Pazz and Jop 2014

The results were published last week, and there was a surprise winner!  This is a true rarity for P&J in the internet era.  Every major print and online publication posts its list by mid-December, so by the time P&J counts the votes and publishes its list, dozens of competing polls and lists have already been dissected for weeks from every conceivable angle.  By that time, the Village Voice's list is often little more than a foregone conclusion, despite the care and thoroughness that goes into it (you still won't find a larger poll with a more varied electorate anywhere).  To counter this somewhat, the Voice has moved up the P&J publication date over the years, from early February to the first half of January, but they're still the latest arrivals to the end of year wrap up party.

The advantage with being the last to publish, however, is that they're the last to accept ballots -- often right until the last few days of the year.  I personally have always hated the idea of seeing "year end" lists published in November, or people starting to rank their top tens in July, because a year is a year, and I want to maximize my time spent with every release, particularly the ones that come out in the fall.  That leaves room for albums like D'Angelo's "Black Messiah" or last year's Beyonce album to capture some last minute crit-love before the year is over.  Equally surprising is how handily D'Angelo won, and the amazingly high number of points/vote that he received (12.3).  Only seven other P&J top ten finishers from 2010-2014 had a 12.0 or higher.

Statistics for the poll, as always, come from Glenn McDonald's indispensable database.

I had my highest ever centricity score this year, breaking into the top 40th percentile for the first time.  The only other year that comes close was 2009, when I also voted for two albums that finished in the top five of the poll.  Otherwise it was my usual stars and scrubs ballot.  My third album that cracked the top 20, Swans' "To Be Kind", had 49 other voters.  My other seven albums combined had just 33 other voters.

This was the first year I didn't submit a singles ballot.  I absolutely hate being one of those people who doesn't vote for singles but my long standing rule is not to vote for token album tracks from my albums list, and I didn't get into enough proper singles this year to the point where I could put together a list I could really stand behind.  The vote distribution on singles was arguably the most divided ever in the poll, so I think there were many voters who were of a similar mindset.  There weren't any brilliant and inescapable singles that a large number of people could rally behind, which likely resulted in an apathetic attitude toward singles in general.  

Glenn tabulated a stat called Vitality this year, where albums were re-weighted by the percentage of points that came from new voters.  For years many people have been complaining that voter tastes are too narrow and that an injection of new blood is needed not only to keep things fresh, but to increase the visibility of under-recognized genres.  That sentiment reached a fever pitch around 2009, when the P&J top ten was dominated by Pitchfork-approved indie rock.  So Glenn tabulated everything according to Vitality, and the top ten is dominated by ... slightly more obscure indie rock!  Listen, I'm all for adding as many new voters as possible, I'm not elitist in any way about preserving the sanctity of the ballot like the BBWAA is with their baseball Hall of Fame ballots.  But I never understood this strange belief that adding new voters would automatically increase diversity.  I also never thought the answer was to "add metal music critics" or "add country music critics" to get those genres represented, because they'll load up their ballots with nearly nothing other than metal or country.  Adding new voter blocs isn't the same as adding diversity.  "Breadth" measures this somewhat -- if someone consistently votes for a variety of genres, they're more likely to be discovering new artists all the time and less likely to be voting for the same artists year after year.  

On that note, I usually complain about the poor state of techno and electronic music in the poll, but this year I'm not sure I can.  The strong showing by genre-spanning artists like FKA Twigs and Caribou shows that many of the old boundaries between genres are becoming blurred.  Todd Terje and Aphex Twin may be canonical and therefore boring according to some, but they both made the top 40.  Do we have the EDM boom to thank for this?

An evening with Mark Gardener @ Barby Club

You have to admire Mark Gardener for the effort he put into making this evening happen.  His originally planned visit, a supporting slot on a bill with Dean Wareham, was cancelled over the summer due to Operation Protective Edge.  Most of the time, musicians' schedules don't allow for cancelled gigs to get rebooked.  But Gardener seemed determined to deliver more than just your ordinary gig.  This was more like the Mark Gardener Experience, a unique and intimate evening with a man who will shortly be playing arenas and headlining sold-out festivals.  This seated concert was to be his last show before the long-awaited Ride reunion. 

