Ohmpark’s Top 25 Albums of 2011

Back in 2009, I listened to approximately 75 records that came out of Atlanta that year. This year, I blogged about roughly 75 records, and for every album I discussed, there were at least five I listened to and didn’t blog about. The quantity of music being made in this city is growing exponentially, and the Atlanta music scene runs extraordinarily deep. So needless to say, this was the most difficult year-end list to put together yet.

On a technical note, my 2011 year-end list eligibility extends through the 2010 holiday season because I like to be able to spend enough time with a record to properly evaluate it. So, any record that was not widely available before Thanksgiving this year will go into consideration for 2012.

Here are my twenty-five favourite albums from Atlanta this year:


25. Cassandras : Hari Pari Mandala Gosthi




24. Dark Room : Gothic Picnic




23. We The Lion : Boy Oh Boy




22. Easily Suede / Carey : Good Health Guide




21. Cassandras : Cassandras: 3 Songs




20. Book Club : Ghost




19. Warning Light : Wild Silver




18. Djarum : Don’t Let Me Down




17. Places : The Future




16. Nomen Novum / Magicicada / Tree Creature : Three Way Split




15. The Back Pockets : Fast Cloud Slow Cloud




14. Lid Emba : Terminal Muse: Blue




13. Vocabulary : Faded Days




12. Time Wharp : later.




11. Atlas Sound : Parallax




10. Mastodon : The Hunter




9. Places : Half-Dones




8. New Animal : Eleven Songs




7. Places : March




6. Spirits and the Melchizedek Children : We Are Here To Save YOU!




5. Lyonnais : Want For Wish For Nowhere




4. The Electric Nature : Mount Analogue




3. Today The Moon, Tomorrow The Sun : Wildfire




2. Little Tybee : Humorous To Bees




1. New Animal : New Animal

The story of Atlanta’s independent music scene in 2011 was the rise of a new wave of artists that came out of nowhere and upped the ante on everyone else. Only four acts on this list (veteran mainstays Mastodon, Atlas Sound, The Back Pockets, and Nomen Novum) have appeared on my best Atlanta album lists in either 2010 or 2009. That’s a symptom of the fact that there’s a new generation of local musicians dominating the scene. And at the head of this new class is New Animal.

New Animal‘s meteoric rise over the course of 2011 is unparalleled. Without a label backing them, with very little major publication support, and without even playing a single show ever, New Animal became one of the Internet’s buzziest bands early on in the year solely based on the strength of their 75-minute self-titled masterpiece. It’s hard for me to think of another record with fifteen songs where I love each and every single one. And what’s even more impressive is that they continued to output new material seemingly on a monthly basis, creating a catalog in one year vaster and more compelling than most artists do over a lifetime. There is simply no musical artist in the world that’s had a more impressive year.

My #2 and #3 spots went to outfits that have been on their own upward swing lately, each respectively creating an epic record that delivered on all the brilliance and potential they had displayed in recent years. My #4 is probably the most inaccessible record to come out of the city this year, but if you can find your way inside, it’s a monster. And my #5 goes to a band that I had previously written off, but there’s no denying what an amazing album they’ve put forth.

Of course, everything on this list is spectacular, and if you missed one, be sure to pick it up.

[Video] Lid Emba: “Macedonia”

[Stream] Lid Emba: “Macedonia”

One of the city’s best experimental artists, Lid Emba, has updated his soundcloud to feature finished versions of songs from his forthcoming Terminal Muse: Blue. The record is the second installment in his trilogy “dedicated to the chronic disease of creative impulse and endeavour,” and it will be out sometime this summer on Stickfigure. Here’s one from it to preview:

macedonia by Lid Emba

[Stream] Lid Emba: “Zakula” (Unmastered)

