Scott Creney’s Favorite Albums of 2012
Can – The Lost Tapes
(original review)
“It’s a better version of our universe, one more engaged with its surroundings, one where people communicate without words, and one that has learned to coexist among darkness and light. To spend your money on anything else would be a betrayal of our planet.”
A.R. Kane – The Complete Singles
(original review)
“Samples and strings, machines and malevolence, it’s the sound of frozen milk beginning to melt. It’s music for dolphins, our intellectual superiors. Too bad for A. R. Kane there aren’t any record stores in the oceans. Yet.”
Oh-Ok – The Complete Reissue
(original review)
“Oh-Ok’s music contains bottomless mysteries — the insects underneath the grass, the psychedelic wonders of pure sunshine, sensory overload in a shopping mall — all wrapped up in an inviting package. This is some of my favorite music ever made, and my favorite song isn’t even online for me to play for you.”
The Go-Betweens – Quiet Heart
(original review)
“This compilation is just an excuse to listen to The Go-Betweens all over again.”
The Cleaners From Venus – Vol. 1
Every time I played this at work someone asked me what it was. A lot of times they guessed it was Ariel Pink. I hear the similarity (although this was done in the early 80s), but this is so much better than that. It crackles with mystery and rewards subsequent listening/investigation in a way that Mr. Pink could never achieve. Mike can bitch about Captured Tracks all he wants to. They reissued The Cleaners From Venus and so they’re forgiven.
Laurie Spiegel – The Expanding Universe
It’s computer zen, meditation through wires and electricity. In a year of internal distress, this album was essential to my piece of mind.
There’s one album I listened to more than any other in 2012, but most of its music was released in 1981 and the compilation came out in 2009.
The band is called The Lines. The compilation is Flood Bank. The next song I post is my favorite thing I heard all year. It’s what it felt like to be alive in my skin in 2012, and a hundred years from now all you’ll have to do is play it and I will be transported right back into this chair, into this life, voluntarily or otherwise.
(continues overleaf)
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