Editors’ Picks: Quarterly Report
Now that we’re more than a quarter of the way into 2012, eMusic’s editorial department thought we would take a second to survey our favorite albums so far, a dizzying set of records that reflects our team’s very different tastes. Seriously though — where else but eMusic would you see the dependable singer-songwriter fare of Anais Mitchell and Sharon Van Etten celebrated on the same page as throwback metal tracks (Christian Mistress) and future-forward electronic music (John Talabot, Demdike Stare)?
J. Edward Keyes, Editor-in-Chief
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Possession. The word conjures endless imagery: dead-eyed zombies dumbly going about their business; wild, head-spinning feral demon children screeching unholy phrases; evil high priests lording over dark rituals. But take it out of its supernatural context and you get something different — the image of someone so fully committed to the task at hand that all other goals are eliminated. You get something like the spirit found on the second record by... the Washington band Christian Mistress. Their songs scream full-body passion — Christine Davis's fearsome alto powering a set of blazing, blues-inspired metal nods toward stalwarts like Judas Priest and Black Sabbath while still forging its own infernal path. It's a bracing combination of scorching hooks and pitch black rifferry, the classic sound of metal born again in new bodies.
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Andrew Parks, Director of Merchandising
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If you're a sucker for shadow dance samples and thick slabs of gem-colored vinyl, there's a good chance you tried picking up one of the four here-today, gone-tomorrow EPs that prefaced the extended digital version of Elemental. I managed to grab three of them, which left a big, gaping hole in Andy Votel's gatefold packaging — a hole that's filled here alongside such previously unreleased material as the wraith-like haunted house hooks... of "Kommunion," the sheet metal solos of "Unction," and the droning, tortured techno of "Falling Off the Edge."
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Taken together, Elemental is nearly two hours of broken down grooves that genuinely defy any genre tags one could hope plaster across the crate-digging duo's ashen record sleeves. Not so much a difficult listen as a dizzying one, this ambitious project cements Demdike Stare's position at the forefront of what can only be described as "experimental electronic music." Anything else would sell this decidedly disturbed — and disturbing — journey quite short.
Maris Kreizman, Audiobooks Editor
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Last week in my Twitter feed, there was some discussion on the distinction between Kelly Clarkson-sad and Adele-sad — Adele-sad is way more dire, apparently. On my iPod, I have a few other benchmarks for angst. There's Fiona-sad (intense and confrontational, beautiful), Robyn-sad (spunky and dancey, beautiful). And then there's Sharon-sad, which is a mellower and more woozy kind of sad a la Cat Power (also beautiful). Sharon Van Etten-sad is for... when you wanna just pour whisky in your coffee and weep quietly on your couch -- or at least that's what I wanted to do with her last album, Epic.
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What makes Tramp such a lovely leap forward is that although a sense of melancholy still pervades — doomed relationships and heartsick confessions abound — this time around we see Sharon transition from coffee house to rock club. She's a little louder (still not loud), a little bit bigger. She's still got a knack for crafting lyrics full of visceral, unshakeable images — if Epic's indelible line to a lost love was “I'd rather let you touch my arm until you die”, then the winning lyric from Tramp is “You enjoy sucking on dreams / So I will fall asleep with someone other than you” from sinewy track “Serpent." Is that some anger I detect? Anger is good. Sharon-angry is a favorite new category of mine: It's a sad, dejected kind of anger, but it gets more badass by the day.
Jayson Greene, International Editor
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John Talabot's Fin opens with a quiet halo of evocative nighttime sounds — owls, crickets, croaking frogs. It evokes a David Attenborough-narrated nature film, and is definitely not the intro one might expect from a house DJ based in Barcelona, let alone a guy who grabbed so many ears with a song called "Sunshine." The mist-filled seven-minute song that emerges from this dark bog, called "Depak Ine," an inscrutable reference to the... seizure medication Depakote, gathers force like a nagging doubt, accruing melodic force and rhythmic layering as it goes.
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It is the first of the 11 consecutive welcome surprises that comprise Fin, a record that quietly upends whatever narrative expectations you assign to it at every turn. If you heard the first single, the fleetly throbbing "Destiny," and expected a record full of moody Depeche Mode-aping synth pop, you will hit a big red Stop sign the second the following track, a motionless, melted pool of sound called "El Oeste," begins. I have listened to it 30 times or more so far this year already, and my memory still hasn't quite nailed down the track listing's pretzel logic — always a good sign.
Laura Leebove, Production Editor
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Singer/songwriter Anais Mitchell has devoted much of her last few years to Hadestown, a grandiose folk opera that began as a stage production and spawned an album with characters voiced by Bon Iver's Justin Vernon, Ani DiFranco, the Low Anthem's Ben Knox Miller, and Greg Brown. She's toured it endlessly with a small orchestra and rotating cast of singers (I've seen it three times) and it's a phenomenal project — but it's... also so exciting to hear a brand-new set of material from this truly gifted songwriter. Young Man In America isn't a concept album, but it explores the relationships between parents and their children — in "Wilderland," she sings about a mother being a "shelterer" and father as a "shepherder," and in "Young Man," she talks about a boy whose father who "didn't give a damn."
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Young Man ebbs and flows, from the jangly Americana of "Venus" to the sweet release of the piano-backed "Come Down" (which Bon Iver recently covered), with contributions from mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile, violinist Jenny Scheinman and producer Todd Sickafoose, among others. Even without the big-name vocal support of Hadestown, Young Man is further proof that Mitchell's songs can be just as moving with just one voice.
