25 Notable Indie Release of the First Quarter of 2011
Will 2011 be the Year of Yuck? Stay tuned, music lovers.
Here's my shortlist of some of the more notable indie pop & rock albums released in the first three months of 2011:
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- Deerhoof- Deerhoof vs. Evil
- The Radio Department- Passive Agressive: The Singles 2002-2010
- John Vanderslice- White Wilderness
- Yuck- Yuck
Forget about the awful band name, Yuck plays some first rate shambling & snarky Pavement-Replacements influenced postpunk rock:
- Abagail Washburn- City of Refuge
- Nicole Atkins- Mondo Amore
- BOAT- Dress Like Your Idols
- Young Galaxy- Shapeshifting
"Shapeshifting" is an appropriate title for Young Galaxy's third album ( released Fed. 8th, 2011 via Paper Bag Records). Going from an art-rock band hitting epic highs with their previous work, to a band channeling their love of New Order, the Knife and the Eurythmics. The result is unlike anything the four-piece have done before.
- The Go! Team- Rolling Blackouts
- Toro y Moi- Underneath the Pine
- Braids- Native Speaker
- Faun Fables- Light of a Vaster Dark
- Destroyer- Kaputt
- Cloud Nothings- Cloud Nothings
- Lia Ices- Grown Unknown
- James Blake- James Blake
- Chikita Violenta- Tre3s
- Surf City- Kudos
- Jessica Lea Mayfield- Tell Me
Jessica Lea Mayfield plays a countrified form of borderwave music reminds me of the dream rock of Hope Sandoval & Mazzy Star as well as the folksy Americana music of Marissa Nadler, Lissie and Adrienne Pierce.
- Lykke Li- Wounded Rhymes
- Papercuts- Fading Parade
- Kurt Vile- Smoke Ring For My Halo
- Beach Fossils- What A Pleasure (EP)
- Wye Oak- Civilian
- The Joy Formidable- The Big Roar
- J Mascis- Several Shades of Why
- Ramadan/Pearson Sound- FabricLive 56
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Caveat emptor (Let the buyer beware) The 25 albums I've listed here represent a broad range of musical styles, some of which may not appeal to you. Don't purchase any of these albums on my word because three months from now, I may hate every album listed above. I think it takes about six months to a year for the music of any album to completely sink into the swamp lands of my subconscious mind and during that period of hibernation, my opinion on any given new album release is in a constant state of flux on almost a daily basis.
Everybody's opinion of what constitutes "good music" is random, arbitrary and totally devoid of any higher metaphysical meaning. Such is the existential state affairs in insular world of critical thought.
Nearly all the albums I've listed have songs available on YouTube to sample before you take the plunge & lay down your hard earned cash to purchase them. My admonishment is to purchase the music that you really love instead of downloading in for free at a pirate site. In many ways the advent of file trading services has made digital music files similar to shareware files of software programs. Like shareware, you're on your honor to pay for the music files you really like and by the same token, you should delete the free files that you don't like or never listen to.
All of the albums on my Frist Quarter of 2011 list are flawed & it's rare for me to find an album that in which I like more than 3-5 selections. Given that reality I tend to have a bias toward those musicians who have a fresh perspective on the popular music form because after 50 years in the musical mainstream, rock music is no longer a revolutionary force and most of the current music is derivative, revivalist or self referential. Like the fashion industry rock music is just an endless cycle of new trends based on stylistic innovations from earlier seasons.
I'll be posting an updated list at the end of the second quarter of 2011, which will be around the end of June.