Living on the isolated fringes of Europe and Asia has its advantages and disadvantages when it comes to international touring artists.  Most of them don't bother coming through Tel Aviv -- the market for their music isn't large compared to the major European cities, and high travel costs make for an expensive one-off show that often isn't worth it financially.  That's the disadvantage.  The advantage is that when people do come, many of them go out of their way to experience the country, travel around meeting and talking to people, and do something special at the actual gig.  The evening started out with a nearly hour long on-stage sit-down interview with Israeli author and musician Yaheli Sobol (lead singer of the popular band Monica Sex).  Sobol focused mainly on the sound and structure  of the first two albums, with a musician's eye for detail in speaking about how advances in studio technology have changed how they approach the studio.  Somehow he avoided asking the more obvious questions, which for me, first and foremost would have been "in your opinion, why has shoegaze had such amazing staying power and even gained in popularity and influence over the years when every other microgenre of 90's British music proved to be a passing fad?" 

Many artists feel compelled to comment on the political situation these days, which is in one sense unfortunate (stick to music, please) but also interesting because you get a better feel of who they are as a human being.  Gardener spoke about the boycott calls but felt it wasn't right because even though he disagreed with the direction of the country, he disagreed with the direction of a lot of countries.  Taking this to its logical conclusion, there would be no place left to play, and fortunately that's the attitude that most musicians have.  He was taken to a Heartbeat Foundation gig in Jerusalem the night before and even invited one of the singers, a young woman who went by the name of "Russia" I believe, to be his spur of the moment opening act.  He'd heard about Heartbeat after Neil Young donated money to them following his cancelled gig this past summer, and was so moved by what they were doing that he decided to donate money himself after spending an evening with them.  Heartbeat is a perfect example of how Western journalists and musicians want to see Israel -- young Arab and Jewish musicians working together to write songs about "the occupation" -- rather than how it really is, but what can you do.  As a slight aside, here is my first and last comment on the boycott situation -- there's no justifiable reason for it and it's a problem only when the artists want it to be a problem.  Macy Gray turned the matter over to her fans and it descended into a shouting match.  Gray would swoop in and declare "oh it's so complicated!" and it makes artists feel like heroic soldiers leading the charge for hope and change when all they're doing is traveling to a perfectly safe Westernized country to play some music.  On the other hand, when Mark E. Smith got harassed by fans four years ago over The Fall's upcoming concert, his response was roughly "fuck all of you, we're playing" and that was the end of it.

Gardener told a funny story about Ride getting signed by Creation.  They had a support slot for five nights on the Soup Dragons' UK tour.  Alan McGee followed them from show to show and would sit with them afterwards.  There was one problem -- his Glaswegian accent was so thick, Gardener couldn't understand what he was saying.  He figured it's OK though, at least one of the others would understand him and they'd piece it all together later.  So he asked the others later on and they all said "we didn't understand a word he said either ... but I think he wants to sign our band?!?"

As for Gardener's set, it was transcendent.  He struck a good half and half balance between Ride songs and his solo work, the latter of which was dominated by his soon to be released collaboration with Robin Guthrie of the Cocteau Twins.  Playing with just an acoustic guitar and a loop effects pedal, he would loop his riffs and backing vocals to create a swirling, shimmering miasma of sound, which is exactly what you'd want a Gardener/Guthrie collaboration to sound like.  You would expect "Vapour Trail" and "Twisterella" to translate well to an acoustic performance, based on their original arrangements.  But Gardener particularly shined with some of his more ambitious adaptations, such as "In a Different Place" and "Polar Bear".  His voice is in top form too -- stronger and more refined than in his Ride days. 

The whole night felt like a VIP-only performance from an artist poised to make a big comeback in the next couple of years.  Those of you were tickets to the Ride reunion shows are in for a treat. 

String Cheese Incident, Spearhead live at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, December 28, 2002 (12 years later)

This is another retrospective review, and it's appropriate for kicking off the new year because it was part of a series of New Year's Eve shows from a band that's well known for them.  Unlike my review of Spiritualized twenty years on, I attended this show.  It was almost exactly twelve years ago.

I wrote down my thoughts about this show after it happened.  They're in an old notebook that I have to find one of these days.  I haven't seen that review or heard the recording since the day of the show.

Spearhead were the opening act and that was a welcome surprise that I didn't know about when I went along with the idea to get tickets to this show.  I think they were announced as the opening act only a few days before the show.  I remember thinking to myself that no matter what happens, I will get to see a really good band that I'd been curious about seeing for some time.

About a year ago I bought The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprosy's first and only proper album, "Hypocrisy Is the Greatest Luxury".  It was a bargain bin purchase and it's an album that barely remembered today.  It couldn't have been more out of place than it was -- a hip-hop inflected album by a California crew but with no connection to G-funk or gangsta rap or any of other West Coast trends of the time.  Instead, it combined the Bomb Squad's kitchen sink mix of beats and chaos, the swagger of industrial music, and Michael Franti's politically charged lyrics.   Sonically, it still sounds fresh because it's a blueprint that was never duplicated.  Nobody even tried to duplicate it, including Franti.  He decided to grab his guitar and reach out to the freaky people of the world instead.

