Eyeless Reflections

1) Take Shelter

Utterly devestating and essential treatise on mental illness and the apocalypse. Michael Shannon managed to accuraetly capture the essence of illness itself being both an observer and participant in his own collapse.

2) 13 Assassins

Beautifully presented with images of shocking brutality contrasted with lush stillness. Leading to a climax that stands alone as one of the greatest stage action sequences ever commited to screen.

3) Kill List

Magnificently brutal occult thriller that contrasted gritty realism, dark comedy and some serious pagan worship.

4) Xmen: 1st Class
A sensual prologue that boasted dignified performances and breathtaking action. A film that lived up to it’s casting.

5) Drive
Ryan Gosling shone, as did Ron Perlman, in a film that was dream like, surreal, stomach churning and visceral.

6) Troll Hunter
A lot of care was taken to create an immersive and convincing universe where Trolls walked the earth. Immersive joy.

7) True Grit
A standout from the start of the year threw few with it’s tone, not quite as jet black as we might have expected, the Coens nevertheless turned in a film of gritty moorish sweetness.

8) Rise Of The Planet Of the Apes
The pacing alone was a masterclass. Add your dose of clever scripting, ingenious plotting and stunning fx and we got blockbuster of the year.

9) Arriety
Just fall in.

10)Tree Of Life
A film that was reviled and loved simultaneously by all quarters, the themes and ideologies seemed to chime very close to my heart indeed. It was a struggle to watch with moments of epic drift that finally resolved in a spiritual miasma.  A family shattered by grief looks into eternity. Sometimes art needs to be hard.

It’s always hard to define and construct a list. Each entry represents a cycle of listening and experience, and always things are omitted that slip the mind. Each list is a work of art. Each list pertains to represent the outside world yet is somehow trapped inside it’s own listology. Masters of the list: Kurt Cobain, Basquiet and Paul Morley knew/ know this..the list refers to itself and it’s maker and is fun to indulge in because it is no less a window into ones soul than a poem or a carefully chosen acerbic lyric. This year I am going to offer up a top 10 and join this beautiful continium, but first I want to write a passage about music 2011:

 The mega hype around James Blake that greeted the year was more than justified, but I began to grow tired of his whinging, he is a great great songwriter and producer, but I grew tired of his stream of gripes about ‘frat-boy dub step’, laptops on stage and the nature of true art. It left a bitter taste when listening to his music, he comes across as if he’s some kind of genius making purer more soulful music than his peers. He is a genius yes..a very very precocious one. This year I finally started reading Pitchfork. I have to confess it elicits a rather prurient reaction from me (i.e. fun and utter revulsion). I have heard some winning music through it but on the whole I find the writing patronising and I often feel like they are telling me what to think how to feel which I resent them for. The tone of their writing is like your nephew’s irritating best friend has just discovered Pavement and is telling you off for never having bothered with proto-ironic hipster bible ‘Slanted and Enchanted’. This year around summer time I became obsessed with Black Sabbath and dutifully collected the 1-8 digi-pack albums from ‘Black Sabbath’ - ‘Never Say Die’. I love all of them equally with a bizarre fixation on ‘Technical ecstasy’. I became more interested in heavy music/ metal as a result: from Anthrax superb comeback ‘Worship Music’, thru Indian ‘Guiltless’, Thou, Nails,  Mastodon, Liturgy, Boris, Melvins, Hey Colossus, Wolves In The Throneroom, Lafaro, Lou Reed/ Metallica, Totimoshi, Jesu,  and Cave In. All of which delivered creative highs. Often intoxicating in their deliriousness. Perhaps metal album of the year goes to Wolves…’Celestial Lineage’. I think this the year that heroes past really delivered and heroes new were discovered: Kurt Vile, Duke Garwood (swampy bone-rattling blues), Anna Calvi, the unstoppable Tuneyards, Ema (mind blowing in every way conceivable listen), James Blake, Cave Singers, Barbara Panther and True Widow all took me into new joyful space. Electronically I loved Kode 9 ‘s Black Sun opus, Asher Dust, Joker, The Field (a spectacular drive experience), Surgeon (a long awaited, brilliant return), Falty DL, Anti G, Seefeel (!), Moritz Von Oswald..Thom Yorke seemed to appear everywhere from the trendy Flying Lotus/ Brainfeeder hangouts in LA, to Modeselector/ Burial/DOOM to nodding in furious and defiant appreciation to Red Hot Chilli Peppers in a London studio to writing ‘Codex’ and putting out a remix album with a who’s who of the pan-atlantic bass experience. But really none of it would have mattered shit if ‘The King Of Limbs’ was bollox. As it happens Radiohead pulled of a spectacular, nuanced and nimble version of exploratory rock that quite frankly blew my face off. Old heroes continued…PJ Harvey, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Lou Reed, Bjork, Tom Waits were all on fine form..these people don’t really make bad music, the three old heroes that seemed to find their way deep inside my heart were Idaho ‘You were a dick’, Low’s ‘C’mon’ and Buffalo Tom ‘Skins’ deep and beautiful albums that took me into new and next level space. I also loved Wiley, Beastie Boys, Tyler and Mellowhype, Africa Hitech and a face crushing album of industrial strength basstronica by Empty Set. In my backyard Robert Ridley-Shackleton really found his voice with a sequence of beautiful and deranged albums, Nick Hudson + The Academy Of The Sun set his heart for eternal miasmic pagan drift with gorgeous results,  melancholic sludge from Sloath affiliated Sweet Williams and a notably intense ep from cosmic folk voyagers Custom Blue Tree EP a fizzy corroded album by Black Neck Band Of The common Loon and inspiring noise gaze from Vortex Collisons. K Records wise there was a steady stream of solid material none greater than Chain + The Gang and in neighbours KRS Thao + Mirah.. a solid and beautiful experience which I think I will have a lasting relationship with. Juliana Barwick must also be mentioned an album that in an age of hyper consumerism stands alone as a singular and almost unbearably powerful voice. As I went into record numbers with my album consumption this year here is my top twenty:

