuance and subtlety there is nearly none of that here.  Robert Fripp’s guitar and David Cross’s violin are like laserbeams scorching the earth below while Bill Bruford and John Wetton are, as Robert put it, a flying brick wall of a rhythm section.  Breathing space is minimal.  Larks’ Tongues in Aspic Part 2 starts the show, originally an intricate mid-tempo prog classic with twisting notation and rhythm shifts, is now like a mortar being launched from a tank.  Wetton’s bass is unbelievable, causing earthquakes with its seismic force, and the rest of the band seems desperate to play catch-up and have some fun in their game of musical Armageddon.  It is the same throughout, every song has this untamed quality to it, which would lead you to believe it gets sloppy, rushed, and disorganized.  Shockingly, everything is incredibly composed and focused despite its rocket propelled steamroller quality.  Fripp is fastidious in his quest for airtight musical performances and even in their most reckless, Crimson is incredibly in sync.  This era of Crimson is known for their improvisations and this night is no different on the improv song Asbury Park, shifting between two rock grooves while allowing for some brief moments of ambient exploration by Fripp, Wetton, and Cross.  It is not their best improv of the tour (The Golden Walnut, Providence, or Cerberus can take that honor), but it is in line with the aggressive feeling of this show.  The one-two closers of Starless and encore 21st Century Schizoid Man are the heroes of this recording.  Starless’ first half always feels like a tease, because you really came to listen to the powerful second half that is nothing more than a rocket propelled bulldozer.  Comparing the studio version from Red and this performance is a perfect explanation as to why live Crimson is significantly more fascinating than their studio output.  Its incredibly chunky bass, eardrum splitting snare drum hits, and lethal guitar and violin solos are products of the stage that simply are not captured in the studio (especially as David is not on the studio release).  The bass line on Starless typically has a more plodding feeling, a slow building of doom, but during their Asbury Park performance it is on another level.  Wetton refuses to hold back, almost taunting the band to keep up with his fuzzed-out bass groove.  21st Century, their most iconic song, has also now changed from a sprightly and sinister progressive rock classic to a knuckle dragging destroyer of worlds, as if an acrobat gained 200 pounds of muscle and replaced their hands with hammers.  By the time the band walks off stage you are left wondering what just happened and what is the strange fluid coming out of my ears. 

What makes Asbury Park special is that it reminds us that one night’s performance can be beyond any studio output or crafted live experience.  It is also an indictment of bands who refuse to release live material.  Fripp’s exhaustive effort to release any live recording he can get his hands on gives us a chance to appreciate a world of live music that is beyond long gone.  When we lock these performances away in a vault we deny fans the chance to appreciate these little moments that you do not get anywhere else.  There is no rendition of Easy Money like this one and I do not know what that loud banging noise is at the end of 21st Century, but I never heard it on any other recording of theirs.  I guess I am tired of “you had to have been there” as an excuse, because we know there are so many times we cannot.  Not only is Asbury Park an explosive performance by a band who was mere weeks away from crashing through a brick wall and disbanding for 6 years, but it is a reminder of how these brief moments in time do not need to vanish.  

#8

Ismael Miranda Con Orchestra Harlow – Abran Paso!

True story, in preparing to write this entry I finally ordered the vinyl for this album.  I’m beyond excited to finally own this outstanding record which was my entry point into the world of salsa music.  This was the first salsa record I listened to completion, having heard the name Larry Harlow this was the first record I stumbled upon in searching for examples of his work.  It is a gleeful and joyous entry point.  Harlow is salsa royalty, a legend of the Fania All-Stars, and one of the first salsa musicians to utilize the electric bass in Electric Harlow.  Abran Paso! is bursting with a buoyant energy which makes it nearly impossible to not dance to.  The self-titled album opener is the perfect response to anyone curious about the genre of salsa, a high-energy number with Harlow’s piano work gracefully playing in the middle of the mix while Ismael Miranda’s majestic voice lures you onto the dance floor and a whirlwind of percussion makes it impossible to be out of tempo.  Abran Paso! the song is incredibly welcoming and friendly, bursting with vibrant horns from the first instants and a groovy backing bass pattern.  Although things do slowdown from time to time like on the cool Ayer Me Entere, Abran Paso!’s strength is in its energy, not necessarily intensity as it never feels bludgeoning.  Instead, Abran Paso! is vibrant and spritely album that swings its hips instead of throwing its body.  Ismael Miranda’s voice is commanding despite me not knowing what he is singing about aside from protest song Rise Up which is in English.  Even in those slightly more slow-moving moments the bouncing tempo of Abran Paso! is unapologetic in its charm.   Vengo Virao, for example, feels modestly sinister, slower, heavier, but despite whatever bad vibes it may produce you can not help but love it, like the bad boy in your 2000’s rom-com.  It feels like the background track when our titular heroes enter the club owned by the film’s villain.  Yea, it is the “bad club”, but I kind of want to hang out there. 