There is quite an impressive stronghold of experimental artists in Atlanta, but one of my faves is Lid Emba, the project of multi-instrumentalist Sean Moore. He manages to push the boundaries of what’s possible with music without being too inaccessible, a very difficult feat to achieve. That’s not to say his stuff isn’t challenging, but it’s also wholly rewarding. He has posted up a couple of unmastered tracks to his soundcloud from his forthcoming Terminal Muse: Blue, available in May, and here’s one for you to preview:

zakula by Lid Emba

[Mp3] Lid Emba: “Terminal Muse”

As I’ve just been finishing up going through local records for my year end list, I realized that I had completely forgot about the newest Lid Emba record because I got it back in January when I wasn’t blogging and just put it in a box and forgot about it. Terminal Muse: Red is the first installment in a trilogy of EPs, and it’s yet a another showcase of why Lid Emba is one of the best experimenters in a city brimming over with avant-garde artists. Adventurous listeners will find much to love here, so give it a go:

Lid Emba : “Terminal Muse”

Stream/Buy Terminal Muse: Red

Ohmpark Mixtape #7: Atlanta Outkasts

Operatin under the crooked American system too long
OutKast, pronounced out cast
Adjective meaning homeless, or unaccepted in society
But let’s look deeper than that
Are you an OutKast?
If you understand and feel the basic principles and
fundamental truths contained within this muzik, you probably are
If you think it’s all about pimpin hoes and slammin cadillac do’s
You probably a cracker, or a nigga that think he a cracker
Or maybe just don’t understand
An OutKast is someone who is not considered to be part of the normal world
He is looked at differently
He is not accepted because of his clothes, his hair
His occupation, his beliefs or his skin color
Now look at yourself, are you an OutKast? I know I am
As a matter of fact, fuck being anything else
It’s only so much time left in this crazy world
Wake up niggaz and realize what’s goin on around you
Poisonin of the food and water
Tamperin of ciggarettes
Disease engineering control over your life
Take back your existance or die like a punk
This is Big Rube, sayin right on to the real, and death to the fakers
Peace out

-from Outkast’s “True Dat (Interlude)”


This week Creative Loafing dropped their yearly Music Issue. The theme was mixtapes, and they created their own rather lengthy list full of Atlanta artists. They are even having some shows next week and a 10 song LP available from the artists they showcased in the issue. They also had a bunch of random people drop some guest mixtapes. Although I wasn’t invited to the cool kids convention, I figured I would play along anyways. Below are ten songs from musicians that get me excited about what is possible in Atlanta. They don’t adhere to any sense of some monolithic scene because each act is pursuing their unique vision. Many of these musicians are a little too “artsy-fartsy” or “good” to get their fair share of credit from some of the hype-maker dinosaurs around the city, but hey, that’s what I’m here for. Of course I’m leaving out a ton of other great ATLiens, but I think this is a pretty good litmus test to determine if this blog is for you because this is what Atlanta music means to me:

Untied States : I’ll Prove You Wrong (Again)
Slushco : Photograph
Nomem Novem : Permanent Makeup
All The Saints : Farmacia
Tree Creature : Rise Of The Bear Thing
Lee Harvey Oswald : Slore
Lid Emba : Rib Cage
Tealights : Passport
Today The Moon, Tomorrow The Sun : The Lightning Exhibit
This Piano Plays Itself : There Are Segments Of Revolving And Revolting

The last three songs on the mix are from bands all playing together at 529 tonight so I recommend you join me in attending. Also, go check out the Creative Loafing music issue and download their mixtape.

The Top 15 Best Atlanta Albums Of 2008

It’s been a banner year for the Atlanta music scene. The international success of bands like Deerhunter, Black Lips, and Mastodon over the last couple of years has put a spotlight on our city and many other artists are beginning to reap the benefits. I still believe that too many of our best and brightest are being overlooked, but that’s exactly why I do what I do. Looking back at my favourite local albums from last year, it seems this year’s class of studio work runs substantially deeper. I felt our scene is so overpopulated by albums worthy of recognition that I extended my original top 10 to a top 15 and I’m still leaving off a ton of really good records from Inside The Perimeter.

