—Don't Make Plans
TOP ALBUMS OF 2011
And so, we’ve reached the end of the year, and it’s time for the annual roundup of the year’s albums. This year’s total number came out to 46, for some reason. We’ll be counting down the albums to number one this whole month.
12. Let’s Get Married - Elk
It doesn’t get much more obscure than Elk, who has virtually no information about himself online for one to uncover, apart from a Bandcamp page and a few write-ups by independent labels draw to the album Let’s Get Married as much as I was. Perhaps it was, in fact, the title that did so: it has a quality about it that seems to suggest a pleading, but also a question, but also a whimsical command. The entire album essentially follows this theme by not knowing exactly what it is. Elk is, essentially, a scarce project of Justin Stein, who got broke, moved into his parents house, and recorded Let’s Get Married before disappearing back into nothingness. It isn’t is first release, but it’s definitely is first one worth mentioning; he put out the Honey Range EP before this, which is almost unlistenable (there’s about a ten minute long sample that is just “Roll The Credits” by Peter Bjorn and John with not variation), but this EP is telling of what kind of a artist is: he likes really good music, he’s got a lot of feelings, and he’s not exactly sure what to do. Let’s Get Married encompasses all of that, however, in a condensed nearly forty minute long album that’s just as magical as its cover suggests, and many moments on the album seem to shine more than anything else being put out today, from the closing moments of the title track, in which Stein sings what appears to be, “I just want to hold you” into infinity.
There are incredibly long tracks on the album that obviously draw a lot of influence from artists like Panda Bear, specifically Person Pitch, but Stein does so in a way that feels almost more like a homage to himself than anything else. There’s a relatively connection between his work the work of new artist King Krule, in that they both seems to be looking for an outlet to what’s going on in their lives, and music is the best option for that. In “Sarah,” Stein spends the opening minute whispering, “If you like me, won’t you say so,” and then letting the song breakdown without ever exploding onto the scene. Probably a better example of this are the jazzier moments in “Rollerbladin’” which seem to draw specifically on those good time feelings while still retaining their longing. Stein often lets his song be split in half - much like Panda Bear’s “Bros” - where the first half offers whatever he wants it to offer, and the second half breaks into something even more divisive, until everything just kind of melts together in the end and fades away. Once the album reaches its conclusion, however, the immediate appeal becomes much more apparent, in tracks like “Moonjellies,” which houses looping acoustics preceded by the female voice exclaiming, “I thought maybe we could go out tonight.” It’s the equivalent of a “Search for Delicious,” but retains its own meaning. Which brings up an interesting point: if someone simply is coping Panda Bear, or any artist for that matter, can it still be considered good music? Stein proves yes, showing that a style can be the same, however the means of creating it and the emotion behind it are a complete change.
The best moment on the album, however, is the closing “Crush,” which finds itself starting with the coherent chant, “It’s dangerous” before falling into its epic fairy-like opening section, before slowly it all down to a crawl in its final moments. It’s really a beautiful track, complete in the greatest sense, and it shows you how much Elk has to offer, even if it only comes in random spurts. There might be a level of repetition within his songs, but it’s only a metaphor for the repetition in all things, and the songs presented here are simply loops of that underlying repetition, until the listener is consumed by it and has no choice but to close their eyes and go along. There’s a full sound behind Elk, especially in those last moments of “Crush” that are the album’s real strength, and even if you can’t exactly understand what’s going on, you can appreciate it for its beauty and its majesty in its creation.
11. Ducktails III: Arcade Dynamics - Ducktails
I’m not exactly sure how Ducktails fits into the whole Real Estate composition, but when you listen to Matthew Mondanile’s third album with Ducktails, you can see the immediate connection between the two groups - perhaps not as much Real Estate’s latest album Days, but definitely they’re self-titled debut. The songs have a tendency to remain rooted in simplicity and lo-fi, while being relentlessly effective in their nature, which is a bizarre concept that has really only appeared in recent years when lo-fi has stopped relating directly to the punk scene and started to travel to indie scene alone. Ducktails has had its share of lo-fi moments - in fact, Arcade Dynamics if anything is a cleaned up version of their previous albums Landscapes and company - but there’s something in this album that makes you immediately overlook the sound quality and look immediately to what’s going on behind it. There are moments on the album that seem to find themselves as cheery, almost joking songs - like the beautiful “Hamilton Road” (whose accompanying music video plays like a comedy sketch); and then there moments that feel more rooted in the endless of life, like “Sprinter,” where we get lyrics like, “Don’t let it slip away, like voices on the radio,” which feels like the end of summer days in August where you can feel school coming on. It’s a vacation album in that sense: it belongs on the beach and in the woods and not in the cities, where some of Real Estate’s work can be classified in those realms. Ducktails takes a step back and realizes what it is, and makes beautiful music out the simplicity its presenting.
“Killin’ The Vibe” is the best example of this, with its turning guitars and repeated lyrics - and the Panda Bear version of the song is probably even more apparent of this concept. It’s a song that doesn’t really ask for much - in fact, none of what Ducktails does asks for much - and yet gives in return a beautiful track. There’s nothing to unpack in Arcade Dynamics, except for the songs that seem to find their way onto repeat over and over just because of how good they make you feel. “Sunset Liner” is a song that belongs on a boat at dusk, “Little Window” belongs in running through the forest, and “In The Swing” is a long drive through the country. There are these simple songs, but then there are the ones that seem to almost scare you if you think about too much, like “Art Vandelay,” whose title would suggest a joke, but instead makes you think of those lonely nights in the dark, or “Don’t Make Plans” which makes you think of young love and all that it brings. It’s probably why I’ve played Arcade Dynamics more than any other album this year, because of how much the songs make you want to keep listening to them, even if you’re not actually listening. There are two ways about Ducktails: there’s the beauty it brings to you, and the subtleties of the past that are offered in the songs that you’ve heard before, but you’ve never heard anything like. And then there’s the lyrics (“Outside is for piece of mind”) which feel like they’ve been written in two seconds, but say more than you could ever say. There are a few instrumental pieces of the album as well, like Sun Araw-esque “Razor’s Edge,” or the longing “Arcade Shift” - and then there’s the long-winded, ten-minute finale of “Porch Protector,” which has become a bit of a staple in Ducktails’ album. At first, it feels a little out of place, because it isn’t really a song and it’s more a dream, but in the end it adds to the whole feeling that’s being conveyed to you: it all really is a dream. And Arcade Dynamics is a simple expression of that dream: more mysterious than presented by Real Estate, but also less real, while being all as important.