Like I mentioned, Abran Paso! was my gateway into salsa and latin music in general.  It led me to the Fania All-Stars, the previously listed Eddie Palmieri, and beyond the world of salsa to artists like Gal Costa, Hermeto Pascoal, MPB4, and Los Destellos.  There is something amazing about finding the entry point that leads you into a wider world of music that makes you feel comfortable with a genre of music that feels so alien at the onset.  Abran Paso! may not be the most critically lauded salsa album, or perhaps the most culturally significant, but like most of the albums here in the top ten it was a gateway album, and one that spawned a million pathways for me to venture forth.  It also meant I always had a safe place to call home for my ears.  I can try out Willie Colon, Ruben Blades, and others, but importantly I will always have Ismael Miranda, Larry Harlow and their domination of New York’s latin music scene in the late 60’s and early 70’s.  I will always have Abran Paso! and perhaps it can be your launch point too.

#7 

Magma – Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh 

It is 1973, a French band releases the third part of a three-album trilogy about a prophet who helps in ushering the end of the world.  Despite it being the third part of the trilogy, it is the first one released, the second would be released a year later, and the first part has never been recorded in a studio.  Fortunately, a few live recordings have been officially released.  The album is also sung in a made-up language in a style that can perhaps be best described described as jazz alien space opera.  I assume this description of Magma’s Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh  has you salivating for more and well it should.  Magma is one of those bands you read about in a Buzzfeed article, something so completely outrageous and ridiculous it transcends your concept of normality.  Actually, Magma would not even be mentioned in the article, but rather by some weirdo in the comments section trying to one-up the authors; saying something like “oh you think Björk is weird, well do I have news for you.”  After toying with a rather jazz-fusion oriented sound for their first two albums drummer, singer (I guess you can call it that), songwriter, and prophet Christian Vander decided to scrap the majority of his band and venture into new musical territory.  Instead of that jazz-fusion space opera sound, which has its own genre, titled Zeuhl, he opted for a more Wagner meets King Crimson meets John Coltrane sound with looping choral chanting,  grunting bass, and prophetic grandstanding. 

Not to worry, Christian’s strange world of Magma would still be sung in the fictional language of Kobaïan and would still continue to teeter just on the edge of composure and sanity.  That has always been Magma’s strength, never fully leaping the rails into noise or free jazz but refusing to keep both sets of wheels on the tracks.  It is one of those bands that progressive rock fans get a bit squeamish about, they are for the hardcore connoisseurs, those truly unafraid of indulgence.  Yea, ok, 18 minutes of Close to the Edge is pretty rad, but how about 40 minutes of chanting, screaming, meditative musical looping, and prophesizing about the world’s end that is not sung in a formal language  For many this is that bridge too far, too farcical and bizarre to entertain.  You may have bought the Van Der Graaf Generator boxset, but Magma is too weird!  Magma is on borrowed time throughout, asking quite a lot of from its listeners and when you get to Christian Vander attempting, very poorly, to sing falsetto they are going to lose the attention of most.  Give it time, give it attention, and give it a little leeway, however, and I assure you it will be worth the effort.  Modern music critics and listeners alike tend to overly simplify the listening experience into deep sincere heartfelt music that you must take seriously and fun pop that can get away with vapidness.  Magma does not really do either and so it is natural that it causes cognitive dissonance.  Yes, the music is intricate with incredible drum work by Christian Vander who is remarkable at finding places to sneak in patterns and rhythms, but it is also preposterous. 