1) Ema- Pastlifemartryedsaints
2) Buffalo Tom- Skins
3) Low- C’mon
4) Jesu- Ascension
5) Peace For Old Ghosts- Dawn Chorus
6) Wolves In The Throneroom- Celestial Lineage
7) Juliana Barwick- The Magic Place
8) Joker- The Vision
9) Liturgy- Aesthetica
10) Kurt Vile- Smoke Ring For My Halo
11) Cave Singers- No Witch
12) Tuneyards- Who Kill
13) Seefeel- Seefeel
14) Anthrax- Worship Music
15) Robert Ridley-Shackleton- Shut Up Egg
16) Idaho- You Were a Dick
17) Thao+ Mirah- Thao+ Mirah
18) Surgeon- Breaking The Frame
19) Lou Reed + Metallica- Lulu
20) Mammifer- Mare Decendrii

I always distrust common consensus. Especially when it comes from the critics. Metallica and Lou Reed’s album Lulu has been absolutely panned from everyone from the Gaurdian to Pitchfork to The Quietus. It has been dubbed ‘the worst album ever made’ in some quarters. At this point I’d like us to recall that Lou Reed is no stranger to courting controversy. Berlin and Metal Machine Music were both slated at the time but now are seen for their own reasons as very significant pieces of work if not masterpieces. However it’s all very well looking at Lou Reed’s 70’s output, but really ‘Lulu’ belongs to a continium starting with the collaboration with John Cale ‘Songs For Drella’ through ‘Magic and Loss’, 2000’s ‘Ectascy’ and 2003’s the ‘Raven’. A continuum of sombre, conceptual works that don’t make a lot of sense if you’re looking for the thrills of ‘Transformer’ or ‘Rock n Roll Heart’ but fashion within themselves a unique  universe containing song, spoken word, sound art and the release of straight up rock music. ‘Lulu’ is perhaps the fullest realisation of that dream yet, and I can understand why Lou refers to it as his best work. Each element that has been tugging within his albums since ‘Songs For Drella’ are now allowed full space, a space that Metallica know how to fill. With ‘Lulu’ Lou Reed has managed to elicit from Metallica some of their most abstracted material, but also some of their most intense. I know 3 Metallica albums..so I’ll stop there, but what I think Lou Reed has successfully done is bring their teutonic metal out of context and chewed it up with poetry and epic collages involving orchestra, electric guitars and Lars Ulrich constantly questing drums.
I think people have reacted against it because it’s not an easy pill to swallow. And I don’t mean to patronise. But this album is unquestionably Marmite. Don’t let a few influential haters put you off.

” Sure, there are longtime USBM diehards like Inquisition, Absu, and Averse Sefira, groups who’ve been there for decades, and who will keep releasing strong albums without showing up on your non-metal friend’s iPod.”

Brandon Stosuy, Pitchfork 23/09/11

I think it’s the statement “without showing up on your non-metal friends ipod” which really offends me. I just find it so unbearably smug…mind USBM (U.S. Black Metal) is not everyone’s cup of tea…knowing some underground metal acts discography by bands entrenched in the scene does not mean you are any more or less a metal fan than someone whos favourite band is Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax or Megadeth. So what if ‘visible’ Black Metal such as Wolves In The Throne Room and Liturgy have crossed over..and so what if that’s how people get into metal? It’s just the lack of respect for listeners and the pure simple joy of loving music that really fucks me over. I’m going to gladly trot down to my local record shop on Monday and buy the new Mastodon album. Now I don’t have a lot of metal, but I LOVE metal. I love what some fuck head once refered to as Hipster Metal, but I also love METAL, I LOVE SABBATH, I LOVE THE BIG FOUR. Napalm Death got me into extreme music..System Of A Down, Tool, Metallica, Black Sabbath, Slayer, Anthrax, Nails. I like it raw and hard and fast. I find the above statement so divisive as if there’s some battle line drawn between 2 warring factions. Between metal and non-metal. Folks there is no fucking line! There is just MUSIC and LOVING MUSIC. Metallica AND Absu.

In no order:

Chain And The Gang: Music’s Not For Everyone
Kurt Vile: Smoke Ring For My Halo
Low: C’mon
Buffalo Tom: Skins
Anna Calvi: Anna Calvi
Thao & Mirah: Thao & Mirah
James Blake: S/T
Earth: Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light
Lila Ices: Grown Unknown
Seefeel: Seefeel

We all know now that ala Bjork lauching her website ‘Biophelia’  is the result of our move away from product based to experience based consumption. For bands as big as Liars, Bjork, Tyler or Radiohead this has been exploited to it’s fullest with huge amounts of firepower. But what of the nobodies? As a career nobody I am going to embark on an album making experience of my own. I am going to write record and release an album in some format over the course of the next 3 months and keep a regular twitter feed, regular blogging, the occasional youtube footage possibly spontaineous performance either in a venue or in a house (probably mine) to an audience (probably my kids)..I’m going record every thought every experience in it’s creation. This album is going to be called ‘Maximum Knowledge’. Starting today…Day 1! I know this has been done before. And I welcome anyone to join in the fun and share their experiences of how it went..x