Around the time of this gig, I saw a Much Music interview with Franti (can't recall the interviewer) and they were casually wandering the streets of downtown Toronto.  This was not altogether unusual.  Unlike MTV and many other journalistic outlets, MM was never about shutting its guests in a sterile studio, they always tried to integrate themselves into their urban surroundings by letting the crowds get up close and personal to their ground floor studio, staging events in the parking lot by the side door, and so on.  Franti wasn't the only artist to be interviewed outside Much Music building, but as far as escaping the confinement of the studio goes,  to absorb the energy of the streets, I'm sure he wouldn't have had it any other way.

Anyway, they were walking the streets and he was recognized by a passerby.  I can't even recall it they were male or female, let's say it was a male.  What happened next was remarkable.  They had a short conversation and the fan became a bit flustered in trying to communicate his feelings.  You're an inspiration, keep doing what you're doing, don't change, and just when the fan seemed to lose track of he wanted to articulate, Franti grabbed hold of him and embraced him like one would embrace a close friend or family member that was about to board a plane for a long journey, not to return for many months.  Except this was a total stranger from the street.  The hug made everything OK. Celebrities have to find ways to detach from their fans all the time, there's a fine line between saying you're a big fan and getting too nosy, outstaying your welcome, and making the encounter uncomfortable for everyone involved.  This fan wasn't like that.  He wanted to briefly say his piece and let Franti continue on.  Franti could see that.  He made the encounter special by embracing him and making the fan feel like a true friend.  After a few brief parting words, he continued down the street and went on with the interview.

This kind of connection between an artist and their fans is incredibly rare.  Of course there are plenty of friendly musicians who go out of their way to interact with their fans.  How many of them hug random people on the street?  Franti connects with people not only because he's a talented musician with something to say, but because he's nice.  He's so nice that he can connect with people without even trying.  Cultivating a stage persona and connecting with fans is hard work for most people, and it should be.  For Franti it's not work.  He can connect to people without even trying.  Obviously part of it has to do with the types of fans he attracts -- jam band, outdoor festival types who are open and welcoming people to begin with.  But Franti has perfected the art of being nice better than just about anybody.

Even after all these years, Spearhead's set from that night in '02 immediately brought a smile of familiarity to my face.  The music was infectious and fun from the first song to the last.  At the time I was wondering whether SCI could top their set, and listening to these recordings now, I'm wondering the same thing all over again.

The litmus test for SCI rears its head right away.  The first song, "Johnny Cash", features the chorus "Johnny Cash, Johnny Cash, Johnny Cash, don't smoke hash".  Even without hearing the song, if that seems like a funny and amusing chorus to you, then you'll probably like the Cheese.  But if you find it an adolescent stab at humour that came out of an afternoon of reefer madness that you're glad you weren't a part of, then you probably won't.  What does that line even mean?  Are they telling Johnny Cash to stay away from hash, or are they informing us that he doesn't smoke it?  (It's the latter, which is clearer from the rest of the lyrics)

The first set is breezy and energetic, highlighted by a cracking version of "Under African Skies" and a deliciously groovy "Born on the Wrong Planet" featuring Michael Franti and other members of Spearhead.  Seeing this live, I couldn't believe how quickly the 70+ minute set flew by, and was even disappointed for the break in momentum. Hearing it today, my reactions are largely the same.  

The second set is a different story.  It's slower pace and more jammy style is designed to cultivate a different sort of mood, and for me that mood was exhaustion.  I was about ready to crash, partly a comedown from the energy of the first set, and partly a physiological comedown, probably from having a few too many drinks earlier in the day.  During the encore, there's a short delay as the band tries to figure out what they're going to play.  Fifteen minutes of jamming later, the song abruptly ends and it's time to go home. The gig is over, and it's as if they were punching a clock, got in the two and a half hours that their fans expect, and called it a night.  The second set is inoffensive enough as a relaxing listen during my daily commute, but live I was straining to enjoy it.  I wanted to get the most out of the SCI experience, but by the end I was well past ready for it to finally end.  

Live recordings of these shows, plus hundreds of others by both band, are readily available online. My copies, courtesy of the Live Music Archive:

https://archive.org/details/sci2002-12-28.mbho603.shnf
https://archive.org/details/spr2002-12-28.shnf

Some of 2014's best music writing that I feel bad for not having read until now

Flavourwire's Jillian Mapes compiled a list of the year's best music writing and there are plenty of gems there.  It's filled with sites I check at least semi-regularly and writers whose work I normally enjoy, and yet somehow I missed nearly all of these.