The album starts with a tense sounding musical loop with Jannick Top on bass, Christian on marimba, and Jean-Luc Manderlier on piano playing in a constant circle and it is all immediately undercut with the sound of radio frequencies, an impossible to understand spoken word segment, random screaming, and ends with the boldest of declarations “Kobaïa Is De Hündïn” before more screams pull the music out of this loop and into deep bellowing crooning matched with a pained chorus responding.  This is not fun party music, nor can you take it serious; for context the band used to dress in all black and where giant pendants in the shape of the band logo.  It does however, have an endless supply of charm.  Every nonsense holler, weird horn, or bad Christian Vander falsetto is endearing if you are willing to just let it roll.  It begins to smooth itself out part way through, still being incessantly grandiose, but sounding more like your typical progressive rock space opera.  By the time Da Zeuhl Wortz Mekanïk ends you feel that the album is ready to take itself seriously and you are along for the ride.  The middle section feels far for linear, quirky sure, but nothing too out of the ordinary for the cape wearing musical dorks of the time.  Do not worry though, as the final 15 minutes of the album is ready to launch your sense of sanity right into the sun.  Nebëhr Gudahtt begins with a beautiful bit of piano, guitar, and bass before the wild falsetto of Christian sneaks back into the spotlight.  At first it feels alright, modestly ridiculous, but alright until it is contrasted with a chorus of female chanters and a bellowing voice to argue with Christian’s shrieks, which may just be Christian himself.  The music in the background is incredible, as Christian’s drum work fades in to meet that pattern that has continued to evolve and grow.  The contrast of this tense, but beautiful music paired with completely nonsensical blood curdling screams and honest to goodness tongue rolling is a breaking point where your brain completely short-circuits.  Mekanik breaks you mentally, shattering your sense of safety.  Fuck it, I am ready for the end of the world, and Mekanïk Kommandöh will do just that.  More chanting, more building, more uncompromising madness and then it all explodes into a frenzy of clapping, aggressive chanting, and guitar solos.    The album crash lands into Kreühn Köhrmahn Iss De Hündïn which sounds like an 80’s ballad possessed by a demon, or Kobaïa or Christian Vander who I must assume is a demon.  It is the slow come down, and in the story the album it is the death of everyone as they welcome the end of their world.  The album ends with the sound of flatlining, how fitting. 

I used a word earlier, uncompromising, and it is the proper way to describe Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh.  I am always left flustered as to how I should describe Magma.  Yes, it is heavily reflective of the progressive rock movement, but also jazz fusion, Wagner, Stravinsky, and heavily harps on John Coltrane, but none of these do the music justice.  Magma is silly, technically impressive, bewildering, agitating, and awe-inspiring.  Most importantly it is unbelievably distinctive and a remarkable example of a musician with a clear vision.  Sure that vision is a bit ostentatious, but it has yet to be replicated.  It is distinct and unwilling to submit to any demands. It is what makes it so head scratching, but also so heartwarming.  I am not sure what it is, but I applaud its drive and I warmly welcome it as it removes my frontal lobe.  Kobaïa Is De Hündïn indeed!

#6

John Coltrane – A Love Supreme

Buying massive boxsets of jazz albums you often find multiple takes of the same song, reflecting that the recorded instance on the album proper is just one version of the song.  A Love Supreme has one version, and that is A Love Supreme.  A Love Supreme, in contrast to other jazz albums on this list is a rule breaker.  You have your jazz instruments, saxophone, piano, double bass, and drums making jazz noises, but it does not really sound like “traditional” jazz.  It instead sounds like some strange hybrid of classical, gospel, and jazz resulting in a spiritual composition that has a familiarity to it even if you can not put your finger on it.  While many jazz albums are focused on motifs and themes with soloing intercut between, there are some that eschew this structure for something defined and composed.  Jazz’s opaque barrier of smugness lets its guard down when it allows the music to be more structured like familiar songs as opposed to cool kids riffing musically with only them in on the jokes.  It is also does not sound particularly cool.  It is not smoky basement cool,  it is not groovy funk cool, and it is not aggro-astonishing cool, nor is it nerdy or pretentious sounding.  It has a loner vibe, perhaps a praying at your personal alter vibe.  As Coltrane chants “A Love Supreme” at the end of the opening track your head is pulled down and pulled back up into a trance-like pulse and you are tempted to chant along with him. 

