Battles - “Ice Cream (feat. Matias Aguayo)”
At their best, Battles sound like a happy kid with a new set of Legos. The finished product—in this case, a scratchy, lank-limbed groove that boogies like the world’s pinkest sugar high—is cool and fun, but the real delight is in building the thing, in sorting out the right pieces and savoring the uniquely tactile pleasure of snapping them together in geometric perfection. That’s why the vamp at the beginning of “Ice Cream” (and indeed, every vamp and breakdown in any Battles song) is absolutely crucial. In order to feel the energy of the track, we have to hear Ian Williams put the pieces together by trading off ever-quickening jabs of muddled guitar and keys, egging himself on until, to our delight, they lock into that joyous loop and the gut-punching John Stainer beat we know is coming finally drops. And although there’s no replacing Tyondai Braxton, Matais Aguayo takes a damn solid crack at it. On “Ice Cream” he proves to be the final piece of the puzzle, bringing his rubbery chill-dude voice to bear on Battles’ mechanical precision and loosening it up in the process. The result is one of 2011’s jammingest songs.
Dum Dum Girls - “He Gets Me High”
I never quite bought into Dum Dum Girls’ leather-clad, switchblade-carrying shtick. Save for one or two songs on their debut album last year, that vintage sense of toughness rarely comes through in the music. Which is okay! Framing their sound against the backdrop of their image is a big part of what makes them a charismatic band. But if “He Gets Me High” proves anything, it’s that Dee Dee & Co. could subsist quite well on power-pop chops alone. Credit the increase in profile and thus recording budget, but where DDG once sounded monochromatically thin, canned, and grainy, they now employ a wide palate of full-bodied guitars and a rhythm section that punches more than it slaps. Combined with Dee Dee’s deeper, more grown-up, and more evocative presence on the mic, this song suggests an alternate universe where Katrina and The Waves were jagged underground stalwarts instead of bopping one-hit wonders. “He Gets Me High” is a song full of free and immediate pleasures, but whose guitar pop acumen sticks around in the back of your mind long after its three minute run.
runner-up: “Bedroom Eyes”
Destroyer - “Suicide Demo for Kara Walker”
Maybe “Suicide Demo” isn’t the ideal song to pick from Kaputt—not the catchiest, most concise, or most redolent of the compositional shifts Destroyer has undergone—but it’s the first time on the album that Dan Bejar intentionally halts his momentum and allows his band to wander through the pale, smoky, urbane landscape he’s envisioned. We’re treated to increasingly poignant melodies from guitar, piano, and flute, all laid on a pillow of airy synth pads, that illustrate a particular loneliness found somewhere between grey skyscrapers, austere night clubs, and dark basement bars. By the time the lite-disco beat kicks in and Bejar rolls out his laconic new singing voice, there’s such a strong sense of mood and place that we almost know what he’s going to say before he says it. “Poor child, you’re never gonna make it / New York City just wants to see you naked and they will.” It’s one of Kaputt’s most devastating lines (penned for him by visual artist Kara Walker) precisely because—as with the rest of the album—he’s given it the perfect backdrop to bring it to life.
runners-up: “Chinatown,” “Poor in Love”
Wye Oak - “Holy Holy”
Is it just me or should a day at an amusement park look more fun than this? Over the course of their roller-coasting clip for “Holy Holy,” Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack remain strictly po-faced, even while swinging and swooping high off the ground, as if something were eating away at their minds and distracting them from all the lights and calliope. Could it be that they’re just children of the slowcore age and won’t deign to be seen looking un-pensive? Or could it be that this video is, in fact, not a story (“Hey look at us we rode some rides! Summer! America!”) but a twisted version of a performance? The needling blasts of feedback and bent strings that punctuate “Holy”s verses would seem to agree, crawling up the back of the listener’s neck like the vague sense of anxiety one feels as, strapped in with no way out, the little car climbs higher up the track. They tilt downwards as Stack lays into his cymbals, too, illustrating the vertiginous stomach flips that accompany those moments of weightlessness. There’s a simple rule of tension and release that governs all rides like this, and on “Holy Holy” the last minute or so, when Wasner stomps her distortion pedals and and lets her voice soar, is the cathartic drop, the moment when the fear evaporates and the rush of wind becomes exhilarating. “Our human joy is precious,” she sings. Her guitar shows it even if her face doesn’t.
runner-up: “Doubt”
tUnE-yArDs - “My Country”
Since it’s the first track on w h o k i l l, “My Country” acts as a declaration of fearlessness (though fearlessness is the primary attribute of all of her music), conflating Merrill Garbus’ performance with the social imbalance she decries. Her voice gains intensity as she navigates the verses, slipping into a near-screech on lines like “My country, bleeding me, I will not say in your arms!” and then dropping to an earnest coo when asking “If nothing of this is ours, how will I ever know when something’s mine?” It’s gripping just to hear her put her greatest instrument through such a thorough workout, but “My Country” becomes unforgettable when she uses it to body her deep insecurities about American privilege. A simple question like “When they have nothing, why do you have something?” can stop you dead in your tracks, struggling to think of a good answer precisely because there is no good answer to be had. Her fearlessness here, then, is one of refusing to turn away or sweep difficult questions under the rug, especially when she herself is implicated. Liberty and status, “My Country” suggests, are lies that we live, and the worst part of it all is wondering when we’ll be found out.
runner-up: “Bizness”
Toro Y Moi - “How I Know”
Like it or not, Chaz Bundick is pretty much stuck with the chillwave label, being one of the biggest acts the non-scene/non-movement has produced. “How I Know,” like much of Underneath the Pine, even sees him steering toward sounds that don’t fall under that umbrella term (because, duh, no one wakes up with “chillwave artist” pasted on their forehead)—the dull, earthy drums, austere piano, and accents of analog synth suggest the jazz & funk-influenced sound of mid-70s pop—but a vital connection remains intact. It’s still firmly rooted in the rosy decay of nostalgia, especially the pervasive sense of longing conjured by thoughts of home. “Can’t tell you how I know,” he shrugs, “this is where I want you to take me when I die.” He’s not referring to the present moment so much as (perhaps?) pointing to a spot on the map and remembering what it has meant to him—“Sorry if I pass you by…I was only thinking of my home and how it’s so far.” This is a song not just about wanting to escape to the past, but about trying to live there in your head and letting everything else fall by the wayside. The hopelessness of his plight makes it poignant, but Bundick’s sounds, style, and delivery make it livable.
runner-up: “New Beat”
Purity Ring - “Ungirthed”
Purity Ring’s not a bad name for a band, but it doesn’t have a whole lot to do with how this music sounds, does it? I’d suggest something along the lines of Megan James The Friendly Ghost. See, James and bandmate Corin Roddick are always fiddling with human voices—pitching them up/down and EQ-ing them into bass lines and chords—in the way that has led other artists like Burial and The Knife to be forever associated with the spectral undead. Purity Ring, however, don’t sound haunted by anything. Instead, they’re the ones doing the haunting. “The scent of my hands is familiar to prostrated men,” chimes James on “Ungirthed,” easily the best of Purity Ring’s widely-circulated mp3s, “dead voices cover their bones.” The earth quakes as these skeletons erode away, but she skips along unfazed, navigating the swarm of beats and bass with a lithe R&B melody that manages to feel fresh even as it repeats itself. The scent of her skin, her eye color, her dusty necklace—she leaves them all hanging in the air of this scorched landscape as if purposefully implanting her memory on the place. Ears ring, teeth click, and she’s gone.
