As another year folds out, it is time once again to look back and take stock or the highs and lows, before a fresh year rolls in. 2011 has had its moments and has overall been a rather good year, and trying to extract a list of twenty albums from the hundreds, thousands possibly, that I have listened to, loved, hated, reviewed or not, tried to make sense of or misunderstood seems a pretty restrictive effort at best. Still, it is always good to look back and realise that some records have made more of a mark than others, some almost imperceptibly. So, here is, in twenty records, what 2011 was made of…

1.

JENNY HVAL
Viscera
Rune Grammofon

Review:
There is such urgency throughout this record that it is quite astonishing how Hval manages to retain any lightness in her music, but she does, and [Helge] Sten picks up on just enough to bring it all to life in sprightly bright colours and tones. Continue Reading »

ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER
Replica
SFT01021
Software Label 2011
10 Tracks. 40mins56secs

Amazon UK: CD | LP | DLD US: CD | LP | DLD Boomkat: CD | DLD iTunes: DLD Spotify: STRM

If Oneohtrix Point Never has only really been getting noticed in the last couple of years, following the release of a double CD, Rifts, collecting his first three albums, back in 2009 on No Fun Productions and last year’s Returnal on Editions Mego, its mastermind, Daniel Lopatin, has quietly been assembling synthetic electronica since his first semi-artisanal release, Betrayed In The Octagon, back in 2007.

With his latest opus, Replica, Lopatin broadens his sonic horizon quite drastically, adding samplers, tape loops and acoustic piano to his extensive use of the Roland Juno 60, an analogue synth he inherited from his father, which has been key to his entire work until now. As a result, Replica is a more ambitious and confident record than its predecessors. Continue Reading »