The thematic circles that embrace A Love Supreme keep the entire piece sounding familiar, but mildly anxiety provoking as if you are stuck in a massive maze. “Didn’t we pass this before” you might ask, no you did not, but its familiarity with a past movement tempts you to lose focus on the finer details and instead lock in on the larger thematic scale.  Again, jazz, but not jazz, a bending of the rules that keeps you saying “I know this, but something is not right” like when you visit your childhood home in your dreams.  And in that morphed nightmare funhouse kind of way, there are moments where you feel transported to another album, especially in Part III where McCoy Tyner’s dancing fingers and Elvin Jones’ drum work feel like they were lifted from a whole other work.  This is before the double-decker bus of Coltrane’s alto saxophone sideswipes you with aggressive horn blows.  Jimmy Garrison’s double bass solo at the end of Part III feels like the passer by who sees you and asks if you need help, but the blow to the head renders the words as inaudible muffles.  We enter Part IV with an ascending feeling, like it is time to enter another plane of existence.  The album has a spiritual radiance that allows jazz to have a more cosmic core that was lost in albums of the time.  Jazz was a mental genre, and desperately needed a heart.  A Love Supreme is that heart, despite its complex structure it is far more welcoming than other jazz works of the time.  The musical narrative flow will attract ears more than a 5 minute trumpet solo.

I get a mild progressive rock vibe from A Love Supreme as well, not at all in the sound of the album, thank god, but rather in its thematic wholeness.  Aside from some early album chanting there are no more lyrics, but it still feels quite like a concept album.  I do not necessarily buy into the armchair philosophizing that this Coltrane’s love letter to God, Islam, or any sort of spirituality, but it certainly has a focused theme inside.  Spiritual though, I am not so sure.  What that theme is I have no place to guess and Coltrane himself did not leave a note inside the record sleeve telling us either.  Perhaps his intention was our own personal celebration of love, whatever that may be.  I listen to A Love Supreme and am awash in its aura.  The opening casts open a portal into a realm where jazz can be something linear and its closing tells you it is time to leave and return to the mortal world.  It is tragic in a way as you want to stay and continue to feel A Love Supreme, but Coltrane has decided otherwise.  Fortunately, we can set the album to repeat and again enter this beautiful world whenever we want.

#5

El-P – I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead

Before El-P became half of the mega success Run The Jewels he was a broke uncompromising hip-hop anti-hero creating gritty subway tunnel rap music.  I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead is some of El-P’s darkest material, swimming in the murk of New York City’s sewers by day only to arise at night in order to terrorize the city, cigarette dangling carelessly from its lips.  The instrumentals are dense, jagged, and grating.  They feel like they are just instances away from snapping under their twisted stress and El-P’s prophetic apolocalyptic prose.  On this record he is a soothsayer predicting impending doom, his crystal ball just shards of glass sticking out of a bleeding arm.  The album also has the honor of being the first rap album I ever listened to completion.  Perhaps this is why my view of the genre is so warped, when this is your baseline where do you go?  I guess my lauding of Death Grips and dälek earlier in the list answers this question.  Yes, it is strange fruit hanging from the hip-hop tree, but it is also fundamentally sound.  El-P solo records, under the hood, tend to be classically structured hip-hop records although the bodywork is then covered in spikes, flamethrowers, and the severed heads of his victims.  At its core you are not looking at something too fundamentally different from some of the previously mentioned hip-hop albums on the list.  The rhythms are tights 4/4 hip-hop beats married with a variety of samples glued together. 

That is at its core, however, and that core is pretty deep beneath the surface.  El-P to this day is an artist not afraid to add an infinite number of layers in order to create the perfect song and in his solo years these could get rather impenetrable.  Twisted layer upon twisted layer of mutilated samples are stacked upon each other to create warped images of a nightmare city he forces himself to exist in, becoming lord of the dark underworld in the process.  His vocals would be not be particularly prominent in the mix either, becoming awash in the wailing sirens of Smithereens or Trent Reznor samples in Flyentology.  This gives the songs a claustrophobic feeling as El-P and his collection of guests drown in the mix.  There is no joy in I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead.  This is before El-P willingly accepted his grandiosity and enamored us with his braggadocio and tongue in cheek humor.  This pre-Run The Jewels El-P is pained and bitter; he has more chip than shoulder.  His view of the world is bleak, painting pictures of lost souls waiting for the train on Tasmanian Pain Coaster, or the dark horrors of war and falling in love with their prisoners on Habeas Corpus (Draconian Love).  Lines like “Does this job ever bother you, darkly creep up in your conscious too?” seem miles away from “You can all run backwards through a field of dicks”.  None of this is a dig on Run The Jewels, in fact there is a part of me that is happy this is not El-P’s only world anymore. 

