Listen to the jams, albums, and mixes that got our writers through 2011
LIZ PELLY, Phoenix editorial assistant
1. EMA, Past Life Martyred Saints (Souterrain Transmissions)
2. Real Estate, Days (Domino)
3. James Blake, James Blake (A&M/Atlas) *
4. tUnE-YarDs, w h o k i l l (4AD)
5. Widowspeak, Widowspeak (Captured Tracks)
6. Woods, Sun & Shade (Woodsist)
7. La Big Vic, Actually (Underwater Peoples)
8. Twin Sister, In Heaven (Domino)
9. Julianna Barwick, The Magic Place (Ashmatic Kitty)
10. Quilt, Quilt (Mexican Summer)
11. Prince Rama, Trust Now (Paw Tracks)
LISTEN ON SPOTIFY: Best of 2011: Liz Pelly's Picks | All Boston Phoenix Top Tracks of 2011
On October 3, I took a 2:40 a.m. train from New York to Boston, listening to Prince Rama's latest record the entire ride. The train was dark, everyone around me asleep. I spent five hours staring in my illuminant laptop screen, reading Rama's Now Age manifesto; thinking about time, space, and "trusting the now;" and putting the finishing pieces on a piece about the Brooklyn-via-Boston duo. "The sonic landscape of Ghost Modernism is littered with the detritus of past musical movements," writes Taraka Larson in her manifesto, calling music culture's ghost-modern present state "an ever-expanding archaeology of reference points and nostalgia." When the train pulled into South Station, I walked across the street to Dewey Square, saw the Occupy encampment for the first time and went on a march. Three weeks later, I went back to New York for CMJ, feeling disillusioned by the socioeconomic state of the world. I brought handfuls of "Occupy CMJ" flyers, which according to the New York Times, "bemoaned the stranglehold of corporations over various aspects of the music business, from retail outlets to radio to touring." In the face of Ghost Modernism and One Percent stranglehold of our culture, the artful independent underground is the music world's only lifeline. If any records this year seem relentlessly relevant in 2011, it is these.
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