10. Apache Dropout – Bubblegum Graveyard 

(Trouble in Mind)

9. The Necks – Mindset 

(ReR/megacorp)

I like the music made by Australian trio The Necks a great deal, but have somehow managed to go all these years on this blog without once mentioning it.

Probably that’s down to the fact that their music is very difficult to describe in conventional terms, failing as it does to really cow-tow to the demands any name-able tradition. Usually I’ve noticed, writers tend to bite the bullet and put The Necks down as “ambient avant-jazz” or somesuch, even though their preferred methodology lies far, far away from the potential horrors conjured by such terminology. As a piano / bass / drums trio who perform extremely long pieces of spontaneous music, I fear they are always likely to be a pretty hard sell on paper. Actually listening to their music is a different matter entirely though, and if you’ve never spent time with their catalogue of sprawling, hypnotic, endlessly intriguing recordings, I’d venture to suggest that you might benefit from giving it a go.

I’m not sure if ‘Mindset’ is even a 2012 release to be honest, but it’s certainly one of their more recent ones, and I certainly picked it up his year. Featuring significantly shorter pieces than the older Necks releases I’ve been listening to (two twenty minute tracks rather than a single hour long wig-out), ‘Mindset’ seems to mark something of a seismic shift in tone for the group, as ‘Rum Jungle’ abandons the spacious, glacial elegance of their earlier work for a frantic, urban patchwork of crashing, traintrack-like reverbed percussion, relentless brushed cymbals and dissonant, high speed piano tingling, all coalescing into a dizzing, propulsive rush of sound, nullifying the combined anxieties of its component parts to form a heavenly, all-encompassing drone a rather reminiscent of Steve Reich’s early works, with the nervy bare wires of New York jazz tradition lurking somewhere beneath the rain-sodden sidewalk.

After that, ‘Daylights’ begins in more traditionally minimalist Necks territory, but gradually returns to a heavier, more paranoid mood as it goes along, perhaps attaining an even denser atmosphere than its predecessor in places, incorporating screes of feedback, oceanic sonar blips and what sounds like a rusty brass bedstead being given a good workout; imagine the protagonist in a ‘40s film noir being dosed with acid down at the docks and you might expect a cacophony like this to accompany the expressionist nightmare than would inevitably follow.

So in other words: more immensely rewarding listening, from a band who continue to make extraordinary, forward-thinking capital letters-worthy New Music entirely free from the pretension and obfuscation that denies so many of their peers a wider audience.

8. The Liminanas – Crystal Anis 

(Hozac)

From September:

“Hailing from Perpignan in the South of France, The Liminanas (Les Liminanas, surely?) are nominally a garage band, recognisable as such not just through their choice of record labels, but also by their musical simplicity, stark instrumentation and adherence to a blueprint laid down in the 1960s.

In spite of this however, they succeed in sounding entirely unlike any garage band you’ve ever heard, for one simple reason; rejecting the ubiquitous influence of raucous, Anglo-American rock n’ roll, The Liminanas instead draw their inspiration primarily from the very different legacy of the rock/pop music made in their native land during the ‘60s - a process that has eventually resulted in ‘Crystal Anis’, one of the most charming and immediately enjoyable albums I’ve heard this year.

Those anticipating the frantic bluster of a trad garage-rock record may be in for a shock, as the more elegant, low-key vibes of classic Chanson and Yeh-Yeh recordings set the tone here, but open-eared listeners won’t take long to locate a real king-hell groove within each of these tracks.

[…]
Writing about these tunes, it’s hard to resist the urge to drift into gallic cliché, but something tells me that this is a brand of cliché that the band wouldn’t necessarily want to distance themselves from. ‘Longanisee’ and ‘Crystal Anis’ for instance are pure Gainsbourg tributes, spoken word languor over creeping Melodie Nelson bass lines (the former even throws in a “woo woo” hook that recalls that kinda monkey shriek in ‘Bonnie & Clyde’), whilst ‘Belmondo’ cranks out a tightly-wound crime movie instrumental that can’t help but raise visions of the song’s namesake pulling handbrake turns in his 2CV on cramped Parisian streets.

In contrast to the more arch English-speaking bands who’ve looked to this stuff for inspiration over the years, there’s no pretention going on, no dress up – The Liminanas own this sound just as instinctively as a bunch of kids from So Cal own The Standells and The Seeds, and hearing them rock it is just as much fun.”

7. Mount Carmel – Real Women 

(Siltbreeze)

If anyone had been spying on my music listening habits over the past year or two, they would no doubt have been perturbed by the increasing prevalence of unashamed, flatbed-truck-in-the-park style thunderous mid ‘70s heavy rock in my life. And I’ve yet to hear a modern band who can capture that sound as well as Columbus, Ohio’s Mount Carmel, whose impeccably recorded second album here finds them in odd company on the Siltbreeze label.