While his early work is a marvel of a dark psyche being transmitted into 4/4 beats there is a sadness to it as well.  There is a desire to tell him it cannot all be this bad and it surely will get better.  I do not know if 2007 El-P believed that, but as a result we received this dark serpent of an album.  As the first rap album I listened in full, I understood the contents of hip-hop could be miles beyond what you found on the radio.  You could have Crank That and Dear Sirs, you could have a Stronger and Tasmanian Pain Coaster, and you could have fun skits and also a sample from Twin Peaks.  It would still be many years before El-P would team with Killer Mike and finally get what he had been owed for years which is a shame because he had been making pained and beautiful work for over a decade by the time it happened.  

#4

Can – Ege Bamyasi

A screech of feedback inundates the listener as they start Can’s third LP, their second with their most successful frontman Damo Suzuki.  You would expect with a welcoming like the album is chock full of chunky bonesaw riffs and rocking four on the floor beats.  Instead a somewhat formless water of music begins to pour out, “sure they are just warming up” you muse to yourself as you expect in any moment they will begin to gel together and begin a song about summertime, girls, dragons, or something else, but no this is as cohesive as album opener Pinch is going to get.  Damo Suzuki’s vocals never coalesce instead being a collection of syllables that sure sound like words but refuse to ever really form  anything coherent.  There is no real rhythm or reason in his words either, flowing freely among the music.  Such is Can and such is the nexus point of the future of music here in 1972. 

Can typically eschewed structure and form, instead creating musically themes and ideas that, as said, flow like water.  There is rarely a refrain, verse, chorus, bridge, or hook; it all comes and goes without boundary.  Make no mistake though, this is not tubular noise gibberish or squeaky jazz.  Most times Can feels quite grounded despite its rather sprawling nature.  This is thanks in part to the near psychic connection the four main musicians, Jaki, Holger, Irmin, and Michael had with each other.  Can records were not planned, often being a collection of jam sessions edited down into their best parts.  Songs can shift on a dime or simply flow until they decide enough has been said and are crashed into the earth.  Of the three records Damo Suzuki is featured on (which typically are regarded as their best work although I would lump Monster Movie and Soon Over Babaluma in that grouping as well), Ege Bamyasi feels the most balanced between things that actually resemble traditional songs like the well-known Vitamin C and I’m So Green, more free flowing jams like Pinch, and their self-acclaimed “Godzilla” moments like on Soup.  Part of this is because Ege Bamyasi is a bit of an amalgam, a mix of songs made for TV shows (Can’s original way of making money) and their traditional affair.  The actual production of the album was stunted because keyboardist Irmin Schmidt and Damo would not stop playing chess which led to a rushed production of the remainder of the material.  Fortunately, this does not serve as a detraction as everything still beautifully flows from start to finish.  The majority of the album has a calming feel, like strolling through a forest or driving down the main drag of a small town at night.  One More Night reflects that vibe perfectly, with a rolling drum groove that feels like the passing street lights and the periodic plucks of guitar and keyboards the strangers walking the streets.  For songs with nary comprehensive lyrics it still paints a vivid picture. 

While for the most part Ege Bamyasi has a playful, calm and even lackadaisical vibe to it, Can is not afraid to show its more dangerous side, primarily on Soup.  After a minute of build-up Soup almost feels like a late 60’s hippie anthem with Michael Karoli’s scorching telecaster and Jaki’s pummeling drum work.  This is all before the song completely collapses in one of those previously mentioned “Godzilla” moments, as if a black-hole appeared in the middle of the song.  It completely disintegrates under its own weight into swirl of keyboard squelches, screams, and periodic percussive crashes.  It is remarkable considering up until this point Ege Bamyasi rarely raises its voice.  This is compounded by follow-up I’m So Green a jaunty playful number that is so far removed from Soup’s explosion that it makes you wonder if a mistake had been made and you are now listening to the wrong album.    In the definitive biography of the band it is said that there were no real rules to their songwriting, but rather they went by feeling.  If it felt good, it stayed.  This is apparent in Ege Bamyasi, it all feels good, and it all feels remarkably well thought despite it clearly not being the case.  Damo’s caveman like vocals adds a polarizing juxtaposition on top of it, giving the material a rawer feeling. 

Can is one of those bands your smug hip friend will not stop talking about.  You want them to stop talking about Can, but they never will, and frankly they are right in their endless quest to trumpet Can to the heavens.  Like I said earlier, Can is a nexus point from which the world of alternative, indie, and experimental music really took off.  There is a reason your favorite band likely references Can as an influence or a band they admire.  Listening to Can’s discography will lead you to endless musical ideas that you thought were developed decades later.  Ege Bamyasi is just a small collection of that.  Quirky pop music, blending drum machines into rock songs, and songs that forgo verse chorus verse are some small examples of what began here.  All roads lead to Can.