A couple of notes, there are a few local albums that have been self-released over the holidays, but I’m rolling them into consideration for next year’s list, and one album on here technically came out in the holiday season of last year. I didn’t do write-ups for this list as many of these are going to make my top LP and top EP lists in a few days, but if you are unfamiliar with any of these acts, I urge you to click on the “tags” below to see all of our posts on the artist. I know someone is gonna complain about Bradford Cox being involved with 20% of this list, but the guy is kicking ass in both quality and quantity of work, so don’t be a player hater. Here is the best Atlanta music of 2008:


15. The Goldest : The Goldest

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14. Gringo Star : All Y’all

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13. Atlas Sound : Things I’ll Miss

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12. Today The Moon, Tomorrow The Sun :

The Lightning Exhibit

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11. No Face : You Mean So Much To Me

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10. Nomen Novum : Mantis Man 7″

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9. Parade : Ghosts

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8. The Liverhearts : Ornament

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7. Lid Emba & Bobcrane : We Substitute

Radiance

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6. All The Saints : Fire On Corridor X

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5. Dead Confederate : Wrecking Ball

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4. Atlas Sound : Let The Blind Lead Those

Who Can See But Cannot Feel

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3. This Piano Plays Itself : This Piano Plays

Itself

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2. Slushco : When I Met The Boss Of Nova

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1. Deerhunter : Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.

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Underground Hottlanta: Lid Emba

One of my favourite things about this city is how vibrant the avant-garde/experimental scene is here. There may not be a huge audience flocking to shows, but there are a multitude of extremely talented artists doing their thing. Multi-instrumentalist Sean Moore, aka Lid Emba, is one such champion of music as art. In addition to putting forth some fine material from his own project, Moore is involved with two other great, progressive ATL outfits, Envie and Tenth To The Moon.

After dropping his spectacular Reason Isn’t Radar back in 2006, he began working on a The Postal Service-esque long distance collaboration with an equally deep-underground artist from Indiana, Bobcrane. On his myspace, Sean Moore explains the project:

As of the release of We Substitute Radiance, me and Ryan Huber of Bobcrane had yet to be in the same room. Picking each other out of a police lineup could have only been based on intuition; voice recognition might have been possible if our words were cloaked in the tinny sheen of telephone speak.

Our collaboration was catalyzed by a common association with Gavin Frederick’s Stickfigure Records and Distro. Ryan is based in Bloomington, IN, and has his own label, Inam Records, which in addition to putting out stuff by Dirac C and others, has been releasing CDRs by Ryan’s Vopat, Olekranon, and Bobcrane projects for a few years now. All of these are cool, but his work as Bobcrane particularly caught my ear back in 2007; I dug it’s economy, symmetry, and dronescape-meets-boom-box vibe. We got in touch and started working on a few tracks to see how things went. Things sounded good, we were intrigued by the weird feeling of working together without being together, and the project gradually morphed into the collection it became.

To say it wasn’t easy would be an understatement. It was kinda primitive, actually. We’d e-mail mp3s back and forth as shit developed, then snailmail completed wav files for the other to augment and accessorize. Despite having different hardware/software setups and being separated by over 500 miles, we somehow managed to construct the six tracks that became Radiance.

I’ve been jamming We Substitute Radiance really hard as of late. It is what I like to call “A blunt and headphones record”. The album envelopes you in a bizzaro world aesthetic that somehow manages to be dark and disturbing yet reassuring at the same time. The opening track, “Toxic Utopia”, takes you through a slowly building crescendo that could be a march for some evil, alien army. One of my favourite things about this album is how much imagery the completely instrumental songs lend themselves to. It feels like there is so much detail to the emotions they are expressing, but it never seems too complex to comprehend. We Substitute Radiance‘s greatest triumph is that a project so experimental on every level is able to communicate each of the duo’s visions to the listener so vividly.

Click here to read the entire post…

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