Playing with a spirit that goes beyond a mere exercise in nostalgia, Mount Carmel forgo the reductive Sab/Zep worship of many of their peers, drawing deeper in the same well to take inspiration from such reassuringly mossy luminaries as Dust, Free, The Allman Brothers and latter-day Blue Cheer, standing up to their icons, and in most cases battering them into submission with an intimidating display of weather-beaten ballroom rock muscle.

Those raised on later generations of rock may recoil from the unreconstructed midtempo blues plod of ‘Oh Louisa’ and ‘Be Somebody’, but Mount Carmel play with an unflappable sense of momentum & concision, a skill and conviction that elevates this form to the level of purest majesty, flying far above the travesties that have blackened its rep, even as they gleefully wallow in the same excesses. For those who care about such things (are make no mistake, they are the ones who will dig this record), the interplay between the three band members here is truly exceptional. Drummer Kevin Skubak’s hi-hat work alone is deserving of a medal, and Matt Reed’s guitar tone is just great, whipping out a wall of valve-fed fudge on the riffs, then cutting through clear as a nightingale for the solos, which are, needless to say, where things really take flight. Foregoing the easy comforts of fuzz and wah, he takes things straight - just pure bad-ass, lyrical playing that reminds me of early Creedence, with a touch of Jerry Garcia in the mix too; the way his more elegant runs cut across the more wantonly thuggish heft of the rhythm section is a thing to behold.

For full appreciation of music like this, an ability to see the lighter side of the outdated attitudes that accompany it is essential, and many will undoubtedly feel that Mount Carmel to have taken their period re-enactment several stages too far on this album’s title cut, wherein Reed raises the controversial suggestion that “there ain’t no more real women any more”, further asserting that “either they talk too much or they act too proud, ain’t so much for me to say out loud”. Well you got that last bit right buddy. Unacceptable on every level, but then so is doing business in 2012 as if you’re opening for Grand Funk at Shea Stadium, and I could still listen to these guys do just that for a good 18 hours a day and even THANK them for providing the only authentic modern addition to my hypothetical ‘Greatest Hits of ‘70s Rock Misogyny’ mix tape. So in conclusion: I wouldn’t try to sell everyone on this kinda thing, but if you like it, it certainly doesn’t come much better.

6. Nu Sensae – Sundowning 

(Suicide Squeeze)

I only acquired this album as the dark days of December were falling, so haven’t really had time to fully process it yet, but in a word – whoa. One of the year’s best, for sure.

Roughly hewing toward the same Black Flag/Wipers/Nirvana lineage that brought us Milk Music in 2011, but with somewhat more variety/originality in their attack (for better or for worse), Vancouver trio Nu Sensae immediately join Shoppers and the aforementioned MM as part of a kinda holy triumvirate of heavy, punk-indebted North American bands currently worth paying attention to.

And you’ll have no choice but to pay attention once you’ve heard ‘em: this whole record has an alarming, ‘blaring alarm clock’ kinda quality to it, with bassist Andrea Lukic immediately making an impression as she bypasses decades of rock front-lady etiquette, instead choosing to unleash a truly terrifying howl, like some unholy Roky Erickson/King Diamond crossbreed. Guitarist Brody McKnight meanwhile favours a sorta monastic, vaguely-Cobainish croon, and if the interplay between these two very different co-vocalists initially sounds a little peculiar, it certainly lends the band a distinctive demeanour.

Musically, ‘Sundowning’s obligatory atmospheric intro opens up into a ramming speed hardcore tempo that barely lets up for a second over the next 35 minutes. Each song is an anguished roar of skeletal, distorted rock n’ roll, with wider ambition creeping in only gradually as layers of dissonance and ravaged artiness put meat on the bones, ala ‘80s Sonic Youth. Everything here is… angsty, for want of a better word. Crushing, cathartic, pitch black, but with the power to take you there, to take you back to a time before that stuff became such an obvious fucking joke of a tiresome, mainstreamed ploy. Spoken word proclamations interspersing blood-curdling shrieks over sinister, ascending bass-lines, martial drums and chaotic, unhinged feedback? Man, it’s been a long time. Who knew it could all still sound this good in the right hands?

Remember back when genuinely hair-raising teenage rebellion music was a viable commercial commodity? When Public Enemy and Slayer and Nirvana were allowed a free ride into the world’s middle class strongholds? Whatever happened to that shit? To me, Nu Sensae sounds like the music that should be blaring out of a hundred million discontented earphones, and that should be playing from tinny speakers wherever the young convene in the dark to get fucked up and plan no good acts. This is music that can hit those hearts like an arrow, that can propel adolescent misery into action. Thirty seconds of exposure to this could make the current crop of asinine, teen-aimed corporate emo-rock bands crumble to dust, could realign dreams and birth lifetimes of dedication to the ways of independent cultural righteousness.

Making that thirty seconds happen though, in a climate where what’s left of an ‘industry’ long ago put up the shutters and a band on this level can barely scrape together enough cash to press LPs; that is the problem that faces us. If there are teenagers anywhere in your life, you know what to do… and don’t forget to take a copy for yourself at the same time, cos this whole thing is just fucking brilliant.