#3

Fela Kuti and the Africa ’70 – Zombie

For the past 6-7 years at the dawn of midnight we put on Fela Kuti’s Zombie.  Earlier in this tradition when it was done among a big house party.  The unfamiliar would initially be amused as those in the know began to get everyone hyped up.  Those new to Zombie would shortly join in, dancing, and slowly figuring out when to exactly say “Zombie!“, but after about five minutes or so they would begin to question when this was all going to end.  This confusion would be overwhelmed by exhaustion at the ten minute mark when we were all still shouting “Zombie” and doing air saxophone.  As we melted into pools of sweat at the songs 12 and a half minute conclusion, we formed a common bond, sharing in an epic dance circle that revolved around Zombie’s intoxicating danceable nature.  Usually around midnight the drinks starting to slow down reflexes and sloshing too much can lead to some upset stomachs, but we all took that risk together for Zombie.  The house party is sadly a relic of the past, but the tradition has remained, just much smaller in scope. 

It is quite strange that a song that got Fela Kuti’s commune destroyed by the Nigerian military can cause an entire room of people to dance spontaneously without having heard the song first.  Such is the power of Afrobeat, a style of music that was perfected by Fela Kuti and his various backing bands.  Afrobeat is multi-groove centric, making multiple pockets in which to jump into and play along.  There is rarely a downbeat to grip onto, but instead multiple rhythms circling together that all can be a focal point although none really are.  These concentric circles periodically overlap, shifting in and out from one another creating a musical style that is nearly impossible to not  dance to, largely because it is hard to find a wrong way to dance to it.  Fela’s better songs lock into this, creating a clash of frenetic sounds upfront, but calm and collected rhythm sections in the back.  Want to flail to Fela’s saxophone solo?  That is no problem.  Want to shimmy to drum god, and inventor of the afrobeat rhythm, Tony Allen’s perpetually moving drum patterns?  This is fine as well.  Want to just bounce mildly to the shakers and other percussion mildly chilling way in the back?  That too is fine.  There is no wrong answer, aside from being a wallflower.  Fela has a mountain of releases, which can make breaking into his discography a little daunting.  Do yourself a favor and start here, and if you like this album you can continue to other releases or frankly you can just stay on Zombie.  Zombie is the perfect encapsulation of Fela Kuti’s band.  It is so fine-tuned and proficiently crafted all following songs will feel slightly like a let down to the point that I rarely venture into the albums second track, (most of his albums were two songs, rarely a third) Mr. Follow Follow.  Mr. Follow Follow is a fine song, an example of a slower moving Fela Kuti groove, but then you realize you can listen to Zombie instead.  In fact, that is a common thought that happens when I listen to any song; I could be listening to Zombie instead.  Zombie does everything right and checks so many musical boxes. 

Zombie is deeply political, a scathing rebuke of Nigeria’s military at the time.  Zombie is also unbelievably fun to dance to.  Zombie is also a grand epic adventure that makes the listener feel rewarded upon its conclusion.  Zombie is everything you need in a song and often leaves you asking why you are not listening to Zombie.  The jangly dueling guitars intro gives you that right amount of “oh shit it’s about to happen” to begin getting you ramped up.  When the bass and hand-percussion come that deep bellowing underbelly gives you that first set of additional rhythm patterns to latch on to.  Guitars or rhythm, where do you land and what do you pick to dance to.  Or perhaps you will hook onto the shaker that comes in with the saxophone.  You may also opt to lose all your bones and fly along with the raging saxophone solo.  There is no wrong answer within Zombie, and to choose Zombie is always correct.  Fela and Tony Allen’s perfection of the Afrobeat sound created marathon dance sessions that blended concepts of funk, traditional Western African music, blues, and jazz that made for songs that were truly enchanting.  You can get lost in them and they rarely feel their length.  Their length puts you into a trance-like state of dancing and joy.  Even when songs were railing against a tyrannical government you could not help but dance and move your body.  Zombie reminds us there is no wrong way to enjoy music, so long as you keep enjoying it.

