Caleb Price is a 49 year old 1st generation American who immigrated here from Bratislava in 1992. She makes a living by traveling to rural areas of the midwest and the adjoining bible belt where she frightens superstitious rubes into giving her money and expensive cutlery by pretending to be a powerful sorceress. It’s a dangerous line of work – there’s always the chance she’ll be caught, in which case she’ll surely face public immolation in some remote Nebraskan town square – but she prefers it to her previous career back home in Slovak Republic, which consisted of playing nameless prostitutes in the backgrounds of various American horror movies set in Eastern Europe. “She” is also a “he,” and he likes coffee, microbrews, the driftless region, sourdough bread, and the following albums released in 2011 . . .
10) EMA – Past Life Martyred Saints
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An exercise in stylized ferocity, depicting a roving, stilted, swaggering, scuzzed out imp who is deadpanning the eschaton.
9) Man Man – Life Fantastic
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“Fraggle Rock Noir.” Lovable and frightening as hell.
8) The Antlers – Burst Apart
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Even at it’s most intense moments, this album feels utterly weightless. Light shuffles and sheets of ambience gently ricochet about large spaces, and you feel like something heavy is being lifted from your chest.
7) Earth – Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light Vol. 1
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Stoner Rock dons a Stetson. Real heavy, real slow.
6) Yuck – Yuck
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If you’re a bastard child of early 90’s alt. rock like me, then this choice doesn’t require explanation.
5) The Strokes – Angles
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To say that Angles is derivative of previous material or lacks imagination is a lazy criticism. Every track tries something a little different and 90% of them succeed.
4) Colin Stetson – New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges
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My thoughts on this album can be found on my previous post. The gist is that it’s awesome.
3) Halloween, Alaska – All Night the Calls Came In
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Don’t ask me how or why but my mind has chosen to overlay this record with a unifying narrative involving a schizophrenic having a series of intense dialogs with his television set. 3:1 is easily my most listened to track of the past three months.
2) Bon Iver – Bon Iver Bon Iver
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This album’s sound is very large, but it’s also very fluid. Listening to it you’re not quite sure how you’re getting to all the places it’s taking you, but the beauty and craft of the scenery is always enough to convince you that wherever you are is where you should be.
1) PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
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A powerful work of theater in album form. Classically cathartic in its stolid depiction of large-scale brutality.
