…and for this installation of Best of 2014 Sounds of the Week we have Roger Peet, who generally can be counted on for a great taste in music:
From Roger: I’m trying to put together a top ten here- I’ve got nine.
Los Macuanos- El Camotero
Deeply weird Border Techno from Tijuana, Mexico. It’s worth reading their description of their aesthetic on their Soundcloud page- they draw inspiration directly from the economics and terror of the cartel wars. It sounds like they have one song directly about the peso devaluation crisis.
Yob – Unmask the Spectre
Heavy, melancholy, and transcendent soundtrack to the Pacific Northwest. There’s probably going to be a lot of this sort of thing on this list.
The Lion – Hojoe
In 2014 Portland’s Mississippi Records put out two wonderful compilations of Trinidadian Calypso from the 20’s-40’s, on one of which (Seven Skeletons Found in the Yard) is this ruthless track from The Lion, before he became Roaring Lion, one of Trinidadian Calypso’s great legends.
Usnea – Lying in Ruin
More Portland heaviness- I had the great fortune to be smashed up against the cabinets for a recent performance by this band at the 10th anniversary of Portland’s awesome bar The Know, and it felt like being torn apart by continental drift- totally tectonic.
The Haxan Cloak – The Men Parted the Sea to Devour The Water
I really like the spooky soundscapes conjured up by this mysterious British individual. I’ve recently noticed that “Gothic quasi-ambient soundscape” is a pretty well developed genre within my music collection.
The Body – To Carry the Seeds of Death Within Me
This album by Portland’s The Body has the fascinating distinction of being produced by the Haxan Cloak- thus bringing an even weirder aesthetic of electronic inversion to what may be the heaviest music it is possible to create. This should really be listened to verrry loud.
Freddie Gibbs and Madlib – Shitsville
Hard times in a bogus world, where we all suck and we know it.
Mar Seck – Mini Compay
Senegal’s Teranga Beat label released an album of beautiful songs by iconic performer Mar Seck called Vagabonde. It’s haunting and uplifting stuff, makes me imagine things I know I haven’t seen
Black Monolith- Eris
An incredibly doom laden dirge full of bleak hopelessness and eternal night that somehow manages to transform itself into the most uplifting possible anthemic ritual summoning of glory, an evocation of resistance to being overwhelmed by the unremittingly hopeless intellectual, cultural and ecological spaces of the world. Into the future, everybody!