#2 

Talking Heads – Remain in Light

You might remember in describing Graceland I noted the tendency for 80’s pop records to hijack African influences.  If you needed another prime example of this, I have one for you right here, right down to the fact that one of the unused tracks was called Fela’s Riff.  Considering how much I just salivated over Zombie I guess it makes sense they would want to create something similar.  I want to make something similar.  Talking Heads had pretty much exhausted their smarty-pants bookish New Wave sound after the release of their third album Fear of Music.  Years of perfecting this style had paid off, but there was nowhere new to go for the group in this avenue.  The band relocated to the Bahamas and began to experiment with creating instrumental loops in the afrobeat style, augmenting the band with additional musicians including Adrian Belew, Nona Hendryx, and Jon Hassell.  The resulting bigger Talking Heads were able to create fuller, more intricate sounds that their original quartet ever could.  This also was in line with their idea of replicating the Fela band style, creating a deeper band to generate the musical concentric circles needed. 

Fear of Music had already begun their shift away from Verse Chorus Verse music, with a few more groove-centric songs like Life During Wartime and I Zimbra and Remain in Light showcased a perfecting of  While lyrically frontman David Byrne will shift into verse and chorus the music itself rarely follows suit.  Different parts of the song instead will get emphasized or mildly shifted to note the progression of the song.  Take the breakout hit Once In A Lifetime, Tina Weymouth’s bass part is quite consistent throughout whether it is during David’s rambling about being behind the wheel of a large automobile or letting us know he is letting the days go by.  The songs have enough western familiarity to not completely alienate the audience, but it certainly is a far cry from Psycho Killer and Take Me To The River.  Talking Heads obviously did not invent the styles of music they were tapping into on Remain in Light, but without a doubt they found the perfect balance of their classic post-rock/New Wave sound, afrobeat, funk, and electronic meddling.  This is in addition to Adrian Belew’s synth guitar intervention, creating strange bird noises and other guitar squawks which in giving Talking Heads their signature quirk like his screeching solos on The Great Curve, a frenetic percussive based groove.  It is a delicate balancing act that allows itself to veer pretty far into certain directions from the sprightly and very Fela reminiscent Born Under Punches to the gothic electronic breakdown of The Overload. 

Even while they are venturing into less than traditional genres for western audiences there is always just enough familiarity to not overwhelm.  Going back to the radio hit Once In A Lifetime we can see this in action.  It is a highly successful western pop song, but it barely sounds like a western pop song and instead feels like a smattering of synth tones and one of the most recognizable bass lines in pop history.  We all know the song, we all love the song, but in the back of our minds it is also not conventional at all.  To me, Remain in Light is the best pop album of all time.  I know every publication wants to find another way to fawn over Sgt. Pepper’s and tell me how truly peerless it is, and maybe by 1967 standards that is true, but in 2020 it feels pretty commonplace to my ears.  Talking Heads was better than The Beatles and Remain in Light is better than Sgt. Pepper’s.  Remain in Light has no peers, there is no modern equivalent in its execution of a blending of multiple styles.  I will admit the track order is a little peculiar as after Once In A Lifetime the album is on a downward trend of bleakness it never escapes, but it does work as a celebration of day into night.  It is the acknowledgment that we  were dangerously close to having accomplished all we could in the genre of rock music and we needed to evolve and branch out.  While there are no peers to Remain in Light we see its influence everywhere from the idea of blending worldly styles with rock music, to the abandoning of typical structure in rock music, to co-opting Adrian Belew for one album before abandoning him shortly after.  Remain in Light is a juggernaut album, not in force, but in concept a complete shattering of the mold of what popular music can be.  I don’t know if popular music necessarily peaked in 1980, but I am unsure if we have gotten higher. 

#1

The Mars Volta – Amputechture

Go ahead: boo, hiss, sneer, and do whatever you will.  You knew this was coming.  You knew the moment I started this list some stupid The Mars Volta album was going to be #1.  This article might as well have been called ‘The long winding road to Alex gushing about The Mars Volta again’.  Let’s make a few things clear then.  I am fully aware I just called the previous album the best pop album of all time and I am aware if we are trying to be more objective than subjective this album is worse.  I know this album is worse than a lot of albums on this list.  I know this is not even the best The Mars Volta album.  I know the mix is kind of wonky with a thin bass and the recently fired Jon Theodore’s gorgeous drumming being shoved in the back.  I know the songs are the zenith of ridiculous prog cliche, and that the whole thing is a flaming clown car flying off a bridge.  I know Day of the Baphomets with its guitar, saxophone, bass, and bongo solos is just complete nonsense.  I know all of these things, but I do not care.  I adore every moment of this glutinous fiend of an album.  I love all of Cedric’s truly absurd lines including “the kiosk in my temporal lobe is shaped like Rosalyn Carter” “Put a muzzle on the lamb” and “I’ve been drinking black mirror again”.  I love all of those indulgent solos on Day of the Baphomets.  I love that half of Viscera Eyes is a rock version of an already existing salsa song.  I love that half these songs do not exactly end, but rather just collapse under their own weight into noisy disasters. 