Lauren Nostro's profile of Nicki Minaj is a long-awaited peak behind the curtain that finally makes some headway in separating her public and private personas.  The career retrospective of KISS by Chuck Klosterman seems like a must read that I'll save for a rainy day.  Chris Molanphy's history of Billboard's R&B charts is by far the best analysis in the wake of the (mostly negative) publicity surrounding Billboard's controversial changes in the criteria that are used to compile the chart (along with other specialty charts).  He also explained this widely circulated but almost universally misconstrued taste map, which not only makes sense to me no, but might also show the way forward to reclaiming the audience-specific data that the old charts used to represent (it'll make more sense if you read the article).

In the separate best of Flavourwire list, there's a Run The Jewels profile by Matthew Ismael Ruiz that I really need to read, and a Tom Hawking piece about the politics in A Silver Mt. Zion's music that would have been unthinkable when they started out fifteen years ago, or even five years ago.  The slow transformation in critical opinion over ASMZ and GYBE from polemical weirdos to broadcasters of simple but effective messages of hope has been fascinating to behold.  

Iggy Azalea vs Azealia Banks

This feud has been covered in detail by Jeff Chang.  The jist is that Banks is accusing Azalea of cultural appropriation (or "cultural smudging") and getting extremely emotional about, and Azalea is telling her to get lost in response.  My reading is that most people don't have much sympathy for Azalea because of the way she seems to take a perverse delight in adding fuel to the fire, but at the same time, Banks has received a lot of criticism for claiming black "ownership" over hip-hop.  Once art is out there, anyone can borrow it and be influenced by it, they say, although I can't help but wonder if these people were saying the same things when Katy Perry dressed up as a geisha.

Q-Tip chimed in with (naturally) a calm and reasoned approach to the whole controversy, saying that hip-hop can be fun but to never lose sight of the socio-political roots of the genre.  The reactions of Banks and Q-Tip may be as genuine as they come, but they would sound ludicrous if they were talking about any other genre.  Jazz and opera fans get ridiculed for assuming a self-righteous attitude about their music and setting up knowledge barriers for entry.

This stance is connected to hip-hop more than it is to race.  Electro and EDM have crossed over into pop music, and they have their roots in black music as well.  Nobody talks about cultural appropriation of those genres.  Techno also started as a black socio-political movement -- disillusioned black kids re-imagining a decaying Detroit as a futuristic metropolis -- and despite its long history and rapid spread around the globe, anyone who tried to claim that you couldn't really understand it unless you came from Detroit would get laughed at.  Techno always did a stellar job at incorporating its influences across racial divides though -- Kraftwerk and George Clinton stuck in an elevator and all that -- which helps to explain its global popularity.

Top 10 albums of 2014

I won't remember 2014 as a great year for new music, and in a few years time I doubt I'll rank any albums from this year among my all-time favourites.  However, there was a steady stream of quality music trickling out all year long, and I don't think I fully appreciated that until I started putting together this list and realized how many notable albums there were to choose from.

You might find it surprising, in looking over lists of my favourite albums from the past several years, that the following albums did not make this year's top 10:

Raveonettes, "Pe'ahi".  Their last album, "Observator", was my #3 album of 2012 and I still play many of their earlier albums on a regular basis.  Their career is a series of brilliant albums alternating with mediocre ones.  Raveonettes are about as formulaic as they come, so they always walk a fine line between greatness and recycling the same ideas they've been beating into the ground for the past decade.

New Pornographers, "Brill Bruisers".  Speaking of formulaic, New Pornographers have been making the same album over and over for the past fifteen years, but there's nothing wrong with being the AC/DC of indie rock.  Their last album "Together" was my #5 of 2010, and even though "Brill Bruisers" checks all the right boxes, somehow I never really got into it.  It's a fun listen, but nothing too memorable.

Plastikman, "EX".  And how's this for "somehow never really getting into it" ... Plastikman's 2003 album "Closer" was my #2 album of the 00's, I've been in awe of Richie Hawtin's music for nearly a quarter century, buying album after album, single after single, alias after alias for most of my adult life, so what happened here with "EX"?  I wasn't alone in believing Hawtin was too preoccupied with capturing past glories.  In trying to be too precise in re-capturing the classic 90's Plastikman sound, Hawtin led his inspiration fall by the wayside.  There's nothing technically wrong with this album, the basic elements familiar to great Plastikman songs are there, but somehow each track fails to capture the imagination or stir up any feelings other than the desire to pull out his older albums and relive a time when he did this stuff so much better.  The early Plastikman albums needed to exist, they form a continuous narrative where you can hear how they get more and more sparse, paranoid, and claustrophobic.  Hawtin spent a decade meticulously refining the Plastikman sound, settling progressively further into a somewhat disturbed version of deep techno that's been almost impossible to duplicate.  "EX" doesn't really have a reason to exist, there's no overriding concept, no sounds that Hawtin was desperate to get out of his head.  It's just an excuse to get the proverbial band back together.

Wolves in the Throne Room, "Celestite".  "Celestial Lineage" was my #3 album of 2011 and just might be my favourite ever metal album.  The missteps with this album are easier to trace -- they changed their sound completely and became a dark ambient outfit.  Grayson Currin wrote a brilliant review and it's hard to disagree that the band blindly jumped into this shift in styles long before they figured out what kind of band they want to be going forward.

Mogwai, "Rave Tapes"; Xiu Xiu, "Angel Guts:Red Classroom".  Mogwai are one of my favourite bands ever, who made my favourite album of 1999, my #11 album of the 00's, and loads of other great studio and live recordings, but they've been steadily declining and coasting on the value of their name for a decade, if not longer.  Xiu Xiu's "Fabulous Muscles" was my #1 album of 2004, and although I've enjoyed a lot of the music they've made since then, I think I'm simply over Xiu Xiu now.  I still enjoy "AG:RC" quite a bit, and I love the Suicide does gay fetish fanfic direction of the album, but it never grew in stature for me beyond the first few listens.

Now for the actual TOP TEN ALBUMS OF 2014.

10.  Donato Dozzy and Nuel, "The Aquaplano Sessions"  (Editions Mego)

Every track gracefully unfolds and picks up swampy minimalist steam, churning along in a semi-dreamlike state until it recedes into the shadows several minutes later. In other words, it's a typically great Donato Dozzy record.

9.  Petrychor, "Makrokosmos" (self-released)

Countless metal albums have borrowed from goth, new age and ambient, but I'd never heard one that borrowed from them so liberally while still remaining unmistakably metal.

8.  Kangding Ray, "Solens Arc" (Raster-Noton)

Much like his incredible mix for Secret Thirteen, "Solens Arc" shows Kangking Ray's knack for melding vastly different styles into an uncannily coherent whole.  The calming bleeps on "History of Obscurity" would have fit in beautifully on an ambient techno mix in 1994, the rave-y 6 AM comedown on "Amber Decay" could have been on a lost KK Records from a few years later, whereas "Blank Empire"'s menacing attitude and attention to detail could have only come from the 2010's.

7.  Swans, "To Be Kind" (Mute/Young God)

Swans studio albums and live recordings are converging into one, and "To Be Kind" comes closest to replicating their feel of suffocating live gigs on record.  This album might have finished higher on this list if it wasn't so overwhelming, to the point that it's hard to get in the mood to subject yourself to this kind of speaker assault.  And you can forget about listening to it all the way through -- that's strictly for the diehards.  The peaks (the title track, "She Loves Us", and "Bring the Sun/Toussaint L'ouverture) are incredible though, bringing a completely unique type of sensory overload onto a studio record.

6.  Damon Albarn, "Everyday Robots" (Warner Brothers)

This is an album that I never expected to like, seeing how I haven't cared for much that Albarn has done in the 21st century, from "Think Tank" onwards. But "Everyday Robots" finds him settling well into an elder statesman role after two decades of being a brat.  It's the album that "Think Tank" should have been, intimate and personal, blending its many influences rather than trying to show off the depth of its music collection.  Albarn's voice is still in pristine form too, in fact, he's never sounded better.

5.  Run the Jewels, "Run the Jewels 2" (Mass Appeal Records)

I'm not even sure how it happened, but I finally "get" El-P.  Industrial scale beats with gritty, aggressive rap shouldn't have been so hard to process, but good thing that El-P and Killer Mike are two rather persistent guys.

4.  Alcest, "Shelter" (Prophecy Productions)

If you'd asked me in the 90's, or at any time up until a couple of years ago, whether Slowdive or MBV would have the bigger influence on metal, I would have laughed at the need to even ask the question.  And yet somehow Slowdive have come out ahead.  When metalheads want to turn the page they don't want to bleed their guitars dry (something they are already quite good at), they scale things back a bit and look to Slowdive (both in sound and career path).  

Alcest went all-in with their transformation from atmospheric metal to Slowdive tribute band.  They recorded their album in Sigur Ros' studio and even brought in Neil Halstead on guest vocals.  The results were inspired and fresh sounding even as they looked backwards in time.  

3.  SunnO))) and Scott Walker, "Soused" (4AD)

Like many people, when I got word of this unlikely pairing, I was sure it was an internet joke.  As much as I try to give Scott Walker's albums a fair shake, I have never understood the hype.  I file him away with legends like Arthur Russell -- arty music for people who like to talk about arty music.  