What I love most of all, however, is that for me personally Amputechture is my crossroads, my nexus point, and my gateway to the vast majority of the albums on this list.  Without The Mars Volta I do not find I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead and I do not find strange and weird hip-hop.  I do not find Can, Nick Drake, Magma or Fela Kuti.  I do not learn about Zach Hill which leads me to Hella, Marnie Stern, and Death Grips.  Amputechture was the first time I listened to an album and told myself I needed to learn more about these guys, what were they influenced by, and how did they create such an outrageous album.  It was the first time I began reading interviews by a musician and then seeking out their recommendations.  It is where I found out about Krautrock as Omar once said in an interview (which I stole for this article) “All roads lead to Can” and a what seemed like a pretty stoned Cedric declaring “We like Neu!, we like Can, we like Faust”.  I remember reading about Omar growing up on salsa music, name dropping Larry Harlow frequently, which led me to Abran Paso!, Electric Harlow, and then through the Fania All-Stars.  Nearly anytime they would name check a person or a band I was on the hunt for them, hoping I could peace together the puzzle that made Amputechture.  While I am unsure if I will ever complete that puzzle, I developed a far deeper admiration for a far wider range of music than I could have ever imagined.  Their features on other albums also pushed me into new directions.  It was their feature on El-P’s I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead that lead me to that album, the idea of Cedric and Omar on a rap album blew my mind.  It was their side projects that also pushed me into strange territories.  I was wondering why they were hyping Hella so hard which led me to them, and Zach and Spencer’s myriad of side projects. 

Without The Mars Volta a vast majority of this list does not exist.  It was also them that led me to a wider community of The Mars Volta fans and from there more strange directions and recommendations.  Amputechture was also my first vinyl, which has led to a crippling hobby that my bank account has not forgiven me for.  Even without all that I can still stay with a straight face Amputechture is my favorite album.  I love that it is bursting at the seams, and just crammed with an endless amount of sounds and styles.  While The Mars Volta can certainly be plugged into the Progressive Rock genre it misses what makes the band so unique among their peers.  I know it holds all the hallmarks of classic ‘prog’, but it also has deep respect for salsa (to the point of plagiarism), punk, kraut, and classic psychedelic rock.  Amputechture is blatant about its influences, wearing them on its sleeve with no regret.  It is bold, but it also rarely punches you out right in the face (ok maybe right after the bass solo on Day of the Baphomets ). 

An old interview was describing the music as slowly rising from the water, and hearing how songs build in Amputechture that analogy is apt.  It does not really take off until later in the album, instead having a slow lumbering feeling of impending doom earlier on.  Vicarious Atonement crawls from the spawning pool with nary a drum hit instead focusing on spiraling audio effects and creaking guitars.  Tetragrammaton’s nonsensical sixteen minute run time constantly build and builds in grandiosity before melting into Vermicde.  Vermicide’s pop ballad structure brings us to funky Meccamputechture which again melts into the haunting Spanish folk ballad Asilos Magdalena.  It makes the one two punch of Viscera Eyes and Day of the Baphomets all the sweeter as they crank the nitrous and go flying off the cliff, crashing into the cliff that is El Ciervo Vulnerado and the remains slowly slide down.  It is a cosmic ride of absurdity, it is rocking, but also comical, there is humor within the pandemonium and for me it is absolutely perfect.  It has been my favorite album since 2006, and I have not heard an album that comes close.  Perhaps it is the historical significance, but no album has ever opened so many doors either.  When you find one that does, how is any other record supposed to hold water in comparison?  Thank you Amputechture for helping me fall deeply into a fandom which led me to meeting some pretty incredible people, for helping me find endless artists creating beautiful music, for bringing me to an expensive and joyous hobby, and also for just being a wonderful album to repeat over and over and over again.  Thank you Amputechture.  Let us catch up soon.