It turns out that SunnO))) and Scott Walker complement each other perfectly.  Walker gives a dash of colour to SunnO)))'s pitch black tones, and SunnO))) are bring the heavy dose of reality to Walker's otherworldly ramblings.

2.  The War on Drugs, "Lost in the Dream" (Secretly Canadian) 

This year I saw the best two word summation of any band ever and it was used to describe The War on Drugs: "Balearic Petty".  

"Lost in the Dream" is perfectly of its time. Springsteen and Petty are touring stadiums again and indie fans are allowed to like them again after spending a couple of decades in the not cool wilderness.  The confessional style of Bob Dylan's 70's albums have arguably surpassed, in the canon, his classic 60's work as the surrealist poet for the downtrodden.  But combined with motorik drumming and enough weird synth noises to alienate your favourite Springsteen fan, it's not simply classic rock updated for the modern indie rock fan. Times will change, most of these things will be uncool again, and The War on Drugs fans will come to prefer more swagger than introspection in rock music.  Until then, "Lost in the Dream" will be playing continuously in the background.

1.  Fennesz, "Bécs" (Editions Mego)

I'm looking over my #1 albums from 2008-2013, and they all have one thing in common - I was crazy about them all from the very first listen.  So "Bécs" was obviously a grower, and although I once criticized it for being a "noisier carbon copy of 'Endless Summer'", now I love it for exactly the same reasons. 

Spiritualized live at Worthington Pier, July 9, 1994 (20 years later)

The year in music criticism has been packed full of 20th and 25th anniversary retrospectives and the pace should continue to be high for the next couple of years at least (it's never too early to prepare yourself for the 25th anniversary "Nevermind" articles in '16).  Admittedly, 1994 was a massive year and is deserving of just about all the praise it gets for being a transformative year, regardless of how you feel about many of the usual touchstones (e.g. Britpop).

Up until now I've stayed clear of writing those kinds of articles myself.  Obviously I'm all in favour of digging up old memories, but I don't get sentimental about round numbered anniversaries as opposed to the same round number give or take a year or two.  If you want to reminisce about an event after eighteen years, then do it, don't wait another two years because you think it'll be more "meaningful".  It won't.

Still, it's fun to trot out these retrospectives from time to time so I thought I'd try a different take on the round numbered anniversary game.  Instead of reflecting back on a particular album or music scene, I thought I'd take the occasional look back at some of my favorite live recordings.  Let's see how far I can go with this, starting with this eye-opening and very unique Spiritualized concert from '94.

The date on the recording is July 11, but the actual date was July 9 according to posters on the official SPZ boards.  The band didn't play many shows in 1994, which partly explains the confusion with their gigography according to various websites.

I discovered this recording around 2001. It was the missing link recording of live SPZ that I'd been searching for for years without any success.  It captures them at a transitional point in their career between "Lazer Guided Melodies" and "Pure Phase".  They were still frequently described as "space rock" or "ambient rock" even though this recording clearly indicates that they didn't sound much like either.  Instead, they were well on their way to perfecting the noisy jazz freakouts they'd be more famous for after "Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space" dropped a few years later.

At the time of this concert, Jason was about half way through the post-recording/mixing period of "Pure Phase".  By the time the album was eventually released, it sounded nothing like their concerts from the summer of '94.  By spring of '95 they were somehow an ambient rock outfit again, at least on record.  Jason's voice is missing or distorted almost completely out of earshot on half of "Pure Phase".  The concert is a vision of "Pure Phase" that was never realized.  Every song is in the same key and the set comes off as one hour long blare of constant-toned noise.  Where "Pure Phase" purrs and relaxes your, this show sears them off.

This concert offers a glimpse into how "Pure Phase" might have sounded if Jason had went full steam ahead with the guitar-heavy sound he preserved in one of the channels in the final mix.  It features "Take Good Care of It" and its glorious coda before he transformed it into something else completely on the album and then ignored it for the rest of his career.  It includes incendiary live versions of "I Want You" and "Sway" that were also soon to be banished to hardly ever played again oblivion.  It has a jaw-dropping version of "The Slide Song" that incinerates the blissed out version that made it onto "Pure Phase".  As far as I can tell, this song was never played by SPZ at all outside of a few live shows in the summer of '94,

Finally, after spending more than a year mixing the album, they went out on tour and hardly played any songs from it.  And they still hardly ever play any songs from it, although songs like "Lay Back In the Sun" and "Medication" did finally creep back into live sets during the "Sweet Heart Sweet Light" tours.  Not coincidentally, post-2011 SPZ is more unpredictable than any version of the band since 1994 or so.  From 1995-2002 they were a powerful live outfit, but you could bet the farm on the "Cop Shoot Cop/Shine A Light/Electric Mainline/Electricity" section filling up half the concert, more often than not exactly in that order.  They'd improvise in parts and things would never sound the same way twice, but the set list was just about set in stone.  None of their live shows before or since resemble what they did in the summer of '94.

Top ten mixes/podcasts of 2014

I listened to fewer mixes this year than in the past couple of years, but the ones I did listen to were in heavy rotation from first listen/download up until the present day.  I listened to them as much or more than proper albums.  As in past years, this list is unranked and presented in chronological order of release, with one exception -- the one mix that was far and away the best of the year (it wasn't even close) that I'll save until the end.

Voices from the Lake, Beats in Space 720 (March 11)

This 80-minute ambient mix drifts by in what feels like five minutes, beginning with icy desolation, shifting into gentler fare that could almost accompany their anodyne beat-filled work, and winding down with more gloomy, sinister sounds.  Hypnotizing.

Lee Gamble, Smoke Machine 101 (May13)

Haunting techno, alien electro, and bass-heavy broken beats populate this sweaty, ambitious mix. 

Abdulla Rashim, Resident Advisor 422 (June 30)

A very understated mix that keeps bubbling under and continuously threatens to really kick in at any moment, but never does.  Instead, it keeps subtlely churning along  and does so beautifully.  It reminds of another similarly structured mix by Bruno Ponsato, coincidentally enough, it was RA 222, exactly 200 RA podcasts before this one.  But it's not a simple mix by any means.  There are about 40 tracks packed into a little less than 70 minutes.  Much like Richie Hawtin's famed (but very overrated) DE9 mix CD, it's smooth and deep and there are a lot of little things going on in there that you'll miss unless you're paying close attention.


Throwing Snow, FACT 448 (June 30)

FACT said it best in the post that accompanied this mix: if Throwing Snow "stuck to one tempo he'd probably be a lot bigger by now".  To paraphrase Bill James, if you do one thing really well you'll be overrated, but if you do several things well you'll be underrated.  Nearly every track brings a different style or genre to the table, and it's as if he's throwing selected tracks against the wall to see what sticks.  Nearly everything does.

Efdemin, Electric Deluxe 123 (July 1)

Efdemin's tracklist-free effort for EDLX comes off like carefully constructed mix tape of epic leftfield tech-house tunes, oddball vocal samples and other oddities.   I saw him spin a main floor DJ set of rough and ready industrial scale techno earlier this month, but this mix couldn't have been more different while still maintaining a connection to the outer reaches of club-ready techno.  Keep this mix away from the main floor, but it's perfect for the denizens of the nearby smoking lounge.

Sawlin, Electric Deluxe 124 (July 14)

This type of mix is like catnip for me, it's practically my default mix when I get around to making them.  It starts out quiet and dreamy, and transitions to progressively harder and more aggressive techno.  The transition is something to behold too ("Stairway to Heaven"?  It works).


MaxM, K1971 radio show episode XT3 radio (July 24)

Deep, moody, cavernous techno not unlike some of my favourites from previous years (see the Dino Sabatini I wrote about here).  I can practically smell the cold fumes from the smoke machine in the club while listening to this mix.

LWE presents Rrose (September 9)

It was advertised as a no-nonsense mix that is typical of her live sets, and it delivered exactly as promised.  And along the same lines ...

Pan-Pot, Watergate 17 (October 13)

The only official mix CD on this list, if you're looking for a mix that replicates the experience of actually being in a sweaty Berlin club, look no further.  I've read far too many interviews where the artist wants to "show a different side" of themselves, but Pan-Pot's mix is peak time at Watergate from start to breathless finish.  

Best mix of the year that you should all listen to (or re-listen to) immediately:

Kangding Ray, Secret Thirteen Mix 108 (February 24)

This absurdly ambitious mix skips between genres without hardly any effort, staples rap over hard techno, marries R&B to squelchy electro techno, finds common ground between old school EBM, assembles music from over four decades, and takes in 28 tracks in 54 minutes without seeming the least bit rushed.  A truly inspiring mix that never ceases to amaze with every listen. 

Vapourspace speaks

M. Matos has posted a very entertaining and rather unexpected interview with Mark Gage (Vapourspace) on Red Bull Music Academy.  The music press has been chock full of 20th/25th/30th anniversary articles over the past calendar year, but the 20th anniversary of the 1993 See The Lights tour seemed to pass without much commemoration.  I discovered Jim Poe's insider account of the tour only now, thanks to the links provided in Matos' article.

The Toronto gig without a doubt changed my life because it cemented me as a techno fan for life, mostly thanks to a transcendent live set from Orbital (who I only knew from "Chime" at that point).  Aphex Twin's set was baffling but certainly eye-opening, and Moby's was all spectacle but it hardly mattered to anybody.  Everybody knew that it was mostly a DAT show but he had a gift for connecting with the live crowds and whipping them up into a frenzy with an intensity that was off the charts.  Moby jumped into the crowd a bunch of times and I joined with countless others in grabbing him in a giant crowdsurfing bear hug.  I'm mostly on Moby's side in the infamous DAT or not to DAT flamewar -- there's room for all types of performances in techno, rock, or any other genre.  The Hartnoll brothers were pioneering the idea of the portable live studio at the same time as Moby was trying to find the meeting point between the excitement of live techno and the savvy cool factor of rock and roll.  It can all work if done right.

It's important to note that the default type of "live" performance in techno clubs was most certainly DAT-based, if not entirely prerecorded.  When there was a backlash, the promoters started putting "live PA" on the flyers to cover their asses against the charges of shows not being performed live.  But make no mistake, the standard performance of the time was three or four songs on playback with absolutely nothing plugged in, including keyboards and microphones.  See The Lights definitely accelerated the shift from live techno as a spectacle at 3 AM at a rave, to a genuine live performance in a standard concert hall.  So it's not correct to portray Moby as some kind of huckster who was betraying the fans and cheating them out of a "proper" live show.

True story: I had the money to spend on a ticket to the See The Lights tour because Suede had cancelled their planned 2nd North American tour leg due to exhaustion.

Seeing as Vapourspace opened every night on the tour, "Gravitational Arch of 10" was the first techno song I ever heard played live.  It really was a track that united everybody in the days before the scene fractured into a million little pieces.  It pleased the trance, house, and techno fans.  It's still an undisputed classic that seems to get more classic with time.  Reading the interview, I can't believe I never heard the Front 242 influence in the bassline, it really couldn't be more obvious.   Wouldn't we all love to hear the long lost super extended version if Gage can ever remember where he left it?  Finally, it's cool to hear him talk so frankly about how breezily he recorded it (live, in one take) and how he knew almost immediately that he'd never be able to top it no matter how hard he tried.  

Music in Berlin 2014

This year's entertainment was nearly identical to last year's -- no techno clubs, but there was salsa, a stack of new CD's from Spacehall, and a Depeche Mode memento.

Landing on the date of the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall (an unintentionally well-timed bit of travel planning), I half-heartedly considered making an afternoon visit to the Berghain to catch the remnants of Saturday night's mindblowingly sick lineup.  Some semblance of level-headedness prevailed though, and I decided to join the huge crowds at the balloon ceremonies near the East Side Gallery.  The crowds extended as far as the eye could see, and this was but one location out of many spread throughout the city.  There was no music however, and as far as I know, only the Brandenburg Gate ceremony featured any live performances.  I caught Peter Gabriel's stately but forgettable performance of "Heroes" on TV before I went out (Bowie had something better to do??) and word is that security stopped letting people into the area around the Brandenburg Gate before the official ceremonies even started, so I wouldn't have had the time to get down there to hear Barenboim conduct the final movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony anyhow.

A visit to Spacehall on Zossener Strasse in Kreuzberg was essential as always.  Shopping there was a somewhat painful experience because I was suffering from a second hand smoke hangover from the bar hopping the night before in Friedrichshain.  How much time would I have spent there if I wasn't feeling so shitty?

At a Media Markt I picked up the 5CD box of Depeche Mode's "Live In Berlin", which to the best of my knowledge was not supposed to be released until the following week.  Was there a Berlin-only early release date?  My first impression is that the filming of the concert itself isn't in the same league, visually or creatively, as Corbijn's "One Night In Paris".  It feels like it could have been shot by almost anybody, many of Corbijn's typical touches (long shots focused on a single band member, close attention paid to body movements, playing of instruments, or interactions between the musicians on stage) weren't immediately evident.

The week ended with a Saturday night at the Havanna Club, which might be the salsa club of my dreams.  There was a healthy mix of people of all ages dancing to salsa on the main floor, but that's just one dance party out of four you can find at this place!  In addition to salsa, they have reggaeton upstairs, and two dancefloors of contemporary pop and 80's music downstairs.  The salsa crowd was the first to arrive, but by 2 AM the downstairs parties were hitting their stride.  As someone who likes the atmosphere of a salsa party but doesn't usually join in the dancing, I approve of the variety of dance scenes all mashed together under one roof.